The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness Read online

  THE CORPSE IN THE GARDEN OF PERFECT BRIGHTNESS

  To Squeaky for her eighteenth birthday

  CONTENTS

  Also by Patrick deWitt

  Author‘s Note

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgements

  Note on the Author

  Copyright Page

  ALSO BY MALCOLM PRYCE

  Aberystwyth Mon Amour

  Last Tango in Aberystwyth

  The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth

  Don’t Cry For Me Aberystwyth

  From Aberystwyth with Love

  The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still

  The Case of the ‘Hail Mary’ Celeste

  Author’s Note

  The first volume of these memoirs described the events during the winter of 1947 when, after a lifetime’s loyal service to the Great Western Railway, my employment as a railway detective was terminated. The four great railway companies were dissolved and on the stroke of midnight, December 31st, a mooncalf called British Rail was born.

  My final case, prior to this dissolution, resolved the greatest mystery in all the annals of railway lore, namely the disappearance from a train in 1915 of a party of twenty-three nuns travelling from Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads. A case that the press dubbed ‘The “Hail Mary” Celeste’. This second volume details my subsequent fate in the early months of 1948.

  Chapter 1

  It was a morning in early April, shortly after dawn, when Cheadle Heath brought me the letter from the Countess.

  I was making my way back to the engine sheds after working the night shift on the permanent way gang. I trudged home, cold and worn out and holding a simple lamp fashioned from a piece of rope alight in a can of tallow. The same design, they said, that illuminated the builders of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The outline of Weeping Cross South signal box resolved from the gentle fog: a faint grey shape, soft as a watercolour wash, standing sentinel over the tracks. The air was thick with the scent of tar. A tiny light gleamed like a morning star in the opaque windows of the signal box, betraying the presence of a man who also would have spent this night hard at work, although with the considerable advantage over me of a blessed kettle and a teapot.

  The common man thinks firing a train is the hardest job on the railways, but all railwaymen will tell you there is no harder labour than the permanent way gang in winter. The men who do it are made of hammered iron. Out at night, in all weathers, clearing the tracks of snow and ice, putting down detonators on them to warn of fog, and sometimes walking into the path of the very train they are trying to warn. One of these men of hammered iron was Ifan, a Welsh miner’s son who had partnered me during the night. Back in January there had been nights when we waded through drifts up to our waists and struggled in the teeth of blizzards strong enough to blow a man clean off his feet.

  Just before we reached the water tank I parted from Ifan and took the path that led under the arch of the viaduct and alongside a brick wall black with soot and taller than a man. From afar came the sad wail of an engine and the thuds and last clunk of goods wagons being shunted. Those soft sounds seemed only to accentuate the silence of the morning. Then the stillness was disturbed by the appearance of a man’s head at the top of the wall. He peered over and, not noticing me, began to clamber down, lowering himself gingerly, feet pedalling wildly at an invisible bicycle, searching for purchase before he lost his grip and fell to the ground. Lumps of coal spilled onto the path.

  He lay there for a second or so, looking slightly dazed. I walked across and stood over him.

  ‘Stealing coal, are you?’ I said. ‘You scoundrel.’

  He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes as he focused his gaze. ‘Jack!’ he said. ‘Jack Wenlock. Is it you?’

  I peered at him. ‘Cheadle? Cheadle Heath?’

  My gaze darted to the spilled coal and back to him. ‘Oh, Cheadle!’

  He looked sheepish. ‘If you had told me six months ago that I would be doing this … times are hard, Jack.’

  ‘We used to chase men who stole coal. We used to box their ears.’

  ‘Yes we did. Now look at me. Blotting my copybook again, eh?’ He said it with a sad laugh as if it were indeed comic, but it also epitomised so much of the ill fortune that had attended his life. Cheadle and I had both been members of the Railway Goslings, that fabled cadre of detectives that haunted the carriages of the Great Western Railway until 1947. He lost his position in 1936 for a sin that was never exactly specified at the time. They told us he had blotted his copybook. Later we learned he was punished because of a tryst in Ilfracombe with a shopgirl called Florence.

  The letter terminating my employment as a railway detective had landed on my desk three months ago. For a lifetime’s devoted service, two weeks’ notice.

  ‘Jack, I do not normally do this.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it, Cheadle.’

  He sought to rise, and I helped him up.

  ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose the men who dug that coal would begrudge a few lumps to a poor man to warm his hearth in winter.’ He narrowed his eyes as if recalling an event long ago. ‘Do you remember the works outings? The special excursions to Cornwall from the Railway Works?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Did it never strike you that life was like that? An excursion to Cornwall that lasts barely a week?’

  ‘I can’t say it did.’

  His voice became hushed with awe, as if he were revealing a profound truth.

  ‘It’s as if we are walking along a road at night, in an unfamiliar part of town, and we hear music and laughter, so we follow it to a glittering house. The door is open and we walk in and up some stairs, through a curtained doorway, and blink in surprise to find ourselves in a theatre, with a play performing on the stage. The play is our life. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean. I had never thought of it like that.’

  ‘I have been thinking of that time with Florence.’ He grew suddenly animated and his eyes sparkled. ‘Oh how gaily I blotted my copybook!’ He gripped my arm. ‘You must blot your copybook, Jack, blot it, I say! Blot it for all you are worth!’

  ‘But how, Cheadle? Stealing coal? I could never do such a thing.’

  He moved closer to peer into my eyes. ‘There was a time when I would have said exactly the same thing. But consider who you would be stealing it from. The railway company who sacked you after half a lifetime’s loyal service. Those who taught you never to blot your copybook.’

  I considered his words. Had he really changed so much? Was he right to think like this?

  ‘Cheadle,’ I said, ‘all those years we served together, so loyally, we did not care who owned the railway, it didn’t matter. We loved her like our family and viewed those who stole from her as an intruder found in our own home.’

  ‘Yes!’ The word fizzed like a firework in the cold morning air. ‘Yes, and now they have nationalised her and thrown you out of your own home. Soon they’ll sell the home, or
close down half the rooms in it.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘The little lines will be the first to go,’ he said with solemn certainty.

  I thought of those lovely old branch lines. Spreading out across the map like capillaries, some with just a single carriage pulled behind a tank engine going no faster than a horse, they were the glory of the land. ‘How can you know?’

  ‘It is the way of this world, those who cannot pay their way, whether man or machine or beast, will be for the chop. What happens to the pit pony when he can no longer work, Jack? He is sent to the glue factory.’

  I looked at him, confused. ‘All the same, theft is theft … isn’t it?’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘The times are changing, Jack. The coal belongs to the people now, and so do the railways.’

  ‘Surely this nationalisation cannot last long. A new government will be returned and restore the railways to their rightful owners.’

  ‘You mean to rich men in top hats, meeting in rooms far away from the railway lines? People who know nothing about trains, only how to make a profit from the labours of men like you?’

  ‘That may be true of other industries, but the men who presided over the Great Western Railway loved her as much as any of us.’

  ‘Perhaps. But those days are gone, can’t you see?’

  ‘Tell me, Cheadle, how is it that the common man who never owned anything before the war now has enough money to buy a railway?’

  He peered into my face with an air of concentration, and a hint of sadness in his gaze. ‘Jack,’ he said tenderly. ‘Those men bought the railways with the blood of their fallen comrades.’

  I wondered how it was that such a thought had never crossed my mind. Was it true?

  ‘In truth, Jack,’ Cheadle said, ‘I didn’t come here tonight to steal coal. I really came to see you, to give you something. This.’ He took a letter from his overcoat pocket. ‘I’ve been asked to deliver this to you. It is from a lady in Cornwall, a very wealthy lady who I am given to understand has very important information to convey to you. She couldn’t find you, and I’ve struggled too; you have gone to ground and seem to be using the name “Cunningham”.’

  ‘There are some chaps looking for me, Cheadle, men who mean me ill.’

  ‘I will not pry, Jack, but I must tell you that yesterday, as I looked for you, I was approached by a man dressed as a post office special messenger. He was far too old for a position that’s usually given to boys. His face was terribly burned on one side, and his eyes were colder than those of a dead fish. He asked me if I knew you, and not liking the look of him at all, I told him you had left this town long ago.’

  ‘But how did you find me, Cheadle?’

  ‘We are creatures of habit. If someone asked you to find me, where would you look?’

  ‘I would say, Cheadle Heath takes a pint in the Railwayman’s Arms every evening at half-past six.’

  ‘And I would say, Jack Wenlock can no more survive away from the railways than a frog can live away from a pond. I asked the men, Jack, and it didn’t take long to find some who had seen you. If you are in danger, you need to hide yourself better than this. Go and see Mr Jarley at the Weeping Cross Railway Lost Property Office and ask him for a better disguise.’

  ‘That is excellent advice, Cheadle, thank you.’ I tried to sound unconcerned, but, in truth, his words had kindled a sense of foreboding in my heart.

  He pressed the letter into my hand, picked up the lumps of coal and tucked them inside his coat. Then, without another word, he ambled off. I watched him leave and then moved over to the penumbra of a railside light to examine the letter. The envelope was stiff, the colour of curd. Inside there was a train ticket to Wisskirriel and a note written in fountain pen on thick, creamy paper embossed with a crest. It was stationery of a sort I had never held before, and I sensed it cost more for a box than I earned in a month.

  Dear Jack,

  I hope you will forgive the curt nature of this note, I lack the skill to announce this matter in a manner that befits it. I wish I could prepare you for what I say next because I know it will greatly astonish you. If I understand correctly, you know nothing at all about your mother. Well, I have recently been in receipt of information regarding her fate that may greatly interest you. In the hope that you will wish to learn more, I am enclosing a return railway ticket along with a promise of accommodation at the local inn.

  Yours

  Lady Susan Seymour

  In the goods yard a tank engine passed. There was a whoosh of escaping steam and a thousand sparks glittered in the sky above me for a few seconds, as if a magician had emptied his top hat above my head. My hand trembled. This was the most astonishing event of my life.

  I had never met my mother, but the account of my nativity had been told to me so often at the orphanage that I saw her quite clearly in my dreams.

  It was late in the evening of January 23rd 1914 when she stepped off an omnibus outside the Saint Christopher’s Home for the Children of Railwaymen. Snow was falling in thick drifts upon the town of Weeping Cross. She was big with child and nervous. She drew the bell pull; there was a tinkle from within, and after a suitable wait she was admitted. She was taken the same night to the railway engine sheds nearby, where in a special maternity annexe a bed had been arranged so that she might have there her confinement. Nurses in starched tunics embossed with the letters GWR helped her down into her cot, calling for warm water and towels. They chafed her hands and dabbed the moisture from her brow. There came shouts and the noise of shunting. A whistle wailed, more shouts, and out of the midnight gloom a steam engine appeared with the regal mystery of a whale rising to the surface of the ocean. It was a 4–6-0 Saint-class locomotive, engine number 2904 Lady Godiva. She had a domeless parallel boiler, raised Belpaire firebox and boiler pressure of 200 psi. She came slowly to a halt before the parted thighs of the young girl. The strange ritual that was about to be enacted had been staged in accordance with the ethological discoveries of a German scientist called Oskar Heinroth, who had shown that the gosling of the greylag goose imprints as its mother the very first thing it sees after hatching from the egg. The driver pulled on the whistle. There was a shriek, a column of smoke and steam shot up into the night. The mother groaned and I, the Railway Gosling, was born. The first thing I saw in this world was a Saint-class locomotive, engine number 2904 Lady Godiva.

  Chapter 2

  Dawn glimmered through the fog. The north-east wind picked up. It was icy and held the cold scent of rain to come. I walked through the town to my digs on Dandelion Hill. On the slopes preceding it there was a recreation ground, and since taking this job it had become my custom to sit awhile on the bench at the top and look down on the town, and wait for an hour to pass before going home and waking Jenny.

  I didn’t wish to wake her too early, even though sleep seldom came easily to her. I imagined her lying in the dark, worrying about what would become of us, listening to the snores, or sounds of perpetual bickering, from the Grimshaw family who lived on the other side of the drab curtain that partitioned the room we were obliged to share. When I arrived home she would force the features of her face into a smile and cook me the powdered egg that was my breakfast. And I would say, ‘Aren’t you having some too?’ and she would say that she wasn’t hungry.

  I sat on a bench and thought about what had just transpired. I reread the letter and then put it back in my pocket as carefully as if it were a little bird. What could it mean? I could not begin to imagine what news the writer of the letter might have about my mother. I struggled to resist a dangerous hope that began to rise in me: if she was as grand as she made out, might she not be in a position to help us? She might take pity on us. Because our plight was dire. We were three weeks in arrears with the rent and, as far as I could see, there was no honest way of making it up.

  At the Orphanage we had been discouraged from inquiring about our mothers. All I knew about mine was the strange manner of her confi
nement, and that as part of this arrangement she was subsequently sent to the Colonies, where a domestic position was to be found for her.

  The Railway Gosling programme was soon abandoned, but had originally been intended to create a new cadre of hero for the boys of the realm, one they could look up to, and in so doing acquire a measure of British ‘pluck’. It was felt that this particular quality had been sadly lacking during the recent wars in Africa. Of particular concern had been the Battle of Isandlwana, in which a force of British and Colonial troops armed with the latest Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles had been bested by an army of Zulus armed with spears.

  During that famous battle a solar eclipse occurred. Many believed this was God firing a warning shot across the bows of the Great Ship Britannia, telling us to pull our socks up.

  On the southern horizon came the first puffs of smoke from the 7.47 Hereford train. Smoke rose, too, from the chimney of Chumley’s biscuit works. Barges moved slowly along the canal, its waters black and in places flashing silver in the morning light. I had loved God’s Wonderful Railway, but she had not loved me back. It was a hard time for a man to lose his livelihood, especially a man who had confounded all the odds and expectations and found for himself a wonderful wife. I had never thought to marry, of course. My life had been one of unstinting devotion and sacrifice in the name of the GWR, and most of that time, when not apprehending ruffians making a nuisance of themselves on the trains, had been spent in the company of chaps, all of whom – with the exception of Cheadle Heath – knew about as much about the mysteries of the flesh as I did, which is to say precisely nothing. For all that, I would say my new wife Jenny and I make a good team. As for those practical matters of the flesh that exist between man and woman within a marriage, I will say only that Cheadle sent me a handbook complete with instructive diagrams that has proved most helpful.

  Our room was at the top of four flights of stairs, from which the carpet on the top three had been removed and replaced with nailed-down jute. It imparted a dry, dusty odour to the air, whereas the rest of the house was dank, and smelled of boiled cabbage, lavatory disinfectant and chilblain ointment. I climbed with weariness not so much from my night’s loss of sleep but from the question in my heart about what future lay ahead. I hoped against hope that I did not encounter my landlord. Folk passed me on the stairs on their way to work, rubbing sleep from their eyes and grunting greetings. On every landing doors ajar led to rooms in which the wireless was on, tuned to the Home Service. In our room Jenny was sitting on the bed, watching the door. She smiled when she saw me and jumped up, embracing me, then pulled back and looked up into my face. ‘Pleased to meet you, meat to please you,’ she said. I could tell she had been crying.