Andrew Pepper - Bloody Winter

Johns had bolted and Pyke had pursued him through the long grass until the former soldier had been caught out by the bend in the river, with nowhere left to run.

It had been more than a month since Pyke had last seen the big man and he seemed different. Less sure of himself, skittish. He looked thinner, too.

‘Who did?’

‘Apparently it was an accident.’

Pyke felt the skin tighten across his temples. ‘Apparently?’

Johns glanced behind him at the river, black, cold and silent. ‘I found him at the courthouse, at the bottom of the stairs.’

‘You’re saying he fell?’

‘My guess is that Smyth had been keeping him there against his will. I can only assume your son tried to escape and fell down the stairs, broke his neck.’

‘So who picked him up and put him on the bed upstairs?’

‘I did.’ Johns looked down at the frozen ground. ‘I found the letters he’d written to you and realised he was your son.’ Johns tapped his coat pocket. ‘I brought them with me.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t want anyone else to identify him. I knew you’d go there eventually, that you’d find him. I wanted you to find him, to be able to bury him, and grieve. But I couldn’t stay in Merthyr…’

Pyke felt a stabbing pain in his chest, a sharp ache from the pointlessness of it all. ‘And Smyth?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘You followed him here?’

‘He killed William Hancock.’ Johns looked into Pyke’s face. ‘Or he as good as killed the lad.’

Pyke nodded blankly. He could let Johns carry on thinking that Smyth was guilty but at the same time the man deserved to know the truth. ‘That night at Fernhill, Maggie Atkins was meant to see Smyth. It’s why they didn’t kill her. So that when the Hancock boy turned up dead, she would be able to implicate Smyth.’

Johns stared at Pyke, still trying to take in what he’d said. Pyke just felt immensely sorry for the man, sorry for the news he was about to break and the terrible hurt it would cause.

‘Zephaniah Hancock arranged to have the boy killed. He knew William wasn’t Jonah’s son.’ Pyke tried to smile. He had travelled for weeks, across land and sea, for this moment, and now all he felt was exhaustion and pity. ‘He was yours, wasn’t he? You, Cathy and the boy, you were going to start a new life together?’

Johns nodded but said nothing. Cathy was dead and so was his son. Both their sons were dead. Pyke wanted to tell Johns that he understood, but at the last moment held his tongue. What did it matter that someone understood? That wouldn’t change anything.

‘I’m sorry.’

Johns looked up at him. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

They waited for a moment while the wind gusted, wet leaves blowing all around them. ‘What did Smyth say when you confronted him?’

‘Nothing.’ Johns’ expression didn’t change. ‘Didn’t get a chance; as soon as he realised he was trapped, he turned his pistol on himself and pulled the trigger. The fire was to cover my tracks.’

Pyke considered the implications of this. ‘So I’ve got to take your word for it — that my son died falling down the stairs?’

‘Is knowing for certain going to bring him back?’ Johns reached into his pocket. It took Pyke a second or two to notice the blade of a knife.

‘What are you going to do with that?’

Johns didn’t seem to have heard the question. In a nearby tree, a blackbird twittered, but there were no other sounds except for the breeze and the quiet flowing of the river.

‘I found Cathy’s body. She’d taken her own life, slit her wrists. I suppose she felt that she’d caused William’s death.’

‘If we hadn’t gone ahead with the scheme in the first place, our son might still be alive.’

‘Perhaps — but do you really imagine that Zephaniah Hancock would have let you leave and live happily ever after?’

‘I suppose not.’ Johns waited and added, ‘What happened to the Hancocks?’

‘Didn’t make it.’ Pyke shook his head. Then he gestured at the knife in Johns’ hand. ‘Put it away, John. No need for anyone else to die.’

Johns looked around at the barren landscape. ‘You know, I was born here. Grew up in the gatehouse. Only when my father was on his deathbed did he tell me I wasn’t his son.’

‘Who was?’

‘My father?’ Johns laughed bitterly. ‘That old coot who lives in the big house. Asenath Moore, Lord Cornwallis. Fucked a kitchen-hand. She was engaged to be married so I was given away.’

Pyke thought about his own father, who had died in a crowd stampede when he was a boy, and about Godfrey, who had rescued him and brought him up.

‘Before you arrived in Merthyr,’ Johns said, ‘she’d finally agreed to come away with me. A new life, just the three of us.’

‘Before I arrived?’

‘She’d always carried a torch for you.’

Pyke bowed his head. ‘Give me the knife, John.’ He took another step towards the former soldier.

‘ What? Do you want to shake my hand, pretend we can be friends? Shake hands and go our separate ways, let ourselves believe that everything has worked out for the best?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘See here? People are dying because they can’t afford to eat.’

Pyke took another step towards him and held out his hand. ‘Give me the knife, John.’

‘The rich get richer and the poor are buried in a pit.’

‘There’s no way men like us can change things. Not now, not any more. We’ve seen too much, done too much. For that to happen you need someone younger, their ideals intact.’

‘Dinosaurs.’ Johns almost looked amused.

Pyke took another step. ‘The knife.’

Johns managed a smile and then took the knife in his other hand, turned it on himself and drove it into his belly. He fell to his knees and Pyke had to wrestle his hands off the handle in order to pull it out, blood spurting from the wound. Pyke cradled Johns’ head in his lap, stroked his hair and waited for the man to die.

WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 1847

Lisvarrinane, Co. Tipperary

Knox had walked for most of the day, stopping anyone he passed and asking them whether they had seen or heard of a man called John Johns. No one had. Knox described him as best he could but his description jolted no memories. A few told him about the fire at the big house — and that the recently returned absentee landlord, Sir Clancy Smyth, had perished in it.

When Knox asked where Smyth had returned from, and was told Wales, it pricked his interest. He was tired but the walking relaxed him, and because he had sold his boat ticket at a profit, he had the funds to pay for food and shelter. He’d bought a good pair of boots, too. Knox didn’t know how Martha was going to react when he turned up on Father Mackey’s doorstep in a day or so, whether she would be pleased to see him or devastated that he hadn’t sailed for the New World. In the end, it was simple; he hadn’t been able to. It was a physical thing. He needed to be with his wife and child. But on the journey back from Cork, Knox had begun to think about his brother, the man he knew as John Johns, the murderer of a London policeman, and he had taken a detour to Lisvarrinane, the last place where Johns had been seen. The trail had gone cold now and he was keen to get back to Clonoulty as quickly as possible.

Knox wanted to get back to Clonoulty, but he was afraid of what he’d find there, afraid that Martha would be angry or, worse, indifferent.

So he decided to walk, to give himself time to prepare himself, and as he walked, he let his mind wander. He crossed from Cork into Tipperary, and to pass the time, he bought a notebook and a pencil. During breaks, he would scribble down his thoughts, his impressions of the folk he met, their suffering, their fortitude. Knox liked the idea of bearing witness, recording what he saw, not for any particular reason or because people would necessarily want to read what he had written, but because it was the worst of times and someone needed to document it so that much later, others would know how bad it had been.