Blackstone and the Endgame

by Sally Spencer

  ‘He didn’t really hurt himself, did he?’ Tanya asked, concerned about a possible injury that might have happened before she had even been born.

  ‘No, he didn’t really hurt himself,’ Blackstone assured her.

  Tanya giggled. ‘If only I’d seen that for myself! I could have teased him with it for ever.’

  Blackstone talked about the first time he had come to Russia, and how, never realizing she was Vladimir’s agent, he had fallen in love with Agnes.

  ‘It must have hurt you to leave her behind,’ Tanya said.

  And Blackstone’s mind was suddenly back at the tiny railway station in the middle of the vast steppe.

  ‘I’ll protect you as far as London,’ Blackstone promises. ‘Once you’re there, I’ll give you what little money I have. From that point, you’re on your own.’

  ‘Thank you for your kind offer, but it will not be necessary,’ Agnes says. She stands up and walks over to the door. ‘If I’m not to be with you, then I will stay in Russia.’

  ‘At least stay on the train until we reach St Petersburg,’ Blackstone suggests.

  ‘I would prefer to get off here,’ Agnes replies, almost primly.

  ‘But we’re in the middle of nowhere. There probably isn’t a hotel here, and God alone knows when the next train will come through.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about me, Sam,’ Agnes says. ‘It will not be long before Vladimir hears about me and comes to find me.’

  ‘It did hurt me to leave her behind,’ he told Tanya. ‘It hurt me more than I’d ever imagined it would.’

  ‘But it was the only thing you could do,’ Tanya said. ‘If you had stayed with her, Vladimir would have had your soul trapped in a stoppered jar.’

  She seemed to enjoy his tales of working with the New York police, but she grew more serious when he talked about Ellie Carr.

  ‘Ellie seems like a good woman,’ she said.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Then you should marry her.’

  ‘I want to.’

  ‘In fact, you should have married her years ago.’

  ‘I know that now,’ Blackstone said.

  But had he left it too late? Enmeshed as he was in one of Vladimir’s schemes, would he ever leave Russia alive?

  ‘Tell me the rest of the story,’ Tanya instructed him.

  And so he did, only ending the narrative with his arrival in Russia.

  Tanya smiled.

  ‘His story being done,

  She gave him for his pains, a world of sighs.

  She swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange.

  ’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful,’ she said.

  ‘Is that from Shakespeare?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘It is. It’s Othello’s speech to the senate. I changed it a little – which Vladimir would say was rather wicked of me – but it wouldn’t have fitted the circumstances if I hadn’t.’

  ‘Do you and Vladimir often read Shakespeare together?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Not since I was a child,’ Tanya said. And then, as if she realized she had said too much, she quickly added, ‘Even then, we didn’t do it much – probably not more than once or twice.’

  The door opened, and Vladimir himself stepped into the room.

  His eyes swept over both of them, as if he was trying to assess exactly what had gone on before his arrival. Then he said, ‘I would like a few minutes alone with Tanya, Sam.’

  ‘Of course,’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘And you yourself should get some rest, because you have a busy night ahead of you,’ Vladimir said.

  ‘Have I?’ Blackstone asked. ‘What will I be doing?’

  ‘You will be watching history being made,’ Vladimir said.

  On the first day of their search, Patterson’s feet had started to ache towards the end of the afternoon. On the second day, it had been the middle of the afternoon when he had become aware of his blisters. Now, on the sixth day – and despite the soothing footbath that Maggie had prepared for him – he was in pain before he had even covered a hundred yards.

  ‘Well, look on the bright side – at least you’ll only have to put up with this for another day and a half, Archie,’ he said to himself bitterly, as he and Ellie approached a cobbler’s shop on Cudworth Street. ‘Once you’ve surrendered yourself at the police station, the day after tomorrow, there’ll be no more long walks for you – not for years and bloody years!’

  The cobbler’s name was Thickett. He was an old man with a bald, shiny head and walrus moustache, and he had a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose with such thick lenses that Ellie Carr, however much she tried, just couldn’t stop herself from staring at them.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, darlin’, they’re like the bottoms of beer bottles,’ the cobbler said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Thickett,’ Ellie exclaimed remorsefully. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘It’s the work, you see,’ the old man explained. ‘People think that blokes like me just hammer the nails into shoes any-old-how. I sometimes think they must be confusing us with blacksmiths. But a good cobbler, my little love, is just as much of an artist as that Italian geezer from the old days – you know, the one what painted the Moaning Lisa – and that can be a bugger on the eyes.’

  ‘Can you see this all right?’ Patterson asked, showing him the photograph of Max.

  ‘Oh yes, I can see that picture clearly enough,’ the old man said. A smile of deepest contentment came to his face. ‘Cordovan leather,’ he murmured softly to himself.

  ‘What was that you just said?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘That’s another mistake people make – thinking all leather’s pretty much the same,’ the cobbler said. ‘Well, it’s not. There’s no finer leather than Spanish leather, and Cordovan is the best of the lot.’

  ‘We’re not here to talk about leather,’ Patterson said, irritated. ‘What we want to know …’

  Then he saw that Ellie was glaring at him, and decided it would be a good idea to shut up.

  ‘What made you mention Cordovan leather just now, Mr Thickett?’ Ellie asked the cobbler.

  ‘That’s what his boots are made of,’ the old man said.

  ‘Whose boots?’

  ‘The geezer in the photograph that you’ve just showed me. He said he’d brought them to me specially, because he’d heard I was the best in the business – and so I am.’

  ‘When was this?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Must be about two weeks ago. He told me he was in a hurry and he wanted them the next day. And I told him that I wouldn’t even start to work on them before I’d studied them for a couple of days. Well, he knew a craftsman when he saw one, so eventually we settled on a week.’

  ‘Did he leave an address?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Why would he have needed to do anything like that? He paid for the work in advance, you see.’

  ‘Then you’ve no idea where he lives.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ the old man asked, sounding surprised.

  ‘Have you?’ Patterson countered.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ the old cobbler said.

  ‘And would you care to tell me?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. He lodges with Mrs Downes, on Collingwood Street.’

  EIGHTEEN

  From the outside at least, it was the best-kept boarding house they had visited so far – and God alone knew how many they’d called at! The windows were gleaming, the paintwork was scrubbed, and the brass door knocker was so beautifully polished that it almost seemed a shame to use it.

  But Patterson didn’t notice how pristine the windows were or how shiny the doorknob was. His mind was focused on one thing and one thing only, and the same few words kept rattling back and forth across his head like an express train.

  Let it be Max, let it be Max, let it be Max …

  When Ellie Carr knocked on the door, the knock was answered by a solidly built rosy-cheeked woman in early middle age.
r />   ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, favouring them with a broad smile.

  ‘Are you Mrs Downes, the landlady of this boarding house?’ Archie Patterson asked.

  ‘Bless you, no, I’m Lizzy Clough, her niece,’ the woman said. ‘I’m just helping out for a while.’ She glanced over her shoulder into the passageway. ‘The truth is,’ she continued, in almost a whisper, ‘it’s starting to look as if it’ll be more than a while, because I don’t think Auntie will ever be able to run the place again.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Let me see … it must be three months,’ Lizzy Clough said. ‘I know that because I arrived just after the big stock market in Faversham.’

  ‘The big stock market in Faversham?’ Patterson repeated, mystified.

  ‘We’re country people,’ Lizzy explained. ‘Farmers. And so was Auntie, before she married Harry Downes, who was London born and bred. Anyway, Harry upped and died – he was never very strong, poor soul – and for the past ten years Auntie has been running the place on her own. But now her legs have started to give way, you see.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, but—’ Patterson began.

  ‘Yes, it is very interesting,’ Ellie interrupted. ‘Do tell us more.’

  ‘Well, Dad said that she should sell up and move in with us,’ Lizzy Clough continued, ‘but I told him she loved this boarding house, and it would break her heart to leave it, so I’d come down and give her a hand. He got very grumpy about that, did Dad, and said he needed me for the milking, but, as I told him, where we live, you can’t kick a bit of cow shit off your boot without hitting a milkmaid. Anyway, Auntie needed me and I wouldn’t be talked out of it, so here I am.’ She looked up and down the street, as if it still came as a surprise to her that she couldn’t see green fields. ‘Funny old place, London,’ she concluded.

  Patterson cleared his throat. ‘We’re from the police,’ he said.

  Lizzy Clough frowned. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, there’s nothing wrong, is there?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing you should be concerned about,’ Patterson assured her. He held out the picture of Max for her to look at. ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘Why, bless you, that’s Mr Hansen,’ Lizzy replied. ‘He says he’s a Norwegian, but, to tell you the truth, I’m such a big daft country girl that I’ve no idea where Norweej is.’

  ‘He’s a lodger here, is he?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘That’s right. He’s been here for two months now.’

  Which would have given him plenty of time to feed the secret submarine plans he’d stolen to the British government and then set up the ambush on the docks, Patterson calculated.

  ‘Is Mr Hansen at home now?’ he asked, and when Lizzy shook her head, he added, ‘Do you know what time he’s expected?’

  ‘I really couldn’t tell you that,’ Lizzy said apologetically. ‘He’s away on business, you see.’

  Patterson had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Away on business?’ he repeated. ‘Or gone for good?’

  ‘Away on business,’ Lizzy said firmly. ‘His rent’s paid until the end of the month, and he’s left most of his clothes.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he’s gone?’ Ellie Carr asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Lizzy admitted. ‘But before he left, he did ask me to press his blazer and white trousers, and I know for a fact that he bought a new straw hat – so doesn’t that mean he will have gone to the seaside?’

  ‘Could we see his room?’ Patterson asked, expecting, at any moment, that Lizzy would demand to see his warrant card.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ the woman replied. ‘After all, you are the police, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patterson replied gratefully, ‘we are.’

  Max’s room felt cramped, but that was only because it contained not one wardrobe, but two.

  ‘He bought the second wardrobe himself,’ Lizzy Clough said. ‘He had to. He’s got so many clothes they simply wouldn’t fit in the wardrobe we provided. Now, if you’d like me to show you—’

  ‘I think we can manage on our own, thank you, Mrs Clough,’ Patterson interrupted her.

  ‘I’m Miss Clough – and probably always will be,’ Lizzy told him, ‘unless, of course, some suitable man makes me an offer.’

  And since she was looking directly at the sergeant as she spoke, she left little doubt as to who she might consider suitable.

  ‘I’m already married,’ Patterson said apologetically.

  Lizzy Clough sighed. ‘The good ones always are,’ she said philosophically. ‘So I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Patterson replied.

  ‘Don’t you worry yourselves about making a mess, because I’ll be glad to clear it up,’ Lizzy said. ‘When you’re brought up on a farm, time hangs heavy when you’re not working.’

  And then she backed out of the room and disappeared down the corridor.

  ‘He’s certainly got a lot of clothes,’ said Ellie Carr, who had already opened one of the wardrobes.

  ‘Some men are like that,’ Patterson answered, going across to the bed and checking the bedside cabinet.

  ‘All the clothes have English labels,’ Ellie said.

  There was nothing in the cabinet drawer but a comb, a box of matches and an empty cigarette packet. Wishing he’d got to the wardrobe first – and so left Ellie with the next job – Patterson lowered his substantial frame awkwardly on to the floor and peered under the bed.

  ‘So his clothes are English,’ he grunted. ‘What does that prove? Max must have entered this country illegally, which probably means he couldn’t bring much luggage with him.’

  There was nothing under the bed – not even a speck of dust. Patterson levered himself up again and ran his hands over the mattress.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t think all the clothes are new,’ Ellie said, clearly puzzled. ‘Everything’s very well looked-after, but I’d say that a couple of the jackets are at least two years old.’

  ‘I’ve got jackets that are much older than that,’ Patterson replied, deciding he’d better turn the mattress over. ‘He probably bought some of the stuff from a good second-hand shop.’

  ‘I don’t think we can quite equate your clothes with the ones that Max might own,’ Ellie said hesitantly.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to sound rude, but the only time anybody might mistake you for a snappy dresser was if you were standing next to Sam. But it’s clear from the photograph that Max takes a real pride in his appearance, and I can’t see him ever buying something second-hand.’

  ‘Then maybe the clothes are not as old as you think they are,’ Patterson said, grabbing the corners of the mattress.

  ‘I’m a forensic scientist,’ Ellie reminded him. ‘On one of my better days, I can tell you how old a piece of snot is, so don’t you go questioning my judgement on clothes.’

  Patterson grinned. Ellie had a rare talent for making you grin, even when it felt that, any second, your head might explode from all the pressure you were under.

  ‘Yes, some of this stuff is definitely at least two years old,’ Ellie said, in a tone that was definitely not to be argued with.

  Patterson gave the mattress a heave. It was full of flock and was both surprisingly heavy and awkward to handle.

  ‘Some of these clothes just don’t belong in the wardrobe of a man who’s only been here for a couple of months,’ Ellie persisted.

  ‘Then maybe they belong to a friend of his,’ Patterson suggested, as he struggled in his efforts to teach the mattress who was in charge.

  The mattress fought valiantly, but as so often happens in a battle between the inert and the dynamic, it was eventually forced to capitulate and allow itself be rolled against the wall.

  ‘When your clothes are as important to you as they seem to be to Max, the last thing you’re prepared to do is share your wardrobe with anyone else,’ Ellie said infuriat
ingly. ‘For someone like him, it would be almost as bad as sharing his wife with another man.’

  But Archie was no longer listening, because now that the mattress was out of the way, he could see the spoils of war – and they were greater spoils than he would ever have dared hope for.

  ‘Look!’ he said, holding up his prize for Ellie to see. ‘What do you think this is?’

  ‘It’s an attaché case,’ Ellie replied, puzzled.

  ‘It’s the attaché case,’ Patterson said. ‘It’s the one that Special Branch stuffed full of money and Sam took down to the docks.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ellie asked dubiously.

  ‘I’m certain,’ Patterson replied. ‘After he’d bought it from Harrods, Sam made a nick in the leather, just below the handle, so he’d recognize it again. It wasn’t a big nick – you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for it – but it was distinctive, and this bag is nicked in exactly the same way.’

  ‘Is there anything inside the case?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘I haven’t looked yet,’ Patterson said evasively.

  ‘Why not?’

  Patterson sighed. ‘Because, I suppose, I’m still summoning up the strength to handle the disappointment when there isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Archie, open the bloody case,’ Ellie said.

  ‘All right,’ Patterson agreed, ‘but I’m warning you now, we’ve already had more luck today than any two people are entitled to.’

  But, as it turned out, fate had decided to throw in a bonus and at the bottom of the case they found a cancelled railway ticket from London to Brighton.

  When his friend had phoned from London to say that he couldn’t make the rendezvous after all, Max had first put on a display of anger, then rapidly switched to a tone of bitter disappointment. He had not, in truth, really experienced either of these emotions, but it was his policy to put his friends at a guilty disadvantage whenever the possibility presented itself.

  In point of fact, he was quite glad that this particular friend – who could be both tiresome and demanding – wouldn’t be coming, because that left him free to do exactly what he liked.