A Coin for the Hangman

by Spurrier, Ralph

  Henry took some sips from the lemonade and stood for a while on the empty platform which was partially shaded from the warming sun by the overhanging canopy. The arm signals at each end of the two platforms were still at right angles and the shimmering steel of the rail lines led off into the far distance. As he looked westwards towards Avoncliff, Henry spotted a small animal in the middle distance, probably a rabbit, hop out of the undergrowth and onto one of the tracks where it hesitated for a few seconds before moving quickly over the other tracks and down towards the river. He wondered if the animal could feel any trembling in the steel rails to warn of any oncoming train.

  Henry walked back towards the waiting room. Stepping through the door from the bright sunlight of the day, it took him a few seconds to adjust to the comparative darkness of the waiting room. Wooden benches with high backs were fixed to three sides and in one wall sat an open grate with a simple fire surround. Light came in from a pair of windows that overlooked the station forecourt and as he stood there he saw a large car turn into the entrance and pull up outside the station. Perhaps this was the person who had come to collect the heavy trunk, Henry thought. The driver got out and walked into the booking office, next door. He could hear voices but was unable to make out what they were saying. He turned back towards the waiting-room exit but noticed, for the first time, a poster that had been fixed to the wall above the fireplace. It showed a train pulling four coaches across a high viaduct with impressive mountainous scenery in the background. At the bottom of the poster, in what had once been bright yellow lettering but had now been faded by the sun that streamed through the window, were the words REALP – GLETSCH and FURKA – BERGSTRECKE.

  Henry looked at the poster for some time, imagining a country that could have such strange and wonderful names and trains that carried you into the mountains. Perhaps this was the country Madeleine came from? For a moment he wondered if the station master had put up the poster to make Madeleine feel at home but he soon dismissed this idea. He would have to ask her if she knew these names and what they meant. He pulled out a pencil and piece of paper from his back pocket and wrote down the words, moving his eyes back and forth from the poster to the paper, making sure he got all the letters down in the right order, and tonight he would check his dad’s Great War atlas to see if he could find these towns. He often pored over the pages, tracing the railway lines and battle fronts as they crossed and recrossed, becoming a confusing spider’s web obscuring towns and villages. Uncle Ronald, a man he had never known, was buried somewhere in the mud of the Somme and although he had found the area on the map, it looked huge. Mum had said that Uncle Ronald’s body had never been found. He felt it must be odd to be swallowed up by the earth.

  Later that day Henry walked down to the meadows just outside the town. It had become his and Madeleine’s favourite hideaway and it felt a little odd to be there without her. In winter the meadows were regularly flooded but now, in high summer, the grass was knee-high and filled with willow-herb and meadowsweet. He waded through the grass, past the little encampment he had made with Madeleine close by the river, and walked up towards the large oak that sat at the apex of the field. It was a perfect spot, being slightly raised up and overlooking not only the river on one side but also the railway that ran in a straight line to the main station about quarter of a mile away. From here he could watch the trains come and go – perhaps he might even see Madeleine returning from Bath – but at the same time be undisturbed by any walkers who might be crossing the field on the footpath between the river and the Avoncliff road.

  This particular afternoon, sitting with a new library book under the branches of the massive oak, Henry felt a strange unease that belied the gloriousness of the day. As he had left the station that morning he caught sight of the porter and the man from the car lifting the heavy trunk into the boot. The man had slipped something into the porter’s hand and said some words that were inaudible to Henry. His imagination whirled as he wondered what could make a trunk so heavy. What if it was a dead body in there? Who could it be? Perhaps the man had his wife bumped off in London by gangsters and then they had shipped the body back to the country? What was he going to do with it? Who would ever know? Was the porter in on the plan? Henry made a mental note to recall all of his suspicions if the police should ever ask for witnesses.

  He lifted his eyes from the book to watch a cloud, much larger than most that lazily floated by that day, cover the sun and darken the landscape, just like the shop would take on a different, more sombre, colour when his father lowered the blinds when the sun was shining on the windows. Next to the field, a Salisbury-bound train with four carriages in tow eased along the straight from Avoncliff and slowed as it entered Bradford station. The smoke from the engine chimney drifted behind it like white fluttering gossamer handkerchiefs swirling amongst the green branches of the trees before they melted into the darkness of the woods bordering the line. The train came to a halt at the station and the engine hissed lazily, a light plume of steam rolling back along the carriages. From his vantage point Henry watched to see if Madeleine was on the train but no-one left and no-one came. Above him in the oak tree a blackbird suddenly pinked in alarm and the breeze which had been sinuously weaving through the tussock grass all afternoon strengthened a little and by and by moved the blades of grass in varied and undulating waves towards Henry. Seated at eye height to the grass, he felt as if there was an unrelenting tide of rolling grass breaking at his feet.

  Returning home later that afternoon, Henry arrived just after the shop had closed for the day. His father was in the habit of adding up the takings before coming into the back of the house to join his wife and Henry for supper. Mavis would keep an ear out for her husband coming down the hallway and she would make sure the plates were transferred from the oven to the table. Tonight, inexplicably, there was no sound from the shop and no footsteps coming down the stone passage.

  “Henry, go and tell your father that supper’s on the table, would you? There’s a good boy.” Mavis smiled at him as she lifted the stew pot out of the oven and onto the table mat.

  Henry took a little run along the corridor and slid along the polished stone floor on his stockinged feet, banging up against shop door with more force than he intended. The door, only lightly latched, flew open and swivelled back on its hinges to bounce off the rubber stop fixed to the end of the counter. Henry fully expected an eruption of anger from his father, having more than once been told off for doing the same thing, but this evening there was no shout – just silence. Entering the shop, Henry could see that the sign on the door had been turned to “closed” and that the bolts had been pulled across. But his father was nowhere to be seen. Approaching the counter half-gate and flap which kept the public away from the more valuable cigarette and cigar stock, Henry peered over the counter.

  The stomach haemorrhage that killed Arthur had come out of the blue. He’d complained of an acid stomach for some years but had taken little or no notice of the warning signs. The explosion in his gut came just after he had shut the shop and was replenishing the tray of marshmallows in the glass-fronted case. Doubled-up in pain, he slumped back down in the corner chair which he used to relax in when there were no customers in the shop. The first splutter of blood that he coughed up and spattered his white overall sent Arthur into a panic, but it was the next welter of blood that poured from his mouth which induced the fatal shock. When Henry ventured behind the counter he found his father, head bowed over a tray of marshmallows as if deep in concentration. A cataract of blood spilt down his front and onto the tray. The white marshmallows had soaked up the gore, and as Henry was to say many years later to the prison psychiatrist, turned the sweetmeats into what looked like a tray of offal.

  Arthur’s funeral was on, of all days, September 1st 1939. The fusing of a private tragedy and the inevitability of a war seemed doubly ill-omened to Henry as if God, not content with prematurely removing his father from the world, had gone on to cast him and his
mother adrift in an unknown and turbulent sea. Returning from the funeral and after the last well-wishers and family had gone home, his mother turned to Henry with a question which caught him off-balance with its matter of fact air:

  “Well, what are we to do now, eh?”

  Henry looked at his mother. She had raised a questioning eyebrow and there was the faintest of smiles creasing the corners of her mouth.

  “I think we can handle the shop together don’t you, my big angel? You can help me on Sundays and in holidays. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

  Instinctively, Mavis and Henry folded their arms around each other, both numb from the sudden emptiness that had opened up in front of them, but it wasn’t until almost a month later when Mavis had to fill in a National Registration Form so that she and Henry could be issued with identity cards and ration books did she finally break down and cry.

  Saturday May 16th 1953

  Reg Manley

  Reg waited until Doris had gone off to the shops before he picked up the phone and dialled the number. He stood by the hall stand, keeping an eye on the window beside the front door just in case she may have forgotten something and decided to return. The rings at the other end of the line sounded interminably, and Reg was just about to put the phone down when a breathless voice answered:

  “Uplands 5130.”

  “Blimey, Jim, I was just about to give up.” Reg laughed. “You on the bog?”

  The voice at the other end of the phone chuckled. “How are you? I see we’ve got a job together again.”

  Jim Lees had been an assistant executioner for about three years and had worked with Reg on four occasions. He had never been an assistant to Pierrepoint so was partly in awe of Reg, but their first job together had been straightforward and each found that they had a similar sense of humour.

  “Yes, I’m just phoning to check if you’re clear for that date.” Reg took another quick look out of the hall window. “You’re not crying off or anything like that? I had that wazzock O’Donnell as an assistant last time and he was less than useless. I had to ask the chief warder to do the wrist buckle in the end. Held up the proceedings and you know if there’s one thing more than anything I hate, it is a fucking cock-up.”

  “No, I’m fine for that day, Reg. You’ll have no problems. You know anything about the mark, Reg, what’s he done?”

  Reg took a sharp intake of breath. “Never bother with that side of things, Jim. You know that. Never get involved with the whys and wherefores, the excuses and accusations. Tried and sentenced by other people and I’m – we’re – here to carry out the necessary. Professional.” Reg looked in the hall stand mirror as he spoke and fingered the knot of his tie, ensuring it sat dead centre. “I’ve got a name on a piece of paper – Henry Eastman it says here – and that’s all I want to know. I don’t read the court case pages of the newspapers. All I want to know from the rags is that we haven’t been blown to buggery by the Russians and if Queens Park Rangers are ever going to get out of the 3rd division, preferably before I die.”

  Jim laughed. “Not so long as they’ve got that streak of piss as centre forward, Reg. And what’s the name of the goalie you’ve got? Blind Pugh?”

  “Oi! You be a bit more respectful of your superiors. Who’s in charge here?” They both laughed, easy with each other’s company. “OK. I’ve got to go now. See you the day before. Meet Waterloo at 3 pm, under the clock.” And without waiting for an answer he put down the phone.

  Reg had quickly found a simple and easy companionship with Jim, something he rarely experienced in his day-to-day job in the accountancy office. He had first come across this camaraderie in the army, especially in the days after D-Day. The trauma of the beach landings in which a number of the corps had made it no further than the high-tide line had cemented the survivors into a squad that instinctively understood the high stakes and were determined to look after each other. The events in Vernon in August 1944 came unbidden back into his memory.

  “Get on the blower, Pansy, and let division know exactly where we are.”

  The 43rd Wessex Infantry Division had been the first to cross the Seine at Vernon during the Battle for Normandy. Reg, a sergeant, had been assigned a small troop of six soldiers under his command to reconnoitre the town. Even though initial information was that the town was now clear of Germans, the commander wanted to make completely sure before committing the bulk of his troops. Reg knew from bitter experience that what Intelligence knew and what he would find on the ground could be very different. He had heard the bombers passing overhead the night before and he guessed from the smoke still rising from the town that it had been given a real pasting.

  “Let them know we’re just entering the civilian area here, and we’ll report back as soon as we have definite news.” Reg watched as Potter cranked up the dynamo on the radio set and passed on the message.

  For safety they had decided to split the platoon with himself, Corporal Potter – affectionately called Pansy by the rest of the troop – and another private on one side of the road and Corporal Daffin with two other men on the other side and about fifty yards behind with their rifles at the ready.

  As they passed half-timbered shops with wrought-iron signs hanging over the doors and wooden face carvings peering down at them, he took a quick look behind him to make sure Daffin was still keeping up on the other side of the road. He got a quick thumbs up. The tail-end Charlie was walking backwards, as he had taught him, keeping a check on the street behind. They soon found themselves close by the town square with an imposing town hall and grand steps fronting it. Halting at the end of the road leading into the square, Reg pressed up against the wall and held his hand up in a “stop” motion. Daffin and his two soldiers immediately halted and crouched into doorways, waiting for the sergeant’s next move. They could all hear the hubbub of voices, shouts and screams. Reg carefully peered around the corner of the building.

  A crowd of around fifty or sixty people pushed and jostled around something that was happening out of his sight close by the Town Hall steps. As he carefully scanned the rest of the square a loud cheer came up from the crowd. For a brief moment there was a gap between the people and he saw the figures of three women seated on chairs. A man, clasping a handful of what looked to be hair, was wielding a large pair of scissors. Another seemed to be marching up and down, beating on a child’s toy drum that was strung around his neck. The crowd closed again. Reg turned to his corporal and beckoned him over.

  Potter’s hobnails clattered on the cobbles as he crossed the street. “What is it, Sarge? What’s the row?”

  “I think the Maquis are sorting out some collaborators by the looks of it.” His commanding officer had warned him about reprisals. “If you come across anything like it, Sergeant, just stand back and observe. This is their business and they know who did the dirty with the Germans. They won’t thank you for interfering. So long as they don’t start stringing the buggers up when we’re around, I suggest we just turn a blind eye. Just make sure it doesn’t turn into a lynch mob, OK?”

  “What’s the plan, Sarge?” Potter had been with Reg ever since they had landed on the Normandy beach two months before and he trusted Reg’s judgment more than most of the officers.

  “Our job, Pansy, is to make sure there aren’t any Boche still lurking around; but by the looks of it the locals have probably got a better idea. They wouldn’t be mucking about in the square here if there were Germans about. Better be sure, though. Get Daphne over here.” Potter turned and beckoned to a soldier who was crouching in a butcher’s doorway on the other side of the road. Corporal Daffin, whose studies in French and English Literature at Cambridge had been put on hold to allow him to sign up, trotted over. He had naturally achieved the status of the troop’s butt for jokes and had accepted the “Daphne” title with more aplomb than Reg would have accepted for himself. In a way, he had become the group’s mascot. In a world where sixth sense, omens and lucky tokens held more sway than they would have d
one back in peace-time England, the unspoken feeling was that if Daffin stayed alive then they all would.

  “Right, Daphne,” Reg looked at the fresh-faced lad directly, “you and me are going out there.” He hooked his thumb around the corner towards the town square. “Stay close to me. You’re going to ask the froggies if there’s any Boche left in town. OK? And shoulder your rifle so we don’t get any trigger happy Maquis popping one off at us.”

  “Right, Sergeant.” Daffin tucked the rifle across his chest. “Ready when you are.”

  Another cheer arose from the crowd in the square.

  “Pansy. You and the others stay here but cover our backs and watch for anything from the windows above the square. Anything suspicious like a rifle making an appearance, give me a shout first.” He paused, checking the safety catch on his rifle. “Then shoot the fucker.”

  Reg, followed by Daffin, stood away from the street corner and headed slowly towards the jeering crowd in the centre of the square. He did a quick recce of the buildings and exits from the street. Despite it being August, the weather was cool and there weren’t many open windows.

  “Daphne. 2 o’clock. Watch those open doorways. Any movement, you let me know and keep your ears open. If any of these buggers start mouthing off at us, you tell me what they’re saying.”

  They had reached the outer edge of the thronging crowd. Women, on tiptoes, stretched their necks, hoping to see more of the spectacle. Reg looked at the throng and decided against pushing his way into the middle.

  “Keep close, Daphne, and watch your back – and mine.” His gaze swept back and forth across the faces in the crowd. They all seemed intent on whatever was happening up front. They worked their way around the side closer to the Town Hall steps so that they could get a better view. Reg reckoned the velvet-backed chairs had been taken out of one of the offices and now they were occupied by three women whose heads were being roughly shaved. Their mouths had been gagged with their own nylon stockings. Around their necks hung pieces of card bearing the single word Collaborateur! crudely written in thick black chalk. One of the women was draped in a German officer’s tunic which hung over her thin shoulders. A rough Hitler moustache had been painted on her upper lip with a piece of burnt charcoal and one of the men was now drawing a swastika on the middle of her forehead with the same charcoal stick. Stray tufts of hair still remained on her newly shaved head. The crowd were jeering. Reg guessed that a number of the men standing around were probably Resistance. He beckoned to one, indicating him to come over.