Death on a Branch Line(10)

‘Have you been there?’ he asked.

‘I don’t believe so,’ I replied, slowly.

‘Do you mean to go?’

I looked towards the doorway, but the sparrow had made off. I was on the point of replying to Hugh Lambert when he asked, with great emphasis, ‘Could you see your way clear to going?’

My boots creaked, and the wooden floor also creaked in the unbreathable heat as I moved towards the police office door. The three guards were talking by the platform edge. A high screeching of wheel flange on rail came from some far-off platform, and a single green locomotive was running light through the station, going fast and seeming to enjoy its freedom, like a child running home from school. I pushed the door until it was on the jar. I turned to Hugh Lambert.

‘What’s at Adenwold?’

‘My brother John,’ he said.

‘Will he not come up to Durham to see you?’

Lambert shook his head, shook his hair. I supposed it was the privilege of the condemned man to be allowed to grow it.

‘My brother is a very intelligent man,’ he said, ‘but in this business he’s too partisan.’

I didn’t take his meaning, and I told him so.

‘Well …’ said Lambert, ‘he believes me to be innocent, and he means to secure my release.’

‘How? Will he bring forward some new evidence?’

Lambert moved his hair with his hands.

‘I can’t say, but he has told me that he means to make a stand or take a stand this week-end.’

‘But again,’ I said, ‘how?’

‘I don’t know how, I don’t know why. My father always said I should be hanged, and the governor of Durham gaol will shortly oblige him. That is to be considered an accomplished fact.’

I’d got more than I’d bargained for there, but I was spared the need to reply by the office clock chiming the half-hour. I was embarrassed by that clock. It seemed to fairly whiz.

‘Look,’ I said to Lambert, ‘did you do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he met my gaze for a moment before looking sidelong, towards the door. ‘It’s certainly possible,’ he continued, ‘otherwise why would they be hanging me?’

A beat of silence.

‘In trying to secure my release, my brother puts himself in considerable danger from people who … want to stop him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He has told me that much, and you see there ought not to be any more deaths over this. Two is enough. Will you open the door again?’

I did so, and the sparrow was there once more. It looked ridiculously small. The three guards were beyond the bird at the platform edge.

‘The idea is that I save your brother?’

Lambert nodded, side-on to me again and lobbing pellets at the sparrow.

‘And not you?’

‘I’m past saving.’

‘As a consequence of your brother being saved, you might be saved.’

‘Two for the price of one,’ he said, and he folded his arms, and nearly smiled. ‘Now I doubt that.’

The men on the platform were stirring. They’d finished their talk, and were coming towards the police office.

‘These people who mean to stop him speaking out,’ I said, ‘who are they?’

The Met men approached the open door.

Lambert said, ‘I don’t know … Only that they are …’

‘What?’ I said, indicating the guards. ‘Is it these men?’

He shook his head very violently at the suggestion, and I must have been mad to make it. The London blokes were all quite above board: I’d seen all their warrant cards.

‘These people you mention,’ I said, ‘are they in Adenwold?’

The fellow who’d been short with me was the first through the door and into the room.

‘They will be there this week-end,’ said Lambert.

And the Met men were now close about him, a new fireman evidently having been found.





Chapter Six


A minute after they’d gone – during which time I’d sat stunned on my desk – Old Man Wright pitched up again.

‘Anything doing?’ he said.

‘Not much,’ I said.

There was something about Wright. You didn’t want to tell him things.

‘I’ve found you a hotel room,’ he said.

‘Oh aye?’ I said.

‘Well, a word of thanks wouldn’t come amiss,’ he said, ‘seeing as how I’ve just spent half an hour telephoning from the Institute.’

Don Shearsmith, the manager of the York Railway Institute, would vouch that any personal calls you made were in fact made on North Eastern Railway Company business. In theory, these favours were given gratis and with no expectation of return, but with Shearsmith there was always a price to pay at some later date.