Death on a Branch Line (30 page)

‘Couldn’t be arsed,’ he called back. ‘My work stops when I book off – if not before.’

We were sweeping fast through knee-high gorse and bracken, keeping our heads low to avoid the black branches.

‘Who are you going to send to?’ called Woodcock.

‘Well, it won’t reach long distance, will it?’

‘Signal’s piss weak,’ called Woodcock. ‘Only goes along the branch.’

‘I’ll send the message to Pilmoor,’ I said. ‘That’s on the main line, and they’ll have a good connection for London. The chap there can send it on.’

I pictured Pilmoor station – two skimpy wooden platforms shaken to buggery every time an express flew by. In theory my message could be sent there within five minutes of a connection being established, and it would only take that long again for Pilmoor to transmit to London. The question was whether they could send it direct to the Home Office … or would they have to go through some London exchange? We came to a wide clearing, which turned out to be a wide pond – all stagnant and clogged with weeds; not the one I’d struck before. It looked grey in the dawn-light, and was surrounded by tall everlastings, like a gathering of giants.

‘Where’s
this
?’ I said.

‘It’s left from here,’ said Woodcock, and we skirted the water by a path littered with fallen trees, from which other trees were sprouting like signals on gantries. Sometimes we went over, sometimes under.

‘I know the bloke at Pilmoor,’ said Woodcock, ‘– telegraph clerk, I mean.’

‘They do run to one, do they? What’s he like?’

‘He’s a cunt.’

Presently, we came to the edge of the woods, and there we stood before a scene of disaster: the empty stretch of railway line, the fallen cable and the hissing rain. We moved beyond the breakage, heading westerly, as I supposed. Two poles beyond the collapse, Woodcock pointed to the ABC and said, ‘Plant it here.’

I set the machine down by the track ballast.

‘You off up?’ he said, indicating the pole. ‘Or am I?’

As he spoke, he was attaching the long wires to the back of the ABC. I hadn’t quite thought it through, but of course our wires would have to be tied onto the overhead cable.

‘You do it,’ I said, and he was up the pole like a bloody monkey on a stick with the wires in his teeth.

I leant over the storm lantern to protect the wick from the rain, and took out a box of matches. I struck the first, and it was blown out – not by the falling rain but by the warm wind the rain made. The same thing happened to the second, but I got the lamp lit at the third go. I then moved it close to the ABC, and looked at the two dials. One was the communicator, and the other was the indicator – sometimes called the receiver. The two dials were like overcrowded clock faces. On each were set out the numbers from 0 to 9, the letters of the alphabet and all the punctuation marks and other symbols. It was only the English language, but it looked brain-wracking enough just then. I drew out my pocket watch and lowered it towards the glimmering lantern: ten to six.

‘All set?’ I called up to Woodcock.

His shout came through the rain.

‘Hold your fucking horses!’

He was fifteen foot above me, leaning out from the top of the pole, and scraping at one of the telegraph wires with a pocket knife. I looked again at the ABC. It was like a portable grave, with the one dial (the communicator) lying flat and the other (the indicator or receiver) raised vertical like a little tombstone. Around the outside of the communicator dial were golden keys, one for each letter, number or punctuation mark. You pressed the key you wanted, the handle flew to it and that was it sent. I found myself mentally picking out the letters for J-O-H-N-L-A-M-B-E-R-T. Where the hell was he? I had no notion, but in the darkness of the storm, it was very easy to believe that he’d come to grief. I looked at my silver watch again: six, dead on.

‘What’s up?’ I called to Woodcock.

‘All this … green shit on the wires,’ he said.

Verdigris. That’s what it was called, and the connection wouldn’t be made until it was removed. Woodcock was certainly putting his guts into the job, leaning out far from the top of the pole like the high-flying man in the circus as he reaches out for the swinging trapeze.

‘Worked out your bloody message?’ he called down.

‘Lambert innocent,’ I called up. ‘Do not hang … forward directly to Home Office, London.’

(There would be no difficulty in reaching the Home Office, I decided. Any telegraph clerk would have it in his directory.)

Woodcock, still at his wire-scraping, called out something I couldn’t catch.

‘Come again?’ I called up.

‘
Please
do not hang!’ he shouted down. ‘Remember to ask nicely!’

He was a cold-hearted little bastard, and that was fact. It was five after six.

Woodcock was now tying our two wires to one of the six carried out from the pole. Christ knew how he could tell which was the right one. Then he was down from the pole, and pulling at the trailing ends of the wires he’d tied onto the ones above. Crouching low, and working by the light of the storm lamp, he connected them somehow to the back of the ABC, and then took the battery out of his top-coat pocket, which he tied on by two smaller wires. As soon as the connection was made there came a blue flash, which I took at first for our little bit of electricity. But then came the boom of the thunder, and the rain doubled its speed. Woodcock was crouching on the bank of slimy track ballast, eyeing me and trying to light a fag.

I glanced at my watch: 6.25.

‘Never mind that,’ said Woodcock. ‘Hand over your pocketbook.’

‘Eh? Why?’

‘Because I need bread, you silly sod. How much do you have in it?’

‘Nothing doing, pal,’ I said, at which he stood up.

‘I’m taking a big risk by sending this message,’ he said. ‘It puts me right in the bloody line of fire.’

‘I’ve given you a fair spin,’ I said. ‘You’re off the hook; we have an agreement.’

‘I’m clearing out in any case,’ he said. ‘Meantime, I might or
might not work this doings for you. It all depends on you handing over your gold.’

‘Forget it, mate,’ I said.

‘All right then, I’m off, and I don’t much fancy your chances with that thing.’

He climbed the track ballast and stepped over the rails and into the field beyond. The lightning came again, and Woodcock was suddenly a hundred yards further on, walking with his hands in his pockets through cut corn under the roaring rain. There came another bang of thunder, and out of this seemed to grow another, more regular noise – the beating of an engine.

The first Monday train. I hadn’t bargained on that. Would it stop at the station? The week-end was over now, after all. If it did stop, then Hardy might board it and ride away to freedom. It would look queer, the station master getting on the train; it would be like the
station
getting on it, but who’d lift a finger to stop him? Everything was going to pot. I ought to have brought the Chief in again, even if that meant involving that pill Usher. The engine drew out of the woods, and came on. The rain made a haze above the carriage roofs; and it made a waterfall as it rolled down the carriage sides.
Will Woodcock still be in sight by the time this has
passed?
I wondered.

He was, but only just – a small black shape on the far side of the field in the milky light. I looked down at the ABC – at the white dials glowing in the lamplight. It was all connected up, but those dials seemed to have sprouted a few more foreign-looking signs and symbols since the last time. Woodcock had got me so far, but he wasn’t the sort to do people favours – his heart just wasn’t in it. It struck me that, in pushing his luck in the way he had been, Woodcock had been asking me a sort of question. I took out my watch, and the hands seemed treacherous.

Six thirty-three.

I scrambled up the bank and sprinted over the tracks and across the field towards Woodcock. He turned about and watched as I gained on him. I came to a halt at two yards’ distance, with the rain making a curtain of water between us.

‘Fancy a scrap?’ I said.

I got a good one in the very moment he nodded his head. Another silent flash came just then, and it showed me Woodcock bringing his fists up in a way he’d no doubt wanted to be doing ever since he’d clapped eyes on me, but our set-to did not last long, and it was over before the thunder boom that belonged to that particular lightning bolt came rolling around. We both happened to be down on the corn stubble at that point, and Woodcock, standing up, said, ‘Have it your way,’ and began trailing back in the direction of the tracks and the ABC.

As he walked, he lit another cigarette, and began muttering to himself. When he got back to the ABC (which was soaked but, I trusted, well sealed) and its faintly glowing companion the storm lantern, he immediately crouched down and set about winding the handle on the front of the wooden case.

‘What’s this in aid of?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve put the switch to “Alarm”,’ said Woodcock, ‘and I’m turning ten times to give ten rings.’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘but they can.’

‘You sure?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why ten? It seems a bloody lot.’

‘That’s the code for Pilmoor – tenth stop on the branch, en’t it?’

‘They
would
count it from fucking Malton and not the other way. What’s
our
code?’

‘Six bells.’

I looked at the time. Six-forty. Lambert would be with the priest now. The High Sheriff of Durham would be taking coffee with the governor of the gaol, and being reminded of the correct form. When he stopped winding, Woodcock turned a switch and stepped back, saying: ‘Off you go, then.’

I looked at my watch, and for the first time I could do so without straining: ten to seven. I didn’t need the lantern to see the dials in the clearing light, but still the rain thundered down. I looked at the necklace of gold keys around the indicator dial. You pressed
the key according to the letter or number you wanted to send; the pointer flew to it, and at that instant the circuit was broken, and you pressed the next letter, winding the handle to fire that one off, and so on.

I pressed the key for ‘F’, and began.

My message, of which I was not over-proud, was: F-O-R-W-A-R- D-T-O-H-O-M-E-O-F-F-I-C-E-L-O-N-D-O-N-L-A-M-B-E-R-T-I- N-N-O-C-E-N-T-M-U-S-T-N-O-T-H-A-N-G-A-C-K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E-S-T-R-I-N-G-E-R-Y-O-R-K-R-A-I-L-W-A-Y-P-O-L-I-C-E-A-D-E-N-W-O-L-D.

I had finished with a full stop. That was the icing on the cherry, so to say, but I had not bothered with spaces between the words.

‘Like to lay on the drama, don’t you?’ said Woodcock, who’d been looking on from behind. I made no reply to that, and Woodcock came forward and once more turned a switch on the machine. We would now await the acknowledgement.

Two minutes to seven by my watch.

A further three minutes went by, and no sound came from the ABC. It was just a lump of bloody wood; you might as well expect a tree to talk. My eye ran up the wires connecting the thing to the cables above, and it all looked about as scientific as washing on a line.

Woodcock said, ‘Exciting, en’t it?’ and just as he spoke, the machine gave a ring, and then another five, which seemed like a miracle, not least because I couldn’t immediately see any bell. A second later, the needle on the indicator dial began flying.

Craning forward, I watched the letters as they were signified. The first was ‘I’, and the whole message ran as follows:

‘I-N-N-O-C-E-N-T-O-F-W-H-A-T-?’

He’d even put the fucking question mark in.

‘I told you he was a cunt,’ said Woodcock, and he was up the telegraph pole directly, adding, ‘Reckon the signal’s come and gone, and come again. He’s only had the first part of it. Even that clot would know it was murder if he’d got the bit about the hanging. I’ll take down the wires, and we’ll set up further along.’

‘You’re saying it’s the verdigris?’ I called up the pole.

‘Eh?’ said Woodcock.

‘The green shit!’ I said.

‘That’s it, mate!’ called Woodcock.

It was five after seven.

‘I can’t afford to shift,’ I said. ‘There’s no time. Can you not just scrape a bit more off?’

‘Makes no odds to me,’ he called down, and I wondered if that was really true. He was leaning and scraping once again, anyhow.

‘Green shit,’ he was saying as he came down, ‘that’s what it’s called in the manual, I believe.’

Two minutes later, I re-sent, as Woodcock lit another cigarette. (He was a great hand at smoking in the rain.) The lightning had stopped, and the rain was slowing now. Woodcock set the machine to let us hear back from Pilmoor; then I blew out the lamp and paced up and down by the railway line. Hugh Lambert would be making ready to leave the condemned cell. A handshake from the warder who’d stopped up half the night with him. That warder would be a hard-arsed character, but dignified with it.

The six bells came after five minutes, and the pointer jumped first to ‘R’, and then:

E-C-I-E-V-E-D.

‘Can’t spell,’ said Woodcock from behind.

The pointer kept on moving, as Woodcock ran on: ‘Christ, you’d think he’d be able to spell “received” in
his
job.’

‘Shut up, will you?’ I said.

‘You
watch
the needle, you bonehead,’ said Woodcock, ‘you don’t
listen
to it.’

The remainder of the message ran:

… W-I-L-L F-W-D-H-O-M-E O-F-F-I-C-E.

‘He’s wasted another minute telling us that,’ said Woodcock, as the pointer fell back to zero for the final time. ‘I’m off, anyhow,’ he added, and he turned a switch on the ABC, and began sauntering away towards the trees.

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

He half-turned and said, ‘We have an agreement, mind,’ at which he entered the woods, and was gone from sight. He was on his way
–I would discover later – to steal thirty pounds from the safe in the booking office at Adenwold station, and then to disappear.

I sat by the tracks contemplating the ABC.

Was my business with it concluded? I didn’t fancy lingering beside it in case it rang again, followed by some further query or contradiction from Pilmoor. Come to that, I didn’t even know if Woodcock had left the switch open to receive. But I felt duty bound to sit by the thing, and I did so until the rain had quite stopped, the sun was raying down and the Adenwold chimes of eight had floated faintly across the drying field towards me.