The Body on the Train Page 9

  “What time was this?”

  “I don’t know but it was starting to rain.”

  “What else?”

  “I went round the side, thinking, should I wait? Is Mrs. Farrar upstairs? There was a bit of a fire in the garden so I thought perhaps she’d been cutting back brambles and overdone it, got tired and gone to bed. It was, should I or shouldn’t I? Should I go in and make a mug of myself? Should I not go in and be a fool? And then I saw him, coming back along the street from the Arkwrights, carrying his trumpet. I stepped into his view. He was right surprised, asked me what I was doing. ‘Looking for you,’ I said.

  “He said, ‘You look upset. You best come in.’ I hung back, feeling stupid. He went inside, and then he screamed. I’ve never heard a man scream. There was Mrs. Farrar on the floor, and him kneeling beside her. I just stood in the doorway. He went to pick her up. Then he called to me. ‘Get yerself home. This is right shocking. Get yerself home.’ And I went to go in but he said, ‘Go. You don’t want to see this.’ And so I went, I just went. And I said nowt.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Joan would’ve known what to do. I’m useless.”

  “You did as he said. You weren’t to know.”

  We were quiet for a long time. Through the window, I heard the car setting off to take Gertrude and Benjie to church.

  “Did you tell anyone what you saw?”

  “No. When it came out, and Stephen was taken, and people started to talk, I’d left it too late. I couldn’t speak up.” She stared at the crumbs on the carpet. “Who’ll believe me if I say it now?”

  “Go put on your Sunday frock and your warm coat. You and I are going to the chapel. We’ll join the Temperance Band procession and we’ll think what to do.”

  The chapel had emptied by the time we arrived, but the congregation did just that—congregated, in the doorway, on the steps, and on the pavement. There were no other cars in the vicinity, but I parked a few yards from the chapel, so as not to get in the way of the massing band.

  It was difficult to count the bandsmen because they all wore the same dark jackets with gold braid and peaked caps with shiny nebs. They strode about, blowing the odd note. There must have been twenty of them, with their trumpets, cornets, tubas, saxophone and trombone. A lad with a drum was ushered to the front. Next to him was a dark-skinned young woman, a little older than Milly. She wore the band’s fine jacket, a cap that was too big, and held a tambourine.

  She waved at Milly.

  Milly said, “That’s Joan.”

  We went over.

  There were no introductions.

  Joan said to Milly, “I knew you’d come. Mr. Arkwright has a jacket for you.”

  “What am I supposed to play?”

  “Mrs. Arkwright brought a triangle. You’ll want to walk with me and Dennis, behind the conductor. You’re Stephen’s sweetheart.”

  “Am I though?”

  “Course you bloomin’ are.”

  The young drummer gave a slight nod. One could see at once that he was an artist, too intent on his coming performance to enter into conversation.

  Milly turned and walked over to an elderly couple who stood by the wall. The man helped her into a jacket. She fumbled with the buttons and had to start again, refusing help from the old lady.

  Milly now held a triangle. She struck it with the rod and seemed suddenly startled by the sound and the reverberation.

  She returned and took her place between Joan Arkwright and the drummer boy. The band’s conductor, a thin man whose long moustache made him seem melancholy, came to speak to Milly. “Have you played it before?”

  “At school.”

  “Sparingly, that’s the word. Sparingly. Watch mi left thumb for your signal.”

  The conductor called to his band to make ready. Within five minutes, they were in formation.

  During the five minutes, Milly and Joan had a rather animated conversation. I guessed that Milly was repeating to Joan what she had told me.

  Milly hurried over to speak to us. “I’ll see you at the prison?”

  Joan was close on her heels, barely able to keep still. The tambourine in her hand rattled. The fist of her other hand clenched. She glared at me. “Why didn’t you tell her she has to speak to the police straight away?” To Milly she said, “If you don’t stick up for him, who will?”

  Mrs. Arkwright intervened. “Give over your squabbling. Here’s a bob for your fare.”

  As they gathered, ready to march, members of the congregation fell in behind them, creating an impressive procession. I took out my camera and snapped a picture, just as the band struck up “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

  Men and women unfurled embroidered miners’ union banners, and banners from nearby collieries.

  The elderly couple stood by the wall, clapping.

  I went over to them. “It’s too far for you to go?”

  The woman spoke. “It is, love, or we would. It’s not this end getting to’t station, it’s t’other end, all along to’t prison.”

  “I could drive us there, if you don’t mind squeezing up.”

  “In a motor car?”

  “In that car over there.”

  They looked at each other as if assessing whether there might be some unseen danger in this suggestion, and then, as one, they decided in my favour.

  “We’ll do it,” Mr. Arkwright said, “for the lad’s sake, and for the lassies. Stephen never did what they said, never in this wide world.”

  I set off, driving slowly behind the band, keeping a reasonable distance so as not to detract from the music. People came out of their houses. They waved, applauded, or simply watched as the band went by. Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright sat up as straight as circumstances allowed, now and then raising a hand or nodding in acknowledgement of our audience.

  At the railway station, the band stopped playing and filed into the station.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I parked a little way from the prison, remembering Philip’s insistence that parking close by was not allowed.

  As we walked towards the prison, the Arkwrights told me that they had worked at the children’s home, as superintendent and matron. “We was heartbroken when the Bluebell Home closed,” Mrs. Arkwright said, turning to her husband. “Tell her, Simon.”

  “Heartbroken,” Simon said. “We’d seen ’em grow up and we’d seen ’em into the world and would have gone on doing so with the little uns.”

  Mrs. Arkwright straightened her scarf. “At least we have Joan. She wasn’t happy in her digs and Mrs. Brockman, give her credit, let us have free rent of the little house we’re in. We was able to give Joan a home, just as Mrs. Farrar did for Stephen.”

  Mr. Arkwright shook his head. He spoke as if Stephen’s imprisonment was a minor inconvenience, a mistake that would soon be put right. “What will the lad do now, without Mrs. Farrar behind him?”

  “And what about you, Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright? Have you found work since the home closed?”

  “Why Simon has a job in the mill –”

  “Sweeping,” Mr. Arkwright admitted.

  “I knit coats for a shop in Wakefield, and we have the garden.”

  There was no sign of the band yet, but the police must already have been alerted.

  A sergeant and a constable appeared. They stood by the prison gates.

  We looked at them. They looked at us. We were a few yards apart.

  Mrs. Arkwright smiled.

  Mr. Arkwright nudged her. “Don’t make it obvious.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “She can lipread, from her mill days.”

  Mrs. Arkwright turned her head, as if suspecting that the police shared her skill. The sergeant said, “Have you ever heard of a protest march where they come by train?” She glanced at the pair again, and then said, “The constable asks if they’re to turn them back. Sergeant says that wouldn’t look good, not when it’s the Temperance Band.”

  As the band rounded the corner,
playing “Jerusalem”, the sergeant looked over at me. Through my dad, I know many local police officers by sight. Neither of us acknowledged the other.

  The band’s followers had increased. They started out with fifty or so. Now there were over a hundred.

  The police always need to find the organiser, so they can deal with that person. I expect it was a relief to assume that the band’s conductor was the man in charge.

  The officer had to wait until the last note of “Jerusalem” before the conductor would acknowledge him.

  Joan called, “William Tell! That’s a favourite of Stephen’s.”

  There was a brief exchange between the sergeant and the conductor.

  The band began to play “The William Tell Overture”.

  It was Joan who took up the chant as the music ended. “Stephen Walmsley is innocent. Stephen Walmsley is innocent.” Others took up the refrain.

  Mrs. Arkwright whispered, “Let’s hope the lad hears them.”

  Mr. Arkwright said loudly, “He knows he’s innocent. It’s the police who need to listen.”

  We had come closer to the band. The sergeant walked across to the conductor. He spoke to him, but I knew that the message was also meant for me.

  “Three more hymns and we have to clear the street. I know you all have homes to go to. You’ve made your point.”

  Joan kept up her chant.

  I spoke quietly to Mrs. Arkwright. “The police are doing their job. We won’t let this go. We’ll live to fight another day. Tell your Joan.”

  The conductor called, “We have faith in the Lord and in justice. “Pomp and Circumstance.”

  Mrs. Arkwright went to speak to Joan.

  Her tambourine was not required for this. Milly decided that the triangle was not needed either. The two of them and Mrs. Arkwright fell into conversation.

  I did not listen to what music came next because my attention was on Milly and Joan. Milly blew her nose. She seemed to hesitate. Joan took her arm and marched her towards the nearest constable. I went closer, feeling sure that Milly would be her normal timid self. I need not have worried. With Joan beside her, Milly seemed to draw strength from her fearless friend.

  She spoke calmly. “I have a statement to make concerning Stephen Walmsley.”

  Joan wanted to go with her, and made loud objections when she was turned away with the explanation that she had already given a statement about walking back with Stephen from band practice.

  Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, Joan and I waited for Milly’s return. The street had all but cleared by the time she appeared again. Her cheeks were flushed. She no longer looked ready to burst into tears, but angry. “They didn’t believe me. And I swore it and I swore it was true.”

  “We’ll make them believe it.” Joan grabbed Milly’s arm.

  Milly pushed her away. “They said we’re both in love with him and should know better than lie for a murderer, and we could go to prison for false testimony.”

  There was nothing else we could do, for the moment. “The truth will come out,” I said, making a great effort to sound convincing. “Milly, you and Joan go on to the station. I’ll take Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright home.”

  My passengers were glad of the ride. They stayed placidly in the car When I stopped outside the Goodchilds’ house, having spotted Philip and his mother in the garden. If I called on my parents, it would be difficult to escape.

  Mrs. Goodchild was delighted to see me. She is a kind woman, with a particular neatness that includes wearing a tight hairnet six days a week, and Sundays if she is in the garden.

  “Is everything all right?” Philip asked.

  “Yes, all’s well.”

  Mrs. Goodchild beamed. “I’m so pleased Philip is helping you, Kate.”

  “Philip is helping me enormously, and would you mind if I use the telephone? I don’t want to disturb Dad, in case he is having his nap.”

  She tactfully made herself scarce while I made my telephone call. Stolidly, my man-at-arms stood by me while I waited to be connected to Martin Yeats. I thanked Philip for leaving his treatise on rhubarb in the third bee bole.

  Martin could not promise that he would be able to arrange a second visit for me to see Stephen Walmsley tomorrow morning, but he would do his best. “What time do you want to go?”

  I thought for a moment. The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned. “If I could see Stephen first thing, say 7 a.m., I could be back in time for breakfast.”

  “I’ll do my best, Kate.”

  There are some people whose best will always be good enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My car likes to be heard. Without shouting at the top of one’s voice, it is impossible to have a conversation over the racket of the engine while driving.

  We reached Thorpefield. Mr. Arkwright yelled directions to the top of Silver Street, end cottage, number 42. This was the street leading to Mrs. Farrar’s shop. This was the house Stephen Walmsley had walked to with Joan, after band practice.

  Although I needed to be back for Sunday lunch with Gertrude and Benjie, I was glad that they asked me in. There would be time for a chat.

  Mrs. Arkwright was apologetic. “We’re not settled, but you’ll excuse our mess.”

  We stepped into the single downstairs room that doubled as kitchen and parlour, with a door leading to a small scullery. Mrs. Arkwright hung our coats on the back of the door. I was urged into the upholstered cane seat that must be Mr. Arkwright’s. Mrs. Arkwright sat in the rocking chair.

  The kettle was on the hob. He put on a couple of cobs of coal and used the poker to push the hob nearer the flames.

  After I had admired the room, and assured them that it wasn’t at all a mess, I gave my by now practised account of the planned photographic essay for a magazine—my passport to nosiness. “I had hoped to photograph the Bluebell Home. I’d no idea it had closed. Was that recent?”

  Mrs. Arkwright nodded. “And sudden, very sudden.” She took out a hanky.

  “Now, now,” her husband said. “Don’t fret.”

  “What was it like there? I used to cycle out this way with my friends. We’d look through the railings and envy the children their swings and slide.”

  She smiled. “We were there twenty years. The couple before us, they did everything they could to make the Bluebell a proper home, the best kind of family home.”

  “We followed suit,” Mr. Arkwright said. “It was never a heartbreak house. Trustees insisted on after-school training. I taught woodwork and suchlike to the boys.”

  “And for the girls, I would have taught cooking but we had a lovely qualified teacher.” Mrs. Arkwright set her chair rocking. “No one demonstrated bedmaking with neater hospital corners than Miss Stafford. She brought out the best in the children and so did we. Joan and Stephen are living proof. And if they don’t let the lad out of prison soon, there’s no justice in this wide world.”

  Mr. Arkwright took a short pipe from the mantelpiece, tapped tobacco in, and lit it with a taper. Under other circumstances, the sweet scent would have been soothing. “It’ll all come out in the wash.”

  I felt gratified that so many people, besides me, believed in Stephen’s innocence.

  The old couple now seemed so despondent that I felt obliged to prompt them to happier memories. “And now you have Joan as your adopted daughter. Is she a dab hand at hospital corners?”

  Mr. Arkwright laughed, but left his wife to answer.

  “She is if she feels like it. She wanted to do what the lads did. There’s more to her than her cheeky ways and the colour of her skin, but domestication is not one of her virtues.”

  “Tell her,” he said. “Tell her how we came to have Joan. She won’t mind. She likes hearing the story herself.”

  There followed such an odd tale that I must tell it.

  One May morning, Mr. Arkwright opened the back door, to fetch the milk, as usual. He noticed a wicker shopping basket on the back doorstep but thought nothing of it. He would pick it
up as he came back. People often left something towards the children’s upkeep: a loaf of bread, a pie, new-laid eggs. In the autumn, they had more apples than they knew what to do with.

  He walked to the gate to meet the milkman, taking his can to be filled.

  He picked up the basket on the way back. Even when he took it inside, he did not look, but left it on a stool for his wife to see to. And then the sheet moved, just a small movement, like the ripple of a stream. He lifted the sheet. There lay a baby, cocooned in a crocheted blanket, face the colour of a hazelnut, dark eyes wide open, looking up at him.

  Mrs. Arkwright came in at that moment and said, “Where did you come from?” She picked her up. She and the baby looked at each other, and that was that.

  At first there was no thought about who she was and where she came from. It was all a matter of making sure she survived. He wanted to call her Hazel, for her colour. Mrs. Arkwright wanted to call her Joan, after her own mother. They chose May as her surname, the month she was found.

  She was going on twelve when she said, “Joan May and Joan may not. I want to be called Arkwright, like you, which is a proper name.” She harped on so long that they paid out the money to do it, to change her name by deed poll. It was no use telling her that she might wait until she wed, and pick a young man whose name she liked.

  They could only guess at where she came from. Rumour had it that she was from the north. Oh not Durham, not Scotland, not as far as that. Somewhere in the Dales, where years ago an unchristian fellow brought back slaves from the West Indies and set them working on his farm. It was said that the daughter of the family fell in love with one of them.

  When they had told me the story, Mrs. Arkwright said, “If she’s from that strain, ’tis a pity there’s not more like her. She’s the best lass you will meet, honest and true. She has such good eyesight, and a feel for perfection, she’ll be a burler and mender by the time she’s twenty, if she doesn’t get herself sacked for speaking out.”

  Mr. Arkwright frowned. “We wanted all our bairns to be fearless but she overdoes it.”