The Lost Luggage Porter (24 page)

But nothing did.

I boarded the train because of Sampson's gun. A second thought - a little more creditable - only came along later: that unless I stuck with this pair, they would very likely never be caught.

A new sky was coming: dark blue and rain-lashed over the wire works at Doncaster, twenty miles south of York. It was a non-corridor train, so we were all together in a first-class compartment. There was no one else in it. Doncaster was a run-through, and as we rolled out of the station, Sampson was sitting by the window with his revolver, pointing it at people in the terraced streets.

He caught my eye as I watched him, and he laughed, more embarrassed than ashamed, I reckoned.

'You could just go about on trains shooting people,' he said,'... if you were that way inclined.'

'Which you are,' said Hopkins, from his seat. I'd thought he was asleep up to that moment.

Sampson winked at me.

'Don't mind him,' he said. 'He's better with a drink in.'

As he returned the revolver to the sack, he was still eyeing me, so to distract him from any dangerous thoughts, I asked: 'What if a ticket inspector gets up?'

'Well, I've at least two thousand pounds and a gun in this sack, little Allan, so one way or another we should be all right.'

Hopkins gave a smile at that. He was a little more at ease now. As for
me ...
I was half-dreaming of the great black cathedral at York, and the smallness of the carters and pedes­trians who walked to and fro in its shadow. Many had gone before and many would come after. We were just the present-day lot. Anything we did or did not
do ...
it came to naught.

I looked at the money sack on Sampson's knee, and I thought of the London line. A ticket inspection could only happen at Peterborough, for I reckoned that would be our only other stop .. .

At Peterborough the rain blew crazily around that city's own cathedral - which lay just beyond the station - as we all trooped over first to the gentlemen's and then to the bar on the platform. We drew a lot of glances as we stepped back up into our first-class compartment holding a bottle of beer apiece, and I had not the energy to look back at those who gawped. In addition to beer, Sampson carried a paper bag full of railway pies. He'd paid for this breakfast by pulling a tenner out of the sack, and I wondered about the denomina­tions in there. There didn't seem to be a great bulk of money . . . but what engine man earned a tenner in a week? There would have to be a good many pound notes in the bundle. What was not in there was silver and copper, for the sack seemed easily carried and it did not jingle.

We made a slippery start away from Peterborough, the rhythm of the engine all wrong, but we were soon making seventy, eighty miles an hour through the rain, and I pic­tured those mighty driving wheels up ahead, racing on to London in spite of the mixed feelings or feelings of dread that anyone aboard might entertain.

We came into Platform One at King's Cross, and the moment we stepped down, Sampson put his arm about my shoulder. I wondered: is this a show of friendliness, or more of a manacle? We stepped out of the station, and the London day - crowds, rain, buildings three times the size of any in York - opened and closed quickly, for within a minute we were inside a hansom.

'Charing Cross,' Sampson called to the driver, and I thought: What are we about? A tour of the mainline stations?

This life was insane . .. but I had to know.

'What's the programme, lads?' I asked after a couple of minutes.

'We're off to Paris, little Allan,' said Sampson, and he leant forwards and grabbed my knee, adding: 'It's an elopement, mate!'

I pictured the wife in her best white dress, fading into the distance and into the past, becoming no larger or more sig­nificant than a portrait of a lady that might be found inside a locket. Hopkins did not seem the least surprised at the news of our destination, and I doubted whether it
was
news to him. I imagined that the pair of them might run up to Paris pretty often. I recalled what the
Police Gazette
had said of the man who'd shot the two detectives: 'Will likely be found in hotels.'

He'd shot two detectives in Victoria; would he add a third in Charing Cross to his collection? A new thought came, and not a happier one: wouldn't France be a better killing ground? As the cab rattled along, gaining speed along unknown streets, I hardly cared.Sampson reached into his sack again to pay the cab driver, and once again he kept me close as we walked into the sta­tion. We entered past a kind of little bank, and I turned to look again: 'Bureau de Change'. I wondered how you
said
those words. I thought of the bit of French I could fairly pronounce: 'Au revoir'. They said that every time they said goodbye, two words instead of one. Going round the bloody houses.

There were two coppers in the station: they were standing in the middle of the lobby, and rain made them shine. But seconds after we'd walked in they walked out, and I thought what a dull article the average copper is.

At the bookstall there were foreign newspapers, and I saw a small man in a cut of coat that was out of the common. A Frencher, I thought. The rain thundered down on the glass roof above, and half a dozen trains waited beyond the ticket gates, pressing in on the station, waiting to pluck us away. Like the rain on the roof, they seemed to be saying: why
not
leave this bloody country? Try your luck elsewhere, for God's sake.

Sampson was holding my arm, moving towards the book­ing office.

'Why must you be always mauling me,' I said. 'Do you think I'm going to do a shit?'

He took his hand off my arm, looked at me: 'Don't lose your hair, boy,' he said, in a tone that stopped a little way short of menace. 'We'll be free and easy in Paris, but just till then...'

Hopkins was walking behind, looking about: looking at pockets, perhaps. We were at the ticket window by now.

'Three singles to Paris,' said Sampson.

I did not hear the clerk's response, but Sampson said one further word: 'Deck.' He was an old hand at this boat train business.

We then marched through the station crowd across to the Bureau de Change, where more money was picked from the bag and handed over: tenners again, but some pound notes too, and it looked as though the colours had run on the money that came back. The French currency was the French franc. You read of its doings in the paper - it was always in bother but the notes were pretty enough, I had to admit. I looked on the whole exchange like a holidaymaker in a dream.

Our next call was at the newspaper stall, where Sampson bought a racing paper and Hopkins ... some London paper. We then all walked to the centre of the concourse, and stood underneath the great clock. Sampson and Hopkins held a conference here, muttering low, so that all I could hear was Sampson saying: 'But the one after's the express', and Hop­kins saying, 'You ought to send it by mail.'

At the end, a decision was evidently reached, and Samp­son put his arm around me in a more friendly way: 'You wait until we're over the water, little Allan: hot coffee, cognac, roast fowls . .. And pay day. You been to France?'

I shook my head.

'I have not,' I said.

'Thinking about the girl you're leaving behind, are you, lad?'

'Don't you need a paper with a royal stamp on it to quit the country?' I said.

'Passport?' he said. 'Get away. What do you think you're in? A fucking prison?'

I found a little comfort in the signs behind him for 'Telegrams' and 'Telephone' in the knowledge that those methods of communication would be open to me all the way, if I ever got the freedom to use them. Meanwhile, Miles Hop­kins was strolling off somewhere.

Sampson walked me over to Left Luggage, where we hung about until Hopkins joined us ten minutes later, carry­ing two small kitbags. Had he nicked the bloody things or bought 'em? These items you could easily come by in the shops around Charing Cross. Hopkins stood over Sampson as that gentry took bundles from the sack, and stuffed them into the first kitbag; what remained in the sack (a smaller amount) went into the second kitbag, and Sampson then pitched the sack away. The first kitbag was tightly fastened up, and presented to a Left Luggage clerk by Sampson, together with a handful of coins. The clerk gave change and ticket to Sampson while Hopkins looked on closely. We then all went into the gentleman's for a sluice down.

Sampson had not wanted to travel with all the stolen money about him. But I wondered about the gun - where had it got to? Our next call was the station bar, which smelt of cigar smoke and rain-sodden overcoats. There were pic­tures around the walls of little boats braving high seas, while the blokes in the bar did nothing of the sort, but just supped ale steadily. The boats all looked the same but they were all different, and all belonged to the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. Just inside the door sat a bloke with a greasy brown bowler on his knee, and a suit out at the elbows. At his feet was a box marked 'Haut'. He had no doubt just returned from France. You could go there, and you could come back, and it wasn't so very great an under­taking. This thought, too, brought a small glimpse of hope. Sampson bought three pints and Hopkins, with a little of his former anxiety returning, asked him:

'Reckon you did for those two blokes?'

'Tell you what,' Sampson replied, 'you'd best hope they did take the bloody shots because we're buggered if not. See, mate, I only did what needed to be done. It was the necessary.'

Hopkins asked: 'Why was it necessary to do Roberts?'

(Roberts, I realised, must be - or must have
been
- the clerk.)

'Roberts?' said Sampson, in a thoughtful sort of way, just as though he'd almost forgotten the fellow already. 'Well now let's see . . . because he was a fucking pill? Look, mate, he would've ratted, wouldn't he? And might still if he's not done for. I mean to say, he's taken the tip, but it wouldn't quite cover ...'

'The knackering of his hands,' said Hopkins. 'He was all right until you pitched the burning metal at him.'

Sampson said nothing to that, but saw off his pint, ordered the second round of drinks and lit a cigar.

'Let's change the subject, mates,' he said ... which he pro­ceeded to do himself: 'Tim,' he said, blowing out smoke, 'now, he's all right. We'll have no trouble from that quarter, I can promise you. White as they come, that lad.' Sampson now turned to me: 'You n' all, mate. Some blokes . . . they'd take fright having seen what you've seen; have a brainstorm, crack wide open, do you take my meaning?'

He handed me my fresh pint, saying:

'Fact is we've taken the fucking kettle, boys. Not two but more like three grand. None of us will ever have to do a hand's turn again.'

'Not that we ever did,' said Hopkins.

I supped my pint, thinking: I could take my share of that, break free of the wife and the future child, and just give up on normal life as a bad job. I would simply continue to be Allan Appleby - make a real go of lounging about and spec­tacle-wearing. I looked at Sampson as he drank, and I had to admit that I admired the fellow after a fashion: I couldn't help feeling that he'd treated me better, all in all, than the brass of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and Chief Inspector Weatherill both. I found myself pleased that he did not suspect me of being anything so low (and that was the very word that came to me) as a copper, but rather of being likely to go to the police and confess in hopes of avoiding a charge of accessory to murder.

Sampson also got points with me for the way that all his foul actions seemed to leave no trace upon him. Where Hopkins was bedraggled, his boots still clarted with mud from the Knavesmire and ash from the engine shed, Sampson's were clean and - on account of his kingly grey beard - he never appeared in need of a shave. His great success, now that I came to think of it, was that he was able to kill folks then clean forget about the fact. It also went to his credit that he seemed to have no fear.

And yet he would hurt folk for sport and fly into a paddy when up against it on a job, and I meant to make him pay on all counts.

It wasn't until getting on for three o'clock that we boarded the train, and the South East and Chatham did us proud: best bogie coaches with lavatory accommodation; green Morocco chairs, metal reading lamps, dressing case in the compart­ment. We pulled out at twenty past three, into the roaring rain and the roaring city: London putting on swank - the river below, Parliament to our right. Sampson was leaning forwards, looking between me and the carriage corridor, half grinning.

I had been invigorated somewhat by the station drinks; and I meant to call his bluff.

I stood up.

'Well,' I said, 'I must visit the jakes; there's no help for it.'

I stepped out of the compartment, and was not followed. If the WC hadn't been directly before me as I stepped into the corridor - if we hadn't been in the last compartment, that is - then something different might have happened in that instant. I might have rapped for help. But the door was there, and nature called. When I stepped out again, Hopkins was standing right outside the door.