Page 64 of Murder on the Brighton Express
I had little interest in seeing it again. It would probably have the opposite effect anyway and get us thrown out of the office. “What my colleague should have said is, we wish to speak to McAllister about themurderof a gossip columnist’s assistant on the express train from Brighton to London. If he doesn’t want to speak to us, then I’m afraid it will look very bad for him. Scotland Yard won’t like it.”
The man’s gaze shifted to peer past me. It was the only warning, but it didn’t come early enough.
“Turn around with your hands in the air,” came the growl from behind us. “Don’t do anything foolish or Iwillshoot.”
Chapter14
Harry moved to step between me and Alistair McAllister, but the click of the gun cocking stopped him in his tracks. My heart stopped, too, only to restart with a frenzied pounding.
McAllister bared his teeth. “I said, don’t move.” I knew it was McAllister by the crumpled skin on the left side of his face. His left hand also bore burn scars, but they would have been hidden beneath a glove on the train. His right hand, the one that gripped the gun, was steady, the knuckles white. His gaze was equally steady as it fixed on Harry.
Harry raised his hands. His movements were slow so as not to startle the gunman. Despite his initial reaction to protect me, he was now at ease. The tension had left his body, and his face softened as much as it ever could with those strong cheekbones of his. Even his stance seemed less threatening somehow. I suspected he planned to disarm McAllister by lulling him into a false sense of security.
My nerves were already on edge, but realizing Harry was going to bear the brunt of McAllister’s ire shredded them completely. “Don’t shoot.” My quavering voice made it sound more like a plea than a demand.
It was so weak, I hadn’t even attracted McAllister’s attention. Harry, however, swallowed heavily. He wasn’t used to me being so tentative.
“If this is a hostage situation, then I ask you, as a gentleman, to let Miss Fox go.”
Behind us, McAllister’s colleague murmured an agreement. “Good God, man. What are you doing?”
McAllister continued to glare at Harry. “I didn’t murder that woman. She killed herself.”
“The cause of death is being questioned by several parties,” Harry said. “No one is accusing you of murdering her, however. You’re a potential witness, that’s all. We merely want to ask you the same questions we’ve asked all of the other passengers who were on that train.”
McAllister’s gaze flicked from Harry to me to his colleague then back to Harry. “I know how it seems, with my disguise, but I did not kill anyone. Do you understand?”
“We do,” Harry assured him. “Lower the weapon and let’s have a productive conversation to get to the bottom of a few things. The only way you can truly exonerate yourself is by helping us find the real killer.”
It was that final statement that got through to McAllister. He lowered the gun to his side.
The sound of pent-up breaths being released filled the office. McAllister’s colleague approached him cautiously and put out his hand for the weapon. McAllister placed the gun on his palm, and the colleague headed for the door.
“I’ll give you some privacy.”
“Leave the door open,” Harry said.
The man nodded, then disappeared into the outer office. Harry, McAllister and I remained standing, even though there were enough chairs. I gripped the edge of the desk behind me to steady myself. My legs felt a little weak from relief.
Thankfully, Harry conducted the interview. If I spoke, my voice might tremble, and I’d already shown enough weakness in front of our suspect. “You boarded the express from Brighton to London that day specifically to speak to Ruth Price. Did you wear a disguise so you wouldn’t be recognized?”
Mr. McAllister angled himself so that the smooth right side of his face was presented to me. Thomas Salter had told us the engineer didn’t like to be photographed from his left because he was sensitive about the scar. It seemed that sensitivity extended to in-person meetings, too. “I became a well-known figure locally after the Thousand Mile Trial. I wanted to speak to that woman privately, without anyone speculating about the reason.”
“Can you tell us why?”
“I wanted to find out what she knew about me, and what she was going to do with the information. Even if she’d lived, it was for nothing,” he added bitterly. “The article was printed anyway.”
“Not by her paper. It was printed inThe London Tattler, but Ruth Price worked as assistant to a gossip columnist atThe Evening Bulletin. Another journalist was investigating you, not Ruth.”
McAllister pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. He rubbed a hand over his scarred cheek and jaw. “When I heard about the article, I presumed she sent her information back to London before boarding so it reached the paper despite her death. Are you telling me there was another journalist spying on me?” He blinked up at Harry. “I didn’t see anyone.”
Thomas Salter truly had learned to blend in. He was probably right in that his distinctive appearance fooled everyone into thinking he was a moronic thug, not a capable journalist.
McAllister lowered his head. “She was telling the truth,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked.
“I confronted her in her compartment. I demanded to know what she knew about me and why she’d been spying on me. She said she hadn’t; that she’d been following someone else.”
