David Ashton - End of the Line

He put his hand upon the engine beside him as if taking its temperature.

‘I know these creatures better than any human being — in fact prefer them. This fellow’s nickname is Puffing Billy. Would you care to know why?’

Both policemen nodded, thinking the man was merely trying to delay the inevitable moment.

‘Because at this time of night,’ Pettigrew fingered his moustache and smiled, ‘near precise to the minute, the mechanism cools, but just before it shuts down it aye lets out. . a last farewell.’

As if he had summoned up a spirit, the engine suddenly belched out a huge blast of steam that enveloped the policemen where they stood. Both coughed and spluttered, flailing around till they finally fought their way out of the cloud of vapour.

Then it cleared as if by magic. And also like a conjuring trick Thomas Pettigrew had disappeared.

* * *

As the two policemen searched round the vast cavern of the station like some frantic wanderers lost in a dream, McLevy yet found time for recrimination.

‘Ye should have kept on the qui vive ,’ he accused his constable.

‘What about you?’ came the indignant answer.

‘I was attending to the larger concern — it is your function to look out for mechanical subterfuge!’

Mulholland snorted at that but the inspector suddenly stopped; his sharp ears had caught a scrabble, a hint of movement in a constricted dark passageway by the booking offices.

He put his finger to his lips, pointed to the possible refuge for a fugitive and signalled Mulholland to investigate the narrow confines.

‘ Take your stick ,’ he whispered. ‘ Watch your neck. ’

‘ Why can’t you go? ’ came the answering hiss.

‘ Only room for one. And I am inviolate. ’

The constable shook his head at the obtuseness of his inspector, grasped his hornbeam stick and stepped off into the darkness.

Indeed the whole episode was beginning to take the form of some awful nightmare where no matter what move was made an insidious feeling of failure loomed. The station itself seemed to have mutated into a malevolent entity, towering overhead like some hostile beast as jagged shafts of light played against the clawed iron girders.

McLevy shook off these weird imaginings just as a sharp crack followed by a high-pitched shriek cut through the sepulchral silence.

After a moment, Mulholland emerged looking a little shaken.

‘It was a big black rat. Went straight for my ankles,’ he reported.

‘It would be trying to escape,’ the inspector muttered.

‘I couldn’t take the chance-’

The constable stopped. His eyes fixed upon something he had seen high up beyond McLevy’s abiding presence.

‘ Turn round sir ,’ he said softly. ‘ Slow does it. Lift your eyes heavenwards. ’

The inspector did so, and on a high gantry by the girders, with the trains set out far below, he discerned a glimpse of white in the gloom. The pristine collar of Thomas Pettigrew in contrast to the dark of his uniform and the surrounding shadows.

How he had got there God alone knows, but the man knew every nook and cranny of his station, so there he remained and it was a long way down.

‘Mister Pettigrew,’ McLevy called quietly. ‘You’ll do yourself a mischief.’

‘I intend to,’ came the firm response. ‘With my death you prove nothing.’

‘Whit about your daughter?’ the inspector probed.

‘As I said. Provided for.’

Pettigrew looked over the expanse of his beloved station and the serried ranks of trains, their metal sides reflecting a dull gleam in the shafts of light.

A smile of pride came upon his face.

‘I shall count to five,’ he called. ‘Five is a godly number, Calvinists have aye thought it so.’

He began the enumeration. One, two, three.

‘You’ll mess up the timetable, sir!’ Mulholland shouted desperately.

‘A black mark upon your worksheet!’ bawled McLevy. ‘And whit about God — he’ll take it amiss, surely?’

‘I am a good and faithful servant,’ came the unconcerned response. ‘I shall be forgiven. Four. . five!’

Pettigrew put the whistle to his lips and blew.

* * *

‘We found him on the roof of the engine,’ McLevy said, gulping down the fragrant brew. ‘Arms round the smoke-stack, neck broken.’

Jean shivered at the singular end to a strange tale.

‘A sad business,’ she remarked.

She had noted that he was better dressed than his usual state, shaved and by the smell of it, pomaded under the low-brimmed bowler. For a moment she wondered if it was for her benefit.

‘I’ve just been tae the funeral,’ the inspector announced. ‘I thought I’d take my chance.’

‘On what?’

‘That ye wouldnae let fire at me with small-shot.’

‘Oh, that?’ Jean sipped her coffee delicately, in contrast to the awful sleuchin’ noise he made. ‘Business is thriving. I’m in a good mood.’

For a moment their eyes met, and the curious feeling of deep intimacy that sometimes crept upon them unawares washed gently at the shore of their separate islands.

McLevy slurped his coffee. She winced.

‘The daughter was there. Hefty lump of a lassie.’

‘That would be her predicament,’ Jean observed.

‘Big boned. Make a good mother.’

‘That’s your criterion, is it?’

He ignored the waspish comment.

‘Seemed well enough. Two aunties with her.’

A comfortable silence fell between them while the peacocks strutted around the lawn being fed by Hannah Semple who, despite her best intentions, had become quite fond of the glaikit creatures.

‘I admire the way they shiver their feathers to attract the females,’ said Jean thoughtfully. ‘It’s about all they’re good for. Men.’

‘Shivering accessories?’

She made no answer, an impudent smile upon her face, and McLevy calculated that now was as good a time as any to break the news.

Mulholland after the funeral had headed off to take tea with the lusty widow, more in pity than love, and this despite his inspector’s injunction that it never worked to try to save people from their own foolishness, never in a month of Sundays .

In fact Jean Brash had said these words some time past, staring right into McLevy’s face. Funny that.

Roach was on the golf course at Leith Links, and if he saw a horde of semi-naked bloodthirsty females heading in his direction, the man would at least know better than to shin up a tree.

The inspector was on his own. As per usual.

‘I have to thank you, I suppose,’ Jean declared, reaching at the coffee pot. ‘For proving my coachman innocent and not pressing charge for your bloody nose.’

McLevy nodded. Aye, well. Time now. Try not to take too much pleasure in it.

‘Jedburgh,’ he remarked idly. ‘Ye know a woman there — Minnie Moncrieff?’

Jean sniffed. ‘A sordid type. Keeps a low bawdy-hoose.’

‘She’s trying to raise standards, my police colleagues tell me’ he replied dryly. ‘Bought a new carriage, been driving round the town like the Queen of Sheba. Seen by one and all.’

‘Scruff. No changing that.’

To this magisterial rebuke from the mistress of the Just Land, the inspector nodded meekly, and then added a mild rejoinder.

‘With a fine big coachman. A giant of a man in fine livery, whipping up the cuddies in grand style.’

There was a moment of frozen silence.

‘ Angus? ’

‘None other than.’

Jean nearly spat out the coffee as her mind struggled to deal with this betrayal.

‘So that’s where he got the money?’

‘The wages of sin,’ was the urbane response.