Andrew Martin - Murder At Deviation Junction

'Well, Mrs Gregory-Gresham found you fascinating.'

More tea was being distributed.

'I found you drunk,' added the wife.

'Yes,' I said. 'Well, you're both right.'

There was a new Co-operator speaking from the stage.

'What's going off now?' I said.

The wife half-turned her head towards the stage.

'Blind man's buff,' she said. 'What do you flipping well think?'

More speeches were taking place.

'Some speak of the sections and districts of our organisation,' the woman was saying. 'I say we are the moon and the stars . . .'

They applauded that, did the Co-operative ladies.

'What happened to your suit?' enquired the wife. She was nearly but not quite angry.

'It's been a very long day,' I said. 'But I'll tell you this. I think you have secured your position.'

'I think you are right,' she said slowly; and she nearly smiled into the bargain.

I held the photograph in my hands, and she was looking down at it.

The woman on the stage was saying, 'Until the King himself hears our message . . .'

'I've got into a few scrapes on account of these chaps,' I said, indicating the photograph. 'It's murders in the plural, looks like, and I had a bit of a row . .. not with a man I was trying to arrest, as I said just now, but with another officer.'

'You were fighting with another policeman?'

'One blow started and ended the matter.'

'You should have told Mrs Gregory-Gresham,' said the wife. 'She's had many a fight with a policeman herself.'

'I daresay,' I said, nodding, for of course the Co-op ladies went all out for the women's cause.

'I had to take a drink with the Chief,' I said. 'I saw him this afternoon at the shooting gallery -' 'He was at a funfair, was he? I wouldn't put it past him, from what I've heard.'

'Shooting range,' I said, 'if you want to split hairs. It was necessary for me to take a glass of punch in order to keep in with him.'

'Does he take your part against the man you hit?'

It was a cute question, but I gave a nod, just as though the matter could not possibly be doubted.

'You must have your promotion, you know,' she said. 'Otherwise I will not be able to take up my own.'

Wright was signalling to me from behind her.

'I must see this chap,' I said, indicating Wright.

The crowds of ladies pressing in from all sides were threatening to part us in any case. I cut through to kiss the wife, and moved towards the old clerk, who looked very anxious at the strangeness of being overwhelmed in this way, and very curious.

'I didn't know your missus was in the Movement,' he said.

'Aye,' I said. 'Well, what's up?'

'The London friend - Bowman -'

Wright was eyeing my suit.

'He's been coming through on the line every hour.'

'I thought he was dead.'

'Not him. You look half-dead yourself. What's up?'

'I crowned Shillito.'

We were walking towards the door of the Ebor Hall.

'You crowned Shillito?' he repeated in a sensational whisper.

He'd repeated it twice more by the time we were out in Coney Street, with the Co-op ladies' piano becoming faint in the background.

'I gave him a damn good hammering,' I said.

Wright was fairly bursting with questions, and the one he eventually gasped out was: 'When?'

'Four o'clock time,' I said

'I was out of the office then,' said Wright, and I could tell he was cursing himself for that. He then started in on a hundred other questions, but I checked him with one of my own for him:

'Where are we going, mate?' I said.

'You're going to telephone this Bowman fellow. He told me he's stopping late in his office, and I said I'd let you know if I happened to run into you.'

I was going to telephone, and old Wrighty was going to listen.

Ten minutes later we were in the empty police office, and the snow was dripping off our coats as Wright wound his magneto. The cold air had sobered me somewhat, though I still felt queer as Wright passed me the mouthpiece and did not move away. We were elbow to elbow as I said into the instrument, 'Mr Bowman? It's Detective Stringer here.'

But he didn't quite take that.

'Jim?' he said. 'It's Steve here.'

He might have been moving fast on a train from the sound of him - an Underground train.

'There's been a bit of a turn-up over the Peters business,' he said. 'A man has been stationed outside my house every morning and evening for four days.'

'What's he doing?'

'Watching the place. Watching me.'

'All the time - morning and night?'

'Not quite. He comes and goes. He must've taken lodgings roundabout.'

'Do you know him?'

'Certainly not.'

'What does he look like?'

'Big, wide - not over-pleasant, strange stockings.'

'How do you mean?'

'Yellow. Nobody wears yellow stockings in Wimbledon.'

'How do you know it's touching on the Peters business?'

'Well, isn't it?'

The line went and then came back, swallowing what might have been a moment of fear on Bowman's part.

'Look,' he said, as the connection came back, 'this man's not your Wimbledon type, and it's a little anxious-making.'

Bowman was an intelligent man who was not at that moment in drink. He was speaking to me as though I was the same, and I was galvanised just as I had been at Stone Farm. Bowman was not an adventurous sort himself, but he brought adventure to me. Here was movement in the mystery, and I heard myself say, 'I'll come up to London directly - come and see you tonight.'

'Tonight?' he said.

But even as I spoke, I was thinking: I'll arrive in the early hours, too late for the Underground ... I didn't fancy the cost of a cab across London.

'Well, I've got to look into the timings - that might not be on. But I'll run up to London tonight, put up somewhere near King's Cross and meet you first thing in the morning.'

'Then come to the office. But it can't be first thing - it's press day, and there's a lot of copy to get off. We'll meet at midday underneath the big clock at the Royal Courts of Justice on Fleet Street. Do you know it?'

I did - from my Waterloo days.

'I could spare an hour before I'd have to be back here,' Bowman continued, 'but we can sink a few pints and I'll put you in the picture.'

'Scrub out the beer if it's your press day,' I said.

'No fear.'

'But now you're going to have to go through another night of being watched. You might contact the Wimbledon police.'

'I've thought of it, but that would mean alerting Violet, which I'd rather not - and then again, what do I have to complain of? There's a man standing in the street. Well, it's not my street.'

Wright stepped back and marvelled at me as I put down the receiver.

'What now, then?'

'He's being followed.'

'It's to do with your photograph, is it?'

'You're beginning to believe there's something in it, aren't you?'

'I didn't say that.'

Wright was holding the door of the police office open for me. We stepped out and he locked up behind us.

The cold wind of Platform Four was cutting like no other.

'You can't go to London,' said Wright, as he followed me into the booking hall where the timetables were pasted up.

The last London train was nine thirteen. I knew the one. The night stationmaster turned out to see it off, then everything went quiet until six in the morning. I had no need of a ticket; my warrant card would see me to London.

'You'll be for it, you know,' said Wright, as we walked back to Platform Four. He had evidently decided to wait and see me off, being in no great hurry to get back to the Co-op ladies.

I was looking in my pocket book: two fivers might be in there, or one and a quid. I couldn't bear to look. I had a bit of silver besides, but that was all I had until payday - if there would ever be another payday. And there was still Harry's aeroplane to be bought, amongst many other Christmas items.