Murder At Deviation Junction Read online

  'Who put the Club together?'

  'Search me. One of the members?'

  'How come you know so much about the club yet can't put a name to any of the members?'

  He let this go by, saying, 'The one who put the Club together would be the same bloke who put in for this carriage.'

  'Did you ever set eyes on any of the Club people?'

  'Don't reckon so. The carriage was always empty when it left here, remember.'

  'What about Tom . . . whatsisname?'

  'Coleman.'

  'That's it - Whitby SM as was. Might it be worth writing to him in Cornwall?'

  'You'd be writing to a dead man,' he said.

  'When did he die?'

  'This summer.' 'Of what?'

  Mackenzie shrugged.

  'Heart.'

  He was enjoying this: the back and forth, like a game of tennis.

  'Why did the Club have the two compartments and the saloon?'

  He shrugged again, saying, 'Why do some folk have sitting rooms and parlours? Comes down to brass.'

  The wind was getting up, and the carriage shivered for a moment like one of the boats in the harbour, but Mackenzie held his footing.

  'Where are all the members of this Club?'

  'All gone,' he said, grinning.

  'Gone where?'

  He was shaking his head vigorously now, as though trying to shake off the smile.

  'That,' he said, 'is not known to any of the blokes along the line.'

  * * *

  PART TWO

  The Gateshead Infant

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  The great tower of the cathedral, seen from the train, seemed to pin York to the ground. The city had been about for ever, and would go on in the same way. It was as cold as the coast but felt safer.

  It was too safe, and the station police office seemed like a sort of prison - one building trapped inside another. It stood between Platform Four (the main down) and Platform Thirteen - a small bay platform used by trains from Hull and nowhere else. The Chief was in the office on my return from Bog Hall, along with two of the ten constables, Wright the chief clerk (who was also the only clerk) and Langbourne the charge sergeant. Detective Sergeant Shillito had not been present, which suited me, for it meant I could report direct to the Chief, who took one look at me and ordered me home for a day's sleep, this even though I had started in on the story of the dead body. Dead bodies were nothing to the Chief. He had killed men, and not just in war.

  I did not go home directly, but sent a telegram and wrote a letter. I then biked home to Thorpe-on-Ouse, where I discovered that Harry had a low fever. There were so many medicine bottles by his bed that he would play soldiers with them - cod-liver oil, menthol, camphor - but none seemed to answer. Removal to a temperate climate was recommended for chronic bronchitis by the Home Doctor. Meanwhile in York, snow threatened, and I biked through an icy wind without gloves in order to book on at the office for Tuesday 14 December.

  Present in the cold office at seven-thirty were Wright the chief clerk and two constables: Crawford, who was at Langbourne's desk, and Baker, who was by the fire. The constables didn't have desks, and the fact that I did was one of the few privileges that I, as a detective constable, had over them.

  Wright, who was pushing seventy, was eating an orange prior to distributing the mail on to the desks. The orange was the only colourful item in the office, which was cold and smoky - dirty green in colour. No Christmas cards stood on the mantelpiece, nor were any likely to. A Hull train was simmering just beyond the door. Wright ate a few pieces of the orange very noisily. Everyone watched. After half a minute, he broke off, saying, 'I've got four of these oranges.'

  It was like a threat.

  'Four for a penny, they were,' he said.

  'One for each of us, is it then?' enquired Baker.

  'Eh?' said Wright, ripping at the fruit with his teeth.

  'I can't stand oranges of any description,' said Crawford.

  'What do you mean, "oranges of any description"?' asked Baker. 'All oranges are the same.'

  'I hear you struck a dead body on your travels?' said Wright, who might have been old but was also very curious.

  'I did,' I said.

  'Reckon it was one of your murders?' he said.

  The first case I'd taken on in the force had been a murder, and it seemed no one in the office had been able to get over the fact.

  'I'm sure of it,' I said, and as I spoke the words, I wondered about them: yes, the connection of the death of Peters with the Travelling Club that had disappeared made the matter a certainty.

  'All oranges are the same,' Baker said again.

  'What about tangerines?' Crawford was saying.

  'Tangerines are not oranges,' said Baker.

  'They fucking well are,' said Crawford.

  Wright, wiping his mouth with his mucky handkerchief, pointed to the swear box that sat on his desk, which was a shortcake tin with a hole stabbed through. Necessary swearing was permitted - swearing in the line of duty, so to speak - but Crawford's remark hardly counted.

  Crawford ignored Wright, who looked at me again.

  'Reckon you'll be permitted to investigate?' he said.

  'It's up to the Chief,' I said.

  Wright shook his ghostly old head, which was about two inches above the level of his desktop as he gnawed at the fruit. 'No,' he said. 'It's up to Shillito. He's your governor.'

  'Tangerines are oranges,' said Crawford. 'That's what they're called: tangerine-oranges.'

  'Answer me this then,' said Baker. 'What colour are tangerines?'

  'Orange,' said Crawford.

  'No,' said Baker, 'they're tangerine-coloured.'

  'Leave off, lads, will you?' said Wright, who turned to me again, saying, 'It'll be a matter for the Northern Division, any road.'

  'Tangerines are a sub-species of oranges,' Crawford said. 'Take this office now: we're all policemen, but some of us -'

  '— have got more pips than others,' said Wright.

  Everybody looked at him.

  'That's funny, is that,' he said, but he was as surprised as anyone; and if anybody meant to laugh, they hadn't got round to it by the time Detective Sergeant Shillito stepped into the room.

  'Morning all,' he said, removing his topcoat and bowler and taking his seat at his desk, which was directly opposite mine. 'Your book please, Detective Stringer.'

  I stood up, and passed him my notebook. He was supposed to initial it at the end of every turn, though he always made a great palaver out of doing so. Everybody watched him as he read. They all knew I was going to be rated by him - it was just a matter of when. Beyond the window, a train was leaving Platform Four, and I wished I could do the same.

  I looked at Shillito's wide, sloping face. I sometimes fancied that he looked like a big Chinaman, though he was from Grimsby originally, and not at all yellow but bluish about the jaw and otherwise red, for he was a keen tippler. Why was he down on me? There'd been the matter of that murder case three years before, the biggest piece of business ever seen in the York office, and only me and the Chief in on it. And then there was the fact that I was aiming to be made up to his rank, even though a good deal younger than him (twenty-seven to his thirty-four). I also knew very well that he saw me as a dreamer, a schoolboy train-watcher, whereas he was on the railway force only by default.

  Engines and the pages of a Bradshaw held no fascination for Shillito, but if there was anything coming off in the way of sport, he had to be involved: football, cricket, rugby, billiards - and especially football. He'd play most weekends, but sometimes had to be content with running the line, or shouting on his mates, for he was forever under suspension for violent tactics, and he was forever moaning about it. He'd sit in the office composing letters to the Yorkshire Evening Press complaining about referees, signing himself only 'an interested spectator' or 'one who is concerned about standards' or such, and never letting on that the referee in question had
sent him off the previous weekend for loosening some poor bloke's teeth. Shillito ought to have been a sportsman. He'd been on Northern League forms for some professional lot or other - before he'd blown up with the gallons of beer he put away. Instead, he'd joined the police, and missed his mark in so doing. His perpetual fear was that all the business of investigation, diary-keeping and report-filing would spin out of control if he once relented in the regime of drudgery that he imposed on himself and others.

  He fell to reading the notebook, frowning at the pages as was his way. He himself wrote in a tiny backward-sloping hand, and anything in a slightly freer style he took against. Turning from the third to the fourth page of my account, he sighed and said, 'And the ink flows on, Detective Stringer.'

  Up your arse, I thought.

  He continued reading.

  'Must you always set down the type of engine that has pulled your train?' he enquired, after a further minute of reading.

  I kept silence.

  'Answer me, man,' he said, not looking up.

  'Can't help it, sir,' I said.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'I'm coached up in observation.'

  Did this amount to insubordination or not? It seemed that Shillito could not quite decide, which is what I had intended. I wished I had the courage to show him my mind: to let him know that I considered him failing in his duty by never providing any encouragement. The wife had told me to speak out, not understanding that my position would be at risk if I did so.

  He looked up again.

  'And what's all this about the weather: "the snowfall was now severe ... the snowfall, continuing severe ..."?'

  'It had a bearing on events,' I said.

  'What events, Detective Stringer? You were sent north to bring in Clegg. Why did you not give chase when he ran out of the steel mill?'

  'That's not the place for a sprint, sir,' I said.

  Again he digested the remark. Ought he to flash into rage? I could see him weighing the question. He rarely did so in his place of work, and that was where he differed from my first evil governor, Stationmaster Crystal.

  'Now this business of the body -' said Shillito. 'It's a simple enough matter: you are right to make mention of the discovery and of the fact that you stumbled on an acquaintance of the dead man. But then we have page after page about this journalist, and yet more about this Travelling Club and their special carriage.'

  'The dead man was interested in it.'

  'Well, I'm not.'

  Why would he not sign the bloody book and have done?

  'If this becomes a murder investigation,' he said, 'the Travelling Club may become of account. But it seems to me a clear case of suicide.'

  'It warrants investigation,' I said.

  He shook his head.

  'Do you intend asking my permission to pursue the matter?'

  'Yes,' I said, and he looked at me until I put in the word 'sir'.

  'I thought so. And yet you won't keep abreast of the baggage claims.'

  This was the only reasonable grounds for complaint that he had. I found the interception of fare-avoiders dull work, but I stuck at it nonetheless. Baggage claims were a different matter. Whenever luggage was reported stolen, and compensation put in for, I was required to write a report - a 'flash report' as it was called for some mysterious reason. If I found any suspicion of fraud, the Company would fight the claim, but I never did find any. It was all old ladies who'd lost cats, folk thrown into despair by the loss of some article quite useless to the general run of humanity - and very boring.

  'And what about the cardsharpers on the Leeds train?' asked Shillito.

  There had been reports of gaming on York-Leeds evening trains.

  'You are also to see Davitt arrested and charged.'

  Davitt was a York citizen and notorious fare-avoider. He travelled all over the shop, always without a ticket, and it seemed to me that not paying the fare was the whole purpose of his travel.

  The constables were now quitting the office for fear that Shillito would begin asking about their own neglected duties.

  'Above all, you are also to go after friend Clegg again,' Shillito continued, '- and this time you are to gain your object, Detective Stringer. These are your priorities. As for starting up murder investigations in the territory controlled by other divisions of the force - how do you think that will go down with the Middlesbrough fellows?'

  Now this was the meat of the question, and I could see Shillito weighing it in the balance just as I had - only where my aim was my own advancement, his was to check me.

  Captain Fairclough, who was to interview me on Christmas Eve, had particular responsibility for the Northern Division as well running the entire North Eastern force. By interesting myself in the Paul Peters business . . . well, he might not take kindly, nor might his men. Set against that was the fact that here was a chance to make an impression. I might throw light on the Peters mystery before the interview, then make free with my findings.

  There again, whatever I discovered, Shillito would discover also, through his reading of my notebook. If I turned up anything of interest, he would claim the discovery as his own, and so get points with the Middlesbrough men for himself.

  I had been going over this most of the night before, while attending to Harry at hourly intervals, and it seemed I had no choice. As my senior officer, Shillito would write a report for consideration by Captain Fairclough. It would not damn me on all counts. Shillito would try to seem mild, and outside the field of play he was not up to any really bold stroke. But it would not be favourable, no matter how many flash reports I filed between now and Christmas. My best hope of promotion was to bring off something sensational that would outweigh all of Shillito's carping.

  'You are to go north again tomorrow,' he said. 'You are to lay hands on the suspect, and this time no excuses will serve. I will make arrangements once again for you to take Clegg to the Middlesbrough station police office.'

  He knew I would use the opportunity to bring up the matter of Paul Peters, to ask after any crime reports touching on it. Shillito had decided to give me enough rope to hang myself.

  'Do you not have a home address for Clegg?' I said, not fancying another visit to the iron-making hell, horribly fascinating though it was.

  'No,' said Shillito, 'but I do know that they change shifts on Wednesdays. Tomorrow is Wednesday, and they'll be stopping work at two o'clock, when Clegg and his pals always go off to the same public house.'

  I kept silence as he eyed me; this low pub of his would be another lion's den. He was turning the pages in his own orderly little notebook.

  'It's called the Cape of Good Hope,' he said presently, 'and it's on Randall Street.'

  'Where's that when it's at home - sir?'

  Now this was pure sauce on my part, and Shillito tilted his head back and looked at me over the top of his wide, flat nose. It was the danger signal, as I knew. For all his methodical ways, Shillito was not above clouting any man. I counted my heart-throbs as he contemplated me, but the situation cracked when Wright spoke up:

  'That game of yours, Ernest - how did the score stand when the scrap broke out?'

  'There was no scrap, Mr Wright,' said Shillito, making great play of the 'Mister'. 'There was simply an aggravated assault, committed by a man who unaccountably remains at large.'

  Silence in the police office - for he had not answered the question.

  'As to the score - do you mean the score as adjudged by the referee?'

  'Well... yes,' said Wright.

  'According to the official it was nil-nil,' said Shillito, 'he himself having disallowed two perfectly good goals scored by our own team.'

  Somebody would be getting a letter about that. He was still in fits about it: you could tell by the redness rising in his face as he at long last initialled my notebook, returned it to me and swept out of the office with carefully folded topcoat under his arm.

  When he'd gone, I set about some flash reports.r />
  My backlog included twelve reported losses, of which only two had come in from York addresses, which was fine because regarding these I was required to pay a visit to the complainant. Otherwise, a letter asking for more particulars was required. Many of these went unanswered, and the more the better as far as the Company was concerned, because then the matter could be dropped.

  When Shillito had gone, Wright stepped over and placed a letter on my desk. He smelt of oranges, which somehow didn't sit right with his ancient white face. He sat back and looked on as I picked up the envelope.