Blackstone and the Endgame (6 page)

‘Now!' the man screamed.

It was never wise to argue with someone carrying a weapon. Blackstone went to back of the van and stepped down into the road.

‘Hold out your hands,' the man ordered.

And when Blackstone did, he produced a set of keys and unlocked the handcuffs, pulled them free,and let them clatter to the ground.

‘You've got about five minutes to get away, so if I was you, I'd make the most of it,' the man said.

Blackstone took a sidestep closer to the centre of the bridge. From there, he could see the lorry that had been deliberately slewed across the road, blocking the Black Maria's passage.

And from there, too, he could also see – with mounting horror – what was happening at the front of the van.

The sergeant and the constable were no longer in the cab but were standing beside it, with their arms held in the air. And a few feet from them was another hooded figure – this one a portly man in a grey overcoat – who was pointing his pistol right at them.

‘That isn't … it can't be …' Blackstone gasped.

‘It's nobody you know,' the man who'd released him said unconvincingly, ‘and you've already used up a minute of that five minutes I told you you'd got.'

There was nothing he could do at that moment to save his fat sergeant from the position he'd got himself into, Blackstone thought, and if he didn't make a break soon, then Archie's insane – heroic – gesture would have been pointless.

‘Three and a half minutes,' the man next to him said.

A small crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding drama, but it was the two policemen and the hooded man who had their attention, and they took no notice at all of the middle-aged man in the second-hand brown suit who had started to run towards the Southwark side of the bridge.

As he passed Patterson, Blackstone tried to signal with his eyes that once he had ensured his own escape, he would do anything he could to help.

But the stout man had his eyes firmly on the constable and the sergeant, and didn't seem to notice him at all.

It was just after eight in the evening, and Archie Patterson was propping himself up against the bar in the Royal Oak when the two men sidled up and stood one each side of him.

‘What are you doing?' one of them asked.

‘What am I doing?' Patterson repeated, slurring his words. ‘I'm getting drunk.'

‘Getting drunk – or already
are
drunk?' the second man asked him.

Patterson blinked. ‘I suppose I'm
already
drunk,' he admitted. ‘Yes, I must be. Getting drunk is what you do when your world collapses around you, when all the cert … all the certainties … that you've lived your whole life by have suddenly turned to shit.'

‘That's a nice overcoat you're wearing,' the first man said. ‘How would you describe it?'

‘'S an overcoat,' Patterson replied. ‘A grey one.'

‘And have you been wearing it all day?'

‘Mos' certainly – it's brass monkey weather out there.'

The man on Patterson's left produced his warrant card. ‘We're from Special Branch,' he said.

‘Good for you,' Patterson told him.

‘Are you carrying a weapon on your person, Sergeant Patterson?' the man on the right asked.

Patterson giggled. ‘Certainly am,' he said. ‘I've got a knuckle-duster in my right pocket, a blunderbuss in my left pocket, and a sword down my trouser leg. Why do you ask?'

‘This is serious, Sergeant Patterson,' the man on the right said. ‘Do you have your pistol on you?'

‘Certainly have,' Patterson replied, patting his shoulder holster. He frowned and patted it again. ‘It 'pears I don't,' he corrected himself.

‘Then where is it?'

‘If it's … if it's not next to my left tit, it must be back at the Yard, safely locked up. Why? Where did you imagine it was? Did you think I'd thrown it in the river?'

‘That's certainly a possibility we've considered,' the man on the left said. ‘Now the next thing we need to ask you is where—'

‘Tired of answering questions,' Patterson said. ‘Getting very bored with them, if the truth be told.'

‘Just one more question,' the man on the left coaxed.

‘And then will you leave me alone?'

‘That will depend on your answer.'

Patterson nodded and nearly lost his balance.

‘All right,' he agreed.

‘Where were you at half past five this afternoon?'

Patterson blinked and then gazed blearily into the mirror behind the bar, as if he thought he would find an answer there.

‘We're waiting, Sergeant Patterson,' the man on the left said.

‘I was …' Patterson began. Then he stopped and shook his head. ‘I was … do you know, I haven't got a bleeding clue
where
I was.'

O
nce the costermonger at the outdoor market had recognized him, there had been no choice but to put some distance between himself and the New Cut, Blackstone thought – but it had been foolish to come so far, because after a week of living on the streets and eating practically nothing, he had no reserves to draw on.

He looked up and down Tooley Street, which was still shrouded in swirling fog. It was not the street that he had known only three years earlier. Back then, the pubs would have been doing a roaring trade at that time of night. There would have been all manner of customers in them, too – cabbies and costermongers, shopkeepers and prostitutes, off-duty policemen and off-duty criminals – each of them knocking back as much drink as they could afford before the landlord called time. But time was called much earlier these days – the Emergency Powers Act had seen to that – and all the pubs sat silent and lonely, their engraved windows in darkness, their doors firmly shut.

‘You can't afford to walk much further, Sam,' he muttered to himself. ‘You've got to save your strength.'

For what?
asked the voice in his head, which had once issued warnings but now seemed content merely to unceasingly mock him.
What are you saving your strength for?

‘To fight back,' Blackstone said. ‘To save Archie Patterson and prove my own innocence.'

And of the two, he thought, saving his fat sergeant was by far the most important.

‘
You're storing up trouble for both of us
,' Patterson had said to him that day in the Goldsmiths' Arms – and Patterson had been right.

Of course, it was possible that Archie wasn't in trouble at all – that nobody had made the connection between the bulky man in the grey overcoat who had sprung Blackstone – at gunpoint – from the Black Maria, and the bulky man in the grey overcoat who had been Blackstone's sergeant for nearly two decades.

It was possible – but it wasn't at all likely.

So
how
will you save Archie?
asked the malevolent voice.
Do you have a plan?

No, Blackstone admitted, he didn't have a plan. And, indeed, what plan
could
an exhausted, half-starved man come up with which would save the sergeant from the grip of the powerful Metropolitan Police?

It was the carriage, standing majestically just beyond the corner of Battle Bridge Lane, that brought him to a halt. Carriages were no longer a common sight in London – the rich had shifted their allegiance to chauffeur-driven automobiles years earlier – and even when they were spotted, it was rare to find one driven by a coachman in full livery, as this one was.

Why have you stopped?
asked the voice in Blackstone's head.

‘I'm looking at the carriage,' Blackstone replied.

No, you're not – you're looking at the coachman.

‘And why would I do that?'

Because you know that coachmen are at the whim of their masters. They can never be sure when their day's work will finally end, or even when they'll be allowed to eat.

‘That's true, but …'

So they always carry food with them, don't they? And perhaps this particular coachman can be persuaded to give a little of that food to a poor wretch who's eaten almost nothing all week.

‘I won't beg,' Blackstone said, firmly and angrily. ‘However bad things get, I won't beg.'

And then – perhaps because he was afraid the coachman might have magically read his thoughts and would look down on him with contempt as he passed by – he turned off Tooley Street and on to Battle Bridge Lane.

He was halfway between the main street and the river when he saw the shape lying in the road. He thought at first that it was just a load of old discarded sacking, but as he got closer to it, he could see that it was a man.

And not just
any
man, but a gentleman.

A toff!

The supine man was wearing an expensive-looking frock coat, and though he was bareheaded, there was a top hat – which must also belong to him – on the ground a few feet away.

For a moment, Blackstone thought of stepping around him – the man was probably drunk and so had no one to blame but himself – but then he relented and knelt down beside him.

The man groaned. ‘Where am I?'

He certainly did not smell of alcohol, Blackstone noted.

‘You're just near the river,' he said. ‘Do you remember how you got here?'

‘I was in my carriage, going along Tooley Street,' the man replied, his voice steadier now, but still confused. ‘I started to feel a little peculiar and thought a walk down to the river might clear my head. I told my coachman to wait for me, and set off down Battle Bridge Lane …'

‘That's where you are now.'

‘… and then, I suppose, I must have fainted.'

‘Do you think you can stand up?' Blackstone asked.

‘Perhaps – if you help me.'

‘Of course,' Blackstone agreed.

There'd been a time – only days earlier – when hauling the man to his feet would have been no trouble at all, but Blackstone was so weak now that even offering a little assistance took a great deal of effort.

Even when he was standing, the man held on to his rescuer for at least half a minute before finally relinquishing his grip.

‘Still feel peculiar,' he admitted, ‘but I think I'll be all right now.'

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?' Blackstone asked.

‘You might retrieve my top hat for me, if you don't mind,' the man said, smiling. ‘And then I would appreciate it if you could give me your support until I reach my carriage.'

‘It will be my pleasure,' Blackstone said, picking up the hat and offering the man his arm.

The walk back up Battle Bridge Lane put a strain on both of them, but eventually they reached Tooley Street and the carriage.

As the coachman climbed down from his box to assist his master, the gentleman turned to Blackstone.

‘Look here, my good man, I'd like to give you a little something for your trouble,' he said.

Blackstone shook his head. ‘That won't be necessary. What I've done for you, I'd have done for any man.'

‘Perhaps
you
would, but there are many people who would not,' the gentleman countered. ‘You might have robbed me as I lay there, and – God knows – you look as if you could use the money. But instead, you behaved like a Christian, and that is surely worthy of some small reward.'

‘I don't …' Blackstone began.

The man reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced a coin. It was a golden guinea.

‘Take this,' he said, holding out the coin. ‘Come on, man, you can tell from the way I'm dressed that I won't miss it, and it could do a great deal for you.'

It could indeed, Blackstone agreed silently.

‘Thank you,' he said, taking the guinea and pocketing it.

‘No, thank
you
,' the gentleman said.

An hour earlier, he had been hoping desperately for a turnip, and now he had a guinea in his pocket, Blackstone thought, as he watched the coach drive away.

And yet, though he had wanted the turnip, he had not wanted the guinea, and he wondered why that was.

You
know
why it was,
said the malevolent voice.

‘Do I?' Blackstone asked.

Of course. What have you spent most of last week thinking about?

‘Surviving.'

Just so. And now you have a guinea which will buy you decent food and a roof over your head at night. Now you have the luxury to think about the future – and you don't
want
to think about the future.

The voice was right, he thought. Just before he had found the toff, he had been thinking about the future – and it had been agony. The guinea would buy him weeks in which he would have nothing to do but contemplate what lay ahead – and that was just unbearable.

End it now, Sam,
said the voice.
Accept that you'll never be able to save Archie. Spare yourself the humiliation of the trial. You're already as good as dead – why not go all the way?

Yes, why not go all the way, Blackstone agreed.

He had always suspected that he might eventually kill himself – on two occasions he had come very close to making that suspicion a certainty – and whenever he had pictured it happening, it had always involved the river.

And how could it not have involved the river? The Thames was the beating heart of the city he loved, and what better way to make himself at one with that city than by drowning himself in the soothing waters?

He turned off Tooley Street and began what he had accepted would be his last walk down Battle Bridge Lane.

Blackstone had almost reached Battle Bridge Steps when he realized he was being followed.

‘You're slipping,' he told himself. ‘The old Sam would have noticed them long ago.'