Andrew Martin: Death on a Branch line

‘I’d have been on the stones, you see,’ said Hardy. ‘Sir George said I was helpless to manage, and that I ought to go.’

Hardy moved as he spoke — wobbled a little way to the left — giving me a view of the clock on the wall. Five to five.

‘A man like that can get what he wants, and he meant to have me dismissed no matter what.’ Hardy breathed a shuddering breath: ‘And I couldn’t stand Woodcock down — there was never any question of it. He’d made himself a devil to me as things were.’

‘And he came to know you’d done it?’

‘Oh, he knew,’ said Hardy.

‘You told him yourself, I shouldn’t wonder — thinking to put the frighteners on him, make out that he’d get the same treatment… Only you were under his thumb from then on.’

I advanced a little way into the booking office.

Hardy was at the wall cabinet.

‘I’ll come along with you,’ he said, ‘but let me find my greatcoat.’

He opened the door, turned and there was a rifle in his hand.

‘Oh,’ he said, facing me, as though surprised to find himself holding the thing. ‘This is the same as the lads have.’ He indicated the board with a nod of his head. ‘It’s a Martini-Henry.’

The gun looked ridiculous compared to the inch-long ones on the display — just as if Hardy’s gun was over-sized rather than the others being under. But he levelled it at me, and his fat hands weren’t shaking as he did so, either. I listened to the rain, which seemed to come down with hysterical heaving breaths — a whole summer’s worth falling all at once. Why had I not brought Mervyn’s shotgun out of The Angel? An evil voice came from the doorway behind me.

‘In a fix now, en’t you, copper?’

Woodcock. He’d come down from his crib in the signal box. I ought to’ve known he’d be somewhere about. I’d seen him in the pub earlier and there’d been no train to take him away. Still under the gun, I half-turned to him. He was making some motion with his hand in the region of his fly-hole.

‘What’s your game?’ I asked, at which Hardy gasped out, ‘No talking now.’

‘What’s my game?’ repeated Woodcock. ‘I’m scratching me fucking love apples — any objection?’

There was a beat of silence.

‘I swear there’s fucking fleas in that bench,’ Woodcock said.

He’d perhaps been kipping in the waiting room then, not the signal box.

‘Didn’t think you were a journalist,’ he said. ‘ They’re quite clever.’

I said, ‘Lambert hangs at eight.’

‘Here,’ said Woodcock, ‘do you know why the trains ran through? Why were the wires cut?’

I made no answer.

‘In the end,’ said Woodcock, ‘I just thought I’d see how it fell out. I’m in the clear anyhow.’

‘The boy knows you were in on it,’ I said, ‘… covering up a murder. That’s why you shot his dog — warn him off. How do you know he won’t speak against you?’

I indicated Hardy.

Silence in the booking office.

‘Now look here…’ I began again, but Woodcock cut me off, saying, ‘Shut it, I’m thinking.’

Another beat of silence, and then Woodcock looked at me as if to say: I’ve made my decision.

He took his hands out of his pockets, and began moving forward, coming past me, advancing on Hardy.

‘Give that over, you soft bugger,’ he said.

Hardy stared at him for a moment, then handed him the rifle just as though he’d been mesmerised. There was now a good deal of shuffling of boots on the wooden floor as Woodcock took Hardy’s position before the clock, and Hardy — wheezing away — skirted the military display and eased out into the rain, with Woodcock calling after him: ‘That’s right, clear off, you double-gutted bastard.’

Woodcock put the shooter on me.

‘It is loaded, you know,’ he said. ‘Old Father Hardy kept it ready at all times. Know why? He meant to blow his own lamp out, only he couldn’t screw himself up to it, so he was in a bind: too scared to live and too scared to die. The wonder is that he ever pulled the bloody trigger in the first place. Do you know what I think?’

‘I don’t give a fuck what you think.’

‘I reckon he was canned.’

Woodcock turned and, still keeping the shooter on me, opened the cupboard from which it came. I had a clearer view of it this time, and saw small tools, paint pots, coils of wire, company manuals of various kinds and a shelf given over to bottles of spirits.

‘An innocent man’ll be dead not three hours from now,’ I said.

‘Innocent,’ said Woodcock. ‘Now that’s putting it a bit strong. Wasn’t friend Lambert a bit of a…’

‘What?’

He hesitated.

‘… Down in London, like. It is a crime, you know.’

Still keeping the gun levelled at me, he reached into the cupboard, and brought down one of the spirit bottles. He pitched it across to me.

‘After you,’ he said.

I unscrewed the cap, and took a belt. It might have been whisky, might have been rum; I don’t touch spirits as a rule.

‘Here we are,’ said Woodcock, ‘two railway blokes who like a bit of a drink. If we can’t come to an understanding I don’t know what… Just put the bottle on the table, if that’s quite all right.’

I did so. There was no sound for a moment but the ticking of the clock, and the seething of the rain.

‘ You want Lambert to be spared the noose, so you need to get a wire off sharpish — only the lines are down so you’re a bit stumped. I want you to leave me out of account when you come to write up this whole bloody business.’

‘You mean you’ll help me send a wire in return for immunity?’

‘You’ve got the drop on it just nicely.’

‘What about Hardy? He’s the guilty man, and you’ve sent him on his way.’

‘Where’s he going to go, you fucking bonehead?’

I looked again at the clock. The hands seemed to be making leaps. Ten after five.

‘Straight now,’ said Woodcock. ‘Do we have an agreement?’

‘If you put that shooter down,’ I said.

But Woodcock continued to eye me. He seemed to be weighing the matter.

‘I reckon you’re the type that keeps a promise,’ he said, ‘- a good little company man.’

He reached into the cupboard and pitched across one of the books, grinning and saying, ‘Here, cop hold.’

The title of the book was North Eastern Railway: Rules and Regulations for Traffic Department Staff.

‘Swear on that,’ said Woodcock, before turning away from me, and pointing the long gun at the ABC machine. He was aiming not at the two dials, but at the edge of the wooden base of the thing. He fired once, and I thought my eardrums had split; then he yanked at the lever under the handle, and took aim again at the other side of the base, saying, ‘You might want to stop your ears, mate.’

He shot again, and the wood of the counter and the wood of the base of the machine had split, but the ABC machine was now free. Woodcock had shot away the two screws that moored it to the counter.

We were crashing through the woods in the grey dawn, with the rain spilling down at irregular intervals from above, as if the tree canopies held so many broken pipes.

I carried the ABC machine — which was an armful in itself — and a storm lantern taken from the booking office. Woodcock held the battery for the ABC and two long loops of wire. We’d left Hardy’s rifle in the station, although I’d pocketed the cartridges.

It seemed that I really did have an agreement with Woodcock, and that he meant to stick to it. Who’d got the best of this deal? Woodcock was fairly cute, and I was pretty sure he had. For one thing, I ought by rights to have made the stipulation that he would turn King’s Evidence against Hardy. But I was not trained up in telegraphy; I knew that I would not be able to set up the ABC so that it worked in its new position. Accordingly, I had no bargaining power to speak of.