Kill-Devil and Water pm-3

by Andrew Pepper

  ‘I don’t expect you to do this for nothing, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

  The fat man put on a wounded expression that was so clearly feigned even he gave up on it. ‘Well, I do remember you promising me a story a long time ago.’

  ‘Murder, pornography, robbery.’ Pyke watched Saggers’ nonchalance disappear. ‘Is that enough to be getting on with?’

  ‘That sounds more than acceptable.’

  ‘And I want you to find anyone who knew a girl called Bessie Daniels.’ Pyke handed Saggers a scrap of paper with Bessie’s old Whitechapel address scribbled on it. ‘Anyone, that is, who can identify this as belonging to her.’ He took out the amethyst ring and showed it to the penny-a-liner. ‘I can’t let you have it, I’m afraid. You’ll just have to describe it as best you can.’

  Saggers inspected the ring and handed it back to Pyke. ‘So how quickly do you need all this?’

  ‘By tomorrow.’

  Abel Trevelyan lived in a Palladian mansion overlooking Regent’s Park. Pyke could see how some people might have been impressed by the house’s neoclassical grandeur, and its size alone meant that it was hard to miss, even from the other side of the park. But he found it too ostentatious, as though an already over-egged pudding had been doused in cream and butter. It was a square brick box with five large bay windows on each of the floors. In the middle of the building, a pair of stone columns supported a pediment. There were extensive gardens at the back of the mansion. Earlier in the afternoon Pyke had positioned himself behind a shrub, close to one of the windows, and observed the comings and goings of the household. As far as he could work out, Trevelyan had a wife — a plump, dowdy creature who wore her hair in tight ringlets — and a number of young children. There were also as many as a dozen servants, and Pyke spent some of the afternoon speculating about how damaging the loss of his position at the Bank might prove to be. Trevelyan was definitely at home; from the description Pyke had been given, he recognised the man sitting at his desk in the ground-floor study at one end of the house. Trevelyan had been there for most of the afternoon, leaving only to take an early supper with his family at about six. Still, he had returned to his study by about half-past seven, and Pyke’s patience was finally rewarded. Just as it was beginning to get dark, Trevelyan stepped out on to the veranda to smoke a cigar.

  From the shrub, it was maybe twenty yards to where Trevelyan was standing, and Pyke watched him for a few moments, trying to get the measure of the man and work out how best to take advantage of the situation. Trevelyan was silver haired and suave, but he suffered from the same weak chin that afflicted many men of his class. He was tall but his shoulders were hunched, and he didn’t look as if he would be able to handle himself in a fight. The fact that he couldn’t stand still, but kept pacing around the veranda, puffing his cigar, was the clearest indication of his unease.

  Even though he was only twenty yards away, Pyke still wasn’t close enough to ambush him without the prospect of Trevelyan shouting for help. So he threw a stone high into the air and waited for it to land a few yards on the other side of his target. Startled, Trevelyan turned around and looked up at the roof and then towards the trees. Pyke moved quickly and quietly across the lawn; Trevelyan saw him only at the last moment and managed a muffled shout just as Pyke clubbed him with his cudgel. He went down without uttering another sound, and Pyke dragged him across the lawn to the line of trees. Still tense, Pyke waited for a few moments, to make sure no one had seen the assault from the house.

  It took a hard slap with the palm of his hand to Trevelyan’s face to bring him around. Pyke had already bound and gagged him and Trevelyan struggled to make sense of his changed circumstances.

  Bending down, with his knife in hand, Pyke held the blade to Trevelyan’s throat and pulled down the gag. ‘Any sudden movement, any attempt to shout for help, anything at all that makes me nervous, and I’ll slice through your veins and let you bleed to death. Nod your head if you understand.’

  Trevelyan nodded; the terror he felt was reflected in his eyes.

  ‘What Jemmy Crane told the police, about being a good citizen, was a lie. I don’t need you to confirm it. What I do need to know is why you corroborated the lie.’

  Trevelyan tried to speak but words failed him. Pyke pressed the blade a little deeper into the skin of his neck.

  ‘What hold does Crane have over you?’

  The director looked up at him imploringly. ‘ Please.’

  ‘You have a choice between life or death. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you and not give it another thought. Is that what you want?’

  Trevelyan started to sob. Pyke inhaled and could almost taste the sourness of the man’s sweat. He closed his fist and slapped Trevelyan around the face once more. That brought the man around. His eyes popped open and his jaw went slack.

  ‘You’re a customer of his, aren’t you,’ Pyke said, a statement rather than a question.

  Trevelyan simply nodded.

  ‘Did you know about his plan to break into the bullion vault?’

  ‘I didn’t think he was serious.’ It came out as a whispered croak.

  ‘So he told you?’

  Trevelyan stared down at the ground. ‘He wanted to know about the deployment of guards.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘That the guardroom is manned at night with soldiers from the Tower.’ He swallowed, his eyes darting around. Pyke had to kick him to make him go on. ‘I also told him that the guardroom is situated next to the entrance to the bullion vault.’

  ‘But what about the arrangements for last night?’ As one of the directors of the Bank, Trevelyan would have been privy to the decision to move the soldiers from the guardroom to the outer fortifications to protect the Bank from the mob that had come to see the hanging.

  Trevelyan squirmed. Pyke kicked him again, harder this time; he was starting to lose patience. He could just imagine how Crane would have courted Trevelyan, charmed him, used him. Let me show you this one, sir. Perhaps you’d like to see something warmer, sir? Something even warmer still? Let’s see what can be done. Sickness feeding sickness. The more depraved the better, as far as Crane was concerned. It would give him greater leverage over Trevelyan, so that the banker would have no choice but to answer all of Crane’s questions or risk being exposed.

  Pyke pulled the knife away, grabbed the banker’s throat with both hands and started to squeeze. He wanted to finish the job but, in the end, he let go and waited while the older man spluttered and gasped for air.

  ‘What you tell me here will remain between us. I just want the truth. If you tell me that, I’ll let you go back to your family. But you have to believe me when I say your life holds about as much worth to me as a pig’s.’

  Sensing a reprieve, Trevelyan spoke quickly. ‘I bought certain items from Crane.’ He licked his lips. ‘One thing led to another. I couldn’t run the risk of him exposing me.’

  The way he said it made it seem so simple, innocent even. Perhaps he still believed that none of it was his fault.

  ‘Daguerreotypes?’

  Trevelyan looked at him, his expression betraying both surprise and resignation. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Initially just bedroom scenes.’ He hesitated. ‘Naked women.’

  ‘But that wasn’t enough, was it?’

  The banker shook his head, finally starting to sob.

  ‘Crane offered you something warmer.’

  Trevelyan nodded. The idea that it was all Crane’s fault appealed to the banker.

  Pyke asked, ‘Did he sell you a daguerreotype featuring a woman with a hare-lip?’

  The banker’s eyes gave him away. He knew it, too, and didn’t try to lie. He nodded but wouldn’t meet Pyke’s eyes.

  ‘Have you still got the picture he sold you?’

  ‘I came home this morning after…’ His hands were trembling. ‘I destroyed them, every last one.’ For the first time, s
omething approaching defiance entered his voice.

  Pyke had expected as much. He thought about the daguerreotype Crane had sold Godfrey’s friend. How much worse could it get?

  ‘Her name was Bessie Daniels. She used to be a prostitute. She was sold to Crane for five guineas.’ Pyke took a breath and swallowed; his throat felt uncomfortable. ‘She’s dead. She was strangled but I think you knew that already.’

  Trevelyan wouldn’t look up at him. Pyke brought the knife back to his throat and this time he nicked the skin and drew blood. ‘Just her naked, lying on a sofa, wasn’t enough, was it? You wanted more.’

  The banker nodded. His head was bowed and his whole body was trembling with fear and shame.

  ‘How much more?’ One more slip of his hand and the blade would slice through Trevelyan’s throat. The temptation was almost too much to bear. ‘ How… much… more? ’ He spat the words out one by one.

  Trevelyan didn’t answer.

  Pyke thought about the chairs he’d seen in the makeshift studio where Bessie Daniels had posed naked on the sofa — and had been killed. ‘You were there, weren’t you? You actually witnessed it. You witnessed someone strangle her.’ There were tears in Pyke’s eyes. ‘My God, you watched her die. You sat in one of those chairs, you smoked a cigar and you watched as someone murdered her.’

  Trevelyan still wouldn’t look at him so Pyke spat into his ear, ‘Answer me, you pathetic coward.’

  ‘ Yes,’ the banker mumbled. His hands were shaking. He took a deep breath and waited. ‘I was there. I saw it.’ There were tears streaming down his face. ‘A man called Sykes strangled her, to the point where she was dead or as good as dead. Then Crane set up the camera.’ Trevelyan swallowed. The way he was telling it, he had played no role in what had happened. ‘That’s what he wanted to capture, as an image. The moment she actually passed away; she hardly moved. That was important. If she’d moved, the image would have been ruined. But later, when I saw the daguerreotype, it was almost as if I could see her dying.’ The way he finished the sentence indicated wonder rather than revulsion.

  Pyke knelt for a moment, the air rushing through his ears as Trevelyan’s confession sunk in. The fact that Trevelyan still couldn’t see the vileness of what he’d done only made it worse.

  Kneeling over the trembling man, Pyke took his throat with both hands and began to squeeze. ‘Is that working for you?’ He squeezed a little harder. ‘Are you aroused now? Are you? ’

  The banker tried to splutter something but Pyke’s hands were clasped too tightly around the man’s throat.

  ‘She was a woman. She was just like your wife, just like your daughters will grow up to be. You might not have strangled her with your own hands but you as good as killed her. Your money as good as killed her.’ Pyke felt his anger swell. ‘What kind of a monster are you? Watching a man take an innocent’s life as though they were performing on stage?’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Trevelyan spluttered, as Pyke relaxed his grip slightly. ‘They weren’t performing. It was real.’

  That made Pyke squeeze even harder, and he watched as the man’s face turned crimson.

  ‘Did it excite you? Seeing her dying? Seeing them all dying.’ Pyke felt a tear roll down his cheek. ‘How many were there?’

  He let go.

  Perhaps if he’d squeezed for a few seconds more Trevelyan would have died. As it was, he held his throat, gulping air.

  Pyke knelt down and pressed his face against Trevelyan’s. ‘ I said, how many were there? Two, three?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Two or three or more?’ He thought of Bessie Daniels and Lucy Luckins and about the eyeballs kept in glass jars deep underground.

  ‘Four, I think.’

  Pyke stood up and drew his sleeve across his mouth. More than anything, he wanted to kill the man lying at his feet. But death would be an escape, a blessing. Pyke wanted the man to live with his shame. Publicly. And he needed Trevelyan alive because the banker was the only one who could be used to trap Crane.

  ‘How much did you pay for each daguerreotype?’ When Trevelyan didn’t answer, Pyke repeated the question, this time louder. ‘How much for the daguerreotype and the best seats in the house?’

  ‘A hundred.’

  If Crane had bought Bessie Daniels for five, that meant a net profit of ninety-five pounds.

  ‘Tomorrow morning you’re going to go to the police office at the Guildhall and you’re going to change your statement.’ He knew this wouldn’t happen but wanted Trevelyan to think he thought it might.

  ‘I can’t. If I do that, he’ll drag me down with him.’

  ‘If you don’t, your life is finished. I’ll tell your wife, your family and everyone at the Bank what you’ve just told me.’

  Trevelyan began to weep again. For himself and his own predicament, Pyke supposed. But not for the dead women.

  Suddenly the idea of spending another second in Trevelyan’s company made Pyke feel ill. He started to walk. To get as far away as possible from the sourness of the man’s sweat. If he stayed, he would kill him. He knew that much about himself.

  ‘That’s it? You’re leaving?’ Trevelyan sat up, dazed, as if none of it had actually taken place. ‘Who are you?’

  Pyke kept walking.

  The tide was rising, and by the time Pyke had climbed down from Dowgate Wharf to the sludgy riverbank, water was already lapping around his ankles. A patchy mist clung to the river, and from his vantage point on the north bank, a hundred yards from Southwark Bridge, Pyke couldn’t see the other bank or indeed New London Bridge, a few hundred yards farther along the river. Using the lantern, he peered into the tunnel entrance. The soil from the sewer had mixed with the rising river water and the resultant brown sludge sloshed around at the mouth of the tunnel. It was eerily quiet, and after midnight had come and gone, and there was still no sign of Field or Paxton, Pyke started to think that perhaps Field had had second thoughts, or that Paxton had told Field about his plans. All these thoughts went through his mind, but at about a quarter past midnight he heard whispered voices above him on the wharf and then Field call out, ‘Crane?’

  ‘Down here,’ Pyke muttered, trying to disguise his voice. He didn’t want Field to recognise him, at least not yet. Not until he was down with him on the bank.

  Pyke waited; he could hear Field talking in a hard, clipped tone. But the man had shown up. That was the important thing.

  Pyke looked up and saw a man’s shoes and then the bottom of a pair of trousers. Field was first down the ladder. Pyke kept himself hidden from view as Field reached the bottom and looked around; he was carrying a lantern. Paxton climbed down the ladder to join him. He was armed but it didn’t look as if Field was. ‘Crane?’ Field waited, holding up the lantern.

  Pyke stepped out from behind the wooden legs of the wharf. Field’s face was a mixture of surprise and resignation. In that instant, he knew. He turned to Paxton, who raised the barrel of his pistol and fired. Field fell to the ground, the ball-shot tearing a chunk out of his frock-coat but nothing more. Pyke took aim and fired, too, but Field rolled away from that one. He kept moving, and in the time it took Pyke to reload, Field had retreated into the mouth of the tunnel. Pyke went after him, but told Paxton to stay where he was.

  Without the lantern, Pyke could barely see his hands, let alone Field. But he could hear him, footsteps sloshing in the soil. Field was running, Pyke following. With the rising tide, the level of the soil came almost to their knees, which made it even more difficult to run. Pyke raised the pistol and fired into the darkness. Briefly the explosion lit up the tunnel. Field was less than twenty yards ahead of him. Pyke heard a grunt, heard Field stumble, but he kept moving. Field’s footsteps had slowed, became more erratic. He was wounded. Pyke could hear him wheezing. Another few steps, and Pyke heard Field stagger and fall. He was less than ten yards ahead. Panting, Pyke stood over Field’s body. In the darkness, he could just about make out his face. He seemed to be smili
ng.

  ‘Better you than someone else.’

  Pyke crouched down and pulled Field’s head up out of the soil. ‘It wasn’t personal. If I didn’t do it you’d have killed me.’ He now saw that his shot had struck Field in the middle of his back. Blood was leaking into the black ooze.

  ‘Tell Paxton…’ Field hesitated and coughed up some blood.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  But Field died before he could finish his sentence. His eyelids fluttered and his body went limp. A long-tailed rat scurried past them, heading deeper into the tunnel.

  On the riverbank, Pyke found Paxton and told him that Field was dead. Paxton took this news in his stride.

  ‘And the woman?’

  Paxton was still holding his pistol and, just for a moment, Pyke thought he was going to use it. Instead he put it into his pocket and started climbing up the ladder. ‘If you give me what you promised me, I’ll take you to her.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  She was sitting at the dressing table, staring at her reflection in the looking glass. Field may have been holding her captive, but the room was comfortable and well appointed, with a proper bed and a place to read and write. She looked up as Pyke entered the room, then turned around, her lips parting and her eyes widening with surprise. He had to admit she looked fantastic. She had just combed her hair and it fell around her face and down her back. For a few moments they stared at one another, Pyke at her flawless complexion, long, slender neck and, above all, her eyes: brown with yellow flecks around the irises and rimmed with circles of black.

  ‘I was hoping you’d come for me,’ she said, a half-smile forming on her lips.

  ‘Hello, Mary.’ Pyke spoke the words boldly; even so, they sounded strange.

  For a moment she stared at him, amazed. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Elizabeth Malvern had green eyes.’

  Mary Edgar remained perfectly still, perhaps trying to work out in her head what to say and how to say it. ‘I always knew you’d be the one who would find me out.’