11 - Ticket to Oblivion Read Free Page B

with far more confidence than he actually possessed.
    ‘Then where on earth can she be?’ she cried.
    ‘I’ve engaged the services of the one man who can find her for us.’
    ‘And who is that?’
    ‘His name is Inspector Colbeck. He’s being sent here from Scotland Yard.’
    ‘Do you really think that he can help us?’
    ‘I’m certain of it,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Because of his unblemished record of success, Colbeck is known as the Railway Detective. Earlier this year, he saved the royal family from being blown up on a train taking them to Balmoral.’
    ‘Goodness!’
    ‘Can you think of a better recommendation than that?’
     
    Detective Sergeant Victor Leeming was a realist. He knew that his luck could not last indefinitely. It had given him precious, uninterrupted weeks when he was able to spend every night at home with his wife and two children. Since their investigations had been confined to London, he and Colbeck could go everywhere on foot or by cab. It was a far cry from the cases that had taken them to places like Wales, Scotland and France, separating him from his family in the process. Leeming had revelled in the joy of being back on the territory he knew best. His good fortune had now come to an abrupt halt. Instead of walking through familiar streets in the capital, he was forced to use a mode of travel that he detested. The sergeant found trains noisy, smelly, uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. What made his reluctant journeys even more trying was the fact that Colbeck was always singing the praises of a railway network that had spread all over the country. To him it was a causefor celebration; to Leeming it was a source of unrelieved anguish.
    They were an incongruous pair. Colbeck, the dandy of Scotland Yard, was impeccably dressed and sporting a dazzling new waistcoat. He was tall, sinewy and debonair. Leeming, by contrast, looked more like a fairground ruffian than someone involved in law enforcement. He was shorter, stockier, less well proportioned and had a face that was almost intriguingly ugly. While the inspector exuded refinement, the sergeant was unapologetically down to earth. Though his apparel was vaguely similar to that of his companion, it was baggy and crumpled. His top hat had lost much of its sheen. Anyone seeing them for the first time would have identified Colbeck as a member of the gentry with a bodyguard in tow.
    The inspector watched the fields of crops and green pastures scudding past.
    ‘We’d never have been able to get there so quickly by stagecoach,’ he said, turning to his friend. ‘Trains have revolutionised the way that we work.’
    ‘Not for the better,’ said Leeming, sourly. ‘All that trains have done is to give villains new ways to commit crimes. They’ve blown them up, robbed them, damaged them, assaulted women on them and done all manner of dreadful things. Stagecoaches were far safer and much more reliable.’ He folded his arms. ‘That’s my opinion, anyway.’
    ‘I respect it, Victor.’
    Leeming bristled. ‘Are you mocking me, sir?’
    ‘I’d never do that.’
    Colbeck was sincere. He was too fond of his sergeant to deliberately upset him by poking fun at him. The twodetectives were seated alone in a compartment of a jolting train taking them to Worcester. Having set out from London, their first port of call had been Oxford where they’d interviewed both the stationmaster and the porter who’d stood beside Cassandra Vaughan and her daughter awaiting what turned out to be phantom passengers. Neither man could offer any convincing explanation of how the two ladies had disappeared in transit. Unlike the train from London, the one on the OWWR was slow, jerky and inclined to stop at almost every station it came to. As they began to lose speed yet again, Leeming stared hopefully through the window.
    ‘Have we got there at last?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ replied Colbeck, consulting the open copy of
Bradshaw
in his lap. ‘This will be