He walked around the corpse a few times, taking note of the thickness of the arms and thighs and the hairiness of the chest and arms. He’d been a young man, Pyke decided, no more than thirty years of age, and physically active, with well-developed leg and arm muscles. There was a zigzag scar running down the length of his forearm and a birthmark on his chest. From the length of the torso and the thick hairs on his chest, Pyke guessed he would have been about six foot, with dark hair. He inspected the cluster of burn marks again, wondering what might have caused them and whether they had, in fact, been inflicted by the killer. Why bother to do this to a man whose head you were about to cut off?
Pyke brought the lantern up to the neck stump and inspected it, trying to work out what instrument had been used in the decapitation. The wound seemed remarkably clean, as though the man’s head had indeed been removed with a couple of swings of an axe rather than hacked off in a less clinical manner. This suggested the act may have been premeditated, that the killer had planned to decapitate his victim, but it didn’t begin to suggest why he’d chosen to do so in the first place. Pyke could rule out torture: he was reasonably confident that the decapitation had taken place after the man had died. There were no rope marks around the wrists or ankles, for example, and to cut off someone’s head while they were still alive would definitely require restraints. This left the thorny question of motivation. Why had someone gone to the trouble of decapitating a man they had already murdered? The most obvious answer was that the killer or killers had wanted to conceal the victim’s identity.
‘Where was the body found?’ Pyke asked, once he’d rejoined Yellowplush at the back of the watch-house.
‘A farmer fished him out of the river just to the east of the town.’
Pyke considered this for a moment. ‘Would I be correct in assuming the river flows from west to east?’
Yellowplush nodded.
‘So the body was either dumped into the river where the farmer found it or, more likely, it ended up there having been discarded elsewhere.’ Pyke rubbed his eyes. ‘Who owns the land upstream from where the corpse was found?’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘It might be,’ Pyke said. ‘If you don’t tell me I can always find out from someone else.’
‘Sir Horsley Rockingham.’
‘A friend of yours?’
The magistrate stared at him but declined to answer the question.
‘Are you planning to leave the body down there until it rots?’
‘The body belongs to a local lad. Word spreads slowly in the country. I’m waiting to see if someone decides to claim it.’
‘You know it’s a local lad for certain?’
Yellowplush shrugged.
Pyke nodded. ‘So tell me something. How does an ex-soldier suddenly become a magistrate?’
The question seemed to take Yellowplush by surprise. ‘I don’t take kindly to your insinuation, sir. Remember, you’re here as my guest and, as my guest, your invitation can easily be revoked.’
‘Is that what happened to the dead man?’ Pyke held the magistrate’s stare. ‘Was his invitation revoked, too?’
‘You’d do as well to hold your tongue. The countryside isn’t always the peaceful idyll city folk imagine it is.’
‘I can see that well enough with my own eyes.’ In the yard men were still queuing for weapons.
Yellowplush rearranged his wig and stared out into the darkness. ‘Navvies can be a barbarous lot but we’ll not tolerate their violence. If they try something, we’ll be ready for them.’
‘Why would they try something?’ Pyke didn’t bother to hide his scorn. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’
‘Despite that letter, I’m not obliged to tell you a thing.’ Yellowplush waited for a few moments, his stare intensifying. ‘And in answer to your question, do heathens need a reason to embrace violence?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pyke said, staring directly into his dry eyes. ‘Do they?’
‘I think you’ve officially outstayed your welcome.’ Yellowplush ran the tip of his pink tongue across his pale, flaky lips. ‘I’ll bid you goodnight, sir.’
‘Goodnight and good riddance?’
‘Country people don’t much care for city types with their fancy clothes and slick ways.’
‘I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.’
‘If you know what’s good for you you’ll go back to London and leave us to sort out our own troubles.’
‘What if I don’t want to go? What if I’ve taken an inexplicable liking to this dour town of yours?’
Yellowplush took out his pistol once again and thrust it into Pyke’s face. ‘Do you really want me to answer that question?’
Pyke stared down the barrel and said, ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you that the wig makes you look like an overgrown spaniel?’
The very considerable wealth that Sir Horsley Rockingham had plundered from his sugar plantation and the exploitation of African slaves was on display from the moment Pyke entered the wrought-iron gates of his country estate and approached the huge Queen Anne mansion from the carefully manicured gardens. Beyond the mature oak trees, Pyke could see stables and a paddock where a young woman with blonde hair was riding a chestnut-coloured gelding. Straight ahead, the house, constructed from Portland stone and glistening in the midday sunlight, was four storeys high and twelve windows long. Pyke dismounted from his horse and tied it to a handrail. At the top of the steps, he passed through a pair of Ionic columns and swept uninvited into the entrance hall, where a flustered servant tried to enquire about his business. In the hall, oil paintings by Titian, Van Dyck, Rubens and Gainsborough hung on the walls alongside oriental tapestries.
Pyke found Rockingham eating lunch alone in the dining room. It was an opulent room with high ceilings, rich cornices and ornate gilding. The old man had a white napkin tucked into his collar and was slurping claret from a crystal glass. He greeted the intrusion by spluttering red wine on to his beefsteak.
One wouldn’t have known from looking at him that Rockingham had spent much of his life in the West Indies. Wrinkled with age, his skin had developed a translucent hue that recalled a cadaver rather than a sun-kissed expatriate. Hunched over his food at one end of a long polished table, he cut a frail figure, eaten away from the inside by his own bile, and his eyes, as hard as acorns, darted nervously between Pyke and the servant who had followed him into the room.
‘What’s the meaning of this interruption?’ He addressed the servant rather than Pyke. ‘Can’t you see I’m eating my lunch, boy?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but this gentleman wouldn’t permit me to ask him his business . . .’
‘Stop bleating, man! Tell this blackguard to leave me in peace and learn some damned manners.’
Pyke wandered across to the polished table and spied the condiments. ‘Perhaps I could pass you the pepper, Sir Horsley. I hear you enjoy smearing it into bloodied flesh.’ Taking the ceramic shaker, he shoved it along the polished surface of the table in the old man’s direction. He made no effort to stop it and the vessel flew off the end of the table, smashing on the wooden floor.
‘Go and fetch the magistrate and his men,’ Rockingham barked at the servant. ‘Damnation, man, didn’t you hear me?’
‘Are you quite certain you want to be left alone in this man’s company, m’lord?’ The servant seemed puzzled, doubtless trying to work out whether Pyke’s smart clothes indicated benevolent intentions.
‘Do you imagine I’m intimidated by this specimen?’ Rockingham shuffled across to where Pyke was standing. ‘I lived for fifteen years among three-hundred-odd niggers, all of whom fantasised about killing me.’ He rubbed his finger against Pyke’s cheeks and peered down at it. ‘I reckon you might have some nigger blood in you.’
Hesitating, the servant looked again at Pyke and turned to depart the room, afraid to disobey his master.
‘Before the magistrate’s men arrive and toss you out on your ear like a whipped dog, perh
aps you might enlighten me as to the purpose of your unsolicited visit.’
Pyke wandered around to the other side of the table and filled a glass with claret from the decanter. Sitting down on one of the horsehair chairs, he took a sip of the wine and proffered an approving nod. ‘I’m afraid we might be here for quite a while. It would appear that Yellowplush’s ruffians are tied up in Huntingdon. Haven’t you heard? There’s going to be some trouble there involving the navvies.’
Rockingham gave him a peculiar smile. ‘What do you expect if you permit hordes of barbarians to roam around the land on a whim?’
‘I thought they were here to work.’
‘More like piss their wages against the wall and infect our women with the French disease.’
‘In my experience venereal diseases are the gift of the aristocracy.’ Pyke stood up and walked over to the large Venetian window that looked out on to the lawn at the rear of the building. ‘It explains why most of your lot are effete twits who can’t tie their own shoelaces.’
That even drew a chuckle from the old man. ‘I like you, boy. You’re spirited. But a spirited horse won’t always become a champion. That takes discipline and courage. I’d enjoy breaking you in, of course, but I don’t think you possess those qualities. In the end, you’d end up in the slaughterhouse like the rest of the also-rans.’
‘Since you seem to appreciate blunt talking, I’ll try and make this as clear as I can. The Grand Northern Railway will be built across your land whether you like it or not.’
‘You’ll see to it personally?’ Rockingham’s voice was light, even mocking.
‘Flatterers tried to convince Canute he could command the waves to go back but he only attempted to do so in order to ridicule them. You could learn a thing or two from him.’
‘Is that so, boy? Perhaps you don’t know as much as you seem to think.’
Rockingham shuffled over to the fireplace and stood there for a moment, his back to Pyke, while he fumbled at his breeches. Pyke heard the splashes and saw some steam rising from the fire before he realised what was happening. When he’d finished, the older man buttoned up his breeches and turned to face him.
It was an act designed to insult and shock but he let it pass without acknowledging it. Still, Pyke felt his long-held prejudices against the aristocracy rise up inside him like a knotted ball.
‘I’m guessing it was that old fool Morris who sent you here.’ Rockingham belched loudly. ‘Just imagine it, giving up your title to join the ranks of the plebeians. What right-thinking Englishman would contemplate such a prospect?’
‘If a right-thinking Englishman would fuck a Negro woman and then, nine months later, strangle his own progeny in front of her, Morris might be better described as wrong-thinking.’
Rockingham regarded him coldly. ‘I’d be very careful how you address me, boy.’
‘If it was up to me, I’d make sure the railway cut through the middle of this house and then I’d build a station in the great hall.’
That drew a leering smile. ‘You’re actually quite an amusing sort.’ He looked at Pyke, as though inspecting a slab of meat. ‘Whatever Morris is paying you, I’ll double it.’
‘To do what?’
‘Tempted, eh?’ Rockingham grinned, blood rising in his wan cheeks. ‘To leave me in peace so I can finish my lunch.’
‘I’m waiting for you to tell me how a headless corpse came to be dumped in the river flowing directly through your land.’
This seemed to take Rockingham by surprise. ‘It didn’t have anything to do with me.’
‘But it was found in the river just downstream from the edge of your estate.’
‘So?’
‘So it implies that you were somehow involved.’
‘Did the magistrate tell you that?’
When Pyke declined to answer, Rockingham’s mood seemed to improve. ‘I didn’t think so.’ But it suggested that he wasn’t as certain of Yellowplush’s support as Pyke might have expected.
‘It was just coincidence, then?’
‘Dammit, boy, if I’d killed a man or paid someone else to do it, why would I have cut off his head and thrown him into a river near my own land?’
A moment passed between them. More on a whim than anything else, Pyke said, ‘So what are you trying to hide?’
‘Hide?’ Rockingham spluttered, unable to contain his rage. ‘I’m not trying to hide a damned thing.’
‘It doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing.’
Rockingham wiped spittle from his chin and waited until he was calm. ‘It’s time you left. This conversation is finished.’
‘The young girl I saw outside in the paddock, riding one of your chestnut horses. Is she your daughter or granddaughter?’
Rockingham’s outrage was confined to his trembling hand. ‘I won’t be talked to in such an outrageous manner in my own house, sir.’
‘If you make any further attempts to impede the construction of the railway across your land, I’ll smear the bloodied carcass of her favourite animal across the marbled floor of the entrance hall while she watches.’
‘Are you threatening my family?’ Rockingham asked, still trying to adjust himself to the shock.
Unbuttoning his trousers, Pyke relieved himself on the remains of Rockingham’s steak while the old man looked on in horror.
‘Do you really think you can come into my home and insult me?’ Rockingham’s eyes glowed with humiliation. ‘I have powerful friends, in London as well as Huntingdon, and I won’t stand for your impertinence. You hear me, boy? I’d watch your back if I were you.’
As he reached the front steps, Pyke looked up and saw two figures approaching the house across the lawn. The young woman with the blonde hair carried a riding hat. Her companion, a smartly dressed young man, walked by her side. He was leading the chestnut gelding.
In the morning sunlight, the whiteness of their clothes set against the manicured green lawn might have made for a pleasant sight and their happy demeanour, reinforced by the fact they were walking so close together, implied a blossoming romance. But Pyke could not bring himself to acknowledge them or their happiness. Perhaps they had no idea that their idyll had been purchased with the crack of a slaver’s whip, but their innocence was not something he wished to contemplate.
Rockingham had followed Pyke outside, however, and approached him as he was preparing to leave. He called over the young couple, took the reins of the horse from the man and, without making any introductions or acknowledging Pyke’s presence, asked them to leave.
‘He’s a beautiful animal, isn’t he?’ Rockingham said, gently stroking the animal’s head. ‘But in a race at Newmarket last week he missed his footing and was beaten into third place.’
Pyke didn’t see the pistol in the ex-slaver’s shaking hand until it was too late. The first blast caught the startled beast between the eyes and the second hit him in the neck as he stumbled, the hind legs buckling first. On the ground, the stricken animal quivered and snorted in front of them, and then died.
‘Perhaps now you know what kind of man you’re dealing with,’ Rockingham said, staring down at the slain animal without sentiment.
Hearing a noise from behind them, Pyke spun around and saw that Rockingham’s daughter had witnessed the scene from the top of the stone steps, but her expression was composed and her stare was empty, as though the shooting had not happened or she had failed to see it.
SEVEN
In daylight, and now that it was no longer raining, Huntingdon might have looked like a pretty market town with its Norman church, well-proportioned houses and lush meadows. In fact, for a few hours at least, the sun-dappled river, though it had broken its banks just past the old bridge, seemed almost peaceful. But it was also hard not to see the town in the light of its watch-house and jail, the workhouse that was being built, and the efforts of its inhabitants to arm themselves in the face of an enemy who had done them no wrong. Pyke had seen similar attitudes in other small
provincial towns. Strangers were to be tolerated only if they did not stay, change was to be feared, tradition and superstition predominated, and men’s fears were easily played upon by those with the power. It wasn’t surprising that the coming of the railway had provoked unrest, especially as it threatened people’s livelihoods. But Pyke suspected that some people were whipping up generalised anxieties for their own selfish interests.
Situated on the Godmanchester side of the old bridge, the navvy encampment was set back from the muddy track and partly hidden by a tall hedge that circled the field.
‘Hey, fella, what do you want?’ From the other side of the gate, a man peered at him and scowled. He was holding what looked like a musket.
‘I want to talk to whoever’s in charge.’
‘Who are you?’
‘The name’s Pyke. I’ve been sent here by the chairman of the railway company in London.’
That drew an ironic laugh but the gate swung open and he was met on the other side by three burly men with muskets slung over their shoulders, wearing velveteen coats covered in mud.
‘We’ll need to search you,’ one of them muttered. ‘In light of the current situation, I expect you’ll understand.’
Pyke nodded but wondered what situation they were referring to. Did they know that the townsmen were already preparing for trouble?
Although it was afternoon, there was a chill in the air and darkness had begun to gnaw at the edges of the sky, while giant pillars of dark forbidding cloud massed on the horizon.
The word camp was perhaps too grand a description for what greeted Pyke. It was little more than a few canvas tarpaulins hoisted over low-lying tree branches and a single turf shanty built out of caked mud which sat on slightly higher ground away from the banks of the river. As he was led across the field, the stares of the navvies bore into him. He had to duck his head to enter the shanty and inside it took him a few moments to adjust to the gloom. One of the men introduced him as a company man from London. A fire burnt in a makeshift grate, the smoke drawn upwards by a small hole in the thatched roof.
The Revenge of Captain Paine Page 9
