Timetable of Death by Edward Marston Page B

brother and left at once.
    ‘If it’s a telegraph, it must be important,’ said Lucas Quayle.
    After glaring at him, his brother tore open the missive and glanced at it.
    ‘The post-mortem has been completed,’ he said, curtly. ‘Father’s body will be released to us tomorrow.’
     
    Staying at the Malt Shovel was a mixed blessing. While he enjoyed its food and relished its beer, Victor Leeming found himself under siege. At the end of the working day, a stream of people came in turn to see him, each with what they felt was information worthy of attention and, possibly, of reward. Some of it was clearly fabricated and therefore easily dismissed, some was so confused as to be of no help at all and the rest was well meant but irrelevant. In the interests of maintaining goodwill, however, he took down all the statements and thanked each witness. When there was a lull in activity, he was tempted to slip off to his room but another person came through the door, a basket-maker from Potter Street. He was an old man with watery eyes and a croaking voice but his memory seemed unimpaired. Having taken his dog out for a walk on the night in question, the basket-maker recalled seeing a man pushing a wheelbarrow towards the church. He was too far away to see what was in the barrow but said that it was moving slowly.
    Leeming was so glad for the corroboration of Barnaby Truss’s evidence that he bought the man a drink. He then retired to his room to sift through the statements he’d taken in the course of the day and to have a quiet moment alone. His escape was short-lived. The landlord pounded on the door before flinging it open.
    ‘There’s someone to see you, sir,’ he grunted.
    ‘Tell him to wait.’
    ‘He said he’d come up here, if you prefer.’
    ‘This room is not big enough for two of us,’ complained Leeming. ‘Oh, all right, I’ll come down at once,’ he said, getting up from his chair. ‘But I can’t spend the whole eveningdown there. The world and his wife want to see me.’
    When he clattered down the stairs, he was in a resigned mood but his face brightened when he saw who his visitor was. Colbeck was seated at a table in the corner with two tankards of beer on it.
    ‘This is good,’ he said, taking another sip. ‘What about the food?’
    ‘It’s wholesome, sir.’
    ‘How does it compare with the menu at the Royal Hotel?’
    ‘The pork pie is grand but the choice is a bit limited.’
    After taking the seat opposite Colbeck, the sergeant downed the first couple of inches of his beer before using the back of his hand to wipe the froth from his mouth. He gave an abbreviated account of his day and was pleased with the way that Colbeck complimented him on his visit to the churchyard to search for marks of a barrow.
    ‘This could be an important sighting,’ said the inspector.
    ‘It was verified by a second man.’
    ‘Then you have to find out if someone else was abroad at that time of night. What’s the latest train to get into Spondon? Who was on it and which way did they walk home? I suppose it’s not unusual for someone to be pushing a wheelbarrow about in a village like this.’
    ‘It is if there’s a dead body in it, sir.’
    ‘We don’t know that for certain.’
    ‘What else could he have been taking up that hill?’
    ‘Did anyone actually see him enter the churchyard?’
    ‘No,’ conceded Leeming, ‘but I found those wheel marks there. They were quite deep and obviously caused by a heavy load. Anyway,’ he went on, taking another long drink, ‘what have you been up to, sir?’
    ‘Oh, it’s been a full day.’
    Colbeck’s version of events was concise and lucid. He talked about his visit to Nottingham and what he’d learnt there about the Quayle family. He’d returned to Derby, called in at the hotel and found an important letter awaiting him.
    ‘What was it, sir?’
    ‘It was a copy of the post-mortem report, Victor. It appears that the victim was sedated before he was