‘Your brother’s a warder there, isn’t he?’ said Leeming, enjoying the man’s discomfort. ‘You’ll be able to see him more often.’
‘Think of my wife – think of my children.’
‘You should have done that, Sergeant.’
‘I never imagined anyone would find out,’ howled Hepworth with his head in his hands. ‘I thought it was safe.’
Having got him thoroughly rattled, Colbeck turned to the subject he really wanted to discuss. He stood up and pointed.
‘What were you doing on the day Miriam Tarleton was killed?’ he demanded. ‘Where were you at the time of the murder?’
Hepworth raised his head in alarm and started to gibber.
Sunday afternoon tea with her aunt and uncle was always a pleasant occasion for Madeleine Andrews, even more so when her father was there. He often spent the Sabbath at work but not this time. He’d been able to put on his suit, attend church with her and forget all about driving a locomotive. Andrews enjoyed changing out of his working clothes and shedding the abiding smell of the railway. As he and Madeleine strolled back home through Camden, there was a spring in his step and his hat was set at a rakish angle. He was reminded of many long-lost Sunday afternoons when his wife had been on his arm. Nostalgia swelled up inside him.
‘I wish your mother was here,’ he said, involuntarily.
‘So do I, Father.’
‘Your aunt looks so much like her.’
‘She ought to,’ said Madeleine. ‘They were sisters.’
He chuckled. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he confided. ‘She never liked me when I was courting your mother. She thought I was too forward. But I won her over in the end. I charmed her, Maddy.’
‘I’m not sure that I believe that.’
‘I could do it in those days. I was young once, you know. I wasn’t always so crotchety.’
‘I know that, Father.’
He tipped his hat to a passing woman. ‘She’d have been so proud of you,’ he went on. ‘Your mother, I mean. Who’d have thought that we had a budding artist in the family? The only thing I could ever draw was a fire. You’ve got a talent.’
‘Only because Robert encouraged me to develop it,’ she said.
‘Your mother would have been impressed by that as well. We both thought you’d marry a railwayman like me, but you’ve done so much better for yourself with Inspector Colbeck. He’s a proper gentleman.’
‘I’d be happy with Robert whatever he did. He enjoys his work but the person he envies is you.’
‘Me?’ he asked with a laugh.
‘Part of him had always wanted to be an engine driver.’
‘Then he can thank the Lord above he never became one. He’d have had to put up with hard work, long hours and being out in all weathers. I’m not sure that he’d be able to stand it.’
‘He stands it already,’ she pointed out. ‘He works hard, has long hours and is out in wind, rain, fog, snow and ice. I know there are accidents on the railway, but Robert faces far greater danger when he comes up against desperate criminals. So does Sergeant Leeming, for that matter – he’s been badly beaten more than once.’
‘He lived to tell the tale,’ said Andrews with feeling. ‘When I was attacked, I very nearly died. I was in a coma for a long time.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that. I was sitting beside you.’
‘My suffering was your gain, Maddy.’
‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’
‘I would,’ he said. ‘If the train hadn’t been robbed that day, and if I hadn’t been knocked unconscious, you might never have met Inspector Colbeck. Something good came out of it all.’
‘The best thing was that you survived, Father.’
‘Well, someone has to give you away at the wedding.’
She laughed. ‘You sound as if you want to get rid of me.’
‘To be honest, I do,’ he said, cheerily. ‘You obviously didn’t see the way that Mrs Hodgkin was smiling at me in church this morning. She’s been widowed for three years now. I knew her husband when he worked for the LNWR. He was always boasting what a wonderful cook his wife was. And she’s still a fine-looking woman.’
Madeleine didn’t know if he was serious or merely joking. She was also uncertain about her own feelings on the subject. Her father had been so distraught at the death of his wife that Madeleine never thought he’d recover. It had never occurred to her that he might one day think of a second marriage. Yet he’d raised the possibility a number of times recently and she found it oddly worrying. It was almost as if she wasn’t ready to part with him to another woman. Madeleine had looked after him for so long now, she had become possessive. She tried to fight against such emotions. Since she would be starting a new life when she married, there was no reason why her father shouldn’t be allowed to do the same. In fact, on reflection, she felt that it might be a good thing for him. Because he wouldn’t be an easy man to live with, she knew that the secret lay in choosing an understanding wife.
‘Do you really mean it, Father?’ she asked.
‘Mean what?’
‘That remark you made about Mrs Hodgkin. One minute you tell me that you intend to get married, and the next you laugh at the idea. Are you simply teasing me?’
‘Only up to a point, Maddy,’ he said. ‘When I first mentioned it, I suppose that I was teasing you a little, but I’m starting to like the idea. The house will be very empty when you’ve gone. Maybe it’s time for me to find another wife before I lose my good looks.’ They laughed together, then he became quite solemn. ‘It’s not the same for you and the inspector. You’re young and have a whole lifetime ahead of you. I don’t, Maddy. But, even at my age, I can still love and be loved.’
‘Of course,’ she said, squeezing his arm.
‘It will be a different kind of love, that’s all.’
Colbeck’s interrogation was so unremitting that he almost reduced Eric Hepworth to tears. Gone was the overweening arrogance of the railway policeman. In its place was a whimpering submission. For all that, the detectives had not caught a murderer. Hepworth had been working on the day that Miriam Tarleton had been killed and could call on several witnesses to prove it. Having decided that Hepworth was the killer, Leeming was depressed. Colbeck was less dismayed because he’d kept an open mind. In his view, the meeting had been of positive value. It had eliminated a suspect. It had also had such a sobering effect on Hepworth that he would behave with more humility in future. There was one flash of his old self.
‘If I’d wanted to kill anyone,’ he’d said, rearing up in his chair, ‘then I’d have shot the colonel not his wife. I’d have blown his head off.’ He calmed down and shrugged an apology. ‘That’s all in the past now. I’d rather forget it.’
‘Then we’ll forget the impulse that made you write those letters,’ said Colbeck. ‘Guard against such wicked feelings next time.’
‘Oh, I will, I will, Inspector.’
‘Go to church and cleanse your mind,’ advised Leeming.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll do that as well.’
Overcome with gratitude at being – as he perceived it – let off the hook, Hepworth rose to his feet and shook hands with each of them. Then he snatched up his hat and left the room swiftly. Leeming was dejected.
‘I felt certain it was him,’ he said. ‘It would have given me such pleasure to arrest that buffoon.’
Colbeck was more philosophical. ‘We exposed him as the author of those wounding letters,’ he said, ‘even though we had no evidence beyond the words of his children. That will have shaken him up. I think that our interview with Sergeant Hepworth may have done the whole village a good turn.’
‘But it’s left us chasing shadows, Inspector.’
‘We made a mistake, that’s all. We’ve been looking for a man who killed Mrs Tarleton in order to get revenge against her husband. What we really needed to search for was someone who had a motive to kill the colonel’s wife. Yes,’ he added as Leeming was about to speak, ‘I know that she was, by common report, such a harmless and likeable woman but even the nicest human beings can sometimes excite hatred.’
