Death on a Branch Line (32 page)

He was still smiling, but I thought:
He’s glad about what happened
as well, and he has the confidence to show it
.

‘You’ve read my report, sir?’ I asked him, which clashed with the Chief saying, ‘Detective Sergeant Stringer was a little overhasty in some of his actions, sir, but he is an excellent man as a general rule.’

We both continued to look forward – towards the desk of Henderson-Richards rather than towards the man himself, but I was thinking of the Chief as a sort of beer-smelling, tobacco-stained knight in shining armour.

Henderson-Richards now walked over, sat in his desk chair and addressed me directly, saying:

‘It doesn’t fall to everyone to save a man’s life, Detective Stringer.’

(
Or to cause a death
, I thought.)

‘Is there anything you’d like to ask me?’ he enquired.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What’s become of Hardy?’

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Henderson-Richards. ‘Hardy is in
Bootham, the York mental hospital.’

That was a turn-up. Still, his confession had been believed, and that was the main thing.

‘Will he be charged with any crime?’

‘Not fit,’ said Henderson-Richards, shaking his head.

‘What about the porter, Woodcock?’ I said. ‘Have the police laid hands on him?’

‘Woodcock!’ said Henderson-Richards, suddenly galvanised. ‘What a dark horse he was! What couldn’t he have achieved with a man he respected over him?’

He was evidently expecting an answer to this out-of-the-way question.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘what
would
he have achieved? What would have been the opportunities open to him? Station master of some hole-in-the-corner place?’

I was coming out pretty strongly for Woodcock. Well, he’d been straight enough in his own way.

A beat of silence; then I repeated my question: ‘Do you know his whereabouts?’

‘No,’ said Henderson-Richards.

‘As to Gifford …’ I said. ‘It was Cooper who … He’d somehow had sight of Gifford’s German documents, and he’d put two and two together and made …’

Henderson-Richards was giving me such a blank look that I quite feared for his health.

‘… five,’ I said.

Henderson-Richards was frowning, shaking his head.

‘Is he all right?’ I said. ‘Gifford, I mean?’

‘Quite,’ said Henderson-Richards.

He said it sharply. The upper classes said ‘Quite’ in that way when they meant shut up.

‘Cooper,’ I said. ‘Has he been disciplined for …’

‘What?’ said Henderson-Richards. ‘Who?’

Again he spoke sharply, but like an actor.

I got the message: Cooper did not exist.

‘John Lambert hadn’t made contact with anybody, had he?’ I
said. ‘I mean, the mobilisation secrets were not disclosed?’

‘That’s a secret that will not be disclosed,’ said the Chief, but he looked pleased enough as he leant forwards and smartly swivelled the paper towards me. I saw something like: ‘The officer shall keep secret any information of a confidential nature obtained by him by reason of …’

‘Sign at the bottom, please,’ said Henderson-Richards.

I fished for my fountain pen, and Henderson-Richards sat back and half-smiled towards the Chief in a way that stayed in my mind throughout the railway journey back to York, as I sat in the first-class compartment with the Chief, and then later on in the dining car, and then in the compartment again as the sky darkened and the rain flew against the windows. I thought I now had everything pretty clear, although Gifford remained a bit of a mystery to me. The Chief knew all, of course; or nearly all. I had begun to think differently now of his absences from the office, his distracted way of talking. He was in on a whole lot of things he could never tell me about, and I wondered whether this was partly a question of age. Would I be in on a lot of unmentionable things when I was approaching retirement? I hoped so. It was important to take secrets with you when you died.

At York, the wife was waiting with Harry. I gave him the funny paper I’d bought for him at King’s Cross, and gave his cap a shove, which is my usual way of saying hello.

Lydia kissed me, and we made for the footbridge, with the Chief walking behind.

‘Want to speak about it?’ she asked.

‘Not over-much,’ I said, as we climbed the footbridge steps.

A long ‘up’ train was rolling along beneath the bridge.

‘Thanks for asking,’ I called over the racket, ‘but I’ve signed the paper, and I’ll say no more about the matter.’

‘Well, I’m very glad to hear it, Jim,’ said the wife, half-turning towards me and giving a grin.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank, in no special order: Colonel Parkinson of Sandhurst Protocol and Media; Mike Ellison of the North Eastern Railway Association; Phillip Davies of the Armoury of St James; the staff of the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, and my fellow members of The Railway Club (www.therailwayclub.org). All departures from fact are my responsibility.

Author's note

Death on a Branch Line
is a work of fiction. It does not seek to depict anyone who might have lived in 1911, or indeed anyone who lives today.

Praise
for the Jim Stringer series:

‘Crime dispatched with a Dickensian relish … Delectable stuff.’
Daily Express

‘The best railway sleuth there is.’
Independent on Sunday

‘Stringer is at the heart of a series of historical crime novels that shows no sign of running out of steam.’
Sunday Times

‘Andrew Martin has recreated an extraordinarily convincing world … Terrific.’
Daily Telegraph

Author biography

Andrew Martin grew up in Yorkshire. After qualifying as a barrister, he became a freelance journalist, writing about the North, class, seaside towns and eccentric individuals rather than the doings of the famous, although he did once loop-the-loop in a biplane with Gary Numan. He has also learned the rudiments of driving steam trains, although it will be a along time before any passengers are foolish enough to ride with him.

In praise of
The Necropolis Railway
, his first Jim Stringer adventure, the
Evening Standard
said ‘the age of steam has rarely been better evoked’, while the
Mirror
described the book as ‘a brilliant murder mystery’. This was followed by
The Blackpool Highflyer
 and
The Lost Luggage Porter
.  The next books in the series, 
Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch Line
, were shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Novel Award and, in 2008, Andrew Martin was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award.

He has also edited a dictionary of humorous quotations (
Funny You Should Say That
) and written a book about housework for men:
How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man’s Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts
.

Andrew Martin’s website is at www.jimstringernovels.com

by the same author

BILTON
THE BOBBY DAZZLERS

In the ‘Jim Stringer, Steam Detective’ series:

THE NECROPOLIS RAILWAY
THE BLACKPOOL HIGHFLYER
THE LOST LUGGAGE PORTER
MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION
THR LAST TRAIN TO SCARBOROUGH

Copyright

First published in 2008
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2009

All rights reserved
© Andrew Martin, 2008

The right of Andrew Martin to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–25220–6 [epub edition]