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the list of crimes they were pinning on him. He put both hands on the ground, palms down, and attempted to lever himself up.
    And then his brain decided it was all too much of an effort and shut itself down.
    Blackstone had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but when he came to again, he was aware of the sound of someone approaching him from the river.
    â€˜I was supposed to meet my contact at the foot of the steps, but he was obviously alarmed by my little contretemps with your friends and has rowed away into the night,’ Vladimir said. He took a flashlight from his pocket and shone it over Blackstone’s trunk. ‘Your clothes are covered with blood, but that is hardly surprising,’ he continued. ‘You need to change out of them, or it will not take even your slow British coppers long to work out that you were involved in all this.’
    Go away,
Blackstone prayed silently.
Please just go away.
    â€˜We all have to pay for our little idiosyncrasies in the end,’ Vladimir said, ‘and while it is true, on the one hand, that I undoubtedly saved your life tonight, it could also be argued that I am indirectly the cause of the present state of your ward- robe –’ he gave a small sigh – ‘so I suppose I had better give you the money for a new outfit.’
    He had to speak now, Blackstone told himself. There was simply no choice in the matter.
    â€˜I have money,’ he croaked.
    Vladimir shrugged. ‘If you wish to cling to your tattered pride – to your pathetic sense of dignity – then that is up to you.’
    He turned away, took a few short steps towards Tooley Street, then spun around again.
    â€˜I know you,’ he said.
    â€˜You’re mistaken,’ Blackstone told him.
    â€˜I am sure I know you,’ Vladimir said, squatting down and shining his torch into Blackstone’s face. ‘Is it … could it be you, Sam?’ he gasped.
    â€˜Please go away,’ Blackstone said weakly. ‘You’re endangering my investigation.’
    â€˜Your investigation?’ Vladimir repeated, disbelievingly.
    â€˜I’m in disguise.’
    Vladimir shook his head slowly. ‘Of course you are,’ he agreed.
    He stripped off his cloak and held his hand out to Blackstone. ‘Let me help you to your feet,’ he suggested.

SIX
    T he Hansom cabs which were lined up at the rank on Tooley Street had a defeated air about them that was detectable even from a distance. It had not always been thus – when Blackstone had first started working at New Scotland Yard, the Hansoms had been undisputed kings of the streets, and the clip-clop sound of their horses’ hooves had seemed as much a part of London life as the yells of the newspaper vendors.
    But their glory days were over, and the petrol-driven ‘taxis’ – so called because they had taximeters which measured the mileage – had been eating away at their business for years. Now, there were only a couple of hundred Hansoms left in the whole of London, and even though they were cheaper than the taxis – six pence a mile in the Hansoms, eight pence a mile in the taxis – the cabmen were finding it harder and harder to make a decent living.
    â€˜They’re like me,’ Blackstone thought, with a bitter whimsy born of hunger and exhaustion. ‘They’re desperate to keep on going – but they’re doomed.’
    Vladimir helped Blackstone into the Hansom at the front of line, then looked up at the driver, who was sitting on his box behind the cab.
    â€˜The East India Dock Road, cabbie,’ he said. ‘I’ll bang my stick on the roof when I want you to stop.’
    â€˜The East India Dock Road,’ Blackstone repeated softly to himself. ‘Little Russia.’
    He knew it well. It was home to countless Russian revolutionaries and members of the tsarist court who had fallen out of favour. Former peasants from the Ukraine lived