The Victim in Victoria Station Read online

  Table of Contents

  By Jeanne M. Dams

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  By Jeanne M. Dams

  The Dorothy Martin Mysteries

  THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT

  TROUBLE IN THE TOWN HALL

  HOLY TERROR IN THE HEBRIDES

  MALICE IN MINIATURE

  THE VICTIM IN VICTORIA STATION

  KILLING CASSIDY

  TO PERISH IN PENZANCE

  SINS OUT OF SCHOOL

  WINTER OF DISCONTENT

  A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

  THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

  THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S

  MURDER AT THE CASTLE

  THE VICTIM IN VICTORIA STATION

  A Dorothy Martin Mystery

  Jeanne M. Dams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in the United States of America in 1999

  by Walker Publishing Company, Inc.

  This eBook first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Ltd.

  Copyright © 1999 by Jeanne M. Dams

  The right of Jeanne M. Dams to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0092-1 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  This one is for Ruth

  and Donna, who would

  have enjoyed it so.

  They were a lot alike;

  I hope they’ve had the

  chance to meet,

  wherever they are now.

  1

  At last! The old, disused Battersea Power Station loomed into view, with its ugly cooling towers that always remind me of dirty milk bottles. Slowing, clicking over the points, we crossed the Thames and slowed further, and then the outside world disappeared from view as the train station enveloped us.

  I stood, swaying as the train rocked a little, and gathered my raincoat and umbrella and hat from the rack above. It was a sign of my agitation that I spared little attention for the hat, a frivolous wide-brimmed straw decorated with dozens of little ribbon rosettes. It’s one of my favorites, but I was too annoyed just then to be comforted by any hat. Thanks to an infuriating delay near Oxted, I was already nearly an hour late for my doctor’s appointment, and I’d be later still by the time I finally reached Harley Street. I could get myself out of the train quickly enough—there was only one other person in the car—but the taxi stand at Victoria Station is a long way from the trains, and I was, by doctor’s orders, moving cautiously these days. By the time I made it to the taxis, there’d be a long waiting line.

  I stuffed my collapsible umbrella into my purse and glowered at my cane. Drat the thing, anyway! It refused to hook over anything, slithered down into people’s way every time I sat down, and made me look like an old woman. Surely I could dispense with it before long? The break in my leg had been somewhat nasty, but it had happened months ago. Oh, the doctor had made long faces and produced irritating comments about the body healing more slowly “at your age,” but a pox on that! I felt about thirty-five; shouldn’t that count for something? This was to be my last appointment with the specialist. I hoped he’d tell me I could now do anything I wanted, especially including running for cabs.

  As the train lurched to a stop, I had a sudden thought. The nice young man across the aisle, who was now slumbering peacefully, had offered earlier to share the car that was coming to meet him. I had declined, but perhaps, after all, I’d take him up on it. A friendly person who had admired my hat, he’d seemed perfectly harmless. I hated to wake him, though.

  I had gone for a cup of coffee about a half hour before, more for something to do than because I had any great desire for railway coffee, and he’d been asleep when I’d come back from the buffet car. I looked at him now, frowning with indecision. His own coffee cup, fortunately empty, had rolled off the tiny tray table with that last lurch, and his head lolled against the headrest. He looked very uncomfortable. What should I do? I didn’t really know him, after all, but he was a fellow American, and we’d chatted pleasantly on the ridiculously protracted journey. He’d said he was still suffering from jet lag after only two days in England, so I could understand his sleepiness, but he was as much overdue for his commitments as I was for mine. I decided it would be a kindness to serve as his alarm clock.

  I tapped him on the shoulder. “Ummm … Mr.—” Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was his name? Something Irish, I was sure. We’d talked about that. This was his first trip to the U.K., and he was going to look up his Irish forebears if he had time after he finished with his business. Riley, was it? O’Brien? No, something less common than those, but it wasn’t coming to me.

  His first name I did remember. “Bill! We’re here, finally. We’re in London. Bill, wake up!” I tapped him again, a little harder.

  His head rolled to the side, and his shoulder and torso followed, slumping against me. I suppressed a yelp and tried to move him. He was unresponsive, a deadweight.

  Suddenly there didn’t seem to be quite enough air in my lungs. I reached with one hand for the handgrip on the back of a seat, and with the other put two fingers under Bill’s collar. The flesh was warm, but I could feel no pulse. I gulped and tried to take deep breaths.

  “Excuse me, may I pass through?”

  I looked back, with infinite relief. Someone had come through from the next car. The man trying to get up the aisle looked, in his dark suit and hat, extremely respectable, a help in time of trouble. “I’m sorry, but this man—well, the fact is, he seems to be … I was just talking to him a little while ago, and it seems impossible, but I think he’s—dead.”

  Why is it so hard to pronounce such a short, simple word?

  Mr. Respectable gave me a sharp look. “He must be ill. Let me past, please, I’m a doctor.”

  Even better! I moved carefully out of the way, trying to keep the pathetic thing that had been Bill from sliding farther out of its seat. I didn’t quite like to leave, though I was by this time pretty sure Bill was beyond any help we could provide.

  It took Respectable no more than a few seconds to come to the same conclusion. He looked at me blankly. “Is—was he a friend of yours?”

  “No, I didn’t know him at all, but we talked while the train was stopped. He was a nice man; I can hardly
believe—”

  “I see.” The man looked shaken, though as a doctor he must often have seen death before. Maybe he was a dermatologist, or a chiropodist, or something.

  Maybe I’d better stop chasing irrelevancies and think what to do. “I suppose we ought to notify the police,” I suggested tentatively, “or will the railway authorities do that? Sudden death, after all.”

  The doctor sighed and nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll take care of it, though his appearance is quite consistent with heart attack.” He shook his head. “A young man. What a pity.”

  “Isn’t it? Is there anything—I mean, I don’t quite like to leave, but I’m very late for an appointment… .”

  “I shouldn’t think there’s anything for you to do. I have a mobile phone, of course; I’ll ring the police and give this poor chap a bit of an examination while I wait about for them to come. Thank you for your concern, madam, but I believe I can take care of anything further that is required. There’s no reason for you to put yourself out.”

  “Well, then—my name is Martin, Dorothy Martin, and I live in Sherebury, if you should need me for anything.”

  He thanked me again, with the sort of bored voice that clearly indicated I was becoming a nuisance. The train was empty by this time; I’d be ages getting a taxi. Feeling heartless for leaving the poor man—which was ridiculous—I gathered my things together and walked away.

  The streets, when I finally got out into them in one of London’s wonderful black cabs, were crowded with traffic. They always are, but today seemed worse than usual. We were fast approaching high tourist season, and that means more foreigners trying to drive on the wrong side of the road. At least it wasn’t raining, which creates an even worse snarl, though it looked as though it might start in at any time. A London June at its most typical, in fact.

  I usually enjoy the luxury of a cab ride through my favorite city and make the most of it, rubbernecking at familiar landmarks like the rawest tourist, but today I was preoccupied. I spent that ride, and the half hour I had to wait in the doctor’s office, thinking about the poor man on the train. He’d been young, as the doctor had remarked, no more than thirty, at a guess. How terrible and unexpected, to have a heart attack at that age! My first husband, Frank, had died of a massive heart attack that had come like a thief in the night to steal him away from me, but he’d been sixty-five and had done a lot of living. Poor Bill had had his life in front of him, or he’d thought he had. He’d never marry that pretty girl now, the one whose picture he carried around with him. He’d never look up those relatives in Ireland. He’d never have the chance to straighten out the problems his company was having in the London office, or even finish the Tom Clancy novel he’d abandoned when we’d started to talk.

  He’d never see London. So close, and yet he’d never see one of the world’s greatest cities. He’d been looking forward to it, too, after spending the weekend in the country with one of his business associates, recovering from jet lag. His book, Patriot Games, began in London, and he was eager to see what he’d been reading about. I twisted in my uncomfortable doctor’s-office chair. If I hadn’t gone for coffee when I did … if there hadn’t been such a long line at the counter … if I’d been more observant, and hadn’t just thought he was asleep …

  There was no reason why I should feel responsible, but I’d liked young Bill, and he was a fellow American, and I’d wanted to watch his face when he stepped out into glorious London. Maybe I’m a sentimental idiot, but I was near tears by the time the nurse called me in.

  At least the doctor, when he had finished examining me and we were seated in his consulting room, had good news for me.

  “That’s looking splendid, Mrs. Martin,” he said, pointing out details of an X ray. “You have the bones of a woman half your age, save for the arthritic joints. I did not expect a break as bad as this to heal so completely so soon, particularly since you insisted on so much activity. Do you have any pain in the leg now?”

  “It aches a little when it rains.” Which, in England, was a good percentage of the time, but I decided not to say so. The English can be touchy about their weather.

  “Yes, well, that, unfortunately, may persist for quite a time, but on the whole I think I can send you off with a clean bill of health. Do what you want, within reasonable limits, of course. Light housework, shopping, a bit of a walk now and again. Use the cane when you need it. Apart from that”—he shrugged his shoulders—“don’t fall down any more stairs!” He laughed.

  I was unable to laugh with him. That fall had been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. If Alan hadn’t been there … “I don’t plan to, Dr. Reynolds,” I said rather primly.

  He composed his face. “No, indeed. I’ll give you a prescription for the pain, if you need it, but aspirin ought to provide relief in most cases, or ibuprofen. All right, then?”

  I shook his hand and left, rather glad that Dr. Reynolds was not my regular doctor. For most ailments I went to the small clinic in Sherebury, my beloved adopted town. I’d been living in England for almost two years now and had gotten used to the idea of virtually free health care. I’d even established a good relationship with one of the doctors at the clinic. But when I had broken my leg last November, Alan had thought I’d better consult a London orthopedist. I’d murmured something about the exorbitant cost of a private doctor.

  “Hang the cost, Dorothy! I’ve only just got you, woman, and I intend to look after you. Since you insist on getting yourself into trouble, the least I can do is attempt damage control. I’m not a poor man, my dear. And you are very precious to me.”

  It was the last remark that did it, of course, the words and the tone of voice in which they were uttered. We’d been married only a couple of months then. Alan hadn’t uttered a word of anything but sympathy and concern when I’d fallen and broken the leg, even though I had at the time been engaged in dangerous activities of which he didn’t entirely approve. I’d felt the least I could do was accept his advice.

  It was probably good advice, too, and I had to admit Dr. Reynolds was competent. It was just his attitude that I found a little annoying. He seemed to feel an old lady ought to tend to her knitting.

  I don’t consider myself old, and I knit very badly.

  I’d planned my day so as to avoid the rush hour, but the various delays had plunged me into the very worst of it. Though the Regent’s Park tube station wasn’t far away, my leg was aching a little, and the Underground would be crowded to suffocation point, so I waited with what patience I could muster and finally managed to snare a cab. My driver was taciturn, unusual in a London cabbie, but I didn’t try to make him talk to me. He had plenty to think about, what with the horrendous traffic through which he inched the cab, making some speed in rare clear spaces, then screeching to sudden stops as the stream closed in again.

  The Evening Standard was being hawked on the street corners; I made a mental note to buy one in the station and see what it said about the man in the train. It was so stupid that I couldn’t remember his name.

  “Bloody hell!” As the driver swore loudly, the cab stopped with a scream of abused brakes and an ominous crunch. I was nearly thrown off my seat.

  “You all right, madam?” He craned his neck around as he was opening his door.

  “I think so. What happened?”

  “Bleedin’ idiot come out o’ Buckingham Palace Road there and turned the wrong way, right in front o’ me! Naow, then”—this addressed grimly to the other driver—“wot the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

  We sat there in Lower Grosvenor Place, next to the Royal Mews and the rest of Buckingham Palace’s back garden, for quite some time, tying up traffic while my cabbie explained the rules of the road to the other driver. (“I don’t bloody care where you’re from, you’re in England now, and we drive on the left!”)

  Eventually matters were resolved, to the dismay of the other driver, who was dark skinned and spoke with a French accent, and whose rental ca
r had to be towed away. The cab had suffered no worse than a dented fender, but the cabbie was mortally offended. “I own this cab, an’ I’ll see that bleeder pays! Sorry, madam! It’s them foreigners we get everywhere these days, don’t know how to talk, don’t know how to drive—that’ll only be three pounds fifty, madam, never mind the meter, I forgot an’ left it runnin’ back there. Sorry about the delay, madam—thank you very much!”

  I overtipped him out of exhaustion or sympathy and caught a much later train than the one I’d hoped for. By way of small compensation, it was far less crowded than the earlier one would have been, and by miraculous intervention it ran on time. In less than an hour I was at Sherebury station. I stumbled out, climbed into my little Volkswagen, which was looking lonesome in the deserted parking lot, and drove wearily to my house. I just sat for a few minutes in my driveway, very grateful to be home at last.

  It would have been even nicer if Alan had been there to greet me, but Alan was out of the country. My husband, Alan Nesbitt (I kept my former name when we married), is a policeman. He had left his position of chief constable for Belleshire several months before to take over temporarily as commandant of the Police Staff College at Bramshill, and we’d had to move to the lovely but, to me, formidable Jacobean manor that housed the college. With that appointment ended, we were able to come back home, but we’d been there barely a month when Alan, now officially retired but still in demand as a consultant all over the world, had to go to Zimbabwe for a conference on terrorism. This was the first time he’d been far away since we were married, and I missed him enormously. Zimbabwe sounds like the end of the earth. Until I looked it up on the map, I didn’t even know where it was, exactly, only that it was in Africa and vaguely associated with political problems.

  It would have been heaven to have Alan there to talk to. He would have poured us some Jack Daniel’s, fixed us something to eat, calmed me down, and listened with interest and sympathy to the saga of how badly my day had gone.