Tilly had a couple of days completely free, and there was an appalling weather forecast as an Atlantic storm was due to pass over. There was plenty of food in the bungalow, and no reason to go out. Time to sit down with her laptop and try to make inroads into the research she knew she needed to do.
This suspicious death, at Lynford station. Who had died and what had happened after? She re-read the short newspaper article she’d already found, that gave no names, just that a man was found dead at the bottom of the stairs and there were three witnesses. Two other men and a woman.
‘Who were you, poor dead man?’ Tilly asked her laptop, as she paid for twenty-four-hour access to a newspaper archive site, and set to work searching for any mention of ‘Lynford’, ‘murder’ around the date of the closure of the railway and afterwards.
She carefully read every article she found, and gradually the picture became clear. A man named Bertram Clarke-Watson had died of a broken neck, after falling down the stairs. A witness named Frederick Wilson who had been a station porter accused Ted Morgan of having pushed Clarke-Watson, during a fight. Tilly added Wilson’s name to her list of railway employees. And the woman present had been Annie Galbraith, as Tilly had already suspected.
Ted Morgan had been charged with murder, following the witness statement from Frederick Wilson, although Annie Galbraith’s statement had been more ambiguous.
‘The men were fighting,’ she said, according to a reporter who’d managed to grab an interview with her as she emerged from the police station after giving her statement, ‘because Bertram was jealous of the time I spent with Ted. I’d been engaged to Bertram but had broken it off. He wanted us to get back together. But Ted didn’t push him. They tussled, and Bertram fell, and oh! He bounced down the stairs, tumbling over and over and then … he just lay there, and I knew from the angle of his head he must have broken his neck.’
A crime of passion, it appears, the reporter summed up. One that has left the former stationmaster charged with murder, awaiting trial that is likely to happen early next year. Meanwhile, he is to be remanded in custody.
So Ted’s love, Annie, had been engaged to someone else! That explained some of the angst-ridden entries in Ted’s journal. The other man had never been mentioned by name, but it was clear that Ted had known of the engagement and felt embittered by it. Tilly pulled out one of Ted’s journals and re-read a passage she’d already seen.
I am not good enough for her, and HE is, I suppose. He is rich and drives a motorcar and is a businessman. Her father is in favour of the match as it will allow their businesses to merge. He would never approve of someone like me, someone who will soon have no job. Why does the approval of a parent matter? I must ask Norah this. She will explain. Our parents were gone before she married, and so I suppose no one needed to approve her choice of husband. She asked me once, I recall, if I was happy that she was marrying Charles Harris and I did not know how to answer, for the important thing was whether or not she and Charles were happy. Why was it anything to do with me? But Annie’s choice of husband IS to do with me, for if she marries him then I do not see what else there is in life for me. It would be different if the railway was not to close, and if she was to keep her job so that I would see her every day. I could manage on that, as a stray dog manages on scraps. But the railway’s days are numbered and I may never see her again. That I cannot bear to think about.
But she’d broken off the engagement, it seemed. Had she then accepted Ted?
A thought occurred to Tilly. Ena Pullen’s words about the railway being the death of her father. Was her father Bertram Clarke-Watson, then? And if so, who was her mother? Ena had said the railway closed before she was born. She was unmarried and her surname was Pullen. So no. Clarke-Watson could not be her father. It did not add up.
She looked back at Ted’s diary. At the start of what she guessed was the first notebook, Ted had written that it was on Norah’s advice that he was going to write down his thoughts and feelings, as that might help him make sense of them. ‘You had a good sister there, Ted,’ Tilly said. ‘I wonder if she was able to help you after you were arrested.’
She guessed not. Alan had said that his siblings reported that after the railway closed, their mother would not tolerate any mention of it, or of their uncle. In the end they’d stopped asking and had almost forgotten him. Had Norah thought Ted was guilty of murder and wanted to cut all ties, perhaps? Tilly could not think of any other explanation. It was sad. Ted did not come across as a murderer, in what she’d read of his diaries so far. He sounded more like a lovestruck teenager. Tilly was inclined to think that Clarke-Watson must have fallen by accident rather than pushed on purpose, as the porter Frederick Wilson had implied.
What would the jury have decided, when it went to trial? Tilly imagined a distraught Annie Galbraith testifying for the defence, insisting that the fall was entirely an accident, that perhaps it was Clarke-Watson’s own fault, maybe he’d even started the fight. And would her word have swayed the jury more than Frederick Wilson’s word?
Who was this Frederick Wilson? Tilly wanted to know more about him. She searched for more articles about the closure of the railway and in one found a mention of the young porter at Lynford station, barely out of childhood, who now needs to find alternative employment. Barely out of childhood – probably in his late teens then. Surely the jury would believe Annie over him? Next job then, was to find reports of the trial.
*
That evening, Tilly updated Ken over dinner on everything she had found out, and what her next lines of enquiry would be. He nodded his approval but she could tell that his mind was elsewhere. He wandered out of the kitchen as she cleared up after they’d eaten, and when the dishwasher was loaded she went in search of him, to see if he wanted a cup of tea.
Tilly found her dad standing in the little room that had been her mother’s crafting room. The sewing machine was still set up on the table, with a little pile of patchwork squares beside it, as though Margaret would come back at any moment to get on with her project. Tilly stood beside Ken and leaned her head against his arm.
‘I miss her still, so much,’ she said, and Ken nodded.
‘I was wondering, perhaps if we clear out this room, it might make a little nursery, for when the nipper comes along.’ Ken picked up the half-finished piece of patchwork. ‘No idea what I’ll do with all this stuff though. I mean, look at this. So pretty. I couldn’t throw it out.’
Tilly took it from him. Margaret had been machining diamond shapes together in a classic ‘tumbling blocks’ design. It was in shades of minty green and very attractive. ‘Maybe I should have a go at finishing it. What was she making?’
‘A bed quilt, I think.’
‘Maybe I’d just try for a cot quilt,’ Tilly said quietly. ‘It’s almost big enough already, then.’
‘It could be your mum’s present to the baby.’
Tilly looked at her father and saw there were tears in his eyes. ‘Yes, that feels like the perfect legacy.’
Ken shook himself. ‘Right then. Let’s do this. I’ll start clearing it out as soon as I can. You put aside anything you want to keep. We’ll go shopping for paint and, you know, baby furniture – a cot and whatnot – tomorrow.’
Tilly patted her bump and smiled. ‘We’d like that, Dad. Very much.’
‘It’s time, pet. Time for me to start clearing Margaret’s things. I’ve not been able to do it, but now that there’s someone else needing the space, I think I can.’
‘She’d want this, Dad. She’d have wanted the baby in here.’ The room faced southwest, with a view across the sea. Cool in the mornings but with impressive views of winter sunsets. Perfect for a baby, Tilly thought. And right next to her own room. It was all feeling more and more real.
‘You’re right. It’s as though I can feel her telling me, “Now come on, Ken, get rid of my old junk at last.”’ He sniffed. ‘And so I shall. Will you help me, pet?’
‘Course I will, Dad,’ Tilly replied. ‘We can start tomorrow morning if you want.’
‘Yes. Can’t start right now. The rugby’s on in a minute. Munster are playing Glasgow.’
Tilly laughed. ‘Everything goes on hold while the rugby’s on, as Mum always used to say.’
‘Yes, she did say that. Well clearing this will be easier with you alongside me. Thanks, pet.’ Ken gave her a hug.
‘Fancy a cup of tea while you watch the match, Dad?’
He smiled and nodded.