Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘And where will you go?’

  ‘It’s probably too late for me to start over.’ Pyke shrugged. ‘But I can’t stay here and I can’t go back to England. Too many memories.’

  Pierce nodded.

  ‘There are ships leaving every day for Canada and the United States. I fancy New York City.’

  ‘Where they used to transport convicts.’ Pierce managed a smile.

  ‘Appropriate, then.’

  Pierce passed his hat from hand to hand. Pyke could see he didn’t want to be there. ‘I suppose I should go. My cab is waiting.’

  Pyke opened the door and waited for Pierce to pass through. At the last moment, Pierce turned around. ‘I’m sorry about what happened, your son …’

  Pyke nodded: there were no words. Instead he shook Pierce’s hand and then watched him disappear down the stairs.

  Much later, Pyke lay on his bed and listened to the sounds from the street. It was an end, he thought, this place, this time. But perhaps in another country he would learn to live again.

  AFTERWORD

  Thanks to the local history librarians at Merthyr Tydfil and Thurles and to Austin Crowe, owner of the Dundrum House Hotel, for giving me their time and advice and for pointing me in the right direction. I am sure they will be horrified at the liberties I have taken with their carefully arrived at notions of what happened in the 1840s but I am happy to offer a wholly fictionalised account of the past in order to get at some larger historical truths; about the famine in Ireland and the ways in which ironmasters in Wales exploited differences in order to keep their workforces divided and weak. Thanks also to the team at Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Orion, especially my editor Kirsty Dunseath, for helping to put this book together and promoting it and the rest of the Pyke novels. Particular thanks and much love to Debbie who has lived with Pyke at every moment of his journey and wielded her red pen with rigour and humour, and to Marcus and Sadie who have come into our lives and turned things upside down in the best way possible. This book is dedicated to them.

  Copyright

  A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  This ebook first published in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  Copyright © 2011 Andrew Pepper

  The right of Andrew Pepper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 0 297 85625 2

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

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