The Detective Branch

by Andrew Pepper

  Palmer regarded him with interest. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Detective. Sir Richard was just being diplomatic. I plan to take the department for all I can get.’ He grinned at his own joke.

  Palmer acknowledged Mayne with a nod of the head and then let himself out of the room.

  ‘This is good work, Detective,’ Mayne said, when they were alone. He was holding the route-paper Pyke had written. ‘Thorough and imaginative.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘This Catholic priest, the one you arrested, lied about not knowing Isaac Guppy?’

  ‘It would seem so; I plan to question him further.’

  ‘So, you have two lines of investigation. This priest constitutes one; Francis Hiley the other.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Mayne looked down at the route-paper in front of him. ‘Question the priest but don’t forget about Hiley.’

  Pyke wondered why everyone seemed to be so keen to implicate the ex-convict.

  ‘That will be all, Detective Inspector. Good afternoon.’

  There was a woman waiting for Pyke in his office when he returned from his exchange with Mayne. She was respectably dressed in a dark-coloured blouse, a grey flounced crinoline skirt and a woollen shawl covering her shoulders. It took Pyke a few moments to remember where he’d seen her before.

  ‘Mrs Morris.’ He gestured for her to take the chair on the other side of his desk. ‘Now what can I do for you?’

  ‘I have a son, he’s twelve. Not a bad lad but he never listens to his mother. I found this among his possessions,’ she said, rummaging around in the cloth bag she’d brought with her. ‘I asked him where he’d got it and he told me he’d found it in one of the upstairs rooms at number twenty-eight.’ She removed what looked to be a garment of some kind and shook out the creases. ‘Apparently it was just hanging there on an old nail.’

  Pyke took it from her and inspected it more closely.

  Made from black cloth, it was a surplice with thin strips of rabbit fur attached to both shoulders.

  TEN

  Brendan Malloy sat on the hard floor of the cell, back against the wall and arms wrapped around his knees, shaking. Neither his ankles nor his wrists had been shackled but he still looked pathetic. The gin fumes from his breath filled the small space and mingled with the scent of his body odour. In the light of a solitary candle it was hard to see his face beneath the dark, tangled morass of whiskers.

  ‘Get me a pint of gin and I’ll tell you anything ye want, sir. Just get me some gin. Please.’ He held up his hands in supplication.

  ‘If you answer my questions in a manner I consider to be satisfactory, I might give you what you want.’

  Pyke took a step into the cell. ‘When we last met, I asked you whether you knew or had ever met Reverend Isaac Guppy. You told me you’d never heard of him.’

  Malloy’s stare fell to his boots; he didn’t make any attempt to deny the lie he’d been caught in.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d visited Guppy in March?’

  ‘Is that why I’m here? ’Cos I mighta been to the man’s house on one occasion?’

  ‘So you don’t deny you went to see him?’

  Malloy just shrugged.

  ‘Why did you go to see him? And why did you lie to me about knowing him?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’ He looked up at Pyke, his eyes wide and pleading. ‘Isn’t that the important question?’

  ‘The hammer of witches. Is that just a coincidence?’

  Malloy seemed puzzled.

  ‘Guppy was beaten to death with a hammer.’

  The former priest held up his bony, trembling hands. ‘Does it look like I could kill a man with these?’

  It was true that Pyke couldn’t imagine Brendan Malloy wielding a hammer to any great effect. ‘Where were you last Tuesday night, between the hours of eight and midnight?’

  Malloy’s stare drifted back to the floor. ‘I couldn’t exactly say; these days I can hardly remember what I did yesterday. But I’d say I was where you found me earlier or in the Black Lion. I don’t tend to venture much farther ’n that.’

  Pyke made a mental note to send Shaw to check with the landlord and drinkers there, to see whether anyone remembered seeing Malloy that night. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you go and see Guppy?’

  Malloy wiped his hand across his forehead. ‘To warn him, that’s all.’

  ‘Warn him about what?’

  ‘Before I can tell you, you have to understand something about Ebenezer Druitt.’

  Pyke nodded for him to continue.

  Malloy’s hands were trembling violently now. ‘Do you know what a mesmerist is?’

  ‘I think I know what a mesmerist does. Or claims to do.’

  ‘Folk would come and see Druitt at number twenty-eight. Folk with ailments, problems. Druitt would put them to sleep and pretend he was curin’ them. They’d pay him good money, too.’

  Pyke nodded. He remembered reading about Franz Mesmer, who’d studied medicine in Vienna and had initially believed that cures could be achieved by rubbing diseased bodies with magnets. Eventually Mesmer had come to realise that the power of suggestion was even more potent and he had travelled to Paris to try to convince experts that his findings had medical uses.

  ‘You’re suggesting Druitt was a fraud?’

  ‘A fraud?’ Malloy laughed bitterly. ‘No, I don’t think he was a fraud. But he was a dangerous man - still is. He could terrify and charm in equal measure, but he also claimed he had the gift of prophesy, said he was visited by spirits. If you’d seen one of his acts, you mighta believed him too.’

  Pyke felt his frustration rise. ‘What’s any of this got to do with Isaac Guppy?’

  ‘I was just tryin’ to explain. Earlier this year, Druitt told me he’d foreseen that an Anglican vicar called Guppy would die. This was when we were still on speakin’ terms. I asked him whether he felt he had a duty to warn this Guppy. Druitt just laughed, said that one less vicar in the world would be a good thing. At first I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t feel I could sit back and do nothing, so I went looking for him.’

  ‘You just approached him, a total stranger, and told him a man called Druitt had prophesied his death?’

  Malloy nodded.

  ‘Did he believe you?’

  ‘Not at first.’

  ‘What changed his mind?’

  ‘I don’t know. At the time, I thought I’d convinced him that Ebenezer Druitt wasn’t a man to be taken lightly.’

  ‘But afterwards?’

  ‘It was only when I told him my name that his whole attitude changed.’

  Pyke contemplated this. ‘You think he knew who you were?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Malloy replied, nodding.

  ‘Only you’d never met him before.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Maybe Druitt wanted you to tell Guppy. Did you ever think about that? I mean, why else would he go to the trouble of taking you into his confidence?’

  Malloy shrugged. ‘That could be true, I suppose. Druitt could’ve had some business with Guppy I didn’t know about. It would have been like him, too. Wantin’ to frighten the man and gettin’ me to do it for him.’

  Pyke studied Malloy’s face for signs that he was lying. ‘And did you tell Druitt what you’d done?’

  That elicited a gallows laugh. ‘’Course I didn’t tell him. Druitt’s not just a mean man, sir, not just a man with violence in his blood. If he were just that, I wouldn’t have been afraid of him.’

  Pyke dug his hands deeper into the fur-lined pockets of his greatcoat. ‘Then tell me why you were afraid.’

  ‘Still am, sir. Still am.’

  ‘Even though he’s locked away in the Model Prison at Pentonville?’

  ‘Evil recognises no walls, sir, and that’s the truth. Look into his eyes and you’ll know what I’m talking about. You’ll feel the chill in your soul.’

  Pyke consider
ed this for a moment. He believed that Malloy was telling the truth but he had no way of knowing how mentally disturbed the former priest actually was.

  ‘I’d like you to tell me about Sarah Scott,’ he continued.

  ‘What about her?’ Malloy said, curling up into an even tighter ball. His eyes glistened manically in the candlelight.

  ‘Did the two of you live together at number twenty-eight?’

  ‘She lodged there for a while.’

  Pyke nodded. ‘Were the two of you lovers?’

  ‘That’s none of your business, sir,’ Malloy muttered, but his indignation seemed unconvincing.

  ‘It’s my job to find out who killed Isaac Guppy, and if I decide your affair with this woman, Sarah Scott, is relevant to my enquiries, then I’ll make it my business to dig up every sordid detail, whether you like it or not.’

  Malloy said nothing but continued to glare at him.

  ‘Is that why you left the Catholic Church?’

  ‘I had my reasons, sir.’

  ‘Do you know where I can find her now? If I felt you were being co-operative with me, I might allow the gaoler to bring you some beer or even some gin.’

  That seemed to do it. ‘Last I heard she’d gone to live in a vegetarian colony in Suffolk.’ Malloy hesitated and then continued. ‘A place called Stratford St Mary, near Ipswich.’

  ‘Are the two of you still corresponding?’

  ‘She’s there, I’m here,’ he said glumly.

  Pyke considered the man crouched in front of him for a moment. ‘I read the court transcript of Druitt’s trial. I was interested to see that Sarah Scott wasn’t asked to testify.’

  ‘She’d just lost her child. Is it any wonder she didn’t feel up to takin’ the stand?’

  Pyke looked into Malloy’s proud, gin-ravaged face. ‘In the end, it came down to your word against Druitt’s. The jury believed you and not him.’

  ‘I was there. I saw him. That bastard, he knew I was watchin’ him, and you know what he did, just before he let go of the baby? He looked down at me and smiled.’

  ‘What still puzzles me is the lack of motive. Druitt didn’t have any reason for wanting that child dead.’

  ‘Haven’t you listened to a single word I’ve told you?’ Malloy said, shaking his head.

  ‘Are you saying that Druitt didn’t need a reason?’ Pyke made it clear that he didn’t believe this for a moment. Instead, he said, ‘The surplice that Isaac Guppy was wearing on the night he was murdered turned up the other day in one of the upstairs rooms at number twenty-eight.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, it stands to reason that Guppy’s murderer took the surplice to your old address. And at the moment you’re the only person I can think of who lived at number twenty-eight and had met Guppy. Now, do you see the trouble you’re in?’

  But Malloy seemed far away. ‘I always knew he could still get to me . . .’

  ‘Druitt? But he’s locked away in Pentonville?’

  Malloy held his breath, as if weighing up what Pyke had just said. ‘You still don’t understand, do you? I thought I’d be safe; I’d be out of his reach.’ Malloy started to rock back and forth, his arms clamped tightly around his knees.

  ‘Has Druitt been sending you letters from prison?’

  Malloy buried his face in his hands and began to sob. It was a while before he was able to speak. ‘When you fall from grace, when you cut yourself off from God, there’s nowhere left to hide.’ Without warning, Malloy sprung forward and grabbed Pyke’s coat sleeve. ‘Don’t you see what I’ve been trying to tell you? Druitt isn’t just a dangerous creature. He’s not just a man. He’s the Devil. Druitt is Satan himself.’

  For a long while afterwards, Pyke would remember the tortured look in the former priest’s eyes.

  Pyke turned up the collar of his coat and walked into the wind; it was gusting so hard it felt as if he might even be lifted off his feet. On the other side of Scotland Yard, past the fishmongers and the lodging house where the unattached policemen billeted, was the river. At the wharf stairs, he stopped and looked into the dark choppy water. It was the immenseness of it he liked: up close, the river was merely a heave of scum and sludge, but when you looked at the horizon it was a vast, slow-moving mass of water eddying its way through the largest city on earth. He stood there and thought about Brendan Malloy. It seemed unlikely, to say the least, that the former priest could have carried out such a vicious physical attack on Guppy. But at the same time Malloy somehow seemed to be implicated in the events leading up to the murder. What was clear was that someone had wanted Pyke to find the surplice and make a connection between Guppy’s murder and the former occupants of those rooms. But why? He stood for a while under the hissing gas-lamp before turning around and heading back towards Scotland Yard.

  The temperature dropped below freezing as the wind continued to gust from the north and by the time Pyke arrived home he was shivering.

  ‘He seemed all right earlier, but he fell asleep at about four and I didn’t like to wake him, even though his dinner has gone cold,’ Felix said, gesturing at the bowl of soup on the bedside table.

  Pyke looked at his uncle’s pale, cadaverous face and at the hot coals burning in the grate. At least the room was warm, he thought, as the furious wind rattled the windows. ‘Has he eaten anything today?’

  ‘He had some bread and cheese for lunch,’ Felix replied.

  ‘Well, that’s something, isn’t it?’ Pyke looked at his son’s drawn expression. ‘Perhaps you should get some rest, let me stay with Godfrey for a while.’

  They were sitting on either side of Godfrey’s bed. Neither of them spoke for a few moments. ‘This is it, isn’t it? He’s dying,’ Felix said in a whisper.

  ‘We don’t know that. Godfrey’s as strong as an ox, always has been. He’s probably just tired.’ Pyke tried to keep his tone upbeat. He hadn’t told Felix that the doctor had said it was now only a matter of time. When he’d been told this, Pyke hadn’t wanted to believe it. His uncle had lived his three score years and ten and was lucky to have done so; and his life had been much fuller than most. But this didn’t help to lessen the sharp, stabbing pain Pyke felt in his stomach whenever he realised that some time soon Godfrey would no longer be there, even though in his job he had to confront death almost daily.

  ‘And when he’s no longer able to fight?’

  ‘When the time comes, he’ll be ready. We’ll all be ready.’ Pyke felt guilty about pretending he’d already adjusted to the idea of Godfrey passing.

  Just then, Godfrey opened his eyes and yawned. ‘Listen to you, a pair of old fishwives. I’m not dead yet.’ Felix helped him to sit up. Godfrey looked around the room and smiled. ‘Who said I’m not able to fight?’ That made Felix blush and giggle and suddenly he seemed younger than his fourteen years.

  Pyke went to collect the soup bowl and said he’d go downstairs to warm it through, but on the landing, hearing Felix and Godfrey happily chatting, he took a diversion to Felix’s bedroom. The Bible was hidden under a pile of books on the table next to the bed. There was no inscription in it. Carefully he put it back where he’d found it and headed downstairs to the kitchen. When Pyke returned to Godfrey’s room five minutes later, he handed his uncle the bowl of soup and a spoon, then said to Felix, ‘I visited a church today, St Matthew’s in Bethnal Green. I’d like you to meet the vicar there. I think you’d like him.’

  ‘Why?’ Felix asked, only half interested.

  ‘He’s clearly a man of God but he wears it lightly. And while others do nothing but talk, he actually helps people.’

  ‘Careful, dear boy. You’re starting to sound like a convert,’ Godfrey said, a dribble of soup running down his chin. ‘We already have one God-botherer in the house as it is.’

  If Pyke had said this, Felix would have been offended, but since it was Godfrey, Felix hit him playfully on the arm and smiled. Suddenly uncomfortable, Pyke excused himself, saying he should look in on the pigs.

 
At the bottom of the garden, Pyke found - to his relief - that his three pigs were huddled together in the sty. There was a small, screened area where they could take refuge from the rain and wind but it wasn’t really large enough for all three of them. Either he would have to build a larger sty or one of them would have to be sacrificed. But which one? A farmer would make such a decision on a pragmatic basis: which one would yield the most meat? As such, Alice would be first in the queue, but Pyke liked her best: she was the greediest and most stubborn of the three animals. Pyke fetched another sack of corn from the shed and emptied it into the trough, but none of the pigs stirred from their shelter. He looked up at the row of houses and thought about his uncle. When Pyke had been Felix’s age, Godfrey had always known what to do; what to stand firm on, what to let go. Pyke had tried to do likewise with Felix but, in recent years, he hadn’t got it right. The boy loved Godfrey, it was so clear, but could the same be said of him? Did Felix love him in quite the same way? A sharp gust of wind tore a branch off a nearby tree and in the distance Pyke heard Copper bark. He hurried back to the house, hoping to get to the mastiff before it set off the neighbour’s dog.