Murder At Deviation Junction (11 page)

    I was
closely watched, as I crossed the threshold, by half a dozen blokes who all had
their backs to the bar. Three sat on high stools, three stood. They were
arranged somewhat like a football team posing for a photograph, and I reckoned
this was half of Middlesbrough Vulcan Athletic standing before me. But they
looked just as much like hospital patients as footballers: coats worn askew,
shirts buttoned up anyhow or not buttoned . . . and the giant in the centre
with the bandaged hand was Clegg.

    'Here's
trouble,' one of the men said, as I stepped over to the bar.

    None
moved as I fished in my pockets for gold, and for my warrant card. As I held up
the card, one of the blokes cut away from the bar, and he was off - out through
the front door. I watched him go. Well, I was a sneak and a spy, the enemy of
working men.

    I
asked for a pint, and the barman broke from the gang to serve me. He was
friendly enough, but my ale came in a glass where all the other blokes had
pewters.

    'Donald
Clegg,' I said to the centre forward, removing my bowler and holding up my
warrant card. 'There's a complaint of aggravated assault laid against you.'

    'Aggravated
now, is it?' He stood, and walked over to give me his right hand, which was the
one bandaged.

    'Go
easy,' he said, as I gave him my own.

    It
was not normal to shake hands with a man you were about to arrest.

    'How
did you come by that, Mr Clegg?' I asked him, and he was unwinding the
none-too-clean linen as I spoke. He showed me the wound, as the other blokes
drank on thoughtfully behind. The back of Clegg's wide hand was a black mass.

    'Boot
studs,' he said.
'Football-
boot studs. The knuckles are cracked n'all. I
was nearly bloody well stood down from work over it.'

    'Whose
boots, mate?' I enquired, but of course I knew the answer before he spoke.

    'Shillito's
fucking boots.'

    'Turns
out he's a copper,' said one of the blokes from the bar - he wore a beard,
whereas all the others had moustaches. You didn't reckon to see footballers
with beards.

    'If it
was Shillito came at you,' I said, 'why did you crown his mate?'

    Clegg
lifted his shirt: more blackness.

    'That
was courtesy of their number six. So I belted him with my left. If I'd used my
right, he'd have known about it.'

    'You've
put him in hospital any road,' I said.

    'Hospital?
Is he buggery!'

    'His
head had to be sewn.'

    'Don't
believe it.'

    'We'll
swear to what happened,' said the bearded player, 'every one of us.'

    'It'll
come to court,' said another, 'and it'll be the fixture all over again, only
with swearing in place of ball skills.'

    'That's
just about what it was before,' said beard, who gave me a grin as I took out my
notebook.

    'Shillito's
a cunt,' said one of the blokes.

    I
looked up, but couldn't make out which one had spoken. It wasn't Clegg.

    I
said, 'That's—'

    'That's
what?' put in beard.

    '—
That's as maybe.'

    A
sort of shimmer went through the football team. One of the blokes said, 'Stand
you another pint, mister?'

    I
nodded.

    'Won't
say no,' I said, and one of the tall stools was pushed my way.

    As
the pint was poured, I asked, 'Who was the bloke that just bolted?'

    It
was Clegg who answered.

    'Alf
Wood.'

    'Where's
he gone?'

    'Don't
know, mate,' said Clegg.

    I
nodded thanks as the second pint was passed over.

    'He
went just as soon as I held up my warrant card.'

    'Happen
he doesn't like warrant cards,' said the long-haired bloke.

    Clegg
was grinning. 'Never mind him,' he said. 'What about the business in hand?'

    I had
made up my mind not to take Clegg in. The situation did not call for immediate
arrest, and Shillito could go hang.

    'I'll
take statements,' I said, 'starting with you, Mr Clegg.'

    With
pint and notebook in hand, I removed to a table under the window and Clegg
followed me over. He sat down, and told me of the fight. He was about of an age
with me, and I liked him, and I believed his account. After Clegg, I took
statements from three other blokes, who wandered over one by one. Each man,
when speaking to me, was out of earshot of his confederates, and each said the
same, or as near as made no difference. As the third man spoke, i reasoned that
Shillito might want to make an end to this investigation, for it was becoming
obvious that he ought to be the one charged. I was just stowing away my
indelible pencil when the pub door opened, bringing a freezing wind, and sight
of the bloke who'd scarpered a minute earlier.

    'Hi!'
I shouted. 'I'd like a word, mate.'

    He
stood his ground this time, and one of the team said, 'You're all right, Alf.
He's white as they come, this lad.'

    Alf
Wood stepped into the Cape of Good Hope. Judging by the speed with which he'd
made off, he was certainly a vagabond - which might prove useful.

    'You'll
take a pint?' I asked him.

    He
nodded, and I called for the drink with a flash of anxiety at the amount I was
spending. If I made no arrest, Shillito would not permit me expenses. The
football group stood in a somewhat looser arrangement now, but they all watched
as one man as I turned towards Wood, saying, 'Would you mind answering a couple
of questions?'

    'Why
me?'

    'I
think you know this town.'

    'I
bloody don't.'

    'But
you've lived in it all your life?'

    Long
silence on this point.

    Presently,
Wood said, 'Two questions only?'

    'Aye.'

    'I'm
saying nowt about the business at Langton's place, mind.'

    'What's
Langton's place?' I said.

    Wood
looked at me for a space.

    'I'm
saying nowt about it.'

    'You've
one question left,' one of the football blokes called out to me.

    'Mr
Wood,' I said, 'have you heard of any operator in this town - any man who might
at some time last year have had away a good- quality camera?'

    'Camera?
What for?'

    'How
do you mean, "What for?" The camera was taken from a professional
photographer in a street robbery this time last year. It happened in Spring
Street near the railway station.'

    'Camera?'
Wood said, making a question of the word again. 'Never heard of any such
article being taken.'

    'Then
do you have any idea where a good camera might fetch up having
been
taken?'

    I was
nearer the mark with this, for one of the footballers said, 'You give him the
tip, Woody, and he'll do all right by us over the little bit of bother we had
in York.'

    He
didn't have this
quite
right, but I kept silence.

    'Let's
be right,' Wood said to me. 'I'll take you to a likely spot, but the bloke
there - he doesn't want any bother from you lot.'

    'I'm
after the camera,' I said, 'and that's all.'

    Wood
nodded, and fixed his cap back on his head.

    'We'll
take a walk then.'

    I
picked up my hat and notebook. Turning to Clegg and his mates, I said, 'I'll
show these statements to Detective Sergeant Shillito, but I'm going to recommend
the matter goes no further.'

    Clegg
nodded at me.

    'Obliged
to you, mate,' he said. I then turned and followed the little bloke, Woody,
into the street.

    Woody
pushed on ahead, red-faced from anger or shame at helping out a copper; or just
from the bitter cold. It was washday in Middlesbrough, and we moved under great
glowing white banners of towelling and sheets suspended across the streets.
Turning a corner in the half-light, I fancied that I saw two great snowflakes
swooping down towards us, but they were seagulls. We were on the edge of the
town centre, and rows of shops began to appear amid the red houses, but the
place that Woody found was something
between
a shop and a house. The
door was ajar; there were words painted on it that I did not have time to read,
because Woody pushed it open directly and then, saying something in an under-
breath, he was off down the street like greased bloody lightning.

    A man
in a dusty topcoat stood by a small fire looking thoughtfully at a great mix-up
of goods, as though he'd lately bought it as a job lot and was wondering
whether it had been a good investment. There were bits of bicycles,
gramophones, sticks of furniture, a tangle of overmantels, with the ornamental
items that might once have stood on them - and that might, but probably
wouldn't, do so again - tumbled into wooden boxes hard by. There were a lot of
clocks, some of which turned out to be barometers, and a whole corner was given
over to musical instruments,
including
half a dozen fiddles, one of
these being labelled 'violin' as though it was a cut above the others. I nodded
at the man, holding up my warrant card.

    'Detective
Stringer,' I said. 'Railway force.'

    The
man stood up straight.

    'You
wouldn't have taken delivery of a camera, I suppose, some time over the past
year?'

    The
man looked at his boots for a while, then up.

    'Hold
on,' he said, and turned on his heel. He disappeared into a back room, and
after a couple of minutes of scuffling and cursing, came back carrying a
camera.

    'That
was quick,' I said.

    'Don't
hang about when you lads come calling,' he said.

    He
wanted me off his premises, just like most of the folks I met in the course of
my work.

    He
handed it over to me. It was the same as the one that had dangled from Bowman's
shoulder, and the one that had been found in the brook near Peters's body: the
Mentor Reflex. But this time the changing box that held the exposures - or
might do - was fixed in place at the side. If the doings was all inside there .
. . that could only mean that this camera had not been stolen by people
interested in what Peters had photographed. It must, in that case, have been
taken by the common run of street thief, a man interested only in the value of
the camera. Why else would the camera have been brought to the man standing
before me?

    If
the exposures proved to be in place, the villains concerned in the
Middlesbrough theft must have been a different lot from the ones who did for
Peters at Stone Farm - that was my first thought, at any rate.

    'Have
you had this off, mate?' I asked the man, pointing to the changing box.

    He
shook his head.

    'And
I don't believe the bloke who brought it in had done either.'

    'Why
not?'

    'He
didn't look my idea of a whatsname - photographic artist.'

    'Who
was he?' 'Reckon I'd let on if I knew?'

    'Er,
no,' I said.

    'That's
just where you're wrong,' he said. 'I'm not bent, though you might think it
from the looks of this place. A bloke came in, sold me a stack of stuff for a
tanner. I took it sight unseen, granted. But that en't a crime now, is it?'

    'Would
you recognise the bloke again?'

    'Big
cap ... thick muffler ...' said the shopkeeper.

    'That's
narrowed it down to about thirty million.'

    'I
can't help that, mister,' he said.

    I
believed him, just as I'd believed Clegg and the men of Vulcan Athletic. They
seemed to be part of an honest network - or had they been guying me from start
to finish?