Kill-Devil and Water

by Andrew Pepper

Maginn was still in full flow. ‘This book is meretricious,’ he was saying, holding up a copy of Confessions, as though giving a sermon, ‘because it wilfully misleads its educated readers by purporting to tell the truth about low types. I say purporting because it never tells the whole truth, nor could it hope to because it is written by a morally suspect man about a dishonourable scamp who is equally devoid of moral purpose.’ His Cork brogue was unmistakable.

  ‘Can’t you stop him?’ Godfrey whispered to Pyke, a note of desperation in his voice.

  ‘What? Hit him over the head and drag him out of here by his feet?’

  ‘If you have to, dear boy. And make sure you hurt him in the process.’

  Maginn had spotted Pyke and his uncle and he acknowledged them with a thunderous stare. ‘In the tap, the slop-shop and the ken, thieves and blackguards, and to this list we should add Bow Street Runners, might display occasional moments of boldness and courage, but this does not mean they should be the subject of literature, nor should we be dragooned into caring for their cut-throat sensibilities and self-serving justifications.’ He addressed this final remark to Pyke.

  ‘And yet you have written elsewhere,’ Pyke replied, ‘that all successfully drawn characters are necessarily a mixture of good and evil and what motivates wickedness can be the same thing that produces the noblest of actions.’

  ‘Ah, yes. But then I was writing about Hamlet or Lear, and you, sir, are far from being a noble prince or fallen king.’

  ‘Perhaps in your drunken state you failed to take proper notice of the preface, in which my uncle makes it clear that Confessions is a work of fiction and should be treated as such.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Maginn boomed, his voice thick with condescension. ‘And yet it describes a daring escape from Newgate prison; a feat, if I’m not mistaken, that you, sir, undertook with help from willing accomplices - or should I say lackeys.’

  ‘So?’ The skin tightened around Pyke’s throat at this reference to Godfrey and, indeed, Emily, who had assisted his escape.

  Maginn waved over a pale young man and put his arms around him, as if to suggest they were friends. ‘Allow me to introduce Mr Peter Hunt. Perhaps the name is familiar to you, sir?’

  ‘Should it be?’ Pyke allowed his gaze to settle on the nervous young man whose rouged lips and powdered face made him seem grotesque rather than fashionable.

  ‘His father was the governor of Newgate prison on the night of your escape.’ This time Maginn’s smirk turned into a grimace. ‘We met earlier in a tavern and discovered we were both intending to grace this event with our presence.’ He had his arm clasped so tightly around the younger man’s shoulder that Hunt couldn’t move.

  Pyke searched Hunt’s eyes but saw nothing: not fear or anxiety or hate. And the young man certainly had reason enough to hate him. Pyke looked around at his uncle and saw that he’d also grasped the precariousness of the situation. For if Hunt was carrying a weapon, a pistol perhaps, and chose to take it out, anything could happen.

  ‘What is it you want?’ Pyke addressed Hunt directly, but the younger man wouldn’t look up.

  ‘What does he want?’ Maginn’s roaring laugh could be heard throughout the shop. He held up his copy of Confessions. ‘In the lily-scented world you’ve created, sir, his father must still be alive because the escape is achieved through boldness and stealth - picking locks and scaling walls - rather than cold-blooded murder.’ The smirk on his face vanished as he rounded on Pyke. ‘For, in truth, didn’t you stab the governor in the neck with a dagger and then throw him out of a window?’

  A ripple of astonished gasps spread quickly through the room. This was exactly the kind of thing people had come to hear. Pyke looked around, to check whether Felix was within earshot.

  ‘I was cleared of any wrongdoing by an official investigation and pardoned by order of the Home Secretary himself.’

  But Maginn seemed more concerned by what he had read in Godfrey’s book. ‘Ex parte truth-telling, the worst kind. One tells the whole truth or nothing.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ Pyke repeated, looking directly at Maginn. ‘I know for a fact you’ve already been paid well for attending this evening.’

  ‘What do I want?’ Maginn took out his purse and threw it dramatically to the floor. ‘I spit on your uncle’s thirty pieces of silver. I want satisfaction for young Hunt and for being led astray by this monstrosity.’ He was still brandishing a copy of Godfrey’s book.

  ‘What kind of satisfaction?’

  ‘Satisfaction.’ He removed his torn shooting jacket and started to roll up his sleeves.

  ‘You intend to fight me?’ Pyke tried to keep the incredulity from his voice. Maginn was tall and rangy but his body was devoid of muscle and his arms were as thin as pipe-cleaners.

  ‘I don’t intend to fight you, sir. I intend to shoot you.’ With that, he retrieved a wooden box and opened it, to reveal two duelling pistols. ‘One shot in each but one shot is all I’ll need.’

  ‘You’re challenging me to a duel?’ Pyke looked for Godfrey, but he’d been swallowed by the crowd.

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Look at your hands. You couldn’t hit a cow if you were standing two yards away from it.’ They were shaking so badly it looked as if he were suffering from some terrible disease.

  ‘You’re afraid, sir. I can see it in your eyes. Cowards usually are. I don’t expect you’ll be man enough to accept.’

  At twenty paces the chances of Maginn firing and hitting him were so remote that Pyke found himself contemplating the challenge. Certainly there didn’t seem to be any way he could get out of it, not without losing face. What worried him more was Hunt - a man who’d lost his own flesh and blood could do just about anything, especially if he felt his actions were justified. But it had been ten years since Pyke had killed his father. Could he still be sufficiently angry to attempt some kind of revenge?

  ‘You’re not going to accept this lunatic’s challenge, are you?’ Godfrey said, appearing at Pyke’s side.

  ‘I don’t see I have any choice.’ Pyke looked around the shop but Hunt had disappeared. He wanted to find Jo, to tell her to take Felix home, but she was nowhere to be seen either.

  The air was cold outside but perhaps not cold enough to sober up Maginn; having insisted that they fight there and then, he stumbled around in the dark, waving his pistol in the air and talking to himself. The whole thing was ridiculous; a parody of a duel.

  Pyke had already inspected his pistol and was happy with it. In fact it was a much more carefully crafted weapon than his own Long Sea Service pistol, and the feel of polished walnut was reassuring in his hand.

  ‘Gentlemen, are you ready?’ The adjudicator called out to them both. ‘On my count, you will take your first step.’ They had already determined what the rules of the contest would be: ten steps, to be taken at the adjudicator’s prompting, then turn and fire. Pyke hoped Maginn would fire into the air.

  ‘One.’

  With his back facing Maginn’s, Pyke took his first step and looked around the deserted street. A nearby gas-lamp hissed and flared, producing a dull light that barely illuminated the area directly beneath it. At the man’s count, he took another step and then another, trying to clear his mind and concentrate. The whole thing was absurd, but someone was about to fire a loaded pistol at him in anger and thus the potential for danger remained. Briefly he thought about Felix and Jo, wondered whether they knew what was happening or not.

  ‘Seven.’

  Pyke curled his finger around the trigger and took a deep breath.

  ‘Eight.’ He took another step.

  ‘Nine, and ...’

  When he turned around, he could barely see Maginn in the gloom. The man’s stovepipe hat was the most recognisable thing about him. He heard the shot before he saw the barrel of Maginn’s pistol raised towards the night sky. Carefully Pyke took aim and squeezed the trigger; he couldn’t see immediately, but he could tell from the gasps of the crowd h
uddled in the doorway of the bookshop that he’d hit the target. Later, he would hear how the stovepipe hat had flown from Maginn’s head and how the journalist had stood there, rooted to the spot, too frightened even to blink.

  That was when he saw the glint of metal and heard a click. As he turned around, there was a flash of exploding gunpowder and momentarily Hunt’s cadaverous face was lit up, his hiding place in a smaller alleyway revealed. Too stunned to move, Pyke felt a rush of air through his ears as he waited for the shot to tear him apart. It never happened. From less than five yards, Hunt had missed his target. Pyke sucked air through his clenched teeth, tasting the acrid sting of gunpowder at the back of his throat.

  The pistol clattered on to the cobblestones and Pyke saw that Hunt had sprung from his hiding place and was running away. He decided against pursuing him.

  Back inside the shop, Pyke looked for Maginn but couldn’t see him. He found Jo and Felix talking with Godfrey. Most of the crowd had left by now, perhaps as a result of the argument and the duel, and Pyke tried to play down what had just happened. He wondered whether any of them had actually seen the hidden shot that had been fired, or knew how close he’d come to being killed. Perhaps Godfrey did; he was much too effusive in his praise of Pyke’s bravery. Jo and Felix said very little, and when it was suggested that they call it a night and go home, Pyke offered to hail them a hackney carriage on Piccadilly.

  Outside, in the gaslight, Pyke noticed that his hands were still trembling. He looked up and down the darkened street for any sign of a passing cab and noticed Maginn stumbling into a side alleyway. Godfrey had seen Maginn, too, and placed his hand on Pyke’s arm. ‘Come back with us to my apartment.’ But Pyke could feel the anger he’d been trying to repress billowing up inside him. Maginn had challenged him on a point of principle, but all he’d really wanted to do was give Hunt the chance to shoot him dead. There was no honour in that; no honour in shooting a pistol at another man’s back from five paces. Suddenly he despised the Cork man for all his piousness and his false desire for ‘satisfaction’. Pyke found Maginn in the alleyway; he was fumbling at his breeches. A frightened prostitute was trying to free herself from his drunken grip. Maginn had knowingly colonised the moral high ground and now here he was harassing a street-walker. The hypocrisy was too much for Pyke to bear. Maginn raised his hand to slap her, but Pyke caught it, pushed the woman to one side and swung his fist into Maginn’s face, dislodging two teeth in the process. Spitting blood, Maginn tried to defend himself but Pyke landed another blow, this time to the side of his head. Maginn fell forward and Pyke brought his knee up to the man’s face. The prostitute disappeared farther into the alleyway. Pyke wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his frock-coat. Maginn was lying on the ground. That should have been the end of it but Pyke’s thoughts turned to Mary Edgar, who had been cut up and left to rot by the side of the road, and then to Emily, who had been killed by a single rifle shot to her neck. He took a deep breath and kicked Maginn hard in the stomach, then again. He heard a noise and turned round to find Felix standing there, speechless, his face white with terror.

  ‘Felix.’ He paused, not knowing what else to say. Maginn, still on the ground, gave a muffled groan.

  Godfrey and Jo stepped into the alleyway and saw Maginn lying at Pyke’s feet, with Felix trembling in front of him.

  Pyke looked down and noticed that the ends of his boots were glistening with Maginn’s blood. He wanted to make his son understand what had happened but the words wouldn’t form on his tongue. He saw the fear and revulsion in the boy’s eyes. Pyke wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

  It had always amused Pyke that Holywell Street got its name from a holy well that stood in the vicinity and that pilgrims bound for Canterbury used to drink from; it amused him because ever since the radical presses had been disbanded or moved underground and the Jewish traders had relocated farther east to Spitalfields and Petticoat Lane, the street had become the centre of the city’s trade in pornography. He would have liked to have seen the pilgrims’ reaction to the lewd etchings and lithographs and snuff-boxes detailing men and women engaged in obscene sexual acts.

  Outwardly, little had changed on the street since Elizabethan times - it had escaped the worst ravages of the Great Fire and the lath-and-plaster houses with their lofty gables, overhanging eaves and deep bays were throwbacks to another era - but the air of gloom and disrepair had a modern countenance, as did the open manner in which some of the proprietors peddled their smut. None went as far as to display lewd engravings in their windows or place the latest ‘limited edition’ from Paris on the lean-tos outside the shops, but the lingering scent of grubby licentiousness pervaded the immediate environment. Pyke had even heard it called ‘the vilest street in the civilised world’.

  Jemmy Crane’s bookshop occupied a tall, four-storey building on the north side of the street. Outside, wooden trestles supported neatly stacked piles of antiquarian books and above the door a crescent moon sign gave the shop a veneer of respectability.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir? May I say you look like a connoisseur of bedroom scenes. Am I warm, sir?’ The elderly man behind the counter had a shambling gait and studied Pyke through the monocle attached to his left eye.

  ‘I want to see Crane.’

  The man gave him a kindly smile. ‘Oh, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

  ‘He’s not here?’

  ‘Mr Crane has asked not to be disturbed.’

  Pyke pushed past him and made for the back of the shop, shouting Crane’s name. He had made it as far as the staircase when a man appeared at the top of the stairs, his face displaying a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

  Crane cut a dashing, rakish figure and looked younger than his forty years. His hair was ink-black and his skin was smooth and free from wrinkles. He had full, plump lips and a leering, sensuous smile that put Pyke in mind of Pierce Egan’s Corinthian rakes Tom and Jerry: the kind of man who both looked down on the filth and degradation around him, yet wallowed in it, too. Dressed like a dandy, he wore a tight-fitting brown frock-coat, a frilly white shirt, blue cravat and matching waistcoat over brown trousers.

  Behind Crane, silhouetted at the top of the stairs, was a much burlier, rougher creature, waiting to be told what to do.

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure, sir?’ Crane spoke in a clipped, polished accent, his tone, dripping with condescension.

  ‘My name’s Pyke ...’

  ‘I know who you are.’ Crane paused. ‘You once owned a ginnery on Giltspur Street. I used to be an acquaintance of your uncle, Godfrey Bond.’

  Pyke studied Crane’s expression, wondering what Godfrey would have to say about this man. ‘A week ago, you accompanied three men to a guest house on the Ratcliff Highway. Your men were heard arguing with one of the guests. I need to know why you went there and what the argument was about.’

  Crane’s expression betrayed nothing. ‘You like to get straight to the point, don’t you? I admire a man who knows his own mind.’ He seemed to be the kind of man who enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

  ‘What business did you have with Arthur Sobers and Mary Edgar?’

  ‘It was the old man who saw me, wasn’t it? I didn’t recognise him at the time but later it came to me. I used to watch him fight, back in the old days, a real bruiser, but I can’t for the life of me remember his name.’

  ‘Thrale.’

  ‘That’s it.’ Crane’s face lit up for a moment. ‘These days my tastes are more refined. I have a box at the Theatre Royal and I attend concerts at Somerset House.’ His smile was without the faintest hint of warmth.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘And I’m not going to.’

  Pyke could see the coldness in his eyes. He removed the drawing of Mary Edgar from his pocket and handed it to Crane. ‘You know her?’

  Crane glanced down at the drawing and just for a moment his mask slipped and a look of curiosity, even puzzlement, crossed his face.
‘No.’

  ‘That’s Mary Edgar, the woman you visited.’ Pyke paused. ‘She was strangled and her body dumped a few hundred yards away on the Ratcliff Highway.’

  Crane assimilated this news. ‘And what is your interest in this affair, sir?’

  ‘I’m investigating her murder.’

  ‘Out of a sense of civic duty?’ His tone was vaguely mocking.

  ‘What took you to Thrale’s lodging house that day?’

  ‘A private matter. In other words, none of your business.’

  ‘You don’t deny you were there, then?’

  ‘How could I? Thrale saw me. And now you’re here.’

  ‘And I’m not leaving until you’ve answered my question.’

  ‘I’ve told you all I’m going to tell you. I suggest you leave before the situation becomes unpleasant.’

  ‘Unpleasant for me or for you?’ Pyke’s stare didn’t once leave Crane’s face.