The Detective Branch

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Do you think this man, Druitt, intended to kill the infant or not?’

  Sylvester rubbed his chin and frowned. ‘I have no opinion on the matter. The jury made its decision and I see no reason to question the verdict.’

  ‘Do you know what became of Malloy and Sarah Scott?’

  ‘I don’t know about the woman,’ Sylvester said, relaxing into his chair. ‘Malloy, I’m afraid, fell into the bottom of a whisky glass. You can find him most days in the Black Lion on Berwick Street. Either there or the Crown and Anchor on Broad Street.’

  ‘He moved out of your property shortly after the incident?’

  ‘They all did.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you rented out the rooms? Surely as long as the rooms remain empty, you’re losing money.’

  ‘I’ve tried, believe me.’ The lawyer gave him a baleful stare. ‘But folk around here are superstitious and they have long memories. No one wants to move into a place where a young child was killed.’

  Pyke nodded. ‘What kind of tenants were they?’

  Sylvester shrugged. ‘They paid their rent on time.’

  ‘What did the other tenants think of them?’ Pyke asked, sensing some reticence.

  Sylvester rubbed his chin again. ‘The one who was the priest was quite well liked.’

  ‘But not Druitt?’

  ‘No, I don’t think the neighbours much cared for him. I’m told he brought a lot of people into the building. Footsteps on the stairs all hours of the day and night.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘He was the first one who came to me, wanting to know whether he could rent any of the rooms. Apparently the poet, William Blake, was born in No. 28, and Druitt admitted to being a great admirer of Blake’s work. To be honest, I always found him rather charming.’

  Pyke silently admonished himself. He knew Blake’s poetry quite well and should have recognised the lines. His realisation didn’t explain why someone had sent him the quotation but it gave him somewhere to start.

  Later, after Pyke had arrived home and eaten his supper, he went upstairs to check on Felix and his uncle, who was awake and sitting up in his bed. In the past few days he’d seemed a good bit better and had some colour in his cheeks. When Pyke quoted the lines of the Blake poem, Godfrey smiled. ‘Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, if I’m not much mistaken.’

  ‘I didn’t recognise it. But you knew it straight away.’ Pyke handed Godfrey the note he’d been sent. ‘I presume it’s well known?’

  ‘Are you questioning my literary knowledge, dear boy?’

  That made Pyke smile. It lifted him to see his uncle in better spirits.

  ‘It’s an illustrated edition: Blake’s great paean to Milton.’ Then by way of explanation, Godfrey continued, ‘Blake wanted to humanise the Devil, just as Milton had done in Paradise Lost. Turn him into a figure of justified rebellion. Blake described Milton as “a true poet of the Devil’s party without knowing it”.’ Godfrey was sitting upright and his white hair had been combed back off his face. He looked better than he had done in a long while, Pyke thought, although he was still desperately thin.

  ‘So what do those lines mean? Why does the sneaking serpent walk in mild humility?’

  ‘The snake’s always been understood as Satan in another form.’ Godfrey looked down at the piece of paper. His hands were frail and bony and the paper shook as he studied the contents. ‘You see here the snake walks in mild humility. How many snakes do you know that can walk? But I’d say the emphasis is on the just man who’s raging in the wilds.’

  ‘You’ll see on the note that Blake’s old address, 28 Broad Street, is scribbled under the lines.’ Briefly Pyke explained what had happened there in the summer, half aware that, as he was telling the story, something about it was bothering him.

  Godfrey digested this information, seemingly glad to be distracted from his condition. ‘And this note was addressed to you, in person?’

  Pyke nodded. ‘Hand delivered. Of course, none of the clerks remember who delivered it.’ It made no sense. ‘Why would someone want me to visit a couple of empty rooms?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Godfrey said, sinking back into his pillows. ‘But give me Milton over Blake any day of the week.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for lowering the tone,’ Pyke said, smiling. ‘You seem a little better tonight,’ he added, a few moments later.

  ‘Do I? Nice of you to say so. I feel tired and very weak. Everything seems such an effort, even turning over in bed.’

  A little later, once Godfrey had drifted back to sleep, Pyke retreated to the landing and knocked on Felix’s door. Not waiting for an answer, he went in. Felix, who was lying on the bed, hurriedly stuffed whatever he’d been reading under the blanket.

  ‘Godfrey seems a little better tonight, doesn’t he?’ Pyke said. Without being invited, he sat down on the end of the bed.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘He told me he ate a little soup and even managed a few sips of wine.’

  ‘The nurse said he should eat.’

  Pyke nodded and a short silence passed between them. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m indifferent to what’s happening to him.’

  Felix stared at him blankly. ‘Then perhaps you should spend some more time with him, while you still can.’

  ‘I know. You’re right.’ Pyke hesitated, not sure what else to say. He didn’t want to make promises he wouldn’t be able to keep. ‘I’m not sure I’d even be here, if it wasn’t for that man next door.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Felix asked, interested now.

  A vague memory he’d suppressed for a long time began to form at the edge of his mind. Perhaps it had been there all along. He didn’t have much time to mull it over but he felt an urge to tell Felix what was on his mind. Maybe it would help the lad understand the debt he owed Godfrey, explain that he wasn’t indifferent to the old man’s suffering.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about this,’ he said carefully. ‘Not even your mother.’

  Felix sat up on the bed. ‘Told anyone what?’

  Now he’d mentioned it, Pyke didn’t want to go ahead with the story; there were too many parts associated with it that he’d rather not think about. But Felix’s face told him he had no choice.

  ‘After my own father died, I spent a year in an orphanage. I can still remember the smell of camphor and waxed floors and the taste of the gruel they used to serve at breakfast.’ Pyke hesitated. He’d meant the story to focus on Godfrey but other memories were now assailing him.

  ‘Each night, after the candles had been blown out, a man - well, a reverend, because it was a church-run orphanage - would make his rounds. If he stopped at the end of your bed, it was a sign that you were meant to go with him.’ Pyke could feel his heart beating faster. ‘I’d lie there, under the blanket, with another lad, there’d be two or three of us in each bed, willing him not to stop. And in almost a year, he never did. None of the other boys ever talked about where they went or what they did. But I’d hear them return, later in the night . . .’ He looked up at Felix and smiled. ‘We used to call him the Owl on account of his eyes; they would follow you wherever you went.’

  It felt strange to think about these things after so many years. Pyke looked down and saw his hands were trembling. Felix reached out and touched him.

  ‘Godfrey took me out of there. Do you know something? I don’t think he really was a blood relation of my father, though our families were connected. He didn’t have to do what he did. But he found me and insisted on giving me a home. I can’t even imagine how my life would have turned out, if he hadn’t rescued me.’

  They sat for a while in silence, Felix’s hand still pressed against Pyke’s. Eventually Felix said, ‘What was it like, the orphanage?’

  ‘Cold . . . lonely.’ Pyke looked at him and shrugged. ‘You got used to it after a while, like anything else.’

  ‘Is that why you don’t care about God?’ Felix aske
d in a quiet, small voice.

  Pyke tried to laugh. ‘I haven’t thought about the man we called the Owl in many years. But to answer your question, I don’t think they treated us well. In fact, I think we were treated very badly.’

  Felix bit his lip, evidently thinking about what Pyke had just said. ‘Did you recognise Godfrey when you first saw him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ Pyke closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘I might have. He was a good friend of my father’s. He used to come to our room from time to time.’

  ‘You and your father lived in the same room?’

  Pyke smiled and squeezed his son’s hand. ‘Us and another family. But it was a different time.’

  ‘Do you still think about him?’

  ‘Who, my father?’

  Felix nodded.

  ‘Not often. When I do, I find it hard to remember the good things. He used to drink a lot.’

  ‘I’m lucky by comparison, aren’t I?’ Felix’s tone was gentle. ‘What I’ve got. What we’ve got.’

  ‘We’re both lucky.’ Pyke squeezed his son’s hand one more time. ‘But when someone you love falls ill, it’s not always easy to remember that.’

  NINE

  Pyke had often wondered exactly how old Frederick Shaw was. At first glance, he didn’t look any older than twenty; his face was freckled, his skin free of blemishes and his frame wiry and slight. But Pyke also knew that Shaw had first joined the New Police eight years earlier, which had to put him in his mid to late twenties or even his early thirties. Indeed, when you looked at him closely, the lines around his eyes were just about visible and his skin wasn’t quite as flawless as it seemed. Sometimes Pyke wondered whether Shaw used his apparent innocence and naivety as a mask to keep the rest of the world at arm’s length, for when he had observed Shaw’s work at first hand there were signs of a sharp and even cunning intellect. It was a clever strategy, in a way: people always underestimated someone who smiled at them and doffed his cap.

  That morning, Pyke had asked Shaw to accompany him to Soho to find the former Catholic priest. He had suggested that they walk from Whitehall Place.

  ‘It was a good job Eddie did at Coldbath Fields, wasn’t it?’ Pyke said, as they crossed Trafalgar Square.

  Lockhart had informed them at the morning meeting that he’d spoken to the governor of the prison and consulted the records and that Hiley, according to the governor, had been a model prisoner. He had not received visitors and had seemingly made no friends while he was incarcerated.

  Shaw seemed momentarily thrown by this compliment.

  ‘He’s a good detective,’ Pyke added. This much was true; Lockhart was a methodical, competent investigator.

  Shaw nodded. ‘But sometimes he likes to assume authority over me and Gerrett, even though we’re the same rank.’

  ‘He tells you what to do?’ Pyke turned this notion over in his mind.

  ‘In the summer, when I found out the name of the other victim, he told me not to say anything until we had proper corroboration.’

  ‘The victim in the Shorts Gardens robbery?’

  ‘A man by the name of Gibb,’ Shaw declared.

  Pyke wondered whether there was anything in this, but perhaps Lockhart had been acting out of caution, as Pyke had told them to do. They were walking at a brisk pace and when Shaw didn’t offer anything else, Pyke said, ‘I can’t say he has much of a sense of humour . . . and I know he was close to my predecessor.’

  Shaw shrugged. ‘He’s a private man. Never talks very much about himself.’

  This was not unusual. Pyke knew very little about the personal lives of his men and was happy to keep it that way. ‘You and Billy did well yesterday, too,’ he said, referring to their trip to the Sessions House at Old Bailey to consult the official account of Hiley’s trial.

  ‘I don’t like working with him,’ Shaw said.

  Pyke had always assumed Shaw and Billy Gerrett were friends. He tried to say as much but Shaw interrupted, clearly agitated now the subject had been raised. ‘He borrowed money from me to pay a gambling debt. But instead of paying me back, he’s gone and run up another debt.’

  ‘How much did you lend him?’

  ‘Twenty pounds.’

  Pyke whistled. It was a sizeable sum; it would take a detective sergeant a couple of months to earn that amount of money.

  ‘And now this other person, the one he’s run up a new debt with, is ahead of you in the queue to be paid back?’

  Shaw nodded grimly. ‘The other one who lent Billy money is the landlord of a public house . . .’

  They were walking up St Martin’s Lane and the pavements were full of people. ‘Which pub?’ Pyke asked, as innocuously as possible.

  ‘The Engineer,’ Shaw said. ‘Holywell Street in Millbank.’

  Pyke nodded, as if he knew the place well. ‘It must be difficult, having to do without things yourself when Gerrett is making light of what he owes you.’

  Shaw started to walk a little more quickly, as though to try to exorcise the pent-up anger he doubtless felt, but he made no further comment.

  Brendan Malloy lived alone in a dingy room above a printer’s shop on Silver Street, and by the time they had dragged the former priest out of the Black Lion tavern and fed him sufficient mugs of steaming black coffee to sober him up, it was early afternoon. They had managed to find out that he’d grown up and taken his orders in the west of Ireland. Once ordained, Malloy, by his own account, had volunteered for missionary work in London and had been given letters of introduction to prominent Catholic figures in the south of England who had, in turn, funded, though not generously, a mission he had established in some stables on Cambridge Street. Three times a week, Malloy had led prayers and taught the Irish poor of Soho the catechisms, and on Sundays he had heard people’s confessions and taken mass. When Pyke asked why he had left the church, and whether it was of his own accord, Malloy pretended not to have heard the question.

  His dishevelled appearance wasn’t helped by a slight stoop, nor by the squint that meant you were never quite sure whether he was looking at you or not. His ink-black hair was unkempt and, because of his crooked back, he walked with a faint limp.

  ‘Until recently you rented a room on the top floor of number twenty-eight Broad Street, didn’t you?’ Pyke said.

  Malloy didn’t seem particularly taken aback by the question. ‘You here to rake over that old ground again?’

  ‘Which old ground?’

  ‘I said all that needed to be said in that there courtroom.’

  Pyke looked over at Shaw, who was inspecting the titles of books on Malloy’s mantelpiece. ‘Were you the child’s father?’

  A look of irritation flashed across Malloy’s face. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘You see, I’m curious,’ Pyke said. ‘The mother, Sarah Scott, didn’t give evidence against Druitt at his trial. Can you tell me why not?’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you’re here, or what you want from me. I thought the judge had ruled on all this . . .’

  Pyke noticed that Shaw had picked up one of Malloy’s books and was inspecting the cover. ‘When was the last time you visited number twenty-eight Broad Street?’

  ‘I haven’t been back to that godforsaken place since the night it happened.’ This time Malloy looked directly at Pyke. ‘The night the child died.’

  Pyke removed the note he’d been sent and handed it to Malloy. ‘Do you recognise the handwriting?’

  Malloy took the letter and held it up to his eyes. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Someone sent it to me anonymously. Clearly they wanted me to visit your old address.’ He waited and then added, ‘Do you know why?’