Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street (12 page)

And what had he found instead?

That he was dangling a few feet from the ground, fighting for breath!

Perhaps he had clawed up at the rope, in a desperate attempt to save himself, while, all the time, he was growing weaker and weaker through lack of oxygen.

Or perhaps he had decided simply – as many had done before him – that though he'd got it wrong, his death would still be just as inevitable, and merely take longer than he had anticipated.

‘Shall I cut him down, sir?' the policeman in the tree called.

‘I suppose you might as well, now you've gone to all the trouble of climbing up there,' Flynn replied. He turned to Blackstone. ‘They're good boys that I've got working for me, Inspector. Very good boys! But they wouldn't even think of taking a crap without asking my permission first.'

The policeman on the branch produced a knife and began to saw through the rope.

‘Hold on a second,' Flynn said. ‘You two – Johnson and Taylor!' he called out to a couple of young officers who were standing a few feet away from him. ‘Have you signed off duty for the night?'

The two men looked perplexed.

‘No, sir,' one of them said.

‘Ah, so you are still
on
duty, but you thought you'd leave the donkey work to me and Inspector Blackstone here, did you?'

‘Is there something that you'd like us to do, sir?' the young policeman asked.

‘Could be,' Flynn mused. ‘You see the body hanging from that tree, Officer Johnson?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And you see your man up there – Officer Polk – cutting through the rope with his knife?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘So tell me, Officer Johnson, what do you think is going to happen to it when he's finished the job?'

‘The body will fall to the ground, sir,' Johnson said.

‘Yes, it will,' Flynn agreed. ‘It will fall like a sack of flour. But it isn't a sack of flour, is it?'

‘No, sir.'

‘No, sir! It's a man! And the way I see it, even if the poor bastard's already lost most of his dignity, we should at least do all we can to try to preserve what little is left.'

‘You want us to take hold of him?' Johnson said.

‘Now you're getting the picture,' Flynn agreed.

‘So there's a soft side to your nature, after all,' Blackstone said, as he watched Johnson and Taylor step forward, and grab hold of the swinging corpse.

Flynn's stance stiffened slightly. ‘There's nothing soft about maintaining a man's dignity,' he said. ‘The Irish have been fighting for it – and dying for it – for five hundred years.'

The rope went slack, and the two officers strained against the sudden weight. ‘Shall we put him on the stretcher, sir?' Johnson asked.

‘Now that
is
a good idea you've just come up with,' Flynn said. ‘You'll go far in your chosen career, my boy.'

‘Yes, sir,' the young policeman said, clearly confused. ‘Thank you, sir.'

‘See what I mean, Inspector Blackstone?' Flynn asked in a lower voice. ‘Without me, they'd be as lost as babes in the woods.'

Johnson and Taylor laid the body on the stretcher, and then reached for the handles.

‘One more thing, Officer Johnson,' Flynn said softly.

‘Yes, sir?'

‘I couldn't help thinking – and I'm quite prepared to accept that I may be wrong on this – I couldn't help thinking that Mr Fanshawe might look a
little more
at peace if you took the bloody noose from around his neck. What do
you
think, Officer Johnson?'

‘I . . . I think we should take off the bloody noose, sir.'

‘Good lad,' Flynn said approvingly.

Johnson held the dead man's head, while Taylor tugged at the slip knot and slackened the noose enough for it to be removed.

‘And don't go throwing that bit of rope away,' Flynn said. ‘The coroner will want to see it.'

Taylor placed the noose on the dead man's chest, and then the two officers picked the stretcher up and began walking towards the edge of the woods.

‘It's not much of a cortège, Inspector Blackstone,' Flynn said, ‘but it is what we have, and I suppose, out of respect, that we'd better follow it.'

The horse-drawn police ambulance was parked, waiting, in front of the house.

‘Would it be all right to put the body inside, sir?' Taylor asked.

‘It would be an excellent idea,' Flynn told him.

Johnson and Taylor slid the stretcher into the ambulance, and once the doors were closed, the driver tugged lightly on the reins and his horse obediently clip-clopped away.

‘Are they taking him into town?' Blackstone asked.

Flynn laughed. ‘Now why would they want to go and do that?' he wondered. ‘Why let our local sawbones – who's considered good enough, by the people who live around here, to cut the legs off
living
men – get his hands on the
dead
Mr Fanshawe? Far better, I would have thought, to take him to the big city, where he can be sliced open by a real
expert
.'

The words, if written down on paper, would seem bitter, but the way Flynn delivered them, they were not, Blackstone thought.

He had still not quite got Flynn worked out. Alex Meade had said that the man was playing a
game
, yet it wasn't a game he was playing at all. It was a
role
– the role of aggrieved local policeman. But if that wasn't what he really was, then who the hell
was
he?

‘Do you think Fanshawe
was
involved in the kidnapping?' he asked – not so much because he had any doubts himself as to see what Flynn thought.

‘It does seem likely he was involved,' Flynn said. ‘A man doesn't top himself without a powerful motive – and the thought of going to the electric chair for his part in two murders would certainly have provided him with that. On the other hand . . .' he paused.

‘Yes?'

‘On the other hand, it's perfectly possible that he was totally innocent in this affair, and that what drove him to desperation was the thought of his past wrongdoings catching up with him.'

‘
What
past wrongdoings?'

‘Someone who closely resembles the description of Fanshawe has been wanted by the English police for a number of years.'

‘Go on,' Blackstone encouraged.

‘It's possible – and bear in mind it's a hayseed policeman who's telling you this – that Fanshawe's real name was Ernest Hoddle, and that he used to belong to a gang which specialized in breaking into the houses of the British aristocracy. Would I be right to call those places “stately homes”?'

‘You know you would.'

‘At any rate, one of these burglaries – must have been about twelve years ago now – went wrong. The son and heir of the noble family in question heard a noise, went to investigate, and caught the burglars in the act. He'd thoughtfully taken his pistol with him, and fired at Hoddle. Fortunately for our hero, the young man wasn't a very good shot – he was probably drunk, as, I believe, your decadent English aristocrats are
most
of the time. Hoddle received a wound which, though it must have been very painful at the time, wasn't serious, and before the young lord could fire again, one of the other burglars had the presence of mind to smash his skull in. It was never suggested that the robbers
intended
to kill this flower of English youth, but he did die, and so it was murder. Three of the gang were hanged – but the police never did get their hands on Hoddle.'

‘You said that Hoddle was slightly wounded.'

‘That's right, I did.'

‘What was the nature of the wound?'

Flynn smiled. ‘Didn't I say? I must be getting forgetful in my old age.'

‘You
still
haven't said,' Blackstone pointed out.

‘No more I have,' Flynn agreed. ‘It seems that the young buck shot off the tip of Hoddle's right index finger.'

‘Where did you get all this information from?' Blackstone asked.

‘Why, from your very own little precinct station.'

‘From my
what
?'

‘From New Scotland Yard. And I must say, Mr Blackstone, that the Yard's efficiency would put the New York Police Department to shame.'

‘You were first called to investigate this case at what time?' Blackstone demanded.

‘Can't remember, exactly.'

‘Eight o'clock this morning?'

‘Maybe a little later than that.'

‘And you're seriously asking me to believe that, since then, there's been enough time for you to cable New Scotland Yard, for New Scotland Yard to go through its records, and for another cable to be sent back to you in reply to your questions?'

‘As I said, they were very efficient.'

‘I don't believe it,' Blackstone said.

‘Now isn't that just the trouble with you English?' Flynn asked. ‘You're a nation of clerks that sees itself as a nation of heroes. You think nobody could rule the world better than you – and you couldn't be wronger. Yet when it comes to something you
are
good at – the paperwork, the crossing of the “t”s and dotting of the “i”s – you won't even take credit where credit's due.'

‘You have a way with words – I'll give you that,' Blackstone conceded. ‘But however many flowers you decorate a piece of bullshit with, it
is
still bullshit.'

‘You're not so bad with the words yourself – and I'm sure we could sustain this merry banter for hours if we wanted to,' Flynn replied. ‘Unfortunately, we're about to be denied the opportunity, because here comes your sergeant – and he looks to me like he's got a lot on his mind.'

Blackstone turned and saw that Meade was, in fact, approaching them – and that he
did
look as if he had a lot on his mind.

The sergeant drew level with the other two men. ‘The family want to see us,' he said.

‘The “family”, is it?' Flynn said. ‘The whole clan. Now you should find that a
very
interesting experience.'

‘They want to see all three of us,' Meade told him.

‘Maybe they do, Sergeant,' Flynn replied. ‘But, you see, one of the few advantages of having my investigation snatched from under me is that I don't have to jump whenever the “family” clicks its fingers.' He reached up with his right hand and tipped the brim of his hat in a casual salute. ‘I'll probably see you in the morning, gentlemen,' he concluded

And then he turned, and followed the ambulance down the drive.

TEN

F
rom the moment he entered the salon on the second floor of Ocean Heights, it was obvious to Blackstone that the furniture had recently been rearranged – and the
way
it had been rearranged said equally clearly that this was intended to be not so much a meeting as an interrogation.

George Holt was sitting with his wife, who he introduced as ‘Mrs Elizabeth Holt', on a sofa just to the left of the main window. Harold Holt was sitting with
his
wife – Mrs Virginia Holt – on an identical sofa to the right of the main window. Facing the sofas – though some distance apart from them – were the two upright chairs on which Blackstone and Meade were bidden to sit.

The room itself was very much the kind of
nouveau riche
salon that Blackstone might have expected to find – the mirrors were in the grand and ostentatious Second Empire style, and the furniture was elaborate enough to proclaim ‘handmade by master craftsmen' (which was just another way of screaming ‘very expensive').

No surprises there, then, he thought.

But what
did
surprise him – to such an extent that he considered, for some moments, the possibility that this might all be part of some elaborate practical joke – was the complete mismatch between each of the sons and his wife.

Bumptious George's wife, Elizabeth, was thin and pale. Her features in general were pinched and her mouth little more than a slit, but her eyes, in complete contrast, were big and wide, rather like those of a frightened deer.

Sensitive Harold's wife, Virginia, on the other hand, had the generous bosom of a music hall singer, eyes which seemed to offer dark erotic pleasure, and the lips of a courtesan. Even though she was sitting down, it was possible to see that she was at least three inches taller than her husband, and she exuded a strength which suggested that – should she choose to – she could easily break him in two.

Once the two detectives were seated, George cleared his throat self-importantly. ‘I am rather displeased—' he began.

‘Tell me, Sergeant Meade, are you, by any chance, one of the
Connecticut
Meades?' Virginia asked, cutting in.

‘I was certainly raised in Connecticut,' Alex Meade replied.

‘And are you any relation – however distant – to Mr Robert Meade, the brilliant attorney and ruthless politician?'

‘My father would revel in that description,' Meade said with a smile. ‘Your opinion of him coincides perfectly with his own – though, in my view, you're both rather far from the mark.'

Virginia Holt laughed. ‘How deliciously you phrase your thoughts,' she said. ‘Robert Meade's son! Well, well, well.' She paused for a moment. ‘I must admit though, Alex . . . I may call you Alex, mayn't I?'

‘Of course.'

‘I must admit that I find it extraordinary, given your background, that you are a policeman.'