Murder At Deviation Junction (6 page)

    'But
you wouldn't say he was at breaking strain?'

    Bowman
took a long go on his beer bottle.

    'The
boy took postcard views for Boots - that was how he really got his living. He'd
go to any town and make it look interesting: cathedral or castle if the town
ran to one, or failing that, a fine view of the bloody fish market. He was only
a kid but he did pretty well by it.'

    Bowman
raised the bottle to his lips again. He was queer-looking all right: thin legs,
little pot of a belly, head too small, nose too big. He might have been built
from bits of several other men.

    I
said, 'You take your own pictures now, I see.'

    He
tipped his little head up towards me, pushed at his specs.

    'The
editor was minded to make economies, as he is in every matter except those
touching on his own salary and expenses. He said, "You go roving about so
much - it costs fortunes to have you always accompanied. Take your own
pictures.'"

    He
leant forward towards the fire, staring into it as he warmed his hands.

    'Not
to boast, Jim, but I
am The Railway Rover.
Apart from anything else, I'm
the only one who ever leaves the bloody office. As regards the pictures, I do
just take a pot, you know, and it seems to work.'

    He
was reaching into the valise he'd carried off the Whitby train.

    'I've
a mind to stop writing altogether, and go all out on photography. It's a good
deal quicker - at least, it is the way I do it. There's one of mine here, if
you'll just hold on a second.'

    He
took out a journal, and I had my first sight of
The Railway Rover.
Bowman leafed through it for a while, before handing it over kept open at a
certain page.

    'What's
your opinion?'

    The
article was entitled 'Some Drivers and Their Engines', words and pictures by S.
J. Bowman. The photograph in question showed a smart o-8-o at some station or
other.

    'It
seems a first-rate picture to me,' I said, 'but -'

    'Be
straight now,' said Bowman, giving a twisted little grin.

    'Well
- that telegraph pole does appear to come straight up out of the locomotive
chimney.'

    Bowman
sighed, sitting back again.

    'But
that's down to the driver stopping directly in
front
of the telegraph
pole.' 'He's stopped there for a signal, or for whatever reason,' I said.
'Aesthetics don't come into it.'

    'Well,
I was damned if I was going to ask him to move the engine,' said Bowman.
'Peters would do that, you know. He'd go up to the driver, and he'd say,
"Could you just reverse out of this shadow that you're presently standing
in?" and the chap'd say, "Reverse out of this
what
?"
Couldn't believe it.'

    He
shook his head and looked away as I said, 'But if
you'd
moved .. .'

    He
was back at his bottle; back to gazing at vacancy.

    I
dragged my own bench closer to the fireplace, leafing through
The Railway
Rover
as I did so. 'Notes by Rocket' came at the back. They were light
items: 'In a trade supplement recently appearing in
The Times
newspaper,
an article on "New Railway Locomotives of the Midland Railway" gives
prominence to a picture of a z-6-o engine of the GWR. As any schoolboy knows,
this is not an Atlantic, is not new and does not belong to the Midland.
Otherwise, we can have no complaints whatever as to the accuracy of the
representation.'

    It
was well-turned, I supposed; a little fancier than the common run of railway
writing.

    I
went through the pages again, heading backwards this time.

    'What
time's this milk train due?' Bowman asked, after a while.

    'Twenty
to five,' I said.

    We
were to go on to Whitby by the first train of the day. It was the morning milk,
but one passenger carriage was carried along behind the vans.

    'Can't
think why we've hung on here after all,' said Bowman.

    Why
had
he stayed? He could've told me what he knew about Peters in good time to
re-board the Whitby train. But I reserved that particular question - along with
about a hundred others.

    'Will
you be investigating the matter yourself?' Bowman asked.

    'Shouldn't
think so,' I said, and I lifted my eyes from
The Railway Rover
to think
of Detective Sergeant Shillito. That bastard would put the kybosh on any
independent action on my part. Besides, this was a matter for the Northern
Division of the railway force, whereas we in York belonged to the Southern
Division.

    Crystal
was eyeing me once again through the ticket pigeonhole.

    'What
are you reading?' asked Bowman.

    'An
item called "The Railways in Spain".'

    'They
fall mainly on the plain,' said Bowman, leaning back on his bench. He kept
silence for a minute, before muttering 'Fawcett' and shaking his head. The
article was, I saw, by B. R. M. Fawcett.

    I
took it up again. The clock ticked.

    'I'm
surprised at your sticking with that, quite honestly,' said Bowman. 'I mean to
say, do you not find the style rather antiquated?'

    I
read on, while Bowman watched me.

    '"We
must advert to—",' he said, after a space. 'That's Fawcett all over. I
will not "advert".'

    'He
knows his stuff on the railways of Spain,' I said.

    'Yes,'
said Bowman. 'Well, he's better up on train matters than I am.'

    'How
do you mean?' I said, looking at him. 'That's the whole subject of the
journal.'

    Bowman
shrugged.

    'You
have no interest in railways?' I asked him.

    'I
started penny-a-lining around Fleet Street after school - got afloat on
railways, that's all. Railway topics were the easiest ones to get rid of.'

    'Did
you not play trains as a boy?'

    'Must've
done, I suppose. I really can't recall.'

    He
took another pull on the beer bottle.

    'I'm
done, I don't mind telling you,' he said. 'I was up all hours last night as
well.'

    'Up
at Gateshead, weren't you?'

    This
had come out earlier on.

    Bowman
nodded.

    'Function
at the Railwaymen's Institute there,' he said, yawning. 'Presentation of a
cabinet gramophone to a fellow who'd done fifty years of service. I thought it
might make an item in "Queer and Quaint".'

    'And
will it?'

    'If
I'm desperate come press day,' he went on, walking over to the window that gave
on to the station yard. 'When a function bores the daylights out of me I'll
generally put "Several interesting speeches were made", and leave it
at that.'

    Bowman
had spotted something through the window, for he fell away from his speech and
craned closer to the glass. I joined him at the window. In the light of dawn
there was a bike half-buried in a drift, and a young lad picking himself off
the road. It was me six years ago: Crystal's lad porter, arriving for his day's
work.

    He
lifted the bicycle and started pushing it through the snow, kicking the stuff
up as he went.

    He
walked through the station door, the left side of his uniform covered with
snow. I nodded at him, and he shot me a funny look - 'Morning, mister' - before
blundering through into the ticket office and closing the door behind him.

    I
heard his cry of 'What the bloody hell's that, Mr Crystal?' and then Crystal
came down on him like a ton of coal, vociferating away for a good half-minute, as
Bowman finished off his beer bottle.

    'Rather
wearing, the company of a chap like that,' he said, leaning forward on his
perch, and pushing his spectacles up his nose.

    When
he'd finished bawling at the kid, Crystal furnished some sort of explanation,
and although I couldn't make out the whole scene through the ticket window, the
lad must have been permitted a look under the blanket, for he exclaimed, in a
voice loud enough to be clearly heard beyond the ticket office, 'Hold on, I
know that bloke!'

    This
checked Bowman, who was setting about another beer bottle. He froze with the
opener in his hand, all ears. I was on my feet straightaway, and into the
ticket office. 'You don't ruddy know him,' Crystal was saying, as he put on his
topcoat. (Having worked all night, he was about to be relieved by a spare man
from Loftus up the way). He eyeballed me for a moment, then relented.

    'Best
talk to him if that's your fixed idea,' Crystal said to the lad, nodding in my
direction.

    I
took out my notebook and indelible pencil, and asked the lad to say what he
knew about Paul Peters.

    'Bloke
came through here about this time last year; stepped down off the one-thirty
stopping train to Whitby. Only a young fellow, and he'd a camera slung over his
shoulder - camera on legs, it was. No, wait, he had
two
, now that I
think on - just like this here.'

    The
kid looked at the camera I wore; looked at me.

    'I'd
just finished me dinner,' he went on, 'and I was scraping snow and laying down
sand as per instructions from Mr Crystal. Bloke came up to me. He said,
"Would you mind putting some of the snow back down on the platform?"
I said, "Come again, mister?" Bloke said, "Could you put some of
it back, as it makes for a better picture?" I said, "It might be pretty,
but it en't safe." He looked a bit put out, so I said, "Can you not
take a picture of sum- mat else?" "Such as what?" he said, and I
said, "We have a passing loop here, you know.'"

    'Marshalling
yard,' rapped Crystal.

    Bowman
was at the doorway, listening hard.

    'Well,
bloke re-slung his camera, and went off to have a look. About ten minutes
after, he came back and said, "I think I'd better be off up to
Middlesbrough. When's next train?" I said -'

    'Hold
on a moment,' I cut in. 'Had he taken a picture of the loop or marshalling yard
or whatever it's known as?'

    'I
can't say,' said the lad porter, 'but I reckon he might well have. I mean - he
was loony. Any road, like I was saying -'

    But
he'd forgotten what he was saying.

    'You
said the bloke was after going to Middlesbrough,' I prompted him.

    'That's
it. I said, "If it's views you're after, you'd be better off in
Whitby." He said he didn't want "views" but railway interest,
anything out of the common for a magazine, so I said, "If you take the
next Middlesbrough service you'll get there in time to see sum- mat a bit that
way." And he said, "What?" and I said, "Why, the Club
Train.'"

    'Club
Train?' I said, and there came a fearful crashing from the station yard.

    'Milk
cart's here,' said Crystal. 'You,' he continued, pointing to the kid, 'stop
yarning and get to work. I'm off home.'

    And
he pushed his way past Bowman, at which point the lad porter seemed to take in
the journalist for the first time. 'You all right, mister?' he said. 'You don't
half look seedy.'

    Behind
the lad porter, I spied the steam jets of the day's first train.

    'Bloke
boarded the train for Middlesbrough,' continued the kid. 'I closed the door behind
him myself. He was after photographing the Club Train.'

    He
and the bloke in the milk cart had the churns lined up on the platform ready
for loading. As the engine came past the snow-crowned signal box, the kid was
leaning on a churn, going over his tale as I made notes in my book with my
indelible pencil. The lad held a long ladle in his hand. He'd lately dipped it
into the churn, and he kept looking down at it rather than drinking from it.

    'But
as soon as you'd done so, you realised you'd made a bloomer over the time?'