Part One
By half past nine on the last night of Bellweather Station, there was very little left to suggest that trains had been stopping there for eighty-three years.
The waiting-room fire had gone out.
The parcels office was locked.
Two enamel advertisements had already been taken down from the wall beside the booking window, leaving pale rectangles on the brickwork where generations of smoke and weather had failed to reach.
Only the clock remained.
Arthur Pembroke looked up at it from behind the booking-office glass.
Nine thirty-two.
Twenty-eight minutes slow.
He had been meaning to correct it since Tuesday.
There seemed little point now.
At midnight, Bellweather would cease to be a railway station.
Arthur dipped his pen into the ink and entered the day’s final receipts in the ledger.
Three single tickets to Harrowby.
One return to Market St. Edmund.
A child’s half-fare to Harrowby, although Arthur privately suspected the child had been twelve for considerably longer than his mother claimed.
Total receipts: one pound, seventeen shillings and fourpence.
Eighty-three years of railway history, Arthur thought, and on the final day they hadn’t taken enough money to pay for the coal.
Rain tapped against the window.
Beyond it, two wet rails disappeared into the November darkness.
Arthur sanded the wet ink, closed the ledger and listened.
It was difficult to say exactly when a railway station became silent. A station was never really quiet. There was always something happening even when there were no trains. A telegraph instrument clicked. A door rattled. A signal wire shifted in the wind. Somewhere beneath the floorboards, a pipe knocked with remarkable persistence.
Arthur had spent thirty-seven years learning those sounds.
Bellweather had its own collection.
The loose pane in the ladies’ waiting room shivered whenever the wind came from the west.
The footbridge gave a single metallic groan about ten minutes after a heavy train had passed.
The gutter above the booking office overflowed in exactly the same place every time it rained.
And, when the weather was cold, the signal cable running beneath Platform Two sometimes made a faint humming sound that new porters mistook for a train in the distance.
Arthur knew all of them.
Tonight they sounded different.
He knew that was foolish.
Nothing had changed merely because somebody in an office two hundred miles away had decided that Bellweather was no longer necessary.
The rain struck harder against the glass.
Arthur stood and stretched his back.
He had put on his best railway waistcoat for the occasion, which Elsie had found amusing.
“If they’re closing the place,” she had said that morning, “I shouldn’t think they’ll sack you for wearing the old one.”
“It’s the last day.”
“So?”
“So one should finish properly.”
Elsie had looked at him for a moment, then smiled.
“That’s exactly what I was afraid you’d say.”
Arthur glanced toward the platform clock again.
Nine thirty-six.
Still twenty-eight minutes slow.
He frowned.
There was something untidy about leaving it that way.
He had just taken his coat from the peg when the telephone rang.
Arthur stopped.
There was nothing unusual about a telephone ringing in a railway station.
Nevertheless, for reasons he could never afterward explain, Arthur Pembroke did not want to answer it.
It rang a second time.
Then a third.
“All right,” he muttered.
He crossed the office and lifted the receiver.
“Bellweather.”
For a moment there was only the faint hiss of the line.
Then a man’s voice said, “Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“It’s George.”
Arthur knew the voice before George Wilkes gave his name. George had been signalman at Harrowby Junction for nearly as long as Arthur had been at Bellweather.
“Evening, George.”
“You send anything down?”
Arthur looked automatically toward the block instrument.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I generally notice when I dispatch a train.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Neither am I.”
There was another pause.
Somewhere at the Harrowby end of the telephone line something clicked twice.
George said, “I’ve just had one through.”
Arthur rested his elbow on the desk.
“Had what through?”
“A train.”
“Very good.”
“Arthur.”
The sharpness in George’s voice made him straighten.
“What sort of train?”
“I don’t know.”
“Passenger?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“It had coaches.”
“Then presumably passenger.”
“It wasn’t scheduled.”
“Nothing is scheduled.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
Arthur looked at the clock on the wall.
“George, there’s nothing due through Harrowby toward Bellweather until the empty stock movement at eleven fourteen.”
“I know the timetable.”
“I should hope so.”
“It wasn’t eleven fourteen.”
“No.”
“It’s nine forty.”
“Nine forty-one.”
“Then somebody had better tell the railway, because I’ve just watched a train go past my box.”
Arthur was silent.
Rain rattled against the roof.
“Perhaps it was the engineering train.”
“No.”
“Special working?”
“No bell code.”
“Light engine?”
“It had coaches.”
Arthur frowned.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I wasn’t counting them.”
“George, you’ve spent forty years counting trains.”
“Not ones that shouldn’t be there.”
Arthur picked up a pencil.
“Engine number?”
“Didn’t see it.”
“Steam or diesel?”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
Arthur put the pencil down again.
“George.”
“I couldn’t see an engine.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t see an engine?”
“I mean exactly that.”
Arthur waited.
George continued.
“The rain’s filthy here. You know what it’s like. I saw the lamps first, coming round the curve.”
“Headcode?”
“No.”
“Then what lamps?”
“The carriage lights.”
Arthur said nothing.
“It went past,” George continued. “Slowly. Thirty miles an hour, perhaps. Maybe less.”
“And you couldn’t see the locomotive.”
“No.”
“The rain obscured it.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, there you are.”
“No, there I am not.”
Arthur heard George moving about in his box.
“The block never showed occupied.”
Arthur looked at Bellweather’s instrument.
“What?”
“The section never showed occupied. Nothing offered. Nothing accepted. Nothing entered.”
“Fault in the instrument.”
“Both of them?”
“Could be.”
“The signals didn’t clear.”
Arthur said, “Then you didn’t have a train.”
“I know what I saw.”
“George—”
“Don’t tell me I don’t know what a railway train looks like.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were about to.”
Arthur rubbed his forehead.
“Where is it now?”
There was silence at the other end.
“George?”
“That’s why I’m ringing you.”
Arthur’s hand tightened slightly on the receiver.
“What do you mean?”
“If it came through Harrowby toward Bellweather, it should be with you by now.”
Both men were silent.
Arthur looked through the booking-office window.
The station lamps shone on Platform One. Rain bounced silver from the paving stones. Beyond the platform end, the track curved out of sight between black hedges.
Nothing moved.
“No train here,” he said.
“It didn’t come back.”
“Then either it stopped between us or you saw something else.”
“A train doesn’t stop between Harrowby and Bellweather unless it wants to sit in a field.”
“There’s the old quarry siding.”
“Disconnected in fifty-eight.”
“I know when it was disconnected.”
“Then where did it go?”
Arthur glanced again at the empty rails.
“I don’t know.”
Another burst of static passed over the line.
George’s voice returned.
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“You haven’t had anyone working on Platform Two?”
“No.”
“Anyone carrying lamps?”
“No.”
“Anything at all?”
“Why?”
“I thought I saw somebody looking out.”
Arthur did not answer immediately.
“Out of what?”
“One of the coaches.”
“Well, if it was a passenger train, that’s hardly remarkable.”
“No.”
George’s breathing was audible on the line.
“What?” Arthur asked.
“Nothing.”
“George.”
“I thought I recognized her.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
“Recognized whom?”
But George seemed immediately to regret saying it.
“Forget it.”
“Whom did you recognize?”
“Nobody.”
“You just said—”
“I said forget it.”
“George—”
“I’ll check the instruments. You check your end.”
The line clicked dead.
Arthur remained holding the receiver.
He listened to the empty line for several seconds before returning it carefully to its cradle.
Outside, the rain fell harder.
He told himself that George Wilkes was tired.
Bellweather’s closure affected Harrowby as well. From Monday onward the junction box would have considerably less traffic. George was sixty-one, facing retirement whether he wanted it or not, and had spent most of his adult life watching trains pass a window.
Men became peculiar when things ended.
Arthur knew that.
He also knew George did not mistake trains for reflections.
He put on his coat.
The platform door opened with difficulty against the wind.
Cold rain struck his face.
Bellweather Station consisted of two platforms joined by a covered footbridge. Platform One, beside the main buildings, remained in regular use. Platform Two had not seen scheduled passenger traffic for years, although the track beside it was still technically serviceable.
Arthur walked to the platform edge.
The rails gleamed beneath the lamps.
Nothing.
He went to the end of the platform and looked toward Harrowby.
The line disappeared into darkness.
He listened.
At first he heard only the rain.
Then something else.
A faint humming.
Arthur’s pulse quickened before common sense caught up with him.
The signal wire.
He almost laughed.
“Very good, Pembroke.”
He turned back toward the office.
That was when he noticed the light.
Platform Two.
A single lamp beneath the footbridge was burning.
Arthur stopped.
It should not have been.
He had switched off Platform Two at six.
He stared across the tracks.
The yellow lamp illuminated perhaps twenty feet of wet paving stones and the green-painted bench beneath it.
Nothing else.
Arthur walked toward the footbridge.
Halfway there he stopped again.
Something stood beside the bench.
Not a person.
A suitcase.
Arthur looked at it for several seconds.
Then he crossed the bridge.
The case was small, brown and old-fashioned, with two leather straps.
Arthur bent to examine it.
There was no label.
He touched the handle.
Dry.
That was impossible.
Rain had been blowing beneath the canopy all evening. The bench was wet. The platform was wet. Arthur’s shoes were wet.
The suitcase was dry.
He stood.
A door slammed behind him.
Arthur turned so quickly his heel slipped on the paving.
“Arthur!”
His wife’s voice came across the footbridge.
Arthur exhaled.
Elsie Pembroke descended the stairs carrying a shopping bag in one hand and holding her hat with the other.
“What on earth are you doing over here?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s generally what men say when they’re plainly doing something.”
She reached him and looked at the suitcase.
“Whose is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did somebody leave it?”
“Apparently.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Elsie looked along the deserted platform.
“Busy night.”
“Apparently.”
She glanced at him.
“You’ve said that twice.”
“Have I?”
“Which means you’re worried.”
“I am not worried.”
“Three times would confirm it.”
Arthur picked up the suitcase.
It was unexpectedly light.
“Come inside.”
Elsie followed him back across the footbridge.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Arthur.”
“The telephone rang.”
“Telephones do.”
“It was George.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
“Whenever George Wilkes telephones after nine o’clock, you either come home late or spend breakfast explaining why the railway nearly collapsed overnight.”
“He saw a train.”
Elsie stopped on the last stair.
Arthur continued walking.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“A train passed Harrowby toward Bellweather.”
“That sounds exactly where one might expect a train to pass.”
“It wasn’t scheduled.”
“Neither were half the troop trains during the war.”
“It wasn’t recorded on the block.”
Elsie followed him into the booking office.
Arthur placed the suitcase beside the desk.
“He said the signals remained at danger. No bell code. Nothing offered into the section.”
“And yet he saw it.”
“So he says.”
“What do you say?”
“I say George has probably made a mistake.”
Elsie removed her wet coat.
“Do you believe that?”
Arthur busied himself hanging her coat beside his.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’ve known George for thirty years.”
“Thirty-four.”
“Which strengthens my argument.”
She placed the shopping bag on the counter.
“I brought sandwiches.”
“Good.”
“And cake.”
“Better.”
“And a flask of coffee because I knew that tea of yours would have been stewing since seven.”
Arthur looked offended.
“It has not.”
Elsie glanced toward the enamel pot on the stove.
“Six thirty?”
“Possibly.”
She began unpacking the bag.
“Is Charles coming?”
“He said he would.”
“And Colonel Fallow?”
“Perhaps.”
“I thought there were supposed to be six or seven.”
“So did I.”
“The weather will keep them home.”
Arthur looked toward the window.
“Probably.”
“Which may be just as well. I don’t know why you invited half the county to watch you lock a door.”
“It’s not merely locking a door.”
“No.”
Elsie softened.
“I know.”
Arthur looked around the booking office.
There were marks on the wall where notices had hung. The wooden counter had been polished smooth by thousands of hands. He could remember when the station employed eight people on a weekday and twelve on market Saturdays.
Now there was Arthur.
At midnight there would be nobody.
Elsie touched his arm.
“Thirty-seven years is a long time.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll find something to do.”
“I have plenty to do.”
“You reorganized the garden shed last Sunday.”
“It needed reorganizing.”
“You sorted screws by diameter.”
“That is how screws should be sorted.”
Elsie smiled.
There was a knock on the platform door.
“Saved by Providence,” Arthur said.
“Or Charles.”
It was Charles Avery.
He entered shaking rain from his hat and carrying an umbrella that had surrendered any pretence of usefulness.
“This,” he announced, “was a very fine umbrella when I left home.”
Elsie took it from him.
“It looks as though you’ve been attacked.”
“By Worcestershire.”
Arthur shook his hand.
“Glad you came.”
“I nearly didn’t. Road by Stanton Brook is half underwater.”
“Already?”
“Another hour of this and you’ll need to close the railway.”
Arthur gave him a look.
Avery winced.
“Sorry.”
“Everyone thinks they’re the first person to say it.”
“I suppose they do.”
Charles Avery was sixty-seven, broad-shouldered despite the slight stoop age had put into him. Retirement had softened neither his face nor his habit of looking at a room as though it had been entered in evidence.
His eyes fell on the suitcase.
“Going somewhere, Arthur?”
“No.”
“Elsie?”
“No.”
Avery looked at the case again.
“Then somebody is.”
“It was on Platform Two.”
“Just now?”
Arthur nodded.
Avery touched one of the leather straps.
“Old.”
“Yes.”
“Empty?”
“Near enough.”
“Open it?”
“No.”
Avery looked at Arthur.
“You found an unidentified suitcase on an unused railway platform during a storm and didn’t open it?”
“It isn’t mine.”
Avery smiled slightly.
“Thirty-seven years on the railway and they haven’t cured you of respect for property.”
“Unlike the Metropolitan Police.”
“County police, if you please.”
“Retired county police.”
“Even more respectable.”
Elsie handed Avery a cup of coffee.
“Arthur’s had an excitement.”
“Oh?”
Arthur frowned at her.
“George saw a train.”
Avery sipped the coffee.
“At a railway station?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Thank you, Elsie.”
Arthur told him.
Unlike Elsie, Avery did not interrupt.
He listened to the account from beginning to end, including the dead instruments, the unseen locomotive and George’s refusal to say whom he thought he had recognized.
When Arthur finished, Avery looked toward the window.
“What time?”
“About nine forty.”
“And nothing arrived here?”
“No.”
“No possibility of a branch?”
“None.”
“Siding?”
“Quarry siding was lifted years ago.”
Avery nodded slowly.
“Then either George is mistaken—”
“Which he isn’t,” Elsie said.
Arthur looked at her.
“—or,” Avery continued, “your train is still between Harrowby and Bellweather.”
“It isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’d hear it.”
Avery looked out at the rain.
“Would you?”
Arthur opened his mouth, then closed it.
Avery smiled.
“I don’t mean anything mysterious. Merely that it’s blowing hard enough to drown a brass band.”
Before Arthur could answer, somebody struck the outer door hard enough to make all three turn.
The door opened.
A man stumbled inside.
He was in his early sixties, expensively dressed, thoroughly wet and visibly furious.
“Good God,” he said. “Does nobody maintain roads in this county?”
Arthur recognized him.
Edward Marlowe.
Solicitor.
His office had been in Market St. Edmund for as long as Arthur could remember.
Marlowe removed his hat and looked around.
“Pembroke.”
“Mr. Marlowe.”
“Telephone.”
Arthur pointed.
“Is it working?”
“It was ten minutes ago.”
Marlowe crossed to it.
“Car’s in a ditch half a mile back. Road’s flooded.”
He lifted the receiver.
“Operator.”
Nothing.
He worked the cradle.
“Operator?”
A crackle sounded.
Then silence.
Arthur said, “Try again.”
Marlowe did.
No answer.
“Wonderful.”
“You can wait here until the last train,” Arthur said.
“What time?”
“Eleven forty-two.”
Marlowe stared at him.
“Two hours?”
“Approximately.”
“Is there nothing before?”
“No.”
Marlowe muttered something Arthur chose not to hear.
Avery stepped forward.
“Edward.”
Marlowe looked at him.
“Avery.”
“You’ve picked a poor evening for motoring.”
“I didn’t pick it.”
“No.”
Marlowe seemed not to share Avery’s amusement.
His gaze moved around the room.
“Anyone else here?”
Arthur noticed the question.
“So far, just us.”
“Expecting anyone?”
“Possibly.”
“Who?”
Arthur looked at him.
Marlowe seemed to realize how the question sounded.
“I’m merely wondering whether anyone might be driving toward the village.”
“Colonel Fallow said he might come.”
For the briefest instant, something changed in Marlowe’s face.
Then it was gone.
“Henry Fallow?”
“Yes.”
Marlowe removed his gloves.
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
“He’s still at Bellweather Hall.”
“I know where he lives.”
Elsie offered coffee.
Marlowe hesitated, then accepted it.
Avery had moved casually toward Arthur’s desk.
His eyes fell upon the old suitcase.
“Arthur found this on Platform Two.”
Marlowe looked.
The cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
Arthur saw it.
So did Avery.
Marlowe recovered quickly.
“What is it?”
“A suitcase.”
“I can see that.”
“Nobody knows whose.”
Marlowe stared at it for several seconds.
“Open it.”
Arthur said, “I thought you were a solicitor.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Charles says only policemen open other people’s property.”
“I said no such thing,” Avery replied.
Marlowe set down his cup.
“This is hardly the moment for jokes.”
Avery watched him.
“What moment is it?”
Marlowe looked away.
“An unpleasant evening. That’s all.”
Wind struck the building.
Somewhere outside, something metallic banged.
Arthur went to the window.
The Platform Two lamp was still burning.
“That light shouldn’t be on.”
Marlowe turned sharply.
“What light?”
“Across the way.”
Arthur moved toward the door.
At that moment the telephone rang.
Everyone looked at it.
Arthur returned to the desk and lifted the receiver.
“Bellweather.”
No answer.
“Bellweather.”
A faint crackle.
Then a voice.
Not George.
A woman.
“Is this the station?”
Arthur frowned.
“Yes.”
“Bellweather Station?”
“Yes.”
“Are you open?”
Arthur glanced at Avery.
“Until midnight.”
The line hissed.
The woman’s voice seemed young.
“I need to know the time of the next train.”
“Where are you travelling?”
“St. Anne’s Cross.”
Arthur said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “Would you repeat that?”
“St. Anne’s Cross.”
“There is no service to St. Anne’s Cross.”
“Of course there is.”
Arthur felt a small, inexplicable chill pass across his shoulders.
“Where are you calling from?”
The line crackled violently.
“I said, where are you calling from?”
The woman replied, but the words were lost.
Then the line went dead.
Arthur remained very still.
Avery said, “Problem?”
Arthur replaced the receiver.
“Somebody asking about a train.”
“At least you’re still in business.”
“To St. Anne’s Cross.”
Avery’s expression altered.
Elsie looked from one man to the other.
“What?”
Arthur said, “St. Anne’s Cross station closed during the war.”
“When?”
Avery asked.
Arthur knew the answer.
He wished he did not.
“Nineteen forty-four.”
The room became quiet.
Marlowe’s coffee cup rattled against its saucer.
Avery turned toward him.
“You all right?”
“Perfectly.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I’m wet and cold.”
“Drink your coffee.”
Marlowe did not.
Arthur crossed to the filing cabinet.
He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out an old working timetable.
“What are you looking for?” Elsie asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been very busy doing nothing tonight.”
Arthur found the page.
St. Anne’s Cross.
Passenger service withdrawn, February 1944.
He already knew that.
He closed the book.
“Probably somebody playing a joke.”
Avery said, “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who knows the station telephone number?”
“Half the village.”
“And who remembers St. Anne’s Cross?”
“The other half.”
Marlowe suddenly stood.
“I think I’ll walk to the road and see whether anyone’s passing.”
“In this?” Elsie asked.
“It’s only rain.”
Arthur looked at Marlowe’s drenched clothes.
“You’ve already discovered that.”
Marlowe ignored him.
He had taken two steps toward the door when it opened.
A young woman stood outside.
No one spoke.
She was perhaps nineteen.
Her dark hair was damp around her face, though oddly not soaked. She wore a belted brown coat of a style Arthur had not seen in years. In one hand she carried a handbag.
In the other she held an umbrella.
The umbrella was furled.
Behind her, rain swept across the platform.
She looked first at Arthur, then at the others.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is the booking office still open?”
Arthur stared at her.
“Yes.”
“I thought you might have closed early.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She came inside and shut the door.
Marlowe had moved backward.
Arthur noticed that too.
The young woman approached the booking window.
“I need a single ticket, please.”
“Where to?”
“St. Anne’s Cross.”
Nobody moved.
The girl smiled uncertainly.
“Is something wrong?”
Arthur swallowed.
“There aren’t any trains to St. Anne’s Cross.”
“But the eleven forty-two stops there.”
“No.”
“It does.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
She opened her handbag and removed a folded timetable.
“I checked.”
Arthur took it.
The paper felt old and soft.
He unfolded it on the counter.
British Railways did not appear anywhere on it.
The cover bore an older name.
The railway company that had operated the branch before nationalisation.
Arthur looked at the printing date.
September 1943.
He raised his eyes to the girl.
“Where did you get this?”
“At Worcester.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
Arthur looked again at the timetable.
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“What date do you think it is?”
She gave a small laugh.
“What an extraordinary question.”
“Please.”
Her smile faded.
“The twenty-seventh of November.”
“What year?”
Now she stared at him.
“Nineteen forty-three.”
Behind Arthur, a chair scraped across the floor.
Marlowe had stood up.
The girl turned toward him.
For one instant the two looked directly at one another.
Marlowe’s face went white.
The girl frowned.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Arthur looked at Avery.
Avery was watching Marlowe.
The girl turned back.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Arthur felt as though the booking office had become very small.
“What’s your name?”
“Margaret.”
He waited.
She seemed puzzled by his expression.
“Margaret Vale.”
Arthur did not hear the rain anymore.
He did not hear the clock.
He did not hear Elsie gasp quietly behind him.
He saw only the young woman standing at the booking window.
And suddenly he was twenty-one years younger.
November 1943.
Blackout curtains.
Steam drifting beneath the platform lamps.
A young woman in a brown coat standing exactly where this young woman stood now.
Arthur remembered selling her a ticket.
He remembered watching her board the eleven forty-two.
And he remembered something else.
Something he had never told Inspector Avery.
Something he had never told Margaret Vale’s parents.
Something he had spent twenty-one years persuading himself he had imagined.
Arthur’s hands began to tremble.
Margaret noticed.
“Mr. Pembroke?”
Arthur looked at her sharply.
“How do you know my name?”
She pointed toward his waistcoat.
His railway badge.
“Oh.”
Arthur looked down.
For a moment he almost laughed.
Instead he said, “Margaret, I need you to answer a question.”
“What question?”
“Do you have a brother?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Stephen.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Elsie moved closer to him.
“Arthur?”
He opened them again.
Margaret looked frightened now.
Not terribly frightened.
Not yet.
But the first uncertainty had entered her face.
“What is going on?”
Arthur looked at Avery.
The retired inspector had become very still.
“Charles.”
Avery nodded once.
Arthur returned his attention to Margaret.
“Your brother Stephen is not eleven.”
She stared at him.
“Of course he is.”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s thirty-two.”
Margaret gave an uncomfortable laugh.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“My brother was eleven this morning.”
Arthur said nothing.
“Mr. Pembroke, I don’t know what sort of joke this is—”
“It isn’t a joke.”
She looked around the room.
Nobody smiled.
Marlowe was still standing beside the wall.
Margaret’s gaze settled on him again.
“You do know me.”
Marlowe shook his head.
“No.”
“You looked at me as though—”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
Margaret stared at him.
Then the telephone rang.
Arthur almost jumped.
He snatched up the receiver.
“Bellweather.”
George Wilkes was breathing heavily at the other end.
“Arthur.”
“Yes.”
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
Arthur’s mouth went dry.
“Who?”
There was a pause.
Then George said:
“Margaret Vale.”
Arthur looked across the booking office.
Margaret was watching him.
“George,” he said quietly, “how did you know?”
The line hissed.
George answered.
“Because she was on that train.”
And the telephone went dead.
The Last Train from Bellweather
Part Two
For several seconds after the line went dead, Arthur Pembroke remained with the receiver pressed to his ear.
He could hear nothing now but the faint electrical whisper of the connection and, beyond it, the storm.
Margaret Vale stood at the booking window.
Her face had changed.
Until that moment, bewilderment had been the strongest thing in it. She had been irritated by Arthur’s questions, then uneasy, then increasingly certain that she had walked into some elaborate misunderstanding.
Now she was frightened.
Not because of anything Arthur had told her.
Because George Wilkes had known her name.
“Who was that?” she asked.
Arthur lowered the receiver.
“George Wilkes.”
“I don’t know a George Wilkes.”
“He works the signal box at Harrowby Junction.”
Margaret frowned.
“Mr. Pritchard works Harrowby.”
“No,” Arthur said.
There was no gentle way to answer.
“Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
Arthur looked toward Avery.
The retired inspector gave no assistance.
This, Arthur understood, was his responsibility.
He put the receiver back on its cradle.
“Margaret, come through here.”
She did not move.
“I’d rather you told me what’s going on.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
Arthur hesitated, then unlatched the little door beside the booking window.
Margaret remained where she was.
Elsie crossed the room.
“Come and sit down, dear.”
Margaret looked at her.
There was something in Elsie’s manner that succeeded where Arthur’s had failed. She had not spoken as though Margaret were a witness, a problem or a curiosity.
She had spoken to her as though she were simply a young woman who ought not to be standing in a draught.
Margaret came through the little gate.
Elsie drew a chair toward the stove.
“You’re wet.”
“Not very.”
“You’ll be cold soon enough.”
She took Margaret’s coat at the shoulders.
Margaret resisted instinctively.
“No, really, I’m all right.”
“You won’t be if you sit in that.”
Margaret finally allowed the coat to be removed.
Arthur watched.
The dress beneath it tightened something in his chest.
Nothing about it would have attracted attention in 1943. A plain wool dress. Sensible shoes. A cardigan buttoned high at the neck. Clothes worn by a young woman travelling alone in wartime because everything good had to last longer than it had been made to last.
In 1964, they looked unmistakably old.
Not theatrical.
Not fancy dress.
Simply wrong.
Elsie must have noticed too, but she said nothing.
She folded the brown coat over the back of the chair.
Arthur could not take his eyes from it.
The same broad lapels.
The same stitched belt.
The same repaired seam near the left pocket.
He had noticed that repair twenty-one years earlier because Margaret had caught the pocket on the brass edge of the booking window while searching for coins. She had laughed, pushed the torn thread back with one finger and said her mother would blame the railway.
He remembered it as clearly as if it had happened an hour ago.
Perhaps because, for Margaret, it had.
Avery had moved to one side of the room.
He was not staring at Margaret.
That was almost more noticeable than if he had been.
Edward Marlowe stood near the platform door, his forgotten coffee on the table beside him.
Arthur looked at him.
Marlowe’s complexion had recovered slightly, but not enough.
Avery noticed Arthur noticing.
Nobody said anything.
Margaret sat.
Elsie poured coffee into a fresh cup.
“Do you take milk?”
“Yes, please.”
“Sugar?”
“One.”
Elsie handed it to her.
Margaret wrapped both hands around the cup.
“Thank you.”
It was an absurdly ordinary exchange.
Arthur was grateful for it.
He went behind the desk and pulled his own chair around so that he could sit facing her.
“Margaret.”
She looked up.
“I want to ask you some questions. They’re going to sound very strange.”
“They already have.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“What did you do today?”
“Today?”
“From the beginning.”
She stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to know.”
Avery said quietly, “It may help us understand what’s happened.”
Margaret looked at him for the first time.
“Who are you?”
“Charles Avery.”
Arthur watched for recognition.
There was none.
Avery continued.
“I used to be a police officer.”
“Used to be?”
“I’m retired.”
Margaret seemed to find this an unnecessary piece of information.
Avery added, “Mr. Pembroke isn’t trying to upset you. Neither am I. But something has happened, and at the moment you’re the only person who may be able to tell us what.”
Margaret looked down into her coffee.
“This morning I was at the hospital.”
“Which hospital?” Arthur asked.
“Worcester Royal.”
“You’re a nurse?”
“Student nurse.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Just after five.”
“And then?”
“I had tea with a friend.”
“Name?”
Margaret glanced at Avery.
“Is this a police interview?”
“No.”
“It sounds like one.”
Avery smiled faintly.
“Old habits.”
“Jean Morris.”
“Where?”
“Lyons.”
Arthur said, “Then what?”
“I went to the station.”
“Worcester?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know exactly. About seven.”
“And you came toward Bellweather?”
Margaret nodded.
“Why?”
“To see my parents.”
“Where do they live?”
“Rose Cottage. On the Malvern road.”
Arthur looked down.
He had passed Rose Cottage three days earlier.
The place had belonged to the Hargreaves family for twelve years.
Margaret went on.
“I’m due back at the hospital on Monday. I thought I’d come home for the weekend.”
“How did you reach Bellweather?”
“Train to Market St. Edmund. Then the branch train.”
Arthur frowned.
“You came into Bellweather by train?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
She considered.
“About nine.”
Arthur glanced toward the station clock.
Avery noticed.
“Which platform?” he asked.
“Two.”
Arthur felt Elsie’s eyes on him.
“Platform Two,” Avery repeated.
“Yes.”
“Did anybody get off with you?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
“What happened to the train?”
“It left.”
“For where?”
Margaret hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“You don’t know?”
“I wasn’t watching it.”
“You arrived on Platform Two and the train went on?”
“I suppose.”
“Toward Harrowby?”
She frowned.
“No.”
“Toward St. Anne’s Cross?”
“Yes.”
Arthur sat back.
That made no sense even by Margaret’s own timetable.
A train coming from Market St. Edmund should not have been running in that direction after depositing her at Bellweather.
Avery said, “You told Mr. Pembroke you needed the eleven forty-two.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I changed my mind.”
“About going home?”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around the cup.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She did not answer.
Arthur noticed the hesitation.
So did Avery.
“Margaret,” Arthur said, “this is important.”
She looked toward the rain-dark window.
“My father and I had an argument.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What about?”
“That isn’t anyone’s business.”
“No,” Arthur said. “Perhaps it isn’t.”
Avery let the silence remain.
Margaret looked from one man to the other.
“It’s nothing dramatic.”
Nobody suggested that it was.
She sighed.
“My father doesn’t want me nursing.”
“Why not?”
“He thinks it’s unsuitable.”
“For you?”
“For his daughter.”
There was the faintest trace of anger now, and Arthur was unexpectedly glad to hear it. Anger belonged to ordinary life. It belonged to fathers and daughters and young women who wanted things their parents did not.
“My mother wrote to say he was sorry,” Margaret continued. “I thought I’d come home. Then, on the way, I decided I wasn’t ready.”
“So you were going to St. Anne’s Cross instead?”
“To stay with my aunt.”
“What’s her name?”
“Clara.”
Arthur knew Clara Vale had died in 1952.
He said nothing.
Margaret looked at him.
“You know her?”
“I knew of her.”
“Knew?”
Arthur’s silence answered.
Margaret put down the cup.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking as though everybody I know is dead.”
Elsie sat beside her.
“Nobody is trying to frighten you.”
“Then why won’t anyone tell me what this is?”
Arthur drew a breath.
He looked at Avery again.
Avery gave the smallest nod.
Arthur stood.
“Come with me.”
Margaret did not move.
“Where?”
“Booking office.”
“I’m already in the booking office.”
“The public side.”
He opened the little gate.
Margaret rose slowly.
Arthur went around the counter and took the calendar from the wall.
He had hardly noticed it all evening.
A railway calendar.
November 1964.
He turned it toward her.
Margaret stared at it.
Nothing happened at first.
Then she smiled.
It was not amusement.
It was the involuntary reaction of someone presented with a joke too foolish to deserve anger.
“Very funny.”
Arthur said nothing.
She touched the page.
“Nineteen sixty-four.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get this?”
“It has been there since the first of the month.”
Margaret looked at Elsie.
Then Avery.
Then Marlowe.
No one smiled.
She looked again at the calendar.
Her hand remained against the paper.
“This isn’t possible.”
“No,” Arthur said.
She turned on him.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t agree with me like that.”
Arthur closed his mouth.
Margaret stepped away from the calendar.
“Where’s today’s newspaper?”
Avery reached toward the table.
Arthur had brought one from home that morning and barely opened it.
Avery handed it to her.
Margaret read the masthead.
Then the date.
Friday, 27 November 1964.
She turned several pages rapidly.
Arthur could see the moment when she stopped looking for evidence of deception and began looking for evidence that the impossible date was real.
A photograph of the Prime Minister.
An advertisement for a television set.
Motorcars unlike the ones she knew.
A report about Parliament.
A football result.
She turned another page.
Then another.
Her face gradually emptied.
“No.”
Elsie stood.
Margaret pushed the newspaper away.
“No.”
“Margaret—”
“No.”
She crossed to the window.
Outside, rain streamed across the glass.
“This is some kind of trick.”
Nobody answered.
“It must be.”
Arthur said, “I wish it were.”
She turned.
“Who are you?”
“Arthur Pembroke.”
“You said that.”
“I was here in 1943.”
Margaret stared at him.
Arthur continued.
“I worked this booking office.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“I would remember you.”
“You may.”
“I don’t.”
“You bought a ticket from me.”
“When?”
“Twenty-one years ago tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“You were wearing that coat.”
Margaret looked at the chair.
Arthur went on.
“You caught the left pocket on the brass corner of the counter.”
Her eyes moved toward the pocket.
“You tore the stitching.”
She picked up the coat.
Arthur pointed.
“There.”
The repair was visible beneath the flap.
Margaret touched it.
Her face changed.
“My mother mended that.”
“Yes.”
“How would you know?”
“You said she would.”
Margaret stared at him.
“I said what?”
“You told me she’d blame the railway.”
A tiny sound escaped her.
It might have been a laugh.
It might have been a sob.
Arthur wished he had not remembered the words so exactly.
She sat down again.
Nobody moved toward her.
Elsie had enough sense to know that comfort offered too quickly could become another kind of pressure.
Margaret looked at the floor.
“My mother.”
Arthur closed his eyes briefly.
She looked up.
“Where is she?”
He did not answer.
“Mr. Pembroke.”
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“No.”
Elsie said, “Margaret—”
“No.”
She picked up the coat.
“I’m going home.”
Arthur moved instinctively toward the door.
“You can’t.”
“Get out of my way.”
“The road is flooded.”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s nearly three miles.”
“I know where my own house is.”
Arthur did not move.
Margaret stared at him.
“I said get out of my way.”
Avery spoke from behind her.
“The house isn’t yours anymore.”
Margaret turned.
Avery’s voice remained calm.
“Rose Cottage was sold years ago.”
“By whom?”
Nobody answered.
Margaret’s breathing quickened.
“By whom?”
Avery looked at Arthur.
Arthur said, “Your father.”
“Why?”
Arthur did not know.
Avery did.
“After your mother died.”
The room became still.
Margaret’s mouth opened.
No sound came.
Then she looked toward the telephone.
“My father.”
Arthur said nothing.
“Where is he?”
Avery’s face told her before he spoke.
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
“He died in 1957.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
Avery did.
Margaret backed away from them.
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
She turned toward Elsie.
Perhaps because Elsie was the only woman there. Perhaps because she seemed least likely to lie.
“My mother is dead?”
Elsie nodded.
Margaret looked down at her hands.
“She wasn’t ill.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Arthur had hoped they would not have to tell her everything at once.
But there was no once anymore.
Every fact belonged to another life.
Elsie said softly, “Your mother died in 1950.”
Margaret stared.
“Seven years?”
“After you disappeared.”
Margaret flinched at the word.
“Disappeared.”
Nobody corrected it.
“What did she die of?”
“Influenza. There were complications.”
Margaret sat again.
“And my father?”
“Heart trouble.”
She nodded as though she were recording information for a hospital chart.
“1957.”
“Yes.”
“They’re both gone.”
“Yes.”
Margaret folded her hands in her lap.
For a while she said nothing.
Arthur became conscious again of the ticking clock.
It seemed obscene that a clock should continue behaving normally.
Margaret asked, “Stephen?”
Arthur looked at Avery.
Avery said, “Your brother is alive.”
She raised her head.
“Where?”
“Bellweather.”
“He lives here?”
“Yes.”
“What does he do?”
Avery hesitated.
Margaret saw it.
“What?”
“He’s a doctor.”
For the first time since seeing the calendar, something almost like wonder appeared in her face.
“Stephen?”
“Yes.”
“Little Stephen?”
Avery nodded.
Margaret gave a brief, incredulous laugh.
“He hates blood.”
“He seems to have overcome it.”
The laugh vanished almost as soon as it appeared.
“Thirty-two.”
“Yes.”
Margaret stared toward the stove.
“I don’t understand.”
“No,” Avery said.
Arthur crossed to the telephone.
“I can ring him.”
Margaret looked up sharply.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“Do it.”
Arthur lifted the receiver.
The line was alive again.
He asked for Dr. Stephen Vale.
The operator took longer than usual.
Storm damage, she said.
Arthur waited.
Margaret had moved close enough to hear.
After nearly a minute, a man’s voice answered.
“Vale.”
Arthur almost put the receiver down.
He knew Stephen.
Everyone in Bellweather did.
But he had never before thought of the voice as belonging to an eleven-year-old boy grown into a man.
“Stephen, it’s Arthur Pembroke.”
“Arthur? What’s happened?”
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to come to the station.”
A pause.
“Medical?”
Arthur looked at Margaret.
“Possibly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Can you come?”
“In this weather?”
“Yes.”
Stephen sighed.
“All right. Give me ten minutes.”
“Stephen.”
“What?”
Arthur did not know how to say it.
Margaret stepped closer.
Arthur turned slightly away from her.
“There’s somebody here.”
“Who?”
Arthur swallowed.
“She says she’s Margaret.”
Silence.
Not line noise.
Not static.
Absolute silence.
“Stephen?”
The voice returned.
“What did you say?”
“There’s a young woman here.”
“I heard you.”
“She says her name is Margaret Vale.”
The next silence was longer.
Then Stephen said, “Who is this?”
“Arthur Pembroke.”
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m not.”
“Who put you up to it?”
“Nobody.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know.”
Margaret reached for the receiver.
Arthur held up a hand.
Stephen’s voice had changed.
There was anger in it now.
“Is Avery there?”
Arthur looked toward Charles.
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
Arthur handed Avery the receiver.
Avery said, “Stephen.”
“Charles, what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is this some idiotic anniversary business?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe Margaret is at Bellweather Station?”
“I haven’t said what I expect you to believe.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s a young woman here who calls herself Margaret Vale.”
“Lots of women are called Margaret Vale.”
“This one says she was born in 1924.”
Stephen did not answer.
Avery continued.
“She says your mother was Edith.”
Margaret whispered, “Edith May.”
Avery heard.
“Edith May Vale.”
Still nothing.
“She says your father was Thomas.”
Margaret said, “Thomas Henry.”
“Thomas Henry Vale.”
Stephen’s voice became quieter.
“Anyone could know that.”
“Yes.”
Margaret took a step toward Avery.
“Ask him about the river.”
Avery looked at her.
“What river?”
“He’ll know.”
Avery spoke into the telephone.
“She says to ask you about the river.”
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end.
Margaret continued.
“Tell him he lost Father’s watch.”
Avery repeated it.
“No,” Margaret said. “Not lost. He dropped it.”
Avery corrected himself.
“She says you dropped your father’s watch.”
Stephen said nothing.
“In the river,” Avery added.
The line crackled.
Margaret’s face had changed.
She was no longer speaking to prove who she was.
She was remembering.
“We weren’t allowed beyond the mill.”
Avery repeated that too.
Margaret said, “He’d taken the watch from Father’s room because he wanted to know how long we could stay before tea.”
Avery relayed it.
“Then he dropped it between the stones.”
Stephen’s voice was almost inaudible.
“Stop.”
Avery stopped.
Margaret stared at him.
“What did he say?”
Avery held out the receiver.
She took it.
“Stephen?”
Nothing.
Her fingers tightened around the black handset.
“Stephen, it’s me.”
Arthur turned away.
Not because he wished to grant privacy.
Because he could not watch.
Margaret waited.
“Stephen?”
The voice that came through was rough.
“Margaret?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Stephen.”
“No.”
“It’s me.”
“My sister is dead.”
Margaret opened her eyes.
Arthur saw the words strike harder than anything else had.
“No.”
“She died twenty-one years ago.”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m here.”
“Who are you?”
Margaret began to cry.
Silently at first.
“I don’t know what’s happened.”
Nobody moved.
“I got on the train.”
Stephen said nothing.
“I was going to Aunt Clara’s.”
Still nothing.
“The lights went out.”
Arthur looked sharply at her.
Margaret barely seemed aware of anyone else now.
“There was a jolt. I thought we’d hit something.”
Avery had begun listening very carefully.
Margaret continued.
“Then I was back at Bellweather.”
Arthur stared.
“Back?” he said.
She did not hear him.
“Stephen, please.”
At last he answered.
“Stay there.”
She pressed the receiver harder to her ear.
“What?”
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m coming.”
The connection ended.
Margaret lowered the receiver.
For a few seconds she held it against her chest.
Then Arthur took it gently from her and returned it to the cradle.
Elsie put an arm around Margaret.
This time Margaret did not resist.
Marlowe moved toward the door.
Avery turned.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
“In that weather?”
“I need some air.”
Avery looked at him.
“You’ve had a great deal of air already.”
Marlowe’s jaw tightened.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going outside.”
Arthur said, “Keep to Platform One.”
Marlowe looked at him.
“Why?”
“Platform Two’s not in use.”
The answer satisfied nobody, but Marlowe opened the door and disappeared into the rain.
Avery waited until it had closed.
Then he said, “He knows her.”
Arthur nodded.
Margaret raised her head from Elsie’s shoulder.
“Who?”
“Marlowe.”
She wiped her face.
“I thought so.”
“Do you remember him?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“I don’t know.”
Avery pulled a chair closer.
“Take your time.”
Margaret looked toward the door through which Marlowe had gone.
“His face means something.”
“What?”
“I can’t say.”
“From the hospital?”
“No.”
“Bellweather?”
“Perhaps.”
Avery said, “Don’t force it.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Arthur could see that she was trying anyway.
The telephone rang again.
Arthur reached it first.
“Bellweather.”
George.
“Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“You still have her?”
Arthur looked at Margaret.
“Yes.”
George let out a breath.
“What happened?”
“I was about to ask you.”
“I’ve checked everything.”
“And?”
“Nothing passed my box.”
Arthur stared at the receiver.
“You said you saw it.”
“I did.”
“Then something passed.”
“Not according to the instruments.”
“Forget the instruments.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“George, you told me Margaret was on the train.”
Avery looked up.
Margaret listened.
George did not answer immediately.
“George?”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did.”
“It was raining.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
“The glass was bad.”
“Who did you see?”
“A girl.”
“Where?”
“At the window.”
“What window?”
“Second coach, I think.”
“You think?”
“I saw her for a second.”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“And you thought it was Margaret Vale.”
“I thought it looked like her.”
“You haven’t seen Margaret Vale since 1943.”
“Neither have you.”
Arthur looked across the room.
“Apparently I have now.”
George swore quietly.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Say things like that.”
“They don’t become less true because you dislike them.”
Avery’s eyes moved toward Arthur.
Arthur almost heard the irony in his own words.
“Did you see anything else?” he asked.
“No.”
“Think.”
“Arthur—”
“Think.”
There was a long pause.
“The compartment light went out.”
“When?”
“As it passed me.”
“Only that compartment?”
“I think so.”
“And then?”
“Nothing.”
“Was anyone with her?”
Another pause.
“I don’t know.”
“You told me earlier you saw somebody looking out.”
“Her.”
“No. You said somebody. Then you said you thought you recognized her.”
George became irritated.
“What difference does it make?”
“Possibly none.”
Avery stood and came closer to the telephone.
Arthur continued.
“Was there another person in the compartment?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Could there have been?”
“Of course there could have been.”
“Man or woman?”
“I said I couldn’t tell.”
“George—”
The line crackled.
Then George said, “There was someone behind her.”
Arthur felt the hairs rise on his arms.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they look like?”
“Nothing. A shape.”
“A man?”
“Maybe.”
“Old?”
“For God’s sake, Arthur, it went past in two seconds.”
Margaret stood.
“Ask him if he saw the old gentleman.”
Arthur looked at her.
“What old gentleman?”
She stared at him.
“In my compartment.”
Avery said, “You didn’t mention him.”
Margaret frowned.
“I thought I did.”
“No.”
“I was sitting with an old gentleman.”
Arthur spoke into the receiver.
“George, did you see an elderly man?”
There was no reply.
“George?”
Static filled the line.
Then, faintly, George said something Arthur could not understand.
“What?”
The line clicked dead.
Arthur worked the cradle.
Nothing.
He put down the receiver.
Margaret was watching him.
“Who was the old gentleman?” Avery asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You spoke to him?”
“A little.”
“Name?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Where did he board?”
“Worcester, I think.”
“You think?”
Margaret rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t remember seeing him get on.”
Avery waited.
“I only remember that he was there.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing important.”
“Try.”
Margaret thought.
“He asked if I was travelling far.”
“What did you say?”
“St. Anne’s Cross.”
“And?”
“He said that was an interesting place to stop.”
Arthur frowned.
“Interesting?”
“I think that was the word.”
“Anything else?”
“He had a newspaper.”
“What newspaper?”
“I don’t know.”
“Date?”
Margaret looked at him.
“I didn’t inspect it.”
Arthur nodded.
“Of course.”
She looked toward the door.
“When I woke up—”
Avery interrupted gently.
“Woke up?”
Margaret stopped.
“I suppose I must have.”
“You said the lights went out.”
“They did.”
“And then?”
“There was a jolt.”
“What sort?”
“Hard enough to throw me sideways.”
“Did the train stop?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
Margaret hesitated.
“I don’t think so.”
“But there’s a gap.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you remember next?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Darkness.”
“Inside the compartment?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur listened.
“I could hear wheels.”
“Train wheels?”
“Yes.”
“Moving?”
“Very fast.”
“But you couldn’t see the compartment?”
“No.”
“Could you see anything?”
Margaret opened her eyes.
“Lights.”
Arthur’s throat tightened.
“What lights?”
“Outside.”
“Station lights?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
She shook her head.
“They were passing.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Margaret—”
“I don’t know.”
Avery touched Arthur’s sleeve.
Enough.
Margaret lowered her head.
“I heard a door.”
“What door?” Avery asked.
“Sliding.”
“Compartment?”
“No. Corridor, perhaps.”
“Footsteps?”
She nodded.
“Someone came past.”
“Did they enter?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I remember standing on the platform.”
“At Bellweather?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get off the train?”
Margaret stared at him.
“I don’t remember.”
Arthur felt suddenly cold.
He had waited twenty-one years to hear this account without ever realizing he had been waiting for it.
“Which platform?” he asked.
Margaret answered at once.
“Two.”
Arthur gripped the back of the chair.
Avery saw.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Arthur.”
“Later.”
Avery studied him.
Arthur looked away.
Outside, wind drove rain against the station with a sound like thrown gravel.
A car horn sounded faintly from the road.
Margaret stood.
“Stephen.”
She hurried toward the window.
A pair of headlights moved through the station yard.
Arthur felt something twist inside him.
For Margaret, a few minutes had passed since she had spoken to her eleven-year-old brother.
For Stephen, twenty-one years had passed since he had heard his sister’s voice.
The motor stopped.
A door slammed.
Footsteps came rapidly across the yard.
Nobody in the booking office spoke.
Then the station door opened.
Dr. Stephen Vale entered carrying a black medical bag.
He was tall, dark-haired and wet at the shoulders.
Arthur had seen him almost weekly for years.
He had treated Elsie’s pneumonia.
He had signed Arthur’s medical certificate after the accident with the goods trolley.
He had sat in this very room and complained about railway coffee.
Arthur had never until that moment seen the boy inside the man.
Stephen stopped just beyond the doorway.
Margaret stood six feet away.
Neither moved.
Stephen’s face had gone utterly still.
Margaret looked at him.
Arthur saw her searching.
Not for resemblance.
For a child.
Her eyes moved over Stephen’s face, rejecting it, returning, searching again.
Then something changed.
“Stephen?”
The doctor did not answer.
Margaret took one step closer.
His hand tightened around the medical bag.
She smiled through tears.
“Oh.”
Stephen’s mouth moved.
Nothing came out.
Margaret gave a strange little laugh.
“You grew.”
It was such a foolish thing to say that Elsie began crying.
Stephen dropped the medical bag.
It struck the floor.
Margaret crossed the space between them.
For an instant Arthur thought Stephen might step away.
Instead he caught her in both arms.
Margaret buried her face against his chest.
Stephen did not cry.
Not at first.
He held her so tightly Arthur wondered whether she could breathe.
Then Stephen closed his eyes.
“Margaret.”
She laughed again.
“You’re taller than Father.”
Stephen’s face broke.
He turned his head away, but there was nowhere to turn.
Margaret touched his cheek.
“You look like him.”
Stephen began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Arthur had seen men receive news of deaths during the war with less pain than Stephen showed in that moment.
Margaret held his face between her hands.
“You really are Stephen.”
He nodded.
She looked at him as though trying to fit the child she knew into the man before her.
“Your hair was lighter.”
“I know.”
“You had freckles.”
“They went.”
“You hated carrots.”
“I still do.”
She smiled.
Stephen laughed once through his tears.
Then he embraced her again.
Nobody else in the room existed for them.
Arthur looked toward Avery.
The retired inspector was staring at the floor.
Elsie had turned away altogether.
Only Edward Marlowe was absent.
Arthur suddenly remembered him.
He went to the platform door.
Marlowe stood beneath the awning twenty yards away, smoking.
Arthur could barely see him through the rain.
Marlowe was not looking at the tracks.
He was looking through the booking-office window.
At Margaret.
Arthur stepped outside.
Marlowe immediately turned away.
“Mr. Marlowe.”
No response.
Arthur walked toward him.
“You’re going to ruin that suit.”
Marlowe threw down the cigarette.
“It will dry.”
“Everything does eventually.”
Marlowe glanced at him.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Then go inside.”
Arthur stopped beside him.
“Do you know Margaret Vale?”
Marlowe’s expression did not change.
“No.”
“You’ve answered that quickly twice.”
“Because you’ve asked me twice.”
“You recognized her.”
“I did not.”
“You nearly dropped your coffee.”
“I was surprised.”
“By what?”
“A girl walking into a railway station claiming to have been missing for twenty years.”
“You were surprised before she said her name.”
Marlowe looked at him.
Arthur continued.
“You saw her through the doorway.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Possibly.”
“Then stop wasting my time.”
Arthur looked across the tracks toward Platform Two.
The lamp was still burning.
The old bench glistened beneath it.
The brown suitcase was no longer there.
Arthur turned.
“Marlowe.”
“What?”
“The suitcase.”
Marlowe stared at him.
“What about it?”
Arthur moved toward the footbridge.
He knew perfectly well that he had carried the suitcase into the booking office.
He had put it beside the desk.
When Margaret arrived, nobody had touched it.
He crossed the bridge.
Platform Two was empty.
He searched beneath the bench.
Nothing.
He returned quickly.
Inside, Stephen and Margaret were sitting together near the stove.
Avery looked up.
“What’s wrong?”
“The case.”
Avery glanced toward the desk.
The space beside it was empty.
“Who moved it?”
Elsie shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
“Stephen?”
He looked confused.
“What case?”
“Margaret?”
She looked toward Arthur.
“What?”
“Your suitcase.”
“I don’t have one.”
Arthur stared at her.
“What?”
“I said I don’t have one.”
“The brown leather case.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I only have my handbag.”
Arthur turned to Avery.
“It was on Platform Two.”
“I know.”
“I brought it in.”
“I know.”
“Now it’s gone.”
Avery stood.
“Has anyone left the room?”
“Marlowe.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Avery went to the door.
Marlowe had followed Arthur back from the platform and was just entering.
Avery blocked his way.
“Edward.”
Marlowe stopped.
“Yes?”
“Where’s the suitcase?”
“What suitcase?”
“The one you wanted us to open.”
Marlowe laughed.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You went outside.”
“So?”
“So now it’s missing.”
Marlowe’s expression hardened.
“If you’re accusing me of stealing luggage, at least have the courtesy to say so.”
“I’m asking where it is.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t know.”
Margaret stood behind Avery.
She was looking at Marlowe again.
Not merely looking.
Remembering.
Marlowe saw it.
“What?” he demanded.
Margaret did not answer.
“What are you staring at?”
“I know you.”
Marlowe’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Avery said nothing.
Margaret stepped closer.
“I’ve seen you before.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t.”
“I have.”
“Where?”
Margaret touched her forehead.
“I don’t know.”
Marlowe gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
“Convenient.”
Margaret’s expression sharpened.
“You were at the station.”
Arthur felt the room tighten around them.
“When?” Avery asked.
Margaret looked at Marlowe.
“That night.”
Marlowe shook his head.
“No.”
“You were.”
“I was not.”
“I saw you.”
“You’re confused.”
Margaret stared at him.
Then she said, very quietly, “You spoke to Beatrice.”
Nobody moved.
Marlowe went white.
Avery’s voice changed.
“Beatrice who?”
Margaret did not answer.
She seemed surprised by the name herself.
Arthur knew it.
So did Avery.
“Beatrice Holt?” Arthur asked.
Margaret looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“The schoolmistress?”
“She wasn’t a schoolmistress.”
Marlowe turned away.
Avery caught his sleeve.
“Where are you going?”
“To find a telephone that works.”
“You’ll stay here.”
Marlowe looked down at Avery’s hand.
“Take your hand off me.”
Avery did.
But he did not move aside.
“What do you know about Beatrice Holt?”
“Nothing.”
“You know her.”
“Everyone knows her.”
“Did you know her in 1943?”
Marlowe’s mouth tightened.
“This is absurd.”
Avery looked at Margaret.
“What do you remember?”
She shook her head.
“Only the name.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Think.”
Stephen rose.
“Leave her alone.”
Avery turned.
“I intend to.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
“I’m trying to understand what happened to your sister.”
“So am I.”
Avery nodded.
“Then let her remember in her own way.”
Margaret had gone pale.
Stephen touched her arm.
“Sit down.”
“I’m all right.”
“Sit.”
This time she obeyed.
Arthur was suddenly aware that someone was knocking on the outer door.
Not loudly.
Three measured knocks.
Everyone heard them.
Arthur went to the door and opened it.
Miss Beatrice Holt stood in the rain.
She was a neat, composed woman in her mid-fifties, wearing a dark coat and carrying a broken umbrella.
“Mr. Pembroke,” she said, “I’m terribly sorry. The bus has stopped at the crossroads. There’s a tree down and the driver says we may be there all night. I wondered whether—”
She saw the others.
Then she saw Margaret.
Beatrice stopped speaking.
Arthur watched the colour leave her face.
The broken umbrella slipped from her hand.
Margaret stared back.
For a long moment neither woman moved.
Then Beatrice whispered:
“Oh, dear God.”
Marlowe closed his eyes.
Avery turned slowly toward him.
Margaret stood.
“You know me.”
Beatrice said nothing.
“You know who I am.”
Beatrice’s lips trembled.
“No.”
Margaret took a step toward her.
“You do.”
“No.”
“You know my name.”
Beatrice’s eyes filled with terror.
Arthur had never seen such naked fear in another human face.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Fear.
Beatrice backed toward the open door.
A gust of rain blew into the room.
Avery moved between her and the platform.
“Miss Holt.”
She looked at him.
“Come inside.”
“No.”
“You’ll catch your death standing there.”
“I can’t stay.”
“You’ve just said the road is blocked.”
“I’ll go back to the bus.”
“In this?”
“I said I can’t stay.”
Margaret spoke.
“Beatrice.”
The name stopped her.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Margaret took another step.
“I remember you.”
Beatrice’s eyes opened.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
Beatrice stared at her.
And for one terrible instant Arthur thought she might answer.
Instead she pressed both hands to her face.
Marlowe crossed the room abruptly.
“Enough.”
Avery turned.
Marlowe said, “The girl’s had some kind of breakdown. You’re feeding it.”
Margaret looked at him.
“I’m not a girl.”
Marlowe almost laughed.
“You’re nineteen.”
“I don’t know what I am.”
The words silenced everyone.
Stephen moved beside his sister.
Marlowe looked away first.
Arthur bent and picked up Beatrice’s umbrella.
“Come in, Miss Holt.”
Beatrice entered slowly.
Arthur closed the door behind her.
The storm pressed against the station.
There were seven of them now.
Arthur.
Elsie.
Avery.
Stephen.
Margaret.
Marlowe.
Beatrice.
Seven people in a station that had spent most of the day empty.
And somewhere between Harrowby and Bellweather, according to George Wilkes, a train had passed without entering the section.
Arthur looked at the clock.
Ten thirty-eight.
The final train was still more than an hour away.
He had the sudden, unreasonable feeling that midnight was much farther off than that.
Elsie began making more coffee.
It was the sort of thing she did when ordinary rules failed.
Beatrice sat at the far end of the room, refusing to look at Margaret.
Stephen remained beside his sister.
Avery stood near the stove, saying nothing.
Marlowe went to the window.
Arthur watched them all.
If he had been asked at that moment what frightened him most, he would not have said Margaret.
Margaret was impossible, certainly.
But she was frightened, tired and confused.
She wanted her brother.
She wanted her parents.
She wanted a world that no longer existed.
There was nothing frightening in that.
What frightened Arthur was Marlowe.
And Beatrice.
Because they were not looking at Margaret as though she had returned from the dead.
They were looking at her as though she had returned with something.
Avery crossed quietly to Arthur.
“How well do you know Holt?”
“Beatrice?”
“Yes.”
“Everyone knows her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Arthur considered.
“Schoolteacher. Church committee. Magistrates’ fundraising. Lives in the cottage near the green. Never married.”
“Family?”
“Brother in Bristol. I think.”
“Reliable?”
Arthur almost smiled.
“What does that mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
“She’s respectable.”
Avery glanced toward her.
“So was Crippen.”
Arthur looked at him.
“You always say things like that when you want people to think you’ve noticed something.”
“I have noticed something.”
“What?”
“She lied.”
“About knowing Margaret?”
“Immediately.”
“That doesn’t make her a murderer.”
Avery looked at him.
“No one has been murdered.”
Arthur wished he had not used the word.
“Figure of speech.”
“Interesting one.”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“Marlowe lied too.”
“Yes.”
“About knowing Margaret.”
“Yes.”
“And possibly Beatrice.”
“Almost certainly.”
“So what are you thinking?”
Avery looked toward Margaret.
“I’m thinking that twenty-one years ago several people knew considerably more than they told me.”
Arthur felt the words like a hand closing around his throat.
Avery turned back.
“Including you.”
Arthur met his eyes.
Neither man spoke.
Avery had not forgotten.
Of course he had not forgotten.
In 1943, Charles Avery had interviewed Arthur twice.
Arthur had told him he sold Margaret a ticket.
He had told him which train she boarded.
He had told him she seemed nervous.
He had told him everything.
Except the impossible thing.
Avery said quietly, “You looked at Platform Two when she described coming back.”
Arthur said nothing.
“You reacted.”
“I was surprised.”
“No.”
“Charles—”
“Not now.”
Avery looked toward the others.
“But before tonight is over, you and I are going to have a conversation.”
Arthur felt suddenly tired.
“Twenty-one years late.”
“Better late than never.”
Outside, something struck the platform.
A sharp metallic clang.
Beatrice jumped.
Marlowe turned.
Arthur listened.
The sound came again.
Clang.
Then silence.
“Signal wire?” Elsie asked.
“No.”
Arthur opened the door.
Rain blew inside.
He stepped onto the platform.
The lamp above him flickered.
Nothing moved.
He walked toward the far end of the building.
Behind him, Avery followed.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
They passed the parcels office.
The old ladies’ waiting room lay beyond it, unused for months.
Its outer door stood slightly open.
Arthur stopped.
“That was locked.”
Avery looked at him.
“Certain?”
“I locked it myself.”
“When?”
“Six o’clock.”
The wind moved the door.
It struck the frame.
Clang.
“There,” Avery said.
Arthur frowned.
“How did it open?”
They approached.
Avery pushed the door inward.
The room was dark.
Arthur reached for the switch.
Nothing happened.
“Bulb’s gone.”
Avery took a box of matches from his pocket.
He struck one.
The tiny flame illuminated faded green walls, a bench, an old luggage rack and a heap of folded railway posters.
Nothing else.
Arthur exhaled.
“Wind.”
“Probably.”
Avery let the match burn lower.
Then stopped.
“Arthur.”
“What?”
Avery was looking behind the door.
Arthur stepped closer.
Something lay on the floor.
A brown leather suitcase.
The one from Platform Two.
Arthur stared at it.
Avery crouched.
“Don’t touch it.”
“I carried it half an hour ago.”
“Then you’ve already done enough touching.”
The match went out.
Avery struck another.
The case lay on its side.
One leather strap had been undone.
Arthur said, “It was fastened.”
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“Both straps?”
“Yes.”
Avery looked toward the darkness at the back of the room.
“Somebody opened it.”
Arthur felt cold air moving through the doorway behind them.
“There’s nothing in it.”
“You didn’t open it.”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I picked it up. It was nearly empty.”
Avery lifted the lid with two fingers.
Inside lay a folded piece of cloth.
Nothing else.
Avery drew it out.
A scarf.
Dark wool.
Arthur did not recognize it.
Avery did.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Get Margaret.”
Arthur looked at him.
“Why?”
Avery held up the scarf.
There was something caught in the fringe.
A small silver object.
Round.
Avery freed it carefully.
A medal.
Arthur leaned closer.
A saint stood embossed on one side.
Avery turned it over.
Two initials had been scratched into the back.
M.V.
Arthur stopped breathing.
Avery looked at him.
“Now get Margaret.”
Arthur went.
He had taken perhaps six steps when the lights went out.
The whole station vanished.
Someone cried out in the booking office.
Arthur stopped.
“Elsie!”
“I’m here!”
Stephen’s voice.
“Margaret?”
A pause.
Then Margaret answered.
“Here.”
Arthur heard Avery behind him.
“Nobody move.”
Lightning flashed beyond the windows.
For an instant the platform appeared white and empty.
Then darkness returned.
Arthur reached the booking-office doorway.
Elsie had found a candle.
Stephen struck a match.
Faces appeared around the room.
Margaret.
Elsie.
Beatrice.
Stephen.
Arthur counted automatically.
Five.
Avery came in behind him.
Six.
Arthur looked around.
“Marlowe.”
Nobody answered.
Avery said sharply, “Where’s Marlowe?”
Beatrice stared toward the door.
“He was here.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
Arthur’s stomach tightened.
Avery took the candle from Elsie.
“Stay here.”
He turned toward Arthur.
“With me.”
They went back along the corridor.
The candle flame bent in the draught.
Arthur could hear the storm outside.
And beneath it, something else.
A low sound.
Not the signal wire.
Not wind.
Avery stopped.
“You hear that?”
Arthur nodded.
It came from the old waiting room.
A dull, irregular scraping.
Avery pushed open the door.
The candlelight moved across the walls.
Across the bench.
Across the suitcase.
Then farther.
Edward Marlowe lay on the floor beside the luggage rack.
For a moment Arthur thought he had fallen.
Then he saw the blood.
Not much.
A dark line at the temple.
Marlowe’s hand moved weakly against the floorboards.
That was the scraping sound.
Avery crossed the room.
“Edward.”
Marlowe’s eyes opened.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came.
Avery shouted, “Stephen!”
Footsteps came running.
Stephen entered, medical bag in hand.
He knelt immediately.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me the candle.”
Avery held it lower.
Stephen examined Marlowe’s head, then his pupils.
“Marlowe.”
No response.
“Edward, can you hear me?”
Marlowe’s lips moved.
Stephen leaned close.
“What?”
Marlowe breathed a word.
Arthur could not hear it.
Stephen frowned.
“Again.”
Marlowe tried.
This time Arthur heard.
“Medal.”
Avery and Arthur looked at each other.
Marlowe’s eyes drifted toward the suitcase.
Then his body slackened.
Stephen pressed two fingers to his neck.
He waited.
Moved them.
Waited again.
Margaret stood in the doorway.
Arthur had not heard her come.
Stephen saw her.
“Margaret, go back.”
She did not.
Her eyes were fixed on Avery’s hand.
On the silver medal.
Avery followed her gaze.
“Do you recognize this?”
Margaret stepped into the room.
Stephen rose.
“Not now.”
But Margaret came closer.
Avery held out the medal.
She stared at it.
Then touched her throat.
There was nothing there.
“Oh.”
Arthur felt the word more than heard it.
Margaret took the medal.
She turned it over.
Her thumb found the initials.
“M.V.”
She looked up.
“This is mine.”
Nobody spoke.
“My mother gave it to me.”
Arthur said, “When?”
“On my sixteenth birthday.”
She stared at Marlowe’s body.
“I was wearing it.”
Avery’s voice was very quiet.
“When?”
Margaret looked at him.
“On the train.”
Stephen said, “Margaret—”
“I was wearing it on the train.”
Avery looked down at Marlowe.
Stephen knelt again and checked him once more.
There was no uncertainty when he stood.
“He’s dead.”
The candle flame trembled.
Rain hammered against the station roof.
Somewhere beyond the darkness, a telephone began to ring.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nobody moved.
Margaret still held the medal.
Avery looked from her to Marlowe.
Then toward Beatrice, who had appeared silently in the doorway.
And Arthur Pembroke understood that whatever had come back to Bellweather that night had brought more with it than Margaret Vale.
Twenty-one years earlier, a girl had disappeared.
Now a man was dead.
And for the first time since the storm began, Arthur was certain of one thing.
The two events belonged together.
The Last Train from Bellweather
Part Three
The telephone continued to ring.
It was an ordinary sound, almost offensively so.
A telephone had no business sounding ordinary in a dark railway station with a dead man on the floor.
Arthur stood in the doorway of the old waiting room and counted the rings.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Nobody moved.
Stephen remained beside Edward Marlowe’s body. Avery stood over him with the candle, its flame throwing their shadows high against the faded green walls. Margaret held the silver medal between her fingers. Beatrice Holt had not come farther than the doorway.
Elsie was somewhere behind them in the corridor.
Seven rings.
Arthur turned.
“I’d better answer it.”
Avery looked up.
“Yes.”
Arthur started toward the booking office.
“Arthur.”
He stopped.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
Arthur glanced back at him.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. Neither do I. That’s the difficulty.”
The telephone rang again.
Arthur hurried down the corridor.
Elsie had found another candle and set it in a saucer on the booking-office counter. Its light barely reached the walls. Beyond the windows there was nothing but darkness.
Arthur lifted the receiver.
“Bellweather.”
Static rushed into his ear.
“Bellweather.”
A voice answered faintly.
“Arthur?”
“George?”
“Yes.”
The connection faded, returned, then filled with a crackling noise like paper being crushed.
“George, can you hear me?”
“Just.”
“Stay on the line.”
“What happened to your lights?”
Arthur looked toward the black platform.
“How do you know they’re out?”
“I can usually see Bellweather from the rise.”
“Not in this weather.”
“There’s a break in it here.”
Arthur listened.
The rain did seem to be easing slightly.
“George, I need you to do something.”
“What?”
“Get the police.”
There was a pause.
“What happened?”
“Edward Marlowe’s dead.”
George said nothing.
“George?”
“I heard you.”
“He’s been attacked.”
“At the station?”
“Yes.”
“Good Lord.”
“I need the police here.”
“I’ll ring Market St. Edmund.”
“And an ambulance.”
Arthur immediately realized the pointlessness of the second request. Stephen had already pronounced Marlowe dead.
George apparently realized it too.
“All right.”
“And don’t ring off until—”
The line cracked violently.
“George?”
Arthur heard only static.
Then George’s voice returned.
“Road’s gone.”
“What?”
“Stanton Brook.”
Arthur gripped the receiver.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Police rang ten minutes ago. Water’s over the bridge and they’ve closed the road.”
“There’s the north road.”
“Tree down at Bellweather Cross.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“Can they come by rail?”
“From Market St. Edmund?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing scheduled.”
“I know what’s scheduled.”
“I can ask.”
“Ask.”
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“Who killed him?”
Arthur looked toward the corridor.
“I don’t know.”
“Is everyone safe?”
He thought about that.
“I don’t know that either.”
There was another burst of interference.
“George?”
“I’m here.”
“Ring the police. Tell them Charles Avery is here.”
“That’ll cheer them up.”
Under any other circumstances Arthur might have smiled.
“George.”
“Yes?”
“Did anything else pass your box?”
Silence.
Arthur waited.
“Not yet.”
The answer troubled him more than it should have.
“What does that mean?”
“It means not yet.”
“George—”
“I’ll ring the police.”
The line went dead.
Arthur put down the receiver.
For a moment he remained behind the counter, one hand resting on the old wooden surface.
He could see his reflection faintly in the booking-office glass.
An old man in railway uniform, lit by a candle.
He did not usually think of himself as old.
Fifty-eight was not old.
Not properly.
But the man reflected in the darkened glass had grey hair and tired eyes, and for a moment Arthur remembered another face in the same window.
His own at thirty-seven.
November 1943.
Margaret Vale on the other side of the counter.
A shilling in her hand.
The blackout curtains drawn.
He pushed the memory away.
Not yet.
There were practical things to be done.
Practical things had always been Arthur’s refuge.
He found the emergency lamp beneath the desk and lit it.
The stronger light filled the room.
A minute later Avery entered.
“Police?”
“Trying.”
“How long?”
“Impossible to say. Roads are flooded.”
Avery nodded as though this confirmed something he had expected.
“Stephen is certain?”
“About Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead.”
Avery removed his wet coat and hung it over the back of a chair.
The action struck Arthur as peculiar.
“Making yourself comfortable?”
“I may be here some time.”
He looked around the room.
“Where’s everyone?”
“Margaret and Stephen are still in there. Elsie’s with Beatrice.”
“Good.”
Arthur lowered his voice.
“What happened?”
“Blow to the head.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could he have fallen?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
Arthur waited.
Avery crossed to the stove and held his hands above it.
“You saw the wound.”
“Yes.”
“One blow?”
“At least one.”
“Stephen thinks there may have been two.”
Arthur stared at him.
“Two?”
“One above the right temple. Another farther back.”
“Then somebody meant to kill him.”
“Possibly.”
“Charles.”
Avery looked at him.
“You don’t hit a man twice by accident.”
“No.”
The simple agreement chilled Arthur.
“How long?”
“Stephen won’t commit himself exactly. Within the last fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Arthur began calculating.
“Marlowe went outside when Stephen arrived.”
“Yes.”
“He came back.”
“Yes.”
“Then we found the suitcase.”
“Yes.”
“The lights went out.”
“Yes.”
“And he disappeared.”
Avery nodded.
“Which means?”
“It means almost everyone had an opportunity.”
Arthur looked toward the corridor.
“Not Margaret.”
“Why not?”
“She was with Stephen.”
“Was she?”
Arthur frowned.
“You saw them.”
“I saw them together before we went to investigate the waiting-room door.”
“She couldn’t have—”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because from this moment onward we stop assuming things.”
Arthur disliked the tone.
“She’s just come back after twenty-one years.”
“Apparently.”
“You don’t believe her?”
Avery turned.
“I believe a young woman calling herself Margaret Vale walked into this station tonight. I believe she knows things Margaret Vale knew. I believe you recognized her. I believe Stephen recognized her. And I believe Beatrice Holt and Edward Marlowe recognized her.”
“That’s a rather elaborate way of saying you believe her.”
“It’s the way policemen stay out of trouble.”
“You’re retired.”
“Trouble doesn’t appear to have noticed.”
Elsie entered.
“Beatrice wants to leave.”
Avery said, “She can’t.”
“I told her that.”
“What did she say?”
“That she would walk.”
“In the storm?”
“Apparently.”
Arthur looked at his wife.
“What did you tell her?”
“That she was being ridiculous.”
“And?”
“She told me it was none of my concern.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
Elsie said, “I resisted the temptation to agree.”
Avery almost smiled.
“Where is she?”
“General waiting room.”
“Alone?”
“Margaret and Stephen are in the staff room.”
“Good.”
Elsie looked at Avery.
“Charles, is it really necessary to keep everyone here?”
“Yes.”
“Are you allowed to?”
“No.”
Arthur stared at him.
Avery continued.
“But the roads are flooded, there’s a murderer somewhere in or around the station, and anyone who chooses to wander out into the night is welcome to explain to the constabulary why they ignored a retired inspector’s request to remain available.”
Elsie considered.
“That sounds nearly official.”
“Years of practice.”
Arthur said, “You said murderer.”
Avery’s expression became serious again.
“Yes.”
“So there’s no doubt?”
“No.”
Elsie looked toward the corridor.
“Does Margaret know?”
“Stephen does.”
“And Beatrice?”
“Not yet.”
Avery took the emergency lamp.
“Arthur, I need the doors locked.”
Arthur stared at him.
“The station doors?”
“All outside doors except the main platform entrance. Lock that one too once we’ve checked nobody else is here.”
“You think the killer might still be outside?”
“I think I know there are six living people inside this building besides myself.”
“Seven,” Elsie said.
Avery looked at her.
“Arthur, you, Margaret, Stephen, Beatrice and me.”
Elsie counted.
“Six.”
“Exactly.”
“Marlowe made seven.”
“Until someone reduced the number.”
Elsie looked at him severely.
“Charles.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No.”
Arthur took the ring of station keys from his pocket.
Avery said, “Before you lock anything, check the lavatories, parcels office and storage room.”
“I’ll come,” Elsie said.
“No,” Arthur replied.
“Why?”
“Because if somebody is hiding in the parcels office, I would rather discover him without having to worry about you.”
Elsie looked at him.
“After thirty-four years, Arthur, you should know better than to say things like that.”
Avery handed Arthur the lamp.
“I’ll go with him.”
They searched the station.
There was nobody in the parcels office.
Nobody in the staff lavatory.
Nobody beneath the footbridge.
The storage room contained three broken chairs, a stack of obsolete timetables, two oil cans and a quantity of dust that Arthur considered a personal embarrassment.
The general waiting room held only Beatrice.
She sat very straight on the wooden bench, handbag on her lap, staring at nothing.
Avery stopped in the doorway.
“Miss Holt.”
She looked up.
“May I go now?”
“No.”
“By what authority?”
“None.”
“Then I shall leave.”
“Mr. Marlowe has been killed.”
Beatrice did not move.
Arthur watched her carefully.
Avery did too.
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“A blow to the head.”
Her fingers tightened around the handbag.
“Who did it?”
“That’s what I intend to discover.”
Beatrice looked toward the corridor.
“Where?”
“Old ladies’ waiting room.”
She closed her eyes.
Arthur noticed something strange.
She did not ask when.
Avery said, “Did you see Mr. Marlowe leave the booking office?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I said no.”
“You arrived at approximately ten thirty-eight.”
“I don’t know the exact time.”
“Shortly after you arrived, Mr. Marlowe was still in the booking office.”
“Was he?”
“You spoke to him.”
“No.”
Avery waited.
Beatrice looked up sharply.
“I did not speak to Edward.”
“You’ve called him Edward.”
She froze.
Arthur felt almost sorry for her.
Almost.
Avery sat opposite.
“Earlier you gave the impression that you scarcely knew Mr. Marlowe.”
“I know who he is.”
“You know him well enough to call him Edward.”
“Everyone does.”
Arthur said, “I don’t.”
Beatrice shot him an angry look.
Arthur regretted speaking.
Avery did not.
“How long have you known him?”
“Years.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Twenty-one?”
Beatrice’s face became rigid.
“I don’t see the relevance.”
“I do.”
“Then perhaps you’d explain it.”
Avery leaned back.
“You recognized Margaret Vale.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I recognized the name.”
“You hadn’t heard her name.”
Beatrice said nothing.
“When you entered the station,” Avery continued, “you saw her and said, ‘Oh, dear God.’ Margaret had not introduced herself. Nobody had spoken her name.”
Beatrice looked toward Arthur.
“Mr. Pembroke might have mentioned—”
“I didn’t.”
“You might have.”
“I didn’t.”
Avery said, “You knew her.”
Beatrice’s mouth tightened.
“I knew Margaret Vale in 1943.”
“Thank you.”
“That is hardly a secret.”
“It was ten minutes ago.”
Beatrice looked down.
Avery’s voice softened.
“Why were you frightened?”
“I was shocked.”
“You were frightened.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Probably. But not in the way you were.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you didn’t look at Margaret as though you’d seen a ghost. You looked at her as though she’d come to accuse you of something.”
Beatrice stood.
“That’s absurd.”
“Sit down.”
“You have no right—”
“No. I don’t.”
Avery did not raise his voice.
“But a man you knew is dead twenty yards from where we’re sitting. You lied about knowing him. You lied about recognizing a woman who disappeared twenty-one years ago. And unless you intend to walk six miles through flooded roads in the dark, I suggest you sit down.”
Beatrice remained standing.
Then slowly sat.
Avery said, “Where were you between ten forty and ten fifty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Here?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I went to the lavatory.”
“When?”
“After I arrived.”
“Before or after the lights failed?”
“Before.”
“Did you see Marlowe?”
“No.”
“Did you go near the old waiting room?”
“No.”
“Did you touch the suitcase?”
“What suitcase?”
Arthur looked at Avery.
Avery continued.
“A brown leather suitcase.”
“No.”
“You didn’t see it?”
“No.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because it was in the booking office when you arrived.”
Beatrice’s eyes flickered.
Only once.
But Arthur saw it.
Avery stood.
“Stay here, please.”
Beatrice gave a bitter laugh.
“Or what?”
Avery paused at the door.
“Or you may discover the storm is the least unpleasant thing waiting outside.”
They left her.
In the corridor Arthur said, “You enjoyed that.”
“No.”
“You did a little.”
“Perhaps a little.”
“She knows something.”
“Several things.”
“Do you think she killed him?”
Avery stopped.
“I think she is afraid of Margaret.”
“So was Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“And now Marlowe’s dead.”
“Yes.”
Arthur waited for more.
None came.
“You are an irritating man.”
“I’ve been told.”
They continued toward the booking office.
As they passed the old ladies’ waiting room, Arthur glanced through the open door.
Stephen had covered Marlowe with an old railway blanket.
Only one polished shoe remained visible beneath it.
Arthur stopped.
For thirty-seven years he had known this room as a place where women waited for trains with children, baskets and parcels.
Now a man lay dead there.
Avery touched his arm.
“Come.”
They went inside.
Stephen was washing his hands in a basin.
Margaret sat against the wall.
The St. Christopher medal lay in her palm.
Arthur looked at it.
“Where did you last see that?”
Margaret raised her eyes.
“Tonight.”
“I mean before tonight.”
“On the train.”
“You’re certain?”
She nodded.
“I always wore it.”
“Always?”
“My mother gave it to me.”
“Could you have taken it off?”
“Why would I?”
Arthur sat opposite.
“You said there was a jolt.”
“Yes.”
“Could the chain have broken?”
Margaret looked at the medal.
There was no chain attached.
“I suppose.”
Avery said, “Where was Marlowe in 1943?”
Margaret looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you remembered him at the station.”
“I thought I did.”
“And Beatrice.”
“Yes.”
“Before or after you boarded the train?”
Margaret closed her fingers around the medal.
“I don’t know.”
Stephen turned from the basin.
“She’s had enough.”
Avery nodded.
“For the moment.”
Stephen looked surprised.
“I expected an argument.”
“I’m saving it for later.”
Margaret said, “No.”
Stephen looked at her.
“I want to remember.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Margaret—”
“Stephen, everybody keeps telling me things I did twenty-one years ago.”
She looked at her brother.
“For me it was tonight.”
Stephen’s expression changed.
Margaret turned to Avery.
“Ask.”
Avery pulled a chair closer.
“Tell me about arriving at Bellweather in 1943.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Arthur watched her.
“I got off the train.”
“Which train?”
“The branch train from Market St. Edmund.”
“Time?”
“A little after nine.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What did you do?”
“I went into the waiting room.”
“This one?”
“No. The other one.”
“The general waiting room?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It was cold.”
“Did you see anyone?”
Margaret frowned.
“A porter.”
Arthur said, “Billy Sykes.”
She opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
Arthur felt a small shock of recognition.
“Billy was porter then.”
“Is he—”
“Dead,” Arthur said, then immediately wished he had found another way to phrase it.
Margaret looked down.
“Of course.”
“He died in 1959.”
She nodded.
Avery continued gently.
“Anyone else?”
“There was a soldier.”
“Fallow?”
Margaret looked up.
Arthur saw recognition.
“Henry?”
“Colonel Henry Fallow.”
Margaret almost smiled.
“Colonel?”
“He retired from the Army.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
Something eased in her face.
“Where?”
“Bellweather Hall.”
Margaret looked toward Stephen.
“Henry’s alive.”
Stephen nodded.
“I know him.”
Margaret stared.
The strange arithmetic of her situation seemed to strike her again.
Of course Stephen knew Henry Fallow.
Stephen had lived an entire lifetime in a village Margaret had left only hours ago.
Avery said, “You saw Henry here that night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Margaret.”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
“Nothing.”
Avery waited.
She opened her eyes.
“You’re doing that deliberately.”
“What?”
“Not speaking.”
“It works surprisingly often.”
Margaret almost smiled.
Then the smile vanished.
“I told Henry I was leaving.”
“For St. Anne’s Cross?”
“No.”
Avery leaned forward slightly.
“Where were you going?”
Margaret looked at the medal in her hand.
“I don’t remember.”
Stephen said, “You said Aunt Clara.”
“I know.”
“But?”
Margaret shook her head.
“That wasn’t why.”
Arthur felt something shift.
Avery’s voice remained neutral.
“Why did you tell us it was?”
“Because I thought it was true.”
“Until now?”
“Yes.”
“What changed?”
“Henry.”
“Seeing him in your memory?”
She nodded.
“I told him I was going to do something.”
“What?”
“I can’t...”
She pressed her fingertips against her temple.
Stephen started toward her.
Margaret held up a hand.
“No.”
She concentrated.
“There was a book.”
Avery and Arthur looked at each other.
“What kind of book?” Avery asked.
“Small.”
“A novel?”
“No.”
“Diary?”
“No.”
Margaret shook her head impatiently.
“A notebook.”
Arthur felt Avery become still beside him.
“What was in it?”
“Numbers.”
“What numbers?”
“Wagon numbers.”
The room seemed to contract.
Arthur said, “Railway wagons?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you writing down wagon numbers?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Who was?”
“I was copying them.”
“From where?”
Margaret stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Avery said, “Who gave them to you?”
“No one.”
“You found them?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I...”
She stopped.
Then her face changed.
“The surgery.”
Stephen frowned.
“What surgery?”
“Dr. Latham’s.”
Arthur remembered the name.
Dr. Latham had practiced in Bellweather during the war.
Margaret continued.
“I was helping him on Wednesdays. The hospital let us volunteer because so many of the local nurses had gone.”
“Helping with what?”
“Everything.”
“What did you find?”
“Forms.”
“What forms?”
“Medical supply forms.”
Stephen sat down.
Margaret looked at him.
“There were deliveries that never arrived.”
“At the surgery?”
“Yes.”
“Medicine?”
“Some.”
“What else?”
“Bandages. Spirit. Petrol coupons.”
Avery’s expression had become grave.
“Who signed for them?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“I can’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Charles,” Stephen warned.
Avery ignored him.
“Margaret.”
She suddenly opened her eyes.
“Beatrice.”
Nobody spoke.
“Beatrice signed some of them.”
Arthur felt a chill.
Avery said, “Beatrice Holt?”
“She worked at the supply office.”
“In 1943?”
“Yes.”
“Did you confront her?”
“I asked her.”
“What did she say?”
“That there had been a clerical error.”
“And you believed her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there were too many errors.”
Avery leaned forward.
“What did you do?”
“I began writing them down.”
“The wagon numbers.”
“Yes.”
“And the notebook?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Margaret looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you have it on the train?”
She did not answer.
“Margaret?”
“I think so.”
Arthur remembered the brown suitcase.
“Was it in your luggage?”
“No.”
“Your handbag?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Margaret stared toward the window.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
Avery sat back.
Arthur could almost see the pieces arranging themselves in the older man’s mind.
Stephen said, “What has this got to do with Marlowe?”
Avery looked at him.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s becoming a very common phrase tonight.”
“Yes.”
Arthur said, “Marlowe was a solicitor.”
Stephen looked at him.
“So?”
“So during the war he handled estate business for half the county. Farms. Warehouses. Transport contracts.”
Avery turned.
“You remember that?”
“I remember him coming through the station.”
“Often?”
“Often enough.”
Margaret suddenly said, “He had keys.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What keys?” Avery asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“On his belt.”
Arthur thought of the wartime freight stores near Bellweather.
Marlowe had represented one of the firms contracted to manage them.
Avery said, “Did you see him with Beatrice?”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“At the station?”
“Yes.”
“What were they doing?”
“Arguing.”
“About you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you hear?”
Margaret closed her eyes again.
A long silence followed.
Then she said, “She told him I had written it down.”
Avery did not move.
“Those exact words?”
“I think so.”
“Who said it?”
“Beatrice.”
“And Marlowe?”
“He was angry.”
“At her?”
“At me.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Margaret opened her eyes.
“I don’t remember.”
Stephen stood.
“That’s enough.”
This time Avery agreed.
“Yes.”
He rose.
Margaret looked at the medal again.
“If Edward Marlowe had this...”
Avery waited.
“Then he must have seen me after I got on the train.”
Arthur felt the old memory push against him.
He stood abruptly.
Avery turned.
“Arthur?”
“I need to check something.”
“What?”
“The records.”
“What records?”
Arthur was already at the door.
“Train register.”
Avery followed.
“From tonight?”
“From 1943.”
Arthur crossed the booking office and unlocked a cupboard beneath the old timetable case.
The railway threw away surprisingly little.
Forms, ledgers and operating notices accumulated in stations long after their practical usefulness had ended. Arthur had complained about it for years.
Now he was grateful.
He pulled out three heavy books.
“No.”
Another.
“Not that.”
Avery watched.
“What date?”
“Twenty-seventh November.”
“Nineteen forty-three.”
“I know the year.”
Arthur found the volume.
The cover was black, corners worn to grey.
He carried it to the counter.
Dust rose when he opened it.
The handwriting on the first pages belonged to men long dead.
Arthur turned carefully.
November twenty-fifth.
Twenty-sixth.
Twenty-seventh.
He stopped.
There it was.
Bellweather Station Train Register.
27 November 1943.
Arthur ran his finger down the entries.
Six fifty-three passenger.
Seven fourteen goods.
Seven forty-two troop special.
Eight seventeen passenger.
Nine oh-six passenger.
Margaret’s train.
He continued.
Ten twenty goods.
Ten fifty-eight light engine.
Eleven forty-two passenger.
Arthur stared at the page.
Avery stood beside him.
“What?”
Arthur did not answer.
“Arthur.”
“The eleven forty-two.”
“What about it?”
“It left at eleven forty-six.”
“Four minutes late.”
“Yes.”
“Is that significant?”
“No.”
Arthur’s finger moved to the next line.
There should have been nothing.
He remembered that.
Nothing until the first morning goods.
But the paper beneath his finger had been scraped.
Not crossed out.
Scraped.
Someone had used a blade or eraser hard enough to damage the surface.
Avery leaned closer.
“What was there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You wrote this?”
“Some of it.”
“Which?”
Arthur examined the handwriting.
The eleven forty-two entry was his.
He recognized the narrow shape of his younger hand.
The erased line beneath it was not.
Or he did not think it was.
Avery held the lamp closer.
Faint traces of pencil remained.
Arthur tilted the book.
“Can you read it?”
“Maybe.”
Avery took a magnifying glass from his coat pocket.
Arthur stared at him.
“You carry that?”
“I was a policeman for forty-one years.”
“You’re retired.”
“You keep mentioning it.”
Avery bent over the page.
After a moment he said, “There are figures.”
“What?”
“Looks like eleven...”
He shifted the lamp.
“Fifty-six.”
Arthur’s mouth went dry.
“What else?”
“Special.”
Avery moved the glass.
“Possibly.”
“Special what?”
“Working.”
Arthur gripped the counter.
Eleven fifty-six.
Avery looked at him.
“You know something.”
Arthur did not answer.
“You knew before we opened this book.”
“No.”
“Arthur.”
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
Arthur stared at the damaged page.
Twenty-one years collapsed.
The blackout.
Rain.
A platform lamp.
Margaret Vale standing on Platform Two at approximately eleven fifty-seven.
He heard himself calling her name.
He saw her turn.
And then lights.
A train where no train should have been.
Arthur closed the ledger.
Avery put a hand on it.
“No.”
“Not now.”
“Especially now.”
“Charles.”
“You’ve kept something from me for twenty-one years.”
Arthur looked at him.
Avery’s face contained no anger.
That made it worse.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Since when?”
“Since 1943.”
Arthur stared.
Avery continued.
“Your statement bothered me.”
“Why?”
“You were too precise.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No. You remembered every train movement. Every ticket. Every minute. But when I asked what you did after the eleven forty-two left, you suddenly remembered almost nothing.”
Arthur looked away.
“You were frightened.”
“Everyone was frightened in 1943.”
“Not like that.”
Arthur said quietly, “You wouldn’t have believed me.”
Avery’s voice became softer.
“Try me.”
Before Arthur could answer, Elsie appeared in the doorway.
“Charles.”
Both men turned.
“What?”
“Beatrice is gone.”
Avery straightened.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“The waiting room is empty.”
Arthur looked toward the platform door.
“I locked it.”
“The door’s still locked.”
“Then she can’t be gone.”
Elsie gave him a look.
“Arthur, I know an empty room when I see one.”
Avery moved immediately.
They searched the general waiting room.
Empty.
The lavatory.
Empty.
Booking office.
Staff room.
Margaret and Stephen were still there.
Avery checked the outer doors.
Locked.
Arthur examined the windows.
All secured.
“Footbridge,” he said.
They hurried outside.
Rain had diminished to a fine cold spray.
The lamps had returned, though weakly.
Arthur looked across to Platform Two.
Nothing.
Then Stephen shouted from behind them.
“Here!”
They ran toward the end of Platform One.
Beatrice Holt stood beyond the canopy, near the ramp leading down to the track.
She had no coat.
Her dress whipped around her legs in the wind.
Avery stopped several yards away.
“Miss Holt.”
She turned.
Her face was wet.
Whether from rain or tears Arthur could not tell.
“Come back inside.”
“No.”
“The roads are impassable.”
“I’m not going to the road.”
“Where are you going?”
She looked toward Platform Two.
“Home.”
Arthur said, “That’s the wrong direction.”
Beatrice laughed.
It was a strange sound.
“I know.”
Avery approached slowly.
“Why did you leave?”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
“You could have opened a window.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Talk to me as though I’m a fool.”
“I don’t think you’re a fool.”
“No.”
She looked at Margaret, who had come outside beside Stephen.
“You think I’m a murderer.”
Margaret flinched.
Avery said, “I haven’t accused you of anything.”
“You will.”
“Should I?”
Beatrice looked away.
“Ask Edward.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Beatrice seemed to remember.
Her face collapsed.
“Oh God.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“What happened in 1943?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“Don’t.”
“You knew me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what I found.”
Beatrice looked sharply at her.
Margaret continued.
“The supply records.”
“Who told you?”
“I remembered.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“What did Marlowe have to do with them?”
“Margaret,” Stephen said.
But she ignored him.
“What did he do?”
Beatrice backed away.
Her heel came close to the platform edge.
Arthur moved instinctively.
“Beatrice.”
She looked down.
The rails gleamed below.
“Come away from there.”
For a moment Arthur thought she might step backward.
Then she came forward.
Avery took her arm.
She did not resist.
He led her beneath the canopy.
Margaret remained where she was.
Beatrice looked at her.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“But you do.”
Beatrice looked toward Avery.
“May I have my coat?”
“Of course.”
“And then?”
“Then we’re going to talk.”
“I have nothing to say.”
Avery nodded.
“People usually discover they have more than they expected.”
They began walking back toward the station.
Arthur remained behind.
Something had caught his attention.
A vibration.
Very faint.
He looked down.
A puddle beside the rail trembled.
Once.
Again.
Arthur crouched.
The steel rail beneath him was humming.
Not the signal cable.
The rail.
He placed two fingers against it.
Vibration.
A train was coming.
He stood.
“Avery.”
The others stopped.
“What?”
Arthur looked toward Harrowby.
The signal protecting Bellweather showed red.
“There’s something on the line.”
Stephen said, “The eleven forty-two?”
“Not for another fifty minutes.”
Avery came back.
“You sure?”
Arthur almost laughed.
“Yes.”
They listened.
At first there was nothing.
Then, far away, a low mechanical rhythm beneath the wind.
Arthur went quickly to the booking office.
The telephone rang before he reached it.
He picked up.
“Bellweather.”
George Wilkes was shouting.
“Arthur!”
“I’m here.”
“It’s back.”
Arthur looked through the window.
“What is?”
“The train.”
Avery entered behind him.
“Where?”
“Coming toward you.”
“From Harrowby?”
“Yes.”
“Signals?”
“Nothing.”
“Block?”
“Nothing.”
Arthur’s heart began beating harder.
“You saw it?”
“I’m looking at it now.”
“What engine?”
“I can’t see one.”
“George—”
“Don’t start.”
Arthur gripped the telephone.
“How many coaches?”
“Four. Maybe five.”
“Lights?”
“Yes.”
“Passengers?”
The line hissed.
“George?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Margaret was aboard before.”
“I know what I said.”
“Is she there now?”
Arthur looked across the room.
Margaret stood in the doorway.
George’s voice came faintly.
“No.”
Arthur exhaled.
Then George said, “There’s somebody else.”
“Who?”
“I can’t see.”
“George.”
“It’s passing.”
Arthur heard something through the telephone.
Not static.
Wheels.
A rhythmic clatter.
George shouted something.
Then the line filled with a deafening crack.
Arthur pulled the receiver from his ear.
The station lights went out.
Darkness.
Somebody screamed.
The telephone died.
Arthur stood motionless.
Then Avery’s voice came from the dark.
“Nobody move.”
A match flared.
Stephen stood near Margaret.
Elsie was beside Beatrice.
Avery counted.
“Everyone here?”
Arthur looked.
“Yes.”
The match went out.
Then the rails began to sing.
This time everyone heard them.
A low metallic note rose from the darkness outside.
Margaret’s face appeared in the glow of Elsie’s candle.
She was staring toward Platform Two.
“No.”
Stephen touched her arm.
“What?”
Margaret stepped backward.
“No.”
“What is it?”
She looked at Arthur.
“That’s the sound.”
Arthur felt cold spread through him.
“What sound?”
“The train.”
The noise grew louder.
Avery moved toward the platform door.
Arthur caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
Avery looked at him.
“You’ve been waiting twenty-one years to tell me something.”
Arthur could barely hear him above the rising vibration.
“Yes.”
“Is this it?”
Arthur looked through the darkened window.
Far beyond the end of Platform Two, two pale lights had appeared.
Not headlamps.
Too high.
Too widely separated.
Windows.
Then more.
A row of illuminated rectangles moving through the rain.
Arthur whispered, “Yes.”
Margaret came beside him.
Her hand found Stephen’s.
The lights drew nearer.
Arthur could hear wheels now.
But there was something wrong with the sound.
No exhaust.
No diesel engine.
No locomotive noise at all.
Only wheels passing over rail joints.
Avery said, “What am I looking at?”
Arthur did not answer.
The first illuminated carriage emerged from the darkness.
There was no locomotive in front of it.
Arthur’s mind rejected what his eyes reported.
A carriage could not move by itself.
Yet there it was.
Dark maroon sides.
Rain streaming across windows.
Light within.
Another coach followed.
Then another.
They moved slowly past Platform Two.
Nobody spoke.
Arthur stared through the windows.
Most compartments appeared empty.
In one, a newspaper lay open on a seat.
In another, a hat rested on the luggage rack.
Then Margaret tightened her grip on Stephen’s hand.
“There.”
Arthur followed her gaze.
An elderly man sat alone in the third carriage.
Dark coat.
Grey hair.
Hands folded over the handle of a walking stick.
He was looking out of the window.
At Margaret.
She stopped breathing.
Stephen whispered, “Do you know him?”
Margaret nodded.
“The man in my compartment.”
The elderly passenger did not move.
The carriage passed.
Arthur turned to follow it.
For a moment the man’s face remained visible through the next window.
Then darkness swallowed him.
Another carriage passed.
Arthur thought it was the last.
It was not.
There was one more.
And someone stood at its window.
A woman.
Arthur could see almost nothing of her face.
Only a pale oval behind rain-streaked glass.
She lifted one hand.
Arthur felt Margaret move beside him.
The woman vanished from view.
Then the final carriage was gone.
No tail lamp.
No diminishing engine noise.
The wheels continued for several seconds.
Then stopped.
Not faded.
Stopped.
The silence afterward was enormous.
Nobody moved.
Avery was the first to speak.
“Arthur.”
“Yes.”
“Where does that line go?”
Arthur looked into the darkness.
“St. Anne’s Cross.”
Margaret whispered, “No.”
Arthur turned.
She was shaking.
“The line ends before St. Anne’s Cross.”
“Now it does.”
“No.”
Margaret stared down the track.
“That’s not what I mean.”
Stephen put his arm around her.
“What do you mean?”
Margaret’s eyes remained fixed on the darkness.
“That’s the train I was on.”
Avery said nothing.
Margaret continued.
“I remember the old man.”
She swallowed.
“And I remember the woman.”
Arthur felt something tighten in his chest.
“What woman?”
Margaret turned toward him.
“The woman in the last carriage.”
“Who was she?”
Margaret’s face had gone white.
“I don’t know.”
Arthur waited.
Margaret looked toward the vanished train.
Then she said, “She was wearing my coat.”
The lights returned five minutes later.
Nobody mentioned how relieved they were.
Arthur made tea.
Not because anyone wanted tea, but because boiling water was something comprehensible.
Avery stood at the booking-office window staring toward Platform Two.
Stephen sat with Margaret.
Beatrice had stopped asking to leave.
She sat near Elsie, both hands wrapped around a cup she had not touched.
Arthur placed another cup beside Avery.
“Well?”
Avery did not turn.
“Well what?”
“You saw it.”
“I saw something.”
Arthur almost laughed.
“Now you sound like me.”
“Yes.”
“Annoying, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
Arthur leaned against the counter.
“There was no locomotive.”
“No.”
“The signals stayed at danger.”
“Yes.”
“George’s block didn’t show occupied.”
“So he says.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“No.”
“Then what do you think?”
Avery finally turned.
“I think Edward Marlowe is still dead.”
Arthur stared at him.
“That’s your answer?”
“It’s the only useful one.”
“You just watched a train without an engine pass a closed platform carrying a man Margaret remembers from 1943.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re interested in Marlowe.”
“Very.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever that was, I can’t arrest it.”
Arthur almost smiled.
Avery continued.
“But someone struck Marlowe twice in the head.”
The smile disappeared.
“And that person is here.”
Arthur looked around the room.
Avery lowered his voice.
“Ghost trains are beyond my experience.”
“And murder isn’t.”
“No.”
Arthur took a sip of tea.
It had already gone bitter.
Avery said, “Now show me the ledger again.”
They returned to the old train register.
Avery studied the erased entry.
“Eleven fifty-six.”
Arthur nodded.
“That’s when you saw Margaret.”
“Approximately.”
Avery looked up.
Arthur realized what he had admitted.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Avery closed the book.
“Tell me.”
Arthur sat.
It was surprisingly difficult to begin.
He had rehearsed the confession many times over twenty-one years, usually alone, usually at night, usually imagining that one day he would finally tell someone.
Now the words felt foreign.
“After the eleven forty-two left,” he said, “I closed the booking office.”
Avery waited.
“It was wartime. Blackout regulations. We kept very little lighting outside.”
“Yes.”
“I went along Platform One checking doors.”
“And?”
“I heard someone call.”
“Your name?”
“No.”
Arthur looked toward the window.
“I don’t know what she said.”
“But it was Margaret?”
“I didn’t know that at first.”
“Where was she?”
“Platform Two.”
Avery did not react.
Arthur continued.
“She was standing beneath the lamp.”
“The lamp we saw tonight?”
“The same one.”
“What time?”
“Eleven fifty-seven. Perhaps eleven fifty-eight.”
“After her train departed.”
“Yes.”
“How could she have crossed back?”
“She couldn’t.”
“Footbridge?”
“I would have seen her.”
“Track?”
“Same.”
Avery leaned against the counter.
“What happened?”
“I called her name.”
“And?”
“She turned.”
Arthur could see it again.
Margaret beneath the weak wartime lamp.
Brown coat.
Pale face.
One hand raised.
“I started toward the bridge.”
“Then?”
Arthur’s voice became quieter.
“A train came through.”
Avery said nothing.
“Platform Two road.”
“Scheduled?”
“No.”
“Recorded?”
“No.”
“The erased entry?”
“Perhaps.”
“Who entered it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the train stop?”
“No.”
“Did you see an engine?”
Arthur looked at him.
“No.”
Avery breathed out slowly.
“Carriages?”
“Yes.”
“Lights?”
“Some.”
“And after it passed?”
“Margaret was gone.”
Avery was silent for a long time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Arthur looked at his hands.
“Because it was impossible.”
“So?”
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“So? It was 1943, Charles. A girl had disappeared. Her parents were frantic. Police were searching fields and rivers. You asked me when I last saw her.”
“And you lied.”
“Yes.”
“You said she boarded the eleven forty-two.”
“She did.”
“You said that was the last time you saw her.”
Arthur met his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the truth sounded like madness.”
Avery’s expression hardened.
“Truth often does.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Arthur looked away.
Avery continued.
“If you’d told me—”
“What?”
Arthur’s voice rose unexpectedly.
“What would you have done? Written in your report that Arthur Pembroke saw a young woman who had already departed standing on the opposite platform until a train without an engine made her disappear?”
“I would have investigated.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
Avery stared at him.
Arthur immediately regretted the anger.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
Avery said nothing.
“I’ve been sorry for twenty-one years.”
“That doesn’t help Margaret’s parents.”
Arthur flinched.
“No.”
“Her father came to me every month for two years.”
“I know.”
“Her mother wrote until 1949.”
“I know.”
“They thought she might have left voluntarily.”
“I know.”
“Your evidence supported that.”
“I know.”
Avery stopped.
Arthur looked at him.
“Do you think I haven’t thought about that?”
Avery’s anger faded.
Arthur continued.
“Every time her father walked through this station, I thought about it. Every Christmas when her mother put that notice in the newspaper, I thought about it. Every time someone mentioned Margaret Vale, I thought about it.”
His voice broke slightly.
“I was a coward.”
Avery sat opposite him.
“No.”
Arthur laughed once.
“Don’t be kind now.”
“I’m not.”
Avery looked toward Margaret.
“You were a young man who saw something impossible and chose the possible explanation.”
“Which was?”
“That you were mistaken.”
Arthur nodded.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t cowardice.”
“It becomes cowardice when you know you weren’t.”
Avery considered that.
Then he said, “Perhaps.”
Arthur almost smiled.
“Thank you.”
“I’m still angry.”
“You’ve earned it.”
Avery opened the ledger again.
“Who else was here that night?”
Arthur thought.
“Billy Sykes. Margaret. Fallow.”
“Marlowe?”
Arthur hesitated.
“I don’t remember.”
“Beatrice?”
“No.”
“Think.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Rain.
Blackout.
Troop movements.
Steam.
A crowded station during a war when strangers passed through constantly.
Then something surfaced.
A motorcar.
Black.
Parked beside the goods yard.
“Wait.”
Avery leaned forward.
“Marlowe had a car.”
“At the station?”
“I think so.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“Good. We’re learning.”
Arthur ignored that.
“There was a black Rover in the yard.”
“Whose?”
“Marlowe drove a Rover.”
“Many people did.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Arthur tried to remember.
Then he saw another detail.
A woman crossing the footbridge.
Headscarf.
Dark coat.
Moving quickly.
“I saw Beatrice.”
Avery became very still.
“Where?”
“Footbridge.”
“When?”
“Before the eleven forty-two.”
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
“Did she speak to Margaret?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she speak to Marlowe?”
Arthur shook his head.
“I don’t remember.”
Avery stood.
“Then we’ll ask her.”
They found Beatrice in the general waiting room.
She looked up as they entered.
Avery closed the door.
“Miss Holt, were you at Bellweather Station on the night Margaret disappeared?”
Beatrice stared at him.
“No.”
Arthur felt Avery glance toward him.
“Think carefully.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You were seen.”
Beatrice’s face changed.
“By whom?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re mistaken.”
Arthur said, “It was me.”
Beatrice looked at him.
Arthur continued.
“I saw you crossing the footbridge.”
“No.”
“You were wearing a headscarf.”
“No.”
“Dark coat.”
“You’ve invented this.”
“Why would I?”
“Because everyone is inventing things tonight.”
Avery sat beside her.
“Margaret remembers you.”
“She thinks she remembers me.”
“She remembers you working at the wartime supply office.”
Beatrice said nothing.
“She remembers missing medical supplies.”
Nothing.
“She remembers wagon numbers.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened.
“She remembers a notebook.”
Beatrice stood.
“I want a solicitor.”
Avery looked toward the corridor.
“Unfortunately the nearest one is dead.”
Arthur gave him a look.
Avery ignored it.
Beatrice’s composure cracked.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No.”
“Then stop behaving as though it is.”
Avery stood too.
“Tell me about the notebook.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Marlowe did.”
“Ask him.”
“I would very much like to.”
Beatrice turned away.
Avery continued.
“Did Marlowe kill Margaret?”
Beatrice spun around.
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Avery’s eyes narrowed.
“Interesting.”
Beatrice realized.
“I mean I don’t know.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“I assumed—”
“No. You answered.”
Avery stepped closer.
“Did you believe Edward Marlowe killed Margaret Vale?”
Beatrice’s lips parted.
No sound came.
Avery repeated the question.
“Did you?”
Beatrice looked at Margaret through the glass panel in the door.
Then she whispered, “For twenty-one years.”
Arthur felt a chill.
“Why?” Avery asked.
Beatrice sat.
She suddenly looked older.
“Because he was there.”
“At the station?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He followed her.”
“Onto the train?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
She stared at her hands.
“Edward was frightened of the notebook.”
“Why?”
“Because it contained names.”
“His?”
“Yes.”
“Yours?”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Avery sat opposite.
“What were you doing?”
“It wasn’t what you think.”
“I haven’t told you what I think.”
“People needed things.”
“What things?”
“Food. Petrol. Medicine.”
“Things being diverted from wartime shipments.”
Beatrice nodded.
“At first.”
Arthur said, “At first?”
“It began with shortages.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“A crate would arrive with more than the paperwork showed. Someone would take the difference. A farmer needed petrol. A family needed food.”
“And later?” Avery asked.
Beatrice looked at him.
“Later people discovered money could be made.”
“Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“They’re dead.”
“Fallow?”
She looked up.
“No.”
“Henry Fallow was involved?”
“No.”
“You answered quickly again.”
“Because Henry wasn’t involved.”
“Margaret trusted him.”
Beatrice looked toward the door.
“Yes.”
“She told him about the notebook.”
“I think so.”
“And Marlowe found out.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I told him.”
Avery waited.
Beatrice’s voice trembled.
“I was frightened.”
“Of Margaret?”
“Of what would happen.”
“So you told Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He said he’d speak to her.”
“At the station?”
“Yes.”
“And you followed him.”
Beatrice covered her face.
“Yes.”
The word came out as a whisper.
Arthur looked at Avery.
Avery’s expression remained unreadable.
“What happened?”
“I saw Margaret board the train.”
“The eleven forty-two?”
“Yes.”
“Was Marlowe aboard?”
“No.”
“Did he speak to her before she boarded?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Did they argue?”
“Yes.”
“Did he threaten her?”
Beatrice hesitated.
“Yes.”
Arthur felt the room become very quiet.
“What sort of threat?”
“He said if she took the notebook to the police she’d regret it.”
“Did Margaret answer?”
“She told him she wasn’t going to the police.”
“Where was she going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fallow?”
“Perhaps.”
Avery leaned forward.
“Then Margaret boarded the train.”
“Yes.”
“And Marlowe?”
“Stayed on the platform.”
“With you?”
“No.”
“Where did he go?”
“Toward the goods yard.”
“And you?”
“I left.”
“What time?”
“Just after the train.”
“Did you see Margaret again?”
Beatrice looked at him.
“No.”
Avery said, “Then why did you believe Marlowe killed her?”
Beatrice’s face changed.
“Because of the medal.”
Arthur stared.
“What?”
Beatrice looked toward the corridor.
“The St. Christopher medal.”
Avery became absolutely still.
“You knew Marlowe had it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two days after Margaret disappeared.”
“How?”
“I saw it.”
“Where?”
“His office.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Beatrice swallowed.
“He said he found it.”
“Where?”
“Beside the track.”
“Where beside the track?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“And you believed he’d killed her.”
“What else was I supposed to think?”
Arthur felt suddenly dizzy.
For twenty-one years Beatrice Holt had believed Edward Marlowe murdered Margaret Vale.
For twenty-one years Edward Marlowe had carried the medal of a woman everyone believed dead.
And tonight, after Margaret returned, somebody had killed him.
Avery said, “Why didn’t you tell the police?”
Beatrice laughed bitterly.
“Tell them what?”
“The truth.”
“And send myself to prison?”
“For theft?”
“For conspiracy. Fraud. Black-market trading. Do you know what people thought of that during the war?”
“Yes.”
“I was twenty-one.”
“So was Margaret.”
Beatrice looked away.
“I was afraid.”
Arthur understood the words better than he wanted to.
Avery stood.
“Did you kill Edward Marlowe tonight?”
Beatrice looked at him.
“No.”
“Did you speak to him after you arrived?”
“No.”
Avery waited.
Beatrice’s gaze fell.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the doctor came.”
“Where?”
“The corridor.”
“What about?”
“Margaret.”
“What did Marlowe say?”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“He said it was over.”
“What was over?”
“Everything.”
“Meaning?”
“He said he was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“About the wartime thefts. About the medal.”
“And?”
Beatrice looked toward the floor.
“He said there was no point hiding anymore.”
“How did you respond?”
“I told him he was a fool.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did you follow him into the old waiting room?”
“No.”
“Did you strike him?”
“No.”
“Twice?”
Beatrice looked up sharply.
Arthur saw genuine shock.
“Twice?”
Avery watched her.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Of course I’m certain.”
Avery nodded.
Then he asked, “Where is Margaret’s notebook?”
Beatrice stared.
“I don’t know.”
“Marlowe didn’t have it?”
“No.”
“You never found it?”
“No.”
“Did you look?”
A long silence.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Years.”
Arthur frowned.
“Years?”
Beatrice looked at him.
“Edward thought Margaret had hidden it before she boarded the train.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t have it when he confronted her.”
Avery said, “Then it may still exist.”
Beatrice gave a small, exhausted laugh.
“After twenty-one years?”
Arthur looked toward Platform Two.
A memory moved.
Not a complete memory.
Something Margaret had done.
Something small.
He could almost see it.
A young woman waiting for the eleven forty-two.
Platform Two.
A bench.
Margaret bending down.
Arthur stood.
Avery looked at him.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s becoming contagious.”
Arthur ignored him.
He went into the booking office.
Margaret looked up.
“Margaret.”
“Yes?”
“When you waited for the eleven forty-two in 1943, where did you sit?”
She frowned.
“Why?”
“Where?”
“Platform Two.”
“I know that. Where on Platform Two?”
“The bench.”
Arthur felt his pulse quicken.
“Which bench?”
“There’s only one.”
There had been two in 1943.
One beneath the canopy.
One farther down near the parcels ramp.
Arthur said, “Did you hide anything?”
Margaret stared at him.
“The notebook.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
Stephen started to object.
Arthur held up a hand.
“Please.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Arthur spoke gently.
“You were waiting for the train.”
“Yes.”
“You’d spoken to Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he wanted the notebook.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have it when he confronted you.”
“No.”
“Where was it?”
Margaret pressed her hands together.
“I...”
Arthur waited.
Rain whispered against the window.
Then Margaret opened her eyes.
“The bench.”
Avery had entered behind Arthur.
“What about it?”
Margaret stood.
“I put it under the bench.”
Arthur’s heart sank.
“Under?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Inside.”
Arthur stared.
“What do you mean, inside?”
“There was a loose board.”
He knew exactly what she meant.
The old bench had been built against a timber service enclosure covering the signal rods. One facing board had warped loose for years before Arthur finally had it repaired.
“When did you hide it?”
“Before the train.”
“Why?”
“I thought Marlowe might search me.”
Avery said, “And you intended to retrieve it later.”
“Yes.”
“But you never did.”
Margaret looked toward Platform Two.
“No.”
Arthur reached for his coat.
Avery said, “Where are you going?”
“To see whether British Railways’ legendary maintenance programme has finally done us a favour.”
They crossed the footbridge.
The storm had weakened.
Water dripped steadily from the canopy.
Margaret came with them despite Stephen’s objections.
Arthur stopped beside the old bench.
It had been repainted twice since 1943.
The timber enclosure beneath it remained.
Arthur crouched.
“There.”
One board had a slight gap at the bottom.
Avery knelt beside him.
“Can you remove it?”
“Not without tools.”
Arthur fetched a screwdriver from the booking office.
The screws resisted.
One stripped.
Another turned.
The board shifted.
Margaret stood behind them, hugging her brown coat around herself.
Arthur pulled.
The wood came away with a groan.
Behind it was a narrow cavity filled with dust, dead leaves and twenty-one years of accumulated dirt.
Avery held the lamp closer.
Arthur reached inside.
His fingers touched something.
Paper.
He drew it out.
A small black notebook.
Margaret made a sound behind him.
Arthur wiped dust from the cover.
A faded elastic band held it closed.
Avery said, “Don’t open it.”
Arthur looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because for once tonight I’d like to be the first person to put fingerprints on something.”
Arthur handed it over.
Avery removed the elastic carefully.
The first pages contained dates.
Numbers.
Initials.
Quantities.
Wagon numbers.
Delivery references.
Margaret came closer.
“That’s my writing.”
Avery turned pages.
Arthur recognized names.
Some belonged to men dead for years.
Others did not.
Edward Marlowe appeared repeatedly.
Beatrice Holt less often.
Avery reached the final written page.
He stopped.
“What?”
Avery did not answer.
Arthur leaned closer.
Three lines had been written hurriedly.
E.M. knows.
Beneath it:
Henry says I must take it away from Bellweather.
And beneath that:
B.H. followed me to the station.
Arthur looked up.
Beatrice stood at the top of the footbridge stairs.
None of them had heard her approach.
She stared at the notebook.
Her face went white.
Avery closed it.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Beatrice said:
“I didn’t kill her.”
Margaret looked at her.
Avery stood.
“No one said you did.”
Beatrice began shaking.
“I didn’t.”
“Beatrice—”
“I saw her get on the train.”
Margaret stared.
Beatrice’s voice rose.
“She was alive when that train left.”
Avery stepped toward her.
“Calm down.”
“I didn’t touch her.”
“Nobody has accused you.”
“Edward did.”
Arthur felt something turn over inside him.
Avery stopped.
“What?”
Beatrice looked at the dark track.
“Edward thought I killed Margaret.”
“And you thought Edward killed her.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-one years?”
“Yes.”
Avery looked from Beatrice to Margaret.
Two people.
Each had believed the other responsible for a murder that had apparently never happened.
Beatrice pressed a hand to her mouth.
Then she began to cry.
“I followed her. I tried to stop her. That’s all.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“Beatrice.”
Beatrice recoiled.
“No.”
“I remember you.”
“Don’t.”
“You were on the platform.”
“Yes.”
“You were crying.”
Beatrice stared.
Margaret’s voice became softer.
“You told me you were sorry.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You told me to leave Bellweather.”
“Yes.”
Margaret frowned.
“And then I got on the train.”
Beatrice nodded desperately.
“Yes.”
“Did you see it leave?”
“Yes.”
“Was I on it?”
Beatrice opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
Arthur looked at Avery.
Avery understood.
If Beatrice was telling the truth, Margaret had been aboard the eleven forty-two when it left Bellweather.
Arthur knew she was telling the truth.
Because he had seen Margaret again eleven minutes later.
On Platform Two.
The impossible part of the story had just become unavoidable.
Then a telephone rang across the station.
Arthur turned.
The sound carried through the wet night.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He ran across the footbridge.
Avery followed.
Arthur reached the booking office and lifted the receiver.
“Bellweather.”
Static.
Then George Wilkes.
His voice was faint.
“Arthur.”
“George.”
“Did it reach you?”
Arthur looked toward Platform Two.
“Yes.”
A long silence.
George whispered, “God help us.”
Arthur gripped the receiver.
“George, listen to me. It passed Bellweather toward St. Anne’s Cross.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“I watched it.”
“I don’t care what you watched.”
Arthur felt anger rise.
“George—”
“The line ends.”
“I know that.”
“No, Arthur. Listen.”
George’s breathing came rapidly through the receiver.
“I went outside after it passed my box.”
“And?”
“I watched the section.”
Arthur waited.
“It never reached you.”
Arthur stared.
“What are you talking about?”
“The track circuit never changed.”
“We know that.”
“No.”
George’s voice trembled.
“You don’t understand.”
Arthur heard a click at the other end.
Then another.
“George?”
“The train’s here.”
Arthur stopped breathing.
“What?”
“At Harrowby.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“It just passed Bellweather in the opposite direction.”
“I know.”
“It couldn’t have reached you.”
“I know.”
“George, what can you see?”
Nothing.
“George?”
The line hissed.
Then, very faintly:
“It’s stopped.”
Arthur felt Avery move closer.
“Where?”
“Outside my box.”
“Can you see the coaches?”
“Yes.”
“Passengers?”
George did not answer.
“George.”
“There’s someone standing beside the track.”
Arthur’s hand tightened around the receiver.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Man or woman?”
A pause.
“Woman.”
Arthur looked at Margaret.
She stood at the booking-office door, still holding Stephen’s hand.
“What does she look like?”
George’s breathing stopped.
Then he whispered:
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“She’s wearing Margaret Vale’s coat.”
The line went dead.
The Last Train from Bellweather
Part Four
For several seconds Arthur Pembroke did not move.
The receiver remained against his ear, though the line was dead.
Across the booking office, Margaret stood beside Stephen.
Her brown coat was buttoned to the throat.
Arthur looked at it.
Then at her.
Then back at the telephone.
Avery spoke first.
“What did he say?”
Arthur lowered the receiver slowly.
“George says the train is at Harrowby.”
Avery frowned.
“It can’t be.”
“I know.”
“You saw it leave here toward St. Anne’s Cross.”
“Yes.”
“Then it would have to reverse direction.”
“There isn’t enough time.”
“How much?”
“Five minutes. Perhaps six.”
“Distance?”
“Nearly four miles.”
Avery looked toward the dark windows.
“Could another train be involved?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am certain.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“What else did he say?”
Arthur hesitated.
She saw it.
“What?”
“He said someone was standing beside the track.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Margaret waited.
Arthur wished George had said almost anything else.
“He said she was wearing your coat.”
Margaret looked down at herself.
Stephen immediately said, “That’s enough.”
No one answered him.
Margaret touched one of the buttons.
“This coat?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps he was mistaken.”
Arthur thought of George Wilkes insisting that he had spent forty years learning the difference between trains and rain.
“Perhaps.”
Avery turned toward the telephone.
“Can we ring him back?”
Arthur lifted the receiver.
No tone.
He worked the cradle several times.
Nothing.
“Line’s gone.”
Elsie came into the room.
“What has happened now?”
Arthur told her.
She listened without interruption.
When he finished, she looked at Margaret.
“Then George has seen someone in a brown coat.”
Stephen gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Thank you.”
Elsie ignored him.
“Half the women in Worcestershire own brown coats.”
“Not like that one,” Arthur said.
Elsie turned on him.
“You don’t know what he saw.”
“No.”
“And until you do, I suggest we don’t frighten Margaret with it.”
Margaret said quietly, “I’m already frightened.”
Elsie’s expression softened.
“I know.”
Avery moved toward the old ledger.
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“How long would it take to reach Harrowby on foot?”
“In this weather?”
“Yes.”
“More than an hour.”
“Road?”
“Longer if the brook is over.”
“Track?”
Arthur looked at him.
“You are not walking the track.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You were thinking it.”
Avery almost smiled.
“Was I?”
“Yes.”
“Then fortunately you’ve saved me the trouble.”
Stephen said, “You can’t seriously be considering leaving.”
Avery looked at him.
“I’m considering everything.”
“There’s a murderer here.”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps concentrate on that.”
Avery’s face became grave.
“I intend to.”
He closed the ledger.
“Whatever happened on the railway tonight, Marlowe was killed by someone who could reach him in that waiting room.”
The words seemed to pull the station back into ordinary dimensions.
A man.
A room.
A blow to the head.
A human act.
Arthur was grateful for it.
Avery looked around.
“Nobody leaves.”
Beatrice had entered quietly and stood near the doorway.
Her face was pale, but she no longer seemed on the verge of collapse.
“Even now?”
Avery turned.
“Especially now.”
She looked toward Margaret.
“Why?”
“Because I have several questions left.”
“You’ve asked enough.”
“No.”
Beatrice folded her arms.
“Then ask them.”
“Not here.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want everyone listening to your answers before I’ve heard theirs.”
Arthur saw Stephen’s expression change.
“You think one of us killed Marlowe.”
Avery looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word had weight.
No one protested.
Avery continued.
“The roads are blocked. The telephone works intermittently. Nobody has entered the station since Miss Holt arrived.”
“Someone could have come from the platform,” Stephen said.
“Possibly.”
Arthur shook his head.
“I checked the buildings.”
“Before or after Marlowe died?”
“After.”
“Then someone could have left.”
“Across open track in a storm?”
“It wouldn’t be impossible.”
Arthur glanced toward the windows.
After what they had seen tonight, the word had lost much of its usefulness.
Avery said, “Until the police arrive, I’ll treat everyone here as capable of reaching the old waiting room.”
Elsie raised an eyebrow.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
“Including me?”
“Yes.”
She considered this.
“Very democratic.”
“Crime often is.”
Avery carried a chair behind Arthur’s booking counter and sat.
“Arthur, paper.”
Arthur handed him a pad.
“Pencil.”
Arthur gave him one.
“Tea?”
Avery looked up.
“No.”
“Then things are serious.”
Avery ignored him.
“Let’s fix the times.”
Arthur looked at the station clock.
“Ten fifty-seven.”
“Good. We begin with Marlowe.”
Stephen said, “He was alive when I arrived.”
“Time?”
Arthur answered.
“Approximately ten twenty-seven.”
Stephen nodded.
“I came straight in.”
“Who was present?”
“Arthur. Elsie. Charles. Margaret. Marlowe.”
Arthur said, “Beatrice hadn’t arrived yet.”
Avery wrote.
“Then?”
Stephen looked at Margaret.
“I spoke to my sister.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ten minutes?”
“Perhaps.”
Arthur said, “Marlowe went outside.”
Avery wrote again.
“Who saw him go?”
“All of us.”
Margaret nodded.
Avery looked at Stephen.
“During that time, did you leave Margaret?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
Stephen thought.
“When Arthur went outside to speak to Marlowe, I stayed with Margaret.”
“Until Beatrice arrived?”
“Yes.”
Beatrice said, “I arrived around ten thirty-eight.”
Arthur nodded.
“Near enough.”
Avery turned.
“Then what?”
Beatrice looked uncomfortable.
“Margaret recognized me.”
“You denied knowing her.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I stayed.”
“Marlowe?”
“In the room.”
“Did he leave?”
“I don’t remember.”
Avery looked at Arthur.
Arthur said, “I heard the metal banging outside.”
“The old waiting-room door.”
“Yes.”
“You and I went to investigate.”
Arthur nodded.
“At that point Marlowe was still in the booking office?”
Arthur thought.
“I think so.”
Avery looked sharply at him.
“Think.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Elsie near the stove.
Stephen beside Margaret.
Beatrice near the outer wall.
Marlowe—
Where had Marlowe been?
Arthur saw the room as it had looked.
Then realized there had been an empty space near the window.
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Arthur frowned.
“Good?”
“Honest uncertainty is useful.”
Avery looked toward Elsie.
“Do you remember?”
She thought.
“He was here.”
“When?”
“When the door banged.”
“Certain?”
“I thought he was.”
“That’s different.”
Elsie glanced toward the window.
“I was making coffee.”
Avery wrote.
“Margaret?”
She shook her head.
“I wasn’t watching him.”
“Stephen?”
“No.”
Beatrice said nothing.
Avery looked at her.
“Miss Holt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you speak to Marlowe privately?”
Her face tightened.
“I told you.”
“After Stephen arrived.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The corridor.”
“Before or after the banging?”
She hesitated.
“Before.”
“How long?”
“Two minutes.”
“What did you discuss?”
“Margaret.”
“And his intention to confess.”
“Yes.”
Avery looked down at the pad.
“Then Marlowe may have left the booking office before Arthur and I went to the old waiting room.”
Arthur said, “But the first time we opened it, nobody was there.”
“No.”
“The suitcase was there.”
“Yes.”
“And the medal.”
Avery paused.
“Meaning Marlowe had already put it there.”
Beatrice looked up.
“How do you know?”
Avery turned toward her.
“Because the medal was found with the suitcase before Marlowe’s body appeared.”
Arthur felt the implication.
“So he entered the room, left the medal—”
“Or lost it.”
“Then left again.”
“Possibly.”
“And later returned.”
“Or was brought back.”
Stephen said, “You don’t bring a conscious man like Marlowe anywhere he doesn’t want to go.”
“No.”
Arthur looked toward Avery.
“So he went voluntarily.”
“Probably.”
“To meet someone.”
Avery did not answer.
Beatrice looked down.
Avery saw.
“Who?”
She glanced up.
“What?”
“Who was Marlowe meeting?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No.”
“He told you he intended to confess.”
“Yes.”
“To me?”
“I assumed.”
“Did he say my name?”
Beatrice hesitated.
“No.”
Avery leaned back.
“Then why did you assume he meant me?”
“Because you were here.”
“Who else knew about the old business?”
“Several people.”
“Name them.”
“Edward.”
“Dead.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“Margaret.”
“Now.”
Avery waited.
Beatrice looked toward the floor.
“Henry.”
Arthur said, “Fallow.”
Beatrice nodded.
Avery’s pencil stopped.
“Colonel Henry Fallow.”
“Yes.”
“He knew about the thefts?”
“Not at first.”
“But later?”
“Margaret told him.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Marlowe fear him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Henry was an officer.”
“So?”
“In 1943, that meant something.”
Avery’s expression hardened.
“It still does to some people.”
Beatrice looked toward the window.
“Edward thought Henry would report everything.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret spoke.
“Because I asked him not to.”
Everyone turned.
She had been very quiet.
Avery said, “You remember that?”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“I told Henry what I’d found.”
“When?”
“The night I disappeared.”
“Here?”
“Outside.”
“Where?”
She looked toward Platform Two.
“By the bench.”
Avery stood.
“What did he say?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“He wanted me to give him the notebook.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t trust anyone.”
Beatrice flinched.
Margaret opened her eyes.
“I was going to take it away.”
“To whom?”
“I still don’t remember.”
Avery waited.
Margaret frowned.
“There was someone in Worcester.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Railway?”
“Maybe.”
Arthur felt a faint pressure behind his eyes.
A name.
Something from 1943.
A railway investigation.
He could almost remember.
Avery said, “Did Fallow follow you to the train?”
“No.”
“Did Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“Did Beatrice?”
Margaret looked at her.
“Yes.”
Beatrice stared at the floor.
Avery’s pencil moved again.
“Then at least three people knew Margaret had the notebook.”
“And perhaps thought she still had it,” Arthur said.
“Yes.”
Stephen leaned against the wall.
“But the notebook has been behind a bench for twenty-one years.”
“Which nobody knew,” Avery replied.
“Until tonight.”
“Exactly.”
Arthur understood.
“Marlowe saw Margaret return.”
“Yes.”
“He might have thought she’d brought it back.”
“Yes.”
“So might Beatrice.”
Avery nodded.
“And Fallow.”
Stephen frowned.
“Fallow isn’t here.”
“No.”
Avery looked toward the telephone.
“But somebody was expected.”
Arthur remembered.
He had invited Henry Fallow for the station’s last night.
“Henry said he might come.”
“Did Marlowe know?”
Arthur thought of Marlowe’s reaction.
“He asked who was expected.”
“Then changed expression when you said Fallow.”
“Yes.”
Avery put down the pencil.
“We need Fallow.”
Stephen looked outside.
“You’ll have difficulty.”
“Does he have a telephone?”
Arthur nodded.
“Bellweather Hall.”
“Try.”
The line had returned.
Arthur asked the operator for the number.
There was a long delay.
Then ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Six times.
No answer.
Arthur tried again.
Nothing.
Avery said, “How far?”
“Two miles.”
“Road flooded?”
“Not that direction.”
Stephen picked up his medical bag.
“I have a car.”
Arthur looked at him.
“You’re not going.”
“Why?”
“Because the lane past the church will be under water.”
“It wasn’t when I came.”
“That was half an hour ago.”
Avery said, “Nobody goes anywhere.”
Stephen’s patience snapped.
“You don’t actually have authority to order us around.”
“No.”
“Then stop pretending.”
Avery stood.
“I don’t care whether you obey me because I’m a retired inspector or because I’m an elderly nuisance. A man has been murdered. Until I know how, nobody scatters into the countryside.”
Stephen stared at him.
Avery’s voice softened.
“I know what tonight has done to you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No.”
The answer stopped Stephen.
Avery continued.
“But if Margaret disappeared once from this station, I’m not interested in losing either of you before dawn.”
Stephen looked at his sister.
His anger went out of him.
“Fine.”
He sat.
The lights flickered.
Nobody spoke until they steadied.
Arthur looked toward the clock.
Eleven ten.
Thirty-two minutes until the final train.
If it came.
The telephone rang.
Arthur answered immediately.
“Bellweather.”
No voice.
Only breathing.
“George?”
Nothing.
“George, is that you?”
Avery came closer.
Arthur waited.
Then somebody whispered:
“Don’t let her leave.”
Arthur’s skin tightened.
“Who is this?”
The line crackled.
“Who?”
A voice, scarcely audible.
“The girl.”
Arthur looked at Margaret.
“George?”
The caller hung up.
Avery took the receiver.
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Arthur told him.
Stephen stood.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said George.”
“I asked if it was George.”
“Was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret had gone pale.
Elsie stepped beside her.
Avery examined the telephone as if it might reveal something.
“Could someone call from inside the station?”
Arthur frowned.
“Extension in the signal box.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Parcels office. Disconnected years ago.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
Avery looked at him.
Arthur sighed.
“I’ll check.”
They went to the parcels office.
The old telephone remained mounted beside the goods desk.
Arthur lifted it.
No tone.
He followed the wire beneath the counter.
Cut.
Avery inspected the end.
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Then not here.”
They returned.
Beatrice had moved nearer the fire.
Stephen stood beside Margaret.
Elsie looked irritated.
“What now?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at Arthur.
“That means something.”
“Someone rang.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
Margaret asked, “What did they say?”
Arthur did not answer quickly enough.
She looked at Stephen.
“What?”
He shook his head.
Arthur said, “They said not to let you leave.”
Margaret stared.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Beatrice made a small sound.
Avery turned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You reacted.”
“So did everyone.”
“Not like you.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“Perhaps because I’ve spent twenty-one years wondering what would happen if Margaret came back.”
“And now?”
“Now I know.”
Avery studied her.
“Do you?”
Beatrice lowered her voice.
“Nothing good.”
The outer door shook.
Arthur turned.
Not wind.
A knock.
Three firm blows.
Everyone went still.
Another knock.
Stephen moved toward the door.
Avery stopped him.
“Wait.”
Arthur took the lamp.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
He went to the window.
A man stood on the platform.
Tall.
Hatless.
Rain darkening the shoulders of a military-style coat.
Arthur recognized him.
“Henry.”
He opened the door.
Colonel Henry Fallow entered.
At sixty, Fallow still carried himself as though a regimental sergeant major might appear at any moment and criticise his posture. His hair was iron-grey. His face, heavily lined. One hand held a walking stick.
He looked around.
“What in God’s name has happened?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Fallow’s eyes found Margaret.
He stopped.
The walking stick slipped from his hand and struck the floor.
Margaret whispered, “Henry.”
Fallow stared at her.
His mouth moved.
“Margaret?”
She smiled uncertainly.
For a moment the colonel looked as though he had been shot.
He took one step.
Then another.
Margaret crossed to him.
Fallow lifted both hands and stopped before touching her.
“May I?”
The question almost broke her.
Margaret nodded.
He put his hands on her shoulders.
His eyes filled.
“Dear God.”
She gave a small laugh.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Fallow touched her cheek.
“You haven’t changed.”
“You have.”
He smiled through tears.
“Thank you.”
Margaret looked at him carefully.
“You’ve gone grey.”
“I’ve had twenty-one years’ practice.”
Fallow embraced her.
Arthur looked away.
Another reunion.
Another entire life compressed into a few seconds.
When they separated, Fallow noticed Stephen.
“Doctor.”
“Colonel.”
Fallow looked from brother to sister.
“This is impossible.”
Avery said, “We’re running out of alternative adjectives.”
Fallow turned.
“Charles.”
“Henry.”
Then Fallow saw the blanket in the corridor through the half-open waiting-room door.
His expression altered.
“What is that?”
Avery answered.
“Edward Marlowe.”
Fallow went still.
“What’s happened?”
“He’s dead.”
“How?”
“Murdered.”
Fallow looked toward Beatrice.
She did not meet his eyes.
“Who?”
“That is one of several things I’d like to ask you.”
Fallow removed his wet coat.
“I came because Arthur invited me.”
Arthur nodded.
“I did.”
“Road was bad. I left the motor by the church and walked.”
Avery said, “Why so late?”
“I wasn’t coming.”
“What changed your mind?”
Fallow looked at Margaret.
“Telephone call.”
Arthur felt the station quieten.
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they say?”
Fallow’s eyes remained on Margaret.
“That Margaret Vale was at Bellweather Station.”
No one spoke.
Avery asked, “When?”
“Ten forty-five, perhaps.”
“Male voice?”
“Yes.”
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Fallow frowned.
“Something like, ‘If you want to see Margaret Vale alive, go to Bellweather.’”
Stephen moved forward.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Avery said, “Anything else?”
“No.”
“Then the line went dead?”
Fallow nodded.
Arthur looked toward the telephone.
Someone had now called both Bellweather and Fallow.
Perhaps George.
Perhaps not.
Avery asked, “Henry, where were you on the night Margaret disappeared?”
Fallow looked at him sharply.
“Is this necessary?”
“Very.”
Fallow glanced at Margaret.
“Here.”
“At the station.”
“Yes.”
“You spoke to her.”
“Yes.”
“About the notebook.”
Fallow’s expression changed.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Who told you?”
Avery pointed toward Margaret.
“She did.”
Fallow looked at her.
Margaret said, “I remember some of it.”
He sat slowly.
“Then perhaps it’s time.”
Avery took the chair opposite him.
“Start at the beginning.”
Fallow removed his gloves.
“In 1943 I was a captain attached to a transport unit outside Worcester.”
“Did you know about the theft operation?”
“No.”
“When did you learn?”
“When Margaret told me.”
“That night?”
“Two days earlier.”
Margaret frowned.
“Two days?”
Fallow looked at her.
“You came to see me at Bellweather Hall.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You were furious.”
“At whom?”
“Everyone.”
A faint smile.
“Mostly me.”
Margaret almost smiled back.
Fallow continued.
“You had discovered supplies were disappearing. You thought Marlowe and others were involved.”
“Was Beatrice?”
Fallow looked toward her.
“Margaret suspected her.”
Beatrice said quietly, “She was right.”
Fallow nodded.
“I told Margaret to bring me whatever evidence she had.”
“The notebook?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“She changed her mind.”
Margaret said, “Why?”
Fallow’s face softened.
“You didn’t trust the Army either.”
Margaret almost laughed.
“That sounds like me.”
“Very much.”
Avery said, “On the twenty-seventh?”
“I came here hoping to persuade her.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Marlowe arrived.”
“And?”
“He confronted her.”
“Threatened her?”
Fallow’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him to leave her alone.”
“Did you strike him?”
“Not that night.”
Arthur looked at him.
“Other nights?”
“Once.”
Avery said, “When?”
“December 1943.”
“After Margaret disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought he’d killed her.”
Beatrice looked up sharply.
Avery noticed.
“So three of you believed somebody else had murdered Margaret.”
Fallow looked at Beatrice.
“Apparently.”
“Did Marlowe believe you had?”
Fallow laughed without humor.
“He accused me more than once.”
Arthur said, “Why?”
“Because Margaret trusted me.”
Avery leaned forward.
“After the eleven forty-two left, where were you?”
Fallow’s expression changed.
“I left.”
“When?”
“Immediately.”
“Did you see Beatrice?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Platform stairs.”
“Did you see Marlowe?”
“Goods yard.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking for something.”
“The notebook?”
“I assumed.”
“Did you see Margaret again?”
Fallow looked at her.
“No.”
Arthur felt relief and disappointment at once.
Avery asked, “Did you know about the medal?”
“Not until later.”
“When?”
“Margaret’s father told me Marlowe had been seen with it.”
Beatrice stared.
“Thomas knew?”
Fallow looked at her.
“Eventually.”
Beatrice’s face collapsed.
“He never said.”
“Why would he tell you?”
She looked away.
Avery said, “Did Margaret’s father confront Marlowe?”
“Repeatedly.”
“And Marlowe?”
“Denied everything.”
“Did he explain where he found the medal?”
“Beside the track.”
“Where?”
Fallow hesitated.
“Near St. Anne’s Cross.”
Arthur looked up.
“What?”
Fallow turned.
“That’s what Thomas told me.”
“St. Anne’s Cross?”
“Yes.”
Arthur stood.
“That isn’t possible.”
Avery looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because Margaret’s train never reached St. Anne’s Cross that night.”
“How do you know?”
“Because service ended at Bellweather during the blackout diversion.”
Fallow frowned.
“No.”
Arthur went to the timetable cupboard.
“The branch beyond Bellweather was closed to passenger traffic after eight during wartime nights. Security.”
Margaret said, “But my timetable—”
“Was printed before the restriction.”
Arthur pulled out the 1943 working notices.
“There.”
He showed Avery.
“Eleven forty-two terminated at Bellweather.”
Margaret stared.
“No.”
Arthur looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“I boarded it.”
“Yes.”
“To St. Anne’s Cross.”
“That was what you intended.”
“But the train—”
“It should not have gone beyond Bellweather.”
Silence.
Fallow said, “Then where did it go?”
Arthur looked at him.
“That’s the question.”
Avery closed the notice.
“Wait.”
He looked at Margaret.
“You said you arrived at Bellweather around nine on a train from Market St. Edmund.”
“Yes.”
“Then later boarded the eleven forty-two.”
“Yes.”
“If the eleven forty-two terminated at Bellweather...”
Arthur finished.
“It should have arrived from Harrowby, unloaded, and gone back the way it came.”
Avery nodded.
“Not toward St. Anne’s Cross.”
Margaret’s face became pale.
“But it did.”
Arthur remembered her account.
She had watched nothing.
She had boarded.
The lights went out.
A jolt.
Darkness.
A train moving where it should not move.
Fallow whispered, “Dear God.”
Avery looked at Arthur.
“Is there any railway explanation?”
“No.”
“Special order?”
“Not without a record.”
“Military?”
“Not on that branch.”
“What if the train was switched?”
“There is no junction.”
Avery nodded slowly.
“Then we leave it.”
Fallow stared.
“Leave it?”
“For now.”
Avery stood.
“Marlowe remains dead.”
Fallow looked toward the corridor.
“Who killed him?”
Avery turned toward Beatrice.
She looked back at him.
Neither spoke.
Then the telephone rang.
Arthur closed his eyes briefly.
Nobody wanted to answer it.
He did.
“Bellweather.”
For once the line was clear.
George Wilkes spoke.
His voice sounded exhausted.
“Arthur.”
“George.”
“It’s gone.”
“What is?”
“The woman.”
Margaret tightened her grip on Stephen’s hand.
Arthur said, “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she board the train?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“She was standing by the signal.”
“And?”
“The light failed for a moment.”
“Then?”
“She wasn’t there.”
Arthur looked at Avery.
“George, listen carefully. Did you see her face?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
Arthur’s mouth went dry.
“Who was she?”
George began to answer.
Then stopped.
“George?”
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“I’ve just realized something.”
“What?”
The fear in George’s voice was unmistakable now.
“The coat wasn’t Margaret’s.”
Arthur stared at the receiver.
“What do you mean?”
“I could see it properly when the signal lamp came on.”
“What did it look like?”
“Brown. Belted.”
“That’s Margaret’s coat.”
“No.”
George breathed.
“It was older.”
Arthur frowned.
“Older?”
“Worn. Torn at the pocket.”
Arthur looked at Margaret’s coat.
The left pocket had been repaired.
“What about the woman?”
George’s voice dropped.
“She was older too.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
“George.”
“Forty.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Stephen shook his head.
“No.”
Arthur said, “Did you recognize her?”
“Arthur...”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
The answer came almost too quietly to hear.
“Margaret Vale.”
Stephen grabbed the receiver from Arthur.
“That’s impossible.”
George went silent.
Stephen shouted, “My sister is standing here.”
The line crackled.
Then George said, “I know.”
Stephen stared.
Arthur took the receiver back.
“What do you mean, you know?”
“I saw both of them.”
Nobody in the room moved.
George continued.
“The girl was on the train earlier.”
Arthur felt his heart pound.
“The older woman was beside the signal.”
Avery came closer.
“Ask him what happened.”
Arthur did.
George’s breathing was audible.
“She looked at the box.”
“Did she speak?”
“No.”
“Gesture?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Pointed.”
“Where?”
“Down the line.”
“Toward Bellweather?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She disappeared.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“George.”
“Yes?”
“Police?”
“They’re trying to reach you from Market St. Edmund. Might send a locomotive with two constables if the line stays clear.”
Arthur looked toward the clock.
Eleven twenty-eight.
Fourteen minutes until the final train.
“George, what about the eleven forty-two?”
“Cancelled.”
Arthur almost laughed.
“What?”
“Storm damage.”
“Since when?”
“Control sent the message five minutes ago.”
Arthur looked around the room.
“The last train isn’t coming?”
“No.”
“Then how do we get everyone out?”
“You don’t.”
George paused.
“Not tonight.”
The meaning settled heavily over the station.
Bellweather was closed off.
No road.
No final passenger train.
No police yet.
A dead man in the waiting room.
Seven living people.
Arthur asked, “What about the police locomotive?”
“Could be an hour.”
The line crackled.
George said, “Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“Lock the doors.”
Arthur looked at Avery.
“They already are.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
George hesitated.
“Because there’s something else on the line.”
Arthur gripped the receiver.
“What?”
“I’ve got a train approaching.”
“From where?”
“Bellweather.”
Arthur stared toward Platform Two.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“Nothing has left here.”
“I know.”
Arthur heard the block bell at George’s end.
Once.
Then twice.
Then a sequence.
George went silent.
Arthur listened.
“George?”
The bell sounded again.
Avery leaned close.
“What is that?”
Arthur raised a hand.
The code repeated.
Arthur felt his stomach turn.
“George.”
“I hear it.”
“What code?”
George did not answer.
Arthur knew anyway.
He had not heard it in decades.
Three beats.
Pause.
One.
Pause.
Three.
An obsolete emergency bell code.
A code used before nationalisation.
A code removed from service years ago.
Arthur whispered, “Train running away.”
Fallow looked at him.
“What?”
Avery said, “Meaning?”
Arthur kept his eyes on the telephone.
“Uncontrolled train.”
George’s voice came faintly.
“Arthur.”
“Yes.”
“The instrument is showing occupied.”
For the first time all night.
Arthur could not speak.
George continued.
“It’s coming from Bellweather.”
“But there is no train here.”
“I know.”
“Can you see it?”
“Not yet.”
The line became noisy.
Then George shouted.
Arthur heard a whistle through the telephone.
A long, low note.
Margaret gasped.
“It’s the same.”
Arthur turned toward her.
The whistle sounded again.
Not through Bellweather.
Through George’s receiver.
Far away.
At Harrowby.
Then the telephone cut off.
Nobody spoke.
Arthur slowly returned the receiver to its cradle.
Avery said, “What did the bell mean?”
Arthur looked at him.
“Something is travelling from here to Harrowby without control.”
Fallow looked toward the windows.
“Something?”
Arthur said, “That’s all I know.”
Avery’s expression changed.
He looked toward the corridor.
Then toward the general waiting room.
Then at Beatrice.
Arthur followed his gaze.
Beatrice was staring at the clock.
Avery said, “Miss Holt.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Earlier, Marlowe told you he intended to confess.”
“Yes.”
“Did he say tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Before the last train.”
“Yes.”
“Why before the last train?”
Beatrice swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No.”
Avery stepped closer.
“Did he intend to leave Bellweather?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Market St. Edmund.”
“To the police?”
She said nothing.
Avery waited.
“To the police?”
“Yes.”
“And you tried to stop him.”
“No.”
“You called him a fool.”
“Yes.”
“You argued.”
“Yes.”
“You followed him into the waiting room.”
“No.”
Avery’s tone changed.
“Beatrice.”
She looked at him.
Avery spoke almost gently.
“There was blood on the cuff of your dress.”
Everyone looked.
Beatrice’s hand flew instinctively to her left sleeve.
A tiny dark stain marked the fabric near the wrist.
Arthur had not noticed.
Beatrice stared at it.
Avery continued.
“You’ve been keeping that arm beneath your coat.”
“No.”
“Since we found Marlowe.”
“No.”
“Stephen.”
The doctor stepped forward.
“Is that blood?”
Stephen looked.
“Could be.”
Beatrice backed away.
“It could be anything.”
Avery said, “Yes.”
She looked at him.
“And if it is anything else,” he continued, “you have nothing to fear.”
Beatrice’s composure cracked.
“I didn’t mean to.”
The room froze.
Avery did not move.
“What didn’t you mean to do?”
Beatrice stared at him.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I only wanted him to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Talking.”
“To the police.”
“To everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because it was finished.”
Her voice rose.
“It had been finished for twenty-one years.”
Margaret stepped forward.
Beatrice looked at her.
“You were gone.”
Margaret stopped.
Avery said, “What happened in the waiting room?”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
No answer.
“Beatrice.”
“He laughed at me.”
“What did he say?”
“That I was still frightened of a nineteen-year-old girl.”
Margaret stared.
“He said Margaret had come back and there was no point hiding anything.”
Avery waited.
“He said we’d all been punished enough.”
“And?”
“I told him he didn’t know what punishment was.”
Beatrice’s voice trembled.
“He was going to tell you everything.”
“Yes.”
“About the wartime thefts.”
“Yes.”
“The medal.”
“Yes.”
“And your involvement.”
“Yes.”
Avery said, “Then?”
“He turned away.”
“Where were you?”
“The old waiting room.”
“How did you get there?”
“He asked me to meet him.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want Margaret to hear.”
“And the suitcase?”
Beatrice looked confused.
“What?”
“The brown case.”
“I don’t know.”
Avery studied her.
“Continue.”
Beatrice took a breath.
“There was an old brass fire tool near the stove.”
Arthur knew it.
A short iron poker used when the waiting room still had a coal grate.
Avery said, “You picked it up.”
Beatrice began crying.
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
“He said he was going to tell Henry too.”
Fallow stared.
“Why me?”
“Because Margaret trusted you.”
Avery said, “What happened?”
“I hit him.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Once?”
Beatrice nodded.
Avery said nothing.
Her face twisted.
“He fell.”
“Was he alive?”
Beatrice sobbed.
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“He looked at me.”
Avery’s voice was very quiet.
“And you hit him again.”
Beatrice gave a broken cry.
No one moved.
Avery did not need an answer.
The confession had completed itself.
Arthur felt no triumph.
Only exhaustion.
Beatrice lowered her hands.
“He was still breathing.”
Stephen looked away.
“I panicked.”
“You moved the suitcase?”
“No.”
“The medal?”
“No.”
“Then how did Marlowe’s medal get into the case?”
Beatrice stared at him.
“I don’t know.”
Avery’s expression changed.
“Did Marlowe have the medal when you met him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In his hand.”
“What was he doing with it?”
“He said he was going to give it back.”
Margaret looked down at the medal she still held.
Avery said, “To Margaret.”
“Yes.”
“Did he put it in the suitcase?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
Beatrice began shaking.
“I don’t know.”
Avery looked at Arthur.
The murder had been solved.
But not everything around it.
Avery turned back.
“After the second blow?”
“I ran.”
“Where?”
“Back toward the booking office.”
“Then the lights went out.”
“Yes.”
“You never touched the suitcase.”
“No.”
“Never placed the medal inside it.”
“No.”
Avery believed her.
Arthur could see that.
So did Margaret.
She looked toward the corridor where Marlowe lay.
“Then someone else was in that room.”
Stephen said, “Or Marlowe put it there before Beatrice arrived.”
Avery shook his head.
“If he still held it when she entered, no.”
Fallow looked toward the dark hallway.
“Then someone entered after she left.”
Avery said, “Possibly.”
Beatrice stared at him.
“Who?”
Nobody answered.
Arthur suddenly remembered the scraping noise.
Marlowe’s hand moving on the floor.
The medal already in the suitcase.
The lights out.
Margaret standing in the doorway.
How long had there been between Beatrice’s flight and their arrival?
A minute?
Less?
Long enough.
Arthur looked toward Platform Two.
Avery saw.
“What?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Avery frowned.
“Stop saying that.”
Arthur drew a breath.
“George saw two Margarets.”
Stephen snapped, “No.”
Arthur continued.
“One nineteen. One forty.”
“No.”
“The older one wore the same coat before it was repaired.”
Margaret touched the seam.
Stephen said, “George is confused.”
“Perhaps.”
Avery looked at Arthur.
“But?”
Arthur did not want to say it.
“The medal.”
“What about it?”
“Marlowe found it beside the railway after Margaret disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Near St. Anne’s Cross.”
“According to Fallow.”
“Margaret’s train should never have gone there.”
Avery listened.
“Yet twenty-one years later, the medal appears inside a suitcase found on Platform Two.”
Arthur looked at Margaret.
“A suitcase nobody claims.”
Margaret’s face was pale.
Stephen said, “You’re suggesting what?”
Arthur answered honestly.
“I don’t know.”
The station clock ticked.
Eleven thirty-six.
Six minutes before the final train that would never arrive.
Avery placed a hand on Beatrice’s shoulder.
“You’ll remain here until the police come.”
She nodded.
There was nothing left in her to resist.
Elsie led her toward the waiting room.
Fallow sat heavily.
Margaret remained by the booking window.
Arthur watched her.
“Margaret.”
She turned.
“Earlier you said you remembered where you hid the notebook.”
“Yes.”
“You remembered Beatrice following you.”
“Yes.”
“You remembered the old man on the train.”
“Yes.”
“And the woman.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“The woman in the last carriage.”
She nodded.
Arthur approached.
“You said she was wearing your coat.”
“Yes.”
“Could you see her face?”
Margaret looked toward the window.
“Not then.”
“Do you remember seeing her before?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Stephen said, “Arthur.”
Arthur ignored him.
“Margaret.”
She closed her eyes.
“The darkness.”
“What?”
“After the lights went out.”
“On the train?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
Arthur felt the room tighten.
“Who was there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you heard footsteps.”
“Yes.”
“A door.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
Margaret’s breathing became shallow.
“A voice.”
Arthur moved closer.
“What did it say?”
She opened her eyes.
“I thought it was the old man.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman.”
Stephen took her arm.
“What did she say?”
Margaret looked at him.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“She told me not to be afraid.”
Arthur felt a cold sensation move down his spine.
“Anything else?”
Margaret nodded.
“What?”
“She said I’d have to be patient.”
Fallow whispered, “Patient for what?”
Margaret stared toward the dark track.
“For the station.”
No one understood.
Arthur said, “What station?”
Margaret’s voice dropped.
“This one.”
The clock struck the half-hour late.
A single dull chime.
Then another.
Arthur looked at it.
Eleven thirty-seven.
Five minutes.
Margaret suddenly gasped.
She pressed one hand to her head.
Stephen caught her.
“What?”
“I remember.”
“What?”
Margaret stared at Arthur.
“The woman.”
Arthur waited.
“She had my face.”
Stephen shook his head violently.
“No.”
Margaret continued.
“Older.”
Arthur thought of George.
Forty.
“She looked like me.”
Avery said quietly, “What happened?”
Margaret’s eyes had gone distant.
“She said I couldn’t go home.”
Stephen tightened his grip on her.
“Margaret.”
“She said not yet.”
“Stop.”
“She said someone had to wait.”
“Margaret.”
“And then—”
A train whistle sounded.
Not over the telephone.
Not far away.
Outside.
Everyone stopped.
Arthur looked at the clock.
Eleven thirty-eight.
Four minutes early.
The final train had been cancelled.
The whistle sounded again.
Closer.
Arthur went to the platform window.
Nothing.
Then the rails began to vibrate.
Stephen said, “No.”
Avery came beside Arthur.
“You said there was no train.”
“There isn’t.”
The signal remained red.
Arthur looked toward Harrowby.
A light appeared in the distance.
This time there was only one.
Small.
White.
Coming slowly.
Not carriage lights.
A hand lamp.
Someone was walking along the track.
Arthur stared.
The figure came nearer.
A woman.
Brown coat.
Margaret stood behind him.
“No.”
The woman continued toward Bellweather.
She did not hurry.
Rain passed through the station lamps.
Arthur could see her face now.
Stephen made a sound.
Fallow rose.
Elsie stopped in the doorway.
Beatrice looked past her.
Nobody spoke.
The woman reached the end of Platform Two.
She climbed from the track onto the platform.
Arthur’s mind refused the image.
She was older than Margaret.
Perhaps forty.
Her hair was darker at the roots and threaded with grey near the temples.
Her face was thinner.
There were lines beside her mouth.
But she was Margaret Vale.
Not similar.
Not possibly related.
Margaret.
The woman stopped beneath the lamp.
Young Margaret stood across the tracks.
The two looked at one another.
Twenty-one years apart.
Avery whispered, “Good God.”
The older woman smiled.
It was a tired smile.
Young Margaret’s lips trembled.
“Who are you?”
The woman did not answer.
Margaret took a step toward the footbridge.
Arthur caught her arm.
“No.”
The older woman raised one hand.
Not warning.
Farewell.
Then she looked at Arthur.
Directly at him.
She mouthed a word.
Arthur could not hear it through the glass.
But he understood.
Now.
He felt the old station ledger beneath his hand.
Twenty-one years of silence.
Twenty-one years of refusing to write down the impossible thing he had seen.
Arthur crossed to the booking desk.
He opened the current register.
Avery looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
Arthur picked up his pen.
“Making an entry.”
“Arthur—”
“That’s what railwaymen do when trains arrive.”
He looked at the clock.
Eleven forty-one.
Then wrote:
11:41 p.m. Unscheduled passenger observed Platform Two.
His hand trembled.
He continued.
Origin unknown.
The whistle sounded again.
Arthur looked up.
A train had appeared behind the older Margaret.
No locomotive.
Lit carriages emerging from rain and darkness.
Young Margaret began crying.
The older woman turned toward it.
Stephen shouted, “Wait!”
She looked across at him.
Her expression changed.
For a moment she was not mysterious.
Not supernatural.
Only a woman looking at the brother she had lost.
She smiled.
Then placed one hand against her heart.
Stephen covered his mouth.
The train slowed.
A carriage door opened.
The elderly man stood inside.
Waiting.
The older Margaret looked once more toward young Margaret.
Then she spoke.
The words carried across the tracks despite the rain.
“Go home.”
Young Margaret stared.
The older woman stepped aboard.
The door closed.
The train began moving.
Margaret ran toward the footbridge.
“Wait!”
Stephen caught her.
She struggled.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“That’s me!”
“I know.”
“Let me go!”
“No.”
The final carriage passed.
Arthur saw the older Margaret at the window.
She raised one hand.
Then the train disappeared into darkness.
The rails fell silent.
Margaret collapsed against Stephen.
Arthur looked at the register.
The ink was still wet.
For the first time in twenty-one years he had written down what he had actually seen.
Avery came beside him.
Neither spoke.
Then the telephone rang.
Arthur answered.
George.
“Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see it?”
Arthur looked at the ledger.
“Yes.”
George breathed out.
“Good.”
Arthur almost laughed.
“Good?”
“So I’m not mad.”
“No.”
A pause.
“Arthur.”
“What?”
“The police locomotive has left Market St. Edmund.”
“How long?”
“Forty minutes.”
“All right.”
Another pause.
“George?”
“Yes?”
“Did the train reach you?”
George was silent.
Then:
“What train?”
Arthur closed his eyes.
He smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because suddenly there was nothing else to do.
“Never mind.”
He put down the receiver.
The station clock clicked.
Eleven forty-two.
Nothing arrived.
The final scheduled train of Bellweather Station never came.
Outside, Platform Two stood empty.
At twelve fifteen, Beatrice Holt sat alone beneath the watch of Charles Avery.
Henry Fallow had gone into the staff room with Stephen and Margaret.
Elsie washed cups.
Arthur stood at the booking-office window.
Rain had nearly stopped.
There was a strange gentleness to the station now.
As if something had passed through it and taken the storm along.
Elsie came beside him.
“You’re very quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
Arthur looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
“Sorry.”
“No. Keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Making ordinary remarks.”
“I’ve made an entire marriage out of it.”
Arthur looked across at Platform Two.
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Clearly?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Do you believe it?”
Elsie considered.
“I believe I saw a woman who looked exactly like Margaret twenty years older.”
“Twenty-one.”
“Of course you’d correct me.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
Arthur almost smiled.
Elsie looked at the ledger.
“What did you write?”
He showed her.
She read the entry.
“Origin unknown.”
“Yes.”
“Destination?”
“I haven’t filled it in.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Elsie looked out into the darkness.
“Perhaps you don’t have to.”
Arthur put down the pen.
“No.”
Margaret entered.
Her face was tired.
She had cried until there was nothing left in her expression but exhaustion.
“Mr. Pembroke.”
“Arthur.”
She looked uncertain.
“What?”
“If you’ve travelled twenty-one years to visit my station, I think we can dispense with Mr. Pembroke.”
For the first time in an hour, she smiled.
“Arthur.”
“Better.”
She stood beside him.
“Was that really me?”
Arthur looked toward Platform Two.
“I don’t know.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because we keep discovering questions nobody can answer.”
“What do you think?”
Arthur considered.
“I think you got on a train in 1943.”
“Yes.”
“I think somehow you arrived here tonight.”
“Yes.”
“And I think somewhere between those two things, twenty-one years occurred.”
“For everyone except me.”
“Perhaps.”
Margaret looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur remembered the older woman.
“Perhaps not.”
Margaret followed his gaze.
“You think she lived them.”
“I don’t know.”
“But if she did...”
“Yes.”
“Then she was me.”
“Perhaps.”
Margaret’s eyes filled again.
“Then where did she go?”
Arthur looked at her.
“I’ve worked on the railway for thirty-seven years.”
She smiled slightly.
“Does that help?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Margaret laughed.
Quietly.
It was the first real laugh Arthur had heard from her.
Stephen entered.
“We’ll go home when the police arrive.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Home.”
“Mine.”
“Where?”
“The old Miller house.”
Margaret stared.
“You bought that horrible house?”
Stephen laughed.
“It’s not horrible.”
“It has gargoyles.”
“One gargoyle.”
“Three.”
“Two were removed.”
“Why?”
“They frightened the children.”
Margaret smiled.
“You have children?”
Stephen stopped.
Arthur looked away.
Margaret saw the answer.
“You have children.”
“Two.”
Her face filled with astonishment.
“I’m an aunt.”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Nine and six.”
Margaret sat down.
“Nine.”
Stephen nodded.
“My daughter Edith is nine.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Edith?”
“After Mother.”
She began crying again.
Stephen sat beside her.
This time the tears were not horror.
Not entirely.
There was life in them.
Arthur and Elsie quietly left brother and sister alone.
At one in the morning, the police locomotive arrived.
Two constables and a detective inspector stepped onto Platform One.
They brought blankets, a stretcher and an astonishing quantity of official paperwork.
Beatrice Holt went with them.
She did not resist.
Before leaving, she asked to speak to Margaret.
Avery hesitated.
Margaret agreed.
They stood beneath the booking-office lamp.
Beatrice looked very small.
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret did not answer.
“For Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“And before.”
“Before what?”
Beatrice’s voice broke.
“For being afraid.”
Margaret looked at her for a long time.
Then said, “So was everyone.”
Beatrice nodded.
She left.
Arthur watched the locomotive carry Marlowe’s body and his murderer toward Market St. Edmund.
Avery remained.
“You’ll have to give a statement.”
Arthur sighed.
“I expected as much.”
“A long one.”
“Do I have to include the train?”
Avery looked at him.
Arthur smiled faintly.
“I was joking.”
“Good.”
“I’m including it.”
Avery nodded.
“Good.”
“Will you?”
“In my report?”
“Yes.”
Avery looked toward Platform Two.
“Every word.”
Arthur felt something lift.
Not disappear.
Some burdens did not vanish merely because they had finally been named.
But they changed weight.
By half past two, the station was nearly empty.
Fallow had gone with the police locomotive as a witness.
Avery remained to help Arthur secure the buildings.
Stephen and Margaret waited near the platform.
The doctor had wrapped his coat around his sister.
Arthur closed the old ladies’ waiting room.
Then the general waiting room.
Then the parcels office.
Each lock turned with a finality he had been expecting all day.
None felt as he imagined.
He returned to the booking office.
The station clock showed two thirty-eight.
Arthur opened the ledger one last time.
He read the entry he had made:
11:41 p.m. Unscheduled passenger observed Platform Two.
Origin unknown.
He lowered the pen.
Then added:
Destination unknown.
He paused.
Beneath it he wrote:
One passenger joined.
That did not seem right.
He looked across at Margaret.
Young Margaret.
Alive.
Standing beside Stephen.
Arthur crossed out nothing.
Instead he added:
One passenger remained.
He stared at the words.
Avery read over his shoulder.
“Very irregular.”
Arthur nodded.
“I’ll probably be dismissed.”
Avery smiled.
“Tragic.”
Arthur closed the ledger.
Elsie stood by the door wearing her coat.
“Ready?”
Arthur looked around the booking office.
At the counter.
The clock.
The stove.
The old telephone.
Thirty-seven years.
He reached for the light switch.
Then stopped.
Margaret came to him.
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
She held out the St. Christopher medal.
“You should keep this.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s yours.”
She looked at it.
“It belonged to somebody else for twenty-one years.”
“No.”
Arthur closed her fingers around it.
“It was always yours.”
Margaret looked at him.
Then nodded.
She slipped the medal into her handbag.
Stephen opened the outer door.
Cold air entered.
Margaret paused before crossing the threshold.
She looked back at Platform Two.
Arthur knew what she was thinking.
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
He followed her gaze.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
Margaret smiled.
“You’re learning.”
“Apparently.”
She stepped outside.
Stephen followed.
Elsie waited.
Arthur reached up and switched off the booking-office light.
Darkness filled the room.
Only the platform lamp remained.
Arthur locked the door.
He stood with Elsie for a moment beneath the awning.
The rain had stopped.
Clouds were breaking above the village.
Somewhere far away a church clock struck three.
Elsie took his arm.
“Ready?”
Arthur looked down the track.
For years he had wondered what he would feel when Bellweather closed.
Anger.
Grief.
Emptiness.
Instead he felt something he had not expected.
Finished.
“Yes,” he said.
They walked toward the station yard.
Arthur had gone perhaps twenty yards when a train whistle sounded in the distance.
He stopped.
Elsie looked at him.
“What?”
Arthur listened.
Nothing.
No wheels.
No lights.
Only silence.
“Did you hear that?”
Elsie considered.
“No.”
Arthur looked back.
The platform lamp was still glowing.
Beneath it, for just an instant, he thought he saw someone standing.
A young woman in a brown coat.
Then the lamp went out.
Elsie touched his arm.
“Arthur?”
He listened once more.
The sound did not return.
“No,” he said.
And for the first time in twenty-one years, he meant it.
End
Outro
And so Bellweather Station closed.
Not at midnight, as the railway notices had promised, but several hours later, after the police locomotive had departed and the last statements had been taken.
By morning there would be officials.
There would be questions.
There would be reports written in careful language by men who had learned, as officials generally do, to avoid recording anything that could not be satisfactorily explained.
Edward Marlowe’s death could be explained.
So could the missing wartime supplies.
So, eventually, could the fear and silence that had bound several people together for twenty-one years.
But there were other things that could not.
No railway record ever satisfactorily accounted for the train seen by Arthur Pembroke, Charles Avery, Stephen Vale, Henry Fallow, Elsie Pembroke and Margaret Vale.
No locomotive was identified.
No rolling stock was reported missing.
No signalman admitted it to the section.
And no explanation was ever found for how a nineteen-year-old Margaret Vale boarded a train in November 1943 and walked into Bellweather Station on the same night in 1964.
Perhaps the railway had carried her somewhere no timetable recorded.
Perhaps twenty-one years had passed for her after all.
Or perhaps, on certain nights, there are journeys whose destinations are known only to the people who must make them.
Arthur Pembroke never claimed to know.
He had spent most of his life believing that everything on a railway ought to have an origin, a destination and a proper entry in the ledger.
On the last night of Bellweather Station, he learned otherwise.
But before he turned out the lights, he made one final entry.
An unscheduled passenger train had been observed at Platform Two.
Origin unknown.
Destination unknown.
One passenger joined.
One passenger remained.
Then Arthur closed the book.
And sometime before dawn, the last lamp at Bellweather went out.
The rails remained.
The empty platforms remained.
And beyond them, the old line still ran through the darkness toward St. Anne’s Cross.
A line on which, officially, no passenger train had travelled for twenty years.
Although people living near Bellweather would sometimes say that, on wet November nights, if the wind came from the right direction, you could still hear a whistle beyond the fields.
And if you listened very carefully—
the sound of wheels.
The Last Train from Bellweather.