Andrew Martin: Death on a Branch line

‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘Is it a hundred?’

‘Ninety-six here in York,’ I said. ‘They say it’ll break come…’

I tailed off. Thunderstorms had been predicted for Monday, by which time the man before me would be well beyond their reach. Boggle-eyes was still talking to his mates about ten feet away from the office door. I heard him say, ‘I’ve lost my golf swing, and do you know, it’s haunting me — fairly haunting me, it is.’

His place at the doorway had been taken by a sparrow. Hugh Lambert caught sight of it, and at first swivelled in his chair to get a better view; he then very gently picked up the chair and settled down again facing the bird. He looked up at me and, indicating the bread left on my desk, said, ‘Mind if I…?’

‘Not a bit,’ I said, and he rolled a pellet of bread, and pitched it over towards the bird.

‘You’ve fed her before,’ said Hugh Lambert, as the bird took the bread. ‘She wouldn’t be there otherwise.’

‘She?’

Lambert nodded.

‘A male sparrow has a grey crest.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t necessarily know,’ I said. ‘I mean, anything that comes in here ends up more or less black. There’s a robin that pitches up pretty regularly. He stands there and sort of demands to be fed… Makes me laugh — the sheer brass neck of it.’

‘The robin is the most English of birds,’ Lambert said in a dreamy sort of voice.

Was this a good thing or bad as far as he was concerned? After all, it was England that would shortly be hanging him. He threw another bit of bread for the sparrow.

‘I saw a robin once at line-side,’ I said. ‘He was sitting on a ‘WHISTLE’ board.’

‘And was he whistling?’ asked Lambert, half-turning towards me.

‘He was.’

Lambert grinned. In fact, it was more like a short laugh, and it showed pluck to laugh in his situation.

‘It was by Grosmont,’ I said. ‘Up on the moors yonder.’

A beat of silence. Lambert threw another pellet.

‘You were with the railway up there?’

‘Porter,’ I said. ‘That’s how I got my start.’

‘Are you keen on railways per se? Or is it just a job for you?’

Perhaps this was his way of taking his mind off what was coming… by examining the minds of others? But before I could reply, he said:

‘My brother reads timetables for amusement. Can you beat that?’

‘Well, I’m a bit that way myself,’ I said, ‘or was as a lad, anyhow.’

‘I always liked the adverts in the Bradshaw,’ he said, and it was very worrying to hear him speak as if he was already dead.

‘Eux-e-sis Shaving Cream,’ I said, ‘and then the picture of the two men shaving: ‘“Eux-e-sis versus Soap”, and the man using soap is bleeding half to death.’

I ought not to have used that last word, of course, but Lambert gave a grin, before saying, ‘I always liked the adverts for hotels at the back — to know that all those places would be happy to accommodate you. I found that very welcoming. You were at Grosmont, you say?’

‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘ Your part of the world.’

I wanted to get onto him. I felt I ought to give him a chance to say something because I had the notion that he wanted to speak up. He turned towards me but kept silence.

I said, ‘Adenwold’s a pretty spot, I believe.’

‘Just now,’ he said, eyeing me levelly, ‘the hedges will be full of thrushes.’

I nodded once.

‘Skullcap, tufted vetch, alder,’ he continued, in a tone now severe. His face was black and white: white skin, black eyes, black beard. His clothes were worn anyhow, but still with a rightness about them.

‘Have you been there?’ he asked.

‘I don’t believe so,’ I replied, slowly.

‘Do you mean to go?’

I looked towards the doorway, but the sparrow had made off. I was on the point of replying to Hugh Lambert when he asked, with great emphasis, ‘Could you see your way clear to going?’

My boots creaked, and the wooden floor also creaked in the unbreathable heat as I moved towards the police office door. The three guards were talking by the platform edge. A high screeching of wheel flange on rail came from some far-off platform, and a single green locomotive was running light through the station, going fast and seeming to enjoy its freedom, like a child running home from school. I pushed the door until it was on the jar. I turned to Hugh Lambert.

‘What’s at Adenwold?’

‘My brother John,’ he said.

‘Will he not come up to Durham to see you?’

Lambert shook his head, shook his hair. I supposed it was the privilege of the condemned man to be allowed to grow it.

‘My brother is a very intelligent man,’ he said, ‘but in this business he’s too partisan.’

I didn’t take his meaning, and I told him so.

‘Well…’ said Lambert, ‘he believes me to be innocent, and he means to secure my release.’

‘How? Will he bring forward some new evidence?’

Lambert moved his hair with his hands.

‘I can’t say, but he has told me that he means to make a stand or take a stand this week-end.’

‘But again,’ I said, ‘ how?’

‘I don’t know how, I don’t know why. My father always said I should be hanged, and the governor of Durham gaol will shortly oblige him. That is to be considered an accomplished fact.’

I’d got more than I’d bargained for there, but I was spared the need to reply by the office clock chiming the half-hour. I was embarrassed by that clock. It seemed to fairly whiz.

‘Look,’ I said to Lambert, ‘ did you do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he met my gaze for a moment before looking sidelong, towards the door. ‘It’s certainly possible,’ he continued, ‘otherwise why would they be hanging me?’

A beat of silence.

‘In trying to secure my release, my brother puts himself in considerable danger from people who… want to stop him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He has told me that much, and you see there ought not to be any more deaths over this. Two is enough. Will you open the door again?’

I did so, and the sparrow was there once more. It looked ridiculously small. The three guards were beyond the bird at the platform edge.

‘The idea is that I save your brother?’

Lambert nodded, side-on to me again and lobbing pellets at the sparrow.

‘And not you?’

‘I’m past saving.’

‘As a consequence of your brother being saved, you might be saved.’

‘Two for the price of one,’ he said, and he folded his arms, and nearly smiled. ‘Now I doubt that.’

The men on the platform were stirring. They’d finished their talk, and were coming towards the police office.

‘These people who mean to stop him speaking out,’ I said, ‘who are they?’

The Met men approached the open door.

Lambert said, ‘I don’t know… Only that they are…’

‘What?’ I said, indicating the guards. ‘Is it these men?’

He shook his head very violently at the suggestion, and I must have been mad to make it. The London blokes were all quite above board: I’d seen all their warrant cards.

‘These people you mention,’ I said, ‘are they in Adenwold?’

The fellow who’d been short with me was the first through the door and into the room.

‘They will be there this week-end,’ said Lambert.

And the Met men were now close about him, a new fireman evidently having been found.

A minute after they’d gone — during which time I’d sat stunned on my desk — Old Man Wright pitched up again.

‘Anything doing?’ he said.

‘Not much,’ I said.

There was something about Wright. You didn’t want to tell him things.