Death on a Branch Line(7)

‘… Fired her in myself,’ said the driver.

I didn’t like to see the man lolling down there in the dust, so I said, ‘Let’s have you up, mate.’

The driver gave a hand, and we sat him on the sandbox, and he sat there rocking, and looking too white. An inkling of trouble told me to step back just as the great wave of stuff came out of his mouth. Half a minute later, the driver was playing the water hose over the footplate, and the fireman was saying, ‘Reckon I’ve shovelled ten ton of coal today … and it’s not the bloody weather for it.’

The spray of boiling water was moving the last of the stuff off the footplate. It wasn’t a very manly colour, being yellow and bright pink.

As the stuff rolled away, the fireman said, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ just as though he was trying to disown it. ‘I en’t eaten all day,’ he said.

‘Bob forgot his snap,’ said the driver, and he turned a lever to stop the hose, which caused the whole engine to judder. ‘Bloody cursed, is this run,’ he said, looping the hose and setting it back on its hook.

I looked down, and there was a whole press of blokes on the platform by the engine. First, there was the ambulance team – four blokes in queer hats. I stepped aside, and they came pouring up. One of them began questioning the fireman, and it was more like an interrogation than a medical examination. The driver stepped down to make room, and I followed him. He began talking to two men in dark suits. They’d evidently just climbed down from one of the carriages.

‘Will we be held here, or what?’ asked one of the two blokes.

‘We’ll need a relief,’ said the driver.

‘I’ll send a lad over to the firemen’s mess,’ I said. ‘Should turn one up in no time.’

As I spoke I raised my eye to the small clock that hung above the team rooms on Platform Nine. It was dead on five. The clocks would be clanging all over York.

‘And who are you?’ asked the first of the blokes.

‘Railway police,’ I said.

He was being short with me, and he’d get likewise in return.

‘We’re Met boys,’ said the second of the two blokes, meaning the Metropolitan Police. He had boggly eyes, which made him look as if he was trying to burst out of himself.

Beyond this pair, I saw a man step down from one of the carriages, and another came down after him, or more like with him. They were too close. The first wore an official-looking moustache; the second had long hair, and had not lately shaved. Well, I knew what was going off all right.

‘Prisoner under escort,’ I said.

The first of the two blokes standing directly before me gave me the evil eye. He would’ve denied it if he could.

‘Who is he?’ I said, indicating the prisoner, who was now being fairly dragged towards us by his guard.

The boggly-eyed man looked at me, and I watched his eyes. It was like waiting for Bob the fireman to chuck up his guts.

‘Now that’, he said, indicating the man under escort, ‘is what you might call perishable goods.’





Chapter Four


Pending the arrival of a new fireman, the prisoner was stowed in the holding cell of the station police office. The hard-looking Met man stood smoking on Platform Thirteen along with the guard who’d brought the prisoner down from the train. They both stood within hailing distance of the boggle-eyed man, who was evidently junior to both of them. He stood in the doorway of the police office, which Wright had now vacated.

I was the only man in the office, and I sat at my desk looking at the bread and cheese. It was a quarter after five. The question of the time seemed to press on me rather; had done all day. The hot weather was like a clock ticking.

‘His name’s Lambert,’ said the boggle-eyed man, turning in the doorway and entering the police office. ‘Hugh.’

He meant the prisoner, of course.

‘From the quality he is,’ he went on. ‘Brought up in a country mansion – old man lord of the bloody manor. Adenwold. Heard of it?’

I nodded.

‘Went to all the best schools, Cambridge University – nothing wanting at all, and then what does he go and do?’

He took out a leathern wallet and began making a cigarette out of the stuff inside it.

‘Shoots his old man.’

He eyed me over the top of a cigarette paper.

‘Ungrateful,’ he said.

‘He’s for the drop, then,’ I said.

‘Monday morning,’ said the boggle-eyed bloke. ‘Eight o’clock sharp.’

Holding up the baccy pouch, he looked a question at me.

‘… Obliged to you,’ I said, and he lobbed the whole thing over, whereas I’d been banking on him rolling me one.