The Somme Stations (34 page)

But I did not want to be guarded from my visitor, should he arrive, by the man Brewster, and I did not particularly want to shoot my visitor either. I wanted to talk to him, my aim being to confirm my suspicion about the cigarette lit on the train from Amiens. I wanted to draw him in, and then draw him out.

I began to encourage Brewster to walk with me in the frosted garden, and I would look up at the Moor, at the White Wells. ‘I’ve no hope of getting up there,’ I said. ‘But I might get halfway.’

The fish pond trio were going past us at that point, and I believe it was to get points with them that Brewster said, ‘Want to try? Don’t mind me. I can keep cases on you from here, if I want.’

But he didn’t want to, and the next day I got halfway to the White Wells on my own and, as far as I knew, unobserved from the house. Later that same day, the wife came, and then the man from the Army Legal Corps – my lawyer. This fellow’s name was Roberts. It was his second visit, and he told me he thought he could prove that the rifle with which I’d supposedly shot Tinsley hadn’t been fired for ages at the time of its discovery by my side.

The next morning, I offered to sign for Brewster the special bail undertaking that required me to keep to the house and grounds and that he had not got round to asking me to sign up to that point. He said, ‘We might amend it to include the path up to the Wells, or shall we just take it as read?’ He seemed as amiable as ever, but later on that morning, while walking past the office of the Matron, Oldfield, I heard him say to her, that if I made it up to the White Wells, it could be safely concluded that I was fit enough to go to gaol. Oldfield replied something to the effect she’d be glad to be shot of me.

That afternoon, I went all the way up to the White Wells in falling snow. The sky was the colour of … I would say the dirty white of a young swan – the colour of a signet – and it made a pleasant change to see something soft coming down from it. The white cottage that housed the Wells was closed, and the stone bench before it was covered in snow. I waited a while beside this bench, then returned to ‘Ardenlea’ when the cold began to hurt my new-set bone.

At four o’clock the next day, with darkness closing in, I cleared the snow off the bench, leant my crutches against it, lit a cigarette, and sat down. I surveyed the lights of Ilkley, which were somewhat subdued on account of the Zeppelin threat, giving the effect of many small points of gold under a purple sky. Presently, a man came across the Moor from my left, and sat down by me on the bench. It wasn’t the man I’d expected – not quite.

‘Some leave finally came through, then,’ I said to Oliver Butler.

‘Well, I’m not
deserting
, Jim,’ he said, and he took in the view for a while, before saying, ‘… sailed home a week ago … and it’s back to France tomorrow.’

I offered him a cigarette; he shook his head.

‘Well, you got to him in the end,’ he said. ‘I knew you would. He was questioned … let me see … the day before yesterday by your governor, Weatherill.’

‘That was on account of letters I’ve sent from here,’ I said, indicating the low lights of ‘Ardenlea’. ‘I put Chief Inspector Weatherill in the picture.’

‘You’re proud of the fact, and that does you credit, Jim. You’ve a brass neck … amongst other things.’

‘You gave us the green light against orders.’

‘Those orders were more confused than you might think, Jim. Remember, this is the British Army.’

‘It surprised me because it seemed to me at the time you
ought to have let the boy live. Roy had overheard the conversation – most of it – that I’d had with Tinsley on the train back from Amiens, so you would have known that the kid was about to come clean over what happened on Spurn. Thackeray would have called off his investigation, and that’s what you’d been hoping for all along, given that the twins were always the likeliest suspects on the face of it. So you’d a reason to see Tinsley live; trouble was, you’d obviously been given a
better
reason to see him killed – him and me both, in fact. That’s why you gave us the green light to go along the dangerous stretch at Flers. What could that reason be? I revolved it all the way back in the hospital train, thought of everything I knew about Tinsley. Well, it didn’t amount to much. He was a railway nut … and then there was your friend.’

‘Not my friend
really
, Jim.’

‘Tinsley’s hero, Tom Shaw, bicycled into the engine shed over muddy lanes, yet he always kept clean. He lived in a place that had a railway connection to York. Naburn fitted the bill in both cases. And he looked a nasty bastard from his picture.’

‘You worked it all out from
that
?’

I shook my head.

‘Going over that chat between me and Tinsley on the train from Amiens, one sentence rang out clear. “He’s capable of anything, is Tom Shaw.” The train wasn’t going over points just then, you see, and it struck me – in recollection – that it
had
been going over points during every other part of our talk that touched on Shaw. So it seemed to me that Roy wouldn’t have heard those parts – which were all to do with how, if Shaw wanted to arrive early at a station, he’d just go ahead and do it. Tinsley was making out that he was bloody-minded as an engine man, not saying he was a killer. But that would have been lost to Roy in the jangling of the points. He’d have heard Tinsley’s account of the Spurn business – we’d run clear of the points by then – but all he would’ve picked up on the
matter of Shaw was that Tinsley believed him capable of anything.’

In Ilkley, all the lights showing in the window of a mill went off in an instant. More snow was coming down.

‘Somebody struck a match just after Tinsley said that. It was Roy, and he was lighting up because he was worried. It was the first time you or him had heard of the connection between Tinsley and Shaw. It had just always fallen out that you were elsewhere when Tinsley mentioned him. It might have struck you, when you were getting off the train, that we’d been keeping the connection secret from you, having found out about the killing of Matthew Waddington. I mean to say, you knew I’d been curious about Naburn Lock. You probably knew I’d looked into what had gone on there, having seen the way you and your brothers reacted to seeing one of the little Somme stops named after it. And in Albert you’d seen me in conference with the Chief.’

Oliver Butler gave a kind of snort, and moved position on the bench. ‘So you
didn’t
know?’

‘Tinsley didn’t know what Shaw had done, and nor did I – not then: not on the train back from Amiens.
I
wasn’t sure that Shaw existed, and I didn’t know for certain until I wrote to the Chief from here asking him to look up him.’

Butler was removing an item from his greatcoat pocket.

‘You wanted to silence Tinsley and me,’ I said, seeing that it was a revolver he held, ‘because you thought we knew Tom Shaw had killed Matthew Waddington, about which you were wrong. But why would the matter be of any concern to you in the first place? Why would you fight Shaw’s battles? It could only be that you were involved … I don’t believe you personally had a hand in killing Waddington.’

‘Good of you to say so, Jim.’

‘Killing’s not really your way of going on.’

‘Well, we’ll see about that.’

‘You’ve got too much to lose.’

‘That’s debatable.’

‘I’m thinking of your wife.’

‘So am I, Jim.’

‘So it must have been your brothers.’

Butler inspected the gun – a revolver; he set it on his lap.

‘They’ll be questioned in due course,’ I said. ‘The Chief said he might get Thackeray on the job, only it’s a crime committed in civvy street. Shaw’s already let on to the Chief that he knew Andy and Roy. Pair of head cases, he calls them – makes out they had it in for Shaw for some reason. He’s starting to cough, no question. When the Chief puts the blocks on a fellow, that’s generally the result. They’ll swing at the end … all three.’

Some of this was true; some of it wasn’t, as I believed Butler knew. I couldn’t really claim the credit for what he came out with next …

‘Matthew Waddington owed Shaw money,’ said Butler, seeming to address one particular illuminated street corner in the town below. ‘Waddington was a tough customer. Shaw’s a little bloke, and he wanted back-up when he confronted him at the lock. He paid the boys a pound apiece … Well, it’s a lot of money to them.’

‘You pay those boys to do a job, they do it well. The Army found that out.’

‘Saved
your
life on July 1st,’ Butler put in.

‘True enough,’ I said. I’d forgotten about that – how the twins had saved my life by their digging.

‘Waddington’, Butler continued, ‘said Shaw would have to wait a little while for his money. Shaw said he wouldn’t wait. Waddington came at him, so Andy and Roy stepped in, just as I stepped in for you when Dawson came at you on Spurn.’

I’d forgotten about that as well.

‘Anyhow,’ I said. ‘It ended in a killing. And you were involved because you knew of it.’

That, I was sure, was why he and his brothers had enlisted: put distance between themselves and Shaw. But the mystery was … why all the panic among the three Butlers over Naburn Lock? They could just have denied everything.

I asked Butler, ‘Will you say all you’ve just told me in court?’

‘Say all what, Jim? I’ve said nothing.’

Silence for a space. Ilkley, I decided, was just the right size of town. It had trams, but I did not believe they were necessary.

‘You didn’t shoot Scholes on July 1st, did you?’

He held the revolver in his right hand now, weighing it.

‘Don’t be silly, Jim.’

The bloke was emerging with a sight more credit than I’d have thought possible.

‘Dawson told you he’d done it,’ I said, ‘… took the blame. Why didn’t you tell Thackeray?’

‘Thought of it, Jim, but I didn’t think I’d be believed. It’d only throw more suspicion my way.’

Silence for a space.

‘I never knew which way Thackeray would jump. He was – is – bloody loony. He might be thinking of bringing the charge against
you
, for all you know.’

I eyed Butler. He wasn’t putting on side. He didn’t know.

‘Thackeray’s been here,’ I said. ‘I’ve been charged with the murders … Harvey and Tinsley.’

‘
What?
’

Butler saw me as a man trying to charge a killer, not as a man being
charged
with killing.

‘I’m on a sort of special bail,’ I said. They’ll cart me off to Armley nick in a few days.’

‘How
many
days?’

I shrugged.

‘I knew they’d found you near a German rifle,’ said Butler, ‘but … Why would you kill Tinsley? How do they make it out?’

I gave him the theory. ‘I suppose I’ll tell the court martial what really happened on Spurn, but I’ve no evidence, and Tinsley’s not around to back me up, thanks to you and your fucking green light …’

‘Don’t talk rot, Jim.’

‘And I don’t suppose you’re going to pitch in and help.’

‘How?’

‘By saying your brother overheard Tinsley’s confession, of course, and told you of it directly.’

‘Jim,’ he lied, ‘I know nothing of what was said on that bloody train. Anyhow,’ he continued (which choice of word
proved
he was lying), ‘you’ve put me right in it by going after Shaw. I don’t owe
you
any favours. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

He stood up, turned and faced me, revolver in hand.

‘I can see the difficulty you were in right from the start,’ I said. ‘You were involved in one bit of business – at Naburn – where a bloke’s knocked about the head and put into water. You knew that investigation might be re-started at any minute. Then another comes up along the same lines … Somebody might see that the twins made a connection between them.’

Butler was eyeing me, and it was a direct look, not sidelong, as when Tinsley and I had rolled past him onto the dangerous stretch of line. He continued to hold the revolver in his right hand. The hand was gloved. His left hand, also gloved, he brought up to the revolver. He set back the hammer. As he did so, the finger of his glove became caught, nipped in the mechanism. With a look of irritation on his face that I was not meant to see, he pulled, and quite suddenly the left hand and glove came away from the gun, which he had continued to point at me all along. We were now back to square one. Well, not quite, because the hammer was now cocked. It was a single action gun, and we both awaited the single action – the pulling of the trigger, with Ilkley puffing away peacefully below us. I did not feel the cold in that moment, and nor I believe did Butler. Presently, he
stepped forward and set the gun on the bench beside me.

As he walked away, I called after him, ‘You’ve told the man Shaw where I’m to be found, I suppose?’

No reply.

I called louder, ‘He’s been here already, creeping about in the garden!’ Again no reply. I reached for the gun, and carefully uncocked the hammer.

The gun – a service revolver – proved to be fully loaded. On returning to ‘Ardenlea’, I put it into the trunk in my room. The fact that Butler had left it for me meant he’d told Tom Shaw it was on my say-so that he was being questioned over the murder of Matthew Waddington; that I had found him out. It also meant that Butler had then
regretted
having told Shaw this and was charitably equipping me for what was to come … or that he wanted me to do the job of dealing with Shaw … or that, having meant to do for me himself, and having funked it, he couldn’t stand the sight of the thing, or … I gave it up.