The Blackstone Code – Episode 6

The story so far:    Professor Padraig O’Riordan, an expert in football cryptography at the University of Liffey (formerly Dublin Polytechnic), is visiting Preston when the curator of the National Football Museum, Jack Salter, is murdered.  Tara Farmer-Palmer (T F-P), the local constabulary’s football cryptographer, helps O’Riordan to escape from investigating officer, Chief Inspector Freddie Flintoff, in a Chieftain tank.  O’Riordan has worked out that a bizarre clue left by Salter refers to a book by Mike Blackstone and that the book contains clues to the whereabouts of the real Jules Rimet Trophy.  In order to visit ‘Blackstone expert’ Steve Field they ditch the Chieftain at Lancaster Services and call a taxi, unaware that the tank has been discovered by local coppers.  Now read on…

 

          Padraig O’Riordan, in his sideline as an author of ‘tuppenny dreadful’ novels, realised that an episodic style might lead, if he wasn’t very sure of his stuff, to losing track of the plot, no matter how slender that may be.  The taxi driver asked where O’Riordan and T F-P wanted to go, the Irishman gave him the vague instruction “Down the A6”, not knowing Steve Field’s exact address.

 

 

          Back in the police control room, DS Fuzzyduck excitedly approached Flintoff.  “Sir,” he said. “They’ve found the tank at Lancaster Service Station.”

          “Lancaster ?” replied Flintoff.  “Why Lancaster ? I thought O’Riordan would try to flee the country.  Have the service station searched.  I want them found.”

 

 

          The taxi exited at Junction 33A of the M6 and joined the A6.  The radio, which had been burbling incomprehensible messages, suddenly burst into life.  “Car 67.  Come in, car 67.”  The driver tapped the button on the side of the microphone for the radio. “Control this is six-seven here.  I can hear you loud and I can hear you clear.”

          “Erm,” hesitated the person at the taxi control room. “Can you come back to base, please ?”

          “I’ve got a fare.  You know I’ve got a fare.  I haven’t finished this job yet,” replied the driver.  “What’s the problem ?”

          “Erm, it’s, uh,” stumbled the operator with a nervous laugh. “There’s an urgent problem with you vehicle.  Can you come back in, please ?”

          T F-P leant forward and pressed something through her jacket into the driver’s midriff.  “I’ve got a gun here,” she said.  “Stay calm and no-one gets hurt.”

          O’Riordan hoped that the list of those likely to get hurt was limited to one.

          “Pull over, give me the keys and then get out,” she continued.

          The taxi driver dutifully got out of the cab and handed over the keys.  T F-P trained her attention on the driver and held out the keys to O’Riordan

 “You drive,” she said.

          “Me ?” said O’Riordan.  “But ... but... I’m from rural Ireland, where everyone owns a pony.  I’ve never learnt to drive.”

          “Very well,” said T F-P.  “I’ll have to do it.”

          They got back in the taxi and drove off, leaving the driver shaking by the road way.

          “I…erm…I,” stammered O’Riordan.  “Didn’t realise you had a gun.”

          “I don’t,” said T F-P removing a tablespoon from her jacket pocket.

          O’Riordan was glad that T F-P had taken a specialist police driving course so that she could keep control of the vehicle with only on hand on the wheel.  The writer in him knew that underdescription of a character’s appearance, as well as speeding up the story, meant that you could make things up as you went along and that anybody could easily have a Batman-style utility belt equipped for all the perils that they may encounter.

 

 

“Sir,” DS Fuzzyduck said triumphantly. “We know that O’Riordan and Farmer-Palmer got a taxi from Lancaster services.”

“Good,” said DI Flintoff.  “But where are they now ?”

“The taxi firm can’t contact the driver,” replied Fuzzyduck. “So, erm, we don’t know.”

“Well, find them, Fuzzyduck. FIND THEM !”       

 

 

         

          The hijacked taxi pulled into the gravel drive of a large Edwardian mansion.  O’Riordan and T F-P got out and pulled the old-fashioned doorbell.  A small, middle aged woman answered the door.

          “What is it that you want ?” she said in an Edinburgh accent, which was the only thing to dispel similarities with Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle. 

          “We wish to see Mr Field,” responded O’Riordan.

          “I’ll see if the master will see you.  Who shall I say is calling ?”

          “Professor O’Riordan. Padraig O’Riordan.”

          The woman shut the door behind her, leaving O’Riordan and T F-P standing in the dark in the portico.  Shortly she returned and ushered them in.

          “You’ll have had your tea,” she said.  “The master is in the library.”

          O’Riordan and T F-P entered the vast, book-lined room.  To one side sat a man in a smoking jacket, so close to a blazing open-hearth fire that, like Roald Dahl introducing Tales of the Unexpected, you expected his trousers to catch alight.

          “Ah, come in,” said the figure in a stagey manner that, O’Riordan thought, would make him an ideal character to be played in a film by one of Britain’s gay theatrical knights – or possibly even peer – giving him the chance to go right over the top.  “I was just perusing an anthology of Charlie Buchan’s Football Monthly.  What is it that you want at this time of night ?”

          “Erm, we want information,” said O’Riordan.  “About Mike Blackstone and the followers of Blackstone and the search for the real World cup.”

          “Slowly, slowly,”  said Steve Field, for it is he, as if you hadn’t guessed.  “Too many questions for an old, hobbled man to answer.”

          O’Riordan had not noticed until now the small crutch in the fireplace, looking much like Tiny Tim’s, the Dickensian character, not the Jewish American ukulele player who had a hit with Tiptoe Through The Tulips.  Just then, the maid returned.

          “Will the lady and gentleman be staying, sir ?”

“No, Agnes, they will not,” said Field.

“Very good, sir,” said the maid retreating from the room.

“That was Agnes Dea,” remarked Field.  “She has been my faithful servant and protector for many years.  I don’t know what I’d do without her.  Please take a seat and I will explain to you the rumour – and it is mere conjecture – about the true whereabouts of the real World Cup.”

“We already know that the Real FA replaced the trophy with one made by John Noakes and stole the real one back,” said T F-P.

“Ah, but that is only the half of it,” replied Field with the air of a man about to go off on one.  O’Riordan thought that such a monologue as Field was about to embark on would, while advancing the plot, make a bad screenplay as a movie would need to use it as an overdub or intercut it with flashbacks and action scenes.

“Well,” continued Field.  “There are those that say it never left the country and that it was the replica that was stolen in Brazil.  But the true followers of Blackstone believe that the trophy was taken to Mexico for the next World Cup Finals.  The pre-tournament farrago with Bobby Moore and the bracelet in Bogota was the Real FA having a dry run for stealing the trophy itself.   That is, of course, if it could not be returned to England by deeds on the playing field.  And even when that was lost, the tournament had been rigged in such a way that three of the four semi-finalists – England should have been the fourth rather than Germany – had won the trophy twice so they would keep it in perpetuity if they won it again.  It would then be simple to steal the trophy back and the Real FA would have ample time to do so.  This is hinted at by Mike Blackstone in ‘Brown Sauce’ when there is a robbery in a game he attends at Penrith with a crowd of 87; naturally he and Hugh Elwood as the two newcomers are the chief suspects.  There are those that say that the robbery and rumours that Penrith were soon to move grounds are more than mere coincidence.”

“But the World Cup wouldn’t be hidden in Penrith, would it ?” queried T F-P.

“Why not ?” said Field.  “Withnail and I is set in Penrith in the late Sixties and there are a lot of strange goings on in that !  Anyway, when Adam Crozier, a Scot – not to denigrate Miss Dea’s countrymen – was appointed as the FA’s Chief Executive and he, in turn, appointed Sven-Goran Eriksson as England coach, the Real FA had to take action to stop the whereabouts of the World Cup getting out.”

“The fire alarm business…” mumbled O’Riordan.

“Fire alarm ?!” enquired T F-P.

“Fa-rye-a A-lam,” confirmed O’Riordan.  “It’s the Irish accent.”

“It turned out that Sven knew nothing, as did his successor, the fool McLaren,” said Field.  “And Mark Palios’s body was dumped in the North Sea, theatre of breams.”

“Bream,” said T F-P.  “The plural of bream is … bream.”

“Feck,” muttered O’Riordan.

Not having heard the expression before T F-P thought that it might have been a reference to Mike Atherton, and obliquely to Atherton Collieries where, indeed, the brown sauce was off, who had ‘FEC’ scrawled on his locker as a young professional in the Lancashire dressing room.  Newspapers had tried to convince the general public that it stood for future England captain, but others said the phrase was less complimentary and the E stood for Educated.

“You mentioned the Real FA,” O’Riordan remarked.  “What does that mean exactly ?”

“There is a school of thought that the FA is a front; Graham Kelly was an accountant, Crozier a PR man, Brian Barwick is a TV executive – not men used to running football.  The people who do run football, the power behind the throne, are the Real FA, with their ancient regalia, blazers, slacks and archaic rituals…”

“Archaic rituals ?” said T F-P falteringly. “Oh dear.  Oh my.”

Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

“Whatever’s the matter ?” asked Field.

“No, it’s just ..” she continued, now sobbing.  “No, it’s too horrible.”

“What is ?” said Field . “Do tell us.”

 

 

To be continued…

Any resemblance of any of the characters to any person, living or dead, particularly Steve Field, is purely coincidental.