Murder At Deviation Junction (19 page)

    There
was an ambulance box in the cabinet. I took out the carbolic, and a roll of
bandage. As I splashed on the carbolic, I made a face at the sting.

    'Hurts,
does it?' said Albert, grinning. 'It's Christmas that brings it on, you know -
scrapping, I mean. You should be here after hours on party nights. One minute
it's "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot", next thing they're
braining each other with iron bars down in the siding.'

    'I
can't believe the Reading Circle acts like that,' I said.

    'Them?'
Albert replied. 'They're the worst of the bloody lot.'

    'I'm
off to the Women's Co-operative Guild annual beano,' I said.

    'You'll
need a drink,' said Albert. '
Two
drinks - you're never going in that
suit, are you?'

    'Why
not?'

    'Because
it looks like nothing on earth.'

    I did
not want to be reminded of that.

    I
asked Albert, 'Which floor are the riflemen on?'

    'Top,'
he said, taking another pull on his beer. 'Nice drop of punch they've got up
there.'

    I
climbed the four flights to the top, where the room was packed. The Chief's
team were in there, and the opposition. A shield was being passed around;
everyone looked very happy, but only one side could have won it. A red-faced
shootist came up to me, and said, 'We've finished top of the league table in
number one district - fourteen points!'

    I
moved away (for he looked minded to kiss me) and circled the room, keeping an
eye out for the Chief, and not knowing what I would say when I saw him. I'd
tell him about Pickering and how Moody had fled, and then about what had
happened in the office. I would give him my side of it, but what was my side of
it? I'd belted the man, and that was all about it. I'd had my reasons, but the
Chief knew those of old. I moved over to the tall windows. They looked down on
the Lost Luggage Office and the small siding that stood next to it. The snow
was streaming quickly on to both, as if to say, 'Let's get a load down while no
one's looking.' I knew a young fellow who'd worked in the Lost Luggage Office,
and met a bad end. I turned towards a better sight: the long table in front of
the window that held the big silver punchbowl. I pushed across to it and looked
inside - the stuff was orange, and there were many fruits floating in it of a
kind not normally seen in York.

    Somebody
passed me a glass - the stuff was, or had been, hot - and then I saw the Chief,
and so had to drink it. I downed the punch and things were different
straightaway, which was just as well.

    The
Chief held the shield in his arms, and was receiving congratulations from his
fellows, which meant that his lonely practice of the morning had paid off.

    The
Chief didn't seem surprised to see me, but then he was canned.

    'Can
you shoot straight?' he said, coming up to me.

    'Probably
not after drinking this stuff,' I said, showing him the empty glass.

    He
passed me another one.

    'You've
something to say to me,' he said, and it might have been a question or not.

    'I
went to Pickering to see a man connected to the Travelling Club,' I said, 'but
he made off while I waited in his house. Then, later on, there was a bit of
set-to with Shillito. It came to blows. Well, on my part.'

    The
Chief was giving me a queer look.

    'There's
been bad blood between the two of us, as you know sir, and-'

    He
continued with the queer look: he was making a decision - I could see him doing
it. He would ignore what I'd said.

    'Why
do you not shoot?' he said.

    It
took me a while to adjust, but I eventually said, 'I always think I'll end in
the army if I take it up.'

    'It's
not a bad place for a young lad to be,' said the Chief.

    I
began to say something, and he cut me off with 'When trouble comes, you must be
master of your rifle.'

    He
shot me the funny look again; then he gave me the road - moved off back into
the crowd.

    What
the hell had he meant? That Shillito would come after me with a gun, and that I
ought to be ready? That the Travelling Club business would end in bullets
fired? Or was he saying that, since I was done for as a copper, my only
remaining hope was to take the King's Shilling?

    I
would take another bloody drink, at any rate.

    The
Ebor Hall was packed and very brightly lit. I'd have felt a little dizzy
entering it even if I'd not had such a peculiar day and drunk the Rifle
League's brain-dusters.

    I
could not see the wife, but I could see her hand in almost everything. The
holly that hung from the gas mantles and all about the stage - that was her
doing; and the piano was not in its alcove but at the side of the stage - so
she'd managed to get that shifted. A lady was playing it, and ladies were in
fact doing everything, especially collecting up papers or passing out cups of
tea by the gross. I knew what was happening: the spelling bee had just come to
an end. Half the ladies were sitting on clusters of chairs under gas mantles
and half were moving about.
All
the ladies were talking, and it was all
to do with the Movement and its stores.

    'Have
you seen the new York store? Plate glass and electric light to show off the
loaves.'

    'There
are better things in the old store, I think.'

    'We
had a very nice visit to the warehouse ...'

    I caught
sight of one of the ladies looking at my suit and at my bandaged hand; she
turned to point me out to the woman sitting next to her, but she was talking
fourteen to the dozen with a third woman. I walked on through the hall; half
wanting to see the wife, half not. I could trust myself to speak; the only
trouble was that I was not as concerned about my appearance as I knew I ought
to be . . . and the only
other
problem was that my head seemed a long
way from my shoulders. As I looked about, the piano came to a stop, and that
somehow left me feeling as though every woman in the place was eyeing me, and
not in a way I would have liked; but in fact they were all now facing the
stage, where a very well-spoken woman was calling for quiet.

    She
was bonny-looking, though fifty years old at least. I liked the way her grey
hair set off her dark eyes. She was upper class, but a socialist - there were
more of that sort about than you might have thought, and they were given to
speech-making

    She
was making a speech now.

    'Co-operation
is not merely about buying goods at a community store, and then waiting for the
dividend . . .'

    'I
wonder if she takes cock?' said a man who was suddenly alongside me. He lurched
as I turned to look at him. He was a sight drunker than me, and had evidently
been given up as a bad job by whatever woman had brought him.

    'We
must apply our principles of co-operation to every aspect of our existence . .
.'

    'Your
missus in this show?' asked the drunk.

    I
nodded.

    'Mine
'n all. She knows the price of grate polish in every Co-op in Yorkshire, but I
say, "Buy the bloody grate polish;
clean
the bloody grate.'"

    Behind
him I saw another of the few men in the place, and after a moment of disbelief
I realised that it was Wright, the police- office clerk. He must have a wife
who was a Co-operator. He was coming up to me fast; and curious as usual.

    'What
the heck are you doing here?'

    Before
I could answer, he said, 'I've been hunting for you all afternoon. The man Bowman
from London - he's been -'

    But
the wife had stepped in between me and Wright, and was blocking him out.

    'Hello,
baby,' I said.

    She
sort of slid away, and the woman who'd made the speech had replaced her. She
was holding out her hand to me. In shaking hands, she had to touch the bloody
bandage.

    'Avril
Gregory-Gresham,' she was saying. 'Lydia's told me so much about you.'

    The
wife, slightly behind her now, close to Wright, was looking murder at me. It
made her look beautiful in a different way. But Mrs Gregory-Gresham didn't seem
quite so bothered about the state of me. She was more like Wright - a curious
type, and she frowned quite prettily as she said, 'You look rather -'

    'Pardon
my appearance,' I broke in; and it was as if a different man was speaking.
'I've been in a fight.'

    The
wife was still there; but I did not like to meet her eye. Mrs Gregory-Gresham
was frowning more deeply.

    'I am
a policeman,' I explained

    'Yes,'
she said, 'I know that,' and she was leaning towards me, not away, which was
good.

    'The
fight,' I said. 'It was much -'

    I
couldn't speak for a moment.

    'Much
of a
muchness
?' suggested Mrs Gregory-Gresham.

    I had
meant to say that what had happened had been much less bad than it looked or
sounded - or
something.

    'Are
you quite all right?' she said, and the fact of the matter was that she was
trying to help. 'Forgive me, but you do smell rather strongly of -'

    'Yes,'
I said quickly, 'carbolic.'

    'You
were arresting a wrongdoer?' she asked, and I at least had enough off to say,
'That's just it. I am investigating a murder.'

    'The
man you arrested was a
murderer
? But this is fascinating.'

    'The
business was
pursuant
to a murder,' I said, or that's what I'd meant to
say, but I'd never even tried to speak that word
sober,
so I suppose it
came out wrongly. As Mrs Gregory-Gresham looked on, I fished in my pocket for
the photograph of the Travelling Club. As it emerged, I saw that it had become
quite crumpled after the adventures of the day, and I thought of it as being
like the calling card of a man who travels in some goods that nobody much
wants.

    'Most
of these men are certainly dead,' I said, 'and so is the man who took this
picture. Nobody knows why.'

    Least
of all me, I thought.

    'You
think,' she said, taking the photograph, 'that one of them killed the others.'
'Yes,' I said,'- or that someone else did.'

    There
was quite a long pause, after which Mrs Gregory- Gresham asked:

    'What
is your surmise about the murderer?'

    'That
he did not want this picture seen, that he will stop at nothing ... that he is
not a member of the Co-operative Movement.'

    She
laughed at that, but only for a second.

    'But
I know this man,' she said.

    She
was indicating the
young
man.

    'Phoebe
- that's my daughter - she knew him at the University. They had a jolly at the
river; a day of . . . rowing, you know, and she introduced me to him.'

    'What's
his name?'

    'I
can't remember, but I know the face; oh, now I
know
it. He was from the
north,' she said in a rush, 'Middlesbrough way - and he'd won a prize for
speaking.'

    'Speaking
about what?'

    'Anything.
It's the hair that I recognise, and he was sweet on Phoebe, I distinctly had
that impression. I also think she was rather taken with him, although of course
she never let on.'

    A
long bar of silence; then the piano started up again, just as Avril
Gregory-Gresham said, 'His family had a place in Filey - on the Crescent, and
they would summer there. Well, we have a place there too, and Phoebe had been
in hopes of seeing him over the -'

    'Last
summer?' I put in.

    'Last
summer, yes.'

    'She
looked in the register every week. It's a ridiculous thing, but any fairly
well-to-do visitor is listed in the local paper there.'