The Somme Stations

down.

‘Somebody struck a match just after Tinsley said that. It was Roy, and he was lighting up because he was worried. It was the first time you or him had heard of the connection between Tinsley and Shaw. It had just always fallen out that you were elsewhere when Tinsley mentioned him. It might have struck you, when you were getting off the train, that we’d been keeping the connection secret from you, having found out about the killing of Matthew Waddington. I mean to say, you knew I’d been curious about Naburn Lock. You probably knew I’d looked into what had gone on there, having seen the way you and your brothers reacted to seeing one of the little Somme stops named after it. And in Albert you’d seen me in conference with the Chief.’

Oliver Butler gave a kind of snort, and moved position on the bench. ‘So you didn’t know?’

‘Tinsley didn’t know what Shaw had done, and nor did I – not then: not on the train back from Amiens. I wasn’t sure that Shaw existed, and I didn’t know for certain until I wrote to the Chief from here asking him to look up him.’

Butler was removing an item from his greatcoat pocket.

‘You wanted to silence Tinsley and me,’ I said, seeing that it was a revolver he held, ‘because you thought we knew Tom Shaw had killed Matthew Waddington, about which you were wrong. But why would the matter be of any concern to you in the first place? Why would you fight Shaw’s battles? It could only be that you were involved… I don’t believe you personally had a hand in killing Waddington.’

‘Good of you to say so, Jim.’

‘Killing’s not really your way of going on.’

‘Well, we’ll see about that.’

‘You’ve got too much to lose.’

‘That’s debatable.’

‘I’m thinking of your wife.’

‘So am I, Jim.’

‘So it must have been your brothers.’

Butler inspected the gun – a revolver; he set it on his lap.

‘They’ll be questioned in due course,’ I said. ‘The Chief said he might get Thackeray on the job, only it’s a crime committed in civvy street. Shaw’s already let on to the Chief that he knew Andy and Roy. Pair of head cases, he calls them – makes out they had it in for Shaw for some reason. He’s starting to cough, no question. When the Chief puts the blocks on a fellow, that’s generally the result. They’ll swing at the end… all three.’

Some of this was true; some of it wasn’t, as I believed Butler knew. I couldn’t really claim the credit for what he came out with next…

‘Matthew Waddington owed Shaw money,’ said Butler, seeming to address one particular illuminated street corner in the town below. ‘Waddington was a tough customer. Shaw’s a little bloke, and he wanted back-up when he confronted him at the lock. He paid the boys a pound apiece… Well, it’s a lot of money to them.’

‘You pay those boys to do a job, they do it well. The Army found that out.’

‘Saved your life on July 1st,’ Butler put in.

‘True enough,’ I said. I’d forgotten about that – how the twins had saved my life by their digging.

‘Waddington’, Butler continued, ‘said Shaw would have to wait a little while for his money. Shaw said he wouldn’t wait. Waddington came at him, so Andy and Roy stepped in, just as I stepped in for you when Dawson came at you on Spurn.’

I’d forgotten about that as well.

‘Anyhow,’ I said. ‘It ended in a killing. And you were involved because you knew of it.’

That, I was sure, was why he and his brothers had enlisted: put distance between themselves and Shaw. But the mystery was… why all the panic among the three Butlers over Naburn Lock? They could just have denied everything.

I asked Butler, ‘Will you say all you’ve just told me in court?’

‘Say all what, Jim? I’ve said nothing.’

Silence for a space. Ilkley, I decided, was just the right size of town. It had trams, but I did not believe they were necessary.

‘You didn’t shoot Scholes on July 1st, did you?’

He held the revolver in his right hand now, weighing it.

‘Don’t be silly, Jim.’

The bloke was emerging with a sight more credit than I’d have thought possible.

‘Dawson told you he’d done it,’ I said, ‘… took the blame. Why didn’t you tell Thackeray?’

‘Thought of it, Jim, but I didn’t think I’d be believed. It’d only throw more suspicion my way.’

Silence for a space.

‘I never knew which way Thackeray would jump. He was – is – bloody loony. He might be thinking of bringing the charge against you, for all you know.’

I eyed Butler. He wasn’t putting on side. He didn’t know.

‘Thackeray’s been here,’ I said. ‘I’ve been charged with the murders… Harvey and Tinsley.’

‘What?’

Butler saw me as a man trying to charge a killer, not as a man being charged with killing.

‘I’m on a sort of special bail,’ I said. They’ll cart me off to Armley nick in a few days.’

‘How many days?’

I shrugged.

‘I knew they’d found you near a German rifle,’ said Butler, ‘but… Why would you kill Tinsley? How do they make it out?’

I gave him the theory. ‘I suppose I’ll tell the court martial what really happened on Spurn, but I’ve no evidence, and Tinsley’s not around to back me up, thanks to you and your fucking green light…’

‘Don’t talk rot, Jim.’

‘And I don’t suppose you’re going to pitch in and help.’

‘How?’

‘By saying your brother overheard Tinsley’s confession, of course, and told you of it directly.’

‘Jim,’ he lied, ‘I know nothing of what was said on that bloody train. Anyhow,’ he continued (which choice of word proved he was lying), ‘you’ve put me right in it by going after Shaw. I don’t owe you any favours. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

He stood up, turned and faced me, revolver in hand.

‘I can see the difficulty you were in right from the start,’ I said. ‘You were involved in one bit of business – at Naburn – where a bloke’s knocked about the head and put into water. You knew that investigation might be re- started at any minute. Then another comes up along the same lines… Somebody might see that the twins made a connection between them.’

Butler was eyeing me, and it was a direct look, not sidelong, as when Tinsley and I had rolled past him onto the dangerous stretch of line. He continued to hold the revolver in his right hand. The hand was gloved. His left hand, also gloved, he brought up to the revolver. He set back the hammer. As he did so, the finger of his glove became caught, nipped in the mechanism. With a look of irritation on his face that I was not meant to see, he pulled, and quite suddenly the left hand and glove came away from the gun, which he had continued to point at me all along. We were now back to square one. Well, not quite, because the hammer was now cocked. It was a single action gun, and we both awaited the single action – the pulling of the trigger, with Ilkley puffing away peacefully below us. I did not feel the cold in that moment, and nor I believe did Butler. Presently, he stepped forward and set the gun on the bench beside me.

As he walked away, I called after him, ‘You’ve told the man Shaw where I’m to be found, I suppose?’

No reply.

I called louder, ‘He’s been here already, creeping about in the garden!’ Again no reply. I reached for the gun, and carefully uncocked the hammer.

The gun – a service revolver – proved to be fully loaded. On returning to ‘Ardenlea’, I put it into the trunk in my