Chapter Nineteen

It was discomfort as much as anything which had me on my feet again soon after six. Emil wouldn't have minded if I'd been late, as few of the passengers were early breakfasters, but I thought I'd do better in the dining car. I stripped off the waistcoat and shirt for a wash and a shave, and inspected in the mirror as best I could the fairly horrifying bruise already colouring a fair-sized area across my back. Better than on my head, I thought resignedly. Look on the bright side.

I put on a clean shirt and the spare clean waistcoat and decided that this was one VIA Rail operative who was not going to polish his shoes that morning, despite the wear and tear on them from the night's excursions. I brushed my hair instead. Tommy looked tidy enough, I thought, for his last appearance.

It wasn't yet light. I went forward through the sleeping train to the kitchen where Angus was not only awake but singing Scottish ballads at the top of his voice while filling the air with the fragrant yeasty smell of his baking. The dough, it seemed, had risen satisfactorily during the night.

Emil, Oliver, Cathy and I laid the tables and set out fresh flowers in the bud vases, and in time, with blue skies appearing outside, poured coffee and ferried sausages and bacon. The train stopped for a quarter of an hour in a place called North Bend, our last stop before Vancouver, and ran on down what the passengers were knowledgeably calling Fraser Canyon. Hell's Gate, they said with relish, lay ahead.

The track seemed to me to be clinging to the side of a cliff. Looking out of the window by the kitchen door, one could see right down to a torrent rushing between rocky walls, brownish tumbling water with foam-edged waves. The train, I was pleased to note, was negotiating this extraordinary feat of engineering at a suitably circumspect crawl. If it went too fast round these bends, it would fly off into space.

I took a basket of bread down to the far end just as Mercer Lorrimore came through from the dome car. Although Cathy was down there also, he turned from her to me and asked if I could possibly bring hot tea through to his own car.

'Certainly, sir. Any breads?'

He looked vaguely at the basket. 'No. Just tea. For three of us.' He nodded, turned and went away. Cathy raised her eyebrows and said with tolerance, 'Chauvinist Pig.'

Emil shook his head a bit over the private order but made sure the tray I took looked right from his point of view, and I swayed through on the mission.

The lockable door in the Lorrimores' car was open. I knocked on it, however, and Mercer appeared in the far doorway to the saloon at the rear.

'Along here, please.'

I went along there. Mercer, dressed in a suit and tie, gestured to me to put the tray on the coffee table. Bambi wasn't there. Sheridan sprawled in an armchair in jeans, trainers and a big white sweatshirt with the words MAKE WAVES on the front.

I found it difficult to look at Sheridan pleasantly. I could think of nothing but cats. He himself still wore the blank look of the evening before, as if he had opted out of thinking.

'We'll pour,' Mercer said. 'Come back in half an hour for the tray.'

'Yes, sir.'

I left them and returned to the dining car. The chill within Bambi, I thought, was because of the cats.

Nell and Xanthe had arrived during my absence.

'My goodness, you look grim,' Nell exclaimed, then, remembering, said more formally, 'Er… what's for breakfast?'

I got rid of the grimness and handed her the printed menu. Xanthe said she would have everything that was going.

'Has George told you that we're running late?' I asked Nell.

'No. His door was shut. Are we? How much? '

'About an hour and a half.' I forestalled her question. 'We had to stop in the night at Kamloops to get George's radio fixed, and then we had to wait there for the Canadian to go ahead of us.'

'I'd better tell everyone, then. What time do we get to Vancouver?'

'About eleven-thirty, I think.'

'Right. Thanks.'

I almost said, 'Be my guest.' but not quite. Tommy wouldn't. Nell's eyes were smiling, all the same. Cathy chose that exact moment to go past me with a tray of breakfasts: or not exactly past, but rather against me where it seemed to hurt most.

'Sorry,' she said contritely, going on her way.'

'It's OK.'

It was difficult always to pass in the swaying aisle without touching. Couldn't be helped.

Filmer came into the dining room and sat at the table nearest to the kitchen, normally the least favourite with the passengers. He looked as if he'd spent a bad night. 'Here, you,' he said abruptly at my approach, having apparently abandoned the mister-nice-guy image.

'Yes, sir?' I said.

'Coffee,' he said.

'Yes, sir.'

'Now.'

'Yes, sir.'

I gave Xanthe's order to Simone who was stiffly laying a baking sheet of sausages in the oven in silent protest at life in general, and I took the coffee pot, on a tray, to Filmer.

'Why did we stop in the night?' he demanded.

'I believe it was to fix the radio, sir.'

'We stopped twice,' he said accusingly. 'Why?'

'I don't know, sir. I expect the Conductor could tell you.'

I wondered what he'd do if I said, 'Your man Johnson nearly succeeded in wrecking the train with you in it.' It struck me then that perhaps his enquiry was actually anxiety: that he wanted to be told that nothing dangerous had happened. He did seem marginally relieved by my answer and I resisted the temptation of wiping out all that relief by telling him that the radio had been sabotaged, because the people at the next table were listening also. Spreading general gloom and fright was not in my brief. Selective gloom, selective fright… sure.

Others, it seemed, had noticed the long stops in the night, but no one seriously complained. No one minded letting the Canadian go on in front. The general good humour and the party atmosphere prevailed and excused everything. The train ride might be coming to an end, but meanwhile there was the spectacular gorge outside to be exclaimed over, the city of Vancouver to be looked forward to, the final race to promise a sunburst of a conclusion. The Great Transcontinental Race Train, they were saying, had been just that: great.

After half an hour or so, I went back to the Lorrimores' car to fetch the tray of tea cups. I knocked on the door, but as there was no answer I went anyway along to the saloon.

Mercer was standing there looking bewildered.

Looking haggard. Stricken with shock.

'Sir?' I said.

His eyes focused on me vaguely.

'My son,' he said.

'Sir?'

Sheridan wasn't in the saloon. Mercer was alone.

'Stop the train,' he said. 'We must go back.'

Oh God, I thought.

'He went out… on to the platform… to look at the river…' Mercer could hardly speak. 'When I looked up… he wasn't there.'

The door to the platform was closed. I went past Mercer, opened the door and went out. There was no one on the platform, as he'd said.

There was wind in plenty. The polished brass top of the railings ran round at waist height, with both of the exit gates still firmly bolted.

Over the right-hand side, from time to time, there were places which offered a straight unimpeded hundred-foot drop to the fearsome frothing rocky river below. Death beckoned there. A quick death.

I went into the saloon and closed the door.

Mercer was swaying with more than the movement of the train.

'Sit down, sir,' I said, taking his arm. 'I'll tell the Conductor. He'll know what to do.'

'We must go back.' He sat down with buckling legs. 'He went out… and when I looked…'

'Will you be all right while I go to the Conductor?'

He nodded dully. 'Yes. Hurry.'

I hurried, myself feeling much of Mercer's bewildered shock, if not his complicated grief. Half an hour earlier, Sheridan hadn't looked like someone about to jump off a cliff; but then I supposed that I'd never seen anyone else at that point, so how would I know? Perhaps the blank look, I thought, had been a sign, if anyone could have read it.