The Edge

Chapter Seventeen

Emil said there was enough champagne for everyone to have half a glass more, so he and I went around pouring while Oliver and Cathy cleared the hors-d'oeuvre plates, straightened the cloths and began setting the places for the banquet.

I glanced very briefly at Filmer. He looked exceeding pale, with sweat on his forehead. One hand, lying on the tablecloth, was tightly clenched. Beside him, the Redi-Hots were enthusing over Zak who was standing beside their table agreeing that Pierre was a redeemable character who would make good. Zak gave me a smile and stepped to one side to let me fill the Redi-Hots' glasses.

Filmer said, in a harsh croaking voice, 'Where did you get that story?'

As if accepting a compliment, Zak answered, 'Made it up.'

'You must have got it from somewhere.' He was positive, and angry. The Redi-Hots looked at him in surprise.

'I always make them up,' Zak said lightly. 'Why… didn't you enjoy it?'

'Champagne, sir?' I said to Filmer. I'd grown very bold, I thought.

Filmer didn't hear. Mrs Redi-Hots passed me his glass which I replenished. She passed it back. He didn't notice.

'I thought it a great story,' she said. 'What a wicked revolting murderer. And he was so nice all along…'

I stepped around with Zak with a glimmer of eye contact in which I gave him my devout thanks for his discretion, and he accepted them with amusement.

At the next table Rose Young was protesting to Cumber that it had to have been a coincidence about committing suicide after getting rid of your best horse… and Ezra had sold his horse, she said, not given it away because he was being blackmailed.

'How do we know he wasn't?' Cumber demanded.

The Unwins were listening open-mouthed. I filled all their glasses quietly, unnoticed in their general preoccupation.

'Who now has Ezra's horses, that's what I want to know,' Cumber said truculently. 'And it'll be easy enough to find out.' He spoke loudly: loudly enough, I thought, for Filmer to hear him, if he were listening.

Emil had beaten me to it with the Lorrimores, but they made a remarkable picture. Mercer's forearms rested on the table as he sat with his head bowed. Bambi, a glitter of tears in the frosty eyes, stretched out a hand, closed it over one of Mercer's fists, and stroked his knuckles with comforting affection. Xanthe was saying anxiously, 'What's the matter with everybody?' and Sheridan looked blank. Not supercilious, not arrogant, not even alarmed: a wiped blank slate.

There were a good many people in the aisle, not only the service crew but also the actors who, still in character, were finishing off the drama in the ways they felt happy with: Walter and Mavis, for instance, agreeing that Pierre had saved Donna's life and couldn't be all bad, and maybe he would marry Donna… if he stopped gambling.

Threading his way through all this came the sleeping-car attendant on his way to do the bunks in the dome car. He nodded to me with a smile as he passed, and I nodded back: and I thought that my main problem would probably be that the play had been all too successful, and that the people most upset by it wouldn't stay sitting down for dinner.

I wandered back to the kitchen where Angus's octopus act was reaching new heights and hoped especially that Filmer's physical reactions wouldn't get him restlessly to his feet and force him to leave.

He didn't move. The rigidity in his body very slowly relaxed. The impact of the play seemed to be lessening, and perhaps he really believed that Zak had made it all up.

I set the two tables nearest to the kitchen: automatically folded the napkins and arranged knives and forks. The sleeping-car attendant came back eventually from the dome car, and I left my place settings unfinished and followed him.

'Are you sure?' he asked over his shoulder. 'They seem pretty busy in the dining car.'

'It's a good time,' I assured him. 'Fifteen minutes to dinner. How about if I start from this end, then I'll just stop and go back if I feel guilty.'

'Right,' he said. 'Do you remember how to fold the chairs?'

He knocked on Filmer's door.

'The people are all along in the dining car, but knock first just in case,' he said.

'OK.'

We went into Filmer's room.

'Fold the chair while I'm here, so I can help if you need it.'

'OK.' '

I folded, a shade slowly, Julius Apollo's armchair. The sleeping-car attendant gave me a pat on the shoulder and left, saying he would start from the far end, as he usually did, and we might meet in the middle.

'And thanks a lot,' he said.

I waved a hand. The thanks, did he but know it, were all mine. I left the door open and pulled Filmer's bed down into the night position, smoothing the bottom sheet, folding down a corner of the top sheet, as I'd been shown.

I groped into Filmer's wardrobe space, gripped the black crocodile briefcase and rested it on the bed.

Zero-four-nine. One-five-one.

My fingers trembled with the compulsion for speed.

I aligned the little wheels, fumbling where I needed precision. Zero-four-nine… press the catch. Click!

One-five-one. Press the catch. Click! The latches were open.

I laid the case flat on the bottom sheet, pushing the upper sheet back a little to accommodate it, and I lifted the lid. Heart thumping, breathing stopped.

The first thing inside was Filmer's passport. I looked at it briefly and then more closely, getting my suspended breath back in a jerky sort of silent laugh. The number of Filmer's passport was H049151. Hooray for the Brigadier.

I laid the passport on the bed, and looked through the other papers without removing them or changing their order. They were mainly a boring lot: all the bumf about the train trip, a few newspaper pages about the races, then a newspaper cutting from a Cambridge local paper about the building of a new library in one of the colleges, thanks to the generosity of Canadian philanthropist Mercer P. Lorrimore.

My God, I thought.

Beneath the clipping was a letter-a photocopy of a letter. I read it at breakneck speed, feeling danger creep up my spine, feeling my skin flood with heat.

It was short. Typewritten. There was no address at the top, no date, no salutation and no signature. It said:

As requested I examined the cadavers of the seven cats found pegged out, eviscerated and beheaded in the College gardens. I can find nothing except for wilful wickedness. These were not cult killings, in my opinion. The cats were killed over a period of perhaps three weeks, the last one yesterday. Each one, except the last, had been hidden under leaves, and had been attacked after death by insects and scavengers. They were all alive when they were pegged out, and during evisceration. Most, if not all, were alive at decapitation. I have disposed of the remains, as you asked.

I could see my hand trembling. I tipped up the next few sheets of paper which were reports from stockbrokers, and then, at the very bottom, I came across a small yellow memo sticking to a foolscap-sized paper headed CONVEYANCE.

The memo said, 'You will have to sign this, not Ivor Horfitz, but I think we can keep it quiet.'

I looked a shade blankly at the legal words on the deed: '… all that parcel of land known as SF 90155 on the west side of…' and heard the sleeping-car attendant's voice coming nearer along the corridor.

'Tommy… where are you?'

I flicked the case shut and pushed it under the bed's top sheet. The passport was still in view. I shoved it under the pillow, walked out of the door hastily and closed it behind me.

'You've been ages in there,' he said, but tolerantly. 'Couldn't you undo the bed?'

'Managed it finally,' I said, dry mouthed.

'Right. Well, I didn't give you any chocolates.' He handed me a box of big silver-wrapped bonbons. 'Put one on each pillow.'

'Yes, 'I said.

'Are you all right?' he asked curiously.

'Oh, yes. It was hot in the dining car.'

'True.' He went back towards his end of the car, unsuspicious. Heart still thumping I returned to Filmer's room, retrieved his passport from under the pillow, replaced it in the briefcase, shut the locks, twirled the combination wheels, realized I hadn't noticed where they'd been set when I came in, hoped to hell that Filmer didn't set them deliberately, put the case back as I'd found it, straightened the bed and put the chocolate tidily where it belonged.

I went out of the room, closed the door and walked two paces towards the next door along.

'Hey, you,' Filmer's voice said angrily from close behind me. 'What were you doing in there?'

I turned. Looked innocent… felt stunned.

'Making your bed ready for the night, sir.'

'Oh.' He shrugged, accepting it.

I held the box of sweets towards him. 'Would you like an extra chocolate, sir?'

'No, I wouldn't,' he said, and went abruptly into his bedroom.

I felt weak. I waited for him to come out exploding that I'd meddled with his belongings.

Nothing… nothing… happened.

I went into the room next door, folded the armchairs, lowered both beds, turned back the sheets, delivered the sweets. All automatic, with a feeling of total unreality. I'd twice come too close to discovery. I had no great taste, I found, for the risks of a spy.

I was disturbed, in a way, by my pusillanimity. I supposed I'd never thought much about courage: had taken it for granted… physical courage, or physical endurance, anyway. I'd been in hard places in the past, but these risks were different and more difficult, at least for me.

I did the third bedroom, by which time the sleeping-car attendant, much faster, had almost finished the rest.

'Thanks a lot,' he said cheerfully. 'Appreciate it.'

'Any time.'

'Did you do your scene?' he asked.

I nodded. 'It went fine.'

Filmer came out of his room and called, 'Hey, you.'

The sleeping-car attendant went towards him. 'Yes, sir?'

Filmer spoke to him, his voice obliterated, as far as I was concerned, by rail noise, and went back into his room.

'He's not feeling well,' the sleeping-car attendant reported, going back towards his own roomette. 'He asked for something to settle his stomach.'

'Do you have things like that?'

'Antacids, sure. A few simple things.'

I left him to his mission and went back to the dining car, where Emil greeted me with raised eyebrows and thrust into my hands a trayful of small plates, each bearing a square of pâté de fóie gras with a thin slice of black truffle on top.

'We missed you. You're needed,' Emil said. 'The crackers for the pate are on the tables.'

'Right.'

I went ahead with the delivery, going to the Redi-Hots' table first. I asked Mrs Redi-Hot if Mr Filmer would be coming back: should we put his pate in his place?

She looked a little bewildered. 'He didn't say if he was coming back. He went out in a hurry… he trampled on my feet.'

'Leave the pate,' Mr Redi-Hot said. 'If he doesn't come back, I'll eat it.'

With a smile I put some pate in Filmer's place and went on to the Youngs' table, where Cumber had stopped talking about Ezra Gideon but looked dour and preoccupied. Rose received her pate with a smile and made attempts not to let Cumber's moroseness spoil the occasion for the Unwins.

Cathy had taken pate to the Lorrimores who sat in glum silence except for Xanthe who could be heard saying exasperatedly, 'This is supposed to be a party, for God's sakes.'

For the rest of the passengers, that was true. The faces were bright, the smiles came easily, the euphoria of the whole journey bonded them in pleasure. It was the last night on the train and they were determined to make it a good one.

Nell was moving down the aisle handing out mementos: silver bracelets made of tiny gleaming railway carriages for the women, onyx paperweights set with miniature engines for the men. Charming gifts, received with delight. Xanthe clipped on her bracelet immediately and forgot to look sullen.

Emil and I collected the wrapping-paper debris. 'Miss Richmond might have waited until after dinner,' Emil said.

We served and cleared the rest of the banquet: a salad of sliced yellow tomatoes and fresh basil, a scoop of champagne sorbet, rare roast rib of beef with julienned vegetables and finally apple snowballs appearing to float on raspberry puree. About six people, including Rose Young, asked how to make the apple snowballs, so I enquired of Angus

He was looking languid and exhausted, but obliging. 'Tell them it's sieved apple puree, sugar, whipped cream, whipped white of egg. Combine at the last minute. Very simple '

'Delicious,' Rose said, when I relayed the information. 'Do bring out the chef for us to congratulate him '

Emil brought out and introduced Angus to prolonged applause. Simone sulked determinedly in the kitchen. Rose Young said they should all thank the rest of the dining-car crew who had worked so hard throughout. Everyone clapped, all most affecting.

Xanthe clapped, I noticed. I had great hopes for Xanthe.

I managed to stop beside Nell's ear.

'Xanthe's longing to have a good time,' I said. 'Couldn't you rescue her^?'

'What's the matter with the others'' she asked, frowning.

'Xanthe might tell you, if she knows.'

Nell flashed me an acutely perceptive glance. 'And you want me to tell you?'

'Yes, please, since you ask '

'One day you'll explain all this '

'One day soon.'

I went back to the kitchen with the others to tackle the mountainous dishwashing and to eat anything left over, which wasn't much. Angus produced a bottle of Scotch from a cupboard and drank from it deeply without troubling a glass. Apart from Simone, who had disappeared altogether, there was very good feeling in the kitchen. I wouldn't have missed it, I thought, for a fieldful of mushrooms.

When everything was scoured, polished and put away, we left Angus unbelievably beginning to make breads for breakfast. I stood in the lobby for a while, watching the dining-car slowly clear as everyone drifted off to the dome car lounge for laughter and music. The Lorrimores had all gone, and so had Nell and the Unwins and the Youngs Out of habit I began to collect, with Oliver, the used napkins and tablecloths, ready to put out clean ones for breakfast, and presently Nell came back and sat down wearily where I was working.

'For what it's worth,' she said, 'Xanthe doesn't know what has thrown her parents into such a tizzy She says it can't have been something Mr Filmer said in the lounge before cocktails because it sounded so silly.'

'Did she tell you what he said?'

Nell nodded 'Xanthe said Mr Filmer asked her father if he would let him have Voting Right, and her father said he wouldn't part with the horse for anything, and they were both smiling, Xanthe said Then Mr Filmer, still smiling, said, "We'll have to have a little talk about cats " And that was all Mr Filmer went into the dining car Xanthe said she asked her father what Mr Filmer meant, and he said, "Don't bother me, darling. "'

Nell shook his head in puzzlement. 'So anyway, Xanthe is now having a good time in the dome-car lounge and the rest of the family have gone off into their own car, and I'm deadly tired, if you want to know '

'Go to bed, then '

The actors are all along in the lounge having their photos taken,' she said, dismissing my suggestion as frivolous. 'They came up trumps tonight, didn't they?'

'Brilliant,' I said

'Someone was asking Zak who had tried to kidnap which horse at Toronto station '

'What did he say?' I asked, amused. It was the loosest of the loose ends.

'He said it had seemed a good idea at the time ' She laughed. 'He said they'd had to change the script because the actor who was supposed to play the part of the kidnapper had broken his arm and couldn't appear. Everyone seemed to be satisfied. They're all very happy with the way it ended. People are kissing Donna and Mavis. Mavis is wearing the jewels.' She yawned and reflected. 'Mr Filmer didn't have any dinner, did he? Perhaps I'd better go and see if he's all right.'

I dissuaded her. Antacids were taking care of it, I said. What one could give a man for a sick soul was another matter.

From this point of view, he had made his move a fraction too early, I thought. If he hadn't already made the threat, the play wouldn't have had such a cataclysmic effect either on him or on Mercer. Mercer might have been warned, as I'd intended, might have been made to think: but I couldn't have foreseen that it would happen the way it had, even though Filmer's smirk and Mercer's gloom had made me wonder. Just as well, perhaps, that I hadn't known about the cats when I invented the theft of the jewels. I might have been terribly tempted to hit even closer to home. Tortured horses, perhaps?

'What are you hatching now?' Nell demanded. 'You've got that distant look.'

'I haven't done a thing,' I said.

'I'm not so sure.' She stood up. She was wearing, in honour of the banquet, a boat-necked black blouse above the full black skirt, a pearl choker round her neck. Her fair hair was held back high in a comb, but not plaited, falling instead in informal curls. I thought with unnerving intensity that I didn't want to lose her, that for me it was no longer a game. I had known her for a week and a day. Reason said it wasn't long enough. Instinct said it was.

'Where are you staying in Vancouver?' I asked.

'At the Four Seasons Hotel, with all the passengers.'

She gave me a small smile and went off towards the action. Oliver had finished clearing the cloths and was laying clean ones, to leave the place looking tidy, he said. I left him to finish and made up my way up the train to talk to George Burley, passing Filmer's closed door on the way.

The sleeping-car attendant was sitting in his roomette with the door open. I poked my head in and asked how the passenger was, who'd asked for the antacid.

'He went up the train a while ago, and came back. He didn't say anything, just walked past. He must be all right, I guess.'

I nodded and went on, and came to George sitting at his table with his endless forms.

'Come in,' he invited, and I took my accustomed seat. 'I showed that photo,' he said. 'Is that what you want to know about?'

'Yes.'

'He's definitely on the train. Name of Johnson, according to the passenger list. He has a roomette right forward, and he stays in it most of the time. He eats in the forward dome-car dining room, but only dinner, eh? He was in there just now when I went up to the engine, but he'd gone when I came back. A fast eater, they say. Never goes for breakfast or lunch. Never talks to anyone, eh?'

'I don't like it,' I said.

George chuckled. 'Wait till you hear the worst.'

'What's the worst?'

'My assistant conductor-he's one of the sleeping-car attendants up front-he says he's seen him before, eh?'

'Seen him where?'

George watched me for effect. 'On the railways.'

'On the-do you mean he's a railwayman?'

'He can't be sure. He says he looks like a baggage handler he once worked with on the Toronto to Montreal sector, long time ago. Fifteen years ago. Twenty. Says if it's him, he had a chip on his shoulder all the time, no one liked him. He could be violent. You didn't cross him. Might not be him, though. He's older. And he doesn't remember the name Johnson, though I suppose it's forgettable, it's common enough.'

'Would a baggage handler,' I said slowly, 'know how to drain a fuel tank… and uncouple the Lorrimores' car?'

George's eyes gleamed with pleasure. 'The baggage handlers travel on the trains, eh? They're not fools. They take on small bits of freight at the stops and see the right stuff gets off. If you live around trains, you get to know how they work.'

'Is there a baggage handler on this train? '

'You bet your life. He's not always in the baggage car, not when we're going along. He eats, eh? He's always there in the stations, unlocking the doors. This one's not the best we've got, mind. A bit old, a bit fat.' He chuckled. 'He said he'd never seen this man Johnson, but then he's always worked Vancouver to Banff, never Toronto to Montreal.'

'Has the baggage handler or your assistant talked to Johnson?'

'My assistant conductor says the only person Johnson talks to is one of the owners who raps on Johnson's door when he goes along to see his horse. He went up there this evening not long ago, and they had some sort of row in the corridor outside my assistant's roomette.'

'George! Did your assistant hear what it was about?'

'Important, is it?' George said, beaming.

'Could be, very.'

'Well, he didn't.' He shook his head regretfully. 'He said he thought the owner told Johnson not to do something Johnson wanted to. They were shouting, he said, but he didn't really listen, eh? He wasn't interested. Anyway, the owner came back down here, he said, and he heard Johnson say, "I'll do what I frigging like, " very loudly, but he doesn't think the owner heard, as he'd gone by then.'

'That's not much help,' I said.

'It's easier to start a train going downhill than to stop it, eh?'

'Mm.'

'It's the best I can do for you.'

'Well,' I said. 'We do know he's on the train, and we know his name may or may not be Johnson, and we know he may or may not be a railwayman, and I know for certain he has a violent personality. It sounds as if he's still planning something and we don't know what. I suppose you are certain he can't get past the dragon-lady?'

'Nothing is certain.'

'How about if you asked the baggage handler to sit in with her, with the horses.'

He put his head on one side. 'If you think she'd stand for it?'

'Tell her it's to keep the horses safe, which it is.'

He chuckled. 'Don't see why not.' He looked at his watch. 'Sicamous is coming up. I'll go up there outside, when we stop. Three or five minutes there. Then it'll be time to put the clocks back an hour. Did your Miss Richmond remember to tell everyone?'

'Yes. They're all on Pacific time already, I think. Getting on for midnight.'

We had stopped towards the end of dinner in a small place called Revelstoke for half an hour for all the cars to be refilled with water. At Kamloops, a far larger town, we would stop at two in the morning very briefly. Then it was North Bend at five-forty, then the last stretch to Vancouver, arriving at five past ten on Sunday morning, a week from the day we set off.

We slowed towards Sicamous while I was still with George.

'After here, though you won't see it,' he said, 'we follow the shoreline of Shuswap Lake. The train goes slowly.'

'It hasn't exactly been whizzing along through the Rockies.'

He nodded benignly. 'We go at thirty, thirty-five miles an hour. Fast enough, eh? Uphill, downhill, round hairpin bends. There are more mountains ahead.'

He swung down on to the ground when the train stopped and crunched off forwards to arrange things with the baggage handler.

It was snowing outside: big dry flakes settling on others that had already fallen, harbingers of deep winter. The trains almost always went through, George had said.

I thought I might as well see how the revelries were going but it seemed that, unlike after the Winnipeg race, most people were feeling the long evening was dying. The lounge in the dome car was only half full. The observation deck was scarcely populated. The poker school, in shirtsleeves, were counting their money. The actors had vanished. Nell was walking towards me with Xanthe whom she was seeing safely to bed in the upper bunk behind the felt curtains.

'Good night,' Nell said softly.

'Sleep well,' I replied.

'Good night,' Xanthe said.

I smiled. 'Good night.'

I watched them go along the corridor beside the bar. Nell turned round, hesitated, and waved. Xanthe turned also, and waved. I waved back.

Gentle was the word, I thought. Go gentle into this good night… No, no! It should be, 'Do not go gentle into that good night.' Odd how poets' words stuck in one's head. Dylan Thomas, wasn't it? Do not go gentle into that good night… because that good night was death.

The train was slowly going to sleep.

There would be precious little peace, I thought, in the minds of the Lorrimores, father, mother and son. Little peace also in Filmer who would know now from Johnson that the departure of Lenny Higgs had robbed him of the lever to be used against Daffodil; who could have doubts at the very least about Mercer's future reactions; who would know that Cumber Young would find out soon who had taken Ezra Gideon's horses; who would realize he was riding a flood tide of contempt. I wished him more than an upset stomach. I wished him remorse, which was the last thing he would feel.

I wandered back through the train past George's office, which was empty, and stretched out in my own room on the bed, still dressed, with the door open and the light on, meaning just to rest but stay awake: and not surprisingly I went straight to sleep.

I awoke to the sound of someone calling 'George… George…' Woke with a start and looked at my watch. I hadn't slept long, not more than ten minutes, but in that time the train had stopped.

That message got me off the bed in a hurry. The train should have been moving; there was no stop scheduled for almost an hour. I went out into the passage and found an elderly man in a VIA grey suit like George's peering into the office. The elderly man looked at my uniform and said urgently, 'Where's George?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'What's the matter?'

'We've got a hot box.' He was deeply worried. 'George must radio to the despatcher to stop the Canadian.'

Not again, I thought wildly. I went into George's office, following the VIA Rail man who said he was the assistant conductor, George's deputy.

'Can't you use the radio?' I said.

'The Conductor does it.'

The assistant conductor was foremost a sleeping-car attendant, I supposed. I thought I might see if I could raise someone myself, as George would have already tuned in the frequency, but when I pressed the transmit switch, nothing happened at all, not even a click, and then I could see why it wouldn't work… the radio was soaking wet.

There was an empty coffee cup beside it.

With immense alarm, I said to George's assistant, 'What's a hot box?'

'A hot axle, of course,' he said. 'A journal-box that holds the axle. It's under the horse car, and it's glowing dark red. We can't go on until it cools down and we put more oil in.'

'How long does that take? '

'Too long. They're putting snow on it.' He began to understand about the radio. 'It's wet…'

'It won't work,' I said. Nor would the cellular telephone, not out in the mountains. 'How do we stop the Canadian? There must be ways, from before radio.'

'Yes, but…' He looked strained, the full enormity of the situation sinking in. 'You'll have to go back along the track and plant fusees.'

'Fusees?'

'Flares, of course. You're younger than me… you'll have to go… you'll be faster.'

He opened a cupboard in George's office and pulled out three objects, each about a foot in length, with a sharp metal spike at one end, the rest being tubular with granulations on the tip. They looked like oversized matches, which was roughly what they were.

'You strike them on any rough or hard surface,' he said. 'Like a rock, or the rails. They burn bright red… they burn for twenty minutes. You stick the spike… throw it… into the wooden ties, in the middle of the track. The driver of the Canadian will stop at once when he sees it.' His mind was going faster almost than his tongue. 'You'll have to go half a mile, it'll take the Canadian that much time to stop… Hurry, now… half a mile at least. And if the engineers are not in the cab…'

'What do you mean,' I asked aghast, 'if they're not in the cab?'

'They aren't always there. One of them regularly flushes out the boiler. the other could be in the bathroom… If they aren't there, if they haven't seen the fusees and the train isn't stopping, you must light another flare and throw it through the window into the cab. Then when they come back, they'll stop.'

I stared at him. That's impossible.'

'They'll be there, they'll see the flares. Go now. Hurry. But that's what you do if you have to. Throw one through the window.' He suddenly grabbed a fourth flare from the cupboard. 'You'd better take another one, just in case.'

'In case of what?' What else could there be? '

'In case of bears,' he said.