Kill-Devil and Water

by Andrew Pepper

  There was a quiet knock on Pyke’s bedroom door, shortly after he had retired for the night.

  Quickly buttoning up his shirt, Pyke walked across the hardwood floor and opened the door slightly. William Dalling pushed his way into the room and waited for Pyke to close the door. ‘This is a nice room, this one, probably the best in the house,’ he said easily, as though his opinion had been invited. ‘The view of the mountains is spectacular first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I’ve had a long day, sir, and am not in the mood to play games. Tell me what you want and then leave.’

  Dalling didn’t appear to have heard him. ‘Of course, it’s quite right to give the bedroom with the finest views to the guest of honour.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me. So, this one time, I’m going to pretend you’re simple rather than rude and let it pass.’

  ‘But let’s just say the guest of honour wasn’t who he claimed to be? How quickly would such a man be turned out of the finest bedroom in the house?’

  Pyke felt the moistness on his palms. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Dalling circled around him, nodding his head, as though amused by what Pyke had said. ‘What would you say if I told you I’d met Montgomery Squires? Well, maybe not met him, but I’ve certainly been in the same room as him.’

  Pyke’s expression remained composed but inside he was trying not to panic. ‘I’d say that Montgomery Squires isn’t such an uncommon name. I’d also say that you need to be very careful about making insinuations without knowing where they might take you.’

  ‘Oh, I know very well where they’re taking me.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘A long way from this place, that’s for sure.’

  ‘And why do you think this?’

  ‘I can see you’re not short of a penny whereas I’m always just a few steps ahead of the poorhouse. Perhaps we should both look at this as a chance to even things up a little.’

  Pyke took the measure of the man circling around him. ‘That sounds like a very risky strategy, not one I’d want to pursue if I were you.’

  But this seemed to entertain rather than unnerve the bookkeeper. ‘Oh yes? And why is that?’

  ‘If you start making accusations about people, anything could happen.’

  ‘Is that some kind of a threat?’

  ‘If I were threatening you, you’d know about it. You wouldn’t have to ask.’

  Dalling just grinned. ‘Fancy yourself as a tough one, eh?’

  ‘I’m just trying to make you aware of the situation.’

  ‘I appreciate the warning, so what I’m going to do is lay my cards on the table.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat. ‘Let’s say a hundred pounds will ensure that not a word of this conversation will be repeated to anyone in the house.’

  The situation was starting to deteriorate beyond Pyke’s control and there was nothing he could do about it. ‘Why would I even think of paying you this kind of figure?’

  Dalling stepped into the space between them, so close Pyke could smell the stale Madeira on his breath. ‘Because you don’t want Pemberton to find out what I know. Because if he does, I’d say your chances of making it off this estate are next to none.’

  ‘Why?’ Pyke paused. ‘What would he do?’

  ‘If Pemberton thought you were trying to cheat him, the question is, what wouldn’t he do.’

  Pyke looked into Dalling’s eyes. ‘And if he thought someone was cuckolding him?’

  Later, Pyke would reflect on Dalling’s expression with relief and some pleasure, but he knew, just as Dalling knew, that the bookkeeper would be able to make things unbearable for him unless he paid what the man had demanded. It meant that Pyke had to make plans of his own.

  SIXTEEN

  The following morning Pemberton was eating his breakfast alone in the dining room. He greeted Pyke’s arrival with as little enthusiasm as it was possible to muster. Pyke poured himself a cup of coffee from the silver pot and sat down opposite the attorney.

  ‘I’m guessing that you actually run the estate,’ Pyke said, after a while, his eyes never leaving Pemberton’s.

  ‘I do my job.’

  ‘A hard job for a fixed wage.’

  ‘I’m not complaining.’ Pemberton put a pastry into his mouth and began to chew.

  ‘But it must be hard, knowing that all your hard work and acumen are benefiting someone who is clearly not your equal.’

  The lawyer continued to chew his pastry and took a sip of coffee. ‘Would you have said that if Charles were sitting here?’

  Pyke picked up his coffee cup and stood up. ‘On that note, perhaps you could tell me where I can find Charles?’

  Pemberton directed him out on to the veranda, where the young planter was slouched in a wicker chair staring blankly out at the view. The sky was absolutely clear and, for the time being, the air around them was fresh and cool. In the distance, over the buzzing of insects and the chirping of birds, Pyke could hear the flow of the river. After they had greeted one another, Pyke took a chair next to Malvern. For a while, the two of them stared in silence at the vista of green that extended as far as the eye could see.

  ‘It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?’

  Malvern turned to face him. ‘Imagine waking up to these views every morning. If you buy this place, you won’t regret it, I assure you.’

  Pyke nodded amiably. ‘I was told that it was your father who built this house.’

  ‘My grandfather, actually. Or he built the main part. My father added this veranda and the upstairs bedrooms.’

  ‘I can certainly understand why you’re so loath to let it go.’

  ‘Loath?’ Malvern put his coffee cup down and shook his head. ‘Oh, I’m not loath at all.’

  ‘But at one point you told me you’d imagined never leaving Ginger Hill, or the island.’

  ‘Yes, I thought I might be able to live here. That’s to say, we might be able to live here in peace.’

  ‘But that didn’t prove possible?’

  ‘I thought, perhaps naively, that free from my father’s disapproval, we might be accepted as equals. Mixed marriages are unusual in this part of the world, and they’re certainly frowned upon, but they’re not unheard of.’

  ‘Your fiancée is black?’ Pyke asked, trying to muster the appropriate level of surprise and even consternation.

  ‘Mulatto actually.’ Malvern smiled dreamily. ‘I suppose you think less of me now?’

  ‘What a man does in his private life is none of my concern.’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘But you were saying something about not being accepted as equals?’

  ‘The prejudice is as much on the blacks’ side as the whites’. They wouldn’t leave her in peace. Things happened. She became unsettled, frightened even.’ Malvern stopped, perhaps sensing he’d said too much, especially to a prospective buyer of the estate.

  ‘Frightened?’

  ‘It’s nothing that should concern you.’ Malvern tried to smile but Pyke could tell he’d realised his mistake.

  ‘I’m thinking about making you an offer for the estate. Anything and everything about the place concerns me.’

  Malvern picked up his coffee and took another sip. ‘There’s this primitive slave religion called Obeah. It’s superstitious nonsense, you understand; a kind of black magic. Obeah men and women are said to be able to summon the spirits of the dead. One of these figures set out to ruin the happiness I was beginning to enjoy with my fiancée. I could see that it was all in her mind, but eventually it got too much for her. They’d leave bloodied feathers, chicken legs, parrots’ beaks in her bed, that kind of thing. I tried to make her see it for what it was but even though she’s educated and has read more widely than I have, she told me she couldn’t stay here. That’s when we first talked about settling in England. I tried to talk her out of it, of course. I know the place. I was schooled at Harrow and spent much of my adolescence there; a cold, dreary country, nothi
ng to recommend it. But she’d read about England in the novels of Jane Austen - that’s what she imagined it would be like, and who was I to try to convince her otherwise?’

  ‘And so you decided to send her ahead of you to London,’ Pyke said, trying to keep his tone neutral, ‘to stay with your family perhaps?’ But he was thinking about what the captain of the Island Queen, McQuillan, had said about Mary Edgar: that she had the ability to commune with the dead. Would such a person, in turn, really be frightened of a parrot’s beak or cat’s paw?

  This made Malvern sit up in his chair. ‘My family?’ His face was damp with perspiration. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘I thought you told me that your father and sister had relocated to England as well.’ It was something Malvern had mentioned the previous night over dinner.

  ‘Mr Squires, I mean Monty ...’ Blood was vivid in Malvern’s cheeks. ‘My father helped to build this estate into what it is today and, in the end, he earned the respect of the slaves who worked here. In turn, he came to appreciate their grudging work ethic and loyalty. But do you really think he would ever consent to me, his heir and only son, marrying a mulatto girl? Enjoy carnal relations with her, perhaps, but marry? Never. He’d string me up before allowing it to happen.’

  Pyke considered what he’d just been told and whether it implicated Silas Malvern in Mary Edgar’s murder. What if the old man had found out about the proposed marriage? What if he’d told Elizabeth and she’d tried to frighten Mary off using Jemmy Crane? What if all of that had failed?

  ‘Then surely you’re taking a risk,’ Pyke said, as though the thought had just come to him, ‘by planning to marry in the city where he now lives?’

  ‘But he doesn’t know about the engagement. He doesn’t even know Mary is in London,’ Malvern said, puzzled. ‘I’m hoping that when we finally do marry, he’ll come to accept us. I mean, he’ll have to, won’t he?’ Malvern’s naivety was both endearing and pathetic.

  ‘So you’ve made arrangements for her to stay with friends until you’re able to conclude your affairs here and join her in London?’ Pyke did his best to suppress an urge to ask Malvern directly about William Alefounder, whether he’d stayed at the great house and, if so, whether he’d shown any interest in Mary.

  Malvern looked at him quizzically, perhaps taken aback by the personal nature of the question. ‘My godfather was happy to take her in and will look after her for as long as is required. You see, Uncle William lives on his own in a large house in Mayfair.’

  Pyke took note of this detail. It explained why Mary had asked McQuillan about that part of the city but didn’t begin to shed light on why she’d also taken a room at the lodging house on the Ratcliff Highway. ‘I’m pleased for your sake this man is more enlightened than your father.’

  ‘He just wants me to be happy. I wrote to him and explained the problem towards the end of last year. Indeed, it was his idea. And I know for a fact he won’t say a word about it to my father.’ Malvern looked over at Pyke, frowning. ‘Anyway, why are you so interested in my personal affairs? They have no bearing on the status of Ginger Hill.’

  Pemberton had just stepped out on to the veranda.

  ‘If I’m buying anything - a horse, a house, an estate - I want to know exactly why the seller is willing to give it up,’ Pyke said. ‘In this instance, if my questions have been of too personal a nature, forgive me. But for my own peace of mind, I needed to ask them.’ He stood up and left the two men to discuss their affairs.

  Pyke found his horse at the stables. It had been fed and watered after the long ride up from the town and, having saddled it himself, he mounted the docile creature and urged it into a canter with a kick of his boots. From the stables, he followed the flint track down the hill to where a stone bridge crossed the river; there, next to the river, was the boiling house, a larger building than he’d been expecting. It looked deserted but Pyke didn’t stop to check. A little farther up the hill on the other side of the river was the grinding house, a slightly smaller building, again made of stone, which was connected to the boiling house via a wedge-shaped trough. As Pyke understood it, the freshly cut cane was ground using vertical iron rollers powered by a waterwheel. The cane juice then ran down the trough into the boiling house, where it was rinsed, skimmed and emptied into copper vats; there it was boiled down into raw sugar and the skimmed molasses was turned into rum. But there was no one working in either of the buildings, and the whole place felt like a cemetery. As he rode up the hill into the fields on the plateau above the river, Pyke thought about the dilemma facing Malvern - pay a higher wage or risk losing the whole crop - and wondered why the planter hadn’t compromised in the short term. It seemed Malvern had been badly advised, and Pyke wondered whether the attorney really did have his best interests at heart. He also thought about what Malvern had just told him about Mary Edgar, and how distraught the planter would be when he learned about her fate.

  There were more clouds in the sky than there had been the day before and the air was more humid. Pyke had ridden deep into the cane fields and the ripe canes, seven or eight feet tall, swayed in the gentle breeze. About a mile or so farther along the track, he heard some voices and then caught sight of Pemberton slouched on his grey horse, staring idly into the distance. Pyke didn’t think the attorney had seen him and climbed down from his own horse, tying the reins around a cotton tree. He hadn’t seen a single field hand anywhere during his ride and was therefore surprised to see a crew of about twelve men, all black, sitting under the shade of a giant mango tree, talking freely with one another and laughing. Pyke didn’t want to draw attention to his hiding place and so didn’t risk getting close enough to hear what they were talking about, but in all the time he watched them, they didn’t move from their spot, and Pemberton, for all his rhetoric about ‘nigger knocking’, didn’t make them. Certainly no one seemed too interested in the ripe cane plants and, from what Pyke could see, none of the surrounding fields had been harvested.

  Back at the stables, Dalling was waiting for him. He was leaning against the gate, with a blade of grass in his mouth.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d thought any more about the conversation we had last night?’

  ‘I don’t carry that amount of money around with me.’

  Dalling offered Pyke a lazy smile. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence. You strike me as a resourceful fellow. Go out and be resourceful.’

  Briefly Pyke ran through his options, or lack of them. Dalling already knew he wasn’t who he claimed to be and Pyke had as good as confirmed it. But Dalling wouldn’t go to Pemberton or Malvern with his suspicions until he was absolutely convinced that he wouldn’t be paid. Until then he would keep his mouth shut, which, in turn, meant Pyke could ask him a question.

  ‘You must have known Mary Edgar, or at least you must have seen her around the great house.’

  Dalling’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘What has she to do with anything?’

  ‘Did you get the impression that she and Malvern were as devoted to one another as he’d have people believe?’

  That drew a snort of derision. ‘If you count fucking one of the field hands as devotion then maybe they were.’ Dalling’s nostrils were black with snuff. ‘Of course, given that he used to fuck his own sister, he isn’t exactly a saint, either.’

  That stopped Pyke dead. ‘Charles slept with Elizabeth?’

  ‘You know her, then?’ Dalling smirked. ‘Well, if you want to know more, you’re going to have to pay more.’

  ‘Look, I’ll get you your hundred and I’ll give you another hundred on top of that if you tell me what you know about Charles, Mary and Elizabeth, the lot of them.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ Dalling’s eyes narrowed.

  Pyke’s head was spinning with possibilities. ‘Did Charles know that Mary was sleeping with another man?’

  ‘Course he knew. That’s why he sent her away.’

  ‘What was the man’s name?’

  ‘I’m
not that stupid. If I tell you, you won’t have to pay me.’

  ‘Two hundred for everything,’ Pyke said.

  ‘Gives you a thrill, does it? Imagining the brother and sister going at it under the sheets?’

  ‘I can get the money by tomorrow night,’ Pyke said, his throat dry from the heat. ‘But I’ll need the name of the field hand now.’