'Then I won't show you this,' she said, closing her sketchbook.

'What was it?'

'A sketch I made of a locomotive in the Firefly class.'

'That's one of Daniel Gooch's designs,' he said with grudging admiration. 'It's a good, reliable engine and it's stayed in service. The train that took Inspector Colbeck to Wales might even have been from the Firefly class. You should be drawing our locomotives,' he added with sudden petulance, 'not those of our competitors.'

'I draw what catches my eye, Father.'

Putting her sketchbook aside, she got up and went into the kitchen to set out their supper on the table. She was disappointed that Robert Colbeck was unable to see her that evening but she was accustomed to such last-minute changes of plan. He worked long and uncertain hours at Scotland Yard. Close friendship with the Railway Detective meant that she had to tolerate his sudden departures and unforeseen commitments. Madeleine had her work to console her. It was Colbeck who had discovered her artistic talent and encouraged her to develop it to the point where it began to have commercial value. Not for her the tranquil landscapes and dainty water colours of other female artists. Her subject was the railway system and in her father, who had spent a whole working life on it, and Robert Colbeck, who was its devotee, she had two continual sources of inspiration.

When he drifted into the kitchen, Andrews was smoking his pipe. He was a short, sinewy man in his fifties with a wispy beard salted with grey. His workmates knew him for his irascibility but he tended to mellow when at home. Since the death of his wife, his daughter had taken care of him, feeding him, nurturing him and keeping him from despair. As he watched her now, bending over the table, he was reminded so vividly of his wife that his eyes moistened. Madeleine had the same quietly attractive features, the same clear complexion and the same auburn hair. He had to remind himself how different they really were in character. Madeleine was far more gifted, more assertive and more self-possessed. She could set her sights on something higher than being the wife of a railwayman.