Blackstone and the New World (3 page)

‘Why? What
will
happen to him?’ Johnson asked, with an eagerness to know which almost made his question a demand.

‘Once back in London, his accommodation will be provided for him. So will his food, and though, for the most part it will be pretty plain fare, he will be allowed to order whatever he wishes on his last night in that accommodation.’

‘Oh,’ Johnson said, disappointed at the mundane nature of the answer. And then something in the back of his brain picked up on the last few words and decided they were important.

‘On his last night there?’ he repeated.

‘Before he goes on his short journey,’ Blackstone explained.

But that was no explanation at all, Johnson thought.

‘The man will be going on a short journey, will he?’ he asked.

‘A very short one,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘It can’t be more than twelve yards from the condemned cell to the gallows.’

TWO

T
he first-class passengers, whose carriages were already waiting in attendance on the dockside, were the first to disembark. They did so at a slow, stately pace (as suited their exalted position), and were seemingly unaware of the inconvenience this caused the second-class passengers who, once
they
had finally disembarked themselves, would be forced to rush towards the cab rank in order to secure one of the waiting vehicles.

Blackstone did not mind the delay. He had spent six days at sea, in a cabin which, while it would no doubt have horrified the people who were used to plush staterooms, had seemed perfectly adequate to him. He had enjoyed his food and the sea air, and – even more importantly – he had enjoyed the leisure.

Six days of doing nothing! He couldn’t remember when he had last spent six whole days doing nothing, because he was too good a copper to rest while crimes were being committed – and crimes were
always
being committed.

He had, he now admitted to himself, even been half-expecting that there would be a murder on the ship in the mid-Atlantic, because it somehow didn’t seem quite
right
that he should be allowed this treat. But there had been no murder, and now he felt more rested and relaxed than he had in years.

He chuckled softly to himself, as his mind drifted back to that morning, only a week earlier, when Sir Roderick Todd had summarily called him to his office.

It had been some time since Blackstone had been commanded to appear before Todd, and he hadn’t minded that one iota
.

He didn’t like the man. Todd was both a complete idiot and an opium addict, though the inspector was not sure which of those had come first. He was, moreover, a terrible snob, who would almost rather have had cases go unsolved than have the solution come from an ex-army sergeant who had been brought up in an orphanage – and who clearly did not think, as he was supposed to, that the sun shone out of the assistant commissioner’s backside
.

‘Do you remember a villain called James Duffy?’ Todd demanded, by way of greeting
.

Blackstone grimaced at Todd’s use of the word ‘villain’. The AC had used it to show that he was a hard-nosed copper who lived and breathed the London underworld, whereas the truth was that the closest he got to it was the occasional view from his carriage window
.

‘I have long believed that he fled to America, and now I appear to have been proved right,’ Todd said
.

Long believed, Blackstone repeated silently to himself
.

The assistant commissioner, Blackstone suspected, had never even heard Duffy’s name until that morning, and now he was trying to create the impression that if the man had been tracked down, it was entirely due to his own efforts
.

How he liked to pad it out, Blackstone thought. How much the assistant commissioner loved the sound of his own voice
.

‘A problem, sir?’ he said
.

It was clear that Todd had never read Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville, Blackstone told himself
.

Todd looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you being insolent, Inspector? Or, perhaps, in the interest of strictest accuracy, I should say, are you being insolent
again?’

‘Of course not, sir,’ Blackstone assured him
.

‘First class, I take it,’ Blackstone said, before he could stop himself
.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Blackstone said
.

He had almost reached the door when he heard Todd say, ‘Actually, there’s one question
I’d
like to ask
you.
’

‘Are you a good sailor, Inspector?’ the assistant commissioner asked
.

Todd permitted himself one of his rare smiles. ‘Excellent,’ he said
.

Blackstone had lied about the sea legs, of course, but it had been a lie with a purpose. Because if Todd had even suspected that he would enjoy the trip, the assistant commissioner would have done his damnedest to make sure somebody else –
anybody else
– was sent instead.

It was as Blackstone was walking down the gangplank that he first noticed the man standing directly in his path. He was a young man, not more than twenty-five or twenty-six. He had a straw boater on his head and was dressed in a white linen suit, which matched his white bow tie. In his hands, he held a large piece of cardboard, on which he had written – in impeccable script – the words ‘Inspector Blackstone, New Scotland Yard’.

The last three words seemed a little unnecessary to Blackstone, but since this was clearly his reception committee of one, he walked over to the young man and said, ‘I’m Blackstone.’

His words had an instantaneous effect. The young man immediately let the card fall, and before it had even had time to reach the ground, he was already holding out his hand.

‘Gosh, this is a real honour, sir,’ he said, as he pumped Blackstone’s hand up and down.

‘Is it always this hot here?’ Blackstone asked, loosening his tie with his free hand.

‘Hot?’ the young man repeated, as if, in his bubbling enthusiasm, he had not even noticed the temperature. ‘Oh, hot! Yeah, this is New York City in July, and it
is
always hot.’ He continued pumping away at Blackstone’s hand. ‘I have to tell you, sir, you have absolutely no idea how long I’ve been waiting to finally meet a real police detective.’

‘Oh?’ Blackstone replied, mystified. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it would have been difficult to meet one in a city this size. The police force must have hundreds of detectives on its strength.’

‘It does, and I’m one of them,’ the young man said, finally releasing his grip. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Alexander Meade.’

‘Then I don’t see what you meant,’ Blackstone confessed. ‘If
you’re
a police detective . . .’

‘I said a
real
police detective, sir,’ Meade said. ‘Not just a man who carries a badge, but one who solves
real
crimes.’

‘But don’t the—?’

‘Oh, things are a little better since the Lexow Committee completed its investigation,’ Meade interrupted, ‘but not
that
much better. The problem is Tammany Hall, you see. Always was. And until we can get rid of it, there’ll never be a
major
improvement.’

‘Is that right?’ Blackstone asked, and he was thinking that while they were undoubtedly talking the same language, the young sergeant might as well have been speaking Hindustani for all the sense he was making.

Blackstone had always thought the traffic on London’s streets was bad enough. But compared to Manhattan, those streets were country lanes. Carriage fought against carriage to gain the advantage. Long, single-decker horse-drawn buses – which Meade informed him were called ‘streetcars’ in New York – moved at a ponderous pace most of the time, yet seemed to put on a malicious burst of speed when they saw the opportunity of blocking the progress of other vehicles. Electric taxi cabs hooted their horns in frustration as the drivers fretted that their batteries would be drained before they reached their destination. And, overhead, the elevated railway – the ‘El’, Meade called it – thundered along, pushing clouds of smoke into the sky and filling the air beneath it with small, glowing cinders.

‘You have an
underground
railway in London, don’t you?’ Meade asked, across the carriage which was taking the two of them to the Mulberry Street police headquarters.

‘Yes, we do,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘A
well-established
underground railway.’

‘It’s certainly been around for quite some time.’

‘We could have had one for “quite some time”, too,’ Meade said gloomily. ‘The mayor was talking about building one
twelve years
ago. But Tammany Hall didn’t like the idea, you see, because most of the guys who work for Tammany have got shares in the streetcars and the El.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Tammany Hall,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘What exactly is it?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Meade said, in a tone which suggested that he really didn’t want to talk about it. ‘And, hell, I didn’t volunteer for this assignment in order to tell you about New York’s problems. I want to hear what it’s like to work in the famous Scotland Yard, so give me some of the juice.’

It was
complicated
to talk about the workings of the Metropolitan Police, too, but Blackstone did his best, and all the time he was speaking, Meade listened with rapt attention.

‘It’s like I always imagined,’ Meade said, almost dreamily, when Blackstone had finished. ‘
You
don’t rely almost entirely on the words of crooked informers to make your cases.
You
don’t beat a confession out of the nearest available suspect.
You
conduct investigations.
You
follow clues.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose we do,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘But then, don’t all police forces—?’

‘Gee, I’d love to work with you,’ Meade interrupted him. ‘I’d learn so much from the experience.’

Was Meade doing no more than serving up a dish of gently warmed flattery seasoned with faux-admiration? Blackstone wondered.

Or was it merely that he hated his own job so much that he simply refused to see any of the virtues of the New York Police Department?

Whichever it was, the young man’s attitude was making him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

‘I’m sure your own police department is, in its own way, just as good,
and
just as bad, as the Met,’ he said.

Meade’s face darkened, and, as it did, the expression of youthful enthusiasm it had been displaying quite melted away.

‘The police in New York City have two functions – and two functions only,’ he said.

‘And what are they?’ Blackstone asked.

‘To protect the rich, and to line their own pockets,’ Meade replied. The carriage came to a sudden, juddering halt. ‘We’re here,’ the sergeant continued. ‘This is 300 Mulberry Street. Our headquarters – the very heart of stinking police corruption.’

THREE

T
he Mulberry Street police headquarters was five storeys high (including the basement) and was sandwiched between a slightly shorter building to its left and a slightly taller one to its right. Each floor had ten windows looking out on to the street. Its architectural style was decidedly Georgian – though Blackstone doubted that a country which had fought two wars against King George would ever have used that term to describe it. It was a pleasant, solid-enough building, though it was nothing like as impressive as New Scotland Yard.