Blackstone and the Great War (11 page)

B
lackstone sat at the table in his billet, deep in thought, and occasionally sipping from the bottle of French beer – the only beer available in the NCOs' mess – which he held in his hand.

He had never investigated a case quite like this one before, he mused. And what made it so unique was that he was almost certain he knew who the murderer was – or, at least, that he could pin it down to one of three possible suspects – but he had absolutely
no
idea of what the motive could possibly be.

He had almost completely dismissed the idea that Fortesque had been killed to prevent him revealing the details of a racket they had all been involved in, because that simply did not square with the characters of the three young men he had talked to at the cricket match.

For openers, Hatfield was too earnest to become involved in anything shady, and Soames was too stupid. As for Maude, it would be beneath his dignity – and his intellectual pride – to do anything which could as easily be done by a
common
man. And then there was Fortesque – the fourth member of the group – who, Blackstone hoped, had inherited at least a little of his grandfather's integrity.

Besides, it was hard to think of any kind of racket they could become involved with in the bleak, muddy trenches.

A gambling debt, then, he asked himself, taking a drag on a French cigarette which, to his taste, was only slightly better than dried camel dung.

It was true that many officers had been destroyed by gambling, but gambling was, by its very nature, a solitary activity, and Blenkinsop had distinctly heard one of the lieutenants say that if Fortesque came clean, it would ruin
them all
.

A woman?

Back in England, perhaps, the love of a woman might lead to a crime of passion. But there were no women within a hundred miles who these young men might feel strongly about. And even if they
did
visit fancy whores in some of the better brothels in Paris – women covered in perfume and silk, according to Blenkinsop – no man kills his friend over a whore.

The stumbling block, from whatever angle he examined the problem, was always the same three little words –
ruin them all
.

This was one investigation that he could not handle alone, he decided – and the help he needed would have to come from both sides of the Channel.

England was no problem.

There, he could rely on Dr Ellie Carr, the brilliant forensic scientist who was his sometime-lover. She had helped him find the solution to seemingly unsolvable crimes before, and if anyone could pluck a vital clue from the dead body of Lieutenant Charles Fortesque, it was Ellie.

There, he could draw on the strange and idiosyncratic talents of Detective Sergeant Archie Patterson – a man with a huge attic of a brain, crammed full of information which others would long ago have discarded, but he had carefully stored in case, one day, it just might come in useful.

Getting any help in France was a completely different story. In France, he was hemmed in from all sides by invisible walls – walls which had been erected by the officers who would
not
help him and the enlisted men who didn't dare to – and try as he might, he could think of no way of breaking those walls down.

The knock on the door took him by surprise, and the surprise deepened when the door swung open and he saw who his visitor was.

‘Good afternoon, Captain Carstairs,' he said. ‘I wasn't expecting you, but now you're here, do please take a seat.'

Carstairs sat down in the chair opposite him – the chair from which Privates Blenkinsop and Hicks had so recently told their tales.

‘I'll come straight to the point,' he said. ‘I'm sorry to inform you that I've had complaints about your recent conduct from some of my young officers.'

This was a Captain Carstairs he'd not seen before, Blackstone thought.

This new Carstairs was much softer spoken, and even sounded a little apologetic. And his face mirrored his voice – the expression on it one of a neighbour who feels he must complain about the noise, but doesn't really want to cause a fuss. But it was all a disguise, because underneath the bland reasonableness, Blackstone could sense a bubbling rage.

‘Can I offer you a beer?' the policeman asked his guest, playing the same game. ‘I'm afraid I can't offer you a glass – I wasn't issued with any – but if you wouldn't mind drinking out of the bottle  . . .'

‘You did hear what I just said, didn't you?' Carstairs asked, the disguise slipping a little.

‘Yes, you said you've had complaints about me from some of your officers. But was that what you really meant?'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Didn't you really mean that you've had complaints from
one
of your young officers – Lieutenant Soames?'

Because it
had
to be Soames, didn't it, Blackstone thought.

Lieutenant Maude would never have complained, because that would have been as good as admitting that he'd let a common man like Blackstone rattle him. And – for the moment at least – that was an admission he was not prepared to make, even to himself.

As for Hatfield, he would have been too frightened about rocking the boat to have complained without first getting Maude's permission.

‘Is it only Lieutenant Soames you have a low opinion of – or do you feel contempt for all my young officers, Inspector?' Carstairs asked, with what seemed like genuine curiosity.

‘I don't hold them in contempt,' Blackstone said. ‘I may not like them very much – though I suspect I
might
have liked Charlie Fortesque if I'd ever met him – but I accept that that's not entirely their fault. They can't help having been brought up to privilege, any more than I could have helped being brought up in an orphanage. And I
do
admire their obvious courage.'

‘Roger Soames has courage – and to spare,' Carstairs said.

‘No, he doesn't,' Blackstone contradicted him. ‘The others show their courage – as most men do – in the way they fight to control their own fear. Lieutenant Soames, on the other hand, has neither the intelligence nor the imagination to even know what fear is.'

‘Do you suspect him of killing Fortesque, Mr Blackstone?' Carstairs asked bluntly.

‘Do you seriously expect me to answer that question, Captain Carstairs?' Blackstone countered.

‘No, I suppose not,' Carstairs replied, ‘although your evasion answers it well enough for me. But you're wrong. Soames could never have done it.'

‘Of course he couldn't – because he's an
officer
!'

‘I'm prepared to concede that the murderer could be an officer,' Carstairs said.

‘You don't believe that for a second,' Blackstone told him.

‘No, I don't
believe
it, but suppose that, for the sake of putting forward an argument, I was willing to concede it as a
possibility
,' Carstairs said. ‘Would
you
then be willing to listen to that argument?'

Blackstone shrugged. ‘Why not?'

‘If an officer did, in fact, kill Fortesque, then I am sure that officer would not have been Soames, because, despite your opinion of him, I know him to be both courageous and thoroughly decent.'

‘Those are just words,' Blackstone said.

‘Then let me give you a concrete example of what I'm talking about,' Carstairs said. ‘The night before young Fortesque was killed, Roger Soames led a patrol out into No Man's Land—'

‘Why would he have led out a patrol
at night
?' Blackstone wondered. ‘What would be the point of that? What could it possibly achieve?'

‘Isn't it obvious?'

‘Not to me.'

‘It is a matter of regimental pride that during the hours of darkness, it is we – and not Fritz – who hold the area.'

‘Was that the only reason he was there?' Blackstone asked incredulously. ‘Was there no tactical advantage to it?'

‘There could have been a tactical advantage,' Carstairs said, as if that were a minor point, barely worth consideration. ‘It was always possible, I suppose, that the patrol might have got close enough to the German trenches to hear something useful. That has happened in the past. But as I said, the main objective of the exercise was to have control of the area.'

‘That's insane,' Blackstone said.

Carstairs looked disapproving. ‘I would have thought, as an ex-soldier yourself, that you might have had at least some sense of the honour of your regiment,' he said.

‘I do,' Blackstone replied. ‘I just don't see how crawling around in the dirt is supposed to enhance it.'

Carstairs shook his head again, as if he had reached the conclusion that Blackstone was a hopeless case, and would never truly grasp what the concept of honour meant.

‘At any rate – and for whatever reason – the patrol was out in No Man's Land when Fritz spotted it, and opened fire,' he continued. ‘One of the two privates with Soames was killed instantly, and the other was wounded in the shoulder. The wounded private was too weak to move under his own steam, and if Soames had decided to leave him to his fate, no one would have blamed him. But Roger didn't do that. While still under heavy enemy fire, he managed to drag the private back to our trenches.'

‘And that's how the honour of the regiment is served, is it?' Blackstone asked. ‘One man was killed, and another was wounded – and all for
nothing
!'

Carstairs frowned. ‘I'm afraid you're quite missing the point of what I'm telling you.'

‘So what
is
the point?' Blackstone wondered.

‘That when he found himself under fire, Lieutenant Soames behaved courageously. And that is not even the end of the story. Once he was back in the trenches – and despite having undergone an experience which would have, at least temporarily, shattered many men – Soames resumed his normal duties. In fact, he was the one who discovered Lieutenant Fortesque's body.'

The last time Carstairs had discussed this matter, he had talked in terms of how
we
found the body.

But there hadn't been any ‘we' at all – it had been bloody Lieutenant Roger Soames.

‘Why didn't you tell me before that it was Soames who discovered him?' Blackstone demanded.

‘I didn't see the need,' Carstairs replied. ‘Does it actually matter who first came across him?'

‘Yes,' Blackstone said, ‘it bloody well does!'

‘You're completely missing the point again,' Carstairs said. ‘By insisting on dwelling on minor details, you're failing to see the wider picture.'

‘Then, by all means, paint the wider picture for me,' Blackstone told him.

‘It was just before dawn when Soames discovered Fortesque's body, and dawn – as you have recently learned – is one of the times when we are most likely to be attacked by the enemy. When Roger Soames emerged from the dugout – having just seen his best friend's battered corpse – Fortesque's sergeant already had the platoon at stand-to. So tell me, Inspector Blackstone, what would you have done in that situation?'

The question caught Blackstone off-guard.

‘I don't know,' he admitted.

‘Exactly!' Carstairs replied, with a hint of triumph in his voice. ‘You don't know now – and you wouldn't have known then. But Soames knew! He understood, you see, that the last thing that the enlisted men needed to be told at that critical moment was that their officer had been murdered. So Soames
didn't
tell them. Instead, he took over Fortesque's duties, and it was only when the men had been stood down again that he reported what he had discovered. Have you finally grasped the point, Inspector Blackstone? Soames found his best friend – someone he went to school with – murdered, but he still managed to put his duty above personal considerations.'

‘That's certainly one way of looking at it,' Blackstone said.

‘If there is another, I would dearly like to hear it,' Carstairs told him.

‘No, you wouldn't,' Blackstone said.

‘In fact, I insist on hearing it,' Carstairs said forcefully.

‘All right,' Blackstone agreed. ‘Soames goes to Fortesque's dugout, and, for reasons we don't yet understand, kills him.'

‘Were it not for the fact that you are questioning the integrity of one of my officers, I would find that suggestion almost comical,' Carstairs said.

‘If he reports the death immediately, it will be obvious to everyone that Fortesque has just died,' Blackstone continued, ignoring the comment. ‘On the other hand, if he can postpone it for an hour or so, it will be much more difficult to calculate the time of death.'

Carstairs stood up.

‘I could have had you brought to me by the redcaps, but instead I came to see you,' he said.

‘That's true,' Blackstone agreed.

‘I did it that way so we could meet on your own territory, where you wouldn't feel quite so threatened. I thought that here, you would see reason. But you're not interested in seeing reason, are you?' Carstairs asked, his voice flooded with both anger and disappointment. ‘You're so eaten up with bitter prejudice that the only thing you care about is bringing down one of your betters – a finer man than you could ever hope to be.'

‘If Soames didn't kill Fortesque, then he's safe enough,' Blackstone said. ‘If he
did
kill him, then I won't rest until he's swinging from the end of a rope.'

‘From this moment onwards, you will not talk to any of my officers without my express permission – and then only in my presence,' Carstairs said firmly. ‘If you disobey this order, I will ask Captain Huxton to have you placed under arrest and escorted back to England by the redcaps.'

‘The War Office will overrule you,' Blackstone pointed out.