Andrew Martin - The Last Train to Scarborough

'Is he in with you as regards the…?'

'The continental specialities? He is not. Well, he wouldn't be, now would he?'

'You keep it a secret from him, do you?'

Vaughan stopped walking, as if to make a declaration.

'I see nothing shameful in it, Jim,' he said, 'and so it's not kept secret – not from men, anyhow.'

'Does Fielding approve?'

'Not exactly, Jim,' said Vaughan. 'Not exactly.'

'How does he get his living?' I enquired.

'He has private means, Jim. We're both lucky in that way. His old man did well for himself in the law, you know.'

'Barrister?'

'Solicitor,' he said, and he was eyeing me. The word made me turn white as paper at the thought of all that lay ahead.

'Is his old man still alive?'

'Hardly, Jim. Howard's pushing sixty, you know. My old man is living.'

'Where?'

'Streatham,' he said, taking his key from his pocket as we approached the door of Paradise. 'A very dismal place in London that suits his character to perfection, Jim. But I shouldn't complain really. The old boy puts five pounds in the post every month, which is not riches but better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick.'

'Miss Rickerby doesn't usually run to a hot tea on Sundays, does she?' I enquired, as Vaughan pushed at the door.

'She does not. Of course, you know why she's laying it on tonight?'

'I've no notion,' I said.

'I'd say it was all on your account, Jim,' he said, and we stepped into the hot hallway and a smell of cooking.

Vaughan darted straight upstairs. I removed my hat and great-coat, then turned and tidied my hair in the hall mirror. I tried to tell myself this was normal behaviour before supper taken in company, but in fact I was only doing it for Miss Rickerby's sake. It must be true, if Vaughan had noticed it, that the lady had taken a shine to me, but that didn't mean she wasn't out to kill me.

This time I did hang my coat in the hall, first checking that my warrant card was stowed safely in my suit-coat. I followed the food smell along the hallway, coming first to what I imagined to be the dining room. It was on the front side of the house: a faded room with a table that could have sat six but had cutlery laid for five, which must mean that Amanda Rickerby and her brother would eat with we three paying guests. The white cloth was a little askew and nearly, but not quite, completely clean. Also, the wallpaper – decorated with a design of roses the colour of dried blood – had come away a little around the two gas lamps that roared softly on the end walls, and there was a black soot smudge above the fireplace, like a permanent shadow.

Two paintings hung from the picture rail that ran round the room. The first was above the fireplace smudge, and rocked a little in the updraught of a moderate, spluttering blaze. It was a painting of a sailing ship, with a rather dusty name plate at the bottom: 'Her Majesty's Wood Framed Iron Frigate "Inconstant", 16 Tons.' Was it any good? It wasn't signed – not that I could see. Perhaps it was signed on the back. As I looked at it, the fire fluttered and the flute note came. Again, the fireplace was small and imperfectly swept. Crouching down, I saw that a fancy pattern was set into the black iron over-mantel, like the badge of a king. It was a museum piece really.

The second painting was on the wall over-opposite, and showed a high, thin, brightly lit house with smaller ones massed below as though combined in a great effort to raise it up. Scarborough from the sea. The harbour stood in the foreground and that gave the clue: it was Paradise of course, and I made out my own room – the top one, and the brightest of the lot.

The kitchen was next to the dining room, and the food cooked in it would have to be carried the half a dozen yards between the two doors. The kitchen door stood open. The gas gave a yellow light, and the walls were of white brick. The place was stifling. There was a great table, bigger than the one in the dining room, and Amanda Rickerby stood at one end of it, her brother at the other. She was singing lightly. I caught the words, 'Why are you lonely, why do you roam?' and I knew the song but couldn't lay name to it. She broke off (not on my account, for she still hadn't seen me) and, pointing at a pot bubbling on the range, said, 'Egg yolk.'

Her brother went to the larder to fetch an egg, and Miss Rickerby carried on singing – 'Have you no sweetheart, have you no home…' – and she could sing so very well that I was almost sorry when she saw me and stopped, and smiled, at the same time pushing something behind the knife polisher, which was one of a great mix-up of things on the big table. She knew I'd seen her do it, but this only made her smile the wider, as though it was all part of the game that seemed to be going on between us.

'We're trying a little bit of French cooking, Mr Stringer,' she said, indicating her slow-witted brother at the range.

'Oh,' I said, 'what?'

'Scotch broth,' she said.

I heard a sniff from behind me, and Theo Vaughan was there.

'There's nothing particularly French about Scotch broth,' he said, nodding at me. There was no sign of shame at his late behaviour in the Two Mariners. He had a glass in his hand, and was making for one of the objects on the table – the beer barrel laid in for the guests. The kitchen seemed to be open house for everyone, and Vaughan was now filling his glass from the barrel tap.

'The Scotch broth is just the starter,' Miss Rickerby said, then: 'I thought you didn't care for this beer, Mr Vaughan.'

'Oh, a pint of the Two is fine after a couple of the Four,' he said. 'Ask any beer man.'

'I suppose that, being that bit more drunk, you just stop caring,' said Amanda Rickerby, grinning at me.

The fact was that our trip to the pub had been nothing to do with the beer. Vaughan had wanted to take me out to show me the cards But why?

The range was set before a recess that might once have been the fireplace. It was too big to fit in, and perhaps accounted for the heat of the house. All the other fireplaces were small, after all. Adam Rickerby stood at the range next to a stew pot. He was holding a knife over an egg, and eyeing his sister with a look of panic.

'Gently now,' she said, with half a glance in his direction.

The knife clattered down on the egg, and all its innards dropped into the broth.

' That weren't right,' he said, as though it had all been his sister's fault, at which Amanda Rickerby for once turned away from me, and gave her full attention to her brother.

'It won't hurt to have the whole egg in, Adam,' she said. 'It won't hurt at all.'

'I've to put salt? Pepper?'

'That's right. But go easy, love.'

Vaughan was eyeing the lad with a look of dislike.

'I'm off through,' he said, and he went into the dining room, or so I supposed.

'It's the second course that's the French dish,' said Amanda Rickerby, turning back towards me. 'I can't pronounce it. Mr Fielding found the recipe in one of his books some weeks ago, and we thought we'd try it tonight.'

She slid a bit of paper across the table to me. At the top somebody had written 'Croquette de Boeuf'.

'That's French all right,' I said.

'Can you go through Sunday without a treat of some kind, Mr Stringer?' she enquired. 'Don't tell me: you go to a Morning Service every Sabbath without fail?'

'That's not what I call a treat,' I said.

'Nor me,' she said, and took from behind the knife polisher the object she had hidden: a glass of red wine, and she boldly took a sip, as if to say, 'There's nothing to be ashamed of in a glass of wine.'

Her brother was removing a tin tray from the oven, making the room even hotter. The stuff inside it was red and lumpy – smelled all right though.

'Is it done, our lass?' he said, holding it in the hot cloth and offering it towards his sister.