'That's it - Whitby SM as was. Might it be worth writing to him in Cornwall?'
'You'd be writing to a dead man,' he said.
'When did he die?'
'This summer.' 'Of what?'
Mackenzie shrugged.
'Heart.'
He was enjoying this: the back and forth, like a game of tennis.
'Why did the Club have the two compartments and the saloon?'
He shrugged again, saying, 'Why do some folk have sitting rooms and parlours? Comes down to brass.'
The wind was getting up, and the carriage shivered for a moment like one of the boats in the harbour, but Mackenzie held his footing.
'Where are all the members of this Club?'
'All gone,' he said, grinning.
'Gone where?'
He was shaking his head vigorously now, as though trying to shake off the smile.
'That,' he said, 'is not known to any of the blokes along the line.'
PART TWO
The Gateshead Infant
Chapter Seven
The great tower of the cathedral, seen from the train, seemed to pin York to the ground. The city had been about for ever, and would go on in the same way. It was as cold as the coast but felt safer.
It was too safe, and the station police office seemed like a sort of prison - one building trapped inside another. It stood between Platform Four (the main down) and Platform Thirteen - a small bay platform used by trains from Hull and nowhere else. The Chief was in the office on my return from Bog Hall, along with two of the ten constables, Wright the chief clerk (who was also the only clerk) and Langbourne the charge sergeant. Detective Sergeant Shillito had not been present, which suited me, for it meant I could report direct to the Chief, who took one look at me and ordered me home for a day's sleep, this even though I had started in on the story of the dead body. Dead bodies were nothing to the Chief. He had killed men, and not just in war.
I did not go home directly, but sent a telegram and wrote a letter. I then biked home to Thorpe-on-Ouse, where I discovered that Harry had a low fever. There were so many medicine bottles by his bed that he would play soldiers with them - cod-liver oil, menthol, camphor - but none seemed to answer. Removal to a temperate climate was recommended for chronic bronchitis by the Home Doctor. Meanwhile in York, snow threatened, and I biked through an icy wind without gloves in order to book on at the office for Tuesday 14 December.
Present in the cold office at seven-thirty were Wright the chief clerk and two constables: Crawford, who was at Langbourne's desk, and Baker, who was by the fire. The constables didn't have desks, and the fact that I did was one of the few privileges that I, as a detective constable, had over them.
Wright, who was pushing seventy, was eating an orange prior to distributing the mail on to the desks. The orange was the only colourful item in the office, which was cold and smoky - dirty green in colour. No Christmas cards stood on the mantelpiece, nor were any likely to. A Hull train was simmering just beyond the door. Wright ate a few pieces of the orange very noisily. Everyone watched. After half a minute, he broke off, saying, 'I've got four of these oranges.'
It was like a threat.
'Four for a penny, they were,' he said.
'One for each of us, is it then?' enquired Baker.
'Eh?' said Wright, ripping at the fruit with his teeth.
'I can't stand oranges of any description,' said Crawford.
'What do you mean, "oranges of any description"?' asked Baker. 'All oranges are the same.'
'I hear you struck a dead body on your travels?' said Wright, who might have been old but was also very curious.
'I did,' I said.
'Reckon it was one of your murders?' he said.
The first case I'd taken on in the force had been a murder, and it seemed no one in the office had been able to get over the fact.
'I'm sure of it,' I said, and as I spoke the words, I wondered about them: yes, the connection of the death of Peters with the Travelling Club that had disappeared made the matter a certainty.
'All oranges are the same,' Baker said again.
'What about tangerines?' Crawford was saying.
'Tangerines are not oranges,' said Baker.
'They fucking well are,' said Crawford.
Wright, wiping his mouth with his mucky handkerchief, pointed to the swear box that sat on his desk, which was a shortcake tin with a hole stabbed through. Necessary swearing was permitted - swearing in the line of duty, so to speak - but Crawford's remark hardly counted.
Crawford ignored Wright, who looked at me again.
'Reckon you'll be permitted to investigate?' he said.
'It's up to the Chief,' I said.
Wright shook his ghostly old head, which was about two inches above the level of his desktop as he gnawed at the fruit. 'No,' he said. 'It's up to Shillito. He's your governor.'
'Tangerines are oranges,' said Crawford. 'That's what they're called: tangerine-oranges.'
'Answer me this then,' said Baker. 'What colour are tangerines?'
'Orange,' said Crawford.
'No,' said Baker, 'they're tangerine-coloured.'
'Leave off, lads, will you?' said Wright, who turned to me again, saying, 'It'll be a matter for the Northern Division, any road.'
'Tangerines are a sub-species of oranges,' Crawford said. 'Take this office now: we're all policemen, but some of us -'
'— have got more pips than others,' said Wright.
Everybody looked at him.
'That's funny, is that,' he said, but he was as surprised as anyone; and if anybody meant to laugh, they hadn't got round to it by the time Detective Sergeant Shillito stepped into the room.
'Morning all,' he said, removing his topcoat and bowler and taking his seat at his desk, which was directly opposite mine. 'Your book please, Detective Stringer.'
I stood up, and passed him my notebook. He was supposed to initial it at the end of every turn, though he always made a great palaver out of doing so. Everybody watched him as he read. They all knew I was going to be rated by him - it was just a matter of when. Beyond the window, a train was leaving Platform Four, and I wished I could do the same.
I looked at Shillito's wide, sloping face. I sometimes fancied that he looked like a big Chinaman, though he was from Grimsby originally, and not at all yellow but bluish about the jaw and otherwise red, for he was a keen tippler. Why was he down on me? There'd been the matter of that murder case three years before, the biggest piece of business ever seen in the York office, and only me and the Chief in on it. And then there was the fact that I was aiming to be made up to his rank, even though a good deal younger than him (twenty-seven to his thirty-four). I also knew very well that he saw me as a dreamer, a schoolboy train-watcher, whereas he was on the railway force only by default.
Engines and the pages of a Bradshaw held no fascination for Shillito, but if there was anything coming off in the way of sport, he had to be involved: football, cricket, rugby, billiards - and especially football. He'd play most weekends, but sometimes had to be content with running the line, or shouting on his mates, for he was forever under suspension for violent tactics, and he was forever moaning about it. He'd sit in the office composing letters to the Yorkshire Evening Press complaining about referees, signing himself only 'an interested spectator' or 'one who is concerned about standards' or such, and never letting on that the referee in question had sent him off the previous weekend for loosening some poor bloke's teeth. Shillito ought to have been a sportsman. He'd been on Northern League forms for some professional lot or other - before he'd blown up with the gallons of beer he put away. Instead, he'd joined the police, and missed his mark in so doing. His perpetual fear was that all the business of investigation, diary-keeping and report-filing would spin out of control if he once relented in the regime of drudgery that he imposed on himself and others.