‘They shoot you for stealing government property,’ he says.
‘It’s not government property we’re after,’ the sharp-featured one tells him. ‘The only thing we’re interested in is the coffin — and that belongs to the family of the dead man.’
It’s wrong — Hoskins knows it’s wrong — but when the sharp-faced one starts counting out the big white banknotes on the table, he feels himself weakening.
With a hundred pounds, he could pay off all his gambling debts and make a fresh start in life, he tells himself.
‘There’s a sentry outside the warehouse,’ he says, in a desperate attempt to save himself from making a big mistake.
The sharp-faced one smiles. ‘You’ve got your uniform in the vehicle, haven’t you?’ he asks the tall nervous one.
‘Yes, but. .’ the tall nervous one replies.
‘The sentry shouldn’t be much of a problem,’ the sharp-featured one tells Hoskins.
‘And when he said that, I thought he meant they could get in without hurting you,’ Hoskins told Baker.
‘And how did you think they’d manage that?’ Baker asked angrily. ‘By offering me a bribe, too?’
‘Well, yes. They seemed to have plenty of money on them, and-’
‘Not everybody’s like you, you dirty little scumbag,’ Baker growled. ‘Some of us have a sense of honour and decency that can’t be bought.’
A minute later, the keys and the money have been exchanged, and the deal is done.
They’ll return the keys in half an hour — maybe even less than that — the sharp-faced one promises, and nobody will be any the wiser.
Hoskins watches them leave the bar, knowing that — even now — he could probably call it off if he wanted to. But he needs to pay his gambling debts, and maybe, once he has paid them and his credit is good again, he’ll have one last flutter for old-times’ sake.
‘They never said they were going to steal the coffin, you see, only that they were interested in it,’ Hoskins whined.
What the hell was in the coffin, Blackstone wondered.
It couldn’t have been anything small, or they’d simply have removed it, and left the coffin where it was.
‘You say they came in a vehicle?’ he demanded.
‘That’s right. The tall thin one said that was where he’d left his uniform.’
‘You’re sure that he said a vehicle — not a motor car?’
‘Yes.’
It would be a lorry, then, Blackstone thought.
‘How heavy was the coffin?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t weigh it,’ the clerk replied. And then, seeing Baker glowering at him, he quickly added, ‘But it must have been quite heavy, ’cos it took four blokes to carry it in.’
‘And you didn’t think it was just a little odd that a body should have weighed so much?’
‘Maybe he was a big bloke. And anyway, the ice would have weighed quite a lot, wouldn’t it?’
Yes, it would, Blackstone thought. If there had been ice in the box. If there had been a body in the box.
What else would be heavy enough to need four men to carry it? It had to be something that would make three young men from privileged backgrounds risk everything they had to steal it.
Gold! Blackstone thought suddenly.
Gold was heavy.
Gold had such a magic attached to it that, throughout history, fabulously wealthy despots had gambled their whole empires on the chance of acquiring more of it.
Gold was portable wealth which, in times of war, was often moved around — and often went missing.
Yes, it was perfectly possible that the young officers — even Lieutenant Fortesque — had been seduced by the thought of gold.
But it was still only a possibility, Blackstone thought, reining in his rampant speculation — one possibility of many.
‘How much did the three men you met in the bar really pay you?’ he asked Hoskins.
‘I told you,’ the clerk replied shiftily.
‘Then tell me again.’
‘They bought me a couple of drinks.’
Blackstone mimed raising a rifle, pointed the imaginary rifle at Hoskins, and said ‘Bang!’
‘They paid me a hundred quid,’ Corporal Hoskins muttered, looking down at the floor.
That was a lot of money, even for wealthy young men like the three musketeers, Blackstone thought. Whatever was in the coffin, they must have wanted it very badly indeed.
‘And where’s the money now?’ he asked.
‘Gone,’ Hoskins told him. ‘I. . I got into a game of cards, and I was very unlucky.’
Corporal Baker threw the punch with a speed which impressed even a veteran street fighter like Blackstone. And it was not only fast, it was well-aimed, catching Hoskins squarely in the middle of his face.
The force of the punch lifted the clerk off the ground for a second, then he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Blackstone, looking on, said nothing.
Hoskins gently felt his injured face, and winced.
‘You’ve broken my nose,’ he sobbed.
‘Good,’ Baker replied. ‘So maybe the next time you’re entrusted with the care of the dead, you’ll show them a little more respect.’
A fair point, Blackstone thought, and maybe next time Hoskins would do just that — but it was by no means certain that he had been entrusted with the care of the dead this time.
EIGHTEEN
Returning to the front line was, if anything, even slower and more frustrating than the journey to Calais had been, and it was late afternoon — more than twenty-four hours after he had met Baker in front of the statue of the Six Burghers — when Blackstone finally found himself back in St Denis.
He was as exhausted as he could ever remember being, and the prospect of going straight to his billet and getting his head down was almost irresistible. But resist it he must, he told himself, squaring his shoulders. There were too many questions still unanswered — too many opportunities still available to the three musketeers that would allow them to wriggle off his hook — for him to even think about sleeping. And so, with a heavy sigh, he turned his back on the village and began to walk towards the chateau which it shared its name with.
If the size of the stable block in the grounds of the Chateau St Denis was anything to go by, then the count who had ordered its construction must have been a real enthusiast of equine pastimes, Blackstone mused.
And it was not just large, it was also highly elaborate, with gargoyles and crenellations aplenty. It was almost, in fact, a small chateau in its own right, and it must have cast a long shadow over the hovels of those peasants whose back-breaking work had financed it.
Blackstone wondered what had eventually happened to the extravagant, horse-loving count. The date set in the brickwork of the stable — 1777 — made it more than likely that he had ended his life in the Place de la Revolution in Paris — his body knelt before the guillotine, and his head in a basket below, looking up at it. And if that was what had actually happened, then he really had no one to blame but himself.
There were no horses in the stables now. The British Army had taken over the whole estate, assigning the chateau itself to those high-ranking officers who could not reasonably be expected to endure the grubby conditions of trench life, and converting the stable block into a garage.
And a busy garage this was, Blackstone saw. All around him, corporal-mechanics were hard at work — tinkering with the engine of a militarized Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, welding new steel plates on to the side of a Lanchester armoured car, changing the tyres on a supply lorry. .