The Railway Viaduct by Edward Marston

whatever the dirty buggers do to us.’
    Many of the navvies had been found accommodation in the surrounding farms and villages, but hundreds of them lived in the makeshift camp they had erected. Pierce Shannon was one of them, a short, compact, powerful Irishman in his thirties with a fondness for strong drink and a hard fight. Since there were so many people like Shannon on his books, Thomas Brassey had allowed a Roman Catholic priest to join them as a kind of missionary among the large Irish contingent, acting as a soothing presence and trying to turn their minds to higher things than merely satisfying their immediate needs.
    Eamonn Slattery was a white-haired man in his sixties with a haggard face and an emaciated body. Respected and reviled alike, he loved the community in which he worked and did his best to master the names of as many men as he could. Instead of preaching at them from an imaginary pulpit, he came down to their level and talked in terms that they could understand. He disapproved of the fact that some of the navvies lived with common-law wives – sharing them openly with othermen in some cases – but he did not respond with outright condemnation. Instead, he turned his persuasive tongue on the women, telling them how much deeper and more fulfilling their relationships would be if they were blessed by the Church. Since he had been in the camp, he had already performed two marriages.
    ‘Why do you blame the French?’ asked Slattery.
    ‘Because they’re behind all this trouble we’ve been having.’
    ‘I see no evidence of it.’
    ‘That’s because you weren’t here when we were working on the Rouen to Le Havre Railway,’ said Shannon, pronouncing the names in a way that any Frenchman would find incomprehensible. ‘Because the ballasting was done before the mortar was properly dry, the viaduct at Barentin fell down with a bang. Jesus! The way they turned against us, you’d have thought we’d raped every fucking nun in the country and set fire to that Notre Damn Cathedral.’
    ‘Moderate your language, please,’ rebuked the priest.
    ‘They treated us like criminals, Father. It’s as well I can’t read French because the newspapers went for us with a cato’-bleeding-nine tails. Even when we rebuilt the viaduct,’ continued Shannon, ‘we got no credit for it. We were British scum, taking jobs off the French.’
    ‘That’s not the case here, though, is it? The majority of the work force is British but Mr Brassey has also engaged French navvies.’
    ‘Yes, but he pays them only half what we get – quite right, too.’
    ‘They do have cause for resentment, then.’
    Shannon was aggressive. ‘Whose bleeding side are you on?’
    ‘If you could ask me more politely, I might tell you. As it is, I remain sceptical about your claim that Frenchmen were behind that explosion. I’ll reserve my judgement, Pierce,’ said the priest, meeting his glare, ‘and I advise you to do the same.’
    ‘My mind is already made up and the same goes for a lot of us. We’re not going to sit back and let these bastards cause even more damage. When we come off shift this evening,’ said Shannon, bunching both fists, ‘we intend to settle a few scores with the French.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘Well, we’re not going to pray with them, I can tell you that.’
     
    The visit to Mantes was a revelation. When he called at the house where Gaston Chabal had lodged, Robert Colbeck had to explain to the landlady why the engineer would not be returning. She was very upset to hear of the murder and had clearly been exceptionally fond of her lodger. Colbeck was allowed to inspect the man’s room. The first things he found were some letters from Hannah Marklew, one of which set a date for their rendezvous in Liverpool. On his way to the assignation, her lover had been killed. It was clear from the missives that Hannah had never been involved in such a situation before. She was naïve and indiscreet. She