Read The Detective Branch Online
Authors: Andrew Pepper
Tags: #London (England) - History - 1800-1950, #Mystery & Detective, #Pyke (Fictitious Character: Pepper), #Pyke (Fictitious Character : Pepper), #Fiction, #General, #Mystery Fiction, #Historical, #Traditional British, #Suspense, #Crime
The Detective Branch (8 page)
‘And beating a few of them over the head with truncheons is going to take care of the problem?’
Wells looked up and down the narrow corridor and shook his head, disappointed by Pyke’s response. ‘I see we’re never going to agree on this issue but perhaps, Detective Inspector, I could have some assurance that in the future you will keep me informed on matters pertaining to this investigation?’
‘If you’ll let me know when you intend to drag half of the Irish poor in here to answer questions.’
They regarded one another for a moment or two but it was Wells who broke the silence. Brightening, he slapped Pyke on the arm and said, ‘I’ll do what I can, Detective Inspector. I hope you’ll do likewise.’ When Pyke nodded, he smiled and added, ‘I’m quite certain we will get along together just fine.’
Pyke said he hoped this would be the case and waited. He could tell that Wells had something else on his mind.
‘Actually, Detective Inspector, I wanted to talk to you about Superintendent Benedict Pierce.’
‘Pierce?’ As ever, when the man’s name was mentioned, Pyke felt his skin prickle.
‘Your antipathy towards him is hardly a secret. And by all accounts he is less than fond of you. I heard that he sought to thwart your appointment as head of the Detective Branch?’
Pyke just shrugged. He’d heard the same rumour and suspected it to be true. ‘I’ve made no secret of my low opinion of Pierce.’
‘Quite, quite,’ Wells said, suddenly adopting a more amicable tone, ‘and between you and me, I commend your judgement. While I would never articulate such thoughts in public, I am happy to concede that I find the man to be untrustworthy and unctuous. I am telling you this in confidence, of course.’
‘Fine,’ Pyke said, trying to assess whether Wells’s disparagement of Pierce was genuine or not - and why he had chosen to talk to Pyke about it.
‘You will perhaps have wondered why Superintendent Pierce volunteered to assume command of the Holborn Division.’
‘I have my ideas.’
‘Such as?’
‘He intends to meddle in this investigation. Perhaps he wants to take the credit for any success, or he simply wants to show me up. He still has his admirers in the Detective Branch.’
Wells considered this. ‘Perhaps you know information that could scupper his ascent up the greasy pole.’
A moment’s silence passed between them. Pyke held Wells’s gaze and tried to work out whether he was just fishing for information. ‘Perhaps, but I’m sure he knows things about me that could be just as damaging,’ Pyke said, eventually.
‘Then it might be as well to collect as many friends in high places as possible.’ Wells paused. ‘Perhaps you know that the assistant commissioner’s position is soon to be filled. What you may not know, however, is that Pierce intends to offer himself as a candidate.’
‘But he’s only just been appointed as superintendent of the Holborn Division.’
Wells shrugged. ‘You’ll understand, Pyke, I am not without self-interest in this matter. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I consider myself to be a worthy candidate for the position - or at least more worthy than Pierce.’
‘If it came down to a straight choice between you and Pierce, you can rest assured that I wouldn’t recommend Pierce.’
That seemed to gratify the former soldier and he grinned and clapped Pyke on the back. ‘Capital, old chap. Capital. And I’ll do my utmost not to interfere in your investigation. How does that sound?’
When Lockhart brought the crossing-sweeper to Pyke’s office later that day, the dishevelled and slightly pungent man kept to his story and confirmed everything that Lockhart had said. As soon as the shots were fired, the crossing-sweeper said, the policeman had hurried off in another direction. That was how he knew the man had a limp, he added. Lockhart remained in the room while Pyke questioned the sweeper, his expression slightly smug. Once the man had said his piece, Pyke thanked both him and Lockhart and gave the former a few shillings for his time.
Pyke barely had a moment to gather his thoughts when Billy Gerrett knocked on his door and fell into the room. His large, round face was still glistening with sweat from the run up the stairs. ‘We know who one of the victims was.’
If it had been Whicher or Lockhart, they might have seen Pyke’s involuntary flinch. As it was, Gerrett was too wrapped up in his news.
‘Who?’
A drop of sweat fell from Gerrett’s chin and landed a few inches from the tip of Pyke’s boots.
‘Harry Dove,’ Gerrett said. ‘The one who was shot in the back.’
‘And this identification has been corroborated?’
Gerrett nodded briskly. ‘Two independent witnesses. Both credible.’
Pyke stared up at Gerrett’s jowly face and his mop of greasy blond hair. ‘And what could they tell us about this man?’
‘One said he used to work at the Old Cock in Holborn; the other that he lives somewhere on Finsbury Square.’
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘Well, I told Lockhart and Shaw . . .’
‘That’s fine,’ Pyke said, trying to appear more genial. ‘Just don’t divulge his name to anyone outside the department. That understood?’ When Gerrett nodded, Pyke added, ‘Have you checked the files?’
Again Gerrett nodded.
‘And?’
‘There’s nothing on Dove.’
Pyke knew this already, but he tried to appear sanguine. ‘Of course, it could be that he was just a customer. Unlucky man finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
But the implications were lost on Billy Gerrett. He nodded blankly and waited for Pyke to congratulate him on a job well done.
After Gerrett left, Pyke opened the filing cabinet, removed a wad of route-papers from the previous six months and put them on his desk. It took him half an hour to find what he’d been looking for. On the fifth of March, a burglary had been reported at the private residence of Archdeacon Wynter; the items stolen included a communion plate and a jewelled cross. Pyke made a note of the archdeacon’s address, put the reports back in the cabinet, and sat in his chair, trying to recall why no one in the Detective Branch had been asked to investigate this particular burglary.
The following day, a Sunday, Pyke spent the morning with Felix, a ritual they had fallen into following Emily’s death. At first it had been a genuine pleasure to go for a walk or a ride in a carriage with his son, a weekly event he would look forward to and which the boy seemed to enjoy as well. In the last few years, however, this ritual had dwindled from a weekly event to a monthly one, a slow, unspoken retreat from the intimacy they’d once known, and now, when Pyke suggested they go to the zoo or take a ride out to the country, his son responded with a dead-eyed shrug, not rejecting the idea but not showing any enthusiasm either. Pyke wasn’t necessarily upset by this but he couldn’t stand Felix’s distance, the fact that the lad spent so much time with his head in a book. He’d tried to ask, on a few occasions, what interested the boy or what exactly he saw himself doing in the future, but Felix would only look at him with a pained expression and say he didn’t know. Pyke loved him, of course, but he worried about what the school that cost him so much money was turning Felix into. Privately he was glad Felix had not yet become some kind of adolescent gentleman, but the lad’s apparent thirst for knowledge had turned him against more earthly pursuits.
That morning, they had aimlessly toured the deserted streets of the West End in the back of a hackney carriage, then Pyke had given up the carriage and made them walk from the edge of Regent’s Park all the way to Holborn. It had started to rain after the first ten minutes and they completed the hour-long stroll in grudging silence, Felix a few steps behind him, hands buried in his pockets.
‘There’s a man I need to talk to,’ Pyke said, as they neared his intended destination. He reached into his coat and retrieved a few coins. ‘Here, that’s for the fare home.’
Felix took the coins, his eyes barely acknowledging Pyke. Pyke supposed no more would be said, but then the lad surprised him.
‘Why don’t we go to church on Sundays like everyone else?’ There was a note of confrontation in his voice.
Pyke knew that Felix had started to exhibit an interest in such matters but he’d made a point of not encouraging him. ‘You don’t like our Sunday mornings?’
Felix knew better than to confront Pyke directly but he elected not to answer the question.
‘If you like, you can come with me while I visit this man. Perhaps you’ll understand my reasoning better once you’ve met him.’
Pyke didn’t know for certain that Archdeacon Wynter was the objectionable creature he suspected but he felt on reflection that it was highly likely.
‘Who is he?’ Felix wanted to know, a little intrigued now.
‘The archdeacon? One of the most powerful church figures in the whole city.’
‘And why do you need to see him?’
‘A crucifix was stolen from his private safe a few months ago. I think it was the reason those three people were killed in the shop near Drury Lane.’
But already Felix’s interest had waned. Just as a hackney carriage drew alongside them, and without discussing the matter, the lad thrust out his arm. Felix looked at Pyke and shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your work.’
In matters of religion, Pyke was unusual, he supposed, insofar as he didn’t just doubt God’s existence; rather, he was certain, in his own mind at least, that to presume the existence of God was the height of folly. Pyke didn’t shout his views from the rooftops. He was astute enough to realise that such ideas weren’t merely unfashionable in the current climate; they were downright inflammatory. In private, Pyke would describe the Roman religion as mysticism and obfuscation, and the Protestant faith as dour and joyless, a practice whose main function seemed to be social rather than spiritual: to make the unruly docile and compliant. In public, though, he would bow his head if a prayer was said or if God’s wisdom was called upon. He might give a sardonic smile if he was in polite company and grace was being said, particularly if the recipient of his smile was passably attractive and suitably unimpressed with her husband. To such women he would try to appear as irreverent and worldly because, as everyone knew, Christians were earnest hence unattractive, and they made terrible lovers. He would let these women see that he was dangerous and had a bit of the Devil in him, and later, when he was fucking them in the cloakroom or outside in an alleyway, they would know this for themselves.
Wisdom and experience had taught Pyke not to antagonise the pious unnecessarily, but when he met men like Adolphus Wynter, it was hard not to fall back into old habits.
The archdeacon was the kind of man whose smile put you in mind of fingernails being scraped down a schoolroom blackboard. He was about fifty or thereabouts and still looked in rude health, with a ruddy jowl and the kind of sagging chin that came from overindulgence, and when he shook hands, he squeezed hard, as if the ritual weren’t simply a greeting but a test of strength. The ring on his finger told Pyke he was married and later, when Pyke was introduced to his wife, he knew instinctively that the marriage wasn’t a happy one. Sometimes you could just tell. The archdeacon wore a black gown and cassock and Pyke could see that he was the kind of man who felt comfortable in this attire, as though it confirmed to others that he had been chosen by God. But it was Wynter’s eyes which really caught Pyke’s attention. In all the time Pyke was in the man’s presence, he almost never blinked.
‘You’ll understand, I can’t possibly entertain your enquiry today. In fact, I’m surprised you should even think to bother me on the Sabbath.’
They were standing in the entrance hall of Wynter’s impressively proportioned town house on Red Lion Square.
‘Well, I am a little surprised to find you at home but since you are here, I think it would be best if you could grant me a few minutes of your valuable time.’ In actuality, Pyke had been told that Wynter always took his Sunday lunch at home before returning to St Paul’s for the evening service.
‘You are working, sir, and therefore breaking the Sabbath, and if I should indulge your blasphemy, I should be breaking the Sabbath too.’
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