Andrew Martin - Murder At Deviation Junction

But he slept on.

He had no enthusiasm for his work. He was like me: fixed in a rut. I gazed at his fiery little face, which was suddenly blotted out as we shot into the Grinkle Tunnel. Three quarters of a mile of blackness . . . and we came out into the beginnings of day. Bowman had rolled forwards somewhat. He was the same sleeping man as before, only now shaking with the train.

He was not shamming.

He had wanted to know my line of questioning - that was why he'd stayed on at Stone Farm. But I must lose him in Whitby, for I intended to make straight for the siding where, the lad porter had told me, the Club Train had been kept; and was kept still. It no longer ran, and nor did Peters, who had been closely interested in it, and I thought those facts might very well be connected.

We were now gliding across the viaduct over Staithes. That village was packed tight in the mighty ravine below. During the short stop at the station, I watched fishermen walking between boats on the snowy beach, wondering whether to put out. 'All weather is a warning.' Where had I heard that? A man led a pony with a sack slung on either side across a white field. Kettleness station came next; then the viaduct of Sandsend, which was like the legs of a giant iron man walking, and the houses below looked as though they'd been pitched off the cliff by that same giant.

I was not tired, despite having been up all night, and I knew the reason: in the months and even years beforehand, I'd done too little. I had been biding my time in the York Railway Police office, avoiding the chilly stares of Shillito, listening enviously to the sounds of the engines and enginemen coming and going in the station beyond. An office in a station was a ridiculous thing: a ship forever docked.

We were now rolling across the snow-covered cliff-tops - and our train was the only moving thing on those tops as we made for the terminus, Whitby West Cliff. As we came in, I woke Bowman with a touch on the shoulder.

'Copy's come up short,' he said, quite distinctly, at the moment of waking, and then he looked at me for a moment as though he didn't know me. But he quickly apologised, and collected up his things.

Whitby West Cliff station was a little way out of the town, which was silenced by snow. Bowman walked beside me through the drifting whiteness, the camera slung over his shoulder. We stopped outside a bakery that was responsible for all the activity in one particular narrow street just above the harbour.

'Which is your hotel, old man?' I said.

'Oh,' he said. 'The Metropole.'

'I know it,' I said, and I pointed seawards. 'The alley past the chapel will see you directly to the door.'

'Right-o,' he said, but he made no move.

A low tugboat was rocking across the water from the west to the east harbour wall - nothing more to look at than a floating chimney. A church clock counted sadly to five.

'To think that it's twelve hours until I can take a drink,' said

Bowman. 'That's if I stick to my fixed rule .. . which I never do.'

'Well, I'm for the town station, and home,' I said.

He nodded and we shook hands.

'You'll keep me posted as to your investigation?'

I nodded. 'I'll be in touch,' I said.

But he still didn't move off, and it struck me that he'd been clinging to me like a barnacle right from the start. He now muttered something while looking down at the snowy pavement.

'What's that?' I said.

'Peters,' he said, looking up. 'It comes to me now . . . He'd had one of his two cameras stolen.'

'Where?'

'Middlesbrough - in the vicinity of the station, I think.'

'Did he report it?'

'Not sure.'

'When did this happen?'

'Couple of days before I saw him for the last time. I must look at my diary, as I say.'

And he nodded again and moved off in the direction of the sea.

Chapter Six

Down to the sea, up again a little way, and I came to the other Whitby station: the Town Station. It overlooked the harbour. Two trains were in steam, but there were no takers for them. A line of footprints in the snow ran along the platform, and I followed them to a porter who was sitting on a barrow reading the Whitby Morning Post instead of scraping up the snow. I held up my warrant card to him, saying, 'How do? I'm cutting through to Bog Hall, all right?'

I wasn't really asking but telling him.

I stepped down off the platform and walked into a wide railway territory across which snow flew right to left, seawards. Here was the main line to York, running away through a mass of sidings and marshalling yards. Beyond lay the estuary of the river, where signals gave way to the masts of schooners. I was making for a mass of carriages by the river's edge when a tiny pilot engine moving under a great tower of steam checked my progress. The driver kept his face set forwards but the fireman turned and smiled down at me.

'Now then!' he called down.

'You wouldn't know the whereabouts of the yardmaster?' I said.

Just then a man stepped around the smokebox end of the engine, which straightaway began a fast retreat, the fireman grinning at me all the while.

'Who wants me?' asked the man. I explained what I was about and showed him my warrant card, and he gave his name as Mackenzie. He was a big bloke, and seemed to fairly roll over the rails and barrow-boards on our way to the farthest corner of the siding, where the railway land met the half-frozen river.

'Mothballed,' said Mackenzie, coming to rest, with his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, before a train of oddments. We were looking directly up at a dirty but good-class bogie carriage. It was in Company colours, but 'CTC' was written in gold on the side.

'Cleveland Travelling Club,' said Mr Mackenzie. 'Ran from Whitby to Middlesbrough and back every day for nigh on twenty years.'

'When was it decommissioned?'

'One year since,' he said. 'Fancy a look up? Pride of the line, this was,' said Mackenzie, hauling himself up towards one of the high doors. He was proud of it himself too, as it seemed to me.

He got the door open after a bit of struggle that cost him his perch on the footboard, pitching him on to the mucky snow beneath. He clambered up again, motioning me to follow.

The carriage smelt of past cooking, and it contained coldness: a special damp kind.

'Subscribing Club members only in here,' said Mackenzie. 'That was always the rule. No guests allowed - not even if they paid treble. You after taking pictures?'

He was pointing at the Mentor Reflex.

I shook my head. I was looking at a great boiler in a cubby-hole all of its own.

'Tea-making machine,' said Mackenzie, as he squeezed his way forwards.

'Galley's next,' he said, sliding back a door that gave on to a little dusty kitchen. Half a dozen dusty wine glasses in a basket; two cups rested on a short draining board. I picked one up.

'Gold trim,' I said.

I knew the design. Best Company china. I'd first come across it at the Station Hotel, York.

'Where's the rest of the service?' I asked Mackenzie, and his cheeks rolled upwards and outwards as he smiled. 'Tom Coleman's back parlour, shouldn't wonder.'

'Who's he?'

'Whitby Town stationmaster as was. Took superannuation nine months since. Took himself off to Cornwall 'n all.'

'That's handy,' I said. 'Who else would know about this show?' 'You might try the traffic department,' said Mackenzie. 'They supplied the Club tickets.'

'They'd be seasons, I suppose?'

'Aye,' said Mackenzie. 'Whitby-Middlesbrough annual returns. Specials, like.'

We were moving along the corridor again.

Mackenzie said, 'The Club never had a full complement of members, you know.'

'The club cars I've heard of,' I said, 'on the Lancashire and Yorkshire and the Midland and suchlike - there'd be twenty-five members or so. That amount was needed before the Company would lay out money for the carriage.'