‘But what?’
‘He’s barely ten.’ There was a hardness to her voice. ‘Seeing that man close up, seeing the blood, I’d say it affected him.’
Pyke thought about the way he’d beaten Maginn, and how it must have looked to Felix. ‘Did you see it?’
‘I saw that man lying in the gutter.’ She bit her lip and took another sip of wine. Her neck was flushed.
‘Did you know that Maginn was harassing a prostitute, and that he’d plotted to have me killed?’
This time she didn’t answer. Perhaps she was worried about criticising him. Pyke wanted to tell her that he didn’t mind — that he wanted to hear what she had to say — but it didn’t seem appropriate.
‘Sometimes I see the way the world is and I can feel the insides of my stomach crawling.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘That’s not true. I see what I’ve done, the way I’ve let people down, and I want to tear out my own throat. But I’ve no right to say these things to you. I’m sorry, I should go. I’m not good company.’
‘You’ve only just got here,’ she said, fiddling with her silver bracelet. ‘Stay a little while longer.’
A few moments of silence passed between them. Pyke took another sip of wine. ‘Did he talk about me when I was away?’
‘A little.’
‘In what sense?’
‘I think the fact that you were in prison frightened him.’ She saw his face and added, ‘He was scared you wouldn’t come back.’
‘And yet now I am back, he won’t talk to me.’
‘Just give him time. Losing his mother and then losing you, it was a lot to cope with.’
‘For a while, after she died, I thought he was coping quite well. I thought we all were.’ Pyke looked up at Jo and remembered some of the things they had done as a threesome; the long walks in the grounds at Hambledon, plucking pheasants that Pyke had shot with a rifle, and telling ghost stories around the fireplace in the old drawing room.
‘I’m sure we all still miss her terribly,’ Jo said, staring down at her boots.
‘But it was five years ago.’
For a moment the only sound in the room was the ticking of the grandfather clock. ‘He so wants your approval, Pyke,’ Jo said, as she ran her fingertip around the rim of her wineglass. ‘I’d say that’s why he’s been reading the Newgate Calendar.’ She hesitated. ‘Rightly or wrongly, Felix believes that the stories represent the world you come from.’
Pyke had learned to read from the pages of the Newgate Calendar, scouring it for tales of murder, piracy, highway robbery, theft and even cannibalism, and the idea that Felix was doing the same made him feel oddly satisfied, even if the reading matter itself was upsetting.
‘But now, in addition to that, Felix seems to have found a copy of Godfrey’s damned book.’
Jo shrugged her shoulders. ‘That wasn’t my doing.’ She saw that Pyke was looking at the book she’d been reading when he arrived. ‘For obvious reasons, I’ve tried my best to keep it from Felix.’
‘I’m not blaming you, but the other night he came within a whisker of accusing me of being that character.’
‘I wasn’t even aware he’d read it, but when I asked him why he was so interested in the Newgate Calendar, he told me he’d been trying to find a story about you.’
‘About me?’ Pyke let out an exasperated sigh. ‘But I sat him down and explained I was only going to prison because I owed people money.’
‘Like I said, he’s ten and he has an active imagination. I think he wants to prove himself to you, though. Show you can be tough, too.’
It was at times like this that Pyke missed Emily the most. Somehow she had always known what to say to Felix in order to reassure him. But he guessed that Jo now performed this role with equal aplomb.
‘Do you think it would help if I told Felix that I’m helping the police investigate the murder of a young woman?’
Jo looked up at him. ‘Is that why they let you out of Marshalsea early?’
‘In part.’ Pyke shrugged. ‘But do you think he’d look at me in a different way, if he felt I was trying to defend the law?’
‘Spend some time with him; talk to him; tell him what you’re doing. It can’t do any harm. He’s quite resilient these days.’
Pyke picked up the bottle of wine, and before she could stop him he had filled both of their wineglasses once more.
‘I see you’ve been reading up on me, too.’ He pointed to the copy of Confessions that she had tried to hide under her chair.
But instead of an embarrassed silence, his comment drew a throaty laugh. ‘I thought you just said it wasn’t about you.’
‘It isn’t, but since I haven’t actually read it, I don’t know how often it skirts up against the truth.’
‘You haven’t read it?’ She seemed intrigued.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe because I’d be angry at the liberties Godfrey has taken with the truth. Maybe because I don’t like to be reminded of my past.’ He shrugged. ‘Or maybe because I think I’m both a better and a worse man than the one my uncle has written about.’
‘How do you know if you haven’t read it?’
‘I know my uncle.’
That made her smile. ‘The character, he is rather… coarse.’
‘And I’m not?’
‘I can see a little of you in him…’
‘But?’
‘But he doesn’t come across as particularly intelligent. He does things, he acts, but he never stops to think about why he’s doing them.’
‘And I do? The man who squandered his fortune and ended up in prison.’ He laughed, self-deprecatingly. ‘But thank you. I’d hate for you to think ill of me.’
‘Why should you care what I think of you?’
‘Because you’re important to Felix.’ Pyke considered what he’d just said. ‘And you’re important to me.’
Pyke had said this instinctively and, for a moment, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Jo seemed flustered by this comment and buried her face in her wineglass. She mumbled, ‘I was always under the impression you hardly thought of me at all.’
‘Why would you think that? For the last few years, you’ve been the rock I’ve come to depend on. I don’t know what I’d do without you. More to the point, I don’t know what Felix would do.’
‘I enjoy my work.’ She hesitated and bit her lip. ‘And you pay me very well.’
Pyke stood up, faster than he’d expected to, and the sudden rush of blood to his head made him feel disoriented. ‘I have to go.’
Jo stood up, too, and followed him to the front door. ‘Shall I tell Felix you’ll come and see him soon?’
He turned to face her. ‘Perhaps the three of us could do something or go somewhere. The zoological gardens perhaps.’ He was aware of how close she was. All he had to do was reach out and touch her hand.
‘He would like that.’
At the bottom of the steps Pyke turned around, expecting Jo to have disappeared back into the apartment, but she hadn’t moved and was contemplating him with an expression he couldn’t make sense of.
By the time a hackney cab had dropped Pyke at the steps of the police building on Whitehall, it was eleven in the morning and the sun had risen high enough in the hazy sky for the air to feel warm on his skin. The sky wasn’t exactly blue — the pall of ash and dust that lingered in the air throughout the spring and summer took care of that — but a light breeze had cleared away the worst of the particles, and for the first time in as long as Pyke could remember, he felt a lightness in his step.
‘There have been some exciting developments in Lord Bedford’s murder investigation,’ Tilling noted with evident satisfaction from behind his mahogany desk. They were sitting in his office on the first floor, an airy room with high ceilings that was filled with imposing items of furniture and offered an impressive view across Horse Guards Parade.
‘Really?’ Pyke yawned, not very interes
ted.
‘We’ve made an arrest. Bedford’s valet. A young Swiss chap called Morel-Roux. He’d only been with Bedford for five or six weeks, it turns out.’
‘What’s the motive?’
‘Pierce and his team searched this chap’s room and found a five-pound note and half a dozen sovereigns. They also found the same chisel that had been used to open Bedford’s desk. So they widened their search, brought in a carpenter and a plumber, and found a ten-pound note and two of the deceased’s gold rings behind a skirting board in the butler’s pantry — the room used by this valet.’
Tilling stood up and wandered across to the window, inspecting the view. Something was wrong. Tilling’s manner had been cold and formal from the start and yet now he was divulging intimate details about another murder investigation. It didn’t make sense. And he hadn’t asked a single question about the search for Mary Edgar’s murderer.
‘So why did this valet do it?’ Pyke asked, still trying to make sense of Tilling’s manner. ‘I mean, why kill someone you’re stealing from?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps Bedford had caught him in the act, or had discovered that this chap was stealing from him. Perhaps he confronted him and a struggle ensued…’
‘I thought you told me that Bedford had been stabbed in his belly with a letter opener some time during the night.’
‘So what if I did?’ Tilling asked defensively, returning to his seat.
‘Well, if he was killed in his bed, it isn’t likely that he interrupted a robbery, is it?’ Pyke said. ‘And if I’d stolen some rings and money from my master, the last place I’d think of hiding them would be in my own quarters.’
‘Well, I’m not strictly involved in the investigation, even though I have been forced to keep Bedford’s friends and associates abreast of any developments. They’re already demanding the noose for this valet.’
Pyke shrugged, as though the matter didn’t concern him. ‘So why did you summon me here to see you?’ A note to this effect had been delivered to Pyke’s garret earlier that morning. ‘You still haven’t asked about my own investigation. I assumed that was what you wanted to talk about.’
‘It is, in a way.’ Tilling sat up in his chair and wiped his forehead with a fresh, white handkerchief. ‘Actually, this is quite awkward.’
‘What’s awkward?’
‘Well, it appears that Morel-Roux had been reading The True and Candid Confessions of an Ex-Bow Street Runner.’ Tilling looked up, to check his reaction.
‘So?’
‘Unfortunately someone, I don’t yet know who, passed this snippet of information to a journalist reporting on the investigation.’
‘And?’
‘Dammit, man. I’ve read the book. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m referring to. The passage where the character does what, it would seem, Morel-Roux has done. Murder an aristocrat while he sleeps in his own bed. Only in your case, you manage to concoct an elaborate and, I have to say, rather unconvincing justification for taking the man’s life.’
In fact, Pyke had simply held a pillow over Emily’s father’s face and suffocated him, but it was no surprise that Godfrey had decided to splash the pages of his ‘memoir’ with sufficient blood to set the readers’ pulses racing.
‘If I told you I haven’t read the book and that it purports to be a fictional account of a man’s life, would that make a difference?’
‘It’s not what you or I think,’ Tilling said. ‘But the author is your uncle and you were once a Bow Street Runner.’
‘I understand that, but why is this a problem?’ Pyke tried to keep his voice light but he could already see what was coming.
‘The frenzy surrounding Bedford’s death has been considerable already, even before we knew about this valet. Now it’s going to explode; a servant killing his master. Think about it for a minute. The wealthy will be quaking in their boots, wondering if their servants will mimic Morel-Roux’s actions. Meanwhile servants, at least the ones who’ve been poorly treated, which is most of them, will be sharpening their razor blades; either that or they’ll be cheering for this Swiss fellow. It doesn’t bear thinking about. What with the recession and unemployment, the whole situation couldn’t be any more precarious.’
Pyke looked around the room. ‘I still don’t understand why this is a problem as far as our arrangement is concerned.’
‘Don’t you? What if someone found out that you were working, albeit in an unofficial capacity, for the Metropolitan Police? The stink would be worse than the Thames at low tide. And you know as well as I do that someone will find out. They always do.’
‘Then we will cross that particular bridge, if and when we have to.’ But Pyke knew it wouldn’t be that simple. Expecting men like Saggers to do what was right was like asking a starving wolf to walk away from an injured deer.
Tilling exhaled. ‘God, can you imagine what Lord Bedford’s friends would do with this information? If they ever found out that I’d employed the man who had likely or not given Morel-Roux the idea to murder his master? They’d demand my head on a silver platter in a matter of hours. Yours, too.’
‘What are you saying?’ Pyke tried to ward off the uneasy feeling in his stomach. ‘You want me to just disappear?’
‘I didn’t create this situation, Pyke. I’m just responding to it.’
‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were safeguarding your own interests in the process.’
‘That’s unfair, and you know it.’
‘Do I? It’s how all bureaucracies work. Defecate on those below you and pander to those above you.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this slander…’
‘And what about the investigation? I suppose it doesn’t matter that I’ve already made good progress. Much more important to make sure you don’t look bad in the eyes of Lord Bedford’s friends. After all, who cares about a dead mulatto girl?’
Later Pyke would reflect that his comments had been unkind, but he wasn’t going to give up the investigation without a fight.
‘This conversation is finished. You’re no longer representing the police, Pyke. Accept it and find something else to do.’
‘Just like that?’
‘If you care about the dead woman, you’ll do what’s best for her. Since we’ve made an arrest in the Bedford case, Mayne is willing to deploy more men to her murder.’
‘If I care?’ Pyke could feel his blood rising. ‘Just a few days ago, you made it clear to me that her death wasn’t your most pressing concern.’
‘Just as you made it clear to me that money was your main motivation for agreeing to take on the investigation.’
‘That’s easy for you to say with your house overlooking Hampstead Heath. I can barely afford my next meal. But I’m the one who’s been traipsing around the East End, not placating the friends of some dead aristocrat.’
Pyke’s anger was directed at Tilling but really he knew that he, alone, was responsible for his current predicament. Two years earlier, he had more money than he knew what to do with but he’d squandered it and now he was almost penniless. Money was no panacea, as he’d found out, but having it meant you weren’t subject to the whims of others.
‘I’m grateful for everything you’ve done, really I am. And when Pierce takes charge of the investigation, I hope you’ll tell him him everything you’ve already found out.’
‘Pierce?’ Pyke blinked. He could barely credit what he was hearing.
Tilling nodded; he knew very well what this would mean to Pyke. ‘Believe me, he wasn’t my choice.’
‘You really think I’m going to buy Pierce lunch and tell him everything I know?’
‘In the long run, you’ll realise you don’t have a choice. If you want to see this woman’s killer apprehended. One way or another, this division is taking over the investigation. Now you can keep the money I gave you, but that’s all. From now on, I’m ordering you to steer clear of anything to do with the dead woman.’
Pyke lick
ed his lips. ‘And if I decide not to?’
‘What choice do you have? Twenty pounds won’t get you very far. As you said, you can barely afford your next meal. Running a murder investigation is not something you can do on your own.’ There was no gloating in Tilling’s expression but he was right and Pyke knew it.
Pyke had taken the job because Tilling had offered to pay him, but suddenly it wasn’t just the loss of this income which upset him; it was not being able to perform the task he’d agreed to do; not being able to find and punish whoever had strangled Mary Edgar. He had watched as two gravediggers had, without ceremony, buried her body; no one else had. Now he felt he owed it to her to find her killer… or killers. He couldn’t just walk away, leaving Pierce to botch the investigation.
‘What about wanting to help me get back on my feet? Was that just a lie?’ Pyke tried to swallow his bitterness. He had hoped that finding Mary Edgar’s killer might restore him in Felix’s eyes, too.
‘I’m sorry, Pyke. If there was any way I could keep you on, I would. But I’ve been through every possible permutation in my mind and none of them adds up. In the light of what’s happened, you’re too much of a risk.’
‘And that’s it?’ Pyke stared at his old acquaintance, feeling empty and a little nauseous. ‘I’m really out?’
‘As I said, I’m sorry. I really am. But let’s face it, you were never really in.’
SIX
Pyke found Edmund Saggers in the fifth or sixth public house he visited. Having been to the Old Dog on Holywell Street, the Coach and Horses, the Cock, the Back Kitchen and the Cheese, all on The Strand, he eventually found the penny-a-liner hunched over a table at the back of the Cole Hole, an inkwell and a full glass of claret next to him. From the colour of his lips, it wasn’t his first drink of the day.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ Pyke said, sitting on the bench opposite him and taking a gulp of Saggers’ wine. His anger had started to abate and he’d already formulated a plan. In spite of what he’d said, or hadn’t said, in Tilling’s office, he had no intention of giving up the investigation and sharing what he’d discovered with Pierce.
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