Blackstone and the Endgame Read online

  ‘Why me?’ Blackstone asked, puzzled. ‘Couldn’t one of your lads in Special Branch do it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brigham said, the anger now clearly evident in his tone, ‘one of my highly trained officers most certainly could, and I would much rather entrust it to an officer under my command than to an inspector who has had what can be called – at best – a chequered career. But that option is regrettably not open to me. The man insists that you should be the go-between. He simply refuses to accept anyone else.’ Brigham coughed awkwardly. ‘He seems to believe that you are an honourable man and that he can trust you.’

  Blackstone’s mind sifted through the names of all the Germans he had had dealings with over the years and attempted to isolate any who might conceivably have ended up in the German navy.

  ‘What’s the man’s name?’ he asked.

  ‘He is known to us as Max.’

  ‘Max what?’

  ‘No more than that – simply Max.’

  Blackstone gasped.

  ‘So you’re prepared to hand over twenty-five thousand pounds to a man you don’t know, on the basis of the one piece of information he’s already given you?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘That is the decision that has been taken,’ Brigham said stonily. ‘Here are Max’s instructions. This afternoon, you will go to Harrods department store, where you will purchase a leather attaché case and—’

  ‘Max said that explicitly, did he?’ Blackstone asked. ‘He wants me to purchase the case?’

  ‘Yes, that is what he said.’

  ‘But why does it matter who buys the case?’

  ‘That’s of no importance,’ Brigham said airily.

  Meaning, ‘I’ve absolutely no idea why it matters,’ Blackstone translated in his head.

  ‘Has Max laid down what size or make of attaché case I should buy?’ he asked aloud.

  ‘No. He seems happy enough to leave the choice to you.’

  ‘So he insists that I buy it and that it’s bought from Harrods, but he doesn’t care what kind of attaché case it is,’ Blackstone said, to make sure he’d got it quite right.

  ‘You are allowing yourself to get bogged down in details,’ Brigham said irritably. ‘I, on the other hand, am able to focus on the bigger picture – which is perhaps why I am a superintendent and you are a mere inspector.’

  It was the little details that made up the big picture, Blackstone thought – but he said nothing.

  ‘You will take the case to the corner of Denmark Street and Cable Street, arriving at midnight on the dot,’ Brigham continued. ‘There, you will be handed the twenty-five thousand pounds, which you will put into the case. After that, you will proceed to the Western Dock, where you will meet Max.’

  ‘It’s a big place, the Western Dock,’ Blackstone said, almost whimsically. ‘Is there any particular part of it in which the meeting is supposed to take place?’

  ‘Max would not say. You are to go to the dock, and he will find you. You will hand him the money, he will give you the documents, and then you may return to the job you are best suited for – which is chasing petty criminals.’

  Well, if it had to done, then at least he could make sure it was done properly, Blackstone thought.

  ‘I would like my own man, Sergeant Patterson, on the team that’s covering my back,’ he said. ‘In fact, I shall insist on it.’

  ‘You’re in no position to insist on anything,’ Brigham told him. ‘Besides, there will be no team.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘One of the conditions that Max has laid down is that you go in alone. He has made it crystal clear that if there are any police officers within five streets of the docks, he will not make the exchange.’

  ‘So there won’t even be any coppers guarding the dock gates?’

  ‘When I said any police officers, I meant, of course, any officers who would not normally be in the area at that time,’ Brigham said, stung. ‘Max accepts the need to maintain the officers on the gates, but he has specified that the only thing they should be told is that when you appear, they are to allow you to enter the dock.’

  ‘For their own protection, they should be warned there could be trouble,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘There will be no trouble,’ Brigham said confidently. ‘We want the plans that Max has in his possession, and he wants the twenty-five thousand pounds you will be carrying. There is no reason why it shouldn’t all be as smooth as silk.’

  ‘There’s a hundred ways the thing could go wrong,’ Blackstone told him. ‘The whole idea is insane.’

  ‘Do I take it from what you’ve just said that you are refusing to obey a direct order?’ Brigham barked.

  ‘Oh no, I’ll do it,’ Blackstone replied. ‘I’ll even do it the way you want it done – but that doesn’t make it any less crazy.’

  There were many things about the Goldsmiths’ Arms to recommend it as a watering hole, but the one that Blackstone and Patterson particularly liked was its location. It stood at the corner of Lant Street and Lant Place, which was far enough from the Yard to ensure that when the two of them wished to have a serious conversation, they need have no fear of being overheard by any other coppers. And so they had become a familiar sight in the pub, and when they entered it – and they were easy to spot, since Blackstone was half a head taller than most of the other customers, and Patterson fifty per cent wider – the locals, accepting their need for privacy, would edge to other end of the bar.

  They were having a serious conversation that lunchtime, though it was Blackstone who had done most of the talking so far.

  ‘What’s got me really puzzled,’ he said, when he had finished briefing Patterson on the meeting with Brigham, ‘is why this Max should have insisted on me as the courier.’

  ‘Didn’t the superintendent mention something about Max thinking you were an honourable man who he could trust?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘That’s exactly what he said. But Max must know that since Brigham’s in charge of the operation, Brigham’s the man he needs to trust, and looked at from that perspective, it’s irrelevant who’s actually chosen to carry the money.’

  ‘You’ve got a point,’ Patterson admitted.

  ‘If there’s a trap, it’s Brigham who’ll set it. If the deal goes through as planned, it will be because Brigham has decided that’s what should happen,’ Blackstone continued. ‘You could train a dog to carry the money and pick up the plans – so why does it have to be me?’

  ‘Another good point,’ Patterson agreed.

  ‘And then there’s the fact that he insists I’m the one who buys the attaché case,’ Blackstone said. ‘Why should it matter who actually buys the bloody thing? And why, in God’s name, do I have to buy it from Harrods?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Patterson said. ‘But what I do know is that what he’s asking you to do is well above and beyond the call of duty.’

  ‘I’m not sure there is anything above and beyond—’

  ‘And in my opinion, sir, you should have turned him down flat the very moment he asked you to do it.’

  ‘Ordered me to do it,’ Blackstone corrected him. ‘But say he had merely asked – if I’d turned him down, he’d only have sent some other poor bugger in, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Patterson agreed, as if he thought he’d just won the argument. ‘He’d have sent some other poor bugger in! In other words, he wouldn’t have sent you.’

  ‘And if things went badly in the docks, would this other poor bugger be able to deal with them as well as I could?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Patterson said sarcastically. ‘You’re the great Sam Blackstone – there’s not a copper in the world could deal with things going wrong half as well as you could.’

  Blackstone grinned. ‘After all the years we’ve worked together, it’s wonderful to hear you finally acknowledge just how bloody good I am,’ he said.

  ‘For God’s sake, Sam, be serious,’ Patterson said exasperatedly. ‘Y
ou can’t keep on taking everybody else’s responsibilities on your own shoulders. No man can. I know somebody has to be on the firing line – that’s just the way things are – but it doesn’t always have to be you.’

  ‘I’ve told Brigham that I’ll do it, so there’s no more to be said,’ Blackstone said firmly.

  Patterson shook his head, which was as round as a football and as pink as a peach. ‘Then, if you insist on doing it, at least let me come along and shadow you,’ he said.

  ‘I appreciate your offer of support, but I’ll be fine on my own,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘It’s because of my size, isn’t it?’ Patterson said. ‘You don’t want to use me because I’m like a barrel of lard.’

  Blackstone took a step backwards and looked his sergeant up and down. Archie had already been a rather large young man when they’d begun working together, nearly twenty years earlier, but over that time – during which he had married a pleasantly plump wife and produced three pleasantly plump children – he had positively ballooned.

  ‘You might as well admit that’s the reason, because I can see it in your eyes,’ the sergeant told him.

  Patterson was trying to make him feel guilty, Blackstone realized – using the emotional blackmail of their friendship to persuade his boss to let him tag along.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with your size,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Barrel of lard,’ Patterson repeated.

  ‘You’re a lot nimbler on your feet than some of the men who are half your weight.’

  ‘Then why won’t you use me?’

  Because, Blackstone thought, however much I need you – and, God knows, I’ve got such a bad feeling about this that I really do need you – your plump little family needs you more.

  But aloud, he said, ‘I won’t use you because it isn’t necessary to use you. Brigham thinks it will all go like clockwork – smooth as silk was the term he actually used – and I agree with him.’

  ‘You’re storing up a lot of trouble for both of us, you know, Sam,’ Patterson said.

  ‘How can I be storing up trouble for you, when you won’t even be involved?’ Blackstone wondered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Patterson said ominously. ‘It’s not logical at all, but I can feel it in my gut that what you’re about to do will land both of us in the shit.’

  TWO

  London was a city that had conquered the night, just as it had conquered so much else that nature had thrown at it, Blackstone thought with a true Londoner’s pride. When dusk fell there, it did not plunge the city into darkness in the way that it all-but blacked out so many provincial towns. Instead, the lights came on – gas lamps in the poorer areas, the more modern electric street-lighting in the prosperous ones – and London glowed. He’d read somewhere that night-time London could be seen from space, and though he doubted that was true, he nourished the hope that when mankind finally found a way to travel beyond the planet Earth, he’d be proved wrong.

  But London did not glow that night – it hadn’t glowed since early in the war, when fears of German Zeppelin attacks had been raised – and as Blackstone made his way along Denmark Street, he was guided only by the light of a pale moon.

  The four men who were waiting for him on the corner of Denmark Street and Cable Street all had flashlights, and were huddled together like schoolboys hatching a conspiracy against an unpopular master. As Blackstone approached them, both their excitement and nervousness were tangible.

  One of the men raised his flashlight and shone it full into Blackstone’s face.

  ‘You took your time getting here,’ he said, in a voice that Blackstone recognized as belonging to Superintendent Brigham.

  So the head of the Special Branch had defied both convention and protocol, and become personally involved at the operational level, Blackstone thought, as spots of light danced before his eyes.

  But then, he supposed, it was hardly surprising that Brigham was there, because this wasn’t just any operation; it was the one that would make Brigham’s name – and he would want to ensure that no one else snatched any of the glory away from him.

  ‘I said, you took your time,’ Brigham repeated, the tension evident in his voice.

  ‘Back in your office, you said that I should be here at midnight on the dot, sir,’ Blackstone replied.

  ‘I know I did, but it must already be much later than that,’ Brigham replied bad-temperedly.

  And no sooner had he spoken the words than some distant clock began chiming twelve.

  ‘Have you got the bag?’ Brigham said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then give it to my inspector.’

  The inspector held out his hand, Blackstone handed him the attaché case he’d bought from Harrods, and while a second Special Branch officer held a flashlight over the case, a third began filling it with banknotes.

  This could all have been done much more easily in Scotland Yard, Blackstone thought, and yet Brigham had deliberately chosen a dark corner of the East End, instead.

  The man was an idiot, because only an idiot tries to draw drama from a situation which – for the safety of everyone involved – should be kept as cut and dried as possible.

  And perhaps that was why Max had chosen Brigham as the conduit for the exchange, rather than selecting the head of the secret service, someone in the Admiralty or an official in the Ministry of War.

  Perhaps he had known that only the head of the Special Branch – with his obvious liking for the dramatic – could have sold this preposterous scenario to the Treasury.

  But that still didn’t explain why he had chosen an ordinary copper to be the courier, or why he had insisted the ordinary copper buy the case.

  The transfer had been completed, and the inspector closed the case and handed it back to Blackstone.

  ‘You are now holding twenty-five thousand pounds in your hands,’ Brigham said gravely. ‘Guard it with your life.’

  It wasn’t going to work, Blackstone thought – he could feel it in his bones that it wasn’t going to work.

  But it would be wasting his breath to tell the superintendent that.

  ‘Are you armed, Inspector Blackstone?’ Brigham asked.

  ‘I have my revolver with me, yes.’

  ‘Max has made it quite clear that he doesn’t want you carrying a weapon, so I must ask you to hand it over to my inspector.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Blackstone said, as a sudden wave of anger hit him. ‘Did you have any say at all in the way this operation is to be run – or are you just prepared to jump through every hoop that Max holds up for you?’

  ‘That’s quite enough, Inspector Blackstone,’ Brigham said. ‘Max and I have reached an agreement that is acceptable to us both, and I will see that it is carried out to the letter.’

  ‘You haven’t reached an agreement at all,’ Blackstone countered. ‘Max – whoever he is – has told you what to do, and you’re bloody doing it. And if he’d told you he wanted me to paint my arse yellow, you’d probably have said that that was acceptable, too.’

  ‘I could have you charged with insubordination, and if you do not surrender your weapon immediately, I will do just that,’ Brigham said, his anger matching Blackstone’s own.

  Giving in to the inevitable, Blackstone reached into his coat, took his gun from its holster and handed it to the inspector.

  ‘This is a very simple operation, and there is no reason why you should not be back here within the half-hour,’ the superintendent said.

  ‘Unless I hit trouble,’ Blackstone pointed out.

  ‘There will be no trouble,’ Brigham told him – and though he had probably intended to make it sound as if he had complete confidence in the whole operation, the words came out more like a prayer.

  As Blackstone walked down Pennington Road, the leather attaché case in his hand, the whole area was as quiet as the grave.

  But he knew it would not stay like that for much longer. Two hours before dawn, a line of ragged and despera
te men would begin to queue up in front of the Western Dock’s big wooden gates. They were called the ‘casuals’, and they would be well aware that though they were the first in line, they would be the last to be offered whatever work was going that day, because only after the ‘ticket’ men had been placed would they get their chance. And so they would stand there, stamping their feet against the cold, wishing they could afford a cheap cup of acorn coffee from one of the temporary stalls, and praying that they would leave the docks that day with some money in their pockets, so that they would be able to pay for a roof over their heads that night.

  By the time the ticket men arrived, just as the sun was rising, the queue of casuals would stretch right along the road – almost to St Katharine’s Way – and mumbled, hopeful rumours would run up and down the queue that ships were expected and there would be work for all who wanted it.

  It was all wrong, Blackstone thought, as he got closer to the dock gates. There was dignity in labour, and no man should be forced to beg for work. And perhaps things would change. Perhaps once this war – which had already cost millions of lives – was finally over, the government would recognize the sacrifice the people had made, and treat them with respect.

  And perhaps, too, elephants would learn to fly, and best bitter would come gushing out of the spouts in public fountains.

  It was when he was a hundred yards from the gates that he began to be concerned.

  At that distance, he told himself, there should have been some indication that there were constables on duty there.

  It didn’t have to be much of an indication. A dark shape moving along the dock wall, a whisper of conversation caught on the breeze, the glow of a surreptitiously smoked cigarette, a flash of light as one of the constables checked his watch – all these things would be enough to reassure him.

  But there was nothing!

  It was not until he was almost at the gates that his growing suspicions could actually be confirmed as certainties.

  What had happened to the constables?