Murder At Deviation Junction (25 page)

    I
asked for one of each, and he had to open the baskets to look: bread, salad,
cold meat, cheese and a small bottle of wine.

    'Can
I pay you for an extra one of those?' I said, pointing down at the bottle. 'My
friend likes wine.'

    'Aye,'
said the kid, 'don't we all?'

    And
he gave me an extra one gratis, saying, 'Never a word to the governors, eh,
mister?'

    That
wouldn't have occurred had my suit been in better nick.

    I sat
back down; the cold air had wakened Bowman.

    I
said 'Chicken or beef?' and we fell to, still not speaking, save for Bowman's
muttered thanks. We were half-way through the supper when a man in sombre black
joined our compartment. He looked just the sort to have boarded in the gloom of
Trent.

    Bowman
drank his wine in silence, looking just as anxious as if he already knew about
the revolver. On and on, swinging violently on. The rhythm of the wheels over
the rail joints was steady until a mass of points were hit, and then the train
swayed and rolled, and there'd come a sound like a brick wall collapsing, but
still we kept on. The man in our compartment got down at Leeds; we didn't give
him goodbye. The dining car was taken off there too.

    I
thought it was promising that the man in the yellow stockings was armed. It was
another proof that I was on to something. I looked through the window at empty
fields. Such lights as came and went showed the ground as black and white with
melting snow. In some fields the snow cover was complete, and these were
perfect, like jewels. They appeared with greater regularity as we approached
the heights of the stretch to Carlisle: the summits and viaducts came and went,
with the snow gangers out in strength, watching us from the wilds of the night.

    We
came to Carlisle, the mighty Citadel station, with a skeleton staff of laughing
men larking about on the platform. It was half past one in the morning, and
they had the run of the place; that's why they were happy. More banging as the
Midland engines were taken off. The North British company would take us on.

    I
dozed as we rolled towards Edinburgh. Twice I was woken by ringing bells in
signal boxes sliding back away from us in ever thicker falls of snow, but both
times it was the three bells that are rung for 'line clear'. At three-thirty
a.m. I saw the ticket inspector walking past the door.

    'How
long before Edinburgh, mate?' I asked him.

    He
looked at his watch.

    'Twenty
minutes.'

    Bowman
was asleep again, groaning again, a litter of bottles and glasses at his feet.
I tapped him on the knee, and he jerked forwards, his glasses nearly tumbling
off his nose.

    'The
Inverness carriages will come off at Edinburgh,' I said.

    'Eh?'
he said, in the confusion of sleep.

    'We
must join it then,' I said.

    Bowman
caught up his coat, and stumbled behind me towards the front of the train. The
first compartment in the first of the two Inverness carriages was free, and
Bowman said, 'Where is the fellow?'

    'End
compartment of the next one,' I said.

    Bowman
nodded and sat down as I walked along a little way.

    The
corridor blinds were still down in the man's compartment. On returning, I put
the blinds down in our own.

    At
Edinburgh, the two Inverness carriages were cut loose, and a new engine banged
into us. It was more like a smash than a coupling, but Bowman just took the
jolts and stared straight ahead, all conversation gone. We both slept over the
Forth Bridge - must have done, for the next thing I knew was Perth at five
o'clock, and another change of engine, evidently conducted by invisible men,
for I heard shouts but looked out on an empty platform and one stationary
baggage wagon, dazzlingly lit for no good reason.

    We
were approaching Inverness, and I woke again to see sleet flowing through the
greyness beyond the window. It was nearly nine. For all the freezing weather,
there had been no schedule slacks. In a goods yard to the left of the ticket
gate stood a row of wooden letter As: snow ploughs to be fitted to the engine
fronts. I stepped into the corridor. Our man was waiting at the head of the
short queue for the door at the end of the carriage. I counted the queue - nine
people - and I thought of all the effort the Midland company had gone to for
this.

    The
night on the train had not put a crimp in the man in the least: breeches and
socks were perfect as before, coat swinging open, cap pulled low over the great
boulder of a head. He climbed down, advanced along the platform and stood still
for a second, breathing the cold air of Inverness, taking the sleet. I thought:
he likes this - this must be his home. He had a barrel chest, legs a little too
thin and bandy. He might have been a boxer once - a boxing farmer. His white
moustache was like the handle of a pail.

    We walked
the length of the short train, and we were right behind the man at the ticket
gate. I thought: there is nothing out of the way in this - the three of us were
all on the same train, and now we're heading for the same ticket gate. We had
no
option
but to follow him; the only thing that marked us out was our
lack of luggage. The man crossed the booking hall. He was standing before a
wall panel showing the timings of Highland Railway trains.

    'He's
going on,' I said.

    But
then we watched from the ticket gate as the man crossed the booking hall and
left the station.

    'He's
not
going on,' said Bowman. 'He's done with trains.'

    He
cut diagonally across the square that lay beyond the station, and walked into
the Station Hotel. A five-second battering from the icy wind, and we were in
the hotel ourselves - soft carpets, soft fires, beautiful warmth. There was a
bar or lounge directly opposite the reception desk. The man who looked like
Sanderson was carefully folding his coat, and draping it over the arm of a chair.
As we looked on, a waiter approached and asked to take his coat. The man
refused with a quick headshake. He then said one very short word to the waiter,
which, as I worked out a moment later - when the waiter returned with a silver
tray - must have been 'tea'. When the waiter placed the tea before him, the man
did not seem at first to notice it, but then he took the silver tweezers, and
moved four sugar cubes from the sugar bowl to the cup. He drank one cup,
stockinged legs akimbo. There was more in the pot, but he left it. He did not
smoke.

    He
then repeatedly shot his cuffs while sitting in the seat: left, right, left
again. There must be just the right amount of shirt linen extending beyond his
country coat sleeve. His clothes were not quite of the best quality, I thought.
He was not, by his looks, a rich man, and there was something tired about his
clothes, as if he tyrannised over them.

    He
now fell to stroking his moustache, coaching it forward, as though conjuring
for himself an ever-longer top lip. Suddenly he stood up, put some silver on
the table and walked smartly out of the hotel. Another blow in the square -
where stood the snow-topped statue of some kilty fellow from times past - and
we followed the man once again through the booking hall of the station, and on
to a bay platform. Here another short train waited - but there was a powerful
engine at its head. I sent Bowman to buy biscuits and water bottles and climbed
up. As I did so, the man looked for the first time directly at me. He sat right
by the door. His head was tilted back, and he inhaled slowly through his white
'tache as he saw me, as if to say, 'Now you're a bit over-familiar. What's your
game?'

    I
took a seat two along. It was a Highland Railway carriage, flimsy as a cricket
pavilion, and with no compartments but open seating - and with no
beating
either. Bowman came up by the same door, and gave not a glance at the man but
coloured up even more deeply as he brushed past him. He carried a paper bag in which
were bottles of mineral water, bread and cheese.

    'You
might've picked up a couple of footwarmers,' I said with a grin, to which
Bowman made no reply. He had barely spoken since Edinburgh. Only two other
passengers joined the carriage - two men. They were discussing church matters
but were not vicars. Their accents made them sound mechanical, as though driven
by clockwork: the words 'rector' and 'kirk' came round again and again. I could
only see the backs of their heads, and it bothered me that they did not move
more.

    We
came out of Inverness by a great grey stretch of water. A single ship sat
miserably in the middle of it. The line was single, and there were many pauses
for other trains to pass, and many stations. We heard them before we saw them,
for we approached to the sound of a bell rung by hand by the stationmaster. I
recall the strangest of the names: Beauly, Muir of Ord, Foulis, Nigg. It was
odd to see ordinary-looking - by which I mean English-looking - working people
standing about near such station nameplates. Not that there were many outdoors
in the sideways-flying sleet. All the stations were church-like, made of heavy
stone. They had what looked like low fonts projecting from the station houses,
and I fancied these must be for the dogs to drink from. The stations were not
meant to look beautiful; they were meant not to be blown away.

    One
of them would come up, and it was as if the town supposed to go along with it
had been mislaid. Or there might be a few buildings - more of a camp than a
town. There was a sawmill by one station; a blacksmith's by another; sidings
here and there, with horses being loaded; some wagons with a word written in a
giant letters - 'HERRING'; great tanks of lamp oil. Well, the people went to
where the fuel was. Every platform showed a simple sign with one arrow pointing
in a direction marked 'Inverness', and another marked 'Wick and Thurso'; no
'up' or 'down' here. We were way beyond all that.

    At
most stations, one or two climbed up into our carriage, and one or two got off.
Our man remained; the two ministers remained. I wanted as many up as possible,
for every person aboard was a guarantee against the man loosing off a bullet
from his pistol.

    We
were now somewhere beyond a spot called Dingwall. When would the bloody man get
off, and what would I do when he did? I had no notion. We'd been on the go for
more than an hour. I looked at Bowman, and he seemed to be asleep. Had he even
noticed the great mountains to our left? You could mistake them at first for
great banks of clouds, until you worked out that they were not moving. I peered
forwards: our quarry sat still as before. I could see the top of his wide cap.

    One
of the ministers was saying, 'It's all to the guid, it's all to the guid . . .'
and I cursed his ignorance. It was
not
all to the good.

    I
turned again to the window. The sound came of another bell floating through the
sleet, another station rolling into view. A curiosity on the platform: a
smoking stove attached to the base of a water tower - against ice, as I
supposed.

    There
came a clattering of a door in the next carriage as I read a poster on the
station wall: 'Further North! Further North! Fortnightly Passes for Visiting
the Northern Highlands', and then, underneath, in smaller print: 'Summer Only'.

    I
looked at the seat opposite; Bowman was eyeing me from the depths of his coat.
The turned-up collar had skewed his glasses.

    'Who
comes up here in winter?' I asked him.

    'Juggins
like us,' he muttered.

    Huddled
in his coat, he did not meet my eye; he had hardly the will to speak. He hadn't
taken on alcoholic fuel for a long while, and he had now reached the point of
being made tired by the cold - which was a dangerous point. He belonged in an
office, not a Highland train; an office or a pub, of course.

    I
looked out at two winter diehards in the fields, following a hay wagon as we
moved on.

    I was
almost asleep myself when a jolt of the train brought me up sharply. Bowman was
eyeing me again.

    'The
wild sea disclosed,' he murmured, and he nodded to the right. Great grey waves
were rising and coming at us. The line was practically on the beach.

    'When
will he bloody get off?' I said, nodding along towards our friend; but Bowman
had gone back into his own world.

    I had
hoped the man might step down at Helmsdale. This was a seaport with a slightly
larger station. For once, grey houses blocked the view of fields and sea. But
while everyone bar the two ministers got off there, our bastard sat tight.