Lost baggage porter

Chapter Fifteen

After we'd been rolling for half a minute, I realised that we were on the cinder track, where the Camerons had been done in. The excitement of events had bolstered me up, but now I wanted to go straight to the Chief with my evidence. I had no time for my own thoughts though, for Mike was looking back at me from his driving seat.

'Reckon I should apologise for lamming you in the face, mate,' he said.

'Right,' I said. 'Well, I'm sorry for calling you a fucking rotter.'

'Fairly brings a tear to the eye, it really does,' said Miles Hopkins, grinning. He was on the perch next to me, while Sampson was crouching over the cylinder. It was as if he wanted to prettify the thing, for he was brushing off the chalked warning that began: 'DANGER! On no account to be used except by…'

I should not have let things get this far.

Instead, I asked, 'What's this thing in aid of, then, mates?' pointing at the white cylinder.

'We'd have been in lumber back then, but for you, Allan,' said Sampson, not answering the question.

He was now rolling the cylinder into a tarpaulin that had lain on the cart. He did it as carefully as though putting a baby in a blanket.

'You were just champion, Allan,' he went on, 'the way you fettled that train…'

Miles Hopkins, the weird smile once again about his lips, began a speech I wasn't keen he should finish:

'How come you knew what was what on the…?'

'Nowt to it,' I said, interrupting.

'You're coming on like anything, Allan,' said Sampson as the pony and cart approached the goods station, the centre of events, once more. The drays were still flowing in, either side of the clock house that stood in front of the entrance.

We struck Leeman Road before turning into Station Road, right in front of the railway offices. There was a small dark court between the offices and the building facing, which had been the old station hotel, and was now used for storage. The main doors of each building faced one another, with their gas lamps dangling above, but the lamp over the entrance to the store was never lit. Beyond the two buildings ran a cobbled lane called Tanner Row, which was one long terrace of tall black houses. Set in the middle of that terrace, and overseeing the stand-off between the old hotel and the offices was a pub: the Grapes. Its front window was in three sections, and each one carried a word. The three words glowed out darkly towards us: 'Wines' 'And' 'Spirits'.

Sampson, with one foot steadying the gas cylinder, was looking thoughtful.

'What's the next business?' I asked.

Sampson's and Hopkins's eyes locked.

Sampson said, 'A week Sunday?' speaking more to Miles Hopkins than to me.

He got the nod from Hopkins, and said again 'A week Sunday', this time addressing me.

'Quite a long space between now and then,' I said, and it was queer: I felt somehow let down. I would be back to waiting and worrying for a week. Sampson nodded, seemingly to himself. I risked another question. 'Will that be the day of the big show?' I said,'… the great doing?' 'We've a few more movables to collect first,' said Hopkins, and I thought it a little odd that he should have answered the question. Mike had turned us over the river by Lendal Bridge, and along Blake Street, where half a dozen gas standards awaited us, and no people. 'Where are we to meet then?' I asked. I noticed another glance fired between our leader and his lieutenant. At the end of it, Miles Hopkins shrugged, and Sampson looked down at his boots, and his beloved gas cylinder. I knew what he was about: he was revolving in his mind the low pubs of York. 'The Grapes,' he said, looking up. 'The one we've just passed?' I said, for there were half a dozen houses called the Grapes in York. The one in Tanner Row was a smart place, frequented by a superior grade of clerk. It was as though, having netted the cylinder, the gang could afford to put on swank. I decided to go fishing again. 'So it's one more little job, with a big one to follow?' Sampson nodded. 'Big one's a little way off, though.' 'What he's saying' said Hopkins, nodding towards me, 'is that he's not had his wages.' He was wrong over that, but I was glad he'd spoken up. The only reason I'd not mentioned the matter of payment was that I was a policeman playing a double game – simple as that. Sampson put his hand in his pocket book, and after some thought gave me a pound, saying: 'You kept the line beautifully today, kidder.'

My first thought was: that's the wife's new fur-lined gloves paid for. A lot of other thoughts came as I pocketed the note – of some vicars I'd known, of Dad and the family name, written above the butcher's shop in Bay town… But in the working world of York, extra money was something miraculous.

There was silence as the pony plodded on, and it seemed to mark the end of the night's business, or my part in it. 'I'll get down here,' I said. 'My lodge is t'other way.'

Sampson stood up in the cart to see me off – very courtly, he was.

'Keep it dark about tonight's work, won't you, little Allan?' he said, as I climbed down.

'You bet,' I said.

'And you're all set for Sunday week?'

I nodded again, watching the cart roll on. As Mike steered into Lendal, Miles Hopkins turned his head, and looked back at me, not breaking off his stare until buildings came between us. As I biked back home past the dark villas of Thorpe-on-Ouse Road, I kept trying to think when I might've shown my hand. Favourite was the moment when the cylinder was being extracted from the van. That's when I could've raised my arm to declare: 'It's all up for you lot. I am a detective with the railway force, and I am arresting you on a charge of theft.' I might also have mentioned trespass, assault, a spot of blackmail (in the case of the clerk, no doubt), and then the bill topper: the Cameron brothers, side by side in the York mortuary.

Valentine Sampson was nuts and the other, Miles, was clever. Which was worse? And where was Edwin Lund in all this? He was clever and nuts. I stowed the Humber by the cottage wall and, removing the fake glasses, opened the door to see the wife, who was at her typewriting of course, by a dead fire. 'Well then?' she said, not stopping typewriting. She had seen me in Fossgate. It was ten-thirty by the mantel clock… And there was a bottle of beer waiting by it, which was a good sign – a sign that I might kiss her, which I did. I had half expected to find the wife in tears. As it was, she just looked tired. 'Just at present,' I said, standing by the rocking chair, 'I'm put to spying for the police.' It sounded like a confession. 'Does that require you to wear funny glasses?' she said. 'What's funny about them?' I said, removing them from the pocket in which I'd just stowed them. 'They're a pair of perfectly ordinary glasses, except that they don't have any glasses in them.' 'And a terrible suit,' she said, standing up from the typewriting table and walking over to the sofa. She sat down here, sprawling rather, with legs wide underneath her skirts. Her condition probably made this a necessity, but it was all for it in any case. She was brownish, skinny but for the football under her dress, and altogether indestructible-looking, somehow. 'That can't be helped' I said, taking a pull on the bottle of Smith's. 'You have a husband who's pretending to be a vagabond.' I sat down next to her. 'I suppose I must admit' she said, 'that with many women it's the other way about.' She fiddled with the locket at her chest, then looked up at me, and said: 'Let's have it, Jim.' I gave her the tale, the whole of my double game, leaving out only my suspicion that Sampson had done for the Camerons, and concluding: 'By rights I'm not supposed to have told you any of this.' The wife was looking at me in a mysterious sort of way – half amused, I thought. 'You are to keep it dark,' I said, thinking of Sampson standing in the cart. Still no reply – just the dark eyes looking at me in the dark room. 'You wanted me in the police,' I said, 'and this is what police work comes down to.' 'I wanted you out of an occupation that was not suited to your intellect,' said the wife, after a space. It was the first time she'd come out with anything of that sort. I'd thought all along she'd set her face against railway work because it was mucky. I said: 'Firing's no picnic, you know: one shovelful of coal in the wrong spot, down goes the pressure and you're knackered; and driving's just as tricky.' I finished off the bottle of Smith's, and turned towards the wife. 'What is the effect of notching up the gear upon the steam cycle within the cylinder?' I asked her. 'Any notions on that point? No? Try this then: what are the eight name positions of the crank?' 'You're the crank, Jim Stringer,' she said. 'Tell you what,' I said. 'You're off the hook if you can name me one.' 'You're not happy in the police, then?' 'You know very well I'm not.' I walked through to the kitchen to collect another bottle of Smith's from the pantry. 'Off the footplate,' I said, returning to the parlour, 'you see the world as it really is…' 'And how is it?' 'Everybody spends too long in one place. I have a need for speed.' I sat down on the rocking chair, and the wife came over and sat on my knee, saying, 'Well, you have the Humber.' We sat there in silence for a while. Some voices came from the direction of the Fortune, but just when I thought they were about to grow loud, they faded away. "There are three people in one rocking chair,' said the wife, after a while. 'I wouldn't half mind putting the fixments on that lot,' I said, thinking of the cart rolling away down Lendal, the cutting cylinder rolling back and forth inside it, like a clock ticking. 'I'm doing some letters for Hunter and Smallpage just at the moment,' said the wife (who was evidently still thinking of the rocking chair, for she was speaking of the shop where we'd bought it) '… they call themselves "a firm of forty years' standing",' she continued,'… and yet almost all their business is selling chairs…' I looked at the wife; she could be a queer sort, at times. 'You've your report to write tomorrow, I suppose' she said, standing up, for I'd mentioned that part of the job, too. 'Aye' I said, 'in fact I think I'll make a start now, while it's all fresh in my mind.'I moved the typewriter and the sweet jars across to one side of the strong table, laid out on it the papers given me by Weatherill and, having placed carbons beneath, began to write. With the wife looking on, I set out at the top of the first page the headings insisted on by Weatherill, thinking, now ought I to begin with meeting Lund at the War Memorial? I decided to leave him out of it, as before, and so started with the moment I walked into the Big Coach. After five minutes of watching me write, the wife said: 'You're not to eat the Opopanax, but you can have one of the Parma Violets.' I took one of the sweets, looking at her, thinking hard. I was now up to the point at which Sampson went off to meet his layer, and Hopkins was preparing to leave for the railway station. After another five minutes or so, the wife rose swiftly to her feet, went into the kitchen, and came back with some bread, soup and hotcake, which I ate as I continued to write, and the wife continued to watch. Suddenly, she stood up, declaring: 'I cannot stand the slow travel of your pen!' 'You said I was an intellect!' I shot back. 'I'll type your reports,' said the wife, and she was already at it: chivvying me out of the chair, and winding a new one of the report sheets into her machine. 'It's late,' I said. 'What do you put at the top?' she asked. '"Special Report",' I said, 'then "Subject: Persons Wanted".' 'That's a waste of words,' said the wife, but she was typewriting all the same, asking, 'And how do you begin the actual reports?' 'How do you mean?' 'What form of words do you start with?' 'You've to start: "I beg to report".' 'That's ridiculous,' said the wife. 'We'll start with "I respectfully submit…" Now, you speak it out, I'll take it down.'And so the wife learnt in more detail about Hopkins and Sampson, and all that had happened in the goods yard. And it was much quicker this way, for she typed fourteen to the dozen – at least as fast as I could speak. Occasionally she would eat an Opopanax, occasionally she would ask a question. She wanted to know what was in the cylinder, and I explained as best I could. 'They're safe-breakers,' she said, quite delighted. 'It's like a penny shocker.' When we reached the point at which we'd all spilled out of the goods yard, I thought I'd better let Weatherill know that this occurred at the very spot where the Camerons had been shot, and so the wife learnt all about this matter too, at which she stopped typewriting, saying: 'You're in danger here, you know.' 'Once things get too hot, I'll just do a push,' I replied. 'Besides, I don't think they'd run to shooting a policeman.' 'But they don't know you're a policeman.' 'That's true,' I said. 'I was forgetting.' 'You're quite certain of that, aren't you?' 'Of what?' 'That they don't know.' 'Do leave off,' I said, 'of course I am.' She carried on taking my dictation until I came to the moment when Mike, the Blocker, had apologised for lamming me, and I'd apologised for calling him a 'fucking rotter'. The wife was shaking her head, as I came out with this, saying, 'That goes down as "He uttered foul language".' 'You must write it out,' I said. 'Just put "f" and a line.' 'Why were you given this work to do?' said the wife. 'You're brand-new on the job. You've no experience.' 'That's exactly why,' I said. 'The Chief was taking advantage of the fact that I'm not known.' 'Taking advantage full stop, if you ask me,' said the wife.