The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  Half an hour later, the carriage dropped Pyke off in Scotland Yard. He noticed that a candle was burning in one of the Detective Branch’s rooms. A porter let him into the building and told Pyke that there was a boy waiting for him in his office. He explained that his shift had just started and he didn’t know the boy’s name. Entering the office, Pyke saw Lockhart before he saw Felix. His son was sitting listlessly in one of the chairs. Lockhart looked up at Pyke, relief on his face. ‘Your son was already here when I arrived. I thought I’d better wait with him. We didn’t know where you were…’

  ‘What is it?’ Dry mouthed, Pyke looked into his son’s face and felt his entire world tilt on its axis.

  ‘I thought you’d want to know,’ Felix said, flatly, as though the issue were an academic one. ‘Godfrey passed away in his sleep last night.’

  Bunhill Fields

  DECEMBER 1844-JANUARY 1845

  FIFTEEN

  Almost a week passed between Godfrey’s death and his funeral, and although he had requested a simple, private affair, such was the level of interest that it took Pyke almost that long to send out funeral cards, liaise with the undertakers and make arrangements for the burial. True to his uncle’s request, and much to Felix’s chagrin, there was to be no religious aspect to the ceremony.

  All of the snow that had fallen the previous week had long since melted, and on a dull Monday morning, the hearse, pulled by four horses and accompanied by the undertaker and six pallbearers, left their home in Islington. Pyke and Felix followed in an open-topped phaeton, behind them the assorted vehicles of the other mourners. Pyke wore a plain black cloak over his frock-coat and cravat and an unadorned black hat. Felix was similarly attired in plain black clothes. They sat apart, each lost in his own thoughts, oblivious to the breeze and the drizzle, barely noticing the people on the pavements, their solemn faces and their hats removed as the procession passed by. For days after Godfrey’s death, Pyke had wandered around their house, numb, not quite able to comprehend that his uncle had really gone. Then the night before the burial, he’d come across the book Godfrey had written, loosely based on Pyke’s exploits as a Bow Street Runner. The True and Candid Confessions of a Former Bow Street Runner had upset readers with its frank portrayal of an anonymous man seemingly unconcerned by moral strictures. It wasn’t the book which caused Pyke to break down, though — it was Godfrey’s simple inscription. ‘ To my dear boy, who has made my life immeasurably richer. ’ Pyke had taken the book with him to bed and had read it over and over, until his tears had run dry.

  From the Angel, they proceeded west on City Road, as it curved around what had once been the northern reaches of the metropolis, and was now a ribbon of factories, warehouses and brickyards. They passed the pavements crowded with commuters heading to work in the City, turned on to Bath Street just past the City Basin and followed it across Old Street on to Bunhill Row. Bunhill Fields, adjacent to the narrow street bearing its name, had once been called Bone Hill. Originally a plague pit, it had become a final resting place, just beyond the city walls, for nonconformists, non-believers and religious dissenters.

  As the hearse pulled into the burial ground Pyke squeezed Felix’s hand and leaned over to kiss him on the head. Godfrey’s death had brought the two of them closer, but he worried about the future, how they would get along without the old man’s reassuring presence.

  Felix seemed bewildered by the scene that greeted them, the sheer volume of people, a seething mass of bodies, all clad in black and wanting to pay their respects. Later, Pyke heard that Harriet Martineau, Francis Carlyle, Charles Dickens and the booksellers John Chapman and John Tallis had attended the burial.

  ‘Godfrey knew a lot of people,’ Pyke whispered, by way of explanation. ‘He was loved by a lot of people.’ Felix smiled and gripped his hand more tightly.

  It was a simple affair. At Godfrey’s instructions, there were no feathermen, with their trays of black plumes, or mutes carrying wooden staffs dressed with black weepers. The coffin was lifted and carried by the pallbearers, Pyke and Felix following closely behind. They made their way slowly along a path, graves on either side, eventually coming to a halt at a freshly dug plot. The pallbearers laid the coffin down at the side of the grave and the mourners assembled around them. With no vicar to orchestrate proceedings, Edmund Saggers had agreed to assume the role of master of ceremonies, and one by one he invited various speakers to offer their thoughts. John Fisher Murray, a sketch writer, read a piece Godfrey had penned for Blackwood ’s about the ill-effects of overindulgence, which, as Pyke had hoped, elicited a few laughs, and Francis Place read a piece Godfrey had written for an unstamped magazine about the terrible suffering of the Spitalfields weavers. This drew a round of applause from the Chartists and trade union leaders who had known Godfrey in his rabble-rousing days. Saggers gave a witty account of one of his prodigious lunches with Godfrey and then invited Pyke to address the mourners.

  Pyke cast his gaze around the crowd gathered by the grave, and waited for a few moments. The sky was sealed with thick, grey clouds and the wind whipped at the hats of the mourners, some of the women having to hold on to their scarves and hoods.

  He thanked everyone for coming and invited them to join him and Felix afterwards at the Turk’s Head Coffee House and Hotel on the Strand.

  ‘I was going to give a long speech about Godfrey Bond’s extraordinary life as a writer, journalist, publisher, radical and general thorn in the side of the establishment.’ He waited for the murmur of approval to subside. ‘I was going to commend his skill as a writer, the fact that you were never bored by anything he’d penned, his eye for a good story, his willingness to take on pieces that no one else would publish, his love of the grotesque and the low, his belief that the published word could excite men’s minds and change the way they perceived the world, his refusal to back down from a fight, his willingness to take on the establishment, whatever the cost to him personally.’ Pyke felt a tide of sentiment well up inside him and took a deep breath. Godfrey really was dead. That thought struck him with all the force of a sledgehammer.

  ‘I was going to say all these things about the man I called my uncle, the man I loved and respected above all others.’ He turned to face the coffin. ‘I was going to give a speech about your death being the end of an era, and in many ways it is. You were always a man out of step with our more sober, moralistic times.’ He felt his voice begin to crack and looked over at Felix, saw the tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘But in the end I just want to say this: you didn’t judge me, you didn’t desert me, you put a roof over my head and food on my plate; you read to me, you educated me, you nursed me, you made me laugh, you let me do what I wanted to do, you wept with me. You counselled me, you forgave me, you came to my rescue more times than I can remember and you loved me. I owe my life to you and I will never, ever forget you. You were the best of men and my life will be immeasurably poorer now you’re gone.’

  Pyke didn’t remember much as the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave, and once they’d done so, no one moved, apparently waiting for him to take the lead. For a moment, he wanted the crowd to swallow him up, wanted to be anywhere else but there at Godfrey’s graveside. Then, as if sensing Pyke’s paralysis, Felix stepped forward, took a handful of dirt and threw it on top of the coffin. Others followed. Pyke put his arm around Felix and whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  Afterwards, in the Turk’s Head, Pyke greeted the mourners and invited them to partake of the food and drink laid out on the table.

  He noticed Jo only once she’d taken off her hood, her flame-red hair visible from the other side of the room. She’d been Felix’s nursemaid, governess and friend for the first ten years of his life. She’d also shared Pyke’s bed for a much briefer period, an attachment beginning and ending in the same summer about four years earlier. Pyke had often wondered about her, what had become of her, and he was surprised at how pleased he felt to see her. It was just the grief, he told himself, as he strode across the
room to greet her; anyway, she had been an important part of their lives for a long time.

  ‘You look well,’ he said, shaking her hand. She did, too. Her pale skin was as free of blemishes as he remembered, but now she wore her ginger hair in ringlets, some of which hung down, framing her face.

  ‘I read about Godfrey’s death in the newspaper.’ She waited and bit her lip. There were tears in her eyes. As Felix’s nanny, she had shared Godfrey’s apartment for a couple of years, when Pyke served a sentence for the non-payment of debts, and afterwards when he had travelled to Jamaica, and the two of them had become close.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ He looked into her eyes and felt a small tug in his stomach. ‘I know Godfrey would have appreciated it.’ In fact, Godfrey had always chided him for breaking off their attachment and had often said that he would never find a better or more loving woman.

  ‘What you said at the graveside… It was very moving.’

  They stood there in silence; Pyke thinking about the last time he’d seen her, the tears she had shed. ‘Have you seen Felix? He’ll want to say hello. You won’t believe how much he’s grown up.’

  ‘I know. I was talking to him just now.’

  ‘He still misses you.’ Pyke stopped himself before he added that he missed her too but he wondered whether it was true. He did miss what they had all once shared, especially after Emily’s death. She, Jo, had helped them through a difficult time, and he still owed her a great deal.

  Her cheeks coloured slightly. ‘How are the two of you getting on?’

  ‘Oh, you know…’ Pyke hesitated. ‘Felix has discovered truth and beauty. I, on the other hand, represent all that’s ugly and debased.’

  That made her smile. ‘Don’t underestimate how much he loves you, Pyke.’ She waited, her eyes not quite meeting his.

  Other mourners were waiting to offer him their condolences and Jo moved off without shaking his hand or saying goodbye. About an hour later, he saw her again on the other side of the room, this time chatting to Felix. Pyke had had a few glasses of claret, and gin, and felt a little giddy. A pot-boy wearing a black apron passed carrying a tray of drinks and Pyke took one more and poured it down his throat. It caused him to shudder. For a moment he had to hold on to the back of a chair to steady himself. It was funny that he should be thinking about Jo more than Emily, he decided; that seeing Jo should have unsettled him so much.

  Later, he noticed that she was putting on her coat, as if preparing to leave. Outside, it was raining and Jo had pulled a black scarf over her head. Pyke caught up with her in front of the hotel. Startled, she began to say something but Pyke took her wrist and pulled her towards him. Jo tried to wriggle free from his grip and looked up into his face, hot and indignant. He didn’t see it or didn’t care. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her into a kiss. He half-expected her lips to part but they remained closed. Stamping on his toe, she shoved him in the chest and took a step backwards.

  ‘I’m married,’ she spat, her eyes burning with anger.

  ‘Married?’ He hadn’t even bothered to check whether she was wearing a wedding ring.

  ‘An officer in the Fifth Hussars. Peter Hind.’ There were tears in her eyes now. ‘I had a child of my own last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t…’ He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

  ‘You always have to ruin everything, Pyke.’ She gathered up her skirt and raced across the street to a waiting hackney carriage.

  As he watched her go, Pyke thought about what he’d just done, the awful humiliation he’d visited upon her and himself, and he wondered why, having hurt her once before, he had felt it appropriate to accost her in a public place and reveal himself to her, once again, in all his unthinking ugliness.

  SIXTEEN

  Two days after the funeral, Pyke returned to work at the Detective Branch. He’d been gone for almost ten days but somehow it felt longer. For him, it was as though the whole world had crumbled. Meanwhile, in terms of the investigation, little or no progress had been made. Hiley was still at large and the coroner’s verdict in the matter of Charles Hogarth’s death had not yet been overturned, although now it was hard to see how this might happen as Pyke had learned from Whicher that Hogarth’s body had been stolen from the family’s mausoleum in Kensington, apparently by resurrectionists. He had also found out that the coroner, and the porter who had discovered Hogarth’s body in his office on Gracechurch Street, were both missing and had been for several days. Pyke didn’t believe for a moment that resurrectionists had broken into the tomb, but without a shred of evidence to the contrary, he had no choice but to hold his tongue. He couldn’t even dispute the cause of death, at least not officially, because to do so would be to incriminate himself. Instead, at a meeting with Lockhart, Shaw, Wells and Whicher (who was the only one he had told about the crucifixion marks), Pyke told them they were now to treat Hogarth’s death as suspicious.

  ‘It’s my working hypothesis that, like Stephen Clough, Charles Harcourt Hogarth was murdered and that to spare the family any shame, and perhaps to obscure the man’s involvement in our current investigation, the coroner was persuaded to record the death as he did. I can’t prove it yet and I’m perfectly happy to be proved wrong on this matter, but I’d like us to proceed as though Hogarth died in suspicious circumstances.’ Pyke looked at Wells and then Lockhart. ‘At least until the coroner has been found and can determine otherwise.’

  Pyke knew he had to be careful: he couldn’t come out and definitively state that Hogarth had been partially disembowelled and crucified. But at the same time, and given that Hogarth’s corpse, the coroner and the porter had all suddenly disappeared, there was sufficient evidence to at least raise questions. Charles Hogarth had been killed in one of the most horrific ways imaginable and yet his death certificate suggested he’d died of a heart seizure. How had the true cause of death been kept quiet? More to the point, who was sufficiently motivated and resourceful enough to be able to cover this kind of thing up?

  ‘Hypothetically, I’d also like us to proceed on the basis that the murders of Guppy and Hogarth might be linked. Jack, you’ve done some preliminary work to try to determine whether the two men knew one another.’ Pyke looked hopefully at Whicher.

  ‘It’s not out of the question, of course. Guppy was rector at St Botolph’s and Hogarth’s office was just around the corner on Gracechurch Street. But at present I haven’t been able to establish any connection. I asked a few discreet questions and it certainly doesn’t seem as if Hogarth had any business with the church or even went to church himself.’

  Pyke nodded. ‘I’d like you to keep looking into Hogarth’s affairs — as discreetly as possible. I don’t want his family complaining to Sir Richard, at least not yet.’

  Whicher’s face was lined with worry. He knew that someone — Lockhart, Shaw or Wells — would relay this hypothesis back to Pierce and maybe Mayne, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  ‘Is it merely a coincidence that Guppy and Hogarth died, or were killed, on exactly the same dates as the two boys, Johnny Clough and Stephen Gregg? Perhaps. But let’s not forget that Guppy and Clough were both beaten to death with a hammer.’ Pyke hesitated, deciding not to say anything about the precise manner of Hogarth’s death. ‘Frederick here worked on the investigation five years ago and he assures me it was a meticulous and thorough affair. He also assures me that they got their man. Morris Keate was tried and found guilty of killing those boys.’ Pausing, Pyke looked up at Shaw and saw him nod in agreement.

  ‘Keate was a Catholic by birth but the prosecution at his trial also intimated that he was a Satanist. The second victim, Stephen Clough, was nailed to the door of a stables used at the time by a Catholic priest called Brendan Malloy as a mission to hold mass and hear confessions. At the time, Malloy was well known for the exorcisms he performed.’

  Shaw held up his hand. ‘While you were away, we did manage to track down Keate’s mother, or we very nearly ma
naged to.’

  Pyke looked up at him, interested.

  ‘Eddie and I were able to trace Josephine Keate to an address on Poland Street. We went there and were told by a neighbour that a man and woman had turned up a few nights earlier and moved the old woman out, without leaving a forwarding address. That wasn’t the end of it, though. Apparently the next day, three or four ruffians forced their way into the building with knives and pistols looking for the old woman and ended up ransacking her home.’

  ‘When was this?’

  This time it was Lockhart who spoke. ‘We did the calculations and worked out that the man and woman must have come for Keate’s mother on the same night that Charles Hogarth died.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Certain,’ Shaw said. ‘Of course, we don’t know whether the two things are related,’ Shaw said. The youngest member of the Branch, Pyke noticed, had become more confident about stating his views in meetings.

  Lockhart acknowledged Shaw’s concern with a frown. ‘Let’s just think about it for a moment. What if Guppy’s death upset someone — the fact that Guppy was killed on that date in particular and in the same manner as the boy five years earlier? It might have made this person, or persons, uneasy. Then Hogarth dies or, as you say, Pyke, is killed. Let’s assume there’s a connection between all the deaths. What happens? Immediately some men are dispatched to Keate’s mother to see what, if anything, she knows. But someone has already foreseen this and moved the mother to another place.’

  Whicher cleared his throat. ‘So what you’re suggesting, Eddie, is that someone might have suspected the involvement of Keate’s family in the reprisals, if indeed that’s what they are, against Guppy and Hogarth?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it?’