Kill-Devil and Water

by Andrew Pepper

  A month earlier, Arthur Sobers had made the same short trek from Debtors’ Door to the scaffold, this time in front of a much smaller crowd. Pyke hadn’t attended this execution because he didn’t want to have to ask himself the difficult question: was it right to punish an essentially good man for taking another’s life? In the small hours of the morning, Pyke asked himself the same question and found himself thinking about Peter Hunt, the son of the former governor of Newgate prison who had tried and failed to avenge his father’s death. Pyke knew that the law and justice were very different creatures, but often he would wake up, unable to silence the screams of the men he’d killed.

  Phillip Malvern’s body was never found.

  The governor and directors of the Bank of England sought to limit the damage to the Bank’s reputation as a result of the failed robbery and to distance themselves from their former friend and colleague, Abel Trevelyan, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the possession of lewd and obscene materials. Their efforts to ‘contain’ the story were thrown into disarray, however, by a series of columns in the Examiner by ‘staff writer’ Edmund Saggers, in which he laid bare the link between Trevelyan and Crane and between pornography, the unexplained deaths of at least two women and the failed attempt to empty the bullion vault under the Bank of England. No mention was made of Harold Field; nor was his disappearance mourned. As far as Pyke knew, Matthew Paxton stepped into the dead man’s shoes without too much guilt.

  About a week after the body of Lord William Bedford’s former butler was discovered floating in a lake near St Albans, Pyke found himself waiting in Scotland Yard for Pierce, who had just been promoted to the rank of superintendent.

  ‘I’d say congratulations, but that would suggest you earned your promotion rather than buying it with the blood of an innocent.’

  Pierce removed his hat and smoothed his hair. ‘Your preference for the melodramatic is well known but tedious.’

  ‘An innocent man went to the gallows because you took the thirty pieces of silver that Silas Malvern offered you, to keep his family’s name out of the investigation.’

  Pierce seemed amused rather than upset by this accusation. ‘You want to know something, Pyke?’ he said, picking his teeth. ‘We never did apprehend the fellow who tried to help Morel-Roux escape from Newgate.’

  ‘I hope you see Morel-Roux’s face when you’re lying in your bed late at night, trying to forget about what you’ve done.’

  ‘I sleep perfectly well.’ Pierce looked around the yard and put on his hat. ‘It’s quite clear you don’t. That should tell you something.’

  ‘Yes, it tells me I’ve got a conscience.’

  Pierce appeared to be on the verge of saying something but at the last moment shook his head, as though it wasn’t worth the effort.

  ‘I’m not scared of you, Pyke, and I’m not even remotely concerned by your low opinion of me. In fact, the notion that you - of all people - think you’re somehow more ethical than I am greatly amuses me.’

  Pierce walked off and left Pyke to his thoughts. It took every ounce of self-control on Pyke’s part not to follow him.

  A few weeks after Jo had moved out to take up a nursemaid’s post in a household in Bloomsbury, she came to visit Felix. After a long and tearful reunion with her former charge, she came to find Pyke and sat with him in the front room.

  ‘You look well.’ He meant it, too.

  ‘I wish I could say the same about you.’ She said this, he thought later, not to crow but simply to point out what was self-evident: he hadn’t washed or trimmed his whiskers for days and he’d been surviving on a diet of laudanum and baked potatoes.

  ‘And your visitor? I never did find out her name.’

  Pyke couldn’t bring himself to look at her. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jo’s expression was measured, her voice composed.

  For a while neither of them spoke. The rattle of wood and iron wheels across cobbles temporarily filled the room.

  ‘I saw the way you looked at her and I recognised it. It was the same way I used to look at you.’ When he didn’t respond, Jo offered a gentle smile.

  Pyke fumbled around in his pocket and produced an envelope. ‘I’d like you to have this as a token of my appreciation for all the work you did for my family.’

  Jo took it, peered into the envelope and tried to hand it back to him. ‘I couldn’t possibly accept it, as generous as it is.’

  ‘Don’t think of it as coming from me. Think of it as a gift from Emily. I’d say you were her best, and most loved, friend. Or think of it as a gift from Felix if that makes you feel any better.’ Pyke looked away suddenly because he didn’t want her to see his expression.

  She held out the envelope for him again but he wouldn’t take it. ‘Please, keep it. I’d like to think I’ve done at least one right thing with respect to you.’

  Jo sat there for a while contemplating what he’d said and finally put the envelope into her shawl.

  ‘Will you come and visit Felix again?’

  On the front steps, they shook hands and, as their fingers parted, Pyke had to rein in a sudden desire to take her hand and ask her to reconsider. Tying her bonnet under her chin, she turned around and looked at him. ‘Try not to be too hard on yourself, Pyke. For some reason, and I hope you take this as a compliment, self-loathing doesn’t suit you.’

  The same night Mary had found out that her father had been killed by Crane, she had come to Pyke’s room. She wore a cotton nightdress that clung to her figure and revealed just enough of her firm, plump calves to elicit his attention. He had been sitting up in bed reading. She had stood by the door and even when he had invited her into the room, and had cleared a space for her next to him on the bed, she had remained where she was.

  ‘I’m scared, Pyke.’ She stood there unmoving. ‘I’m scared that all this, all that we’ve done, all the lives that have been damaged - that it’s all been for nothing.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you want me to say. Do you expect me to tell you that everything is going to be all right?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, staring towards the window.

  ‘What did you mean, then?’

  Mary wiped a strand of hair from her eye and took a tentative step into the room. Pyke looked down at the book he’d been reading, trying to ignore his groin and the hammering of his heart.

  ‘If you’d asked me a month ago, I would have told you how much I longed to be back in Jamaica. To feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, see my old friends.’

  ‘And now?’ His gaze followed the curve of her cheekbones down to the smoothness of her neck.

  ‘Now I don’t know what I feel.’ She took another step into the room, and was almost close enough for him to reach out and touch her. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘What about?’ He tried to swallow but couldn’t.

  ‘About what happened between you and me.’

  She stared at him. But in saying it, in calling attention to what had happened, it was as if some kind of spell had been broken. This time, when Pyke patted the place for her on the bed, she sat down next to him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about the few weeks that I spent in Jamaica.’ He hesitated. ‘At the time, it didn’t make sense to me why no one seemed much interested in helping me to find your murderer.’

  ‘You didn’t ever suspect what we’d done?’

  Pyke shrugged. ‘Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn’t. It’s hard to remember with any degree of certainty what I thought. But that’s not what I’m trying to say.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise. It’s just ...’ Pyke hesitated. ‘I was just thinking about a conversation I had with Isaac Webb.’ He looked over at her, but her expression remained blank. ‘I’m sure, looking back on it, he’d been told to kill me. I was becoming a nuisance. If I’d been allowed to return to London, I might’ve discovered the truth and threatened everything. It wasn’t personal - in fact, I think Ha
rper and Webb liked me for some reason. In any case, I pre-empted Webb - I knew what he was going to do and I pulled my pistol on him instead. Thinking about it now, I’m certain he could have followed me and finished the job. I told him that my place was here, with my son. He told me about his son and in the end, I think he let me go because he didn’t want any more blood to be spilled. But as I rode away I remember thinking about home, about London, and how I didn’t belong there in Jamaica.’

  Her jaw tightened a little. ‘And by that you mean I don’t belong here?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant that Webb and I seemed to come to an accommodation. Over there was his place.’

  ‘But it isn’t his place. Isn’t that the whole point? It belongs to Silas Malvern, and when he dies it will be sold to another white planter. It will never be our place unless we’re prepared to do something about it.’

  Pyke absorbed the heat of her gaze but his silence seemed to make her angrier. ‘Here in this room, in this house, what you have is all yours. You can do as you please. You have no idea how lucky you are - and how many things you take for granted.’

  Pyke nodded, to concede the point. He knew what he had to say but the words seemed to catch in his throat. ‘There’s a ...’ He hesitated and tried to swallow. ‘There’s a steamer leaving from Southampton in two days. I’ve booked your passage as far as Kingston.’ He couldn’t bring himself to look at her but he sensed her body going rigid.

  ‘Just like that?’ There was still a small spark of hope in her voice. She reached out and touched his hand and he had to bite back an urge to pull her towards him.

  ‘I’ll accompany you as far as Southampton, to make sure you take up your cabin.’

  That drew a hollow laugh. ‘A cage with golden bars.’

  ‘Better that than a prison cell here in London.’

  ‘And Silas Malvern?’ She gave him a hollow look. ‘What will you tell him?’

  ‘I’ll tell him the truth.’ This time he looked directly at her and sighed. ‘That’s all I can do.’

  Picking up the half-full bottle, Fitzroy Tilling leaned across the table and poured them both a glass of claret.

  ‘You know what I think?’ he said, chewing a piece of bread. ‘I think, in the end, there isn’t a great deal that separates us. I’d even go as far as to say there could be a place for you in the New Police if you wanted it. The political winds are shifting. There’ll be an election within the year and Peel will win it. The current Liberal administration is a spent force. I’ve talked to Peel about your ideas vis-à-vis detection, rather than just prevention, of crime. He seems keen on the idea of a detective bureau and I think he might offer you a position. What would you say to that?’

  ‘Me? A police officer?’ Pyke started to laugh.

  ‘A detective. And remember you were once a Bow Street Runner.’ Pyke took a sip of claret. He would have to think about Tilling’s offer, but it was true that he enjoyed the work. Sitting back in his chair, he looked at the man across from him and wondered about their similarities.

  ‘Did anyone ever connect you with the attempt to break Morel-Roux out of Newgate?’

  Tilling looked up from his food, a grilled lamb chop, and shrugged. ‘They investigated, of course, and found that a PC William Dell and I left the prison through the main gate at a quarter to ten.’

  ‘You know, I got him as far as the chapel window. All he had to do was climb down the rope. But he froze. He was terrified of heights.’

  Tilling put down his cutlery and exhaled. ‘We did all we could, Pyke.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ Pyke could tell that Tilling was still troubled.

  ‘If I had the chance to do it again, to try to rescue Morel-Roux, I wouldn’t. The law’s the law. It’s the only thing that separates us from beasts.’

  ‘But the law is also the means by which men like Silas Malvern have accrued their fortunes.’

  Tilling chewed a piece of meat and washed it down with a mouthful of claret. He didn’t have an answer. One of the things Pyke liked best about Tilling was that they disagreed so fundamentally on so many different things but somehow managed to keep those disagreements at bay. He wondered what this said about their friendship.

  ‘I had lunch with the governor of the Bank of England today,’ Tilling said, breaking the silence.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘In light of what happened, they’ve just completed an audit of their bullion reserves.’

  ‘And?’ Pyke pretended to concentrate on what was on his plate.

  ‘Twenty gold bars have gone missing.’

  ‘Just twenty?’

  ‘Indeed, given what might have happened, he seemed rather relieved.’

  ‘Could’ve been a lot worse.’

  ‘And he knows he has you to thank for that.’ Tilling wetted his lips. ‘You were the one who foiled Crane’s plans, after all.’

  Pyke accepted the compliment. ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘Any more than twenty, I’d say he would have called in the City of London police.’

  ‘But a man in his position wouldn’t want to advertise that even one single gold bar had gone missing, would he?’

  Tilling pushed a piece of meat around his plate with a fork. ‘The hole leading up from the sewer came out directly in front of the guard room. To get in and out of the bullion vault, someone would have had to be fairly sure that no guards would be present. That’s what Crane was counting on. But what if someone knew, for example, that on the Sunday morning before the robbery, a meeting had been called in the governor’s chamber, involving all the soldiers, and hence the entrance to the bullion vault would have been left unguarded for at least half an hour?’

  Pyke took a sip of wine and held Tilling’s stare. ‘That’s quite an elaborate story. But I don’t know what it’s got to do with me.’

  Tilling’s eyes narrowed. ‘It pleases me to hear you say that. Because if I thought you’d used me, I’d do my utmost to see you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’

  Pyke said nothing.

  ‘Listen, I mentioned this idea of the detective bureau earlier because I think you’re the most tenacious, gifted investigator I’ve ever known. I think you enjoy it, too. But these are changed times. Any slip-ups, any vague flirtations with criminality, and Peel won’t touch you with a ten-foot stick.’

  Pyke assured Tilling that he would think about what he’d said.

  That afternoon, Pyke collected Felix from Godfrey’s shop and took him back to the house, where they rescued Copper from the back yard. They walked to the fields just to the north of their street. It was a warm, late summer day and, away from the maw of the city, the air smelled clean and refreshing. The sky was an unbroken panoply of blue, and the ground underfoot had been baked hard by the sun. Copper limped contentedly by their side and, as they walked, Felix discussed the good and bad points of the new nanny, mostly in terms of how she was and wasn’t like Jo.

  The field to their right had been portioned up into allotments and Pyke had taken one of the plots and had started to plant his own vegetables. He liked the idea of working a small patch of land and showing Felix how particular foods arrived on his plate. There was a small shed in one corner of the allotment from which Pyke collected a shovel before digging down into recently cultivated earth. Felix and Copper looked on without much interest. Eventually, the end of the shovel struck the top of the trunk. Pyke cleared a space around it and invited Felix to join him in the hole.

  ‘I want you to see something,’ Pyke said, putting his arm around Felix’s shoulder. ‘I was hoping you could open up the trunk for me.’

  ‘Why? What’s inside?’

  ‘Why don’t you open it and see for yourself.’ Pyke stood back while Felix unfastened the catch and lifted up the lid.

  The eighteen gold bars were just as he’d left them. The reflection from the sun made it hard to look at them for any length of time.

  For days, Pyke had agonised over whether
to tell Felix about the bars or show them to him. The risk of doing so was great: Felix might turn against him or, worse still, denounce him as a common criminal. That said, considering the way Felix had dealt with Eric, the pickpocket, Pyke had seen something in his son, an indifference to the finer points of the law, and it was something he liked. That suggested to him it might be time to trust the lad a little more, show him something of the world Pyke actually inhabited. Let him be proud of his father; proud of his rougher edges and daring, rather than of his willingness to serve the very letter of the law.