office.' 'Is this matter touching the Cameron brothers?' I asked, at which the Chief Inspector frowned while shaking his head slightly. He looked at me narrowly, and I directed my gaze away from his face and towards the wide cabinet behind his desk. The top drawer was marked 'PLANS'. 'I want you to go out into York' he said, holding his hands suddenly very wide. 'And I want you to trace out the bad lads in the Company who are putting up the jobs, and the bad lads outside who they're putting 'em up to.' Silence in the room, clock marching on loudly. 'How?' I said at last. The Chief Inspector fell to smoking, and looking at the top of his desk, and after a bit of this it struck me that I was most likely not going to get an answer. So I spoke up again, as I slowly tried to get to grips with this unexpected task I'd been given. 'You want me to wear a different suit for the work?' I said. 'I do that. Something in cloth of a lower grade, and I want you to stay out of the city when you're not on the job. You live at a fair distance, don't you?' 'Three miles on the bicycle… well, three miles anyhow.' 'You're not known in York, are you? I mean, it's not yet widely known that you're on the force?' As he spoke, the Chief Inspector was producing papers from his desk, and looking at them as if he'd never seen them before. 'You are to search in all directions,' he continued, 'and once you have found these fellows, you are to become their confederate.' 'You mean give out that I'm crooked myself?' He nodded, saying: 'You are to play a double game.' I was not chasing killers, but it struck me that there was danger in this business too, and some of my earlier excitement came back, and some of the fear. The Chief pushed the papers over to me. There were two piles. Pointing to the first, he said, 'These are cases that have been occurring along the lines I've mentioned.' Pointing to the second bundle, he said: 'These papers are quite blank.' I picked these last mentioned up and looked at them. They were not quite blank. At the top of the pages were the words 'North Eastern Railway Police', neatly printed. The Chief Inspector folded his arms. I looked back at him, and he nodded at me for a while. The question why I'd been given the almost-blank sheets was on my lips, but I felt I'd asked a sight too many already 'You're to write down the progress of your investigation on those,' he said after a while. 'At the top of each page, put 'Special Report', then write 'Subject' and, next to that, 'Persons Wanted'. Write up the report at the end of every day and send it in to me.' 'How?' I said again. The Chief looked down at his boots; I heard the air moving in and out across the moustache again. 'In the post,' he said, looking up at last. 'In the post?' 'Reason being you are not to be seen about this office in daylight hours. Oh, and put your hands on some carbons, so you can keep a copy of each sheet for yourself.' 'What should I do if the matter is urgent?' He sat back, quite amazed at the question. 'There are four postal collections a day in this city, you know,' he said. 'How many hours do I give to the job, sir?' I said. 'How many hours? You can't be clocked to this kind of business with a patent time clock, lad. Do you have any notion of where you might start?' 'Yes,' I said. 'The Garden Gate.' The Chief Inspector gave a puzzled smile up towards the Tug of War cup, then turned his gaze my way. 'Wanted!' he suddenly exclaimed. 'Nice cottage, with orchard!' 'The Garden Gate is a public house, sir' I said. 'The haunt of some low characters so I've heard. It's in Carmelite Street.' 'Layerthorpe way' Weatherill said, nodding, the smile quite gone now. 'The York constables go down there two at a time, you know.' Nice, I thought. I was on the point of telling Weatherill about Edwin Lund, about the Brains and the Blocker, but it had all come to naught, after all. Instead, I finally brought up the matter of the Camerons, although again leaving myself out of the picture: 'I've read that a Company workman and his brother were shot on,' I said. 'It happened in the goods yard – bodies turned up on Sunday.' 'Wrong,' said the Chief, loudly. 'It happened on the track outside the goods yard, and that is the most important fact in the case.' 'Is that right, sir? Why?' 'Because it means we don't have to bloody solve it. That track is York, not the railway; therefore what happened happened in York. Therefore Tower Street can try their luck.' Tower Street – the main copper shop of the York Constabulary. The Chief Inspector stood up once again, and opened the door that led from his office to the main one. 'I'm stepping over to the hotel for a spot of breakfast,' he said, and I took this as the signal that I should stand up, too. 'The Hull fish special comes in to Platform Three at 6.45 every weekday,' said Weatherill. 'You can't miss hearing it, because it thunders up as if it's about to crash through the bloody door. Now, if you need to use this office, I want you out of it by then. He took a draw on his cigar and the smoke came out in rolling chaos as he said: 'You were a footplate man yourself, weren't you, over on the Lanky?' 'Aye,' I said. 'What happened?' 'They say I wrecked a locomotive, and a ten-bay engine shed.' The Chief looked at me. 'It wasn't my fault,' I said. 'How come?' 'The steam brake wasn't warmed, and I was told it had been.' 'You're blinding me with science now, kidder. But I can credit it.' He continued to look at me, nearly smiling, but expressions were hard to make out from his face. What might've started out as a smile could have easily got lost on the way. 'Let's say a fortnight's observations and becoming familiar, Detective Stringer,' he said. 'Your wages will be sent out to you by special post. Light the stove if you want, but remember: out by quarter to.' I saluted again, although I wanted to ask: 'If something should go amiss with my investigation, how do I give the alarm?' I watched the Chief Inspector walk through the door of his own office, and the door of the main office, leaving them both open, and rocking in the freezing draught. Then he came back. Putting his head around the main door, he said, 'Never go home straight to your village while you're on this duty – always by a roundabout route,' which set me thinking of the wife at home, typewriting alone in the cottage cut away from the street. I nodded, and he was gone again.
Chapter Six
There was a pail next to the stove with kindling and coal in it. A billy stood on top of the stove, and I found a tea caddy, pot and cups on a window ledge. It was strange to be at large in that empty office, to hear my boots rattle on the boards, to brew up with other blokes' tea. It was as though I was the fugitive, not to be glimpsed in daylight. Beyond the door the station was coming to life, like a slow explosion of growing power. I could hear engines coming in… the stopcocks released, giving that great sigh of steam as if the engines' only task was to bring steam into the station, and empty it out directly. It was gone six when I'd done lighting the stove, and as I turned to the papers I'd been given, I felt I'd spent too long on the job.
The first bundle was a heap of criminal record papers, all tied together with string. There were photographic portraits and I thought: all this lot are my enemies now. Most of the subjects had queer-looking eyes like the Camerons: broken glass eyes. And you tried to read the story in the eyes – match it with what was set down in print.
The details began with 'Correct name', 'Aliases', 'Nickname', 'Marks'. Most didn't have an alias or a nickname, but most had marks. 'Lady Godiva tattoo on shoulder', 'Tattoo of a dagger on upper arm'. The 'Last Known Address' of most of them was York or villages roundabout. 'Places Frequented'… that was all pubs. Criminals didn't frequent anywhere except pubs. The category 'MO' interested me. In the timetables of Bradshaw that meant 'Mondays Only'. Here it meant… what? Manner of operation? Method of operation? It was not explained. Entries under this heading were diverse: 'Smooth character'; 'Impersonates carter'; 'Card sharp knocks on doors'. I put the papers to one side, reckoning that I would need not only a different suit but a different name for the fortnight ahead. Looking down at the top board was a man whose face was tipped forwards – his face pointed down, and his hair pointed up. His offence was marked down as 'Stations, Setting Fire To' and his name was Allan Clough, which seemed about right as far as the name. Allan, any road.
I would need a profession: Thief.
And an 'MO'.
Steals anything, anytime.
No, I wouldn't need that. Criminals did not exchange record cards like the gentry with their calling cards. Very likely, most didn't know they had an 'MO' but just went about being themselves. I looked through the stack of cards again, and struck a man who had 'Nuisance' written as the entry for 'Offence'. He was the only one of the whole lot pictured smiling, so he was evidently a loony as well as a nuisance. This was the world I was entering: the world of nuts and double crossers.
Well, I was in queer all right.
I sat back on my chair, pictured myself on the high footplate of one of the Lanky's Atlantic engines, the Highflyers, and how, up there, you just soared, receiving the most wonderful return for expenditure of coal that I could think of.
The next bundle on the table before me was stuffed into an envelope that had the words 'Occurrences – Large Theft' scrawled across it. There was another word underneath, but I couldn't make it out. Inside were not more than half a dozen sheets of paper, each one fastened behind a bit of pink pasteboard. At the top of each sheet were the words, 'North Eastern Railway', 'Division', 'Station', 'Date', and 'Log'. It was all written in a quite
