Andrew Pepper - Bloody Winter

Maggie Atkins gasped softly and then covered her mouth. ‘She… she blamed herself…’ Tears welled in her eyes.

‘Her wrists had been slit. I found her in an underground passageway at the back of the building.’

William’s former nanny tried to fight back the tears. ‘I tried to talk to her, reason with her…’

‘Why did she blame herself for William’s death?’

There was a wild look in her eyes. ‘You don’t know? Cathy always thought you’d find out.’

‘Find out what?’ Pyke’s mind was racing, trying to make the connection.

‘There was no kidnapping — at least not a genuine one. It was staged to appear genuine, for the benefit of the driver and ultimately Jonah Hancock.’ Maggie’s head was bowed and her tone was disconsolate.

Pyke’s mind drifted back to the first words Cathy had said to him. You shouldn’t have come. She hadn’t asked for him, hadn’t wanted him there. Cathy — and others, including Maggie — had set the whole thing up with the intention, no doubt, of extorting twenty thousand pounds from her husband. And then what? For a moment Pyke wondered at the recklessness and naivety of the scheme. There was no way men like the Hancocks would have allowed such a thing to take place without exacting retribution. His mind turned to her body. Perhaps this was what had happened.

‘Tell me about it, Maggie.’

She nodded once. ‘I suppose Cathy had had enough of her husband’s boorish ways, his infidelities, her father-in-law’s interference. She knew he’d never consent to a divorce, at least not one that allowed her to keep William. And she couldn’t afford to leave just like that. In any case, she’d put up with the Hancocks for five years, and she believed she deserved something for her efforts.’

Pyke thought about Cathy’s unhappiness and what it must have taken to drive her to do such a thing. ‘And you and John Johns agreed to help?’

Maggie stared at him and then nodded. ‘I saw at first hand how terrible her husband and her father-in-law could be.’

‘And Johns? Was he her lover?’

Maggie blushed a little, perhaps taken aback by the bluntness of his question. ‘Some of the time. I think he liked her more than she liked him. But he had his own reasons for wanting to get back at the Hancocks.’

It made sense now, Johns’ occasional diffidence towards him; he would have seen Pyke as a rival for Cathy’s affection. Perhaps Johns had been spying on them the night he and Cathy had embraced in the garden.

‘So they concocted this plan? Execute the kidnapping and then send a ransom note to the Castle from Scottish Cattle.’ Pyke waited and said, ‘You wrote the first letter — and the last one.’

Maggie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She was shivering from the cold. ‘That was John’s idea, Scottish Cattle. He did it to confuse the Hancocks; no one’s heard from the Bull in years.’

‘You didn’t send the second letter, though? The one directing me up to the quarry.’

She shook her head.

‘Know who did?’

‘No.’

Pyke studied her expression and decided he believed her. ‘But you — Cathy — must have believed Jonah would pay.’

‘I was nursemaid and nanny to that boy for four years. Jonah had his faults, plenty of them, but he loved his son.’

‘It would have been cruel, then, what you all planned to do. Take his son away from him, presumably start a new life with the twenty thousand?’

‘Let me put it a different way. He loved the idea of his son. But most of the time he hardly saw William.’

Pyke considered this. It made him think of his own failings as a father. The same accusation could have been levelled at him. ‘What happened, after Johns set up the kidnapping? Where did you keep the boy?’

‘That hut, up the slope from his cabin.’ Maggie’s cheeks coloured slightly. ‘I think I saw you from the window one day…’

So the Hancock boy had been there the first time Pyke had visited. No wonder Johns had poked a rifle in his face.

‘Did Cathy say whether Jonah or Zephaniah suspected anything?’

‘That was her main worry. She thought one of them, especially Zephaniah, would work it out. But she didn’t think they had, even at the end.’

‘So what went wrong with the kidnapping?’ He was starting to form an impression of Maggie Atkins: a devoted servant who had seen Cathy’s unhappiness and decided to help.

‘John had this notion that someone was following him. There were people he trusted, radicals, the ones who’d helped him carry out the kidnapping. So the day before the rendezvous at the railway station, he had them stage an ambush in the middle of town — to check whether anyone really was following him, and make people think he’d disappeared. He wanted to lie low for the night, make sure no one knew where he was. His task was to collect the ransom money — meet the train at Cwmbach, collect the suitcase and then jump off between there and Fernhill.’

So it hadn’t been Wylde and his bullies who had snatched Johns in broad daylight. But Smyth had known about it because that was how Pyke had found out.

‘What was your part in the whole affair? You were looking after William, right? All being well, he was due to arrive on the eleven o’clock train.’

‘The night before, Johns took me and the boy to Fernhill. We stayed in a room near the station. He said he would let me know if all went well; then all I had to do was put William on the train.’

‘Weren’t you worried the boy might say something to his father afterwards? He would have been part of the deception, or at least he would have had to play along with it. Wasn’t that too much of a burden to put on his shoulders?’

‘You never met William, did you?’ Maggie’s eyes started to mist up again.

‘No.’

‘He was a thoughtful, intelligent boy. In all honesty, he hated his life at the Castle, hated to see his mother so sad. His father was an abstraction to him and he cried whenever Zephaniah tried to take him in hand. Cathy was his life, and when she asked him if he’d be happy to move somewhere else, start again, he said yes. He could be cunning if necessary. And stubborn, too. He knew what was at stake.’

‘So Cathy’s plan was to take William back to the Castle for a while, pretend everything was fine. Then what? Disappear one night and never return.’

‘Something like that.’ Maggie wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress. ‘Cathy felt it was too risky, fleeing straight away. Better to let the dust settle, pick her moment. Perhaps when Jonah and Zephaniah went to London on business or their home in Hampshire.’

Pyke considered the plan and tried to work out whether it was stupid, foolhardy or brilliant in its own way.

‘So what happened? What went wrong?’

‘That night, I was in the room in Fernhill, with William. Neither of us slept much, as you can imagine. As it was getting light I heard voices, whispers, outside the window.’ Maggie had to pause, the rawness of the memories still too much for her. ‘I’m sorry.’

Pyke looked around the barren churchyard, the headstones. ‘Take all the time you need.’

Maggie nodded forlornly. ‘I rushed over to the window. That’s when I saw him: he was standing outside, face clear in the dawn.’

‘Saw who?’

‘Sir Clancy Smyth.’

Pyke stared at her; he hadn’t expected this. He still didn’t know how the magistrate was implicated in Felix’s death but he hadn’t suspected Smyth’s involvement in the kidnapping.

‘You knew who he was?’

Maggie nodded. ‘I’d seen him at the Castle a few times.’

‘But he wasn’t on his own?’

‘No.’ She took a breath, trying to control her emotions. ‘There was another man with him, someone I couldn’t see properly. A moment or two later, his man kicked down the door. He was wearing a handkerchief over his face. He picked up William with one arm and there was a pistol in the other hand. He was as close as you are. He aimed the pistol at me and I think I screamed. Then at the last moment, he turned, fired it into the wall. William was shouting, trying to wriggle free, but the man’s grip was too strong. He took the boy and I heard the carriage leave. That was the last time I saw him.’ Tears were flowing down her cheeks.