Blackstone and the Endgame (28 page)

‘It wouldn't have looked good for the Yard to have Blackstone standing in the dock,' the Commissioner said. ‘It never looks good to have a bad apple on public display – but, when all is said and done, he is a mere detective inspector. If the head of Special Branch were standing in that same dock, it would do irreparable damage to our reputation.'

‘So what will happen to Brigham?' Hartington asked. ‘Will he retire due to ill health?'

‘That is the plan – and we hope we can rely on you giving that plan your full support,' the Permanent Secretary said.

Hartington nodded gravely. ‘Of course you can. I've had my bit of fun, teasing you over different treatment for different people – wicked of me, I know, though I just couldn't resist it – but I never really meant to oppose you in the matter. We are, after all, members of the same club – and I'm not just referring to this building.'

The Permanent Secretary nodded. ‘As members of the establishment, it is our duty to stick together.'

‘Just as a matter of interest, what will happen to Blackstone?' Hartington asked.

‘Since you seem to know how to contact him, you may tell him that the charges have been dropped and he may return to England,' the Permanent Secretary said.

‘And Patterson?'

‘Patterson is more of a problem. He is, after all, guilty as charged, so he must stand trial.'

‘Oh dear, that does make things rather difficult,' Hartington said, shaking his head.

‘In what way?'

‘Well, imagine me questioning him in the witness box …'

‘Surely, you'll be briefing a barrister to conduct the defence, won't you?' the Permanent Secretary asked.

‘Not in this particular case, no. I've promised Archie Patterson that I'll conduct it myself,' Hartington lied. ‘And I have a perfect right to do so under English law, you know.'

‘I'm sure you have,' the Permanent Secretary agreed. ‘But even so—'

‘Now, where was I?' Hartington interrupted. He grabbed the lapels of his jacket, as if he was already in court. ‘I will ask my client something like, “Why did you hold up the Black Maria and free Sam Blackstone?” And he will say, “I did it because I knew he was innocent.” I will give a disapproving frown, as though he's said something I've told him not to say under any circumstances – that's an old barristers' trick, by the way, and it always works on juries.'

‘Now look here, Courtney—' the Permanent Secretary said.

‘Then, with the frown still on my lips, I'll say, “You mean, you
thought
he was innocent?” And what else can he reply but, “No, at the time I only knew in my
heart
he was innocent, and now I have the proof.” “Proof?” I'll ask. “What proof?” “We now know who the real guilty party is,” Patterson will say. And then he'll probably name him.'

‘You don't have to adopt that line of questioning at all,' the Permanent Secretary said.

‘Of course I do,' Hartington said, sounding shocked. ‘It's my sworn duty to defend my client to the best of my ability.'

‘The judge will know the right thing to do,' the Permanent Secretary said firmly. ‘He'll put a stop to that line of questioning before Patterson even gets close to naming Brigham.'

‘I should hope he would,' Hartington replied. ‘As you said earlier, we in the establishment must stick together, and I'll certainly be delighted if he prevents me from doing a duty that I will be finding personally distasteful.'

‘Well, there you are, then.'

‘But say that someone – one of my juniors, or one of the clerks – is outraged by what he sees as a distortion of British justice, and decides to leak Brigham's name to the gutter press. There are such people around, you know – people who, for some peculiar reason of their own, seem to regard the truth as paramount.'

‘That sounded like a threat,' the Commissioner growled.

‘It is certainly
threatening
,' Hartington agreed, ‘but let me just say that if such information were released, it would have nothing to do with me, since, as I said earlier, I am completely on your side.'

‘Is there any way out of this dilemma we seem to be facing?' asked the Permanent Secretary, who regarded Machiavelli as light bedtime reading.

‘Yes,' Hartington replied, ‘and it's really quite a simple one.'

‘Then let's hear it,' the Permanent Secretary said, with a hint of resignation in his voice.

‘We all know that the man who held up the Black Maria had the same build as Patterson, that he was wearing an overcoat identical to the one Patterson habitually wears, and that the sergeant is devoted to Blackstone and would do anything to save him,' Hartington said.

‘Which would seem to make a cast-iron case against him,' the Commissioner pointed out.

‘It would indeed, except that the man who held up the Black Maria had a pronounced limp, and Patterson doesn't,' Hartington said.

‘There's nothing in the witness statements about him having a pronounced limp,' the Commissioner retorted.

‘Not at the moment there isn't – but there could be,' Hartington said. ‘And since, having ruled Patterson out, you're never likely to find the real culprit, those witness statements will never actually come under close scrutiny.'

‘That's blackmail,' the commissioner said.

‘I prefer to think of it as negotiation,' Hartington replied.

‘If we drop all charges against Patterson, can we assume we'll hear no more of this?' the Permanent Secretary asked.

‘I'd certainly be happy with that,' Hartington agreed. ‘And I'm more than confident that I could sell the idea to my clients – Inspector Patterson and Superintendent Blackstone.'

‘Sell it to
whom
?' the Commissioner exploded. ‘If you think – for a minute – that I'll stand by while—'

‘Shut up, Roger!' the Permanent Secretary hissed. He turned his attention to Hartington. ‘I'm sure, Courtney, that Inspector Patterson and Superintendent Blackstone will be more than happy with the arrangement.'

Max could not complain about the treatment that was meted out to him by the porters in the hours following his rescue. They had given him food, and they had given him water. They had allowed him to wash and provided him with a set of overalls to replace the once-immaculate suit that he had managed to soil during the journey. Yet, for all their kindness, they still made it quite clear to him that he could not leave the station without permission – and that that permission could only be granted by the man in charge.

It was seven o'clock in the evening before Max was finally shown into the station master's office. The station master himself was a square-shouldered, balding man with a large moustache. A large portrait was hanging on the wall behind him, and but for the brass plaque that said it was of Otto von Bismarck, Max might have taken it for a picture of the station master himself.

‘You did not have permission to arrive at my station in a packing case,' the station master said. ‘Would you care to explain how it came about?'

Max laughed with what he hoped sounded like bitter irony.

‘I wish I could,' he said. ‘The last thing I remember before waking up in the packing case was eating a meal in one of Oslo's best restaurants.'

‘One of Oslo's best restaurants,' the station master repeated. ‘Yes, my men told me you claim to be a Norwegian.'

‘I am a Norwegian. My name is Karl Hansen.'

‘You speak very good German for an alien.'

‘I've been taking lessons.'

‘I have a problem,' the station master admitted. ‘You say you are Karl Hansen, and I want to believe you. Unfortunately, the packing case in which you were discovered also contained a packet of documents which identify you as Max Schneider.'

Whoever had kidnapped him must have taken the documents from his room at the hotel, Max thought – and he cursed himself for not having burned the papers years earlier.

‘Max is a friend of mine,' he said. ‘I was looking after those documents for him.'

‘It appears from the documents that this Max Schneider was born right here in Hamburg, twenty-six years ago,' the station master said. ‘How old are you, Mr Hansen?'

‘Twenty-eight,' Max said, though he hated to make himself older than he actually was.

The station master sighed. ‘I can pick up the phone at this very moment and ring a dozen people who will be willing to come to the station to identify you. So wouldn't it be easier – for both of us – if you just told the truth?' he asked.

‘Yes, I am Max Schneider,' Max admitted.

The station master nodded. ‘Good. Now, according to some records I have just been studying, you went to England in 1909. Is that correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘A lot of other young men did the same. I applaud their spirit of adventure. So what else do we know? Ah yes, in August 1911, you received your call-up papers from the German high command. You were informed in those papers that you would be serving in the U-boat service. Is
that
correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘The submarine service is considered to be an elite branch of the navy, and there are many patriotic young Germans who would have given their right arms to serve in it, yet you, without making any effort, were one of those selected,' the official said. ‘Do you know why that is?'

‘No,' Max admitted.

‘Would you like to know the reason?'

‘Not particularly.'

‘Well, I think I will tell you anyway. It is because your father has friends in high places and went to considerable trouble and expense to arrange that particular posting.'

The old bastard,
Max thought –
the vicious, conniving, evil old bastard.

‘I spoke to your father less than an hour ago,' the station master continued. ‘He said he'd wanted to give you the opportunity to serve your country with honour. He'd thought that in the U-boat service you might finally become the kind of son he could admire. And did you grab this golden opportunity with both hands?'

‘I don't like enclosed spaces,' Max said.

‘That is not the question I asked,' the station master said angrily. ‘Did you – or did you not – grab this golden opportunity with both hands?'

‘I did not.'

‘So what did you do instead?'

‘I changed my name and stayed in England.'

‘And that is where you have been since 1911?'

‘Yes.'

‘You have never come back to Germany in all that time?'

‘No.'

‘So tell me, Herr Schneider, how did you manage to support yourself in a foreign country, where you could no longer even use your own name?'

Max sought for an acceptable way to describe how he had earned his living.

‘I was an entertainer,' he said finally.

‘Were you?' the station master asked. ‘Well, let us both hope the appropriate authorities find you
entertaining
.'

T
he letter had been brought from England by Vladimir's own courier.

It began:

Hello Sam

I thought I'd just drop you a line to let you know how we've been getting on over here while you've been living the life of Riley in Russia.

It ended:

So it's time to turn your back on the dancing girls and the champagne, come back to London and start being a right proper bastard, like all the other top brass.

Yours sincerely,

Inspector
Archibald Patterson
.

Sandwiched between the whimsy of the greeting and the flippancy of the sign-off were ten pages of a tightly argued report in Patterson's careful, elementary school handwriting.

Blackstone read through the report once and then – aware that Vladimir, sitting behind his desk, was watching him closely – he read through it again.

There were a number of things he still found troubling about the report, and one of them was Brigham's role in the whole affair.

The superintendent had struck him as a bastard from the start – but not a
corrupt
bastard.

And Brigham had said he never wanted Blackstone to be the one to take the money to the docks.

‘Why me?'
Blackstone had asked.
‘Couldn't your lads do it?'

‘Yes,'
Brigham had replied, ‘
they most certainly could, and I would rather entrust it to one of them than to an inspector who has had what can be called – at best – a chequered career. But that option is not open to me. The man insists that you should be the go-between. He refuses to accept anyone else.'

It would have taken a very good actor to carry that off – and Blackstone didn't think that Brigham
was
that good.

So the whole conversation only made sense as long as Brigham was actually what he appeared to be – a policeman who hoped to buy plans of submarine movements from a German agent and had been told by that German that Blackstone would be the only acceptable courier.

And that meant that it
was
Max – and Max alone – who had insisted that he act as the courier, that it had been Max – and Max alone – who had decided to frame him.

But why would Max Schneider – a man he'd never met – pick him out
specifically
to be set up?

It felt as if the truth had been held back by a huge dam. Now the dam had been cracked, and more questions came trickling through that crack, until they became a flood.

‘You have gone very quiet, my friend,' Vladimir said.

‘I was thinking,' Blackstone said.