Andrew Martin - Murder At Deviation Junction

Indicating the photograph, I said, 'I believe they're all dead, sir - murdered. This one's Lee.'

'Lame Horse man?' said the Chief.

'That's it.'

'Maybe the fellow that did for him did for all of 'em?'

I shook my head.

'Can hardly believe it. Sanderson was a burglar - no other burglaries have been reported touching the others.'

'I know the one on the left,' the Chief cut in, and my heart began racing, but he'd gone back to studying the target along with the marker, who was leaning over the barrier. Both were shaking their heads.

'My best bet would be to run at it with a bloody bayonet,' the Chief said to the marker.

'You know this one, sir?' I said, holding up the photograph, and pointing to the handsome man in black.

But the Chief was listening to the marker, who was grinning and imitating the Chief's firing position, saying, 'You're too much this way.'

'Bloody left shoulder,' said the Chief, who was loading his rifle again from the kitbag at his feet.

I pressed the photograph on him for a second time, and he took it as the marker returned to his boiler-plate hut.

'Aye,' said the Chief, evidently a little riled at my persistence, 'this one. His name's Marriott, and I'm surprised you don't know him yourself.'

He passed the photograph back to me, took up his rifle and adopted the shooting position.

'Bloody left shoulder,' he said again, when he'd seemed to be set.

He was looking away from me now, towards the target. Before he could start blasting away again, I asked:

'Who is he, sir?'

'Brief,' said the Chief, still eyeing the targets. 'Barrister; defender mainly. Name's Marriott. I went against him a couple of times at the Assizes.'

'York Assizes?' I said.

'Course bloody York,' said the Chief.

'I don't see much of the Assizes,' I said, 'being forever in the police courts, prosecuting small fry.'

That made the Chief turn round, and I was worried as he did so, but as luck would have it, he was grinning. He could be suddenly friendly in a way that was quite as worrying as his distant moods.

'You put up a good show when you were last in the Assizes,' he said, and I coloured up with pride. The Chief was talking about the murder - my murder, the killer netted by my own efforts. I had been leading witness for the prosecution, and the Chief had twice taken me to breakfast at the Station Hotel in the course of the trial.

'You're like me, lad,' he said, finally removing his ear defenders. 'Better outdoors - firing at the long range. You like a challenge.'

'But Detective Sergeant Shillito wants me always in the office filling in reports.'

The Chief gave me a look that might have meant anything.

'Do you still see him about at the York Assizes?' I said, pointing to the handsome man.

'I don't,' said the Chief.

'I knew it, sir,' I said. 'Ten to one he's dead.'

'Well, he wasn't one of the regular ones,' said the Chief. 'I mean to say, he wasn't from York chambers. The fact that I haven't seen him lately could mean nowt at all.'

'Was he any good? Did you win against him?'

'Ended in a tie between me and him. He won one; we won one. Company official - fraud case. We got that bugger sent down. But Marriott got a chap off a wounding charge.'

'Wounding? What was the name of the accused?'

'You and your bloody questions,' said the Chief, shaking his head.

'Some of the fellows at the Assizes,' the Chief continued, 'they'll walk in holding the papers tied with the pink ribbon and you'll practically shit yourself. You'll think, "It's all up - might as well chuck it in now." Marriott was bright enough, but he wasn't in that company.'

The Chief smelt a little of beer, as usual; perhaps he'd taken a drop to steady his arm before the contest. At the far end of the shed, the marker was hanging up another target for the Chief.

'He was an arrogant sod, mind you,' said the Chief, who was picking up his ear defenders once again.

'How do you mean?' I said.

'I've nothing against barristers,' said the Chief, 'though they're all snobs and half of them are sodomites, but this bloke took the bun. Got up to the bloody nines. I mean, they're all that way, but I reckon half his money must have gone on tailoring - that and laundry bills. I was bloody determined to win both times we were up against him - just to take the gas out of him a bit.'

'Shillito's warned me off the investigation, sir,' I said. 'He says Middlesbrough won't stand for it.'

'They won't,' said the Chief. 'I've seen the letter from Williams.'

This meant Shillito had seen the Chief only an hour or so since.

'He's out to block my application for promotion as well,' I said. 'It's not right. It's not -' 'Sporting?' put in the Chief. But he wasn't smiling now.

It was disheartening to see the Chief fixing the second ear defender in place as he said this; or maybe it would be better if he hadn't heard, for it was all just more sob stuff, like the letter to Ellerton.

'Shillito's your senior officer,' said the Chief, turning away and making ready to fire. 'I can't interfere.'

'We don't get along,' I said, marvelling once again at the strands of hair dangling from the back of the Chief's head. 'He's always trying to check me.'

As he squinted along the sights of his rifle, I could have sworn that I heard the Chief say, 'Don't stand for it - lay the bugger out.'

I was about to say, 'Come again, sir?' when the first bullet was loosed, and I stood, quite deafened, watching the gas lamps swaying in the vast, freezing shed. After a moment, it came to me that the Chief was cursing, getting ready to fire again.

I pushed off before he could do so.

Chapter Sixteen

I was walking back along Platform Four a couple of minutes later when I saw what I knew to be the Pickering train at a stand. It was waiting at the bay platform just north of the police office, and I was closing on it even before I saw Davitt, the fare evader, climbing up.

He had snow on his cap and coat, for the stuff was now coming down thickly, and I marvelled at how this bloke would go to any lengths to get out of his house and ride on a train without paying. But he gave me an excuse to go to Pickering - home of Club member Moody's son. After all, Shillito himself had told me to put the collar on Davitt.

The guard was now holding out his green flag. I broke into a run, and was only half-way to the train when the flag was waved.

'Wait!' I shouted, but you can't unwave a flag, and the train was off. My hurtling progress took me past the open door of the police office, from where I fancied that I heard a man shouting after me - it might have been Shillito, might have been Wright. But I ran on regardless. I leapt up on to the footboard of the rear carriage just as that carriage came out from underneath the glass roof, and into the flying snow. I wrestled with the door - the train was now making a good thirty miles an hour through a blizzard, and there was only six inches of timber between me and the sharp track ballast. We were out of the station bounds, and running along by the back gardens of the Bootham district by the time I managed to fettle the door and get in.

Inside the compartment, a fearful-looking man sat in the semi- darkness: Davitt. He nodded to me over the top of the Yorkshire

Evening Press that he was pretending to read. He was a small bloke in a dinty bowler - shop assistant type or junior clerk in looks, but he rode the trains so often that his work must have required him to do it. Perhaps he travelled in some line of goods or other, but he was never seen to carry anything except a newspaper.

'You had all on there ... Nearly lost your hat.'

I couldn't speak for a moment, but had to catch my breath, scattering snow on the compartment floor as I unbuttoned my topcoat. I took off my hat, and pushed my hand through my sodden hair, noticing as I did so that my coat sleeve had dried to a solid blue - just as if it had been patched with blue darning.