Murder At Deviation Junction

the Chief. But he wasn't smiling now.

    It was disheartening to see the Chief fixing the second ear defender in place as he said this; or maybe it would be better if he hadn't heard, for it was all just more sob stuff, like the letter to Ellerton.

    'Shillito's your senior officer,' said the Chief, turning away and making ready to fire. 'I can't interfere.'

    'We don't get along,' I said, marvelling once again at the strands of hair dangling from the back of the Chief's head. 'He's always trying to check me.'

    As he squinted along the sights of his rifle, I could have sworn that I heard the Chief say, 'Don't stand for it - lay the bugger out.'

    I was about to say, 'Come again, sir?' when the first bullet was loosed, and I stood, quite deafened, watching the gas lamps swaying in the vast, freezing shed. After a moment, it came to me that the Chief was cursing, getting ready to fire again.

    I pushed off before he could do so.

Chapter Sixteen

    I was walking back along Platform Four a couple of minutes later when I saw what I knew to be the Pickering train at a stand. It was waiting at the bay platform just north of the police office, and I was closing on it even before I saw Davitt, the fare evader, climbing up.

    He had snow on his cap and coat, for the stuff was now coming down thickly, and I marvelled at how this bloke would go to any lengths to get out of his house and ride on a train without paying. But he gave me an excuse to go to Pickering - home of Club member Moody's son. After all, Shillito himself had told me to put the collar on Davitt.

    The guard was now holding out his green flag. I broke into a run, and was only half-way to the train when the flag was waved.

    'Wait!' I shouted, but you can't unwave a flag, and the train was off. My hurtling progress took me past the open door of the police office, from where I fancied that I heard a man shouting after me - it might have been Shillito, might have been Wright. But I ran on regardless. I leapt up on to the footboard of the rear carriage just as that carriage came out from underneath the glass roof, and into the flying snow. I wrestled with the door - the train was now making a good thirty miles an hour through a blizzard, and there was only six inches of timber between me and the sharp track ballast. We were out of the station bounds, and running along by the back gardens of the Bootham district by the time I managed to fettle the door and get in.

    Inside the compartment, a fearful-looking man sat in the semi- darkness: Davitt. He nodded to me over the top of the Yorkshire

    Evening Press that he was pretending to read. He was a small bloke in a dinty bowler - shop assistant type or junior clerk in looks, but he rode the trains so often that his work must have required him to do it. Perhaps he travelled in some line of goods or other, but he was never seen to carry anything except a newspaper.

    'You had all on there ... Nearly lost your hat.'

    I couldn't speak for a moment, but had to catch my breath, scattering snow on the compartment floor as I unbuttoned my topcoat. I took off my hat, and pushed my hand through my sodden hair, noticing as I did so that my coat sleeve had dried to a solid blue - just as if it had been patched with blue darning.

    'I was just about to get up and let you in,' said Davitt.

    Very likely, I thought. There was no doubt that Davitt knew me for a railway copper, but I fished out my warrant card in any case.

    'Like to see your ticket, please,' I said and Davitt reached for his pocket book, looking pretty sick. I was just rehearsing the caution in my mind, when I looked down and saw that a great spray of black mud had been flung at my left trouser leg. I was fairly darted with the stuff - it must have come up off the wheel. Then came an even worse lookout, for I saw the ticket in Davitt's hand. I didn't need to take it from him; I could easily make out the date and the words 'Pickering' and 'Third Class'. (We were in Third Class, so even that was in order.)

    'I'm obliged to you,' I said, and quit the compartment in double quick time.

    I found an empty one three along, where I fell into a seat. What the hell did Davitt mean by travelling on a valid ticket? Had he turned square? I looked again at the mud on my trouser leg. I would let it dry, then try to brush it off before the wife's 'do'.

    The train ran on quickly, past white fields, deep white lanes. It was express to Pickering: a mid-afternoon fast train to a town that slept through every day but market day. If anybody in the traffic office had given it a moment's thought, the service would have been struck from the timetable immediately. I took out the photograph. The snow had stopped by the time I stepped out of the station, but it had done its job. Pickering, which was in the beginnings of the moors, was all white. The town beck was frozen like a photograph. On the main street, I passed the ironmonger's shop - the pails outside it were full of snow. I walked past the post office - a white clock-face gazed through the glass, but not a soul was to be seen inside. I continued past the bike shop, where each bike stood outside had its load of snow. It was amazing how much snow would fit on one bicycle saddle. Why did they not take them in? I walked in a dream, wondering whether I might be given the boot directly on my returning to the office, and hardly caring either way.

    And then a man riding a bike came round the corner from the little road that leads up to Pickering Castle. He had the trick of snow riding, even though the stuff was six inches thick in the road. He looked like a machine, leaning first to the left and then to the right as he pedalled, and never varying this rhythm. His Dunlops made a crunching noise as they cut through the snow. He was the one man alive in Pickering.

    'Do you know where a man called Moody lives?' I called out.

    'I do,' he said. 'Aye.'

    And he carried on rocking, pushing on down the high street. I fell in with him (he wasn't going at much more than walking pace).

    'Where then?' I said

    'First left,' he said, still rocking, and not looking at me. 'Keep going till you're out of town; then it's first on your right, over the beck.'

    'Ta,' I said.

    I turned down the street he'd indicated.

    Here was another frozen beck, with many pretty little bridges crossing it, each belonging to a big house. In my dateless state, I fell to wondering about the exact moment at which the beck had frozen. Midday? One o'clock? At that very moment, whatever it was, it had become a Christmas card. Moody's was the last house, and the biggest and oldest, and the sharp roof gave it the looks of a chapel. In the garden, I half-expected to see graves.

    A maidservant answered my knock. I took off my hat and held up my warrant card - and I half-hoped I was doing it for the last time.

    'Is the master of the house at home?' I said.

    'Oh,' she said. 'Hold on.'

    She wasn't very polite, for she left me dangling on the doorstep, and with a very tempting hallway before me: wide and firelit and with no furniture but two small, thin dogs in a basket. One stood and looked at me for a moment, but neither could be bothered to risk a cold blow by making a move in my direction. You couldn't blame them: they were just skin and bone the pair of them - two whippets.

    The maidservant came back.

    'Go up,' she said, still not polite.

    The staircase had been wide, but the room she showed me into was small. Not much in it but a fire. It held a card table, an armchair and an empty bookshelf besides, but they didn't signify. It was a very clean house, considering the money came from chimney sweeping. I took the photograph from my pocket and looked at the oldest Club member: Moody. I must expect a man who looked something like him only twenty or so years younger. I walked over to the window, and looked out at the pretty road. I then heard a single loud slam, followed by a great