Overnight Express
Philip McCutchan
© Philip McCutchan, 1988
Philip McCutchan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1988 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
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1
There was the customary bustle at King’s Cross: the occasional porter, other British Rail staff, the sleeping car attendants in dark-coloured bum-freezers standing by the open doors, passengers milling about, some with anxious expressions as they clutched at potentially straying children, some of the others with a preoccupied air. The preoccupied ones largely carried briefcases to match their air and they were all well dressed, as befitted Conservative Members of Parliament, even though they were backbenchers to a man and woman. They were, in fact, the stragglers, the ones that hadn’t caught the Edinburgh train the night before, when there had been a good deal more bustle and importance as the express had embarked the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and almost all the junior ministers and PSSs and other more valued adornments to the Party. The venue was the Scottish Conservative Conference in Perth; the Conservative vote in Scotland had been slipping rather badly, in fact into a Labour landslide.
Hence the journeying north of all the big guns: Mrs Heffer — after a wilderness period following the general election before the last one, (fortunately a very short-lived parliament, one never grew any younger) — didn’t propose to lose again, and she was to be put to the test within the next six months maximum. It was for this reason that (unusually) she had determined to stay in Perth for the whole period of the conference. The few faithful had to be energised. So heavy had been last night’s guns that the Edinburgh express had been accorded monumental security precautions, with two armed plain clothes officers outside the Prime Minister’s sleeping billet and two more riding shotgun in the cab and guard’s van and plenty more roving in between. There was some embarrassment when Mrs Heffer went to the lavatory. As Mr Heffer was heard to remark in long-suffering tones, that was the one thing he couldn’t do for her.
Tonight it was different: the stragglers travelled at their own risk with not a plain clothes man in sight. Nobody was going to bother to shoot at them, not with such a splendid target in situ in Perth. The most important person aboard the InterCity 125 this night was Sir Richard Cross, a highly-placed official of the Treasury, not a politician but a Permanent Under-Secretary, accompanied by Lady Cross, a firm-looking woman in sensible tweeds — Scotland was Scotland — and a hat like an inverted beehive which she had to bend upon embarkation, for she was tall and the hat turned her into a female guardsman. The time was 2315 — latish, but the Crosses were not yet ready to take up their sleeping berths.
Lady Cross thumped down into a first-class seat. Sir Richard clasped his briefcase tightly to his chest and followed suit, less heavily, being immensely thin with large ears. He said, “I don’t like this, my dear.”
“It’s comfortable enough, Richard.”
“I don’t mean that, dear —”
“What do you mean, then?”
“The lack of any security.” Sir Richard wrinkled a long nose disapprovingly: someone had been smoking in the compartment, which was a non-smoker. Some people simply had no idea …
“It’s your own fault, Richard. We should have gone yesterday with the others.”
“You know I had to see to —”
“Oh, fiddlesticks. You have minions enough.”
“Yes, but —”
“Do stop complaining, Richard.”
“Yes, dear.”
Sir Richard Cross stilled a sigh: he had a suspicion that for some years now Hester had been modelling herself upon the estimable Mrs Heffer, possibly seeing in the first place a euphonious link between Christian name on her part and surname on the PM’s. The power behind the throne … it was well-known that the Royals took second place to Mrs Heffer, though not of course ostensibly. (Mrs Heffer didn’t usurp their prerogative at the Cenotaph, for instance, though she had been noticeably restive during the last so-brief parliament at having to lay her wreath after the Labour PM: a disagreeable expression had been seen on her face as she’d straightened from her bow, and she had cast a look of triumph at the only target possible, the Alliance.) Hester Cross was determined to be the power behind the Treasury, or at any rate the permanent Civil Service part of it. She didn’t have much luck since Sir Richard knew his duty, which involved the paramountcy of not revealing information even to one’s wife. So Lady Cross probed in vain in her attempts to find out by how much Sir Richard intended to cut the National Health Service, or the defence estimates, or the cash available to local authorities. But fighting off Hester was wearisome work and could be nerve-racking. Sir Richard much looked forward to retirement and long days spent in his club, Hester-free.
*
The ordinary passengers were mostly aboard. By no means all had sleeping berths. Ian Costermaine, unemployed Cambridge graduate with a degree in mathematics but no particular knowledge of computers, was heading north for a vitally important job interview: having been turned away from every short list in the UK as it had begun to seem, he was applying at random and in desperation for anything and everything, and computers were something. Unbelievably he’d been short listed this time and had come to the conclusion that computer people were broadminded. Like the armed forces, just look at them: you could whizz (if you wanted to) into the navy, army or air force with a bum degree in banking, social sciences, leisure activities, cock-fighting, flea-baiting and so on — all things utterly unconnected with killing the enemy but a sound proof that you were at least educated. It could be the same with computers and Ian Costermaine, as the night express began to manifest sounds of approaching movement, prayed that it was. In his second-class carriage, the fare having been borrowed from the current girlfriend who was not accompanying him, Mr Costermaine retired behind the nicely erudite pages of the Guardian and tried to ignore the cheerful comments of three members of the Scottish National Party returning north to heckle Mrs Heffer in Perth. Costermaine had no interest at all in politics, only in getting a job, and he didn’t particularly blame Mrs Heffer for the unemployment rate, since it would be just the same under Labour or the Alliance. All politicians were, like the legendary barber’s cat, full of wind and piss.
In the coach astern of Costermaine, also second-class, sat Mr and Mrs Irons, elderly, retired from a fell farm in Yorkshire’s Wensleydale now handed over to their son who was scratching a living of a sort from sheep and talked a lot about turning the farm over to some kind of leisure activity, say a kids’ paradise with slides and swings and swimming pools and loads of painted plastic animals leering over gates and dry-stone walls and the mud track leading from the A684 through Wensleydale tarmacked to take the coaches. Mr Irons senior hoped the lad wouldn’t be allowed to get away with it: he was all on the side of the conservationists and the National Parks Committees, but the young did have funny ideas, and at forty-three young Irons was still a kid in his father’s eyes. The authorities would kick his arse, with luck.
By his side Mrs Irons shifted. Stays creaked, and Mr Irons looked round. “What is it, lass?”
“These seats is ’ard on t’ boom.”
Mr Irons chuckled. “I were thinking o’ booms too. Young Fred’s.
” He told her of his thoughts though he knew she didn’t agree about Fred, which was daft of her.
“Well, I don’t know. Lad ’as to make a living. All sheep do is eat, and price keeps dropping.”
Mr Irons didn’t argue: he was very tired and at seventy plus was feeling his age. Life in the dales had become increasingly hard and the Common Market hadn’t helped, not really, since it had all led to more and more regulations and bumph from the politicians and finally to a demand that British farmers produce less. If as a farmer you didn’t produce food, what the heck did you produce? He’d asked some tomnoddy that, and the tomnoddy, even though he was from the bloody government, hadn’t been able to think of an answer. Maybe young Fred was right after all: turn the dales into Butlin’s. Not that he would go and look at it. He would stay firmly in his bungalow in West Witton and dream of the past. Returning now from a visit to a cousin who lived in London of all places, poor bugger, and due to attend the christening in Hardraw of their first grandchild, Fred’s son, Mr Irons couldn’t wait to breathe fresh Yorkshire air again whether or no Butlin’s lurked. He settled himself back in his seat, totally unaware that the train didn’t stop at York. The ticket puncher on the platform gate hadn’t bothered to look and for his part Mr Irons had never bothered to look at the destination board. To him it was inconceivable that any northbound train should miss out York. Trains had not been much of a part of his life, but York was York, Archbishop and all.
In one of the second-class sleepers were the two Doctors MacAllister, man and wife, returning to Tayside after visiting the two sets of parents in the south — Worthing, where all elderly parents went finally since the geriatric services were good. They were accompanied by their children, eight-year-old Fenella and four-year-old Dominic, at whose insistence they had travelled by train rather than road. The MacAllisters were indulgent parents and because they were both members of CND, and as doctors knew the terrible effects of fall-out, were very much aware that the world might shortly disintegrate into a nuclear holocaust and the children might not have a long life; so why shouldn’t they enjoy what they had while they had it? Hence, carless, the inconvenience, after arrival in Worthing, of travelling in father’s or father-in-law’s car. Neither of the old men was a good driver though they both thought they were and there had been harrowing moments when being taken to view the beauties of the Downs, or to lunches in country pubs that became flooded with fellow geriatrics from Worthing, Bognor Regis, Chichester and parts adjacent on the stroke of ten minutes past noon.
Sue MacAllister said, “We’d better sort out right away. I’m tired, Peter.”
“Right.” Peter MacAllister was to share with Dominic, Sue with Fenella. There was a bit of a rumpus because each child wanted to swop, but indulgence or not the male Dr MacAllister had no intention of being woken throughout the night to cope with Fenella’s urinary difficulties. When the rumpus had faded away as a result of vague promises for future treats, the train got under way and Fenella made for the lavatory compartment, squirming and holding herself tight. Peter MacAllister mentally surveyed the symptoms: children were susceptible to stones in the bladder, something he should have thought of earlier. Or Sue should have. The frequent passage of water by day — not necessarily at night, of course. And the affected child might appear to be masturbating. This would have to be checked out. He mentioned it to his wife.
“Rubbish, Peter, there’s never been any blood. She’d have said if there had.”
“Well, yes, perhaps.” At that moment Fenella came back and had something to say though not about blood in her urine. “There’s a black man —”
“Don’t say black man,” Peter MacAllister rebuked her sharply. “Coloured man —”
“Coloured person,” Fenella interrupted: she’d gleaned sexism from her mother. “Sorry, I forgot, daddy.”
“Well, don’t forget again. And there’s nothing wrong in being coloured. Why make a report about it?”
Fenella said, “’Cos there’s something wrong with this one.”
“How?”
“He was waiting outside the door for me to come out and he had a bag with him, a zip-bag.”
“Well, I don’t see … here he is now, I think,” MacAllister added in a lowered voice. The coloured person brushed past, dark eyes flashing and no apology as he virtually pushed Fenella out of his path along the corridor of the sleeper coach. After he had gone on, MacAllister asked, “Was he the one?”
Fenella nodded. MacAllister could sense the suspicion forming in the child’s mind: terrorist. MacAllister saw the point: the man could have been a cousin of Colonel Gadaffi. But he didn’t think very much about it and told Fenella to get along to her mother’s sleeping berth.
*
The night express, whose only en route stop would be at Peterborough, was due to reach Waverley Station in Edinburgh at 0640 next morning: a long night for those without sleepers. It left fairly full, only a sprinkling of empty seats. The few MPs, the farming couple, the Doctors MacAllister and family, Sir Richard and Lady Cross, and their accompanying lower-grade staff in the second-class, Ian Costermaine with his bright hopes, already formally dressed for the interview in jeans and T-shirt since he was a modern graduate and computers didn’t expect stuffiness, the coloured man with the zip-bag, which had looked heavy — all these were submerged in any train’s normal passenger load of accountants, solicitors, housewives up for shopping and a spree in the capital, business executives, clerks and typists, icecream salesmen on holiday, estate agents, veterinary surgeons, service personnel — plus Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Shard of Foreign Office security, formerly of Scotland Yard.
Shard had embarked with something of a pierhead jump: Hedge, his FO boss, was always long-winded and this time Shard had had his job handed to him at short notice, not even time to go home for his grip and kiss Beth his wife goodbye. Shard could, said Hedge pompously, buy pyjamas and a toothbrush in Princes Street before going on to Perth.
“Perth?” Shard had asked.
“The Party Conference, don’t you know.”
To Hedge, there was only one Party. Shard, who knew this, and who felt irritable about the short notice, asked, “Which party, Hedge?”
Hedge glared and shifted angrily in his swivel chair. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Shard. As though I’d spare you to attend on any of the others —”
“Couldn’t I,” Shard asked, “have been given more notice?”
No, Hedge said, he couldn’t; because advice had only just come from the Under-Secretary of State that an FO presence would, in the circumstances, be desirable in Perth.
Shard asked, “What circumstances?”
“Why, the PM of course. Always a target.”
“We have police, Hedge.”
“Yes. And d’you think it’s likely the Under-Secretary would be agreeable to leaving the PM’s security entirely in the hands of the police, and never mind the Diplomatic Protection or whatever —”
“Is the PM under threat, then? Is that what you’re saying?”
Hedge glowered and shifted about in his chair. He never liked being brought down to the fine point of a direct answer. “Not precisely. Not so far as we know. This is precautionary. Your orders are straightforward enough: liaise with the local police and so on — and watch out for any known faces that shouldn’t be there. You know what I mean, I’m sure.”
“Dark-coloured faces? The unacceptable faces of terrorism, probably from the Middle East?”
“Yes. I say again, my dear fellow — we don’t know. But we suspect. The PM — you’ll remember this — that recent speech of hers, castigating the Middle East in general, womb of evil-minded men and — and all that. We’ve had a tip-off that they might react, just might. You know what they are.”
Shard gave a sardonic grin. “Circumstances … precautions … no precise threat. I’m to be a potential stitch in time, because I’ve a nodding acquaintance with a number of Middle East bomb boys?”
“That p
uts it fairly well. Better safe than sorry, what?” Hedge adored platitudes, his mind rolled neatly along the set lines of wise saws. Shard realised that he was searching for another to round off the conversation and he put in one of his own.
“All that glisters is not gold?”
“What? I fail to see the relevance, Shard.”
“Never mind, Hedge, it’ll be something to think about while I’m away, won’t it?”
Hedge simmered but made no retort: Shard seemed always to get the better of him verbally and it was undignified to give him scope. Blasted policemen … no manners, no savvy, not gentlemen. Even Hesseltine, the ACC at the Yard, was a boor. You couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but no use saying that to Shard. When the wretched fellow had gone Hedge looked at his watch: true, there wasn’t much time to catch the night express but that was Shard’s worry and he would simply have to move fast. After all, although no sleeper had been available, a seat had been booked for him so he wouldn’t be able to complain about that. Hedge decided to walk along to the Athenaeum for a brandy before going home, perhaps two brandies. The Athenaeum was very comfortable and he wasn’t in any rush and he could exchange a few words with people of his own ilk.
*
Two of the booked seats in the InterCity express were not in the event taken up: the day before a middle-aged couple had booked first-class seats for Edinburgh but a couple of hours before the departure time a telephone call had been received from Cheam and the death reported of the wife’s mother. So they had not travelled.
They were the lucky ones.
2
Sam Frudge, sleeping car attendant, was a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party but none of his charges, or his bosses either, would have known it. Sam Frudge was always obsequious since it paid: tips were tips when they were available, which in fact was not often the case these days. So he took the tips when they came and thought his own thoughts about upper-class, or middle-class, swine. He detested their airs and graces, he detested their spurious bonhomie designed to show how bloody democratic they were — this applied chiefly to times when Tory MPs were aboard, bound for conferences such as now. Sam Frudge had attended upon them many times, to Perth and Brighton and Blackpool, not originally as a sleeping car attendant but as a dining car steward. Tories had to prove their democracy so as to catch votes; Labour or the TUG, en route for Brighton or Blackpool when the Tories weren’t there, were different: being good honest workers and known as such, they were able to chuck their weight around and get away with it. The SDP-Liberal lot had fallen between two stools in this as in everything else: their cameraderie was restrained, almost apologetic, and they seemed determined to prove that they were decent chaps without frills, understanding sorts always ready for a joke but not carrying it too far. Sam Frudge disliked them much more than the two main parties, considering them basically oily.
Overnight Express Page 1
