Murder At Deviation Junction

Chapter Thirty-one

That engine leaked steam like a bastard, not least because of the badly fitting smokebox door; as the driver told me under questioning. I asked him its class, and he said, 'E Class', 'D Class' or, for all I knew, 'declassed'. I didn't like to ask again, for he seemed to find speech rather a strain. The good thing was that he didn't ask too many questions, or in fact any. I told him I was a detective on a case, but whether he took that, I don't know. I was certain, though, that he was not aware of having been fired on; nor was any man in that cab. They'd have mentioned it, after all, if they had noticed.

I felt sorry for them in a way, for I knew the danger I'd been in, and was able to weigh the value of freedom and life, and the best sort of life at that: the engine-driving life.

We made good running after the snow block and pulled into Helmsdale twenty minutes after. A train there was fairly itching to get to Inverness, having been kept back by the weather all day, and we were in luck again at the Highland capital, being just in time for the east-coast sleeper, which would take me directly to York and Bowman on to London, but we were not quite so pressed that I couldn't go to the telegraph office in the station, and wire the wife to say I'd be back next day. The telegram cost two and four - which was a bit of an eye-opener.

We happened to board the train in the restaurant car, and Bowman said we deserved some proper grub. I had a good sluice- down in the WC, but we were no doubt the filthiest pair that ever sat down to a railway dinner, and a Christmas railway dinner at that. Bowman couldn't read the menu, so I read it out to him - turkey and all the extras was practically forced on you.

The wine list came separately, and Bowman said, 'Jim, when I was lying in that damned barn, I said I'd never touch spirituous liquor again, didn't I?'

'Aye,' I said.

'Did you believe me?'

'You sounded as if you meant it,' I said.

'You did believe me, then?'

'Yes.'

'You were quite wrong to do that,' he said, and he passed me the wine list.

As I poured out the wine he'd asked for, he gave a grin, saying, 'Up to the top of the church windows!' His face was back to its usual colour, but perhaps, looking at his reflection in the window, he felt that it needed a little touching up here and there. He then clinked glasses with me when the wine was poured, which he had never done when all those gallons had gone down at Stone Farm and in Fleet Street, and which I think is a foreign habit that they've picked up in London. He continued in good spirits throughout the first two of the three courses we put away, his observations coming with a twinkle rather than the world-weary, sighing tone I'd been used to, whereas my own mood was now a dangerous lightheadedness rather than happiness. I'd been jerked out of my tedious groove by the whole business, but jerked out of my income as well. Once I'd paid my half of the present supper bill, I would have next to no money - perhaps a quid or so, I dared not look to see.

And in about ten hours' time I would walk into the York police office and be given the boot, for I had belted Shillito and I had not settled the matter of the Travelling Club. I kept returning in imagination to the day I was stood down last from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. There'd been a bit of money owed, and I'd been called into the wages cabin alone to receive it. That was the worst bit - to receive my wages alone, and at an odd time, whereas normally there would be such a press of cheerful, shouting blokes in that office.

Then again, though, it was as if another man was in all that bother. I could not quite believe it was me, for I had come out of my Scottish adventure with a whole skin, and if a fellow is spared he is spared for a reason, isn't he?

At first, the two of us had plunged into technicalities. Marriott, according to Bowman, had to be lying dead somewhere between the cottage and the railway line. He thought it doubtful that Small David would go to the bother of hiding the body; it would suit him for it to be found, if it really had been a suicide.

'But is he telling the truth about that?' I asked.

'Why would he lie?' Bowman replied.

'Because he himself might have killed him.'

'If he had done, I don't think he'd bother to lie about it,' said Bowman, with glass raised. 'Small David's a man of mixed character morally, in that, if you get to know him at all, he's quite honest about the murders he's done. Besides, Marriott was his source of income.'

'But he's had all of Marriott's bread. This might just have been the right time to do him.'

Bowman shook his head.

'I think the matter is concluded as far as Small David is concerned. He's done his job and had his wages.'

Bowman then told me a little more about Marriott's decline.

He'd never been any great shakes as a brief. He'd started in London chambers, but left after a row and moved to the North for a quiet life. His office in Middlesbrough he shared with Richie, but it was no place for a barrister. There wasn't even an Assize Court in the town. Instead, he would appear at the Quarter Sessions doing small, something-or-nothing pleadings. He struck everyone as a queer sort: a snob, and nervous as a cat - flashing into rage at nothing - but always beautifully turned out.

'And what about the boy?' I asked. 'What's become of Richie, do you reckon?'

Bowman shrugged.

'He might still win through to France. Small David won't stop him - quite the contrary. He likes the kid .. . Would you stop him making away after all he's been through?'

And it was that particular question that put the crimp in.

Bowman turned to gaze through the window, playing with his wine glass, and seeing nothing. It was a sad do that his eyes, given the chance of acting without the aid of glasses, were not able to rise to the challenge. He saw me eyeing him, and brushed his fingers along his funny nose. He sighed, for the first time in a while.

After an interval of silence, another question came to me: 'Do you know Small David's name?'

'Surname's Briggs,' said Bowman. 'I know that much.'

The other diners left the dining car; the train rattled on through silent, white-dusted stations, most crammed with empty baggage wagons, but that's how it always is on a night train: a feeling of excitement followed in short order by one of loneliness.

'Do you know what that place is called?' he said. 'The hill on which the deer house stands, I mean?'

'They don't run to place-names up there, do they?'

'Fairy Hillocks,' said Bowman.

'It is wrongly named.'

'But that's what you put on a letter. I wrote to them the day after meeting you, and I suppose the letter's still there somewhere, lying abandoned with all the other papers.'

It was a piece of evidence - that's what he was getting at.

He sighed again.

The waiter, who had sat down at one of the empty tables, was watching us. He had not cleared the table alongside us, and a knife jingled against a glass there. The waiter would not interfere; he was banking on the noise driving us round the bend, and off to our beds.

'I'm glad of my time there in a way,' said Bowman. 'It's put me to rights in a number of ways.'

If he wanted me to ask what sorts of ways, I would not do so, for I was trying to compose my own thoughts.

'I find I have a taste again for writing,' said Bowman, 'and I mean the proper stuff, or at least the longer stuff. I might go back to my novel, or try my hand at another.'

Silence except for the glass and the knife.

'It was an African adventure,' said Bowman. 'Rather in the Rider Haggard line.'

Another pause.

'It came like winking - I'm sure I'll be able to place it if I give another push.'

'Have you been to Africa?' I said

'Not literally,' said Bowman, turning to the window once Again. He rubbed his eyes, as if trying to start them working. 'One place I have been is Scotland, so perhaps I'll get up a Highland story.'

The waiter was approaching, having given up on the knife and the glass.

'An advantage of novel-writing,' said Bowman, 'is that it can be carried on anywhere - in any circumstances, I mean.'

'I must write up a report,' I began, 'and of course -'

The waiter was presenting the bill to Bowman, who squinted at it for a while.

'I'll stand you this,' he said, taking out his pocket book.

'I won't hear of it,' I said. 'How much?'

'The total is one pound nineteen shillings.'

I took out my pocket book with a feeling of fear. But before I put my hand into it, the waiter had been paid by Bowman and had left - which queered things still further between my companion and me.

'You were saying about your report?' said Bowman.

I sat back.

'Small David cannot be on this train, can he?'

Bowman frowned. I did not wait for his answer, but stood up, saying, 'I mean to go and take a look.'

'But you have no ticket, Jim. Let me buy you a sleeping berth.'

Evidently, Bowman had gone north with plenty of gold about him, which was only sensible in the circumstances.

'The warrant card will just have to serve,' I said. 'You turn in now.'

I stood up. Bowman did the same, and we shook hands.

'You must make out your report, Jim,' he said. 'I will answer for anything I've done wrong, which is a good deal, I know.'

I almost walked to York, considering that I was back and forth along the dark corridors of that train many times before arrival. Small David was not aboard, as far as I could tell with most of the compartment blinds drawn down. He could not have been - he'd have had to have ridden the slow plough with us in order to make the connection for Inverness at Helmsdale.