Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

There was room for five hundred prisoners and, if the inmates showed a willingness to embrace the opportunities that were available to them, he claimed, the emphasis was on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

The cells were arranged over two floors; half opened directly on to the ground floor; half on to the iron gallery above. The floors, made of asphalt, were smooth and spotless and the painted brick walls were similarly bare. It was, Pyke thought, like walking into a brand-new factory before production had started, the clean, sterile lines of the building conjuring an image of utter hopelessness. Felons would come here as men and leave as machines.

The cell itself was thirteen feet long, seven feet broad and nine feet high. It had a window cut into the back wall, filled with glass and crossed with iron bars. In the cell there was a stone water-closet pan with a cast-iron top, supplied by a cistern above the cell, and a copper basin. There was also a small table, a stool, a shaded gas burner and a hammock slung across the width of the room. The men usually worked in their hammocks, the warder explained, but slept on mattresses and blankets that, during the day, were folded up and put away.

If Pyke had been expecting a monster, he was disappointed. In his stockings and flannel shirt, and with his cropped hair, Druitt might have looked just like all the other inmates. In fact, close up he was quite a handsome man. His sculpted cheekbones, lantern jaw, pale skin and piercing grey eyes would have set him apart in respectable company. But it was his voice which really caught the attention; words rolled off his tongue as if individually polished and his soft, mellow tone made you want to listen to him.

‘I thought the winter would be much colder but warm air seeps in here through these.’ He gestured to the perforated iron plates in the floor. ‘I’m told the heat is supplied by flues connected to stoves in the basement.’ He sounded like a man showing off his new home.

Pyke took another step into the cell.

‘So how can I be of assistance?’ Druitt smiled.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Pyke.’

‘Then can I welcome you to my humble abode, sir, and offer you a place to sit.’ He gestured at the stool.

‘I want to talk to you about your time at number twenty-eight Broad Street.’ Pyke elected to stand but almost immediately felt this had ceded a nameless advantage to Druitt, who was languishing in his hammock.

‘Oh?’ Druitt was apparently intrigued by Pyke’s reference to his former address. ‘And what exactly do you want to talk about?’

‘For a start, I’d like to ask you about your dealings with Brendan Malloy and Sarah Scott.’

Druitt nodded, as though he’d already guessed this was the reason for Pyke’s visit. ‘So what would you like to know?’

‘Let’s begin with Malloy. Would you say you and he were friends?’

‘At one time, perhaps.’

‘What happened?’

‘Living in close proximity to others can tell you more about them than you might have wanted to know.’

‘And what did you find out about Malloy?’

‘Brendan is a deeply disturbed man. I wouldn’t care to imagine what passes as thinking inside his head.’

‘You would say that, of course. After all, it was his testimony that put you in here. It’s revealing that the jury chose to believe him over you.’

‘Yes, that was unfortunate,’ Druitt said, as though describing a simple mishap.

‘What about Sarah Scott?’

‘What about her?’

‘How would you describe your dealings with her?’

‘Before or after her child fell to his death?’ Druitt’s pink tongue glistened behind a row of white teeth.

‘Fell? You mean you didn’t drop him?’

‘The jury ruled that I did, even if no intent was ever proven.’

‘And they were mistaken?’ Pyke asked sceptically.

Druitt’s stare wandered around the cell. ‘I was expecting much worse, to be honest. It’s really not too bad. Beef or mutton on alternate days, gruel for dinner, the best bread I’ve eaten, cocoa sweetened with molasses in the morning. I’m kept occupied by my work.’ He gestured to the mat he was weaving. ‘I am allowed to exercise twice a day in the yard; I bathe once a week; my clothes are changed once a week and the schoolmaster regularly brings me books to supplement the rather dreary offerings provided by the chaplain.’ He gestured to the small row of books on his shelf. ‘I would hazard a guess that I’m rather more comfortable and well provided for in here than a pauper or a soldier.’

‘I asked about your dealings with Sarah.’

Druitt’s smile broadened. ‘It’s Sarah now, is it? Then I presume you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her. She’s rather a comely creature, isn’t she?’

‘She was less generous in her assessment of you. In the circumstances that’s hardly a surprise.’

‘No, I suppose not. But it wasn’t always so. In fact, I suspect that our… friendship… was one of the reasons behind her separation from Malloy.’

Pyke felt his throat tighten and his stomach muscles contract: he hadn’t been in the cell for more than a few minutes but already he felt uncomfortable and agitated.

‘Would you care to elaborate?’

Druitt had noticed the imperceptible shift in his demeanour. ‘Does it upset you, Detective Inspector? The notion that Miss Scott was, at one point, rather taken with me?’

‘Were the two of you attached?’

‘ Attached?’ Druitt was grinning. ‘Now there’s a word to stand in for all manner of sins.’

‘Did the two of you ever sleep with each other?’

‘Better, Detective Inspector. Much better.’

‘Well?’

‘I rather think the lady should be the one to answer that question.’

‘Was the child Malloy’s?’ Pyke asked, biting back the urge to grab Druitt by the neck and squeeze.

Druitt didn’t answer immediately. Instead he rocked himself back and forth for a while in the hammock. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment on the child’s parentage.’

Pyke waited for a moment; he heard footsteps pass by the cell. ‘You intimated that the child fell to his death; that it had nothing to do with you.’

‘Yes,’ Druitt said, matter-of-factly. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’

‘Then why did Malloy take the stand and tell the court that you deliberately dropped the boy?’

‘You’d have to ask him. I wouldn’t care to speculate on what may or may not go on inside his head.’

‘I’ve read his testimony. He claimed he saw you drop the baby. I asked him about it. He said you were looking at him when it happened. He said he saw you smile.’

Druitt wasn’t the least bit concerned by this accusation. ‘As I said, Brendan’s disturbed. She is, too. Perhaps she told you that she employed my services to soothe her nerves?’

Druitt almost seemed to be enjoying himself. Pyke sat down on the stool and let the silence take root. Lying back in the hammock, Druitt started to hum.

‘When you were living at number twenty-eight, did you ever come across a man called Isaac Guppy?’

‘Guppy?’ Druitt rubbed his chin. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘He was the rector at St Botolph’s, Aldgate. He’s dead now. Murdered.’

Druitt sat up in the hammock. ‘I see. And you’ve been prevailed upon to find the killer?’

‘Guppy was wearing a surplice when he was killed. This same garment turned up a few days later in one of the upstairs rooms at number twenty-eight.’

‘I find all of this fascinating, of course, Detective Inspector, but I don’t quite see what it has to do with me.’

‘A note was sent to me, at Scotland Yard, with the Broad Street address scribbled on it, together with a few lines from a poem by William Blake.’