Pyke 01 - The Last Days of Newgate

by Andrew Pepper

  What Edmonton did not know was that, in collaboration with another Runner who had a personal score to settle with the aristocrat, he had executed the robbery.

  Edmonton introduced his brother, and Pyke remembered he was a banker. His double-breasted jacket and trousers were cut from cheap cloth and made him look more like a Puritan minister than a successful businessman. He was frail in comparison with his brother, and seemed to occupy the background, as if it were his natural place in the order of things.

  ‘I don’t know how much you know about banking, Pyke, but suffice to say, my brother owns and manages a collection of small country banks . . .’

  ‘We have branches in Norwich, Ely, Colchester and King’s Lynn.’ William spoke in a soft, almost effeminate voice.

  ‘Yes, quite.’ The lord turned a hard stare on his brother. ‘A small business, then, but not an insignificant one, you’ll understand. I take an interest only when scandal or ill fortune threaten to impugn the family’s good name. I fancy my brother will not mind if I let it be known that my judicious intervention helped save the business from ruin during the last banking crisis a little over three years ago.’

  ‘Well, that’s not entirely the case . . .’ Beads of sweat had gathered on the brother’s forehead.

  ‘For heaven’s sake. If I wanted your opinion on the matter, I would have asked for it. Can I speak without being interrupted?’

  ‘I just didn’t want Mr Pyke to think the banks were managed recklessly. A well-regulated country bank only issues notes in fair demand . . .’

  ‘What Pyke thinks of your rather modest acumen as a businessman is quite beside the point,’ Edmonton said, ‘but then again we would not be in this mess if it were not for your childlike sense of what constitutes appropriate security and your wholly predictable lack of judgement.’

  William glared but refrained from starting an argument.

  ‘Now, would you permit me to speak without interruption? ’

  William mumbled something weakly in response.

  The function of a country bank, Edmonton went on to explain, was to oversee the circulation of banknotes in a particular area, and exchange banknotes belonging to the Bank of England and other smaller banks for their own. It was also to facilitate the transfer of funds from cities to towns and vice versa.

  ‘Usually there is no need to transfer hard currency between banks, unless one is embroiled in a banking crisis, in which case it might be necessary or prudent to bolster one’s cash reserves.’

  William stood in silence next to the fire.

  ‘Presently, however, the opposite is the case. All our banks are performing admirably and it is incumbent on us to transfer the surplus capital to where the demand is greatest. For our bank, that is London. Now, we keep all our surplus currency and a great proportion of our general circulation in government security inside the Bank of England itself but, and this is the vexed issue, on occasion we have to take it there ourselves. We currently lease an office close to the Bank of England on Cornhill in which we have installed a vault. The funds from our various country banks are transferred there for safe keeping, and when it is deemed appropriate, are taken under heavy guard to the Bank of England.’

  Pyke forgot about the icy temperature. Large sums of money were being discussed.

  ‘Until now everything has worked perfectly well.’ Edmonton drank liberally from a glass of claret. As he did so, his Adam’s apple swelled to the size of a small plum. ‘But, I am afraid to say, the last two deliveries, one from the bank in King’s Lynn and the other from the Colchester branch, have been . . . how can I put it without sounding vulgar ? Well, suffice to say, two thousand pounds has gone missing. Not enough to break us, you will be relieved to hear, but banking is a business built on trust, and if our investors discovered that such a sum had been stolen from under our noses, well, you can understand the awkward position it would put us in.’

  He made a point of glaring at his brother. William kept his eyes on the floor. His face, however, was crimson.

  On each occasion, Pyke was told, the carriage transporting the money had been held up by a team of four masked riders, once near Waltham Abbey and once just outside Chelmsford. On both occasions, the guards riding with the carriage, who were also employed as parish watchmen, had been beaten unconscious. Although the men had been armed, they had not managed to let off a single shot. Pyke did not bother to tell Edmonton that, as someone who had served on Bow Street’s horse and foot patrols, he considered watchmen to be wholly ineffectual. Edmonton explained that he did not imagine for a moment the attacks had been random. Rather he believed information regarding the transfer of money had been leaked by someone within the bank to his associates. Edmonton also claimed he knew who was responsible and berated his brother for employing this man in the first place.

  William continued to stare in silence at the floor but his hands were clenched so tightly the whites of his knuckles were shining.

  ‘Would you care to share that information with me?’ Pyke asked.

  ‘That would depend on whether I can count on your services regarding this matter or not.’

  ‘Since we are what one might call old acquaintances, how would you feel if I proposed a modest fee of, say, five hundred guineas?’

  Edmonton’s face puffed up like a bullfrog’s throat until it was so blotchy he could no longer hold in his indignation.

  ‘Modest! ’ He made to loosen his collar. ‘My God, you are an impudent sort. It’s almost half of what was stolen.’

  ‘I see your mathematics is as well developed as your generosity as a host.’ The brother, Pyke noticed, was also without a drink.

  ‘Or my sense of righteous outrage is as well developed as my prudence.’ Edmonton’s neck wobbled as he spluttered.

  ‘In which case, I would be prepared to accept as little as four hundred.’

  ‘You’re a man to be reckoned with, aren’t you?’ Edmonton’s laugh was without warmth. ‘Perhaps you could furnish me with the name of any true-born Englishman of good stock who might agree to such an offensive fee?’

  ‘I could intimate there are no such persons, but my final offer would still be four hundred.’

  ‘A thoroughgoing cad as well as a rascal.’ Edmonton addressed his brother in a manner that suggested he was almost enjoying himself. ‘Can you believe I am being spoken to in such a manner?’

  ‘I’d wager you make more than double that figure in the rents you collect every week of the year.’

  ‘You see what I mean?’ Edmonton slapped his brother heartily on the back and turned to face Pyke. ‘Since I’ll admit you have amused me with your show of youthful temerity, I will offer two hundred.’

  ‘Three hundred or you can find yourself another man.’ This time Pyke folded his arms. He sensed Edmonton’s resolve weakening, which surprised him. Pyke had planned to settle for as little as a hundred.

  ‘You know how long it would take a skilled worker or a manservant to earn that kind of money?’ Edmonton said, not quite mollified.

  ‘Perhaps three years. In the case of your staff, nearer to six, I would fancy. You could get a man for less money, but not one who might be able to recover what was stolen.’

  ‘Of course, I forget that recovering stolen items is a particular skill of yours.’ Any trace of amusement disappeared from his expression. Pyke wondered how much he knew about their previous business arrangement.

  ‘Are we agreed upon two and a half?’

  Edmonton stared at him for a while without saying a word.

  ‘Then if we’ve nothing left to talk about, perhaps you would have one of your servants inform my driver that I intend to leave at once.’

  ‘By God, man, will you stop being so damn hasty?’ Edmonton took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. ‘I’m persuaded that a fee in the order of two hundred and fifty guineas might be appropriate in these very exceptional circumstances. Of course, it goes without saying such a fee would only be paid on successful completion
of the task. Should you fail, you would receive nothing.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Good,’ Edmonton said, shaking his hand. ‘Now, perhaps, I can tell you about this rascal Swift. My brother, I am afraid to say, made the mistake of hiring this man six months ago and put him in charge of security for the Cornhill office. I am told he served with the duke in Spain. He is the only man apart from my brother and the branch managers who knows where and when any monies are to be transported. Since the managers only have knowledge of their own affairs, and the two carriages robbed thus far hailed from different banks, we can safely rule them out. That’s why I suspect this Swift fellow. He’s your man, I would lay my life on it.’ Edmonton spoke as if his life was worth a great deal. ‘Follow him from the bank’s Cornhill offices. My brother can furnish you with the address. That scoundrel will lead you to the money or at least to the brigands who took it. It will be the easiest fee you’ve ever earned.’

  In the entrance hall, while Pyke waited for his coat, he witnessed an encounter between Edmonton and his daughter that made him reassess his first impression of her. In fact, he heard as much as he saw; raised voices swelled into full-blown shouts, Emily’s as well as her father’s. Pyke was sufficiently intrigued by their argument to approach the half-closed doors behind which their altercation was taking place, but before he could determine what was being argued about, Emily flew through the doors and almost knocked him down. He had no choice but to fend her off with his hands, but his touch seemed to provoke her to further outrage. Brusquely she pushed him away and, gathering up her skirt, ran past him without uttering a word.

  TWO

  After an hour spent trawling the numerous taverns and alehouses surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral, Pyke found his uncle, Godfrey Bond, in the Boar tavern on Fleet Street across the road from Middle Temple Gate. The old man was slumped back in his seat in the corner of the taproom. Since there was no natural light and the room was illuminated only by candles and the reddish flame of occasional grease lamps, it was difficult, if not impossible, to tell who anyone was. This suited most of the customers, who appeared less interested in social activities than in pouring gin down their throats.

  The exposed brick walls and the low ceiling, covered with begrimed, grey-patterned wallpaper, augmented Pyke’s fear of confined spaces. He had suffered from the condition for as long as he could remember. Or rather ever since, as a ten-year-old boy, he had watched his father lose his footing in a stampeding crowd and disappear under their feet. Forty thousand people had been gathered outside Newgate prison to witness the execution of Holloway and Haggerty, two robbers who had been convicted of stabbing a London botanist and leaving him to die at the side of a turnpike in Hounslow. The crowd had been too great for the space they had been herded into and chaos had ensued. Pyke had seen women and children suffocating to death as they were pressed against walls and barricades. Later, once the crowd had finally dispersed, he had found his father lying battered and not breathing in a ditch. His face had been crushed and his clothes were dirty with other people’s shoe and boot prints.

  Pyke pushed his way through the mass of bodies gathered in the tiny room and chose to ignore the stares of ill-concealed antipathy from those who either recognised him or simply disliked being watched by a stranger.

  Collapsed between empty pewter ale pots and gnawed pork chops was the unconscious frame of his uncle’s drinking companion. Pyke recognised the Reverend Foote, Ordinary at Newgate prison. Godfrey often plied Foote with drink in exchange for stories of woe and despair that Foote collected or overheard from the prison’s condemned men and women. It was Foote’s task to compile an account of their lives. For a small fee, he would pass these details to Godfrey, who would then print and sell them for a penny to the assembled crowd on the day of the execution.

  As far as Pyke could tell, these stories carried several contradictory messages: on the one hand they suggested crime did not pay, that it was a sin against God, and that the most heinous crimes were still punishable by death; and on the other hand they made it clear that crime was exciting and heroic, and that criminals acted as they did because society left them no other option. Pyke thought all these explanations were too simple. For him, crime was simply a means to an end. If stealing was the only available means to achieving one’s freedom and well-being, then it made sense to steal.

  In his earlier life, Pyke’s uncle had been a respectable publisher of radical political pamphlets and as a much younger man had counted figures such as Paine, Wollstonecraft and Godwin as his friends. He had long since abandoned such lofty inclinations, and for the last twenty years had scraped a living publishing sensational tales of criminal wrongdoing which he cobbled together from the annals of old Newgate calendars and from confessions sold to him by Foote. His editorial policy was to concentrate on tales that were especially gruesome and dwell upon specific instances of deviance. In each case, he would try to remove attempts by previous writers to impose moral judgements on the stories. The published sheets were cheaply reproduced and sold for a penny, mostly to the working poor. Godfrey would often tell Pyke that his readers found more of their own lives reflected in his stories than in tales penned by Jane Austen.

  Godfrey was the closest thing Pyke had to a father. But theirs had always been an ambivalent relationship that reflected their shared desire both to remain independent and to cultivate familial support and companionship. It was a bond that had finally found its own equilibrium. While they no longer shared the same living space or felt any compunction to intervene in one another’s lives, a certain degree of warmth had begun to emerge in their dealings.

  As a surrogate parent, Godfrey had never imposed even a modicum of discipline on him. Rather, he had provided Pyke with a small room in the attic of his Camden Town apartment and allowed him to come and go as he pleased. It was an arrangement that had suited Pyke, and one that permitted him to gain his education in the ways of the street, in such a manner that if things ever got too dangerous or intimidating, then the door of his uncle’s home was always open.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, dear boy. You know Arthur, don’t you?’ At the mention of his name, Foote did not actually move but, for a moment, stopped snoring. ‘All he can offer me these days, it seems, are dreary tales of common thievery and domestic woe. Think about it. Who wants to read about real life? If I published the stuff he’s giving me, I’d bore my readers half to death. They want piracy and mass murder, not stories about the grinding effects of poverty.’ He shook his head, wistfully. ‘Where, I ask you, are the Jack Sheppards and Jonathan Wilds? Outlaws who defined an age. Who do we get instead? Who are our heroes? Bentham? Peel? That oaf Bulwer? Where’s the unpleasantness or the proper violence in his stories? Believe me, dear boy, I feel like a vulture gnawing on a stripped carcass.’ Godfrey rubbed his eyes and yawned. ‘So tell me, what brings you down to this gutter to see me?’

  Godfrey had a mane of unkempt white hair and was not preoccupied by how he looked. He cared little for contemporary fashion and, aside from his small publishing business, he took an interest only in what he could eat and imbibe. Though his sexual proclivities were a mystery to Pyke, he’d warmed to abstinence in recent years with a dedication that surprised those who knew him.

  Pyke told Godfrey about his visit to Edmonton’s country home and asked what he knew about the man’s business.

  ‘Edmonton, you say? Hmmm.’ He closed his eyes. ‘His wife’s a descendant of the earl of Essex, if he’s the one I’m thinking about. You say his brother owns a bank?’ He frowned. ‘I’ve heard Edmonton’s tight with the Tory Ultras but that’s hardly news. I’m afraid that’s it, but if you give me a couple of days, I can ask around, see what else I can dig up.’

  ‘There’s a daughter, too. Emily Blackwood. She’s part of Elizabeth Fry’s circle.’

  ‘A daughter, eh?’ Godfrey’s grin widened so that Pyke could see his blackened teeth. ‘That sounds intriguing.’ His grin evaporated. ‘And dangerous.’

>   ‘Anything you can find out for me would be much appreciated.’

  ‘Acquaintances, business associates . . . corset sizes?’

  ‘I’m reliably informed that Edmonton doesn’t wear corsets,’ Pyke said, smiling at last.

  ‘What a pity. I do so like a man who’s concerned about his figure.’ Godfrey patted his own girth but his expression became serious. ‘They’re an abominable lot, the Ultras. Edmonton, Eldon, Newcastle, Cumberland. All of ’em would shit in their own food and eat it if it would hold up reform,’ Godfrey said, working his way around the various ale pots, looking for dregs.

  Still drunk, Foote heaved his head off the table and stared at Pyke, confused. Saliva hung from his mouth. ‘That’s right, an abomination. We’re an abomination to them, you know. A veritable abomination. Mark my words, times are changing, boy. We’ll be for the rope. Our faces don’t fit. They won’t tolerate us for much longer. The whole thing’s a disgrace.’ Foote looked up at him, expectant of an answer, but since Pyke didn’t know what was a disgrace and who ‘we’ or ‘they’ referred to, he said nothing.