Murder At Deviation Junction (15 page)

    'Arr
you having a plain tea or a meat tea?' I asked her, looking at the scale of
charges. 'A plain tea's half the price, but it is Christmas after all, so I
would hope you'd be having a meat tea.'

    'I
know perfectly well that you're trying to make me anxious,' she said, 'so I'm
ignoring you. I had a run-in with the manager of the hall today,' she ran on.
'A horrible man, and very well named: Hogg.'

    'A
row over what?'

    'As
you will see from their terms, no charge is made for use of the piano.'

    'I
don't see what there is to complain of in that,' I said, taking off my coat,
and sitting down in the rocking chair.

    'Today,
Mrs Appleyard, who is to play the piano on the evening, came in to test it. She
said it is out of tune to the extent of being quite unplayable. I passed on the
news to Hogg, who said, "Well, the instrument comes free," and
suggested that by discovering the fact of its being out of tune, we were, as he
put it, "looking a gift horse in the mouth". I told him that a piano
out of tune is worse than none at all, and would he pay for it to be tuned, or
at least split the cost of tuning. He said we must bear the cost entirely; that
the piano had been tuned only recently, but that the cold weather made it go
out. I told him that rather suggested that the room had not been kept properly
warmed.'

    'And
is that right?'

    'Don't
get me on the subject of the heating. It makes me absolutely livid. I will not discuss
it. . .'

    'The
heating,' the wife continued a couple of seconds later, when she was back at
the mirror, 'is provided by two radiators, which is not enough; and you can
quite clearly see where there used to be a third - just by the door.'

    'Do
you suppose they removed it just to spite you?'

    'I
brought this up with Hogg, and he said they'd had to remove that radiator in
order to fit the piano into its alcove. I said, "So we've lost a heat
source in order to accommodate a piano we can't play because of the
cold.'"

    'And
what did he say to that?'

    I was
standing now, lifting the net curtain to look across at the Fortune of War.

    'He
said nothing to it, but had the nerve to remind me that proceedings will be
stopped by the caretaker if there is any sign of damage to the fixtures and
fittings or other violent or disorderly behaviour. I said, "We are the
Women's Co-operative Guild - are we likely to behave in a violent or disorderly
way?" He said, "I don't know what you get up to, but there'd better
not be any rough stuff, that's all.'"

    When
she turned round, she was grinning.

    'How's
that?'

    'Beautiful,'
I said.

    'But
you are looking at my hair. It is the skirt that's new.'

    'Oh,'
I said, 'that's equally good. I was a bit thrown because you've spent the past
five minutes fixing your hair.'

    'I'm
only doing that to see how it sets off the skirt.' She glanced at me a little
guiltily as she added, 'It's part of a suit, but Lillian Backhouse is making
some adjustments to the jacket for me.'

    'You
bought it today?'

    'I
simply could not settle on an outfit... Look on it as an investment,' she ran
on. 'My post is not secure, you know. Some of the ladies on the committee would
be very happy to block the appointment if this party doesn't go like
clockwork.'

    'But
your wearing a new outfit won't make the party go any better,' I said.

    'It
will,' she said simply.

    She
was looking at the papers I'd put on the tabletop, and now she caught up the photograph
of the Travelling Club.

    'Who
are these men?' she said.

    'A
travelling club.'

    'They
look as if they do themselves pretty well,' she said.

    'Yes,'
I said, 'but they've very likely all been murdered -'

    'Oh
no,' said the wife, but whether this was in connection with the photograph, or
the sound of Harry's voice that came at that moment from the room above, I
wasn't sure.

    'I'll
go up to him,' I said.

    He
was sitting up in bed, just as though he'd woken from a good night's sleep. The
fire burned low in his bedroom grate - he had a fire in his bedroom for most of
the year, which was another expensive going-on.

    He
looked better, but coughed a little as I approached, so I gave him another
spoonful of compound linseed, which was the cure-all of the moment. After
taking it, he coughed some more, saying with a cackle, 'It must be working,
Dad.'

    He
had the fixed idea that cough medicine was meant to
make
you cough,
about which he was perhaps right. I tried to settle him on his pillows. Then
Lydia took his hot bottle, to top it up with boiling water in the kitchen, and
I looked at the window to make sure it was not iced. In cases of bronchitis, it
is recommended that windows be kept slightly open. The used-up air must be
removed.

    He
said, 'What's it like out on the moors, Dad?'

    'There's
been a great snow,' I said. 'The gales have blown it into huge mounds, and
conditions are very dangerous.'

    'Good,'
said Harry. 'How high are the mounds?'

    'About
as tall as four men - no, taller. Mountainous. Thirty feet, I should say,
getting on for.'

    'Thirty
feet - get away!' said Harry.

    'At
least,'
I said. 'Nearer forty.'

    'And
how are the trains going on?'

    I
thought of a phrase I had heard during my firing days.

    'Some
difficulty may be experienced in locomotion,' I said, and Harry liked that, I
could tell. He was pretty sleepy, and he'd drifted off again by the time I
turned down the night light and left the room. Back in the parlour, a supper of
pork pie, pickle and a cup of cocoa waited for me on the strong table. Lydia
was stirring the fire. 'You'll be coming straight from work tomorrow, will
you?' she asked.

    'Aye,'
I said.

    I was
required to show my face at the Co-operative women's party.

    'And
you will be in your good suit, won't you?'

    'I
will.' 'It starts at seven with a spelling bee,' she said, for the umpteenth
time.

    '. .
. and you mustn't take a drink beforehand,' she added.

    'I
know,' I said.

    'That's
because I'm going to introduce you to Mrs Gregory- Gresham.'

    'I
know,' I said.

    Mrs
Avril Gregory-Gresham was the head of the York Co-operative Women. She did not
drink.

    '. .
. and she might smell it on your breath.'

    'So you
keep saying, love,' I said, through a mouthful of pork pie.

    I was
contemplating again the photograph of the Travelling Club. The wife hadn't
thought it worth pursuing the question of whether or not they'd all been lately
and brutally murdered; or perhaps my reference to this likelihood had gone
clean out of her mind, what with the big party coming up. It suddenly struck me
that Detective Sergeant Williams had also shown very scant interest in it, all
things considered, not even asking to keep a negative. Everyone lived in their
own little world, and that was all about it.

    'The
thing about the spelling bee,' I said, rising to my feet having finished off
the pie and pickle, 'is that I'm actually a much better speller after a few
drinks. Three or four pints and I come into my own as an intellect -'

    'No,
Jim,' she said, 'you are
not
to.'

    I
picked up my coat, kissed her and said, 'I'm just off over to the Fortune. I
reckon it might be the night of the goose club share-out.'

    'But
we're not in the goose club.'

    'I
know,' I said.

    In
the pub, I saw Peter Backhouse, with a great heap of holly branches on the
table before him. His wife Lillian was the wife's best friend in the village.
Backhouse had a ridiculous quantity of children - about nine - and he avoided
them by practically living in the smoking room of the Fortune. Outside pub
opening hours, he was verger at St Andrew's and dug the graves. He was meant to
be distributing the holly about the village, but he'd never got beyond his first
drop, the Fortune of War, although he told me as I sat down that he
might
yet
deliver a load to his second drop, which happened
to be
the
other pub in the village, the Grey Mare.

    I
asked Backhouse the news, and he said that the boiler had bust in the church
school, causing the inkwells to freeze and a half-holiday to be given. But then
the vicar, who had wanted the school kept open, had spied Tom Barley, who was
the headmaster of the school, walking into the Fortune at two o'clock in the
afternoon. Backhouse reckoned there'd be bother over this, but I was thinking
of the dead men, and of Shillito, who I had to face the next morning. For the
second time, I had failed to arrest Clegg. There was going to be a row all
right, and a bigger one than that in prospect between the vicar and Tom Barley.

    In
the police office at nine the next morning, I was in the jakes draining off the
remains of the beer from the night before when there came a fearful pounding at
the door.

    'Get
a move on there!'

    It
was Shillito, just arrived in the office. In my agitation, I put the bung in
sooner than I ought to have, and consequently pissed a few drops down my leg as
I fastened up my fly. This annoyed me particularly, for I had on my good suit,
of best blue worsted with turned-up trousers. I was also wearing my stiffest
and deepest collar, which had been cricking my neck since seven in the morning.
It was all on account of the wife's party to come that evening.

    I
glanced in the glass before quitting the jakes. I looked respectable enough,
but I was no man for letting Shillito torment me. At any minute, he would want
to see my notebook, and hear my account of the second encounter with Clegg.

    When
I stepped back into the office from the jakes, Shillito was writing at his
desk, his big body all bundled up with the effort of it. With him in the
office, I could not ask Wright to telephone through to Bowman for me. I had
already tried to do so myself at eight-thirty, but the connection had been
lost, and I doubted that Bowman would have been in the office at that sort of
time in any case. Wright was saying, 'There ought to be a pound of tea maintained
at all times.'

    'Yes,
but who's to maintain it?' said Constable Crawford, who was lounging at the
mantelpiece, watching the fire smoke.

    'Whoever
finds the caddy short,' said Wright.

    'But
that's always me,' said Crawford. 'Whenever I go to make a pot of tea there's
none left, and I have to go to the stores for more, which sets me back a
tanner.'

    'If
you're the one who most often finds it empty,' said Constable Baker, who was
leaning against the wall near the open door that gave on to the Chief's room
(he wouldn't have been doing that if the Chief had been around), 'then that
proves you must drink the most.'

    'Let's
have this right,' said Crawford, looking up from the smoking fire. 'You're
saying that I never have the chance to drink tea on account of the large
quantity of tea that I drink?'

    'Yes,'
said Baker. 'That puts it very nicely. But in my view the tea ought to be paid
for out of the swear box.'

    The
two constables looked at Wright, who kept the swear box on his desk.

    He was
shaking his head, saying, 'I got the swear box up for the superannuation fund.'

    Shillito
looked up from his writing.

    'Will
you lot quit blathering and get down to some police work? Crawford,' he
continued, pointing, 'fettle that fire instead of gawping at it.'

    I
knew that he was about to start in on me next, but he only eyed me for a
moment, then rose smartly to his feet and stepped out of the door. Here was my
chance to telephone Bowman. But no, there was a telegram form in Shillito's hand,
which meant he'd only be gone for a moment. When Shillito wanted his business
kept secret, he'd go out into the station, and give the form directly to the
telegraph boy.