The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘For the first few years of my life, I lived in St Giles,’ Pyke said, by way of explanation. Whicher would know well enough what this meant.

  ‘I was born and grew up in Camberwell.’

  Pyke nodded. ‘So what made you want to be a policeman?’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder.’ Whicher’s laugh was defensive rather than humorous.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘A man is killed and every effort is made to apprehend the murderer. But hundreds, thousands, die each year, from starvation, disease and poverty, and we act as if it doesn’t matter.’

  It was unusual to hear a policeman articulate such a notion, and it reminded Pyke about the other detectives’ reaction to the fate of the shoemaker who had stolen the gentleman’s coat.

  Pyke looked around the crowded room. ‘This man we’re expecting. He’s a crafty operator. One sniff of danger and he’ll be off. He knows me by sight. That’s why I want you to approach him, make an arrest if you have to. I’ll go after the person he’s here to meet.’

  They turned to watch the men entering and leaving the taproom, Pyke scrutinising their faces. A pot-boy in a black and white apron swept past them with a tray of drinks.

  ‘Are the men happy with how things are progressing?’ Pyke asked, suddenly.

  ‘You mean the investigation?’

  ‘Or generally.’

  Whicher shrugged. ‘They seem to be.’

  ‘You don’t talk to them?’

  Whicher seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t call any of them my friend.’

  Pyke was emboldened by this response. ‘But they talk to you. Particularly Lockhart.’

  Whicher took a sip of gin. ‘We talk but given our work together, what we do, that isn’t a surprise.’

  Pyke nodded, wondering whether in his eagerness to extract information from Whicher he had overplayed his hand. He was about to make light of it when he looked up and saw Alfred Egan wander into the room. Grabbing Whicher’s arm, Pyke whispered, ‘You see the one in the shooting jacket? That’s him.’

  Whicher’s body stiffened. Pyke said, ‘Stand by the door. But don’t make a move until I give you the sign. Pretend you’re waiting for someone.’

  He watched as Whicher pushed through the crowd of bodies. Nervous all of a sudden, he tried not to think about all of the things that could go wrong. Egan was just as Pyke remembered: a slight, nervy, hatchet-faced man. If the fence caught the slightest glimpse of him, he would head straight out of the door. As it was, Egan sat down at one of the tables, his billycock cap resting on his lap. His gaze swept around the room before settling on the door he’d just come through. Whicher took up his position with his back turned to Egan. The fence didn’t seem to notice him.

  About five minutes later, the door swung open and a tall man wearing a dark cloak stepped into the taproom. Pyke felt the skin around his temples tighten. There were many tall men in the city and it would be too much to hope that this might be the same man the witness had seen running away after the shooting. Pyke took a moment to memorise his features: his muscular frame, slightly receding hairline, beaked nose and thin, almost non-existent, lips. Egan stood up and sidled towards the new arrival. Whicher noted this and moved to block their access to the door. Pyke was moving, too, trying to remain hidden among the mass of bodies milling around the counter. Heart thumping, he made it to within ten feet of Egan before the fence saw him, and immediately tugged at the taller man’s sleeve, turning for the door. Whicher was there to block him but the other man had already sensed the danger. Dropping his shoulder, he sent Whicher tumbling to the floor. Pyke arrived in time to hit Egan with a cudgel, but too late to stop the other man from bolting.

  Outside, Pyke found little Frederick Shaw lying on the ground. He had been no match for the man, who was now halfway across Field Lane.

  Pyke tore off in pursuit of the man, who was now about twenty or twenty-five yards ahead of him. The man noticed he was being followed and darted into one of the alleys zigzagging off the main street, hoping to lose Pyke in the labyrinth of lanes, yards and courts. Underfoot, the ground was slippery and Pyke nearly lost his footing. Each time he turned a corner, he feared that he had lost his prey, but the man ahead of him wasn’t thinking as he should have; he was concerned only about putting as much distance as possible between himself and Pyke rather than trying to hide from him. The man was taller than Pyke and should have been quicker, but he was less agile over the spongy ground. Pyke sensed he was catching up even before the man tripped on a piece of discarded furniture. But just as the man fell, a young girl, oblivious to what was happening, stepped out in front of Pyke. Later he would remember the feeling as he clattered into her, but he managed to maintain his footing, careened on towards the man and launched himself through the air, tackling the man and sending them both sprawling into the mud.

  On the ground, the advantage ceded to the taller, stronger man. The chase had taken more out of Pyke than he’d realised, too. He tried to stand up, reasoning that if he could make it on to his feet, he stood a better chance of being able to finish off his opponent: a kick to the groin, a stamp to the head. This was how street fights were won. The man sensed this, and pulled him back down into the mud, wrapping his giant arms around Pyke’s chest and squeezing. There was little Pyke could do. The man’s grip was like a vice and Pyke thought at one point that his shoulder had been wrenched out of its socket. Red faced and perspiring, Pyke looked up and saw a smudged face and a pair of white eyes looking out from one of the broken windows of the tenements. Others had gathered around them; the fight a diversion from their routine. They could tell it was serious, too — an awed silence had fallen over the alley. Just as he feared he might pass out, every last breath crushed from his chest, Pyke managed to free one of his arms and with as much force as he could muster, he drove his elbow back into the man’s stomach. Doing so created sufficient room for Pyke to drive the other elbow up into the bridge of the man’s nose. Free at last, he rolled over and brought his forehead down hard against the man’s already shattered nose. That drew a shriek of pain.

  Up on his feet, Pyke drove the heel of his boot on to his opponent’s hand but the man was quick and scrambled to his feet as well, then charged at Pyke, catching him off balance. They crashed through the half-open door of one of the tenements. Too late, Pyke realised that the man had managed to retrieve a knife from his boot. In the next instant, he slammed the knife down, Pyke moving quickly to one side, the blade slicing through his coat and shirt. At first, Pyke felt nothing, then a wetness. The pain hit him only later. The man vacillated as Pyke sank to the ground, perhaps trying to decide whether to finish him off or run. Pyke took advantage of his hesitation, grabbed hold of the man’s ankle and twisted it in a sudden, circular movement. There was the sound of bone snapping and what tumbled from the man’s mouth seemed inhuman. The knife fell from his hand and he collapsed to the floor. Pyke tried to crawl away but the man wouldn’t let him. Pulling Pyke back towards him, he seemed to have made up his mind. His hands slid around Pyke’s neck and he started to squeeze. Pyke could see the man’s eyes, smell his rage. Choking, he tried to pull the man’s hands away from his neck, to no avail. Suddenly light headed, he tried to resist the urge to panic, to give in. That would lead to certain death. With his last reserves of strength, Pyke ran his fingers over the man’s face and then gouged his thumbs into his eyes, breaking his opponent’s grip. Pyke staggered to his feet and aimed a wild kick at the man’s head. Then he heard rattles and saw Shaw and Whicher at the door, a constable in uniform, too, and he felt one of them — Whicher perhaps — pulling him away as someone else uttered, ‘He’s lost a lot of blood.’

  The wound wasn’t a deep one. It was what doctors called a flesh wound. Still, Pyke couldn’t remember much about being carried to St Bartholomew’s or being stitched up by a surgeon. He put this down to exhaustion — and the effects of the laudanum they’d fed him. Later in the night, he woke up, disoriented, asking for Emily. Sh
e came to him, her face clear in a way it hadn’t been for years. The room smelled of camphor. He tried to reach out and touch her but there was nothing there. Outside, the rain was pelting down against the windowpanes but the room — and the hospital — was absolutely quiet. Pyke lay there, not daring to move, thinking about the man he’d fought and whether the Saviour’s Cross had been recovered from one of his pockets.

  Finally Pyke fell asleep until the light raised him; he lay there for a moment, blinking, trying to remember what had happened. As he sat up, a sharp pain bolted down one side of his body. He peeled off the bandage and inspected the wound; it was six inches long and criss-crossed with stitches. It wasn’t bleeding, though. That had to be a good sign. He tried to swallow but couldn’t; his mouth was dry, all the moisture leached from his body like water evaporating on a hot grate.

  Jack Whicher came to see him in the middle of the morning. He offered Pyke the best wishes of the other detectives and told him that he’d passed a message on to his housekeeper, telling her that Pyke had been injured but that she wasn’t to worry. Pyke thanked him for remembering this detail and tried to sit up.

  ‘Are you badly injured?’ Whicher asked. To Pyke, the concern in his voice seemed genuine.

  ‘If it wasn’t for the laudanum, I’d feel it right enough. But I’ll live. And I’ll be back at work in a few days.’ Pyke pushed his back into the pillows. ‘Tell me about the man. I assume he’s under lock and key.’

  ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘Egan, too?’

  Whicher nodded. ‘Cells at different ends of the passageway.’

  ‘That’s good.’ It wouldn’t give them the chance to concoct a story. Pyke took a breath. ‘For God’s sake, man, put me out of my misery. Did you find the cross?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. And so far he’s refused to say a word, he won’t even tell us his name. There wasn’t anything in his pockets to help us identify him.’

  Outside the room, a porter rattled by with a trolley. Pyke waited until he had passed. ‘I don’t know if you’ve thought about finding the second witness, the coal-whipper who saw the man in the cloak…’

  ‘Gerrett and Shaw have gone to find him, to see if he can identify the man we’ve arrested.’ Whicher paused. ‘I might’ve found a gunsmith on the Strand who sold a revolving pistol to a man matching his description.’

  A sudden pain across Pyke’s midriff caused him to wince. Looking up, he saw the excitement on Whicher’s face. This was the best part of the job and he was sorry to be missing it: the noose was already halfway around their suspect’s neck. He asked about the man’s condition.

  ‘Broken nose, broken ankle. Might lose an eye, too. A doctor visited him last night, put a splint on his ankle and gave him some laudanum for the pain.’

  ‘I’d like you to take charge of the interrogation. Press him for a name, at the very least. And let me know as soon as possible if he’s identified as our gunman.’

  ‘And Egan?’

  ‘He’ll deny knowing the other man. He’ll tell you he hasn’t done anything wrong and in a way he’s right. He hasn’t. He’ll demand to be released. Just keep him locked up until I’m well enough to make it to Scotland Yard. And whatever you do,’ Pyke added, ‘don’t let anyone else go near the prisoners. And certainly no one outside of the Branch.’

  Nodding, Whicher went to check his pocket watch. ‘I meant to say; your son’s waiting outside. I asked him if he wanted to see you first but he said you’d probably prefer to talk to me.’

  A sharp, searing pain streaked up and down his entire left side but Pyke tried to smile. ‘Tell him to come in.’ At the door, Whicher paused and Pyke said, ‘It’s good of you to come and see me, keep me informed.’

  Pyke had expected Felix to be his usual nonchalant self but as soon as the lad stepped into the room, he rushed over to the bed and embraced him, suppressing a sob. He assured Pyke that he’d come as soon as he’d heard, even though Mrs Booth, the housekeeper, had told him not to. It took Pyke a few minutes to calm his son and convince him that the injury wasn’t a serious one. When he showed Felix the wound, the lad pressed his nose against it, and informed Pyke that it didn’t smell. This was a good sign, Felix assured him. Pyke sat there, staring at his son, surprised at how much the lad’s concern had touched him. He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘What?’ Felix withdrew from him, aware that he was being watched.

  ‘Nothing. It’s just good to see you, that’s all.’ Pyke smiled.

  Felix looked away awkwardly. He stood up and wandered over to the window. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I was chasing a suspected robber and I caught up with him. We fought. He did this to me with his knife.’

  ‘Did he get away?’

  Pyke didn’t feel like boasting about the arrest so just shook his head.

  ‘What had this man stolen?’

  ‘A crucifix.’

  ‘That’s what you went to see the archdeacon about, wasn’t it?’

  Pyke smiled. ‘Well remembered.’ The lad might not be the strongest fourteen-year-old but he had a quick mind.

  Something outside had caught Felix’s attention, and when he eventually turned around his expression was serious. ‘When I first heard, when that policeman knocked at the door, and said you’d been injured, I thought…’ But tears had filled his eyes and he couldn’t carry on.

  Ignoring the pain, Pyke reached forward and held out his hand. He could still remember what it felt like to be an orphan. For a moment, Felix remained where he was, unsure what to do, but finally he relented and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  The surgeon was a short man with a limp handshake and prominent teeth. He inspected the wound and told Pyke that it was healing well but that he should remain in the hospital for another couple of days. When he had left, and with the help of some laudanum, Pyke tried to get up, but an acute pain scudded down one side of his body. Still, he made it as far as the commode and emptied his bladder. He had just staggered back to bed when Whicher put his head around the door.

  ‘We put the suspect in a room with ten other men. The coal-whipper picked him out.’

  This was good news. ‘What about the gunsmith?’

  Whicher was grinning now. ‘He picked out our man, too. According to his records, our suspect’s name is Sharp.’

  ‘Sharp.’ Pyke weighed the name in his mind. ‘I take it there’s been no confirmation of his name from Sharp himself?’

  Whicher shook his head. ‘Still hasn’t said a word.’

  Pyke thought briefly about their next move. There was no physical evidence against the man but the circumstantial evidence was strong, certainly enough to take the case to a magistrate. ‘What about Mayne and Wells?’ he asked.

  ‘Mayne’s cock-a-hoop. He told me to pass on his best, offer you his congratulations. I haven’t seen Wells.’

  Pyke’s thoughts turned back to the evidence. ‘We still need more. All we’ve got is an old man who says he saw Sharp in the vicinity of the pawnbroker’s at the time of the robbery. The gunsmith’s evidence is good but it’s not enough. If we’re to send this man to the gallows, we need to find the pistol. And a motive…’

  ‘I’m afraid there was nothing on Sharp’s person to indicate where he lives. Unless he speaks, or someone else comes forward, we’re stuck.’

  ‘You need to put pressure on Egan. He knows something about this man. He must do. We need to find out how and why Sharp contacted him in the first place.’

  ‘Egan isn’t saying anything. He knows we don’t have anything on him.’

  Pyke nodded. He couldn’t ask Whicher to do what he would do: take a cudgel and beat the truth out of Egan. He tried to get comfortable in the bed. ‘Jack?’

  Whicher stared at him, surprised to be called by his first name.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Even with the laudanum he’d consumed, Pyke was finding it difficult to sleep, and as he lay still, listening to th
e bleating of sheep being herded into nearby Smithfield for the market the following morning, he found himself thinking once more about Emily. In order to sleep, she had often resorted to doing what she’d done as a child: listing the names of the tenant farmers on her father’s estate. Anderson, Blake, Cant, Curtis, Dawson, Edwards. It was funny that he could still remember the names so clearly; and that he could hear them in his dead wife’s voice, her low, polished tone. Later, he slipped in and out of dreams that unsettled him but which he couldn’t quite recall when he woke up. The air in the room was fetid and the bed sheets were soaked with his perspiration. Outside, he could still hear the animals, but he had grown used to the noise and he even found the bleating reassuring in its monotony. For some reason, he now found himself thinking about Jo, her red hair and her soft white skin. They had been happy for a time, the three of them, four if he counted Godfrey, until he had cajoled Jo into his bed. He hadn’t heard from her in more than two years and briefly he wondered what had become of her. Sleep finally came to him just as the sun was rising, pale and orange, in the east.

  ‘Pyke.’

  He felt someone roughly shaking his arm.

  ‘ Pyke.’

  Opening his sleep-encrusted eyes, Pyke saw Jack Whicher standing over him. Instantly he could tell from Whicher’s expression that all was not well.

  ‘What is it?’ His head was still groggy from the laudanum and there was a dull ache in his side.

  ‘Very bad news, I’m afraid.’

  Ignoring the pain, Pyke sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The man you fought, Sharp…’ Whicher hesitated, not sure how to continue.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘The gaoler found him in his cell first thing this morning. He hanged himself some time in the night.’