Lost baggage porter

Chapter Nine

That night, I hiked back to Thorpe-on-Ouse the long way round: along past the big country houses of Tadcaster Road, and down along Sim Balk Lane, running parallel to the Leeds line. 'Never go home straight,' Weatherhill had said, 'always by a roundabout route', but there were only two routes really, short of riding a horse over the fields. The wife was asleep when I got back, but I stopped up, drinking coffee and writing out my report on the whole evening (making a copy using some of the wife's carbons), and taking care to mention that the name Cameron had come up. I also requested a goods yard pass made out to some made-up name, my intention being to pass it off as something stolen or somehow unfairly come upon by Allan Appleby.

Next morning, the wife was up and at her typewriting first thing, and I stepped out of the house to post the report the moment the village post office opened. My eye was practically healed. In any case, the wife had not remarked on it; and nor had she yet mentioned the stolen knife, which I had placed on the mantelshelf because, for some reason that I preferred not to think about too closely, I wanted it to hand.

It was a white, misty morning as I stood in Thorpe's main street. Amid the distant river sound, the usual things were going on. Kettlewell, the carter, was leaving it from the other end – the Palace end – making for Thorpe-on-Ouse Road, going into town by the sensible way, with two paying customers up on his wagonette. A trap stood outside the chemists: Birchall's, late Pearce and Sons. That was a sad do. Old Pearce had died the year before – heart gave out – and his son had gone soon after, most unexpected. Everybody had liked the Pearces, and nobody liked Birchall. There was only one of him, which made him seem mean somehow, and he didn't give the kiddies fruitdrops with the medicines as the Pearces had done.

We'd had all this from Lillian Backhouse, a skinny woman with shiny black hair that was never worn up, and who went about the village with an airy, high-stepping walk, and looked to me like a female pirate. She'd had seven children, and not one born under the doctor. Yet she was not worn out. In fact, she believed in 'freedom's cause' – votes for women – and had become great pals with the wife as a consequence. They were both liable to fling at you questions, or more often statements, regarding the status of women and so the best thing, I found, was not to be in the same room.

Lillian's husband, Peter, was the verger at St Andrew's, a quiet chap, who in practice lived in the graveyard and the pub, with the balance of his time at present spent in the second because he knew that in the end the balance would be spent in the first.

Major Turnbull came sweeping out of the post office as I approached. He lived in one of the big houses by the river. He would have been sending a telegram, I guessed. He was a nice man who'd been in the Zulu Wars. He was in business now, and all his dealings lay far beyond the village. He wasn't a swell, but more of a practical, hard man – not unfriendly though. He gave me a quick nod as he, too, turned away in the direction of the Palace.

Outside the post office stood a trap. A lady in a white cape sat inside with a white dog on her knee. They made a ghostly pair in the white morning mist. I noticed her gloves. They were trimmed with fur. The wife had been after a new pair of gloves.

I gave the report to Mrs Lazenby, the postmistress, who worked behind the counter under a great clock and a photograph of a man and woman sitting at either end of a long table. There was too much light in the picture, so there was a burst of whiteness in between the pair. As Mrs Lazenby took the envelope she read the address, which vexed me. She was the postmistress, and could not send envelopes without reading the addresses. And she knew me for a railway policeman in any case. As she put on the stamps, I read it as well: 'Chief Inspector Weatherill, Police Office, York Station'. It would get there in the afternoon, but I said: 'Can you mark it down as urgent?'

Mrs Lazenby looked up at me, and I thought she was going to ask, 'Where's your specs then?' It was quite a nice calculation to work out where I ought to be wearing them, and where I ought not. Instead, she gave me a big smile and said: 'Not long now, is it?'

It came to me after a few seconds that she was talking about the baby.

'Well,' I said, 'it's a month, you know.'

'Could happen at any time then.'

Thank you very much, I thought. The place smelt of food. There were stacks of letters and parcels on the sofa, around the fireplace. The post office was also Mrs Lazenby's living room, and it was hard to make out where one ended and the other began.

'My first was six weeks before time' she said.

I had lost my job on the footplate, joined a criminal band, and was about to become a father 'at any time'. It was all too bloody drastic.

And yet Thorpe-on-Ouse was quiet as I stepped back into the main street. The trap with the white lady in it was gone. I stood still, fancying I could hear the river running away out of sight towards the locks at Naburn. I walked on, and could hear the wife at her typewriting from half way along the garden. 'What are you doing still here?' she said when I pushed open the door. The words of the Chief came to me, and I said: 'I can't be clocked to my new work with a patent time clock, you know.' 'Well I can,' said the wife. 'I've an armful of correspondence on behalf of Cooper and Son.' There were sweet jars next to her machine: Opopanax and Parma Violets. 'Who are Cooper and Son when they're at home?' 'Saddlemakers.' 'Never heard of 'em…' I said, sitting down on the sofa and picking up my Police Manual. 'Keep a shop, do they?' 'Railway Street,' said the wife, continuing to type. 'Where on Railway Street?' The wife stopped typewriting for a moment, and gave me an interesting look; then pitched a bundle of flyers over towards me. M. Cooper and Sons were at 4 and 6 Railway Street. Besides saddles they made pair and single-horse harnesses, horse clothing, hunting and riding bridles. 'It says here they're Patronised by Royalty,' I observed. 'Yes,' said the wife. 'I'll bet they are.' I opened the Police Manual. It must have been a mystery to the wife – me sitting there reading, in the middle of what ought to have been a working day. I'd so far managed to keep back all details of my secret work, and there'd been no mention of the Cameron murder between us. The book fell open at 'Stolen Goods'. 'See "Receiving"', I read, 'and "Restitution."' It struck me that, the night before, I'd stolen a knife. The wife was sitting in a room with a thief. I looked across at her, and it was just as if she knew, for although she was still typewriting a tear was now rolling down her cheek, like a small intruder running away across a field. 'Now hold on a minute,' I said, getting up fast, and walking across to her. There was her work typewriting on one side of the machine, and her personal church-ladies' and suffragist typewriting on the other. One side represented the world as it was; the other side how she wanted it to be. I kissed her and said: 'What's up, kidder?' 'It's all up,' she said. 'When the baby comes… That's me finished.' Another shocking thought came: in all the past eight months something had been missing, namely happy remarks about the baby from the wife. I hadn't noticed. 'It is not over,' I said. 'I make fair wages in the police; we are to have our new house, and we will have a skivvy.' 'We can't run to a skivvy, and you know it.' 'We bloody can.' She looked at me, saying nothing, and the decision was made. We would have a skivvy or help of some kind. 'You should go upstairs and have a lie down.' 'What earthly good will that do?' 'I don't know,' I said. I looked at the wife. 'I could come with you,' I said. 'And what will you do?' 'You'll see. You'll have plenty of time free to carry on with your work for the women's movement,' I said as we climbed the stairs. 'I was thinking that in about a year's time you might have a demonstration in the station. Very likely I'll be a detective-sergeant by then, and I'll be the one to order all your arrests… We'll be quite a team.'

The wife fell down on the bed saying nothing, and I fell down next to her.

'How do you feel just now?' I said.

'Overcrowded,' she said, and she nearly laughed.

Love-making with a woman who's in the family way was a speciality that Mr Backhouse the verger might well have mastered over the years, but I was still finding my way, this being the first child.

'It's a bit of an obstacle course, this is,' I said to the wife.

'Bit of an obstacle race more like, the way you go at it,' she said.

Downstairs again shortly afterwards, the wife went back to her typewriting. I built up the fire, and settled down on the sofa with my Police Manual, at which point the wife ordered me out.

I walked over to the Fortune of War for a pint, and I saw, three doors down from the pub, the doorway of Scott Johnson, Boot and Shoe Maker. Scott was in the doorway on one side, his son, William, was on the other. They wore the leather aprons they worked in. In between stood a fellow wearing a brown suit and a bowler, and sucking on a long clay pipe. They were all three watching me, and Scott Johnson was nodding in my direction while saying something to the smoking fellow, as if he'd just pointed me out.

They watched me cross the dusty road, and my feet and their heads were the only things moving in Thorpe-on-Ouse. And there was no noise but for the unseen river and the twisting sound of one bird singing.

In the pub, I said to Bill Dixon, who kept the Fortune.

'Any idea about the new hand at Johnson's?' 'What new hand?' he said. 'There was a fellow in the doorway with 'em just now.' 'He'd be having a pair of boots made.' 'Why would he be staring out into the street? It just looked rum, that's all.' 'If he was in the doorway, he'd be staring out or staring in,' said Bill Dixon. 'He'd have to be doing one or t'other, do you take my meaning?' He went off upstairs and I was quite alone in the pub, trying to picture the Police Gazette face of the man who'd be waiting for me the following day in the Big Coach. After dinner – corned beef, fried potatoes and a pot of tea -1 had a bit of a kip on the sofa, and when I woke up it was four o'clock and the wife was standing over me with a telegraph form. The Chief had got my report; he wanted me in the next morning at six once again.