Murder At Deviation Junction by Andrew Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

still climbing. At any
moment, it would be passing underneath. The falling snow, the rising iron
cloud, the crisscrossing of the trains, the rise and fall of the tide and the
slow approach of Christmas - all were part of the larger machine. The
transition I'd taken a fancy to happened out of sight, with black smoke rising
from below. The little ironstone engine had been on the left; now, having
passed underneath the viaduct, it was rising to the right, taking its dozen
wagons to the waiting kilns of the Rectory Works, where more fun lay in store -
for the wagons would be picked up bodily by a mighty winch, and carried to the
top of the kilns, there to be upended. I had seen that business carried on, and
it was like watching a hungry giant feed itself. An account of it might have
been interesting for readers of Bowman's magazine, and what could match it for
photographic opportunities?
        But
he slept on.
        He
had no enthusiasm for his work. He was like me: fixed in a rut. I gazed at his
fiery little face, which was suddenly blotted out as we shot into the Grinkle
Tunnel. Three quarters of a mile of blackness . . . and we came out into the
beginnings of day. Bowman had rolled forwards somewhat. He was the same
sleeping man as before, only now shaking with the train.
        He
was not shamming.
        He
had wanted to know my line of questioning - that was why he'd stayed on at
Stone Farm. But I must lose him in Whitby, for I intended to make straight for
the siding where, the lad porter had told me, the Club Train had been kept; and
was kept still. It no longer ran, and nor did Peters, who had been closely
interested in it, and I thought those facts might very well be connected.
        We
were now gliding across the viaduct over Staithes. That village was packed
tight in the mighty ravine below. During the short stop at the station, I
watched fishermen walking between boats on the snowy beach, wondering whether
to put out. 'All weather is a warning.' Where had I heard that? A man led a
pony with a sack slung on either side across a white field. Kettleness station
came next; then the viaduct of Sandsend, which was like the legs of a giant
iron man walking, and the houses below looked as though they'd been pitched off
the cliff by that same giant.
        I was
not tired, despite having been up all night, and I knew the reason: in the
months and even years beforehand, I'd done too little. I had been biding my
time in the York Railway Police office, avoiding the chilly stares of Shillito,
listening enviously to the sounds of the engines and enginemen coming and going
in the station beyond. An office in a station was a ridiculous thing: a ship
forever docked.
        We
were now rolling across the snow-covered cliff-tops - and our train was the
only moving thing on those tops as we made for the terminus, Whitby West Cliff.
As we came in, I woke Bowman with a touch on the shoulder.
        'Copy's
come up short,' he said, quite distinctly, at the moment of waking, and then he
looked at me for a moment as though he didn't know me. But he quickly
apologised, and collected up his things.
        Whitby
West Cliff station was a little way out of the town, which was silenced by
snow. Bowman walked beside me through the drifting whiteness, the camera slung
over his shoulder. We stopped outside a bakery that was responsible for all the
activity in one particular narrow street just above the harbour.
        'Which
is your hotel, old man?' I said.
        'Oh,'
he said. 'The Metropole.'
        'I
know it,' I said, and I pointed seawards. 'The alley past the chapel will see
you directly to the door.'
        'Right-o,'
he said, but he made no move.
        A low
tugboat was rocking across the water from the west to the east harbour wall -
nothing more to look at than a floating chimney. A church clock counted sadly
to five.
        'To
think that it's twelve hours until I can take a drink,'