Murder At Deviation Junction (4 page)

    'Want
a turn along the platform, son?' I said to Harry.

    'Don't
be daft,' said the wife. 'He'll catch his death.'

    So I
went out alone.

    As I
stepped down, a gang of big, raggedy, snow-covered blokes climbed up. They
carried long articles in sacks, and they were not Saltburn types at all. It was
rum. There were more like them already aboard.

    Saltburn
was a terminus - you left by the same direction you arrived. Beyond the buffer
bars towered the Zetland Hotel, facing out to sea, which meant views in summer
and a terrible battering from the wind come winter. I looked up. A bit of the
fancy wooden edging of the platform canopy was coming away in the wind. I
stared as it rocked back and forth, thinking: this might come down on the
carriage roof at any moment.

    I
heard the bell before I expected, and was back up in an instant. As I returned
to the compartment, Stephen the clerk-on-the-move was coming the other way
along the corridor. There was something in his hand, which he put behind his
back somewhat as I looked on.

    He
stepped into the compartment after me, and whatever had been in his hand was
now gone. We rumbled backwards, then forwards again; more shouting from along
the corridor. Skelton came; Brotton; Huntcliffe - a tiny spot, with no station,
but we stopped there anyway. I looked to the left and saw only blackness. But I
knew it to be the sea.

    Harry
was asleep, and the ladies were nodding off too.

    The
train went on its slow, jerky way for another minute, then came to rest again.
At once the gleaming whiteness of snow began to build up against the window
frames to the left. There was a sound far off like a war, but it was only the
rumbling and booming of the sea. And still the shouts came from along the corridor.

    'Irregular,
is it?' the man said after a space. 'To come to a stand here?'

    'Just
a little,' I said, and I couldn't resist adding in an under- breath, 'We're not
more than six foot off the cliff edge.'

    The
clerk moved his boots in a way that made me think he didn't like that idea, so
I added, 'Should be away shortly.'

    I
ought to have introduced myself to the fellow, but something told me he didn't
want that. The sharp scream of the train whistle came, and we rolled slowly on.
Stephen the clerk said, 'There's some strange working on this line, I'll say
that much.'

    The
train motion sent the ladies' heads rocking, and
Household Words
slipped
to the floor between them, but we hadn't made more than another half-mile
before we stopped again. The banks of a cutting enclosed us on either side, and
I was ready for the jerk of the applied brake, for something was certainly
amiss. We creaked on past a lineside cottage that looked tumbledown, and with a
badly smoking fire. Then came a high signal box followed by brighter lights
rising to meet us, and we were into a station. There came more shouts, the
sound of running boots along the platform.

    The
Wimbledon woman was awake.

    'Where
is this?' she said, just as we came to rest with the station sign conveniently
filling our compartment window: Stone Farm.

    The
snow was flying at the words as Harry said, 'It's like Christmas here.'

    He
always woke up just as though he'd never been asleep.

    'Are
we booked to stop here?' asked Lydia.

    'No,'
I said, 'and not much ever is.'

    I'd
suddenly had enough of the compartment, and all the uncertainty brought on by
the weather.

    'I'm
off for a scout about,' I said. 'See what's going on.'

    The rough-looking
blokes were moving along the corridor.

    'We
mustn't be stuck here for all hours,' said the wife. 'Harry wants his bed.'

    'Do
not,' he said, but he said it quietly, which proved he
did.
The
mysterious Stephen watched me go as I pulled the door closed behind me. The
fellow hadn't put pen to paper since Saltburn.

    I
stepped down on to the platform into a blizzard - no other word for it. The
rough blokes were streaming away along the platform towards the 'up' end - the
direction of Whitby - and their sacks held shovels and lanterns. Snow gang,
that's what they were. I saw the train guard come running towards me. He was
heading the opposite way to the blokes.

    'Bad
blockage is it?' I shouted to him.

    He
was making for the signal box - he would telegraph from there.

    'Reckon
not,' he said, still running. 'If it is, we'll work back to Saltburn.'

    In
that case, the Company would have to put us up - perhaps at the Zetland Hotel.
Lydia would like that.

    I
turned to face the engine again, which was harder to do, since the snow blew from
that direction. The engine driver and his fireman were holding a low
conversation on the platform while a few feet beyond them stood a bloke in a
waterproof cape. He would be the stationmaster. He was directing the snow gang
to the site of the blockage, and they looked like a foreign army, trooping off
in their long coats and no-shape hats. But I now saw that they were just
ordinary railway blokes: men from every corner of the sheds at Middlesbrough
and Saltburn who'd fancied a bit of overtime. I looked again towards the
stationmaster. The cape threw me off a little, but there was something familiar
about the man's brown bowleg snow-covered as it was.

    'Fighting
King Snow,' said a voice at my ear. It was Stephen from the compartment. He
stood there in his topcoat, blinking in the snow and holding out a travel
flask. The canvas case dangled from his shoulder, and I knew it now for a
camera case.

    I
took a belt of the stuff in the flask.

    'Much
obliged,' I said, handing it back.

    He
poked his glasses to the top of his beak of a nose, and took another go on the
flask. His hot little head looked stranger still when tipped back. I gave him
my hand.

    'Stringer,'
I said. 'Jim Stringer.'

    'Stephen
Bowman,' he said. 'Call me Steve.'

    He
was holding out a business card; I read it by the train light.

    'S.
J. Bowman. Correspondent,
The Railway Rover.
Also author:
Railways
Queer and Quaint; Notes by Rocket: A Compendium; Holidays in the Homeland;
&c.' The address given was not Wimbledon but 'Bouverie Street, Fleet
Street, E.C.', which I took to be the address of the magazine.

    'We're
running a special feature on the North Eastern company,' he said.

    I
could think of no real answer, so I said, 'Why?'

    'We
started one last year but it had to be called off.'

    It
was no answer, of course.

    'I'm
a detective on the Company force,' I said.

    We
were making for a little open-fronted shelter that lay just beyond the 'down'
end of the platform.

    'Your
wife said you were a policeman,' he said, as we stepped under the wooden roof.
'How's the line, by the way?'

    'Be
cleared soon, by all accounts.'

    The
snow was finding its way through my boot soles, and I kept moving my toes,
trying to recall them to life. Bowman was at his flask again. With head tipped
back, he resembled a spectacle-wearing bird. Having despatched the snow gang,
the stationmaster was staring along the platform at me.

    'I
know this fellow,' I said to Bowman, nodding in the direction of the man. 'His
name's Crystal.'

    'Know
him from where?' said Bowman.

    'Grosmont.'

    'Never
heard of it.'

    'You
wouldn't do, living in Wimbledon. It's not ten miles from here - a little way
inland from Whitby.'

    '"Twixt
Moor and Sea",' Bowman said, prodding his glasses up his nose.

    Crystal
was approaching through the blizzard. The brim of his bowler was loaded with
snow.

    'Had
my railway start as a lad porter there,' I said. 'This chap was my governor.'

    As
Crystal walked up, I felt sorry for him. He'd had hopes of becoming an
assistant stationmaster at Newcastle, only to fetch up in a place that was a
comedown even from Grosmont. Here was his allowance in life: the single line,
the one small station, half a slice of moon and the black sea rolling away
three fields off. The only point of interest was the passing loop that ran
around behind the station building. Twelve mineral wagons waited there, loaded
with ironstone and snow. They were illuminated by four lamp standards.

    'Interesting
fellow, is he?' said Bowman, now with notebook in hand. 'Think there's a
paragraph in him?'

    'A
short one, maybe,' I said.

    'I
might write him up,' said Bowman. 'Life of a stationmaster at Sleepy Hollow -
you know the sort of thing.'

    'I wouldn't
say that to him,' I said.

    'Give
me a line on the fellow,' said Bowman, as Crystal continued to approach. 'Sum
him up in a sentence.'

    'You
could say he was a stickler for duty and detail,' I said, 'with working
timetable and appendixes always to hand.'

    'Appen
dices,
^,
said Bowman.

    'Or
you could say he was a complete bloody pill,' I added in an under-breath.

    Crystal
was now standing directly before us.

    'You
do know you're on trespass here, don't you?' he said.

    His
head was smaller than before. Or was it just that his moustache was bigger?
Anyone could grow a bigger moustache.

    'How
do, Mr Crystal,' I said, and then he clicked.

    'Stringer,'
he said. 'What the blinking heck are you doing here?'

    I
recalled that Crystal was a regular at chapel - never gave a proper curse.

    'Spot
of business took me up to Middlesbrough,' I said. That I had
failed
in
my business up there would have come as no surprise to him. Crystal had been
down on me from the moment we'd met.

    'I thought
you'd gone south to learn footplate work.'

    'I
had a few adventures in that line, aye.'

    'But
you were found not up to standard, let me guess.'

    The
snow fell slantwise between us.

    'I'm
with the North Eastern Railway Police just now,' I said. 'Detective grade. This
is Mr Bowman,' I added. 'Journalist with
The Railway Rover.'

    Crystal
turned to Bowman. 'You're a journalist and he's a detective, but what I want
here is another twenty snow gangers.'

    'How's
the line?' Bowman asked, and he nodded towards the snowy shadows of the 'up'
end, into which the gangers had marched.

    'Blocked
right to Loftus,' said Crystal. 'Has been this past two hours.'

    It
was worse than the guard said, then. Or was this just Crystal being his
miserable self?

    'Important
to have a good man in place here,' said Bowman, looking all about the station.
He was trying to butter Crystal up for some reason.

    Crystal
nodded back at him, saying, 'The marshalling yard gives a deal of trouble - or
would do to a chap lacking experience,' and he waved his hand over towards the
abandoned mineral train.

    Marshalling
yard! It was nothing but a passing loop with siding attached. Over Crystal's
shoulder, beyond the 'up' end of the platform, I could see the white bank that
led up to the black edge of the woods overlooking that end of the station. It
was lit up by the danger lamp of the signal standing at the foot of it. As I
looked on, two of the gangers seemed to be fired out of those woods and began
scrambling down the bank.

    'Takes
the worst of the weather, does this place,' Crystal was saying.

    Under
the red display, the two gangers tumbled fast down the incline, creating an
explosion of snow.