He turned in the shadows.
‘He likes a ride up,’ he said.
‘He lives along the line, I suppose?’
‘The lad? He lives at East Adenwold. First train of a Saturday brings him in just nicely for the start of his duty. Well, a little late, but near as makes no odds.’
The idle little bugger ought to have biked in like any country station junior, as I had done myself when I’d had my railway start in the village of Goathland up on the Yorkshire Moors. I looked at Hardy, and my gaze seemed to shame him into further speech.
‘The boy has a crib in the signal box,’ he added, ‘and he sometimes kips up there.’
Hardy then looked down at his boots.
I said, ‘Telephone’s bust.’
‘It is, aye,’ he said, looking up.
I eyed the communicator and receiver dials of the ABC machine behind him, saying, ‘Telegraph’s out too, I suppose?’
Hardy nodded. ‘There’s been a general collapse out in the woods,’ he said. ‘It’s not the first time… It’s all out while they fix it.’
‘When did you hear of this?’
‘Last night.’
‘By company runner?’
He nodded again, and I thought of the silver-haired man I’d seen the night before, hurrying through the station yard. He’d been running, but he hadn’t looked like a railway messenger. He’d looked more important than that.
‘How’s the line being worked then?’
‘Oh,’ said Hardy, ‘by ticket.’
In emergencies, a driver would be given a ticket or token authorising him to proceed even against signals set at danger… But I had no clear understanding of the system.
‘I’ve had a look,’ I said, ‘and I’d say the line’s been cut.’
‘Oh,’ said Hardy, ‘well now…’
Woodcock was now eyeing me from a distance of ten feet — it was always a face-down with him. His head was too compressed for my liking — like an old apple. He pursed his thin lips and gave a tremendous fart, staring at me all the while, so that it was very hard to keep in countenance.
‘Been burning some bad powder,’ he said, just as a carriage door opened behind him, and a man stepped down.
He was a dapper dog, this one: blue lounge jacket, white flannel trousers, stiff collar and stripy tie; and the trousers were tucked into highly polished army field boots. I imagined that he’d been arranging his clothes to a look of perfection in his compartment, and that this accounted for his delay in getting down.
The fellow carried a document case and a biggish carpet bag. He was trim, well set-up — uncommonly blue eyes, sunburnt face and sandy hair. He put me in mind of a prosperous sort of colonial farmer, and he had evidently passed a test that I and the wife had failed, for Woodcock put down his own bag and hurried up to the man. Here was a chance to put the bleed on — carry the two bags at a shilling apiece to some waiting vehicle, for this was certainly the sort of fellow who’d be met, except that I could see clear through to the station yard, and it was empty as before.
The man sent Woodcock packing with a word. He then struck out along the platform and out towards the triangular green where he stood getting his bearings. I watched him from the platform as Woodcock moved alongside me again.
‘Bad luck,’ I said.
No reply from the porter.
‘Do you know him?’ I asked.
‘I know his type,’ said Woodcock.
‘That chap falls into the class of a mean toff,’ I said. ‘Looks a good bet for a tip, but en’t. I was a lad porter myself once, and I always reckoned to be able to spot that sort the minute they climbed down.’
‘Cut the blarney,’ said Woodcock.
I said, ‘You have a ride in on the engine come Saturday, I see,’ and I nodded towards the locomotive.
Woodcock muttered something I couldn’t catch, before asking in a louder voice, ‘You okay today, pal?’
He was moving, as he spoke, towards the end of the train, and the guard’s van. I looked on as he took down from the unseen guard a quantity of newspapers, a wooden box and a hamper tied about with a leather strap. The newspapers were loosely covered in brown paper, but I could make out one of the headings: ‘The Moroccan Sensation: Reports of a Further Grave Incident’.
‘Reckon you were half seas over last night,’ Woodcock said, standing over the packages, ‘spoiling for a scrap, you were.’
The train was at last pulling away.
The wooden box, I now saw, was a crate of wine.
‘Who’s this lot for?’ I asked, indicating the goods, and shouting over the roar of the departing engine.
‘Nosey bloke, en’t you?’
I fished in my pocket for a tanner and passed it to him.
‘You’d have had that earlier if you’d carried our bags,’ I said.
‘Well then,’ said Woodcock, looking down at the coin, ‘I’m glad I didn’t bother. This is all for the bloody Hall, of course. Why do you want to know?’
And it came to me that I might put him off with a lie.
‘You asked me last night if I was a journalist,’ I said. ‘As a matter of fact I am. I’m hunting up a bit of background for an article on the hanging of Hugh Lambert.’
‘What paper?’
‘Various,’ I said. ‘I’m with a news agency.’
He eyed me.
‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me about Hugh Lambert?’ I ran on. ‘Or John, come to that?’
‘There is not,’ he said.
A consignment note was tucked into the leather belt that held the lid of the hamper down. I caught it up before Woodcock could stop me. The delivery came from York, and was marked: ‘Lambert, The Gardener’s Cottage, The Hall, Adenwold, Yorks.’
I looked across the station yard towards the triangular green. The dapper man in field boots was still gazing about. He was a stranger to Adenwold, that much was obvious.
‘Lift the lid,’ I asked the porter, pointing at the hamper.
He made no move.
‘Irregular, that would be,’ he said. ‘Mr Hardy might not like it.’
He nodded towards the urinal, where station master Hardy was making water, the top of his head just visible over the wooden screen.
‘You don’t care a fuck for what he thinks,’ I said.
‘That’s true enough,’ the porter said. ‘Give me a bob and I’ll do it.’
He was a mercenary little bugger. I handed him the coin; he unbuckled the strap and pushed the lid open. ‘Aye,’ he said, looking down, ‘… seems about right.’
Inside the hamper were perhaps fifty railway timetables, all in a jumble. At the top was one of the Great Eastern’s, with a drawing of one of that company’s pretty 2-4-2 engines running along by the sea-side. But in the main, the basket held the highly detailed working timetables that came without decorated covers and were meant for use by railwaymen only.
Woodcock kicked the lid of the basket shut.
‘Timetables,’ he said. ‘Bloke’s mad on ’em.’
As he spoke, I watched the dapper man in field boots striding across the green. He moved with purpose, and I knew I’d better get after him.
‘When’ll they be carried to the Hall?’ I asked Woodcock, indicating the timetables.
‘Carter’ll take ’em up presently.’
‘When?’
‘When it suits him — don’t bloody ask me.’
‘Who’s that bloke just got down?’ I asked Woodcock, pointing towards the man in field boots.
‘Search me.’
‘Well, don’t worry, mate,’ I said, keeping one eye on the bloke. ‘Everything considered, you’ve been surprisingly helpful.’
‘That’s me all over,’ said Woodcock.
‘I’m obliged to you,’ I said.
‘I’m more surprising than I am helpful,’ he said as he made off, ‘so look out.’
The man in field boots was walking amid the cawing of rooks towards the two lanes on the opposite side of the green from the one leading to The Angel. Of this pair, he was aiming towards the lane furthest away from the station, which was bounded by two towering hedges. I made after him, but lagging back a little way.
The hedges made two high walls of green with brambles and flowers entangled within. A ladder stood propped against one of the hedges, and it looked tiny — only went half-way up. But it was a good-sized ladder in fact. The only sounds in the hedge-tunnel were our footfalls and the birdsong, and I thought: It must be very obvious to this bloke that he’s being followed. But he did not appear to have noticed by the time we came into the open again.