Andrew Martin - Death on a Branch line

‘I’d like to shake that man by the hand,’ he said presently, and he nodded rapidly to himself for a while, each nod signifying a further retreat from the conversation.

Just then there came through the open windows the roaring of a machine. It caused a slight stir in the room, but the drinkers stood the shock, as though the noise came as nothing out of the common to them. Walking over to one of the front windows I saw by the moonlight two men on a motor-bike that ought only to have carried one. The first man — the one on the seat — I did not recognise until I made out the identity of the one riding on the rear mudguard. He was the villainous-looking lad porter, and the one in the seat was the signalman. They both wore their North Eastern company uniforms, but with no shirt collars or caps. They climbed down from the motor-bike, and a moment later came clattering and dust-covered through the door that led into the bar. As the door swung to behind him, the lad porter called across to Hardy, who faced away from him. The pub fell silent as the porter said:

‘The auction poster in the booking office, Mr Hardy — out of date it was, you were quite right. I took it down as per your instructions. You won’t catch me shirking on the job, Mr Hardy.’

He had an older man’s grey, pitted face on a boy’s body, and without his cap, I saw that his head was shaved; he looked to me like an evil jockey.

He carried on with his stream of shouted sarcasm:

‘I’ve closed the warehouse — padlocked it good and proper as you asked, Mr Hardy. You’ll find no cause to complain of slackness there

…’

But as he spoke, the man addressed turned and made for the door with head down. The porter, eyeballing him all the way, asked, ‘Where you off to, Mr Hardy? Early night is it?’

Hardy made no answer but pushed on grimly through the door, at which the lad porter said to the signalman, ‘Well, en’t that the frozen limit? It was a perfectly innocent enquiry!’

The signalman grinned and walked over to the bar, where Mrs Handley was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he called for two beers from Mr Handley, and with no ‘please’ or ‘thank-you’ about it. His companion remained standing in front of the door, from where he kept up his speech:

‘He’s a hard nut to crack, is Mr Hardy. There’s just no bloody pleasing him, is there, Eddie old mate? Treat him with consideration, and he throws a paddy.’ He shook his head, saying, ‘Well, we’d best reach an accommodation somehow, or the results won’t be pretty… Are you staring at me, mister,’ he ran on, addressing me, ‘or is it just my imagination?’

I kept silence.

‘No,’ said the lad porter, ‘you must have been staring at me because, now that I come to think of it, I don’t have any imagination, do I, Eddie?’

He was appealing to the signalman, who seemed nothing more to him than a sounding board, a mobile audience.

‘Not to speak of, Mick,’ said the signalman, ‘- not over — imaginative.’

I was weighing the kid up. He had a boy’s body in size, but was jockey-like in that he looked as though he could take a pounding or give one. It was very noticeable that he stood directly before the door, blocking the exit.

‘Bit keen-eyed you are, mate,’ he said.

It was quite beyond believing, but in the silence of the pub, the two of us had fallen to a staring contest.

‘I’ll give you some fucking rough music,’ the lad porter said, after an interval.

I said, ‘I’d think on if I were you. You don’t know who you’re talking to.’

‘I saw you at the fucking station,’ he said. ‘Come in with your missus. She’s a bit of all right, your missus.’

‘I’ll crown you in a minute,’ I said.

‘Try it if you like. But I don’t see you have any cause.’

‘At the station,’ I said, ‘you didn’t attend to us…’

‘And why d’you suppose I didn’t?’

‘Because you were sitting at the top of the fucking signal pole, that’s why.’

‘I was changing the lamps, if that’s all right with you, mate.’

‘You looked set for the evening — smoking ’n all. Paraffin and naked flame don’t go together too well this weather.’

‘Well… what do you know about it?’

I eyed him directly, and the situation cracked.

‘Fancy a pint, mate?’ asked the porter, and he indicated to the signalman that he should stand me a glass.

The porter put out his little hard hand.

‘Mick Woodcock,’ he said.

He had a lot off, all right — especially for a kid of… well, it was hard to say but he might not have been more than eighteen.

‘Sorry about that, mate,’ he said, passing me the pint of Smith’s as Mr Handley looked on, and the agriculturals began talking again. ‘I’m liable to fly off over anything. You here on holiday, are you? I mean… don’t suppose you’re here on account of our murder, are you? You en’t a copper or a journalist or owt like that?’

‘On holiday,’ I said.

He was sharp, this kid.

‘The bloke that did it goes up Monday morning,’ he said.

There was a long interval of silence as we drank on.

Woodcock said, ‘That business at the station earlier on — I didn’t mean owt by it, you know. Fact is I like a high seat. Very viewsome it is, up at the top with the signals and you can take a pot at the odd rabbit. We have to keep ’em down, you know. I mean, they will get at the perishables in the warehouse. Of course, I’ll come down to give a hand with bags occasionally…’

‘Very good of you, I’m sure.’

‘But only if a good tip seems to be in prospect.’

‘He’ll only come down for the gentry,’ put in the signalman, ‘and not all of them.’

I was meant to be riled by this, so I gave it the go-by.

‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the pint, anyhow.’

And as I made towards the door, I heard the lad porter say, ‘Aye, on your way.’

I ought not to have let that go, I thought, as I walked upstairs.

What would the Chief have done in my place? He’d have laid the bloke out, and then he’d have gone all out to get him lagged — three months hard for assault whether the bloke had fought back or not. I reached our room, but when I tried the door it was locked.

I rapped on the door, and there came a noise from along the narrow corridor. I turned. The man from Norwood was there, holding a candle and eyeing me in his dressing gown.

‘Everything quite all right, old man?’ he said.

‘Ought to be,’ I said, thinking of the German papers that had spilled from his bag.

He looked more impressive somehow in his dressing gown, although it was shabby enough. I knocked again, and Lydia answered the door in a flurry, wearing her night-dress. I walked into the room, and saw that the window had been thrown wide open. The wife strode across to the bed and sat down upon it cross-legged like a Hindoo, which she would often do at night — something about being in her night-dress seemed to bring it on. She looked from me to the open window as the curtains stirred.

‘Why d’you lock the door?’ I said.

‘Now… what do you suppose about the bicyclist?’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘I left the bar when I saw him through the window messing about at the back of the pub. I’ve been watching him from our window while you were hammering on the door doing your level best to give me away.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He was just down below.’

‘And what was he about?’

‘He was at his bike.’

‘It’s punctured,’ I said. ‘I overheard him say so in the bar.’

‘He held a pocket knife,’ said the wife. ‘He took it, and stabbed it twice into the front tyre.’