Murder At Deviation Junction (2 page)

    I
began trying to work my hands. I took the warrant from its envelope. Clegg -
that
was the footballer's name: Donald Clegg. Nickname 'Cruncher'. I felt
in my pocket for the photograph Shillito had given me. Middlesbrough Vulcan
Athletic played in a strip that made them look like a pack of playing cards:
shirts dark- coloured on one side, light on the other, and a crest over the
heart. Clegg, the biggest of the lot, stood in the centre of the back row.

    'You
there!' one of the blokes was calling to me from the bank.

    I
looked up.

    'Step
away!' he shouted.

    'I'm
looking for Clegg!' I called up, but he didn't hear. I held up the photograph
and my warrants.

    The
bloke was striding down the bank now, stepping over the flowing iron channels
as he came crosswise towards me.

    'Put
your boot in one of these and you'll know about it,' he said when he was level
with me. He wore a coat over his bare chest, as if he couldn't decide whether
it was hot or cold: and the queer thing was that, this close to the furnaces,
it was
both.

    'I'm
looking for Clegg,' I said, showing him the photograph.

    'Works
here; turns out for this lot Saturday afternoons. There's been a complaint of
assault made against him ...'

    'Clegg's
a bloody good player; marvellous at dribbling.'

    'What?'
I said.

    'Dribbling.
He's brilliant at it.'

    I
just looked at the bloke; I did not follow football.

    'I
know Clegg,' the bloke continued. 'He's a good lad.'

    'Well,
there's a man lying half-dead in the York Infirmary.'

    'Shamming,
I expect,' said the bloke.

    'Twenty
bloody stitches,' I said, 'and you call that shamming.'

    'An
artist, is young Clegg,' said the bloke. 'An artist and a
poet.''

    '"Cruncher"
Clegg, I believe they call him,' I said.

    The
bloke kept silence.

    'Where
does he work, mate?' I asked, and the bloke craned his head up towards the
over-world at the top of the furnaces, where tiny men moved silently along
gantries amid the snow. What was put into blast furnaces to make iron? I tried
to think. Ironstone, coke and ... something else. Limestone.

    I
joined the bloke in looking again at the high gantries. Had this been
Shillito's programme all along? To get me sent up there? But the bloke tipped
his head down again, his gaze now roving between the roaring sheds behind us.

    'You'll
find him over yonder,' he said.

    I
nodded thanks and turned on my heel.

    In
the heart of the shed, four men were pacing about in front of a strange and
mighty vessel. It looked like a forty-foot-high brick head that pivoted on its
own ears, these being formed of two mighty steel wheels held in place by giant
iron stays. As I approached, the head tipped upwards, as if to say, 'Who is
this come to visit?' And the men stepped back from it.

    A
bloke came at me from the darkness. 'Look out, mister,' he said, indicating
behind. I turned around and a huge ladle of molten iron was rattling towards
me, suspended from a moving crane. I tore my eyes away directly, for the sight
burnt them. I stood aside as the ladle passed. It was like a piece of the sun
put into a bucket, and it was approaching the great swivelling head, which was
turning again, ready to receive its drink of hot iron. This was steelmaking.

    The
roof had been cut away above the thing's head, and some snowflakes that fell
through the gap escaped melting, and swirled towards the watching blokes. I fixed
my eye on a particular one of the four: the tallest. His right hand was
bandaged. He was Clegg, I was sure of it, but the only light I had to go on was
that from the iron in the ladle, which had now stopped short of the blokes. It
swung in the cold wind that came through the open roof, making weird shadows.

    I
turned to the bloke who'd warned me of its coming.

    'Is
that fellow Clegg?' I said, pointing to the one I'd been eyeing.

    The
man's glance travelled from my warrant card to the four blokes. He said
nothing, but I could tell I'd hit the mark. I stepped over towards the blokes
and the head somersaulted so rapidly that I thought it might leave its
moorings. At that moment, the one behind called:

    'Look
out, Don - he's a copper!'

    I turned
about to see the man sprinting to the mouth of the shed. I started after him,
running hard over the hot cinders. At the shed mouth, the bloke turned left. I
did the same, and one of the red iron streams was right before me. I leapt it
and, in the middle of the air, saw another just where I was about to land. I
tried to make my leap into a dive, and cleared the second stream with inches to
spare. I rolled away from it and lay still for a moment, feeling its warmth all
along my left side. I stood up and looked across the territory of Ironopolis.
The men who worked in it were made tiny by the size of the blast furnaces; and
Clegg could have been any one of the hundreds of tiny blokes in view. I stood
up, and tried to brush the red dust off me. One false move in this bloody
place, and you were done for. I had no chance of running in an ironworker in
the ironmen's own stronghold. If Shillito wanted the job done, he could bloody
well ride the train north and do it himself.

    I
walked back towards the bloke who'd warned Clegg.

    'What's
your game?' I asked him.

    'You
could have been anyone, walking to him. He'd have jumped out of his skin if
he'd turned round to see you - and that's not safe in a spot like this.'

    He
looked me up and down

    '...big
fellow like you.'

    I was
half his size, and getting on for a quarter of his thickness.

    'It's
obstructing a police officer that's what.'

    'I
don't think so.'

    'Look,
I'm
telling
you. Don't make an argument of it or I'll run you in as
well.'

    'As
well as what?' he said, and a slow grin spread across his blackened face.

    Mastering
myself for the cold, I headed back towards the mouth of the mill, where
snowflakes were swooping about in confusion. I picked my way back through the
towers and smoking ore rivers of the iron district, presently hitting Vulcan
Road where once again things were human-sized: snow floating down on motor
cars, carts and traps; people pushing on grimly, heads down. This was the town
that iron had made. I saw a woman at some factory gates over opposite. She was
all folded in on herself, quite motionless under accumulating snow. She looked
like Lot's wife, and I thought: this party is frozen solid, I must
do
something - but as I approached, she lifted up her head and smiled, as though
it was quite a lark to be snow-coated.

    In the
middle of town, Queen's Square was a white ploughed field, the ruts made by the
cartwheels stretching away towards the railway station, where I saw the wife
waiting in her woollen cape and best winter hat. She held her basket with one
hand, and young Harry's hand with the other. She'd come up to Middlesbrough
with me, and she'd told me she would be at the station for the mid- afternoon
York train, should I be able to finish my business with Clegg earlier than
expected. (The plan had been for me to take him into the Middlesbrough Railway
Police office, for questioning and possible charge.)

    'It's
snowing, our dad!' young Harry bawled out, as soon as he saw me.

    Lydia
stooped down and said something to the boy - 'our dad' being a vulgar
expression he was forever being told not to use. I looked again at the wife's
hat, and I was glad to see that it was the same one as she'd been wearing that
morning. She'd come up to Middlesbrough because she'd fancied a look at the new
millinery department in the town Co-operative Store, and I'd been fretting that
she might have gone on a bit of a spree.

    'You've
got a bit frozen, Jim,' she said, when I walked up.

    Harry
asked, 'Where's tha bin, dad?' and Lydia corrected the boy: 'Where have you
been,
father
?' She was a kind of echo to Harry, who generally paid her
no mind at all.

    'I've
been to see a man about a dog,' I said.

    It
was something when your business was unmentionable to your own son.

    'We
had spice cake,' Harry said.

    'As if
your father couldn't guess,' said the wife, leaning down to brush a scattering
of crumbs off Harry's coat.

    'And
was it nice?'

    'It
was
expensive
,' he said.

    The
wife laughed, looking for my reaction as she did so. The topic of money had
been a delicate one between us of late.

    'And
what else did your mother tell you?'

    'Eh?'

    'To
keep your muffler up to your chin.'

    I
tried to make from his muffler and coat a seal against the snow. Then we turned
and made towards the station, which was a curious mix-up: made of about four
churches by the looks of it, with one great hump in the middle. Steam and smoke
leaked out from the seams and rose upwards.

    'You
didn't lay hands on the man then?' said the wife.

    'He
scarpered.'

    She
sighed.

    'He's
a footballer, isn't he?'

    'Aye,'
I said, 'amateur.'

    'And
you know which team he plays for?'

    'We
do.'

    'It's
pretty easy to track down football teams, you know. They're generally to be
found on football
pitches.''

    'His
lot dodge about a fair bit.'

    'Give
over. It's all league and cup, league and cup.'

    'There's
friendlies as well,' I said. 'That's where he split the goalie's skull - in a
friendly.'

    'It's
a queer town, is this,' said the wife as we walked on towards the station.
'There's red dust everywhere . .. especially on you.'

    She
lifted her hand up towards my bowler hat.

    'It's
iron,' I said. 'The air's full of iron. Puts most of the populace into an early
grave.'

    'I
like
it!' said Harry from behind.

    'Get
in?
Lydia called, stamping her boot, and holding open the booking office
door. But Harry had stopped in the snow for a good cough.

    'Connection's
gone,' Lydia said, shaking her head. That was her expression for when Harry was
off into his own world, which was a good deal of the time. She walked out into
the snow again, and fairly dragged him in through the station door, where the
air was a little warmer from the unseen engines waiting. He was a funny,
forward little lad, our Harry, but a very good speaker, considering he was just
two months short of his fourth birthday.

    Lydia
took from her basket the cough cure and spoon she'd carried with her to
Middlesbrough, and fed it to the boy amid the swirl and bustle of the ticket
hall - for now the evening rush was starting.

    We
found the Whitby train waiting on the main 'up' platform, and then .. . well,
Harry would have to have a look at the engine. He never missed. I led him along
to the front, and there stood an M1 Class 4-4-0. 'Outside steam chest - good
runner,' I said to Harry, although of course that went over his head. 'It's
eeeeenormous,' he said, which is what he almost always said. He then removed
his mitten, threw it down on to the snowy platform, and there in his palm was a
tiny tin engine.

    'I
got this today,' he said. 'I keep it in my hand.'

    'Where
did you get it from?'

    'Monster
lucky tub,' he said.

    'Which
shop?'

    'Don't
know.'

    'It's
a bobby-dazzler, that is,' I said.