Westmorland Alone. Ian Sansom

began frantically flicking through his notebook.

      ‘Wordsworth one of the original backers, I think?’ said Morley. ‘Was he not?’

      ‘Of?’

      ‘The paper, man!’

      ‘I’m not sure, sir—’

      ‘Everybody knows it was Wordsworth! Late Wordsworth. Reactionary Wordsworth. Prefer the young Wordsworth myself, but never mind. And De Quincey was the first editor, I believe – or the second? – though he was so drugged with his laudanum that he refused to go to the office. Still the case with your current editor?’

      ‘Not as far as I’m aware, sir, no.’

      ‘And does the paper still take the Tory line?’

      ‘I’m not sure, sir.’

      ‘You’re not sure?’

      ‘I’ve only just started work at the paper, sir.’

      ‘Well, you’ll not be working there long at this rate, will you, man? Original motto of the paper?’

      ‘Erm …’

      ‘“Truth we pursue, and court Decorum: What more would readers have before ’em?” Rather good, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘And do you pursue Truth and court Decorum, young man?’

      ‘I suppose I do, sir.’

      ‘Well, that’s a start, I suppose,’ said Morley. ‘Offices where, in Kendal?’

      ‘Yes, sir. On Stricklandgate.’

      ’You are a lucky young fellow. Probably the finest patch for a newspaper man in the whole of England, the Westmorland Gazette. From the hill farms of the Yorkshire Dales in the east to Furness in the west, and Helvellyn in the north to Morecambe Bay in the south …’

      ‘I suppose so, sir, yes.’

      ‘You suppose? You suppose? Well then, ask another question, man!’ Morley produced a pocket egg-timer and placed it on the table. ‘You’ve got three minutes.’

      ‘I just wondered if you’d give me a quote, sir, about the rail crash, and your role in—’

      ‘Give you a quote? One doesn’t give quotes, young man. People speak, and one shapes their words, like a mother bear licking a cub into shape.’

      ‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind—’

      ‘I am reminded of the words of the great Dean Swift, sir: “For life is a tragedy, wherein we sit as spectators awhile, and then act our part in it.”’

      ‘Is that a quote?’

      ‘It’s a quote of a quote.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘Just write it down,’ said Miriam. ‘It’ll do.’

      ‘I’m afraid I cannot comment on the accident until the police have conducted their investigation and compiled their accident report,’ added Morley. ‘Next question?’

      ‘Is it true that the train was speeding, and that—’

      ‘I refer you to my previous answer. Next question!’

      ‘Is it true that you rescued a number of people from the carriages?’

      ‘I can make no such claim. The person who did so is my assistant, Stephen Sefton, who is— Sefton?’

      I had made myself scarce, slipping away from the table and behind Morley to the bar. I had absolutely no desire to hear him engage in Socratic dialogue with some poor young reporter from the Westmorland Gazette, and even less desire to appear in the Westmorland Gazette.

      ‘Sefton?’ called Morley across the packed room. I was only a few yards away, but the crowd was dense. ‘Sefton?’ I made no response. ‘He’s probably gone to get another drink. Do you indulge?’ he asked the boy reporter.

      ‘Indulge?’

      ‘In drink?’ said Morley.

      ‘Well, I have occasionally—’

      ‘Don’t,’ said Morley. ‘The best advice I can give anyone is the same advice my father gave me as a young man: don’t smoke, drink or fornicate, and never bring the police to the door.’

      Such advice was too late for me, alas: I was already busy with another Bushmills and was immersing myself in the day’s Times, looking for news of the police searching for a man following an assault outside Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court. There was nothing that I could find. I sank the whiskey.

      ‘Three minutes!’ I heard Morley announce, snatching up his egg-timer. ‘That’s your lot, boy. You’re really going to have to work on that interview technique.’

      The poor boy reporter got up and left, and I returned safely to the table.

      While all this was going on the policemen at the other end of our table were conducting interviews with passengers: I knew that sooner or later they were going to want to interview me. I was dreading the moment. I had too much to say to them without making any admissions or speaking any untruths. They were a typically unlikely and unprepossessing bunch of country coppers: one of them had big ears like wingnuts, almost like a character in a children’s comic; another was broad and squat, almost square, and was busy writing everything down, though it looked rather as though he was unaccustomed to handling a pen; and the third, clearly the most senior officer, had a bald head and a bottle-brush moustache, and he kept scratching at his rather scraggy neck and rubbing a hand across his brow, as though trying to soothe his troubled mind. Passengers were ushered before this trio by a formidable woman in a shop coat called Mrs Sweeton who seemed to have appointed herself as official usher. ‘Thank you, Mrs Sweeton,’ the senior policeman would regularly pronounce. ‘Next, Mrs Sweeton.’ I rather fancied that they knew each other very well. The passengers gave their statements and then were ushered away again. ‘Thank you, Mrs Sweeton. Thank you, Mrs Sweeton.’

      Morley was clearly keeping a keen and close eye on all this, and as I sat back down at the table he shushed me and indicated to me with his hand that I should sit and be quiet, attend to the conversations, and take notes. Another man was being ushered before the police – but this was no passenger.

      The crowd in the bar parted as he was escorted to the table by two gentlemen dressed in LMS uniforms, like captains of the guard – thick black blazers, emblazoned caps and shiny brass buttons. I had seen the man they were escorting at the scene of the crash, frantically rushing first to the front of the train and then back to the rear. He was tall and good-looking, with high cheekbones, and though smartly turned out in his own LMS uniform he looked terribly afraid and uncertain.

      ‘He’s dishy,’ said Miriam to me, as he sat down at the table: he was the sort of young man, I thought, who might easily attract the wrong sort of woman.

      A total hush fell over the thronging crowd.

      It was George Wilson, the Appleby signalman.

      

       CHAPTER 6

       THE LOCOMOTIVE ACCIDENT EXAMINATION GUIDE

      THOUGH WE WERE SITTING NEARBY, close enough to hear, it wasn’t possible to pick up every word of the