Murder At Deviation Junction (33 page)

    Beyond
the driver's shoulder, the snow was increasing; the shadows were moving and the
Highland ghosts were walking again. I looked at the fire, which was good and
even, then back at the heather, where a black shape was flowing over the hillside.
Could it be deer? The driver was leaning out, signalling to the bloke in the
plough. The shadow on the hillside was not flowing as I had thought; it was
moving in a rocking motion - on two legs only.

    The
driver was engaging forward gear.

    'All
set?' he said.

    He
was looking hard at the crocked fireman, who was now braced on the sandbox with
his one good hand grasping the cab- side hard. It was a sight too late, but
he'd learnt his lesson.

    I
stepped two paces from the fire to look out of the cab as the driver laid his
hand on the regulator. Instead of looking forwards at the plough, I looked
backwards. Small David was on the snow- dusted track, thirty yards behind. He
walked with arm outstretched, as if that arm was a battering ram to clear a way
through the snow-filled air. I pulled myself in and the first shot came as our
acceleration began. Whether anyone besides myself noticed that first one over
the roar of the engine noise ... well, I do not believe they did. As we
gathered speed, I moved again to the cabside.

    'Keep
still, would you?' said the driver.

    Another
shot came, followed directly by what sounded like a third. Or was it the first
bullet striking the engine? When would we hit the snow? I pulled myself in. Had
we made such an easy job of cutting through it that I had failed to even -

    The
smash came, and the great backward bounce - which just kept on. The wave of
snow was made on both sides. We were enclosed in white walls, and I did not
dare breathe as those walls held. We were slowing all the while, but still the
snow was going up.

    After
ten seconds, the walls did begin to droop, though, and we were about at a stand
as I looked out again through the low rolling snow and watched Small David
running through the gloaming with arm still outstretched, just as though that
gun of his was something we had dropped, and that he meant to return to us.

    I
pulled myself in and looked at Bowman. He was rocking forwards as the engine
slowed.

    'We're
not in the clear yet,' I said.

    But
as I looked at Bowman he began to rock the other way.

    'What?'
I believe I said. Or maybe I just gave a gasp, for it seemed to me that our
engine was now fairly floating - all thirty- odd tons of it.

    'We're
through?' I said to the driver.

    He
nodded, as much to himself as to me.

    That
engine leaked steam like a bastard, not least because of the badly fitting
smokebox door; as the driver told me under questioning. I asked him its class,
and he said, 'E Class', 'D Class' or, for all I knew, 'declassed'. I didn't
like to ask again, for he seemed to find speech rather a strain. The good thing
was that he didn't ask too many questions, or in fact any. I told him I was a
detective on a case, but whether he
took
that, I don't know. I was
certain, though, that he was not aware of having been fired on; nor was any man
in that cab. They'd have mentioned it, after all, if they
had
noticed.

    I
felt sorry for them in a way, for I knew the danger I'd been in, and was able
to weigh the value of freedom and life, and the best sort of life at that: the
engine-driving life.

    We
made good running after the snow block and pulled into Helmsdale twenty minutes
after. A train there was fairly itching to get to Inverness, having been kept
back by the weather all day, and we were in luck again at the Highland capital,
being just in time for the east-coast sleeper, which would take me directly to
York and Bowman on to London, but we were not quite so pressed that I couldn't
go to the telegraph office in the station, and wire the wife to say I'd be back
next day. The telegram cost two and four - which was a bit of an eye-opener.

    We
happened to board the train in the restaurant car, and Bowman said we deserved
some proper grub. I had a good sluice- down in the WC, but we were no doubt the
filthiest pair that ever sat down to a railway dinner, and a Christmas railway
dinner at that. Bowman couldn't read the menu, so I read it out to him - turkey
and all the extras was practically forced on you.

    The
wine list came separately, and Bowman said, 'Jim, when I was lying in that
damned barn, I said I'd never touch spirituous liquor again, didn't I?'

    'Aye,'
I said.

    'Did
you believe me?'

    'You
sounded as if you meant it,' I said.

    'You
did
believe me, then?'

    'Yes.'

    'You
were quite wrong to do that,' he said, and he passed me the wine list.

    As I
poured out the wine he'd asked for, he gave a grin, saying, 'Up to the top of
the church windows!' His face was back to its usual colour, but perhaps,
looking at his reflection in the window, he felt that it needed a little touching
up here and there. He then clinked glasses with me when the wine was poured,
which he had never done when all those gallons had gone down at Stone Farm and
in Fleet Street, and which I think is a foreign habit that they've picked up in
London. He continued in good spirits throughout the first two of the three
courses we put away, his observations coming with a twinkle rather than the
world-weary, sighing tone I'd been used to, whereas my own mood was now a
dangerous lightheadedness rather than happiness. I'd been jerked out of my
tedious groove by the whole business, but jerked out of my
income
as
well. Once I'd paid my half of the present supper bill, I would have next to no
money - perhaps a quid or so, I dared not look to see.

    And
in about ten hours' time I would walk into the York police office and be given
the boot, for I had belted Shillito and I had
not
settled the matter of
the Travelling Club. I kept returning in imagination to the day I was stood
down last from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. There'd been a bit of
money owed, and I'd been called into the wages cabin alone to receive it. That
was the worst bit - to receive my wages alone, and at an odd time, whereas
normally there would be such a press of cheerful, shouting blokes in that
office.

    Then
again, though, it was as if another man was in all that bother. I could not
quite believe it was me, for I had come out of my Scottish adventure with a
whole skin, and if a fellow is spared he is spared for a reason, isn't he?

    At
first, the two of us had plunged into technicalities. Marriott, according to
Bowman, had to be lying dead somewhere between the cottage and the railway
line. He thought it doubtful that Small David would go to the bother of hiding
the body; it would suit him for it to be found, if it really had been a
suicide.

    'But
is he telling the truth about that?' I asked.

    'Why
would he lie?' Bowman replied.

    'Because
he himself might have killed him.'

    'If
he had done, I don't think he'd bother to lie about it,' said Bowman, with
glass raised. 'Small David's a man of mixed character morally, in that, if you
get to know him at all, he's quite honest about the murders he's done. Besides,
Marriott was his source of income.'

    'But
he's
had
all of Marriott's bread. This might just have been the right
time to do him.'

    Bowman
shook his head.

    'I
think the matter is concluded as far as Small David is concerned. He's done his
job and had his wages.'

    Bowman
then told me a little more about Marriott's decline.

    He'd
never been any great shakes as a brief. He'd started in London chambers, but
left after a row and moved to the North for a quiet life. His office in
Middlesbrough he shared with Richie, but it was no place for a barrister. There
wasn't even an Assize Court in the town. Instead, he would appear at the
Quarter Sessions doing small, something-or-nothing pleadings. He struck
everyone as a queer sort: a snob, and nervous as a cat - flashing into rage at
nothing - but always beautifully turned out.

    'And
what
about
the boy?' I asked. 'What's become of Richie, do you reckon?'

    Bowman
shrugged.

    'He
might still win through to France. Small David won't stop him - quite the
contrary. He likes the kid .. . Would
you
stop him making away after all
he's been through?'

    And
it was that particular question that put the crimp in.

    Bowman
turned to gaze through the window, playing with his wine glass, and seeing
nothing. It was a sad do that his eyes, given the chance of acting without the
aid of glasses, were not able to rise to the challenge. He saw me eyeing him,
and brushed his fingers along his funny nose. He sighed, for the first time in
a while.

    After
an interval of silence, another question came to me: 'Do you know Small David's
name?'

    'Surname's
Briggs,' said Bowman. 'I know that much.'

    The
other diners left the dining car; the train rattled on through silent,
white-dusted stations, most crammed with empty baggage wagons, but that's how it
always is on a night train: a feeling of excitement followed in short order by
one of loneliness.

    'Do
you know what that place is called?' he said. 'The hill on which the deer house
stands, I mean?'

    'They
don't run to place-names up there, do they?'

    'Fairy
Hillocks,' said Bowman.

    'It
is wrongly named.'

    'But
that's what you put on a letter. I wrote to them the day after meeting you, and
I suppose the letter's still there somewhere, lying abandoned with all the
other papers.'

    It
was a piece of evidence - that's what he was getting at.

    He
sighed again.

    The
waiter, who had sat down at one of the empty tables, was watching us. He had
not cleared the table alongside us, and a knife jingled against a glass there.
The waiter would not interfere; he was banking on the noise driving us round
the bend, and off to our beds.

    'I'm
glad of my time there in a way,' said Bowman. 'It's put me to rights in a
number of ways.'

    If he
wanted me to ask what
sorts
of ways, I would not do so, for I was trying
to compose my own thoughts.

    'I
find I have a taste again for writing,' said Bowman, 'and I mean the proper
stuff, or at least the longer stuff. I might go back to my novel, or try my
hand at another.'

    Silence
except for the glass and the knife.

    'It
was an African adventure,' said Bowman. 'Rather in the Rider Haggard line.'

    Another
pause.

    'It
came like winking - I'm sure I'll be able to place it if I give another push.'

    'Have
you been to Africa?' I said

    'Not
literally
,' said Bowman, turning to the window once Again. He rubbed his
eyes, as if trying to start them working. 'One place I have been is Scotland,
so perhaps I'll get up a Highland story.'

    The
waiter was approaching, having given up on the knife and the glass.

    'An
advantage of novel-writing,' said Bowman, 'is that it can be carried on
anywhere - in any circumstances, I mean.'

    'I
must write up a report,' I began, 'and of course -'

    The
waiter was presenting the bill to Bowman, who squinted at it for a while.

    'I'll
stand you this,' he said, taking out his pocket book.

    'I
won't hear of it,' I said. 'How much?'

    'The
total is one pound nineteen shillings.'

    I
took out my pocket book with a feeling of fear. But before I put my hand into
it, the waiter had been paid by Bowman and had left - which queered things
still further between my companion and me.