The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Why don’t we go to church on Sundays like everyone else?’ There was a note of confrontation in his voice.

  Pyke knew that Felix had started to exhibit an interest in such matters but he’d made a point of not encouraging him. ‘You don’t like our Sunday mornings?’

  Felix knew better than to confront Pyke directly but he elected not to answer the question.

  ‘If you like, you can come with me while I visit this man. Perhaps you’ll understand my reasoning better once you’ve met him.’

  Pyke didn’t know for certain that Archdeacon Wynter was the objectionable creature he suspected but he felt on reflection that it was highly likely.

  ‘Who is he?’ Felix wanted to know, a little intrigued now.

  ‘The archdeacon? One of the most powerful church figures in the whole city.’

  ‘And why do you need to see him?’

  ‘A crucifix was stolen from his private safe a few months ago. I think it was the reason those three people were killed in the shop near Drury Lane.’

  But already Felix’s interest had waned. Just as a hackney carriage drew alongside them, and without discussing the matter, the lad thrust out his arm. Felix looked at Pyke and shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your work.’

  In matters of religion, Pyke was unusual, he supposed, insofar as he didn’t just doubt God’s existence; rather, he was certain, in his own mind at least, that to presume the existence of God was the height of folly. Pyke didn’t shout his views from the rooftops. He was astute enough to realise that such ideas weren’t merely unfashionable in the current climate; they were downright inflammatory. In private, Pyke would describe the Roman religion as mysticism and obfuscation, and the Protestant faith as dour and joyless, a practice whose main function seemed to be social rather than spiritual: to make the unruly docile and compliant. In public, though, he would bow his head if a prayer was said or if God’s wisdom was called upon. He might give a sardonic smile if he was in polite company and grace was being said, particularly if the recipient of his smile was passably attractive and suitably unimpressed with her husband. To such women he would try to appear as irreverent and worldly because, as everyone knew, Christians were earnest hence unattractive, and they made terrible lovers. He would let these women see that he was dangerous and had a bit of the Devil in him, and later, when he was fucking them in the cloakroom or outside in an alleyway, they would know this for themselves.

  Wisdom and experience had taught Pyke not to antagonise the pious unnecessarily, but when he met men like Adolphus Wynter, it was hard not to fall back into old habits.

  The archdeacon was the kind of man whose smile put you in mind of fingernails being scraped down a schoolroom blackboard. He was about fifty or thereabouts and still looked in rude health, with a ruddy jowl and the kind of sagging chin that came from overindulgence, and when he shook hands, he squeezed hard, as if the ritual weren’t simply a greeting but a test of strength. The ring on his finger told Pyke he was married and later, when Pyke was introduced to his wife, he knew instinctively that the marriage wasn’t a happy one. Sometimes you could just tell. The archdeacon wore a black gown and cassock and Pyke could see that he was the kind of man who felt comfortable in this attire, as though it confirmed to others that he had been chosen by God. But it was Wynter’s eyes which really caught Pyke’s attention. In all the time Pyke was in the man’s presence, he almost never blinked.

  ‘You’ll understand, I can’t possibly entertain your enquiry today. In fact, I’m surprised you should even think to bother me on the Sabbath.’

  They were standing in the entrance hall of Wynter’s impressively proportioned town house on Red Lion Square.

  ‘Well, I am a little surprised to find you at home but since you are here, I think it would be best if you could grant me a few minutes of your valuable time.’ In actuality, Pyke had been told that Wynter always took his Sunday lunch at home before returning to St Paul’s for the evening service.

  ‘You are working, sir, and therefore breaking the Sabbath, and if I should indulge your blasphemy, I should be breaking the Sabbath too.’

  Pyke ignored the butler who was standing next to the open door. He took another step into the hall and noticed the paintings hanging on the wall. A Gainsborough and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a Titian, too. ‘My visit concerns the theft of a number of valuable items, including some kind of cross, from this property a few months ago.’

  Wynter moved to block Pyke’s path into the rest of the house. ‘As I just explained to you, sir, I cannot answer your questions today.’

  ‘You’re quite sure about that?’

  ‘As sure as the man who built his house on a rock foundation.’ The archdeacon smiled for the first time, revealing teeth that were straight and white. ‘Matthew seven, verses twenty-four to twenty-seven. ’

  ‘So what if I were to tell you that tomorrow the newspapers will carry a story describing how the men shot dead in a pawnbroker’s shop on Friday morning were killed because of the cross stolen from this address?’

  That wiped the smile from his face and, for a few seconds, the archdeacon was lost for words.

  ‘You did read about the incident? Three men shot in broad daylight in a busy shop just off Drury Lane.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Wynter snapped. ‘I suppose I can spare you five minutes.’ He motioned for the butler to close the front door. ‘Quickly, man. In the drawing room.’

  Wynter led Pyke down the hall to a plush room with elaborately corniced ceilings and a silk damask hanging on the wall. In fact, Pyke was quite taken aback at how large and well appointed Wynter’s house was, and he wondered how a man on a church salary could possibly afford such a home, let alone find sufficient funds for its upkeep.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me what happened and what was taken?’ Pyke said, inspecting the towering Georgian window that looked out on to the street.

  ‘Is this really necessary? I went over it with one of your colleagues.’

  ‘But not someone from the Detective Branch.’

  Wynter sighed. ‘Look, as I told the superintendent at the time, a burglar entered the house through an upstairs window while my family and I, and indeed most of the servants, were attending the evening service at St Paul’s.’

  Pyke noted that Wynter had referred to a superintendent. This was unusual. In Pyke’s experience, such high-ranking figures rarely, if ever, took personal charge of anything as run of the mill as a burglary.

  ‘Perhaps you might tell me whether the items were stolen from a safe?’

  ‘Yes, the one in my study.’

  So it had been a professional job. While it was easy enough to break into a safe, you needed to be a trained cracksman to do so.

  ‘Then I’ll need to see your study.’

  ‘Why? The safe has been replaced. There’s nothing to see.’ Wynter glanced at his fob-watch. ‘I really do have to insist that we conduct this meeting at some other time.’

  ‘Well, could you just tell me what was taken? As I said, I’m especially interested in this cross.’

  ‘A Saviour’s Cross. It’s made of solid gold and adorned with precious stones. It’s more than three hundred years old, one of the few examples of its type that survived the clutches of Henry VIII’s men.’

  ‘And it’s valuable?’

  The archdeacon glanced again at his fob-watch. ‘I couldn’t put a price on it but the precious metal and jewels alone would be worth a fortune.’

  Pyke allowed his gaze to wander around the room while he pondered the likelihood of a jewelled crucifix turning up in a pawn shop in St Giles. He had taken an instant dislike to the archdeacon but this did not necessarily mean that the man wasn’t telling him the truth.

  ‘What else was taken?’

  ‘A solid gold communion plate, a gold cup, a silver pocket watch that belonged to my grandfather and a small amount of money.’ He let out a heavy sigh. ‘Nothing when compared to the value and importance of the Saviour�
��s Cross.’

  Pyke took out his notepad and flicked over the pages until he saw what he was looking for. ‘And I’m right in thinking this burglary took place on the first Sunday in March?’

  ‘Yes, man, March, that’s correct. Now please, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I have some very pressing matters to attend to.’

  ‘I take it the cross hasn’t been recovered,’ Pyke said, ignoring the archdeacon’s efforts to usher him out of the room.

  ‘No, it hasn’t.’ The archdeacon was standing by the door but his curiosity got the better of him. ‘You say that the cross has turned up at the shop where those three men were killed?’

  ‘Not turned up. But I’m led to believe that a desire to buy or sell the cross was the reason why at least one of the men was there. Could you tell me the name of the superintendent who investigated the burglary?’

  ‘Look, sir, I have been more than accommodating…’

  ‘His name, or else I’ll go straight to see a journalist I know. He works for the London Illustrated News.’

  ‘I made the request, sir, that he attend to the matter in person, given the sensitive and extremely valuable nature of what was taken.’

  ‘I asked for the man’s name.’

  The archdeacon puffed out his chest. ‘You’ll get nothing more from me, sir. In spite of your impertinence and threats. Now I’ll bid you good day.’

  ‘Then you force me to make an educated guess,’ Pyke said, stopping almost directly in front of Wynter. ‘Benedict Pierce.’

  The archdeacon looked dumbstruck.

  The following morning, a Monday, Pyke found Benedict Pierce at his desk on the first floor of the E Division station house on Bow Street. It was the same building that the Bow Street Runners had once occupied and where he and Pierce had started their careers. Unsurprisingly, Pierce had selected the large walnut-panelled office at the front of the building for himself.

  ‘The Saviour’s Cross; it was stolen from the safe of Archdeacon Wynter’s private home on the fifth of March this year.’

  Pierce didn’t look up from the papers he was inspecting. ‘Nice to see you, Detective Inspector. But next time, do you think you could knock?’

  ‘The archdeacon specifically asked for you to lead the investigation. Why?’

  Pierce held his breath for a moment, as if weighing up the question. ‘Is there a reason for this most unwanted intrusion?’

  ‘I’ve reason to believe that this same item was the target of the robber or robbers who killed the men at the pawnbroker’s in St Giles.’

  Pierce assimilated this news. ‘And what, exactly, has led you to such a conclusion?’ There was a note of caution in his tone.

  Ignoring his question, Pyke said, ‘I want to know how you investigated the robbery at the archdeacon’s home and whether you recovered any of the stolen items.’

  ‘If I had recovered the Saviour’s Cross, it would be back in the archdeacon’s possession, not being hawked to a pawnbroker.’

  ‘Tell me about the investigation.’

  ‘What’s to tell? I pursued a number of avenues of enquiry. I’m afraid to say that none of them came to anything.’

  ‘Any suspects?’

  Pierce looked around the spacious room and yawned.

  ‘I’m sorry. Am I boring you?’

  ‘Boring me? Of course not.’ Pierce smirked. ‘I’ve just got very little of consequence to tell you.’

  Pyke looked around the man’s office, trying to remember what it had looked like when he’d been a Runner. ‘Why did Wynter ask for you personally? Wasn’t that unusual, given you were based in Kensington at the time?’

  ‘The archdeacon is a good friend of mine. Is it any wonder he should prefer me to the barbarian currently commanding the Detective Branch?’

  The idea of Pierce kneeling before the robed Wynter awaiting his communion made Pyke feel physically ill.

  ‘I’m curious as to why you decided to take up this position, Pierce. I would have thought you had your eyes set on greater things.’

  This time Pierce did look up at him, something bordering on concern or interest etched on his face. ‘Such as?’

  ‘I heard a rumour that the assistant commissioner’s position is soon to be filled.’

  Pierce controlled his reaction. ‘But can you trust what people tell you? That’s the question. For example, I was told recently that your search for the pawnbroker’s killer has narrowed considerably. A man of about six feet with dark hair and wearing a gentleman’s cloak.’

  Pyke did his best to hide it, but Pierce seemed to know at once that he’d won this little exchange. As he left Pierce’s office, Pyke was determined to find out the source of Pierce’s information.

  Pyke waited at the mouth of the street, the buildings on either side towering above him. Sometimes it felt as if the city might open its jaws and consume him whole. Especially in this part of the city, around Saffron Hill and Field Lane, where the buildings seemed to have been constructed almost on top of one another, endless tracts of soot-blackened brick and plaster. It was where the poor came to live and die; where swell mobs planned their next robberies, coiners oxidised their metal, pickpockets and mashers waited in the shadows. The police rarely entered such places, for obvious reasons. It was almost impossible to apprehend a fleeing suspect, and it was dangerous, too: the police weren’t popular with the poor.

  The city elders often talked about demolishing the rookeries and replacing them with wide avenues and stout, respectable terraces where the middling classes could venture without fearing for their lives. New roads that would cut directly through the worst slums had been planned for St Giles, Spitalfields and Devil’s Acre, behind Westminster Abbey. Still, in spite of these grandiose visions not much had changed in this part of the city for decades; if anything, the houses were a little more slipshod, the area a little more dangerous, the rats a little larger. And Wells was right: all of this had been made worse by the never-ending flood of men and women from the countryside and abroad, trains arriving at Euston, Paddington, London Bridge and Shoreditch spewing thousands of people into the maw of the city, a bloated sponge absorbing everything into its midst.

  Villums appeared from the shadows; he was swaying slightly and his breath smelled of whisky. ‘Let’s walk,’ he muttered.

  ‘Someone identified Harry’s body,’ Pyke said. ‘He’s now part of the investigation, Ned. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

  They walked for a few yards in silence. ‘But you can stop it getting any closer to me, can’t you?’

  Pyke shrugged, unsure what kind of assurance he could give. ‘Harry was careful, wasn’t he? Didn’t draw attention to himself, kept his circle of acquaintances small.’

  ‘Clearly he wasn’t careful enough,’ Villums replied.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, Ned. That’s the best I can promise.’

  Villums stopped and turned to face Pyke. ‘And what about the animals who did this to my boy?’

  ‘If I find them, I’ll make sure they’re punished to the full extent of the law.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  Pyke looked into his face. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘You forget, Pyke, I know what you’re capable of.’

  It was true that Pyke had killed men, but not gratuitously and never because he’d been paid to do so. ‘I’m a police detective now, Ned.’

  The disappointment was tangible in Villums’s eyes. ‘I said I’d do what I could to help you and I’m a man of my word.’

  ‘You have more information for me?’

  ‘I’m reliably informed that a fence by the name of Alfred Egan is due to meet a man, I don’t know who, regarding this cross.’

  ‘When? Tonight?’

  Villums nodded. ‘Early evening. The Red Lion Inn, Field Lane.’ Pyke knew better than to ask for more information. Instead he patted Villums on the arm and left him to contemplate the scene on the other side of the street, a blind man trying to hit a stray dog with his
walking stick.

  FIVE

  The odour of putrefied flesh wafted on the stiff breeze. Smithfield, with its twice-weekly sheep and cattle market, was near by, as were numerous fat-boilers, tripe-scrapers, dog-skinners and underground slaughterhouses, all contributing to the rank unpleasantness of the air. Rain lashed the cobblestones outside the Red Lion Inn, and women in flounced crinoline skirts tried in vain to lift their hems up out of the mud. Inside, drove-boys rubbed shoulders with butchers, market inspectors and animal traders, and everywhere you looked there were people, heads glistening under the flare of gas-lamps. The Red Lion was a veritable rabbit warren, which was perhaps why Egan had chosen it as a meeting place. In one nook, a fiddle-player was cutting loose while drunken revellers cavorted with one another, their arms linked as they moved in dizzying circles. In another, dead-eyed men were playing cards, winning — and more often losing — a week’s wages on the turn of a single card. The walls and ceilings were as black as tar, stained by pipe tobacco and cheap tallow, while the wooden floors were covered with clumps of wet butcher’s sawdust and discarded oyster shells. There was a smell, too, that Pyke couldn’t quite put his finger on until he saw the prostitutes leading swaying men outside into the alley.

  At the counter, Pyke ordered and paid for two gins, pushing one of the glasses towards Whicher. The others — Shaw, Gerrett and Lockhart — were outside, watching the various doors into the tavern. An awkward silence followed as Whicher took the glass and placed it in front of him without taking a sip.

  ‘To working boys made good,’ Pyke said, holding up his glass, before tipping the spirit down his throat.

  Whicher looked at him with evident surprise. Clearly he hadn’t imagined Pyke as a working boy.

  ‘What?’ Pyke laughed. ‘You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth?’

  Whicher was bemused. ‘I heard a rumour that you married into the aristocracy, that’s all.’

  This much was true. Emily’s father had been related, by marriage rather than blood, to the first duke of Norfolk. But Pyke had never been comfortable in that environment and in the legal wrangling that followed Emily’s death, a Chancery judge had eventually ruled in favour of Emily’s male cousin. Pyke had never been back to her family’s seat — Hambledon Hall — fifteen miles north-east of the capital.