That drew a weary shake of Tilling’s head.
‘He’s protecting someone else. He’s pleaded guilty to something he didn’t do to protect someone else.’
‘Who? Malvern?’
Pyke ignored Tilling’s jibe and watched as Pierce wandered over to a brougham that had just pulled up outside the Sessions House. Mayne came over and joined them. He slapped Tilling on the back and gave Pyke a considered stare. ‘I know we’ve had our differences, sir, and you have said some things to me and others you probably regret now, but I just wanted to assure you that, as far as I’m concerned, the matter is closed.’
‘Thank you, Sir Richard.’ Pyke bowed his head slightly but still noticed Mayne’s smile. ‘Now can I get down on my knees and lick your boots clean, too?’
‘There’s no need for that, Pyke,’ Tilling said. It reminded Pyke of the distance that had opened up between them and the damage he’d done to their friendship.
Tilling and Mayne drifted away without uttering another word and Pyke took the opportunity to cross the pavement to the brougham that Pierce had climbed into.
Ignoring the footman, Pyke peered into the carriage’s interior and saw Silas Malvern’s ghostly visage. Pierce sat next to him on the cushioned seat and it took them a few moments to notice Pyke’s presence.
‘Come to eat some humble pie, Pyke?’ Pierce said, his face still flush from the glory of the morning’s proceedings.
‘I’d like a word with Malvern in private.’
Pierce shook his head and asked whether Malvern wanted one of his officers to move Pyke along.
‘No, I’ll hear what the man has to say,’ Malvern said, his eyes not leaving Pyke for a moment.
‘Well, if you need him trodden on, tell your footman to fetch me. I’ll do the job with pleasure.’
‘It’s all worked out well for you, hasn’t it, Pierce?’ Pyke said, once Pierce had climbed out of the brougham.
‘Just say it, Pyke. I was right. You were wrong.’
‘If we weren’t in a public place, I’d hurt you. I’d do more than hurt you.’ Pyke took a step in his direction and Pierce scuttled across the pavement to rejoin Mayne.
‘I received a letter from the Custos in Falmouth informing me of the death of my son. It was ruled an accident, the result of a natural calamity.’ Malvern’s bony hands trembled as he spoke. ‘It seems, sir, I have you to thank for forewarning me of this truly terrible outcome and thereby softening, albeit slightly, the blow.’
Pyke felt his antipathy for the old man weakening in the face of his self-evident grief, but remained silent.
Malvern licked his pale, flaky lips. ‘The last time we met, you made an oblique reference to an episode in my past that I’ve always felt very deeply ashamed of.’
‘Which one?’ Pyke waited. ‘Killing your wife or blinding your brother?’
Malvern stared at him, horrified. ‘I didn’t kill her, sir. I couldn’t have. I loved her.’ His voice sounded as hard and small as an acorn.
‘Even though she’d been cuckolding you with your brother?’
Malvern seemed physically cowed by Pyke’s words. ‘Except to say I regret very deeply what I did to my brother, more deeply than you’ll ever know, I won’t make my excuses to you, sir.’
‘Did you know your brother had come to London?’
Malvern seemed surprised, though not shocked at this claim. For a few moments he sat, his arms resting on his lap like wilting runner beans. ‘Before she departed for the Caribbean, my daughter informed me that a man claiming to be her uncle had tried to approach her but I didn’t believe her.’
Pyke waited for Malvern to look at him. ‘But the idea that he might be in London must have unsettled you.’ He stared into the old man’s rheumy eyes.
‘I’ll admit that I was less than comfortable at first but on reflection I saw it as a chance perhaps to be reconciled with him.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing ever came of it. Elizabeth wrote to me confirming her passage to Jamaica and that was the last I heard of it.’
‘But when you heard about the way in which Mary Edgar had been mutilated, you must have thought about your brother and what you did to him.’
This time Malvern’s reaction gave little away. ‘I told you before, sir, I had nothing to do with that business.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘What about him?’ Malvern barked.
‘Perhaps he had something to do with Mary Edgar’s death.’
Malvern stared down at his withered hands. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, sir. I have other matters to attend to.’
Pyke presented himself at the offices of the Vice Society and was told by the same clerk he’d spoken to before that Ticknor hadn’t returned but was expected at any time.
‘Tomorrow perhaps?’
‘Tomorrow or the next day.’
‘The next day is Saturday.’
‘Monday, then.’ The clerk looked up at him from behind the desk. ‘Would you like to leave him a message, sir?’
‘No, thank you. It’s not urgent.’
As he left, Pyke wondered why he’d said that and why, in the face of his suspicions, he was still trying to shield Elizabeth Malvern.
With a pick handle in his hand, Pyke pushed open the door to Crane’s shop and when it closed behind him, he drew the bolt across and pulled the curtains. The assistant seemed puzzled by his actions and called out from behind the counter. Turning around, Pyke raised the pick handle above his head and slammed it down on the glass display case just to one side of the counter. Not pausing for breath, he pulled the lean-to cabinet from the wall and sent it crashing to the floor together with its cargo of books. He smashed the pick handle against another glass case and then swung it against the supporting leg of shelves that ran along the middle of the shop. One swing didn’t do it but a second blow loosened the fixings enough for him to push the entire edifice over and watch it topple into the path of those summoned to deal with the disturbance. Jumping over piles of books, he made his way down the passage and into the yard. From there, he went to the printing room, where a number of compositors were hunched over their machines. Pushing them to one side, he brought the pick handle down on each machine, one at a time, and then turned his attention to the printing press, tipping it up on its side and then smashing it apart with the handle and the heel of his boot. Back in the shop, Pyke drove the end of the pick handle into the face of a man trying to block his path and took an oil lamp that was burning on the counter and threw it on to the floor. The flames from the shattered lamp quickly spread to the books and in a short while the entire shop was ablaze, flames devouring the books, shelves, etchings, lithographs, everything. Outside on the street, a crowd had gathered to watch, and already other shop owners, anxious about their premises, were beginning to round up pails of water to try to dampen the blaze. From upstairs windows, as charred curls of paper floated up into the gloomy late afternoon sky, some of Crane’s employees had to jump to escape the encroaching fire. It was only at this point that Pyke wondered whether Crane himself was in the building to witness the destruction.
TWENTY-FIVE
Elizabeth Malvern must have seen him coming up the mews because even before he had knocked on the front door, it swung open and she was standing in the hall to greet him. She was wearing the same dress as before but this time her hair was down, framing her slim, oval face and cascading down her back almost as far as her waist.
‘I want the truth this time,’ Pyke said, trying to reconcile his desire for her smooth, tanned skin with his lingering urge to destroy anything in his path.
‘The truth about what?’ She regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and bemusement.
‘You and Jemmy Crane.’
Pyke saw at once that the name had registered in her expression. ‘Jeremy used to be part of my circle of friends until I got to know him better and discovered how he makes his money.’
‘I know you were Crane’s mistress:
maybe you still are.’ Elizabeth pulled some hair away from her face and frowned. ‘Why would anybody say that?’
‘So it isn’t true?’
She stared at him with something approaching anger. ‘No, of course it isn’t true.’
Their eyes locked and, in the end, Pyke had to look away first.
‘Are you going to let me know who told you this lie?’
‘Harold Field.’
She looked blankly at him. ‘I don’t know him.’
‘He owns a slaughterhouse in Smithfield together with a dozen ginneries and taverns and half of the gaming clubs in the city.’
‘And you imagine that’s the kind of company I keep?’ But some of her indignation had started to abate. ‘Why is this man insisting I’m Crane’s mistress?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I don’t know what to believe.’
‘Do you believe me?’
Pyke didn’t answer.
‘I don’t have to justify myself to him, or to you,’ Elizabeth said, eventually. ‘I haven’t seen Crane in more than a year. That’s the God’s honest truth. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you.’
‘What about Arthur Sobers?’
That drew a different reaction, one of concern rather than irritation. ‘What happened at the trial?’
‘Why do you care what happened?’ Pyke studied her reaction. He could smell his own sweat, a reminder of his recent rampage through Crane’s shop.
‘What is this, Pyke? Why the inquisition? You know about my family’s interest in the murder and the investigation. It’s not a secret. I just asked whether the jury had delivered their verdict.’
‘They didn’t need to. He pleaded guilty.’
For a moment this news seemed to jolt her but she quickly recovered her composure.
‘You knew him, didn’t you? That’s why he was arrested near by. He’d come to visit you, hadn’t he?’
She absorbed the heat of his gaze and waited for a moment. ‘I’ve no idea what he was doing in this street and I’ve never even laid eyes on the man.’
‘You’re not sorry he’s going to hang, then?’
‘If he killed her, then no, I’m not.’
Pyke studied her expression. ‘I saw your father outside the Sessions House. He seemed pleased by the verdict, too.’
‘Who said I was pleased? The man pleaded guilty. Surely it’s just a matter of justice being served?’
Pyke took a breath and tried to gather his thoughts. He’d intended to confront her and force the truth out of her but now she was calm and he was floundering.
‘I should go,’ he said.
‘But you’ve just got here,’ she replied, puzzled.
‘I’ve had a long day.’
She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘Look, I won’t offer to cook for you but I can put a glass into your hand.’
Pyke was exhausted but in truth he didn’t have anywhere else to go. If he went home, the police might be waiting for him. Briefly, he wondered whether the fire had spread beyond Crane’s shop and what kind of damage had been caused.
‘Maybe just a quick drink.’
Elizabeth’s eyes were sparkling as she led him into the house.
They sat opposite one another at her kitchen table. It was an informal arrangement, the kind he might have enjoyed with an old friend, but with her, the informality seemed contrived, as if it had been conjured solely to elicit his approval. She seemed to want him to like her, and if he was honest he found himself thinking about her more and more. But he couldn’t get away from the fact that she was somehow involved in the matter he was investigating and, as such, he had to be cautious.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it? Terrible things have happened in these last few months but I’ve been happier here, on my own, than I would have been enjoying the delights of the Season.’
Pyke nodded, trying to appear genial. ‘I’d rather swallow a razor blade than listen to the inbred fools and their dull-witted wives chatter about the wonders of opera.’
Her laugh was throaty and, he felt, a little dirty. ‘It’s the women I detest more than the men. Often their opinions simply parrot their husbands’.’
‘The blind leading the blind.’
She looked at him, perhaps surprised by his reference to blindness. ‘You’re different, Pyke. You don’t seem afraid ...’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘Saying what’s on your mind, doing things, getting things done.’ Her gaze seemed to take in his whole body. ‘There’s nothing predictable about you.’
‘I could say the same thing about you.’
Elizabeth held his eyes. ‘But I can see you still don’t trust me.’
‘Or you me.’
‘Why wouldn’t I trust you?’
‘Because you think the only reason I’m here is to ask you more questions about your family.’
‘I don’t think that’s the only reason you’re here.’
Pyke felt his stomach tighten and knew he had to change the subject. ‘Tell me about your interest in daguerreotypes.’
‘Ah, back to the interrogation.’ Her smile was sly and warm. ‘In that case I’m going to need a drop of something to loosen my tongue.’ In the pantry, she dug out a bottle and put it down on the table, together with two glasses. ‘The drink I promised you. Rum from Jamaica. I have it shipped to me.’
‘Kill-devil.’
This made her look up. She filled both glasses to the brim and handed one of them to Pyke. ‘I haven’t heard it called that for a while.’
‘You don’t take yours with water?’
Elizabeth picked up the glass and poured the rum down her throat. It didn’t seem to affect her. ‘Tell me about your time in Jamaica.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘What were your impressions of the place? Where did you go? Who did you meet?’
Pyke took a sip of rum; it tasted smoother and sweeter than the spirit he’d drunk in Jamaica. ‘I thought I was the one questioning you.’ Ignoring his better judgement, he followed suit and downed what was in his glass in a single gulp.
She gave him a crooked smile and refilled their glasses.
For the next half an hour, they talked about Jamaica. Pyke kept his descriptions vague and didn’t mention any names unless they were attached to Ginger Hill. For the most part, Elizabeth listened intently and filled their glasses when they were empty. Pyke was careful about what he said about her brother and, for some reason, she didn’t press him for further information. She seemed more interested in what he’d done in Falmouth, and when he mentioned he’d ventured into the middle of the island, she wanted to know why and where he’d gone. He gave evasive answers and eventually her interest began to wane.
‘But did you like it?’ It wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question.
‘Yes, I suppose I did. It was much more beautiful than I’d imagined.’
‘Dangerous, too.’ She brushed a lash from her eye. ‘You must have been frightened for your life during the storm.’
‘I suppose so.’ Pyke tried to remember what he’d felt that night but couldn’t put it into words.
‘I was thinking about what happened to my brother and I can’t help feeling that something is amiss. He would never have taken shelter in that part of the house. In the old days, if a storm hit, we would take refuge in the counting house or even the dungeon.’
‘I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t privy to his decision.’
Elizabeth nodded, but seemed dissatisfied with the answer. ‘But they’re sure he died as a result of the storm?’
‘As far as I know. I mean, why wouldn’t they be?’
‘I don’t know. I’d hate to think foul play was involved, but he had written to me recently and told me how fractious the atmosphere at Ginger Hill had become.’
‘No, I’m certain your brother’s death was a consequence of the storm.’
This seemed
to settle her. She fiddled with her empty glass. ‘It still doesn’t explain why you went all that way just to find out what happened to Mary.’ She added, with a shrug, ‘I hope you don’t mind me prying. I’m just trying to understand you a little better.’
‘Why do you want to understand me better?’
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. ‘You don’t think this man, Arthur Sobers, killed her, do you?’ she said, trying to read his thoughts.
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