‘I said, put your hands in the air!’ the constable repeated. Fisher glanced sideways at his double-barrelled shotgun, which was leaning against the wall.
‘Don’t even think about it!’ the constable warned him.
He had a choice of either going for the gun or going for the constable, Fisher decided quickly. He settled on the gun.
‘Bloody idiot!’ the constable said, almost to himself, and as Fisher made a grab for his shotgun, he fired the rifle.
The bullet hit Fisher in the chest, and soon found its way to his heart. There was no need for a second shot.
*
The five men in the dormitory were in an excellent mood. The latest consignment of goods had been dispatched, and the next was not due to be collected for another few days. They had time on their hands and could do with it what they liked. And what they had chosen to do was sit around the table and get drunk
They were already halfway down their second bottle of cheap brandy when they heard the rifle shot.
‘Wha’—Wha’ was that?’ one of them slurred, but before any of the others had time to answer, the door crashed open and the room was suddenly filled with armed policemen.
‘I’d advise you not to resist!’ Blackstone shouted—though he was rather hoping that they would.
The men at the table looked up at the three rifles and two pistols that were pointing in their direction, then one of him raised his hands in the air. And the rest were quick to follow.
They found Hubert Robertson, crouched down behind his desk, with his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears.
‘Oh-my-God!’ the clerk was mumbling, as two of the constables took hold of him and wrenched him to his feet.
‘Where’s your boss?’ Blackstone demanded.
‘Oh-my-God, oh-my-God, oh-my-God!’ Robertson moaned.
The flat of Blackstone’s hand caught him squarely in the face, making his head rock, and his thick-lensed glasses fall to the floor.
‘Where’s Bickersdale?’ the inspector repeated.
‘He’s...he’s down the mine.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes. Apart from ...apart from...’
‘Apart from the girls?’ Blackstone suggested
‘Apart from the girls,’ Robertson agreed.
*
Drayman looked down the deep shaft in the winding shed. Somewhere below, in the darkness, was the cage. And somewhere beyond the cage—hundreds of feet underground—was Bickersdale.
‘What do we do now?’ he asked. ‘Wait for the bastard to come back to the surface again?’
‘No, that’s too risky,’ Blackstone said. ‘He’s got the girls down there, and God knows what he could do to them if he starts to suspect that something’s gone wrong.’
‘So we’re going down?’
‘So I’m going down.’
‘And I’m coming with you.’
‘If Bickersdale is already suspicious, he’ll be waiting for the cage, and anybody in it will be a sitting target,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘There’s no disputing that,’ Drayman agreed.
‘So there’s no point in putting both of us in the line of fire. Besides, I work better alone.’
‘No doubt you do,’ Drayman said. ‘But this is my patch and my responsibility.’
‘Even so...’
‘Either we go down together...
‘I’ve told you, I’ll be better...’
‘...or I’ll get my lads to arrest you, and I’ll go down alone. Which of those two things is it to be?’
‘We go down together,’ Blackstone said, giving in to the inevitable.
The cage clanked and jerked down to the bottom of the mine. It hit the floor with a soft thud and then was still.
Blackstone and Drayman knew that if Bickersdale was expecting them, now was the time they would find out about it. But when three or four seconds had passed—and they were still alive—it seemed that he wasn’t.
They stepped out of the cage.
Ahead of them lay the vast crystal rock cavern, supported by its massive salt pillars. It was in just such a place as this one that Tom Yardley had met his death at Lawrence Bickersdale’s hands, Blackstone thought—and wondered if he would be any luckier himself.
‘We’ll split up,’ he whispered to Drayman. ‘You move along the wall to the left, I’ll move along the right wall. If you happen to come across Bickersdale, shoot the bastard—and don’t stop firing at him until you’ve emptied your gun.’
‘Understood,’ Drayman said.
The gallery wall was cold to the touch, and the oil lamps—which were fixed to the wall—cast eerie shadows as he passed them. It was like being back in that Afghan cave, Blackstone thought with a shudder.
He stopped for a moment and listened for the sound of Drayman’s footfalls, but the gallery was as silent as a tomb.
Sticking as close to the rock face as he could, he wasn’t even aware of the door until he felt his hand brush against it. It was made of solid oak, but there was a small grill inset to allow for ventilation. Beyond it, Blackstone saw—peering through the grill—was a small room that had been carved out of the rock. There was not much light in the cell, but he thought he could see a figure lying on a bed—and guessed that it was a girl.
He moved out into the open, knowing it was a risk to expose himself like that, but knowing also that only a fool fights a battle without first getting a clear picture of the terrain.
From his new position, he could see six more doors, behind which probably lay six more cells—but there was still no sign of Bickersdale.
He did not see the oil canister lying on the ground until it was too late—until he had caught it with his foot and sent it toppling over. It clanged loudly as its side hit the floor, the sound of the clang echoing around the vast cavern—and with that echo disappeared all chance of catching Bickersdale by surprise.
Blackstone took cover behind the nearest of the huge salt pillars. Now all he could do was wait.
He did not have to wait long. The door of one of the middle cells creaked cautiously open. Blackstone stuck his head around the pillar for the briefest of moments—but in that moment he saw two people step out into the gallery.
The first of them was a girl. She could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen, and she looked terrified.
The second was Bickersdale. He had crouched down slightly, so that he could use the girl as a shield—and he had a gun pointed at her head.
‘Is that you, Inspector Blackstone?’ Bickersdale called out, and his words bounced around and around the vast gallery: ‘…’spector Blackstone…’spector Blackstone …’spector Blackstone.’
‘Yes, it’s me,’ Blackstone confirmed, from behind the cover of his pillar and, like Bickersdale’s words, his own quickly reverberated back at him: ‘…me…me…me.’
‘I can’t see you,’ Bickersdale told him.
‘I know you can’t,’ Blackstone agreed. And because of the echo, you can’t even use my voice to get a fix on my position, he thought.
‘Step out into the open, where I can take a look at you,’ Bickersdale commanded.
‘Not until you’ve let the girl go,’ Blackstone told him.
‘Do you think I’m that much of a fool?’ Bickersdale asked. He fell silent for a few seconds; then he said, ‘Where are my manners? You haven’t been properly introduced, have you? Why don’t you tell Inspector Blackstone who you are, my dear?’
‘I’m Lucy,’ the girl croaked.
‘Lucy who?’ Bickersdale said snappishly. ‘Tell the inspector what your surname is.’
‘Stanford. I’m Lucy Stanford.’
‘Lucy has been something of a disappointment to me,’ Bickersdale said. ‘She was not at all what she was supposed to be, were you, Lucy?’
‘You mean she wasn’t a virgin?’ Blackstone asked.
‘That’s precisely what I mean. She’s been damaged goods right from the start, and so of extremely limited value. And
if you force me to, I’ll kill her without a second’s hesitation.’
‘Why not just give yourself up now?’ Blackstone suggested.
‘Whatever for?’
‘Because you’re finished. There’s only one way out of this mine, and that’s under the control of four armed police officers.’
‘You’re quite wrong about that,’ Bickersdale said. ‘There’s a second way out,’—he laughed bitterly—‘as I’ve recently discovered to my cost.’
‘Even if you get clear of the mine, you’ll never get clear of the area,’ Blackstone argued.
‘The odds are against it,’ Bickersdale agreed, ‘but I’ve beaten the odds before. And just to increase my chances, I’d like to make certain you no longer pose a threat—which is why I really would appreciate it if you stepped out from whatever pillar you’re hiding behind.’
‘If I do that, you’ll kill me,’ Blackstone said.
‘Not necessarily. I may just decide to incapacitate you by shooting you in the leg,’ Bickersdale countered.
‘You’ll kill me,’ Blackstone repeated.
‘Yes, that’s probably true,’ Bickersdale agreed easily. ‘But if you don’t come out, I certainly will kill the girl. So why don’t you throw down your gun and let me see you?’
‘You’re bluffing,’ Blackstone told him.
‘About killing the girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You know that once you’ve killed her, there’ll be nothing stopping me from killing you.’
‘Perhaps. But if the choice is between being shot now or hanged later, I’d rather be shot now.’ For a few more seconds Bickersdale was silent again; then he said, ‘I’m getting bored with playing this game, Inspector Blackstone, so this is how it will end. I’ll count to three, and if I don’t see you by the time I finish counting, I’ll shoot the girl.’
‘Listen…’ Blackstone said desperately.
‘One...’ Bickersdale began, ‘…two…’
Blackstone tossed his gun away, and once it had hit the floor he stepped well clear of the pillar.
The moment he’d done it, Bickersdale flung the girl to the ground and aimed his pistol directly at the inspector.
‘That soft heart of yours will be the death of you,’ Bickersdale said, and laughed. He was still laughing when the bullet from Inspector Drayman’s gun struck his forehead as a prelude to ploughing into his brain.
*
There were four girls imprisoned in the mine. Two of them had previously been inmates of the workhouse—and so were missed by nobody. Two came from much more comfortable homes—and were believed to be dead.
All the girls were in a state of shock, but by the time they were back on the surface, wrapped in blankets and sipping hot sweet tea, they were at least starting to believe that their ordeal was over.
‘You saved my life,’ Blackstone said, as he and Drayman watched the girls being taken away in an ambulance wagon.
‘It was foolish of me to aim for the head,’ Drayman said. ‘I might so easily have missed. I should have gone for his midsection.’
‘Well, you’ll know better next time,’ Blackstone said. Inspector Drayman shuddered. ‘I’m rather hoping that there won’t be a next time.’
‘And with any luck, there won’t be.’
‘You’ve killed a man, haven’t you?’ Drayman asked.
‘Yes,’ Blackstone agreed. More men than he cared to remember, he thought. Pathan warriors…Ghazi warriors…Russian Cossacks…armed robbers…would-be assassins…
‘I don’t mind admitting, the whole experience has shaken me up quite a bit,’ Drayman said. ‘It’s not just the nausea—though that’s bad enough—it’s that I feel as if I’ll never be quite the same man again. It’s as though, by taking another man’s life, I’ve lost something of my own. Did it feel like that to you, the first time you killed someone?’
‘Yes,’ Blackstone said.
‘So it’s normal?’
‘I don’t know whether it’s normal or not, but I think it’s how all decent, ordinary men should feel.’
‘That feeling must go away in time, mustn’t it?’ Drayman asked hopefully.
‘Not so as you’d notice,’ Blackstone said.
Nine
Hubert Robertson was sitting in the chair that had once been for the exclusive use of his late—and very unlamented—employer. He was handcuffed to the arm of it, but even if he hadn’t been, he looked too terrified to move. In fact, Blackstone thought, glaring down on the clerk, he looked terrified enough to soil himself.
‘I’m…I’m innocent of any of this,’ Robertson jabbered. ‘I’m just a clerk. I kept the books and wrote the letters. I…I had nothing at all to do with what was going on down in the mine.’
‘Just a clerk,’ Blackstone repeated, contemptuously. ‘A clerk who saw everything that was happening—because he couldn’t have missed it, even if he’d tried—and yet still did nothing about it.’
‘I didn’t dare do anything about it,’ Robertson moaned. ‘Mr Bickersdale was a very frightening man. I’m still afraid of him, even though you say he’s dead. You’ve no idea what horrors he was capable of.’
‘Can you imagine being so frightened of anybody that you’d completely abandon any idea of normal human decency?’ Blackstone asked Drayman sceptically.
‘Indeed I can’t,’ Drayman answered.
‘It’s easy for you to say that!’ Robertson whined. ‘Because you don’t know! You just don’t know!’
‘What don’t we know?’ Blackstone asked.
Robertson gulped in air. ‘Bickersdale used to tell me about the days when he was a soldier of fortune in the Congo Free State,’ he said shakily. ‘He ran his own private little army. He was the only white man in it. He…He told me that he didn’t want his nigger soldiers wasting ammunition, so he counted the number of bullets he issued them with before he sent them off on a raid. And when they came back…Oh God!....’
‘When they came back what?’
‘They’d…They’d have to prove to him that they’d used the ammunition properly, by bringing him a human hand for every bullet they’d fired. And if they didn’t, then he’d have their hands cut off instead.’
‘That’s just a story,’ Blackstone said dismissively. ‘Something he told you just to frighten you.’
‘It was true,’ Robertson protested. ‘It had to be true. And even if it wasn’t, I saw what happened to Clem Davis.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He was one of Mr Bickersdale’s narrowboat men. Mr Bickersdale accused him of stealing the petty cash from the office and got the other men to tie him up. Then he went to work on him. With a knife! He didn’t make any of the cuts deep enough so that Davis would bleed to death right away, and when he’d finished slashing away at him, he just left him where he was.’
‘For how long?’
‘For how long do you think? Until he died! The other men wanted to help Davis, but Mr Bickersdale had ordered them not to, and they were too scared to disobey him. It…It took the poor swine two days to die, and for most of that time he was begging us to do something for him—even if it was only to put him out of his misery.’ Robertson gulped in more air. ‘And the truly awful thing is that Davis hadn’t even done it.’
‘Hadn’t done what?’
‘Stolen the money.’
‘Then who had?’
‘Nobody had! All the time he was being tortured, Davis was screaming that he was innocent. The other men thought he must be lying, but later—when he was dead—Mr Bickersdale told me that what he’d been saying was quite true. No money ever had gone missing.’
‘So Bickersdale had made a mistake?’
‘No! It was a demonstration! Mr Bickersdale wanted to show the men what would happen if anyone ever did steal from him. Now do you see why I didn’t dare say anything? The man was a complete monster. You do believe me, don’t you!’
Blackstone nodded. ‘Ye
s, I think I probably do.’ He lit up two cigarettes, and handed one of them to Robertson. ‘Why don’t you tell me how it all began?’ he suggested.
It began, the terrified clerk told Blackstone and Drayman, when Bickersdale had been forced to accept that he’d been duped into buying the Melbourne Mine, and that all it would do would be to cost him money.
For days Bickersdale had been in a black fury, and then a change had come over him. He’d sat down—very calmly—and started to think of ways in which he could not only regain the small fortune he’d lost, but make it grow into an even bigger one. And that was when the idea had come to him.
‘He’d travelled all over the world, and met a great many men with more money than they knew what to do with,’ Robertson said. ‘And he’d seen for himself just how much some of those men were willing to pay for a virgin.’
‘But not all virgins are worth exactly the same amount, are they?’ Blackstone asked.
‘No. Like any other commodity, the better the quality, the greater the cost,’ Robertson agreed. Then he saw the look of anger growing in Blackstone’s eyes, and quickly added, ‘I’m talking in commercial terms, of course—the way Mr Bickersdale would have talked. I’d never have thought that way myself.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t,’ Blackstone growled.
‘You have to understand that while Turkish virgins are not quite ten a penny, there are still plenty of them around, and each one is only worth a few pounds to a rich Ottoman merchant. But any girl with a paler skin can command much more. And a girl who’s actually been brought up to be a lady is worth a great deal.’
‘How much?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘How much!’
‘I...I believe that Mr Bickersdale charged nearly a thousand guineas for one particular girl.’
Even though the very thought of it made Blackstone want to heave, there was a colder, more analytical part of his brain that could understand how the buyer’s mind might work. Men like them would enjoy the sense of power they obtained from deflowering virgins—and the more the girls hated it, the greater would be the men’s satisfaction. And that, of course, was why girls from a genteel background were so highly valued.
Blackstone and the Heart of Darkness Page 21
