Andrew Pepper - The Last Days of Newgate

Pyke said nothing but again looked across at the three men.

‘Do you think I am bothered by their uncouth behaviour? ’

‘And when they feel sufficiently confident from the ale to approach you directly, am I supposed to step aside and permit them to speak to you?’

This seemed to amuse her. ‘You do not strike me as the kind of man who would easily step aside in any situation.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he said, unable to conceal his annoyance. ‘But such action, in my current circumstances, would open both of us to very great risks.’

A shadow fell across her face. ‘I did not think. .’

She was interrupted when one of the men stood up, all of a sudden, and stumbled towards them, barging past Pyke as he did so. The other two also got to their feet in preparation for a fight. Their crossed arms and mean stares told Pyke what he needed to know. The man nearest to them, flabby-faced with whiskers, stammered something incoherently to Emily. She recoiled from him.

‘Leave her alone.’ Pyke was on his feet. He spoke in a calm, measured tone.

The whiskered man turned to square up to him. He had a scar that zigzagged down the right side of his face. ‘Sit down if you don’t want to be hurt. Let that be your final warning, boy.’

Feeling hopelessly exposed, Pyke pulled down the cap in an effort to conceal his face. Proceedings in the room had come to a halt as the gathered few looked expectantly in their direction.

‘You want to fuck?’ the whiskered ruffian said, staring cross-eyed at Emily. He was unsteady on his feet.

The first hammer blow was the decisive one. It came out of nowhere and landed the uncomprehending man squarely on his backside with a dull thump. Pyke cracked his bruised knuckles and turned to face his two friends. One of them launched himself at Pyke and barrelled into his midriff, sending them both sprawling on to the floor and knocking his cap off in the process. Pyke, though, recovered quickest and manoeuvred his startled assailant into a headlock. Pulling him to his feet, Pyke used the man’s torso as a shield against his friend’s assault, pushing them both backwards with sufficient force to topple them on to a nearby table. He followed this up with a kick to the groin of the taller man. The other man picked himself up and circled around Pyke with his fists raised; his expression was guarded and fearful. But when Pyke attacked he was too slow and too drunk to parry the blow. Those watching the spectacle took a sharp collective breath as Pyke landed the decisive punch on the bridge of the man’s nose; it snapped with an audible pop before blood exploded from his nostrils.

Pyke took Emily’s hand and was halfway across the room and walking briskly towards the door when someone shouted, ‘That’s Pyke.’ Another murmured something in agreement. No one seemed to know what to do, whether to block his path or let him leave. Pyke knew that their indecision, and fear, represented his best and only chance of escape.

Outside, he told Emily to run. Behind them, drinkers from the Old Cock spilled out on to the street. Angry shouts filled the eerie silence. ‘That’s Pyke. . someone stop him. . get him. . lynch the bastard.’ At the end of the street, they turned into a side alley and from there into a small courtyard. For a moment, they waited and listened over the noise of their beating hearts as their pursuers raced past. A half-open door beckoned. Silently, Pyke led Emily into the darkened interior of what seemed to be someone’s kitchen. The room was deserted. A pair of boots hung over the grate. He closed the door behind them and turned to face Emily, whose face glistened with excitement.

Her hair, damp from the rain, clung to her smooth, angular face and brushed against her delicate shoulder blades. Without speaking, Pyke ran his fingers gently through her locks and stared into her wide-open eyes. Her lips parted before she embraced him, an urgent, smouldering kiss that seemed to envelop them and, for the briefest of moments, turn their thoughts from the events of the evening. When she looked at him again, through her long, wispy lashes, she was grinning.

‘Why are you smiling?’

Her eyes glistened with anticipation.

‘What is it?’

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

Emily’s knowing smile revealed the whiteness of her teeth.

‘The real reason I came to find you today,’ she said, waiting for a moment. ‘I wanted to tell you about a transfer of money that’s due to take place between the Bank of England here in London and two of my uncle’s banks in Norfolk.’ She seemed to read his mind because almost at once she added, ‘This time, I believe, it is a genuine one.’

Pyke pulled back from their intimate embrace to study her expression. ‘Tell me more.’

Still whispering, Emily proceeded to describe what she had overheard at her father’s house. She explained that at harvest times the eastern counties were swamped with itinerant workers, but that the banks did not carry sufficient funds in reserve to cover the farmers’ costs. In order to ensure that the Blackwood banks had enough money to pay these wages, funds had to be physically transferred from a vault in the Bank of England to the various banks in Norfolk.

‘So why are you telling me this?’ he asked, eventually.

‘It is not in your nature to make things easy for me, is it?’ But her wounded expression seemed a little feigned.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

This time, she looked directly at him. ‘Why do you imagine that I am here?’

For once, Pyke did not have an answer.

She stepped forward into the space between them and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Is it so hard for you to accept that my loyalties may lie somewhere other than at Hambledon? ’

‘It is hard but not that hard.’ This time he reciprocated the embrace. A hot spike of desire swelled up within him. ‘Of course, if this information fell into the wrong hands, it could cause your father significant harm.’

Emily nodded. ‘There would certainly be no money available to the farmers to pay my father’s rents.’

‘Would that cause him difficulties?’

‘At present?’ Emily shrugged. ‘I would think so.’

Pyke nodded. ‘Such an undertaking could be highly dangerous.’

‘It shouldn’t be undertaken lightly, that is certain.’ Emily reached out and ran her fingers across his cheek. ‘Nor might such action be suitable for the faint-hearted.’

‘One would have to be of a particular constitution, I agree.’

‘One would have to be bold,’ Emily said, nodding.

Pyke nodded, playing along. ‘Strong as well as bold.’

‘That goes without saying.’ Emily broke into a wide smile.

‘Strong enough to chase down a stagecoach on horseback? ’

‘I would say so.’

‘Strong enough to fire a pistol?’

That drew a slight frown. ‘Would that be necessary?’

Pyke waited until she was looking at him. ‘Strong enough to stand up to your father?’ His remark registered and he wondered why he found her disconcertion as sexually gratifying as her more obvious attempts to appeal to him. But when he tried to kiss her again she pulled away from him and gathered herself to leave, as though unaware that his ardour could not as easily be put aside.

The air in the crowded taproom was musty and the floors were caked in mud. The room itself was heaving with red-faced milliners and seamstresses dressed in tatty shawls and bonnets, carousing with drunken hop-pickers, flush with the earnings of their labours in Kent. Urged on by the melodious strains of a fiddle, they may have looked like a good-natured lot, dancing ankle-deep in butcher’s sawdust that still carried the stink of rancid meat, but Pyke knew that every one of them would have crawled over their loved ones’ corpses for the chance to earn the reward that had been offered for information leading to his arrest.