The Detective Branch

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘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.’

  Pyke assimilated this piece of information. Eventually he said, ‘You think it’s been on his mind.’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Where this interest has come from, for example?’

  That drew a sharp frown. ‘He’s fourteen. He’s old enough to have his own questions.’

  Pyke wondered whether someone at the school had been encouraging his son, but then dismissed the thought. One of the reasons Pyke had chosen the school in the first place was its non-denominational status and the fact it offered no religious instruction.

  They heard Felix’s footsteps returning and Godfrey whispered, ‘I don’t want you to say anything to the lad just yet . . .’

  They both l
ooked up at the same time. Felix, who was almost as tall as Pyke and the spitting image of his mother, cocked his head and said, ‘Were you talking about me?’

  Godfrey held out his hand to receive the glass of claret. ‘I was just asking your father about the Drury Lane murders. The three men shot dead in the pawnbroker’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ Felix thought about this for a moment. ‘It looked like you were talking about me, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I was just asking your father whether you’d expressed an interest in the case,’ Godfrey added.

  Pyke would have liked Felix to have been more interested in what he did for a living but the lad seemed to regard his work as vulgar. Long gone were the days when Felix had devoured the tales of the Newgate Calendar. Now, he was far more likely to have Plato’s Republic or a book about Florentine art on his bedside table.

  ‘Why on earth would I be interested in the exploits of criminals?’

  ‘You’d prefer it if such actions went unpunished? That men be permitted to kill each other with impunity?’ Pyke tried - and failed - to keep the irritation from his voice.

  ‘Maybe you’re right, Pyke, but the world can be such a beautiful place.’ Felix had taken to calling him Pyke in recent months, just like everyone else. He had also adopted an affected way of speaking and, on occasions, Pyke had come close to slapping him.

  ‘Beautiful for those who can afford beautiful things. For those who can’t grub together enough to live, it’s a different story.’

  Felix shrugged. ‘Does the sunset cost anything? Or the view from the top of Primrose Hill?’

  ‘I don’t suppose someone living in the middle of Spitalfields has ever heard of Primrose Hill.’

  Felix looked at him and glared. He was now caught in an argument he couldn’t win.

  Later Pyke wondered whether he might have pressed his point too hard because Felix stood up suddenly and left the room without saying another word.

  ‘It’s just a phase, dear boy,’ Godfrey said gently.

  ‘I hope so.’ Pyke looked at his uncle and shook his head. ‘For the lad’s sake as much as mine.’

  That night, Pyke lay in bed thinking about Felix and how different his life was to the one Pyke had known as a boy. He often wondered what his own childhood had really been like, whether it had been as good or as bad as he remembered. It was true that prior to his father’s death they had been poor, but he wouldn’t have known it at the time. Felix took so much for granted because for the most part he’d always been comfortable, well provided for. Pyke remembered sleeping under hessian sacks that scratched his skin; he remembered roaming the streets with other children, stealing his first apple; he remembered the hunger pains in his stomach when he had to go to bed without a meal and the smell of the Macassar oil that his father used to put in his hair before going to the tavern. It was funny what you remembered as you got older, things that you thought were lost for ever. When Felix was born, Pyke had never known a joy like it, and when his son was a young boy, Felix’s adoration had carried him through many a dark hour. Now all of that was gone, and though he wanted to be a better father he didn’t know how.

  Lying there in the dark, his thoughts turned to Godfrey and how different life would be without him; mostly how different it would be between him and Felix. With Godfrey gone, it would just be the two of them, no one to mediate between them as the old man had done for as long as Felix had been able to talk. Why was it, Pyke wondered, that he didn’t know what to say to his son, how to talk to him? And why did he always feel he wasn’t doing enough for the lad? That he’d always somehow let Felix down? Or that he was a disappointment or an embarrassment to him? Still unable to sleep, Pyke turned his thoughts finally to the robbery. He imagined the first shot being fired, the gunman waiting for the smoke to clear, then firing again and again, until the room was silent. He thought about Walter Wells and his desire to cast the Irish as villains; about Pierce and his apparently ‘magnanimous’ decision to take up the vacant position as the head of Holborn Division; and finally about the detectives under his own command. But the last face he saw before he drifted off to sleep was Harry Dove’s: it was pressed against a dirty pane of glass, twisted and contorted, mouthing something that Pyke couldn’t quite fathom.

  FOUR

  The sky was the colour of dishwater, the air still damp from the rain that had swept in from the west, accompanied by a vicious wind that had torn lead slates from the roofs. It was no longer raining; a faint drizzle, almost a mist, had succumbed to the mild glow of the sun rising in the east, and the pavements and cobblestones were just beginning to dry.

  The first wagon stopped at one end of Buckeridge Street and six police constables in uniform - long-tailed coats and top hats - alighted; a few minutes later, a second wagon pulled up behind it and then a third, just short of twenty hand-picked men assembling on the corner of Buckeridge and Church Streets, trying not to make a noise or draw attention to themselves. From within the rookery - a dense jumble of decrepit tenements, alleyways and courts that extended as far north as the British Museum - a cockerel crowed and a dog barked. The men conversed in whispers, glancing nervously up and down the narrow street as a shaft of watery sunlight cut through the surrounding rooftops. Finally a fourth wagon arrived and Walter Wells alighted. The acting superintendent stepped over the water pooled in the gutter and strode out in front of the other officers, the military man in his element, inspecting his troops before battle. Wells inhaled a pinch of snuff and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. The men had breakfasted well, Wells had seen to that; as a soldier, he knew that any army marched and fought on its stomach. Everything seemed to be in order.

  Some of the dwellings were derelict - Buckeridge and Bainbridge Streets had both been earmarked for demolition; a new road linking High Holborn in the east and Oxford Street in the west was planned, cutting a swathe through the worst part of the rookery. Most of the buildings, however, were still occupied, if only by squatters, the poorest of the poor, who slept eight or ten to a room, defecated in the street, and cooked food on open fires in the yards or courts.

  Wells took out his truncheon and indicated for his men to do likewise. Raising it up in the air, he waited for a moment, like a conductor, and then brought it down with a sudden jerk of his wrist. The constables filed out along the street, two congregating at each door. When they were all in place, Wells gave the signal and they issued a collective belly roar and crashed through the doors in unison, the noise shattering the silence and echoing up and down the narrow street. Wells stood there, sniffing the air, as the first bedraggled men were slung out on to the street, arms protecting their heads, while other policemen moved forward to throw them into the waiting wagons. Ignoring the screams of women and children, who had also been herded into the street, the policemen moved systematically from house to house, not stopping until the entire street had been cleared, and their truncheons were coated with a patina of blood. Only then did they consider the desolation they had caused, the screaming and the wailing as the first of the wagons, jammed full of bodies, lurched forward, the horses buckling under the strain despite the crack of the driver’s whip.

  Wells gave Pyke a full description of what had happened later that morning when Pyke found him in the corridor outside the holding cells underneath the old watch-house. Wells’s division and number - A1 - was manifest on the collar of his coat; his truncheon was clipped to his belt.

  The cells were full to the point of overflowing and the confined space smelled of body odour and gin. Wells greeted Pyke enthusiastically and told him that the raid had been a qualified success. They hadn’t found the gunmen but he assured Pyke that it would only be a matter of time.

  Pyke listened, trying to reconcile his anger with the notion that Wells outranked him and hence wouldn’t welcome the criticism. It was stupid, what they had done, stirring up unnecessary trouble, but Pyke didn’t want to make an enemy out of Wells just yet.

  ‘I spoke to one of the Raf
ferty brothers yesterday at the Blue Dog on Castle Street. He told me that a hundred men would vouch that he and his brothers were there at the time of the robbery.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to share this information with me?’

  ‘Your mind seemed to be made up.’ Pyke waited. ‘Just because a handful of Irishmen were seen firing their guns on wasteland doesn’t mean they walked into Cullen’s shop and shot three men in cold blood.’

  Wells eyed him suspiciously. ‘I don’t like to say it, sir, but you’re beginning to sound like a papist appeaser.’

  Pyke let the insult linger in the air between them. It didn’t especially bother him - he’d been called a lot worse.

  Perhaps sensing he’d pushed the matter too far, Wells softened his expression. ‘Notwithstanding the smoke and mirrors of their idolatrous religion, if you’d seen what I saw this morning, fifty men, women and children crammed into dwellings that weren’t built to house more than ten, you might agree that we are being overrun by papists.’