The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Good.’ Mayne glanced at Wells and turned to Pierce: ‘I take it you’ve now had a chance to visit St Giles for yourself.’

  Pierce nodded. ‘I’m pleased to report that the crowds have diminished and that my men have secured the premises.’ Uncrossing his legs, he glanced across at Pyke and added, ‘In fact, I believe I’ve come across some information which may be of use to the investigation.’

  ‘Go on, Benedict.’

  ‘One of the victims, the pawnbroker, Cullen, was threatened only the other week by a couple of brutes with Munster brogues.’

  Pyke felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. ‘You must have talked to the wife.’ He paused, trying to gather his wits. ‘But it’s not your investigation.’

  ‘I was just trying to apprise myself of the situation.’ Pierce looked around the room and realised that this was new information. ‘And it’s lucky I did because it looks like Inspector Pyke has omitted to share this piece of news.’

  ‘A troublesome oversight, indeed, especially in the light of Walter’s suspicions about the Irishmen who were seen firing their pistols.’ Mayne stared at Pyke and shook his head.

  Pierce asked Wells to elaborate, and when Wells had finished Pierce nodded then turned to Pyke. ‘Then it seems we have our men already.’

  ‘Except Pyke doesn’t seem to concur with this view,’ Mayne said.

  Pyke did his best to hide his anger but the sudden rush of blood to his neck must have given him away.

  ‘No? Already trying to do things your own way, Pyke?’ Pierce taunted him.

  Not for the first time it struck Pyke what an outsider he was in their company. Ostensibly, he dressed as they dressed and spoke as they spoke, but whereas Mayne and Wells had come from upstanding, landed families and Pierce had bought his way into the right clubs and associations, Pyke had grown up in the rookery and would never be accepted as their equal. Most of the time, Pyke was unconcerned by their efforts to disparage and exclude him, and the idea of ever wanting to join their clubs appalled him, but every now and again their high-handed manner rankled him. If he was honest, Pyke was most angered by the idea that someone in the Branch might be passing information back to Pierce. For how else would Pierce have known so quickly about the Irishmen who had been to Cullen’s shop? Pierce had been the head of the Detective Branch before him and still had contacts, perhaps even friends, among the detectives and the clerks. Pyke had been told that Eddie Lockhart had been Pierce’s favourite.

  ‘I’ll ask you again, Sir Richard,’ Pyke said. ‘Is this my investigation?’

  Mayne gave Pyke a cool stare and reiterated the importance of co-operation between divisions.

  ‘I asked a question, sir, and I’d appreciate an answer. Is this my investigation?’

  ‘Yes, for land’s sake, I told you it was…’

  Pyke stood up and straightened his frock-coat. ‘Then until I’m told differently, I’ll run it as I see fit.’ He didn’t take another breath until he was out of the room, and he waited until he was halfway along the corridor before he punched the wall.

  THREE

  While his men were gathering in the main office, Pyke was able to open a note from Ned Villums. It had been left for him by one of the clerks. The note simply said: Harry Dove went to shop to inspect a jewelled crucifix, very valuable. Pyke put the note in his pocket and turned this new information over in his mind. So Dove had gone to Cullen’s shop on business. For some reason, the mention of a jewelled crucifix seemed familiar and he made a note to check the daily route-papers detailing items that had been reported as stolen.

  As soon as Pyke stepped into the main office, the four sergeants looked up at him and their conversations ceased. It was always the way, and Pyke had increasingly been trying to interpret their reticence in his presence. Shaw, he felt, was afraid or in awe of him whereas Gerrett resented him in the way a stupid, lumbering dog resented its master. Whicher didn’t say much to the other men and had either excluded himself from their social circle or been excluded; Pyke didn’t know which. But it was Lockhart’s silence which Pyke found the hardest to read. Aside from Whicher, he was the most intelligent of the detectives and his work was thorough and imaginative, but Pyke couldn’t help feeling that Lockhart resented him in some way. Pyke recognised Lockhart’s indifference because he had once behaved in a similar manner with his superiors. As a Runner, Pyke had operated according to his own agenda and had had little time for the chief magistrates he’d served under. Now he was head of a department, he had to inspire men to do their best for him, and this meant making sure they either respected or feared him.

  Pyke’s detectives had come from working-class backgrounds and, like most working lads made good, they were used to taking their orders from men like Mayne or even Benedict Pierce, who had been able to reinvent himself as a blue-blooded defender of Church, Crown and Empire. But Pyke had no idea what they made of him, whether they saw him as an establishment figure or an outsider. They would have heard a little about his past, of course, because it had been openly aired at the time of his appointment; they would know, for example, that he had once been convicted of murder and that he had been sentenced to hang before escaping from Newgate and earning a pardon. Or that more recently he’d served nine months in Marshalsea prison for not paying his debts.

  Two days earlier, following an arrest that Gerrett had made, a shoemaker and a father of four from Shoreditch had been convicted at Bow Street for stealing a gentleman’s greatcoat. The man’s pleas for clemency had fallen on deaf ears and the magistrate had sentenced him to serve eight years in the House of Correction for the County of Middlesex, otherwise known as Coldbath Fields. Gerrett had gone around the room seeking the acclaim of the other men. When he’d come to Pyke, he had stood there like a schoolboy waiting to be praised. Pyke had congratulated him on a job well done and then reminded him that a poor man with four children had been sent to prison for eight years for stealing a coat. He had also mentioned the case of a stockbroker who’d defrauded investors of thousands of pounds and who had walked out of the courtroom without incurring a fine. Only Jack Whicher had seemed to have understood what he’d meant.

  Pyke invited the men into his office and waited for them to file into the small room and take their place in a semicircle around his desk. He started by telling them about the suspicions regarding the Raffertys; the fact that they had visited Cullen’s shop a few weeks earlier and pressed the pawnbroker to receive stolen goods and that some men, possibly the Raffertys, had been seen firing their pistols on wasteland behind King’s Cross. He also described his encounter with Conor Rafferty and said that a roomful of people were willing to swear the Raffertys had been drinking in the Blue Dog on Castle Street at the time of the shooting. For the time being, he decided not to say anything about the crucifix.

  He turned to Shaw. ‘Tell us how you fared at Bow Street. Was Cullen’s wife telling the truth when she intimated Cullen had never been convicted of a crime?’

  Shaw took out his notepad and wiped his nose. ‘Cullen’s served two prison sentences. One as a debtor, six months in the Fleet. The other for receiving stolen goods. Two and a half years in Coldbath Fields.’

  There was a murmur of approval from the others.

  ‘When was that?’ Pyke asked.

  ‘About four years ago.’

  Pyke digested this information. It didn’t change much — in fact, it only confirmed what he’d already suspected: that Cullen was a disreputable but insignificant figure, a man on the fringes of the city’s underworld.

  ‘Good work, Frederick.’ The others congratulated him, too. Shaw stammered that he’d been lucky.

  Turning to Gerrett, Pyke tried not to pay too much attention to the disgusting mound of wobbling flesh around the man’s neck. ‘What news from the inquest?’

  ‘The jury ruled the deaths to be wilful murder committed by a person or persons unknown.’

  ‘And are the bodies still at the Queen’s Head?’

  ‘In
the upstairs room.’ Gerrett shot a sideways glance at Lockhart. Most of the time, he didn’t breathe without Lockhart’s approval. ‘The landlord said the bodies can stay where they are; he’s happy to let people traipse upstairs to see them, thinks they’ll stop for a drink after. He didn’t need any convincing it would be good for business.’

  ‘Anything else from the inquest?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Gerrett said, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I’m presuming it didn’t shed light on the identity of the other two victims?’

  ‘You presume right.’ Gerrett folded his arms and sniffed.

  Pyke chose to ignore the big man’s attempt to needle him. ‘Well, someone will recognise them soon enough, at least the one who was shot in the back rather than the face.’ Pyke made sure he didn’t meet Jack Whicher’s stare.

  ‘There’s already a queue outside the Queen’s Head stretching back as far as the Theatre Royal,’ Gerrett added.

  ‘I want you there as soon as the landlord opens his doors.’ Pyke paused, wondering whether he should assign Shaw to help. ‘Some of those waiting in the queue will be desperate to convince you the dead are their friends or loved ones. Don’t ask me why, because there’s no financial advantage in it, but people like to be associated with something like this. Your job is to sort out the wheat from the chaff. So don’t be afraid to ask difficult questions and, remember, to make a positive identification, you’ll need corroboration from two independent witnesses.’

  Pyke turned to Whicher, who didn’t seem particularly enthused by his discoveries. ‘Your turn, Detective.’ He didn’t like to call him ‘Jack’ in the company of the others, because this singled Whicher out as his favourite.

  ‘The wife’s disorganised so the books are in a real mess,’ Whicher said, looking at Pyke. ‘I’d say it’s a small operation; it doesn’t seem to make more than a few pounds a month, barely enough to pay the rent.’

  ‘That’s a good start,’ Pyke said. ‘But now, I’d like you to focus on something else.’ Pyke glanced across at Lockhart and quickly explained that the detective sergeant had found an eyewitness and gave a description of what the elderly man had seen: a single figure fleeing the scene, brandishing a large pistol.

  ‘The man walking past the front of the shop, Morgan, told me he heard three shots fired in rapid succession. If they all came from a single gun, we can rule out a conventional flintlock pistol. But I’ve read about a new gun called a revolver that some gunsmiths have begun to import from America.’ Looking at Whicher now, he added, ‘I’d like you to visit every gunsmith you can think of and get names and descriptions of anyone who’s purchased one of these weapons in, say, the last month.’

  Whicher nodded briskly. He seemed happy about the prospect of not having to return to the pawnbroker’s shop.

  Pyke turned to Lockhart. ‘I hope you don’t mind me telling the men about your findings, Detective.’

  To his credit, Lockhart shrugged and said he wasn’t concerned. ‘I sat with the witness for quite a while,’ he added, looking at Whicher and Shaw. ‘In the end, he gave me quite a reasonable description of the gunman. Our suspect is at least six foot tall, well built, with short, black hair. He’s swarthy, clean shaven, and wears expensive clothes.’

  ‘A gentleman rather than a poor Irishman, then?’ Pyke asked.

  Lockhart made a point of avoiding his eyes. ‘It could have been a disguise.’

  Pyke nodded. He didn’t like the men arguing with him but Lockhart was right; it was wise to keep all avenues of enquiry open.

  ‘Actually there was something else,’ Lockhart said, sensing that Pyke was about to move on.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A crossing sweeper by the name of…’ Lockhart had to look down to consult his pad. ‘Jervis. He reckons he saw a policeman in the vicinity of the pawnbroker’s around the time of the shooting.’

  This was new and potentially important information. ‘Before or after?’

  ‘The sweeper said just before. Then he heard the shots. He told me he looked round and the policeman was gone.’

  Pyke turned to Whicher, not bothering to hide his concern. ‘Who was the first to arrive at the scene?’

  ‘Constable Kent, E Division. Badge number E78.’ He paused while he read through his notes. ‘The witness, Morgan, ran up to him outside the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane.’

  ‘So this policeman the crossing-sweeper saw, or thought he saw, outside the shop on Shorts Gardens couldn’t have been Kent.’

  Whicher shook his head.

  Pyke turned back to Lockhart. ‘Are you absolutely sure your witness wasn’t having you on?’

  ‘He was adamant.’ Lockhart folded his arms. ‘He gave quite a detailed description, too. Said the man had black bushy hair under his stovepipe hat and a bad limp.’

  Pyke took a moment to ponder what he’d just been told. It made no sense. If a policeman had been near the shop at the time of the robbery, he would at least have raised the alarm. Still, if the crossing-sweeper was telling the truth, it was good detective work on Lockhart’s part.

  ‘I’ll look into this. But tomorrow I’d like you to find this new witness and bring him here so I can talk to him.’

  Lockhart pursed his lips. ‘He’ll just tell you exactly what he told me.’

  Pyke was about to respond but he managed to restrain himself. As he looked around the room, he could feel the heat rising in his neck.

  Lockhart leaned over and whispered something in Gerrett’s ear. The taller man grinned and, as he did so, he looked at Pyke.

  ‘Something amusing, Billy?’

  Gerrett reddened but said nothing. Next to him, Lockhart’s smile turned into a smirk.

  Rankled, Pyke stared Lockhart down. ‘I want to make one thing perfectly clear: what we discuss in this room goes no farther.’

  No one spoke or even moved. ‘And let me say this: if I find out that any of you have been passing information about this investigation to parties not present in this room I’ll drum you out of this office and back into uniform quicker than you can say Benedict Pierce.’

  Later, when Pyke returned home, he found Godfrey in ebullient mood, railing against the latest income tax demand he’d received, and Felix lying next to Copper, seemingly picking fleas from the mastiff’s tawny fur. Felix’s face was rigid with concentration. It was the same expression he had while reading or doing school work. In these circumstances, it was almost impossible to rouse him, even to come to the table to eat. Pyke found Felix’s dedication to his studies commendable but he also worried about his son becoming too closeted from the world around him.

  ‘I told the buggers I no longer earn an income. I’m a destitute old man in the twilight of his life.’ Godfrey’s face was the colour of a ripe beetroot and his hand was nursing a glass of claret.

  ‘You’ll outlive us all,’ Pyke said, waiting for Felix to look up and acknowledge him. Hearing Pyke’s voice, Copper lifted his head and started to wag his tail.

  ‘God forbid it.’ Godfrey chuckled.

  ‘Good day at school?’ Pyke asked Felix.

  Felix’s face was blank, almost bored. ‘Same as always.’

  Pyke nodded. This was about as much as he ever got out of his son. It was the way of the world, he supposed. Fathers and sons. It wouldn’t have bothered him except that he knew that the lad confided in Godfrey, poured out his heart to the old man. In one sense, Pyke was grateful that Felix had someone he felt he could talk to, but in another, he wondered why such a chasm had opened up between himself and the boy. Perhaps it was just his age. He had heard someone say that fourteen-year-olds rarely opened their mouths in the company of adults. Briefly he wondered what Felix was like at school, how he related to his peers and his teachers.

  Godfrey sat down in one of the armchairs and groaned. He had lost a lot of weight in recent months and his once lustrous mane of white hair had thinned considerably. Earlier in the summer, he had taken Pyke to a place called Bunhill Fields and
explained that he had bought one of the plots there. It was, he’d said, the only non-denominational burial ground in the city; a place that housed the graves of men such as Blake and Defoe. Godfrey had made Pyke promise not to give him a Christian funeral when he died. Pyke had assured him that he needn’t worry about being accepted into heaven.

  ‘Felix, dear boy. Will you be so kind as to fetch your favourite uncle another glass of claret?’ He poured the rest of the wine into his mouth and held up his empty glass.

  Almost at once Felix rose to his feet and took the glass from Godfrey’s hand. He didn’t think to offer a glass to Pyke.

  If Godfrey saw the hurt in Pyke’s expression, he didn’t mention it. Instead he sat forward and whispered, ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the boy… something he said to me.’

  Pyke’s expression remained opaque because he didn’t want the old man to see that he was envious of the easy manner that Godfrey had with his son.

  ‘He’s tried to initiate a few conversations with me over the past month or two about Christianity; whether I have any faith, what I think about the crucifixion, the resurrection.’