‘Actually, he might have,’ Patterson said. ‘But even if there is a trail for me to follow, and even if – against all the odds – I manage to find him, there’s no guarantee he’ll confess.’
‘No, there are no guarantees in anything of what I said,’ Hartington agreed. ‘But what I am offering you, Sergeant Patterson, is the chance to clear your friend’s good name and improve your chances of a plea for mercy. Are you willing to grasp that chance?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Patterson said.
‘There is … er … one slight complication,’ Hartington said, and – to Patterson’s and Ellie’s amazement – he looked a little embarrassed.
‘What kind of “slight complication”?’ Ellie asked.
‘The magistrate can’t go back on the amount of bail required – I boxed him into a corner over that – but he can tinker with the other terms, and the spiteful hound has done just that.’
‘Whatever you’ve got to say, just spit it out,’ Ellie told him.
‘Sergeant Patterson must surrender himself on the thirty-first and make a fresh application for bail.’
‘He has to surrender himself on New Year’s Eve!’ Ellie exclaimed. ‘And will there even be any magistrates on duty on New Year’s Eve?’
‘Oh yes, there will be one,’ Hartington said. ‘But he’ll have a great many cases to deal with – and I’m sure Lambert Charnley will have asked the clerk to put Sergeant Patterson at the bottom of his list.’
‘So once he’s inside again, he’ll stay inside,’ Ellie said.
‘I suspect so,’ Hartington agreed.
‘In other words, Archie not only has to find a needle in haystack, but he’s got just seven days to do it?’ Ellie asked.
Hartington smiled encouragingly. ‘I have the greatest confidence in Sergeant Patterson’s detecting skills,’ he said.
It was ten fifteen when the doorbell rang, and Blackstone heard Yuri’s heavy footfalls as he made his way up the hall.
‘Now, I wonder who could possibly be visiting us at this time of night?’ Vladimir said.
Did he wonder? Or did he know exactly who it was? That was the problem with Vladimir, Blackstone thought – it was almost impossible to distinguish between when he was lying and when he was telling the truth.
There was the sound of the door bolts being drawn, followed by an urgent clattering of heels in the corridor, then the study door suddenly flew open, and a girl entered the room.
She was quite tall and quite slim. But it was her hair that immediately drew Blackstone’s attention. It was almost jet black and was not cut short – as was the fashion – but instead spilled over her shoulders and covered half her face.
She was carrying a poster in her hand, and she marched straight over to Vladimir’s desk, slammed it down hard in front of him and spoke very rapidly in Russian.
‘In case you haven’t noticed, we have a guest, Tanya, and I think it would only be courteous for us to speak in a language he can understand,’ Vladimir said in English.
‘Have you seen this, Vladimir?’ Tanya asked, switching languages with ease.
‘And I also think it would be polite of you to say hello to our guest,’ Vladimir said.
Tanya turned her head towards Blackstone very slowly, as if she had a stiff neck.
‘Good evening, Mr Blackstone,’ she said, in a flat, dull tone. Then she turned back to Vladimir, again with slowness and care.
‘You have to do something about it,’ she said.
‘Come and look at this, Sam,’ Vladimir suggested. ‘You might find it interesting.’
Blackstone walked over to the desk and looked down at the poster that Tanya had brought.
It was much cruder than the one he had seen that morning – in every sense of the word. There were only two figures in it – the tsarina and Rasputin – and both were naked. The tsarina was lying on her back, with her legs spread. Rasputin was on top of her, his spotty backside the focal point of the whole drawing.
‘It’s an insult to the monarchy, and that makes it an insult to Russia,’ Tanya said. ‘You have to do something about it.’
Vladimir shrugged. ‘What can I do?’ he wondered. ‘I could track down the artist …’
‘Artist!’ Tanya snorted. ‘You call the man who produced this abomination an artist?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Vladimir said mildly. ‘Art, as I understand it, is anything that engenders an emotional response in the viewer – and this has certainly done that with you.’
‘It’s nothing but filth!’ Tanya protested.
‘Yes, that’s just what it is,’ Vladimir agreed. ‘But it’s effective filth.’
Blackstone listened to the whole exchange with growing amazement. He was sure there was not another person in the whole of Russia – except, of course, for the royal family – who would have dared to talk to Vladimir as the girl was doing now, and yet Vladimir seemed quite happy to let her get away with it.
‘As I was saying, I could track down the artist and have him imprisoned – or even send him on the long walk from which there is no return – but some other cartoonist would only spring up to take his place,’ Vladimir said.
‘When I said you had to do something about, I was not referring to the vile creature who drew this – and you know that,’ Tanya said furiously. ‘I meant that you must do something about Rasputin.’
‘I have tried, through my agents, to bribe him to return to his family’s village in Siberia,’ Vladimir said, his tone still mild. ‘I have been most generous – in fact, I have offered him considerably more than my poor department can really afford – but he simply refuses to go.’
‘You have access to the tsarina, don’t you?’ Tanya asked.
‘I have limited access – and then only when she’s feeling in the mood to see me.’
‘Then you must go and see her, and tell her all about his scandalous behaviour.’
‘She’s already been told about it. She refuses to believe anything bad about him.’
‘She would believe you.’
‘She would not. And by trying to tell her, I would lose what little influence I have.’
‘In that case, you must have the bastard killed.’
‘I will not go against the tsar’s explicit wishes,’ Vladimir said.
‘Is that meant to be a joke?’ Tanya demanded. ‘You know yourself that you constantly go against his wishes!’
‘That isn’t quite true,’ Vladimir said firmly. ‘I do things that I suspect his majesty would disapprove of if he knew about them – but since he has not specifically instructed me not to do them, that is not the same thing at all.’
‘You’re splitting hairs,’ Tanya said.
‘Yes,’ Vladimir agreed heavily. ‘That is what a man in my position is sometimes forced to do.’
‘So you’ll stand by and let Rasputin destroy Russia?’
‘The tsar is my absolute master – I have no choice but to obey him,’ Vladimir said.
‘There are times when you make me so angry that I almost hate you,’ Tanya said, shaking her head furiously from side to side.
And as she shook her head, her hair swirled – and Blackstone saw what it was that she’d been hiding.
The ugly scar ran from the top of her right cheekbone to her jaw and was almost a quarter of an inch wide. It had puckered, angry edges and made the right side of her face look twisted and disproportionate.
A look of horror swept across the girl’s face when she realized what had happened. Her anger evaporated, and she reached up and clawed the hair back into place with all the desperation of a drowning man clutching at a straw.
‘Thank you for bringing this poster to me. You may now leave us,’ Vladimir said softly.
Tanya nodded – but very carefully.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said in a tiny voice.
And then she turned and left the room.
‘Who is she?’ Blackstone asked when she had gone.
‘She’s my best agent.’<
br />
‘But she can’t be more than seventeen or eighteen!’
‘She’s older than she looks, but her apparent youthfulness is an advantage I’ve exploited on many occasions. Besides, her age is unimportant. She comes from good stock, and she was born to do this work.’
‘Do her parents – this good stock she comes from – approve of the work she is doing?’ Blackstone asked.
‘She is a young woman, not a child,’ Vladimir replied. ‘She does not need their approval.’
‘But do they approve?’ Blackstone insisted.
‘They do not know,’ Vladimir admitted, ‘but speculating on their approval or disapproval is pointless. Tanya is doing work that needs to be done – and that is all that matters.’
‘How did she get that scar?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Was it through working for you?’
‘That is as pointless a question as the one you asked previously,’ Vladimir said.
‘Did she get that scar working for you?’ Blackstone persisted.
‘I think that I will run my trains for a little while before I go to bed,’ Vladimir said.
He flicked a number of switches in rapid succession. Several locomotives backed out of the engine sheds, and others began their journey to different parts of the apartment.
Blackstone looked on, fascinated by the intricacy of the layout, and as he watched, he noticed that two locomotives – one that emerged from the parlour and another that had been in his bedroom – were approaching each other on the same piece of track.
Soon, he thought, Vladimir would switch one of the trains on to a spur.
But then both trains passed the last point at which they could possibly be diverted.
Blackstone glanced across at Vladimir. The Russian was staring at the wall, with an intensity strong enough to burn a hole in it.
‘Look out for your trains!’ Blackstone said.
But Vladimir paid no attention.
The collision, when it came, could not have been at more than two or three miles an hour, but, on two such small objects, it had a devastating effect. The locomotives buckled and twisted through the air – dragging their carriages behind them – then crashed down on to the floor.
Now, when it was too late, Vladimir came out of his trance and looked down impassively at the wreckage.
‘What happened there?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I was distracted for a moment,’ Vladimir admitted, ‘and in my line of work, that can be fatal.’
‘And what was distracting you?’
‘I was thinking that, for the general good, it is sometimes necessary to destroy the things we love – and that there are even occasions when one of those things we must destroy is ourselves.’
‘It’s a little late at night for riddles,’ Blackstone said.
But he could tell that Vladimir was not really listening.
‘I have no desire to destroy myself unnecessarily, Sam,’ the Russian continued, ‘and that is why I have been considering just how finely I could split a hair.’
TWELVE
11th December 1916 – Julian calendar; 24th December 1916 – Gregorian calendar
It seemed to Patterson as if all the clocks in London were conspiring to remind him of how little time he had to accomplish his almost impossible task.
‘Bong!’ said the clock in his local church tower, as he left home that morning. Only six days and twenty-two hours left.
‘Bong!’ said Big Ben, as he passed the Palace of Westminster. Another hour gone, and you’re still no closer to finding Max.
And now this caretaker – this insignificant little runt in charge of the small government warehouse in Wapping – was wasting even more of his precious time by refusing to let him go inside.
‘They’re only dusty old records,’ he told the man. ‘Nobody gives a tuppenny damn about them.’
‘If nobody gives a tuppenny damn then why are you interested in them?’ the caretaker countered.
It was a fair point, Patterson agreed silently, but he couldn’t help wishing that the cantankerous bugger hadn’t been bright enough to make it.
If only he had his warrant card, he thought. A warrant card was the magic key that opened most doors.
But he didn’t have his warrant card. It had been taken from him when he was arrested – and since no one at the Yard believed that there was even the remotest possibility it would ever be given back to him, it had probably already been destroyed.
‘We wouldn’t be more than a half an hour, would we?’ Patterson said, looking for support from Ellie Carr, who had insisted on accompanying him.
‘You’ve got to have an official pink form,’ the caretaker said stubbornly. ‘You can’t get in the warehouse without an official pink form. And don’t you try offering me any money,’ he added, seeing Patterson’s hand reaching in the general direction of his wallet, ‘because that won’t work.’
‘For Gawd’s sake, mister, give us a break!’ said Ellie Carr, lapsing into the cockney that she had once spoken naturally, but now only resurrected for her own amusement.
‘Give you a break?’ the caretaker repeated.
‘We ’aven’t been entirely honest wiv you, mister,’ Ellie said. ‘Me an’ my friend here …’ She looked up at Patterson. ‘What did you say your name was, dearie?’
‘Archie,’ Patterson said.
‘Me and my friend Archie just want a bit of time alone together,’ Ellie continued. ‘And since he don’t have the money for a hotel, we’re just looking for somewhere what’s nice and dry.’
‘I didn’t realize that you were on the game,’ the caretaker said, surprised. ‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘Yeah, well, I try not to look too obvious,’ Ellie told him. ‘But you do see my problem, don’t ya?’
‘You could always go to the park,’ the caretaker suggested. ‘It’s not that far from here.’
‘Go to the park!’ Ellie repeated. ‘In this weather! It’s cold enough to freeze the tits off me – and the balls off him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Look, a girl’s got to make a livin’, ain’t she? And if you was to let us go inside, I might be willing to provide the same service for you as I’m about to provide for Arnold here.’
‘Archie,’ Patterson said.
‘Archie,’ Ellie corrected herself. ‘Same service – only, in your case, it’ll be for free.’
The caretaker licked his lips, which were cracked and covered with a white slime.
‘How long would you need?’ he asked.
‘Well, now you’re asking somefink,’ Ellie said. ‘Some of my gentlemen friends are in and out again in no time at all – you’d fink they was competing in a speed championship – but there’s others what need a lot of encouragement before they can perform, and I ravver fink –’ she lowered her voice – ‘that Albert here might be one of the second kind.’
‘Archie,’ Patterson said.
‘Anyway, what do you care how long it takes, as long as you get your share in the end?’ Ellie wondered.
The caretaker licked his lips again. ‘If I let you in, you will be careful not to mess the place up, won’t you?’ he asked.
‘We’ll treat it like it was our own home,’ Ellie promised.
‘There are times when you make me so angry that I almost hate you,’ Tanya had said to Vladimir, and that had sent him into a mood from which he had still not recovered the following morning.
In fact, he barely spoke at the breakfast table, and it was only as he was about to leave the apartment that he said, ‘By the way, you should not make any plans for tomorrow, because Tanya wants you to go with her to one of the mills on the other side of the river.’
‘She wants me to go with her?’ Blackstone said questioningly.
‘Or, if you prefer it, I have instructed her to take you with her as a bodyguard,’ Vladimir amended.
‘Why would she need a bodyguard?’
‘She will need one because, tomorrow, she will not be Tanya the government agent. In
stead, she will be Natasha the revolutionary.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Blackstone admitted.
‘This is a country that is largely indifferent to the loss of human life on a grand scale,’ Vladimir said, ‘which makes it all the stranger that it should be so unreasonably tolerant of its revolutionaries.’
‘You’re still not making sense,’ Blackstone said.
Vladimir sighed. ‘No, I don’t suppose I am,’ he admitted. ‘Listen and learn. From Russia’s viewpoint, the most dangerous revolutionary alive today is a man called Lenin. He is beyond our reach at the moment because he is living in Switzerland, but once – in 1895 – the authorities did get their hands on him. And what did they do with him? Did they lock him up and throw away the key? No! Instead, they sent him into exile in Siberia – for three years.’
‘I have to admit that doesn’t seem like a particularly harsh penalty,’ Blackstone replied.
‘It was softer than you could ever imagine,’ Vladimir said. ‘When you think of men being exiled to Siberia, do you picture them being taken there in chains and under guard?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I do.’
‘If you are a peasant, sentenced to katorga – which means hard labour – then that is what happens to you. But if you are middle class – and Lenin’s father was an inspector of schools – you are meted out much gentler treatment. Lenin was not taken to Siberia – he was told to make his own way there. And from what I’ve heard, he had a pleasant time during his exile – he even went duck shooting a few times.’
‘And what has this got to do with Tanya?’ Blackstone asked.
‘The point is that in this country we do not eliminate the revolutionary groups – we watch them. And, more importantly, we infiltrate them. But, of course, if our agents are to gather important information on the revolutionaries, they must give them information on us in return.’
‘Is the information that your agents give to the revolutionary groups genuine information?’
‘Yes – for the agents to be credible in the eyes of the revolutionaries, the information they supply must be genuine.’
Blackstone and the Endgame Page 11