A Study in Murder, page 19
‘You won’t turn him, sir. He came up here and shot bull after bull but refused to pass on any technique or tips. Wouldn’t help the British kill Germans, he said.’
‘Well, that’s perfect then.’ In other circumstances he might have chortled at the irony of it all, but they were dealing with a man’s life here. A friend’s life.
‘How so, sir?’
‘Just tell me where Bloch is. I don’t want him to kill a German,’ Churchill said. ‘I want him to kill an Englishman.’
I need him, he thought with great regret, to shoot Sherlock Holmes.
THIRTY-THREE
The term headache was woefully inadequate to describe the crushing feeling Watson had in his temples. As the alcohol and goodness knew what else leaked into his bloodstream invisible fingers tightened the clamp around his cranium and his heart was replaced by a big bass drum, pounding its rhythm in his ears. His tongue felt as if it had been coated in sand and a raging thirst meant he emptied his water jug down his parched throat within a few minutes.
He moved over to the wicker basket and cocked an ear. Silence. The rats had stopped moving.
He retreated to the cot bed and lay down, trying to concentrate on something else, anything else, but his mind refused to focus. He thought he had pinned down Mrs Gregson but her features were hazy and he realized with a sense of despair he couldn’t really recall what she looked like. Holmes was moving in shadows, flitting from doorway to doorway, like a man who doesn’t want to be found. Mary was there, dear Mary Morstan, the woman whom he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, until fate cruelly snatched her away during those years when Holmes, too, was missing after the affair at the Falls with Moriarty. Holmes had been restored to him, to the world, but Mary was consigned to loving memory. Yes, at his low points he had been drawn to try a séance to contact both of them, but he was repelled by the characters involved in what he knew, in his heart, was fraudulent. He had left before it had even commenced. How he had hated Holmes for his deception about the Falls.
Was he such an unreliable friend that some kind of cryptic note, a hint that Holmes lived, was too much to ask? Had he not shown loyalty and discretion – so much discretion – over the years? And again in the Von Bork business, vanished for years, without thinking to tip him the wink. Of course he didn’t put the anger or frustration on the page in ‘The Empty House’ when he reported Holmes’s re-emergence after the Reichenbach Falls. As always, the story was about Holmes, not his own sufferings. But sometimes, he wished he could knock some compassion into Holmes’s skull, some small concern for the feelings of others. He imagined raising his walking stick and bringing it down on that great dome of a—
‘Dr Watson! Dr Watson! Wake up, sir.’
Watson’s eyes snapped open and he found himself smacking dry lips, a sound that reminded him of a hungry baby. Harry was standing over him, shaking his shoulders. The headache was still there, but the marching band had moved on. He could feel the cranial band loosening moment by moment.
‘Harry . . . sorry . . . My God, what time is it?’
‘Bedtime. I was just bringing you some cocoa and we all heard you shouting. I came in and you were thrashing about.’
‘I was having . . . having a dream?’
‘Didn’t sound like no dream. Didn’t look like no dream. It was more . . .’ His eyes widened and he leaned in, reeling back from Watson’s corrosive breath. ‘You didn’t?’ Harry looked around the room and caught sight of the empty jar. He picked it up. ‘Dr Watson, you . . . why would you do that? I thought them rats was . . .’
He went across and unlatched the lid of the basket and gently raised it. No sound came from within.
‘Dead?’ asked Watson.
‘Sleepin’ it off, more like,’ Harry laughed bitterly. ‘They are alive but blotto. I bet they have a tuppenny hangover tomorrow.’
Watson reached out for the cocoa on the floor and almost fell as the world spun.
‘Here, let me get that.’ Harry put the mug to his lips. The beverage was tepid, but all the better for it and Watson slurped greedily. ‘You are butter upon bacon, you are, Dr Watson. What did you hope to achieve with all this malarkey? See, if it was poison, you’d be dead.’
‘I’m not sure I’m not,’ Watson croaked.
‘And if it wasn’t, well, you just get a price on your head like them rats there.’
‘I don’t think you’d get a farthing for this,’ Watson said, tapping his temple and wishing he hadn’t. ‘I was wondering if it was some kind of hallucinogen, a potion to help give the illusion of talking to the dead.’ He had recently had experience of powerful drugs at Elveden in Suffolk, where they had been used to kill and control men.
‘And did it, sir?’
Watson thought about the muddled dreams and the threat of violence to Holmes. ‘Is this liquor common in the camp?’
‘Well, it comes and goes. I mean, sometimes there’s a lot, sometimes it’s scarce. But there’s those that loves it and will pay through the nose for it.’
‘Does everything in this camp have a price? My head excepted?’
Harry thought about it. ‘Mostly. Food, drink, sex—’
‘Sex? You mean there are women here?’
A thick silence settled into the room.
Watson reddened. ‘Oh, I see.’
‘Doctor, you aren’t telling me you don’t know about—’
‘Of course I know about such things. Why, I am sure you heard some base rumours regarding my relationship with Holmes that have sprung up in recent years. Idle, malicious gossip from people who could not envisage the true nature of the friendship we shared.’ He shook his head. ‘A sign of more cynical and prurient times, I feel.’
‘Nobody’d say such a thing in my earshot, because they’d know what they’d get.’ Harry balled a fist and shook it. ‘But you have to think on, Doctor, some of these men haven’t seen a Judy for a long time now. Even those that aren’t that way inclined, and there’s some of them that are a bit oopsy before they get here, they might find themselves turned by a pretty subaltern. Or maybe even a servant,’ he added quietly.
Watson tried not to look shocked. But Harry was a handsome boy. ‘Oh. I see. Well, far be it from me . . .’
‘Not me,’ Harry said firmly. ‘Just that I know some officers and servants whose relationship goes beyond simply fluffing his pillows. If you get my drift, sir.’
‘Well enough,’ said Watson curtly.
Harry stood. ‘Takes all sorts, Dr Watson. Takes all sorts. Can I get you anything else?’
‘Some water, please. And thank you, Harry. You’ve been a rock.’
‘Just like the old days. Do you still think the men at the séance deliberately killed themselves? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Not at all, Harry. But I don’t know. All I do know is, there wasn’t enough blood.’
‘What’s that?’
‘On the table, the chairs. It had been cleaned up, but the rough wood had absorbed enough to show the extent of the staining. There was simply not enough blood for three men to have died. And no sign of it beyond the confines of that immediate area. If they had severed an artery, then one would expect a spray of blood. No, it doesn’t smell right to me.’
‘But what would be the motive for murder? Here of all places?’ Harry asked softly.
‘It seems to me that this place is no different from any metropolis – there is greed, drunkenness, gluttony and, as you say, sex. Add to that the imperative to stay alive and get back home at all costs . . . it’s almost as heady a brew as that filth I recently drank.’ A wave of weariness washed over him, trailing a little nausea in its wake. ‘I need a clearer head, though, to speculate much more. Please fetch me the water and I’ll sleep it off, Harry.’
And do try not to fantasize about bashing my brains in, Watson.
But he didn’t dream about detecticide. Instead his swirling imagination was haunted by a woman who seemed to be a chimera of Mary Morstan and Georgina Gregson. One moment the former – sweet and compliant always – had the upper hand, a second later a forceful stridency took hold and he knew that Mrs Gregson has thrust herself to the fore. Whoever or whatever this creature was, Watson had performed acts with her that would cause him to blush whenever he recalled them. Never again, he swore, would he imbibe liquid of unknown provenance.
Harry came in with a cup of tea to wake him and enquire how his night had been. A little fevered, he admitted. But he felt relatively refreshed. Harry reminded him that he had a surgery after breakfast, with more than two score men wanting his treatment and advice. He asked Harry to make a running order for him and set about washing and shaving.
‘Any more thoughts on the dead men, sir?’ Harry asked as he laid out Watson’s razor.
‘Not worth sharing,’ he admitted. ‘Why’s that?’
Harry looked uneasy.
‘Come on, man, out with it,’ said Watson, accepting a towel.
‘Just that . . . I enjoyed our little chat last night and, I know I can never be what you were to Mr Holmes, but . . . it was pleasant to be treated as an equal, sir.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t mean to get above myself,’ Harry said hastily. ‘But, well, any change of routine, even if it is sad that three men lost their lives . . .’
Watson examined his face in the mirror and used a sliver of soap to try to create a layer of foam over his chin. Many men in the camp had stopped shaving altogether, but doctors, he felt, had to keep some kind of standards. ‘Well, Harry, I would welcome a sounding board. Often that was my only role with Holmes, you know. Do you remember Mrs Hudson’s brother, Alfred? About ten years younger than me. Red-headed chap.’
‘I do, sir, very well.’
‘He stood in for me with Holmes when I was detained with medical matters. Said he felt he could have been one of those cigar shop Indians for all the use he was. I told him Holmes liked to play his thought processes out loud, and that he would have been invaluable. But we must attend to the patients first, Harry. Do you have duties elsewhere this morning?’
‘Usual. Rec room. Nothing a few camp marks to the right place won’t fix.’
‘Allow me to settle that bill,’ said Watson taking the razor. ‘It would be good to have you on board.’
Harry said nothing, but his smile almost split his face. What a shame, thought Watson, as he made the first tentative strokes along his bristles, that Mrs Hudson didn’t have a red-headed brother called Alfred or anything else for that matter.
The powder-fine top layer of snow was being swirled across the camp by a keening wind. Watson tramped through the fresh deposits, enjoying the feel of his boots penetrating the crust, treading where no man had gone before. Within fifteen minutes, when Appell was called, it would be trampled into mush.
Watson used his staff to steady himself as he made his way across the open ground. The crisp air and the breeze, icy though it was, seemed to clear his head. Now the only trace of the damned alcohol was a slight fuzziness. He had been both foolish and lucky, it seemed.
‘Watch where you’re going,’ he found himself saying to the hunched figure that veered in from his left, his motor skills apparently forgotten as he barged in front of Watson. The man stumbled and fell headfirst into the snow.
‘Steady on, old man,’ Watson said as he leaned over to help him up. ‘The breakfasts here aren’t worth breaking a leg for.’ He recognized the face of the man who turned to look up at him, but couldn’t place it.
‘I’m Hulpett,’ the man whispered. ‘Captain Hulpett. I was at the séance.’
As the man gained some purchase and stood, Watson brushed some of the snow off the man’s greatcoat, trying to remember where he had seen him before.
‘Then you know what happened?’
‘Not now, later.’
Watson gave the man a good stare, taking in the thin moustache, the sunken cheeks, and the sharp blue eyes. He was also missing part of one ear, an old war wound by the look of it. ‘Later when?’
‘Chess club.’
Watson felt something thrust into his hand and he quickly pocketed the slip of paper.
‘Thank you, Major,’ said Hulpett as he dislodged the last of the snow from the skirt of his coat.
‘You watch your step, lad,’ Watson said loudly.
‘I will. Looking forward to that Holmes story.’
Watson smiled now. He had him. Hulpett. He had been the third member of the Escape Committee when Critchley had pointed them out during the walk around the camp. Link, Boxhall and Hulpett. This could be promising, he thought. I have a turncoat to match the spy they have put in with me. He looked around but none of the figures moving through the bleached landscape were paying him any attention. Head down against the strengthening wind, he continued in his quest for an early breakfast.
THIRTY-FOUR
Winston Churchill watched Clemmie speaking with the head gardener through the rain-streaked window of his study. She was discussing the spring planting already and had decided one of the hedgerows needed to be taken down. The old man was shaking his head. He didn’t like change. The gardens had been as they were for decades. Why muck about with them? Churchill gave a grunt of sympathy for the man. Clemmie would simply steamroller his objections.
He turned away and looked down at the photographs that were splayed out across his desk. There were twenty of them, clearly showing the stretch of the river where the German border bulged into the Netherlands and the folding bridge that could be used to span the Meuse.
These were expensive photographs, he thought. The flying distance from Houtem in Belgium to Venlo in the Netherlands was around 270 kilometres, he had been told by his old colleague Robert Groves at the Air Department of the Admiralty, right at the edge of the Sopwith One-and-One-Half Strutter’s range. And part of the route would be patrolled by the Germans’ lethal new D.III Albatros. Churchill, it was implied, was asking a great deal of any Royal Naval Air Service pilot who agreed to do a reconnaissance over-fly of the bridge. I need a man to try, he had told Groves, for the good of the nation. Volunteers had been found, the mission flown, a life lost when the gunner/navigator was hit. The pilot who nursed the bullet-ridden Sopwith home was unlikely to fly again. It was, he mused again, all a very high price to pay for a few photographs. He hoped it was worth it. He made a mental note to find out the dead man’s name and write personally to the family.
After a few more minutes’ studying the grainy images, he asked his secretary to get Jackie Fisher on the line. When he came through they exchanged cautious greetings and talked about the Dardanelles inquiry – Fisher had resigned from his post as First Lord of the Admiralty after the fiasco at Gallipoli – and the expected slant of its findings.
‘I have it on good authority,’ said Fisher, ‘that it’ll be more rapped knuckles than being put up against a wall at dawn.’
He didn’t sound too disappointed. There was a time when Fisher probably would have liked Churchill shot. But the acrimony had faded somewhat over the past months. Churchill made a non-committal noise at the news of potentially lenient treatment by the inquiry. He didn’t want a whitewash, just an acknowledgement that the whole enterprise might have worked and, if it had, he would now be a hero, rather than cast out into political limbo. And if Fisher had had his way with a Baltic landing? Churchill suspected that would have been more bloody and futile than the Turkish adventure and the tables could well have been turned.
‘God willing, you’ll be back in harness soon enough,’ said Fisher. The man was deeply religious and Churchill always had to rein in his tendency towards blasphemy when in conversation with him.
‘And you’d welcome that, would you?’ Churchill asked.
‘I don’t like to see talent such as yours going to waste. All you need is a firm hand on your tiller.’
Which was more than Fisher had provided, the old boy alternating from support for to opposition to the Gallipoli landings. But Churchill didn’t want to antagonize the man. ‘Thank you. I, too, hope I can be of service once more.’
‘Now what can I do for you?’ Fisher asked. ‘I can’t add to my evidence—’
‘It’s not about bloody Gallipoli,’ snapped Churchill, hoping against hope he would never have to mention the name of that cursed spot ever again. ‘It’s about Holland.’
‘What about it?’ Fisher’s voice was full of suspicion, worried that Churchill had another madcap scheme, this time involving the Low Countries. ‘It’s neutral, remember.’
‘No, not that Holland,’ said Churchill. ‘The one you have at Dunkirk.’
‘Ah, I see.’ If Fisher was surprised that Churchill knew about one of the Board of Invention and Research’s secret projects his response betrayed nothing. ‘Well, what about it?’
‘Let me start at the beginning. Do you remember the Poruce– Partington affair?’
Ernst Bloch, formerly one of the Kaiser’s finest sharpshooters, had settled into a quiet life at Camp Belmont in Kent. The POW stockade was situated in the grounds of a house being used as a recuperation hospital for British wounded. Because he wasn’t an officer Bloch had to work, but as this mainly consisted of hospital duties in the kitchen or the laundry, he had few complaints. The damaged men who came to the hospital would never be posted back to the front line. So Bloch had no compunction about assisting the work of returning them to something approaching good health.
If he were honest with himself, he was quite content. He received regular letters from home, from his father and from Hilde, his faithful sweetheart who, since their one stolen night in Brussels, had promised that, no matter what happened, she would wait for his return. Other prisoners had received letters telling them that their romance, engagement or marriage had been blown off course and had foundered on the jagged rocks of this war. But Bloch felt certain he would see Hilde again and they would have a future – and a family together.
