Lost baggage porter

Chapter Eight

Carmelite Street I knew to be somewhere in the shadow of Leetham's Flour Mill, which was nigh-on five times higher than the terraces roundabout. Evening was coming down fast as I walked towards the mill, which had three silos, like cricket stumps, connected at the top by the conveyor, which was like the bails. On its other side, the mill looked onto, and dropped things into, the River Foss, which ran along as best it could between the little terrace houses of Layerthorpe. No trippers came this way; the Illustrated Guides had nothing to say about Layerthorpe, except maybe to warn strangers off.

Carrying my bagful of Railway Magazines, I entered a dead-end street. At the bottom of it was a wall covered in an advertisement for boot polish. It held a picture of a bootblack calling 'Shine, sir?' then, in bigger letters 'SHINE, SIR!' Wouldn't take no for an answer, that one.

I turned right down an alleyway between two houses, just in time to see a kid boot a dead rat along the road. Above his head, a wooden sign stuck between the two walls read: 'The Tiger'. That was another pub to be found somewhere in this maze, but it was a couple of minutes more before I came on the one I wanted.

There was no garden and there was no gate, and there was hardly any pub come to that. It was just one thin house in the terrace. Above the door and to the right, a tiny tin sign said 'ALES', like a stamp on a letter. The words 'Garden Gate' were spelt out in small white letters on the black door. I stood there picturing every kind of York cadger and area sneak putting back beer inside. I pushed at the door, and walked in.

His cap was off, and his hair was round and white like a jellyfish, but it was the big oaf, the Blocker, all right – standing just inside the door with his coat open in a tiny blue room filling with smoke from a badly laid fire, which set my eyes stinging straightaway. The Blocker seemed to be looking directly at my glass-less spectacles. Then, to my relief, he turned away Approaching the bar, I glanced down and noticed my wedding ring. Allan Appleby was not a married man. I pulled it off as I stepped up to buy a drink. Serving on was an old fellow who stared at me all the while as he raised up a pewter of beer from somewhere below the bar. Leaning on the bar to my left was another elderly party, like the barman seen in a looking glass. And there was another present, sitting by the fire on a rocking chair: the Brains, the dip who haunted the Scotch expresses.

A bottle of stout was on the floor by the side of his chair, and he was raising and lowering two long keys on a rusty ring that hung from the end of the longest finger of his right hand. He sat in his coat, but his hat was off, and he had scant black curly hair and sleepy eyes. He looked like a musician, I thought, and I wondered why he could not have put his long fingers to better use by learning to play the mandolin, or some such thing.

He was watching me as I walked towards the bar, and the Blocker spoke up as I walked past, but I didn't catch the words. I ordered a pint of Old, drank it off fast with shaking hands; ordered another. I stood side on to the bar, my portmanteau at my feet. The Blocker was leaning on the door, blocking it, giving me the eye. The Brains was still playing with the long keys. Taking a deep breath, I pitched in: 'I'd be obliged for another glass of Old,' I said to the barman, 'and two more for these lads.' I pointed at the Blocker, and the Brains. They were looking back at me, holding fire, waiting further developments. Then, as the landlord started to pull the beer pump, I added: 'Can you not do owt about your fire?' 'Want more coal on it, do you?' he said. 'Less, if anything,' I replied, 'and a little air put to it, perhaps.' This drew the Blocker, who said: 'Who are you giving orders to?' 'Nobody,' I said. Silence again. The Brains had put down the keys, folded his arms. He was watching me. It was the old barman who spoke next: 'Are you a sanitary inspector by any chance?' he said. I shook my head. 'Because you better fucking not be,' called out the Blocker. The drinks were now being set on the bar. I put one on the fireside table in front of the Brains; handed one to the Blocker. On receiving the ales, neither man said anything; but they continued to stare. At last, the Brains spoke up: 'I'm obliged to you for the pint,' he said, 'but what's it in aid of?' 'Just being hospitable,' I said. 'But the Gate's our boozer,' said the Blocker, 'so by rights, it's up to us to be hospitable to you.' As he spoke, I heard a sound from the direction of the door. It was the Blocker, sliding home the bolt. A longish silence, broken once again by the Blocker: .. Speaking of hospitals' he said, 'you're going just the right way to ending up in one.' 'I've come to see you specially, like'1 said. The Brains said: 'How did you know we were here?' 'Might as well give out that I followed you last night' I lied. 'But we never came here last night,' said the Brains, sounding curious more than anything, 'not directly at any rate.' 'That's right,' I said. 'I know it is' said the Brains. 'You went somewhere else beforehand' I said. 'Where, for Christ's sake?' 'Over yonder,' I said, moving my hand so as to maybe indicate everywhere else in the city. 'But where exactly?' asked the Brains, almost smiling. 'You went to a pub' I said. Well, it seemed a fair hazard. 'What bloody pub?' said the Blocker, impatient. 'Don't recollect the name' I said. 'I'd spotted the pair of you at the station, see? A chap had on a very heavy coat. And you lightened it for him. It was a very good bit of work.' The blackness rolled from the fire; the old boy at the bar said another thing I couldn't catch. 'Well' said the Brains after a while, 'what's your interest in the matter?' 'I was thinking you might be able to use another pair of hands.' Long silence. The Brains stood up. 'I've never seen you round the rattler before' he said. 'I'm new in town, like.' 'From where?' 'Hebden Bridge.' 'And where's that, when it's at home?' This was the Blocker speaking. 'Next door to Halifax,' I said. 'How did tha get bread there?' asked the Blocker. 'Had a go-on in a factory, like.' 'A factory making what?' asked the Brains. 'Screws' I said. I looked at the Brains: a foxy-looking sort: skimpy hair, sleepy eyes; a lot of eyelid visible at all times. Pickpocket… Well, it was a skill above the ordinary thief. 'I had a bit of a run-in with the charge hand… got stood down over it, so then I worked in the fields for a time… Over Bradford way. That was last back end – harvest time.' 'And when the harvest was in?' the Brains asked. 'Workhouse,' I said. 'It was a pretty soft doss.' 'Got a name?' said the Brains, with the creeping smile about his lips as before. 'Allan,' I said. 'Allan bloody what?' said the Blocker. 'Allan Appleby' I said. 'Bollocks' said the Blocker. I gave a glance down at the portmanteau, saying, 'I had this away earlier on.' I kicked the bag over towards the Brains, who stood up, plucked out one of the magazines, leaving a page dangling on which we both read the words 'British Locomotive Practice and Performance.' From over by the door, the Blocker said: 'What's this rubbish?'

'Railway Magazines,'

I said. 'Short of arse wipe are you?' he said, striding over, taking that particular number from the Brains and pitching it on to the fire, where it just lay in the smoke for a while. Presently, though, it began to burn, signifying as it did so the end of all my railway hopes for ever. I did not want to be in this smoke hole, I did not want to be in the Pantomime Police, and the anger came up in me all at once.

'You're a fucking rotter,' I said to the Blocker.

I heard the Brains say something surprised-sounding as the Blocker closed on me. His fist went back, and I fancy that I said out loud, 'Here we go, then', just before spinning back under the blow, feeling the bar floor come up towards me like something carried on a wave.

‹O›-- I put my finger towards my eye, and it touched my eye too early. Some things had happened. The fire was smoking even more strongly, and the place was becoming like a damned kipper house. I put my hands to my eyes again. Of course… the fake spectacles were not there. It was all up with my disguise. I was propped against the bar, and the Brains had swapped places with the Blocker.

'You in the York workhouse?' he said, in a kindly sort of tone, with folded arms.

'No,' I said, and I saw the specs on the floor beside me, good as new. The want of glass in them might not have been noticed after all. I picked them up, and put them back on my nose.

I was all right really, refreshed somehow by the thought that the worst had passed for the moment. My eye was swollen. I could force it open, but it wanted to be closed so I left it be. As the water from the stinging smoke rose within it, I wiped it away with my coat sleeve.

'I'm in a lull just at present,' I said, 'but I'll turn me hand to outdoor portering… handyman… spot of cow walloping now and again on market days. You can get half a crown a day at that lark.'

'Who maintains you in between times?' asked the Brains.

I looked at the fire, where the magazine number was one big cinder under the flowing smoke.

'Me old man has a bob or two put by. It's him I lodge with… over Holgate way.'

'You'll take a pint?' said the Brains, and he stepped back and nodded at the Blocker, who stood up and walked around the bar, to draw the pints himself. Of the landlord there was now no sign. The fossil at the bar had pushed off, too. The Brains jabbed at the fire, reached into the chimney and moved the flue, and an orange glow was revealed in the grate.

He pulled two more chairs from the far side of the room over to the hearthside, and we all sat down as the Blocker came back with the beer.

'What's your game then, mate?' said the Blocker, after necking most of his ale.

'Well, I've seen you operating up the station,' I said, 'and I liked the look of it. You know, steal from folks before they get on a train then don't get on yoursen… And I was wondering whether I could lend a hand.'

'Put 'em up,' said the Blocker suddenly, and I made two fists thinking: is he going to lam me again?

Then the Brains was shaking his head.

'Fingers held out straight, like,' he said, and I did as he said. The Brains looked at my fingers, looked away.

'You've the right-shaped hands for a hoister,' he said, staring into the fire. He turned to me once again, saying: 'Ever done the work?'

Before I could tell another tale, the Blocker was reaching out towards my glasses.

'Let's have a skeg through those gogglers, mate,' he said, and I swayed back away from him.

'Leave off' I said. 'I don't like other folk… looking through 'em.'

The Brains laughed.

'Well, we're all cranky some way' he said.

He stood up; the Blocker stood too.

'Finish up,' said the Brains, looking down at my beer.

'What's the programme, lads?' I said.

'Little stroll,' said the Brains,'… maybe look out for a soft mark while we're at it. Look slippy now.'

I downed the beer, picked up my bag, and followed them out into the street. I was very glad to be out into the cold and rainy air… and my bad eye was now giving less trouble. It had simply gone to sleep. Directly we turned the first corner, the Blocker said, 'Bears.'

As Chief Inspector Weatherill had told me, there were two of them – two coppers, thin men in capes, walking fast with their dark lanterns in their hands. They passed us by without a glance. I was next to the Brains. The Blocker had fallen in behind – he was the owl, keeping eyes skinned to protect the Brains. As we walked, the Brains put his long hand out to me. 'Miles Hopkins,' he said. 'Glad to meet you, Allan.' He had a good grip, and shook my hand hard as I hazarded his age (he was perhaps thirty-five, a good ten years older than me at any rate).

We came to a rare gas lamp. It illuminated a curved wall covered with posters – a great, glowing bay of advertisement, with nobody about to read the words: 'Aladdin at the New Theatre Royal', 'The Yorkshire Gazette – for the Farmer, the Sportsman, the Fireside', 'Turn Right For Capstan's Cigarettes.'

But we turned left, striking a row of pubs – a good hundred- yard run of pubs or jug and bottle shops before the cobbled road rose, becoming a little bridge over the River Foss. Some light leaked from the pubs, which were mostly ordinary terraced houses that had a different life at night. The front windows were low, and Miles stooped to look through some of them as the wind and rain picked up. He looked with an expert eye into those parlour bars. The first few were silent, but desperate shouts came at intervals from the fourth or fifth one, as if orders were being passed among the crew of a ship. Some of the houses had names: the Full Moon, the Ebor Vaults, the Greyhound. Others didn't run to names.

I thought my nerves would either get set or get shattered, but they did neither, and all I could do was wait, trying to disguise fast breathing in the meantime. On the little bridge, Miles Hopkins and the Blocker stopped for a conference. I looked down at the river. The Foss was not more than five foot wide, compressed by factories, and darker than the night. I thought of my bike, waiting in High Ousegate to carry me back to Thorpe-on-Ouse and the wife. It was a breakaway I could not easily imagine making.

The conference was over. Miles Hopkins touched my arm, and we crossed the bridge to see a stubby little street of crumbling bricks blocked at the far end by a high wall, as if somebody had tried to cross it out, a mistake having been made. In the street stood one house, one shop – 'Todd for Meat' – and three pubs, all bigger than the earlier ones. Going by their names, these pubs did not seem to know they were in Layerthorpe: the Cricketer, the Fortune of War, the Castle Howard.

With Miles Hopkins leading the way, we made directly for the Castle Howard. It was one wide, low room, half full, and with a wooden framework in the middle that made it look like a barn loft. Just inside the door, a man stood drinking slowly, with his glass held horizontally at his face as he turned back and forth, like Admiral bloody Nelson with his telescope. He broke off from this performance as we entered, grabbing the Blocker's sleeve and pulling him away into a corner. I heard one word from the two of them before Hopkins pushed me gently towards the bar: the word was 'Cameron', and I was running again through the engine shed at Sowerby Bridge, riding a locomotive with no brakes.

On a trestle behind the bar sat a row of big barrels, like cannon. Three men crossed back and forth, working the taps. A dozen men stood at the bar, and one sat on a high chair. Hopkins was pointing towards this fellow, but my mind was on the Camerons.

'Who's whatsisname talking to?' I asked Hopkins.

He looked quickly backwards.

'Never mind him,' he said, and he gave a grin, adding: 'He's alius boozed.'

Whether he meant the man with the glass or the Blocker I couldn't have said. Hopkins was nodding now towards the one man sitting at the bar, and I too looked at the fellow with my remaining usable eye. The fellow was all wrong for this pub: youngish, fresh-looking, cap neatly doubled over by his pint glass – not a working man but a clerkly sort, I guessed. He was the soft mark, at any rate.

'That cove there,' Miles Hopkins was saying, 'has a box of choice cigars in his left-hand coat pocket. Let's 'ave 'em, shall we?'

'You want me to lift 'em?' I said, wondering, If you commit crime to prevent crime is that a crime? I did not believe the answer to that lay in my Police Manual.

'It's not really my game, you know,' I said to Miles Hopkins. 'I'm bound to make a bloomer, and then we'll have a scrap on our hands.'

'Got the collywobbles, have you?'

It was the Blocker; he was right behind me.

I was thinking of the Camerons, but I was supposed to be concerned with a different matter. I spoke up again:

'Something more in my way' I said, 'might be lifting articles from the goods yards. I know a deal about what goes on there. Done a spot of portering you see, and…'

I looked at Miles, who looked at the Blocker, who said, 'Stop monkeying about, you daft bugger.'

I had no choice. I would never get the goods on this pair otherwise. I walked up to the bar, and formed a tale in my mind. If I bungled the theft of the cigars I would say that the owner had whipped them off me earlier on. I moved next to the man, next to his pocket. I was within range of the smell of his hair oil, and I could feel his breath on my raised left hand. But the fellow was a regular dolly daydream, staring straight ahead towards the barrels at the back of the bar. Looking in the same direction myself, I sank the fingers of my left hand into his pocket, and straightaway my heart beat slower. There seemed a whole world in there – many articles rolling between my fingers in the slowness of the new world I had entered. There was certainly more than just a packet of cigars in there. There was a solid article besides: bone – and I immediately knew it for the handle of a clasp knife, and a good, weighty one at that. I caught it up, and as I swivelled away from the fellow I couldn't help grinning at Miles Hopkins, who was grinning back at me.

'It's a wonder that bloke can live with no nerves at all down one side of his body,' he said, as I walked up to him, with the trophy in my hand.

'You what, mate?' I said, and I realised that I was bathed in sweat.

'When that bloke gets off his perch, you'll probably see that he's immobile all down that half of him.'

He looked at the knife. 'Think I've got the makings?' I said, in a kind of breathless whisper I had not meant to use. 'You've a little ground to travel,' he replied. 'Come on.' We stepped outside with the Blocker in tow. He took up position on one side of the little bridge, with his back to the lamp that sprouted from its low wall. The cold air made my sweat turn colder. I stood with Miles Hopkins on the other. It seemed that Hopkins's opinion of my abilities had slipped a notch, because he said to the Blocker: 'Our friend will never be a hoister as long as he's got a hole in his arse.' 'Might be good for some other business, though?' said the Blocker. No reaction at all from Miles Hopkins. We all three had our hands in our coat pockets. I waited; something was on its way. 'I know all the railway territories around York,' I said. The rain fell; still nothing was said, so I went further: 'Reckon I can put my hands on a goods yard pass, n'all.' At this, a look went between the two. 'I heard you speaking of the Camerons,' I said to the Blocker. 'I've seen those two about… One of 'em's nuts.' The Blocker said: 'That bastard's in the morgue.' 'Which one?' 'The York morgue, you fucking idiot.' 'Which brother?' I said. 'They both caught it from what I heard.' 'They both caught it,' repeated Miles Hopkins. Suddenly, he looked up at me: 'There's a job on,' he said. I nodded back at him. 'I'm on for any mortal thing,' I said. 'There's a fellow you've to meet first' said Hopkins. 'Big Coach, Nessgate. You know it?' 'I do that' I said. 'Quarter to six day after tomorrow suit?' 'OK' I said in a trembling tone, and the two of them walked off back the way we'd all come. Standing there on the bridge, I realised that what had just passed matched firing an express for excitement. The difference was that with this business, you were glad when it was over. I looked back at the door of the Castle Howard, and the man whose knife I'd lifted walked out. He came up the bridge towards me, and it was his fifth step (which went more to the side than forwards) that told me he was canned. 'Evening,' I said, as he walked past. 'You ain't lost a knife, have you?' He turned and looked at me, and kind of sagged. His hand went up to his eye, and he said something that wasn't quite a word. I put my hand up to my own eye. I must look pretty bad. The tipply bloke walked on as best he could, and so I kept the knife. Or Allan Appleby did, at any rate.