"Murder Club" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pearson Mark)

4

‘I CANNOT TELL you what was in the man’s mind. I have had a jumper once before. A woman — she put herself in the path of my train. Her motion was such that it indicated no panic, no fear, but a resigned acceptance of her fate.’

‘I see.’

‘But this man, his face was not towards me, his arm was raised. Maybe in a farewell gesture. I would simply be speculating if I were to say what his motivations might have been.’

Detective Inspector Tony Hamilton nodded and made a note in his book. ‘I was simply asking if you thought it was a suicide, or if you saw someone push him?’

The train driver was a tall man, in his early fifties, Tony would have guessed, with long, but neat, greying hair and half-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses perched on the end of a long, aquiline nose. There was something stork-like about him, Tony decided.

‘If someone pushed him, I don’t recall seeing it. My focus was straight ahead.’

‘Ken here used to be an English teacher,’ said Terry Randall, one of the two transport policemen who were assisting him with his enquiries into the suicide of an unknown man who had jumped in front of a west-bound Bakerloo Line train at Piccadilly Circus station. Constable Terry Randall, like the train driver, was in his early fifties, but was shorter, squatter and had a sour expression on his face that showed what he thought of the Metropolitan Police invading what he perceived as his territory. Back in 2006 Sir Ian Blair, the then head of the Metropolitan Police, had wanted a single police force in the capital. He had proposed absorbing the British Transport Police into his force, and this was agreed to by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, bringing it under the control of the Home Office. But it never happened and the two forces remained separate entities. The only difference being that constable was as high as the BTP’s law-enforcing ranks rose. Any serious crimes and the Met would be brought in. Some constables like Randall resented it, but his colleague, Constable Emily Wood, didn’t mind. She was in her early thirties, blonde-haired with a bubbly sense of humour, and she obviously liked the look of the tall, dark-haired detective.

‘Couldn’t face the horror of it, could you, Ken? And so became a train driver.’

‘My doctor advised that I take a less stressful occupation some years ago,’ agreed the thin man. ‘I have always been interested in trains, electric and steam, and my pension was such that I could indulge my hobby and remain in full-time employment.’

‘Is it easy to become a Tube driver?’ asked DI Hamilton.

‘Why’s that, Detective?’ asked Emily Wood. ‘Thinking of hanging up your truncheon?’

Tony smiled at her. ‘I’m a detective, remember. I don’t carry a truncheon.’

The female constable quirked an eyebrow at him, suggesting she thought that might not strictly be true. He had to force himself not to smile as the driver answered his question.

‘It’s not easy, no. Vacancies are rare. To get on the handle isn’t as easy as some people think.’

‘On the handle?’

‘It means driving the train,’ said the male constable, a tad patronisingly.

‘I thought they drove themselves mainly?’

‘Only on the Victoria and Central Lines, sir,’ said Emily Wood.

‘That’s right,’ agreed the driver.

‘Can I ask what difference it makes?’ said Constable Randall.

Tony Hamilton gave him a flat look. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t.’

‘He means was my concentration focused elsewhere, so that I might not have seen clearly what happened.’

‘And was it?’

‘No, like I said. It happened very quickly — he hit into the window facing away from me, his right arm raised, and then he was down and under the wheels.’

DI Hamilton grimaced. ‘I imagine that would be quite stressful for you.’

‘You would be right, Detective. I may well reconsider my position. Once was bad enough; twice is …’ He paused, looking for the right words. ‘As you say, very stressful.’

The detective walked over to the table where a small, battered suitcase had been opened and some items of clothing were placed in evidence bags.

‘Nobody handled these?’ he asked the Soco officer who stood beside the table.

‘Just me.’

‘Good.’

The detective turned back to Emily Wood. ‘And there was no identification on him? No wallet? Nothing?’

‘No, sir, just that card.’

She pointed to a smaller evidence bag. DI Hamilton picked it up and looked at the card. It showed a picture of a medieval man hanging by his one foot from a T-shaped tree. Red hose, blue jerkin and a yellow corona around his head. The Hanged Man.

‘Tarot card, sir,’ said Emily Wood.

‘I can see that.’

‘Major Arcana.’

‘You know about this kind of stuff?’

‘A little, sir. My mother is very into it.’

‘What does it signify?’

‘Do you think it is important?’ asked her colleague.

DI Hamilton shrugged. ‘I have absolutely no idea. It’s what we detectives do, Constable. Find clues. See what they mean.’

‘He killed himself. He jumped in front of a train. No one saw him pushed. And there were lots of people there. It’s no great mystery.’

‘I tell you what, Constable. Why don’t you do your job and let me do mine?’

‘I was just saying—’

‘Well, don’t,’ Tony interrupted him. ‘Just button it! Go on, Emily, tell me more.’

The constable grinned, as much at her colleague’s scowling face as flirting with the detective.

‘It’s a Major Arcana card, sir.’

‘Which means?’

‘Well, there are two types of card in the tarot deck. Major and minor arcana. Bit like in an ordinary deck, with the court cards and the ordinary cards.’

‘So what does the Hanged Man signify?’

‘It’s really to do with being in a hiatus, sir. A suspension, if you like. Spiritually. When the man is righted, everything will be different.’

‘It was certainly different for him.’

‘It certainly was,’ she agreed.

‘And there was just female clothing in the case?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the forensic officer nodded.

‘So our John Doe was a transvestite?’

‘Looks that way, sir,’ added Constable Wood.

‘Couldn’t live with it, so he jumped in front of the seven-thirty Bakerloo Line to Harrow and Wealdstone.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said the scene-of-crime officer.

‘Go on?’

‘The underwear, sir. Female.’

‘Yes.’

‘Semen stains, by the looks of it. And blood, sir.’

‘I see.’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Emily Wood.

Detective Inspector Hamilton flashed her a mirthless smile. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said.