City of Silence (City of Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the middle of the afternoon would be bound to draw attention.”
    “Good
point,” Tom conceded.
    “So
why would he keep returning to the same place?” Davy asked. “Detective Welles
said the train made seven stops.  After the first rape or at least the second,
it seems the man would try a different town.”
    “You
aren’t telling us everything,” Emma said, looking at Trevor with narrowed eyes. 
“You’re cutting the information into very small pieces, as if we’re babies who
might choke on too large a bite.”
    “No,”
said Rayley, as bemused as she was irritated. “He is actually doling out the
facts in small increments because that is how you learn things on a genuine
police case.  You aren’t handed a file of twenty pages of information, all
neatly sequenced and categorized.  You start with these very small bites of
information and you progress.”
    “Please,
kind sir, do give us a little more,” said Tom, reaching over to pour a splash
of wine into his glass and then, without asking, into Trevor’s. “Your smile has
become unbearably smug.”
    “Fair
enough,” Trevor said.  “But first let’s follow this bit about the train
schedule to its logical end, for there’s one point that hasn’t yet been
raised.  When our man takes the train into town during the day, whether it is
midday or early afternoon, he would be disembarking at a time and place where
most passengers are embarking.  That in itself might draw the eye, might it
not?”
    “Is
this town a rest stop?” Davy asked. “One of the places along the route where
the train pauses longer to give the passengers time to find food or use the
facilities?”
    “Precisely,”
said Trevor. “That’s what I was hoping someone would ask.  The town in question
is Montrose, almost the midway point of the route between Aberdeen and
Edinburgh.  So I’m inclined to think that our man gets off with the throng of
passengers and then simply does not get back on.  Bides his time and finds his
victim, just as Tom says, waiting until close to the time the next train comes
through to strike.”
    “All
right, so far you’ve avoided saying anything at all about the women,” Rayley
said, stroking his wispy mustache as he gave Trevor a sidelong glance.  “Were
they passengers on the train or women from the town?”
    “Townswomen,
all three.”
    “Assaulted
near the depot?”
    “Relatively
close.”
    “And
what were local women who had no intention of riding a train doing so close to
a depot?”
    “Selling
things.”
    “Such
as?”
    “Hot
cross buns in one case,” Trevor said.  “Fruit from a cart in another.  And the
first one attacked was offering amenities of an entirely different nature.”
    “So
apparently the fact that a commuter train makes a rest stop there provides a
large part of the livelihood of the town,” Tom mused.  “A few businesses spring
up around the depot or perhaps the merchants bring their wares down when the
train is due.  A wheelbarrow of fruit, a tray of pastries, even an enterprising
prostitute looking for some midday trade.  A flurry of people disembark,
transact this minimal business, and then they reboard a few minutes later.  So
our criminal does not merely use the train to come and go but also as a means
of drawing his victims – women who come down to the depot and who, when the
train leaves, are abruptly alone.”
    “The
first woman he raped was a prostitute?”  Davy confirmed.
    Trevor
nodded.  “Are you wondering why a man would bother to rape a prostitute when a
few coins might get him what he wanted?”
    Davy
quickly shook his head, actually rather offended, although he took pains not to
show it.  “You’ve told us often enough, Sir, that we should view rape as a
crime of violence and not just of sex.  But I was thinking that perhaps he
chose his first victim just because she’d be unlikely to tell the story.  If a
woman is known about town for conducting that sort of business, how