Blackstone and the Great War (19 page)

‘Officers don't talk to enlisted men,' Mick pointed out.

‘Ask anyway,' Blackstone said firmly.

‘Is that it?' Mick asked, disappointedly.

‘No,' Blackstone told him. ‘The other thing I want you to do is build up a picture of what life was like in that trench in those last few hours before Fortesque was murdered.'

‘It will have been like any other night in the trenches, won't it?' Mick asked, puzzled.

‘Mostly, it will,' Blackstone agreed. ‘But there will have been things that happened that didn't ordinarily happen, and I want you to find out about
them
, because they just might be connected to the murder.'

Enlightenment dawned on Mick's face.

‘Before I met you, I thought that all coppers were good at was beating a confession out of lads like me, but you've got a real head on your shoulders,' he said, with frank admiration.

Blackstone smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Mick.'

‘I'll be back with everything you need to know in an hour,' Mick said, enthusiastically.

Too soon! Far too soon!

‘I don't want you going at it like a bull in a china shop, Mick,' Blackstone warned. ‘I want you to be a little subtler than that.'

‘Subtler?' Mick repeated. ‘How do you mean?'

‘Don't ask the lads directly if anything unusual happened,' Blackstone explained. ‘Get them talking in general terms, and if anything strikes you as not quite right, say something like, “That's odd.” Do you see what I'm getting at?'

‘I think so,' Mick said, unconvincingly.

‘The real trick to getting the right answers to important questions is to seem as if you're not actually asking any questions at all,' Blackstone amplified.

‘Oh, you mean I should be sneaky.'

‘Exactly.'

Mick grinned. ‘Well, why didn't you just say that in the first place?'

Blackstone grinned back – it was hard not to.

‘You're quite right,' he admitted. ‘That's just what I should have done.'

‘But say, even being very sneaky and very careful, I do find out something that could be important in the next hour or so, I should come to you straight away, shouldn't I?' Mick asked, bubbling over with enthusiasm again.

‘You won't discover anything important in an hour,' Blackstone said. ‘If you go about it in the right way, it could take you days before you come up with anything.'

‘But say I did,' Mick persisted.

‘There'd be no point in coming back even if you'd solved the whole mystery – because I won't be here,' Blackstone said firmly.

‘Then I'll go wherever you are, and—'

‘You won't be able to do that, because I'll be out of reach.'

Mick looked very disappointed. ‘Oh, where will you be, then?'

‘I'm off on a trip to the seaside,' Blackstone told him.

FIFTEEN

T
he band – playing loud and strident military music – could be heard long before it could be seen, and a shiver of anticipation was already running through the waiting crowd.

Archie Patterson, standing in that waiting crowd, rocked on his heels in perfect contentment.

It would have been criminal to have visited the royal town of Windsor without watching the ceremonial changing of the guard at the castle, he thought – and anyway, as a loyal subject of His Majesty the King, it was virtually almost his
duty
to grasp the opportunity when it was presented to him.

The military band appeared further down the street – tall men made even taller by the high bearskin hats they all wore, marching in perfect step, and with perfect resolution.

The American tourist who was standing next to Patterson gasped at the spectacle, and Patterson himself experienced a sudden surge of full-blown patriotic pride.

Behind the band came the New Guard, led by a captain with his sword drawn and pointing to the sky.

‘Gee, they really know how to do things over here in England,' the American woman said to her husband.

‘It's just a show, honey,' the husband growled back. ‘It doesn't actually
mean
anything.'

Patterson chuckled to himself.

The disgruntled husband sounded just like Sam Blackstone, who might have admired the discipline on display, but would have had no time for pomp and ceremony, he thought.

The New Guard entered the castle grounds, and was met by the Old Guard. The two captains approached each other, then touched left hands, which was symbolic of handing over both the keys and the responsibility for guarding the monarch.

Sam Blackstone didn't have much time for the royal family, either, Patterson reflected – which was ironic when you considered that he had once risked his own life in order to save that of the Queen.

The New Guard had taken up its position, and the Old Guard began its march back to its barracks.

Patterson turned his back on the castle, and crossed the bridge which led into Eton. The changing of the guard, as impressive as it had been, was only an appetizer, he told himself with relish – the real treat of the day was yet to come.

Ahead of him, he could see the towers and crenellations of Eton College. The college had been founded when most of the London that he knew was still countryside. Fifteen British prime ministers – and many of the young officers now serving on the Western Front – had been educated there. It had stood on the same spot for nearly six hundred years – and if someone had assured Patterson it would still be there in another thousand, he would have accepted the assurance readily.

The closer he drew to the college, the more the ‘natives' were in evidence – and a strange tribe they were! The boys were all wearing black tailcoats, waistcoats and pinstriped trousers, but some wore a black gown as well.

The wheels in Patterson's encyclopaedic mind whirred and clicked.

The ones in the gowns are King's Scholars – the brightest of the bunch, he told himself. Nicknamed
tugs
, from the Latin,
togati
– wearers of cloaks.

What else did he know?

He knew that all the older boys had one of the younger boys assigned to him as a fag – or personal servant.

He knew that when one of the senior boys – for some reason called a Library member – wanted some errand running, he simply called out ‘Boy, Up,' and every first year boy within earshot was obliged to come running.

He knew that members of Sixth Form Select were allowed to wear silver buttons on their waistcoats, and that House Captains could wear a mottled-grey waistcoat.

And though he didn't like to admit it, he was starting to see some point to Sam Blackstone's disdain for pomp and ceremony.

He grinned to himself. He loved meeting people who had an unjustifiably high opinion of themselves, he thought. They were so much fun to play with.

General Fortesque sat at his desk, deep in troubled thought. He was wondering if he had been open enough with the chubby detective from Scotland Yard, or if he should have told him more.

‘You don't
know
any more,' he said aloud. ‘You do no more than
suspect
– and even that's putting things too strongly.'

Besides, suspicion, if it was to be of any value, must have a firm foundation of expert knowledge, he argued to himself – just as it had always done in his soldiering days.

He thought back to a time – long ago – when he'd been in command of a small company of cavalry men, out on a routine reconnaissance mission in the high Hindu Kush.

Military intelligence had assured him before he set out that there were no hostiles in the area. His scouts had reported the same. But the enemy were not the only people not in evidence. There was no sign of the caravans of traders, bringing goods from British India across the mountain passes, either. And not a single villager had come to the camp he had established, attempting to sell dried fruits and ‘good clean girls' to his men. They knew something – those traders and villagers – and he needed to know what that
something
was.

The tribesmen were planning a surprise attack, he decided. It was the only possible explanation. But where would the attack come from?

He had made a detailed study of the tactics they had used in the past, and had discussed those tactics with friendly tribal leaders, and looking round him now, he fixed his attention on a ridge in the near distance.

The enemy were behind the ridge at that very moment. He could sense it. But he knew that since it was the eve of Friday, they would never think of attacking before their holy day was over.

He deployed his men under the cover of darkness, and as dawn broke on Friday, he was ready to launch his own attack. He had still not known, even an hour before the attack, whether, by the end of the morning, he would be regarded as a hero or a fool.

‘It turned out that my suspicions were right,' he told his study wall. ‘But I would never have had them if I hadn't already known something about the way the Afghans thought and acted.'

So whichever way he looked at it, suspicion without knowledge was no suspicion at all. It was mere whimsy – a fancifulness quite unsuited to a military man.

He had argued his case well, and he should have been both satisfied and calmed by the conclusion he'd reached.

And yet a nagging doubt still persisted.

Perhaps, if he'd confided his suspicions – or whimsy, or fancy – to the fat sergeant, it might have helped Sam Blackstone to find his grandson's murderer, he thought.

Perhaps, by keeping them to himself, he was sending Blackstone into battle without the covering fire he was entitled to expect.

He looked out of the window, and saw his head gardener walking around in the sort of dazed condition which he now seemed to inhabit almost permanently.

He really should pension the old man off, he thought.

Yet, was he any better himself? he wondered – suddenly remembering that there was a task he'd been meaning to complete all morning, but which had completely slipped his mind until he saw the gardener.

He reached for a piece of paper, picked up his pen and began to write.

Dear Captain Carstairs,

I must thank you for your kind words when informing me of my grandson's death. You say that he was an outstanding soldier who was an inspiration to his men, and though these are standard phrases which flow from the pen on such occasions, I think I can detect a real sincerity when you apply them to Charlie.

As you no doubt know, Charlie's body disappeared en route to England. Such things happen in wartime, and I blame no one, especially his company commander who, I am sure, treated the dear boy's remains with all due respect while they were still in his charge.

Thus, what I am about to ask of you should not be seen in any way as giving you the opportunity to discharge a debt, since there is no such debt to discharge. Rather I would like you to view it as a humble request from an old soldier who has debts of his own to pay.

The General put down his pen.

‘If all you have is suspicion without knowledge, then why the devil are you even
writing
this letter?' he asked himself angrily.

The housemaster, Edward Harrington Cardew, was in his fifties, and had the arrogant eyes and haughty expression of a man who firmly believed that the world was divided up into gentlemen and others. He did not inform his visitor that he'd been a pupil at Eton himself, but Patterson – who never started digging a hole before he was sure his spade was in perfect working order – did not need to be informed, because he already knew it as a fact.

The interview took place in Cardew's study, a room which smelled of ancient leather-bound books and was garlanded throughout with sporting trophies. The housemaster asked the detective to sit down – though in a tone which suggested he was bestowing an honour on Patterson which they both knew he was clearly not worthy of.

‘I would not usually agree to see a member of the constabulary – especially such a low-ranking one,' he said in a drawling voice, ‘but since the request for an interview came from General Fortesque – who is himself a distinguished old boy of this school – I'm prepared to grant you fifteen minutes of my time.'

Patterson settled back in his chair and rubbed his stomach. ‘Oh, I think it will take considerably longer than that,' he said, easily.

‘I beg your pardon!' Cardew exclaimed.

‘There's no need to,' Patterson replied. ‘I wanted to ask you about some of your former pupils—'

‘I know,' Cardew interrupted him. ‘Fortesque, Maude and Soames – all of them outstanding young men.'

‘And Hatfield,' Patterson said.

‘Ah, yes, and Hatfield,' Cardew agreed, with considerably less enthusiasm.

‘Isn't
he
an “outstanding young man”?' Patterson wondered.

‘Hatfield started out with certain disadvantages,' Cardew said.

‘Meaning he's not quite from the top drawer?' Patterson suggested.

‘You may phrase it in that manner if you wish. I would prefer to say that he has had to learn, by diligent effort, what came naturally to the other three. But, for all that, he was a reasonably pleasant boy and very earnest in his approach to his work – though he had a certain need for approval which I, personally, found rather irritating.'

‘What about Fortesque?' Patterson asked.

‘He was the President of Pop,' Cardew said. A thin, unfriendly smile came to his lips. ‘Need I say more?'

‘No,' Patterson replied. ‘I don't think so.'

Cardew looked distinctly disappointed, and Patterson chuckled.

‘What is so amusing?' Cardew asked.

‘I find it funny that you seem to think you can make me feel inadequate by throwing words at me that I can't possibly be expected to understand,' Patterson told him.

‘And I, for my part, find it funny that you so obviously feel the need to pretend that you
do
understand them, even though you clearly do not,' the housemaster countered.