Blackstone and the Burning Secret (The Blackstone Detective Series Book 4) Read online

  It took the men less than five minutes to reach the northern end of the bridge and another two to cover the distance between it and the nearest of the two towers.

  Once there, they automatically checked over their shoulders. There was no need. The fog had not miraculously cleared behind them, nor had a troop of policemen suddenly appeared to catch them in the act.

  The men put their bags on the ground, and then opened them. Each one worked independently. They did not speak because they did not need to—because they had practised this action so many times that they could have done it blindfolded and gagged.

  The whole operation was over in less time than it would have taken to strip and wash a corpse. The fog was now so thick that, even standing a few feet apart, the men could not really see each other’s faces, so instead of smiling, as they might otherwise have done, they merely nodded their heads. Then they turned and walked back the way they had come. It would have been too dangerous to return to the barge, but they did not need to—they had already arranged for another bolt hole which was almost as convenient.

  17

  The woman looked very frightened, but given the situation she now found herself in, that was hardly surprising. She must have known that common prostitutes who were picked up by the police were dealt with at the nearest station, rather than taken to Scotland Yard. And as for uncommon prostitutes like herself—prostitutes who could ask for, and get, twenty pounds for a single night’s work—well, they were hardly ever arrested at all.

  ‘Name!’ Blackstone said, looking at her across the table in the interview room.

  ‘I told you that when you first asked me in the club. It’s Sophia—Sophia de Vere.’

  Blackstone slammed his hand down hard on the table. ‘Stop wasting my time, and tell me your real name!’

  The woman looked down at her hands. ‘It is my real name,’ she said in an insistent mumble. ‘But,’ she conceded, ‘I was born Molly Scruggs.’

  ‘Well, Molly…’ Blackstone began. He paused, ‘I can call you Molly, can’t I?’ he continued.

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘Well, Molly, you’re in real trouble.’

  ‘I can pay the fine.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Blackstone asked sceptically.

  ‘Or, at least, I know somebody who can,’ Molly amended.

  ‘Yes, that sounds closer to the truth,’ Blackstone said. ‘We’ll come back to who that “somebody” might be later, but for the moment I just want you to realise how serious your situation is. You attempted to solicit a senior policeman while he was in the course of going about his duties and—’

  ‘I never knew you were a copper,’ Molly protested.

  ‘Ignorance is no excuse,’ Blackstone said, ‘and I’ll thank you not to interrupt me again.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Molly mumbled.

  ‘As I was about to say, there are special regulations to cover what you’ve done.’ Blackstone turned to Patterson. ‘Remind me what those regulations are, Sergeant.’

  ‘Regulation 673/2 and 673/3 of the Criminal Code of 1896,’ Patterson said, making it up as he went along, but still sounding convincing.

  Blackstone frowned. ‘Haven’t you left one out?’ he asked. Patterson looked abashed. ‘Sorry, sir, there’s also Regulation 731, subsections 5 and 7,’ he said.

  Blackstone nodded, as if satisfied. ‘And what are the penalties for breaching those regulations, Sergeant?’

  Patterson pretended to be searching his mind for an answer. ‘A minimum of three—and a maximum of six—years imprisonment,’ he said finally.

  ‘Correct!’ Blackstone agreed.

  ‘My guess is, she’ll get the maximum,’ Patterson added. The pantomime was all too convincing—and all too much—for Molly. She bowed her head, and began to cry.

  Blackstone tried his damnedest to harden his heart, but—as always when he was dealing with those he considered to be the victims of society—he was only partially successful in his attempt. Still, he had a job to do, and he steeled himself to do it.

  ‘Crying won’t do you any good, my girl,’ he said harshly.

  ‘Do you need to be so rough on her, sir?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘She’s going down, and she might as well get used to it,’ Blackstone told him.

  ‘But she doesn’t have to go down, does she, sir?’

  ‘Doesn’t she?’ Blackstone asked, noting that while Molly was still crying, she was also listening intently.

  ‘Aren’t we empowered to make exceptions—to show mercy—if the miscreant is exceptionally cooperative?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Yes, but this one isn’t going to be, is she?’ Blackstone said aggressively. ‘You can see, just by looking at her, that she’d rather do hard time in prison than tell us what we want to know.’

  Molly was still sniffling, but the tears had stopped flowing. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘She won’t tell you anything useful,’ Blackstone told Patterson. ‘This is just a stalling tactic. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. You might as well book her now, and save yourself the effort.’

  ‘I’d like to give it just one try, if you don’t mind, sir,’ Patterson said diffidently.

  Blackstone shrugged. ‘Why not? If you don’t make your own mistakes, you’ll never learn.’

  Patterson leant across the table, so he was closer to Molly. ‘How long have you been working at the Austro-Hungary Club?’

  ‘I don’t work there. I was just visiting and—’

  ‘See what I mean?’ Blackstone said fiercely.

  ‘Molly!’ Patterson pleaded. ‘Help me, won’t you? It’s the only way you can help yourself.’

  ‘I’ve been there for about six months,’ the woman told him.

  ‘And who, exactly, do you work for?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Mr Mouldoon.’

  ‘He’s a Yank,’ Blackstone explained. ‘I thought he was a pimp the moment I met him.’

  ‘What can you tell me about this Mr Mouldoon?’ Patterson asked solicitously. ‘Do you like him, Molly?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘I’ve known worse. He doesn’t slap us about, and he lets us keep two pounds from every job.’

  Two pounds! Blackstone thought. Ten percent! The miserable Yankee bastard!

  ‘I’m going to show you a drawing and photograph, Molly,’ Patterson said. ‘And I want you to tell me if you recognise either of the men.’

  He slid the two articles across the table, and Molly looked at them. ‘If I do recognise them, will it help me?’ she asked.

  ‘It certainly won’t help you if you only pretend to recognise them,’ Blackstone snarled. ‘If you lie, it will only make things worse for you.’

  ‘I do know them,’ Molly told Patterson. ‘I’m not just saying it, I really do. I haven’t seen either of them recently, but until last week they were both regulars at the club.’

  ‘What can you tell me about them?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘The one in the drawing’s called Peter, and the other one’s William.’ Molly examined the photograph again. ‘William doesn’t look well.’

  ‘No, he’s feeling a little under the weather at the moment,’ Blackstone said curtly. ‘Did William and Peter come to the club together, or did they come separately?’

  ‘Together,’ Molly said firmly. ‘And they always had Lord Moneybags with them.’

  ‘Lord Moneybags?’ Blackstone repeated.

  ‘His real name’s Henry,’ Molly explained. ‘Lord Moneybags was just what us girls called him among ourselves.’

  ‘Describe him.’

  ‘He was older than the other two.’

  ‘How much older?’

  ‘I’d say he was in his middle-to-late fifties.’

  ‘And where did the nickname come from?’

  Despite the seriousness of her situation, Molly laughed. ‘Oh that! The “lord” bit came from the way he carried himself, and from the way he spoke. You know, as if he was somebody really important.’
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  ‘And the other half of the nickname?”

  ‘Moneybags? That’s because he has a lot of money, of course. Tons and tons of it.’

  ‘Do you know that for a fact?’ Blackstone demanded. ‘Did he show you his bank book?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘So you’re only guessing.’

  ‘He certainly gambles as if he has a lot of money,’ Molly said defensively. ‘One night last week, Friday, I think it was, he lost four thousand pounds—and he didn’t even blink.’

  ‘Do other people lose a lot of money?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Yes—but not like him.’

  ‘Who runs the club?’

  ‘Mr Rilke.’

  ‘First name?’

  ‘We call him Frank, behind his back, but I think his real name is something like Fritz.’

  ‘Is he the big man with the red face who signed me in?’

  ‘Sounds like him. Probably is him, since he’s the one who signs in most of the new members.’

  ‘And where’s he from?’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Is he German? Dutch?’

  ‘Dunno. But he’s definitely some kind of foreigner.’

  ‘I want you to describe this “Lord Moneybags” to the police sketch artist,’ Patterson said.

  ‘And then can I go?’ Molly asked hopefully.

  Patterson checked with Blackstone, who nodded.

  ‘And there’ll be no charges?’ Molly asked.

  ‘There’ll be no charges,’ Patterson assured her.

  Molly hesitated before she spoke again. ‘So can I…er…go back to the club?’

  ‘We want you to go back to the club,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘You do?’ Molly asked, surprised.

  ‘We do,’ Blackstone confirmed. ‘But for your own protection, I suggest you don’t tell Mr Mouldoon what happened tonight.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If Mouldoon learns you’ve been talking to the police, he could turn nasty. And let me tell you, you wouldn’t want that. I’ve seen pimps turn like that before, and like as not he’d slash your face with a cut-throat razor.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Molly said.

  ‘Tell her, Sergeant,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Happens all the time,’ Patterson confirmed.

  Molly’s face hardened. ‘In that case, I’ll need twenty quid,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Because if she’s to conceal the fact she’s been talking to the police, she’ll have to pretend she’s been with a client,’ Blackstone said. ‘And the client would have paid her twenty pounds. Isn’t that right, Molly?’

  ‘Yeah. So can I have it?’

  Blackstone reached into his pocket, and peeled off four of the remaining five-pound notes from his wad of false ones.

  Sir Roderick Todd wasn’t going to like this at all, he thought.

  18

  Milkmen, by the very nature of their trade, are traditionally early risers, so it was not at all surprising that it should be a milkman who first encountered the latest example of the firebug’s work.

  The milkman in question was called Dick Todd, but, despite sharing his surname with Sir Roderick, he was no relation—not even a distant one—of the Assistant Commissioner. He lived in Southwark, and would have been fairly happy—or at least as happy as his grumpy nature allowed—to continue living there, had it not been for the distance between his home and Paddington Station.

  ‘The milkmen wot live norf of the river have it easy,’ he would tell anyone in the Goldsmiths’ Arms who was willing to listen. ‘They get up in the mornin’, stick the old ‘orse between the shafts of their carts, an’ they’re in Paddin’ton before they know it. It’s a diff’rent matter for me. I got to cross the river, ain’t I? ‘Cos if I don’t, I don’t get me churns of country milk wot come in on the first train. An’ if I ‘aven’t got me churns, I’ve got nuffink to sell.’

  It was on his second journey across Tower Bridge that morning—on his return to Southwark with his rattling churns of milk—that he noticed the infernal device resting against the side of the first tower he reached. He did not at first appreciate its nature, and rather than seeing it as a danger, he considered it something of an opportunity.

  ‘If somebody’s left it lyin’ there like that, it must mean that they don’t want it,’ he told his horse as he reined her in. ‘An’ if they don’t want it, well then, it’s mine.’

  He applied the brake, climbed down from his cart, and approached the object—or rather collection of objects.

  ‘Now just what ‘ave we got ‘ere, Snowdrop?’ he called to his horse over his shoulder.

  But the horse made no answer, and he was left to work it out for himself.

  There was an alarm clock, which he could clearly hear was ticking happily away. There was a small wooden box, the contents of which he had yet to identify. And there were a number of sticks of wood—except that they looked too regular to be ordinary sticks.

  A sudden breeze blew up, caught a piece of wrapping paper which had been nestling between the sticks, and blew it in the milkman’s direction. Todd bent down and picked it up.

  ‘Danger!’ he read. ‘Dynamite! Highly Explosive! Gawd Almighty!’ the milkman exclaimed.

  He had no memory of dropping the piece of paper or of climbing back on to his cart. He remembered nothing more, in fact, until he became aware that he had crossed Tower Bridge and the nag between the shafts of his cart was running like a racehorse.

  *

  Ellie Carr looked across the firing range, at the field gun and the two men standing next to it.

  ‘You did very well to fix things up at such short notice, Jed,’ she said to her assistant, who was standing next to her and was in the process of manoeuvring a hastily constructed dummy on to a small chair.

  Trent’s only response was to mumble something to himself.

  ‘Really well!’ Ellie Carr said. ‘My only complaint is that it would have been nice if you could have arranged it for just a little later, so we could have snatched a couple of hours sleep before we came out here. The thing about experiments, you see, is that I find I’m much better at observing them when I’m awake.’

  ‘So it’s early in the morning!’ Trent said, dismissively.

  ‘Or, more accurately speaking, it’s the crack of dawn,’ Ellie said, almost to herself.

  ‘And when else did you expect the Army to turn their artillery range into your personal playground?’ Trent asked. ‘They have got a couple of other little jobs to do, you know—like defending the country.’

  ‘Nonsense! Nobody’s tried to invade us since Napoleon,’ Ellie told him. ‘And even he got no further than Calais.’

  She stepped back, and gave the dummy a quick critical examination. It really was rather crude, she thought. The legs looked more like sausages than limbs, the head like a badly filled bag of potatoes. Still, she’d got the weight distribution about right. And it was sewn together beautifully—as it should have been, considering how many corpses she’d had to stitch up in her time.

  Trent had finally got the dummy into place, and was now tying it firmly to the chair.

  ‘He’s supposed to be sitting in a rowing boat,’ Ellie said. ‘Are you sure he’d be that far out of the water?’

  Jed Trent sighed heavily. ‘Do I look like a complete amateur to you?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘While you were stitching the dummy up, did you even notice I wasn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, I noticed you weren’t there. I thought you’d gone off for a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘A cup of tea or something!’ Trent said contemptuously. ‘What I, in fact, did was go round to the house of one of my mates and drag him out of bed.’

  ‘Why would you have done that?’

  ‘Because I’m working for a bloody perfectionist, that’s why. Thing is, this mate of mine’s just about the same size as your stiff. So I too
k him down to the river, didn’t I? And when we got there, I told him to sit in a skiff. And once he was in the skiff, I measured him. So when I put the dummy in this position, you can be sure it’s the right position,’

  ‘You’re very thorough,’ Ellie Carr said admiringly.

  ‘Thorough I might be—but I’m rapidly running out of friends,’ Trent complained.

  ‘You’ll always have me,’ Ellie told him. ‘Now I really do think it’s time I went and talked to those soldiers.’

  *

  The gunnery sergeant, and the private who was assisting him, watched with interest—and not a little admiration—as Ellie Carr covered the hundred yards between the dummy in the chair and the point at which they were standing.

  ‘Didn’t even know there were such things as women doctors, Sarge,’ the private said. ‘And I certainly never imagined that if such things did actually exist, they’d be involved in anyfink as strange as this.’

  ‘A woman’s place is in the home,’ the sergeant said firmly. ‘Always has been an’ always will be. If they start allowin’ women doctors, then what’s next? Women lawyers? Women soldiers?’

  The private chuckled. ‘Women soldiers!’ he repeated. ‘Now that’s something that will never happen.’

  Ellie Carr had drawn level with them. ‘Good morning,’ she said pleasantly. ‘You know what you’re supposed to do, don’t you?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘We were just told to bring the gun here and wait for instructions.’

  ‘You see the dummy in the chair?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Couldn’t really miss him.’

  ‘I’m glad about that,’ Ellie said.

  ‘Glad about what?’

  ‘That you couldn’t really miss him. Because I’d like you to shoot him square in the centre of his chest.’

  ‘Why?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘Because that’s what I want,’ Ellie said, her voice hardening. ‘And because your officer has agreed that’s what you’ll do.’

  ‘What’s it stuffed with, this dummy of yours?’ the sergeant asked. ‘Is it sand?’