TWENTY-FIVE
Under normal circumstances, Blackstone would have enjoyed eating in the little restaurant on the corner of 9th Street. He would have enjoyed it because the food was good and the staff were friendly – and because the place had no pretension of its own, and expected its customers to leave any pretensions they might have behind them in the cloakroom. But most of all, he would have enjoyed it because he was dining there with Ellie Carr.
Yet tonight, even Ellie’s presence was failing to work its magic, and the food might just as easily have been fried sawdust for all he noticed it.
‘Alex and I always knew that we’d been given this investigation simply because we’d be convenient scapegoats if anything went wrong,’ he said, ‘but I never thought that if it did go wrong, they’d try to crucify us.’
‘He hasn’t actually taken you off the investigation yet,’ Ellie pointed out.
‘No, he hasn’t,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘But in my case, he’s only waiting for a cable from Assistant Commissioner Todd, who, as you know, is not a great admirer of mine.’
‘And in Alex’s case?’
‘When William Holt’s body turns up, the newspapers will go to town on it – because he was an important man, and you’re not supposed to get away with killing important men. Whoever’s in charge of the investigation at that point will be for the chop, whether or not they’re culpable. And since Alex is culpable—’
‘You’re not being fair on him,’ Ellie interrupted.
‘He made mistakes,’ Blackstone said firmly. ‘Not as many as me, but enough. So, since he’s already doomed, it makes sense to leave him in his post for a while longer.’
‘There’s no question that when William Holt turns up he will be dead, is there?’ Ellie asked.
‘None at all,’ Blackstone replied. ‘The kidnappers are already responsible for the deaths of at least four people, and if they’re ever caught, they’ll go to the electric chair whatever happens. So why run the risk of letting Holt live, even if there’s only the vaguest possibility that he might be able to give the police a lead?’
‘What if they were caught?’ Ellie wondered. ‘And what if you and Alex were the ones who caught them? Would it make a difference?’
‘It might,’ Blackstone said. ‘But to catch them, we need a trail to follow – and the trail ends in S.J. Moore’s.’
‘If you’ve lost the end of the trail, why not go back to the beginning?’ Ellie suggested.
‘The beginning?’
‘You’re convinced that whoever kidnapped Holt also murdered Rudge, seven years ago, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Blackstone agreed, ‘I am.’
‘So why not take another look at Rudge’s murder, and see where it leads you?’
‘That trail’s so cold you could skate along it,’ Blackstone told her.
‘Maybe not,’ Ellie countered. ‘The dead still have their story to tell – especially to someone like me.’
‘I appreciate you trying to help me—’ Blackstone began.
‘And so you should,’ Ellie interrupted, ‘because where would the great Sam Blackstone be without the great Ellie Carr somewhere behind him?’
Blackstone grinned. ‘Nowhere at all,’ he admitted. He took a sip of his wine. ‘Let’s change the subject. How’s your work going?’
‘Fine,’ Ellie said, sounding uncharacteristically evasive.
‘Fine?’ Blackstone repeated.
Ellie hesitated before speaking again. ‘I’ve got some good news,’ she said finally. ‘Good news for me, I mean. But I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it at the moment.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Blackstone asked. ‘It’d be quite reassuring to hear that there are at least some people in the world who don’t have their bollocks resting on the edge of the guillotine.’
Ellie laughed. ‘What an absolutely charming image.’
‘So what’s the good news?’ Blackstone persisted.
‘I’ve been offered a lecture tour of America. It would involve lecturing at nearly every prestigious medical school in the country.’
Blackstone smiled. ‘I’m proud of you.’
‘And you could come with me,’ Ellie said. She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘We could discover America together.’
‘I’m not sure that would work,’ Blackstone told her, pulling away.
‘Why not? You’re finished as far as the New York Police Department is concerned, aren’t you?
‘I’m as dead as a doornail. I’m probably finished with Scotland Yard, as well.’
‘So there’s nothing to keep you in New York.’
‘Not a thing.’
‘Which means that’s there’s also nothing to prevent you from coming with me.’
‘And what would I do on this lecture tour of yours?’
‘Do?’
‘I’m not the kind of man who can convince himself that he’s paying his way just by carrying your bag now and again.’
‘The Yanks have offered me a small fortune, so there’s absolutely no need to pay your way,’ Ellie said.
He had grown up an orphan, Blackstone reminded himself. Many of the boys he had known back then had become criminals and had died in their early twenties – and he could easily have become one of them. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d joined the army and fought his way through the ranks to sergeant. Then he’d started at the bottom again, and – against all odds – become a police inspector. He had achieved something in his life. Not much, maybe, but he had achieved it.
‘I said there’s absolutely no need for you to pay your own way,’ Ellie repeated.
‘I can’t do it,’ Blackstone told her sadly. ‘Shall we get the bill?’
They summoned the waiter, and when the bill came, Ellie opened her purse to pay it.
‘I’ll get this,’ Blackstone said, putting the last money he had in the whole world down on the plate.
‘Are you sure?’ Ellie asked.
‘I’m sure.’
‘We could always split it.’
‘I said I’m sure.’
Ellie sighed. ‘If that’s what you want. But can I ask you one more thing before we leave?’
‘Of course.’
‘Up until now, we couldn’t be together as much as we wanted to be because we both had demanding jobs. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘But now we can’t be together because you probably have no job at all. Does that about sum it up?’
‘Perfectly,’ Blackstone agreed. He shook his head slowly. ‘Funny old thing, life, don’t you think?’
As he walked along the deserted dock, he found his mind drifting back – almost inevitably – to a night which seemed like a lifetime ago, though he was prepared to accept that it had been little more than three years.
He had been walking along the Albert Embankment, listening to the river lap against the shore, just as he now listened to the ocean lap against the pier. He had been thinking of Hannah, his first true love, who, hours earlier, had been willing to sacrifice him for the cause she had followed all her life – and only minutes later, had been dead herself.
He had come to a halt, and looked down at the river – and at the lights of the ships anchored midway between the two shores. And he had been tempted, at that moment, to walk down the nearest set of steps which led to the river, and to keep on walking.
Until he had drowned.
Until he had made himself at one with the heart of the city he loved.
It had been the intervention of Vladimir – the Tsarist agent who killed Hannah – which had saved his life.
‘But who’ll save my life tonight?’ he wondered aloud.
His own words surprised him, because he did not think, up until that point, that he had been even contemplating killing himself.
Yet the more he thought about it, the more he was surprised that he had been surprised.
He was a man without a career – or soon would be. An
d that made him a man who was already living in the shadow of the workhouse, where a man ceased to be a man at all, and became nothing more than a creature which ate when it was told to, slept when it was told to, and probably even shat when it was told to.
It didn’t have to be that way, of course.
He could carve out a new life for himself – but it would never be the life he’d had.
He could become Ellie’s pet – a kept man – but though he knew she would never remind him of that, he was sure that he would not be able to forget it himself for a moment.
It occurred to him that he had been courting death his entire life, but always – at the last second – had chosen to fight back.
Well, maybe this time he wouldn’t.
Maybe this time he would give in gracefully.
‘I want your money!’ said a voice from the darkness.
‘I haven’t got any money, son,’ he said. ‘If I had, you’d be more than welcome to it – but I haven’t.’
The man stepped out of the shadows. He was in his early twenties, and had a pock-marked face and hard, cruel eyes. There was a knife in his hands.
‘You’re lying,’ he said.
‘No, I’m not,’ Blackstone replied. ‘I’m telling you the truth, and you know I am.’
‘But I’ve been following you for over half an hour,’ the man complained.
‘Then you’ve been wasting your time,’ Blackstone told him. ‘But it’s not my fault you don’t know how to pick your victims properly.’
The man’s lip curled in an ugly gesture of rage. ‘I think I’ll stick you anyway,’ he decided.
‘I wouldn’t try that, if I was you,’ Blackstone advised.
‘Oh, you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you? An’ why not?’
‘Because if you do, I’ll make sure you’ll never be able to threaten anybody with a knife again.’
‘Big words!’ the man scoffed. ‘Let’s see if you’re still so cocky when you’ve got a blade stickin’ in your gut.’
He lunged forward, the knife aimed at Blackstone’s stomach.
But Blackstone, reading the signals from the other man’s body, knew it was not the right hand, holding the knife, which was the danger – that the real threat was the left hand, with which his assailant would attempt to grab him by the neck, or by the shoulder, and pull him on to the blade.
He swung around, out of the path of the knife, and grabbed his attacker’s left arm with his right hand, while his left fist smashed into the other man’s chin with an uppercut. The assailant’s head rocked backwards, but he kept his grip on the knife until Blackstone followed through with a rabbit punch to his Adam’s apple.
The man hit the ground, gasping for breath, yet hardly aware of where he was. Blackstone stamped down on his right hand with the heel of his boot, and then ground until he could feel the bones breaking.
‘I did warn you what I’d do,’ he said.
He turned and walked away.
You chose to fight back again, didn’t you? asked a voice in his head.
Yes, I do appear to have done, Blackstone agreed.
TWENTY-SIX
The sun had been up for less than an hour when Timmy Tyler and his dog, Skipper, entered the woods that surrounded Ocean Heights. To Timmy, the woods were a magical place, where he could give free rein to all the adventures which were constantly playing in his head, without any grown-ups around to tell him he was being stupid. And since he’d had Skipper, it had been even better. The big black Labrador loved to run and chase and hide, and if he had any objections to being cast in the role of grizzly bear or wild stallion in one of Timmy’s stories, then he certainly didn’t show it.
That early morning, they had not been in the woods long when Skipper came to a sudden halt in a small clearing, and began to growl at the ground.
‘Come on, Skip!’ Timmy urged him, dashing between the trees in the direction of home.
But turning around, he saw that, though the dog should have been at his heel, it was still in the clearing.
Timmy walked back to the animal.
‘Look what I’ve got, Skip,’ he said, holding up a twig he had broken off on the way.
Timmy knew what should happen next. The stick should become the centre of the Labrador’s whole world. He should focus on it with excited eyes, while tensing his muscles so that when Timmy threw it, he could be off after it like a shot.
The dog showed no interest.
‘Stick!’ Timmy said, in case, for some reason, the dog had failed to recognize this particular piece of wood for what it was.
He feigned throwing the stick, an action which would usually heighten the dog’s excitement, but that had no effect, and when he finally released it, Skipper could not have cared less.
‘What’s the matter with you, Skipper, boy?’ Timmy asked. ‘Are you feeling ill?’
The dog barked vigorously, which his owner took to indicate that this was one of stupidest questions he had ever heard.
‘Then if it’s not that, I honestly don’t know what it is,’ the boy confessed helplessly.
The dog looked quizzical for a moment, then – apparently deciding that his owner would never get the point without a practical demonstration – began to dig up the ground with his paws.
Now Timmy understood!
In his mind’s eye, he saw a bunch of olden-day pirates, rowing away from their ship.
They moor in the shallows close to Ocean Heights – although, of course, there is no Ocean Heights there at that time – and wade ashore carrying a large wooden chest. The head pirate – who has a big black beard and a patch over one eye – looks around him, and points a hooked hand towards the woods. The buccaneers carry the chest into the woods, dig a hole, and put the chest into it. They intend to come back for it later – but they never do!
The dog was still digging furiously.
‘Good boy!’ Timmy said.
There would be all kinds of wonderful things in that chest!
Gold coins and bracelets!
Ancient pistols and bottles of rum!
Once he had uncovered the chest, he would go home and tell his parents all about it. And they would laugh at him, his father saying it was time he grew up, his mother cooing that he was still such a sweet little thing. But they wouldn’t laugh when he put his hand in his pocket and laid some pieces of eight on the table, would they? No, they wouldn’t be laughing then!
Skipper was still determinedly digging.
‘Let me give you a hand, boy,’ Timmy suggested.
The Labrador did not seem particularly enthused by the idea, but he knew his place in the hierarchy of things, and when Timmy knelt down beside him and edged him out of the way, he withdrew gracefully.
It was much easier to scoop out the hole than Timmy had thought it would be, and it did occur to him, as he worked, that any soil hiding a hundred-year-old treasure chest should have been more tightly packed.
It also occurred to him, when his fingers brushed against something solid which was definitely not earth, that the pirates had made a pretty sloppy job of things, and should really have buried their treasure much deeper.
And it was at that point that he cleared a little more of the earth away and saw a pair of dead eyes staring blankly up at him.
Blackstone lay on his bed, in his ratty hotel room, watching the El railway thunder past his window as it carried people with some purpose in their lives towards their destination.
He lit a cigarette, and reviewed his own situation. His fate was in the hands of Assistant Commissioner Todd, and until Todd decided what that fate would be, he was still officially on secondment to the NYPD. So there was nothing – in theory – to stop him going to the Mulberry Street police headquarters that morning.
Nothing in theory!
But in practice, what was the point?
‘The point is that young Alex will be there,’ he said softly, answering his own question.
Meade would be there – because Meade was
ever the conscientious policeman – and when the news came through that Holt’s body had been found, and his own career was in ashes, he would need the support of a good friend.
Hauling himself reluctantly off the bed, Blackstone accepted that he would have to play at being a policeman for just a while longer.
Despite her excitement at being in New York, Ellie Carr had slept like a log during the first few nights of her stay there, but the previous night – after her meal with Blackstone – had proved to be an exception to the rule.
She had tossed and turned for hours, and had woken up once in a hot sweat and once in a cold one. It was probably a fever, she thought, as she dropped off into an uneasy doze, but when she woke up and took her temperature, everything appeared to be normal.
‘So it must be that I’m concerned about Sam,’ she told herself, as she dressed. ‘Yes, that’s who’s knocking me off balance – bloody Sam Blackstone!’
She was not even sure she had any right to be worried about him, she argued, as she made her way down to the street – and certainly proud, independent Sam wouldn’t thank her for worrying. But there it was – this unsought worry – quite clearly at the centre of her being, so she supposed she was stuck with it.
She reached the City Morgue at half past eight and presented her credentials, and ten minutes later she already had the post-mortem file which she’d requested in her hand.
The office he shared with Meade was empty, though Meade’s straw boater on the hat stand was proof that the detective sergeant was somewhere in the building.
Blackstone sat down at his desk, and waited.
The phone rang.
‘We got a woman on the line called Mary Turner who wants to talk to you,’ the operator said. ‘You want me to put her through?’
He really didn’t need someone informing him about the overwhelming goodness of Almighty God, Blackstone thought.
‘No, tell her I’m out,’ he said.
And, almost immediately, he felt ashamed of himself.
The woman had lost her husband, and if it brought her some comfort to talk about eternal certainties to some almost-stranger who believed in no such thing, then who was he to deny her the opportunity?
Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street Page 21
