The Detective Branch

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘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 rooms 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.

  There was room for five hundred prisoners and, if the inmates showed a willingness to embrace the opportunities that were available to them, he claimed, the emphasis was on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

  The cells were arranged over two floors; half opened directly on to the ground floor; half on to the iron gallery above. The floors, made of asphalt, were smooth and spotless and the painted brick walls were similarly bare. It was, Pyke thought, like walking into a brand-new factory before production had started, the clean, sterile lines of the building conjuring an image of utter hopelessness. Felons would come here as men and leave as machines.

  The cell itself was thirteen feet long, seven feet broad and nine feet high. It had a window cut into the back wall, filled with glass and crossed with iron bars. In the cell there was a stone water-closet pan with a cast-iron top, supplied by a cistern above the cell, and a copper basin. There was also a small table, a stool, a shaded gas burner and a hammock slung across the width of the room. The men usually worked in their hammocks, the warder explained, but slept on mattresses and blankets that, during the day, were folded up and put away.

  If Pyke had been expecting a monster, he was disappointed. In his stockings and flannel shirt, and with his cropped hair, Druitt might have looked just like
all the other inmates. In fact, close up he was quite a handsome man. His sculpted cheekbones, lantern jaw, pale skin and piercing grey eyes would have set him apart in respectable company. But it was his voice which really caught the attention; words rolled off his tongue as if individually polished and his soft, mellow tone made you want to listen to him.

  ‘I thought the winter would be much colder but warm air seeps in here through these.’ He gestured to the perforated iron plates in the floor. ‘I’m told the heat is supplied by flues connected to stoves in the basement.’ He sounded like a man showing off his new home.

  Pyke took another step into the cell.

  ‘So how can I be of assistance?’ Druitt smiled.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Pyke.’

  ‘Then can I welcome you to my humble abode, sir, and offer you a place to sit.’ He gestured at the stool.

  ‘I want to talk to you about your time at number twenty-eight Broad Street.’ Pyke elected to stand but almost immediately felt this had ceded a nameless advantage to Druitt, who was languishing in his hammock.

  ‘Oh?’ Druitt was apparently intrigued by Pyke’s reference to his former address. ‘And what exactly do you want to talk about?’

  ‘For a start, I’d like to ask you about your dealings with Brendan Malloy and Sarah Scott.’

  Druitt nodded, as though he’d already guessed this was the reason for Pyke’s visit. ‘So what would you like to know?’

  ‘Let’s begin with Malloy. Would you say you and he were friends?’

  ‘At one time, perhaps.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Living in close proximity to others can tell you more about them than you might have wanted to know.’

  ‘And what did you find out about Malloy?’

  ‘Brendan is a deeply disturbed man. I wouldn’t care to imagine what passes as thinking inside his head.’

  ‘You would say that, of course. After all, it was his testimony that put you in here. It’s revealing that the jury chose to believe him over you.’

  ‘Yes, that was unfortunate,’ Druitt said, as though describing a simple mishap.

  ‘What about Sarah Scott?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘How would you describe your dealings with her?’

  ‘Before or after her child fell to his death?’ Druitt’s pink tongue glistened behind a row of white teeth.

  ‘Fell? You mean you didn’t drop him?’

  ‘The jury ruled that I did, even if no intent was ever proven.’

  ‘And they were mistaken?’ Pyke asked sceptically.

  Druitt’s stare wandered around the cell. ‘I was expecting much worse, to be honest. It’s really not too bad. Beef or mutton on alternate days, gruel for dinner, the best bread I’ve eaten, cocoa sweetened with molasses in the morning. I’m kept occupied by my work.’ He gestured to the mat he was weaving. ‘I am allowed to exercise twice a day in the yard; I bathe once a week; my clothes are changed once a week and the schoolmaster regularly brings me books to supplement the rather dreary offerings provided by the chaplain.’ He gestured to the small row of books on his shelf. ‘I would hazard a guess that I’m rather more comfortable and well provided for in here than a pauper or a soldier.’

  ‘I asked about your dealings with Sarah.’

  Druitt’s smile broadened. ‘It’s Sarah now, is it? Then I presume you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her. She’s rather a comely creature, isn’t she?’

  ‘She was less generous in her assessment of you. In the circumstances that’s hardly a surprise.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But it wasn’t always so. In fact, I suspect that our . . . friendship . . . was one of the reasons behind her separation from Malloy.’

  Pyke felt his throat tighten and his stomach muscles contract: he hadn’t been in the cell for more than a few minutes but already he felt uncomfortable and agitated.

  ‘Would you care to elaborate?’

  Druitt had noticed the imperceptible shift in his demeanour. ‘Does it upset you, Detective Inspector? The notion that Miss Scott was, at one point, rather taken with me?’

  ‘Were the two of you attached?’

  ‘Attached?’ Druitt was grinning. ‘Now there’s a word to stand in for all manner of sins.’

  ‘Did the two of you ever sleep with each other?’

  ‘Better, Detective Inspector. Much better.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I rather think the lady should be the one to answer that question.’

  ‘Was the child Malloy’s?’ Pyke asked, biting back the urge to grab Druitt by the neck and squeeze.

  Druitt didn’t answer immediately. Instead he rocked himself back and forth for a while in the hammock. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment on the child’s parentage.’

  Pyke waited for a moment; he heard footsteps pass by the cell. ‘You intimated that the child fell to his death; that it had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Druitt said, matter-of-factly. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’

  ‘Then why did Malloy take the stand and tell the court that you deliberately dropped the boy?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him. I wouldn’t care to speculate on what may or may not go on inside his head.’

  ‘I’ve read his testimony. He claimed he saw you drop the baby. I asked him about it. He said you were looking at him when it happened. He said he saw you smile.’

  Druitt wasn’t the least bit concerned by this accusation. ‘As I said, Brendan’s disturbed. She is, too. Perhaps she told you that she employed my services to soothe her nerves?’

  Druitt almost seemed to be enjoying himself. Pyke sat down on the stool and let the silence take root. Lying back in the hammock, Druitt started to hum.

  ‘When you were living at number twenty-eight, did you ever come across a man called Isaac Guppy?’

  ‘Guppy?’ Druitt rubbed his chin. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘He was the rector at St Botolph’s, Aldgate. He’s dead now. Murdered.’

  Druitt sat up in the hammock. ‘I see. And you’ve been prevailed upon to find the killer?’

  ‘Guppy was wearing a surplice when he was killed. This same garment turned up a few days later in one of the upstairs rooms at number twenty-eight.’

  ‘I find all of this fascinating, of course, Detective Inspector, but I don’t quite see what it has to do with me.’

  ‘A note was sent to me, at Scotland Yard, with the Broad Street address scribbled on it, together with a few lines from a poem by William Blake.’

  ‘How delightfully mysterious. Which poem, if I may be so bold? You see, I’m rather an admirer of Blake.’

  ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.’

  Druitt nodded briskly. ‘Ah, Blake’s response to Milton’s Paradise Lost. And the line?’

  ‘“Now the sneaking serpent walks / In mild humility / And the just man rages in the wilds / Where lions roam.”’ Pyke paused. ‘I mentioned the letter to Sarah. She told me it sounded like your handiwork. That you liked to play games with people.’

  But Druitt seemed not to have heard what Pyke had just said. ‘Minister Beale said that Milton was, and I quote, “too full of the Devil”. Likewise, in the poem you just quoted, Blake described Milton as “a true poet of the Devil’s party without knowing it”. Blake, of course, was paying Milton a compliment.’

  ‘Let me ask you a direct question.’ Pyke removed the letter from his coat pocket and handed it to Druitt. ‘Did you arrange for someone to deliver this letter to me at Scotland Yard?’

  Druitt gave it a cursory glance and let it drop to the floor. ‘No, Detective Inspector, I did not.’

  ‘You don’t recognise the handwriting?’

  ‘No, sir, but if it would make you sleep easier in your bed, I’ll scribble a few lines in my own hand, so you can discount me as the phantom author.’

  Pyke went to pick up the letter from the floor. ‘Brendan Malloy told me he’d visited the murdered rector, Guppy, in th
e spring. He said that you’d had a premonition that Guppy was going to die and that he’d gone there to warn Guppy.’

  ‘He told you that?’ For the first time, there was a hint of what may have been concern on Druitt’s face. ‘I can assure you he’s lying. I possess certain gifts, it’s true, but I’m afraid prophesying the future isn’t one of them. Would I be here if it were?’

  Pyke tried not to show it but he felt there might have been some truth in what Druitt had just said. ‘Something compelled Malloy to go and see Guppy. Part of me thinks you know what it was.’

  ‘Until you came here to see me, I’d never heard of this rector’s name.’