The Revenge of Captain Paine

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Perhaps we should talk in the carriage,’ the Tory leader said, pointing at the door. ‘There might be more privacy.’

  Once they were both settled inside, Peel nodded and the footman pushed the door closed. The mahogany interior gleamed in the fading afternoon light.

  ‘Well?’ Pyke kept his stare fixed on the leader of the opposition. ‘Did you know there was going to be a riot?’

  ‘You think too much of me.’ Peel’s smile was devoid of warmth. ‘I have a certain talent for oratory but I’m afraid I can’t predict the future.’

  ‘But you suspected something might happen?’

  ‘As I told you before, I’d heard some rumours about an increase in radical activity in the area,’ Peel said, watching him carefully. ‘Who tried to kill you?’

  ‘Townsmen who’d been sworn in as special constables. And soldiers . . .’ Dangling this revelation in front of him.

  Peel took the bait. ‘Soldiers were used to put down the rioting?’

  ‘Dragoons.’ Pyke wondered whether Peel had heard about the shooting of one of them or not.

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Six, perhaps.’

  ‘In uniform?’

  Pyke nodded. Peel didn’t seem to know anything about the use of soldiers but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He was a canny operator who hid his feelings well. ‘The magistrate had it in mind that I was Captain Paine.’

  The Tory leader didn’t know whether to be surprised or amused. ‘Why would he have thought that?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him,’ Pyke said, wanting to see whether Peel had heard about Yellowplush or not.

  ‘Perhaps I will.’

  Pyke looked searchingly into his face. ‘Why were you so interested in the headless corpse?’

  ‘I explained all that to you before.’

  ‘Try again. I’m a slow learner. I don’t pick things up very quickly.’

  There was a disconcerting glint in Peel’s eyes. ‘Why do I get the sense that you’re not telling me something?’

  ‘You think I’m the one who’s lying to you?’

  ‘I’m aware of your skills as an investigator. Given our last chat, I don’t think you would have returned from Huntingdon empty handed.’

  ‘People were trying to kill me. Forgive me for not caring about your problems.’ Pyke rearranged himself on the horsehair seat. ‘Tell me why you’re so interested in this Captain Paine and Julian Jackman?’

  Peel gave him a sardonic look. ‘Did you find out whether they were one and the same?’

  ‘With the benefit of hindsight, and in spite of your efforts to blackmail me, I can’t see why you’re so interested in Jackman.’

  ‘Blackmail is a very impolitic description.’ Peel shook his head, his lips pinched together. ‘But in the light of the price you’ve already paid, what would you say if I gave you certain guarantees that your liaison with undesirable figures like Villums will remain our secret?’

  ‘Just like that?’

  Peel nodded but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you want to know what I really think?’ Pyke asked, again wondering how the Tory leader had known about his dealings with Villums in the first place. ‘For a start, and in spite of your claims to be merely helping a friend, I don’t think you give a damn about the navvies or about the progress, of lack thereof, of the Grand Northern Railway. I think you were hoping to use the radical protests for your own ends.’

  ‘Those are serious allegations.’

  Pyke waited for a few moments. He’d wanted to try to draw Peel out of himself but the Tory leader’s defences were impregnable. ‘How well do you know a landowner called Sir Horsley Rockingham?’

  ‘He made his fortune from sugar in the West Indies and from what I’ve heard he’s an obstinate bugger and rather full of himself.’

  ‘You don’t make him sound like much of a threat.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘I think he was responsible for orchestrating the disturbances in Huntingdon.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He didn’t want the railway to run across his land. And now the construction work has ground to a halt in Cambridgeshire and Morris is dead, it doesn’t appear likely that it will.’

  By reputation Peel was a scrupulously moral person but virtue, for him and others like him, was defined by its consequences, and Pyke didn’t doubt, for a moment, that he would roll up his sleeves and dirty his hands if it might result in a perceived good.

  ‘What if I told you I didn’t believe Morris committed suicide?’

  This time, Peel’s interest was unmistakable. He leaned forward and said, ‘I’d ask you to justify your claim.’ In the fading afternoon light, his skin glowed with a peculiar intensity.

  ‘You’d be prepared to entertain such a notion?’

  ‘I would want his death to be properly investigated.’

  ‘I attended the coroner’s inquest earlier. Under pressure from Sir Henry Bellows, he declared it to be suicide.’

  ‘Bellows?’ The news was clearly a surprise; he stared out of the window, turning it over in his mind. ‘You’re saying the verdict was rigged?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s strange the chief magistrate took time out of his busy day to give evidence at a corner’s inquest when he didn’t know the deceased and had no jurisdiction over the death.’

  ‘But your suspicions are based only on gut instinct?’ Peel sounded disappointed. ‘By that I mean, you don’t have any evidence to refute the verdict returned at the inquest?’

  ‘Only a sense that people like Rockingham have profited from Morris’s death.’

  ‘People like Rockingham or just Rockingham?’

  ‘Are you suggesting I should think about other suspects?’ Pyke asked, detecting something in Peel’s voice.

  But Peel would not be drawn on this subject. A long, awkward silence followed.

  ‘Since you refuse to disclose your own interests in all of this,’ Pyke said, finally, ‘you force me to speculate.’

  ‘About my intentions?’

  ‘You’ve seized control of the party from Tory Ultras like Eldon and the Duke of Cumberland. Now it’s a question of taking power back from the Liberals.’

  ‘You make it sound like a despicable ambition.’

  ‘Melbourne’s second ministry is already teetering on the brink. The King doesn’t like him. Nor does the Church, the bar, much of the landed gentry and a sizeable minority in the Commons. He was only able to form a government with the support of the radicals and the industrial North.’

  ‘Don’t forget O’Connell.’

  ‘Of course,’ Pyke conceded. ‘But the radicals are starting to turn on their former allies: what happened in Huntingdon is likely to drive a further wedge between the two factions. It’s my guess you’re trying to exploit the situation for your own gain.’

  ‘One could just as easily claim the Liberals are being quite successful at guiding the radicals down manageable paths.’

  Later, when Pyke thought about the conversation, he was struck by the deft way in which Peel had steered it away from awkward subjects.

  ‘I’d say Bellows is worth keeping an eye on,’ Peel said, trying to sound as though the issue wasn’t an important one.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  Peel tapped on the glass and the footmen hurried around to open the door. ‘You’re the investigator. But I’m told he’s recently purchased rather a lot of land in the vicinity of the New Road just along from Battle Bridge near Somers Town.’ He smiled coldly. ‘You might want to look into that.’

  As Pyke threaded his way through the phaetons, broughams and cabs on Lombard Street, he looked around and noticed Gore at his side. His smiling face was covered in sweat. ‘All these damned people wanting to shower me with their religious homilies and fake piety.’

  ‘I would have guessed from your eulogy that you claimed a Christian belief, too.’

  ‘Oh, that?’ Gore chuckled. ‘Isn’t that the kind of thing one
is supposed to say at a funeral?’ He must have seen Pyke’s expression because he added, quickly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, Pyke. I meant every word of what I said about Morris. But I threw in the religious sentiments as a sop to the congregation. Personally I find the idea of praying to some kind of God a little mystifying.’

  Pyke couldn’t help but smile. Such an admission was rare in an age when people used the church to secure their social standing.

  They came to a halt, Gore turning to face him, his top hat balancing precariously on his head. ‘I wanted to ask you whether you’d thought any more about the offer I made after that blasted coroner’s meeting.’

  ‘I told you then that I’d do what I could.’

  Gore nodded genially. ‘Quite, quite. I don’t mean to put any pressure on you . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I thought you might take a closer look at that odd fellow with the burnt face and the dog. For a start, I’ve no idea what he was doing at the ball.’

  ‘He was invited by Morris’s wife.’

  ‘Yes, well, I found him to be a shifty sort of fellow. Untrustworthy and capable of violence, I’d say.’

  Gore’s assessment tallied with Pyke’s own view of Bolter but he kept this thought to himself.

  ‘I couldn’t help but notice you get out of the carriage belonging to Sir Robert Peel. I have to admit I’m intrigued.’ Gore swung his arms from side to side as though the issue he’d just raised were unimportant.

  Pyke let Gore’s remark pass without comment.

  ‘Do you know him well?’

  ‘We’re acquainted,’ Pyke said, nonchalantly. ‘Why? Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘A friend?’ Gore laughed. ‘No, I’m afraid I’m something of an old Whig. I’m sure Sir Robert would regard me as a dinosaur.’

  ‘You’re too modest,’ Pyke said, trying to read Gore’s opaque expression. ‘As your intervention in my uncle’s trial demonstrates, your influence would seem to extend right to the top of government.’

  ‘Well, like all businessmen I have my contacts, I suppose. And come election time they expect me to make a generous donation to the party coffers.’

  ‘Pigs at the trough?’

  This time Gore’s laugh came from his belly. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ He glanced up at the seagulls circling above them. ‘But you’re right. I do have some political connections and from time to time they tell me things.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Take Sir Robert, for example. I’m told he’s become obsessed by a headless body that was found near Huntingdon.’

  ‘Obsessed in what sense?’

  ‘Do you know he even visited Huntingdon in person?’

  Pyke tried to assimilate this information without giving too much away but such was his shock that he may not have been successful. Peel, in Huntingdon. Pyke thought back to his conversation with the magistrate. What had Yellowplush said, when Pyke had told him about Peel’s interest in the body? Something like: I can’t understand why Peel’s so interested in it. And another thing: Yellowplush hadn’t seemed surprised when Pyke mentioned Peel’s involvement. I can’t understand. Yellowplush knew about it already because Peel had been to see him.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘Is it something you just guessed I’d be interested to hear?’

  Gore shrugged. ‘I told you because it’s the only morsel of information I’ve heard about the Tory leader in a while.’

  ‘From where I’m standing, it looks very much like you’re trying to smear him.’

  ‘Whatever you might think, Pyke, it’s the truth. I’m not the kind of man who tells lies about other people.’

  ‘Judicious editing of the truth can sometimes be more effective than blatant lies.’

  ‘Can I be more honest with you? I fear that Sir Robert suspects my involvement in inciting the navvies in Huntingdon to violence. Just as you did and, for all I know, maybe still do. I also fear that he’s trying to do what you just accused me of. Smear me with the taint of association.’

  Pyke had wondered about Peel’s motivation all along and this finally made some kind of sense.

  The fact that Gore, when pushed, had been honest with him in a way that Peel still hadn’t suggested the banker’s innocence. And Pyke knew that Peel wasn’t above stirring up rumours to besmirch those who threatened him.

  ‘And you had nothing to do with what happened in Huntingdon?’

  Gore stared pleadingly into his eyes. ‘As I’ve said before, Eddy was my friend, my best and oldest friend, and I would never have done anything to harm him or his interests. If nothing else, you have to believe that, Pyke.’

  Through the thinning crowd, Pyke saw Marguerite chatting to Emily. They were standing on the pavement next to his carriage, their heads nodding as they listened to one another talk. Briefly Pyke paused, more in horror than fascination, to look at both women and try to assess their mood.

  Emily noticed him first. Her expression was unreadable but she didn’t break into a smile. ‘I was just passing on our condolences to Marguerite.’

  ‘Thank you so much, my dear.’ Marguerite trained her stare at Pyke. ‘I’m so glad that you and your husband could come. I can’t tell you what it means having a friendly face from the old days here.’

  Just for a moment Pyke thought - hoped - that Emily had missed the implication of Marguerite’s deliberate attempt at sabotage. She looked between them, Marguerite and him, and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, but do the two of you know each other?’

  Marguerite tried to appear contrite and muttered, ‘Oh? Didn’t he mention it? Well, we didn’t know each other well but we certainly knew each other.’ She didn’t look across at him. ‘Before a few weeks ago, we hadn’t laid eyes on one another for, perhaps, fifteen years.’

  Pyke laughed, trying to make light of it. He wanted to wring Marguerite’s neck, of course, but that would draw further unwanted attention to their former attachment. ‘Yes, I almost didn’t recognise her.’

  ‘I suppose we’ve both come a long way since those days.’ Marguerite put on a sad smile and added, ‘If you’ll excuse me I have other people to greet.’ She looked across at the funeral cortège and shook her head. ‘When you called at the house the other day,’ she said, looking directly at Pyke, ‘I wasn’t doing very well, but perhaps once today is out of the way I’ll feel more like facing up to my responsibilities.’

  Pyke said nothing as she disappeared into the crowd, but when he turned around to look for Emily she had already taken her place inside their carriage.

  FIFTEEN

  They were very quiet in the carriage as it crossed over on to Fenchurch Street, the noise of horses’ hoofs clattering against cobblestones somehow amplified by the silence that grew between them.

  Earlier in the day, Emily had made arrangements to show Pyke the row of terraced houses on Granby Street where Horace Groat employed up to a hundred children, some as young as six, to stitch together boots and shoes in near-darkness, working them for fifteen or sixteen hours and paying them as little as a shilling a day.

  ‘You lied to me,’ Emily said, eventually, in a menacing tone.

  ‘It didn’t seem important.’

  Emily nodded, as though she’d expected him to say this. ‘If it wasn’t important, why go to the effort of lying?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to think what you’re no doubt already thinking.’

  ‘And what am I no doubt thinking?’ This time there was a trace of real anger in her voice.

  Pyke stared out of the window, not wanting to answer her question.

  ‘We went to her house. All of us. Felix, too. And you didn’t think it necessary to let me know she was an old friend?’

  ‘She was an acquaintance, not a friend.’

  ‘I don’t care what she was,’ Emily shouted. ‘But you deliberately kept something from me.’ Before he had a chance to respond, she had thought of something else. ‘What am I? Stupid? Am I supposed
to believe that her arrival in our neck of the woods is just a coincidence?’

  ‘I had nothing to do with that. I was as surprised as you were.’

  ‘But you went to see her without letting me know. After Morris had died.’

  ‘I had some pressing business, relating to a loan Morris has taken out, to discuss with her.’

  ‘Business.’ Emily shook her head. ‘So how well were the two of you acquainted?’

  ‘We knew some of the same people.’

  ‘Did you fuck?’ The word sounded even more shocking coming from her mouth.

  ‘No.’ The lie was more instinctive than anything else.

  ‘Did you want to fuck her?’ Emily asked, not changing her tone. ‘After all, she’s a very beautiful woman.’

  This time he looked directly at her. ‘I don’t expect you to tell me about all the men you find attractive. I just expect you not to act on your impulses.’

  ‘My impulses? Why is this suddenly all about me? You were the one who lied to me, Pyke.’

  He fell silent, knowing he was beaten.

  But Emily hadn’t quite finished. ‘I take it you haven’t yet acted on your impulses.’

  She waited for a moment. ‘Yet.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Now she’s a widow and doubtless a very rich one at that . . .’

  ‘You’re a very rich woman, too,’ Pyke said, gently. ‘And you’re the one I chose to marry.’

  ‘Except she’s more beautiful than me, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s a peacock. All feathers and plumage.’

  Emily’s scowl started to crack. ‘If she’s a peacock, what am I, then?’

  ‘You’re my very own bird of prey.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Being compared to a buzzard?’

  ‘In a fight, who would you put your money on? A peacock or a buzzard?’

  ‘So now you expect the two of us to fight for you?’ A small smile appeared on her lips.

  Pyke edged towards her and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Of course, if you did fight, you’d win by a mile.’