The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  'I must speak with her,' I said.

  'What you're trying to make out,' said the wife, 'is that George Ogden wanted to wreck the train so as to kill Michael Hardcastle?'

  'He was on the Whit excursion then was he?'

  The wife nodded. 'On both excursions,' she said.

  'No,' I said, 'I don't think that was his reason.'

  'Well you're right there' said the wife, 'because nobody could have known there was anything going between them back at Whitsuntide – they barely knew it themselves.'

  'I think it's odds-on he was out to get Cicely' I said.

  'Oh' said the wife, and she sat down on the truckle bed.

  'But how will you ever prove it? And what would you do if you could prove it?'

  'Put salt on him,' I said.

  'But still we don't know, do we?'

  'Oh no,' I said. 'It's all just thinking on. Did you never mention to Cicely that you had a lodger here called George Ogden?'

  The wife went red, which you didn't often see.

  I looked out of the window, and down: at Halifax. The sky was dark blue. The gaslights were all coming on, and more of them inside the houses than for the past six days. The strange thing was that, even though it was getting on for seven o'clock, I was breaking out in a sweat. Wakes was over, but the glass was rising still. 'You know I'm not over-proud of taking in lodgers' said the wife, at last.

  'Well, I'm off now' I said. 'Off where?'

  'Down to the Joint. I've to catch a train.'

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The clock was striking seven as I half ran down Horton Street, against the waves of excursionists that were rolling up towards me. The next day, Sunday, I had a six o'clock go on with Clive. We were to collect from Southport twice over, and the turn would be a bugger: a ten-hour touch at least.

  As I ran, I didn't know exactly why I was running. I wasn't really trying to catch a train; I was trying to catch the station, more like.

  Seven o'clock had gone, so I had missed the chance to see whether George had kept his engagement with his mother at 54 New Clarence Road, Bradford. He wasn't a great one for keeping his word, and he'd had a lot on, what with being hounded by Don and Max. I wondered why he had given the address of his mother as being the address of the cream biscuit-machine factory when I'd first gone up to the cigar factory with him. Most likely because he didn't write off for replacements, as he'd said, but stole the deliveries as they came in. There was a biscuit scheme as well as a ticket scheme, but the ticket scheme was the bigger one. Then again, it wasn't railway tickets that had made George Ogden a killer.

  If George had been at 54 New Clarence Road in Bradford, he might be lying dead at this very moment, or be a hospital case at least. Why did Don and Max want him?

  They were in on the ticket scheme with him.

  It wasn't so hard to tease it all out. Don, the little, clever fellow, the angelic-looking one who was a tough nonetheless… He was a ticket collector at Blackpool, although he hated the work. His job would be to put his hands on as many as possible of the stolen Blackpool singles that had been sold on illegally by George at the Joint. Those, when collected, would be put out of sight of the ticket brass, or the auditors, or whoever it was checked over spent tickets.

  Max, the big-headed fellow, the mate of Don's… Well, I wasn't quite sure where he came in.

  As I sped on past the empty warehouse in Horton Street, I saw that a new bill had been pasted over 'condy's bath fluid', which had in turn replaced 'a meeting to discuss questions'. I caught a glimpse of the new one as I went flashing past: 'a dirigible flight', I read and, underneath, 'Balloon v. Motor Car'.

  Down at the Joint, the trains were coming in at a great rate, and the excursionists were climbing out, looking red in the face and morngy. There were stacks of bags and boxes like little mountains here and there on the platform. All the porters' faces were shining with sweat in the white and green gaslight. I dashed about without a ticket, and then I heard a shout go up from one of the deputy stationmasters. The shout was 'Preston train!' and my plan was made. I ran along to it and climbed up, bumping into a ticket inspector immediately. He was miserable all right, just like all that sort, but he let me buy a ticket off him. It was not a ticket for Preston, though. I was only going to change there. The ticket I bought was for a place a couple of stops beyond: Kirkham.

  The stone had stopped the Highflyer between Salwick and Kirkham, the two villages in the fields before Blackpool. If George had been the wrecker, he would have needed to get the stone to the line. He would have needed a turn-out of some sort. In my last visit to the wife's office at Hind's Mill, I had looked in the 'Trades' part of the Kelly's directory for East Lanes, searching for fly proprietors, jobmasters or livery-stable keepers at Salwick or Kirkham, and had turned one up at Kirkham. I'd made a note of the address in my pocket book, but the name was easy enough to remember: The Wrong Way Inn.

  ____________________

  ‹o›--

  There wasn't much to Kirkham: shadowy, empty cattle pens near the station, and the place had one mill to its name. The Wrong Way Inn was at the end of Wrong Way Lane: a dusty track between tall hedges that were fairly seething with life in the darkness. Big red berries glowed in the hot night; moths and small mysterious flying things swooped about before me.

  The Wrong Way Inn looked like a mansion given over to the hoi polloi. There were fires blazing in all the rooms. There was an arch going clean through the front of the inn, and this led to a courtyard with stables and a hot, sweet, hay smell and all kinds of carts and carriages about the place. The horses were just dark movements inside the stalls. A fat man was standing in the middle of all. He wore a leather apron and had a very red nose – the colour of something that by rights should have been part of his insides not his outsides. I knew right away that he was a horseman or jobmaster, happier to be out with his nags than inside the inn.

  I stood before him for a second, trying not to look at his nose, while he looked at my bandage.

  'What are you after then mate?' he said.

  'I'm not quite certain,' I said.

  'I see. Want the whole stable trotted out, do you?' He smiled, which came as a relief. I think it went in my favour that I was not canned, for sobriety must have been at a premium during Saturday nights at the Wrong Way Inn.

  'I'm a fireman on the Lanky,' I began; 'the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, I mean.'

  His smile fell a little at that. Horsemen did not as a rule like railways any more than railwaymen liked motorcars.

  'Railway business is it, then?'

  I nodded. 'I wondered if you might be able to say whether somebody had hired a dog cart or something of that kind on Whit Sunday last.'

  'Oh aye?'

  'I have a notion of who it might have been,' I went on. 'He would've been a youngish fellow, quite well turned out, with a very particular sort of waistcoat. He was also quite…'

  I looked at the horseman. He wasn't half fat.

  'He was quite, ah… well, quite a chubby sort,' I said.

  The jobmaster grinned. 'Well, you know what they say,' he chuckled, 'fat and happy!'

  'He tried to wreck the engine I was firing along the stretch just near here.'

  That checked the horseman's good humour.

  'He did it by placing a grindstone on the line.'

  'Jesus Christ, did he?' said the jobmaster, and he turned about in a circle as though looking for somebody or something. When he was facing me again, he said: 'A fellow we had here a few weeks back… I don't say it was Whit because I don't recall, and I wasn't the one looking after him… He was seen to by a lad who's not here presently. Now this character took a pony and cart for the day, and he had a grindstone off us 'n' all. The bloody thing was lying about in the yard here. Too bloody smooth, you see? No use to man nor beast, but the lad as works here let this fellow have it for a bob, helped him load it up too.'

  'Well then,' I said.

  'You make out the bloody thi
ng was used to wreck a train?'

  'It was an attempt,' I said. 'It didn't come off, but we had to clap the brakes on so hard that a lass on the train tumbled over in a carriage and was killed. Have you not had the coppers here, asking questions?'

  'We have not.'

  'And would the lad remember this grindstone fellow? Would he make a witness, I mean, if it came to it?'

  'I'm bloody certain he would. He was full of it afterwards. Acted like a lord, the bloke did. Then off he went, with his little pony and worn-out grindstone.'

  I nodded.

  'Where's this bloke now?' asked the jobmaster.

  'That's just it,' I said. 'I've no notion.'

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Sunday, we had the Southport turns to work.

  We ran the first engine out there empty, and came back with umpteen chuffed-off excursionists. Then we did the same again. The engine – which was a rotten steamer – would only go right when the fire was just so. It was another unbreathable day and I'd taken off the bandage. When Clive asked about the stitches, I said I'd fallen, which he did not believe, but it was simpler than starting on a story that was not yet finished.

  Clive, as usual, was looking the very glass of form, and I wondered again about what he'd been up to in Scarborough, and whether he was making love to the stationmaster's wife, but if my notions about George were right, it hardly mattered.

  As we booked off at Sowerby Bridge, Clive said: 'See you tomorrow at six,' for that was the time of our go-on. I nodded back, but I knew he'd be booking on alone.

  ____________________

  The next morning I walked to Hind's Mill with the wife.

  The whole of the town was going back to work and the mood was black. We fell in with the Hind's lot inside the tunnel that runs under the Joint. It was filled with the sound of clanging clogs, but no voices. Before clocking on, there was Halifax's steepest hill to be climbed in roasting heat, for the sun didn't know the holidays had ended.

  Cicely Braithwaite's was the first happy face I saw. She was sitting on the wall by the mill pond waiting for the buzzer to go, and when she spotted the wife, she called, 'Clog on, Lydia! I've so much to tell you about goings-on at Blackpool!'

  But when she saw me, her face turned puzzled.

  The wife said: 'Cicely, my husband would like to ask you something.'

  Not 'Jim' but 'my husband'. It was the kind of talk you come out with when there's been a death. Well, there had been a death – three, all told.

  I knew the wife would have worked out the wording beforehand. It was her way of saying: I have nothing to do with this myself, her way of trying to keep up a friendship that my questions were well-nigh certain to end.

  I said, 'Cicely, was a fellow called George Ogden courting you?' I looked up at the mill chimney: the smoke was already racing out of it and Cicely was going from white to red. I felt bad about the effect the question had on her, then glad about it, then bad again.

  'He did,' she said, standing up. 'He was, I mean. How do you know him?' It was a new, sharper Cicely: the weaver- turned-clerk. It's not so easy to make that jump after all.

  'He was our lodger,' I said.

  The wife was standing by the water in the background.

  'Only he's flitted,' I went on.

  Cicely looked at me straight, then the buzzer went. It was as if all the steam available at that moment had been put through the one tiny whistle. The doors were rolled open and Hind's Mill began to suck in its people.

  I waited. Cicely and the wife waited too.

  'Well, I flitted from him,' said Cicely when the racket had stopped and the people were all inside.

  'Did you go to Blackpool with him?'

  'Oh, he didn't hold with Blackpool. Too common by a long way. But yes, we went, and it was one of the best days we had.'

  'Did you take a picture of him on the flying boats?'

  'You've turned it up, have you?'

  'It was left behind in this room.'

  'I wouldn't go on myself. He went up. George had pluck, and he could be the most charming fellow, you know. Afterwards, we drunk Champagne in the Winter Gardens.' She gave me a look that said: bet you've not done that.

  'I think he put the stone on the line' I said.

  'Now you fuck off' said Cicely Braithwaite.

  The wife came up but Cicely put her arm up: just one movement, like a signal. The three of us were alone by the mill pond now, with Halifax working beneath us in the heat.

  'You don't believe he did, then?' I said.

  And there it ended. Cicely turned, the wife took her into the mill, and I set off back down towards Halifax.

  But when I was no more than half a minute down the hill, I looked back at the front doors of the mill. Cicely was standing before them, just as though the mill was her own home. She was looking at me, and as I walked back up towards her, she walked down to meet me. She took off her bonnet and said: 'I'd finished with George. He was up to something crooked at the station and that's what brought it on. He accepted that we were finished, but he said I was not to go to Blackpool without him. I said he was nuts. He is nuts, you know.'

  'I know.'

  'But he loved me.'

  That knocked me; I hadn't expected it to be said.

  'That's perhaps why he did,' said Cicely, and tears and laughter nearly came together in an instant. But instead she said, 'George told me he would stop the excursion.'

  'You're a witness to that, you know' I said.

  'I am,' said Cicely. 'I've thought about it and I will say what must be said. He's written to me since,' she said. 'Threats. I will not have that. But I still don't believe he tried to cause a train smash, you know.'

  'Where's he now?'

  'Well,' she said, 'is he not at work down there?'

  She pointed at the Joint.

  This I had not considered. He'd flitted from Back Hill Street and was being chased for brass by Don and Max. But what harm could come to him in the booking office?

  'I'm off to look' I said.

  ____________________

  At the Joint, Dick and Bob were both at the window. Two clerks for the price of one, arguing over a ledger.

  'Is George in?' I asked Bob. 'I want to see him most particularly.'

  'George!' said Bob. 'We're out with that idle so-and-so. He's not turned up, left us short-handed on one of the busiest days… but hold on a moment, he lives with you. Have you not seen him? What's going off?'

  All these questions, like a little summer fly going round and round my head. But Dick was looking at me with a steady eye. We'd had our chat at the Evening Star, and I knew he had an inkling.

  'He's flitted,' I said to Bob. 'Owes back rent.'

  I turned to Dick. 'Where's he gone, mate? Any ideas?'

  'I'll tell you what,' said Dick, 'wherever it is, he wouldn't buy his ticket here, now, would he?'

  This was a joint station, and my eyes went over towards the next-door ticket window, the one operated by the Great Northern.

  Dick shook his head. 'They know him there 'n' all,' he said.

  'Everyone knows George,' said Bob.

  'He may have bought it at the next stop along' said Dick.

  I nodded. Sowerby Bridge.

  'Let's have a ticket for Sowerby Bridge then, Dick' I said.

  Half a minute later I had in my hand a third-class single to Sowerby Bridge. I looked at the ticket and I looked at Dick. It was number 6521. A nothing number in a run of ten thousand.

  Trains from the Joint to Sowerby Bridge are ten a penny. I was aboard one in no time, and climbed off it dead opposite the little booking office at Sowerby Bridge station. I could see the shed in the distance, smoking away in the sun.I'd thought that Dick and Bob were your regulation booking-office types, but this fellow before me took the bun: hair all moved over to one side with Brilliantine; titchy, thick, scientific-looking specs.

  'How do,' I said.

  The Sowerby Bridge booking-office clerk said nothing. I'd n
ever struck this fellow before because I usually just relied on folk knowing me on my runs between Sowerby Bridge and the Joint. And if it came to it, there was always the footplate pass in my pocket.

  'Have you sold a ticket lately to a big fellow in a fancy waistcoat?' I asked him.

  'If I had done,' he said, 'it would be my business, wouldn't it?'

  'It's just that he might have done a murder.'

  'Police matter then,' he said.

  There were two layers of glass between us: the clerk's specs and the ticket-office window.

  'What do you reckon?' I said.

  Still nothing.

  I took out my pocket book.

  'I have an interesting sort of railway ticket here,' I said.

  'What's interesting about it?' he said.

  And I knew I had him.

  'The number,' I said.

  'Four zeroes, I suppose it is' said the ticket clerk. 'I buy them for myself when they come up, if they're not too pricey.'

  I held up at the window the third-class single to Todmorden that George had given me.

  'One, two, three, four,' said the ticket clerk, reading the number. 'Third class…'

  'What do you reckon?' I said again.

  'Fair do's,' said the clerk. 'I'll give you thruppence for it.'

  'It's yours gratis' I said, 'if you answer the question.'

  'I forget' he said.

  'You forget what?' 'The question.'

  'A big fellow'1 said, 'running to fat; lot of hair; fancy waistcoat. Acts like a lord.' I was still holding up the ticket.

  'I did strike a fellow like him,' said the clerk.

  'When?'

  'Forty-five minutes ago.'

  'Where was he off to?'

  'Goole.'

  I nodded. Step on at Goole for the Continent.

  'When's next Goole train?' I said.

  'Half an hour,' said the ticket clerk.

  I handed over the interesting ticket to the clerk, and had a third-class single to Goole off him in return. I did not look at the number.