I made a guess at why. “Since what happened last week?”

He nodded. “You heard then?”

“A bit gruesome, eh?”

“Someone came to the house asking questions but they didn’t talk to me. I thought I’d be asked about Ardsley station, but I wasn’t. I suppose they asked the railwaymen.”

With the light behind me, I clicked the shutter, and again.

“Stand by the car, Alec, as if you’re just about to get in.”

He did so. There was a sudden shaft of brightness. Alec’s shadow was longer than himself. “What would you have said, if you’d been asked about that business? You see I can’t think how anyone would get a body on a train without being noticed.”

“I’ve watched the men working. There’s a man to shunt the wagons into the sidings, make sure they’re in the right place to be connected. The driver and firemen are seeing to the engine. There’s a man stacking the boxes of rhubarb. He takes a break when he can. It would have to be when the shunting’s done, when the wagons are assembled in the marshalling yard ready to go. If it’d been January or February, you wouldn’t get an extra box in, never mind a body. But by March, towards the end of the season, not every wagon is full.”

“Has anybody talked to you about this?”

“No, but I asked Mr. Raynor should I give the police my railway notebook. He said I best steer clear.”

“Mr. Brockman and Mr. Raynor seem kind.”

“Mr. Brockman is. He buys me Comic Cuts every week. It was his idea for me to go to the garage and learn a trade.”

“One more smile for the camera!”

He smiled. I clicked the shutter.

Alec stopped smiling. “Mr. Raynor was right telling me to steer clear of the police, after what happened to Stephen Walmsley. They pick you up for nowt. They might have taken me in, for just being on the slope watching.”

“Another for luck!” I clicked again. “It was a good hobby though.”

“I’ve grown out of it now.”

“Sounds really interesting.” I glanced back at the bench. “We should have one more, you sitting on the bench, reading. Take no notice of me, just look at your comic.”

I took one more picture.

“This notebook you kept, might I have a look at it? I don’t know anything about railways and sidings and shunting.”

His eyes lit. “I’ve got drawings and everything. Ardsley is the biggest junction around here. Serves everywhere, Leeds, Wakefield, Methley, Stanley, Bramley. It’s like the centre of the world for railway sidings, or at least the centre of the West Riding.”

“It must be a busy station.”