Andrew Pepper - Bloody Winter

‘You sired another child with my mother. His name is John Johns. He was brought up by your gatekeeper. But none of this is a surprise to you, is it?’

Moore sought to recover lost ground. ‘You’ll go to prison for this. The scaffold even. Don’t think I wouldn’t do it. Even if you are …’

‘Even if I am…?’

‘What is it you want, boy? Some money perhaps, to get yourself back on your feet? All right, I’ll let you wet your beak.’

‘Money? You think I’d touch your money? Tainted with the blood of all those people you’ve allowed to die?’

‘What poppycock…’

Knox had heard enough. He grabbed the old man’s throat, pressed his fingers into the wrinkly flesh, and began to squeeze. It felt good, better than he had expected. ‘Say it,’ he hissed.

It was hard to let go, to stop. Eventually he did. Moore was spluttering, his face the colour of beetroot. ‘Say what, you fool?’

‘How many times did you fuck my mother? Twice? More?’

‘What do you want me to say, boy? That I loved your mother? Well, I did. There. I was young, she was beautiful, but poor, a servant. There was no way we could have made a life together. But what’s done is done. I looked out for you, didn’t I? I got you your position and Johns a commission in the army.’

Knox stood there, hardly able to fathom the self-justification coming from the man’s mouth. ‘You evicted my family from our home. My son caught a fever and nearly died. And I’m supposed to feel grateful?’

Moore didn’t have an answer. Perhaps for the first time, Knox saw something resembling contrition in the man’s face. His voice was suddenly quiet. ‘I was hurt, boy, hurt that you’d gone behind my back. I thought you of all people would obey me…’

‘Because I’m your son?’

Moore wouldn’t look at him.

‘I want only what you took from me; nothing more, nothing less.’ Knox waited. ‘I want my position back at the constabulary — a promotion to head constable — and I want you to rebuild my cottage, the one you had Brittas tear down.’

Moore straightened up, all his indignation gone. ‘And you’ll keep your mouth shut?’

Knox nodded, but he still didn’t know whether he’d abide by any agreement they reached. ‘The man who was killed, the police detective from London…’

‘What about him?’

‘Why did he come here?’

‘Something had happened in Wales. I don’t know what. Johns didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. Johns came here begging for money — said there was a policeman looking for him. He said he wouldn’t come back, that he had a debt to settle in Lisvarrinane, and after that, he promised to disappear for good.’

‘When you laid eyes on the body for the first time, you were taken aback. Someone said your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.’

‘Johns came back to see me that night. He told me what had happened; that there had been a struggle — that he’d stabbed and killed this man, a police detective from London. But he didn’t say where the struggle had taken place. I was shocked when I heard how close the body was, when I saw it with my own eyes.’

Knox stared down at the old man’s rheumy eyes and hairless, oval head and tried to see something of himself in his face.

‘So when the body was eventually discovered, you decided to ask for me, demand that I take charge of the investigation, to make sure nothing ever came to light about your link with the murderer.’

The old man nodded. There was nothing else to say. It was just as he had supposed. Moore had hand-picked him for the task because he knew that Knox and his family were beholden to him.

For what he’d done, for his callousness, his indifference to the suffering of others, Moore deserved to die, but Knox wasn’t a murderer, didn’t want that on his conscience as well. And he needed what Moore could give him: his former position and his home.

As he left, again using the poor door, he wondered where his mother was, whether she was working in the kitchens. And he wondered whether he would ever see her again.

Knox walked from Dundrum to Clonoulty; his mind was clearer now that he had stood up to the aristocrat and watched him cave in, his father who wasn’t his father. With each step, he felt a sense of perspective return. James was alive and that was all that mattered. Martha still loved him and he loved her. She would forgive him for abandoning her. He knew she would; she had a good heart. They would rebuild their lives and there would be nothing more that Moore could do to harm them.

The journey from Dundrum took hours but Knox didn’t care. He would’ve walked to Dublin if he had to. It was still dark when he arrived in Clonoulty and he didn’t bother to knock when he got to Mackey’s house.

Despite the lateness of the hour, candlelight was visible in the front window. Opening the front door, Knox entered the hall. He found his wife sitting in the back room. She didn’t look up when he entered. He sat down next to her on the bed and sighed.

‘I’m sorry, Martha. I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you, that you’ve had to endure this on your own. I don’t have the words you need to hear, there are no words…’ Knox paused. ‘But James is going to get better. We can rebuild our lives. Isn’t that what counts?’

Martha didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. They sat next to one another, each contemplating their situation in silence.

‘There’s nothing left for us here, is there?’ Martha’s voice cracked as she spoke. ‘I’m so grateful that the Lord spared our son but there’s nothing left for us in this place, is there? Here, in this land, our country.’

Nothing left for us. Our country.

Knox reached out, put his hand on hers, and squeezed it. Martha didn’t take it but she didn’t spurn it either.

MONDAY, 4 JANUARY 1847

Dundrum, Co. Tipperary

Dundrum High Street was a collection of four or five buildings on either side of a mud track; the only place to stay was a ramshackle inn where the landlord rented him a simple room for a few shillings. Pyke didn’t intend staying any longer than necessary.

He had travelled from Merthyr to Newport and from there to Cork City by ship. The crossing had been quiet and the ship nearly deserted. No one wanted to travel to Ireland. On the ship, he heard stories of destitution and loss, heartbreaking stories, villages wiped out by starvation and disease. From Cork, he journeyed by mail-coach to Cashel and from there he walked the remaining ten miles to Dundrum. The journey had taken a week and then it had taken him another week to track down Johns to a cabin between Dundrum and Oughterleague. That night he had followed Johns to the village’s great house and watched from the stables as Johns slipped into the house via the servant’s entrance.

Pyke had found the travelling arduous but comforting; the notion of going somewhere at least gave his existence some purpose, time spent on trains, boats and stagecoaches affording him the opportunity to think about Felix, to grieve: not simply to berate himself, but to remember his son. Now he just wanted to find out how Felix had died — he owed his son that much. Johns was his last chance for enlightenment. Before coming to Dundrum, Pyke had also made the journey to Lisvarrinane to confront Smyth, but evidently Johns had beaten him to it. He had been told that a fire had ripped through the big house and that the master, who’d only recently returned from Wales, had perished in it.

At just ten years of age, Felix had taken one of Pyke’s pistols and used it to scare a boy who had been terrorising him, waved it in his face, finger poised on the trigger. The pistol had been loaded. Pyke tried, in vain, to reconcile this memory of his son with a more recent one, the Bible open in front of him, talking about forgiveness, contrition and God’s grace. Perhaps you quite simply couldn’t reconcile such things, Pyke decided. You just accepted that you couldn’t reduce people you loved to one thing or another, that they would always go ahead and surprise you.