hair was salted with grey. His deep voice had the rasp of authority.
‘How much longer do you need?’ he demanded.
‘I haven’t caught him in the right place yet, sir,’ said Chiffney. ‘Whenever I’ve seen him, he’s been with other people.’
‘That was your excuse yesterday as well.’
‘I don’t want to shoot the wrong person.’
‘The way things are going, I doubt if you’ll be shooting anyone. What’s holding you back, man? You swore to me that you’d do anything for money yet you keep letting me down.’
‘I didn’t let you down when I arranged that crash,’ said Chiffney, groping for approval. ‘If I’d been caught levering that rail away, I’d be in prison right now, waiting for the noose. I took a big risk for you.’
‘And you got your due reward.’
‘It wasn’t my fault he didn’t die when the trains collided.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said the man, ‘but it’s your fault that he’s still alive now. I gave you the weapons, I taught you how to fire them and I showed you exactly where he lived. Yet you’ve spent the best part of two days in Brighton, lying in wait but too cowardly to pull the trigger when you see him.’
Chiffney was insulted. ‘I’m not a coward, sir.’
‘Then why haven’t you obeyed your orders?’
‘A coward wouldn’t have brought the express off the track the way I did. A coward wouldn’t have taken this job on in the first place. I got my faults, sir – God knows I have – but there’s nobody as can call Dick Chiffney a coward.’ He banged his chest. ‘I’ve never walked away from a fight in my life.’
‘You’re not involved in a brawl now,’ said the man. ‘This is far more serious than giving someone a bloody nose. It takes nerve. I’m beginning to think you don’t have that nerve.’
‘That’s a rotten lie!’
‘Then do what I’m paying you for.’
They were in a quiet street where they had arranged to meet. Dick Chiffney was still carrying the rifle and telescope in the sacking. Having driven there in a trap, his companion remained in the vehicle. The problem for Chiffney was that the accusation against him contained more than a grain of truth. His courage had indeed faltered. In the course of two days, he had had a number of opportunities to shoot his victim but his finger had always hesitated on the trigger.
Something had stopped him firing. In setting up the train crash, he knew that several people would be killed and many more would be badly injured. Yet their individual fates did not trouble him in the least because he was not there at the time of the disaster. Shooting someone in cold blood and watching him die was not quite so easy. To his embarrassment, Chiffney had discovered the glimmering of a conscience that had never existed before. With the victim in his sights, he had been fettered by guilt.
His employer was not prepared to tolerate any more delays.
‘Time is running out, Chiffney,’ he warned. ‘If he’s still alive at the end of the day, our contract is null and void.’
‘But I need that money, sir,’ pleaded Chiffney.
‘Then
‘I can’t get near him if he stays indoors.’
‘He won’t do that this evening,’ said the man. ‘I’ve done your job for you and discovered that he’ll be going to the town hall within the hour. Somewhere along the way, you must kill him.’
‘Yes, sir – I swear that I will.’
‘You won’t need the rifle. I want you to get close enough to make sure. Shoot him with the pistol.’ He held out a hand. ‘I’ll take the rifle.’
‘What about the telescope, sir?’
‘You might need that.’
Chiffney reached into the sacking to remove the telescope then handed over the rifle. The man laid the sacking down in the trap. Chiffney was worried. His hand was being forced and that unsettled him. He would have preferred to shoot from a distance so that he could escape more easily after the event. Getting close to his victim presented problems yet they had to be overcome. He had given his word to Josie Murlow and could not go back on it. She was expecting him to return with enough money to transform their lives. Thinking about Josie helped to make his misgivings disappear.
‘I’ll do it, sir,’ he vowed. ‘I’ll blow the bastard’s head off.’
Josie Murlow was having second thoughts about her decision to come to Brighton that day. In responding to an overpowering urge, she had not bothered to consider its consequences. What she believed would be a perfect disguise was also a profound hindrance. Josie was dressed in widow’s weeds. Black from head to foot, she had gained respect and sympathy from everyone she met but she was not able to do any of the things she had planned. It would look unseemly for a grieving widow to stroll merrily along the promenade, still less to go on the beach or walk on the pier over a thousand feet out to the sea.
There was another handicap she had not foreseen. Since she had not worn the dress for some years, it was now too tight on her, straining at her increased dimensions like a small fishing net trying to hold a large whale. The hot weather only added to her discomfort. Behind the black veil, perspiration trickled down her face. Her armpits were dripping pools, her crotch was sodden and a constant rivulet ran down her spine with meandering malevolence.
All that she could do was to walk, watch, rest and take occasional refreshment. Josie saw the Royal Pavilion, the town hall, the assembly rooms, the baths, the theatre and some of the finest hotels in the kingdom. She waddled through the Lanes, the oldest quarter of the town, a rabbit warren of narrow, twisting, brick paved passages lined with fisherman’s cottages. She was also astounded by the number of schools, almshouses, infirmaries and other charities. Brighton was a fine town in which to live. It was not, however, the ideal place to visit in tight clothing on a summer’s day.
Whenever she stopped to take tea at a small restaurant or sat down from exhaustion on a bench, a compassionate citizen would offer his or her condolences and oblige her to invent either a dead husband whom she had never had, a mother whom she did not, in fact, remember or – by way of variation – a daughter who had been knocked down in London by a runaway horse. While she got some cruel amusement out of deceiving people so plausibly, it did not atone for the pain and boredom from which she was suffering.
She struggled back to the railway station three times in a row, intending to abandon her scheme and return to London. What held her back on each occasion was the thought that her efforts would have come to nought. Josie had gone to Brighton to be there when Chiffney committed murder and created a happy life for them. She had fantasies about intercepting him at the station, or even travelling on the same train as him without revealing her identity until they reached London. Even now, as the early evening brought no relief from the heat, she somehow felt that she had to stay until he came.
Dick Chiffney was her man. They belonged together.
Heinrich Freytag caused no trouble. Though he continued to rail against Giles Thornhill, he made no attempt to escape. Accepting that his plan had failed, he was resigned to his fate. After charging him, Colbeck and Leeming were driven into Brighton so that their prisoner could be placed in custody at the police station. The landau then returned to Thornhill’s estate, leaving the detectives still in the town. Leeming could not understand Colbeck’s desire to attend the meeting.
‘It’s the last thing
‘Yes, he has cultivated a patrician air, hasn’t he?’
‘If you stay for the meeting, you’ll have to catch a later train.’
‘I’m in no hurry to get back to Scotland Yard,’ Colbeck confided. ‘The superintendent is relying on good news from Brighton.’
‘We arrested a man for attempted murder.’
‘But he had nothing to do with the train crash.’
‘Mr Tallis should be impressed by what we did, Inspector.’
