The Detective Branch pm-4

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘I didn’t think you liked me,’ Pyke whispered, trying to break the trance she’d seemingly fallen into.

  Turning to him, she kissed him on the cheek and whispered, ‘You’ve got rough hands and a weathered face but you speak well. I like that. It tells me you’ve made something of yourself.’

  Pyke thought about the story she had told about her own upbringing and the fact that a gallery in London was now selling the canvases she painted.

  When he woke up, it was already light outside and he was alone in the room. Dressing quickly, he laced up his boots and stepped out into the crisp morning air. It had rained during the night but the clouds had moved on and the sky was perfectly clear. The door to Sarah’s cottage was unlocked but she was nowhere to be found. Later, after he had rinsed his face in water from the stream, he asked some of the other colonists whether they had seen Sarah and was told that she had left camp at first light and that she wasn’t expected back until the afternoon.

  At eight, and with nothing in his stomach, Pyke started the long walk back to Ipswich.

  TWELVE

  In Pyke’s absence, the whole of London, it seemed, had been made aware of Francis Hiley’s status as the chief suspect in Guppy’s murder. But it wasn’t simply the newspapers which reported, and indeed exaggerated, Hiley’s supposed infamy and apparent predisposition towards violence. The previous day’s route-paper, circulated within the police, had also effectively identified Hiley as the only viable suspect. The hunt had been stepped up, with as many as ten constables from the executive department now specifically involved in the search, all under Wells’s command. In fact, although Pyke had been away for little more than a day, it felt as if control of the investigation had imperceptibly slipped from his grasp.

  Whicher tapped gently on Pyke’s half-open door and peered into the office. ‘I heard you were back.’ He hesitated, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. Pyke hadn’t seen a lot of him that week, since he’d sent the younger man to investigate the burglary in Belgravia and had also asked him to look into a garrotting incident in Smithfield.

  ‘Jack, come in.’ Pyke gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘Please, have a seat. Any developments in the burglary? Or the garrotting?’

  Shaking his head, Whicher sat down and gave Pyke a very brief outline of the two investigations. ‘But I wanted to talk to you about something else. Well, a couple of things, actually.’

  Pyke nodded for him to continue.

  ‘I saw one of the daily route-papers. It said a fence, Alfred Egan, had been arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. I thought I should look into it.’

  ‘Egan? The man who was going to buy the Saviour’s Cross?’

  ‘It has to be the same person, doesn’t it?’

  ‘We had to let him go the last time…’

  Whicher agreed but he seemed uncomfortable. Pyke knew he still felt responsible for the fact that Egan’s accomplice, Sharp, had hanged himself while in their custody.

  ‘Go and talk to the arresting officer, see what he says. What was the other thing?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve got what I suspect will be bad news.’ Whicher shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘They let Brendan Malloy go.’

  ‘Who let him go?’

  ‘Wells. But I’m told that he had Mayne’s approval.’

  ‘Mayne sanctioned it?’

  ‘This morning.’ Whicher pressed his lips together. ‘I tried to argue otherwise but I was overruled.’

  Pyke stood up and told Whicher to wait for him there in the office. He took the stairs three at a time and pushed his way past the clerks into the commissioners’ office. Mayne was sitting at his desk and was clearly annoyed at being interrupted.

  ‘Why did you sanction Brendan Malloy’s release without consulting me?’

  Mayne peered at him through his spectacles. ‘I was told that some business had taken you out of town for a day or two.’

  ‘Malloy is still central to this investigation, sir.’

  ‘I disagree, Detective Inspector. I consulted the available evidence and decided he couldn’t possibly be brought before a magistrate.’ Mayne removed his spectacles and sighed. ‘From now on, the full resources of this institution are to be directed towards the capture and arrest of Francis Hiley. I have consulted widely on this issue. It is a decision that I have approved.’

  ‘Then how do you explain Guppy’s surplice? It went missing the night of his murder and turned up at an address in Soho: an address where Brendan Malloy — who’d been to see Guppy in the spring — lived at the time.’

  ‘As one of the commissioners, Detective Inspector, sometimes I have to make decisions, difficult decisions that are, in my opinion, in the best interests of the police.’ He looked around, picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and raised his voice. ‘We have an eyewitness account, from a police constable no less, that places Hiley at the scene of the crime; we have another account that confirms his flight from the aforementioned scene of crime.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘I see your point, Detective Inspector, but do you really believe it was this priest who killed Guppy?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know. But I do know that if we don’t keep this line of investigation open, we might end up looking very stupid, indeed. All of us, Sir Richard.’

  ‘Just find Hiley. Then this other business will fall into place.’

  For a moment there was silence. ‘Malloy knows something. And now we might never find out what it is.’ Pyke wanted to say more but he realised he could not jeopardise his already precarious status further. ‘I’ve made my point. That’s all I can do.’

  He continued to stand there. The commissioner looked up at him and sighed. ‘We’ll need to appoint a replacement for William Gerrett. I’ll draw up a list of candidates. That will be all, Detective Inspector,’ Mayne said, his gaze returning to the document on his desk.

  Pyke could taste the bile at the back of his throat.

  Whicher was still in his office when Pyke returned to the detective department. He told him about his argument with Mayne. ‘Wells is the one who advised him. Maybe he thinks that serving up Hiley’s head on a plate will get him the assistant commissioner’s position.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but he took Shaw out with him first thing this morning. I think the idea was to look for Hiley in Bethnal Green.’

  Pyke looked out of the window and thought about the hidden lines of division within his team. Wells was a more astute political animal than Pyke had given him credit for, and now he was trying to court Frederick Shaw.

  ‘Has Lockhart reported back yet?’

  Whicher was puzzled. ‘I thought he was just sick?’

  Pyke wondered what Lockhart would say when he heard the news about Billy Gerrett. Deciding to ignore Whicher’s question, he said, ‘Tell me. How did Shaw react to Gerrett’s dismissal?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Gerrett made his bed…’ Whicher paused. ‘And you know what I thought about him as a detective.’

  Later, Pyke found Frederick Shaw in the main office, picking mud from the soles of his boots. He wouldn’t meet Pyke’s eyes, at least not until Pyke had summoned him to his office and asked him directly whether anything was the matter.

  ‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ he said, still not looking directly at Pyke.

  ‘Once I’d found out that a debt collector had visited Billy here, at his place of work, I had no choice but to refer the matter to the acting superintendent.’

  In fact, Pyke had been to see Clapp later and had paid off the debt in full. Although he didn’t like Gerrett and he didn’t want him to be part of the Detective Branch, especially if he was passing information back to Pierce, he knew what it was like to owe money and didn’t wish to exacerbate another man’s problems for the sake of it.

  ‘But that’s just it, isn’t it?’ Shaw’s expr
ession was hot and tight. ‘I told you about Billy’s gambling in the first place, didn’t I?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’m asking: was it just a coincidence that this debt collector came looking for Billy here?’

  Pyke held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘Gerrett brought this on himself. No one else is responsible but him.’ He put his hand in his pocket, retrieved a ten-pound note and slid it across the desk towards Shaw. ‘But I don’t want to see one of my men out of pocket. That’s for you. It’s not everything you lent Gerrett but it should help. If and when Gerrett repays you, you can pay me back. Until then, consider it a loan.’

  Shaw looked at the banknote and then at Pyke. ‘I just don’t like to think I had anything to do with Billy’s dismissal.’

  ‘You didn’t, Frederick. I promise you.’ Pyke tried to smile. ‘But it does mean I’ll be relying on you and Jack even more than usual.’

  Shaw reached out and took the note, as Pyke knew he would. ‘Actually, sir, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about …’

  ‘Call me Pyke, please.’

  The young detective sergeant shuffled his chair closer to the desk. ‘I was thinking about the letter you received, the lines from the poem about the serpent.’

  Pyke looked at him, intrigued.

  ‘The serpent is a symbol of the Devil, right?’

  ‘Some would see the serpent as the Devil himself.’ Pyke hesitated. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘A few years ago, before the Detective Branch was established, I was transferred from D Division to assist on a murder investigation. Perhaps you remember it? A boy from St Giles was beaten to death with what we thought at the time was a cudgel.’

  ‘This would have been about five years ago?’

  ‘I’d say so. I’d have to check the records, though.’

  ‘It sounds familiar, but I don’t recall the details.’ In fact, Pyke had no recollection of such an incident, but five years earlier he had been imprisoned in Marshalsea for not paying his debts.

  ‘That was the first boy. But a couple of weeks later, another boy was found. This one’s hands and feet had been nailed to a door.’

  ‘And that’s what made you think of Guppy?’

  Shaw shook his head. ‘Not exactly, but soon afterwards we made an arrest. A night-soil man called Morris Keate. We searched his tool-chest at his lodging house and found a hammer. It still had traces of dried blood on it.’

  Pyke put down his pen. ‘And what became of this man, Keate?’

  ‘He was tried, found guilty and hanged.’

  ‘And you think this might have a connection to our current investigation?’ Pyke asked, still a little sceptical.

  ‘Not just me. I talked to Eddie about it. He suggested I come and talk to you. Said it might be relevant.’

  ‘All right,’ Pyke said, still trying to work out how the various members of his team felt about one another. Certainly there was more to Frederick Shaw than initially caught the eye. ‘What can you tell me about this man, Keate?’

  ‘He was a Devil worshipper. That letter someone sent you made me think about the case.’ Shaw waited and added, ‘Keate used a hammer to kill the first boy, so…’

  ‘Perhaps you should dig up the old records, see whether there are any files held in the Criminal Returns Office.’ Pyke looked at Shaw and smiled. ‘But you were right to bring this to me, Frederick. It’s what good detective work is all about.’

  ‘I can’t take all the credit, I’m afraid.’ Shaw reddened. ‘It was Eddie’s idea as much as it was mine.’

  ‘And when I next see him, I’ll thank him.’

  The next morning, Sunday, a frost had turned the denuded tree branches silver. The sky was blue and clear and a weak sun sat just above the rooftops. But it was bitterly cold, and when he looked out of his bedroom window and saw that one of the pigs had escaped from the sty again, Pyke knew that the time had come to take decisive action. The sty and shelter were too small for three fully grown animals and Pyke had also been told that December was the best time to slaughter a pig because they’d fattened up during the autumn. He also wanted Godfrey to have a taste of the meat before he passed away. The idea of a last supper seemed too morbid and an unnecessary temptation of fate, but if he could kill his first pig, then it would be a good excuse for the three of them to sit together around the table.

  He changed into an old pair of trousers and a shooting jacket, ate breakfast alone, and let himself out into the garden, Copper hopping along at his side.

  Pyke had never slaughtered a pig before but he’d been told how to do it. He fetched a length of rope from the shed and sharpened his hatchet on a grinding wheel, the wan sunlight glinting off the metal blade while he worked.

  The three pigs ignored him when he set down the rope and hatchet. Pyke ruled out Alice, his favourite, and the ten-month-old he still hadn’t named. That left Mabel, a long-bodied creature with coarse, bristly skin.

  Having enticed Mabel out of the sty, Pyke closed the gate, to ensure the other two pigs remained inside, took a length of rope and tied it around her leg. That done, he led Copper back up to the house and, while he was there, had a quick nip of gin from the bottle. The house was quiet. Godfrey was upstairs resting and Felix had already gone out.

  Ignoring Copper’s howls, Pyke trudged back down through the mud to the sty. He’d hoped the gin might have settled his nerves but his stomach was still tied up in knots. Mabel had wandered across to one of the flower beds, the length of rope dragging behind her. Pyke picked up the hatchet and the other length of rope and went to catch her. Mabel didn’t like Pyke manhandling her and started to wriggle and squeal. Perhaps she sensed what was about to take place. Pyke took the hatchet and pulled back on the head to reveal the terrified pig’s throat. The squealing was louder, the wriggling more aggressive. That was when he should have drawn the blade of the hatchet across the animal’s pinkish throat, but at the last moment he couldn’t do it.

  A moment later, the pig squirmed free and bolted across the lawn, the rope dragging behind it. Caught off balance, Pyke tumbled to the ground. He sat on his backside staring up at the sky and thinking how close Mabel had come to meeting her end.

  Later that afternoon, Pyke went to sit with Godfrey, Copper settling down next to him on the floor.

  Godfrey opened his eyes and yawned.

  ‘Earlier this afternoon, I went out into the garden with the intention of slaughtering one of the pigs,’ Pyke began.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I couldn’t bring myself to do it.’

  That seemed to amuse the old man and he started to chuckle. ‘I always suspected you were soft at heart.’

  Pyke let the thought linger in the air. ‘Do you think I’m wrong to worry so much about the interest Felix has taken in God?’

  ‘I can see why you’re concerned. I would be, too. But perhaps you should try to see it from the boy’s point of view. Or at least ask him. You never know, he might surprise you.’

  Pyke reached down and patted Copper on the head. The dog grunted approvingly. ‘Does he talk about it with you?’

  ‘Not directly.’ Godfrey tried to sit up a little. ‘He’s at that stage where he wants answers. That’s what the Bible, what Christianity, does. It gives answers. Heathens like you and me might not like those answers but they’re a help to some.’

  Pyke knew he was right but didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’ll grant you, dear boy, he’s been deeply affected. Yesterday, while you were away, he literally pleaded with me to consider a Christian burial. He said without it, I stand no chance of getting into heaven.’

  Pyke didn’t know whether to be amused or upset by this revelation. ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him that when I go, I’m gone for good. I didn’t like to be so harsh but I didn’t want to lie to the lad, say I’d be looking down on him from some place called heaven.’

  ‘Or that your spirit would inhabit these ro
oms and keep us company in the dark days to come?’

  Godfrey grinned. ‘I think you and I are agreed on that particular matter.’ The old man adjusted his position. ‘I did tell the lad I’d think about it, a Christian burial. I didn’t want to disappoint him. But I need you to promise me that you’ll put me into the ground at Bunhill.’

  ‘Of course,’ Pyke said, taking his uncle’s hand. ‘But shall I talk to Felix?’

  Godfrey shook his head and smiled weakly. ‘I think this is one of those situations where the more you do, dear boy, the bigger the hole you’ll dig for yourself.’

  THIRTEEN

  It took Pyke a little more than half an hour to walk from his house to the Model Prison at Pentonville. Once there, he presented himself at the warden’s lodge, crossed a neat gravel yard, climbed some steps and entered the governor’s waiting room through a freshly painted door. A warder met him and waited while he signed the visitor’s book. Then he was escorted through another door into a light, airy corridor, which, in turn, led into one wing of the prison. As someone who’d spent time behind bars, Pyke’s abiding impression of the new prison was its stillness and silence. In his experience, prisons were raucous, fetid places where you could get a drink as easily as in a pub, if you had money. But here, even as you approached the cells, there was hardly a sound. It was quite eerie; the warder noticed his reaction and grinned. ‘The guv’nor calls it the separate, silence system, says it gives the felons a chance to reflect on the errors of their ways.’ In Marshalsea, Pyke had slept in a ward with ten others; here, each man was confined to his own cell and was forbidden to converse with other prisoners. Even during their exercise hour, the warder said, the men had to walk in single file around concentric rings, thereby limiting the opportunities to talk to one another. Pyke asked whether many of them took their own lives. The warder didn’t know whether this was a serious question or a criticism and so decided not to reply.