Lost baggage porter js-3

by Andrew Martin

  The sound of church bells, calling from the centre of the city, was being ignored by everyone except Lund. They acted on him like a capstan, winding him in. He was walking with an elastic stride, and not coughing. He seemed surer of himself than before though he still looked like a scarecrow – a stick in a suit, and the blackness of his suit made his thin head look whiter. He was the undertaker and corpse all in one.

  'I've read about the robbery at your place,' I said, 'at the Lost Luggage Office, I mean.'

  Lund walked on, saying nothing.

  'Do you know anything of that?' I asked.

  'It might have been done by the lot you're after,' he said.

  'Why did you not bring the matter up, though?'

  'Because I know nowt about it.'

  'You must have known I'd get round to it, though.'

  'I thought you'd get to it in time,' he said, and I had the idea that he was baiting me.

  'When you gave me the little tour of your office, you never showed me the safe,' I said.

  'It's kept out of the way,' he said. 'I'm asked not to show it to strangers. By rights, anybody who's lost valuables must wait on the other side of the counter.' 'Whoever did it knew the combination of the safe' I said. 'I reckon it's a put-up job like all the others, which is a bad look-out for you and your governor Parkinson.' Lund said nothing. 'Were you not questioned over it?' 'There were some questions, aye.' 'And what did they amount to?' 'Nowt.' 'Who asked 'em?' 'Station Police Office bloke.' 'Name of Weatherill?' 'Shillito' said Lund, turning about to face me. We were at the top of Fossgate by now, just by the Blue Boar. 'I may have to run you in' I said, 'you and Parkinson both.' Lund moved his hand to his face in that new way of his. 'But to do that,' he said, 'you must first… come out of hiding, so to speak.' One idea was strong on me: this was a threat. Could it be? Lund had pitched me into this secret work, and by his knowledge of what I was about, he had power not only over my investigations but also – at a stretch – over whether I lived or died. Across the road, a happy crowd was forming before the mighty pillars of the Centenary Chapel: ordinary- looking York folk revealed at that moment as Wesleyan Methodists. All across the crowd, hats were being lifted in greeting like flaps on the tops of organ pipes; and still more came, all on foot – there were no carriages, as you might expect to see outside a church of a Sunday morning. There might have been hundreds in the street, waiting not just for the Centenary Chapel, but the other chapels – and the one church – that stood in St Saviourgate besides. 'Go every Sunday, do you?' 'Every day,' said Lund. He was directly opposite me, but looking away. 'Past ten year… only missed once in all that time.' He hurriedly looked away, just as a gust of wind struck us. Then, with his head still averted, he added: 'Went again next morning, mind you.' 'The prodigal son,' I said, glancing down at the book in his hand, and added, 'What's that?' pointing at it. He looked down at the book. 'Prize for regular attendance.' I read the title on the spine: The Great If, and Its Greater Answer. 'Looks rather dry,' I said. 'It asks for a little thinking,' said Lund, looking up, and meeting my eyes for an instant. Behind him, the doors of the chapel were opening. 'Read it in the services, do you?' I said. 'Get away,' he said, and now there might just have been a small smile. After a short pause, he said: 'I could have had A Historical Geography of the Holy Land but decided against.' 'I en't bloody surprised,' I said. His eyes flickered and closed again and for a longer time, which seemed to seal the whiteness of his face, making him look for an instant like a white pole, a ninepin. He was, perhaps, keeping a cough down. When he opened his eyes again, he said: 'We must be born again, you know.' I made no reply, but wondered whether it was the church bells ringing out all across the city that had brought this on. Lund said, 'Well, I'm off in now,' and moved away, beginning to make his way through all that stack of folks, still coughing, and the cough seemed to take all his attention, requiring him to remain outside, leaning against one of the mighty pillars, as everybody else filed in through the doors. Presently, he mastered his cough, but for all his chapel-going ardour of five minutes before, he just stayed leaning against the pillar and looking down at his boots. I watched until he entered the chapel, which he did just as the first hymn struck up, and with a half-glance in my direction.

  'The Great If,' I thought, finally walking away from the top of Fossgate… that was just about right.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was getting on for ten o'clock; I was in Coney Street. I touched the eye-glasses resting on my nose, and once again pictured Allan Appleby. He'd taken his dinner-time pint, maybe at the Fox Inn on Holgate. It being a Sunday, he might've been the only solitary drinker in there. He'd have drunk while looking down at his boots, adjusting his specs occasionally; he'd have gone back for a couple more after his tea. Then he'd have walked over Holgate Bridge, staring down at the tracks as they divided towards passenger station or goods station. On a Sunday there wouldn't be much action: the odd engine dawdling along with a rake of empties, its column of steam toppling forwards rather than flowing behind. And if an engine had gone underneath the bridge just at that moment, and Allan had caught a belt of smoke and steam, he wouldn't have flinched, but just walked on, being a man used to small setbacks of that nature.

  He would turn left at the end of Blossom Street, entering Station Road, with the Institute and the Lost Luggage Office to his left, and he would walk up the incline that took him over the sidings leading into the Old Station. He would be a little anxious on approaching Tanner Row, but quite resigned to going along with whatever desperate scheme was being got up in there. He had nothing else in prospect, after all.

  By the time I brought my thoughts of Allan Appleby to a close I was at the door of the Grapes, where I was confronted with three further doors. The decorated glass in the panel of the first read 'Snug', the second 'Sitting Room', the third 'Smoking Room'. Where would Valentine Sampson and Miles Hopkins be? They'd want to be snug, they'd want to be sitting, and Sampson at least would want to be smoking. I tried first the Snug, and there they were – it was quite a thrill to have guessed right first time, like winning a prize in the tombola.

  I joined them at the table, to be greeted with nods. The three of us were the only ones in the Snug. Red leather benches ran around the white walls; brass table legs shone in the half-dark. The place was like a courtroom or a first-class railway compartment of the best sort. There were many empty glasses on the table before Sampson and Hopkins. Sampson still looked like a fashion plate in his kingly way, but was canned, or on the way at least. As for Hopkins, some of his hair seemed to have fallen out since last time – making me feel that I wanted to pull the remainder out, have done with it – but his eyes danced as before. He was a man always in the middle of some game I didn't quite understand. He was fiddling with a pocketbook – I could guess how he'd come by it – for he always had to be using his marvellous hands. But things were different this time somehow. I hadn't been offered a drink, for a start.

  'Where's Mike?' I said.

  Nothing was said, and I thought: they've done the bugger in.

  'Mike has to watch how he goes,' said Miles Hopkins slowly. 'He's not fancy-free like the rest of us, you know.'

  'How come?'

  Sampson was staring straight ahead, not smiling. 'He's just come off ten years hard. He can't be pulled again.' Didn't stop him assisting in the taking of pocketbooks from Platform Fourteen, I thought. Was he scared? I didn't like the thought of being on for something that he'd jibbed at. Sampson's face was changing. A smile coming from far away. 'Well, Allan old lad,' he said when it had finally arrived, 'it's a go.' Miles Hopkins was watching me very carefully. 'The great doing?' I said. 'The very thing.' 'You said there were more movables to collect first,' I said in a very peevish little voice, because the rough sort of plan I'd made with the Chief was now destroyed. 'So I did,' said Sampson, 'and they've been collected. You see, mate, we were waiting for a particular circumstance before we could set to.' 'Waiting for the circumstance to stop, that is,' said
Hopkins, who then took a drink, one laughing eye watching me over the rim of his glass. 'What?' I said. 'The strike,' said Sampson. 'You'll have read of it in the Press or heard of it somehow.' 'You having such a good knowledge of railways,' put in Hopkins. 'I have heard of it,' I said. 'Unofficial-like, it was,' said Sampson. 'Some blokes in the Associated… Amalgamated Society of summat or other. The tough nuts, the diehards. Some bloke was reduced in position for no good reason, and they stuck by him. Good socialists, those fellows are, and I raise my fucking glass to 'em.'

  He did not do that, however. Instead, he sat back in his chair, and said:

  'But I'm still going to steal all the silly fuckers' money.'

  Miles Hopkins was still watching me as Sampson rose to his feet and, striding across the room, collected his overcoat from the door back. We were done with the Grapes, I realised, although not done with drinking, because there was a bottle of whisky rolling in Sampson's pocket.

  Hopkins was rising to his feet too, his coat already on.

  I thought: I can stop this. Three words will stop it: Joseph Howard Vincent. Or perhaps only two: Edwin Lund. But I don't say them, and was instead swept along behind Hopkins and Sampson. We were striding through the door and now we were out into York, dark, rain and cold. It could not have been any other way.

  'It's coming on to rain,' said Sampson, walking on in his jaunty way. I hurried to keep up, even though I'd rather have put a hundred miles between myself and him.

  You could forgive Sampson remarking on the state of the weather – it had evidently been some time since he'd been out of a public house. Inside the Old Station, on the other side of Tanner Row, an engine was in steam, like a memory, moving goods into or out of one of the stores built on top of the long- dead passenger platforms. They were secret, shameful exchanges carried on in the Old Station. Just then, it struck me that Hopkins wasn't with us. I looked back, and he was fifty yards behind, talking to a stranger: youngish and well set-up. Only… I'd a suspicion I'd seen that stranger's face before. As I looked back, so did Samspon, and Hopkins broke away from the stranger, walking fast to catch us up.

  'Who's he?' I said, looking back at the well set-up man, who was walking in the opposite direction, hard by the new Company offices.

  'Him?' said Sampson. 'That's Five Pounds… He's five pounds' worth of man.'

  I nodded; it wouldn't do to enquire further. The man would be a worker for the Company; a key-holder of some sort, repository of trust, and now receiver of the wages of sin.

  Hopkins came up to us, and Sampson, nodding back down the hill to indicate the stranger, said, 'What's he want?'

  'He's in a funk,' said Hopkins.

  'Over what?'

  'Nowt in particular.'

  'All right, are we?'

  Hopkins nodded, and we continued walking up Tanner Row, turning left along Bar Lane… and then we were in Micklegate, the 6oo-year-old Bar – the greatest of the gateways in the City Walls – standing before us like a castle front guarded by gas lamps. The town was quiet, but a man was standing underneath one of the arches, and we didn't stop for him, but rather we collected him, for he was following on behind as we walked on, turning right into Station Road. The City Walls, high on their steep embankment, were to our right. In the darkness, rain fell softly on to them at a slant like a thousand tiny missiles trying to broach the city defences. We crossed Station Road, which was quite empty, and then we were in Queen Street (which was likewise), walking down its slope towards the Institute and the Lost Luggage Office. Were they going to rob that place for the second time? Would Lund step out of the shadows, and join us as the other fellow had?

  Now Sampson had stopped under the lantern that jutted out from the front of the Institute; Hopkins joined him there and they began talking. The stranger was at my shoulder now. I turned quite slowly, and looked at him, but he couldn't meet my eye. He wasn't one of the burglar brigade, I knew. He was a railwayman, and a very anxious one at that – a railwayman who'd been fixed.

  I watched Sampson and Hopkins. If they were thinking of going into the Institute for a drink then we were going to go in for a drink, and who did they think they were kidding by pretending to talk it over? But then came a second thought: it appeared to me, from a twenty-foot distance, that Sampson wanted to go in, while Hopkins did not.

  Sampson at last turned around towards us:

  'We're going to take a last drink, boys,' he announced.

  So we stepped into the Institute, our silent newcomer removing his cap and smoothing his hair with the look of a man trying hard to master himself. I felt a little in the same way. I'd nerved myself to the business that lay ahead, and now this – further delay. It was already gone eleven.

  We didn't go into the snooker hall, but – once Sampson had brought the glasses of Smith's on a tray – just stood in the tiled vestibule of the Institution, loitering beneath a bright gas ring. We were only a couple of feet inside the front door, which was propped open, so it wasn't as though we were even warm. But I had my eye on the other door, the one leading to the snooker hall and bar. The barmaid in there knew me for a detective. Sampson was exchanging a few words with the newcomer, but not much was being said by anyone else. Presently, Sampson took out his watch, looked at it, and he didn't leave off looking at it either. He seemed to be simply observing time passing.

  Hopkins was shaking his head. He was in fits, I could tell.

  'We should be waiting outside,' he said, and so at last here it was: a set-to between the two leaders.

  'Why?' said Sampson, still looking at his watch. 'It's fucking pissing down.'

  I watched the snooker hall door.

  Sampson was saying: 'We've a night's work ahead of us, and I don't want to be sodden while I'm about it, do you?'

  The hallway was a carbolic-smelling limbo. The clash of snooker balls came from the snooker hall – the long roll followed by the crash, like the shunting of engines.

  'And the four of us are leaving boot prints everywhere,' Hopkins went on, 'that's evidence, you know.'

  'Boot prints?' said Sampson. 'Where?'

  'On the fucking floor,' said Hopkins. 'Where do you fucking think?' But he was laughing now and Sampson along with him. Just then, a man walked through the door, and slap into the back of Sampson's flying hand. He went down onto the white tiles.

  'Always a friendly welcome with you blokes, en't it?' said the man, picking himself up.

  Sampson was holding up both of his hands: 'Sorry, mates, lost my grip there just for a moment,' he said, addressing everyone save the man he'd belted, who was the cocky little clerk – the one who'd guided us about the goods yard eleven days before. He'd come back for second helpings. He was back on his feet now, saying, 'Don't you think you might include me in that apology?'

  Sampson was looking at the man.

  'I'm thinking on,' he said.

  There was no great harm done to the man, but the young bloke was sent off into the bar, and came back with a bit of something in a short glass to help get his nerves set.

  'I'll not apologise,' said Sampson, watching the clerk drink. 'You were getting on for ten minutes late, and we're operating to a tight schedule.'

  I began to edge towards the front door. I was reckoning out the amount of time it would take me to scarper to the Police Office in the station. But no, that would be shut. I thought of Tower Street, and the constable whose patrol took him past the Institute and the station. The handsome, well set-up copper… It came to me then, with a feeling of falling: he was the man who'd been in the Grapes earlier… Five Pounds, as Sampson had called him.