Blackstone and the Endgame (27 page)

‘You are, I believe, Inspector Blackstone's mistress, Dr Carr,' he said, in the thin, reedy voice that was all that was left to him now but which still managed to convey his disgust. ‘That's right, isn't it?'

‘No,' Ellie Carr replied.

‘Are you saying that you do
not
visit his bed – that you do not sink into all kinds of debauchery together?' Todd asked incredulously.

‘Oh, we do that all right,' Ellie agreed, ‘though not quite often enough for my liking. It's the term “mistress” that I object to.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘And so you should. There's something rather unequal about the word “mistress”, don't you think? Men talk about “my mistress” in much the same way as they might talk about “my dog” or “my horse”. It's not like that with me and Sam. I'm his lover, and he's mine.'

‘Are you really such a shameless woman?' Todd wondered.

‘I try to be,' Ellie said. ‘And now we've got your moral outrage out of the way, do you suppose we could get down to business?'

‘Of course,' Todd agreed. ‘You're here to beg for mercy for Sam Blackstone, aren't you? You want me to use my influence with the Yard – and with the courts – to get him a lighter sentence.'

‘You couldn't be more wrong,' Ellie told him. ‘I'm here because I have some information the police should know about, but, given the nature of that information, I'm not sure who I can trust in Scotland Yard.'

‘Why should you trust me, when you say you can't trust a serving officer?' Todd wondered.

‘There are a number of serving officers – and I've no idea who they are – who will either have something to lose by my evidence becoming public knowledge or something to gain by helping to suppress it. You, on the other hand, only stand to gain something if the evidence
is
investigated further.'

‘You're not making any sense,' Todd said. ‘What can I hope to gain? Can't you see I'm a sick man?'

‘You're not sick – you're dying,' Ellie said.

Todd started coughing, and spatters of blood appeared on the bedspread and his nightshirt.

‘You are a very callous woman,' he said, when he was finally able to speak again.

‘I'm a doctor,' Ellie told him. ‘I say what I see. And what would be the point of lying to you, when we both know that within a week – two weeks at the outside – you'll be gone.'

‘My only wish is to live long enough to see Sam Blackstone gaoled.'

‘Well, that isn't going to happen,' Ellie said indifferently. ‘But I'll tell you what will happen. Any number of important people will turn up at your funeral and say what a fine policeman you were. They'll call you a relentless champion of justice and claim that you were determined never to rest until all the criminals in this fine country of ours are behind bars. They'll say it – but they'll know that it's all a load of old bollocks, even as the words are coming out of their mouths.'

‘How dare you!' Todd gasped.

‘You'll have spoken at such events yourself and used just the same platitudes,' Ellie said. ‘And while you were delivering your speech, you'll have been thinking, “I remember the time when, to cover his boss's mistake, he buried a case,” or, “He'd bend with the wind, that one, and when somebody in government asked him to back away, he'd do it without a second's hesitation.” Tell me I'm wrong, Assistant Commissioner Todd.'

‘We live in an imperfect world,' Todd said weakly. ‘We all have to compromise now and again, or nothing would ever get done.'

‘What I'm about to offer you is the chance to have somebody stand up at your funeral, say, “He did what was right – whatever the consequences,” and really mean it. It's unlikely any of them
will
say that, of course. In fact, if you do what I want you to do, they'll probably hate you for it. But they'll know in their hearts that you
were
right – and that's as much of a legacy as any man can ever hope to leave behind him.'

‘Go on,' Todd said.

‘This is a picture of Max,' Ellie said, showing him the photograph they had found in the government warehouse.

‘How do you know it's him?' Todd asked.

‘I know it because Sergeant Patterson and I found the attaché case that was taken from Sam Blackstone at the docks, hidden in his lodgings.'

‘You had no right to be there,' Todd said. ‘You have no official standing at all.'

‘The truth is the truth – whoever finds it,' Ellie said. ‘And now we come to the part where I offer you the opportunity to do the decent thing. I want you to use your influence to gain access to a bank account.'

‘Whose bank account?' Todd asked.

‘His,' Ellie said, showing him the photograph she had bought from the seaside photographer for a guinea.

The train that pulled into Hamburg Central Station in the early afternoon was carrying mostly agricultural produce from the occupied Belgian territories, but one of the trucks – though not listed on the manifold as such – had been set aside for a variety of artistic objects which certain high-ranking German officers had decided would be much happier in Germany, in the homes of those same officers, than they could ever have been in Belgium.

The objects were all in packing cases, and the porters had been cautioned that this particular ‘agricultural produce' was extremely delicate – and, indeed, might even shatter – so special care should be taken when unloading it.

It therefore came as something of a surprise to the two porters entrusted with the task to hear a furious banging noise coming from inside one of the longer, thinner cases.

‘I didn't know cabbages could kick,' said one of the porters, a man not famed for his intellect.

The other porter grinned. ‘That's not cabbages,' he said. ‘It's onions. Belgian onions are well known for being fierce.'

‘Are you sure?' the first porter asked.

The second porter sighed. ‘It's not a vegetable at all,' he explained. ‘It's either a man or an animal – and I'd put my money on a man.'

‘Should we open it?' the first porter asked.

‘It might be a good idea,' the second porter agreed.

It was a sturdy packing case, very well put-together, and it was two minutes before the porters had removed enough nails to be able to remove the lid.

‘It
is
a man,' said the first porter, looking down into the case.

It was indeed, the second porter agreed, and a man who had been bound and gagged with the same thoroughness that had gone into the construction of his container.

The porters lifted the man out of the case, cut through his bonds and removed his gag.

‘Who are you?' the second porter asked.

‘My name is Karl Hansen, and I am a Norwegian citizen,' the man was just about able to croak.

Superintendent Brigham had never seen either of the two inspectors before, and when they arrived at his office unannounced – and said they wanted to question him – his instinctive reaction was outrage.

‘I don't know what you think you're playing at, but I'll have your jobs for this,' he said.

‘There's no need for you to make this any harder than it has to be, sir,' the taller of the two detectives said calmly. ‘We have been ordered to ask you some questions, and that is what we intend to do.'

‘On whose authority was that order issued?' Brigham demanded.

‘Our superintendent—'

‘Your superintendent! Good God, man, I'm a superintendent, too. It says so on the door!'

‘The order was given to us by our superintendent, but it came down from the commissioner himself,' the shorter inspector said.

It was a routine check, Brigham told himself – a random audit. He was being questioned, but it could just as easily have been any other superintendent in the Yard, and there was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

‘Very well,' he said, in a bored, long-suffering way. ‘Let's just get this over with.'

‘Do you know this man, sir?' asked the taller inspector, placing a photograph on his desk.

Oh my God,
Brigham thought, looking down in horror at it.

Oh, sweet Jesus, no!

How, in God's name, had they ever got their hands on a photograph of Karl?

‘I've never seen him in my life,' he said shakily.

‘His name is Max Schneider, and he is the man who escaped with twenty-four thousand pounds of government money,' the inspector said.

‘But he … he can't be Max,' Brigham gasped.

‘Now isn't that interesting?' the inspector said. ‘You claim to have no idea who he is – you've never seen him before in your life – and yet you're certain he can't be Max.'

‘Have you checked your bank account recently, sir?' the shorter inspector asked.

‘No, but I don't see—' Brigham said.

‘We have,' the taller inspector interrupted.

‘How dare you!'

‘And we discovered that you're five thousand pounds richer than you were a month ago.'

‘I … I've never put five thousand pounds – or anything close to it – into my account,' Brigham protested.

‘We know
you
didn't put the money into your account,' the shorter inspector agreed. ‘But somebody certainly did. And can you guess who that somebody might be?'

It couldn't have been Karl, Brigham thought. Karl had never so much as had a sniff of five thousand pounds in his entire life.

Unless … unless Karl really
was
Max.

He should confess now, while there was still a chance he would be believed, he told himself.

But he knew that he simply couldn't do it – knew that the shame of being thought a robber was nothing to the shame that would be heaped on him if he told the truth.

‘We asked you if you had any idea where the money came from, sir,' the shorter inspector asked.

‘No doubt you think it was this Max who paid the money into my account,' Brigham said, making one last desperate attempt to bluff his way out.

‘We do,' the inspector confirmed.

‘But why would this man – who I've never met – have given me five thousand pounds.'

‘Perhaps we should show him the other photograph now,' the taller inspector suggested to the shorter one.

‘Yes, that would be a good idea,' the shorter inspector confirmed.

The taller inspector placed the photograph on Brigham's desk.

The superintendent recognized the location – it was the promenade at Brighton.

There were two men in the photograph. They were walking side by side, and it was obvious that they were together. One of those men was Karl – and the other was himself.

White's had been founded by an Italian immigrant called Francesco Bianco in 1693. Its original purpose was to serve hot chocolate (then a great luxury), but it soon evolved into a gentlemen's club. The club offered men of quality two things they could not find elsewhere. The first was absolute escape from the company of women (wives and mistresses included). The second was the opportunity to squander their fortunes on the gaming tables.

The club moved from Chesterfield Street to much grander premises on St James's Street in 1778. But the spirit of the club was unchanged, and it was from his seat in the bow window of the new club that Lord Alvanley once bet a fellow member three thousand pounds that the raindrop he had selected would reach the bottom of the window pane before the other man's fancy.

The three men meeting in the club's dining room were all members, and they might even have described themselves as friends, but there was certainly no atmosphere of bonhomie that evening.

‘Well, you certainly managed to get yourselves into a fine pickle,' said Courtney Hartington, who'd arranged the meeting.

The other two men – the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office – exchanged nervous glances.

‘I wouldn't have phrased it quite like that,' the Permanent Secretary said cautiously.

‘Wouldn't you?' Hartington asked, with a note of surprise in his voice that fooled no one. ‘The head of the Special Branch is caught red-handed – in collusion with a German spy – stealing money from His Majesty's Government, and you wouldn't call it a pickle?'

‘It is certainly something of an embarrassment,' the Permanent Secretary admitted.

‘I should think it will be more than an embarrassment when it comes to court,' Hartington said. ‘It will be a full-blown scandal. The press will have a field day.'

‘We … er … are not anticipating it ever coming to court,' the Permanent Secretary said. ‘Max and his associates have escaped – and most of the money has disappeared with them. All we are left with is Superintendent Brigham, and there seems little point in putting him on trial.'

‘You were happy enough to put my clients on trial,' Courtney Hartington pointed out.

‘Your
clients
?' the Permanent Secretary repeated. ‘Did I hear you say your
clients
?'

‘Yes.'

‘In the plural?'

‘That is what an “s” added to the end of a noun is normally meant to indicate,' Hartington agreed.

‘So who
are
your clients?'

‘Didn't I say? They're Archie Patterson and Sam Blackstone.'

‘But how can Blackstone be your client, when no one even knows where he is?' the Commissioner asked.

‘I do know where he is – he's in Russia,' Hartington said. ‘But to get back to the point, you
were
quite happy to put him on trial, weren't you?'

‘We thought he was guilty,' the Commissioner said defensively.

‘Whereas you
know
that Superintendent Brigham is guilty,' Hartington countered.