Lost baggage porter js-3

by Andrew Martin

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When I came to the station at eight the next morning (after my usual hour) I shot the Humber hard into the bicycle rack, for I had seen the Chief heading past the booking halls in his long coat. He looked, all of a sudden, like a music-hall turn: two men under a single giant coat, the one on the shoulders of the other.

  We quickly fell in step together without any greeting, although I might have said, 'Sir', and the Chief might have said, 'You'll have had a time of it, then.' I started directly in on my story, having sat awake all night in the Backhouses' parlour (with the baby crying overhead, like a new variation on the sound of the wind), there working out a version that excluded Lund and his confession, because I had decided I would not see him hanged for the killing of the Camerons.

  'The job happened directly, sir,' I said, as we went on to Platform Four, the Chief showing his warrant card to the ticket man, '… straightaway on the Sunday night with no further plotting.'

  'Don't I bloody know it,' said the Chief, turning left, so that we were approaching the Police Office. The Chief's big, prize-fighting face looked raw. His nose was not the same as when I'd seen him last, although his 'tache was perfect as ever – the one part of his features to have been drawn with a ruler. 'You were sent for, I know. I saw you shooting at us.' 'What about the bastard shooting at me? He has it coming, I bloody tell you. Where is he this bloody minute?' The Chief walked on fast, and we were now passing the Police Office. The bay platform, number Three, was empty in front of it, the Fish Special having long since come and gone. 'The one firing was Valentine Sampson.' 'Joseph Howard Vincent,' said the Chief, striding on, not at all surprised. Evidently the two were one, as far as he was concerned. 'I never knew you were passed to use a gun, sir,' I said. 'Do you have a special certificate?' 'What I have is the key to the bloody armoury cupboard.' 'I saw you lying down in the four-foot, sir – thought you were done for.' No reply to that from the Chief, for of course he'd lost dignity by playing dead in the soot and muck that lay between the rails. I wondered what had become of his moustache during that episode. We walked on. Beyond the south end of the platform stood the roundhouse, where the whole thing had gone off two days before. An engine in steam stood outside, like a peaceful cottage with a fire in the grate, and it was as though nothing that had happened there mattered in the least. 'What became of the goods clerk? Roberts?' 'He's said a little.' 'Rum is that,' I said, 'because he did nothing but talk beforehand… How are his hands?' 'Burnt,' said the Chief. 'What happened there?' We had changed course to the left, and were now going down the stone staircase next to the Left Luggage Office.

  'Sampson pitched hot metal at him,' I said as the weak light of the station left us,'… from the cut safe. ''Right' said the Chief. It was just another occurrence to him.

  The sound of our boots changed as we came off the stairs and began walking along the rough, dark passage that led to the underneath of Platform Fourteen, the furthest limit of the station. Only three gas lamps lit the way, and they were for some reason numbered 1, 2 and 3.

  'Why are we down here, sir?' I asked, as we began walking between lamps number one and two.

  'Because no bugger else is,' said the Chief.

  He still wanted me kept out of sight.

  I asked: 'Who uses this, now the footbridge is built?'

  'Gloomy sorts,' said the Chief.

  In that tunnel, the station sounds came to us in a strange way – like one mighty, never-ending disturbance. We walked up and down, and I told the Chief all about what had happened in the roundhouse. When I'd about got to the end of that episode, he said, 'Then, I expect you were drawn half over York as they looked for hiding places.'

  'Half over France, more like,' I said, and then I gave him that part of the story. He was surprised at none of it, and when I came to speak of the Hotel des Artistes, I half expected him to say, 'I know that place pretty well', and to make some remark on the breakfast.

  When I got on to how someone – not named, because the question of Parkinson was too close to the question of Lund – had given me away to Mike, we were under gas lamp number three, and there we stayed as I raced on, trying to get it all done with, but worried by the strange expressions that would fly across the Chief's face, which seemed to suggest that I'd done things wrong, or just described things in not quite the right way, or, worse still, that I was missing things out. Partly out of guilt at holding back Lund's confession, I was anxious to give the Chief all the other information I could. I told him all about the business with the tickets – admitting losing the Charing Cross one (at which he might have given a sort of sigh) – and said he should have men sent immediately to the left-luggage place there, just in case Sampson or Hopkins should try to get the kitbag by persuasion or main force. I gave an account of the sighting of a mysterious stranger in Thorpe-on-Ouse; and went along with the truth so far as to say that I was certain it had been Mike. I ended by asking for a police guard to be put outside the Backhouse place in Thorpe-on-Ouse.

  The Chief looked at me carefully for a moment. Then he said:

  'As I told you, Roberts, the goods clerk, has not been entirely silent.'

  'Right,' I said. 'Good. What does he think of me? Allan Appleby. Worst villain that ever stepped.'

  'He couldn't make you out, though he never said much on that score. One thing he was most anxious to get over… Sampson, alias John Howard Vincent, admitted to killing the Camerons in his hearing. Now did you hear the same, because it'll go hard with him if we ever lay hands on the bugger?'

  'He gave the impression he'd done for the pair of 'em,' I said, and I coloured up as I said it. I knew I was in queer.

  'I had the idea you weren't that bothered about the Cameron murders, sir,' I added. 'Tower Street matter, you said.'

  'Aye, it was, but now they've made us a present of it, having seen they've no earthly chance of solving it.'

  I cursed myself for being so foolish as to think that I might cut what Lund had said the night before out of my story; and I went a little way towards repeating what he'd told me. 'I have my suspicions of the constable who walks by the station,' I said. 'It's only an inkling, so I left it out of my account just now, but I believe I saw him talking to the bad blokes over in the Grapes just before the roundhouse job.' The Chief was silent. 'What are you going to do, sir?' I said, at which the Chief asked in turn: 'What day is it today?' 'Tuesday,' I said. 'First things first…' he said, and he produced a brandy flask that I'd always somehow known would be lodged in his inside pocket. '… What're you going to call the boy?' "The wife's after calling him Harrison, which is my dad's name.' I took a belt on the brandy. 'Then he'll be Harry' said the Chief. 'Yes,' I said. So we were agreed on that. The Chief took another brandy go, and said, 'I'll have a watch put on the house at Thorpe – that will be done directly. It will be lads from Fulford.' Fulford was just across the river from Thorpe-on-Ouse. I was glad it would not be Tower Street men. 'There'll be a guard posted at the Left Luggage Office in Charing Cross… and bulletins'll be sent to all Channel ports' the Chief added, just as if the drink had given him the idea, which it might well have. 'There'll be new notices put in the Police Gazette, and I'll have a quiet word at Tower Street about the copper you mentioned.' 'I would have Mike run in while you're at it… before he comes looking for me again. He works at the Black Swan, Coney Street… outdoor porter, I think.' 'Right you are,' said the Chief.

  'Can I start to book in at the office as normal?'

  'Best not' said the Chief,'… not with the bad lads still at large, but I'll see you there at the usual time tomorrow. Meanwhile start your report.'

  He leant back against the tunnel wall, breathing heavily through his moustache before taking another couple of brandy goes. He looked ill.

  'I'll give you this: you've stuck with it, lad' he said, which made me feel worse about my secrecy over Lund.

  There came at that moment a scuffle of boots at the far end of the tunnel. The figure approached in the gloom, wi
th all the strange, station sounds overhead. They might have been underwater. As he came by lamp number one, I saw that it was the Lad, the telegraph boy, grinning all around his head as usual, and carrying telegram forms. When he was passing under lamp number two, the Chief called to him, 'Know all the dodges, don't you?'

  The Lad said: 'Have you seen the weather, sir? Tippling down, it is.'

  'There's a roof on this station, you might have noticed' said the Chief. 'There is,' said the Lad, 'but it leaks.'

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Walking back towards the Humber, I caught sight of Lund walking between the booking offices, carrying a tiger-skin trunk. Was I looking at a killer? It was very hard to credit, but I believed so. Ought I to risk a word? I wore my bad suit, but not the glasses. I said his name in an under-breath while walking a little way to the right-hand side of him. He looked towards me, sad as before. 'You spoken to your governor yet?' he said. 'Aye,' I said. 'He'll call you in for an interview.' He stopped dead. Behind him was another new Company poster: 'North Eastern Railway to the Yorkshire Coast: Breezy, Bracing.' There was a picture of a ship, half sunk, as it seemed, in rough seas. 'But what proof is there that you did it?' I said. 'I have the gun,' said Lund, although he did not have the valise with him, 'and the bullets will be shown to match.' 'You might need the bloody thing again if Mike comes after you.' 'I'll never lay hands on it again, though I have it stowed away safely.' 'Does Mike know where you live?' He shrugged. 'Reckon not. 1 en't bothered either way.' I read the label on the tiger-skin trunk: 'Dawkins, NewMaiden'. What earthly fucking use was that? Some folk deserved to lose things.

  Lund said: 'The Chief Inspector means to come over to the office, does he?'

  'Aye,' I said.

  'When?'

  'Today,' I said. 'Today or tomorrow.'

  He frowned, as well he might've.

  I said: 'It's a queer going-on, you know…?'

  'I must seek my peace,' said Lund, walking on with the trunk, and leaving me behind. I drifted over towards the Humber, revolving the now familiar questions: did I believe Lund's confession to be true? Yes. Did I think he ought to swing for the murder of the Camerons? No. Would I be in the shit if it came out that I had kept from the Chief knowledge of Lund and his doings? Yes. Was Lund determined to carry on with his confession, taking it out of my hands if necessary? Yes. Was not Sampson, rather than God, the true cause of all Lund's affliction and the true cause, besides, of the Cameron killings? He was.

  I biked about York in aimless fashion, passing the Big Coach in Nessgate, passing along Clifford Street with the Tower Street copper shop to the right, slowly skirting the twenty-foot black wall that bounded Clifford's Tower, the Castle, Court House and Prison. It seemed a cheek to ride such a comical machine as a bicycle in the shadow of that wall, although the Yorkies rattled back and forth quite happily in their traps and wagonettes. The sky was white, and the brown river was up. It wasn't raining at that moment but it would do soon. I had every confidence that it would do soon. I biked over Skeldergate Bridge watching the smoke coming out of the glass-works chimneys and falling away to the right. Then I doubled back over the bridge, hitting Clemen- thorpe, and the smell of Terry's, the second confectionery works after Rowntree's: they might make sweets in there, but it was a factory all right, with its due allowance of red brick and smoke.

  I pedalled into Thorpe-on-Ouse keeping my eyes skinned, but I could tell that this was how the village looked when all was well: empty. I was at the Backhouses' place in time for dinner – not that there was any dinner. Two coppers sat in the scullery, and they'd finished the lot. They were playing cards; looked decent sorts. Peter wasn't at home, so I had Lillian to contend with. She said the wife was asleep with the baby upstairs, and I looked in on them even though Lillian had said I mustn't.

  Returning to the scullery, I asked the general company, 'No one's seen any strange men about, I take it?' and Lillian Backhouse said, 'Not 'til you pitched up.'

  I was not sure whether she believed I stood in any danger at all, and I wondered whether the coppers did either. What did they know of my adventures? They took pride in not letting on.

  I walked out of the house, and climbed back on the Hum- ber. I dawdled about near the gateway to the Archbishop's Palace, turning the bike in ever tighter circles, thinking, until I locked the front wheel, and came off. I picked myself up – no harm done – and pedalled off to the Fortune of War.

  Peter Backhouse was in there, and he stood me a pint. Beyond the window, one of the masters at the village school was leading a class out towards a river ramble; they were meant to be walking sober-sided crocodile fashion, but it was a little cavalcade going past. I chatted to Backhouse for a while, and as I did so, I worked out that Dixon was exchanging a few words from behind the bar with a bloke drinking in the parlour. I stood up, pushed through the door of the smoking room, and looked hard at the stranger in the parlour. He had a spirit glass in his hand; he was nobody I knew.

  I sat on with Backhouse, drinking Smith's, and the beer did its work of lessening my nervousness by degrees. Backhouse then returned to his graft in the churchyard, and I to his home – where the coppers were now roaming about the garden, each in a world of his own – and the wife let me pick up the baby. Little Harry cried as soon as I did so, and I wondered whether I would be out with him for ever, having missed his first hours. He was small, as Dad had feared, and this was on account of him coming early, but that didn't bother me. To my mind the trouble with most babies was that they were a sight too big. I watched his hands; you'd think that somebody had paired and polished his nails, they were so dainty.

  I slept a little in the afternoon, patrolled the village come nightfall in the soft rain with my cap pulled low, keeping on the kee-vee, and feeling a confounded twit, before returning to the Fortune with Backhouse. That night, I hardly slept again, what with the worry of all, the night-time movements of the many Backhouse children, the baby refusing to settle, and the coming and going of the police guards, who changed shifts in the small hours.

  At four in the morning I dressed and walked back to 16A. Opening the front door, I whispered 'Sampson? Hopkins?' For I was now of a mind that they might have reached an accommodation, and remained together. If so, would they bother travelling hundreds of miles to settle my hash? And as for their confederate, Mike… I was not quite so vexed about him. I had him down as a man for a nasty assault, but killing was not his line.

  The thing was the left-luggage ticket though. They would come for the ticket, which I would not be able to hand over.

  Feeling like a burglar in my own home, I put on my good suit, collected up the Swan pen that Dad had given me, some of the blank papers I'd had from the Chief, and the book I'd lifted in Calais: Paris and its Environs. In the low gaslight, I opened a page haphazardly: 'The stranger visiting Paris for the first time, and anxious that his first impression of the city should be as striking as possible, cannot do better than a walk from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde.' I closed the book and looked at the gold lettering on the cover. It was like a souvenir from a dream.

  I stepped out of the house, locking the door behind me, and rode the Humber through the blue darkness to the station. There was nobody at the barrier. A long black coal train was rolling through, and when it had passed, I saw the Night Station Manager across the way on Platform Five, holding his black top hat in his hands like a mourner at a funeral. He turned away as I made for the Police Office.

  Inside, I turned up the gas, lit the stove, put the kettle on to boil. I fished out some carbons from the drawer of Shillito's desk, took up the Swan pen and, beginning 'Special Report' and 'Persons Wanted', set about my account of the roundhouse robbery and the flight to Paris.

  I had brought along Paris and its Environs so as to get the spellings of some of the French words right, but after the best part of an hour I was still describing events in the roundhouse. Knowing the young Company man who'd come along with us only as 'Tim', I did my best to des
cribe his looks, with a funny feeling of digging the man's grave as I went about it. Did I want them to see him run-in? Yes and no. I'd liked him in a way, and he hadn't seemed a violent sort.

  I had a second hesitation as I came to recall just what Sampson had said in the roundhouse about the killing of the Camerons. The Chief wanted Sampson charged with their murder, should he ever be found. This was because Sampson had shot at the Chief and made him lie down between the tracks. It was one thing to keep back Lund's confession, but it would be another again to lie in writing about what I'd heard, with the words repeated on the carbon beneath… And then stand to it all in court.

  Roberts, the Clerk, had it wrong. Sampson had said 'I enjoyed that business', meaning he enjoyed hearing of it or reading of it – at least so I believed, and I would write my account accordingly, letting people make what they would of his words. But in fact I wrote nothing. Instead, I sat back and thought again of all the crimes of Sampson, beginning with the ones I suspected him of (he had somehow caused the hotel man, Mariner, to make away with himself; he had very likely killed the two detectives at Victoria), and then running on to the ones I was witness to, which included railway trespass at the lowest, attempted murder of the Chief Inspector at the highest. But you could not swing for attempt. Why should that concern me either way? Was my goal the execution of Valentine Sampson? It would have been nearer the mark to say that my goal was the saving of Lund, but unfortunately the two could not go together.I stood up and made another pot of tea. I looked at what I now knew to be the armoury cupboard, tried the door – locked, of course. I wandered over to the mantel, looking at the photograph of the Grimsby Dock Police Football team of 1905. Did every man in that team suffer the same vexation as me over police work? You would not have thought it from their faces. I went back to the desk and picked up Paris and its Environs. On the second page, I read 'A Railway Map of France will be found at the end of the book', and I turned to the map, where the English Channel was put down as 'La Manche'. The lines shown extended a good way beyond France, and the sea routes to England from Belgium and Holland were also drawn in. As I looked at the map with an idea dawning, a mighty noise rose within the Police Office, the sound of a wind or a great wave rolling into shore.