The Lost Luggage Porter (30 page)

I came to a stop, and drew a long breath. I looked to the right, and there was the whole business over again: a long train, steam locomotive at the front, pulling forwards. I ran across the platform, and was up and inside in no time. I found a seat next to a woman in Victorian black, who said: 'You're in a rare hurry.'

'This
is
the boat train for England, en't it?' I asked, but it was a daft question, for the very fact we were speaking English proved that it was.

The journey passed in a daze of questions. Was Mike up to making a clean sweep? What was the character of the man? And who was the splitter? If Lund was the culprit . . . why would he try to check an investigation he'd started? Could it be his governor, Parkinson? Could it be the Chief ... if he'd been left alive after the shooting? I thought of the little clerk: Roberts. Had he worked out that I was a policeman? He'd certainly made me jumpy with his questioning. And was he still somehow in with the gang, despite having the skin of his hands flayed off with burning metal and then being shot at? No, he was finished; he'd been too free of his patter; had talked himself into an early grave. He was shot -1 was quite sure of it.

We had now entered a great ravine five times higher than the train. A giant white arrow painted on the left-hand wall showed the way out. Off to the right was an illuminated shed lifted up on piers, so that the engines could go in from underneath. I saw a white, shining church on a hill far above it, and shortly afterwards we were into blackness. I looked down at the Metropolitain ticket that I'd not given in. It said 'Aller et Retour', but I never meant to make the return journey.

I thought of Edwin Lund. All that religious blather, forever talking goody-goody, and going round the houses. He would never act for himself but do all his work by an agent, with little insinuations here and there ... But to what purpose?

To think of the wife in the same room as Mike was impos­sible . . . and with all the copies of the reports to hand. How was Mike described in those? Not favourably. The wife had thought she was only marking time by her typewriting: it was something to be going on with before her brain could be really put to some good use. She'd talked at times of turning schoolmistress, which was possible, at a stretch. There were courses to be taken, dragging on for years.

I thought again of the wife, now walking towards me along a sunlit empty street in Halifax ... only she'd spied me too early, and didn't know where to look, and there hadn't been a great deal else to look
at
in that street, so she'd been in a fix. Well, she had coloured up beautifully by the time we'd come close to.

Whatever had gone on in that hotel room, Sampson would be heading back to the homeland now; coming after me. The gracious white-hatted lady in Gare du Nord had said there was no further boat train until. . . four o'clock was it? I had stolen a march on
him
at least. But just then the train stopped, hard.

I looked at the Victorian party, and she said: 'Strange.'

There was nothing at all to be seen beyond the windows.

After five minutes, I made out a man walking slowly along the tracks with a pipe in his mouth. He carried a lamp, and rain whirled around him. I pointed him out to the lady, who called down something in French, to which he shouted up a reply.

I asked: 'What's the cause of the delay?'

'Oh . ..
France,'
she said with a sigh.

'The boat'll have to wait though, won't it?'

'It will not,' she said. 'They've passengers to collect on the other side ... Not that they care for those any more than they do for us.'

The train waited, and when half an hour had passed I began to think of Sampson beating me to Thorpe-on-Ouse, leave alone Mike. After three quarters of an hour I began pacing the carriage. I could not sleep, think, stop thinking. Presently, a whistle came from the engine, and the train began to roll for­wards, and it continued making twenty miles an hour at the most until a great railway works came in sight, with ranks of half-made engines illuminated by little fires burning about the place. This seemed to give heart to our train, for it at last picked up speed for the run to a spot called Rouen, which was sunk into a stonewalled cutting between two long tunnels. The train stopped here to change engines, and I could see nothing of Rouen but a clock: quarter to four in the morning. The deadest time of all. Within forty-five minutes, Sampson would be able to begin his journey to England if he was so minded.

I believe I slept during the next stretch, and when I woke we were crawling through the town of Dieppe, making for the sound of seagulls in a thin grey light. It took an age but we reached the harbour where a single steamer waited. I climbed down on to a platform that said 'Dieppe - Gare Maritime' and smelt of fish. There was a fish market to the right. I watched a motor taxi crawl through it as I took my place in the queue for the customs house. Nobody ahead of me was being searched, but I was sure I would be stopped, and some contraband found causing new delay.

I came out of the customs house ten minutes later, walking underneath a sign reading: 'Aux Paquebots'. I was quickly aboard. After an hour at sea in clearing light and what might have been moderate rain or spray, I began looking out for the coast of England, and sat there doing so for a further three hours. The crossing was much longer by this route.

I may have slept again, lulled by the thunder of the paddle - in which case I was woken by the snap of a triangular sail unfurled at the bow to bring the boat into what proved to be Newhaven Harbour station, which was entirely made of wood, and in want of a roof.

The London Brighton and South Coast Railway took me, in a dream, to Victoria where, if I'd been feeling brighter, and thinking better, I would have sent a telegram to the post office at Thorpe-on-Ouse, telling the wife to leave the house and not return; instead, I rode the inner Circle to King's Cross where, at midday, I boarded the Scotch Express for York and Edinburgh. Every mile, the swooping telegraph wires told me of the course I ought to have taken. At 3.30,1 glimpsed a finger post by the line reading 'York', and just then the first spatterings of rain fell against the window glass, as if the very word had brought it on.

The Hat Box

Rain blew softly at the windows as the train rocked on. The Cathedral of Peterborough came; the red brick of Retford, red brick of Doncaster; the normal world returning by degrees.

And York was still there. We passed under Holgate Bridge, where the mass of points made the train thunder until the right line was found, and then all was peacefulness, rain, the gliding of the train as steam was shut off . . . and Platform Fourteen. I was down long before the train had come to rest, and it was still moving as I pounded over the footbridge. I was the only man running in York station, and I felt foolish - heavy-booted and red-faced like some oaf of a boy, but still I kept on, past the ticket barrier, shouting something about a warrant card, in answer to which I fancied I heard from within the box a low muttering.

I thought: I ought to go back directly to the Police Office, and ask after the Chief. Instead, I ran through the ticket hall, and beyond where there were new posters on either side: 'Spring: Conducted Rambles in Yorkshire'. The Humber - that loyal article - remained at the bicycle stand hung with a thousand raindrops. I yanked it free, leapt on the saddle.

The last two miles of distance ...

There had been no developments in the gardens of Thor- pe-on-Ouse Road. All those householders lived in happy ignorance of the low hotels surrounding the Gare du Nord, the underwater greenness of that Sunday's last bar, the fear­ful black canyon in which lay the Gare Saint-Lazare. I left the city lamps behind, and on the dark road that ran past the race course, my worst imaginings immediately doubled. The clean sweep was what I had to prevent; the killing of two for the price of one. It could not happen. By picturing the event in my mind's eye I was seeking to make sure of that, because it is known that we are not able to predict the future. What is predicted does not occur.

I stood on the pedals to increase speed, and towards Thor- pe-on-Ouse the darkness deepened. A man stood in shadow beneath the clock on the gatehouse of the Archbishop's Palace. He stood quite still as I rattled towards him on the Humber. He wore a bowler with a curled brim; did not look a religious type. I thought of the man I had seen outside the bootmakers, standing in between Scott and William Johnson. Had he been sent to keep a watch? I was now bringing all possibilities across the circle of my imagination. I turned into the main street, and there were two men in the road, standing as far apart in the darkness as if they were about to fight a duel. I rode between them knowing that something would happen, and it did: one of the two shouted something and began to give chase. I had gone from the beginnings of hope to desperation in a minute. The men were coming fast, I knew as I dropped the Humber at the gate of 16A. The door was ajar and the lights blazing. I stopped for a moment, and waited for the next thing. A scream. It was my worst imaginings and it was fact. Another scream. Bootsteps on the ground beyond the gate; another shout from that direction, another scream from inside the house. I burst through the door, and the question and answer came at once: the typewriter stood on the strong table, but the report copies were not by its side. The room was empty. One loud bang from upstairs, and the wife screaming again as I set foot on the stairs. There may have come a disturbance from the kitchen, but I ignored it, climb­ing the stairs towards the scream.

I opened the bedroom door and a woman was saying, 'Now I want his shoulder, love, so when I tell you, scream for your life.'

But the wife's scream had come long before the midwife had finished . . . and the room was full of candles. The wife, the midwife, Lillian Backhouse ... all at their different posi­tions (Lillian holding the wife's right hand), like participants in a religious ceremony as they brought a life into the world.

Hold on a minute:
his
shoulder!

The midwife moved aside, and I saw him come tumbling out of the wife, looking for revenge it seemed to me, as though somebody had played a low trick on him by keeping him cooped up for so long in those cramped quarters.

Lillian Backhouse, who had been holding the wife's hand, was staring at me, and Lydia was looking -
not
staring - across the top of the baby, which was being brought up towards her.

'Jim,' she said, and it was the shortest utterance I ever heard her make.

'The father's here,' said Lillian Backhouse to the midwife, who spun around, looked at me, and turned back towards the baby; she was wiping him down with white towelling. He had a lot of hair at the side, and it seemed to have been combed. I went to the wife, and Lillian Backhouse, indicat­ing me to the midwife with a nod of the head, said, 'We've not seen
this
one since Sunday.'

As the baby was cleaned and turned, I saw him full-face for a moment, and I thought: good; I like him.

'I've been in France’ I said.

'Jesus Christ,' said Lillian Backhouse.

The baby was lying quiet on top of the wife now; they seemed to have been acquainted for years.

'The Chief Inspector came,' said the wife. 'He said not to worry - that you were haring about York after those bur­glars.'

'You can't hare about a little place like York’ I said.

'Well,' said the wife,
'you
can.'

'So you weren't too worried ... Did he mention any shoot­ing?'

'What shooting?'

'Just
any.'

'I'm sure he didn't. .. How do things stand now? Are you clear of these men?'

'That's just it. I don't believe so. We must all remove, right this minute, to Lillian's house.'

I looked at Lillian Backhouse.

'Fine’ she said instantly, no doubt having quickly rejected a lot of other possible remarks. The midwife was staring at me, but the situation cracked when I clapped my hands.

A relay was created on the staircase, with Peter Backhouse and Bill Dixon, keeper of the Fortune (they'd been the two blokes out in the road) at the end of the chain. They went off through the rain with the crib, layette, blankets, shawls and other baby goods; Lillian Backhouse went next carrying the baby in any number of shawls, and I walked the wife around to the Backhouses' place, which was next to the church.

On the way, she said, 'I think we'll call him Harrison.'

'That's Dad's name,' I said.

'I'm quite well aware of that,' she replied.

Half an hour later, with the wife settled at the Backhouse place, I was standing with Peter Backhouse before 16A, to which I had returned for no very good reason beyond feeling I ought not to abandon my house for anything. Over the road, the Fortune of War glowed softly, and Peter Backhouse was anxious to be in there.

He said: 'You ought to fetch Turnbull; he has a gun, you know.' But I didn't want the complication of a toff about the place, and having to speak mannerly when I didn't much feel like doing so.

'Are you coming in for one?' he said, nodding towards the pub. 'You ought to by rights, today of all days.'

'Don't know’ I said. 'Reckon I ought to guard the house.'

'But you're running away from it, en't you?'

'It's all a bit of a tangle,' I said. 'I don't know what's for best.'

Silence for a space.

'Bonny kid, any road,' said Backhouse.

'Bit of all right, he is.'

'Did you see him coming out?' said Backhouse.

I nodded, and Backhouse pulled a face.

I looked along the length of the dark garden. The door of the house had been left ajar, I noticed. 'I think I'll go in for a tick,' I said. 'I might take a pint later on.'

'Just as you like,' said Backhouse, but he was delaying crossing the road.

'I saw a bloke earlier on’ he said,'. . . hanging about near the gateway to the Archbishop's house.'

'OK,' I said, presently.

'Lot of workmen come and go from there’ said Back­house, '. . . dozens of the buggers, some days.'

I gave him 'Good evening', and he walked over the road.

I walked back to the house, and pushed the door further open. The gas was still up; the typewriter remained on its table, the fire burning low. I tipped on some more coal, picked up the poker, and thrust its end into the heart of the fire, leaving it resting there so that in time it might come in as a weapon. I walked fast into the kitchen and gave a sudden shout, 'Hey!' while watching the back door. I moved towards it, bolted it, stepped back into the parlour. Parting the lace curtains, I looked across the road toward the Fortune of War, and something about the name of the pub made me reach into my pocket for the Charing Cross left-luggage tick­et that was worth the thick end of two thousand pounds.

It was not there.

I hunted through every pocket in my suit, looked across the floor, but the thought kept coming back of my scramble for money at the bright, high-level Metropolitans station. It must have tumbled from my pocket then, but the fact didn't seem to signify. The wife was all right - wife
and
baby - and that was all that mattered for the present. I returned to the parlour, which was too dark or too bright, and no longer at all homely but more like a waiting room, and I sat down in the rocking chair. Outside, the wind was getting up. I could hear trees moving. Half a mile away, I heard a Leeds train going south, fleeing the scene. Over the road, I saw the lights die in the Fortune of War, heard the parting shouts of the drinkers.

I sat on, staring through the window, though it was too dark to see anything. When the knock on the door came it must have been past midnight, and I fancy that it woke me up. The knock came again.

I sat still and counted my heartbeats: one ... two ... three.

The knock came once more. I caught up the poker, and turned the handle of the door with it raised above my head.

Standing in the doorway, with the rain blowing into the parlour from behind him, stood the white, maggoty man, Edwin Lund. He wore his porter's suit, the cap without a badge. Over his shoulder was the usual small valise. As he stood in the doorway, he opened the flap and removed from the bag a bundle of muslin.

'The Blocker was about,' he said.

'Mike?' I said. 'Where?'

'Don't fret - I've seen him off.'

'Come again?'

I showed him into the parlour, and he was unwinding the muslin as he walked. Closing the door, I turned towards him.

It was a revolver that lay in his hands, as I may have guessed it would be.

'Take it’ he said.

I lifted the gun still in the muslin, stepped back. I put the poker down on the hearth and placed the gun on the strong table. It was bigger than Sampson's, and the letters 'D.A.' were stamped into it. I nodded at the sofa, and Lund sat down on it. His face glowed like gaslight, and he coughed a little as he settled.

'Did you rat on me, mate?' I said.

He shook his head, coughed a little more. His tunic was dark with rain all about the chest.

'You'd best take that off’ I said.

'Never mind’ he said, shaking his head.

My mind was full of thoughts of death, which was partly the strange effect of the baby coming - for birth makes you think of its opposite.

'You did for the Camerons, didn't you? Out on the cinder track?'

He looked straight ahead, frowning, as though trying to recollect; then he suddenly sat forwards, looking into the fire.

'I daresay there was some mistake . . .' I began, but could not think how to continue.

'It was the trial of my life’ Lund said, after a space, '. . . and I was found wanting.'

What had Sampson said of the Cameron killing? 'I enjoyed that business', or something very like. He had not laid claim to having done it.

'. . . Parable of the Talents,' said Lund, into the fire. 'What do you suppose is the right reading of that Scripture?'

'I wouldn't have the foggiest bloody notion,' I said.

'Would you not?' said Lund, eyeing me now. 'I was just thinking on, because when I first saw this . ..'

He nodded towards the gun on the table.

'... It brought to mind that text.'

'And where was that? Where did you first clap eyes on it?'

'Wolverhampton train; first-class compartment. Tucked down a seat back.'

'It just would be in first,' I said.

'St Matthew 25’ said Lund, '"I reap where I sowed not." Six bullets inside, too. I'd have given it over, had anyone come to claim it. . . but nobody ever did.'

'The trick would have been not to
use
it,' I said. 'Why d'you turn it on the Camerons?' 'I was afflicted, and that was God's will... but I prayed for relief and it was then that...'

'Afflicted? Don't get you.'

He sighed, looked away, saying:

'I must go a little way around the houses.'

'All right,' I said, 'but start now.'

'There was the robbery at our place - Lost Luggage Office. You know of it.'