The Iron Horse

years ago, he still looked as if he were on the parade ground. He respected Colbeck for his skill as a detective but he could never bring himself to like the undisputed dandy of Scotland Yard. There was a permanent unresolved tension between the two men.

Having selected a train, Colbeck closed his Bradshaw and put it back in the desk drawer. He gave his superior a token smile.

‘Your devotion to duty is an inspiration to us all,’ he said without a trace of irony, ‘but some of us need more than the relentless pursuit of the criminal fraternity to get true fulfilment from life. Victor Leeming is a case in point.’

‘A wife and children are unnecessary handicaps.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion, Superintendent.’

‘Mine is based on experience.’

‘Mine is tempered by a recognition of basic human needs,’ said Colbeck suavely. ‘A police force is not a monastic order, sir. I refuse to believe that celibacy in our ranks is to be encouraged.’

‘I’m well aware of your eccentric views, Inspector,’ said Tallis with exasperation, ‘and I’d be grateful if you kept them to yourself. What time is your train?’

‘In just under an hour.’

‘Then find Sergeant Leeming and get over to Euston Station.’

‘At once, sir.’

‘And don’t presume to rest on your laurels.’

‘I’d never dare to do that.’

‘This is an entirely new case.’

Colbeck knew what he meant. It was not the first time that the inspector had answered the call of the London and North West Railway. When a mail train was robbed on its way to Birmingham, a succession of other serious crimes had been committed in its wake. Because of the way he had brought the investigation to a satisfactory conclusion, Robert Colbeck had earned the gratitude of the LNWR as well as that of the Post Office and the Royal Mint. Newspapers had unanimously christened him the Railway Detective. It was an honour that he cherished but it also placed a heavy and often uncomfortable burden of expectation on his shoulders.

‘Are you sure you’ve picked the fastest train?’ asked Tallis.

‘I couldn’t have chosen a better one, sir.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The engine driver is a good friend of mine.’

Caleb Andrews was a short, thin, sinewy man of middle years with the energy of someone half his age. Though he had spent his entire working life on the railway, he had lost none of his boyish enthusiasm for his job. Having begun as a cleaner, he had eventually become a fireman before reaching the pinnacle of his profession as an engine driver. Andrews considered himself to be one of the aristocrats of the railway world and expected deference from those in lowlier positions. He was on the footplate of his locomotive, checking that everything was in order for departure, when two familiar figures came along the platform to see him.

‘Hello, Mr Andrews,’ said Robert Colbeck.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the driver, turning to look at them. ‘I had a feeling that I might be seeing you on my train, Inspector.’

‘You remember Sergeant Leeming, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

Andrews and Leeming exchanged a friendly nod.

‘We need to get to Crewe as fast as possible,’ said Colbeck.

‘Then you’ve come to the right man.’

‘You sound as if you expected us,’ said Victor Leeming.

‘I did, Sergeant. When a man’s head is found inside a hatbox at a railway station, the people they’ll always send for are you and Inspector Colbeck.’

‘A man’s head, did you say?’

‘You already know more than us,’ noted Colbeck.

‘That’s the rumour, anyway,’ said Andrews, scratching his fringe beard. ‘Messages keep coming in from Crewe. According to the stationmaster, it was the head of a young man. It was discovered by accident.’

‘What else can you tell us?’

‘Nothing, Inspector.’

‘Then take us to the scene of the crime.’

‘But not too fast,’ pleaded Leeming with a grimace. ‘Trains always make me feel sick.’

‘Not the way that I drive,’ boasted Andrews, adjusting his cap. He beamed at Colbeck. ‘Well, what a piece of news to tell Maddy! I’m helping the Railway Detective to solve a crime.’

‘It won’t be the first time,’ said Colbeck with a smile.

Caleb Andrews had been the driver of the mail train that had been robbed a few years earlier, and he had received such serious injuries during the incident that it was doubtful if he would survive. In the event, he had made a complete recovery, thanks to his remarkable resilience and to the way that his daughter, Madeleine, had nursed him back to full health. During the course of his investigation, Colbeck and Madeleine had been drawn together in a friendship that had slowly matured into something much deeper.

‘I knew that you’d probably be driving this train,’ said Colbeck. ‘Madeleine always tells me what your shift patterns are.’

Andrews grinned. ‘It feels as if I’m on duty twenty-fours a day.’

‘Just like us,’ said Leeming gloomily.

‘Climb aboard, Sergeant. We’re due off in a couple of minutes.’

‘Is there any way to reduce the dreadful noise and rattle?’

‘Yes,’ said Andrews. ‘Travel by coach.’

‘At a conservative estimate,’ observed Colbeck, ‘it would take us all of sixteen hours to get to Crewe by coach. The train will get us there in just over four hours.’

‘Four hours of complete misery,’ Leeming groaned.

‘You’ll learn to love the railway one day, Victor.’

Leeming rolled his eyes. He was a stocky man in his thirties, slightly older than the inspector but having none of Colbeck’s sharp intelligence or social graces. In contrast to his handsome superior, the sergeant was also spectacularly ugly with a face that seemed to have been uniquely designed for villainy rather than crime prevention.

‘Let’s find a carriage, Victor,’ advised Colbeck.

‘If we must,’ sighed Leeming.

‘When you catch the person who was travelling with that hatbox,’ said Andrews sternly, ‘hand him over to us.’

‘Why?’ asked Colbeck.

The engine driver cackled. ‘That severed head had no valid ticket for the journey,’ he said. ‘We take fare- dodging very seriously.’

On that macabre note, they set off for Crewe.

It was a warm May evening but Reginald Hibbert was still shivering. Since the accident with the hatbox, he had been relieved of his duties and kept in the stationmaster’s office. When a local policeman interviewed him, the hapless porter was made to feel obscurely responsible for the fact that a severed head had been travelling by train. Dismissal from his job was the very least that he expected. The worst of it was that his wife would be at home, wondering where he was and why he had not returned at the end of his shift. She would grow increasingly worried about her husband. He feared that Molly might in due course come to the station in search of him and thereby witness his disgrace.

‘When can I go home?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Not until the detectives arrive from Scotland Yard,’ said Douglas Fagge with a meaningful tap on the nose. ‘They’ll need to speak to you. We can’t have you disappearing.’

‘I’d only be gone ten minutes, Mr Fagge.’

‘How do we know that you’d come back?’