Murder At Deviation Junction

Chapter Thirty-five

On Christmas Eve morning, Harry was up at half past five, setting a marker, I supposed, for the next day. I came downstairs at six in Peter Backhouse's funeral suit; the wife passed me a cup of cocoa and said, 'It fits to a tee.'

The suit was in fact blue. I had mentioned this to Backhouse over a pint in the Fortune of War, and he'd said, 'Don't say that. It's meant to be mourning black. I'll lose confidence at the funerals if I think it's blue.' But I wasn't over-concerned, since Peter Backhouse didn't have any confidence to begin with.

After breakfast, I opened the front door, and was fairly blinded by the whiteness. The sight of all the new-fallen snow made Harry break out into a kind of hopscotch in the warmth of the kitchen. On the doorstep, the wife passed me my topcoat, which she'd given a good brushing. She then gave me a special kiss of the sort normally reserved for late evening and handed me my bicycle clips.

'Buy a paper at the station bookstall, our Jim,' she said. 'One of the cleverer sort, you know. Then go into the interview with it under your arm.'

'To create the illusion of intelligence, you mean.'

'No, Jim, you are intelligent.'

I put on the bike clips.

'Please try to remember that, Jim,' said the wife.

I went down the side alley, where the Humber was covered by a tarpaulin against the shocking weather. As I walked it along the front path, the wife called, 'And if you get the promotion . . . I'll think on about the boots.' Harry stood behind her, grinning fit to bust, just as though he knew exactly what she meant.

The six wide fields were all piled with a smooth whiteness like well-made beds. I made the bicycle stand at York station after twenty minutes; I then stood there for a further three, blowing on my hands to make them work again. As I blew, I thought of Captain W. R. Fairclough, formerly of the 5th Lancers. Under this gentleman, whose acquaintance I would be making very shortly, the North Eastern Railway Police had grown from sixty-seven men of all ranks to three hundred and forty-two. He was all plans, and I'd been made privy to what was surely the strangest of them by Shillito; or at least, that seemed to be the case, but I could not quite dismiss the thought that it was all a great jape designed to pay me out for hitting him.

I had brought the papers along with me. They were in the side pocket of my topcoat as I approached the bookstall, where I bought both the Manchester Guardian and The Times. Brainpower in journalism did not come cheap, I decided as I handed over the coin, but having learnt that I would be keeping my job, and that there would be another payday after all, I'd been a little freer with the loose change I had remaining. I stuffed the papers into my pocket, and walked over to the police office, where Wright and Constable Baker were the only men about.

Wright turned towards me and gave me my wages: three pounds and seven for the past week, and a pound Christmas bonus. I was so relieved to be in funds that I almost tipped him - almost went back to the bookstall for another clever paper as well. Wright also handed me a telegram along with the wage packet. It came folded, so I didn't read it just then, but walked over the footbridge to take the train for Whitby, where I would, as usual, change for Middlesbrough. Wright had been civil enough, but he'd barely looked at me as he'd given over the wages and telegram. He'd lost interest in me now that I was no longer in bother with my superiors.

As I crossed the footbridge, the telegraph lad came bounding along.

'Morning, squire!' he shouted.

'What are you doing here?' I said. 'It's Christmas, en't it?'

'It is for some,' he said. 'You had a wire from London, you know. Come in just now.'

'I've got it, thanks,' I said.

The message had evidently come first into the main telegraph office rather than the police office - but that was often the way.

There were many distractions on the Whitby train, and they took my mind off the wire in my pocket. There were more kids about than usual and the adults were a sight livelier than on any normal day. It was Friday and it was Christmas Eve - as a combination it was nigh-on unbeatable.

All the corridors were blocked by giant trunks and going-away portmanteaus and brown paper parcels, and it took me a good ten minutes to find a seat. When I sat down I took the newspapers out of my pocket: 'To-Day's Speeches,' I read on the front page of The Times. I then put my hand in my pocket to get out the telegram, but it wasn't there. I hunted through all my pockets, under the wondering eyes of every person in the compartment, but it was nowhere to be found. I had somehow mislaid it.

It could only have been from Steve Bowman, for he was about the only man I knew in London. I didn't want him waking up the whole case of the Travelling Club now that I'd seen my way clear to dropping it, but it was not in his interests to do that. I then remembered that he still didn't know I'd dropped it. As far as he was concerned, he had a gaol term in prospect, and no doubt the telegram had been expressing anxiety on that score, and looking out for my answer.

I would try to reach him by telephone before the day's end. There was no sense leaving him stewing all over Christmas.

I couldn't quite get on with the clever newspapers, and so passed the rest of the journey looking at the white landscape beyond the window, and reading again over the papers given me by Shillito, which seemed no less weird now than they had at first sight in the Punch Bowl tavern.