The Clockmaker Read online

  Henry grunted what might have been reluctant agreement. ‘And tomorrow we speak to the station master, and anyone else who might have been present on that day. Mickey, sometimes our job seems so tedious.’

  Mickey narrowed his eyes and observed Henry closely. ‘You, my friend, will feel better when you get some food inside you. We’ve neither of us really eaten since early morning, and you’re out of sorts because Cynthia’s not around.’

  ‘I’m not dependent on my sister,’ Henry said sharply.

  ‘I beg to differ. If she is not happy, you are not happy, and it cuts both ways.’

  Henry harrumphed again but argued no more and followed Mickey down the stairs and back into the bar. Food had been set out for them in a corner close to the fire. The pub was filling up now, mostly with locals but also a few travellers who had broken their journey for the night or were waiting between trains, and the level of noise contrasted sharply with when Mickey had been speaking to the constable and Jed Fox. Both of those individuals were now propping up the bar and arguing loudly but companionably with a third – an older man who, from his clothing, Mickey guessed was a farmer, possibly Jed’s boss.

  Mickey parked Henry in the corner and went back to collect their beers, nodding to Jed and the constable as he passed, but moving quickly enough to show that he was intent on his food and not on conversation. He set the beers down on the table and eyed the plates. ‘Can’t beat a good pie,’ he said and set to, demolishing his meal. Henry ate more slowly, but, to Mickey’s satisfaction, he did actually eat and began visibly to relax.

  Mickey, as always, finished first and stole a spare potato that Henry was obviously not going to eat. ‘So, how’s your Cynthia doing, then?’

  ‘According to her last letter, they’re heading for Germany, or at least the German border. Albert has business connections that way; I don’t know when they’ll be coming back to London.’

  ‘She’s still worried about him, then – about this Hatry business?’

  ‘I think she’s hoping to keep him occupied elsewhere,’ Henry said. ‘She’s been urging him to pull out of the German businesses. She doesn’t like the way the military are now dominating the landscape, and the rampant inflation is cutting the legs from manufacturing and trade. She says the mood has changed, and there’s no surprise at that. You can’t push ordinary people to the edge of the cliff and not expect them to push back. The reparations were far too harsh and never designed to damage those who they are now in reality targeted against. You cannot blame people for what their leaders have forced them to do, not on either side. The Dawes Plan has not helped. There is the demand for reparations that the German economy cannot pay, on the one hand, and now they are forced to take loans from the Americans to pay those reparations – and then they will owe the Americans even more. Which nation will be next to force loans on them to repay that debt? No, Mickey, this is unsustainable and will not end well. Disaffection will assist the rise of extreme forces, not quieten them.’

  Mickey shrugged. ‘I’ve no fondness for those who were shooting at me, killing my friends with gas, and blowing me up – you know that – but no, I think perhaps Versailles was applied in a way that was never intended. The poor are poor, whatever nationality they are. If Albert decides to pull out, then, to my mind, that’s a good decision. But then I was never one for him trading with the Germans anyway – not that anybody would have asked me, of course.’

  Mickey cast his eyes around the bar. A mix of agricultural workers and those who were evidently passing through; three men reading newspapers, casually conversing with one another. He caught sight of the headlines on one of the newspapers. It seemed the newsmen were still excited by the inauguration of Herbert Hoover.

  He turned his attention back to Henry. ‘So, what were you writing earlier?’

  Henry set down his fork and took his notebook from his pocket, opened it and then handed it to Mickey. Mickey was relieved to see that he then continued to eat. And the notebook was a sketch that Henry had made from memory of the body as they had viewed it in the dairy. He had annotated the sketch.

  Pockets were empty.

  A wound at the back of the head? Possibly from a blow but hard to define due to insect and rodent damage.

  Something has been eating at the face, probably foxes as the bite marks look larger than those of rats. There is no doubt the rats have also had their share.

  Sloughing of the skin more pronounced on the right hand than the left. Was this hand in the water when the other was not?

  The final comment had been underlined: His coat was of good quality, but they had not stolen it.

  ‘But he had emptied his pockets,’ Mickey objected.

  ‘We don’t know that he had much in his pockets,’ Henry reminded him. ‘His spare money had been in his suitcase and he left that aboard the train. His uncle thought he might only have had pocket change with him.’

  ‘Watch?’ Mickey asked.

  Henry stared at him for a moment and then swore. ‘Sometimes, Mickey, I think I am no kind of detective. Of course he would have had a watch. His uncle is a clockmaker; he would not let the lad go anywhere without a watch and likely a good one at that.’ He struck the table with his fist, hard enough to make the plates bounce. ‘To not have thought of that!’

  Mickey, unperturbed, picked up his pint. After another swallow he reminded Henry, ‘And when you first thought about this case, it was as a missing person, not a murdered boy found dumped somewhere in the middle of a field. But now things have changed, so we think differently, and a watch is a good thought. If he owned a watch, and they took the watch, then they will most likely try to sell it and maybe it will be distinguishable enough for us to track it down.’

  Henry was only a little mollified. ‘It is still something I should have thought about.’ He frowned, took a sip of his own beer and then said, ‘What puzzles me about the coat is twofold. First that they did not take it, and second that they emptied the pockets completely – not so much as a pocket handkerchief left. But then I thought about it more and it seems to me that a man carrying a coat while wearing another would attract attention. Unless he had an item of luggage to put the coat into, the killer might have thought it prudent to take only what he could conceal in his own pockets. Which indicates to me that he must have been planning to be among a crowd. So, to continue from that thought, he came back to the station and caught the train – rather than living locally and simply concealing what was stolen there. If someone lived in this village, then it would be expected that he would take the coat home. It’s good-quality cloth and could have fetched a good price, even if he hadn’t wanted to keep it for his own use.’

  ‘Some folk are squeamish about that kind of thing, though. Mind you, if you kill someone, it’s likely you would get over that.’ Mickey had experience of several criminals in London who had committed murder and then proudly worn hats or coats from their victim without the slightest trace of squeamishness – or without having thought that this might be solid evidence against them. The usual excuse was that they bought the item from a second-hand dealer, which, given the lively trade in second-hand garments, was difficult to disprove.

  ‘We assumed from the start that he had left the scene and caught the train. Or rather caught a train,’ Mickey said. ‘This reinforces the idea that from here he could have gone in any of three directions. Back towards Lincoln, off towards Louth or south to Peterborough or any station in between. If I was choosing a place to commit a crime, this route would be as good as any.’

  ‘Choosing a place,’ Henry said thoughtfully. ‘Was Joseph tracked? Or is this a random act?’

  ‘If Joseph was targeted, then the murderer would have to ensure that Joseph left the train in order for him to commit a theft and murder – whether that was intended or not is another point entirely. We have to assume, for now at least, that Joseph was lured from the train by the girl. That the girl left the carriage and he went out after her.’

  ‘An
d I would like to speak directly to the Parkers.’

  ‘That is being arranged. I have asked Sergeant Young to take care of that, as he’s already been in contact with them. So, if I am correct, Joseph left the train, in pursuit of this female, then ran into trouble … They must have taken him from the station in some way, or perhaps threatened him so that he walked with them. The girl, whoever she was, and whoever did the deed left by the next possible train, so we presume. I doubt they’d have wanted to hang around, so discovering what the next trains would have been might give us our direction …’

  Mickey leaned forward and speared the last potato on his boss’s plate, sliced it and dipped it in his remaining gravy. ‘So the girl attracted Joseph Levy’s attention for some reason; he then followed her on to the platform and found himself caught up in something that he couldn’t handle. We still have no way of knowing if he was targeted because of something they had on him, or if they just wished to roll a random stranger. We need to look into other assaults and thefts on this line, and for that we need the assistance of our colleagues in the railway police.’

  Having finished his purloined potato, Mickey stretched and yawned. ‘Not a great deal more we can do tonight,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Henry agreed.

  A girl came in to clear their plates and ask if they needed anything else. Mickey went back to the bar and got another round in. Henry was unsurprised to see him in conversation or that he agreed to a game of darts with some of the locals. Henry himself was quite content to sit in the corner and watch proceedings.

  He felt frustrated that they had arrived too late to get much done beyond viewing the body in the half-light and making brief enquiries, and he felt restless. Leaving Mickey to his game, Henry went back up to his room to fetch his coat and scarf, and then wandered out into the street. The air was cold and damp, and he shoved gloved hands into his pockets and wandered back in the direction of the station. A single light illuminated the platform. Henry stood in the shadows, unobserved, surprised that there were still people around but reminding himself that although this might be just a loop from the main line, it was a busy route and trains would still run through the evening.

  A porter spotted him and asked if he needed assistance. ‘Oh, sorry, sir, I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re that inspector, up from that there London.’

  Henry confessed that he was. He asked the porter if he was on duty on the day that Joseph Levy had disappeared, telling him that it would have been a Sunday.

  ‘We work a rota for Sundays, sir, and I don’t think that was one of mine.’

  Henry nodded; he would have to find out who had been working that day. ‘Do you get much trouble reported?’ he asked. ‘Thefts or disturbances.’

  ‘Lost luggage more than anything. Occasionally, someone complains that they’ve been pickpocketed, but nothing more than you’d expect, I suppose.’

  ‘And records are kept of these disturbances, these complaints?’

  ‘Well, if they’re serious, they get reported to the station master and he reports to the railway police. The commonplace arguments or a lost bag, we try to deal with on our own.’

  ‘The station master would keep a record of these events,’ Henry confirmed. ‘Presumably, anything really memorable would have been spoken about among the staff?’

  The porter had been standing half supporting his barrow, preparing to continue his duties, but now he set it upright and settled himself to answer the question. ‘Well,’ he said in a confidential tone, ‘you get a bit of gossip, of course, nothing improper, but we did talk to one another when Constable Young came round asking about that lad – put our heads together in case we could remember anything.’ The porter frowned. ‘It’s a terrible business, him being found like that. And after all this time. His poor family. No doubt they grieve just as much, even if they are Jews.’

  Henry took a deep breath but said nothing. He was reminded of his conversation with Abraham about the casual disregard in which foreigners and particularly Jewish foreigners were held, and Henry, of course, had witnessed this many times over. He knew it was unthinking, but even with the lack of malice, it still rankled. How much more must it have rankled someone like Abraham?

  ‘His family are indeed grieving, and it seems to be that it doesn’t matter where you are from or who you are, the loss of a child is grievous.’

  The porter showed no signs of embarrassment or even of having noticed that quiet rebuke. He simply nodded. ‘Far as anyone can tell, the young man got off the train and someone – I think it was Mr Paul – noticed him rushing across the platform, but people are always rushing here and there, usually when there’s no need for it, so no one took any notice until Constable Young started asking questions. He showed the photograph around, and one or two of us – not me, because I wasn’t on duty that day – thought they recognized him.’

  ‘And the reports that he had got off the train in pursuit of a young woman?’

  The porter grinned. ‘Well, I guess she must have been a pretty one, then.’

  ‘But nothing has been said, among yourselves, about this young woman? Or whether he caught up with her and what might have happened after?’

  ‘To my knowledge, sir, no.’

  The porter shifted his weight and moved the barrow, suggesting that it was time he was on his way.

  Henry stepped back and let him go. He stood for a time just watching the activity of the station platform. It looked to Henry like a painting: bright pools of light and great columns of darkness between, and the steam from the engine that had just pulled in.

  After a time he was conscious that his feet were cold and a draught blew about his neck, finding its way beneath his scarf, and he turned and headed back towards the pub.

  After the activity of the station, the streets seemed very silent and dark. Glancing up, Henry noted that the sky seemed filled with stars, far more than he ever saw in town. Frost was forming and it promised to be a cold night. He hoped that the fire had been lit in his bedroom.

  Returning to the bar, he discovered that Mickey was still playing darts, completely at ease with his newfound companions. Mickey glanced in Henry’s direction and nodded fractionally, and Henry took himself off to his room, knowing that his sergeant would be knocking on his door within the hour, having gathered more background information and intelligence than anyone would have been aware of having given him.

  The fire in Henry’s room had been lit and the curtains drawn, and Henry shed his coat and shoes and lay down on the bed, staring at the cracked whitewashed ceiling. He had almost drifted off to sleep when the knock came at the door and Mickey joined him, carrying a tray of tea.

  ‘Thought you could do with one,’ he said, indicating the teapot. ‘Where did you get to?’

  ‘I went to take another look at the station and talked to one of the porters. He wasn’t on duty on the day that Joseph Levy disappeared, but he suggests that a couple of his colleagues saw the young man get off the train and hurry across the platform. I’m told they thought nothing of it because people are always hurrying here and there, and there was no mention of the girl. But we will find those who were on duty and question them. And you – what have you found out?’

  Mickey had set the tray down on the chest of drawers and was now pouring tea. ‘Local gossip, which may or may not be relevant, and reports that travellers on this line have been prone to pickpocketing and the odd assault. It turns out that one of the men I was playing darts with has a brother in the railway police, and the brother has told him of several incidents on the line from Lincoln, that to Louth and the one going south to Peterborough of gentlemen reporting thefts from their person. These could be unconnected, of course, but it is worth talking to the brother, and we need to bring the railway police on board in any case, as their intelligence is likely to be much more relevant than ours.’

  ‘And the local gossip?’

  ‘That the local shopkeeper occasionally gives short measure – but only t
o those he doesn’t like. That our Constable Young spends more time napping or playing court to a local widow woman than he does out on the beat. The consensus is that he should have retired years ago but the local constabulary can find no one who actually wants his job. And that a young woman with red hair and a green dress was seen in this very public house on the day our boy disappeared.’

  Henry sat up and took the tea Mickey was offering to him. ‘And?’

  ‘And she came in, looking somewhat flustered, according to one report. Bought a port and lemon, and sat down in the corner of the lounge and ignored everyone. About an hour after, a young man made an appearance, stood in the doorway and beckoned her out, and off she went.’

  ‘And it’s certain that was the same day?’

  ‘Certain as can be. One Mr Richard Fellows – damned good darts player, unfortunately for me – was waiting for his wife’s train and, his wife also being a redhead, he particularly remarked upon this young woman. He knows the date his wife came home from visiting her sister and the landlord corroborated that memory. It seems it was the same Sunday he was setting up the teams for the next tournament. Darts, that is. Fellows was helping him decide on the order of the round robin.’

  Henry nodded, satisfied. This was the most concrete information they had yet received. ‘Can they describe the young man?’

  ‘They can describe the girl in far more detail. Above-average height and dark hair is about the best either of them could do for the man. Perhaps when we speak to Mrs Parker, she might have seen more. It’s only from her evidence that we even know to look for a redhead in a green frock.’

  ‘And women tend to notice detail when it comes to other women.’

  ‘As do men,’ Mickey retorted. ‘Though it has to be said they often remember somewhat different detail. And from the male perspective, it seems that this girl was well worth paying attention to.’