'police'. I then looked at some railway speaks: 'Nous allons bien vite.' We are going very fast. 'A quelle heure part le premier train?' At what time does the first train leave?
Having set down his paper, Sampson was saying, in connection with something or other: 'It's always supposed that the big ones are put up.'
Beyond the window, things were floating back fast in the darkness. 'What did your old man do for a living, Allan?' he asked me.
'Butcher,' I said, instantly. 'Yours?'
'Time' he answered.
'He was a felon?' I asked, and Sampson's eyes went steely again.
I looked through the windows. The French houses were wrong, with the wrong roofs – like a man with a bad hat. We went at a lick through a station: its name began with 'B', and there was sea here too, or a lighthouse at any rate. We were next hurled over a great junction, and Sampson was looking at the other passengers in the carriage.
'Wouldn't mind giving her a shot,' he was saying.
Silence for a space, then Sampson said:
'That French cunt's staring at me.'
I looked up. He might have meant one of twenty. Not that they were all cunts, but they were all French. A woman sitting behind Hopkins was holding a baby, and the sight knocked me. I thought: one of those will be in my way before long, and the second thought came: will I ever see it? The baby was pounding as hard as it could on the shoulder of the woman but that wasn't at all hard. I looked out of the window: nothing; blackness. I was in the same position as that kid.
By now, I could only tell by my ears when we were in a tunnel. I looked to my left, and Sampson was asleep, an empty wine bottle rolling between his boots. Well, he'd had a long day of it. In slumber, his face lost none of its shape.
'How is it you're so well up on railways?' said Hopkins.
'I did some turns in the goods yard over at Leeds, as I told you.'
Was it Leeds that I'd said? I couldn't recall. Come to that… Had I spoken of being employed in the goods yards at all?
'In addition, I used to take the Railway Magazine,' I added.
'Take it from others at railway stations, you mean?'
I'd made another bloomer. Hopkins was playing one of his finger games, smiling at me over his hands. I finished off what was left of my own wine, saying, 'I had a hobby in that direction, you know.'
Hopkins leant forwards, and settled himself with his elbows on his knees, giving up his finger exercises. It was a wild night outside, but the carriage was too close and dusty. I wanted to open the window but did not know how, or how to ask one of the Frenchers. I looked down at the book in my hands. The answer lay in there somewhere.
Hopkins raised one of his hands, and pointed at me. I thought this would be the start of a speech, but instead the long pointing finger moved towards me, towards my face, towards my spectacles, and through my spectacles to my eyelash, which he touched, causing me to do the most ridiculous thing. I coloured up; I then tried to laugh.
Hopkins was sitting back, smiling.
'How much did they set you back then, mate?' he asked. 'I would hope they come cheaper than the sort with lenses. See… I watched the fellow on the boat with glasses just like yours, and what with the rain and the flying spray they were all misted up.' 'It's a disguise, if you take my meaning,' I said. 'I didn't want to look like I did before because of… something… something that occurred.' Hopkins, still smiling, said: 'Who are you, mate?' And that was the nerve-cracking moment, for I had no answer.
Chapter Twenty-five
'An ordinary working man' I said to Hopkins as the train thundered on, 'always on the look-out for a spot of…' 'What?' 'Adventure.' 'And how do you find this adventure?' The wonder of it was that he had not immediately accused me of being a detective, but then he always went around the houses, this one. He nodded towards Sampson, who was still dead to the world. 'Do you not find him a bit… nuts?' 'He gets a little excitable at times' I said. 'He does that' said Hopkins. 'In that case why stick with him?' I said, breathing a little easier at this new direction of the conversation. Hopkins shrugged. 'Keep a cart on a wheel,' he said. 'How are we off for the readies?' I said. 'And when's the share-out?' 'Search me,' he said. 'And what's the plan for Paris?' He made no answer but, turning towards the black window repeated my earlier words: 'An ordinary working man…' At which Valentine Sampson suddenly started and said: 'It's a pity, but I will not work, little Allan. It's hardly any advance on slavery.'
He'd uttered the words while still half asleep, or at the very moment of waking up. He looked at us both with wide eyes, as though waiting to be told something. But Hopkins remained silent and, presently, closed his eyes and fell asleep himself. I wanted to do the same but could not, for fear of what might be said. Instead I removed the spectacles for – at the very least of it – my disguise was all up.
We were now running fast past a spot called Abbeville; then past another starting with 'A'; eighty miles per hour gait. A great church made of darkness and rain; outlines of the weird engines in the rain. Over a maze of lines at somewhere starting with 'L', then we were shooting downhill, into valleys made of tall, rough-looking buildings.
The Gare du Nord, when we came to it, was fitted out like a palace, a freezing-cold palace with high arches, and electric light in great glass globes, and yet even here no platforms to speak of. We climbed down, and… We were too early.
The day had not yet begun, and we had caught Paris all unawares. We walked through the ticket gate into a wide hall with a round window like a great white eye opposite the track ends. There were some small offices set into the walls below the window, and we approached one of these marked 'Consigne', which was French for left- luggage office. A clerk stood there with his hands on his hips as we approached. It was Napoleon waiting for Nelson, only lower down the scale of history.
He was eyeing Sampson's kitbag, which of course was all we had to consign. The remaining notes were in there once again, though not the gun. Our boots rattled smartly on the polished stone as we closed on the fellow.
When we were still some distance off, the fellow said, 'Bonjour, Messieurs', which came unexpectedly, for I'd expected surliness from him. Sampson made a go of replying in French and asking to leave the bag, for which he received a ticket on payment of money from his pocketbook. He put the ticket in his right-hand trouser pocket, which, I reckoned, was where he'd put the one given him at Charing Cross. As we walked away from the Consigne, Hopkins said something in an under-breath to Sampson, and I thought: is he telling him of the discovery he'd made about me? But Sampson's answer made me doubt it:
'You'll not catch me taking any quantity of cash into a hotel here,' he said. 'A lot of thieving bastards, these fucking French are.'
A thought struck me: perhaps Hopkins thinks it not worth mentioning after all that my spectacles are false. Perhaps he thinks there's nothing in it. As we walked towards the 'Sortie', I noted the location of the telegraph office.
We stepped out of the Gare du Nord into a cobbled street. Over the road, in the rain and grey light, were cafes and restaurants with the widest fronts I'd ever seen, but all closed up, with seats stacked on tables outside. On the cobbles ahead of us was a mouse – same as an English mouse; no better, no worse. It dashed off as a cart came along the street pulled by a horse that looked high-mettled and restive. There was nothing fancy about this equipage, but that horse knew it was French all right. We began walking across the road, and the cobbles seemed to swim towards us in ripples.
We walked on, turning left, right; I was following Sampson, too done-in to ask questions, or to think about whatever game Hopkins was playing.
