Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

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Dawn was breaking when the locomotive backed slowly but noisily towards the coal stage. Tall, brick-built and topped by a massive water tank, it was a ghostly shape looming above them. As they came to an abrupt halt beneath the chutes, Ezekiel Ryde, the fireman, urinated over the dwindling stock of coal in the tender.

‘Always keep it wet,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘It burns better that way.’

‘Then make sure you use the hose when you’re up there,’ said the driver.

‘I will, Perce.’

Percy Denton waited patiently until Ryde had finished relieving himself and adjusted his trousers. The driver looked into the tender.

‘We need two tub loads.’

‘Are you sure, Perce?’

‘There’s less than half a hundredweight so we can manage a full ton.’

‘Right.’

Ryde was a stocky man in his late twenties who thrived on the physical demands of his job. Jumping down from the footplate, he crossed to the ladder that rose vertically against the wall of the coal stage. It took him seconds to climb up the metal rungs and step into the cavern above. Ryde had expected to shovel coal from the bunker into the two small wheeled tubs but, to his surprise, both had already been filled. He switched on the tap and used a hose to give both piles of coal a thorough soaking. Bending down, he then gave the first tub a firm shove and sent it rolling along the ramp towards the chute where it was tipped up so that its load cascaded down into the tender. The thunderous noise was accompanied by clouds of coal dust, rising up at him out of the gloom.

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