The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  After Keate’s arrest and execution, no one else had been murdered. And no one, Shaw assured Pyke, had been in any doubt that they had got their man.

  ‘So when exactly was the second boy, Stephen Clough, found?’ Pyke took a piece of foolscap and picked up his pen.

  ‘The morning of the fourteenth.’

  ‘That means he would have been killed some time on the thirteenth.’ Pyke considered what this might mean for their current investigation. The thirteenth was the following day.

  ‘You think whoever killed Guppy will try again?’

  Pyke shrugged. ‘Tell me a little more about the investigation. For a start, how did you first come to identify Keate as a suspect?’

  ‘One of the lodgers contacted the police, I think.’

  ‘Who led the investigation?’

  Shaw looked at him and wetted his lips. ‘I know you don’t care for the man but I can assure you that the investigation was conducted in an exemplary manner. Everyone said so. It was one of the reasons Mayne was able to make such an effective case for the establishment of the Detective Branch.’

  ‘Pierce?’

  Shaw nodded. ‘Nothing, and I mean nothing, was left to chance. Keate was the murderer and he got what he deserved.’

  FOURTEEN

  The following morning, at Pyke’s request, the top men of the New Police assembled in the commissioners’ offices and were ushered into Mayne’s chambers. Rowan, the more senior of the two commissioners, was there, as was Wells. Benedict Pierce arrived late and took a chair between Rowan and Wells.

  It was a full-scale council of war, and once Mayne had welcomed them, he gestured for Pyke to take the floor. Having done so, Pyke outlined what he’d already found out (omitting all references to Ebenezer Druitt) and what he suspected might happen later that day or night; he spoke fluently and without interruption, and when he was finished, he allowed himself a glance at Pierce. The colour had risen in Pierce’s neck and cheeks.

  Pyke knew that the assumption he was making — that Guppy’s murder was related to events five year earlier and that the pattern of dates might replicate itself in the present — was contentious. Still, his instinct told him that a connection existed. He’d been led in this direction by Druitt’s apparently casual remark, and it was highly possible that Druitt was making mischief for its own sake, but could it simply be coincidence that Gregg and Guppy had been killed on exactly the same date and in almost identical a manner?

  ‘But you have no actual proof, no firm evidence, that such an attack will occur today or some time tonight, do you?’ It was perfectly clear from Rowan’s demeanour that he neither liked Pyke nor trusted his judgement.

  ‘Or any proof that Guppy’s murder is linked to the murder of the boys.’ This time it was Pierce who’d spoken.

  ‘No proof,’ Pyke said, to Rowan rather than Pierce, ‘but the circumstantial evidence is strong. After all, Isaac Guppy was murdered in the same way and on the exact same date as the first boy, Johnny Gregg.’

  ‘This is ludicrous.’ Pierce looked at Mayne. ‘Sir Richard, let common sense prevail. Ignore this man’s requests. Let us all go about our duties as normal.’

  ‘I forgot to mention that the second boy, Stephen Clough, was nailed to the door of a stable on Cambridge Street.’ Pyke made a point of looking at Mayne. ‘The same place that a Catholic priest, Brendan Malloy, used to hold mass every Sunday.’ He waited and then said to Pierce, ‘There was no mention of this fact in any of the reports at the time.’

  Mayne frowned. ‘This was the chap you arrested and that Walter here persuaded me to release?’

  Pyke couldn’t help but smile at the speed with which Mayne had shifted the blame on to Wells. For his part, Wells immediately argued that Hiley was still their man. Pierce muttered that he would have to consult his records.

  Mayne looked over at Rowan. ‘Well, it wouldn’t do any harm to take this threat seriously, would it?’

  ‘What exactly are you suggesting, sir?’ Rowan exhaled loudly and folded his arms, glancing contemptuously at Pyke. ‘Tell the men to look out for some poor soul being nailed to a door or wall?’

  ‘I think someone is mimicking the events of five years ago in order to draw our attention to failings in that investigation,’ Pyke said. Again, this was an assumption not yet borne out by the facts, but it had the desired effect as Pierce jumped to his feet.

  ‘I will not sit here and be publicly slandered by a man whose own reputation is so tarnished.’

  ‘Sit down, Benedict. No one is slandering anyone.’ Mayne stared at Pyke. ‘We do need to take the detective inspector’s concerns seriously. But that doesn’t mean we have to panic or announce our suspicions to the public at large. All we can do is make sure there are as many constables patrolling the streets as we can muster.’

  ‘And what exactly do we tell the men, Sir Richard?’ Wells said, with an air of contempt. Clearly he didn’t concur with this assessment of the situation, either.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s your job, Walter. Tell them to be on their guard.’ Mayne paused. ‘We’ll use reserves from the Executive Division to bolster our presence in Soho and St Giles.’

  ‘And in the meantime,’ Pierce said, looking over at Rowan, ‘the real murderer, Francis Hiley, slips through our net.’

  Wells gave Pierce, and then Pyke, an uneasy look. ‘I agree that Hiley should remain our primary suspect.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Pyke said, turning to Pierce for the first time. ‘But if, as the head of the former investigation, you have nothing to hide, then what’s the harm in having another look at it?’

  Pierce didn’t rise to Pyke’s bait. ‘I stand by the decisions that were made during that investigation. We got the right man.’

  ‘Fine. Then you won’t mind us using the documents to establish whether or not Guppy’s murder is linked to the deaths of the two boys.’

  ‘Consult the documents, if you think it’s going to help,’ Mayne said, trying to smooth out the disagreement. ‘All we’re doing is taking the necessary precautions to preserve peace and order, as is our duty as police officers.’

  ‘I fancy Sir Richard’s right,’ Rowan agreed, unenthusiastically. ‘After all, prevention rather than detection has always been the watchword of this organisation.’

  Since the two most senior men in the room had spoken, the discussion was effectively over. Rowan made his excuses to leave and was closely followed by Pierce and Wells.

  ‘You do realise, Detective Inspector, that I’ve nailed my colours to your particular mast,’ Mayne said to Pyke when they were alone.

  ‘And I’m grateful for your vote of confidence.’ Pyke paused. All of a sudden, he didn’t feel especially confident. Perhaps it was dawning on him what a risk he was taking.

  ‘Of course, I hope I’m wrong and nothing happens,’ Mayne continued.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But if it does… I want you to tread very carefully around this old investigation. At the time there was a lot riding on it.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘The department you now head was established on the back of the hunt for that murderer.’

  Pyke nodded; he’d already heard the same thing from Shaw.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you, Detective Inspector, that if you’re wrong about this, Pierce in particular will be quick to call for your blood.’

  Wells was waiting for Pyke in the Detective Branch’s office. He told Pyke he’d already authorised an additional seventy-five men from the Executive Division to patrol the streets of St Giles and Soho.

  ‘That was very prompt of you, Walter,’ Pyke said, ushering Wells into his private office. ‘I’m gratified by your change of heart.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a change of heart, Pyke. To be perfectly honest, I still think Hiley killed Guppy.’

  ‘Then you’re just following orders?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Wells sat down and waited for Pyke to do likewise. ‘Right or wrong, I arr
ived at the conclusion that arresting Francis Hiley would help me steal a march on my friend from Holborn Division. In the meantime, I’ve shut my eyes to other possibilities, including the admittedly fine detective work that you and your men have been carrying out.’ He paused and rubbed his chin. ‘The irony is, and I didn’t realise this until just now in the meeting, Pierce thinks as I do. Our positions are essentially the same; he also sees the arrest of Hiley as the best route to becoming assistant commissioner. Therefore the political advantage I can glean from this is limited.’

  ‘I did wonder for a moment whether you and Pierce had had some kind of rapprochement,’ Pyke said.

  ‘Far from it, Pyke. Far from it.’ Wells shook his head. ‘In fact, Pierce has been busy pointing out my relative inexperience to Mayne and Rowan and anyone else who’ll listen.’

  Pyke had fully expected to have a row with Wells. Now he was thrown by Wells’s volte-face, even if it was motivated by self-interest.

  ‘When do you expect the post of assistant commissioner to be filled?’

  ‘Within the next few months. I’m told, unofficially of course, that Pierce is ahead of me at the moment.’

  ‘A lot can happen in a couple of months,’ Pyke said.

  Wells nodded. ‘I won’t pretend I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the situation vis-a-vis Guppy’s murder but I do understand that I need to put some clear water between myself and Pierce.’

  Pyke eyed him carefully but he was more predisposed to accept Wells’s explanation, now he had admitted his self-interest. ‘So what do you propose, Walter?’

  ‘I’m offering to support whatever approach you decide to take.’ He gave a forced smile. ‘I do still have some influence in the building.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it and I’m very grateful to you.’ They stared at one another across Pyke’s desk.

  ‘Good, I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out.’ Wells stood up suddenly. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, ‘Actually there was something else I thought I should mention…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s a little sensitive,’ Wells said, his expression serious. ‘And it involves our friend from Holborn’s plans for you…’

  Pyke nodded and his entire face darkened, but he tried to make light of the situation. ‘Forgive me for not being too concerned. Pierce has been plotting my downfall since we were Bow Street Runners back in the twenties.’

  ‘But this time, I’m told, he seems to think he has the ways and means of fatally wounding you.’

  ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t say. But I can assure you my informant is reliable.’ Wells paused, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘If there’s anything in your past that Pierce could use, anything he could exploit, my advice would be to bury it.’

  ‘Your informant couldn’t be more particular?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. But I’d say you should be extremely careful. Pierce can be a vindictive man and unfortunately he’s not stupid.’

  After Wells had left, Pyke looked up at the cracked ceiling and the flaking plasterwork and contemplated what he’d just learned. Part of him wanted to catch Pierce in a deserted alleyway and beat him with a cudgel until the man’s skull split open, but he knew deep down that winning against a man like Pierce required more than menace or brute force.

  There was nothing to be done except wait. Instead of patrolling the streets of Soho and St Giles, Pyke spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon re-reading the files, reports and route-papers relating to the investigation five years earlier. It didn’t take him long to realise that the process hadn’t been as thorough as Shaw and Pierce had intimated. Little was known about the victims, the two boys, apart from their age and criminal predilections. Johnny Gregg had been twelve and Stephen Clough eleven. No one, as far as Pyke could tell, had bothered to find out about their families, and it was the same with the alleged perpetrator, Morris Keate. According to the records, Keate had been a night-soil man who worked with three other men, but there was no indication that any of these men had been interviewed. Likewise, there were no further details about Keate’s mother and his siblings: two brothers and a sister. As Pyke leafed through the various pieces of paper, he wondered whether anyone had bothered to speak directly to the family. The Crown’s case against Keate seemed to rely on the fact that an item of clothing allegedly belonging to Gregg and a hammer with dried blood on it had been found in Keate’s tool-chest. The prosecuting lawyer had also tried to portray Keate as a religious madman, a Devil worshipper prone to violent outbursts. As far as Pyke could see, Keate himself had not been well represented and had offered little or no defence.

  At three o’clock, Pyke went upstairs to find Wells, but the acting superintendent was ‘in the field’. Pyke asked one of the clerks whether there had been any developments and was told that nothing had been reported.

  Outside, snow was falling. Pyke took a brief walk down to the river. The pavements and cobblestones had been turned into a carpet of white, dazzling against the dull Portland stone of the buildings, even in the ebbing light. He thought briefly about the scene at home; Felix had always loved playing in the snow; maybe he would be outside in the garden with Copper. For a moment or two, Pyke indulged this particular thought with a twinge of guilt that he wasn’t at home to see it for himself, but then it struck him that he’d been thinking about a memory that was eight or nine years old. Was it a coincidence that his happiest memories of time spent with his son were all in the distant past? Pyke suddenly felt very old; his son was now fourteen and wouldn’t be at home for much longer. What would become of them then? Would they still see each other?

  Pulled back into the present by a barking dog, Pyke’s thoughts turned to the matter in hand; Ebenezer Druitt and his casual reference to the date of Guppy’s murder. He thought about the anonymous note and how this had brought both Malloy and Druitt to his attention. But who had sent him the letter? Was this person also the murderer and, if so, why had he wanted to bring No. 28 Broad Street into the equation? By the time Pyke got back to the relative warmth of his office, he could barely feel his ears and nose.

  Wells visited him at about eight and then again just before eleven. He had nothing to report. It was strange, Pyke thought once he was alone, to be disappointed that no one had died; that no one had been murdered. At midnight, he pulled his coat around him and shut his eyes. He woke at two and then again at four. At half-past six, he got up and went outside to the tap in the yard. He’d intended to wash his face but the water in the pipe had frozen. Everywhere was white, any noise muffled by the covering of snow. At eight, when the first clerks arrived, Pyke’s suspicions were confirmed: nothing out of the ordinary had occurred during the night. A flower seller had frozen to death in Covent Garden and a tanner’s assistant had been stabbed and wounded in a brawl outside a tavern in Bermondsey. These would have to be looked into by either the Detective Branch or whichever division had jurisdiction for central and south-east London, but Pyke didn’t pay the cases any attention that morning. Instead, he paced up and down the corridor, wondering what had happened and how he had managed to get it so wrong.

  By Wednesday afternoon, almost two days after the night of the thirteenth of December had passed, there was still no sign of a body. During this time Pyke had tried unsuccessfully to find Malloy and had been told by Mayne to give up on his ‘far-flung notion’ and concentrate his efforts on finding Hiley. In one ill-tempered meeting, an evidently furious Mayne had held Pyke personally responsible for his ‘reckless’ prediction that a murder would take place, and had berated himself for lending his support to Pyke in the first place.

  ‘How long would it take for someone to die if they were crucified?’ Pyke asked Whicher and Lockhart.

  They were sitting in the main office drinking tea that one of the clerks had just brought for them.

  ‘It wouldn’t be immediate,’ Lockhart said. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? To draw it out for as long
as possible and inflict the most pain.’

  Whicher looked at him, frowning. ‘Are you saying that our body may still be out there somewhere?’

  ‘Not exactly. Stephen Clough was stabbed, too, remember? That was the wound that killed him, according to the coroner.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So why go to the effort of crucifying someone, only to stab them in the gut?’

  Lockhart considered this. ‘Perhaps the crucifixion was some kind of symbolic act.’

  ‘In what sense?’ Pyke asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lockhart brought the cup to his lips and sipped his tea. ‘To make it appear that the murder was religiously motivated?’

  Whicher sat back. ‘Clough was nailed to a door in a busy part of the city. Maybe he was stabbed as an afterthought. If the murderer had just left him to die, Clough might have been able to identify him.’

  They were both credible explanations.

  ‘What if the second death we’ve been expecting wasn’t reported to the police? Look at these.’ Eddie Lockhart showed Pyke the death notices he’d been reading in The Times. ‘Five of them, all from natural causes.’