The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

  The Mate had gone aft; the over-grown kid remained. The mass of the mid-ships blocked my view in that direction, but I hoped that a row was brewing, that the crew had mustered on the after deck, pressing to know why they must keep to one half of the ship, and threatening mutiny.

  The kid had evidently had his orders, for he motioned me to come down the ladder, and to move for'ard with him. I did so, with the gun on me. It was a revolver that he held, a biggish one. I could see by the mid-ships lamps that it was clarted in grease, which might mean it had only lately been taken out of storage, which might in turn mean it would be stiff to operate. But if that trigger, with the kid's finger presently upon it, travelled one quarter of an inch I was a goner.

  'I hope you know what you're about, son,' I said, as we walked halfway for'ard. 'This is a serious doing: kidnap of a police officer, assault. Twenty-five-year touch if you're run in.'

  The boy kept silence.

  'And what about that gun?' I said. 'Are you sure you're up to firing it?'

  He re-pointed the thing at me, but he was watching the oncoming ship. We both were. It wasn't a collier - too clean, sat too high in the water. It was a superior ship altogether to our own, with two funnels amidships and a high foc's'le, proudly carried. It lagged back not more than a couple of hundred yards now - not close enough to hail, but close enough perhaps to strike out and swim to.

  'That gun,' I said. 'Fire it, and the fucking flash'll blind you.'

  'Eh?' he said.

  'Are you sure you can work it? I mean, is it double or single action?'

  'You'll find out soon if you don't shut up,' he said.

  The other ship was starting to make us roll in a different way. I might swim into its path and wait in the water, but would the cold kill me? Would I be spotted, and if so would I be rescued? The ship gave a long, low horn-blow, like the mooing of a giant cow, and the sound threatened to deafen me and I think the kid also, for the look in his eyes was one of shock and fear. He looked down at the gun, then up at me, and something had made him talkative.

  'Don't come it about being a copper,' he said. 'You're a bloody stowaway.'

  'You're talking through your fucking braces,' I said.

  The kid was again eyeing the other ship.

  'Stowaway...' I said. 'That's what you've been told, is it?'

  'And you can't kidnap a dirty stowaway,' said the kid, turning back towards me. 'You're no copper,' he said again. 'You'll be given to the coppers at the turnaround.'

  'Turnaround?' I said. 'Where?'

  We were close to the gunwale, practically leaning on it. I put my left hand on the cold iron, and the kid made no move to stop me. A deck ring bolt was between us, and a pile of rope. The rope might prevent him from making a grab at me, should I attempt the leap. I edged still closer to the gunwale. The sea was - what? - twenty feet below and quite black. It looked like oil; smelt like oil for the matter of that. But then again it seemed to roll almost playfully, with only the occasional wave uncurling itself to make a leap and hitting high against the hull with a slap that set the iron ringing. Now the oncoming ship was blowing its horn again, as if in encouragement, just as if to say: 'What are you waiting for, man? Make the leap!'

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I stayed behind alone in the dining room after the meal. I was studying the painting opposite to the fireplace because something about it troubled me.

  I hung back there about five minutes, and when I came out, I saw Adam Rickerby moving rapidly towards the foot of the stairs with a giant tin of paint or white-wash in each hand. The wife had laid in a couple of similar-sized cans at our new place, all ready for me to start decorating, and it was all I could do to lift one of them. Adam Rickerby carried two with ease and was now fairly bounding up the stairs with them. Well, he had evidently washed the pots in double-quick time.

  I followed him up to the first landing, where the door of the ship room was closed. Were Fielding and Vaughan already in there? But Rickerby was climbing at the top of his speed to the next landing, and again I followed him up. Coming to the floor that was being decorated I could not see him: the corridor stretched away darkly. But there came a noise from the second door down on the left. That door stood ajar, and I walked in directly to see Rickerby standing by an open window with a shrimp net - very likely the one I'd seen in the cupboard upstairs - in his hand. The low gas showed bare, flaking walls, white-wash brushes and rolls of wallpaper on every hand - and it was the green stripe again. Why did the landlady persist with that? Her colour was grey-violet, the colour of her coatand hat. The sea wind surged fiercely against the frame of the open window like a roll of drums, and I saw that behind Adam Rickerby a hole had been knocked in the wall, showing another, darker room beyond.

  'Can I help you?' he said.

  Of all the questions I might have asked, the one that came out was: 'Why is the window open?'

  'Carry off the smoke,' said Rickerby.

  'There is no smoke,' I shot back.

  'It's been carried off.'

  With his wild hair, the smock-like apron and the long-handled shrimp net he held, the lad was halfway to being bloody King Neptune.

  'Smoke from what?' I said.

  The room had one of the small iron fireplaces but it was not lit. Rickerby's gaze drifted down to an object on the floorboards by his boots, half hidden in scraps of torn wallpaper: a paraffin torch of the sort used for burning off paint. It might have smoked at one time; there might have been something in his tale.

  'Why are you holding that shrimp net?'

  'I mean to use t'pole.'

  'For what?'

  'Reaching up.'

  'To what?'

  'Ceiling.'

  'Why do you want to reach up to the ceiling with the pole?'

  'I don't.'

  And I nearly crowned him just then, which might not have been so clever, given the size of him.

  'I mean to reach up wi' t'brush,' he said.

  'So you'll tie the brush - the white-wash or distemper brush - onto the pole, is that it?'

  He kept silence, watching me. Presently he said, 'Aye,' and I wondered whether there might not have been a note of sarcasm there, and - once again - whether he was brighter than I took him for.

  'What's the work going on here?'

  '... Making an apartment.'

  'Why?'

  He looked sidelong, looked back.

  'Bring in a different sort.'

  'A different sort of guest? What sort?'

  'The sort that likes apartments.'

  Holiday apartments were more expensive than holiday rooms, and I supposed that the difference would repay knocking down walls to create them.

  I believed that I had got as much as I would get from Adam Rickerby.

  'I'm off downstairs just now,' I said. 'I'm off to smoke a cigar.'

  Under the steady gaze of the over-grown schoolboy, and with mind racing, I turned and quit the apartment-to-be.

  Approaching the ship room, I fancied for the second time that I heard muttering from behind the door, which stopped directly upon my opening the door and entering. I saw the black sea tracking endlessly past the tall, delicate windows. If Fielding and Vaughan had been speaking, they'd been doing so without looking at each other. Vaughan lay flat on the couch and again smoked towards the ceiling. Fielding sat in his armchair facing the tall windows. In that warped, wide room the fire was too small, the fireplace smaller still, and yet the room was too hot.

  The gas was noisy here, as in the rest of the house. It sounded like somebody's last breath, going on for ever. Was it the gas that made the room hot or thoughts of the landlady that made me hot in it? Something had changed about the few sticks of furniture in the room. None of these quite belonged. It was as if they'd been meant for a different room, and I fancied that if somebody struck up on the piano, it might crash through the ancient floorboards. I noticed for the first time an alcove set into the wall beside the piano, with two bookshelves fitted into it
. Each held half a dozen books, all - at first glance - about ships or the sea, or paintings of same, and I took them all to be Fielding's.

  Set between his armchair, and Vaughan's couch, was the second armchair. The small bamboo table had been pushed towards it, and a cigar, already cut, rested on a little saucer that made shift as an ash tray. Beside it was a box of long matches: wind vestas. As I sat down at my chair and took up the cigar, Vaughan rolled a little my way, blowing smoke. His reddish, down-pointed moustache looked odder still when set on its side. Fielding also altered position somewhat, so that his gaze was now midway between me and the sea.

  'I'm obliged to you,' I said to Fielding after lighting the cigar and shaking out the match. I was glad to have got my smoke going first time, for there'd only been one match left in the box - which seemed to sum up the whole house. Fielding nodded courteously in my direction, and crossed his legs, which he did tightly, in a fashion rather womanly. Vaughan watched me for a while, then rolled back to his former position.

  'It makes a cracking cigar divan does this,' he said.

  'And it will be fit for nothing else once you've smothered it in ash,' said Fielding. 'The Lady will not like it.'

  No, I thought, but she won't be the one who cleans it.

  'You have lots of books on ships,' I said to Fielding.

  'About ships, I think you mean,' he replied. 'I assure you that none of them are on ships. I have many about railways as well, and quite a fair number of novels.'

  'He's got enough books to start a bookshop,' said Vaughan, 'and that's just what he means to do.'

  An interval of silence, and then Fielding leant a little my way, like a man about to pass on a confidence. 'There's a good lock-up shop on Newborough, Mr Stringer,' he said. 'If it falls into my hands, it will be re-fitted throughout and will indeed become a bookshop as Vaughan says ...'

  'Second-hand books,' said Vaughan, nodding at the ceiling, as though he thoroughly approved of the idea.

  'Antiquarian,' corrected Fielding.

  He seemed to have the ability to start and finish businesses just like that; seemed to have the capital to do it as well - and to buy new books.

  'Theo ... Mr Vaughan here ... was showing me some of your cards for the platform machines,' I said. 'Just my sort of thing, they were.'

  'But you take a close interest in the railways, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding, cocking his head and smiling at me. 'The average passenger does not, or so Mr Robinson of the North Eastern company assured me.'

  'Robinson's a pill,' said Vaughan.

  'He told me', Fielding ran on, still smiling, 'that as a supplier of images I lacked the common touch.'

  'Bloody nerve,' said Vaughan, who'd already mentioned to me this famous saying of Robinson's.

  'Told me to my face,' continued Fielding, 'and do you know ... he was putting on a silk top hat at the time.'

  It was impossible to tell from his expression how angry he was, if at all.

  'You must be pretty mad at the Company,' I said.

  'I should just think he is,' Vaughan said.

  He would keep putting his two bob's worth in. Again, it was hard to work out if Fielding minded very much.

  'Pretty mad?' Fielding repeated coolly. 'From their point of view they acted logically. I admit that I rode my own hobby horses a little too hard.'

  'The straw that broke the camel's back', Vaughan put in, 'was Sunderland station.'

  'I produced a card showing Sunderland station at night,' said Fielding, blowing smoke in the direction of the sea,'... illuminated by the new system of oil lighting supplied by the Kitson Company. On the rear of the card was given the number of lamps, also the cost of oil and mantles, installation and maintenance. It came out at three farthings per lamp per hour.'

  'Cheap,' I said.

  'Decidedly,' said Vaughan, who was trying to blow smoke rings.

  'But Robinson didn't care for it,' Fielding continued. 'He told me, "It's meant to be a post card not a company report," and suggested instead a card showing holiday makers at Sunderland. I then made the mistake - as I now see in retrospect - of venturing to suggest that only a certified lunatic would take a holiday in Sunderland, which does not have any beach to speak of.'

  'Factories,' said Vaughan, 'that's what Sunderland has.'

  'Where were the pair of you living when you had the card business?' I enquired.

  'Leeds,' said Fielding. 'I was rather shaken after the collapse of the business. I moved here last summer - a sort of convalescence, I suppose.'

  'Then he wrote to me saying I might like it,' Vaughan added.

  'Where were you in Leeds? If you don't mind my asking?'

  'Central,' said Fielding, uncrossing his legs, and I wondered: Is he being short with me?

  'Both in the same digs?'

  'Howard was at the better part of town,' said Vaughan, blowing smoke.

  . Blackburn had lived at Roundhay; I wanted to work it in.

  'I know a spot called Roundhay,' I said. 'You weren't there by any chance?'

  'We were not,' said Fielding, and he cocked his head at me, as if to say: 'Now why ever did you ask that?'

  Vaughan was eyeing me too.

  'You two must like having this place to yourself in the winter,' I said presently.

  No reply from either of them.

  'Do you ever come here in summer, Jim?' Vaughan suddenly enquired. 'I mean, do you fire the excursions?'

  'I'm usually rostered another way,' I said. 'Half the time I'm running into ...' And I revolved the towns of Yorkshire for a while:'...Hull.'

  'Ah, now Hull is the plum,' said Fielding, rising from his chair and carrying his cigar stub towards the fire, where he dropped it carefully into the flames; he then brushed the ash from his fingers and briefly inspected his fingernails. 'One of our cards showed the electric coaling belts on the Riverside Quay,' he added, returning to his seat.

  'Shown on a day of heavy rain, they were,' said Vaughan.

  'Good job old Robinson never saw that one or he'd have put the mockers on sooner than he did.'

  He was examining his own cigar, which, like mine, had a little way to run. 'Sound smoke, wouldn't you say, Howard?'

  'A little dry,' said Fielding, speaking as though his mind was elsewhere.

  'I wonder why that is?'

  'We should keep a little pot of water in the cedar-wood box.'

  I was about to try and get the conversation back to the winter visitors, as a way of returning to the subject of Ray Blackburn, when Fielding unexpectedly saved me the bother.

  'Yes,' he said with a sigh, 'it was my suggestion that the Lady advertise for railway men. Well, she was in rather low water then as now. But then, you see, the first one we had in went missing.'

  'I know,' I said, somewhat alarmed in case I had revealed my true identity, and perhaps too fast, for Vaughan propped himself up on his couch while Fielding rose once more from his seat, and stood before me with arms folded and one little foot tapping away.

  'Of course,' I said, 'Ray Blackburn was Leeds and I'm York, so I didn't know the fellow personally. But I know what happened.'

  'You know!' exclaimed Fielding with half a smile.

  'Disappeared in the night,' said Vaughan. 'Spirited away in the dead of bloody night, Jim.'

  'To obtrude a fact or two, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding, 'Mr Blackburn went to bed at about eleven-thirty, and was nowhere to be seen when the boy went up to him with a cup of tea at seven the next morning.'

  I didn't much care for that, since the boy had promised to bring me tea at seven as well. I was certain that I'd been installed in the room Blackburn had occupied, and it was beginning to seem as though I'd stepped into his very boots.

  'Were you both in the house when it happened?' I enquired.

  'Oh dear,' said Fielding, 'you sound like the gentlemen in blue.'

  He was down on the coppers then, and that was unusual for a respectable sort like him.

  'Same people in the house then as now,' sa
id Vaughan, 'which is why we've all been on the spot these past weeks. How many police teams would you say we'd had, Howard? Past counting isn't it?'

  'Not quite,' said Fielding. 'We've had three visits from the Scarborough men, two from the Leeds. A little potation?' he enquired of me, nodding towards the sideboard.

  'But we're right out!' exclaimed Vaughan.

  'I took the liberty of replenishing the supply,'

  'Spanish sherry?' said Vaughan, rising to his feet.

  'It's in the usual place,' said Fielding, and he nodded significantly at Vaughan.

  Well, that place was evidently outside the room, for Vaughan went quickly out of the door and returned after a few moments - in which Fielding kept silence while smiling at me - carrying a tray on which stood a bottle and some small glasses. He set this down on the top of the piano and began to pour, slopping the stuff about rather as he did so, perhaps because the piano top was too high for the operation.

  'Really, Vaughan,' said Fielding, looking on, 'it will not do; it will not do at all... I'm sorry it's not decanted,' he said, turning my way.

  'Don't worry on my account,' I said, chalking up another idiotic remark. Was Fielding taking the rise out of me?

  'Did nobody hear anything?' I said, extinguishing my cigar on the saucer.

  'We didn't,' said Vaughan, passing out the drinks. 'We'd been at this stuff all night, one way or another. Absolutely mashed we were, come midnight.'

  'I don't care for this "we", Vaughan,' said Fielding.

  'Begin at the beginning,' said Vaughan, regaining his couch. 'Blackburn turned up at about the same time you did, Jim. Supper was served directly, and it was a hot supper, then as today. One of Howard's recipes. The Lady happened to havesome peculiar sort of chops and some old cheese lying about…'

  'Veal Parmesan,' Fielding cut in.

  'Well, it was the Lady's first railway man,' said Vaughan, 'so I suppose she wanted to pull out all the stops.'