Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

‘So what do you think, Jack?’ Pyke circled around the body, trying to keep warm. ‘Did Hiley kill him?’

‘People here certainly seem to think so. And I have to say, it doesn’t look good for him.’

Pyke nodded. It was a fair conclusion, even if the investigation was still at an early stage. Since the summer, he had come to rely on Whicher more and more, and now they both seemed to feel comfortable in each other’s presence. Pyke had started to treat him as an equal rather than a subordinate, and the others in the Detective Branch had noticed this. Increasingly, they had formed their own faction, from which Pyke and Whicher had been excluded. Whicher hadn’t expressed any real concern at this situation and, in actuality, it suited Pyke very well.

‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd that a rector should live in such comfort? Five servants, two gardeners.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘And yet he still needs to employ an odd-job man.’

‘Apparently it’s a wealthy parish, one of the wealthiest in the city. That might explain the servants. But you’re right about the need for an odd-job man.’

‘What about Guppy himself? Aside from Nutt, none of the servants spoke particularly warmly about him.’

Whicher nodded. ‘I know; and what kind of man would wear his surplice just to take the night air?’ Earlier, they’d looked for, and been unable to find, the surplice anywhere in the church or the yard.

Pyke smiled at Whicher’s remark. ‘We also shouldn’t lose sight of the way he was killed.’

‘The fact that someone took a hammer and went to work on Guppy’s face until there was nothing left.’

‘Exactly. Whoever did it didn’t just want to kill him. If they did, they could have used a knife or a pistol.’

‘To be that close to someone and swing a hammer at their head: you’d really have to hate that person.’

‘We also don’t know what Guppy was doing in the churchyard,’ Pyke said. ‘I don’t believe for a moment he was simply going for a walk.’

‘It’s bitterly cold. Why would you venture out unless you had to?’

‘Perhaps he’d arranged to meet someone.’

‘To do what?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pyke said. ‘Why do people meet up in places like churchyards late at night?’

Whicher was smiling. He had come to appreciate Pyke’s dark sense of humour. ‘Maybe that’s why he took off his surplice.’

‘Just his surplice?’

‘But he was fully clothed when they found him,’ Whicher said, still smiling.

Pyke shrugged. ‘Maybe Guppy didn’t get as far as he’d expected to.’

When Pyke finally arrived home, he found Felix asleep in the armchair beside Godfrey’s bed, a Bible resting in his lap. Pyke’s gaze drifted between his son and his uncle, and as he stood watching them, he tried not to think about how little time he had spent at Godfrey’s side since he had collapsed two weeks earlier.

‘You’re up early,’ Felix said, lifting his head and forcing open one of his eyes. ‘Or back late.’

After Pyke’s injury in the summer, there had been a rapprochement of sorts between them, but throughout the autumn the distance had gradually started to open up again and Godfrey’s sudden collapse had put them at loggerheads once more. The issue, for Felix, was Pyke’s apparent lack of concern. For his part, Pyke had done all he could; he had paid for the best doctor and a full-time nurse. Deep down, he was as desperately worried about the old man’s health as Felix, but he simply couldn’t give up his work, and Felix had started to resent this.

Pyke took the other armchair and pulled it closer to the bed. ‘How is he?’

‘No better, no worse, according to the doctor.’ Felix sat up, stretched his shoulders and yawned.

‘What did he say?’

‘Just that. No change in his condition. He told us to keep trying to give Uncle Godfrey food and water.’

Pyke stared at the plate of uneaten food and the glass of water on the floor next to the bed. Since the collapse, Godfrey had said very little and had barely eaten a thing, and now the skin was hanging off his face and neck.

‘At least it means he’s not getting any worse,’ Pyke said, mostly for Felix’s benefit.

He wasn’t sure how much his son knew, how much the doctor had told him, but as far as Pyke was aware, the prognosis was not good. Certainly there seemed little chance that Godfrey would make a full or even a partial recovery. Pyke looked at the bags under his son’s eyes and asked how he felt. Felix shrugged and said he was fine, even though it was clear he’d had almost no sleep. Since the collapse, Pyke had allowed Felix to stay at home, to be with Godfrey, but in recent days he’d been forced to question the wisdom of this decision. Was it healthy for a boy of his age to sit indoors all day with nothing to do and no one to talk to? Still, Pyke knew he wouldn’t be able to raise this issue without Felix coming back at him. I have to be here, because you never are.

‘Seriously, you look terrible,’ Pyke said. ‘Go and lie down. I’ll sit with him for a while.’

‘You don’t look too good yourself. What kept you up all night?’

‘Work.’

Felix rolled his eyes and they sat for a while in silence, both staring down at Godfrey’s sleeping form.

‘I see you’ve been reading the Bible.’ Pyke gestured at the book, which had fallen on to the floor.

‘So?’

‘I didn’t know you’d embraced religion.’

‘I haven’t embraced religion.’ Felix sighed. ‘I was just reading aloud to Godfrey. Where’s the harm in that?’

Pyke considered this for a short while. ‘I’m sure Godfrey appreciates what you’re doing for him but I know he’s never found solace in the Bible.’

Felix reddened slightly. He went to retrieve his copy of the Bible and held it closely to his chest.

‘Did they give you that at school?’

It was a trick question and Felix knew it. ‘You know they don’t teach us the Bible, so why do you even ask?’

‘So where did you get it from?’

‘Believe it or not, Pyke, the Bible is freely available.’ Defiantly, Felix held his gaze. ‘I pray for Godfrey to get better. What’s so terrible about that?’

‘And you think it’s in God’s power to make Godfrey better?’ Pyke paused. ‘He’s a very old, sick man.’

‘I know he’s sick. Remember, I’m here. I’m the one tending to him.’ Felix stopped, sensing he’d said too much, and then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Pyke. I didn’t mean… I know you’re as upset as I am.’

Pyke went over and put his arm around his son’s shoulders and to his surprise Felix did not push him away.

‘I’m scared, Pyke. I’m scared he’s going to die.’ Suddenly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Aren’t you scared, too?’

Pyke was mute but just about managed a nod of his head. He had known that this time would eventually come, that Godfrey couldn’t live for ever, but now it was here he felt as lost and frightened as a boy.

‘ I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, sir, but Guppy was a rather objectionable creature; the kind who’d refuse to feed a starving man because he hadn’t washed his hands.’

Martin Jakes’s whole house could easily have fitted into Isaac Guppy’s drawing room, and the study, where they were now sitting, their knees almost touching, was not quite as large as the cupboard under Guppy’s stairs. The fact that Jakes had found himself at a church like St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, at the age of fifty, rather than serving out his days in the country, struck Pyke as something to be admired. It suggested Jakes hadn’t bothered to cosy up to men like the archdeacon. Jakes had an open, honest face and wasn’t shy about speaking his mind. Pyke cast his eye up at the books on his shelves and saw Marcus Aurelius and Blake there, as well as Erasmus and St Augustine. Jakes’s features were weathered and craggy; he was interesting to look at and this told Pyke that he had lived a life; that he hadn’t tried to hide behind the robes of office.