Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

Pyke opted to ignore the question. ‘Is Shaw upstairs with the passer-by?’

Whicher nodded. He was short, for a policeman. Just five foot eight, the minimum height to gain entry to the force. His dark hair was closely cropped and his clean-shaven face was pitted with smallpox scars. But it was his eyes which stood out: they were emerald green and shone with understated intelligence. He didn’t say much but he had a keen eye for detail and a sharp memory. Although the man was young, Pyke already regarded him as his natural successor, or at least the one most capable of taking charge of an investigation. Whicher was cool, methodical and, equally important, he kept himself to himself outside work hours. The others, Pyke had heard, regarded him as aloof.

‘Shaw is taking care of the wife, too,’ Whicher said. ‘She was out running errands when the robbery took place. Came back to find her shop crawling with policemen. She collapsed on the floor and had to be restrained.’

‘You’re calling it a robbery, then?’

‘Why? You don’t think it was?’ He gave Pyke a sceptical look.

Earlier, they had come across the pawnbroker’s safe, behind the counter at the back of the shop. It had been opened and emptied. The key was still in the lock.

‘The passer-by said he heard three shots in quick succession. Said he entered the shop almost immediately.’

‘So?’

‘Let’s assume that the safe was cleared before the men were shot.’

Whicher put his hands on his hips while he considered Pyke’s hypothesis. ‘That sounds about right.’

‘So why did the gunmen open fire on Cullen and the other two after they’d got what they’d come for?’

Whicher shrugged. ‘You think there was more than one of them?’

‘Three shots were fired. In rapid succession. That’s what the witness said, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘In which case, a single gunman wouldn’t have had time to reload his pistol.’

Pyke turned his thoughts back to Dove and whether he should own up to recognising him, what the consequences might be. He looked down at the bodies, and tried to reconcile the conflicting sentiments assailing him. It was his job to remain detached, to see things as they were, but it was hard to look at the crime scene and not feel a twinge of excitement. An abomination had been perpetrated and it was his job to find the man or men responsible. At bottom, it was why he’d agreed to join the police force; because he loved the thrill of the chase.

A little later Cullen’s wife confirmed the identification of her husband with a nod and sniffle but said she hadn’t ever seen the other two men before.

‘And before you ask,’ she said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her dress, ‘I don’t know nobody what’d want to kill my Sammy, neither.’

‘But he can’t have been a popular man, given how he earned his living.’

That made her snort. She was fifty, Pyke estimated, a few years older than her husband, and had probably done well to marry at all. Her skin was dark and tough, her eyes small and quick, like a magpie’s.

‘Sammy didn’t force folk to do business with ’im. And he gave ’em a fair price, compared to some of them others. Else they wouldn’t come back.’

Pyke nodded. Anyone with a petty grievance against Cullen wasn’t likely to go to the shop armed with a pistol or blunderbuss. ‘Had your husband ever been in trouble with the law?’

The wife glowered at him and folded her arms.

‘Was your husband ever convicted of a crime, Mrs Cullen?’

She refused to meet his stare or answer his question and Pyke decided not to force the issue. If Cullen had been arrested or convicted of fencing stolen goods, they would find out soon enough.

‘Has anyone made threats against your husband recently?’

This time Pyke saw that he’d struck a nerve and, before Cullen’s wife could deny it, he added, ‘If they didn’t find what they were looking for, they’ll be back, you know that.’

‘Like you said, some folk round ’ere don’t care for how we earn our bread. But we ain’t got no problems with our neighbours. Ask ’em if you don’t believe me.’

Pyke stole a glance at Whicher. ‘Was your husband expecting someone this morning? Did he say anything to you about a visit?’

She assessed him coolly. ‘He did say something over breakfast this morning. Said someone was comin’ to see him, an’ it might be good for business. Truth be told, he seemed quite excited.’

‘Did your husband mention any names?’

Biting her lip, Cullen’s widow looked into Pyke’s face, the extent of her grief apparent for the first time, and shook her head.

The full complement of the Detective Branch assembled in the back room of the shop just after five.

Two members had left or been promoted in recent months, which meant there were now just four of them, five including Pyke. Frederick Shaw was the youngest and the one who deferred to Pyke’s authority the most. Pyke didn’t encourage this and found it more irritating than endearing, but while he felt Shaw was too timid and too beholden to the rules, the man had a quick mind and was willing to learn. He also had the kind of uniform, nondescript features that were useful in their line of work, meaning he could disappear easily into a crowd. He was average height, average build, average weight, with short brown hair and no sideburns or whiskers, as was the fashion. William Gerrett, on the other hand, always drew attention to himself. In some ways, this wasn’t his fault. At six foot three inches, he was a head taller than anyone else in the room and had the kind of weak chin that disappeared into the flesh of his neck. He was flabby and heavy boned, too: a farmer’s lad who had never quite outgrown his natural talent for tilling the soil and who was quite unsuited to the careful, painstaking logic of police work. He had made a name for himself by being an intimidating figure on the beat, but those skills had little value in the Detective Branch and Pyke had often wondered why he’d been chosen as a detective in the first place. Pyke didn’t care for the man’s looks or his poor personal hygiene, but it was the man’s sloppiness that he couldn’t forgive. Often Gerrett would forget to file even the most rudimentary pieces of information and needed to be reminded, two or three times a day, what he was supposed to be doing.

Shaw, Gerrett and the fourth member of the Branch, Eddie Lockhart, all lived together in a boarding house with the other single officers in Great Scotland Yard. As far as Pyke could tell, Gerrett and Shaw were friends, but Lockhart was the linchpin of the group and, by some margin, the most charismatic and handsome of them. At six feet tall, he was about the same height as Pyke but he was thinner and wirier, and wore the thinnest of moustaches, which he doubtless had to trim each morning. He had a natural confidence and an easygoing manner which worked well for him in the job, as witnesses and even suspects felt comfortable talking to him. But he was also the member of the Branch that Pyke knew the least about and the one who kept his assessment of Pyke closest to his chest. In fact he had seemingly made a conscious decision to keep his distance from Pyke and perhaps resented the fact that Pyke tended to consult first with Whicher rather than him, even though he was older. Lockhart was also intelligent, which made him either a useful ally or a potentially awkward presence in the team. Thus far, Pyke had found him to be the latter.

Pyke told them to gather round and ran through what had happened. Their eyes glistened with alarm and excitement. They might all have worked on murder investigations before but Pyke suspected that none of them had been in such close proximity to three dead bodies. Even Lockhart had baulked when he’d first stepped into the shop. Pyke examined their faces. They were all men he had inherited when he’d assumed the position of head of the Detective Branch at the end of the previous year. At the time he had been told he would be able to recruit two additional men of his own choosing, but now he had been informed that he would have to wait for replacements for the two who had left.