Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the Great War

‘Well,’ he said, ‘since Hatfield has obviously gone off to find a hole to crawl into, I suppose we’d better continue the interrogation without him.’

‘What did you do with Charlie Fortesque’s coffin once you’d stolen it from the warehouse?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Did you throw it into the sea? Or did you make a nice big bonfire out of it?’

‘Those are monstrous suggestions!’ Soames said angrily. ‘Of course we didn’t do anything like that. We buried it.’

A tear — so small that Blackstone might not even have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it — ran slowly down Soames’ right cheek.

‘We dug a grave — or, at least, Hatfield did — in some rather thick woods near Calais,’ Maude said. ‘I can tell you that, because even if you had the chance to search for it — which you won’t — you’d never find it.’

‘We couldn’t give him a headstone,’ Soames said. ‘We didn’t dare take the risk. But I said a few words over the grave and — ’ he sniffed — ‘and it was as close to a Christian burial as we could manage.’

‘That was such a touching little speech, Roger,’ Maude said. ‘Maybe later, you could write it down, and when we get back home, I’ll have it set to music for you. But in the meantime,’ he continued harshly, ‘we still have the problem of this troublesome policeman to deal with.’

‘Charlie Fortesque was a very bad President of Pop, wasn’t he, Lieutenant Maude?’ Blackstone said. ‘He didn’t hold a single Pop-Tanning all the time he was in charge.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Soames asked.

Because I got a very long telegraph from Sergeant Patterson, expertly decoded by Wally, the black sheep of the Winfield family, Blackstone thought.

‘I’m ordering you to tell me how you know all these personal details of our private lives,’ Soames raged.

‘You wouldn’t have held back on the beatings if you’d been in Fortesque’s place, would you, William?’ Blackstone asked, ignoring Soames, and speaking directly to Maude. ‘You’d have held as many of them as you thought you could get away with. And you wouldn’t have done it because you enjoy inflicting physical pain — I suspect that’s more Soames’ idea of fun — you’d have done it because you had the power to do it. And what’s the point of having power if you don’t use it?’

Maude smiled. ‘I could use my power right now — by killing you where you sit,’ he said.

‘But you won’t,’ Blackstone told him, ‘because before you can do that, you need to find out to what extent I’ll be a danger to you even when I’m dead. You need to know what evidence I’ve collected, and where it is.’

‘You have a good brain, and a strong nerve — I’ll give you that,’ Maude admitted. ‘Not that either of those will save you, of course.’

‘Of course not,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘So how do you think this whole unpleasant business started?’ Maude asked, almost conversationally.

‘It started with Charlie Fortesque,’ Blackstone said. ‘He was a gentle boy, by nature. We already know he wouldn’t organize floggings at Eton, but there is much more evidence of his gentleness than that. He made an incompetent soldier called Blenkinsop his servant, in order to save him from being bullied — even though he had probably already half-promised the job to Danvers.’

‘That shows just how little you do actually know,’ Soames said scornfully. ‘It wasn’t Charlie who decided that Danvers would not be appointed his servant — it was us. We made it quite plain to him that it simply wouldn’t do, and then we arranged for Danvers to be transferred to my platoon.’

‘Which means that at that point you still thought you could contain the damage,’ Blackstone said, unperturbed. ‘But it had quite the reverse effect, didn’t it? It only succeeded in bringing matters to a head.’

‘Yes, you’re quite right about that,’ Maude admitted. ‘It did bring matters to a head.’

‘Would it really have ruined you — have tarnished the reputation of the regiment so much — if Charlie Fortesque had lived long enough to do what he so desperately wanted to do?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Of course it would!’ Soames blustered. ‘We’d have been the laughing stock of the whole army.’

‘And there was his family’s reputation to think of, too,’ Maude added. ‘How would old General Fortesque have felt if he’d known the truth?’

‘Charlie wouldn’t have been the first officer ever to be a homosexual, you know,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘There’s a long history of it — stretching right back to Alexander the Great.’

‘ He was a foreigner!’ Soames said, with disgust.

‘It wasn’t so much what Charlie did — because you’re right, and all armies have had their share of nancy boys,’ Maude said. ‘No, the problem with Charlie was that he had a conscience about it. He wanted to come clean about his sordid little affair, resign his commission on medical grounds, and set up a little love nest with Danvers.’

‘With Danvers !’ Soames exploded. ‘With a common soldier — a peasant.’

‘Yes, you must have thought that was terribly wrong of him, Lieutenant Soames,’ Blackstone said.

‘Damn right, I did!’ Soames agreed.

‘Especially when you consider that he could have had you instead — simply by asking!’

‘You bastard!’ Soames screamed. He appealed to Maude. ‘I swear I never touched him — or any man.’

Maude smiled sadistically. ‘I’m sure that’s quite true, Roger’ he said. ‘But, let’s be honest — we both know you’ve always wanted to.’ He turned back to Blackstone. ‘Do carry on with your narrative, Inspector.’

‘You tried to persuade Fortesque to keep his secret, but he wouldn’t, because — I suspect — he really did love Danvers. So what could you do? Well, you could remove the reason for the secret — by removing Danvers.’

‘We can’t just kill him,’ Hatfield says.

‘Have you got a better plan?’ Maude counters.

‘How would we do it, William?’ asks Soames, who seems to have no qualms about the murder. ‘Could we stick a rifle barrel in his mouth, and make it look like he killed himself?’

Maude gives him one of those looks he has grown accustomed to over the years, and now more or less accepts — a look which says he has the brain of an ant, and that he’d be better leaving the thinking to someone better equipped for it.

‘And how do you propose to fake this suicide, in a trench full of witnesses?’ Maude asks. ‘Or do you perhaps plan to ask all the other Tommies to leave before we do the deed?’

‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ Soames says.

‘And besides, Charlie would never believe that his “lady friend” had killed himself — not when they were both so looking forward to their happy little life together,’ Maude continues. ‘It would be better if it looked like he’d been killed by Fritz. You could take him out on night patrol, Roger, and make sure he doesn’t come back.’

‘You want me to kill him personally?’ Soames says.

‘Would you have any objection to that?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not. But having you kill him wouldn’t solve the problem at all,’ Maude says.

‘Why not?’ Soames asks. ‘What kind of problem could there be, once he was bloody well dead?’

‘The problem is that Charlie would suspect we were behind it — just as he would suspect we were behind a suicide. And God alone knows what he might do then.’ Maude thinks for a moment. ‘No, what we need is an independent witness to Danvers’ death — a witness who could swear that you had absolutely nothing to do with it.’