The two women sat down at the table, and Ellie told Maggie about Mr Hartington.
‘Why should a big lawyer like him want to represent my Archie?’ Maggie asked when Ellie had finished.
‘I suspect the answer is that he’s getting a hell of a lot of money for it,’ Ellie said.
‘But who’d be willing to pay?’ Maggie fretted. ‘We all think the world of Archie, of course, but he’s not really an important man in anybody else’s eyes.’
‘I don’t know who’s footing the bill,’ Ellie admitted, ‘and frankly, as long as he keeps footing it, I don’t give a damn.’
A light, which could almost have been hope, appeared in Maggie’s eyes. ‘Do you think he can get my Archie off?’ she asked.
‘He didn’t promise that,’ Ellie said cautiously.
‘But he might, mightn’t he?’
‘I think Archie has more chance with him than he would have with any other solicitor,’ Ellie said, still treading a thin line.
Tears appeared in Maggie’s eyes. ‘Archie’s going to gaol, isn’t he?’ she asked. ‘Whatever happens, he’s going to gaol.’
‘It seems likely,’ Ellie agreed.
Maggie sniffed and forced her lips into a tight smile. ‘Still, it looks as if this Mr Hartington can get him out on bail for Christmas at least, and that’s something, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘I think you’re being amazingly brave,’ Ellie said softly.
‘Oh, don’t be so nice,’ Maggie pleaded. ‘If you’re nice, I’ll start blubbering, and once I’ve started, I won’t be able to stop.’
‘A good cry might make you feel better,’ Ellie said.
‘It probably would, but there’s still the kids’ suppers to prepare and their clothes to wash, and you can’t do that when you’re sobbing your heart out,’ Maggie said.
‘Perhaps I could do all that,’ Ellie suggested.
Maggie smiled. ‘That’s what I needed,’ she said. ‘A bit of humour to cheer me up!’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Ellie told her.
‘You’re a very clever woman,’ Maggie said, ‘and I think it’s marvellous the way you cut up all them bodies – I wouldn’t have a clue where to start, myself. But if you think you can look after my three kids properly – even for a few hours – then you’re living in a dream world.’
Ellie grinned. ‘Well, you’ve really put me in my place, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘And quite right, too.’
Yuri had prepared wild boar for dinner that night, though, with his massive hands, he looked better equipped to strangle the beast than to cook it. Still, Blackstone had eaten worse – though he was pushed to remember when – and Vladimir, who seemed to regard food as no more than fuel, cleared his plate without comment.
When the meal was over, Vladimir suggested that they return to his study for a chat and a few vodkas, but once they were there, the Russian went straight to his desk and switched on his railway control panel.
‘It relaxes me,’ he said.
Blackstone looked around the network of tracks, and at the engine shed which covered all the space along the front wall that was not occupied by the double doors leading on to the small balcony.
‘How many locomotives have you got?’ he asked.
‘Fifty-seven,’ Vladimir said automatically.
‘And are they all different?’
‘Of course.’
Shaking his head in wonder, Blackstone opened the French doors and stepped out on to the balcony for a breath of air. It had only recently stopped snowing, so except for the tram lines that ran down the centre of it – and which were cleared by the wheels every time a tram passed over them – the street below was covered in a gentle white carpet.
It was not a majestic street, like Nevsky Prospekt, Blackstone thought – it was nowhere near as wide for a start – but it was pleasant enough, and he was sure that most of the people who occupied the apartments beside and across from Vladimir’s considered themselves quite fortunate to live there.
A little of Petrograd’s chill night air was more than enough, but before he stepped back inside, Blackstone took another gulp of it, in preparation for what he was sure was going to be a very difficult conversation.
‘I’d like to know exactly what you’re doing to clear Archie Patterson’s name,’ he said, as he closed the balcony doors behind him.
Vladimir, bent over his controls, flicked another switch. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘I’d still like to know.’
‘You must learn to be patient, Sam,’ Vladimir said. ‘Like my locomotives, my schemes criss-cross each other, and to an outsider there seems to be no pattern to them, until, of course, the final rail switching is completed and each element of the scheme approaches its intended destination.’
‘Which is a fancy way of saying you’re not going to tell me?’ Blackstone suggested.
Vladimir nodded. ‘I would trust you with my life, Sam, but I will never be willing to let you – or anyone else – see the workings inside my head.’
He flicked another switch on the control panel, and one of the trains – which had seemed to be on an inevitable collision course with another – swiftly changed tracks.
There was another question – an important question – that Blackstone wanted to ask his host, but before he could pose it, it would be necessary to throw Vladimir off guard.
‘There’s a small Russian phrase that I’d like you to translate for me,’ he said.
‘Oh yes?’ Vladimir asked, glancing up from his panel.
‘Mne kazhet saya vy,’ Blackstone said, pronouncing the words slowly and carefully.
‘Who said that?’ Vladimir wondered.
‘A waitress in a tea shop on Nevsky Prospekt.’
‘And who did she say it to?’
‘She said it to me.’
Vladimir laughed – a great deep belly laugh that seemed to fill the whole room.
‘What’s so funny?’ Blackstone said.
‘I must keep a closer watch on you, my friend, or you will get into trouble,’ Vladimir told him. ‘“Mne kazhet saya vy” means “I really fancy you”!’
He was clearly expecting Blackstone to laugh, too – to join in his merriment with embarrassed good humour.
‘I thought I saw Agnes on Nevsky Prospekt this morning,’ Blackstone said bluntly.
For a second, Vladimir froze. Then he said, ‘At what time this morning?’
‘Why should it matter what time it was?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Please answer the question.’
‘It must have been about noon.’
Vladimir laughed again – though this time there seemed to be little genuine amusement behind it.
‘Ah, then, if it was noon, you must have been blinded by the noonday sun,’ he said.
‘This isn’t a joke,’ Blackstone said angrily.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ Vladimir agreed, growing more serious. ‘But you didn’t see her, Sam. You only imagined that you saw her – because you’re still in love with her!’
‘I’m not,’ Blackstone said.
‘You can say what you like, but you can’t fool me,’ Vladimir told him.
‘Perhaps I was still a little in love with her when I came to Petrograd,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘She’s been like a ghost walking through my life, and you can’t easily fall out of love with a ghost. But when I saw her today …’
‘When you thought you saw her today.’
‘… I realized that what’s past is past. And I realized something else, too – that I love Ellie Carr more than I ever imagined I could, and that if I ever get out of this mess, I’m going to ask her to marry me.’
‘Then congratulations are in order – assuming the lady will have you,’ Vladimir said.
‘But I still want to talk to Agnes,’ Blackstone said. ‘I want finally to lay the ghost to rest.’
Vladimir sighed. ‘As I’ve already told you several times, Agnes is dead.’
&nb
sp; ‘When I knew her, she was a healthy young woman, who had a good chance of living into her seventies – or even her eighties,’ Blackstone said. ‘So it seems rather convenient for you that she should have died.’
‘Convenient for me?’ Vladimir said quizzically. ‘How could it have been convenient for me?’
‘I’m not sure – but I have a theory.’
‘Then, by all means, outline it for me.’
‘You were afraid that, once I was in Russia, I would want to see her. And that might upset the delicate balance of your plan – it might prove an obstacle to the pattern you’ve already laid out for each of us to follow. So you told me she was dead, and you instructed her to keep away from me.’
‘If Agnes was still alive, she could do the job I have in mind for you – and much better than you ever could,’ Vladimir said, with brutal frankness. ‘If she was still alive, I wouldn’t need you at all.’ He reached into his desk drawer and took out a series of photographs. ‘I was hoping to spare you these, but since you are inclined to doubt my word …’
Vladimir laid the pictures on the table, and though he didn’t want to, Blackstone forced himself to look.
Each photograph was taken from a different angle, but in all of them Agnes was lying in her coffin.
Looking at them, Blackstone felt sadness wash over him – but it was the sadness over the death of someone he had known, not the sadness that came from the loss of a loved one.
Of course, the photographs actually proved nothing in themselves. With good make-up and a good photographer, anyone could turn a living person into a convincing corpse.
‘I could show you her death certificate, but you wouldn’t be able to understand it,’ Vladimir said, reading his mind. ‘I could have her body disinterred, but after all these years I doubt there would be much left of the Agnes you knew.’ He paused. ‘It is very important to me that you accept the truth about her death, Sam,’ he continued urgently.
‘Why?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Because as long as you have even the vaguest suspicion that she is still alive, you will not be effective in the role I have selected for you.’
‘A role you’ve still not explained to me,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘The time is not yet right,’ Vladimir said. He looked down at his control panel. ‘Let me tell you a little more about my railway.’
TEN
10th December 1916 – Julian calendar; 23rd December 1916 – Gregorian calendar
Blackstone was out on his regular morning walk when he saw the poster for the first time. It was on the wall of a dress shop in Nevsky Prospekt. It had clearly been pasted up in a great hurry – the fact it was not straight was evidence of that, as were the air bubbles under the surface – but, given its nature, it was hardly surprising that the man who had put it up had not wanted to hang around.
Three cartoon figures were depicted in the poster. The middle one – drawn to a much larger scale than the others – was a man with a long untidy beard. He had his hands stretched out in front of him, and a woman was kneeling on his left hand, while a man knelt on his right. Both of them were looking up at him – like devoted pets trying to be on their very best behaviour.
The man on the right hand was wearing an elaborate military uniform. He had a splendid crown on his head, yet the face below the crown was that of a village idiot. The woman on the left hand was dressed in a ball gown, and her face seemed to be suffused with maliciousness and cunning.
On the whole, the smaller of the two men had emerged as the least savaged of the artist’s subjects, Blackstone decided. True, there was a good deal of contempt in the broad strokes of his caricature, but it was possible to detect an element of pity, too, whereas, when drawing the other two, the artist had been inspired by nothing but blind hatred.
A policeman appeared on the scene, blowing his whistle and swinging his arms up and down in front of him as he shooed the onlookers away from the offending poster. Once he had it to himself, he took a scraper out of his pocket and began to attack the poster, starting in the middle, with the bearded man’s mouth, and working his way down over the two kneeling figures.
And that was how it went, Blackstone thought. Whatever else there was a wartime shortage of in Petersburg, there seemed to be no lack of paper, ink and paste. Every night, under the cover of darkness, anti-government protestors would stick their posters to the walls, and every morning the police would remove them – but not before half the population of the city had had a chance to see them.
He turned and looked up and down Nevsky Prospekt. Ladies in fine silk dresses were striding majestically towards their waiting carriages, followed by liveried servants weighed down by elaborately wrapped purchases. Government officials, dressed in impressive uniforms, bustled self-importantly from one ministry to another. Students, also in uniform – Russia seemed to be obsessed with dressing up in uniform – walked by him, debating weighty issues (or perhaps – for all he knew – merely discussing their chances of losing their virginity). Trams rattled along the middle of the wide boulevard, and taxi drivers blew their horns furiously at pedestrians and at each other.
Standing there – observing the pageant – it was difficult to believe that Russia was still caught up in a war that had already cost millions of its young men their lives, Blackstone thought. It seemed almost incredible, too, that in other – less prosperous – parts of the city, women began queuing up for bread at three o’clock in the morning – and often came away empty-handed. And there was no indication at all that, on the other side of the Kalinkinski Bridge, there were factories where the workers toiled under almost unbearable conditions and were more often on strike than they were manning their machines.
But Vladimir had said that all this was true – and Vladimir knew about such things.
‘They’ve switched magistrates on us,’ Hartington told Ellie, as they – and Hartington’s clerk – entered the magistrates’ court.
‘They’ve done what?’ Ellie asked.
‘They’ve switched magistrates on us,’ Hartington repeated. ‘The one you saw at Archie Patterson’s first appearance – Jenkins – is an affable old soul, who would have been more than willing, under any normal circumstances, to have released him on a twenty-five pound bond.’
‘But they weren’t normal circumstances, because he saw the way that Assistant Commissioner Todd was looking at him,’ Ellie said bitterly.
‘Exactly,’ Hartington agreed. ‘Jenkins will always bend with the wind, and the dark powers that are ranged against you believe that whatever Todd and his ilk might do, I could tie him in knots. And, of course, they’re right – I could – which is why they’ve given us a man called Lambert Charnley, instead.’
‘And what’s Lambert Charnley like?’ Ellie asked gloomily.
‘I believe that the technical term for his kind of person is “a right proper bastard”,’ Hartington said.
When the magistrate entered the courtroom, the court rose, and it was only when she sat down again that Ellie Carr got a proper look at him.
He was in his mid-forties, she guessed. He had an angular face and thin lips that seemed to have been specifically created to express contempt. But it was his eyes that really unsettled her. They were humourless and pitiless, and burned with cold determination to prevail – at whatever the cost to others or to justice.
They were as good as done for, Ellie thought, and though she did not know exactly where the torpedo would hit them – or even what kind of explosive it might be carrying – she was certain that they were going down.
When he was called on by the clerk of the court to speak, Hartington stood up. He was an impressive figure, Ellie conceded – cool and authoritative – but even before he spoke, he was fighting a losing battle.
‘There has been a very strange occurrence, Your Worship,’ Hartington said, in a rich, round voice. ‘So strange, in fact, that I can’t remember another example of it in all the time I have been practising law.’
‘And what might this strange occurrence have been, Mr Hartington?’ the magistrate asked.
‘I sent my clerk to post my client’s bail – some two hundred and fifty pounds. That would normally have been sufficient to ensure his release, but my clerk was told that, on this occasion, I must make a second petition to the court.’
The magistrate nodded. ‘It is a little unusual,’ he agreed, ‘but then it is also rather unusual for a serving police officer to be charged with such a heinous offence, is it not?’
‘I hadn’t thought of it quite like that,’ Hartington said, bowing his head slightly. ‘I thank Your Worship for enlightening me.’
‘I’m glad to be of service to you, Mr Hartington,’ the magistrate said complacently. ‘Shall we move on to the question of bail now?’
‘If Your Worship pleases,’ Hartington said, ‘I wish to make a formal application—’
‘I have been giving the matter my careful consideration and have decided to raise it to five hundred pounds,’ the magistrate interrupted him.
Hartington looked crestfallen. ‘But … but, as already stated, Mr Jenkins set it at two hundred and fifty,’ he stuttered.
‘He did indeed,’ the magistrate agreed. ‘But, since then, new evidence has come to light …’
‘What new evidence?’
‘… which, though I am not prepared to reveal it to counsel at this time, has inclined me to raise the amount of bail required to five hundred pounds.’
‘Your Worship, my client, as you can see for yourself, is a poor man,’ Hartington said pleadingly.
‘He seems to have had no trouble in raising the money to pay for an expensive solicitor,’ the magistrate sneered.
‘A poor man,’ Hartington repeated. ‘How can he be expected to come up with five hundred pounds?’
‘I don’t know,’ the magistrate admitted. ‘But that is his problem, rather than mine, and if he can’t come up with the money, he must remain in gaol.’
Blackstone and the Endgame Page 9
