'It's one of the reasons I encouraged Father Slattery to join us.'
'He's a courageous man, taking on such a task.'
'And so is Sergeant Leeming,' said Brassey, a chevron of concern between his eyebrows. 'As a priest, Father Slattery is not in any physical danger. Your sergeant certainly is.'
'Police work entails continuous danger, sir.'
'I just wonder if you have him in the right place.'
'The right place?'
'Well, I agree that the people we are after may be somewhere among the Irish but we've hundreds and hundreds of those. The villains could be bricklayers or quarrymen or blacksmiths. Why do you think they are navvies?'
'Instinct,' replied Colbeck. 'Instinct built up over the years. I feel that it was endorsed last night when that mob went in search of a fight. That was another attempt to disrupt this railway and to put you out of business. The villains used the same device as on the previous night, Mr Brassey.'
'In what way?'
'On the first occasion they used gunpowder. On the second, they used an equally deadly device – human gunpowder. Those Irish navvies were set to explode by the time they reached the French camp. No,' he decided, 'Victor is definitely where he needs to be. He won't thank me for putting him there, but he's in exactly the right place.'
Working so hard left him little time for detection. Victor Leeming had to take on a convincing camouflage and that forced him to toil away for long hours with a shovel in his hands. There were breaks for food and times when he had to satisfy the call of nature. Otherwise, he was kept busy loading spoil into the wagons for hour after fatiguing hour. He talked to Liam Kilfoyle and to some of the others labouring alongside him but they told him nothing of any real use. It was only when the shift finally ended, and the men trooped off to the nearest tavern, that Leeming was able to continue his search. Since he had joined in the march on the French camp, he was accepted. It made it easier for him to talk to the navvies. With a drink in their hands, they were off guard.
Yet it was all to no avail. Most of them refused to believe that an Irishmen could be responsible for the outrages, and none of them could give the name of someone with expertise in using gunpowder. At the end of a long evening, he abandoned his questioning and started to walk back towards the camp with a group of navvies. He braced himself to spend another night in the shack with Kilfoyle and the others, hoping that he would soon be released from that particular torture. The notion of coupling with Bridget, a big, buxom, shameless woman in her thirties, made his stomach heave.
So preoccupied was he in fearful thoughts of what lay ahead that he did not notice he was being followed. When they reached the railway, the men struck. Grabbing him by the shoulders, they pushed Leeming behind a wagon then one of them hit him on the back of the head with something hard and unforgiving. He had no chance to put up any resistance. He fell to the ground like a stone. Sinking into oblivion, he did not even feel the repeated kicks that thudded into his body. In a matter of seconds, it was all over.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Superintendent Edward Tallis was almost hidden by a swirling fug of cigar smoke. He did not like what he saw and he was unhappy about what he heard. While the cigar helped him to relieve his tension, it had another important function. It largely obscured Victor Leeming from his gaze. Seated in front of the desk, Leeming was a sorry sight. His head was heavily bandaged, his face covered in ugly bruises and lacerations, his lower lip twice it normal size. One eye was almost closed, the other looked to the superintendent for a sympathy that was not forthcoming. When he shifted slightly in his chair, Leeming let out an involuntary groan and put a hand to his cracked ribs.
Robert Colbeck was sitting beside the sergeant.
'I think that Victor should be commended for his daring, sir,' he suggested. 'By working alongside the navvies, he was able to foil an attack on the French camp.'
'Yes,' said Tallis, rancorously. 'He was also in a position to get himself all but kicked to death. That's not daring, Inspector, that's tantamount to suicide.'
'I'd do the same again, Superintendent,' said Leeming, bravely, wincing at the pain of speaking.
'You'll do nothing at all until you've recovered, man. I'm giving you extended leave until you start to resemble a human being again.' He leaned forward to peer through the smoke. 'Has your wife seen the state you're in?'
'No, sir,' said Colbeck, trying to spare the sergeant the effort of talking. 'We felt that we should report to you first so that you understood the situation. For obvious reasons, we travelled back to England slowly. Victor could not be hurried in his condition. I thought it best if I speak to Estelle – to Mrs Leeming – before she actually sees her husband.'
'That's up to you, Inspector.'
'I'll tell her how courageous he was.'
'Tell her the truth – he could have been killed.'
'No, Superintendent,' rejoined Colbeck. 'The men who set on him drew back from murder. That would have brought the French police swarming to the site and they did not want that. The beating was by way of a warning.'
'It was my own fault,' admitted Leeming, his swollen lip distorting the words. 'I asked too many questions.'
'I accept my share of the blame, Victor.'
'No, sir. It was the correct decision.'
'I beg to differ,' said Tallis, mordantly. 'Correct decisions do not result in a vicious attack on one of my men that will put him out of action for weeks.'
'You approved of our visit to France,' Colbeck reminded him.
'I've regretted it ever since.'
After giving him a day and night to make a partial recovery from the assault, Colbeck had brought Leeming back to England by means of rail and boat, two forms of transport that only served to intensify the sergeant's discomfort. Scotland Yard had been their first destination. Colbeck wanted the superintendent to see the injuries that Leeming had picked up in the course of doing of his duty. Neither compassion nor congratulation had come from across the desk.
'And what was all that about a Catholic priest?' said Tallis.
'It was Father Slattery who found Victor,' Colbeck told him. 'In fact, he seems to have disturbed the attackers before they could inflict even more damage.'
'Even more? What else could they do to him?'
'I didn't have the opportunity to ask them, sir,' said Leeming, rashly attempting a smile that made his whole face twitch in pain.
'Father Slattery is a good man,' said Colbeck. 'He acts as a calming influence on the Irish.'
Tallis indicated Leeming. 'If this is what they do when they're calm,' he said with scorn, 'then I'd hate to see them when they're fully aroused. Navvies are navvies. All over the country, police and local magistrates have trouble with them.'
'Mr Brassey's men are relatively well-behaved, sir.'
'Comment would be superfluous, Inspector.'
Tallis glowered at him before expelling another cloud of cigar smoke. He was trying to rein in his anger. In allowing the two men to go to France, he had had to raid his dwindling budget and account to the commissioner for the expenditure. All that he had got in return, it seemed, was the loss of a fine officer and a succession of tales about the problems encountered by a railway contractor in France.
'None of this has any bearing on the murder,' he announced.
'But it does, sir,' insisted Colbeck. 'If you look at the events carefully, you'll see how the death of Gaston Chabal fits into the overall picture. There's a logical development.'
