Chesterton Radio presents The Harker Mysteries.
Brackenford, in the North Midlands of England. November, 1978.
Detective Inspector Tom Harker has learned that serious cases rarely announce themselves as serious cases. Sometimes they begin with something so ordinary that no one thinks to ask why it happened at all.
Tonight, it is a brown leather briefcase, found in an empty railway carriage after the last train pulls into Brackenford.
Its owner appears to have forgotten it.
By morning, he has not come home.
His employer says he never arrived at work.
And several perfectly reliable people are quite certain they saw him somewhere else.
The Harker Mysteries.
Story Two: The Last Train to Brackenford.
Part One — Lost Property.
November 1978
The last train into Brackenford was seven minutes late, which nobody considered late enough to complain about.
It came in under the station lights at twenty-three minutes past ten, brakes squealing wetly, windows yellow against the rain. Half a dozen passengers got off. Three went directly over the footbridge. A woman in a red plastic raincoat stopped beneath the canopy to open an umbrella. Two men from somewhere further down the line stood arguing about whether the Crown & Anchor would still be serving.
Within two minutes the platform was almost empty.
George Pritchard waited until the guard had finished before walking along the train.
He had been on duty since two that afternoon and had ceased expecting anything interesting to happen sometime around six. He wanted his tea, his slippers and the second half of whatever his wife had been watching on television when he left home. In that order.
He checked the first compartment.
Newspaper.
Second compartment.
Empty cigarette packet and a paper cup.
Third compartment.
A brown leather briefcase.
Pritchard stopped.
It stood upright on the seat beneath the window as neatly as if its owner had put it there deliberately.
He picked it up.
It was heavier than he expected.
“Somebody’ll be pleased with himself,” he said.
The guard, halfway along the platform, looked back.
“What?”
“Briefcase.”
“Not mine.”
“I hadn’t thought it was.”
Pritchard carried it into the station office.
There was nothing remarkable about lost property. Umbrellas came first, then gloves, then shopping bags. Briefcases appeared regularly enough. Sometimes their owners came running back before the train had even left. Sometimes they telephoned the following morning. Once, three years earlier, a cello had remained in Brackenford for four days before anyone admitted to owning it.
Pritchard put the briefcase on the counter beside the ledger.
“Where?”
“Rear coach. Second compartment from the end.”
The booking clerk, Albert Shaw, wrote it down.
“Locked?”
Pritchard tried the catches.
One opened.
The other did not.
“No.”
“You’d better see if there’s a name.”
Pritchard opened the case.
There was no money inside. No jewellery. No weapon. Nothing to justify the interest both men immediately took in its contents.
There was a folded copy of the Daily Telegraph, a paperback novel, a spectacle case, several sheets of engineering paperwork held together by a bulldog clip, two pencils, a packet of indigestion tablets and a lunch wrapped in newspaper.
Shaw picked up the top sheet of paperwork.
“Marlowe Engineering.”
“That’ll narrow it down.”
There were perhaps four hundred people employed at Marlowe Engineering, which Pritchard considered narrow only by railway standards.
Shaw looked further.
A name appeared at the foot of a memorandum.
M. Sedgewick.
“Martin Sedgewick,” Shaw said.
“You know him?”
“No.”
“You said it as though you did.”
“I read it.”
Pritchard gave him a look.
There was a telephone number printed on the company stationery.
Shaw checked the clock.
“Not much use ringing them now.”
“Perhaps there’s something with his address.”
There wasn’t.
Pritchard closed the case.
“Lost property, then.”
Shaw made another entry in the ledger.
That should have been the end of it.
It nearly was.
At twenty to eleven, the telephone rang.
Shaw answered.
“Brackenford station.”
He listened.
“No, sir. Ten sixteen got in at ten twenty-three.”
A pause.
“No, there won’t be another one tonight.”
Another pause.
“Tomorrow morning, yes.”
He put the receiver down.
Pritchard was putting on his coat.
“That’s me.”
“Hang on.”
“What?”
Shaw was looking at the briefcase.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then good night.”
Pritchard had reached the door when Shaw said, “We could try directory enquiries.”
Pritchard turned.
“For what?”
“Sedgewick.”
“He’ll ring tomorrow.”
“Probably.”
Pritchard studied him.
“You opening a detective agency?”
“No.”
“Good night, Albert.”
The door closed behind him.
Shaw stared at the briefcase for another few seconds, then reached for the telephone.
It wasn’t curiosity, he told himself. It was efficiency.
Directory enquiries found three Sedgewicks in the Brackenford area.
The first had never heard of Martin Sedgewick.
The second was a Mrs. Alice Sedgewick in Merefield who said her husband had been dead since 1969 and that if British Rail had found anything belonging to him they had taken their time about it.
The third number rang for nearly a minute.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Sedgewick?”
“Yes.”
“Brackenford railway station here. I’m sorry to trouble you this late.”
There was a short silence.
“Yes?”
“We’ve had an item handed in which appears to belong to a Mr. Martin Sedgewick. A briefcase.”
The woman said nothing.
Shaw continued.
“Brown leather. Some papers from Marlowe Engineering.”
Another silence.
Then:
“Where did you find it?”
“On the ten sixteen arrival, madam.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“At Brackenford?”
“That’s right.”
The next silence was different.
Shaw looked at the clock.
“Mrs. Sedgewick?”
“My husband isn’t home.”
Shaw straightened slightly.
“Perhaps he’s—”
“He should have been home hours ago.”
“Well, it’s possible he’s missed a connection.”
“He doesn’t have a connection.”
Shaw hesitated.
“He may have got off at another station.”
“Why would he?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Was his coat there?”
“His coat?”
“With the case.”
“No. Just the briefcase.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn’t go through it beyond finding identification.”
That was not strictly true, although Shaw felt it expressed the spirit of what had happened.
Mrs. Sedgewick asked, “Was there anything else in the compartment?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“When did the train leave—where does it come from?”
Shaw told her.
She seemed to think about this.
“My husband comes home from work by bus.”
Shaw said nothing.
“He doesn’t use the train.”
That, he decided, was no longer a lost-property question.
“Mrs. Sedgewick, have you contacted the police?”
“No.”
“You might consider doing so.”
“He’s only late.”
“Yes.”
“He may have gone somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“He may have telephoned and I didn’t hear it.”
“Yes.”
They both seemed to have run out of reassuring possibilities at the same time.
Finally she said, “I’ll give him another half-hour.”
Shaw looked at the clock again.
“Of course.”
He gave her the station number.
When he replaced the receiver, the briefcase remained exactly where it had been.
It seemed less ordinary than it had five minutes earlier.
Detective Inspector Tom Harker first heard about Martin Sedgewick at nine seventeen the following morning.
He was not supposed to hear about him at all.
The missing-person report had been taken by uniform the previous night. A forty-three-year-old married man who had failed to come home was not, in itself, a CID matter. Men failed to come home for reasons extending from delayed buses to marital cowardice, and most of them reappeared before anybody had finished filling in the paperwork.
Harker was removing his damp overcoat when Detective Sergeant Peter Vale came into the office carrying two cups of tea.
“Morning.”
“It was until you arrived.”
Vale put one cup on Harker’s desk.
“You’re welcome.”
Harker sat down.
The CID room was too warm, as usual. Rain blurred the windows overlooking the yard. Somewhere downstairs a telephone rang for long enough to irritate everybody who could hear it.
Vale remained standing.
Harker looked at him.
“What?”
“Missing man.”
“No.”
“I haven’t told you about him.”
“You were going to.”
“Martin Sedgewick. Forty-three. Assistant works manager at Marlowe Engineering.”
“Has he stolen the works?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Has anybody stolen him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
Vale pulled a chair across.
“Because his briefcase came into Brackenford on the ten sixteen last night.”
“So?”
“Without him.”
Harker drank his tea.
“People leave things on trains.”
“That’s what the railway thought.”
“Sensible railway.”
“Wife reported him missing just before midnight.”
“People come home late.”
“Yes.”
Harker waited.
Vale had the irritating ability to enjoy being waited for.
“Go on.”
“He normally gets the number forty-three bus home from work. Marlowe Engineering closes the offices at five. He’s generally home by twenty to six.”
“Generally?”
“According to Mrs. Sedgewick.”
“And yesterday?”
“Didn’t come home.”
“Pub?”
“She rang the two places he occasionally drinks.”
“Hospital?”
“Checked.”
“Friends?”
“She’s tried those she knows.”
Harker looked at the clock.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter past nine.”
“Then he’s been missing roughly sixteen hours.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve already exhausted civilisation.”
Vale smiled.
“Not quite.”
Harker picked up the first report.
The address was 32 Westbourne Drive, a 1930s semi on the western side of town. Wife, Elaine Sedgewick, forty-one. One daughter, nineteen, away at teacher-training college in Derby.
No known illness.
No medication.
No recent domestic dispute.
Owns a blue Austin Maxi.
The car was still in the drive.
Harker put the paper down.
“Where’s the briefcase?”
“Station.”
“Then send somebody for it.”
“I already did.”
“Who?”
“Merrick.”
Harker looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because she’s good at carrying briefcases.”
Vale stood before Harker could answer.
“And because I asked her to speak to the station staff while she was there.”
“Better.”
“I thought you’d approve.”
“I don’t approve of anything before ten.”
Vale went back to his desk.
Harker picked up the report again.
Nothing in it particularly troubled him.
A missing man.
An abandoned briefcase.
The two facts were connected, but that did not necessarily make the connection interesting.
A man might leave his case on a train and then spend the night somewhere he preferred not to explain to his wife.
Indeed, Harker thought, one might lead rather naturally to the other.
He reached for the telephone.
Marlowe Engineering answered on the fourth ring.
“Personnel.”
“Detective Inspector Harker, Brackenford CID. I’m making an inquiry concerning one of your employees. Martin Sedgewick.”
The woman’s voice changed very slightly.
“Mr. Sedgewick?”
“Yes.”
“One moment, please.”
There followed nearly two minutes of line noise and distant voices.
Then a man answered.
“Clive Ransome, works administrator.”
“Mr. Ransome, when did you last see Martin Sedgewick?”
“Tuesday.”
Harker looked at the calendar.
It was Thursday.
“Tuesday when?”
“Late afternoon. About five.”
“He wasn’t at work yesterday?”
“No.”
“Did he telephone?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
“Was he expected?”
“Of course he was expected.”
“Was anybody concerned?”
A pause.
“Not particularly.”
“Why not?”
“Martin occasionally visits suppliers.”
“Was he visiting one yesterday?”
“Not according to my diary.”
“So an assistant works manager fails to appear for work and nobody asks where he is?”
“It isn’t quite like that.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sedgewick has some latitude. He’s management, Inspector. If he has to call at a supplier before coming in, he doesn’t necessarily ask permission.”
“Does he generally tell somebody?”
“Generally.”
“But yesterday he didn’t.”
“Apparently not.”
Harker made a note.
“What time did you realise he hadn’t arrived?”
“Nine. Half past nine perhaps.”
“And then?”
“We assumed he’d been detained.”
“Until five?”
Another pause.
“Nobody seems to have thought much about it.”
Harker understood that perfectly. Workplaces were often full of people who knew exactly what everybody else ought to be doing while knowing surprisingly little about what they actually did.
“Does Mr. Sedgewick travel by train for the firm?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he have reason to yesterday?”
“Not that I know.”
“Thank you.”
Harker replaced the receiver.
Vale looked over.
“Anything?”
“He didn’t go to work.”
Vale stopped writing.
“At all?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s interesting.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’s another fact.”
“Two facts can become interesting.”
“Usually after somebody checks them.”
The office door opened.
Susan Merrick came in carrying the brown briefcase.
She was twenty-eight, neat even after walking through November rain, and had an expression Harker had learned meant she possessed information and was waiting to discover whether anyone wanted it.
She put the briefcase on his desk.
“One brown leather briefcase belonging to Martin Sedgewick.”
“Anything from the station?”
“Found at approximately ten twenty-five last night in the rear coach of the ten sixteen arrival. Second compartment from the end. George Pritchard found it while clearing the train. Albert Shaw entered it in lost property and identified Sedgewick from papers inside.”
“Anybody remember him?”
“Possibly.”
Harker looked up.
“Possibly isn’t remembering.”
“Ticket collector thinks he saw Sedgewick get off an earlier train yesterday morning.”
Vale turned his chair.
“At Brackenford?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“About eight thirty.”
Harker frowned.
“Arriving or departing?”
“Arriving.”
Vale said, “But his work is in Brackenford.”
Merrick nodded.
“He lives in Brackenford.”
“And usually goes by bus,” Harker said.
“According to his wife, yes.”
Vale leaned back.
“So he takes a train into the town where he already lives, doesn’t go to work, and then his briefcase comes back on another train fourteen hours later.”
Harker released the catches.
“You’re beginning again.”
“What?”
“Theory before facts.”
“I haven’t offered a theory.”
“You’ve put your theory voice on.”
“I don’t have a theory voice.”
Merrick looked away.
Harker opened the case.
The contents had been returned more or less as the station staff had found them.
Newspaper.
Spectacle case.
Paperback.
Engineering papers.
Pencils.
Indigestion tablets.
Wrapped sandwiches.
He took out the paperwork first.
Routine correspondence. A specification sheet. A carbon copy of a typed memorandum concerning delivery dates. Nothing immediately personal.
“Money?”
“Three pounds eleven in the small pocket,” Merrick said. “And some coins.”
“Wallet?”
“No.”
“Keys?”
“No.”
Vale said, “Perhaps he had those with him.”
“Probably.”
Harker opened the spectacle case.
Empty.
“Where are the spectacles?”
Merrick said, “Perhaps he was wearing them.”
“Probably.”
He put it down.
The newspaper was Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph.
He unfolded it.
Nothing was marked or circled.
The paperback was a war novel with a creased spine.
Harker picked up the lunch.
Two thick parcels wrapped together with a rubber band.
“Didn’t eat.”
Merrick said, “No.”
“Perhaps he bought something.”
“Perhaps.”
Vale said, “Or perhaps he never went to work.”
Harker looked at him.
“People eat elsewhere.”
“Yes, guv.”
“And stop calling me guv.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were thinking it.”
Vale smiled.
Harker put the sandwiches back.
“Let’s speak to the wife.”
Westbourne Drive was wet, tidy and almost empty.
The rain had become a persistent drizzle, too light for an umbrella and too heavy to ignore. Harker’s Rover had objected to the weather for the first five minutes and then started as though nothing had happened.
Vale sat beside him.
“You ought to get rid of this thing.”
“It hears you.”
“It ought to. The engine doesn’t.”
Number 32 had pebble-dashed walls, a narrow drive and a clipped hedge with wet leaves trapped beneath it.
The Austin Maxi stood outside.
Elaine Sedgewick answered almost immediately.
She was a small woman with dark hair cut to her jaw and the exhausted expression of someone who had spent a night listening for a car that never came.
“Inspector?”
“Tom Harker. This is Detective Sergeant Vale.”
She let them in.
The sitting room was warm. An electric fire glowed beneath the television. Two cups stood on the coffee table although only one had been used.
“I made another one for Martin,” she said when she noticed Harker looking.
Then she seemed embarrassed.
“Stupid.”
“No,” Harker said.
She sat.
Vale took out his notebook.
Harker remained standing for a moment, looking around without appearing to.
Family photographs. Daughter in graduation-style school photograph. Sedgewick himself at some company dinner, face lean, hair retreating, wire-framed spectacles.
Nothing unusual.
“When did you last see your husband?”
“Yesterday morning. Quarter past seven.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Grey suit. Dark overcoat. Blue tie.”
“Did he seem worried?”
“No.”
“Angry?”
“No.”
“Ill?”
“No.”
“Did you argue?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“We do argue, Inspector. We’re married. But not yesterday.”
“About anything recently?”
“Nothing serious.”
“What did he say when he left?”
She thought.
“Nothing memorable.”
“Try.”
“’See you tonight,’ probably.”
“Probably?”
“People don’t remember ordinary conversations until somebody asks them to.”
Harker nodded.
That was true.
“Did he take his briefcase?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“I handed it to him.”
“Why?”
“It was beside the kitchen chair. He’d have forgotten it.”
Vale wrote that down.
“Did he drive?”
“No. He walked to the bus stop.”
“Usual bus?”
“Seven twenty-eight.”
“To Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re certain he intended to go to work?”
She gave him a faintly impatient look.
“He was wearing a suit, carrying his briefcase and standing at the bus stop at half past seven. Where else would he be going?”
Harker liked the answer because it contained exactly the difficulty he was interested in.
People knew what others were doing largely because they knew what they usually did.
Vale asked, “Did your husband use the railway often?”
“For work, occasionally.”
“Yesterday?”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“Could he have gone somewhere before work?”
“He could have. Martin doesn’t report his movements to me.”
There was irritation there, but not much.
Harker said, “Mrs. Sedgewick, the briefcase contained his lunch.”
She blinked.
“Did it?”
“Wrapped sandwiches.”
“He didn’t eat them?”
“Apparently not.”
“That’s odd.”
“Why?”
“He always eats his lunch.”
“Always?”
“Martin’s very predictable about food. Ham or cheese. He complains if I put pickle on them because it makes the bread damp.”
Vale glanced briefly at Harker.
“What did you make yesterday?” Harker asked.
“Ham.”
“How many?”
“Four sandwiches.”
Harker opened the briefcase on the carpet beside his chair.
Mrs. Sedgewick leaned forward.
He took out the parcel.
“These?”
“Presumably.”
“Did you wrap them?”
“Yes.”
“Like this?”
“Yes.”
She reached for them.
Harker handed the parcel across.
She turned it over.
Her expression changed.
Not dramatically.
It simply became puzzled.
“That’s strange.”
Harker waited.
“What is?”
“The paper.”
Vale stopped writing.
Mrs. Sedgewick unfolded one corner without disturbing the sandwiches themselves.
“This isn’t Wednesday’s.”
Harker looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because Wednesday’s paper was the one with the Chancellor on the front. Martin complained about it while he was eating his toast.”
She looked more closely.
“This is Tuesday’s.”
Harker said nothing.
“I wrapped his sandwiches in Wednesday’s paper.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Could Tuesday’s have been lying around?”
“It was. In the basket.”
“Could you have picked it up by mistake?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Wednesday’s was on the table.”
“You remember using it?”
“I remember tearing a sheet out of it.”
“Yesterday morning?”
“Yes.”
“Not Tuesday?”
“No.”
Harker took the parcel back.
The room had become very quiet.
Outside, a bus passed through the rain.
Vale looked at the sandwiches, then at Harker.
Harker examined the newspaper wrapping again.
Tuesday.
Nothing exceptional about it.
Nothing exceptional about four sandwiches either.
Mrs. Sedgewick said, “I don’t understand.”
Harker placed the parcel carefully on top of the open briefcase.
Neither, for the moment, did he.
But the case had altered.
Not much.
Just enough.
He looked at Mrs. Sedgewick.
“Then whose sandwiches are these?”
THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Two — A Man Who Went to Work
The sandwiches remained on Elaine Sedgewick’s coffee table.
Harker looked at them again.
Four sandwiches. Ham. Newspaper. Rubber band.
Nothing about them deserved the attention of three adults and a detective sergeant.
“That’s Tuesday’s paper,” Elaine said again.
Harker nodded.
“You keep old newspapers?”
“In the basket beside the kitchen door. Martin takes them out on Saturdays.”
“So Tuesday’s would have been there yesterday morning.”
“Yes.”
“And Wednesday’s?”
“On the kitchen table.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t wrap these Tuesday night?”
“No.”
“Your husband didn’t?”
“He doesn’t make sandwiches.”
“Never?”
Elaine hesitated.
“I suppose he could make a sandwich if the survival of the country depended upon it.”
Vale’s pencil stopped for a moment.
Harker said, “But ordinarily?”
“I make them.”
“What does he take?”
“Ham. Cheese. Sometimes corned beef.”
“Four?”
“Four.”
“Wrapped like this?”
“Yes.”
“Rubber band?”
“Yes.”
Elaine’s irritation was beginning to show.
Harker understood it. To her, somewhere beyond the paper and the sandwiches, a husband was missing.
He asked, “Could there have been another parcel in the kitchen?”
“No.”
“A lunch left from Tuesday?”
“No.”
“Could Martin have swapped lunches with somebody?”
She stared at him.
“Why would he?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
Harker put the sandwiches down.
“Did he ever buy lunch at work?”
“If he was entertaining someone, perhaps. Not usually.”
“Canteen?”
“They’ve got one.”
“But he took sandwiches anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Did he bring Tuesday’s newspaper home himself?”
“Of course.”
“What did he do with it?”
“Read it. Complained about it. Folded it up. Left it on the chair until I put it in the basket.”
Harker glanced at Vale.
Vale wrote.
Elaine said, “You think I’ve made a mistake.”
“I’m hoping you have.”
That disarmed her slightly.
She sat back.
“I haven’t.”
Harker believed she believed that.
It was not quite the same thing.
He closed the briefcase.
“Tell me about yesterday morning again.”
“I already did.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday morning is the last ordinary thing we have.”
She looked at him for a moment.
Then she told him again.
Martin came downstairs shortly after seven. He shaved every morning. Tea, two pieces of toast, marmalade. He read the newspaper while eating. He complained about something the Chancellor had said. Elaine made his lunch. Martin put on his grey suit jacket, then his dark overcoat. He could not find his briefcase because he had left it beside the kitchen chair. Elaine handed it to him. He left at approximately quarter past seven.
“For the bus?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him reach the stop?”
“No. I watched him walk down the drive.”
“Did anybody?”
“I don’t know.”
“How far is the stop?”
“Two minutes.”
“And the bus?”
“Seven twenty-eight.”
“Is he always on that one?”
“Unless it’s late.”
“I meant Martin.”
“Yes.”
“Always?”
“He likes being early.”
“For work?”
“For everything.”
There it was again.
Routine.
Harker stood.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sedgewick.”
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“You’re going to look for him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Harker put on his coat.
“Yesterday morning.”
The number forty-three bus left from Burton Road, three streets from Westbourne Drive.
At seven twenty-eight on a wet November morning it carried clerks, shop assistants, engineering workers, two schoolchildren travelling further into town, and anybody else who had not yet found a convincing reason to remain in bed.
By ten past twelve on Thursday, most of the people who had been aboard it had forgotten almost everything about the journey.
Detective Constable Len Foster considered this normal.
“Ask a man what he had for breakfast yesterday,” he told Harker, “and he’ll tell you what he usually has.”
They stood beneath the shelter on Burton Road while rain tapped against the perspex side panels.
“You conducting the inquiry now?” Harker asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m providing wisdom.”
“That’s worse.”
Foster grinned.
He was forty-four, local enough to know which bus drivers changed routes on Thursdays and which publicans had brothers-in-law on the council.
He had found the conductor from Wednesday’s forty-three at the depot.
Arthur Keane was fifty-nine and had worked buses for thirty-one years. His cap sat slightly too high on his head and his expression suggested that police questions were merely another form of timetable disruption.
“Sedgewick,” he said. “Yes. Know him.”
“You know his name?” Harker asked.
“Didn’t until your lad showed me the photograph.”
“Then what did you know?”
“The bloke with the briefcase.”
“What sort?”
“What sort of bloke?”
“What sort of briefcase?”
Keane looked at Harker as though this was unnecessary.
“Brown.”
“Lots of those.”
“Yes.”
“What makes his different?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how do you know the bloke?”
“Gets on here most mornings. Sits upstairs if there’s room.”
“Where?”
“Near the front.”
“Which side?”
Keane considered.
“Near side, usually.”
“Usually?”
“Usually.”
“Did you see him yesterday?”
“Think so.”
“That isn’t the same as yes.”
“No.”
Keane looked toward Foster.
Foster examined the rain.
Harker said, “What do you actually remember?”
Keane sighed.
“Man gets on here. Dark coat. Briefcase. Gives me his fare.”
“To Marlowe?”
“No.”
Harker waited.
Keane frowned.
“That’s right.”
“What’s right?”
“He didn’t go to Marlowe.”
“Where did he go?”
“Market Street.”
Foster looked up.
Harker said, “You remember that?”
“He asked for Market Street.”
“Yesterday?”
“I think so.”
“Because it was unusual?”
“Yes.”
That was more useful.
Marlowe Engineering lay another five stops beyond Market Street, east of the town centre.
“And he got off there?”
Keane nodded.
“You saw him?”
“I rang the bell. He was by the platform.”
“Did you see his face?”
“Not then.”
“When did you see it?”
“When he got on.”
“Clearly?”
Keane hesitated.
“Clear enough.”
“Did he speak?”
“He asked for Market Street.”
“What did he sound like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you recognise his voice?”
“No.”
“Then what did you recognise?”
Keane looked irritated now.
“The man.”
“From what?”
“Because he gets the bus every bloody morning.”
Harker nodded.
There was no point pushing past what a witness genuinely believed.
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark coat.”
“Hat?”
“Don’t remember.”
“Glasses?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“He wears glasses.”
“Did this man?”
Keane stopped.
“That I couldn’t swear to.”
“What about the briefcase?”
“Yes.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“Brown?”
“Yes.”
“Anything distinctive?”
“No.”
Harker thanked him.
As they walked back toward the Rover, Foster said, “So somebody who looked like Sedgewick got off at Market Street.”
“Or Sedgewick did.”
“Station’s eight minutes on foot.”
“Seven if you don’t mind being run over.”
“You think he went to the station?”
“No.”
“You’re very determined not to think anything.”
“It saves time later.”
Brackenford station was busier at one in the afternoon than it had been at ten twenty-three the previous night.
Porters moved mailbags along platform two. A diesel idled beyond the footbridge. The buffet smelled of tea, fried onions and wet coats.
Albert Shaw recognised Harker from a description rather than from acquaintance.
“You’re about the briefcase.”
“Apparently I am.”
Shaw took them through to the office.
The lost-property ledger lay open on the desk.
Harker read the entry.
Brown leather briefcase. Rear coach. 22:16 service. Found 22:25 approx. G. Pritchard.
“What time did the train actually arrive?”
“Ten twenty-three.”
“So the ten sixteen is its scheduled arrival.”
“Yes.”
“Where had it come from?”
“Leicester direction. Local service.”
“And this morning’s sighting?”
“That was Mr. Holt.”
Holt was found near platform one checking tickets at the barrier.
He was a narrow man with a clipped moustache and the cautious manner of somebody who knew that once the police began asking whether he was sure, he probably wasn’t.
“You know Sedgewick?” Harker asked.
“By sight.”
“How?”
“Travels occasionally.”
“From Brackenford?”
“Usually.”
“Yesterday morning?”
“I saw him come in.”
“Come in where?”
“Off the eight twenty-seven.”
Harker glanced at the public timetable board.
“Platform two?”
“Yes.”
“Where does that train originate?”
“West Barset.”
“And where had he boarded?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What did you see?”
Holt answered more quickly this time.
“Mr. Sedgewick coming down from platform two.”
“You saw his face?”
“Yes.”
“Spoke to him?”
“No.”
“How far away?”
“Twenty yards perhaps.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“A briefcase.”
“Coat?”
“Dark.”
“Glasses?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I wasn’t taking an inventory.”
“No.”
Harker watched two passengers come through the barrier.
“What made you think it was Sedgewick?”
Holt seemed puzzled by the question.
“Because it was.”
“What did you see that told you it was?”
“The man.”
“What about him?”
“His face.”
“You’ve spoken with him before?”
“Tickets. Now and then.”
“What sort does he buy?”
“Day returns usually.”
“Where to?”
“West Barset. Norchester sometimes.”
“And yesterday he was arriving from that direction?”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you a ticket?”
“No. It had already been collected.”
“So you didn’t speak.”
“No.”
“Didn’t hear his voice.”
“No.”
“You saw a man you know by sight coming off the footbridge.”
“Yes.”
“With a brown briefcase.”
“Yes.”
“In a dark coat.”
“Yes.”
“At eight thirty in the morning.”
“About that.”
Harker nodded.
Holt looked almost relieved.
Then Harker asked, “What did you assume?”
Holt’s relief disappeared.
“I don’t understand.”
“You saw a man. You assumed he was Martin Sedgewick.”
“I recognised him.”
“Maybe.”
“I know what he looks like.”
“I’m not saying you don’t.”
Holt folded his arms.
“What are you saying?”
“That people are very good at recognising what they expect to see.”
“I didn’t expect to see him.”
“No?”
“No.”
That was worth noting.
Harker looked along the platform.
“If Mr. Sedgewick got off the forty-three bus at Market Street at approximately seven fifty, could he have reached this station?”
“Easily.”
“And boarded a train?”
“Depends which.”
“Could he have gone somewhere and returned on the eight twenty-seven?”
Holt considered.
“Not far.”
“Where?”
Holt fetched a timetable.
For several minutes they stood over it.
There were possibilities.
Not many.
One local departed Brackenford shortly after eight. Another service could have returned him twenty-odd minutes later from a station further down the line, but the timing was tight.
Vale would like it.
Harker could already hear him arranging the morning into arrows.
He thanked Holt and left.
Outside the station, Foster said, “You believe him?”
“I believe he saw somebody.”
“Sedgewick?”
“Possibly.”
“That word again.”
“It’s useful.”
Marlowe Engineering stood on the east side of Brackenford beyond a row of postwar industrial units and a canal spur nobody seemed willing to admit responsibility for.
The works covered several acres.
Brick offices faced the road. Behind them rose saw-toothed roofs, extractor vents and a narrow water tower bearing the faded MARLOWE name. Lorries waited beside loading bays. Somewhere inside, metal struck metal in a rhythm too irregular to become background noise.
Harker had spent enough time in factories to know that offices always smelled faintly of whatever happened beyond them.
Marlowe smelled of cutting oil, damp concrete and tea.
Clive Ransome met them in reception.
He was in his late forties, broad-shouldered, with a striped tie and the expression of a man who had lost half a day to somebody else’s problem.
“Inspector.”
“Mr. Ransome.”
“You spoke to me this morning.”
“Yes.”
Ransome led them upstairs.
Through wired-glass windows Harker could see the machine shop. Rows of lathes and milling machines. Men in brown coats. A forklift moved slowly between stacked stillages.
“We’re rather busy.”
“So was Mr. Sedgewick, apparently.”
Ransome glanced at him.
They went into an office overlooking the works.
A secretary brought tea without asking.
Harker said, “Tell me what Sedgewick does.”
“Assistant works manager.”
“That’s a title.”
Ransome sat down.
“He coordinates production schedules, supplier issues, stores, certain subcontract work. If something isn’t arriving, or has arrived wrong, Martin generally hears about it.”
“Office job?”
“Half and half.”
“So people might not see him for hours.”
“Exactly.”
“Wednesday morning.”
Ransome rubbed his forehead.
“As I told you, he wasn’t here.”
“How do you know?”
Ransome paused.
“I assumed he wasn’t.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“Did you look in his office?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“After lunch.”
“What about before lunch?”
“I had no reason.”
“Did anyone?”
Ransome leaned back.
“This is a large works, Inspector.”
“I noticed.”
“Management staff don’t clock in.”
“Workers do?”
“Hourly paid staff, yes.”
“So there’s no card for Sedgewick.”
“No.”
“What time was he expected?”
“Eight fifteen.”
“What happens if he’s late?”
“He rings.”
Harker stopped writing.
“Always?”
Ransome shrugged.
“Nearly always.”
“Why?”
“He hates having people waiting.”
“For him?”
“For meetings. Suppliers. Anyone.”
“Was anybody waiting Wednesday?”
Ransome thought.
“Production meeting at nine.”
“Did he attend?”
“No.”
“What did you think?”
“That he’d been delayed.”
“Did he ring?”
“No.”
“And that wasn’t unusual?”
Ransome considered it for the first time.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“It was unusual.”
Vale glanced at Harker.
Harker ignored him.
“Who noticed he hadn’t attended?”
“Everyone at the meeting.”
“And nobody asked where he was?”
“Someone said he was probably in stores.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was he?”
“No idea.”
“You said this morning that nobody thought much about his absence.”
“We’re not a school, Inspector. People move about.”
Harker drank the tea.
It was terrible, which at least suggested continuity between British industry and the police service.
“Show me his office.”
Martin Sedgewick’s office contained nothing that looked as though its owner had disappeared.
That interested Harker more than disorder would have.
The desk was reasonably tidy.
In-trays labelled URGENT, CURRENT and FILE.
A wall calendar.
Production schedules.
Telephone.
A photograph of Elaine and their daughter in a silver frame.
A raincoat hung behind the door.
Harker touched it.
“His?”
Ransome said, “I assume so.”
Harker looked at him.
Ransome corrected himself.
“I’ve seen him wear it.”
“But he left home yesterday in a dark overcoat.”
“So his wife says.”
“He keeps another coat here?”
“Plenty do.”
Harker opened nothing.
“Merrick?”
Susan Merrick had arrived twenty minutes earlier and was already seated at a side table with a stack of papers.
She looked up.
“Routine correspondence so far.”
“How routine?”
“Painfully.”
“Good.”
Ransome said, “You intend to go through all of this?”
“If necessary.”
“I can’t imagine what you expect to find.”
“Neither can I.”
That seemed to worry Ransome more than if Harker had told him.
Merrick held up a sheet.
“Mr. Sedgewick initialled several production notes on Tuesday afternoon.”
“Wednesday?”
“I’m getting there.”
Harker nodded.
On the desk lay a pad bearing impressions from writing torn from the sheet above. He noticed it and left it alone. Things became clues too easily when detectives wanted them to.
A man appeared at the door.
“Clive?”
Ransome turned.
“What?”
“Stores want the Bexley release.”
“Tell Arthur I’ll be down in five minutes.”
The man left.
Ransome apologised.
Harker said, “Arthur?”
“Venn. Stores supervisor.”
“Does Sedgewick work with him?”
“Sedgewick works with everybody.”
That was all.
Harker looked through the wired-glass window toward the stores building.
Men moved between pallets.
Nobody looked criminal.
Most people didn’t.
By half past three, Merrick had produced a list of eleven people who might reasonably have seen Sedgewick on Wednesday morning.
Nine had not.
One thought he had.
One was certain somebody else had.
The certain one was a typist named Jean Collett.
“He was here,” she said.
They were standing in the general office.
Harker asked, “You saw him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Mrs. Palmer said he was in stores.”
“Did Mrs. Palmer see him?”
“I don’t know.”
Mrs. Palmer had gone home sick at lunchtime.
Another telephone call for tomorrow.
The man who thought he had seen Sedgewick was a production planner named Harris.
“Through the window,” Harris said.
“What time?”
“Before nine.”
“What did you see?”
“Martin going past.”
“Face?”
“Side of him.”
“Clothes?”
“Dark jacket.”
“Briefcase?”
“No.”
“Glasses?”
“Didn’t notice.”
“How long?”
“Second or two.”
“Could it have been somebody else?”
Harris frowned.
“I suppose.”
“Why did you think it was Sedgewick?”
“The walk.”
Harker looked up.
“The walk?”
“He leans forward a bit. Like he’s late even when he isn’t.”
That was the best identification they had obtained all day.
Which did not make it good.
Merrick found Harker in the corridor shortly before four.
“One thing.”
He stopped.
She held a buff-coloured form.
“Goods release. Wednesday morning.”
“What about it?”
“Initialled M.S.”
Harker looked.
At the bottom, in blue ink:
M.S.
“What time?”
“Stamped nine twelve.”
“By whom?”
“Stores office.”
“Does that mean Sedgewick signed it at nine twelve?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Merrick gave him a look.
“It means stores processed it at nine twelve.”
“When was it signed?”
“No way to tell from the form.”
“Could have been Tuesday.”
“Yes.”
“Could have been Wednesday.”
“Yes.”
“Could someone else have initialled it?”
“Yes.”
“Useful document.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
He handed it back.
“Find out what normal procedure is.”
“I already asked.”
Harker waited.
“Forms come up to Sedgewick from stores. He checks them, initials them, they go back down. Usually same day.”
“Usually.”
“Yes.”
“So this could have been on his desk Tuesday afternoon.”
“It could.”
“Anything else?”
“Three dispatch notes. Supplier query. Delivery schedule.”
“Interesting?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She smiled faintly.
Harker started away.
“Sir?”
He turned.
“There is something slightly odd.”
He waited.
“Nothing on his desk suggests anybody expected him to be absent Wednesday.”
“That isn’t odd if he didn’t expect to be absent Wednesday.”
“No.”
“What is?”
Merrick thought about how to phrase it.
“Everyone here says he wasn’t here. But almost nobody decided that until today.”
Harker looked through the nearest window onto the machine shop.
That was precisely it.
Yesterday, Sedgewick had been absent without quite being absent.
A man had not attended a meeting, but somebody assumed he was in stores.
His office door had apparently been open.
Paperwork bearing his initials had moved through the works.
A figure had been glimpsed in a corridor.
Normality had done the rest.
Back at Brackenford police station, Vale had covered half a sheet of paper with times.
Harker disliked it immediately.
“What’s that?”
“Wednesday morning.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s a timeline.”
“Wednesday morning had rain. Yours has arrows.”
Vale ignored him.
“Seven fifteen: Sedgewick leaves home.”
“Elaine says.”
“Seven twenty-eight: man believed to be Sedgewick boards forty-three bus.”
“Keane says.”
“Seven fifty: same man leaves at Market Street.”
“Possibly.”
“Eight-ish: he’s within walking distance of the station.”
“So are several thousand other people.”
“Eight twenty-seven: Holt sees Sedgewick arriving at Brackenford by train.”
“Believes he sees him.”
Vale tapped the page.
“So either Sedgewick gets off the bus, goes to the station, takes a short train journey and comes back—”
“Why?”
“That’s the question.”
“Then don’t build an answer into it.”
“Or Keane has the wrong man.”
“Yes.”
“Or Holt has the wrong man.”
“Yes.”
“Or both.”
“Yes.”
Vale leaned back.
“You enjoy this.”
“What?”
“Making everything less useful.”
“It keeps us honest.”
The telephone rang.
Foster answered from the next desk.
He listened, wrote something, then covered the mouthpiece.
“Bus depot.”
Harker looked over.
“They’ve found the driver from Wednesday.”
“And?”
Foster listened again.
Then he said, “He remembers Sedgewick.”
Vale smiled.
Harker did not.
Foster finished the call.
“Driver says he noticed him because Sedgewick nearly missed Market Street. Got up late and rang the bell himself.”
“Face?”
“Driver saw him in the mirror.”
“Clearly?”
“Says yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Brown case. Dark coat.”
Vale tapped his timeline.
“That’s two railway-style identifications before breakfast.”
Harker looked at the sheet.
Seven fifteen.
Seven twenty-eight.
Seven fifty.
Eight twenty-seven.
Nine twelve.
Beside nine twelve Vale had written:
M.S. document processed — Marlowe.
Harker said, “Put in the nine o’clock meeting.”
Vale wrote it.
09:00 — expected at production meeting. Absent.
“And the telephone.”
“What telephone?”
“The one he didn’t make.”
Vale looked at him.
Harker said, “Ransome says Sedgewick always telephones if he’s going to be late.”
Vale added:
NO CALL.
The room was growing darker outside. Rain traced the windows. Someone downstairs shouted for a constable. A typewriter struck unevenly in the adjoining office.
Harker stood over the desk.
A man left home carrying a briefcase.
Somebody believed he rode the bus.
Somebody believed he got off near the station.
Somebody believed he came back into Brackenford on a train.
Somebody at Marlowe thought he had been in stores.
Somebody else thought he saw him in a corridor.
Paper bearing his initials moved through the works.
And that night his briefcase arrived at the station without him.
Vale said, “Voluntary disappearance.”
“Maybe.”
“He gets off the bus, uses the railway, lays a false trail.”
“Why?”
“Woman.”
“Maybe.”
“Money.”
“Maybe.”
“Trouble at work.”
“Maybe.”
Vale sighed.
“You’re going to say we don’t know.”
“We don’t.”
Merrick came in with another sheet of paper.
“I’ve spoken to Mrs. Palmer at home.”
“The woman who said Sedgewick was in stores?”
“Yes.”
“She see him?”
“No.”
“Who told her?”
Merrick looked at her notes.
“She doesn’t remember.”
Vale gave a short laugh.
“What does she remember?”
“That somebody said, ‘Martin’s down in stores.’”
“Who?”
“She thinks a man.”
“Helpful.”
“She isn’t even certain it was Wednesday.”
Harker took the note.
There it was again.
Not lies.
Not yet.
Just people stitching ordinary assumptions together until they resembled memory.
He picked up Vale’s timeline.
At the top of the page Vale had written:
MARTIN SEDGEWICK — WEDNESDAY
Harker read down it once more.
Then he put it back on the desk.
“We’ve spent all day finding a man who apparently went everywhere except where he was going.”
Vale said, “And tomorrow?”
Harker reached for his coat.
“Tomorrow we find out which parts of Wednesday actually happened.”
He was at the door when Merrick said, “And the sandwiches?”
Harker stopped.
Tuesday’s newspaper.
Four sandwiches.
A lunch Elaine Sedgewick was certain she had never made.
He looked back at the timeline.
“No,” he said. “Those can wait.”
And for the first time that day, he was fairly certain they could not.THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Three — The Nine-Twelve
By Friday morning, Peter Vale’s timeline had acquired a second sheet.
Harker found it spread across the corner of Vale’s desk beneath an ashtray and two empty tea cups.
Wednesday had been reduced to handwriting, arrows and question marks.
Seven fifteen: Sedgewick leaves home.
Seven twenty-eight: boards the forty-three bus.
Seven fifty: gets off at Market Street.
Eight twenty-seven: seen—or believed to have been seen—arriving at Brackenford station.
Nine o’clock: absent from the production meeting at Marlowe Engineering.
Nine twelve: goods-release form bearing Sedgewick’s initials processed through stores.
And at the bottom, underlined twice:
NO TELEPHONE CALL.
Harker took off his coat.
“It’s breeding.”
Vale looked up.
“What?”
“Your timeline.”
“You said put the facts in order.”
“I didn’t say give them descendants.”
Vale leaned back.
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“That was your first mistake.”
Susan Merrick came in carrying a folder.
Outside, November rain rattled against the windows. The CID office smelled of wet wool, tobacco smoke and the radiator somebody downstairs had apparently decided should heat the entire building.
Harker looked at the second sheet again.
Something had been irritating him since the previous afternoon.
Not the bus.
Not the train.
Not even the sandwiches.
The nine-twelve.
He tapped the entry with one finger.
“Where’s the form?”
Merrick opened the folder and produced it.
A buff goods-release sheet.
Part number.
Quantity.
Destination.
Two carbon copies.
At the bottom, in blue ink, the initials:
M.S.
And in the upper right corner, a purple time stamp:
09:12
Vale said, “If he signed it Wednesday morning, he was at Marlowe.”
“If.”
Merrick waited.
Harker picked up the form.
“What happens to one of these before it gets that stamp?”
“Depends which department you ask.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It isn’t.”
“Even better.”
She put several notes on his desk.
“I asked yesterday. Production says they prepare them. Stores says production prepares some and purchasing prepares others. Purchasing says stores sometimes fills them out themselves and sends them upstairs for approval.”
Vale said, “Efficient.”
“They all insist the system is perfectly straightforward.”
Harker looked at her.
“Which means?”
“It isn’t.”
He handed the form back.
“Find out exactly how this one got from wherever it started to wherever it ended.”
Merrick nodded.
“Every desk?”
“Every desk.”
Vale said, “You think somebody forged it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Harker looked toward the rain-blurred window.
“We’ve spent two days asking where Sedgewick went.”
“Yes.”
“Paper’s easier.”
Vale waited.
Harker said, “It doesn’t go anywhere unless somebody carries it.”
Marlowe Engineering was louder on Friday.
Or perhaps Harker had simply begun hearing the place differently.
The machine shop operated beyond the wired-glass partitions with a continuous hard clatter of cutting tools, motors and metal stock. Forklifts moved through loading bays. Men in brown coats crossed between departments carrying drawings, clipboards, boxes and mugs of tea.
Nothing stopped because Martin Sedgewick was missing.
That seemed right.
Factories were built around the assumption that individuals were temporary inconveniences.
Merrick began in production control.
Harker and Vale went to stores.
Arthur Venn was standing at a waist-high counter arguing with a young clerk about a box of circlips.
He was perhaps fifty-five, broad through the shoulders, with thinning grey hair and spectacles that sat low on his nose.
“No, lad. Not fifty.”
The clerk looked at the paperwork.
“Says fifty.”
“It can say the King of Norway if it likes. There’s forty-eight in that box.”
“There should be fifty.”
“Yes. That is what makes it wrong.”
Venn saw Harker and Vale waiting.
“If you’re police, I haven’t stolen the other two.”
Harker said, “Arthur Venn?”
“That depends.”
“Detective Inspector Harker.”
“Then yes.”
Venn handed the clerk the sheet.
“Count them again.”
“I have.”
“Do it better.”
The clerk disappeared into the stores.
Venn wiped his hands on a rag.
“What can I do for you?”
“You knew Martin Sedgewick.”
“I still do, unless you’ve found him dead.”
“No.”
“Good.”
The answer was matter-of-fact rather than relieved.
Harker said, “How well?”
“Work well.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we worked together.”
“Friends?”
“No.”
“Enemies?”
Venn almost smiled.
“No.”
“Argue?”
“Constantly.”
Vale looked up.
Venn noticed.
“So do I with half the works. That’s what stores is for.”
“What did you argue about?”
“Shortages. Deliveries. Rejections. Production taking things without paperwork. Management wanting parts that aren’t here.”
“Sedgewick?”
“He was assistant works manager. If something went wrong, he came down here and asked why I’d done it.”
“And had you?”
“Usually not.”
Venn’s expression suggested this was the natural condition of management.
Harker looked around.
Stores occupied a long, high room separated from the shop floor by wire partitions. Racks held bearings, castings, electrical components, tooling and boxed assemblies. At one end, pallets of rejected material waited beneath chalked labels.
“Scrap?” Harker asked.
“Some.”
“Some?”
“Rejected stock. Rework. Scrap. Depends who’s winning the argument.”
“With Sedgewick?”
“With anybody.”
Venn picked up a stamped form from the counter.
“Management likes a piece of paper for everything. We’ve got to account for scrap as though it’s finished goods. Half the time the paperwork costs more than what we’re throwing away.”
Vale glanced at Harker.
Harker merely looked at the form in Venn’s hand.
“Who stamps them?”
“Depends. Betty in the office usually.”
“At a particular time?”
“When they come in.”
“Immediately?”
“If she’s there.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“They wait.”
“So nine twelve means?”
“The form was stamped at nine twelve.”
“Not that anything physically happened at nine twelve.”
Venn gave him an approving look.
“You’ve worked in industry.”
“Enough.”
Vale said, “This one.”
He handed over the photocopied notes relating to the Sedgewick form.
Venn read them.
“Bexley release.”
“You remember it?”
“I remember the job.”
“Wednesday?”
“The job, not Wednesday.”
“What happened?”
“Production needed twenty-four spindle collars released from inspection. They’d been held because dimensions were close to tolerance.”
“Who authorised release?”
“Sedgewick.”
“How do you know?”
“His initials.”
Vale said, “Did you see him sign it?”
“No.”
“Did you see him Wednesday?”
Venn paused.
“At some point?”
“Any point.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You said yesterday that Sedgewick worked with everyone.”
“He did.”
“Did he work with you Wednesday?”
“No.”
“Did you expect him to?”
“Not particularly.”
Harker said, “When did the form reach stores?”
“Nine twelve, apparently.”
“Who brought it?”
Venn frowned.
“Betty would know.”
“Betty?”
“Mrs. Larkin. Stores clerk.”
“Do you remember receiving it yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you remember Sedgewick coming down?”
“No.”
“Do you remember anyone saying he had?”
Venn thought.
“No.”
Harker thanked him.
As they turned away, Venn said, “Inspector.”
Harker looked back.
“He was good at his job.”
“Sedgewick?”
“Yes.”
“You liked him?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.”
“But he knew what he was doing.”
That was the first genuinely personal thing Venn had said.
Then the clerk returned with the box of circlips.
“Forty-eight.”
Venn looked at him.
“I know.”
Mrs. Betty Larkin kept the stores ledger.
She also kept an electric kettle, a packet of digestives and three sharpened pencils arranged with more precision than anything else in the room.
“Yes,” she said. “I stamped it.”
“You remember?” Merrick asked.
“No. That’s my stamp.”
She pointed to the time mark.
“So you must have physically handled it.”
“Yes.”
“At nine twelve?”
“Approximately.”
“Approximately?”
“The clock on the stamp is set in the morning. If it loses a minute, it loses a minute.”
“Who brought the form?”
Mrs. Larkin frowned.
“Someone from production, I expect.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it handed to you?”
“Possibly.”
“Or left?”
“Possibly.”
Merrick said nothing.
Mrs. Larkin became uncomfortable.
“You must understand, Constable, dozens come through.”
“I do.”
“Goods releases. requisitions. returns. rejection notes.”
“And when you get one?”
“I stamp it and enter it.”
“Then?”
“Pass it to Mr. Venn if he needs it. Otherwise it goes in the tray.”
“Did Mr. Sedgewick ever bring his own forms?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he bring this one?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Merrick looked at the ledger.
The entry was neat.
BEXLEY / 24 COLLARS / REL. / M.S. / 09:12
Nothing remarkable.
“What happens before the form reaches you?”
Mrs. Larkin sighed.
“That depends.”
Merrick had heard this several times that morning.
“On what?”
“Where it started.”
They began walking backwards through the procedure.
The form had originated in production control at four twenty-five on Tuesday afternoon.
A clerk named Brian Wale had typed the top sheet and two carbons after inspection advised that the spindle collars could probably be accepted.
He remembered because the production foreman had wanted them for Wednesday morning assembly.
“What did you do with it?” Merrick asked.
“Put it in Mr. Sedgewick’s tray.”
“When?”
“About half four.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Was he in his office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who collected it?”
“He would.”
“You know that?”
“That’s what happens.”
Merrick wrote the words down.
That’s what happens.
“Was it there Wednesday morning?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it came back.”
“Who brought it?”
Wale stared at the ceiling.
“Jean, possibly.”
Jean Collett said it might have been her.
Or it might have been Mrs. Palmer.
Mrs. Palmer said she had taken several papers from Sedgewick’s out-tray at about eight forty-five Wednesday because “that was normal.”
“Did you see Sedgewick?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was in the building?”
“I thought he was.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Palmer hesitated.
“His papers were there.”
Merrick looked at her.
“You mean his work was there.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t quite the same thing.”
Mrs. Palmer’s face changed.
“No.”
“Were the forms already initialled?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“I believe so.”
“Did you watch him initial them?”
“No.”
“Could they have been initialled Tuesday evening?”
“Of course.”
“Could they have been initialled Wednesday morning?”
“Yes.”
“Could somebody else have initialled them?”
Mrs. Palmer looked offended on behalf of the entire company.
“I suppose.”
Merrick thanked her.
By eleven forty, she had reconstructed the journey of the nine-twelve form.
It was less exciting than the journey of a man.
It was also much more certain.
Typed Tuesday at approximately four twenty-five.
Placed in Sedgewick’s in-tray.
Initialled at some unknown time.
Found Wednesday morning among completed paperwork.
Carried downstairs.
Stamped at nine twelve.
Entered in stores ledger.
At no point on Wednesday had anybody seen Martin Sedgewick touch it.
Merrick stared at her notes.
Then she started looking for other papers.
Vale found the woman first.
Or, more accurately, he found someone who had seen Martin Sedgewick with a woman.
The distinction mattered enough that Harker made him repeat it.
They were in Marlowe’s canteen shortly after noon, drinking tea from thick cups.
“Who saw them?”
“Dennis Hall. Toolroom.”
“When?”
“Twice.”
“Where?”
“Café on Market Street.”
“When?”
“Once last week. Once about three weeks ago.”
“Doing what?”
“Having tea.”
Harker looked at Vale.
“That’s become suspicious?”
“Not by itself.”
“Good.”
“Same woman both times.”
“Age?”
“Forties. Maybe fifty.”
“Description?”
“Brown coat. Short hair. Ordinary.”
“Excellent. We can eliminate actresses.”
Vale ignored him.
“Hall said Sedgewick left the works early at lunch on both occasions.”
“That could mean anything.”
“Yes.”
Harker waited.
Vale said, “Including an affair.”
“Yes.”
“You’re agreeing with me.”
“It had to happen eventually.”
Vale smiled.
“He gets off the bus at Market Street Wednesday morning. Café’s two streets away. If he’s meeting her—”
“Then he doesn’t go to work.”
“Exactly.”
“And perhaps decides not to come home.”
“Yes.”
“Leaving his briefcase on a train.”
“That’s harder.”
“And forgetting which newspaper his wife wrapped his sandwiches in.”
“Harder.”
Harker drank his tea.
Vale said, “Still possible.”
“Very.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not convinced of anything.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It’s peaceful.”
Elaine Sedgewick received the question about another woman better than Vale expected.
She did not cry.
She did not become angry.
She looked at Harker for a long moment and said, “I wondered when you were going to ask.”
They were back in the sitting room on Westbourne Drive.
The television was off.
Martin’s untouched tea cup from Thursday had gone.
Harker said, “Had you suspected anything?”
“No.”
“But the possibility occurred to you.”
“Since Wednesday night, a great many possibilities have occurred to me.”
“Would Martin have had an affair?”
Elaine folded her hands.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not the answer most wives give.”
“Most wives probably haven’t had two days to think about it.”
Vale said nothing.
Elaine looked toward the window.
“We weren’t unhappy.”
Harker waited.
“That isn’t the same as being close, is it?”
“No.”
“Martin had work. I had the house. We had Carol away at college. Sundays. Shopping. Television. His mother every second Saturday.”
“Did he talk about work?”
“He complained about it.”
“What about?”
“Orders. shortages. people changing their minds. Management.”
“Money?”
“Our money?”
“Either.”
“No more than usual.”
“Any unusual withdrawals?”
“I wouldn’t know until the statement came.”
“Did he keep money separately?”
“No.”
“Telephone calls?”
Elaine thought.
“A few.”
“When?”
“Evenings.”
“Who from?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Man or woman?”
“I never answered them.”
“Did he go out after?”
“No.”
“Did they upset him?”
“Not visibly.”
“Did he ever meet anyone near Market Street?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever mention a woman?”
“No.”
There was a pause.
Then Elaine said, “This is ridiculous.”
Vale looked at her.
She continued.
“I knew what bus he caught. I knew what time he came home. I knew what he liked in his sandwiches.”
She glanced toward the kitchen.
“And now you’re asking me where he went at lunchtime and who telephoned him.”
Harker said nothing.
Elaine looked at him.
“I’m beginning to think knowing someone’s routine isn’t the same as knowing them.”
“No,” Harker said quietly.
“It often isn’t.”
Foster found the café.
It was called the Windsor Tea Rooms, although there was little regal about it.
Eight tables.
Formica tops.
A glass counter containing pies, buns and two slices of cake nobody seemed willing to buy.
The waitress was named Doris Mayfield and remembered Sedgewick because he always asked whether the tea was fresh.
“Cheeky sod,” she said.
“Was it?” Foster asked.
“Sometimes.”
She looked at the photograph.
“Yes. That’s him.”
“Been in recently?”
“Couple of times.”
“Alone?”
“Once.”
“And the others?”
“With a woman.”
“What did she look like?”
Mrs. Mayfield wiped the counter.
“Normal.”
Foster smiled.
“That’s becoming the description of the week.”
“Brown hair. Short. Forty-five maybe. Fifty. Wore one of those belted coats.”
“Did you know her?”
“No.”
“Local?”
“Could’ve been.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I serve tea. I don’t crawl under tables.”
“Did they seem friendly?”
“They weren’t rowing.”
“Romantic?”
Mrs. Mayfield laughed.
“At lunchtime?”
“I’ve known worse.”
“No touching hands, if that’s what you mean. He had papers out once.”
“Papers?”
“Something from his case.”
“What kind?”
“How would I know?”
“Large? Small?”
“Sheets.”
“Typed?”
“Probably.”
“Did she read them?”
“I think so.”
“When was this?”
“Last Thursday. Or Friday.”
“Could it have been Tuesday?”
She stopped wiping.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
Foster nodded.
That was better.
“Did you see him Wednesday morning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone like him?”
“Half the men in here look like him before nine.”
“Did the woman come in?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Would you remember?”
Mrs. Mayfield shrugged.
“Depends whether she complained about the tea.”
At quarter past three, the affair theory had become both more plausible and less useful.
Vale explained it at the station.
“Sedgewick had been meeting a woman. Quietly. Papers on the table. He gets off early at Market Street Wednesday. Café nearby.”
Harker said, “And?”
“And maybe he met her.”
“Did anyone see him?”
“No.”
“Her?”
“No.”
“So what have we proved?”
“That he met a woman before.”
“Good.”
Vale sighed.
“You could help.”
“I am.”
“How?”
“I’m preventing you from marrying them.”
Merrick came through the door carrying three folders.
She put them on Harker’s desk.
“I’ve finished the paperwork.”
Vale said, “All of it?”
“The relevant part.”
Harker moved the timeline aside.
“What did you find?”
“The nine-twelve form was prepared Tuesday afternoon.”
“We knew that.”
“Yes.”
“So were these.”
She put down two more documents.
A supplier discrepancy note.
A release instruction.
Both bore Sedgewick’s initials.
One had been logged Wednesday at ten thirty-six.
The other at eleven twenty.
Vale looked at them.
“So he was there.”
Merrick shook her head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because every one was prepared Tuesday.”
She opened her notebook.
“The Bexley form was typed at four twenty-five Tuesday. The supplier discrepancy at three forty. The release instruction at five past four.”
Harker looked at the pages.
“When were they initialled?”
“No one knows.”
“Who moved them Wednesday?”
“Mrs. Palmer carried the first batch downstairs. Jean Collett carried another. One went through internal post.”
“Anybody see Sedgewick touch them Wednesday?”
“No.”
“Anybody see him in his office?”
“No.”
Vale said, “But somebody cleared his out-tray.”
“Yes.”
Harker looked at Merrick.
“What’s the latest document originating Wednesday that carries his initials?”
“None.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing I’ve found.”
She opened another folder.
“There are papers dated Wednesday, but none initialled by Sedgewick.”
The room became quiet.
Harker laid the documents in order.
Three papers.
Three times.
Nine twelve.
Ten thirty-six.
Eleven twenty.
To anyone looking only at the stamps, Martin Sedgewick appeared to be working through the morning.
But the work had been done earlier.
Perhaps much earlier.
Vale said, “Someone was emptying his tray.”
“Probably.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
Harker picked up the first form.
The initials were ordinary.
Small.
Unremarkable.
Just two letters made with a fountain pen.
M.S.
He looked at the other two.
Tuesday.
Everything seemed to be returning to Tuesday.
The newspaper around the sandwiches.
The papers in Sedgewick’s office.
The last unquestioned day at Marlowe.
Clive Ransome had last seen him late Tuesday afternoon.
Others had too.
Wednesday was full of sightings that weakened when examined.
Tuesday was solid.
Vale was watching him.
“What?”
Harker said, “Get me everyone who spoke to Sedgewick Tuesday afternoon.”
“All of them?”
“All we can find.”
“You’re abandoning Wednesday?”
“No.”
Harker looked again at the papers.
“We’ve been asking the wrong morning first.”
Vale frowned.
“I thought Wednesday was when he disappeared.”
“It was.”
“Then what are we looking for Tuesday?”
Harker put the goods-release form back into its folder.
“What made Wednesday necessary.”
Vale said nothing.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
For the first time in several days, a narrow strip of pale light had appeared above the roofs opposite the station.
Harker looked at the top of Vale’s timeline.
MARTIN SEDGEWICK — WEDNESDAY
He took a pencil.
Above it, he wrote one word.
TUESDAY.
And underlined it once.
THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Four — Tuesday Afternoon
By four o’clock on Friday, Peter Vale had given Tuesday its own sheet of paper.
Harker regarded this as an improvement only because it kept Tuesday from becoming entangled with Wednesday.
Vale had pinned both sheets to the board beside the CID office window.
TUESDAY
Below it:
2.15 — Production discussion
2.40 — Telephone call
3.05 — Inspection
3.40 — Supplier discrepancy
4.05 — Release instruction
4.25 — Bexley goods release
Approx. 5.00 — Leaves Marlowe
Beside several entries were question marks.
Wednesday had rather more.
Harker stood with his coat still on.
“What do we know?”
Vale said, “Everything on the board.”
“No. What do we know?”
Vale looked at him.
Merrick, at the adjoining desk, said, “Two fifteen is confirmed by four people. Sedgewick was in production control discussing the Halford order.”
“Good.”
“Three five is confirmed by inspection. He spoke with Noel Baxter about twenty-four spindle collars from the Bexley batch.”
“Good.”
“The three forty document was prepared by Brian Wale. Four five release instruction by Jean Collett. Four twenty-five Bexley form by Wale again.”
“And five o’clock?”
Vale said, “Security man remembers him leaving.”
“Remembers Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Apparently Sedgewick said something to him.”
“What?”
“Complained about the weather.”
Harker looked through the window.
Rain was flattening itself against the glass.
“That narrows the year.”
Vale smiled.
“He also asked whether Manchester United had won.”
“That helps.”
“It was Tuesday. European match.”
Harker removed his coat.
“So between two and five, Martin Sedgewick attended meetings, discussed production, signed forms and went home.”
“Apparently.”
“Very disappointing.”
Vale pointed to the board.
“Except the telephone call.”
Merrick looked up.
“I’ve got that.”
She had been at Marlowe most of the afternoon.
Harker took the chair opposite her desk.
“What?”
“Switchboard log. Two thirty-eight Tuesday. Sedgewick asked for an outside line.”
“To?”
“Brackenford Provincial Building Society. Market Street branch.”
Vale looked pleased.
Harker did not.
“Duration?”
“Four minutes according to the operator.”
“Who did he speak to?”
“They don’t log that.”
“Did you ring the branch?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They’re checking.”
Vale leaned against the desk.
“He gets off the bus at Market Street Wednesday morning. He’s been meeting a woman in a café on Market Street. Tuesday afternoon he telephones a building society on Market Street.”
“Yes,” Harker said.
“You’re determined not to enjoy this.”
“I’ll enjoy it when it means something.”
Vale took a pencil.
“Secret account.”
“Maybe.”
“Mortgage.”
“Maybe.”
“Planning to leave his wife.”
“Maybe.”
Vale sighed.
Harker said, “You’re getting better at this.”
The telephone rang.
Merrick answered.
“CID.”
She listened.
“Yes.”
She covered the mouthpiece.
“Brackenford Provincial.”
Harker held out his hand.
She passed him the receiver.
“Harker.”
A woman’s voice introduced herself as Dorothy Clewes, assistant branch manager.
“You’re asking about Mr. Martin Sedgewick?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve spoken to one of our staff. Mrs. Norah Bennett. She remembers him.”
“From Tuesday?”
“From several occasions.”
Harker looked at Vale.
“Where is Mrs. Bennett now?”
“Still here.”
“Would she remain another twenty minutes?”
A pause.
“If necessary.”
“It is.”
The Brackenford Provincial Building Society occupied two floors of a narrow stone building on Market Street between a chemist and a shop selling ladies’ clothing.
Its interior was warm enough to fog Harker’s spectacles when he entered.
He removed them and wiped them with his handkerchief.
Vale said, “You should get a better pair.”
“They’re fine.”
“You can’t see through them.”
“Useful in your company.”
Dorothy Clewes met them behind a polished wooden counter.
Mrs. Norah Bennett sat in a small interview room at the rear.
She was forty-seven, perhaps forty-eight, with short brown hair and a belted camel-coloured coat folded over the chair beside her.
Harker recognised the description immediately.
So did Vale.
Mrs. Bennett recognised Sedgewick’s photograph.
“Yes. That’s Mr. Sedgewick.”
“You met him at the Windsor Tea Rooms?” Harker asked.
Her face showed surprise.
“Twice.”
“Why?”
“He preferred not to come into the branch.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What were you discussing?”
“A property.”
Vale took out his notebook.
“What property?”
Mrs. Bennett opened a file.
“Nothing specific initially. He asked about financing a small flat or maisonette.”
“For himself?”
“I assumed so.”
“Did he say?”
“No.”
“When did this begin?”
“About a month ago.”
Harker said, “How did he contact you?”
“He came in first. After that he telephoned.”
“Why meet in the café?”
“He said he didn’t want correspondence going to his home.”
Vale glanced at Harker.
Mrs. Bennett saw it.
“I thought perhaps there were marital difficulties.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No.”
“Mention his wife?”
“No.”
“Another woman?”
“No.”
“Children?”
“No.”
“What exactly did he want?”
Mrs. Bennett considered.
“He wanted to know what could be arranged quickly.”
“A mortgage?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“He asked whether a purchase could be completed more quickly if the borrowing were small.”
“How small?”
“He wasn’t specific.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That solicitors and searches would take their own time regardless.”
“Did he have a property in mind?”
“Later, possibly.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. He mentioned something outside Brackenford.”
“Did he say how much he could put down?”
“No.”
“Did he ask about cash?”
Mrs. Bennett hesitated.
“Yes.”
Vale’s pencil stopped.
“In what way?”
“He asked what questions would be asked if someone purchased a property largely for cash.”
“Largely?”
“He said he might not require much of a mortgage.”
Harker said, “Martin Sedgewick is an assistant works manager.”
“Yes.”
“Did that strike you as unusual?”
“It wasn’t my place to inquire into his salary.”
“No.”
“But?”
Mrs. Bennett folded her hands.
“He seemed very concerned with speed and privacy.”
“What did you think he was doing?”
“I assumed he was leaving his wife.”
Vale said nothing.
Harker asked, “Tuesday afternoon?”
“He telephoned.”
“About?”
“Whether I’d discovered anything suitable.”
“Had you?”
“One flat in West Barset. Another above a shop in Mowbray.”
“Did he want to see them?”
“He said he would let me know.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Did he sound worried?”
“No.”
“Excited?”
“No.”
“Different from usual?”
Mrs. Bennett smiled slightly.
“Inspector, Mr. Sedgewick never sounded excited.”
“What did he sound like?”
“Careful.”
That interested Harker.
“Careful about what?”
“Everything.”
Outside, Vale stopped beneath the building society awning.
“Now will you enjoy it?”
“No.”
“He’s planning accommodation secretly.”
“Possibly.”
“He doesn’t want letters at home.”
“Yes.”
“He asks about buying largely for cash.”
“Yes.”
“Then Wednesday morning gets off his bus here.”
“Yes.”
Vale spread his hands.
“Voluntary disappearance.”
“Best explanation we’ve got.”
Vale blinked.
“You said it.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like it.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Harker started toward the Rover.
Vale followed.
“What doesn’t fit?”
“The briefcase.”
“He leaves it deliberately.”
“Why?”
“To make people think something happened to him.”
“Then why put his own paperwork inside?”
“Because it has to look like his briefcase.”
“The sandwiches?”
Vale hesitated.
“He wrapped another lunch.”
“Why?”
“To make the case look as though he took it to work.”
“Using Tuesday’s newspaper.”
“A mistake.”
“Maybe.”
Vale opened the passenger door.
“And Holt sees him at eight twenty-seven.”
“Mistaken identification.”
“Probably.”
Harker got behind the wheel.
The Rover turned over twice and stopped.
Vale looked ahead.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Harker tried again.
“About?”
“Your car.”
The engine caught reluctantly.
“It has character.”
“It has malice.”
Elaine Sedgewick listened without interrupting.
That made the conversation harder.
Harker had expected questions. Anger, perhaps.
Instead she sat on the sofa while he described the building society, the private meetings and Martin’s inquiries about property.
When he finished, she said, “How much?”
“We don’t know.”
“He was talking about buying somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“With cash?”
“Possibly mostly cash.”
She looked at the electric fire.
“I see.”
Vale remained silent.
Harker said, “Do you and your husband have savings?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“About nineteen hundred pounds.”
“Joint account?”
“Building society account. Both names.”
“Any other savings?”
“Premium Bonds. Not much.”
“Investments?”
“No.”
“Inheritance?”
“Martin’s father left him three hundred pounds. Years ago.”
“Insurance policies he could borrow against?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Separate bank accounts?”
“Current accounts. Nothing large.”
“Debts?”
“The mortgage.”
“How much remains?”
“Just under seven thousand.”
“Loans?”
“No.”
“Hire purchase?”
“Our television.”
Vale looked up.
Elaine gave a small, humourless laugh.
“Martin spent six months deciding whether we could afford colour television.”
Harker waited.
“He made me keep the old set in the dining room because he said we’d already paid for it.”
“Would he have had access to several thousand pounds without your knowing?”
“No.”
Then she corrected herself.
“I would have said no on Wednesday.”
Harker understood.
She stood and went to the mantelpiece.
There was a photograph there of Martin and Elaine standing beside a caravan somewhere on the coast.
“He complained about the boiler last winter,” she said.
“What about it?”
“It needed replacing. He said six hundred pounds was ridiculous and we’d make the old one last another year.”
She turned.
“And you’re telling me he was asking about buying a flat.”
“He was asking about one.”
“For himself.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Who else?”
Harker had no answer.
Elaine looked at him.
“If Martin has gone off somewhere, Inspector, I want you to tell me.”
“When I know, I will.”
“And if he hasn’t?”
“I’ll tell you that too.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I thought perhaps another woman would be the worst of it.”
Vale shifted slightly.
Elaine continued.
“But another woman I could understand.”
She looked back at the photograph.
“Money I don’t know about is different.”
Merrick spent Saturday morning in the stores office at Marlowe Engineering.
Arthur Venn arrived shortly after eight despite the works running only a reduced weekend shift.
He carried two bacon sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper.
“Thought you’d be back,” he said.
“Why?”
“You’ve got the look.”
“What look?”
“Person who’s found paperwork.”
He offered her one sandwich.
She declined.
“Suit yourself.”
Venn ate while Merrick opened the Bexley file.
“Twenty-four spindle collars,” she said.
“Again?”
“Again.”
“You’ll know more about them than production by Monday.”
“What happens if inspection rejects a component?”
“Depends what’s wrong.”
“Take these.”
Venn wiped his fingers.
“Diameter was close to limit. Inspection held them. Sedgewick authorised release.”
“So they weren’t scrap.”
“No.”
“What if they had been?”
“Red rejection ticket. Stores entry. Scrap or rework.”
“Who decides?”
“Inspection recommends. Works management approves. Sometimes production argues until everyone loses the will to live.”
“Then what?”
“Rework goes back to a machine. Scrap comes here.”
“And then?”
“Depends what it is.”
She waited.
Venn sighed.
“Steel in steel bins. Brass separate. Aluminium separate. Carbide separate. Some specialist material gets its own ticket.”
“Finished components?”
“If they’re scrapped, they’re scrap.”
“Do you keep counting them?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“You might reject thirty pieces. Stores receives thirty pieces. After they’re booked into scrap, they’re usually weighed.”
“Why?”
“Because scrap merchants buy by weight.”
“So after that you don’t necessarily know whether thirty individual pieces remain?”
Venn looked at her.
“You planning to steal some?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell management. They’ll invent another form.”
She smiled despite herself.
Venn pointed toward a set of ledgers.
“Quantity in. Weight out. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Who collects it?”
“Barset Metals. Tuesdays, mostly.”
“Every Tuesday?”
“Most.”
“Same driver?”
“Usually.”
“Who signs?”
“Me or Betty.”
Merrick turned another page.
“Did Sedgewick come down here Tuesday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Three-ish.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“What were you discussing?”
“The Bexley collars.”
“Only that?”
Venn looked at her.
“You people ask peculiar questions.”
“Was it?”
“We discussed Bexley.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
He studied her for a moment.
“No. Probably wasn’t the only thing.”
“What else?”
“Stock shortages. Scrap. Some rejected shafts production wanted reworked.”
“Did you argue?”
“Martin and I didn’t need a special occasion.”
“About what?”
“Whether stores was holding too much rejected stock.”
“Were you?”
“Depends who you ask.”
“What did he think?”
“That I ought to clear it faster.”
“And you?”
“That if management stopped changing its mind about what was scrap and what wasn’t, I could.”
He finished the sandwich.
“Martin could be bloody irritating.”
“But you said he was good at his job.”
“He was.”
“Both can be true?”
“Constable, most useful people are irritating.”
Merrick wrote that down only because it amused her.
Venn saw her.
“You’re not putting that in a report?”
“Possibly.”
He laughed.
It was difficult to dislike him.
That, Merrick thought, was probably irrelevant.
The first discrepancy appeared at eleven twenty-three.
It involved thirty hardened-steel locating pins.
Not Bexley collars.
Another batch.
Inspection had rejected thirty on Tuesday morning.
Six were marked for rework.
Twenty-four were marked scrap.
Merrick followed the documents.
Thirty rejected.
Six transferred to rework.
Twenty-four received into stores.
Everything balanced.
Then she found the scrap ticket.
Twenty-four pins.
Total recorded weight: eleven pounds four ounces.
She frowned.
“Mr. Venn?”
He came over.
“How much does one of these weigh?”
He looked at the drawing.
“Half-pound. Thereabouts.”
“Twenty-four?”
“Twelve pounds.”
“The ticket says eleven four.”
“Tolerance.”
“Three quarters of a pound?”
“They’re oily. Scales aren’t laboratory instruments.”
She nodded.
Nothing.
Almost nothing.
She turned the page.
Another batch.
Twelve valve sleeves.
Rejected.
Scrapped.
Weight slightly low.
Then another.
Sixteen finished bushes.
Rejected.
Entered into scrap.
Weight.
Merrick took out a pencil.
An hour later she had three sheets covered in sums.
Harker arrived at twelve forty, looking annoyed.
“You’ve missed lunch,” Merrick said.
“So have you.”
“I had tea.”
“That isn’t lunch.”
“You tell everyone it is.”
He took off his coat.
“Vale’s checking Sedgewick’s bank.”
“Anything?”
“Nothing we can get before Monday without waking half of England.”
She pushed the paperwork toward him.
“I’ve been following scrap.”
Harker looked at the piles.
“You sound disappointed in yourself.”
“There may be nothing in it.”
“Good place to start.”
She showed him the locating pins.
“Twenty-four recorded as scrap Tuesday.”
“Yes.”
“Barset Metals collected scrap at eleven fifteen Tuesday morning.”
Harker looked at the ticket.
“When were these received into stores?”
“Three thirty-two.”
“So they missed the collection.”
“Yes.”
“Next collection?”
“Following Tuesday.”
“That would be after Sedgewick disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Where are the pins?”
“Not in the scrap bins.”
“Rework?”
“No.”
“Production?”
“No.”
“Inspection?”
“No.”
“Stores?”
“No.”
“Could there have been another collection?”
“Venn says no.”
“Could someone have moved them?”
“Certainly.”
“Paperwork wrong?”
“Certainly.”
“Wrong date?”
“Possible.”
Harker looked at the ledger.
“So we have twenty-four things which somebody says became scrap.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody knows where they are.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Merrick laid two more examples beside it.
“Maybe.”
Harker studied them.
“Same problem?”
“Not exactly. Quantities balance. Weights don’t quite.”
“How far?”
“Small amounts.”
“Could scales explain it?”
“Yes.”
“Oil?”
“Yes.”
“Clerical error?”
“Yes.”
“So nothing.”
“Not yet.”
Harker looked at her.
“Keep going.”
That was all.
Merrick turned back to the ledger.
The security man was named Harry Wills.
He had worked the front gate for fourteen years and remembered Tuesday because Manchester United had been playing away in Europe.
“Sedgewick asked the score.”
“Did you know it?” Harker asked.
“No.”
“So useful conversation.”
“I told him he’d have to wait for the radio.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Just after five.”
“You saw him clearly?”
“Walked straight past me.”
“Car?”
“Bus.”
“Carrying anything?”
“Case.”
“What sort?”
“His usual one.”
“Brown leather?”
“Yes.”
“Coat?”
“Dark one.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did he seem worried?”
“No.”
“In a hurry?”
“He always walked quickly.”
“Say anything besides football?”
“Complained about the rain.”
Harker looked through the gatehouse window.
“Was it raining?”
“Started about quarter to five.”
That fitted.
For once.
“Did anyone leave with him?”
“No.”
“Meet him outside?”
“Not that I saw.”
Harker thanked him.
Outside, Vale said, “So the briefcase goes home Tuesday.”
“Yes.”
“Elaine hands it back to him Wednesday.”
“Yes.”
“Which means if somebody tampered with it—”
“Don’t.”
Vale stopped.
“What?”
“We don’t know anybody tampered with it.”
“The sandwiches.”
“We know the sandwiches are wrong.”
“That’s tampering.”
“That’s wrong sandwiches.”
Vale shook his head.
“You enjoy making language difficult.”
“No. Language makes itself difficult. People just don’t notice.”
By three o’clock, Vale’s voluntary-disappearance theory had become quite respectable.
Sedgewick had secretly discussed a property.
He had asked how quickly it could be purchased.
He had specifically avoided correspondence at home.
He appeared interested in using substantial cash.
His wife knew of no such money.
He had concealed the meetings from her.
The building society was on Market Street.
On Wednesday morning he had apparently got off his ordinary bus on Market Street rather than continuing to Marlowe.
Vale stood before the board.
“If this were anyone else, you’d say he’d gone.”
“I might.”
“So?”
“So maybe he’s gone.”
“You sound wounded.”
“I prefer difficult cases.”
“This is difficult.”
“It was.”
Vale turned.
“You still have the train.”
“And the briefcase.”
“And sandwiches.”
“And now money.”
“Potential money.”
Harker looked toward Merrick, who had returned from Marlowe with two cardboard document boxes.
She put them down.
Vale said, “Please tell me those aren’t all scrap records.”
“They’re all scrap records.”
He looked at Harker.
“Your fault.”
Harker opened the top box.
“What have you got?”
“Twenty-four locating pins.”
“The missing ones.”
“Yes.”
“Still missing?”
“Yes.”
“What were they worth?”
“As scrap?”
“How much?”
“About four pounds.”
Vale laughed.
“There’s your criminal empire.”
Harker looked at Merrick.
“What were they worth?”
“I just told you.”
“No.”
He pushed the scrap ticket aside.
“What were they worth before somebody called them scrap?”
Merrick had anticipated the question.
“Production cost estimates about eighteen pounds each.”
Vale stopped smiling.
Harker said, “Twenty-four?”
“Four hundred and thirty-two pounds.”
The room became quiet.
Four hundred pounds was not a fortune.
It was considerably more than four pounds.
Harker picked up the inspection rejection.
“What was wrong with them?”
Merrick opened another sheet.
“Surface finish outside specification.”
“Could they still be used?”
“Not by Marlowe on that job.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She nodded.
“I asked inspection. Technically, yes. Depends on application.”
Harker laid the sheets side by side.
Finished components.
Rejected components.
Scrap.
Three descriptions of the same pieces of steel.
Vale said, “You think someone stole them?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
Harker ignored him.
“Who authorised scrap?”
Merrick pointed.
“Inspection recommendation here. Management authorisation here.”
At the bottom:
M.S.
Martin Sedgewick.
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
“And collection was?”
“Eleven fifteen.”
“Before the pins entered scrap.”
“Yes.”
“So if the paperwork is right, those pins sat inside Marlowe waiting for the next collection.”
“Yes.”
“And when you looked?”
“They weren’t there.”
Harker sat down.
The rain had begun again.
Somewhere below, a door slammed. A telephone rang twice and stopped. From the adjoining room came the steady clack of a typewriter.
Vale said, “Could be an error.”
“Yes.”
“Someone moved them.”
“Yes.”
“Returned for rework without paperwork.”
“Yes.”
“Another scrap collection.”
“Merrick?”
“No record of one.”
Vale looked at the sheets.
“So what have we got?”
Harker did not answer immediately.
He was looking at one line.
SCRAP
Before somebody wrote that word, the twenty-four locating pins were precision components worth more than four hundred pounds.
Afterwards they were eleven pounds of steel worth less than a decent dinner for four people.
Nothing physical had happened to them.
No machine had crushed them.
No furnace had melted them.
Nobody had even carried them out of the building.
Their value had disappeared because somebody had changed what they were called.
Harker tapped the paper.
“Who checks the scrap?”
Merrick said, “Stores.”
“Who checks stores?”
She thought.
“Management, ultimately.”
“And who in management signed this?”
“Sedgewick.”
Vale looked from the paper to Harker.
“Still think he ran away with a woman?”
“I never thought that.”
“With the money, then.”
“Maybe.”
“Where from?”
Harker looked down at the missing pins.
“That,” he said, “is becoming a better question.”
He handed the file back to Merrick.
“Monday morning. Go back six months.”
“All the scrap?”
“All the finished components written off as scrap.”
Vale stared at the two boxes already on the floor.
“You do realise she may never come out again.”
Merrick picked up the file.
“How far back if I find another one?”
Harker put on his coat.
“A year.”
“And if I find several?”
He stopped at the door.
“Then we’ll stop looking for missing pieces.”
Vale said, “And start looking for what?”
Harker glanced once more at the scrap ticket.
Four pounds.
Four hundred and thirty-two pounds.
Same steel.
Different word.
“Someone who knew the difference.”
He went out.
On the board behind him, Tuesday afternoon remained carefully arranged in Vale’s neat handwriting.
For the first time, it no longer looked ordinary.THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Five — Blood on the Towpath
By Monday morning, Susan Merrick had stopped counting pieces of scrap and begun counting mistakes.
There were seventeen.
Harker found her at half past eight with three ledgers open across two desks, carbon copies arranged in columns and a mug of tea that had plainly given up hope sometime before seven.
“Morning,” he said.
Merrick looked up.
“Is it?”
“Technically.”
Vale came in behind him carrying the first post.
Harker removed his coat and nodded toward the papers.
“How bad?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That usually means interesting.”
“It means I don’t know.”
“Even better.”
She slid one sheet toward him.
Over the weekend she had extended the search through fourteen months of Marlowe Engineering’s rejection and scrap records.
Most were unremarkable.
Castings cracked in machining. Shafts ground undersize. Bearings damaged in assembly. Components rejected by customers and returned. Brass and aluminium cuttings sold by weight.
But seventeen batches were different.
Finished precision components had been rejected for reasons that sounded minor enough to be irritating rather than catastrophic: surface finish, dimensional tolerance, marking errors, plating defects.
Every batch entered stores by quantity.
After that, they became weight.
And somewhere between those two descriptions, certainty disappeared.
Harker ran a finger down the list.
“How much?”
“At production value?”
“Yes.”
“Just over six thousand pounds.”
Vale stopped opening the post.
“Six thousand?”
“Over fourteen months.”
“Still enough to notice.”
“You’d think.”
Merrick opened another ledger.
“It’s spread across different jobs. Different customers. Different parts. Nobody loses six thousand pounds at once.”
Harker said, “They lose four hundred here, three hundred there.”
“Exactly.”
Vale came over.
“What connects them?”
“That’s the problem. Not much.”
Merrick handed him several carbon copies.
“Different inspectors. Different clerks. Different months.”
“Then why these seventeen?”
She pointed.
On one rejection note, typed beneath the part number, were the words:
REJ. SURF.
The next had the same.
Then another.
Vale said, “Rejected surface.”
“Probably.”
“So?”
Merrick produced four more.
“Inspection normally writes ‘surface finish’ or ‘finish outside tolerance.’ Sometimes ‘poor finish.’ But these seventeen all use ‘REJ. SURF.’”
“Same typist?”
“No.”
“Same department?”
“Three departments.”
Harker looked at her.
“How many?”
“Seventeen.”
“You counted?”
“You told me to.”
There was no challenge in it. That made the answer better.
Harker examined the documents again.
“Does the abbreviation appear anywhere else?”
“Not that I’ve found.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Sometimes typed. Sometimes handwritten.”
Vale frowned.
“Then it can’t be one person’s typing habit.”
“No.”
Harker said, “Could be one person’s wording.”
Merrick nodded.
“Someone telling several people how to describe the rejection.”
“Who?”
“Not yet.”
Harker put the papers down.
“Good.”
Vale looked at him.
“Good?”
“We’ve still got work.”
Barset Metals & Salvage occupied a muddy yard beyond Old Canal Road where Brackenford stopped pretending to be a town and became sheds, workshops and wet fields.
A corrugated iron sign leaned over the gate.
Inside were heaps of machinery that had once cost somebody money.
Engines.
Gearboxes.
Bent pipe.
Steel plate.
Radiators.
A railway wagon wheel half buried in mud.
The wind came off the canal with enough force to make conversation disagreeable.
Len Foster had gone ahead and found the proprietor.
Mr. Stan Lomax was sixty, red-faced and built as though somebody had made him from the heavier parts of his own stock.
He took them into a wooden office beside the weighbridge.
“Nothing wrong with our books.”
“I didn’t say there was,” Harker replied.
“You’re police.”
“Yes.”
“You brought three of you.”
“Four, technically.”
Lomax looked past him at Merrick.
“She the dangerous one?”
Merrick opened her notebook.
“Yes,” Harker said.
Lomax considered this and decided not to laugh.
Their records were better than Harker expected.
Not good.
But better.
Handwritten collection sheets listed customer, date, approximate material and gross and tare weights. Weighbridge tickets were pinned in monthly bundles. Some had been stained by tea, rain or oil.
Merrick worked through Marlowe collections.
Tuesday mornings were normal.
“Been doing theirs eight years,” Lomax said. “Steel, brass, aluminium. Bit of stainless now and then.”
“Finished components?” Vale asked.
“If they tell us it’s scrap, it’s scrap.”
“Even if it looks usable?”
Lomax shrugged.
“Not my business why a factory rejects something.”
“You buy it by weight?”
“Course.”
“Then what happens?”
“Sort it. Resell. Melt. Depends.”
Harker said, “Do you ever receive Marlowe material outside the regular Tuesday collection?”
“Sometimes.”
“How often?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
Merrick looked up.
“I might.”
She had found three tickets.
Each recorded a Marlowe load.
Each fell on a Thursday evening.
“No dispatch entries at Marlowe for these,” she said.
Lomax examined them.
“That’s ours.”
“Who collected?”
“Driver’s initials there. Danny Pike.”
Foster said, “Know him.”
“Of course you do,” Vale muttered.
Foster ignored him.
“Still working?”
“Out in the yard.”
Danny Pike was forty-two and had the expression of a man who regarded policemen as an unnecessary form of paperwork.
He remembered the Thursday collections only after seeing the tickets.
“Side gate,” he said.
“Marlowe?” Harker asked.
“Yes.”
“Why not the main stores bay?”
“Was late.”
“Who told you to use the side gate?”
Pike scratched his chin.
“Stores bloke.”
“Name?”
“Could’ve been Venn.”
“Could’ve been?”
“He was there for one. Maybe two.”
“What was the scrap?”
“Machined steel.”
“Loose?”
“No. Boxes.”
Merrick looked up.
“Boxes?”
“Wooden ones.”
“Scrap normally comes loose?”
“Depends.”
“Did this look like scrap?”
Pike shrugged.
“Looked like metal.”
“Broken?”
“No.”
“Dirty?”
“No.”
“What do you remember about it?”
He thought.
“Clean.”
Harker said, “Anything else?”
“Packed nice.”
“Meaning?”
“Paper between some of it. Grease on it.”
Vale glanced at Harker.
“That normal for scrap?”
Pike gave him a look.
“Nothing’s normal in factories.”
“Did you question it?”
“I drive the lorry.”
“Who signed?”
Pike pointed to the tickets.
A.V.
Arthur Venn.
Three times.
“His job,” Harker said later.
They were standing beside the Rover while Merrick copied ticket numbers.
Vale had already reached the next thought.
“His signature.”
“Because he’s stores supervisor.”
“On three collections Marlowe doesn’t show.”
“Yes.”
“After hours.”
“Yes.”
“From a side gate.”
“Yes.”
Vale waited.
Harker unlocked the car.
“You want me to say it?”
“I want you to admit you’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking somebody removed material from Marlowe outside the normal system.”
“Venn.”
“Signed for it.”
“And Sedgewick authorised write-offs.”
“Some.”
“Hidden money. Missing parts. Venn and Sedgewick.”
Harker opened the driver’s door.
Vale said, “Two men.”
“Possibly.”
“One plans to disappear.”
“Possibly.”
“With the money.”
“Possibly.”
“And leaves the other holding the paperwork.”
Harker looked at him.
“That’s better.”
Vale smiled.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say right.”
The Rover started on the third attempt.
Arthur Venn was in stores when they returned.
He had a telephone receiver trapped between his shoulder and ear while marking quantities on a requisition.
“No,” he said into the receiver. “You’ve got six. I sent six. If you need eight, ask for eight.”
He saw Harker.
“I’ve got police again.”
A pause.
“No, they haven’t arrested me.”
He replaced the receiver.
“Yet.”
Harker said, “Depends how the afternoon goes.”
Venn smiled.
For perhaps the first time, it looked forced.
They went into the small office behind stores.
Harker placed photocopies of the Barset Metals tickets on the desk.
“You recognise those?”
Venn adjusted his spectacles.
“Yes.”
“Your signature?”
“Yes.”
“Three Thursday collections.”
“Apparently.”
“Marlowe has no dispatch record.”
“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.”
“Merrick?”
“None.”
Venn looked at her.
“You’ve been through all of them?”
“Yes.”
He grunted.
“What was collected?” Harker asked.
“Scrap.”
“What sort?”
“I don’t remember.”
“The driver does.”
“Good for him.”
“He remembers clean machined components packed in boxes.”
“That happens.”
“Why?”
“Rejected parts are still parts until somebody melts them.”
“Why Thursday evening?”
“Production was always complaining about scrap piling up.”
“Why the side gate?”
“Main yard may have been busy.”
“At six in the evening?”
Venn’s jaw tightened.
“Inspector, you’re asking me why a lorry used a gate fourteen months ago.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Martin Sedgewick know about these collections?”
“I expect so.”
“Expect?”
“He was management.”
“Did he authorise them?”
“I’d have to see the paperwork.”
“We can’t find it.”
“Then I can’t tell you.”
Harker allowed the silence to sit.
Venn shifted one of the tickets.
Harker said, “Was Sedgewick stealing from Marlowe?”
Venn looked up sharply.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Vale noticed.
So did Harker.
“How do you know?”
Venn’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
“I worked with the man.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“He was careful.”
“Thieves can be.”
“He wasn’t a thief.”
“You sound certain.”
“I’m certain he wasn’t walking out with parts under his coat.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Venn pushed the tickets back.
“You’ve found some accounting discrepancies and decided Martin was robbing the place.”
“No.”
“That’s what you’re saying.”
“I asked whether he was.”
“And I told you.”
Harker leaned back.
“Had he been worried lately?”
“No.”
“Secretive?”
“Martin was always private.”
“About money?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“About leaving?”
“No.”
“About you?”
Venn stared at him.
“Me?”
“Did you have any serious disagreement recently?”
“We disagreed every week.”
“Tuesday?”
“Bexley. Scrap. Stock.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
There it was.
A little too neat.
Harker said, “You saw him Wednesday?”
“No.”
“Wednesday evening?”
“No.”
“Where were you Wednesday evening?”
“Home.”
“All evening?”
“Yes.”
“What time did you get home?”
“Half six.”
“Go out again?”
“No.”
“Anyone with you?”
“My wife.”
Harker nodded as though the answer did not particularly matter.
“Thank you.”
Venn said, “Is that it?”
“For now.”
At the door Harker stopped.
“Mr. Venn.”
“Yes?”
“If Sedgewick had been taking money from something you were both involved in, would you tell me?”
Venn’s face went still.
“That’s a bloody insulting question.”
“Yes.”
Harker left.
Vale waited until they were outside.
“He lied.”
“About what?”
“You tell me.”
“No.”
Vale exhaled.
“You’re impossible.”
“Mrs. Venn first.”
Foster was already tracing the address.
The discovery on Old Canal Road began with a ledger.
That was what Harker would remember later.
Not the blood.
Not the spectacles.
A ledger.
One of the questionable Barset Metals tickets recorded a Thursday collection of “machined steel” weighing one hundred and eighty-six pounds.
Marlowe had no dispatch record.
Barset Metals had paid cash against the load.
The person named on the receipt was not Arthur Venn.
It was M. Sedgwick.
Misspelled.
Merrick noticed.
Harker noticed something else.
“Where was the receipt made?”
“Yard office.”
“No. Payment.”
Merrick checked.
“Cash collected later.”
“Where?”
Lomax had written:
O.C.R. warehouse
Old Canal Road.
Foster knew the building.
“Used to be Chapman Machine Tools. Empty now except rear unit. Fellow stores packing cases there.”
“Who?”
“Name of Reddish.”
They drove down shortly before five.
The light was already going.
Old Canal Road ran beside the canal for half a mile, past workshops whose windows glowed yellow against the cold. Beyond them lay darker sheds, lock cottages and yards fenced with corrugated iron.
Chapman’s former warehouse stood behind a cracked concrete apron.
Reddish occupied the rear portion.
He was closing up when they arrived.
“Yes, Barset Metals has called here,” he said.
“For you?”
“No. I rent storage to a few people.”
“Who used the front warehouse?”
“Different firms. Short-term.”
“Martin Sedgewick?”
The name meant nothing.
“Arthur Venn?”
Nothing again.
Foster showed him Sedgewick’s photograph.
Reddish looked at it longer.
“Maybe.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Wednesday?”
“Could’ve been.”
“What time?”
“Late.”
“How late?”
“Seven? Half seven?”
“Where?”
“Towpath side.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to someone.”
“Who?”
“Couldn’t see.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Did you hear them?”
“Arguing.”
Harker said, “Words?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
Reddish frowned.
“Someone said ‘you said.’ Or ‘I said.’ Something like that.”
“Anything about money?”
“No.”
“Anything about Marlowe?”
“No.”
“Could you identify either man?”
“No.”
“Then why think this might be Sedgewick?”
Reddish touched his own face.
“Glasses. Same sort.”
“What happened?”
“I went inside.”
“You heard anything afterward?”
“A bang.”
“What sort?”
“Could’ve been a door.”
“Could’ve been?”
“Something hitting metal.”
“And then?”
“Car started maybe ten minutes later.”
“One car?”
“Yes.”
“See it?”
“No.”
Foster said, “Towpath’s behind the warehouse.”
They went around.
The canal lay black beneath a thin evening mist. Frost had begun whitening the grass at the edges.
The towpath narrowed between the water and the rear wall of the old warehouse.
Twenty yards along, Foster stopped.
“Sir.”
There was a dark mark on the brick.
Not much.
A smear at shoulder height.
Below it, something glittered among gravel and dead grass.
Harker crouched.
A fragment of spectacle lens.
Beside it lay part of a dark plastic frame.
Vale looked toward the canal.
“Don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Uniform was called.
The area was cordoned as well as one could cordon a canal towpath in November.
A further search found a small patch of dried blood at the base of the wall and marks in the mud that might have been from a struggle or might have been from anybody using the path in bad weather.
No body.
No weapon.
No miraculous answer.
Just enough.
Harker stood looking at the black water.
Vale said quietly, “He may not have run away.”
“No.”
Elaine identified the spectacles that evening.
Not absolutely.
Harker would not let her.
“They look like his,” she said.
The broken frame lay inside a clear evidence bag on the table.
“Same make?” Harker asked.
“I don’t know the make.”
“Same colour?”
“Yes.”
“Shape?”
“Yes.”
“Did Martin wear his spectacles Wednesday morning?”
She stared at the bag.
“Yes.”
“All the time?”
“For driving. Distance. Television. He could read without them if he held things close.”
“Did he have another pair?”
“Old ones upstairs. He hated them.”
“Would he normally carry a case?”
“Yes.”
“What colour?”
“Brown.”
Harker already knew.
The case from the briefcase was brown.
Empty.
Elaine looked at him.
“You think those are his.”
“We think they may be.”
“And the blood?”
“We don’t yet know whose it is.”
“How much?”
“Not enough to tell us what happened.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Harker paused.
“Not a great deal.”
Her eyes closed briefly.
Until then Elaine had been dealing with a husband who might have left her.
That was painful.
But comprehensible.
This was something else.
“Was somebody with him?”
“We have a witness who heard two men arguing.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
She looked again at the broken frame.
“Martin didn’t fight.”
“Most people don’t until they do.”
She nodded.
“Find him.”
Harker said, “We will.”
He disliked promises.
This one escaped anyway.
Mrs. Venn answered the door at twenty past eight.
Her husband was not home.
That interested Harker more than he wanted it to.
“Working late?” he asked.
“No. Club.”
“What club?”
“Factory social club. Darts.”
“Was he there Wednesday?”
She thought.
“No.”
“Home?”
“Yes.”
“All evening?”
The pause was small.
Enough.
“What time did he go out?”
Mrs. Venn looked worried.
“He told you?”
“He told us he stayed home.”
She sat down.
“He went out about seven.”
“Where?”
“He didn’t say.”
“When did he return?”
“After nine.”
“Condition?”
“What do you mean?”
“Had he been drinking?”
“No.”
“Injured?”
She looked at him.
“His hand.”
Vale took out his notebook.
“What about it?”
“Cut.”
“Which hand?”
“Right.”
“How?”
“He said stores.”
“Was he upset?”
“He was angry.”
“With you?”
“No.”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“Did he change clothes?”
Mrs. Venn swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Mud.”
“Where?”
“His trousers. Shoes.”
Harker felt the case shift beneath his feet.
Not collapse.
Not solve itself.
Shift.
“Where is that clothing now?”
“I washed the trousers.”
“Shoes?”
“In the cupboard.”
Back at CID, the briefcase waited in the property room.
Harker brought it upstairs.
Vale watched him place it on the desk and open it.
Newspaper.
Paperback.
Company papers.
Indigestion tablets.
The sandwiches had been removed and separately stored.
In the side pocket lay the spectacle case.
Harker opened it.
Empty.
Vale stood by the window.
“Venn lied about Wednesday night.”
“Yes.”
“He went out at seven.”
“Yes.”
“Came back after nine with mud on him and a cut hand.”
“Yes.”
“Reddish hears two men arguing near the canal about seven or half seven.”
“Yes.”
“Broken spectacles there.”
“Yes.”
“Blood.”
“Yes.”
“Merrick puts Venn and Sedgewick together on the scrap records.”
“Yes.”
Vale looked at him.
“And Sedgewick planned to disappear with money nobody knew about.”
“Possibly.”
“You know what this looks like.”
Harker closed the spectacle case.
“Yes.”
“Sedgewick and Venn were taking components.”
“Possibly.”
“Sedgewick decides to run with the money.”
“Possibly.”
“Venn finds out.”
“Possibly.”
“Tracks him to Old Canal Road.”
“Possibly.”
“They fight.”
“That part is improving.”
“And Venn kills him.”
Harker looked up.
“No.”
Vale frowned.
“No?”
“We don’t have that.”
“We have blood.”
“We have some blood.”
“Broken glasses.”
“Yes.”
“Venn lying.”
“Yes.”
“Sedgewick gone.”
“Yes.”
Vale spread his hands.
“What would you like? A signed receipt?”
“I’d like a dead man before we decide who murdered him.”
Vale leaned against the desk.
“Fair.”
Harker turned the empty spectacle case in his hand.
Everything about Martin Sedgewick’s disappearance had been built from things that seemed to mean more than they actually proved.
A man on a bus.
A man on a train.
Initials on a form.
A briefcase in a compartment.
Now blood on brick.
Broken spectacles.
A lie about an evening.
Stronger evidence.
Still evidence of what had happened, not necessarily what people wanted it to mean.
Vale said, “You still think Sedgewick left voluntarily?”
Harker looked at the empty case.
“He may have.”
“And then?”
Harker put the case down.
“Then somebody found him.”
Outside, frost was beginning to whiten the station roof.
The timetable remained on Vale’s board.
The last train.
The bus.
The nine-twelve.
Tuesday afternoon.
All the orderly movements of a man who seemed to have arranged his own disappearance.
And now, on Old Canal Road, the first evidence of something he might not have arranged at all.
THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Six — The Wrong Briefcase
Chief Superintendent Pike had put three extra constables on the canal search before Harker arrived on Tuesday morning.
Harker discovered this because Pike was sitting in his chair.
“You’re late.”
“It’s eight twelve.”
“I’ve been here since half seven.”
“That explains it.”
Pike looked toward the window.
The rain had stopped overnight and the roofs opposite the police station were white with frost. Harker’s Rover had required four attempts to start.
On his desk lay the Old Canal Road photographs.
Blood on brick.
Broken spectacles.
Mud.
Nothing in any picture that looked remotely like a body.
Pike said, “What am I running?”
“A police division.”
“I mean this inquiry.”
“Missing person.”
“With blood.”
“Yes.”
“A suspect who lied about his whereabouts.”
“Yes.”
“And a search of the canal.”
“Yes.”
Pike leaned back.
“Tom.”
Harker removed his coat.
“We have evidence somebody hit Sedgewick.”
“Agreed.”
“We don’t have evidence somebody killed him.”
“Do you believe Venn killed him?”
“I believe Venn lied.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Pike waited.
Harker sat opposite him.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“It often is.”
“I can give you men for a murder inquiry. I can give you fewer men for an assistant works manager who may have run off with company money. I need to know which one you want.”
“All the men.”
Pike stared at him.
“That wasn’t among the choices.”
“It should have been.”
A corner of Pike’s mouth moved.
“Venn?”
“Bring him in.”
“Formal interview?”
“Yes.”
“And if he admits being at Old Canal Road?”
“Then we ask what happened.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“We ask again.”
Pike stood.
“At some point you will have to decide whether Martin Sedgewick is victim or offender.”
Harker looked at the photographs.
“I’m beginning to think that’s the wrong choice.”
The laboratory report arrived at nine forty-seven.
Vale brought it in with an expression suggesting it had personally disappointed him.
“Human blood.”
“Good start.”
“Group A.”
Harker looked up.
“Sedgewick?”
“Elaine says A positive. Medical records confirm A.”
“Venn?”
“O.”
“So the blood could be Sedgewick’s.”
“Yes.”
“And several million other people’s.”
Vale sat down.
“The spectacles are better.”
The optician on High Street had supplied Martin Sedgewick with a dark-brown plastic frame two years earlier. The surviving portion found on the towpath was the same make and model.
One fragment of lens was consistent with Sedgewick’s prescription.
“Consistent?” Harker asked.
“That’s what he said.”
“Not identified.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Vale looked irritated.
“You dislike useful evidence.”
“I dislike evidence pretending to be more useful than it is.”
Merrick came in carrying a statement.
“Canal search is still negative.”
“Nothing?”
“No clothing. No second blood area. No sign of anything being dragged from the wall toward the water.”
“Footprints?”
“Too many. Towpath was wet Wednesday.”
“Vehicle?”
“Nothing useful.”
Vale said, “He could have put him in the canal.”
Merrick looked at him.
“Who?”
“Venn.”
Harker said, “Could he?”
Vale frowned.
“You tell me.”
“Venn leaves home about seven. Reddish hears an argument around seven twenty or seven thirty. Venn is back after nine.”
“Enough time.”
“For what?”
“Kill him. Put him in the canal.”
“Then why are we still finding no body?”
“Canals move.”
“Not quickly.”
Vale said nothing.
Harker looked at Merrick.
“Where’s Venn?”
“Interview room two.”
“Solicitor?”
“Declined one so far.”
“Make the offer again before we start.”
Arthur Venn looked older in the police station.
At Marlowe Engineering he had seemed to belong among ledgers, racks and boxes, a man firmly fixed within his own machinery.
In Interview Room Two he was merely fifty-five, tired, with nicotine stains on two fingers and a small healing cut across the knuckle of his right hand.
Vale sat beside Harker.
Merrick took notes.
Harker began with Wednesday.
“You told us you stayed home all evening.”
“Yes.”
“Your wife says you went out.”
Venn looked at the table.
“She’s mistaken.”
“She says you left at about seven.”
“I went for a drive.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere.”
“That’s a difficult destination to verify.”
Venn said nothing.
“You returned after nine.”
“Yes.”
“With mud on your trousers.”
“I got out of the car.”
“Where?”
“Lay-by.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You cut your hand.”
“At work.”
“Your wife says you told her that.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“What?”
“Cut it at work.”
Venn’s eyes moved to his hand.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Wednesday.”
“Who saw?”
“I don’t know.”
“No first aid?”
“No.”
“No accident entry?”
“No.”
“No one remembers it?”
“It’s a cut, Inspector. Not an amputation.”
Harker let the silence lengthen.
“Did you see Martin Sedgewick Wednesday night?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to him Wednesday night?”
“No.”
“Were you on Old Canal Road?”
“No.”
“We have a witness who heard two men arguing behind the old Chapman warehouse.”
“Then ask them.”
“He couldn’t identify them.”
“Then it’s nothing to do with me.”
“We found blood.”
Venn’s face did not change.
“We found part of a pair of spectacles.”
Still nothing.
“They appear to be Sedgewick’s.”
Venn looked up.
Harker said, “Did you see Martin Sedgewick Wednesday night?”
“No.”
Vale put down a photograph of the wall.
Venn did not look at it.
Harker said, “Your wife told us you left at seven.”
Venn said nothing.
“You came back muddy.”
Nothing.
“With a cut hand.”
Nothing.
“Did you see Sedgewick?”
“No.”
“Did you hit him?”
“No.”
“Did he hit you?”
Venn’s eyes flickered.
Harker saw it.
So did Vale.
“Did you see him Wednesday night?”
Venn breathed out.
“This is bloody stupid.”
“What is?”
“All of it.”
“What happened?”
“You think I killed him.”
“I haven’t said that.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I’m asking whether you saw him.”
Venn rubbed his forehead.
Then he looked at Merrick.
“Is all this being written down?”
“Yes.”
He laughed once without humour.
“That seems appropriate.”
Harker waited.
Venn stared at the table.
“Yes.”
Vale leaned forward.
“Yes what?”
“I saw him.”
“When?”
“Wednesday.”
“Where?”
“Old Canal Road.”
There was no triumph in the room.
Harker said, “Tell me.”
It had begun, Venn said, nine months earlier.
Then he corrected himself.
“Longer.”
“How long?”
“Fourteen months. Maybe fifteen.”
“Who started it?”
Venn looked at Harker.
“Depends what you mean by started.”
“Try the beginning.”
There had been a batch of precision shafts rejected because the surface finish was outside Marlowe’s contract specification.
“They were usable,” Venn said. “Perfectly usable. Just not for that customer.”
“What would normally happen?”
“Scrap.”
“And?”
“Martin said it was ridiculous.”
“What did you do?”
Venn looked toward the wall.
“We sold them.”
“To whom?”
“A fellow in Nottingham. Industrial surplus.”
“Through Barset Metals?”
“Not at first.”
“Then?”
“Later.”
“How?”
Venn sighed.
“You know how.”
“I’d like to hear you say it.”
Sedgewick could have inspection recommend rejection and management approve it.
Once the parts reached stores as scrap, Venn controlled them physically.
A box might be weighed.
A ledger entry made.
On paper the parts became pounds of steel.
After that, a side collection could remove them.
Some went through Barset Metals as scrap and were diverted later. Others were taken directly to an intermediary.
“And the money?” Harker asked.
“Split.”
“How much?”
“At first? Fifty pounds. Hundred.”
“And later?”
Venn looked down.
“More.”
“How much more?”
“Over time? I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Eight thousand, perhaps.”
Vale looked up.
“Each?”
“No.”
“Total?”
“Something like.”
“Where did it go?”
“Cash mostly.”
“Bank?”
“Not much. We weren’t idiots.”
Harker said, “You were stealing.”
Venn’s jaw hardened.
“They were throwing the stuff away.”
“They belonged to Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“You sold them.”
“Yes.”
“That’s stealing.”
Venn looked at him.
“Yes.”
There was something almost relieving in the admission.
Harker said, “Why?”
“Why does anybody?”
“Money.”
“That helped.”
“What else?”
Venn rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table.
“Works was laying men off. Management were talking about closing one bay. Every month somebody told us costs had to come down. Martin said if Marlowe could afford to throw away four hundred pounds’ worth of parts because of a finish mark, they could afford not to miss them.”
“And you agreed.”
“I did then.”
“Did Sedgewick need money?”
“Everybody needs money.”
“He was looking at property.”
That surprised Venn.
Only slightly.
“Was he?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Harker watched him.
“Wednesday. Why did you go looking for him?”
Venn’s expression changed.
“Because money was gone.”
“How much?”
“About thirty-four hundred.”
“Your share?”
“Ours.”
“Where was it?”
“Martin kept most of it.”
“Why?”
“He dealt with the buyers. Said it was safer.”
“Was it?”
Venn smiled bitterly.
“Apparently not.”
“When did you discover it missing?”
“Wednesday afternoon.”
“How?”
“I went where we kept it.”
“Where?”
Venn hesitated.
“A lockbox in the old Chapman warehouse.”
“Old Canal Road.”
“Yes.”
“Who rented the space?”
“Through another name.”
“Whose?”
“Sedgewick arranged it.”
“And the money?”
“Gone.”
“What else?”
“Some papers.”
“What kind?”
“Receipts. Names. Collection notes.”
“Who did they implicate?”
Venn looked at him.
“Me.”
There it was.
Harker said, “Not Sedgewick?”
“Not enough.”
“You think he arranged that?”
“I know he did.”
“How?”
“Because I asked him.”
“When?”
“Wednesday night.”
Venn had gone first to Sedgewick’s house.
He did not knock.
He saw Elaine’s Austin Maxi in the drive and knew better than to involve her.
Then he tried two places Sedgewick sometimes used when they moved material.
Nothing.
Finally Old Canal Road.
“Why there?”
“He said Tuesday he might need to check the lockbox.”
“Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell us.”
“No.”
“At what time did you find him?”
“Quarter past seven. Maybe twenty past.”
“Doing what?”
“Coming out from behind Chapman’s.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Car?”
“No.”
“How had he got there?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“What was he carrying?”
Venn paused.
“Nothing.”
Harker looked at him.
“No bag?”
“No.”
“Briefcase?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Martin carried that case every bloody day for years. He didn’t have it.”
Harker said nothing.
“What happened?”
“I asked where the money was.”
“What did he say?”
“Said it was safe.”
“Did he admit taking it?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“He was leaving.”
“Where?”
“Wouldn’t say.”
“When?”
“Already, apparently.”
Venn laughed bitterly.
“He said by the time anybody understood what had happened he’d be somewhere they couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Did he say he was leaving you responsible?”
“He said I’d signed the collection tickets.”
“Had you?”
“Yes.”
“He said stores had moved everything.”
“Had it?”
“Yes.”
“He said if anybody ever looked, they’d look at me first.”
Harker said, “And then?”
“I hit him.”
Vale said, “Just like that?”
“No.”
“Tell us.”
“He tried to walk away.”
“You stopped him.”
“I grabbed his coat.”
“He struck you?”
“Pushed me. Caught my hand against the wall.”
“The cut?”
“Yes.”
“You hit him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Fist.”
“Where?”
“Face.”
“Once?”
Venn hesitated.
“Twice.”
“What happened?”
“His glasses came off. He went into the wall.”
“The blood?”
“Cut above his eye.”
“Did he fall?”
“Yes.”
“Unconscious?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“He was swearing at me.”
“Then?”
“I told him I wanted the money.”
“What did he say?”
“That I could go to hell.”
Vale said, “And you left?”
“Eventually.”
“That’s convenient.”
Venn looked at him.
“I’d hit him. I’d discovered he’d robbed me. What was I supposed to do? Ring the police?”
“That would have saved time.”
Venn ignored him.
“He got up.”
Harker said, “You saw him standing?”
“Yes.”
“Walking?”
“He was on his feet.”
“Steady?”
“Steady enough.”
“Bleeding?”
“A bit.”
“Where did he go?”
“Toward the canal bridge.”
“You followed?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Venn stared at his hands.
“Because I was frightened.”
“Of him?”
“Of everything.”
He looked up.
“You think I killed him because I lied.”
“It doesn’t help.”
“I lied because if I said I’d seen him, I had to explain why. Then I had to explain the money. The parts. Everything.”
“And when he didn’t come home?”
“That made it worse.”
“You thought he was dead?”
Venn swallowed.
“For a while.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you leave him alive?”
“Yes.”
“Conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Walking?”
“Yes.”
Harker sat back.
“You’re prepared to sign that?”
Venn looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
The canal search continued until three.
Nothing.
No coat.
No shoes.
No body.
A constable found an old bicycle wheel, two tyres and what initially appeared to be a suitcase but proved to be the remains of a toolbox.
Foster came back cold and unhappy.
“If he’s in there, he’s hiding well.”
“Bodies aren’t usually good at it,” Harker said.
Vale was at the board.
“Venn could still be lying.”
“Yes.”
“He could have gone back.”
“Yes.”
“Could have moved the body.”
“With what?”
“Car.”
“Reddish heard one car leave.”
“Venn’s.”
“Possibly.”
“Plenty of time.”
“Maybe.”
Vale looked at him.
“But you don’t think so.”
“I think murder is getting complicated.”
“Meaning?”
“If Venn kills Sedgewick at seven thirty, he has to move him. Conceal him. Leave no useful trace except a little blood and broken spectacles. Then somehow Sedgewick’s briefcase turns up on a train three hours later.”
Vale looked toward the property room.
“The case could have nothing to do with Venn.”
“Exactly.”
“And that troubles you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Harker checked the wall clock.
“Because Venn says Sedgewick didn’t have it.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“But?”
“But now I want to know where it was.”
They brought the briefcase upstairs at four ten.
Merrick laid its contents out again.
Harker had seen them often enough to remember their positions.
Telegraph.
Paperback.
Two pencils.
Indigestion tablets.
Marlowe documents.
Empty spectacle case.
Coins.
The remaining property photographs of the sandwiches.
Merrick picked up the papers.
“These are all Tuesday.”
“All?”
“Yes. Production copy. Supplier note. Release memorandum. Nothing dated Wednesday.”
Vale said, “Because he wasn’t at work Wednesday.”
“Exactly.”
Harker looked at the newspaper.
“What date?”
“Wednesday paper in the case proper.”
“And the sandwich wrapping?”
“Tuesday.”
He picked up the paperback.
Nothing.
Put it down.
The whole arrangement was ordinary.
Too ordinary.
“What do we know about Sedgewick and trains?” he asked.
Vale said, “Occasional journeys. West Barset. Norchester.”
“Commute?”
“Bus.”
“Every day?”
“Nearly.”
“So why does a commuter’s case end up on a train?”
Vale said, “Because he travelled.”
“Did he?”
“Holt saw him.”
“Holt saw someone.”
“And the case.”
“The case can’t see anybody.”
Merrick looked at the contents.
“It does tell you who it belongs to.”
Harker turned.
“What?”
She gestured.
“Marlowe papers. His tablets. His pencils. His book. Spectacle case. Lunch.”
Vale said, “That’s what briefcases contain.”
“Yes.”
Merrick frowned.
“But if somebody found it, they wouldn’t have much doubt whose it was.”
Harker looked at the sandwiches photograph again.
Four sandwiches.
Ham.
Tuesday’s newspaper.
For six days the question had irritated him.
Whose sandwiches?
Perhaps that had always been the wrong question.
“Why put lunch in it?” he said.
Vale looked at him.
“Because it was his lunch.”
“No.”
“Elaine says it wasn’t.”
“Then someone else’s.”
“Why?”
Vale said nothing.
Harker continued.
“If you abandon a briefcase, why put sandwiches in it?”
Merrick said, “To make it look used that day.”
The room went quiet.
Harker looked at her.
“Yes.”
Vale frowned.
“Wait.”
“The papers say Marlowe,” Merrick said. “The tablets and pencils make it personal. Sandwiches make it look as though he took it out that morning.”
Harker nodded.
“But the wrong paper.”
Vale picked up the photograph.
“Tuesday.”
“Because somebody needed sandwiches,” Harker said. “Not lunch.”
Vale stared at him.
“You think Sedgewick packed it.”
“I think someone did.”
“To be found?”
Harker looked at the briefcase.
That was the difference.
From the first night they had treated it as lost property.
An object accidentally separated from its owner.
But lost property behaved like loss.
Keys might remain.
A wallet might remain.
Things were untidy.
Used.
Incomplete.
This was not untidy.
It was explanatory.
Almost every object answered a question.
Who owned the case?
Martin Sedgewick.
Where did he work?
Marlowe Engineering.
Had he gone out for the day?
There was lunch.
Did he wear spectacles?
There was the case.
And yet the spectacles themselves had been elsewhere.
On Old Canal Road.
Harker said, “What’s missing?”
Vale said, “Wallet and keys.”
“Useful things.”
“Yes.”
“Things a man running away would keep.”
Vale looked at him.
“And leave the rest.”
Merrick said, “Including enough to identify him.”
Harker closed the briefcase.
“The case wasn’t left behind.”
Vale said, “What was it, then?”
“Sent.”
At six twenty they were standing beneath the yellow lamps at Brackenford Station.
The frost had hardened along the platform edge.
Albert Shaw brought them the station working timetable and a sheaf of operating notes.
Vale had the public timetable folded into quarters.
Harker had already worn a white crease through one corner.
“The last service came in at ten twenty-three,” Vale said.
“We know.”
“Pritchard found the briefcase about two minutes later.”
“We know.”
“Rear coach, second compartment from the end.”
“We know.”
“You’ve developed an odd way of asking questions.”
Harker looked along Platform Two.
“What train was that coach on earlier?”
Shaw frowned.
“The coach?”
“Yes.”
“You mean the service?”
“No. The coach.”
Shaw looked at him more carefully.
“Stock works through.”
“Where from?”
“Depends on the diagram.”
“Get me the diagram.”
They went into the station office.
Shaw found a rolling-stock working sheet.
Vale leaned over.
“You think someone put the case aboard earlier.”
“I think the case arrived at ten twenty-three.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t tell us when it boarded.”
Vale said nothing.
Harker traced the service backwards with one finger.
West Barset.
Mere Junction.
Brackenford.
Earlier movements.
Turnarounds.
Carriages used on one local and then another.
Nothing moved simply because passengers thought it did.
Trains had routines too.
Shaw said, “This set worked the six forty-five from West Barset, then went back at eight twelve, then formed the late local after standing at Mere Junction.”
Harker looked up.
“Standing how long?”
“Twenty-eight minutes.”
“Open?”
“Usually.”
“Staff?”
“Porter about. Guard comes later.”
Vale began to understand.
“And the morning?”
Harker tapped the timetable.
“Eight twenty-seven.”
Holt’s sighting.
Martin Sedgewick apparently arriving at Brackenford.
The movement everyone had accepted because the timetable allowed a man to travel out and back.
But perhaps the timetable had never been describing a man.
Only trains.
Only objects.
Only expectations.
Harker said, “Tomorrow morning I want every stopping service between here and West Barset.”
Vale sighed.
“We already did that.”
“I know.”
“Arrival times?”
“Yes.”
“Departures?”
“Yes.”
“Platforms?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Where the stock goes afterward. Which sets reverse. Which coaches stay attached. Where they’re cleaned. How long they’re unattended.”
Shaw said, “That’ll take a while.”
“Good.”
Vale looked at him.
“And Holt?”
“Again.”
“He’s already certain.”
“That worries me less than it used to.”
They walked back onto the platform.
A local train stood under the canopy, doors slamming, passengers stepping down with newspapers and shopping bags.
A woman left an umbrella on the seat.
The guard called after her.
She came back laughing, collected it and hurried away.
Lost property.
Ordinary.
Accidental.
Harker watched the train pull out.
Vale said, “We’ve proved Sedgewick’s briefcase came in on the last train.”
Harker shook his head.
“No.”
Vale waited.
“We’ve proved the train did.”
The red tail lamp diminished along the track.
Harker looked down at the timetable again.
For nearly a week they had been following Martin Sedgewick through Brackenford by tracing everything that seemed to belong to him.
His paperwork.
His briefcase.
His spectacles.
His sandwiches.
Even his routine.
But objects could travel without their owners.
Paper could move through a factory without the man who had initialled it.
A briefcase could ride a train without the man whose name it carried.
And perhaps a witness could see something true without seeing what he believed he had seen.
Harker folded the timetable.
The question was no longer whether Martin Sedgewick had vanished.
He had.
The question was whether he had left behind a trail.
Or built one.
THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Seven — The Last Train
At seven forty-five on Wednesday morning, Brackenford Station had the appearance of a place that had been washed overnight and forgotten to dry.
Frost silvered the edges of the platform.
The rails were black.
Passengers stood beneath the canopy with newspapers folded against the cold, stamping their feet while a diesel unit idled beside Platform Two.
Harker stood in the station office looking at three pieces of paper.
The public timetable.
The working timetable.
And something Albert Shaw called the carriage diagram.
Harker disliked the carriage diagram immediately.
“It looks like something produced to prevent people understanding trains.”
Shaw smiled.
“It tells us where the stock goes.”
“That’s what timetables are supposed to do.”
“No. Timetables tell passengers where trains go. This tells railwaymen what happens to the train afterwards.”
Vale leaned over Harker’s shoulder.
“Which is what you wanted.”
“I’m regretting it.”
Merrick sat at the end of the desk copying times.
Shaw pointed with a pencil.
“This set here. Three coaches. Starts at Mere Junction. Comes into Brackenford at seven fifty-six.”
“Then?”
“Eight twelve to West Barset.”
“Returns?”
“Eight twenty-seven.”
Harker looked up.
“The train Holt says Sedgewick arrived on.”
“Yes.”
Shaw followed the line down.
“Then back out at nine oh-five. Returns ten fourteen. Works locals through the day. Stands at Mere Junction during the afternoon. Comes back to Brackenford in the evening, then one more turn.”
“The last service?”
“Eventually.”
Vale said, “Same train?”
“Same set.”
“Same coaches?”
“Unless something failed.”
“Did anything?”
Shaw checked a separate sheet.
“No.”
Harker looked through the office window.
The three-coach unit on Platform Two shuddered.
A door slammed.
“That rear coach,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Where is it at eight o’clock?”
“Here.”
“For how long?”
“About sixteen minutes.”
“Locked?”
“No.”
“Cleaned?”
“Not properly. Quick sweep if somebody’s available.”
“Guard aboard?”
“Comes down shortly before departure.”
“Could a passenger get into it?”
“Of course.”
“Without a ticket?”
Shaw gave him a patient look.
“You can get onto most platforms without anybody conducting a military operation.”
Vale said, “So Sedgewick gets off his bus at Market Street, walks here, puts his briefcase in the rear coach before eight twelve.”
Harker said nothing.
Merrick looked at the diagram.
“And the coach comes back at eight twenty-seven.”
“Yes.”
“Then keeps working all day?”
Shaw nodded.
“More or less.”
Harker said, “And eventually?”
Shaw traced the final line.
“It forms the rear portion of the ten sixteen from West Barset. Scheduled Brackenford ten twenty-three.”
The room went quiet.
Vale looked at Harker.
“That simple?”
“Usually is at the end.”
Shaw said, “There’s a problem.”
“There always is.”
“If the case sat there all day, someone ought to have found it.”
“Ought?”
“Possibly.”
“Same compartment?”
“If nobody moved it.”
Harker asked, “How busy?”
“Depends which service. Morning moderate. Midday light. Evening busier.”
“Cleaning?”
“Proper clean after final service.”
“Compartments checked during the day?”
“Not systematically.”
Vale said, “Someone could see it and assume it belonged to another passenger.”
Shaw shrugged.
“People do.”
Harker folded the carriage diagram.
“Where’s Holt?”
Mr. Holt had been certain on Friday.
By Wednesday, Harker thought, certainty had begun to make him tired.
They stood halfway down Platform Two.
Harker showed him Sedgewick’s photograph again.
“I know what he looks like.”
“I know.”
“I saw him.”
“I believe you.”
That unsettled Holt more than contradiction would have.
Harker pointed toward the entrance from the booking hall.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Where you were.”
Holt moved toward the centre of the platform.
“There.”
“And Sedgewick?”
Holt pointed toward the footbridge.
“About there.”
“Coming from the train?”
“Yes.”
Harker looked at him.
“Show me where he stepped down.”
Holt frowned.
“I didn’t see him step down.”
“No?”
“No. I saw him after.”
“After what?”
“The train came in.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Holt’s expression hardened.
“There were people getting off.”
“Was Sedgewick among them?”
“I assumed so.”
“Did you see him in a doorway?”
“No.”
“On the footboard?”
“No.”
“Hand a ticket to anyone?”
“No.”
“Speak to anyone?”
“No.”
“What exactly did you see?”
Holt looked along the platform.
“Him walking toward the exit.”
“From where?”
“Near the rear end of the train.”
“Carrying his briefcase?”
Holt hesitated.
“I thought so.”
“Thought?”
“A brown case.”
“In his hand?”
There was a longer pause.
“No.”
Harker waited.
Holt rubbed his jaw.
“There was a case.”
“Where?”
“By the compartment doorway. Or perhaps just inside.”
Vale glanced at Harker.
Harker continued.
“And Sedgewick?”
“Walking past it.”
“With it?”
“No.”
“Spectacles?”
“Yes.”
“Dark coat?”
“Yes.”
“So at eight twenty-seven you saw Martin Sedgewick on the platform near a brown briefcase at the time a train from West Barset had just arrived.”
“Yes.”
“You did not see him step off that train.”
“No.”
“You did not see him carrying the case.”
“No.”
“You assumed both.”
Holt looked offended.
“That’s what it looked like.”
“I’m sure it did.”
A local came into the opposite platform.
Passengers moved toward the exit.
A man stepped out of the booking hall at exactly the same moment and joined them.
Harker watched him disappear into the crowd.
Holt watched too.
Then his expression altered.
“Could’ve been like that.”
“Yes.”
Harker said nothing more.
He did not need to.
The rear compartment of the eight twelve was empty when Shaw let them inspect it.
Six seats.
A luggage rack.
Ashtrays.
A heater that seemed mostly theoretical.
Merrick crouched beside the seat.
“You could push the case under here.”
Vale looked down.
“Wouldn’t be obvious from the doorway.”
“No.”
Harker said, “But obvious enough at the end of the night when somebody clears the coach.”
“Exactly.”
Vale sat opposite.
“He wanted it found.”
“Yes.”
“But not at eight twenty-seven.”
“No.”
“Late.”
Harker looked through the window.
The platform clock showed eight twelve.
A whistle blew.
“He didn’t need to know every passenger who would use the compartment,” Harker said. “Only that the railway would eventually find the thing.”
Vale nodded.
“And if someone found it at noon?”
“Plan gets worse.”
“So it was a risk.”
“Yes.”
Merrick stood.
“Like Tuesday’s newspaper.”
Harker looked at her.
“Exactly.”
Not a perfect plan.
A plausible one.
Which, Harker had learned, was usually enough.
They reconstructed Wednesday morning by eleven.
At seven fifteen Martin Sedgewick had left Westbourne Drive with his ordinary brown briefcase and the lunch Elaine had made for him.
At seven twenty-eight he boarded the number 43 bus.
At approximately seven fifty he got off at Market Street.
The station was less than ten minutes away.
He entered before eight.
The three-coach local stood at Platform Two.
At some point before its eight twelve departure, Sedgewick placed the prepared briefcase beneath a seat in the rear compartment.
The carriage went to West Barset.
It returned at eight twenty-seven.
Sedgewick, who had remained in or around the station, crossed the platform at the same time.
Holt saw him.
The train supplied the journey Holt had not actually witnessed.
The briefcase supplied another association.
Then Sedgewick left the station on foot.
Vale drew the sequence on the station office pad.
“He’s relying on Holt.”
“No,” Harker said.
“What if Holt hadn’t seen him?”
“Then he still had the briefcase.”
“So the sighting was luck.”
“Useful luck.”
“You don’t think he planned it?”
“No.”
Merrick said, “That makes it better.”
Vale looked at her.
“Better?”
“Simpler. He staged one thing. The witness created the other.”
Harker nodded.
“That’s usually how these things work. People do half the job themselves.”
Vale looked again at the diagram.
“So the eight twenty-seven proves only that Sedgewick was at Brackenford Station.”
“Yes.”
“And the ten twenty-three proves only that the briefcase was.”
“Yes.”
“They never travelled together.”
“Not after eight twelve.”
Merrick said, “Then where did he go?”
That remained the question.
Norah Bennett gave them the answer shortly after twelve.
Not directly.
She was at the Brackenford Provincial Building Society when Merrick telephoned.
“Those properties Mr. Sedgewick asked about,” Merrick said. “You mentioned West Barset and Mowbray.”
“Yes.”
“Did he view either?”
“The Mowbray one.”
“When?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“What sort of property?”
“A flat above a shop.”
“Occupied?”
“No.”
“Who had the keys?”
“Agent in Mowbray.”
“Did Sedgewick ask anything unusual?”
Bennett hesitated.
“He was interested in whether it could be occupied immediately.”
“Furniture?”
“Some.”
“Telephone?”
“No.”
“Garage?”
“No.”
“What about West Barset?”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Small converted flat behind a former solicitor’s office. Yard access. Garage.”
Merrick sat straighter.
“Garage?”
“Yes.”
“Did Sedgewick see it?”
“I believe so.”
“Address?”
She wrote it down.
Harker was beside Vale’s desk when Merrick came across the room.
“West Barset,” she said.
“Why?”
“Garage.”
Vale looked at her.
“That’s your entire theory?”
“No.”
She put the address down.
“Sedgewick asked Bennett about immediate occupation and privacy. He didn’t need a new home. He needed somewhere nobody would connect with him.”
Harker read the address.
“Telephone the West Barset police.”
Vale reached for the receiver.
Harker said, “No uniforms at the door yet. Ask them to check the agent first.”
The flat stood behind a former solicitor’s office on Bell Street, West Barset.
The front rooms were being renovated into an insurance office.
A narrow passage led to a yard at the rear.
Above a disused storeroom was a two-room flat with its own outside stairs.
The letting agent, Mr. Cyril Dobb, remembered Sedgewick.
“Paid a holding deposit in cash.”
“When?” Harker asked.
“Last Tuesday.”
“Under his own name?”
“Yes.”
“When did he take possession?”
“Wednesday afternoon.”
Vale looked at Harker.
“What time?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Keys were left with Mrs. Flowers downstairs.”
Mrs. Flowers was sixty-eight and lived opposite.
She had given Sedgewick the keys at approximately five thirty Wednesday.
“Had he been injured?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“He had his glasses then.”
That mattered.
Harker said, “Did he return later?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After eight.”
“Condition?”
Mrs. Flowers lowered her voice.
“Face bleeding.”
“Badly?”
“Cut above his eye.”
“Spectacles?”
“Gone.”
“Car?”
“He came on foot first time.”
“And second?”
“Taxi dropped him near the corner.”
“Did he stay?”
“Until Saturday morning, I think.”
Vale said, “Saturday?”
“He kept to himself.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“Yes.”
“Carrying anything?”
“A holdall.”
“Destination?”
“He asked where coaches left for Derby.”
Harker glanced at Vale.
“Did he take one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything else?”
Mrs. Flowers thought.
“He bought another pair of spectacles.”
Harker looked at her.
“Where?”
“Optician across the square. Cheap ones. Complained he couldn’t read the paper.”
That settled at least one thing.
Sedgewick had walked away from Old Canal Road.
Not merely alive.
Alive enough to arrange spectacles.
Vale said quietly, “Venn told the truth.”
“About that part.”
The flat had been cleaned poorly.
A blanket remained folded on the narrow bed.
Tea leaves clung to the sink.
In a waste bin Merrick found newspaper, a bakery bag and a bloodstained piece of cotton wool.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that would identify a killer.
Because there had not been one.
The cupboard contained two tins of soup and half a loaf.
On the table lay a bus timetable.
Vale picked it up.
“Derby.”
Harker examined it.
A route had been underlined.
West Barset to Derby.
Saturday.
“He’s gone.”
Merrick opened a drawer.
“Maybe.”
Inside was a torn envelope from a guesthouse in Mowbray.
No letter.
Just the printed return address.
Harker read it.
“Telephone.”
Vale smiled.
“You do like old technology when it works.”
The guesthouse had never heard of Sedgewick.
It had heard of Mr. Martin Scott.
He had reserved a room by telephone but had not arrived.
“For when?” Harker asked.
“Tonight,” the proprietor said.
“From where?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Any message?”
“No.”
“Asked about anything?”
“Nearest railway station.”
Harker looked at the clock.
Two twenty-eight.
Mowbray was forty minutes by car if the Rover cooperated.
It did not.
The engine turned twice and died.
Vale sat beside him.
“You cannot pursue criminals in this thing.”
“I’m not pursuing anyone.”
“What are we doing?”
“Going to Mowbray.”
“With urgency.”
“Moderate urgency.”
The Rover started.
Vale looked upward.
“Miracle.”
“Don’t encourage it.”
They reached Mowbray shortly after three fifteen.
Merrick had telephoned ahead.
A constable had checked the guesthouse.
No Sedgewick.
The proprietor said his reservation began that evening.
Mowbray Station had three afternoon departures remaining.
One to Derby.
One to Nottingham.
One local returning toward Brackenford.
Vale said, “Nottingham.”
“Why?”
“From there he can go anywhere.”
“Which is what he wants us to think.”
“Derby, then.”
Harker studied the departures board.
Sedgewick’s daughter was at teacher-training college in Derby.
That made Derby emotionally plausible.
Which made Harker suspicious of it.
Merrick said, “He asked about Derby in West Barset.”
“Yes.”
“Booked a room in Mowbray.”
“Yes.”
“Then asked this guesthouse about the station.”
“Yes.”
Vale said, “Perhaps for once he’s actually going where he says.”
“Unlikely.”
They checked the waiting room.
Two elderly women.
A young soldier.
A mother with a child.
No Sedgewick.
The Derby train departed.
Vale watched it go.
“You think he’s on it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he booked the room for tonight.”
“What if that’s another trail?”
“Then he’s overdoing it.”
Merrick looked across the platform.
A train stood on the far side.
Local service.
Back toward Brackenford.
Its departure board showed:
15:42 BRACKENFORD
Merrick said, “Sir.”
Harker followed her gaze.
A man sat alone in the first coach.
Dark coat.
Small holdall on the seat beside him.
No spectacles.
His left temple carried a yellowing bruise.
There was a narrow dressing above one eyebrow.
Martin Sedgewick was reading a newspaper held six inches from his face.
Harker looked at the destination board.
Brackenford.
Vale said, “He’s going back.”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
Harker began walking.
“Ask him.”
Sedgewick saw them before Harker reached the carriage.
He did not run.
That pleased Harker.
Running would have spoiled things.
Sedgewick folded the newspaper.
Harker opened the carriage door and climbed in.
“Mr. Sedgewick.”
Sedgewick looked at Vale, then Merrick, then back to Harker.
“Inspector?”
“You’ve made us work.”
Sedgewick said nothing.
“Would you come with us?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
“For what?”
“Several possibilities.”
Sedgewick looked through the window.
“Train leaves in three minutes.”
“Yes.”
“I have a ticket.”
“So do lots of people.”
There was a pause.
Then Sedgewick stood.
He lifted the holdall.
Vale took it.
“I can carry my own bag.”
“I know.”
They walked back onto the platform.
The train left without him.
Harker watched it go.
“Going home?” he asked.
Sedgewick looked at him.
“No.”
“Then Brackenford was an odd choice.”
“I was changing there.”
“For?”
“Norchester.”
Harker nodded.
Another train.
Another direction.
Always somewhere else.
They used a small railway office for the first conversation.
Sedgewick sat opposite Harker.
Vale stood by the door.
Merrick had gone to telephone Pike.
Harker placed no papers on the desk.
No evidence bags.
No photographs.
Not yet.
“How’s your head?”
Sedgewick touched the dressing.
“Fine.”
“Venn hits hard?”
For the first time, something moved behind Sedgewick’s expression.
“He told you.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Sedgewick looked down.
“You’ve arrested him?”
“He’s helping us.”
“That sounds like Venn.”
Harker said, “You were taking components from Marlowe.”
No answer.
“You classified usable precision parts as reject or scrap. Venn moved them physically. You handled authorisation.”
Sedgewick said, “You’ll have to prove that.”
“Merrick already has.”
He looked toward the door.
“Who?”
“Detective Constable Merrick.”
“The young woman?”
“Yes.”
Sedgewick smiled faintly.
“Martin,” Harker said, “don’t underestimate people. It creates paperwork.”
The smile disappeared.
“You took the money.”
Silence.
“Thirty-four hundred pounds Venn knew about. Possibly more.”
Still nothing.
“You looked at private property because you needed somewhere to disappear into.”
“Is that illegal?”
“No.”
“You’ve found me. Congratulations.”
Harker shook his head.
“That isn’t the interesting part.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“The briefcase is.”
That did it.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Harker had the case brought from Brackenford later that afternoon.
They waited.
There was no rush now.
Sedgewick was alive.
The train had gone.
At five twenty, Foster arrived with the briefcase.
He put it on the table.
Sedgewick stared at it.
Harker said, “You recognise it?”
“Yes.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“You lost it?”
Sedgewick waited.
“No.”
“Good.”
Vale leaned against the wall.
Harker opened the case.
“Tuesday’s paperwork.”
Silence.
“Your pencils.”
Silence.
“Indigestion tablets.”
Nothing.
“Spectacle case.”
Sedgewick looked at the table.
“Empty.”
Harker closed it.
“And sandwiches.”
A longer pause.
“Four ham sandwiches,” Harker said. “Wrapped in Tuesday’s newspaper.”
Sedgewick’s mouth tightened.
“Elaine made another four Wednesday morning.”
He looked up.
“You spoke to her?”
“Frequently.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Less than you did.”
Sedgewick looked away.
Harker said, “Tuesday night you prepared the case.”
“No.”
“You put enough of yourself inside it that whoever found it would know exactly whose it was.”
“That’s what people put in briefcases.”
“Not usually yesterday’s lunch.”
Sedgewick said nothing.
“You wanted it found late.”
Nothing.
“So you put it in the rear compartment of the eight twelve local Wednesday morning.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
Now there was genuine surprise.
Harker continued.
“The same coach worked locals all day. Eventually it came back into Brackenford at ten twenty-three.”
Vale put the carriage diagram beside the briefcase.
“You didn’t need the last train,” he said. “Just the coach that would become part of it.”
Sedgewick looked at the diagram.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then he said, “Clever.”
Harker shook his head.
“No. Railway timetable.”
“How did you know?”
“You made the case too helpful.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“The lunch told us you’d taken it out for the day. The papers told us where you worked. The spectacle case told us it was personal. Everything said Martin Sedgewick.”
“Except Martin Sedgewick,” Vale said.
Harker looked at him.
Vale shrugged.
“Sorry.”
Sedgewick sat back.
“And Holt?”
“Holt saw you.”
That surprised him more.
“At eight twenty-seven?”
“Yes.”
“He said I got off the train.”
“No. We said he said that.”
Harker waited.
“He saw you on the platform when the train arrived. You were walking toward the exit. He assumed you’d come from the train.”
Sedgewick looked slowly toward the briefcase.
“And the case?”
“He saw one near the compartment.”
Sedgewick almost smiled.
“That wasn’t planned.”
“I know.”
That seemed to bother Sedgewick.
Perhaps because the most convincing part of his deception had belonged to chance.
Harker said, “You got off the bus at Market Street. Put the case aboard. Stayed around the station until the local returned. Then left.”
“Yes.”
It was the first admission.
Vale heard it too.
“What happened to the lunch your wife made?” Harker asked.
Sedgewick looked almost offended by the question.
“What?”
“Wednesday’s sandwiches.”
“I ate two.”
“And the rest?”
“Threw them away.”
Harker nodded.
One mystery less.
“What were you trying to do?” Vale asked.
Sedgewick glanced at him.
“Leave.”
“Your wife?”
“Everything.”
“With Venn’s money?”
“Our money.”
“Stolen money.”
Sedgewick’s expression hardened.
“Marlowe scrapped those parts.”
“Marlowe owned them.”
“They would have melted them.”
“So you improved matters by selling them yourself?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Harker said, “Try.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“Marlowe was dying.”
The words came quietly.
“They were laying off skilled men and throwing away good work because some contract said a finish was half a grade outside tolerance. Management talked about efficiency while whole bays stood idle.”
“And you stole.”
“We sold material nobody wanted.”
“Then why falsify the records?”
Sedgewick said nothing.
“That’s usually where moral arguments get inconvenient,” Harker said.
Sedgewick looked toward the window.
“I’d been there twenty-one years.”
“So had Venn nearly.”
“He would have stayed until they shut the gates.”
“You chose differently.”
“Yes.”
“Why leave him exposed?”
Sedgewick’s face changed.
“He was careless.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He signed everything.”
“Because you arranged it that way?”
Silence.
“You converted the money to cash. You looked for somewhere private. You prepared the case. You made the railway trail. And when Venn realized what you were doing, he found you.”
“He hit me.”
“Yes.”
“He could have killed me.”
“He didn’t.”
Sedgewick touched his eyebrow.
“He thought about it.”
“So did you, probably.”
“What?”
“Hitting him back.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“That doesn’t make either of you murderers.”
“No.”
“It does make you thieves.”
Sedgewick said nothing.
Harker closed the briefcase.
“Why were you going back through Brackenford today?”
“Norchester connection.”
“Then?”
Sedgewick hesitated.
“Scotland.”
“After that?”
Another pause.
“Don’t know.”
Harker believed that.
It was perhaps the first thing about Martin Sedgewick’s future that had not been carefully arranged.
They returned to Brackenford after dark.
Sedgewick rode in a police car.
Harker took the Rover.
Vale sat beside him.
Merrick travelled with Foster.
The frost had returned.
For several miles Vale said nothing.
Then:
“You know what bothers me?”
“Many things.”
“The railway part was almost unnecessary.”
“Yes.”
“He could simply have gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why risk the case being found too soon?”
“He wanted direction.”
“What?”
“Not disappearance. Direction.”
Vale looked at him.
Harker kept his eyes on the road.
“If he simply failed to come home, we look at Marlowe. At money. At Venn. At his wife. At Brackenford.”
“But a case on a train—”
“Makes us look outward.”
“West Barset. Norchester. Stations.”
“Yes.”
“And Holt made it better by accident.”
“Yes.”
Vale smiled.
“He created geography.”
Harker glanced at him.
“That’s almost good.”
“Almost?”
“Don’t get carried away.”
At Brackenford Station, Sedgewick was taken through a side entrance to avoid the evening passengers.
Pike was waiting.
So was the briefcase.
Harker had it placed in the interview room.
Sedgewick stopped when he saw it.
For the first time all day he looked tired rather than calculating.
Pike said, “That yours?”
“Yes.”
Harker sat opposite him.
There would be statements.
Charges.
Marlowe’s accountants.
More interviews.
Venn.
Elaine.
Probably solicitors.
Possibly newspapers.
All the slow machinery that followed discovery.
But those belonged to tomorrow.
Sedgewick looked at the brown leather case.
“You found it.”
Harker regarded him.
“That was rather the point, wasn’t it?”
Sedgewick looked up.
Neither man smiled.
Outside, a train entered Platform Two.
Doors opened.
Passengers stepped down.
Newspapers tucked beneath arms.
Briefcases in hands.
Shopping bags.
Umbrellas.
All the ordinary luggage of ordinary journeys.
Then the train moved on.
Martin Sedgewick remained where he was.
The last train to Brackenford had carried his briefcase.
It had carried his sandwiches, his papers, his name and the story he wanted the police to believe.
It had carried almost everything except the one thing they had spent a week looking for.
Martin Sedgewick himself.
THE HARKER MYSTERIES
THE LAST TRAIN TO BRACKENFORD
Part Eight — Going Home
By half past eight on Thursday morning, Martin Sedgewick had ceased to be a missing person and become six folders.
Harker found this mildly depressing.
One contained the statements taken overnight.
One held Marlowe Engineering’s scrap records.
Another contained the railway material, including a carriage diagram which Harker hoped never to see again.
The remaining three had been assembled by Susan Merrick, who had arrived before him and was now working through an evidence schedule with the expression of somebody who had discovered that solving a case merely entitled one to number it properly.
Vale was on the telephone.
Foster was out somewhere between Barset Metals and a machine-tool company in Norchester.
The radiator beside Harker’s desk was producing enough heat to damage furniture.
PC Briggs appeared at the door.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Corbett from Willow Avenue says somebody’s stolen her garden gate.”
Harker looked at him.
“The gate?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not something from behind it?”
“No. The gate.”
Vale covered the telephone receiver.
“Organised crime.”
Briggs looked uncertain.
Harker said, “Take a statement.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find the gate.”
Briggs went.
Merrick turned a page.
“Back to normal.”
“I was afraid of that.”
The telephone on Harker’s desk rang.
Pike wanted him downstairs.
Chief Superintendent Gerald Pike had three cigarettes in his ashtray and the Brackenford Gazette on his desk.
The Gazette did not yet know about Sedgewick.
It knew that police had searched part of Old Canal Road in connection with a missing man.
It knew a senior employee at Marlowe Engineering was “assisting police.”
It had not yet decided which of those facts deserved the larger headline.
Pike tapped the paper.
“How long?”
“Until what?”
“Until they know.”
“About Sedgewick?”
“About everything.”
“By lunchtime if they’re good.”
“They occasionally are.”
Pike pushed the newspaper away.
“What can we prove?”
“The component diversion.”
“Against both?”
“Yes.”
“The money?”
“Most of it.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand eight hundred and sixty pounds found between his holdall and the West Barset flat. Another few hundred accounted for in deposits, fares and expenses.”
“And Venn?”
“His own admissions help. So do the collection tickets.”
“Assault?”
“Sedgewick’s prepared to make a complaint.”
Pike raised an eyebrow.
“I expect he is.”
“Happily, the brick wall doesn’t require one.”
“What about murder?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“That’s cheaper.”
Harker looked at him.
Pike sighed.
“That was a joke, Tom.”
“I know. I was deciding whether it was good enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
Pike folded his hands.
“So we began with a briefcase on a train.”
“Yes.”
“Then had a missing works manager.”
“Yes.”
“Then possible fraud.”
“Yes.”
“Then possible murder.”
“Yes.”
“And now we have theft, false records, an assault and a man who tried to manufacture his own disappearance.”
“That’s about it.”
Pike considered this.
“Can you put that into something I can tell the Chief Constable without sounding as though we’ve changed our minds every forty-eight hours?”
“We have changed our minds every forty-eight hours.”
“That is the problem.”
“We kept finding facts.”
Pike smiled.
“Very inconsiderate of them.”
He picked up a memorandum.
“Marlowe’s managing director is coming at eleven. Their accountants want access to whatever records we can release. They say they may have buyers who received diverted parts without knowing where they came from.”
“They probably do.”
“Foster’s working on it.”
“Good.”
“And Sedgewick?”
“Interview at nine thirty.”
“With solicitor?”
“Yes.”
Pike nodded.
“You going to tell Mrs. Sedgewick?”
“Afterwards.”
“Personally?”
“Yes.”
Pike stopped looking at the papers.
“Good.”
Sedgewick had slept badly.
It showed.
The bruise along his temple had darkened overnight, and the small dressing above his eyebrow seemed almost absurdly inadequate beside everything else he now faced.
His solicitor was a narrow man called Mr. Croft who possessed the useful ability to remain silent without appearing absent.
Vale sat beside Harker.
Merrick was there with the papers.
Harker began with the sandwiches.
It seemed appropriate.
“Why four?”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“What?”
“The sandwiches.”
Croft glanced sideways.
Sedgewick said, “Because I always took four.”
“You made them Tuesday evening?”
“Yes.”
“Ham?”
“Yes.”
“Using Tuesday’s newspaper.”
“It was there.”
“You didn’t think anybody would notice the date?”
“No.”
“Why sandwiches at all?”
Sedgewick looked tired.
“Because I always took sandwiches.”
Harker nodded.
There it was.
The whole case, in a sentence.
Routine used as disguise.
“What time did you make them?”
“After Elaine went upstairs. About ten.”
“You put them straight into the briefcase?”
“Yes.”
“With the Marlowe papers?”
“Yes.”
“The indigestion tablets?”
“They were already there.”
“Paperback?”
“Yes.”
“Spectacle case?”
“Yes.”
“You were wearing the spectacles Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“And the case was empty because of that.”
“Yes.”
“What about your real lunch?”
Sedgewick hesitated.
“Elaine made it the next morning.”
“We know.”
“I ate two sandwiches later. Threw the others away.”
“Where?”
“Bin near West Barset bus station.”
Harker wrote nothing.
Merrick did.
“Wednesday morning,” Harker said. “You leave at seven fifteen.”
“Yes.”
“Bus at seven twenty-eight.”
“Yes.”
“Get off at Market Street.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To go to the station.”
“You put the case aboard the eight twelve local.”
“Yes.”
“Rear compartment.”
“Yes.”
“Under the seat?”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Why that train?”
“I’d checked the workings.”
Vale said, “Railway enthusiast?”
“No.”
“How?”
“Station timetable. Asked questions.”
“About which coach worked later?”
“I travelled occasionally. I knew some sets stayed in local service.”
Harker said, “You didn’t know for certain the case would remain there until ten twenty-three.”
“No.”
“It might have been found at nine.”
“Yes.”
“Or noon.”
“Yes.”
“So the plan was unreliable.”
Sedgewick’s mouth tightened.
“It worked.”
“For six days.”
Silence.
“You didn’t plan Holt.”
“No.”
“You knew him?”
“By sight.”
“You saw him at eight twenty-seven?”
“Yes.”
“Did you deliberately cross the platform when the train arrived?”
Sedgewick thought.
“No. I was waiting for the crowd.”
“What for?”
“To leave without standing out.”
“And Holt saw you.”
“Apparently.”
“He assumed you had come off the train.”
“That was useful.”
“You knew later?”
“No. Not until you told me.”
“So the best part of your railway story wasn’t yours.”
Sedgewick looked away.
“No.”
Harker allowed him the discomfort.
Then moved on.
“Why railway at all?”
Sedgewick said nothing.
“You could simply have left.”
“I needed time.”
“For what?”
“To get away.”
“From Elaine?”
“From Brackenford.”
“Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“Venn?”
“Yes.”
“Police?”
Sedgewick looked at him.
“Eventually.”
“You knew your wife would report you missing.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Marlowe would wonder why you hadn’t arrived.”
“Yes.”
“And you wanted us looking at trains.”
“Yes.”
“West Barset. Norchester. Anywhere except Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
Harker leaned back.
“You weren’t making yourself invisible.”
“No.”
“You were making yourself elsewhere.”
Sedgewick gave the smallest nod.
The first diverted batch had been forty-six shafts.
Sedgewick remembered that without checking anything.
That told Harker something.
“They failed the customer specification,” Sedgewick said.
“Why?”
“Finish.”
“Were they useless?”
“No.”
“Did that make them yours?”
Croft shifted slightly.
Sedgewick said, “No.”
“What happened?”
“We were going to scrap them.”
“Then?”
“I knew a man who supplied a smaller firm near Derby. They didn’t require the same finish.”
“You sold them.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“About one hundred and twenty pounds.”
“You and Venn split it.”
“Yes.”
“Why do it again?”
Sedgewick looked toward the window.
“Because nobody noticed.”
It was the most honest answer he had given.
The second batch had been larger.
Then bearings.
Locating pins.
Collars.
Sleeves.
Parts whose contractual defects did not prevent other buyers using them.
Each time the paperwork became easier.
Inspection rejected.
Management authorised.
Stores received.
Scrap weight replaced quantity.
The physical parts ceased, on paper, to be components.
Sedgewick said, “Marlowe was throwing away good work.”
Harker said, “Marlowe owned good work.”
“Yes.”
“Not you.”
“No.”
“You keep coming back to waste.”
“Because there was waste.”
“That can be true at the same time as theft.”
Sedgewick looked at him.
For once, he had no answer.
Vale said, “When did you decide to leave?”
“Two months ago.”
“Why then?”
“Things were changing.”
“At Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“Layoffs?”
“Yes.”
“Investigation?”
“Not yet.”
“What frightened you?”
Sedgewick rubbed the bridge of his nose where his spectacles should have rested.
“You can’t keep something like that going forever.”
“That hadn’t bothered you for fourteen months,” Vale said.
“It began to.”
“Why?”
“Because there were too many records.”
Merrick glanced up.
Sedgewick noticed.
“How much had you taken by then?” Harker asked.
“From the scheme?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
Vale said, “You kept accounts.”
“Not proper ones.”
“Good enough to know what Venn was owed.”
Sedgewick looked at the table.
“About eight thousand total over the whole period.”
“And your share?”
“Roughly half.”
“Then you took thirty-four hundred from what remained.”
“Yes.”
“Venn’s as well as yours.”
“He’d already had plenty.”
“That wasn’t the arrangement.”
“No.”
“And you left his signatures on the collections.”
“Yes.”
“While removing papers that implicated you.”
Sedgewick’s expression hardened.
“I didn’t remove everything.”
“No. That would have been suspicious.”
Croft spoke for the first time.
“Inspector, my client has already acknowledged his involvement. I’m not sure speculation about motives assists.”
Harker looked at Sedgewick.
“Was it deliberate?”
Sedgewick said nothing.
“Leaving Venn exposed.”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
That was enough.
When the interview ended, Merrick carried the evidence file back upstairs.
Harker followed.
Vale remained behind to finish formalities.
Merrick placed the folders on her desk.
“You’ll want the Marlowe schedule by this afternoon?”
“No.”
She looked up.
“Tomorrow?”
“You’ll want it by tomorrow.”
There was a slight pause.
“Me?”
“You know the records.”
“Yes.”
“Better than Vale.”
“Probably.”
“Certainly better than me.”
She waited.
Harker said, “Coordinate it with Marlowe’s accountants. Foster will give you the buyers he’s tracing. Anything that affects charges comes through Vale.”
“All right.”
“No need to look pleased.”
“I don’t.”
“You do slightly.”
“Sorry.”
“Try to control it.”
She sat down.
Harker walked away before either of them had to say anything else.
Foster telephoned just before noon.
He had located another buyer.
A small engineering company outside Norchester had purchased two lots of finished collars through an intermediary, believing them to be legitimate surplus stock.
“They’ve still got eleven,” Foster said.
“Eleven collars?”
“Yes.”
“Useful?”
“Apparently.”
“Good.”
“There’s more.”
“There always is.”
“Manager remembers Venn.”
Harker leaned back.
“Certain?”
“As certain as people become after you show them three photographs.”
“Meaning not certain.”
“Exactly.”
“Get the statement anyway.”
“Already doing it.”
Harker smiled.
That was Foster.
No flourish.
No theory.
Something useful simply appeared.
Elaine Sedgewick opened the door at Westbourne Drive before Harker knocked twice.
She looked at his face.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
Her hand went to the doorframe.
Nothing else happened for several seconds.
Then:
“Where?”
“Brackenford.”
“You found him?”
“Yes.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Minor injuries. Nothing serious.”
She shut her eyes.
Harker watched relief arrive before everything that would replace it.
“Come in.”
The kitchen was the same.
The Austin Maxi still stood in the drive.
A newspaper lay folded on the table.
Elaine filled the kettle without asking whether Harker wanted tea.
He let her.
She switched it on.
“He didn’t fall in the canal.”
“No.”
“Venn didn’t kill him.”
“No.”
“Did Venn hurt him?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
That fact seemed almost manageable now.
“What happened?”
Harker told her.
Not every paper.
Not every train movement.
Enough.
Martin had been stealing from Marlowe with Venn.
The meetings and hidden money belonged to that, not an affair.
He had planned to disappear.
The property inquiries had been part of the plan.
He had created the briefcase trail himself.
“He made the sandwiches?”
“Yes.”
“Tuesday night?”
“Yes.”
She stared at the kettle.
“I was upstairs.”
Harker said nothing.
“I was in bed reading. He came up about half ten.”
She laughed once, quietly.
“I asked him whether he’d locked the back door.”
The kettle began to boil.
Elaine did not move.
Harker switched it off.
She looked at him.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The kettle.”
“Part of the service.”
That almost produced a smile.
Almost.
She sat down.
“So Wednesday morning I made his lunch.”
“Yes.”
“And he already had another lunch in the case.”
“Yes.”
“For you to find.”
“For whoever found the briefcase.”
“But he knew somebody would.”
“That was the intention.”
“And he took mine too?”
“Yes.”
“He ate two?”
“That’s what he says.”
Elaine looked down at her hands.
There were stranger details in the case, Harker thought.
More serious ones.
Thousands of pounds.
Theft.
Falsified records.
An assault beside a canal.
Yet four sandwiches seemed to be the thing that had finally made her understand.
Not because they mattered most.
Because she had made them.
“He planned all this while living here.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Some of it for several weeks. Possibly longer.”
“And every morning he got up.”
“Yes.”
“Tea. Toast.”
“Yes.”
“Complained about the Chancellor.”
Harker remembered the front page.
“Yes.”
“Went to work.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the hall, as though Martin might still be putting on his coat.
“Did he mean me to think he was dead?”
Harker took his time.
“No.”
She looked at him sharply.
“He meant us to think he’d travelled. That he’d gone somewhere by train. He wanted uncertainty about where.”
“Which meant uncertainty about everything else.”
“Yes.”
“He knew I’d worry.”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s the difference?”
Harker did not answer immediately.
“The difference is what he intended us to believe happened to him. It doesn’t make what he did to you any kinder.”
Elaine looked at the untouched teapot.
“Does he want to see me?”
“He asked whether you’d been told.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Harker considered.
“Yes. I think he does.”
She nodded slowly.
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Not today.”
“All right.”
“Maybe not tomorrow either.”
“That’s your decision.”
She stood and finally poured the tea.
She forgot the milk in his.
Harker drank it anyway.
Marlowe Engineering sounded exactly the same that afternoon.
That struck Harker as offensive for about three seconds.
Then sensible.
Metal still had to be cut.
Orders still had to be filled.
A forklift moved a pallet across the yard.
Somewhere in the press shop, something heavy struck something heavier at regular intervals.
The world had not been informed that Martin Sedgewick’s private arrangements had come apart.
His office door was open.
Another man sat at the desk.
In stores, Mrs. Betty Larkin was arguing with production about bearings.
“You had twelve.”
“We had ten.”
“I issued twelve.”
“Well, two vanished.”
She saw Harker and stopped.
“Poor choice of words.”
“Possibly.”
Merrick had taken over a table in the conference room with two Marlowe accountants.
Boxes of records surrounded her.
Harker looked in.
She did not ask what he wanted.
That pleased him.
“Foster found another buyer,” he said.
“I know. He rang.”
“Eleven collars recovered.”
“I’ve added them.”
“Good.”
One accountant looked up.
“Inspector, we may be here for weeks.”
Harker said, “That sounds optimistic.”
He left them to it.
On the way out he passed the stores racks where rejected components still waited beneath red tags.
Perfectly solid pieces of metal.
Some worth pounds.
Some hundreds.
All of them becoming different things merely because somebody wrote a word on paper.
SCRAP.
Harker kept walking.
The briefcase was returned to the property room at four thirty.
A new label hung from its handle.
Case number.
Owner.
Description.
Brown leather briefcase.
Harker watched the constable put it on a shelf beside an umbrella, a toolbox and two parcels connected with unrelated cases.
“Anything else, sir?”
“No.”
The constable went.
Harker remained for a moment.
A week earlier, George Pritchard had handed in a forgotten briefcase.
That was all.
Everything afterwards had come from assuming an object had followed its owner.
Now the object sat exactly where objects belonged.
On a shelf.
It seemed smaller.
At six, Harker walked through Brackenford Station on his way to the car park.
He had no reason to.
The route was slightly longer.
That annoyed him when he realised it.
The evening commuters were coming home.
A man in a raincoat carried a black attaché case.
Two girls in school coats shared a bag of chips.
A woman stood beneath the clock with a toddler asleep against her shoulder.
Someone had left a pair of gloves on a bench.
A porter picked them up.
“Lost property,” he said to nobody in particular.
Harker kept walking.
On Platform Two, the six eleven local arrived.
Passengers stepped down.
Some were met.
Most were not.
They went through the ticket barrier and dispersed into Brackenford.
Nothing about them required explanation.
That was a relief.
The Rover did not start.
Harker turned the key again.
The engine made a noise suggesting moral objection.
“No,” Harker said.
He tried once more.
Nothing.
Vale’s car was gone.
Merrick was still at Marlowe.
Foster had not returned from Norchester.
Harker sat behind the wheel for several seconds.
Then he got out, locked the car and went back toward the station taxi rank.
The first driver looked at him.
“Breakdown?”
“No.”
The driver looked past him at the Rover.
“What would you call it?”
“Habit.”
Margaret was in the sitting room when he came home.
She looked over the top of her glasses.
“Where’s the Rover?”
“Brackenford Station.”
“Why?”
“It prefers trains.”
She put her book down.
“Tea?”
“Yes.”
She went to the kitchen.
Harker removed his coat and set his own briefcase beside the hall chair.
Margaret called from the other room.
“Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Harker did not answer.
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
“Was it?”
“He’s alive.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
She looked at him for another moment.
Then:
“Tea.”
“Excellent.”
She went back into the kitchen.
Harker looked at his briefcase.
It was older than Sedgewick’s.
The leather was scratched near one catch. There was a stain on the bottom from an ink bottle that had leaked years before. Inside, he knew, were two files, a railway timetable he had forgotten to return, three pencils, yesterday’s Gazette and a packet of mints Margaret disliked.
He opened it.
Files.
Timetable.
Pencils.
Gazette.
Mints.
Margaret returned carrying two mugs.
She stopped.
“What are you doing?”
Harker closed the case.
“Just making certain it’s mine.”
Margaret looked at him.
Then at the briefcase.
Then back at him.
“I see.”
She handed him his tea.
Harker suspected she did not see at all.
He found that comforting.
Somewhere beyond the houses, a late train sounded briefly as it crossed the edge of Brackenford.
Harker heard it.
He did not go to the window.
You have been listening to The Harker Mysteries, an original Chesterton Radio mystery series.
Story Two: The Last Train to Brackenford.
A forgotten briefcase. A missing commuter. A journey that seemed to have happened because everyone could see the evidence that it had.
But in Brackenford, Detective Inspector Tom Harker has learned to be careful about the difference between what people see—and what they naturally assume must have happened.
The Last Train to Brackenford was an original Chesterton Radio production.
If you enjoyed this case, you can find the first Harker mystery, The Empty House, along with more original stories, radio drama, and classic mystery at Chesterton Radio.
And there will be another case for Inspector Harker.
Because in Brackenford, the next mystery is unlikely to begin with a murder.
It will probably begin with something nobody thinks matters.
Chesterton Radio is made possible by its listeners. If you’d like to help us continue producing original stories like The Harker Mysteries, please consider supporting the station. Your support helps keep the Little Station on Commercial Street on the air. Thank you for listening.