Page 3 of Death on a Scottish Train

“Em and Abigail, you look beautiful,” he said. “Isn’t this exciting?”

Now that I was here, I was eager to see what came next. “It is, and you are adorable in your chef’s whites,” I said.

He did a fake bow, and we laughed.

The first storyteller began to speak: “I’m Elspeth Bell, and my story tonight is about the haunted moor where the Elfin Knight wanders through eternity.” Her tale involved missing people who were believed to be captured by the Knight, most of them never to be heard of again.

She was lively and fun and kept the audience at the edge of their seats. One of the things Mara had done was to audition the storytellers, and if Elspeth was any indication, she’d done a fabulous job.

When Elspeth finished her yarn, she received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Not long after, a new storyteller came in, and a woman I didn’t recognize came up to Mara and whispered something.

She frowned, and then pulled out her clipboard.

“But he signed in at the station,” Mara said to the woman.

The woman shrugged. “We cannot find him anywhere.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m missing one of my storytellers,” she said. “I have him checked off, so I know he was at the station, but Sheila says they’ve hunted throughout the train, and they can’t find him anywhere.”

“We’ll help you look,” I said. “Is there someone who can take his place for now?”

“Yes, Grandad is helping out in case someone was sick. But I cannot imagine what must have happened.”

“Maybe he’s in the loo?” Abigail offered.

“They checked there first,” Mara said. “The train isn’t that big. There aren’t many places to hide. Not that he’s hiding, but maybe he has stage fright or something.”

“OK, let’s check methodically, car by car. What’s his name?”

“Donald Jacks,” she said. Then she pointed to his picture in the program. He was older and slightly balding. He glared at the photographer as if he didn’t know what a smile might be.

“OK. Let’s do this,” I said.

She and Abigail nodded. We started with the engine cab at the front of the train. Everything had been converted to electric so there were only two engineers. There was a storeroom for luggage just behind them, and we searched throughout.

So that we didn’t disturb the storytellers, we waited to search each part of the train until after they’d finished and there was a short five-minute break for people to move around, and grab snacks and drinks.

An hour later, by the time we’d reached Edinburgh, the man was nowhere to be found.

“I don’t understand,” Mara said. “I remember seeing him at the station. He was on the shuttle with us. I checked him off.” She held up her clipboard and pointed to the man’s name.

“Maybe, you’re right about the stage fright, and he never boarded the train.”

She huffed. “Even so, that’s so unprofessional of him. The very least he could do was let me know.”

“Is there anyone at the station you can call? Maybe he just missed the train,” I said.

“No. We locked up and everyone boarded the train. He’s just missing.”

I don’t know why, but I had a bad feeling about this.

My stomach churned and that was never a good sign.

Had someone thrown the man off the train?