Andrew Pepper - The Last Days of Newgate

‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel able to reciprocate your generosity.’

They eyed one another warily, like two beasts circling in a cage.

‘I presume you have followed Swift and that he has led you to my money,’ Edmonton said, eventually, settling back into his cushioned seat.

‘I have certainly followed him.’

‘But not found my money?’ It was Edmonton’s money now, not the bank’s.

Pyke heard a scream from one of the adjacent buildings and momentarily looked away.

Edmonton coughed up some phlegm into a large white handkerchief and then said, ‘You will, of course, know that Swift has vacated his position in the bank and disappeared, then.’

Pyke didn’t know but concealed his interest in this development. Again, he wondered what business Swift had in the lodging house.

Edmonton continued, ‘But since you have been keeping a close eye on him, you will no doubt know whereabouts the brigand has fled to.’

‘I have had other business to attend to.’

‘What other business?’ Edmonton’s face glowered with indignation. ‘Damnation, man, I’m paying you to work for me.’ He spat these words out.

‘You’ll remember that you haven’t as yet paid me a farthing.’

‘You’ve an answer for everything, haven’t you? Pray, tell me how you might yourself fare inside a prison.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘It is, if you don’t pull yourself together, find where this Swift fellow has gone and get my money.’ Spittle flew from his mouth.

‘And you’re in a position to make such terms binding?’ Pyke said, amused more than concerned.

‘I heard there’s a papist recidivist, Flynn, who’s been making certain accusations about you. Claims you’re no better than him: a dirty, dishonest thief.’

Now Edmonton had Pyke’s attention. ‘And?’

‘What if Flynn’s accusations could be substantiated? Corroborated, as they say.’ The old man’s grin revealed teeth as yellow as his skin.

‘Evidence can always be fabricated. In any case, it would be a foolish man who did not take advantage of all available circumstances to further his own interests. These sentiments are as true for a poor man who steals an apple as for a rich man who steals a whole estate.’

Edmonton seemed taken aback but Pyke was more interested in searching his own brain for an explanation of how Edmonton might have found out about Flynn.

Pyke had used Flynn to store items that he had recovered from thieves but which he could not claim any ransom on. Flynn had tried to defraud him by selling on some of these items without consultation and would pay the ultimate price for his dishonesty on the scaffold.

With some effort Edmonton leaned forward, almost so that his head protruded from the carriage, and whispered, ‘You know enough to make things awkward for yourself, boy, but not enough to make things awkward for me. Think on that before you do anything rash.’

Before Pyke could answer, Edmonton disappeared into the cab’s interior and left Pyke to ponder his threats.

Lizzie was drunk and agitated. That was part of the problem. It made her combative, whereas he was just tired. The skin around her neck was flushed and blotchy.

‘Thirty-seven messages, Pyke, and all from thieves and swindlers. You think I got the time to be your secret’ry?’ Lizzie tucked her straw hair behind her ears. ‘Why do you want to find this whore anyhow? Are you fucking her?’

Pyke could smell the bar on her clothes: the spiced gin and tobacco. He had once found her muscular forearms attractive but now they just seemed vulgar. He knew other men found her desirable, the kind who clung to the bar as though it were a lifeboat set adrift in the ocean. On occasions, the gin palace would attract doctors fresh from carving up human beings in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, but mostly their customers were men who traded and slaughtered animals. In either case, they smelt of fresh blood. This was the kind of man who lusted after Lizzie, but Pyke was as certain as he could be that she had been faithful to him, even though he could not claim the same thing.

It was unfair, expecting something from Lizzie he was not prepared to reciprocate, but he did not lose any sleep over his own double standards.

His room was kept warm by a plentiful supply of coal. There were a few ostensible trappings of wealth — a large Turkish rug, a feather comforter on the bed — and one of the walls was adorned entirely with shelves of books. It was an unremarkable room, one that aptly suited Pyke’s needs. Though he had in excess of three thousand pounds lodged in a City bank, Pyke did not like to draw attention to his modest wealth. Still, he sometimes enjoyed the envy money elicited in others and would show off his gold watch or a wad of banknotes simply in order to witness the stares of those less wealthy and fortunate than himself.

He asked whether Lizzie had heard anything from Polly Masters at the Rose tavern in Covent Garden.

‘Whoever left you a message, they’re all written out. I put the list on your desk.’

Later, in Lizzie’s room, as Pyke guided his erection into her, his face pressed into her pillow, he tried to picture Emily Blackwood’s expression, the way she would close her eyes whenever she laughed or the looks she gave him, with eyes that were inscrutable and alluring.

Pyke felt himself harden and used the jolt of excitement to finish, so he could return to the comforting silence of his own room. But as he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, Lizzie’s sadness was tangible.

‘What is it about me?’ There was no anger in her voice. Only regret.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sometimes I think you despise me.’

Sighing, Pyke shifted away from her. ‘If I despised you, would I still be here?’

‘But you’re not here.’ She looked at the empty space next to her. ‘That’s the problem.’

‘Everyone has their problems.’

‘Everyone has problems. Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

Earlier Pyke had read through the list of names that Lizzie had compiled, but found no message from Polly Masters.

‘Am I just another woman to fuck?’

Pyke rolled over, out of the bed, and reached down to pick up his shirt, strewn across the floor. In the dimness of the candlelight he had to strain to see where he had left his shoes.

‘You’re right.’ He was by the door, with his back facing her. His tone was as soft as he could manage.

‘Right about what?’ There was hope in her voice. He hated himself for it.

‘I’m sorry.’ He pulled the door open but still did not turn around to face her.

‘Is that it? You’re sorry?’ She sounded angry. ‘What the fuck are you sorry for?’

‘You deserve better.’ He made to leave.

Lizzie exhaled loudly. ‘God, you’re a cold bastard.’ Pyke guessed she probably had tears in her eyes but did not turn around to see whether he was right.

Much later, when he could not sleep, Pyke ascended the staircase up to the garret under the tiles where George Morgan’s crippled form lay on the bed. Often, Pyke had wondered why Lizzie insisted upon tending her father, when he hardly seemed to know who or where he was, but equally he could not imagine casting the old man out on to the street or into an asylum.

Pyke stood by the window cut into the roof and looked out at the brick chimneys of the slumbering city.

In the darkness, George’s chest expanded slightly as he slept, the only indication that he was alive. Until his stroke, he had been an impressive figure, but now he seemed as frail as a rose petal.

Under George’s tutelage, Pyke had developed from ingenu into a hardened professional and he could still hear the man’s raspy voice: The law is what men want it to be. Only a fool or a coward fails to take advantage of the opportunities available to him. Between them, they had once set up and arrested the capital’s most notorious robber. As George put it, afterwards, that they had prospered from the spoils of this man’s crimes was incidental to the fact that someone who had once bitten a prostitute’s ear clean from her head, and pummelled an apprentice to death with his bare fists, had hung by the rope.