The Strangers on the Trains ( Part 9)

For the rest of the evening Emily spoke small talk with Pauline. She didn’t ask any more questions about Stephen Palmer. She tried to put it to the back of her mind. She got home just after nine o’clock, fed Yorkie and went straight to bed. She knew she wouldn’t sleep. Stephen Palmer and Nicola Hammond just wouldn’t go away.

Only two people had previously done her job, both were now dead, both in mysterious circumstances. Coincidence? She tried to convince herself that it was, but there was a doubt that she couldn’t shake off. She eventually got to sleep just two hours before her alarm went off at six o’clock.

She showered, dressed and made her way by tube to Vauxhall. It was an easy journey and she had a couple of options. That was the great thing about living in Hoxton, she could get almost anywhere in London within an hour. Today she chose to take a five minute walk to Liverpool Street station then get the Central line to Oxford Circus, then the Victoria line to Vauxhall. Thirty five minutes door to door.

Coffee was made and the laptop was fired up. She looked across at the notice board. She saw the names she had written up on her first day. Nicola Hammond and Stephen Palmer. Both now deceased.

She walked over and put a small question mark against each name. Perhaps she should start to research them instead. No, that was stupid. It would have to wait. She had her first meeting with Paul in twenty four hours and she wanted him to see that she’d made progress in her first week. Not that she had. Nothing concrete anyway. Just another theory. She was hoping that Fat Tony would come up with something.

She spent the next two hours going through News Archives from all the TV stations. Anything involving the Potters Bar train crash. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were no men with beards, no men carrying small boxes, nothing. It looked like this one was a red herring. She opened up the box marked Hatfield Crash 2000. Once again only Stephen Palmers name was on the box. Another one that Nicola hadn’t got round to. Her mobile rang. It was Fat Tony. She crossed her fingers, and prayed that he had some news.

“You took your time.”

“Now, now, Doctor Watson, it’s only midday. You only gave me the job twenty four hours ago.”

“I think you’ll find it’s more like twenty seven hours, actually FAT TONY. So what you got for me?”

“I’ll start with the train driver. Found him easily enough. He retired on medical grounds soon after the crash. Trauma and all that nonsense. He didn’t want to talk about it. In fact he made it very clear that he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why, what did he say?”

“I told him I was doing a piece for television about the crash, you know, ten years on sort of thing and was interviewing survivors and eye witnesses. He told me to fuck off!”

“Oh well, I suppose I can understand that. He didn’t want to relive it all again ten years later.”

“No, it wasn’t that. His exact words were “I can’t talk about it. Now fuck off”. He didn’t say he didn’t want to talk about it. He said he couldn’t. Big difference.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I think he’s scared to talk about it. As though he’s promised someone he never would.”

“Okay. Not much more we can do about that then. What about the maintenance company?”

“Now that is a weird thing. The maintenance company were called Jarrods. Massive multi million pound company. I managed to track down their head of maintenance for the area at the time. He’s moved on now and works on the oil rigs in the North Sea. He said that there was nothing wrong with the points. His team inspected them just a week before the crash. The guy that signed the paperwork to say they’d been checked was one of his best workers. He said that there was just no way would he have lied about it. He was adamant that they’d been tampered with.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Here’s the big one. Ready?”

Emily sat down.Desperate for Tony to come up with some good news.

“As ever.”

“Jarrods said all the time that the points were okay. They were adamant that it wasn’t their fault. They completely denied they were incompetent.”

“Well, they would wouldn’t they?”

“Sure they would. But why would they suddenly change their mind and then say they were negligent?”

“Did they? I never read that.”

“Yes they did, but not until two years after the crash. They sent a letter to each of the victims’ families saying they accepted responsibility. They even set aside three million quid for compensation claims. Now why would they do that, when for the past two years they'd been saying sabotage?”

“Pressure from up high?”

“Spot on princess. Somebody wants this to go away. All the time Jarrods say sabotage, it's open, as soon as they put their hands up to it. Case closed.”

“Damn it Tony. Just when I think I’m getting somewhere, you turn up with something that gives me another bloody twenty questions to answer.”

She heard him laughing.

“Sorry darling, as I said before. I just find out things. Anything else?”

“You in London?”

“Yep, over in Bethnal Green at the moment. Why, want me to pop in?”

“No, do you know the Canton Arms, near the office?”

“Have you seen the size of my belly? I know every pub in London, drunk in most of them. Canton Arms, is a small boozer, very cosy, red carpet?”

“Meet you in there at say, two o’clock?”

“Music to my ears darling. See you in there.”

Emily had a new assignment for Fat Tony, something personal. Something off the record.