We were now rolling across the snow-covered cliff-tops - and our train was the only moving thing on those tops as we made for the terminus, Whitby West Cliff. As we came in, I woke Bowman with a touch on the shoulder.

  'Copy's come up short,' he said, quite distinctly, at the moment of waking, and then he looked at me for a moment as though he didn't know me. But he quickly apologised, and collected up his things.

  Whitby West Cliff station was a little way out of the town, which was silenced by snow. Bowman walked beside me through the drifting whiteness, the camera slung over his shoulder. We stopped outside a bakery that was responsible for all the activity in one particular narrow street just above the harbour.

  'Which is your hotel, old man?' I said.

  'Oh,' he said. 'The Metropole.'

  'I know it,' I said, and I pointed seawards. 'The alley past the chapel will see you directly to the door.'

  'Right-o,' he said, but he made no move.

  A low tugboat was rocking across the water from the west to the east harbour wall - nothing more to look at than a floating chimney. A church clock counted sadly to five.

  'To think that it's twelve hours until I can take a drink,' said

  Bowman. 'That's if I stick to my fixed rule .. . which I never do.'

  'Well, I'm for the town station, and home,' I said.

  He nodded and we shook hands.

  'You'll keep me posted as to your investigation?'

  I nodded. 'I'll be in touch,' I said.

  But he still didn't move off, and it struck me that he'd been clinging to me like a barnacle right from the start. He now muttered something while looking down at the snowy pavement.

  'What's that?' I said.

  'Peters,' he said, looking up. 'It comes to me now . . . He'd had one of his two cameras stolen.'

  'Where?'

  'Middlesbrough - in the vicinity of the station, I think.'

  'Did he report it?'

  'Not sure.'

  'When did this happen?'

  'Couple of days before I saw him for the last time. I must look at my diary, as I say.'

  And he nodded again and moved off in the direction of the sea.

  Chapter Six

  Down to the sea, up again a little way, and I came to the other Whitby station: the Town Station. It overlooked the harbour. Two trains were in steam, but there were no takers for them. A line of footprints in the snow ran along the platform, and I followed them to a porter who was sitting on a barrow reading the Whitby Morning Post instead of scraping up the snow. I held up my warrant card to him, saying, 'How do? I'm cutting through to Bog Hall, all right?'

  I wasn't really asking but telling him.

  I stepped down off the platform and walked into a wide railway territory across which snow flew right to left, seawards. Here was the main line to York, running away through a mass of sidings and marshalling yards. Beyond lay the estuary of the river, where signals gave way to the masts of schooners. I was making for a mass of carriages by the river's edge when a tiny pilot engine moving under a great tower of steam checked my progress. The driver kept his face set forwards but the fireman turned and smiled down at me.

  'Now then!' he called down.

  'You wouldn't know the whereabouts of the yardmaster?' I said.

  Just then a man stepped around the smokebox end of the engine, which straightaway began a fast retreat, the fireman grinning at me all the while.

  'Who wants me?' asked the man. I explained what I was about and showed him my warrant card, and he gave his name as Mackenzie. He was a big bloke, and seemed to fairly roll over the rails and barrow-boards on our way to the farthest corner of the siding, where the railway land met the half-frozen river.

  'Mothballed,' said Mackenzie, coming to rest, with his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, before a train of oddments. We were looking directly up at a dirty but good-class bogie carriage. It was in Company colours, but 'CTC' was written in gold on the side.

  'Cleveland Travelling Club,' said Mr Mackenzie. 'Ran from Whitby to Middlesbrough and back every day for nigh on twenty years.'

  'When was it decommissioned?'

  'One year since,' he said. 'Fancy a look up? Pride of the line, this was,' said Mackenzie, hauling himself up towards one of the high doors. He was proud of it himself too, as it seemed to me.

  He got the door open after a bit of struggle that cost him his perch on the footboard, pitching him on to the mucky snow beneath. He clambered up again, motioning me to follow.

  The carriage smelt of past cooking, and it contained coldness: a special damp kind.

  'Subscribing Club members only in here,' said Mackenzie. 'That was always the rule. No guests allowed - not even if they paid treble. You after taking pictures?'

  He was pointing at the Mentor Reflex.

  I shook my head. I was looking at a great boiler in a cubby-hole all of its own.

  'Tea-making machine,' said Mackenzie, as he squeezed his way forwards.

  'Galley's next,' he said, sliding back a door that gave on to a little dusty kitchen. Half a dozen dusty wine glasses in a basket; two cups rested on a short draining board. I picked one up.

  'Gold trim,' I said.

  I knew the design. Best Company china. I'd first come across it at the Station Hotel, York.

  'Where's the rest of the service?' I asked Mackenzie, and his cheeks rolled upwards and outwards as he smiled. 'Tom Coleman's back parlour, shouldn't wonder.'

  'Who's he?'

  'Whitby Town stationmaster as was. Took superannuation nine months since. Took himself off to Cornwall 'n all.'

  'That's handy,' I said. 'Who else would know about this show?' 'You might try the traffic department,' said Mackenzie. 'They supplied the Club tickets.'

  'They'd be seasons, I suppose?'

  'Aye,' said Mackenzie. 'Whitby-Middlesbrough annual returns. Specials, like.'

  We were moving along the corridor again.

  Mackenzie said, 'The Club never had a full complement of members, you know.'

  'The club cars I've heard of,' I said, 'on the Lancashire and Yorkshire and the Midland and suchlike - there'd be twenty-five members or so. That amount was needed before the Company would lay out money for the carriage.'

  'Well, this club was different,' said Mackenzie.

  You'd have thought he was the Hon Sec or some such.

  'Richer,' he added, after a space. 'Membership never overtopped five.'

  We were moving along the corridor again, passing two compartments. Inside they were like a rare sort of First Class accommodation: wood panelling with walnut trimmings, fancy electroliers bunched up into railway chandeliers. Photographic views were mounted in glass frames above each of the dozen seats - all the photographs showed country houses instead of the usual waterfalls or whatnot. One of the window panes was cracked, and there was a single bootprint on one of the seats.

  Mackenzie was shaking his head as we pushed along the corridor. 'It was fitted on to the morning Whitby-Middlesbrough train,' he said. 'Came back with the evening Middlesbrough-Whitby.'

  The corridor now brought us into a saloon: a railway sitting room with two settees facing each other under another brace of chandeliers. The seats had their backs to the windows. At either end were more chairs: two rockers facing a third sofa, and this one with a drop-head, for lying back.

  'You'd have your glass of wine on your way home from business,' said Mackenzie, 'and you'd drink it stretched out flat! Bit of all right, wouldn't you say?'

  'But only one of them could do that,' I said.

  'All right if you were that one, then -'

  'I just can't picture the sort of men who might have rode up here waiting on the platform at Whitby Town every morning,' I said.

  'The train ran from Whitby,' he said. 'They didn't. Nobody who rode up here boarded at Whitby as far as I know. They lived at different spots further along the line.'

  'Where?'

  'Wherever a good house was to be found. Places around Saltburn.'

  Stone Farm was near Saltburn. Was this a Club of murderers?

  'They lived closer to Middlesbrough than to Whitby, then?'

  He nodded.

  'It's an hour and a half all the way from Whitby to Middlesbrough. You wouldn't want to do that every day.'

  'They all rode every day?'

  He nodded.

  They were not gentry, then; not county people but businessmen. They could run to the smaller sorts of country houses. They'd have carriages and half a dozen servants apiece, but were still obliged to turn up daily at their place of business.

  'Who put the Club together?'

  'Search me. One of the members?'

  'How come you know so much about the club yet can't put a name to any of the members?'

  He let this go by, saying, 'The one who put the Club together would be the same bloke who put in for this carriage.'

  'Did you ever set eyes on any of the Club people?'

  'Don't reckon so. The carriage was always empty when it left here, remember.'

  'What about Tom . . . whatsisname?'

  'Coleman.'

  '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.

  He fell to reading the notebook, frowning at the pages as was his way. He himself wrote in a tiny backward-sloping hand, and anything in a slightly freer style he took against. Turning from the third to the fourth page of my account, he sighed and said, 'And the ink flows on, Detective Stringer.'

  Up your arse, I thought.

  He continued reading.

  'Must you always set down the type of engine that has pulled your train?' he enquired, after a further minute of reading.

  I kept silence.

  'Answer me, man,' he said, not looking up.

  'Can't help it, sir,' I said.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'I'm coached up in observation.'

  Did this amount to insubordination or not? It seemed that Shillito could not quite decide, which is what I had intended. I wished I had the courage to show him my mind: to let him know that I considered him failing in his duty by never providing any encouragement. The wife had told me to speak out, not understanding that my position would be at risk if I did so.

  He looked up again.