Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

‘Pyke.’

He felt someone roughly shaking his arm.

‘ Pyke.’

Opening his sleep-encrusted eyes, Pyke saw Jack Whicher standing over him. Instantly he could tell from Whicher’s expression that all was not well.

‘What is it?’ His head was still groggy from the laudanum and there was a dull ache in his side.

‘Very bad news, I’m afraid.’

Ignoring the pain, Pyke sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The man you fought, Sharp…’ Whicher hesitated, not sure how to continue.

‘What about him?’

‘The gaoler found him in his cell first thing this morning. He hanged himself some time in the night.’

Whitechapel High Street

DECEMBER 1844

O ne of the clerks ran into Pyke’s office, red faced and out of breath. He stood there for a few moments panting. ‘A man’s been attacked, possibly killed. A policeman saw it happen, in the churchyard next to the police station house on Aldgate High Street. Everyone from K Division is out looking for the murderer and Wells is rounding up as many men as he can find. He told me to come and get you, and anyone else from the Detective Branch.’

It was late, after nine, and Pyke had just been about to go home. The other detectives had already left. Taking his greatcoat from the stand, he followed the clerk along the corridor and outside into Scotland Yard, where constables in uniform were streaming out of the single men’s quarters and getting into the carriages that were lined up, one behind the other, to take them to the East End.

‘What do you know?’ Pyke asked, as soon as he found Wells, who was instructing the driver of one of the carriages.

It was a grim, wet night and the strong easterly breeze was driving the icy rain directly into their faces.

‘An officer from K Division saw it happen; called for reinforcements and gave chase. They followed the culprit all the way along Whitechapel High Street and now they think they’ve got him cornered in the area just south of the railway tracks, a little farther along from the new station at Shoreditch.’

Wells climbed on to the roof of one of the carriages and pulled Pyke up next to him. Moments later, they were moving, eight or ten men inside each carriage, another four on the roof.

For a while they sat in silence, as the empty pavements and shuttered shops of the Strand passed by in a rain-soaked blur. Pyke had not seen much of Wells since he had returned to work a few months before, and had not missed the man’s irascible temper and his unctuous ways. Nor had Pyke heard anything more about Wells’s tussle with Benedict Pierce to succeed Tilling as assistant commissioner. Some time in the autumn, Pyke had concluded that Wells had exaggerated his antagonism towards Pierce in order to try to befriend him. This meant that on the few occasions when Pyke had bumped into Wells at the station house, the acting superintendent had wanted to stop and talk as though they were more than just colleagues.

Pyke knew that Wells and Mayne were happy enough with the outcome of the robbery investigation, even if the likely culprit, Sharp, had hanged himself in one of their cells. The fact that they didn’t know why Sharp had shot and killed three people, including the owner of the shop, or that the likely cause of the shooting, a jewel-encrusted crucifix, had not been found, didn’t appear to concern them.

For his part, Pyke was not prepared to accept, without corroboration, that Sharp had killed those men in Cullen’s shop. It was true that the evidence pointed in that direction but the apparent lack of motive concerned him. When he’d finally returned to work after his injury had healed, Pyke had been less than impressed by the investigation into Sharp’s suicide. The gaoler, who had been sleeping at the time under the influence of his nightly dose of porter, had shouldered much of the blame and had subsequently been dismissed. But he’d denied providing Sharp with the means of killing himself and the official report had been unable to determine how Sharp had managed to requisition sufficient rope to hang himself with.

It was true that Pyke had emerged from the events of the summer with his reputation and position intact. With Sharp dead, no one had bothered to look too carefully into the background of Harry Dove and the third victim, who had been identified as John Gibb. The fence, Egan, had been released without charge. He’d protested his innocence throughout and with no evidence to support a prosecution, they had had no choice but to let him go. The only fall-out from what had happened had been Pyke’s association with Ned Villums. Pyke hadn’t seen or heard from Villums since July, nor had he made any effort to get in touch with the man himself.

As the carriage turned on to Fleet Street, the taller buildings and narrower street afforded them more protection from the rain, enough to allow a conversation.

‘Do you know who the victim is?’ Pyke asked, wiping water from his eyes.

‘I was told he might be affiliated with St Botolph’s,’ Wells said.

Pyke nodded. It was just as the clerk had explained: the church next door to the station house on Aldgate High Street. ‘You know we’ll never find the culprit. Those alleyways and courts could hide a whole army of murderers.’

Wells pulled up the collar of his coat and dug his hands into his pockets. Pyke could tell he was in his element. For once his eyes were bright whereas usually they were hard. Perhaps this kind of excursion reminded him of his time in the army.

The journey took just half an hour. They turned up Brick Lane and passed under the Eastern Counties railway line. In fact, the carriage stopped in the tunnel, to give the horses protection from the rain. They were met by Superintendent Edward Young of Stepney Division, who told them that his men were now searching the area to the north of the railway line. Wells climbed down to instruct the men who’d travelled with them and another lot who’d just arrived.

‘Any further information about the victim?’ Pyke asked the superintendent.

‘Dead as they come.’

‘Has anyone identified him?’

Young shook his head. ‘I’m told the victim was hit in the face, repeatedly, with some kind of heavy instrument.’

Ahead of them, drinkers from the Windmill and the pub across the street, the George, were spilling out of the respective taprooms, some still holding tankards in their hands.

‘When and where was the most recent sighting of the perpetrator?’

‘A witness saw a man running along Hare Street about ten minutes before you arrived. My men are searching every house, on both sides of the street.’

‘Not going to be popular with the locals.’ Pyke gestured towards the growing crowd in front of the two pubs. A few men were shouting obscenities at the uniformed officers.

Wells rejoined them. ‘Last sighting on Hare Street. I’ve sent one group of men up as far as Church Street and they’ll work their way back towards us, and another group as far west as St Matthew’s. If this man’s still in the area, we’ll get him. I can feel it in my bones.’

Pyke had no such confidence, but that was because, unlike Wells, he had first-hand experience of what it was like to chase someone through the lanes and alleys of one of the poorer districts.

He told Wells and Young that he wanted to reconnoitre the area and that he would meet them back at the carriages in about an hour. At first Wells insisted on accompanying him but Pyke put him off, saying he preferred to work alone. Thrusting a rattle into his hand, Wells told him to use it, either if he saw the suspect or if he ran into trouble with any of the ‘natives’.

If anything the rain had become heavier and more persistent and every item of Pyke’s clothing was sodden. In the deep pocket of his greatcoat, he touched the smooth wooden handle of the pistol which, as an inspector, he was permitted to carry, as he made his way along John Street to the north side of the railway line.