Andrew Pepper - The Last Days of Newgate

At one o’clock the following afternoon, Pyke was awoken by the unmistakable sound of cattle and sheep being driven along the narrow street below towards the vast market. On market days, the entire downstairs would be filled with traders, drovers, buyers and meat cutters standing three or four abreast along the entire length of the mahogany counter, smearing animal blood from freshly slaughtered carcasses on to cheap glasses from which they drank their gin. Even without the window open, Pyke could smell the filth and mire of the market and hear the screeching din of ten thousand frightened animals squealing, bleating, lowing and awaiting their demise. In spite of the rosemary and lavender sprigs thrown liberally on the floors throughout the building, the whole place would soon smell of offal, excrement and dead flesh.

Lizzie must have heard him splashing his face with water she had left in a bowl for him, because shortly afterwards she was in the room with him, wanting to know how he felt and where he had been until five in the morning, masking her suspicions with affection. She was an ungainly woman, sinewy and powerful despite her apparently slight frame, and easily capable of throwing a man twice her size out of the bar when it was called for. Up close, Pyke could smell the soap he had bought for her last birthday on her scrubbed skin and felt a pang of remorse: remorse that, despite her physical toughness, business acumen and loyalty to him, he was never more than ambivalent about the notion of sharing his bed and his life with her.

She had already lit his fire and piled it high with coal.

When he had finished telling her something about the previous day, downplaying the grimness of the murder scene and omitting his visit to Whitehall, her face was still creased with worry. According to rumours circulating in the bar, a Catholic family had been burned from its home in Saffron Hill and a man of Irish descent had been clubbed to death in Hoxton.

Pyke asked whether she had heard anything at all about the dead family. Lizzie shook her head.

‘Should I be worried ’bout you?’ she said, after a few moments of awkward silence.

Pyke reached for the trousers he had tossed on to the floor. ‘I’ll not be able to see you much in the next few weeks.’

‘And you don’t think I’m used to that by now?’

Pyke stared out of the window.

‘That’s all I’m owed, is it? A quick pat on the head and some words that don’t mean a ha’penny.’ Her skirt clung to her legs, emphasising the thickness of her calves.

‘Lizzie?’

She looked up at him, surprised perhaps by the sudden tenderness of his tone.

He almost managed a smile. ‘You know that you’re a better woman than I deserve.’

Her expression filled with sadness and, as she turned to leave the room, her attempt to provoke a discussion dissolved into the space between them.

‘Before his death, did your brother ever talk about his experiences serving Edmonton?’

Pyke turned from Townsend, with whom he had been talking, to a constable from the local watch who was blocking their path to the lodging house. He informed the affronted man he was there at the behest of Charles Hume. In the narrow street, there was none of the hysteria of the previous night: apart from a few curious onlookers, the place was almost entirely deserted. Certainly the residents, all potential witnesses or sources of information, had either been taken somewhere else or, worse still, dismissed. No doubt they had given false assurances and willingly taken the opportunity to disappear into the welcoming anonymity of the city.

Pyke wondered who had let them go. Did this mean Hume already knew something he did not? He dug his hands into his coat pocket and looked over at Townsend.

Townsend shrugged. ‘He talked about lots of things, mostly what a ghastly, tyrannical creature the old man was.’ Though a Bow Street Runner for longer than Pyke, Townsend had none of Pyke’s ambition, and willingly permitted Pyke to act as he saw fit, so long as he was allowed to prosper from Pyke’s enterprises. It had been entirely fitting that Townsend had come to Pyke three years earlier with news that his brother, a valet for Edmonton, had expired under mysterious circumstances and with a proposal to gain revenge on the man whom he suspected of arranging the death.

Townsend’ s brother had been accused of stealing from Edmonton. But before the charges had been laid out before the magistrates, his body was found floating in a lake in the grounds of Hambledon Hall. The coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of suicide but Townsend had long suspected foul play. He had always believed his brother had discovered something about the aristocrat; something that had, in turn, hastened his demise.

Pyke had worked with Townsend to successfully realise a plan to defraud Edmonton, but Pyke knew the rancour his friend felt towards the man had not withered with time.

‘Did he ever mention Edmonton’s daughter?’

Standing at the bottom of the rickety staircase inside the lodging house, they looked up and saw two men struggling down the steps carrying a large crate. One of them said, ‘Is that the last of it?’ The other said, ‘I don’t reckon we need to bother with the mattress. If he wants it, we can always come back for it.’ Upon seeing Pyke and Townsend, they lowered the crate to the floor. One of them, perhaps the foreman, who was a pugnacious man with a neck like a chimney stack, stared at Pyke as though there was some kind of bad blood between them.

When Pyke explained they were hoping to talk to Charles Hume, the man replied that Hume had returned to number four Whitehall Place, adding, ‘You want him, you ask for him there.’

Pyke explained who he was and that he wanted to inspect the room where the killings had taken place.

The man said he didn’t give a damn what Pyke did, but he wouldn’t find anything in the room itself.

Once the two men were out of earshot, Townsend said, ‘I remember him saying she was wilful. Wilful and able to turn heads, even as a girl. It goes without saying that the old man’s genes can’t have had much to do with her looks. I’m told the mother was a fair beauty.’

Pyke looked at Townsend, interested, ‘What happened to her?’

They started to ascend the staircase. The whole building was eerily quiet.

‘Apparently she went insane. This was well before my brother worked for Edmonton. But there were rumours that she’d been committed, against her will.’ Though they were alone, he lowered his voice. ‘The money was always on her side of the family, if you know what I’m saying.’ Behind him, Townsend paused on the stairs. ‘I heard that she died shortly afterwards. Convenient, don’t you think? Just like my brother.’

Pyke digested the implications of this information for a few moments. ‘Do you know anyone who works for Edmonton now?’

‘Not any more,’ Townsend said, breathing heavily from the exercise. He was a barrel-chested man with thick forearms. ‘But I could ask some questions, see what I turn up.’ At the top of the building, Pyke held up his lantern and motioned to the room.

Townsend looked at him. ‘This is the place?’

Pyke wondered where the corpses had been taken and whether anyone had claimed them for burial.

At the threshold, Townsend hesitated for a moment and said, ‘Why did you ask me about Edmonton?’ His bloodshot eyes suggested his hate for the old man burned as brightly as ever. ‘Has he got something to do with this business?’

Pyke thought about Swift but told Townsend that there wasn’t a connection. He had other business with the old man. He did not mention the robberies. Townsend asked what he wanted to know about the lord’s affairs and his family. Pyke shrugged and said he didn’t know, but any information or gossip about the mother or indeed the daughter might be helpful. ‘Family skeletons,’ he said, half distracted by their proximity to the murder scene.