Pyke 01 - The Last Days of Newgate

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘That’s quite a bleak view of human nature, isn’t it? The weak being torn apart by the strong and the strong being torn apart by the stronger.’

  Nodding, despite himself, he found her instinctive grasp of his position impressive. He had never tried to have a similar conversation with Lizzie.

  ‘I would’ve thought that description perfectly fits what’s happening inside this prison.’ Pyke pointed towards the condemned block.

  ‘But that’s exactly it,’ she said, excited. ‘At present, that’s how these unfortunates are treated and so they act as animals. Wouldn’t you?’ Her eyes glistened with enthusiasm. ‘But what if they were treated differently? What if they lived in separate cells, had access to proper clothes, hot food, time to exercise and read, a routine, bedsteads provided for them? Might they act in a more humane way themselves?’

  ‘You believe people are essentially altruistic?’ Pyke tried to keep scepticism from his voice.

  ‘Call me simple-minded but I believe that a tendency for goodness exists within all of us. Even you.’ Then Emily did something that surprised him: she threaded her arm through his and said, ‘Come with me. I’ll show you the quadrangle allocated to women.’

  All Pyke said was, ‘I would not have called you simple-minded. ’

  She did not release his arm.

  The space for female prisoners awaiting trial was limited to two cells and two large wards. Something like three hundred women and children were crowded into these rooms. The fact that the female prisoners were now overseen by a female gatekeeper was the result of pressure exerted by their committee, Emily explained, as the gatekeeper led them along a thick-walled passage to one of the two main wards. From the entrance, and protected from the ward by iron bars, Pyke watched the scene in front of him with fascination and horror. He counted ninety or a hundred people crammed into a room no larger than Sir Richard Fox’s office. Some wore rags. Others were naked. The only warmth in the ward was provided by the inhabitants themselves. They huddled together in small groups. The smell of unwashed bodies and stale alcohol made him want to gag. A little girl, no more than ten, caught his eye. Her lackadaisical body and hollow stare spoke of a hopelessness that seemed so all-encompassing he had to look away. These were the human dregs, criminals perhaps but with their own explanatory tales of woe and despair, and Pyke didn’t want to be among them - to have to see and smell them.

  ‘Though it might seem hard to believe, considerable improvements have been made since Mrs Fry first visited here fifteen years ago. There’s now better ventilation and lighting, fixed bed places, a new dining room and dining tables, an enlarged infirmary and a new wash house.’

  Pyke said he had seen enough.

  Outside in the yard, Emily said, ‘When we talked at the hall, I got the impression you thought all reformers to be either petty meddlers or well-meaning tyrants wanting to transform the world in their own image. What we are trying to do here is rather small. Desks for the condemned, the removal of rubbish once a week.’

  Pyke admired her forthright nose and hazel eyes. Emily did not seem out of place inside Newgate’s walls. She was part of this world and, in a strange way, it suited her.

  ‘Perhaps not you,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘but others have grander visions.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with grand visions?’ she asked, quickly. ‘Even to me, Newgate isn’t just a prison. It’s a word that’s become synonymous with a whole system of justice, a barbaric and arbitrary one in which the educated and privileged escape punishment because of who they are and who they know and the poor are killed regardless. You asked me why I did this. Let me ask you a question in return. Is it right or fair that one prisoner should have a good flock mattress, a double allowance of provisions, an endless supply of ale and prostitutes when required, while another, equally deserving prisoner is beaten, abused, starved and left to die?’

  Pyke waited until he had her full attention. ‘People who can’t help themselves come from all ranks and stations. Even aristocratic families.’

  Her surprise registered before her anger and she recoiled from him, as though he had slapped her. ‘Men always imagine power is tied only to social class,’ she said, recovering some of her composure.

  ‘You mean, your father’s power is more a product of his masculine position?’

  ‘Is that such a surprise to you? That men like my father have been shaping the world to fit their needs for centuries?’

  ‘Including who is defined as sane and insane?’

  Emily’s expression hardened. ‘Don’t presume to speculate about my family, Mr Pyke.’

  ‘I was referring only to your father.’

  ‘Your point is made,’ she said, trying to appear unaffected. ‘And I commend you on your skills as an investigator, though I was not in any doubt as to your . . . abilities.’ She smiled coldly.

  Outside the prison, on Old Bailey, Pyke said, ‘If I said that’s just the way of the world, the fact that some prosper, yes, because of their inheritance but also because they’re ruthless or committed or just plain lucky, while others wither and die because they aren’t, would you think me hard-hearted?’

  She touched his forearm and pulled him into her stare. ‘Is that you, Pyke? Are you ruthless and committed?’

  ‘I would hope so.’ He shrugged. ‘But I also believe we live or die ultimately according to the whims of chance.’

  ‘But what about those who aren’t ruthless or lucky? What happens to them?’ Her face was flushed with energy. ‘When you see pain and injustice, can you really just walk away?’

  What she said caught him by surprise and he pulled away because he didn’t want her to see that he was capable of being moved.

  Waiting for her footman to pull down the steps up to the carriage, Pyke asked her what she had been arguing about with her father during his visit to Hambledon. At first, she did not seem to know what he was talking about. Her eyes dulled a little and she seemed to withdraw into herself.

  Emily shook his hand and while doing so pulled herself towards him and whispered, ‘People aren’t always who you imagine them to be.’ Her breath felt hot and sticky against his ear. ‘That applies to you and me as well.’

  As she climbed up into her carriage, Emily was assisted by her servant, a young woman with a plump figure and a full, round face. Briefly, Pyke and the servant exchanged a glance, and in that moment Pyke was left with an uncomfortable sense they had met somewhere before, though he could not remember where or when this might have been.

  Renovation work on number four Whitehall Place had already started, a sign perhaps that Peel was more than confident about his chances of forcing the police bill through Parliament. It was a sturdy, imposing three-storey red-brick building with ornately carved arched windows on the ground floor.

  Pyke had perused the morning papers and all the editorials seemed to agree: the St Giles murders made the case for a centralised, uniformed police force even stronger. But the same editorials had not been so kind to the proposed Catholic Emancipation Bill. Only the Chronicle called for caution and circumspection and urged its readers to wait and see what the police investigation revealed. Others failed to denounce the wave of anti-Catholic violence that was sweeping the city and demanded, in varying tones of outrage, that the Catholic relief bill either be abandoned or put on hold until people had had the time to reflect on the situation. One had even called for Catholics to be forcibly converted to Protestantism or thrown out of the country. Pyke had read a letter in The Times written by Edmonton in which the old man had called upon his ‘fellow countrymen’ and ‘brother Protestants’ to ‘stand forward and defend our Protestant religion and constitution’ from ‘disgraceful attacks’ by ‘Tory turncoats, papal agents and lovers of Rome’.

  Pyke found himself wondering how such sentiments would affect his investigation.

  Finding the main entrance boarded up, he wandered around the side of the building, along a narrow passage leading into Great
Scotland Yard, and tried the door that led into the old watch house.

  Almost at once, he found himself confronted by the same surly man whom he had encountered at the lodging house. Pyke said that he wanted to see Charles Hume and was told, curtly, that he would have to wait a long time. The man explained there had been an important development in the St Giles murder investigation but he did not reveal what it was and Pyke did not ask.

  Pyke asked to see the possessions of the deceased. At first, the man informed him that such a request was out of the question. It was only when Pyke threatened to solicit the help of the Home Office that the man relented and directed him, reluctantly, into a small room that looked out over the side alley. He pointed at a cupboard and told Pyke that what little they had removed from the room had been placed on the top shelf. The dust already gathered on top of the cupboard indicated that the Magennises’ possessions had not been regarded as important to Hume’s investigation.

  He removed the few possessions from the cupboard and arranged them carefully on a wooden table. One at a time, he picked up both the Bibles and opened them. The first was a King James edition. It was marked and dated: Edinburgh, 1792. He idly flicked through it but found nothing of interest. The other was a Douay Bible. It was marked and dated: Dublin, 1803. The fact that they had owned two Bibles intrigued him, as did the different editions and, indeed, the different places of publication. Edinburgh and Dublin. King James and Douay. Pyke paused, to consider the name. Douay. Wasn’t that a place, too? He closed his eyes and racked his brain for an answer.

  He heard Emily’s voice: People aren’t always who you imagine them to be. Who did he imagine Stephen and Clare to be?

  What did he know about them? That they were poor, working folk from Ulster, Ireland. They were Protestants . . .

  Then it struck him: what had been bothering him all along. At first it was just the cousin’s name. Mary. The mother of Christ. The Virgin Mary. There were plenty of girls called Mary who had nothing to do with the Catholic faith but, then again, how likely was it that Protestant parents from Ulster would call their little girl Mary? Pyke did not know, of course, whether Mary’s parents were Protestants or not but the point was an intriguing one. What if Mary and indeed Clare were not, in fact, Protestant? What if Clare was Catholic and Stephen was Protestant? Douay, he now remembered, was a place in France. It was home to a Catholic monastery. One of them was Roman Catholic. That was what he had missed, what they had all missed.

  Pyke sat at the table for a while and tried to consider how this new information altered the nature of his investigation. On its own, it did not explain or justify anything but it seemed to be a significant discovery, if only because of the ill-feeling that such a mixed attachment might have engendered in both families. Was that why they had fled Ulster in the first place? And had someone followed them to London and discovered that Clare was, in fact, expecting a baby? Was it possible that such news could have unbalanced a relation to such an extent that he had taken matters into his own hands? Did such hate exist, Pyke wondered, when directed at one’s own kin?

  One thing was for certain, Pyke decided as he stared down at the two Bibles on the table. It meant that finding Mary Johnson was more crucial than ever.

  Later, when Pyke was finally shown into Charles Hume’s office, the man did not want to hear about what he referred to as Pyke’s ‘fanciful notions’ about Catholics and Protestants. Rather, he glowed with self-satisfaction.

  ‘Listen, Pyke, I can tell you this much. We have now arrested someone and I’m almost certain he’s our man. I cannot tell you his name but he’s thirty years old, mentally ill, with a history of violence. He escaped from a nearby asylum two weeks ago. His sister lives in the street adjacent to the lodging house. We found a razor in his room and blood on his clothes. We’re questioning him at the moment. It’s only a matter of time before he cracks and when he does and we elicit a confession, that will be the end of it. The investigation will be closed.’

  Pyke waited for a moment, allowing his anger at the man’s complacency to pass. ‘Tell me this, Hume, are you merely incompetent or is someone compelling you to arrive at a hasty and ill-judged conclusion?’

  Hume put down his pen and stared at Pyke. ‘You dare to presume that I am corrupt?’

  ‘What motivation did this man have to kill these people? How do you explain that kind of hatred?’

  ‘You can’t apply rational logic to the deeds of the insane,’ Hume said, as though the issue were beyond discussion.

  ‘Except that this wasn’t the work of a madman. A man blinded by hate, perhaps . . .’

  ‘This city is about to tear itself apart and you’re proposing that we further stoke the flames by making it public we’re looking for some kind of religious bigot?’

  ‘I’m not proposing to make anything public,’ Pyke said. ‘I just don’t want to see a man go to the gallows simply to expedite the government’s political ambitions.’

  That pushed Hume too far. He was a military man and didn’t understand the subtleties of political brinkmanship. He rounded his desk and stepped towards Pyke, as though preparing to strike him.

  ‘Take that remark back, sir.’ Hume’s neck was corded with veins.

  ‘When your man hangs and your puppet-masters pat you on the back, remember this conversation and think about how you feel.’

  ‘If and when he hangs, it will be because a court of law and a jury of his peers have found him guilty.’

  Pyke made to leave. ‘Tell that to yourself when you are lying awake at night,’ he said, hesitating at the door without turning around to face Hume.

  Behind him, Hume was now shouting: ‘This investigation is closed. Go back to Bow Street while you still have a position.’

  EIGHT

  The springs of the carriage groaned as the figure inside edged towards the window. The footman, an unsmiling man Pyke did not recognise, stood beside the carriage but made no attempt to pull down the steps, or open the door, either to permit the passenger to disembark or to invite Pyke into the carriage’s interior. Nonetheless, it was clear from the manner in which the vehicle was parked outside the gin palace, and from the general demeanour of the footman, that Pyke’s attention was being solicited. It was a windy night, and the visibility, impaired by swirling fog, was improved only slightly by a gas lamp that hissed noisily at one end of the narrow street. The unusual sight of a gentleman’s carriage in the vicinity of Bartholomew’s Field had already attracted the attentions of a gang of children who were prodding the unsettled horses, compelling the footman to round the vehicle and chase them away with an umbrella. Pyke took this opportunity to step forward and peer into the gloom of the carriage’s interior. Edmonton’s chalky face, slick with perspiration, stared back at him, like an apparition.

  ‘It’s always revealing and indeed gratifying to see creatures in their natural habitats,’ Edmonton said, glancing contemptuously at the entrance to the gin palace. ‘I thought the other day, when you visited Hambledon, that there is nothing more unpalatable than seeing vermin feast at the table of a gentleman.’

  Pyke looked into the old man’s arid eyes. ‘Your servants seem to manage well enough.’

  This drew a flinty smile. ‘Part of me wants to admire you, for your spirit, pathetic and misguided as it is.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel able to reciprocate your generosity.’

  They eyed one another warily, like two beasts circling in a cage.

  ‘I presume you have followed Swift and that he has led you to my money,’ Edmonton said, eventually, settling back into his cushioned seat.

  ‘I have certainly followed him.’

  ‘But not found my money?’ It was Edmonton’s money now, not the bank’s.

  Pyke heard a scream from one of the adjacent buildings and momentarily looked away.

  Edmonton coughed up some phlegm into a large white handkerchief and then said, ‘You will, of course, know that Swift has vacated his position in the
bank and disappeared, then.’

  Pyke didn’t know but concealed his interest in this development. Again, he wondered what business Swift had in the lodging house.

  Edmonton continued, ‘But since you have been keeping a close eye on him, you will no doubt know whereabouts the brigand has fled to.’

  ‘I have had other business to attend to.’

  ‘What other business?’ Edmonton’s face glowered with indignation. ‘Damnation, man, I’m paying you to work for me.’ He spat these words out.

  ‘You’ll remember that you haven’t as yet paid me a farthing.’

  ‘You’ve an answer for everything, haven’t you? Pray, tell me how you might yourself fare inside a prison.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘It is, if you don’t pull yourself together, find where this Swift fellow has gone and get my money.’ Spittle flew from his mouth.

  ‘And you’re in a position to make such terms binding?’ Pyke said, amused more than concerned.

  ‘I heard there’s a papist recidivist, Flynn, who’s been making certain accusations about you. Claims you’re no better than him: a dirty, dishonest thief.’

  Now Edmonton had Pyke’s attention. ‘And?’

  ‘What if Flynn’s accusations could be substantiated? Corroborated, as they say.’ The old man’s grin revealed teeth as yellow as his skin.

  ‘Evidence can always be fabricated. In any case, it would be a foolish man who did not take advantage of all available circumstances to further his own interests. These sentiments are as true for a poor man who steals an apple as for a rich man who steals a whole estate.’

  Edmonton seemed taken aback but Pyke was more interested in searching his own brain for an explanation of how Edmonton might have found out about Flynn.