Free 11 - Ticket to Oblivion by Edward Marston Page B

contrast, was looking younger than ever as if marriage to the Railway Detective had rejuvenated her. She was an alert, attractive, buxom woman in her twenties with endearing dimples in both cheeks that reminded Andrews so much of his late wife at times that he had to look away. Madeleine had first met Colbeck as a result of the daring robbery of a train that her father had been driving. Andrews had been badly injured during the incident but had made a full recovery and was eternally grateful to Colbeck for catching those behind the robbery.
    ‘I wish that your mother could see you now,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t believe the way you’ve settled into this lovely big house. It’s a far cry from our little cottage in Camden Town, yet you seem completely at home here.’
    ‘I don’t always feel it,’ she admitted. ‘It took me ages to get used to the idea of having servants at my beck and call.’
    ‘I don’t see why, Maddy. You had me at your beck and call for years.’
    She stiffened. ‘That’s not how I remember it, Father. I was the one who looked after
you
.’
    ‘Don’t quibble.’
    ‘Then don’t tell lies.’
    ‘The important thing is that you’re happy.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘You are, aren’t you?’
    ‘I couldn’t be happier,’ she replied, beaming. ‘I have everything I want.’
    ‘Make sure that it stays that way. If you’re not properly looked after, I’ll need to have a stern word with my son-in-law.’
    ‘That won’t be necessary. Robert is a wonderful husband.’
    Madeleine still couldn’t believe her good fortune in meeting and marrying Colbeck. At a stroke, she’d acquired a new social status, moved into a fine house in John Islip Street and been given the best possible facilities to pursue her career as an artist. Thanks to her husband’s encouragement, she’d reached a stage where her paintings of locomotives were commanding a good price. Inevitably, her father appointed himself as her technical advisor.
    ‘Another thing to remember about Brunel,’ he said, getting his second wind, ‘is the way he started a riot on the Old Worse and Worse. Have I ever told you what happened at the Mickleton Tunnel?’
    ‘Yes, Father, you have.’
    ‘It was a disgrace. Brunel should have been imprisoned for what he did.’
    Madeleine sighed. ‘You’ve said so many times.’
    ‘I’ve kept the cuttings from the newspapers.’
    ‘I’ve seen them, Father.’
    ‘He took the law into his own hands,’ he went on, ‘and recruited an army of drunken navvies to take on the contractors responsible for building the tunnel. The police were called out and the Riot Act was read twice by magistrates, but did that stop Isambard Kingdom Brunel? Oh, no – he came back in the dark with his navvies, all of them armed with pickaxes, shovels and goodness-knows-what. There was a fierce battle. Brunel seemed to think he was the blooming Duke of Wellington, leading the charge at Waterloo. When the troops were called in from Coventry, they were too late to prevent bloodshed and broken bones. I tell you this,Maddy,’ he concluded with a favourite phrase of his, ‘the Mickleton Tunnel is a monument to Brunel’s stupidity.’
     
    When they reached the tunnel, they were about to plunge into complete darkness. They’d come prepared. The two men were off-duty porters from Moreton-in-Marsh station and – when Sir Marcus Burnhope raised the alarm – they’d volunteered to join in the search. Travelling north-west , they went past Blockley and Chipping Campden to be confronted by the gaping hole that was the Mickleton Tunnel. Having lit their lantern, they entered with trepidation into a pitch-black, brick-lined tube some 887 yards in length. They were not afraid of being caught in there when a train shot through the tunnel because they’d taken the precaution of checking the timetable beforehand. What they feared were rats and other lurking creatures that might attack them. They’d also heard