Bloody Winter pm-5

by Andrew Pepper

  Shops had been attacked and ransacked; rubble and broken glass littered the streets. The town centre was deserted. Two had died. Five had died. Ten had died. More. No one knew. Even in the house, the air smelled of charred wood.

  The husband had procured a horse and cart and Pyke had driven to the Castle, each bump, each rut, causing him to wince. The entrance was blocked and Jenkins, one of the agents, was giving orders to two men armed with rifles. Pyke waited for Jenkins to leave and then hobbled up to one of the guards. Thrusting an envelope into the man’s hand, he instructed the man to deliver it at once to Catherine Hancock. The guard asked who he was but Pyke turned without answering, and limped back to the horse and cart.

  ‘All kinds of rumours, place is wild with ’em,’ the neighbour said, grim-faced.

  The husband was sullen and wouldn’t look at Pyke. They were standing across from each other in the downstairs room.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A man who worked for the Hancocks made off with twenty thousand, meant to be for the kidnappers.’

  Pyke assimilated this news without reacting. So the kidnappers hadn’t received the money; and the Hancocks blamed him. Understandable in light of his ‘disappearance’. He thought again about Cathy, whether she’d got his letter, what she must be going through.

  ‘Apparently the man in question is a policeman from London.’

  John tugged the neighbour’s sleeve, said something in Welsh.

  ‘He wants to know where your money’s from,’ the neighbour said, by way of translation.

  Pyke understood now that they thought he was the one who’d stolen from the Hancocks. They were frightened, feeling let down. He looked at the neighbour. ‘Tell him, on the life of my own son, I did not steal any money, nor have I broken the law in any way, shape or form.’

  The neighbour stared at him, trying to work out whether or not to believe him. ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

  ‘Hancock paid me what he’d originally promised.’

  ‘To negotiate the safe return of his son?’

  Pyke nodded. He could see how bad it looked.

  The neighbour and John exchanged a few words in Welsh. The former was about to translate, for Pyke’s benefit, when the noise of horses’ hoofs interrupted their conversation. A carriage pulled up outside one of the houses farther up the street, a place Pyke knew to be empty. It was the address given on the note he’d left at the Castle for Cathy. At the window, they watched as four men leapt out of the carriage, smashed through the door with crowbars and stormed into the tiny house. About a minute later, they emerged, clearly agitated, not sure what to do next.

  ‘Those men were sent by Jonah Hancock.’ Pyke turned to the neighbour. ‘They’re looking for me. If you really think I had something to do with the Hancock boy’s death, or I stole the ransom money, I won’t stop you from going out there and telling them where I am.’

  The neighbour translated and the two men discussed what to do, their eyes darting between Pyke and the activity outside. As they talked Pyke thought about the presence of Hancock’s men and what it indicated — either that Cathy had read his note and passed it on to her husband or that his letter had been delivered directly to Jonah Hancock.

  It also told him that the Hancocks were baying for his blood. The police would be looking for him, too.

  John spoke. The neighbour waited for him to finish then turned to Pyke. ‘He says you can stay — for the time being.’

  Pyke felt another bolt of pain streak up one side of his body. He took a breath and had to steady himself against the wall. In other circumstances, he would have been relieved by this offer, but all he could think about now was his son.

  TWENTY

  MONDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 1847

  Cashel, Co. Tipperary

  In the police wagon, the journey to Cashel took a little under two hours. It was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride made worse by the silence, the two constables not wanting to acknowledge Knox or too afraid to say anything in Hastings’ presence. For his part, the sub-inspector was in a foul mood and refused to tell Knox why he’d been summoned back to the barracks. Knox was too worried about his son to care about his own predicament. Cornwallis had taken his post and his home. What else could they do to him now? Lock him up? Knox tried to think what they might be able to use against him. In his pocket, he felt the two copperplates rattling around and realised his mistake. If they threw him in a cell, they would search him and find the plates. It was difficult not to be overwhelmed by the injustice of it all.

  At the barracks, he was led into the front of the building by O’Hanlon and Morgan, but they hadn’t handcuffed him and they didn’t take him to the cells. Instead, they led him upstairs and waited with him in the corridor while the sub-inspector went into his office. Knox heard voices. Then the door opened and he was beckoned inside.

  To his surprise, and despite the lateness of the hour, the County Inspector was there, together with a man Knox didn’t recognise.

  ‘You know the County Inspector, of course,’ Hastings said, once he’d settled into his chair behind the desk. He turned to the stranger. ‘This is Benedict Pierce, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.’

  Pierce nodded at him and even tried to smile. He was a neat, well-groomed man in his late forties, with short dark hair, a cleanly shaven chin and small, quick eyes.

  ‘The Assistant Commissioner has made the arduous journey from London to look into your unsubstantiated claim that the man found on the estate in Dundrum was one of his men, Detective-inspector Pyke.’

  Knox felt his chest tighten. ‘I was given the task of investigating this murder, sir,’ he said to Pierce. ‘I’m a lowly constable with no experience of such matters. I was told I could have four days and it was made clear that I was not to do much. Get rid of the body and let the whole thing drop…’

  ‘That’s a deuced lie, sir,’ Hastings spluttered, almost knocking over the inkwell on his desk, ‘and I’ll ask you not to repeat it in such august company.’

  ‘When it became clear I hadn’t followed these orders,’ Knox said, ignoring Hastings, ‘and after it was discovered I’d identified the dead man and contacted his son in Somerset, I was called in here and dismissed.’

  ‘You were dismissed, as you put it, for aiding and abetting the escape of a suspected thief, and I’ll remind you that such an action could land you in prison, if we were inclined to prosecute.’

  The Englishman held up his hand. ‘I’m not here to judge the rights and wrongs of your disciplinary procedures. I just want to know how and why this gentleman came to believe that the corpse was that of one of my men.’

  Knox tried to assess whether Pierce would be sympathetic to what he had to say.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me about your investigation,’ Pierce said, looking directly at him.

  Knox did as he’d been asked and described each stage of his inquiry. He was as frank as he felt he could be, but he didn’t mention his suspicion that Cornwallis had known the dead man. He also didn’t say anything about the daguerreotypes.

  ‘So do you still have the letters you found in the lodging house — the ones written by Pyke’s son?’ Pierce said, once Knox had finished.

  ‘I’m afraid not. I was made to give them up to Lord Cornwallis.’

  ‘What’s his interest in the letters?’ Pierce asked, curious now.

  Hastings and the County Inspector had suddenly gone very quiet.

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him,’ Knox said, gesturing at Hastings.

  Pierce ignored the insinuation. ‘And the pistol and knife you found there?’

  ‘I still have them. I left them at Father Mackey’s house in Clonoulty.’

  Pierce looked over at the County Inspector. ‘I will need to inspect them, of course.’

  ‘I fear you’ve come all this way for nothing,’ Hastings said. ‘I mean, there’s no hard evidence that the deceased was one of your men. By his own admission, Constable Knox
is not the finest investigator in the land.’

  Pierce considered this. He seemed angry. ‘I could, of course, order the exhumation of the body…’

  Hastings shook his head warily. ‘It was buried with countless others in a pit at the workhouse. There’s no way you’d be able to tell any of them apart now due to the decomposition.’

  ‘In any case,’ the County Inspector said, ‘as I understand it, we have no idea whether this man, Pyke, even travelled to Ireland…’

  Knox coughed. ‘It’s my guess he was looking for someone called John Johns. Johns was born in this part of the world but he joined the army and ended up in Wales. I might not be the finest investigator in the land but I do know that Pyke had come here from Merthyr and he’d gone to Wales to investigate the kidnapping of a child.’ Knox could see straight away that he’d scored a hit. Hastings and the County Inspector could see this too and went quiet.

  ‘It would seem,’ Pierce said, turning to Hastings, ‘that your former employee is not the dim-witted investigator you perhaps believed him to be.’

  The sub-inspector reddened but said nothing. Pierce gestured for Knox to continue.

  ‘I knew I had to identify the victim,’ he said, deciding to play what was his strongest card. ‘But I also knew that, untreated, the corpse would quickly decompose beyond recognition. I put it to Sub-inspector Hastings that we should either pay someone to embalm it or arrange for a daguerreotype image to be fixed on a copperplate.’

  Pierce glanced across at Hastings, scowling. ‘I’m assuming your suggestions fell on deaf ears.’

  ‘That’s unfair, sir,’ Hastings blustered.

  Pierce cut him off. ‘Pity your ideas weren’t taken up.’

  Knox saw a faint glimmer of hope. ‘The sub-inspector made his position clear. But I chose not to listen to him.’ He waited for the implications of what he’d just said to sink in.

  Pierce sat forward. The atmosphere in the room had changed in an instant. ‘Did I hear you right?’ the Englishman asked.

  ‘I know a shopkeeper who has an interest in daguerreotypes and I asked him to help me. He agreed. Of course, I had to pay him out of my own pocket.’

  ‘And did he capture an image of the dead man?’

  Knox nodded. ‘Two, in fact. It’s amazing how good — how clear — the images are.’ He was almost enjoying himself now.

  ‘Do you still have them?’ There was wariness in Pierce’s tone now. This revelation had thrown him too.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Here? Now? ’ Pierce seemed almost panicked by this notion.

  Knox reached into his pocket and retrieved both copperplates.

  Pierce eyed him carefully. ‘I presume this shopkeeper will corroborate your story?’

  ‘I expect so.’ Knox glanced over at Hastings. ‘He doesn’t have any reason to lie.’

  ‘Do you think I could see the daguerreotypes, please?’ Pierce held out his hand.

  Knox passed them to him and watched as Pierce, hands trembling, inspected the images. His expression remained inscrutable.

  Pierce then passed the daguerreotypes to the County Inspector. ‘I have known Detective-inspector Pyke for the best part of twenty-five years. I wouldn’t say we were friends and I might even confess that I’ve never cared for the man, although he is undoubtedly a fine detective.’

  Knox tried to read some kind of inference into this but couldn’t.

  ‘Perhaps I should say he was a fine detective.’

  Knox stared at him, felt his heart skip a beat. ‘Was?’

  ‘It would seem that my journey over here has not been in vain.’ There was a curious smile on his lips.

  ‘It is Detective-inspector Pyke, then?’

  ‘As I said, I’ve known Pyke for half my life and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that man in the picture is him.’

  Pierce turned to Hastings and the County Inspector. ‘It would seem that one of my detectives was murdered in your jurisdiction. I would like to know what steps you have taken to find and apprehend the guilty party, sir, aside from handing over the inquiry to a constable with no experience of these matters.’

  Flustered, the County Inspector looked over at Hastings, spectacles perched on the end of his nose.

  ‘ Well? ’

  ‘I assumed — wrongly, as it turned out — that the deceased was a vagrant, a poacher…’

  ‘That’s what Lord Cornwallis told you to assume,’ Knox said, then to Pierce, ‘Cornwallis also wanted me to investigate the murder. That way, he supposed, nothing would come to light. He assumed he could intimidate me. When his Lordship realised what I’d done, that I’d betrayed his trust, he made sure I lost my job here at the constabulary and arranged to have me evicted from my home.’

  Pierce regarded Knox for a moment. ‘These are very serious accusations. But I can’t see that it is in anyone’s interest for these matters to be aired in public. As such, I’d like to propose that I work with Constable Knox to have another look at the murder and bring the affair to a more satisfactory conclusion.’

  Constable Knox. Pierce had just referred to him as Constable Knox. ‘Does that mean I’ve been reinstated?’

  ‘You should remember that Knox was dismissed for an entirely separate, and highly grievous, incident.’ This time it was the County Inspector who’d spoken.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Pierce, ‘but you should remember, sir, that gross procedural irregularities have been committed by all parties, including yourself.’

  Knox felt light-headed. Suddenly his future seemed much less bleak. But almost at once, he had another far less palatable thought. What would happen when Pierce returned to England? Would Hastings honour his commitment to give him back his job? The man had been humiliated and Knox knew just how dangerous a wounded beast could be.

  ‘Far be it for me to be awkward, sir, but it would be remiss of me not to ask under what or whose jurisdiction you intend to conduct this investigation?’ The County Inspector looked at Pierce.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise you to make life any more difficult for yourself than it already is,’ Pierce replied.

  The County Inspector and Hastings fell silent. It was clear that Pierce had won this particular skirmish.

  ‘One of my best detectives has been killed. The fact that I didn’t like the man is not the issue here. One can’t simply murder a policeman and expect to get away with it.’

  The County Inspector muttered, ‘Of course, of course.’ But the strain on his face was evident.

  ‘From what I understand, you’ve been considerably inconvenienced as a result of your investigation,’ Pierce said to Knox. Then he turned to Hastings. ‘I’d like to propose that Constable Knox be recompensed to the tune of, let’s say, ten pounds for the time being? That should be enough to get him back on his feet.’

  Knox’s thoughts now turned to his fever-stricken son. ‘I will need to be driven back to Clonoulty tonight.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’ Pierce raised his eyebrows. ‘Should it, Sub-inspector Hastings?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Hastings said. He looked pale and beaten.

  ‘But you’re to report to the barracks first thing tomorrow morning. I want to get to the bottom of this business before I leave.’

  Outside, as the carriage was being prepared, Pierce sidled up to him. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your son’s illness. Please pass on my best wishes to him, and your wife.’

  Knox nodded. ‘Thank you for what you did in there.’

  The Englishman acknowledged his gratitude but didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘Why do you think this murder has unsettled them so much?’

  ‘I don’t know but if I had to wager, I’d say it has something to do with this man, Johns.’

  Pierce agreed. ‘You were right, by the way. Johns lives, or rather lived, in Merthyr Tydfil.’

  ‘And something brought him over here?’

  They waited while the horses
were led out of the stables. ‘How much do you know about what happened in Merthyr?’

  ‘Nothing, really. Only what was mentioned in the letter.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That the deceased had gone there to investigate the kidnapping of a child.’

  The Englishman stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘You might have read about it in the newspaper. Something went very wrong and the child was killed.’

  Knox thought about his own predicament. ‘You think it had something to do with Pyke coming over here?’

  ‘I think Pyke followed Johns — and a magistrate called Sir Clancy Smyth. He’s another Tipperary man.’

  ‘So was Johns involved in the kidnapping?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m guessing Pyke blamed him for what happened afterwards. After the boy was found dead.’

  ‘And what did happen?’

  Pierce didn’t answer right away. ‘You know the letter you sent to Pyke’s son, Felix, informing him of his father’s death? He never got it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Felix had gone to Merthyr to see his father.’

  ‘What about when he returned to Somerset?’

  Pierce gave him a strange stare. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘He never returned to Somerset.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  THURSDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 1846

  Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales

  He entered the old courthouse via the back door, which was unlocked. Inside the air smelled fetid and stale, and nothing moved. The only sound was the wooden shutters rattling against their jambs. Pyke stood at the bottom of the stairs and called out, ‘Hello,’ but no one answered. Sir Clancy Smyth had not been seen in Merthyr for a number of days, at least according to Superintendent Jones, who’d shared this information with John, the man who’d shielded Pyke from both the police and Hancock’s emissaries.

  Pausing to catch his breath, Pyke touched his wound and winced. He could walk unaided, albeit with a pronounced limp and considerable pain, but it was slow work and his recovery would be long and arduous. None of this concerned him, though, not compared to his desire to find Felix or determine once and for all that he was safe and hadn’t travelled to Merthyr in the first place. Pyke had written to Jakes in Somerset and was still waiting for a reply. In the meantime he’d scoured the town for his son. He had even tried to sneak into the Castle to speak to the Hancocks, but the grounds had been too heavily patrolled and, as he had later found out, the entire family, including Cathy, had now left Merthyr, having buried William alongside their deceased daughter at the Vaynor cemetery. They were said to be mourning in private at their family estate in Hampshire. From what Pyke had heard, the police were still looking for him in connection with the kidnapping and therefore believed he might have been involved. Pyke wasn’t concerned what the police — or the Hancocks — thought of him, but it bothered him that Cathy might think that he had knowingly put her son’s life in danger.