Murder At Deviation Junction

    'I'm sure the lady will enjoy them, sir,' said the assistant, and I thought there was something a bit off in that 'sir'. A gentleman ought not to buy his wife a present out of loose change.

    For some reason, when the gloves were all wrapped up and ready to be taken away, I asked the assistant, 'What are they made of, by the way?'

    'Deerskin, sir.'

    Well, I couldn't take them. It was seeing that herd in the Highlands that had done it; and then dreaming about them. I had to take a calfskin pair, which cost another bob again.

    I walked back to the station, picked the Humber off the bicycle stand and rode to the edge of York, and then past the six wide fields to Thorpe-on-Ouse. As I walked along the garden path, I heard the wife typing in the parlour, and so left the gloves in their parcel in the saddlebag while pocketing the clockwork engine. I opened the front door and the wife's greeting rang out. She was happy. She'd got the job, I was certain of it. The two telegrams I'd sent were on the mantelpiece, together with some Christmas cards, and a letter in an envelope addressed to the wife - there was nothing from John Ellerton at the Sowerby Bridge shed.

    We kissed, and the wife, looking at my sodden suit, said, 'It's rained just in time for Christmas' - adding, 'Mrs Gregory- Gresham has written to confirm the appointment.'

    'Very good,' I said. 'How's Harry?'

    'Much better. He's gone back to school.'

    It was all very good, but again I felt strongly my own unimportance. I produced the little engine from my pocket.

    'He'll adore that,' said the wife. 'He'll think he's got the moon.'

    He would have a few other things besides, but not much: a top, a ball, a bag of chocolates. We walked through to the kitchen now, where a pot of tea was on the go. A seed cake stood on the table in brown paper.

    'That looks an expensive item,' I said.

    'The Archbishop's man brought it,' said the wife.

    The Archbishop of York had his palace at Thorpe-on-Ouse. At Christmas, one of his servants went around the village houses in a coach delivering cakes and sweetmeats cooked in the Palace kitchens. Given that we didn't have any money to speak of, this felt a little too much like receiving charity.

    'You don't mind taking it?' I asked the wife.

    'I like the Archbishop,' she said.

    'Why? You wouldn't have charity from any other sort of gentry.'

    'The Archbishop is different.'

    'How come?'

    'Because he's religious ... well, sort of.'

    She grinned at me. I liked that; she looked smaller when she grinned.

    'Did you trace out any murderers in Scotland?'

    'Several,' I said.

    'But did you find who'd killed the men in the picture?'

    'Yes.'

    'Then you will have your promotion ...'

    'There are complications,' I said.

    'Such as?'

    'None of the guilty men has yet been taken into custody, for one.'

    'Where are they then?'

    I shrugged.

    'They're all over the shop.'

    She looked at me narrowly.

    'But you made progress?'

    'Yes. Do you want the detail of it?'

    'No,' she said, walking over to the larder and pulling back the thin curtain that hung there.

    'I've been quite housewifely over the past two days,' she said.

    There were some new items in the larder: in pride of place were about a dozen plums and four tins of pineapple rings. The wife explained that the plums were all for Harry. A vegetarian diet was recommended for a weak chest. Everything that cost money was recommended for it

    'As for the pineapple,' said the wife, 'I thought we'd have it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the day after Boxing Day. What do you think of that as a plan?'

    'I would like them with custard,' I said.

    She ignored that (for she couldn't make custard, and refused ever to learn), saying instead, 'I'm dead set on making jam roly-poly.'

    I pictured her about it. She would start enthusiastic, and then turn silent. It was best to be out of doors when the wife cooked. She was looking at me.

    'You're all in, our Jim. You'll have to go to bed.'

    'I don't think I'll get off,' I said. 'I've too much on my mind.'

    She was still smiling. She had no inkling that I might be out of a job by the end of tomorrow.

    'I'll bring you up a bottle of beer if you like.'

    'I'll tell you what - I haven't had a fuck for a little while,' I said.

    'I should think not,' said the wife. 'You've been in Scotland for a little while.'

    She stepped back and leant against the cold kitchen wall, saying, 'What were the women like up there?'

    'I didn't really see any women.'

    'That is a very good answer,' she said, grinning again.

    I followed her upstairs. On the bed, I got the wife's dress up. She wasn't going to take it off because she had to take some letters across the road to the post office for the two o'clock collection ... but it did come off eventually, and we were in the middle of a rather hot tangle, with the church clock striking two, when I asked:

    'Now, are your boots upstairs or downstairs? The elastic-sided ones, I mean?'

    'Why on earth do you ask?' said the wife, stopping what she was about.

    'Well

    'They're by the stove, I think. I was hoping you'd have a go at them with Melton's cream.' 'Oh.'

    'I was going to wait until Christmas Eve,' I said, '. . . only I thought of Uncle Roy, who would sort of make Christmas come early. About a week before, he'd come over from Stafford with a couple of pounds' weight of sugar balls, you know, and it struck me that—'

    'Sugar what?' said the wife.

    'Sugar balls,' I said.

    'But what have they got to do with boots?'

    A sudden reversal occurred at that moment, so that she was looking down at me as she asked:

    'What have they got to do with anything?'

    I couldn't come out with it.

    'Nothing,' I said. 'Nothing at all - let's just carry on.'

    And we did; and afterwards, when she was getting dressed, the wife said, 'I'm going to see Lillian this afternoon. I'm going to ask if you can wear Peter's suit for the interview. He's about your size.'

    'Not the suit he digs graves in?' I said.

    The wife was backing towards me with her hair pulled up. As I fastened the hooks of her dress, she said, 'Peter Backhouse has three suits. One for digging graves, one for attending the important funerals and one for getting drunk in the Fortune of War. The point is that the mourning suit is of quite good broadcloth, and I think you should wear it on Friday.'

    If she wanted me to wear it, I would wear it. It wouldn't matter what I thought or what Peter Backhouse thought. Lillian Backhouse would go along with the wife's scheme; she would do anything for Lydia and vice versa. They were both New Women, and that sort came with an uncommon amount of push. The wife was now 'doing up' the bedroom, and the sound of rain beyond the window was fainter, so that I couldn't tell whether it was falling