Lost baggage porter

Chapter Eleven

It turned out the sunniest day for weeks.

To my right, as I made my way from the station into the city centre, battalions of clerks flowed into the new North Eastern Company head office, the company badges glinting gold on its balconies. It was said the North Eastern was six months in arrears with its accounts, which no doubt explained the great rush. I walked across Lendal Bridge, freezing cold in my bad suit in the golden light. Nobody stopped for this moment of sun. On the south side of the river, Rowntree's factory was making its cocoa smell, which somehow made you want to pay a call of nature. The river barges fitted underneath the bridge but the smoke they put out didn't, and clouds came up from either side as two farmers' carts rolled over the top. These were followed by a hearse, and I watched the horse – a fast trotter – bringing its glass box with a coffin inside, the sight a warning to all.

Scurrying down the stone steps on the south side, I thought of the dead Camerons, and how they'd had all the energy needed to commit a felony just days before. I took a little turn through the Museum Gardens, past the peacocks, the ladies in white with baby carriages. I bought a sausage in bread and a billy full of coffee from the barrow parked near the Abbey ruin and sat down at a bench with the bundle of Police Gazettes given me by the Chief.

There were half a dozen of them. I turned the pages secretively, for they gave my profession away. Mostly, they were just lists of people wanted or missing. Usually there were photographs or woodcuts, and remarks as to appearance: 'scar at eyebrow', 'scar at bridge of nose', 'fourth left finger crooked'. And the tattoos of course: crossed hands, ship, flower. Certain of the portraits had been ringed in pencil as Weatherill had said, the local lot: a man wanted in Malton for stealing from his lodgings; a man wanted in York for stealing gold rings, pendants and medals from a jeweller's. He looked a respectable sort. It was stated that he had a Union Jack tattooed on his chest, and I wondered whether that was meant to go in his favour or against.

I read on at the bench for a while, then, after returning my billy to the barrow, pitched five of the six Police Gazettes into a dustbin outside the Yorkshire Museum. The sixth – which I hadn't got round to -1 put in my inside coat pocket, holding it in reserve for later in the day. A vicar watched me at the dustbin, and I tipped my cap at him. I then walked out through the back gates of the Gardens into Marygate, where I entered St Olave's church for a bit of a kip on the back pew.

I was woken by the tower bell ringing eleven, and went out again into the bustling streets, trying to walk off cramp and dampness, and thinking of Allan Appleby, my other self, lying in his dark lodge over at Holgate, listening to the crashing of the trains over the great tangle of Holgate Junction. He might be getting up about now, thinking about taking a drink, putting on his glasses… I lifted those very same from my pocket, settling them on my nose in Duncombe Street, opposite the West Door of the Minster, spying, as I did so, a prime candidate for the Police Gazette, although not in the 'Wanted' columns, but the 'Missing': it was Edwin Lund, sitting on the steps of the war memorial on the patch of green that faced the Minster. I removed the glasses, and watched the fellow for a while. The memorial was to those soldiers of the Yorkshire Hussars killed in the war with the Boers. It was like a church steeple standing on its own, and there were three steps around its base. Edwin Lund was sitting on the middle one, looking down at his boots, and looking blue – glummer even than the last time. As I approached, he lifted his head, and watched two carts going along Duncombe Street. His little valise was alongside him. He turned his head, saw me, and left off chewing for a second. I sat down near to him on the cold stone, and he rubbed his sleeve across his nose, which I took to be his 'Good morning.' 'Dinner break?' I said. 'Aye,' he said. 'You look done in,' I said, really meaning something else. 'Been on since six,' he said. 'What time will you book off?' 'Six again,' he said. 'Well, half past.' There was a copy of the Press in his pocket – early edition. 'Long day, is that,' I said. He nodded for a while, presently adding: 'I've put in for overtime.' 'Why?' 'Mother wants a linoleum.' 'Do you mind the work?' I asked him. 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,' he said slowly, looking down at his boots. Well, he'd told me he was chapel, and that lot were all Bible bangers. Besides the Minster, there were three churches in sight, and they had the look of giant tombs even in the brightness of the day, but still the carts and horse trams flowed on. 'How do you pass the time in the Lost Luggage Office' I said '… at slack times, I mean?' 'Searching the Gospels.' 'Searching for what?' 'The light.' A few pigeons came up, but Edwin Lund was screwing up the brown paper. The bread was gone. 'Do you read owt else, Edwin?' 'Oh aye' he said, stuffing the paper into his valise. 'I read a good deal.' 'What though?' 'Lost books' he said, and he might have laughed, only I couldn't make out his face, the monument being half in between us. If he was at twelve on a clock face, then I was at four. Ought I to have been speaking to him in the middle of the town, in full view of anyone passing? And if so, ought I to have been doing so as Allan Appleby or as Detective Stringer? I should've had it all calculated out, but I hadn't. 'By rights I shouldn't be speaking to you in a public place' I said, 'since I'm a detective operating in secret, and you've supplied me with information. Do you want me to push off?' I stood up, brushing down my trews. 'Sit down but round t'other side' he said. 'We might be two strangers then.' I sat down again, and this time if he was at twelve, I was at six, and while he faced out to the road, I faced the Masonic Hall and the backs of the buildings in Stonegate. Presently, Lund spoke up again: 'Operating in secret, you say? What's secret about it?' 'Well' I said. 'That's one of the secrets.' 'Get over to the Garden Gate, did you?' he asked. 'I did' I said, not sure how much information to give out. 'It's railway treasure they're after' he said. 'Reckon it is' I said. 'More than just pocketbooks.' 'I'm keeping cases on a couple of those blokes.' 'The Brains and the Blocker?' he said. I made some sound that might have meant anything or nothing. Peering to the left, I could see a line of trippers filing into the Minster. Tours were given at certain times. 'Why do you sit here, Edwin?' I said, after a while. 'Keep these fellows company,' he said, and I could make out that he was tipping his head backwards, indicating the monument. I turned about, reading something of the list of names, also the inscription at the top: 'Remember those loyal and gallant soldiers and sailors of this county of York who fell fighting for their country's honour in South Africa.' 'Our kid was after enlisting,' said Lund. 'What happened?' 'Rejected.' 'On what grounds?' 'Undefined.' 'Failed the medical, did he?' 'Not sent up for it… Want of physical development. They told him not to go to the bother of removing his coat.' 'And what's become of him?' 'Passed on, three year since.' 'Died?' I said. 'Sorry to hear it.' 'Passed on,' said Lund, again. Silence for a while. 'He was right with God at the end, I believe' said Lund. I asked Lund: 'Never thought of enlisting yourself?' No reply. I asked again and after a space, Lund answered: 'Wouldn't have an earthly.' 'Why ever not?' I asked – just to see what he'd say. 'Dull intellect.' 'Come off it.' 'And I'm subject to bronchitis, like our kid.' 'You haven't coughed for a while.' 'Don't say that, you'll set me off… See that bloke?' He was pointing at a carter. 'Who's he?' 'Mr Laycock. Famous gentleman, he is – Rowntree's carter.' 'I've seen that gent,' I said. 'He takes cocoa to the station… only now he's heading into town.' 'He'll do his run to the station come six o'clock,' said Lund. 'That's cocoa for… Could be County Hospital. See that horse?' he said, pointing to another carter, who was making his way across the west front of the Minster with a load of steel poles that rattled so loudly that I couldn't make out what Lund said about him, or his horse. Then the bells of the Minster struck up, adding to the racket. 'Ringing practice' said Lund, in a louder voice,'… generally starts about now of a weekday.' 'You're a human directory to everything in York,' I said. The voice came round from the other side of the monument after a while. 'Good-sized town is this. Big enough to provide interest, small enough to get about on Shanks's pony. I do know the pubs, I'll say that.' He rose to his feet. 'Reckon I know the York public houses better than anybody else doesn't take a drink.' It was a peculiar boast, I thought. 'How did you get to know them?' I asked, twisting about towards him somewhat. 'Band of Hope?' (For that lot often toured the York pubs.)

'Just with the chapel, like: city mission. We'd go round handing out cards giving times for tea treats. Handsome teas, they were… And no preaching the first time but just two hymns at the end.'

'They'd be a bit of a rough house, I expect?'

Lund was shaking his head.

'Treat folk as gentle folk, and they behave according.'

'Daresay,' I said, though doubting it.

'One o'clock,' announced Lund. 'I'd best be off.'

At that very instant the bell-ringing practice broke off to let the hour bell strike one. Lund walked around the monument a little way, his valise over his shoulder.

'What's up with your eye?' he said, turning back.

'Nothing to speak of' I said.

He'd noticed such bruising as remained, and the wife hadn't.

He passed me his copy of the Evening Press, saying, 'Want a look?' I nodded at him; he went his way, and I turned to the second page of the paper. The article proper began: "The shooting to death of John and Duncan Cameron, brothers, continues to agitate the minds of the York police.' Not the York railway police, I thought. It didn't seem to have been agitating Chief Inspector Weatherill's mind in the least. I read the article from top to bottom, and it was plain as daylight that there were no clues, and precious few conjectures from any quarter. I looked back towards the great cathedral where the same trippers – or perhaps another lot – were threading their way out. You'd have parties like that crisscrossing the city in all seasons; they'd check you for quite minutes on end, and there was nothing you could do to break through. I wondered how many more killings it would take before they stopped coming.

I put on my special glasses and rose to my feet.