Free Murder At Deviation Junction by Andrew Martin Page B

suppose?'
        Once
more that slow smile - which made it very difficult for me to gauge the true
level of any danger waiting in the Cape of Good Hope.
        Having
spared the Middlesbrough office the inconvenience of lending me a constable, I
felt entitled to ask a favour.
        'I'm
curious to know whether a photographer reported a camera stolen about this time
last year. It might have happened somewhere on the railway territory.'
        'And
this is touching on -?'
        Williams
was making circles with his right hand, as though winding up his memory.
        '-
Paul Peters,' I said.
        'Yes,
the body turned up at Stone Farm,' he said, nodding.
        'He
was a photographer,' I said. 'He generally carried two cameras, but suddenly he
had one, and I think he'd been in Middlesbrough in the meantime. I'm told
somebody had one of his cameras away while he was up here, just before he
copped it in the woods.'
        Williams
kept silence for a second, before saying:
        'They're
all luck, some blokes, aren't they? Billy's the man for that,' he added,
pointing towards the clerk at the far end. 'We'll ask him to hunt up the crime
reports for last year.'
        But
old Billy was listening with ears cocked, and by the time I'd walked down to
his end of the office, he was already at it. He was the Middlesbrough
equivalent of Wright, but he smoked pipes instead of eating oranges. There were
two on his desk and one in his mouth as he fished the right file out of a
drawer. It was labelled 'Crime Reports, December 1908'.
        I
looked through 'Stolen Albert', 'Stolen pony', 'Assault', another 'Assault',
'Damaged fencing', 'Trespass' and then about ten 'Drunk' or 'Drunk and
Riotous', all threaded together with green string. 'Stolen Camera and Assault'
came right after, as I'd somehow known it would, in this most obliging office.
Complainant: Paul Peters, professional photographer.
        In
the afternoon of Thursday 3 December, Peters had been set upon by two men at
Spring Street, which was evidently close to Middlesbrough station. He had not been
badly hurt - that would come later - but one of two cameras he carried had been
stolen. It was noted that Peters had been unable to provide a useful
description of his assailants except that they wore dirty working men's
clothes. The report had been made out by a Constable Robinson. I pointed to the
name, and asked Billy if the man was about. He shook his head.
        'Patrolling
the line just presently,' he said.
        Well,
at least he wasn't dead, as everybody else connected to the Peters business
seemed to be. I thanked Billy and signalled thanks to DS Williams, who was now
working the office telephone; I then quit the station bounds for Middlesbrough
town centre.
        The
streets were all at right angles, as though built quickly to the simplest plan,
and all carried very honest and straightforward names: Council Street,
Corporation Road, New Street. All was new-looking and spruce in the bright
winter light, for the sun had emerged at last, but a price had been paid for
the forcing of this town, and I saw it in the shape of the giant, red-smoking
blast furnaces to the east. It was heaven and hell, with the station and the
high-level lines leading in and out the barrier between the two.
        As I
headed away from the station and its viaducts, the sound of a very majestic
arrival made me turn back around.
        It
crossed the viaduct like bloody royalty: the Gateshead Infant, so called
because of its incredible, titanic size. There'd been twenty of the beauties
built - V Class Atlantics. You never saw them south of Darlington. For ten
seconds in imagination, I was up there on the footplate, closing the regulator
for the cruise into the station. I tried to recall from my firing days the
braking procedure for an engine of that size, and realised in panic that I could
not.
        I
turned about to face the river wind, the Cape of Good Hope