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who certainly know his face. Might he not encounter one of them, as he’s strolling about the limited
streets of this tiny burg? A strange man in a city of women 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?”