Lost baggage porter

Chapter Five

It was 5.55 a.m and raining hard when I pedalled up to the bike stand just outside the forecourt of the station and dashed inside. I raced past the bookstall, where the placards of the Yorkshire Post (a morning paper) read 'York Horror', but also 'Terrific February Gales at Coast'. The bookstall was long and narrow like a carriage that never moved, and I didn't care for it. The stout party in charge was laying out his murder library. As a kid, I'd been warned off light literature by my dad, with the result that I read little in the way of fiction at all, having no real liking for the heavier stuff. I had read always of the railways, and railwaymen were the ones I'd looked up to, not detectives, but it would be something to settle the Cameron business, and for the first time in weeks I was entering railway premises with some of the excitement, and some of the fear, of my engine-firing days. I felt lean, forward-thinking, useful again as I strode towards the Police Office.

One man stood at the ticket gate. He was jumping to keep warm. I showed him my warrant card, and he said, 'OK,' still jumping. I turned left at the ticket gate thinking about Chief Inspector Weatherill. It wouldn't just be me and him. There'd be others present no doubt: Shillito, the Detective Sergeant, who was to be my governor – I'd met him shortly after being taken on. Langborne was the Charge Sergeant, and then there was Wright the Chief Clerk… I'd yet to meet this pair.

I hurried along under the clock on Platform Four, with the Police Office now in sight. It had two main frontages in the station: one looked westerly, facing out onto Platform Four; the other faced south, and overlooked the buffers of a bay platform, number three. The door (set into the southerly facade) was unlocked, which it hadn't been the evening before; so somebody had pitched up. I walked in. The gas was lit, but not the stove. The big desks and cabinets were like islands, and no two faced the same way.

A few feet from the cold stove stood the cold fireplace: two chances for heat spurned, making me feel colder still. Above the mantel, instead of a painting, there was 'By-Laws and Regulations of the North Eastern Railway Company', and on the mantelshelf below stood a photograph: 'Grimsby Dock Police Football Team 1905'. I thought I recognised one of the players: Shillito, the DS. It was him all right, for the names were written along the bottom. He must have transferred from Grimsby.

Grimsby was in the Eastern Division of the Company force, whereas York was the headquarters of the Southern Division, and Chief Inspector Weatherill was the governor of the Southern Division. The only man senior to him was Superintendent somebody or other, who was quartered at Newcastle, and boss of the whole show.

Opposite me was a solid blue door. This led to the holding cells, I knew, of which they were two. Nobody was kept in overnight. If charged and remanded they were taken over to the regular copper shop at Tower Street, in a station hansom if need be. At the far end of the office was another blue door: Chief Inspector Weatherill's office. I walked up to it, and yanked it open just to make sure that the fellow wasn't in there.

But he was.Salute? Yes, no. Yes.

I saluted but might as well not've. Weatherill was sitting side on to me, looking up at his cold mantelshelf. He seemed to be gazing at a little silver cup, and I could make out the words 'TUG OF WAR' engraved on it. They were nuts on sport, this lot.

Chief Inspector Weatherill was a big, untidy man who looked as though he'd done a lot in life. He wore a long green coat – of decent cloth but none too clean – buttoned right up to his head. He had only scraps of hair; they were of an orangey colour, and swirled about his big head like a dog chasing its tail. His nose wandered down from his eyes to his mouth by a very winding route, which made me think he might've been a prize fighter in his day. He'd been through it all right.

'It's a good suit,' he said, turning slowly about to face me, 'nicely damped and pressed, 'n' all.'

He stood up, walked around the desk towards me. He had his hands in his pockets, which somehow gave him a look of being about to do absolutely anything. He took his hands out of his pockets and pulled open my coat, looking at the lining. Steam came from his mouth, and a sharp smell. There was all sorts wrong with his face when seen close-to: scars, lumps, burn marks maybe. His nose seemed to have tried out lots of shapes, and settled on none in particular. His one perfect feature was his moustache, which was darker than his hair, and stretched out widely like a spirit level or the governor of a steam engine. It was there for balance.

'You put in for the allowance?'

'I did, sir,' I said. What was all this blather? When would he come to the Camerons? I could hear his breaths as they came and went through the 'tache. He was still looking at the lining of my coat – he seemed easily entranced by little things.'Best Italian silk, sir,' I said. 'Where's your Derbies?' I took the handcuffs out of the side coat pocket where I kept them, and he put his hand in where they'd been. 'Too small,' he said. 'Suit coat should be extra long in the skirt pocket to stow the Derbies. You see, a detective should have plain suiting but not ordinary suiting… But it's a good rig-out.' The room smelt of carbolic and old ash. Weatherill took a cigar out of his desk, lit it. '… But you're going to have to put it away for a while.' I didn't like the way he kept saying 'but'. 'Why, sir?' I said. 'We have some bad lads in York just at present,' he said, through smoke. 'Some shocking bad ones, but we've no notion of who they are, or where they are, or what…' He broke off to stare again at the little trophy; he didn't seem able to bring to mind the third thing he didn't know. He put his hand through the remainders of his hair, pulled at his collar. 'Sit down,' he said suddenly, 'sit down.' I sat down. At last we were to start talking murder… But nothing at all happened for a moment, except for Weatherill taking a few pulls on his cigar. 'You've heard of a put-up job, I take it?' he said, presently. 'I've heard the expression, sir' I said. 'What do you understand by it?' 'Well…' I said. 'It's something arranged beforehand, like.' 'No' said Weatherill. 'I mean, most things are arranged beforehand, wouldn't you say?' 'Most things are on the railway, sir.' He thought about this bit of philosophy for a long while, or maybe he just looked as though he was thinking about it. 'A put-up job,' he said slowly, 'is an inside job. It depends on information that can only be got from inside a locked bureau of a railway office.' 'Is this matter touching the Cameron brothers?' I asked, at which the Chief Inspector frowned while shaking his head slightly. He looked at me narrowly, and I directed my gaze away from his face and towards the wide cabinet behind his desk. The top drawer was marked 'PLANS'. 'I want you to go out into York' he said, holding his hands suddenly very wide. 'And I want you to trace out the bad lads in the Company who are putting up the jobs, and the bad lads outside who they're putting 'em up to.' Silence in the room, clock marching on loudly. 'How?' I said at last. The Chief Inspector fell to smoking, and looking at the top of his desk, and after a bit of this it struck me that I was most likely not going to get an answer. So I spoke up again, as I slowly tried to get to grips with this unexpected task I'd been given. 'You want me to wear a different suit for the work?' I said. 'I do that. Something in cloth of a lower grade, and I want you to stay out of the city when you're not on the job. You live at a fair distance, don't you?' 'Three miles on the bicycle… well, three miles anyhow.' 'You're not known in York, are you? I mean, it's not yet widely known that you're on the force?' As he spoke, the Chief Inspector was producing papers from his desk, and looking at them as if he'd never seen them before. 'You are to search in all directions,' he continued, 'and once you have found these fellows, you are to become their confederate.' 'You mean give out that I'm crooked myself?' He nodded, saying: 'You are to play a double game.' I was not chasing killers, but it struck me that there was danger in this business too, and some of my earlier excitement came back, and some of the fear. The Chief pushed the papers over to me. There were two piles. Pointing to the first, he said, "These are cases that have been occurring along the lines I've mentioned.' Pointing to the second bundle, he said: 'These papers are quite blank.' I picked these last mentioned up and looked at them. They were not quite blank. At the top of the pages were the words 'North Eastern Railway Police', neatly printed. The Chief Inspector folded his arms. I looked back at him, and he nodded at me for a while. The question why I'd been given the almost-blank sheets was on my lips, but I felt I'd asked a sight too many already 'You're to write down the progress of your investigation on those,' he said after a while. 'At the top of each page, put "Special Report", then write "Subject" and, next to that, "Persons Wanted". Write up the report at the end of every day and send it in to me.' 'How?' I said again. The Chief looked down at his boots; I heard the air moving in and out across the moustache again. 'In the post,' he said, looking up at last. 'In the post?' 'Reason being you are not to be seen about this office in daylight hours. Oh, and put your hands on some carbons, so you can keep a copy of each sheet for yourself.' 'What should I do if the matter is urgent?' He sat back, quite amazed at the question. 'There are four postal collections a day in this city, you know,' he said. 'How many hours do I give to the job, sir?' I said. 'How many hours? You can't be clocked to this kind of business with a patent time clock, lad. Do you have any notion of where you might start?' 'Yes,' I said. 'The Garden Gate.' The Chief Inspector gave a puzzled smile up towards the Tug of War cup, then turned his gaze my way. 'Wanted!' he suddenly exclaimed. 'Nice cottage, with orchard!' 'The Garden Gate is a public house, sir' I said. 'The haunt of some low characters so I've heard. It's in Carmelite Street.' 'Layerthorpe way' Weatherill said, nodding, the smile quite gone now. 'The York constables go down there two at a time, you know.' Nice, I thought. I was on the point of telling Weatherill about Edwin Lund, about the Brains and the Blocker, but it had all come to naught, after all. Instead, I finally brought up the matter of the Camerons, although again leaving myself out of the picture: 'I've read that a Company workman and his brother were shot on,' I said. 'It happened in the goods yard – bodies turned up on Sunday.' 'Wrong,' said the Chief, loudly. 'It happened on the track outside the goods yard, and that is the most important fact in the case.' 'Is that right, sir? Why?' 'Because it means we don't have to bloody solve it. That track is York, not the railway; therefore what happened happened in York. Therefore Tower Street can try their luck.' Tower Street – the main copper shop of the York Constabulary. The Chief Inspector stood up once again, and opened the door that led from his office to the main one. 'I'm stepping over to the hotel for a spot of breakfast,' he said, and I took this as the signal that I should stand up, too. 'The Hull fish special comes in to Platform Three at 6.45 every weekday,' said Weatherill. 'You can't miss hearing it, because it thunders up as if it's about to crash through the bloody door. Now, if you need to use this office, I want you out of it by then. He took a draw on his cigar and the smoke came out in rolling chaos as he said: 'You were a footplate man yourself, weren't you, over on the Lanky?' 'Aye,' I said. 'What happened?' 'They say I wrecked a locomotive, and a ten-bay engine shed.' The Chief looked at me. 'It wasn't my fault,' I said. 'How come?' 'The steam brake wasn't warmed, and I was told it had been.' 'You're blinding me with science now, kidder. But I can credit it.' He continued to look at me, nearly smiling, but expressions were hard to make out from his face. What might've started out as a smile could have easily got lost on the way. 'Let's say a fortnight's observations and becoming familiar, Detective Stringer,' he said. 'Your wages will be sent out to you by special post. Light the stove if you want, but remember: out by quarter to.' I saluted again, although I wanted to ask: 'If something should go amiss with my investigation, how do I give the alarm?' I watched the Chief Inspector walk through the door of his own office, and the door of the main office, leaving them both open, and rocking in the freezing draught. Then he came back. Putting his head around the main door, he said, 'Never go home straight to your village while you're on this duty – always by a roundabout route,' which set me thinking of the wife at home, typewriting alone in the cottage cut away from the street. I nodded, and he was gone again.