Don’t mention Vladimir, said a warning voice in Blackstone’s head. For God’s sake, don’t mention Vladimir. It’ll only make you look desperate.
‘Just after the failed assassination attempt on Queen Victoria, I was approached on the Embankment by a Russian secret agent called Vladimir,’ Blackstone said, ignoring the warning because – whether or not it made him seem desperate – the truth was the truth. ‘He offered to give me five thousand pounds.’
‘And why would he have done that?’
‘As recognition of my part in foiling a plot in which Russia might have been unfairly implicated.’
But that wasn’t the whole story, of course.
It is a cold, dark night on the Embankment, and Blackstone is looking down into the river – which is the heart of the city he loves – when he hears the Russian’s voice behind him.
‘Don’t turn around,’ Vladimir says.
And Blackstone doesn’t.
‘Since you have undoubtedly saved my country from a ruinous war, I have been authorized to offer you five thousand pounds,’ Vladimir says, ‘provided, of course, that you agree to sign an undertaking to never again mention the name of Count Turgenev.’
Turgenev, the fanatical aristocrat behind the plot, has already been killed, but the Russians fear he could cause as much trouble dead as he had alive. And Blackstone – who has seen enough wars to know he never wants to see another – agrees with them.
‘Turgenev offered me ten thousand pounds to let him go ahead with his plans,’ Blackstone says.
‘Perhaps we could match that,’ Vladimir answers.
‘And if I asked for fifteen?’
‘That might be considered a little greedy.’
Blackstone laughs. ‘You’re already sighting your pistol at me, aren’t you? There’s no need to. I promise not to tell anyone about Turgenev – but I don’t want your money.’
‘I did not take you for a fool,’ the Russian says.
‘I’ve been a fool all my life,’ Blackstone tells him. ‘But even a fool can learn his lesson, given time. I’m sick of the games you people play. Sick of being a pawn in them – and of all the people around me being pawns. I’m tired of the whole pack of you.’
‘Isn’t there a saying in English that you must either run with the fox or the hounds?’ Vladimir asks.
‘Yes, there is.’
‘The wiser man will always choose the hounds.’
‘The truly wise man will stay at home and tend his vegetables.’
‘I am not sure my superiors will accept that,’ Vladimir says. ‘They would be much happier if they knew you were on our side. And the best way to prove that you are is to take the money.’
‘I’m going to walk away now,’ Blackstone tells him. ‘There’s no one around, so if you’re going to kill me, now’s the time to do it.’
And he does walk away, confidently expecting to suddenly feel the bullet which never comes.
‘So, according to you, this Russian offered you money, and you turned it down,’ Brigham said. ‘And what exactly is that meant to prove?’
‘I should have thought it was obvious. Vladimir offered me five thousand pounds – and then raised it to ten. I could have taken the money, and no one would ever have known about it. But I didn’t. So do you really think I would risk everything I’ve ever worked for – everything I’ve ever stood for – for a mere thousand quid?’
Brigham smirked. ‘Do you have any proof that any of that actually happened?’ he asked. ‘Can you produce this Vladimir as a witness in your defence?’
‘No, I can’t do that,’ Blackstone admitted, wishing – now that he’d calmed down a little – that he’d listened to the voice in his head.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t know where he is.’
‘Then why don’t you tell us what his surname is, so that we can find him ourselves?’
‘I don’t know his surname. Even his Christian name is probably false,’ Blackstone said.
And given the sort of life he’s led, he’s probably dead by now, he added silently.
‘I’m tired of this fantasy,’ Brigham said. ‘Let’s get back to what actually happened, shall we?’ He lit up a cigarette. ‘By two o’clock in the morning, you were blind drunk and staggering along the Embankment. Then you saw a bench and decided to rest for a while. And it was on that bench that you were found by two of the constables I sent out to search for you.’
‘Make him the offer,’ suggested Todd, who was clearly finding just sitting there an exhausting process.
‘You’re in very deep trouble, Blackstone,’ Brigham said. ‘You have consorted with the enemy in a time of war …’
‘Max isn’t the enemy,’ Blackstone said. ‘He’s just a con man – and you’re the man he’s conned.’
‘… consorted with the enemy in a time of war, which is treason,’ Brigham said. ‘By rights, you should hang for that, but –’ he paused for dramatic effect – ‘if you were to tell us where Max is, and if, based on that information, we are able to both arrest him and get the money back, then Commissioner Todd and I will do all we can to see that you are spared the rope.’
‘I can’t tell you where he is because I don’t know,’ Blackstone said. ‘I’ve been fitted up – anybody with half a brain can see that.’
‘I’ve always known you were corrupt, Sam Blackstone,’ the dying ex-Assistant Commissioner Todd said in a rasping voice. ‘And now – finally – we have clear and indisputable proof.’
FOUR
Since it was in the Goldsmiths’ Arms that Blackstone had revealed the details of the mission which would land him in so much trouble to his sergeant, a man of a more fanciful nature than Archie Patterson’s might have considered it highly appropriate to hold his crisis meeting with Ellie Carr there, too. But such a thought had never occurred to Archie – he left the fanciful to those who could afford the luxury of indulging themselves in it – and he had selected the pub simply because it was convenient for both of them.
Now, they sat at a corner table in the best room, the bulky sergeant towering over the wiry doctor.
‘I warned him,’ Patterson said. ‘I told him it would go wrong. But you know Sam.’
Ellie Carr nodded. She did, indeed, know Sam. They had been bedding each other – on and off – for well over a decade, and though the word ‘love’ had never passed between them, they shared an affection which was – as near as damn it – just that.
‘If I can get access to the docks, I just might be able to come up with something that will help Sam,’ Ellie Carr said.
‘You’d be wasting your time even trying,’ Patterson replied.
‘I’m a good forensic scientist, you know,’ Carr said, bridling.
‘You’re the best there is,’ Patterson said.
And so she was. Ellie Carr had been doing brilliant work in the field of forensic science before there’d even been – officially – a field for her to be brilliant in, and when Patterson thought back over the years, he could recall at least a dozen cases that he and Blackstone would never have solved without her help.
‘So if I am the best, why would I be wasting my time down at the docks?’ Carr demanded.
‘The money’s long gone,’ Patterson said. ‘That’s obvious to everybody – even Brigham knows it really. But he’s so desperate that he has to keep believing there’s a slim chance it’s still somewhere in the Western Dock, so he’s had fifty men there all morning – turning over anything that can be turned over.’
‘And destroying any forensic evidence in the process,’ Ellie Carr said gloomily.
‘Exactly,’ Patterson agreed.
‘Then if that won’t work, we need to get Sam one of the top lawyers in London.’
‘Can you afford that? Because I know I can’t.’
‘Of course I can’t afford it,’ Ellie said. ‘Since I’ve been knocking around with Sam Blackstone, I’ve been donating half my salary to his precious Dr Barnardo’
s Orphanage.’
Despite the situation, Patterson smiled.
‘Half your salary,’ he repeated. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘No, you wouldn’t know,’ Ellie agreed. ‘I’ve been keeping it very quiet, in case people thought I was as crazy as Sam.’ She paused for a moment. ‘So we can’t pay for a top lawyer,’ she continued, ‘but I might be able to persuade one to work for us for free – in the interest of justice. I’m very good at persuading people to do things they don’t want to.’
‘I do know that – from all things you’ve talked me into doing,’ Patterson said. ‘But even if you manage to get an outstanding lawyer, it won’t do any good.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Brigham needs to see Sam go down, in order to save himself. And because Assistant Commissioner Todd is determined to get his revenge on Sam before he dies. Together, they’ll do anything they have to do – and that includes manufacturing evidence – which means that by the time the case gets to court, it will be as solid as a rock.’
‘So if there’s no evidence to save him, and it’s pointless getting a lawyer, what can we do?’ Ellie Carr asked despondently.
‘I’ll think of something,’ Patterson promised.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Patterson admitted. ‘But something will come to me – because it bloody well has to!’
It was late afternoon when they led Blackstone from the cell in the basement to the central courtyard. There were two of them in his escort – a sergeant and a constable. They communicated with each other only by gestures and refused to look their prisoner in the eye.
Out in the courtyard, Blackstone shivered, but that had less to do with the air temperature than with the sight of the police van – the Black Maria – which would be taking him across the river to Southwark Crown Court, and from there to Wormwood Scrubs prison.
It was as the sergeant was half assisting, half pushing Blackstone into the back of the Black Maria that he finally broke his silence.
‘I never thought that I’d live to see this day come, sir,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’ve always looked up to you, you know. You were a bit of a hero to me, if the truth be told.’
‘So you’re assuming that I’m guilty as charged, are you, Sergeant?’ Blackstone asked.
The question seemed to quite stump the other man.
‘Well, they have arrested you, haven’t they, sir?’ he said finally.
Yes, they’ve arrested me, Blackstone agreed silently. They’ve arrested me – and that means I must have done it.
Once Blackstone was inside the van, the sergeant locked the doors and he and the constable climbed into the cab.
Blackstone looked around him at the four metal walls and the one tiny barred window.
It was, to all intents and purposes, a cell on wheels, he thought, and he’d do well to get used to this feeling of confinement, because – until they led him to the big drop from which no man returned – a box not unlike this would be his ‘home’.
The Black Maria pulled out on to the Embankment. If he’d wished to, Blackstone could have stood up and peered through the small window, taking in a last view of his beloved London. But the pain would have been too great, and he remained on the bench.
Not that it made much difference whether he gazed out of the window or not, he soon realized fatalistically. He knew the city so well that he didn’t have to look at it to see it, and as the van bounced over the cobbles, pictures of the buildings it was passing were being played out in his mind.
The van turned. They were crossing Southwark Bridge now, and soon they would arrive at the magistrate’s court, where, after a brief hearing, the duty magistrate would order the prisoner in the dock to be taken down and bound over.
Blackstone found himself wishing that Max had hit him harder – had crushed his skull so that he would have been spared the humiliation he would suffer in the coming days.
But Max had wanted him humiliated.
Max had hit him just hard enough so that he would lose consciousness for a few hours and come round again on the Embankment.
The Black Maria came to a sudden screeching, skidding halt. Blackstone was not prepared for it and found himself being catapulted across the van and slammed into the opposite wall, before losing his balance and ending up on the floor.
As he picked himself up, he could hear a banging coming from the front of the van, followed by loud, urgent, demanding voices.
The back doors of the Black Maria were suddenly flung open, and light streamed in.
Blackstone blinked – temporarily blinded – then, as his eyes learned to focus again, he saw a hooded man with a pistol in his hand.
‘Get out of the van!’ the man shouted.
‘Who are you?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Don’t ask stupid questions – just get out of the bloody van,’ the man bellowed.
The man’s accent located him as coming from somewhere in south London, the policeman part of Blackstone’s brain thought automatically; the timbre of his voice indicated he was in his thirties, the fact that he had a revolver suggested he was a criminal of some kind, and …
‘Now!’ the man screamed.
It was never wise to argue with someone carrying a weapon. Blackstone went to back of the van and stepped down into the road.
‘Hold out your hands,’ the man ordered.
And when Blackstone did, he produced a set of keys and unlocked the handcuffs, pulled them free,and let them clatter to the ground.
‘You’ve got about five minutes to get away, so if I was you, I’d make the most of it,’ the man said.
Blackstone took a sidestep closer to the centre of the bridge. From there, he could see the lorry that had been deliberately slewed across the road, blocking the Black Maria’s passage.
And from there, too, he could also see – with mounting horror – what was happening at the front of the van.
The sergeant and the constable were no longer in the cab but were standing beside it, with their arms held in the air. And a few feet from them was another hooded figure – this one a portly man in a grey overcoat – who was pointing his pistol right at them.
‘That isn’t … it can’t be …’ Blackstone gasped.
‘It’s nobody you know,’ the man who’d released him said unconvincingly, ‘and you’ve already used up a minute of that five minutes I told you you’d got.’
There was nothing he could do at that moment to save his fat sergeant from the position he’d got himself into, Blackstone thought, and if he didn’t make a break soon, then Archie’s insane – heroic – gesture would have been pointless.
‘Three and a half minutes,’ the man next to him said.
A small crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding drama, but it was the two policemen and the hooded man who had their attention, and they took no notice at all of the middle-aged man in the second-hand brown suit who had started to run towards the Southwark side of the bridge.
As he passed Patterson, Blackstone tried to signal with his eyes that once he had ensured his own escape, he would do anything he could to help.
But the stout man had his eyes firmly on the constable and the sergeant, and didn’t seem to notice him at all.
It was just after eight in the evening, and Archie Patterson was propping himself up against the bar in the Royal Oak when the two men sidled up and stood one each side of him.
‘What are you doing?’ one of them asked.
‘What am I doing?’ Patterson repeated, slurring his words. ‘I’m getting drunk.’
‘Getting drunk – or already are drunk?’ the second man asked him.
Patterson blinked. ‘I suppose I’m already drunk,’ he admitted. ‘Yes, I must be. Getting drunk is what you do when your world collapses around you, when all the cert … all the certainties … that you’ve lived your whole life by have suddenly turned to shit.’
‘That’s a nice overcoat you’re wearing,’ the first ma
n said. ‘How would you describe it?’
‘’S an overcoat,’ Patterson replied. ‘A grey one.’
‘And have you been wearing it all day?’
‘Mos’ certainly – it’s brass monkey weather out there.’
The man on Patterson’s left produced his warrant card. ‘We’re from Special Branch,’ he said.
‘Good for you,’ Patterson told him.
‘Are you carrying a weapon on your person, Sergeant Patterson?’ the man on the right asked.
Patterson giggled. ‘Certainly am,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a knuckle-duster in my right pocket, a blunderbuss in my left pocket, and a sword down my trouser leg. Why do you ask?’
‘This is serious, Sergeant Patterson,’ the man on the right said. ‘Do you have your pistol on you?’
‘Certainly have,’ Patterson replied, patting his shoulder holster. He frowned and patted it again. ‘It ’pears I don’t,’ he corrected himself.
‘Then where is it?’
‘If it’s … if it’s not next to my left tit, it must be back at the Yard, safely locked up. Why? Where did you imagine it was? Did you think I’d thrown it in the river?’
‘That’s certainly a possibility we’ve considered,’ the man on the left said. ‘Now the next thing we need to ask you is where—’
‘Tired of answering questions,’ Patterson said. ‘Getting very bored with them, if the truth be told.’
‘Just one more question,’ the man on the left coaxed.
‘And then will you leave me alone?’
‘That will depend on your answer.’
Patterson nodded and nearly lost his balance.
‘All right,’ he agreed.
‘Where were you at half past five this afternoon?’
Patterson blinked and then gazed blearily into the mirror behind the bar, as if he thought he would find an answer there.
‘We’re waiting, Sergeant Patterson,’ the man on the left said.
‘I was …’ Patterson began. Then he stopped and shook his head. ‘I was … do you know, I haven’t got a bleeding clue where I was.’
FIVE
16th December 1916
Blackstone and the Endgame Page 4
