At William Brown’s dockyard, he stared out at the slime-coloured water and saw the brig — the Syria — a small, squat, wooden vessel with three masts and an ugly tangle of rigging. A lighter was transporting cargo out to it, stevedores on deck loading crates into the hull. It didn’t look as if it could make it as far as Liverpool, let alone New York.
His thoughts turned to James, how the boy liked to sleep on Knox’s chest after he had been fed, his contented face, eyelids closing, soft little breaths. Yes, it was a miracle that James was alive, but Knox didn’t believe that God had made it happen. Too many others had died for this notion to make sense.
The only reason for staying would be to find his brother. His other brother. John Johns, last seen heading west to Lisvarrinane. Knox hadn’t been back to the cottage, hadn’t said goodbye to his mother, father or his brothers. He hadn’t wanted to see them. That part of his life was finished.
From the dock, he looked back towards the main street and then up at Carrigmoran hill, emerald green, a narrow track cut into it. He had always loved his country, had never imagined leaving it. Looking up at that hill, he felt overwhelmed and even a little sentimental, but there was nothing left to do now but wait.
THIRTY
THURSDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 1847
Atlantic Ocean, West of Ireland
H e couldn’t get used to the rocking of the brig, especially down in the hold where most of the steerage-class passengers congregated, so he spent his time up on deck, watching the crew work, staring out at the drab horizon. He was told that two hundred would be making the crossing but there had to be nearer to three hundred on board, the young and old, the sick and soon-to-be-sick. That was another reason why he spent as little time as possible below deck. A doctor had inspected the passengers before embarkation but only cursorily, and the first night he had been kept awake by the sound of a child moaning quietly next to him. The following morning, he found out that the child had perished in the night. Another death, but there was nothing to be done. He kept himself to himself, listened to the voices speaking Irish, glad of the anonymity, of the chance just to stand there on deck and watch the waves breaking against the ship and think about everything he had left behind.
A wave crashed over the side, splashing his feet, washing over the deck, but he didn’t mind that his shoes were wet, because he was looking at a point on the horizon, far, far away, and trying to remember the day that Felix had been born and the nursemaid had passed him the mewling baby. The day Pyke had held his son for the first time.
THIRTY-ONE
MONDAY, 4 JANUARY 1847
Dundrum, Co. Tipperary
‘I didn’t do it,’ John Johns said, backing away towards the river. ‘I didn’t kill your son.’
Johns had bolted and Pyke had pursued him through the long grass until the former soldier had been caught out by the bend in the river, with nowhere left to run.
It had been more than a month since Pyke had last seen the big man and he seemed different. Less sure of himself, skittish. He looked thinner, too.
‘Who did?’
‘Apparently it was an accident.’
Pyke felt the skin tighten across his temples. ‘Apparently?’
Johns glanced behind him at the river, black, cold and silent. ‘I found him at the courthouse, at the bottom of the stairs.’
‘You’re saying he fell?’
‘My guess is that Smyth had been keeping him there against his will. I can only assume your son tried to escape and fell down the stairs, broke his neck.’
‘So who picked him up and put him on the bed upstairs?’
‘I did.’ Johns looked down at the frozen ground. ‘I found the letters he’d written to you and realised he was your son.’ Johns tapped his coat pocket. ‘I brought them with me.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want anyone else to identify him. I knew you’d go there eventually, that you’d find him. I wanted you to find him, to be able to bury him, and grieve. But I couldn’t stay in Merthyr…’
Pyke felt a stabbing pain in his chest, a sharp ache from the pointlessness of it all. ‘And Smyth?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘You followed him here?’
‘He killed William Hancock.’ Johns looked into Pyke’s face. ‘Or he as good as killed the lad.’
Pyke nodded blankly. He could let Johns carry on thinking that Smyth was guilty but at the same time the man deserved to know the truth. ‘That night at Fernhill, Maggie Atkins was meant to see Smyth. It’s why they didn’t kill her. So that when the Hancock boy turned up dead, she would be able to implicate Smyth.’
Johns stared at Pyke, still trying to take in what he’d said. Pyke just felt immensely sorry for the man, sorry for the news he was about to break and the terrible hurt it would cause.
‘Zephaniah Hancock arranged to have the boy killed. He knew William wasn’t Jonah’s son.’ Pyke tried to smile. He had travelled for weeks, across land and sea, for this moment, and now all he felt was exhaustion and pity. ‘He was yours, wasn’t he? You, Cathy and the boy, you were going to start a new life together?’
Johns nodded but said nothing. Cathy was dead and so was his son. Both their sons were dead. Pyke wanted to tell Johns that he understood, but at the last moment held his tongue. What did it matter that someone understood? That wouldn’t change anything.
‘I’m sorry.’
Johns looked up at him. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, too.’
They waited for a moment while the wind gusted, wet leaves blowing all around them. ‘What did Smyth say when you confronted him?’
‘Nothing.’ Johns’ expression didn’t change. ‘Didn’t get a chance; as soon as he realised he was trapped, he turned his pistol on himself and pulled the trigger. The fire was to cover my tracks.’
Pyke considered the implications of this. ‘So I’ve got to take your word for it — that my son died falling down the stairs?’
‘Is knowing for certain going to bring him back?’ Johns reached into his pocket. It took Pyke a second or two to notice the blade of a knife.
‘What are you going to do with that?’
Johns didn’t seem to have heard the question. In a nearby tree, a blackbird twittered, but there were no other sounds except for the breeze and the quiet flowing of the river.
‘I found Cathy’s body. She’d taken her own life, slit her wrists. I suppose she felt that she’d caused William’s death.’
‘If we hadn’t gone ahead with the scheme in the first place, our son might still be alive.’
‘Perhaps — but do you really imagine that Zephaniah Hancock would have let you leave and live happily ever after?’
‘I suppose not.’ Johns waited and added, ‘What happened to the Hancocks?’
‘Didn’t make it.’ Pyke shook his head. Then he gestured at the knife in Johns’ hand. ‘Put it away, John. No need for anyone else to die.’
Johns looked around at the barren landscape. ‘You know, I was born here. Grew up in the gatehouse. Only when my father was on his deathbed did he tell me I wasn’t his son.’
‘Who was?’
‘My father?’ Johns laughed bitterly. ‘That old coot who lives in the big house. Asenath Moore, Lord Cornwallis. Fucked a kitchen-hand. She was engaged to be married so I was given away.’
Pyke thought about his own father, who had died in a crowd stampede when he was a boy, and about Godfrey, who had rescued him and brought him up.
‘Before you arrived in Merthyr,’ Johns said, ‘she’d finally agreed to come away with me. A new life, just the three of us.’
‘Before I arrived?’
‘She’d always carried a torch for you.’
Pyke bowed his head. ‘Give me the knife, John.’ He took another step towards the former soldier.
‘ What? Do you want to shake my hand, pretend we can be friends? Shake hands and go our separate ways, let ourselves believe that everything has worked out for the best?’
‘Did I say that?’
‘See here? People are dying because they can’t afford to eat.’
Pyke took another step towards him and held out his hand. ‘Give me the knife, John.’
‘The rich get richer and the poor are buried in a pit.’
‘There’s no way men like us can change things. Not now, not any more. We’ve seen too much, done too much. For that to happen you need someone younger, their ideals intact.’
‘Dinosaurs.’ Johns almost looked amused.
Pyke took another step. ‘The knife.’
Johns managed a smile and then took the knife in his other hand, turned it on himself and drove it into his belly. He fell to his knees and Pyke had to wrestle his hands off the handle in order to pull it out, blood spurting from the wound. Pyke cradled Johns’ head in his lap, stroked his hair and waited for the man to die.
THIRTY-TWO
WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 1847
Lisvarrinane, Co. Tipperary
Knox had walked for most of the day, stopping anyone he passed and asking them whether they had seen or heard of a man called John Johns. No one had. Knox described him as best he could but his description jolted no memories. A few told him about the fire at the big house — and that the recently returned absentee landlord, Sir Clancy Smyth, had perished in it.
When Knox asked where Smyth had returned from, and was told Wales, it pricked his interest. He was tired but the walking relaxed him, and because he had sold his boat ticket at a profit, he had the funds to pay for food and shelter. He’d bought a good pair of boots, too. Knox didn’t know how Martha was going to react when he turned up on Father Mackey’s doorstep in a day or so, whether she would be pleased to see him or devastated that he hadn’t sailed for the New World. In the end, it was simple; he hadn’t been able to. It was a physical thing. He needed to be with his wife and child. But on the journey back from Cork, Knox had begun to think about his brother, the man he knew as John Johns, the murderer of a London policeman, and he had taken a detour to Lisvarrinane, the last place where Johns had been seen. The trail had gone cold now and he was keen to get back to Clonoulty as quickly as possible.
Knox wanted to get back to Clonoulty, but he was afraid of what he’d find there, afraid that Martha would be angry or, worse, indifferent.
So he decided to walk, to give himself time to prepare himself, and as he walked, he let his mind wander. He crossed from Cork into Tipperary, and to pass the time, he bought a notebook and a pencil. During breaks, he would scribble down his thoughts, his impressions of the folk he met, their suffering, their fortitude. Knox liked the idea of bearing witness, recording what he saw, not for any particular reason or because people would necessarily want to read what he had written, but because it was the worst of times and someone needed to document it so that much later, others would know how bad it had been.
Just outside Ballyporeen Knox came across two men groping for eels in a river — they swore him to silence and offered him a meal of eel cooked over an open fire. The next day on the road to Clogheen, he came across a family who’d left the nearby village the day before. The woman told him that the sickness — an droch-thinneas — had killed three families. Close by the village of Ardfinnan he stumbled upon a corpse, maggots feasting on the flesh, and as he neared Cahir, Knox came across a dog, a large mongrel, carrying what looked like human flesh in its jaws. He noted these things without outrage or moral indignation: this was just the way it was. Some nights he slept rough, other nights he lodged with families. He spoke in Irish. No one attacked him; no one tried to rob him. As he neared Clonoulty, he found himself longing for the open road. What was the saying? Better to travel hopefully than to arrive. That was how he felt, but to reassure himself, he would lie awake at night, either under the stars or in strangers’ cabins, and remember the way James smiled, remember the laughter lines around Martha’s eyes, and in those moments he knew that, regardless of what he found at home, he would find the strength to endure.
THIRTY-THREE
TUESDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 1847
Dublin, Co. Dublin
Pyke stood by the window of his lodging-house room, looking down on to the street below, a solitary gas lamp illuminating the wet cobblestones.
Two days earlier, Benedict Pierce had come to this same address. Pyke had written to him to let him know where he was staying.
At that first meeting, Pierce had muttered threats about arresting Pyke and taking him back to London, but he had listened to Pyke’s proposal and in the end he had done what Pyke had asked him to: travel to a small town in Tipperary and convince the authorities there that he, Pyke, was dead; that the body discovered on the estate of Dundrum House was him. Pyke had done his best to lay the groundwork, and make it appear as if he, and not John Johns, had been killed — he’d even left his pistol and precious letters from Felix in the room he’d taken in Dundrum village and paid off the landlord there. Still, he needed Pierce’s help.
‘I wrote to you because I want you to help me disappear.’
Pierce had looked at him strangely. ‘Why would I want to help you?’
‘If you do, I’ll never return to London, never set foot in Scotland Yard again.’
That had been when Pierce understood. He had nodded once, and he might even have smiled.
Down on the street, Pyke watched as a young boy hurried to catch up with a woman dressed in fine clothes, his mother perhaps. For days now, it seemed, he had wandered the labyrinthine streets of this unfamiliar city, with only his memories to comfort him.
Returning his gaze to the street below, Pyke saw a dog trot past and heard the wheels of another carriage, a hansom cab this time, grinding to a standstill under his window. Pierce emerged from the cab, told the driver to wait, and looked up at the shabby building. Instinctively, Pyke stepped back from the window; he didn’t want Pierce to see he’d been waiting for him. He listened as Pierce’s footsteps came up the staircase and waited for the knock on the door.
Pierce had taken off his hat and was cradling it in his arms.
‘It’s done,’ he said, removing a piece of paper from the pocket of his black frock-coat. ‘Coroner’s report. You died — wilful murder by a person or persons unknown — on the fourth of January 1847.’
Pyke took the piece of paper and inspected it. So that was it. He was a ghost, a non-person, which was exactly how he felt.
‘Any difficulties?’
‘The constable who investigated the murder looked like he might be getting close to the truth. He knew about Johns and talked about confronting the lord of the manor — Johns’ father, I discovered. I paid this man a visit — Lord Cornwallis. He was only too keen not to rock the boat. He promised to stop the constable from asking any more questions. The official story is that Johns killed you and then fled.’
So it was done. Arthur John Pyke, rest in peace. Pyke tried to summon up something approaching sadness.
‘Once my house is sold, you can keep half of the proceeds, and put my half into a bank. I’ll write to you once I know where I’ll be.’
That had been another part of their agreement. Pierce would never have turned down the chance to feather his nest. Their lives had paralleled each other for many years, Pyke thought, first as Bow Street Runners and latterly as policemen for the Metropolitan Police. Pierce had once been head of the Detective Branch, too. Perhaps, Pyke decided, they were more alike than he had ever cared to admit.
‘And where will you go?’
‘It’s probably too late for me to start over.’ Pyke shrugged. ‘But I can’t stay here and I can’t go back to England. Too many memories.’
Pierce nodded.
‘There are ships leaving every day for Canada and the United States. I fancy New York City.’
‘Where they used to transport convicts.’ Pierce managed a smile.
‘Appropriate, then.’
Pierce passed his hat from hand to hand. Pyke could see he didn’t want to be there. ‘I suppose I
should go. My cab is waiting.’
Pyke opened the door and waited for Pierce to pass through. At the last moment, Pierce turned around. ‘I’m sorry about what happened, your son…’
Pyke nodded: there were no words. Instead he shook Pierce’s hand and then watched him disappear down the stairs.
Much later, Pyke lay on his bed and listened to the sounds from the street. It was an end, he thought, this place, this time. But perhaps in another country he would learn to live again.
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Bloody Winter pm-5 Page 28