The Detective Branch

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘Not turned up. But I’m led to believe that a desire to buy or sell the cross was the reason why at least one of the men was there. Could you tell me the name of the superintendent who investigated the burglary?’

  ‘Look, sir, I have been more than accommodating . . .’

  ‘His name, or else I’ll go straight to see a journalist I know. He works for the London Illustrated News.’

  ‘I made the request, sir, that he attend to the matter in person, given the sensitive and extremely valuable nature of what was taken.’

  ‘I asked for the man’s name.’

  The archdeacon puffed out his chest. ‘You’ll get nothing more from me, sir. In spite of your impertinence and threats. Now I’ll bid you good day.’

  ‘Then you force me to make an educated guess,’ Pyke said, stopping almost directly in front of Wynter. ‘Benedict Pierce.’

  The archdeacon looked dumbstruck.

  The following morning, a Monday, Pyke found Benedict Pierce at his desk on the first floor of the E Division station house on Bow Street. It was the same building that the Bow Street Runners had once occupied and where he and Pierce had started their careers. Unsurprisingly, Pierce had selected the large walnut-panelled office at the front of the building for himself.

  ‘The Saviour’s Cross; it was stolen from the safe of Archdeacon Wynter’s private home on the fifth of March this year.’

  Pierce didn’t look up from the papers he was inspecting. ‘Nice to see you, Detective Inspector. But next time, do you think you could knock?’

  ‘The archdeacon specifically asked for you to lead the investigation. Why?’

  Pierce held his breath for a moment, as if weighing up the question. ‘Is there a reason for this most unwanted intrusion?’

  ‘I’ve reason to believe that this same item was the target of the robber or robbers who killed the men at the pawnbroker’s in St Giles.’

  Pierce assimilated this news. ‘And what, exactly, has led you to such a conclusion?’ There was a note of caution in his tone.

  Ignoring his question, Pyke said, ‘I want to know how you investigated the robbery at the archdeacon’s home and whether you recovered any of the stolen items.’

  ‘If I had recovered the Saviour’s Cross, it would be back in the archdeacon’s possession, not being hawked to a pawnbroker.’

  ‘Tell me about the investigation.’

  ‘What’s to tell? I pursued a number of avenues of enquiry. I’m afraid to say that none of them came to anything.’

  ‘Any suspects?’

  Pierce looked around the spacious room and yawned.

  ‘I’m sorry. Am I boring you?’

  ‘Boring me? Of course not.’ Pierce smirked. ‘I’ve just got very little of consequence to tell you.’

  Pyke looked around the man’s office, trying to remember what it had looked like when he’d been a Runner. ‘Why did Wynter ask for you personally? Wasn’t that unusual, given you were based in Kensington at the time?’

  ‘The archdeacon is a good friend of mine. Is it any wonder he should prefer me to the barbarian currently commanding the Detective Branch?’

  The idea of Pierce kneeling before the robed Wynter awaiting his communion made Pyke feel physically ill.

  ‘I’m curious as to why you decided to take up this position, Pierce. I would have thought you had your eyes set on greater things.’

  This time Pierce did look up at him, something bordering on concern or interest etched on his face. ‘Such as?’

  ‘I heard a rumour that the assistant commissioner’s position is soon to be filled.’

  Pierce controlled his reaction. ‘But can you trust what people tell you? That’s the question. For example, I was told recently that your search for the pawnbroker’s killer has narrowed considerably. A man of about six feet with dark hair and wearing a gentleman’s cloak.’

  Pyke did his best to hide it, but Pierce seemed to know at once that he’d won this little exchange. As he left Pierce’s office, Pyke was determined to find out the source of Pierce’s information.

  Pyke waited at the mouth of the street, the buildings on either side towering above him. Sometimes it felt as if the city might open its jaws and consume him whole. Especially in this part of the city, around Saffron Hill and Field Lane, where the buildings seemed to have been constructed almost on top of one another, endless tracts of soot-blackened brick and plaster. It was where the poor came to live and die; where swell mobs planned their next robberies, coiners oxidised their metal, pickpockets and mashers waited in the shadows. The police rarely entered such places, for obvious reasons. It was almost impossible to apprehend a fleeing suspect, and it was dangerous, too: the police weren’t popular with the poor.

  The city elders often talked about demolishing the rookeries and replacing them with wide avenues and stout, respectable terraces where the middling classes could venture without fearing for their lives. New roads that would cut directly through the worst slums had been planned for St Giles, Spitalfields and Devil’s Acre, behind Westminster Abbey. Still, in spite of these grandiose visions not much had changed in this part of the city for decades; if anything, the houses were a little more slipshod, the area a little more dangerous, the rats a little larger. And Wells was right: all of this had been made worse by the never-ending flood of men and women from the countryside and abroad, trains arriving at Euston, Paddington, London Bridge and Shoreditch spewing thousands of people into the maw of the city, a bloated sponge absorbing everything into its midst.

  Villums appeared from the shadows; he was swaying slightly and his breath smelled of whisky. ‘Let’s walk,’ he muttered.

  ‘Someone identified Harry’s body,’ Pyke said. ‘He’s now part of the investigation, Ned. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

  They walked for a few yards in silence. ‘But you can stop it getting any closer to me, can’t you?’

  Pyke shrugged, unsure what kind of assurance he could give. ‘Harry was careful, wasn’t he? Didn’t draw attention to himself, kept his circle of acquaintances small.’

  ‘Clearly he wasn’t careful enough,’ Villums replied.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, Ned. That’s the best I can promise.’

  Villums stopped and turned to face Pyke. ‘And what about the animals who did this to my boy?’

  ‘If I find them, I’ll make sure they’re punished to the full extent of the law.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  Pyke looked into his face. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘You forget, Pyke, I know what you’re capable of.’

  It was true that Pyke had killed men, but not gratuitously and never because he’d been paid to do so. ‘I’m a police detective now, Ned.’

  The disappointment was tangible in Villums’s eyes. ‘I said I’d do what I could to help you and I’m a man of my word.’

  ‘You have more information for me?’

  ‘I’m reliably informed that a fence by the name of Alfred Egan is due to meet a man, I don’t know who, regarding this cross.’

  ‘When? Tonight?’

  Villums nodded. ‘Early evening. The Red Lion Inn, Field Lane.’ Pyke knew better than to ask for more information. Instead he patted Villums on the arm and left him to contemplate the scene on the other side of the street, a blind man trying to hit a stray dog with his walking stick.

  FIVE

  The odour of putrefied flesh wafted on the stiff breeze. Smithfield, with its twice-weekly sheep and cattle market, was near by, as were numerous fat-boilers, tripe-scrapers, dog-skinners and underground slaughterhouses, all contributing to the rank unpleasantness of the air. Rain lashed the cobblestones outside the Red Lion Inn, and women in flounced crinoline skirts tried in vain to lift their hems up out of the mud. Inside, drove-boys rubbed shoulders with butchers, market inspectors and animal traders, and everywhere you looked there were people, heads glistening under the flare of gas-lamps. The Red Lion was a veritable rabbit warren, which was perhaps why Eg
an had chosen it as a meeting place. In one nook, a fiddle-player was cutting loose while drunken revellers cavorted with one another, their arms linked as they moved in dizzying circles. In another, dead-eyed men were playing cards, winning - and more often losing - a week’s wages on the turn of a single card. The walls and ceilings were as black as tar, stained by pipe tobacco and cheap tallow, while the wooden floors were covered with clumps of wet butcher’s sawdust and discarded oyster shells. There was a smell, too, that Pyke couldn’t quite put his finger on until he saw the prostitutes leading swaying men outside into the alley.

  At the counter, Pyke ordered and paid for two gins, pushing one of the glasses towards Whicher. The others - Shaw, Gerrett and Lockhart - were outside, watching the various doors into the tavern. An awkward silence followed as Whicher took the glass and placed it in front of him without taking a sip.

  ‘To working boys made good,’ Pyke said, holding up his glass, before tipping the spirit down his throat.

  Whicher looked at him with evident surprise. Clearly he hadn’t imagined Pyke as a working boy.

  ‘What?’ Pyke laughed. ‘You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth?’

  Whicher was bemused. ‘I heard a rumour that you married into the aristocracy, that’s all.’

  This much was true. Emily’s father had been related, by marriage rather than blood, to the first duke of Norfolk. But Pyke had never been comfortable in that environment and in the legal wrangling that followed Emily’s death, a Chancery judge had eventually ruled in favour of Emily’s male cousin. Pyke had never been back to her family’s seat - Hambledon Hall - fifteen miles north-east of the capital.

  ‘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, Pyk
e 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.’