Kill-Devil and Water pm-3

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Two months; I’ll be back in two months.’

  ‘I can’t get through to him,’ Godfrey said to Jo. ‘He just refuses to listen. See if you can talk some sense to him.’

  ‘Felix is almost ten,’ Pyke said, trying to rein in his frustration. ‘I lost my father when I was barely eight; he needs to learn to stand on his own two feet.’

  ‘I shan’t give you a penny. You won’t get a single penny from me to fund this absurd venture.’ Godfrey left the room muttering. ‘Pig-headed man.’

  Pyke waited until he was gone before saying to Jo, ‘Do you think I’m as reckless and pig-headed as Godfrey seems to?’

  For what seemed like minutes she stood there, her arms folded, refusing to answer the question.

  The hackney carriage dropped them by the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane just as it was getting dark. Just him and Felix. The boy hadn’t wanted to go with him at first but Pyke had forced the matter. The light was fading and the lamp-lighters were strung out along the street. The odour of rotting food and faeces was pungent in the breeze. Pyke took Felix’s hand and told the lad to hold on to him ‘at all costs’. Felix hadn’t uttered a word to him during the short ride from Camden. They entered a narrow alley just past the Theatre Royal not wide enough for carriages to pass along. Two roughly dressed men stumbled out of a brothel. Through the door, Felix caught a glimpse of the interior, lit up by the red, smoky flame of a grease lamp. He seemed transfixed by it. They passed a swag and slop-shop, tailoring hovels and a gin shop; a man was lying face down in the gutter outside. They stepped over him and continued into the heart of the rookery.

  At the next corner, they came across a man dressed in a monkey jacket and oilskin cap who was whipping a donkey. Felix wanted to stop but Pyke tugged on his hand and pulled him onwards. On either side of the alleyway, disembodied faces stared at them through shattered window panes; in doorways, barefoot children watched them pass. Some uttered obscenities, their harsh, guttural accents echoing down the intricate web of alleyways and courts; but most were silent. Pyke felt Felix’s grip tighten around his hand. At the next corner, they stopped for a moment outside the door to an underground slaughterhouse; Felix stared down at a mound of quivering entrails. Next door, a stream of liquid refuse from a tripe scraper and scum-boiler leaked into an open cess trench. The rookery was where Pyke had grown up, had been his home until his uncle had rescued him, and he wanted Felix to see it in all its unvarnished nastiness. They passed a toothless man who stood half naked in the street. He giggled as they stepped around him and then followed them, his trousers around his ankles, hands outstretched for coins.

  At the heart of the rookery was a dilapidated building that stood on the foundations of an old leper hospital. It was called the Rat’s Castle and its walls were buckled, its windows patched with rags and paper. At one of the entrances, paupers fresh from oakum picking and bone grinding tugged on Pyke’s coat sleeve, begging for money; Pyke pushed them to one side and led Felix into the darkened interior. A long passageway took them into the bowels of the building, past rooms where men and women scolded, fought, swore and copulated with one another. At the top of a corkscrew staircase, a man wearing a torn shooting jacket and a billycock hat jumped out of the shadows. Felix recoiled but Pyke pushed the man backwards; pushed him so hard he toppled on to his backside.

  They continued along another passageway; eventually it opened up into a much larger room where children as young as six or seven, orphans and runaways mostly, lay head to toe on the rotten floorboards, with not even a rag to sleep under. One boy was sobbing; another was being sick. A man and a woman were openly copulating in front of them. No one paid the newcomers much attention at first, but then an older boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, sidled up to them and asked Pyke how much he wanted ‘for the boy’. He inspected Felix as if he were a slab of meat. Grabbing his son’s hand, Pyke led Felix back along the passageway, ignoring the older boy’s protestations. At the stairs, a couple of men were waiting for them; Pyke could see from their eyes they meant business. With his free hand, he withdrew his Long Sea Service pistol from his belt and brandished it in their faces. They fell back and let them pass. Outside the building, they retraced their path out of the rookery. Felix didn’t say a single word to Pyke until they were safely ensconced inside a hackney carriage bound for Camden Town.

  ‘That was all I knew until Godfrey offered to take me into his home.’ Pyke waited. ‘I don’t want that life for you.’

  From the bench on the other side of carriage, Felix just nodded.

  ‘What you did today was foolish but, worse than that, it was unnecessary. Those people we saw just now; they steal because they have to. If they don’t steal, they starve. We should never forget how lucky we are.’

  Felix stared down at his boots. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Reading stories can give you some insight into other people’s lives but they never give you the whole picture.’ Pyke paused to gather his thoughts. ‘People tend to do things because they have to; when they don’t have a choice. Often it isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about surviving.’

  Felix seemed to consider this. ‘Is that why you did some of the things you did?’ he said, in a quiet, deliberate voice.

  ‘In Godfrey’s book, the character is presented in a certain way to shock and appal the readers, or at least that’s what I’m guessing because I haven’t actually read it.’

  Felix stared at him, open mouthed. ‘ You haven’t read it?’

  ‘All I’m saying is that there are always reasons why characters are drawn in the ways they are. They’re there to teach us, scare us, entertain us. It’s not the same as what you saw just now at the Rat’s Castle; there, people do what they have to in order to live. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?’

  Felix looked through the glass at the darkened street but didn’t say anything. They rode in silence for a few minutes, the clatter of wheels on cobblestones filling the carriage.

  ‘I have to go away for a while,’ Pyke said quietly.

  He waited for Felix to react but the boy just sat there, then nodded. ‘I heard you talking with Godfrey.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  Felix looked up at him. There were tears in his eyes, but he was trying not to cry. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Two months, maybe a little longer.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Jamaica.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to find the man who killed that young woman.’

  Felix turned for a moment and looked out of the window in silence. ‘I won’t ever steal again, unless I have to.’

  Pyke reached out and ruffled Felix’s hair, the way he used to do when he was much younger.

  *

  Later, after Pyke had put Felix to bed, he joined Jo in the front room. His uncle had already turned in for the night. Collecting a half-full bottle of claret from the kitchen, he poured out two glasses. Jo took one reluctantly. They sat down on either end of the sofa.

  ‘Do you think I’m abandoning my son?’ He stared into the empty fireplace, then turned to face her.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ Her tone was gentle but measured.

  ‘Because I value your opinion.’

  Her expression remained inscrutable. ‘But nothing I say will make you change your mind, will it?’

  ‘So you do think I’m abandoning Felix.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She took a sip of wine and then put the glass down on the floor and retrieved what turned out to be a purse from the folds of her skirt. Putting it down in between them on the sofa, she added, ‘Here. Take it. Pay me back when you get the chance.’

  Pyke looked down at the bulging purse and then up at Jo’s face. ‘You’d really do that for me?’

  She shrugged, as though the offer wasn’t a generous one. ‘There’s seventy pounds. If you need it, it’s yours.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Pyke tried to swallow. ‘I cou
ldn’t possibly take your money. But I’m touched more than I can say. That you’d even think about offering me your life savings is…’ He couldn’t think how to finish the sentence.

  ‘Felix will be all right. Godfrey and I will keep a close eye on him. I promise.’ This time, when she looked at him, her eyes were glistening in the candlelight.

  He picked up the cloth purse and held it out for her to take. As she did so, their fingers brushed against each other. It was just the faintest of touches. Pyke didn’t dare look into her face but noticed that she hadn’t withdrawn her hand. She let the purse fall back on to the sofa. Neither of them moved. Finally he raised his eyes to meet hers. He felt a pull in his stomach. Extending his fingertip, he touched one of her knuckles. She didn’t flinch.

  ‘Pyke…’

  Their fingers were coiled around one another; he could feel his heart thumping. ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  He edged towards her, close enough to smell her sandalwood musk, and see the line of her creamy smooth neck. ‘I don’t know. Do you?’

  She shut her eyes and allowed him to touch her cheek. ‘No.’

  Leaning towards her, he kissed her on the cheek and whispered, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Jo hesitated. ‘You couldn’t.’

  ‘But it will complicate matters, won’t it?’

  This time Jo put her hand around his neck and pulled him into an embrace. ‘From where I’m sitting,’ she murmured, ‘it’s already complicated.’

  Pyke opened his mouth and allowed his tongue to touch hers. Jo let out a slight gasp. ‘Yes, how did it happen?’ But he was already too far gone to think about the wisdom of what he was doing.

  PART II

  Falmouth, Jamaica

  JUNE 1840

  FOURTEEN

  The captain of the two-mast brig had to wait until early afternoon for the right wind in order to negotiate a path through the treacherous channel between the adjoining reefs, but finally, they docked safely at the wharf at Falmouth. It was hot by then, hotter even than it had been at midday, and the sky was cloudless, a brilliant glazed blue that merged at some indistinguishable point with the gin-clear, turquoise waters. Ever since they had first entered the tropics, about a week earlier, the days had become hotter and hotter, and now Pyke felt as if he’d stepped into a giant brick kiln. In the distance, the shoreline, covered with mangrove swamps, shimmered as though it were not really there.

  The steamer had docked in Kingston late the night before, after less than three weeks at sea, and at dawn Pyke had transferred to a much smaller brig, which, making use of favourable trade winds, had managed to negotiate a path around Morant Point and along the north coast of the island to Falmouth. The scenery had been spectacular — waterfalls tumbling from lush, mountainous terrain on to white-sanded coves — but after the greyness of London it was almost too much for Pyke’s senses to take in. The sky was too blue, the sea too clear, and somehow none of it seemed real.

  There were a couple of tall ships anchored beyond the reef but neither was the Island Queen. Nor did Pyke expect to see that particular vessel for a week or two, for although the winds had been favourable for both vessels for much of the journey across the Atlantic, there had also been lulls where the wind had dropped to almost nothing. On those occasions, the steamer had turned to its giant paddle wheel and proceeded at pace, while the Island Queen would have been left idling, with nothing to do but wait for the wind to return. Alefounder would not set foot in Jamaica for at least another week, possibly two, which would give Pyke time to prepare for his arrival.

  As they neared the shoreline, buildings came into view, a mixture of one- and two-storey dwellings built mostly from wood in the Georgian style with gingerbread fretwork, hip roofs and sash windows. Soaring above these was the occasional cabbage palm, a church tower in the far distance, and what appeared to be the town hall or courthouse, an impressive edifice with four Tuscan columns supporting an ornamental portico and pediment. ‘The most fashionable port in the New World,’ one of his travelling companions from Kingston had claimed. Pyke had told him that he’d reserve judgement until he saw the place for himself.

  The whole town, it seemed, had come to meet the brig, for as soon as Pyke stepped off the gangplank, he was surrounded by a swarm of children fighting for the privilege of carrying his solitary suitcase. Pyke swatted them away and took a deep breath; if anything, it was hotter on land than it had been on the ship. There, at least, a stiff sea breeze had kept them cool but, here on terra firma, there was a barely a puff of wind.

  Taking out his handkerchief, he mopped his brow and looked around the dusty wharf, where people and animals — mostly dogs, goats and fowl — were milling around on ground baked hard by the fierce sun. Workers, with their sleeves rolled up and floppy hats pulled down over their eyes to protect them from the glare of the sun, had already started to unload crates and sacks from the hold of the brig.

  Someone had recommended a guest house on Seaboard Street, run by a jovial Scottish widow called Mrs McAlister, and having taken instructions, Pyke needed only a few minutes to find his way there. The street was dusty and deserted, and the guest house, a freshly painted, two-storey brick and timber building, looked directly out over the sea. Pyke put down his suitcase on the covered veranda and called out, ‘Hello?’ He’d taken off his coat, which was slung over his shoulder, and had unbuttoned some of his shirt. Pools of sweat were clearly visible under each armpit but he didn’t care. A plump, matronly woman who introduced herself as Gertrude McAlister greeted Pyke a few moments later and led him to a room on the upper floor with a veranda overlooking the road below and the ocean. A young woman with braided hair and glistening, blue-black skin, brought him a glass of fruit punch, which he drank down in one gulp.

  About an hour later, after Pyke had bought a light cotton jacket and matching trousers, together with three cotton shirts and a straw hat, and had bathed in a copper tub in the deserted yard of the guest house, he decided to have a walk around the town, to the dismay of his host. She tried to dissuade him from venturing any farther afield than the veranda but wouldn’t give a reason, alluding only to ‘trouble’ that might take place later that evening.

  When Pyke asked whether the town had a newspaper, the landlady’s chest puffed up and she told him it boasted three or perhaps four newspapers, if you counted the Baptist Herald, which she didn’t because it was published only monthly and she didn’t care for its tub-thumping agenda. Only marginally better, she added, was the Falmouth Post, which was still new and was agitating for further reform — ‘as if there hasn’t been enough upheaval already’, she said, shaking her head. No, if he wanted a newspaper that reflected the concerns of respectable folk he should consult either the Cornwall Chronicle or the Cornwall Gazette, both of which were solidly committed to defending the Crown. Pyke asked her where he could find the offices of the Falmouth Post. She told him, of course, but admonished him under her breath.

  The orange sun was low in the sky by the time Pyke ventured out, and the air felt a little cooler, though it was still balmy. He wandered along Seaboard Street as far as the courthouse and, from there, made his way up to the main square. The town, as far as he could tell, had been constructed according to a grid pattern, with streets running parallel and perpendicular to each other, making it easy to navigate. It was also surprisingly clean and the houses were, on the whole, respectable and well maintained. Most of the people he passed on Seaboard Street and on the main square were white, but as soon as he ventured farther afield, even by a block or two, the houses were smaller, and the faces in the doorways and windows were predominantly black. Though Pyke didn’t feel unsafe, he didn’t feel comfortable either. On the steamer from Southampton he’d been told over and over that Jamaica was an extension of the ‘mother country’, but in these hot, dusty streets, surrounded by alien faces and accosted by unfamiliar scents, he felt a long way from what he considered to be home.
r />   *

  The offices of the Falmouth Post occupied a timber and brick building on Market Street. Pyke found its proprietor, a tall, heavy-boned man with curly, black hair and light coffee-coloured skin, who introduced himself as John Harper. He was busy instructing his younger assistant in the craft of typesetting.

  ‘Now, how can I help you, sir?’ Harper eyed Pyke cautiously as he pushed his wire-framed spectacles farther up his nose. They had moved into his private office.

  ‘Call me Pyke.’

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Pyke?’

  ‘Just Pyke will do fine.’

  Harper nodded.

  ‘Do you know a man called Michael Pemberton? I’m told he’s a lawyer here in town.’

  It was the name Pyke had been given by McQuillan, captain of the Island Queen; according to him, it was Pemberton who had arranged Mary Edgar’s passage and seen her off at the wharf. Pyke felt that a newspaper was as good a place as any to start asking questions about the town’s dignitaries; and a newspaperman committed to a reformist agenda might be more willing to talk candidly than one set on maintaining the status quo.

  Harper’s expression remained wary. ‘He’s an attorney here all right, but he spends most of his time up at Ginger Hill.’

  ‘Ginger Hill?’

  ‘It’s a plantation about two hours’ ride from here, up in the mountains.’ Harper spoke in a deep, clear voice that suggested only the faintest trace of an accent. ‘He’s the estate manager.’

  ‘But he has an office in the town?’

  ‘You can sometimes find him at his house on Rodney Street, and he also owns a small plot of land a few miles south of here, just outside Martha Brae.’ Harper studied him carefully, perhaps trying to work out Pyke’s interest in the attorney.