Night Train Read online

  Night Train

  (The ninth case from ‘The Freeman Files’ series)

  By

  Ted Tayler

  Copyright © 2020 by Ted Tayler

  This ebook is licensed for your enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please buy an additional copy for each recipient.

  All rights are reserved. You may not reproduce this work, in part or its entirety, without the express written permission of the author.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: - www.thecovercollection.com

  A Harmsworth House publication 2020

  Other books by Ted Tayler

  We’d Like To Do A Number Now (2011)

  The Final Straw (2013)

  A Sting In The Tale (2013)

  Unfinished Business (2014)

  The Olympus Project (2014)

  Gold, Silver, and Bombs (2015)

  Conception (2015)

  Nothing Is Ever Forever (2015)

  In The Lap of The Gods (2016)

  The Price of Treachery (2016)

  A New Dawn (2017)

  Something Wicked Draws Near (2017)

  Evil Always Finds A Way (2017)

  Revenge Comes in Many Colours (2017)

  Three Weeks in September (2018)

  A Frequent Peal Of Bells (2018)

  Larcombe Manor (2018)

  Fatal Decision (2019)

  Last Orders (2020)

  Pressure Point (2020)

  Deadly Formula (2020)

  Final Deal (2020)

  Barking Mad (2020)

  Creature Discomforts (2020)

  Silent Terror (2020)

  Where to find him

  Website & Blog: – http://tedtayler.co.uk

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  Table Of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About The Author

  PROLOGUE

  Saturday, 8th March 2014

  Ivan Kendall lived in Pontyclun, a village twelve miles from Cardiff. He was self-employed and ran a modest window cleaning business he’d developed since getting made redundant from a building materials supplier in 2008. Ivan had joined the company straight from school at sixteen.

  Ivan was forty-five years old and married to Sally, his childhood sweetheart. Their daughter Alexa attended Y Pant Comprehensive on the Cowbridge Road and was weeks away from sitting her Year 11 exams. Alexa’s ambition was to leave school and go to college in Bridgend. A fifteen-minute train journey allowed her to study at the Hair and Beauty Academy before starting her own mobile hairdressing business. Her mother, Sally, had left school at fifteen and worked as a shop assistant in various stores ever since, except for her six-month maternity leave.

  Ivan, Sally, and Alexa lived in a three-bedroomed semi-detached house that they rented from the local council. A life less ordinary would be hard to imagine. For Ivan Kendall, it was a constant battle to keep his head above water.

  His neighbours knew him as a quiet man who wore a distinctive salt and pepper beard. The stress the family experienced following Ivan’s redundancy and the constant economic pressure meant those neighbours would freely admit that Ivan and Sally had a stormy relationship. Since 2008, the couple had separated on three occasions.

  First, Sally left to go a few miles away to stay with her mother in Llanharry, taking Alexa with her. She returned after six weeks. In 2010, she moved to a gastropub in Cardiff to work as a barmaid. Ivan looked after Alexa alone. While in Cardiff, Sally started a relationship with the bar owner, Thomas Griffiths. Tommy was fifty-five, hard-working, and cared deeply for Sally.

  On this occasion, it was eight months before Sally gave her marriage another chance. She moved back into the house in Pontyclun just before Christmas. Everything was sweetness and light in the Kendall household throughout 2011 and 2012.

  The third and final time Sally left Ivan was in the summer of 2013. Once again, she ran away to stay with her mother. Within a month, Tommy Griffiths left his Cardiff pub and rented a flat in the village. Everyone realized Tommy wanted to take Sally away from Pontyclun for good. What followed was an uneasy period which ended when Tommy Griffiths left Pontyclun and took over a busy bar on the seafront in Weymouth. Sally returned to Ivan a week later.

  Saturday, the eighth of March, started as an ordinary day for the Kendall family. Ivan left at eight in the morning in his white van to visit six properties on his window cleaning round. Sally knew to expect him home by half-past twelve. He would hand over most of the cash he’d earned and keep a few pounds back for himself.

  While Ivan was out of the house, Sally got the washing up together and persuaded Alexa to help tidy the house. On Saturday afternoons, Ivan went to the rugby club to watch a match and have a few beers. Sally and Alexa would visit the local supermarkets seeking bargains that eked out the pennies towards another week’s food shopping.

  It was rare for Ivan and Sally to venture out in the evenings. Alexa drifted around the village with friends. Her parents didn’t know the half of what she got up to and didn’t seem that bothered as long as Alexa got home by ten o’clock.

  Tonight there was a change in their predictable routine. Ivan had been later returning from the rugby club than usual. Sally could tell it wasn’t because he’d kept drinking. Her husband was sober and yet was on edge. He couldn’t settle to watch television for more than a few minutes. Sally didn’t want to start an argument, so she held her tongue.

  At half-past eight, Ivan left the living room and went upstairs. He came down ten minutes later and went out. As the door slammed behind him, Sally couldn’t have known it was the last time she would see him alive.

  Alexa crept in a few minutes after ten and looked in on her mother. She still had her scarf wrapped around her neck. Sally knew what that meant. She’d suffered enough love-bites in her teens. Sally prayed that whoever Alexa had been with used protection.

  “Where’s Dad gone?” asked Alexa.

  “He didn’t say,” said her mother. “He will have gone to the rugby club or a pub in town, I expect. There was something on his mind.”

  “No,” said Alexa, “we were near the station when I spotted him. He never saw us, but he got on the Cardiff train at five to nine.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” said Sally. “He’ll have to get a taxi home. I’ve no idea how he could afford that. What’s his game?”

  Alexa went to her bedroom. Sally tried to watch television, but couldn’t concentrate. She followed Alexa upstairs by half-past ten and fell asleep without hearing a key in the door.

  Sunday. 9th March 2014

  Westbury is a station managed by Great Western Railway that services a market town on the north-western edge of Salisbury Plain. It lies near the border with Somerset. Westbury is famous for the White Horse cut into the chalk face of the hillside above the town in the early eighte
enth century. Murder is a rare commodity in this quiet corner of the county.

  The station is a major junction, serving the Reading to Taunton line with services to and from London Paddington and Penzance in Cornwall. There are also mainline services to and from Portsmouth, Cardiff, and Swindon. Local services from Bristol Temple Meads to Weymouth, plus services to London Waterloo are available. For a town with a population of only eighteen thousand, if you include the myriad of surrounding villages, it’s a station that punches well above its weight.

  Sid Dyer was a conductor who lived on the outskirts of town in Westbury Leigh and started his shift at six o’clock. He parked his 125cc motorcycle in the car park, securing it with a chain to a large steel hoop set into the ground. He had thirty-five minutes before his first train arrived. Sid would cover the journey to Castle Cary and on to Taunton, and then switch trains returning through Westbury on the morning train that ferried passengers to the capital. He’d worked on the railways since leaving school. Nothing much surprised Sid Dyer. He’d seen all sorts over the years.

  His first port of call was the Gents. At sixty-three, Sid knew the benefits of visiting the toilet whenever the opportunity presented itself. The platform near the main station buildings was deserted this early in the day. The solid-looking red brick construction had stood on this spot for well over a century. Sid sensed something different to the thousands of other occasions he’d walked this platform as soon as pushed open the door to the public convenience.

  Each of the stalls was available, and there was nobody else inside. Yet as he stood at the urinal, Sid couldn’t relax and kept glancing over his shoulder. Why was he so nervous? Sid washed his hands and dried them. He paid closer attention to the stalls.

  When he pushed the end door open further, he saw the blood.

  “Well, Sidney,” he sighed. “I reckon you must wait for the Penzance train to rattle into the station before you get any conductor duties done today. There’s far too much blood for there not to be a body somewhere. Time to call the police, I reckon.”

  Two local uniformed officers arrived by car, and a forensic crew and a detective soon followed. As the officers searched the station for a victim, the toilets were closed for the Crime Scene Investigators to do their stuff.

  Sid Dyer sat in the station’s award-winning buffet with a mug of coffee, telling a DC Trainer everything he knew. The young man was green as grass, and Sid knew that he didn’t have a clue about the railways or how they operated.

  “There was nobody on the platform when you arrived, and you didn’t pass anyone in Station Approach as you rode in?” asked DC Trainer.

  “I didn’t see anyone on foot between Westbury Leigh and here. Nobody passed me in a car or van before you ask. If a bloke was staggering around in the town covered in blood someone might have called you, don’t you think?”

  “How far is Westbury Leigh from here? One mile?”

  “That’s right. I used to walk to work in the old days, but when I’ve been on my feet all day walking up and down the corridors, I need to ride home.”

  “How did this supposed victim get here?” asked DC Trainer.

  “It’s not for me to tell you your job,” said Sid, “but there was a heck of a lot of blood in that end stall. Dried blood. So, you need the answer to two questions. First, where did someone move him last night after they attacked him? Second, on which train did he arrive?”

  “When did the last train stop here last night?” asked DC Trainer.

  “The 21.30 from Cardiff pulled in around 23.45. The night trains you might have seen on the black and white films still exist, but they’re few and far between these days. That train is as close to midnight as we get at Westbury. The Riviera Sleeper leaves London Paddington at around a quarter to midnight, but apart from Reading, its next stop is Taunton.”

  DC Trainer left Sid Dyer to finish his coffee. He went to find the forensic crew. Perhaps they could convince him this wasn’t a waste of a Sunday morning. He soon learned that their mystery man had been attacked in the Gents toilet by at least two men. Outside the redbrick station building in the car park, on the other side from where Sid Dyer parked his motorcycle, there were signs of a struggle. Scuff marks and blood spots showed someone got bundled into a vehicle, which then left at speed.

  When he returned to the police station, DC Trainer wondered how many stops there were between Cardiff and Westbury stations. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. He had plenty of other things demanding his attention.

  It might be quicker to wait for someone to phone in about a missing person, or wait for the blood results to come back. With luck, they would match to someone in the system. As for this Sunday afternoon, DC Clive Trainer had a date with England and Wales at Twickenham. It was England’s first chance of a Triple Crown in eleven years.

  In Pontyclun, Sally Kendall had waited all morning for Ivan to return. Alexa was still asleep. Sally wondered whether to phone the police. Had something happened to Ivan, or had he left her? She dialled 999 and reported him missing.

  When Sid Dyer finished his shift in the early evening, he rode along Station Approach on his motorcycle. Where was the closest place to the station to dump a body? You would need somewhere it didn’t get found right away. Sid slowed to turn right towards Westbury Leigh. Just ahead of him and to his left was Slag Lane, which led to the fishing lakes. They were as convenient a place as any. It was a muddy, boggy area with poor footpaths at present, although local councillors were debating giving the popular amenity a much-needed face-lift. When he reached home, he called the number on the card DC Trainer had left on the buffet room table earlier that morning.

  Monday, 10th March 2014

  A diver discovered the body of a bearded man, aged between forty and fifty years of age, at half-past seven in the morning. Robbery didn’t appear to be the reason for the attack. There was cash in the man’s pockets, although he wasn’t carrying credit cards, a mobile phone, or any means of identification. He had a return ticket in his back trouser pocket to Cardiff Central and one from there to Pontyclun.

  The victim suffered severe head injuries before he got thrown in the lake. Whether blunt force trauma was the cause of death would depend on the post mortem. DC Trainer stood at the side of the lake and reflected on what the forensic boys had told him. Two assailants sounded right. The guy on the plastic sheeting on the bank was a well-built, stocky individual. He wouldn’t have given in without a fight, and it would take an enormous man to lift him in and out of the car before throwing him into the water. No, it made sense that they were looking for two assailants.

  Who was the victim, and what was the motive? The tickets ruled out the station permutations he’d fretted over yesterday afternoon as he watched England demolish Wales. His boss was already on the phone to South Wales Police checking for reports of a loved one not returning home on Saturday night.

  The South Wales police found it difficult to figure out why anyone wanted to kill this quiet, family man. Ten days after the murder investigation began, officers arrested Tommy Griffiths in Weymouth and charged him with the murder. The bar owner was later released and cleared of the allegations. Griffiths always denied claims he was involved. He told reporters that the police were desperate for a motive and he was the only one available.

  Sally Kendall also believed in Tommy’s innocence, and she was quoted as saying that although Tommy and Ivan weren’t friends, for obvious reasons, they weren’t enemies either. Tommy knew she was going back to Ivan when she left him in Cardiff. He’d followed her to Pontyclun because he was in love with her, but he accepted that Sally would never leave her husband.

  Sally's and Alexa’s whereabouts by the end of 2014 were unknown. The lack of motive for the killing and the mystery behind his journey to Westbury that Saturday night made Sally fear for her life. Her neighbours saw little reason for that fear, but they too couldn’t explain why Ivan Kendall did something so out of character.

  As for Wiltshire P
olice, they dismissed the murder as being caused by mistaken identity. Someone knew Ivan Kendall was on that night train and that his destination was Westbury. Did he argue with fellow travellers, or were two men waiting for him to arrive? What could have been so essential to cause Ivan to travel eighty miles late at night with no explanation to his wife?

  Two weeks after the murder, a security man on an industrial estate near Warminster reported an abandoned vehicle. He’d inspected the Toyota Yaris and spotted bloodstains around the nearside rear passenger window.

  Three weeks later the detective teams in Wiltshire and South Wales hoped a reconstruction of Ivan Kendall’s last movements, starting from the approach to Pontyclun station, would jog someone’s memory. They were mostly concerned about the two men in the Toyota Yaris in Westbury. But no one came forward. The Yaris had been stolen from a multi-storey car park in Bath on the seventh of March. There was no forensic evidence inside to identify the driver or his colleague.

  Ivan Kendall’s former workmates at the building merchants and customers on his window-cleaning round described him as a quiet chap who kept himself to himself. Officers travelled on trains on either side of the Bristol Channel, looking for passengers on the train that night. They showed pictures of Ivan, hoping someone might have seen something unusual.

  The result was a familiar one. The murder appeared motiveless, the suspects never got identified, and the case disappeared into cold storage. DC Clive Trainer passed his sergeant’s exams at the end of 2015 and transferred to Sussex Police based at their Headquarters in Lewes, East Sussex.

  Sid Dyer retired at sixty-five in June 2016. On a stormy day in March the following year, he got knocked from his 125cc motorcycle by a vehicle as he rode from Westbury Leigh into the town centre. He died in the ambulance en route to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.