Death on a Branch Line

by Andrew Martin

‘Where are you off now?’ I called after him.

  ‘Look for me dog,’ he said.

  ‘No, Mervyn!’ called Lydia, hurrying after him.

  I looked across to the vicarage. A woman stood at the garden gate. The Reverend Ridley approached her. She was pretty, in a white dress, and she twirled what was either a parasol or a dainty umbrella. It was the woman who’d been watching the cricket. Ridley wore his cricketing clothes with his cassock slung over his arm. He went quickly up to the woman, and kissed her on the mouth, which put paid to the twirling of the parasol. He then took her quickly indoors.

  I turned about to see Lydia standing at the gate of the churchyard and speaking again to Mervyn. Beyond them on the road was the carter, Will Hamer. I hurried up to him, hearing Lydia say to Mervyn, ‘You’re to come back with us to The Angel.’

  ‘Did you bring that woman here?’ I asked Hamer.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘I’m not supposed to let on.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  He grinned down at me with a look of great happiness.

  ‘Is it Emma?’ I said. ‘Was she the governess at the Hall?’

  ‘You know what o’clock it is, don’t you?’ he said, and the grin gave way to laughter.

  The vicar and the woman – Emma, as it seemed – were crossing the churchyard, closing on Will Hamer’s rulley. The vicar carried a bag. ‘May I speak to you about the murder of Sir George Lambert?’ I asked, as he approached.

  ‘Certainly not,’ he said, in a mild enough tone as he and the woman climbed up onto the bench beside Hamer.

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ I said, as Hamer turned his wagon, and only then did I remember to fish for my warrant card, but Hamer’s ‘men’ (the donkey and the old horse) had a turn of speed in them after all, and they’d disappeared into the hedge-tunnel by the time I’d got it out.

  We took the boy to his mother, who only seemed about as relieved as if some fairly insignificant missing object had been turned up. We then took tea of bread, cheese and rhubarb tart with the Handleys in the saloon bar (which was otherwise deserted) and as we ate I watched the boy. He said nothing concerning either John Lambert or Hugh Lambert, even though John was the main subject of the conversation: Mrs Handley put the boy’s disappearance down to his being upset over the forthcoming execution, and I let that go. She was right in essence, anyhow.

  Mervyn was back to his old helpful ways, giving a hand to his mother as she laid out the table, but he was agitated over something, and I didn’t think it was his missing dog. Evidently it – like him – was habituated to long rambles in the woods, but could be relied on to turn up in time for its grub, which was made up of the day’s leftovers and was generally served up to it at about eight, before it settled down for its kip. I would not for the present tell Mervyn its fate. That would only put him further into his shell.

  The clock in the bar said a quarter after seven when we finished the tea. Draining off the dregs of my teacup, I said, ‘I’m off back into the woods,’ and nobody appeared to find this very surprising, since that was where the hunt for John Lambert was being largely conducted.

  ‘I’ll sit here and keep Mrs Handley company,’ said Lydia, by which she meant that she would sit with the boy as well, in case he should speak up. I had no doubt that she’d seek the aid of his mother in persuading him to talk.

  The latest downpour had stopped for the present, and a kind of airless, wet-wood smell came floating through the open windows; but I was sure we hadn’t seen the end of the rain, so I turned to Mr Handley, who had been supping John Smith’s ale while the rest of us drank tea, and asked whether he had an oilskin about the place. He made some reply that was much longer than yes or no, and at the end of it, he stood up and quit the room.

  ‘He has an old ulster,’ said Mrs Handley, turning towards me, and it was the first time she had translated, so to say, on behalf of her husband. She knew very well the difficulty everybody had in understanding him, and I wondered whether it made her ashamed of him. She never seemed to make conversation with her husband, and yet she was an intelligent woman. She would want to talk, and that was no doubt where Master Hugh had come in.

  Mr Handley came back with the coat. It had dried leaves in the bottom of its deep pockets, and smelt of old wood fires. I wondered whether it was a left-over of his farming days. He would be much better suited to farming than running a pub; he wouldn’t have to talk as much, and there wouldn’t be John Smith’s ale always to hand. Mr Handley showed me a special pocket in the ulster, and the gist of what he said was that any object placed in there would be kept perfectly dry no matter what. As if to prove this he brought out from behind the bar a packet of Woodbines and a box of Vestas, and he stowed them in the pocket, indicating that I might smoke as many as I liked, gratis. As he leant over me I smelt the ale on his breath, which brought to mind a question.

  I asked whether Hardy, the station master, had been as drunk as he’d seemed that afternoon, and Mr Handley replied (as I eventually worked out): ‘He was goin’ some, aye.’

  I asked, ‘Is that out-of-the-usual for him?’ but couldn’t make out the answer.

  I entered the woods once again by the path directly across from The Angel. It hardly mattered where I went in since I didn’t know what I was looking for, but only that everything bad in Adenwold started and finished in the woods. There was grey daylight over the fields but it was dusk in the woods, and I was soon lost. The air was stirless and damp; there was not a breath to breathe, and I was far too hot in the ulster. It put me in a bath of sweat.

  I came after a while to a straight track bordered by evergreens, but this one didn’t lead to the Piccadilly Circus of the woods. I kept imagining that I’d struck the railway line, which would give me my bearings, but it refused to appear however much I crossed and recrossed in the ferns, nettles and brambles.

  As I heard the chimes for eight o’clock, I was in a district of giant trees, where the largest of the lot had toppled over onto some of its fellows and was held up leaning, like a drunk. There then came a while sitting on a low branch, smoking one of Mr Handley’s Woodbines, thinking hard about the Reverend Ridley and listening for human sounds. But I heard only the birds ascending to and descending from the treetops, from which drops of a light rain swirled down spiral-wise.

  It was getting on for nine before I gave it up, and began looking for a way out, which brought me, half-dazed, to the first village green, and the silent cottages and stores. Crossing the station yard in my clammy coat, I walked onto the ‘up’ platform.

  Here I made out the figure of the station master moving in the station house behind lace curtains, and I heard the clatter of pots. Hardy was a bachelor of course, and it appeared that he had no servant, and was making his own tea. I walked along to the waiting room, where the great black horsehair bench faced the dead fireplace. A picture on the wall showed ‘The Ruins of Rievaulx Abbey’, and a horseless cart sat in the middle of these ruins, as though to pile on the misery. The walls were bare and white, and I pictured in my mind’s eye Hugh Lambert in his cell. I stepped out of the waiting room, and looked at the platform clock: 9.20. Well, very likely the condemned man had done it – and it suddenly struck me that young Mervyn might be seeking forgiveness not for himself but for Master Hugh. By going to church he might be trying to put a word in for his friend, keep him from the fires of hell.

  Another possibility was that Mervyn himself had shot Sir George Lambert, and this neither I nor the wife had felt able to put into words.

  I was ambling up the narrow road that led back to The Angel when I heard voices coming around the corner. It was the Chief and Captain Usher. Now this might be ticklish. We’d seen off Cooper so easily that I’d put him from my mind completely. Yet here were his governors.

  The Chief wore a waterproof; Usher carried a tightly rolled umbrella. As we closed, I tried to return the Chief’s gaze without looking at his nose, which was still not right. They both looked wearied out.

 
I gave them good evening.

  ‘Not so good for Cooper,’ said Usher.

  ‘He chased a fellow onto the train,’ I said. ‘… Thought it was John Lambert.’

  A beat of silence.

  ‘I don’t suppose it was,’ I ran on.

  ‘That’s not really any of your business, is it, Stringer?’ said Usher.

  He was being cagey as usual, but there was no doubt that John Lambert was still at liberty.

  ‘Might I ask about friend Cooper, then?’ I said. ‘I saw him clatter his leg.’

  ‘Nasty bruise, that’s all,’ said the Chief. ‘I dare say you’ve been searching for Lambert yourself, in spite of instructions.’

  Instructions, not orders. The Chief was on my side over this, but it was necessary for him to disguise the fact.

  ‘I’ve just been dangling about, really,’ I said. ‘I watched a bit of the cricket game this afternoon.’

  ‘And what happened there?’ said the Chief, folding his arms.

  ‘First side in got fifty-two – no, more like thirty-six. They weren’t up to much, anyhow. The second lot were on about three, maybe four, when the ball was lost. Then rain stopped play.’

  ‘I wish I’d been there to see it myself,’ said the Chief.

  Usher was looking at his watch.

  ‘We ought to be pressing on, Chief Inspector,’ he said.

  ‘Could I ask one last question, sir?’ I asked Usher, and we eyed each other levelly. ‘Is it known for an absolute fact that Hugh Lambert is… that way?’

  ‘We’ve no hard evidence … thank God,’ said Usher.

  I nodded to the pair of them, and carried on up to The Angel as the chimes came for nine-thirty.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I heard no stir from The Angel as I came up to it, and I saw no light at our window. I went through the front door, climbed the stairs and knocked with a light knuckle on the door. No answer. I pushed the door open. The half-closed curtains dusked the room, which smelt of lamp oil and lavender. The wife lay under the covers in her night-dress, and I took her at first to be fast asleep, but I knew she could not be in the circumstances and, as I entered the room, she rose and propped her head on her arm.

  ‘The boy?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ she said.

  ‘I’m just off down for a pint,’ I said, and I went downstairs, and pushed through the door that gave onto the two bars.

  Mr Handley was there alone, surrounded by the green-shaded oil lamps and looking at the fireless grate with his usual pewter of ale in his hand. He nodded at me before returning his gaze to the grate, saying something that was most likely, ‘I’m wondering whether to light it.’

  The air was still close, and the windows all open. It was light that was wanted more than heat, but Mr Handley next said (I think), ‘I’m minded to do it.’

  I asked him if he’d pour me a pint first, and as he did so I asked him the whereabouts of his wife. ‘Turned in,’ he replied, in his blurred voice.

  ‘Mervyn?’ I said.

  ‘Aye, him an’ all,’ said Mr Handley.

  ‘Any sign of the dog?’ I asked – just to see what he’d say.

  Mr Handley shook his head, saying something like: ‘That bugger stops out all hours … law unto his bloody self.’

  ‘What about the bicyclist?’ I said. ‘Is he in bed too?’

  ‘Reckon so,’ said Mr Handley, and I felt like asking whether he was quite sure he hadn’t drugged the lot of them for the sake of a quiet life.

  ‘Still hot, en’t it?’ I said, presently.

  ‘It is that, aye,’ said Mr Handley, who, having drawn us a couple of pints, was kneeling at the grate and making paper faggots with back editions of The Yorkshire Post.

  ‘Always like this of a Sunday evening, is it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aye, dead loss,’ he said.

  ‘You’d rather be farming, I expect,’ I said.

  ‘I liked that line of work,’ he said. ‘I liked a … when I worked.’

  I couldn’t make out the middle word. It was short, sounded like ‘ewe’.

  ‘A what?’ I said. ‘A few?’

  ‘A view,’ he answered, rising from the grate.

  Behind him, blue smoke rolled fast over the coals of the fire.

  ‘You lost the farm on account of Sir George,’ I said.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Mr Handley with a sigh; but then he stirred himself to a joke, which I heard quite distinctly: ‘God giveth and God taketh away.’

  ‘The pub must be a kind of prison for you,’ I said, ‘after life on a farm, I mean.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Mr Handley, but I didn’t believe he meant it, for he then said something very like: ‘I’m looking to take in hand a York house.’

  ‘Did I have that right, Mr Handley?’ I said. ‘You want to take on a York pub?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Any particular one?’

  ‘Grapes,’ he boomed, ‘– on Toft Green.’

  ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘Hard by the new railway offices. Very popular spot and a regular gold mine, I should think, what with …’

  But I did not want to speak further of the Grapes, which was a success – I now recalled – mainly on account of its landlord, a little, bright-eyed bloke who talked ten-to-the-dozen with the railway clerks, who used the place as a home from home. Chattered like a bloody monkey, the fellow did, and it was impossible to imagine Mr Handley in his place.

  ‘I’ve had a tip the present fellow’s moving on, and the tenancy’s coming up,’ Mr Handley said, ‘and I do fancy it.’

  He took a long go on his pint, put down the pewter and grinned at me.

  ‘The living’s high in York, en’t it?’ he said.

  I considered the question. The place had its gentry, of course, and it had its workhouse and its people for ever on the verge of the workhouse, but it was mainly full of respectable sorts like me. In my days in London I’d been something else: not quite respectable, a junior railwayman clarted in engine grease, living in a world of my own, believing that the be-all-and-end-all of life was high-speed trips on the main line. My ambitions had started and finished with the footplate of a locomotive. It had been a sort of dream existence, and ever since then I had been trying to make my way in the real world, and not making it fast enough. I was only the Chief’s lapdog, and the Chief was only Usher’s. We were both too small to influence events of any importance, and that is what the week-end had proved

  But Mr Handley was talking hopefully of York.

  As he spoke, I noticed that the six green oil lamps that lit the inter-connected bars of The Angel were surrounded by moths and that there were also many daddy-long-legs bouncing up and down the walls. The kindling in the fire was seething as the flames took hold, and it dawned on me that there was another sound coming from beyond the opened windows, a sort of sizzling. Mr Handley was watching me and smiling as he saw me noticing the rain, but there was also a questioning look to his face, and it seemed that he had just asked me something about my own life – touching on some wide and philosophical matter requiring speech stretching late into the night.

  Putting Hugh Lambert from my mind, I began telling Handley of my days firing, taking him on several journeys, fairly closely described: winding under the fearfully over-crowded signal gantries of the south London suburbs on the way to the great Necropolis of Surrey; racing across the Lancashire Fylde in another hot season with the windmills to left and right turning their arms over like bowlers at cricket. Next minute, the poor bloke was being shunted under the grey February skies of Dover onto the stone pier with the steamer for France rocking and waiting … And each time with trouble in prospect.

  He told a few things of his own, and it was just the landlord and me sailing on the brown sea of pints of Smith’s towards midnight. At Mr Handley’s request, I’d long since stopped offering money for my pints; he had taken to me like a brother.

  It was quite wrong to take the man for a lunatic, as most of his customer
s probably did. His voice rose and fell in all the right places; it was melodic in its low, rumbling way, and I had no doubt that he made perfect sense for all that he put away between six and eight pints of Smith’s in the two and a half hours that I sat up with him.

  I was back in the bedroom as the clock struck midnight, undressing by the light of a candle stub. I fell straightaway asleep, but woke at the chime of three, and walked along the corridor to the jakes where I pissed for what seemed like about half an hour. Returning to bed, I dreamed of a train formed of a locomotive pulling a line of carriages that somehow became brake vans that were all finally revealed as cricket pavilions. The train wound its way through pretty country-side, slipping the pavilions here and there as required by teams of cricketers who stood waiting at line-side locations. The slipping of the pavilions went off perfectly, and the cricketers were delighted to have them, but somebody somewhere raised a voice of objection, and it was a woman speaking out even though there’d been no women involved in the giving and receiving of the pavilions.

  I turned over in bed, and the wife was sitting up.

  She was talking to Mervyn, who stood in the doorway.

  ‘It’s four o’clock, Mervyn,’ the wife was saying to the boy.

  I too sat up, and the boy glanced at me and then looked away, his eyes roving about the room as though the purpose of his visit had been to inspect it.

  ‘Mervyn,’ I said, ‘they’ve shot your dog.’

  ‘Who?’ he said, quickly.

  ‘That’s just what I want to know.’

  He stood silent. In spite of his question, he knew who’d done it.

  ‘Mervyn,’ I said, ‘Master Hugh will be hung at eight o’clock.’

  ‘I’ll not speak to you,’ he said, ‘but I’ll speak to your missus.’

  Swiftly and silently, as though she’d known all along that it would fall to her to hear out the boy, Lydia climbed out of bed and, taking the boy’s hand, led him into the corridor – and whatever was said didn’t take long for she was back within a matter of seconds.

  Chapter Thirty-Two