Murder on the Bodmin Express

The night had been filled with arguments, shattered promises and mind-boggling intrigue. Threats had been traded freely before a sickening scream and a single gun shot echoed through the train. Now a senior MI5 officer lay dead, and by his side a woman whose allegiance might not have been to Queen and Country.

What dastardly act was this? More importantly, who on the train that night was the murderer?  Might there even have been two murderers?

Fortunately, 87 budding detectives were on hand to solve the mystery, and among them was super-sleuth Angie.

The Bodmin Steam Railway has been hosting Murder Mystery evenings since Chris Batters and his company started them in 1992 – the first to be acted out on a moving train. Since then others have followed, but Bodmin's is the best, not least because at £21 it's a lot cheaper than those on the East Somerset and Dean Forest Railways. While the others have turned the event into a sumptuous 3-course dining experience, the Bodmin Railway leaves the fine china in the cupboard, the cutlery in the drawer and serves Cornish pasties (what else?). Very tasty they are too.  We have learned to supplement the meal with our own chocolate-drenched profiteroles and generous quantities of alcohol.

When I lived in Cornwall, Bodmin was 32 miles up the A30. It's a lot further away now, but when a couple of friends invited us to return for our 7th Murder Mystery we needed little persuading.

The Mystery is always presented in three parts; the first as we travel from Bodmin to Boscarne, the second as we return and the third on the way to Bodmin Parkway, where the murder is committed. We then have the duration of the journey back to Bodmin to write down our solution to the crime.

By this time you might expect me to have become expert at unravelling these mysteries, but I'd only ever come up with the right answer twice and never won a prize bottle of wine.

As the train steamed into Bodmin Station I gave my sheet to Miss Jones, secretary to the now deceased senior government employee. Then on arrival, we all gathered on the platform to hear the solution to the crime.

Chris Batters (aka 'The Stranger') took up the microphone and announced that only four people had come up with the right answer. And when he said what it was, I realised that one of them was me.

Wow! A 50/50 chance that I'd be walking off with a bottle of plonk. First name out of the hat wasn't me... but I was still in with a chance. The second name?............  Not me either.

Oh well, next time maybe.  And yes, there surely will be a 'next time'.