spent hours trying, and failing, to imagine. (Neither of us could play a note, to begin with.) These were the fixed aims of her domestic life, and housework could go hang in the meantime.
I had supper of boiled bacon, pickles and tea, and read a little more of my Police Manual, telling myself I would keep at it until the biggest log on the fire burnt away, but it didn't seem to burn, only to turn black. There was a lot of it left by the time I got up to 'Fraud' and quit the book.
I went up to bed with the wife at a little after ten. Before pulling the lace curtain of the bedroom to, I peered past the fern that stood on the window ledge. Nobody about in Thorpe. I thought for some reason of the Archbishop sleeping in his Palace, the river flowing slowly by; and it was impossible not to imagine him looking like one of those statues found on church tombs. The Palace would bring a few trippers to Thorpe in summer (I'd been told) but it was a sleepy spot, all right. After Halifax, it was like being left behind by the world. Yet, two weeks before we'd arrived there'd been a windrush through the village – not occurring anywhere else – and forty-nine objects, according to the vicar, had been overturned, including the oak next to the Old Church, which stood marooned by the river.
The wife came into the room carrying her raspberry tea, recommended for those in her condition. Her nightdress hung about one foot higher than usual, because of the baby bulge beneath, and her travel around the bed put me in mind of the orbit of the planet Mercury. Her due date was two months away. If the idea bothered her, it didn't stop her sleeping, and she was quickly off. I wanted a boy – tell him about engines. Except that I was done with them myself. I could hardly think about locomotives now, without going back in my mind's eye to Sowerby Bridge Shed, 12 November 1905. To think that at the start of that day, I'd still been able to see my way clear to a life on the footplate. What with memories of that calamity, and wondering whether I'd be put to chasing murderers come six o'clock in the morning I couldn't sleep, so walked down to the kitchen for a bottle of beer. But we were all out.
PART TWO
The Garden Gate
Chapter Five
It was 5.55 a.m and raining hard when I pedalled up to the bike stand just outside the forecourt of the station and dashed inside. I raced past the bookstall, where the placards of the Yorkshire Post (a morning paper) read 'York Horror', but also 'Terrific February Gales at Coast'. The bookstall was long and narrow like a carriage that never moved, and I didn't care for it. The stout party in charge was laying out his murder library. As a kid, I'd been warned off light literature by my dad, with the result that I read little in the way of fiction at all, having no real liking for the heavier stuff. I had read always of the railways, and railwaymen were the ones I'd looked up to, not detectives, but it would be something to settle the Cameron business, and for the first time in weeks I was entering railway premises with some of the excitement, and some of the fear, of my engine-firing days. I felt lean, forward-thinking, useful again as I strode towards the Police Office.
One man stood at the ticket gate. He was jumping to keep warm. I showed him my warrant card, and he said, 'OK,' still jumping. I turned left at the ticket gate thinking about Chief Inspector Weatherill. It wouldn't just be me and him. There'd be others present no doubt: Shillito, the Detective Sergeant, who was to be my governor – I'd met him shortly after being taken on. Langborne was the Charge Sergeant, and then there was Wright the Chief Clerk… I'd yet to meet this pair.
I hurried along under the clock on Platform Four, with the Police Office now in sight. It had two main frontages in the station: one looked westerly, facing out onto Platform Four; the other faced south, and overlooked the buffers of a bay platform, number three. The door (set into the southerly facade) was unlocked, which it hadn't been the evening before; so somebody had pitched up. I walked in. The gas was lit, but not the stove. The big desks and cabinets were like islands, and no two faced the same way.
A few feet from the cold stove stood the cold fireplace: two chances for heat spurned, making me feel colder still. Above the mantel, instead of a painting, there was 'By-Laws and Regulations of the North Eastern Railway Company', and on the mantelshelf below stood a photograph: 'Grimsby Dock Police Football Team 1905'. I thought I recognised one of the players: Shillito, the DS. It was him all right, for the names were written along the bottom. He must have transferred from Grimsby.
Grimsby was in the Eastern Division of the Company force, whereas York was the headquarters of the Southern Division, and Chief Inspector Weatherill was the governor of the Southern Division. The only man senior to him was Superintendent somebody or other, who was quartered at Newcastle, and boss of the whole show.
Opposite me was a solid blue door. This led to the holding cells, I knew, of which they were two. Nobody was kept in overnight. If charged and remanded they were taken over to the regular copper shop at Tower Street, in a station hansom if need be. At the far end of the office was another blue door: Chief Inspector Weatherill's office. I walked up to it, and yanked it open just to make sure that the fellow wasn't in there.
But he was.Salute? Yes, no. Yes.
I saluted but might as well not've. Weatherill was sitting side on to me, looking up at his cold mantelshelf. He seemed to be gazing at a little silver cup, and I could make out the words 'TUG OF WAR' engraved on it. They were nuts on sport, this lot.
Chief Inspector Weatherill was a big, untidy man who looked as though he'd done a lot in life. He wore a long green coat – of decent cloth but none too clean – buttoned right up to his head. He had only scraps of hair; they were of an orangey colour, and swirled about his big head like a dog chasing its tail. His nose wandered down from his eyes to his mouth by a very winding route, which made me think he might've been a prize fighter in his day. He'd been through it all right.
'It's a good suit,' he said, turning slowly about to face me, 'nicely damped and pressed, 'n' all.'
He stood up, walked around the desk towards me. He had his hands in his pockets, which somehow gave him a look of being about to do absolutely anything. He took his hands out of his pockets and pulled open my coat, looking at the lining. Steam came from his mouth, and a sharp smell. There was all sorts wrong with his face when seen close-to: scars, lumps, burn marks maybe. His nose seemed to have tried out lots of shapes, and settled on none in particular. His one perfect feature was his moustache, which was darker than his hair, and stretched out widely like a spirit level or the governor of a steam engine. It was there for balance.
'You put in for the allowance?'
'I did, sir,' I said. What was all this blather? When would he come to the Camerons? I could hear his breaths as they came and went through the 'tache. He was still looking at the lining of my coat – he seemed easily entranced by little things.'Best Italian silk, sir,' I said. 'Where's your Derbies?' I took the handcuffs out of the side coat pocket where I kept them, and he put his hand in where they'd been. 'Too small,' he said. 'Suit coat should be extra long in the skirt pocket to stow the Derbies. You see, a detective should have plain suiting but not ordinary suiting… But it's a good rig-out.' The room smelt of carbolic and old ash. Weatherill took a cigar out of his desk, lit it. '… But you're going to have to put it away for a while.' I didn't like the way he kept saying 'but'. 'Why, sir?' I said. 'We have some bad lads in York just at present,' he said, through smoke. 'Some shocking bad ones, but we've no notion of who they are, or where they are, or what…' He broke off to stare again at the little trophy; he didn't seem able to bring to mind the third thing he didn't know. He put his hand through the remainders of his hair, pulled at his collar. 'Sit down,' he said suddenly, 'sit down.' I sat down. At last we were to start talking murder… But nothing at all happened for a moment, except for Weatherill taking a few pulls on his cigar. 'You've heard of a put-up job, I take it?' he said, presently. 'I've heard the expression, sir' I said. 'What do you understand by it?' 'Well…' I said. 'It's something arranged beforehand, like.' 'No' said Weatherill. 'I mean, most things are arranged beforehand, wouldn't you say?' 'Most things are on the railway, sir.' He thought about this bit of philosophy for a long while, or maybe he just looked as though he was thinking about it. 'A put-up job,' he said slowly, 'is an inside job. It depends on information that can only be got from inside a locked bureau of a railway
