Steve Butcher, a jovial, balding and lightly bearded man in his late thirties, nodded vigorously and held up a laser pen. ‘I do, sir. I can now confirm the cause of the derailment. I also have something I think will be of interest to you and the team, boss. It would be helpful first to take a look at the inside of Clayton railway tunnel.’
He pointed his cursor at the large photograph of the tunnel entrance, on the screen, and it danced around, just inside the south portal. ‘The tunnel is pretty narrow — just wide enough for two sets of tracks, the up and down lines, but not allowing much space at all for anyone working inside the tunnel. That’s why these recesses were created, approximately every twenty yards, along the entire length of the tunnel on both sides, so that workers could slip into these for safety whenever a train was entering the tunnel.’ The cursor circled around what looked like the entrance to a cave, and then along further ones into the distance.
‘Now, something of real significance is that ten of these recesses go further back and connect to the air shafts built into the tunnel roof — their purpose was to enable the steam from the old locomotives to escape. There is a room in each of these ten recesses for the railway workers to have a break and rest, where in the old days they could light a fire to keep warm.’ He gave a knowing smile. ‘I’m sure some of you are wondering what this has to do with the derailment of the Royal Train, and I can tell you — it appears to have quite a lot to do with it.’
He moved the cursor onto another photograph, which showed a rope ladder hanging down a dimly lit circular brick structure. ‘We conducted a search of the tunnel while the rescue operation to remove the wrecked train was under way, and found this ladder, which when examined turned out to be brand new, clamped to the top of one of the air vents. We think this particular vent was chosen very carefully — it comes out through the roof of the tunnel on the hillside above, in dense scrubland, and is pretty much concealed from view to anyone walking on the nearby fields.’ He paused to check a note, then continued.
‘I can confirm the cause of the derailment was a six-foot length of rail that had fallen onto — or more likely been toppled onto — the down-line section of track, across both rails and the third, live rail. This sent an alert to the signalling centre at Three Bridges that there was an obstruction on the line, and the Ops Manager there, Christopher New, immediately contacted the driver of the Royal Train, which was at that time approaching the entrance to the tunnel, warning him and telling him to halt the train.’
‘So why didn’t he, Steve?’ Glenn Branson jumped in.
‘The driver was pulling seven carriages as well as an additional locomotive at the rear, travelling at 70 miles an hour. It takes the best part of a mile to bring a train safely to a halt at that speed. He was already approaching the entrance to the tunnel when he got the obstruction ahead alert. He’d managed to reduce the speed to forty at the time of impact with the rail — if he hadn’t, there would have very likely been serious casualties, if not fatalities.’
‘Which gives us a number of unanswered questions,’ Grace said. ‘The first being what injuries the offender — or offenders — had intended for everyone on the train? Or would whoever had put that rail across the track have timed it deliberately and exactly, knowing the train wouldn’t be able to slow down enough to prevent it being derailed, but that it would slow down sufficiently to avoid any serious injuries?’
‘Good question, sir,’ the BTP officer said.
‘Chief,’ Norman Potting said. ‘We had a railway line that went across our land where I grew up, dividing our two main fields. It became disused back in the 1960s when Lord Beeching axed a lot of rural railways. I had to help my dad shift the rails — and they are bloody heavy, I can tell you.’
‘They are,’ Branson agreed. ‘A six-foot length of track weighs about sixteen stone. That would take a strong person to lift.’
‘But if balanced against a wall of the tunnel,’ Grace asked, ‘we know that just one person could push it and topple it over onto the track.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Butcher replied.
Grace considered this for some moments. ‘The signaller at Three Bridges notified the driver of the Royal Train of an obstruction on the line, just before the train entered the north portal of Clayton Tunnel. And Sir Peregrine was shot as he exited the tunnel — perhaps twenty minutes later. There’s no way the shooter and the person who caused the obstruction on the line could be the same person, if those timings are correct. Pretty much impossible for that person to have climbed the rope ladder and run to the shooter’s location all within roughly twenty minutes.’
‘I’d have to agree with you, sir,’ Butcher said.
‘Which confirms we are looking for two people. At least.’
They were interrupted by a phone ringing. The James Bond theme. A flustered Norman Potting, the delegated point person for any urgent calls that came into the Incident Room during the briefing, answered it, raising an apologetic hand.
The room was silent as Potting listened, then said, ‘Thank you, I’ll inform him right away.’ Then he turned to Grace.
‘Chief, you need to hear this. You really need to hear this.’
42
Thursday 23 November 2023
Roy Grace left Glenn Branson to continue with the briefing meeting and to attend today’s press conference along with ACC Downing and a senior member of the Media and Communications Team. Branson would be making a media appeal, asking people to come forward if they had seen anyone in the surrounding area acting suspiciously or with a firearm on the days prior to or on the day of the shooting. Sometimes, Grace knew, these appeals could result in fresh information.
Twenty minutes later he was driving, with Norman Potting in the passenger seat, past the magnificently bizarre Gothic north portal of Clayton Tunnel, towards the small town of Hurstpierpoint.
Ordinarily, Grace would have left this task to more junior members of his team. But right now nothing was ordinary about this murder investigation. And, secretly, he was loving being a proper detective again himself. Too often in his work these days, the nature of his position kept him deskbound, leaving the outside enquiries to others on his team.
After a short distance, he turned left onto Hautboys Lane, a narrow, winding country road that ran around the bottom of this area of the South Downs, along which were isolated cottages and a few larger houses.
‘Coming up on the left, chief, three hundred yards,’ Potting said, peering hard at the satnav screen.
Grace slowed down and saw a picture-postcard thatched cottage ahead, with a pink Fiat 500 parked on the driveway in front of an adjoining thatched garage.
‘Dunroamin,’ Potting said, reading the cottage’s name board with a faintly cynical tone, as Grace pulled the car to a halt. ‘Would you want to live in a pun, chief?’
‘If it was as pretty as this, I could probably get used to it,’ Grace replied with a grin, and opened the car door. From inside the house they could hear a dog barking. As they walked up the path to the front door, past an American-style cylindrical metal mailbox, with its flag raised, the barking grew even louder. Entering the porch, Grace looked for the bell. He could only see a brass knocker, and gave several sharp raps on it, which sent the dog on the far side into a yappy frenzy.
Moments later the door was opened, just a few inches against a safety chain. He could see wary eyes behind oval tortoiseshell glasses, and little else. The dog carried on barking. ‘Yes?’ It was a question, not a greeting.
Grace, followed by Potting, showed his warrant card and introduced both of them, having to speak loudly above the barking.