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  The Crossing

  It is a foggy day. Ruby Grummett, a railway crossing keeper, opens the gates for a council lorry, thinking that the Skegness train has been cancelled, but it comes looming through the mists and hits the lorry, which is flung into the air. The train is derailed, one man is killed and another seriously injured, and Ruby’s house is destroyed.

  Is Ruby to blame for the accident, or was it caused by the railway company’s failure to warn that the train was late? DI Yates visits Ruby in hospital in an attempt to find out. There he meets her husband Bob and daughters Kayleigh and Philippa. Kayleigh, short and squat like her mother, works in a local factory. Philippa, tall and very blonde, attends Boston Grammar School. Bob is shifty and seems to be hiding something from the police. Both his brother Ivan and Councillor Start, a prominent local man, are helping him.

  Meanwhile, the head teacher at Spalding High School is strangely unconcerned when a prowler is reported loitering outside the school; Andy Carstairs’ new girlfriend tells him about an obscure all-male club that is allowed to meet at the school at weekends; and Juliet Armstrong, who has renewed her friendship with Dr Louise Butler, reopens the case of a Finnish au pair who disappeared twenty years before.

  These miscellaneous events appear to be unconnected until the remains of a child are discovered. Then all hell breaks loose.

  This is the fourth novel in the DI Yates series.

  ‘A seemingly straightforward case upends a termites’ nest for DI Tim Yates. Riveting, thrilling and with that trademark Christina James shock at the end. Cracking crime writing at its best.’ Ani Johnson, The Bookbag

  Also by Christina James

  In the Family (2012)

  Almost Love (2013)

  Sausage Hall (2014)

  Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

  12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Christina James, 2015

  The right of Christina James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

  Salt Publishing 2016

  Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978-1-78463-055-3 electronic

  For James and Annika, editorial partners in crime

  Chapter One

  SHORT AND VERY plump with a squashed-up face and tightly-permed greying hair, Ruby Grummett was not an attractive woman; nor was she particularly intelligent. However, she took her job as a crossing-keeper seriously and performed it with pride. She lived with her husband Bob, who also worked for the railway, in a one-storey tied house with a signal box in the isolated hamlet of Sutterton Dowdyke. There were not many trains daily there, and not much road traffic either, but it was a crossing quite regularly used by slow-moving agricultural vehicles, usually of both great size and length. In the earlier upgrading of the railway to a continental crossing system, the decision had been made to continue the presence of a crossing keeper to supervise the road users and manage the gates.

  It was a cold January afternoon. Daylight had barely penetrated the treacherous yellow fog that had enveloped the countryside since dawn. Bob had completed an early shift at the rail depot and returned home briefly for lunch, before setting off on his bicycle to visit the pig that he kept at a friend’s smallholding. The milk van and the post van were the only vehicles that Ruby had opened the crossing-gates for that day.

  She had been expecting the Peterborough to Skegness train, always punctual, to come thundering past, but the line had remained deserted. The train was already much more than thirty minutes late and she decided it must have been cancelled. She thought it unlikely anyone else would come knocking for her to open the gates today: there had been severe fog warnings and the advice on the radio was for inhabitants of the region to stay at home unless their journey was absolutely unavoidable.

  Ruby decided to take a bath before her daughters returned home. This had become her habit during the winter months, because the stove didn’t yield enough hot water for everyone to wash in the mornings and Bob thought the immersion heater should be reserved for summer use. She had stripped to her all-in-one foundation garment when the doorbell rang, followed almost at once by a business-like rapping at the door.

  She knew immediately who the caller was: this was the signature greeting of Fred Lister, the driver of the council’s tanker lorry. She was surprised that he was out on such a day. She threw on her candlewick dressing-gown and knotted it tightly where her waist had once been.

  The bell rang again. It was unlike Fred to be impatient. Ruby hunted briefly for her shoes before thrusting her feet into Bob’s checked carpet slippers.

  “All right, I’m coming!” she called.

  She hastened to the door and opened it.

  “Hello, Fred. I thought it was you. Surprised you had to work today, though.”

  “Couple of emergencies: cesspits that needed cleaning out in a hurry. We’re late now. I’d the afternoon off but the fog’s held us up so we’ve only just finished. I need to get off home now.”

  “I’ll be quick,” said Ruby. “On your own, are you?”

  “No, Gilly’s there, waiting in the cab. He wants to get back, too.”

  Fred turned and walked down the short path that led from the house to the road, stopping to wait for her at the signal box steps. As she climbed them, Ruby paused to examine her watch, holding it up close to her face so that she could see it properly.

  Fred called jovially up to her, “Make sure you know what you’re doing! Trains’ll all be up the creek today.”

  “I’ll check!” she called back.

  The system in the box told Ruby that no train was approaching and, though she thought briefly of calling the stationmaster at Peterborough to see if the Skegness train had left the station, she knew that Fred was in a hurry and she’d never known that train to run three quarters of an hour late. It must have been cancelled.

  Fred had left the engine running. She put the gates into action and, as they rose, saw Fred walk round to the driver’s side after a quick word with Gilly, who waved up at her. The lorry moved slowly forwards. Then, suddenly, the system leapt into life. The Skegness train! Her heart lurched painfully. She whirled to the window to try to alert Fred and met his eye – he’d paused mid-crossing as he always did to lean out of his cab to wave and blow her a kiss and saw his saucy grin switch to a yell of disbelief as he heard the unmistakeable sound of a fast-approaching train and then flicked his head round to see a great black shape come hurtling out of the fog. The impact filled Ruby’s vision and ears with a roaring intensity and shattered the glass of the box and deafened her. Just before she fainted, she saw the lorry tossed high into the air. She did not witness its descent as it hit the roof of her house, nor see the building turn one hundred and eighty degrees, as if pirouetting on a turntable.

  Chapter Two

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR TIM Yates was bathing his baby daughter. He came home for bath-time as often as he could. At first it had been to take the pressure off Katrin, still weak and wobbl
y from Sophia’s birth, but he had quickly become addicted to the experience. It was like a daily rite of passage, the event that firmly closed down all the travails of his working day and replaced them with family life. He looked into his daughter’s opaline eyes and smiled as he lowered her into the bath. She was kicking vigorously, putting her absolute trust in him as he supported her head and protected her face from the water. Gently, he allowed the mildly soapy water to lap over her. After a while, he lifted her out and enveloped her in a fluffy towel. Bliss, he thought. Why had it not been possible for him and Katrin to create this kind of evening calm, this shutting-out of the rest of the world, when they’d been on their own?

  He carried Sophia to her bedroom. Katrin was there, sorting tiny clothes into piles. She smiled at him.

  “Do you want me to dress her? Dinner’s nearly ready. Just another five minutes.”

  “No, I’ll do it. Do us a favour and turn on the TV. It’s nearly time for the six o’clock news. I don’t want to watch all of it, but today there’ll be something about the government’s proposed reforms to the police force and I’d like to know what idiocies they’re intending to push at us now.”

  “OK.”

  He noted that Katrin sounded weary. He looked up at her. Apart from a slight sort of ripple around her waistline, she’d got her figure back quickly – she was probably, he thought, slimmer than she’d been before. But the glow that had transformed her complexion in the later stages of pregnancy had completely disappeared, replaced by a pale translucency that made her seem fragile. Her face was gaunt, her high cheekbones accentuated now that there was little flesh to obscure them. Tim’s heart went out to her. He wished he could speed up the healing process, take over all of Sophia’s care until Katrin became her usual robust self again.

  “You look tired. Why don’t you go and sit down? I’ll serve the dinner. I’ll clear up afterwards, too.”

  She smiled again, more broadly this time, and a flash of her former mischievousness flitted across her face.

  “All right, I will. And I’ll hold you to that promise!” She gave him a quick kiss on her way past. “I am tired, but I’m angry with myself for giving in to it. I’ve got absolutely nothing to feel feeble about. We’re so lucky to have Sophia – and your coming home earlier most days is a real bonus.”

  Tim laid his daughter on her changing mat and expertly fixed her nappy. He eased her into a clean babygro and wrapped her in a shawl. The whole process took only a couple of minutes; he congratulated himself that he was getting to be a dab hand at it already. He looked at his watch: five to six. There was time for a song if he was quick. Tim had surprised Katrin, and himself even more, by singing to his daughter every evening. What should it be tonight? Deciding quickly, he sang a few verses of Maddy Prior’s ‘The Fox’.

  Sophia was asleep before he laid her in her cot in her snug winter sleeping bag. The signature tune of the news was rumbling away in the distance. He closed Sophia’s door soundlessly and hastened downstairs.

  The Home Secretary was being interviewed. She was in combative mood. Her hair was greying but had once been a fiery auburn, like his own. Tim had a soft spot for redheads, even bad ’uns. During the course of his career, he’d met shoplifters, forgers and even a murderer who had had red hair and they’d always seemed to him a slight cut above, whatever they’d done. He’d rarely met a ‘ginner’ who was stupid.

  He reflected on this as he watched. What the woman was saying seemed to him to be the usual crass monologue – mainly admonishments tinged with a little faint praise – which was disheartening. The country was coming out of the longest recession on record, she said, but funds were still scarce. Everyone had to tighten their belts, and the police were no exception. She had no wish to interfere with the running of individual police forces – Tim snorted at this – but the public had a right to expect results. From now on, resources would be allocated to those forces who proved most effective at . . . Tim groaned. He could guess at what was coming next: some kind of plan to place police forces in competition with each other. He didn’t need to wonder what effect such an announcement would have on Superintendent Thornton. He’d be in overdrive immediately. He’d probably call Tim at home this evening. Tim looked at the Home Secretary again as she concluded with a homily about how much the public owed to the police and how important it was for the high standards that had been achieved over the past three years to be maintained. Once again, his hypothesis about redheads had proved correct. This woman wasn’t stupid, but she was dangerous. He thought of the song that he’d been singing a few minutes before. She was like a fox – a cunning, duplicitous, grizzled old vixen. He sighed and reached across for the TV remote.

  “Just a minute,” said Katrin. “This looks important.”

  Tim sank back into the sofa. The picture on the screen was hard to make sense of at first. It seemed to be a shot of some heavy lifting gear removing something from a low building. The building itself had been uprooted as if it were a tree. It had come to rest at a drunken angle, one of its walls caved in.

  The female newscaster had begun to speak.

  “All the emergency services were called to a remote crossing near the hamlet of Sutterton Dowdyke in South Lincolnshire this afternoon after a train was derailed when it hit a council lorry standing on the crossing. We understand there were no casualties among the passengers and staff on the train, but the lorry driver was severely injured and his passenger died at the scene. Police have not yet released their names. The crossing-keeper, Mrs Ruby Grummett, had just opened the gates to let the lorry across. There was thick fog obscuring the track. However, Mrs Grummett is understood to have observed the usual safety precautions. Quentin Havers has more.”

  The picture closed in on a short well-built reporter who was standing next to the wrecked house, buttoned up in a duffle coat with a fancily-knotted scarf at his throat. His comb-over had blown across his face and he was shouting to make himself heard above the din of the machinery.

  “I doubt if he’ll say anything worth hearing,” said Tim, turning to Katrin. “Should I turn it off now? Christ, though, what an awful accident! I’m glad that I’m not one of the Boston uniforms this evening. Shall we eat?”

  Katrin nodded to both of his questions.

  “Let’s hope no one calls you about the accident. I’m not convinced they’ll confine the investigation to uniforms.”

  “If no one’s to blame it won’t be a CID matter,” said Tim, confidently. “I’ll lay the table. Fancy a glass of wine with your dinner?”

  Katrin was about to answer when the telephone rang. Tim looked at it askance.

  “I’ll get it, shall I?” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Ah, Katrin.” Superintendent Thornton’s voice came booming out of the phone. “How are you, my dear? Looking forward to coming back to work?”

  Katrin’s lips twitched as she struggled to formulate a suitable reply. She found the Superintendent’s transparent betrayal of self-interest more endearing than irritating, though she knew that Tim would have said the opposite. Thornton spared her the trouble of having to think of a reply by ploughing on.

  “Is Yates there? If he is, I suppose he’s seen the news?”

  “Yes,” said Katrin. “I’ll get him, shall I?” She raised her head to see Tim standing in the doorway, gesticulating urgently. Then he dropped his arms and shrugged. Wiping his hands on a tea-towel, he walked slowly across the room to take the phone from her. “I told you so,” she mouthed.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “Yates? You’ve seen the news?”

  “Yes, sir. I thought you might call about that. But the Home Secretary’s proposals haven’t been . . .”

  “I’m not talking about the Home Secretary. I mean the accident at Sutterton Dowdyke. Did you see the story about that?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “B
ut what? It’s on our patch, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but the news item indicated that no-one was at fault. I didn’t think we’d have to get involved, therefore. It’s a job for the uniforms, isn’t it?”

  Superintendent Thornton sighed and began to enunciate slowly, as if talking to a child.

  “They have to say that on the news. Did you really think that someone has died and no-one will be expected to carry the can? The railway company will be under investigation for using faulty equipment; and of course they’ll try to blame it on the crossing-keeper. They’ll say she was negligent, not them. I want you to get over there, Yates. Preserve as much of it as you can as a crime scene. Don’t let anyone tamper with the warning equipment, in particular.”

  “But . . .”

  “But what, Yates?”

  “I was just about to eat my supper, sir.”

  “Supper?” said Superintendent Thornton, as if Tim had just confessed to trafficking in pornography. “Well, a policeman’s lot, and all that. I don’t suppose it will be the first time you’ve missed your supper in the line of duty.”

  “No, sir.”

  “And I’m certain it won’t be the last!” The Superintendent chuckled grimly as he put down the phone.

  “Don’t worry,” said Katrin as Tim gave her a sheepish look. “I can eat on my own. I’ll save some food for you – it should re-heat OK.”

  “Thank you,” said Tim, kissing the top of her head. “You’re an angel.” He was already lifting his jacket from the back of the chair on which he’d draped it.

  “Just one thing,” said Katrin. Tim raised an eyebrow.

  “You said that you’d do the clearing up. I’m still going to hold you to that when you come back!”