Murder on the Cornish Train

Book 0: The Cornish Murder Mystery Series

by JM Hall

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

One missing passenger. One dead body. Is it murder on the Cornish train?

It is a dark and stormy night when Jeff boards the Cornish sleeper train at Paddington station.

As they make their way down the dark British coast, waves crash over the carriages and the wheels rattle in the gale.

Arriving in Cornwall the next morning, Jeff discovers one passenger has vanished into thin air.

The next day, another is found dead on a windswept beach.

Jeff can't accept these are coincidences.

Could he hold the clue to catch the killer who boarded the Cornish train?

A totally gripping and page-turning British cosy mystery set on the misty coastline of Cornwall. Fans of Janice Hallett, Murder on the Orient Express and Tom Hindle will be hooked from the very first page.

Praise for J.M Hall

'Fabulous, cosy, mystery... Wonderful... Absolutely perfect for fans of Richard Osman!' NetGalley Review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'What a fantastic read! It gave me all the cosy... Really enjoyable characters that you feel like you've known for years once you finish the book... Love, love, loved this book' NetGalley review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Warm characters and wonderful writing...I loved it' S.J. Bennett

'Charming... The plot is cosy and tricky, with just the right blend of Miss Marple, interesting and quirky characters, secrets... I loved this book' NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'A charming read with a cast of characters you'll really connect with' Faith Martin

'The ingredients for the perfect modern cosy crime: intrigue, characters you care about and a good dollop of humour' Ian Moore

'So brilliant... I loved this so much! Perfect cosy crime - I am a big fan of this author!' NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'A gently quirky cosy mystery with plenty of twists and turns, and an intriguing cast of characters - some endearing, some not so much!' Fiona Leitch

'The perfect page turning, guess-who cosy crime' Northern Life Magazine

'This fun crime novel will have you hooked from the very first page' Woman's Own

Release date: May 28, 2026

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

Three days earlier: Monday night and Tuesday morning

1

Reason One

It’s a wild night when he travels to Cornwall, howling winds and belting rain, as the tail end of Storm Agatha lashes its way across the country. It’s taken almost forty minutes for Jeff’s taxi to cover the three miles to Paddington, and merely dashing across the forecourt into the ­station has been enough to soak his shoes and drench his black beanie hat.

The concourse is heaving and chaotic; the resigned, slumped chaos peculiar to disrupted transport. People on benches, on floors, on each other, pillowed by bags and cases. Or standing; stonily mesmerised by the departure boards and their mosaics of cancellations, the smooth, disembodied voices with their tidings of delay and disruption.

And underlying everything, the relentless, monotonous bass thrum of rain echoing down from the cavernous station roof.

By now, the storm was meant to have largely passed over but Agatha has progressed with stubborn slowness, sticking a metaphorical two fingers up at the forecasters and taking travellers by surprise. The Night Riviera is down on both the website and departures board as running, but looking at the listless throng, Jeff can’t help feeling this is a remote prospect; a view obviously shared by the attendant at the Night Riviera check-in point.

‘You do know if you want to travel tomorrow instead, your ticket will still be valid?’ His voice is flat and welcoming, his face sour, defined by a day of Storm Agatha chaos.

‘Is there a problem with the train? It’s on the website as running.’ Anxious to back up his words, Jeff fumbles for his phone.

The man sighs, as if keeping a totally justified impatience in check by a heroic effort.

Clearly this isn’t the first time this evening he’s had a website thrust in his direction.

‘Not a problem as yet,’ he says scanning Jeff’s ticket. ‘But put it this way – if it does run it’ll be the first train to the south-west today.’ Above them the thrum of the rain intensifies in ominous confirmation of his words.

He hands back the ticket, plainly wondering why this crazy person is choosing to travel tonight of all nights. Jeff takes the ticket, saying nothing. There is a reason for this trip, of course there is, it’s just not one he’s going to share. He moves away towards the concourse, scanning the sitting and the standing, looking for some corner, some space, for him and his holdall.

‘Not that way.’ The attendant’s voice rings out, impatient and much louder than is necessary. Clearly ends of tethers are not very far away. ‘Sleeper passengers get to wait in the first-class lounge.’ He gestures dismissively up the platform, obviously considering Jeff unworthy of such a privilege.

As rebukes go, it’s pretty mild, but even so Jeff feels slapped down, humiliated. Not one year ago, he was Mr ­Jeffrey Freeman, Head of English and Year 11 at St Botolph’s Academy; who wouldn’t have stood for such crap for a single second, no matter how bad a day anyone had been ­having. He remembers Min’s words earlier that night in the restaurant. ‘Remember,’ she’d said, tone bright and forceful. ‘You are Jeffrey Effing Freeman!’

But the truth is he isn’t, and he hasn’t been for some time.

Which is why he’s making this crazy journey on this stormy November night.

*

The first-class lounge is through a panelled door, halfway down platform one. To the left is a brightly lit space with toilets and free coffee, to the right is the lounge proper. By contrast this is a hushed octagonal space of dark wood and cream plaster. On each of the walls are gothic arches with leather wing chairs and low tables tucked against them, discreetly lit by brass desk lamps. Apart from a wall-mounted flat-screen TV, the room feels like a throwback to an earlier age of travel, indeed a plaque on the wall informs travellers that once upon a time this was the private waiting room of Queen Victoria.

Jeff steels himself in the doorway, as the people inside turn to him, faces holding anxious enquiry, obviously expecting to hear tidings of some disruption to the train.

He takes a deep breath, avoiding the stares. All too often these days he finds himself imagining how people must see him when he enters a room . . . Who is this sad sack, this fifty-­something man? What is he doing – sin of sins – travelling alone?! It’s something he’s been feeling more and more over the last six months; in situations like this he feels as vulnerable as when he’d first come out.

On seeing him, the faces shift from enquiry to dismissal before turning to the flat-screen; for a moment he’s grateful to Storm Agatha as gazes are fixed back on all the bowing trees and flooded caravan parks.

If he’d been with Oliver, he’d have been anonymous. Safe. Part of a couple.

Reason Five: Walking into places on your own. People looking at you, wondering why.

He pats the notebook, zipped in the inside breast pocket of his anorak, drawing, as ever, comfort and purpose from the firm rectangle.

Sitting in one of the wing chairs, Jeff discreetly watches his fellow travellers, a habit that’s engrained after all those years spent policing school assemblies. There’re three ­couples, probably not far off his own age. They’re all sporting the unofficial uniform for People of a Certain Age: ­leisurewear. The sort that’s ordered from those thin ­catalogues from inside the Sunday papers: loose pants, gilets, fleeces, the Khaki, the Biscuit, the Olive and the Grey. In their rucksacks are no doubt books of word searches or sudoku, phone chargers, bottles of water and (most probably) boxes of statins. As well as similar clothing, they’re all wearing ­similar expressions; the anxious looks of those well outside their comfort zones as they gaze in appalled fascination at churning caramelised waters, jackknifed lorries and roof joists clean picked of slates.

‘We should’ve been boarding over an hour ago,’ one woman – Olive and Khaki – says, sounding quietly fretful.

‘We shouldn’t have set off in the first place,’ her partner – Navy and Grey – says, resignedly triumphant.

‘The website said the train was running.’

‘And that man at the desk said it probably isn’t.’

Olive and Khaki sighs. ‘It’s not like we had a choice,’ she says mainly to herself.

‘Pam said she’d be fine. That she’d manage,’ Navy and Grey sounds testy; it’s obviously not the first time they’ve had this exchange. Jeff finds himself wondering just what it was Pam would manage, and whether it was worth braving Storm Agatha for. He senses the other waiting couples stirring uneasily and wonders about the various reasons that had driven them to travel in the face of Great Western ­Railway discouragement. Seeing them all sat there, he’s hit by one of those razor blade thoughts that are such a feature of his life these days. How many, many times had he and Oliver sat together like that in airport lounges and garden centre cafés, together yet apart?

Much further apart than he realised.

He takes out the book from his pocket, finds a pen and scribbles an amendment to Reason Five. Reason Five A: ­Seeing other couples travelling together.

He holds the book a moment, then quickly, nervously flips to the front. Reads the three words written so firmly that they’ve scored through to the following pages.

For a moment that wild, feral feeling surges through him, one that finds a weird echo in the apocalyptic images scrolling on the flat-screen.

Torn metal. Steam. Glass frosting the tarmac.

Gasping, he slams shut the book, stuffing it deep down in his pocket, as if somehow the words might bleed out for everyone in Queen Victoria’s waiting room to see.

Reason One . . .

Don’t go there! You are NOT that person!

2

An Invitation from Elizabeth Taylor

The opening of the lounge door brings a sudden breath of chaotic noise from outside. Again, everyone looks round. Again, everyone turns back to the screen. The man and woman entering are probably about the same age as the other couples but in all other respects are completely different. With her grey cape and Cossack hat, his trench coat and leather cap, they’re a perfect fit for Queen Victoria’s waiting room. The woman has wide eyes in a thin face, round her neck is a silk scarf the colour of blood; her companion has stormy grey eyes and the slightly hooked noise of an emperor or tyrant. As a couple they draw and demand attention; a Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor for the twenty-first century.

And the woman is ill.

Jeff can tell that straight away. The vague expression, the darting of those wide eyes, the air of uncertainty. It’s a demeanour he’s grown used to seeing over the years, first with grandparents, then Oliver’s great aunt, and more ­latterly Hilda Churchill the once formidable Head of Governors at St Botolph’s. He watches the woman with compassionate compulsion as she grips the man’s arm, peering out at the world from under the fake fur hat.

If he hadn’t guessed about her illness from her, he needs only to look to him, the way those grey eyes search out safe passage and potential hazards as he guides her to one of the further winged chairs, hand never breaking contact as it grips, guides or strokes in reassurance. He looks, Jeff notes, decidedly younger than her. A nephew maybe? Is he too old to be her son?

‘Talk about blow wind and swell!’ The man’s voice is an energetic contralto as he brushes raindrops from the thick shoulders of his coat that sprinkle into the fireplace. Taking both her hands he guides her to the chair. Eyes fixed trustingly on his face, she gracefully sits, a cross between a ­curtsey and a plié squat. He smiles a surprisingly boyish smile. ‘Lady, I present to thee thy burnished throne!’

What, thinks Jeff, is all this with the quotes?

Releasing her, the man looks uneasily round the room, grey gaze roaming restlessly over the couples, the screen, the pictures, the mouldings. Is he worried about a delay? Or the woman? Or both?

Abruptly his voice rings out into the space. ‘Has there been any word about the Night Riviera?’ There’s a mute ­chorus of shaken heads.

‘We should have been boarding an hour ago,’ ventures Olive and Khaki.

The man nods slowly, then coming to a decision, he squats by the woman.

‘Vee,’ he says. ‘Vee, my love. I’m just going to see if I can find out what’s happening with the train.’ As he speaks the man stares steadily into her eyes, his words soft and deliberate, reminding Jeff of the way he’d speak to uncertain or upset students.

It’s as if the woman draws strength and a degree of ­cognisance from that steady gaze. ‘Very well’. Her voice is sardonic, amused even. It brings to Jeff’s mind theatre bars and country hotels. ‘Have fun.’

Smiling into her eyes, the man kisses her hand.

He is, thinks Jeff, a bit of a knob.

Sprinting across the room in a way that’s almost balletic, the man stops by Olive and Khaki. ‘I’m just going to see what’s what with the train,’ he says. ‘I wonder . . .’ he drops his voice, grey eyes staring earnestly in a way that brings a faint flush to her face. ‘Could you just keep an eye on my wife? It’s just recently she’s been a bit prone . . .’ his voice drops a shade, ‘to wandering off.’ He speaks lightly, as if wandering off is but a mildly amusing peccadillo.

‘How long will you be?’ Olive and Khaki is clearly appalled at this request.

‘Oh, just two seconds,’ says the man reassuringly, in the way people do when they mean considerably longer than that. ‘Just long enough to ask someone what’s going on.’

‘The train might be called any moment,’ she says feebly.

‘Here’s hoping!’ The man smiles brilliantly as if he’s been paid a huge compliment and is gone.

So – husband and wife, not mother and son. Jeff looks over to the woman he’s with – Vee, did he say her name was? She has her eyes half shut and seems to be muttering to herself. With most people this could look weird, or at best sad, but somehow, with her thin, expressive face it has a curious mesmeric quality . . . Morgan le Fay casting an incantation . . .

Abruptly the wide eyes snap open.

Instinctively Jeff ducks his head away from scrutiny.

Don’t get involved. Certainly, don’t make eye contact. Find something to be focusing on. Like Guardian Connections – he hasn’t done that yet. Hastily, he pulls out his phone and opens the app.

Guardian Connections number 4692. What single word connects the following:

Golf Horses Paving Busy

Cart . . . ? Slabs . . . ?

‘Excuse me.’ The voice is warm but commanding. Looking up he sees Vee is staring directly across the room at him. No longer Morgan le Fay but Bette Davis as she regards him and the room. What a dump. ‘Excuse me, I wonder, have you seen my husband anywhere? I’m almost sure he said we were meeting here, but he will keep wandering off.’

Olive and Khaki glances at her uneasily, obviously wondering just what ‘keeping an eye on’ involves in this instance.

‘He’s gone to check on the train,’ she says. ‘He said he won’t be two seconds.’

Vee barely registers her; the wide eyes remain firmly fixed on Jeff.

Jeff wonders just what it is that makes him stuff his phone in his pocket and walk over to her. Memories of Hilda Churchill? Sympathy for Vee’s situation? Or has she indeed some of the power of a latter day Morgan le Fay?

As he draws near, she smiles a sardonic, almost challenging smile. When younger she must have been strikingly beautiful; now she’s striking, face strong, burnished hair caught up in a stylish sweep beneath the hat. The blood-red scarf sets off her features to perfection. Coming closer he sees those wide eyes are the colour of sluiced slate, the kohl lining giving them a slightly surprised quality.

‘I was beginning,’ she says, ‘to think you’d forgotten.’

Jeff makes his voice as slow and deliberate as his movements. ‘Your husband’s just gone outside to find out what’s happening.’

‘I know.’ Vee looks exasperated. ‘Why d’you think I’m talking to you?’ She puts a black-gloved hand on his arm. ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘You need to remember, It opens at ten.’

Jeff nods, remembering Hilda Churchill. ‘Ten,’ he says. ‘Right, ten.’

‘The Grey Soul. You can’t miss it, it’s massive.’ She smiles a wicked smile; once again she’s Elizabeth Taylor. ‘Tête-à-tête!’ The hand squeezes his arm, and there’s obviously something significant in those words.

‘Right,’ says Jeff. ‘Okay. Tête-à-tête.’

‘No,’ she shakes her head impatiently. ‘Tay-te-a-tay.’ As she speaks, she shakes his arm in emphasis.

‘Tay,’ says Jeff.

Vee sits back satisfied as if some important message has been passed on.

‘Of course,’ she says, fingering the red scarf. ‘All this will be much simpler when my husband’s dead.’

3

Till Death do us Part

The unsettling words are spoken in tones of utter, banal normality. Startled, Jeff steps back, gesturing at the door. ‘Your husband’s just through there,’ he says. ‘He’s gone to find out what’s happening with the train.’

Vee frowns. ‘Are you sure? Only he said he’d definitely meet me here, and with all this talk of him dying, well naturally one can’t help wondering.’

‘He’s finding out about the train.’ Jeff repeats the words slowly, softly.

‘Of course one doesn’t necessarily want him to die,’ she continues, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. ‘Even if there is a very good reason.’ She pauses, frowning, summoning words which she suddenly raps out loud and strong. ‘His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm crests the world!’

The couples whose attention has been resolutely on the flat-screen look over, alarmed.

Jeff drops to his knees, keeping his face bland, polite, remembering Hilda Churchill, all that talk of skinny dipping with Alan Titchmarsh. ‘Your husband’s finding out what’s happening with the train,’ he says again. She looks at him with a look that feels playful, if not downright flirtatious. ‘There’s no need for you to keep repeating yourself,’ she says archly. ‘I heard you perfectly well the first time! And you needn’t worry! He’s very understanding.’ Is that a wink she’s giving?

Jeff smiles, nods. Standing, he moves over to the door, with the express purpose of being able to say, ‘I can see him now.’

But he can’t.

With a deep thrumming roar the sleeper train is backing in, hemming the platform with a wall of blank-faced coaches. Two attendants are standing, checking iPads. Otherwise, the shiny paved platform is empty.

No sign of the man.

A bloom of unease begins to grow somewhere in Jeff’s chest area. Down beyond the far end of the train can be glimpsed the concourse with its throng of people, but why go down there to find things out when there’s two officials on hand?

One of them – a cheery looking ginger-haired man – gives Jeff the only smile he’s had all night. ‘Can I help you, mate?’ he asks.

Jeff shakes his head. ‘I’m fine.’ To go into the whole missing man situation feels like overkill; surely there has to be easy explanation. Could he be in the toilets or getting a ­coffee in the other room?

But he isn’t.

The other room is empty and neither has the man returned to Queen Victoria’s waiting room.

Jeff feels the bloom of unease become a knot. What to do? Vee seems to have forgotten their previous interaction; once again her eyes are half shut and she’s resumed muttering to herself. The others in the lounge – including Olive and Khaki – are all very much not looking in her direction, no doubt finding the havoc of Storm Agatha by far the less disturbing option.

Jeff feels a sharp stab of annoyance. What is this man with his leather coat and weird quotes playing at? It’s his wife who’s supposed to be one who wanders off.

The lounge door is fairly flung open, admitting a burst of noise and revealing the ginger-haired attendant from the platform. ‘Okay folks!’ He faces the fusillade of anxious, enquiring looks with a broad grin. ‘If you want to be gathering up all your bits and pieces, the train’s ready for boarding!’ The voice is refreshingly cheerful and confident as if there’s never been any doubt that the Night Riviera would run.

In a relieved mêlée the couples begin gathering up bags and holdalls, patting pockets, checking under chairs. Jeff looks to the door feeling increasingly annoyed, even panicky. Where is Vee’s husband?

She’s now standing, face again uncertain, hands nervously twisting. What to do? See she gets on the train? Insist she waits for her husband? Jeff sees Olive and Khaki shooting agonised glances in their direction. Nevertheless he’s certain she’s going to walk out of the waiting room, leaving them to it.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’

And there the man is, eyes panicky, shouldering his way past the others, sprinting into the room, drops of water flying from his shoulders and cap.

‘I’m so sorry!’ He catches Vee by the arms and Jeff sees her expression flicker from certain to uncertain. ‘It is crazy out there, you would not believe!’ He turns to Olive and Khaki. ‘Thank you so much,’ he says. ‘Was everything all right?’

‘Oh yes.’ Olive and Khaki is as bad at lying as she is at looking out for strangers. Jeff wonders, should he tell the man about his encounter with his wife, that’d she been predicting his demise?

He’s back now, leave them to get on with it. Don’t get involved.

‘Ladies and gents, if you want to make your way onto the platform!’ Ginger-haired attendant – Joey, according to his name badge – gestures towards the door. ‘You can check in with me or one of my colleagues, we’ll point you in the right direction.’

Jeff picks up his bag, casts around to make sure nothing’s been forgotten, not that he has very much, just a holdall and a small rucksack. The man is shepherding Vee and the wheeled suitcase out of the room. As he does, he shoots her a look of such tenderness that, suddenly and totally unexpectedly, Jeff feels his heart constrict in a way he’d forgotten was possible. Unbidden, words come into Jeff’s mind.

In sickness and in health, till death do us part.

Would Oliver have looked after him like that?

His vision blurs.

Suddenly he realises the man’s eyes are on him, the beginnings of a questioning frown on his face. Embarrassed, Jeff forces his attention away, to anything, everything – the dead ­fireplace, the ornate plaster mouldings, to monochrome ­photos of trains charging past summery seas.

Get a grip!

‘Everything all right there, fella?’

Jeff looks up, realising everyone’s now vacated the lounge and Joey is waiting in the doorway.

‘Yes,’ says Jeff apologetically. ‘Yes, I’m fine, I’m just coming.’

As he leaves Queen Victoria’s waiting room, he gives a final scan, checking nothing’s been left. On one of the coffee tables, raindrops catch the light, blurring in a way Jeff’s eyes have just done.

Raindrops?

Brushed off by the man . . . Has he been outside the ­station? Why?

4

The Hazards of Hooks in a Confined Space

Outside, people are surging down the platform towards the front carriages. Through the windows he sees them crowding on board, hoisting bags and coats into the overhead racks. Will he even get a seat?

‘Hold your horses, fella!’ It’s Joey, cheerfully holding up a hand. It seems for the second time that night Jeff is heading in the wrong direction. ‘You’re in the sleeper n’est pas? Down there – that’s just the regular carriage, you don’t want to be in there, it’s packed to the rafters after all the cancellations today! Total bear garden! You’re in the ­cabins!’ Whisking out an iPad he checks off Jeff’s name and inputs his breakfast order with an enthusiastic tattoo. As he does, Jeff tries to guess his age. Not young, but not old either. Thirties? ­Forties? Certainly, no older. He reminds him of someone, he’s not sure who.

‘So, you’re Penzance bound!’ With a final swipe Joey finishes with the screen. ‘The far west. Where I’m from, for my sins. If you want to be following me, sir, I’ll be showing you to your gaff.’ He springs on board the train. Following him, Jeff finds himself in a corridor so narrow he has to adopt a sort of sideward crablike movement.

‘B5!’ says Joey stopping. ‘Home sweet home! Let me show you around, sir!’

‘Show you around’ implies way more space than there actually is in cabin B5. Jeff finds himself forced to stand wedged up in the doorway whilst Joey shows him the bottle of water, the complimentary care pack, demonstrates how various things fold out or up or down. ‘You won’t be swinging any cats in here any time soon,’ he says cheerfully and as he does, it comes to Jeff who it is he reminds him of. Lewis Holder. ADHD, disrupting every last one of Jeff’s English lessons with a cheer comparable to Joey’s. Drove him to distraction but always made him smile. Eventually.

‘And now,’ says Joey, ‘for la piss de resistance as they say – the sink!’ He drops to his knees, and as he does, the back of his shirt rides up revealing a strip of scarlet underwear and a fuzz of golden hairs. Embarrassed, Jeff drags his gaze up to where Joey’s releasing twin catches under a shelf, neatly flipping it up to reveal a tiny sink. ‘Ta-da!’ He smiles proudly with the proud air of someone who’s just performed an ingenious conjuring trick. Definitely Lewis Holder.

‘Righty-right my man!’ Joey stands and Jeff stands back to let him pass, but instead of leaving Joey pauses. ‘The bar’s a few carriages up the train if you fancy the old night cap. Exclusive for the use of sleeper passengers, so nice and quiet.’ He smiles and Jeff nods, flushed as a sudden image of that scarlet waistband sashays into his mind.

Get a grip!

‘Excuse me.’ The breathless anxious voice cuts into the moment. It’s Vee’s husband, panting, face slightly coloured, eyes troubled. The front of his shirt is darkened with spilt water and there’s a scratch on his face.

Joey frowns. ‘Is everything okay there, sir?’

‘Yes.’ The way the man gasps out words indicate the opposite. ‘Yes, it’s just, I need some more water. There’s been, I mean, I had a bit of an accident.’

Tipping the water down his front?

‘You know you’ve a scratch down your face, mate?’ says Joey.

‘Oh, that.’ The man tries to minimise the raw red line with an airy wave of the hand. ‘Yes, I caught it on the hook on the back of the door. Completely my fault. Can I get water in the bar?’

‘You can.’ Joey is already moving out into the corridor. ‘But you’re in cabin A2?’

‘A3’

‘There’s no one in A4, we can grab the water bottle from there. If you want to come with me, I’ll get you sorted.’ And they’re gone, crabbing their way down the corridor; as Joey follows him, he raises one arm, as if in salute to Jeff.

Left alone Jeff puts his bag down on the bunk. It seems to pretty much fill the whole space.

As he takes out his sleeping shorts and sponge bag he wonders about the man, about Vee, clutching at his arm, anxiously staring round . . . muttering to herself. And then that inviting smile . . . and those odd comments. Obviously, there’s been some sort of kerfuffle going, maybe with Vee throwing water. Why? Anxiety at being in such an enclosed space? It feels cramped enough in the cabin with just him, he can’t imagine how it’d be with two people.

Forget them. Don’t get involved, keep to yourself.

He stows his bag, hangs his coat, flips things up, down and out as Joey has shown him. If he was tired, if all he’d wanted to do was flop down with some thick paperback, the cabin would have been ideal. As it is he feels restless and wakeful. Besides, flopping down and relaxing aren’t things he has been able to do for at least the past eight months, certainly not without the help of a couple of temazepam.

The thought hits him from nowhere.

I could get off this train.

Get off, get a taxi back to the flat, no one need ever know.

It’s a thought that’s many things – icy, treacherous, enticing.

And appalling.

He finds his eye roving over his bag, his coat, he can feel the backs of his legs tensing, he could easily throw everything in and be out on the platform in under two minutes.

If only the train would go!

He needs to get out of this compact coffin of a cabin. Needs a drink. Not so much the alcohol, as to be somewhere where there’s other people, a place of light and company where he can finally have a proper stab at Guardian Connections. What was it Joey said – something about a bar for sleeper passengers?

On his way out of the cabin he notices the hook on the back of the door. It’s blunt and smooth. Furthermore it sits at such an angle as to make catching your cheek with it practically impossible. Unless the ones in other cabins are radically d. . .