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

by Sally Spencer

‘It’s all right for some,’ he said, under his breath.

  11

  The morgue’s resemblance to the fish market that he had so recently left was just a little too close for comfort, Blackstone told himself, as he lit up a cigarette in what he already knew would be a futile attempt to keep the stink of formaldehyde at bay. Here, too, there were cold stone slabs—and men whose job it was to gut whatever lay on them.

  The chief ‘gutter’ in this particular establishment was Dr Donaldson, and he was already bending over the corpse which had been fished out of the river. He was a huge man, in his early thirties. He had a sandy complexion, and red hairs sprouted in profusion on the backs of his extremely large hands. It was difficult to picture him ever carrying out a delicate operation, Blackstone thought, but since most of his work involved sawing through hard bone and slicing thick cartilage, he was probably ideally built for the job he now had.

  The doctor looked up, and grinned at Blackstone. ‘Another day, another cadaver,’ he said cheerily. ‘Why do you always have to bring me such gruesome cases, Sam? Is it too much to ask that, just in a while, you could give me a nice clean poisoning?’

  ‘You’d still have to cut him up, however he’d been killed,’ Blackstone pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Donaldson agreed. He looked down at the body again. ‘Nasty. Very nasty. But at least it will have been quick.’

  ‘So it was definitely the piece of metal which killed him, was it?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ the surgeon confirmed. ‘Even without cutting him open, I’m sure that the bloody thing has pierced his heart. Like I said, it will all have been over in a moment—a bolt from the blue, in a manner of speaking.’ The doctor chuckled at his own humour, then fell silent for a second. When he spoke again, it was to say, ‘We’ve been working together for quite some time now, and you’ve always found me very cooperative, haven’t you, Sam?’

  ‘Very cooperative,’ Blackstone agreed, but with a hint of caution in his voice. ‘Is there a reason you asked that?’

  ‘They’ve got a very good morgue over at University College Hospital, you know,’ the doctor said.

  ‘I’m sure they have,’ Blackstone said, mystified.

  ‘You haven’t seen it yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should. It’s an education.’

  ‘There are some parts of my education I’d be quite happy to neglect,’ Blackstone told him.

  ‘Well, it takes all sorts to make a world,’ Donaldson said, with a shrug. ‘Suppose I were to suggest to you that the autopsy be carried out at UCH, rather than here. Would you have any objections?’

  ‘None that come to mind immediately,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘But I can’t see any real need for a change of venue, either. Couldn’t you do just as good a job of it here?’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the point, you see. If the autopsy were to be at UCH, I wouldn’t be the one in charge.’

  ‘Then who would?’

  Donaldson put his hands in his trouser pockets, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I’ve got a brilliant young student who’s very interested in the science of criminal forensics,’ he said.

  ‘Criminal forensics? I didn’t even know there was such a science,’ Blackstone confessed.

  ‘There isn’t, really,’ Donaldson admitted. ‘Or, at least, there is one, but it’s still in its infancy. But this young…this student…of mine is very eager to help put it on a more rigorous and disciplined footing. Only, in order to do that, this student needs a few bodies to work on, you see.’

  ‘You keep saying, “this student”,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘Is that to hide the fact that he’s not actually a qualified doctor yet?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Donaldson said, almost scandalised. ‘I would never ask you to hand one of your stiffs over to someone who is unqualified. Dr Carr—that’s the name of this particular student of mine—is a fully-fledged physician—and a very good one, in my opinion.’

  There was still something not quite right about the conversation, Blackstone thought, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  ‘So I’m not likely to lose out by handing my corpse over to this student of yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Far from it,’ Donaldson assured him. ‘Dr Carr has far more free time than I do, and, that being so, might well uncover things which I, in my haste, might have overlooked.’

  ‘What’s in it for you?’ Blackstone asked.

  Given the doctor’s complexion, it was hard to be definite about it, but Blackstone was almost certain that he blushed.

  ‘There’s nothing in it for me,’ Donaldson said. ‘Nothing at all, save—naturally—knowing that I have, in some small way, facilitated the advancement of medical science.’

  Blackstone smiled. ‘You’re full of shit,’ he said.

  Donaldson returned his smile. ‘We all are,’ he said. ‘You’d know that yourself—if you’d cut up as many bodies as I have.’

  *

  The Minister of War had requested—and been granted—an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister. Now the two men sat facing each other across an inlaid teak coffee table in the Prime Minister’s study.

  ‘I’ve come to urge you, Prime Minister, to pay this ransom without further delay,’ the Minister of War said.

  ‘The whole Cabinet were against it,’ Lord Salisbury pointed out. ‘You saw that for yourself. And not just against it, but strongly against it. There were very few who had even half a mind to vote in favour.’

  ‘There are very few of them who have half a mind at all,’ the Minister of War said.

  ‘That’s really a bit uncalled for, don’t you think, my dear fellow?’ the Prime minister protested, though he secretly agreed with the minister’s assessment of his colleagues.

  ‘You could swing them around, if you had a mind to, Prime Minister,’ Lansdowne said.

  ‘I probably could,’ Lord Salisbury agreed. ‘But I’m not sure that I want to do that.’

  ‘The traffic in the Thames was in chaos this morning,’ Lansdowne pointed out.

  ‘But not for long,’ the Prime Minister countered. ‘There was some disruption, I’ll grant you, but it certainly wasn’t a hundred thousand pounds worth of disruption.’

  ‘But it could have been,’ the Minister of War argued strongly. ‘It so easily could have been. And who is to say what will happen the next time that this arsonist strikes?’

  ‘If there is a next time,’ the Prime Minister countered. ‘As I understand it, there were two men involved in fire-bombing the sloop, and one of them is now dead. Perhaps his partner will lose heart, and give up.’

  ‘I promise you that he won’t.’

  ‘I don’t see how you could possibly make such a promise.’

  ‘I can make it because these men are not common criminals,’ the Minister of War said.

  ‘Are they not?’ the Prime Minister asked, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘They are not ordinary criminals,’ Lansdowne said, correcting himself. ‘They’re not interested in doing damage, only in getting their money.’

  ‘And what brings you to that conclusion?’

  ‘Their targets, you blood—Their targets, Prime Minister. They were specifically selected to warn us that they are serious, but not to cause us any really major problems.’

  ‘An interesting interpretation of the facts,’ the Prime Minister said, enigmatically.

  ‘But if we continue to ignore them, they will hit us where it really hurts,’ Lansdowne ploughed on. ‘They’ll be forced to, in order to get us to react. And who knows what their next target might be? The Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham? The Government Armoury?’ Lansdowne paused to catch his breath. ‘If we lose this war in Southern Africa, Prime Minister, we will also lose office. And we may not regain it again for twenty or thirty years. We may never regain it. Think of that, Prime Minister. Do you want to go down in history as the man who destroyed your party?’

  ‘Rather that than go down in h
istory as the man who gave way to blackmail,’ the Prime Minister said sternly. ‘But I’m sure you’re worrying unnecessarily, Lansdowne. You said yourself that not too much damage has been done this time. Probably the same will be true if the arsonists strike again. You should not overestimate the powers of imagination of the criminal mind.’

  ‘And with respect, you should not underestimate it,’ the Minister for War said. ‘We are dealing with very clever and ruthless men here, and even if you refuse to accept that now, you will have no choice but to grant that I am right about them after the next attack.’

  ‘You sound almost as if you knew what the next attack—if it comes—will be,’ the Prime Minister said.

  ‘A clever man rarely has difficulty getting into the minds of other clever men,’ Lansdowne said. ‘It is only the dull man who flounders when faced with the unknown.’

  ‘And when you talk of dull men, are you talking of me?’ the Prime Minister demanded, angrily.

  ‘Of course not,’ Lansdowne said soothingly. ‘How could you ever think such a thing, Prime Minister?’

  12

  The Dutch captain was standing on the jetty—watching what was left of the Golden Tulip being laboriously pulled away by two tug boats—when the plump young man approached him.

  ‘Are you Captain van Diemen, by any chance?’ the plump man asked, almost diffidently.

  ‘Yes, I am. And what is that to you?’

  ‘I’m…er…I’m Sergeant Patterson, from Scotland Yard. I was wondering whether you could answer a few questions for me.’

  The Dutchman scowled. ‘I have already been questioned—several times,’ he said.

  Patterson took his notebook out of his pocket, and made a show of consulting it.

  ‘Yes, that’s true, you have,’ he admitted. ‘But the people you’ve talked to before have either been firemen or uniformed constables, and the detective branch likes to take its own statements, you see.’

  ‘I do not see the necessity—’ the Dutchman began.

  ‘Of course, I wouldn’t want to do it out here in the open,’ Patterson interrupted. ‘It’s far too noisy. And there’s a bit of a wind blowing up, which could making writing difficult. However, there is, by some happy chance, a pub called the Crown and Anchor just round the corner, and I thought we could go there. And since you’ll be helping the police, I can see no reason why the police, for our part, shouldn’t pay for whatever you drink while we’re talking.’

  ‘Very well, let us go to this pub of yours,’ the Dutchman said graciously.

  *

  Sitting in the lounge bar of the Crown and Anchor, Captain van Diemen could see no reason why he should feel worried by the presence of the plump man he was sharing the table with. True, Patterson claimed to be a detective sergeant—and the captain had no reason to doubt that claim—but it was still hard to take him seriously. He looked so young—so innocent—a million miles from the hardened dockyard police and customs officials the captain was used to dealing with.

  A waiter came across to the table. ‘I think I’ll just have a glass of lemonade, if you don’t mind,’ the Sergeant said.

  He didn’t even drink hard liquor, the captain thought. This was going to be a cakewalk.

  ‘My owners will be very angry that the London police have allowed their ship to be destroyed right in the heart of the city,’ van Diemen said. ‘They may even decide to sue your government.’

  Patterson looked suitably worried. ‘Our job isn’t always easy, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Neither is mine,’ van Diemen countered. ‘But my owners would not excuse any failure on my part, so I can see no reason why they should feel inclined to excuse one on yours.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Patterson said miserably.

  The waiter came across with the drinks. The captain took a healthy slug of his Dutch gin, while Patterson, despite his girth, did no more than sip girlishly at his lemonade.

  ‘It was lucky you were up on deck of the Golden Tulip when it all happened,’ the Sergeant said. ‘If you hadn’t been, the consequences might have been even more disastrous.’

  ‘Indeed they might,’ the Dutchman agreed.

  ‘Why were you on deck?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘I was having a smoke before going to bed. Didn’t any of the other policemen tell you that?’

  Patterson consulted his notebook again. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘They don’t seem to have done.’

  ‘It looks to me that there is very little organisation or discipline in the way the London police go about their investigations,’ Captain van Diemen said, almost contemptuously.

  ‘We do sometimes get into rather a muddle,’ Patterson conceded. ‘It is rather complicated being a detective, you know.’

  ‘Complicated!’ van Diemen repeated witheringly. Patterson squinted at his notes again. The man couldn’t even see straight, the captain thought.

  ‘Wasn’t it rather late for you to be still awake?’ the Sergeant asked.

  ‘Late?’

  ‘I mean, late considering that you were due to start unloading in only a few hours.’

  ‘Only the lily-livered need much sleep,’ van Diemen told him. ‘We captains are made of much stronger stuff.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Patterson agreed, looking a little shame-faced. ‘But perhaps, even so, you were a little sleepy last night, and might have dozed off for just a short time?’

  ‘I was once caught in a storm so fierce that I had to stay awake for three days, in order to save my ship from it,’ the captain said boastfully. ‘It was no problem for a man like me.’

  ‘Then you weren’t asleep last night?’

  ‘No, I most certainly was not.’

  ‘So you saw the skiffs approaching your ship?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And you recognised them for what they were? You didn’t think that they were some other kind of vessel—a barge, a tug or a small paddle steamer, for example.’

  The captain laughed scornfully. ‘You might have made such a mistake, but do you really think a man of my great experience would be unable to tell the difference?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Patterson said. ‘So what did you think?’

  ‘Think?’ van Diemen echoed.

  ‘Think,’ Patterson repeated.

  ‘I thought nothing.’

  ‘Now that is strange,’ Patterson said reflectively. ‘A “man of your great experience” must surely have been aware that, in the Port of London, skiffs are only licensed to carry passengers.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ van Diemen answered, suddenly starting to feel a little less at ease than he had earlier.

  ‘And that it was most unlikely that there would be any passengers travelling across the river at that time of night?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Yet you weren’t the least concerned when you saw the skiffs approaching your craft?’

  ‘I…er…I may have dozed off after all,’ van Diemen said. ‘Yes, I think I must have done.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Patterson said. ‘And what has led you to that conclusion, Captain?’

  ‘I saw the skiffs leave the shore, but the next thing I remember is one of the watermen hammering something into the side of my ship. So I must have been asleep between those two events, mustn’t I, Sergeant? There is no other possible explanation.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll find there is,’ Patterson said easily. ‘Do you often use this pub?’

  ‘Why should you wish to know that?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  I should never have come here—here of all places—with this detective, van Diemen thought.

  He drained his glass. ‘No, I do not think that I have ever been here before,’ he said.

  ‘Even though it’s easily the most convenient pub for you from where you’re anchored?’

  ‘There are other public houses just as convenient.’

  ‘Really?’ Patterson asked. ‘Well, I certainly can’t think of one, off-hand. And the reaso
n I thought you might be a regular, you see, is that the waiter asked me what I wanted to drink.’

  ‘So? That is what waiters do. The man is not a mind-reader.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Patterson conceded. ‘But he didn’t see any need to ask you, did he?’

  ‘I am obviously a Dutch seaman,’ van Diemen said. ‘And Dutch seamen always drink Dutch gin.’

  ‘Yes, that probably explains it,’ Patterson agreed.

  He summoned the waiter again, and when the man arrived at the table, he held up his warrant card.

  ‘What’s…what’s wrong?’ the man asked, worriedly.

  ‘A great deal,’ Patterson said severely. ‘We expect very high standards from those who we entrust with the dispensing of alcohol, and it doesn’t take much of a deviation from those standards for a pub to be declared a disorderly house and closed down, you know!’

  ‘But…but I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ll bet you don’t,’ Patterson said, giving van Diemen a knowing look which was quite unlike any expression the Dutchman had seen on his face before. ‘This gentleman, who you see sitting beside me, claims he was robbed the last time he was here.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ the waiter protested.

  ‘Is it now?’ Patterson asked, nodding his head sagely. ‘I take it you’re not going to pretend you’ve never seen this gentleman before?’

  ‘No,’ the waiter protested. ‘He was in here, all right, but he wasn’t—’

  ‘Where was he sitting?’ Patterson interrupted.

  ‘Over there,’ said the waiter, pointing to a table in the corner.

  ‘And was he alone?’

  ‘No, he had another man with him.’

  Patterson nodded again, reached into his pocket, and produced a photograph. Was this the man?’

  The waiter studied it. ‘He doesn’t look very well, does he?’ he said dubiously.

  ‘He looks dead,’ Patterson told him. ‘Which is exactly what he is. But I didn’t show you his picture so we could talk about his health. I want to know if you’ve seen him before.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Patterson nodded, put the photograph away, and produced the sketch the police artist had made. ‘How about him? Is he the man you saw drinking with my friend?’