Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

The following morning, the rain had cleared and the temperature had dropped, a chill wind blowing in from the east. The sky was hard and blue and the pavements and roads were treacherous. Together with Felix, Pyke walked down to the High Street and waited at the stand for a cab to take them to the East End. Inside the carriage, Pyke took off his gloves, unwrapped the muffler from his neck and waited for Felix to do the same. ‘It’s a cold one, isn’t it?’

Felix barely looked at him. Pyke stared out of the smudged glass at a donkey and cart standing in the middle of the pavement.

‘I hope you’ll like this man I’m taking you to see,’ he said, thinking about Jakes. ‘I think you will.’

‘Because he’s a vicar?’ Felix commented sceptically. He’d made it very clear the previous night that he was making this journey under duress.

‘Because he has a conscience.’ Pyke continued to stare out of the glass. ‘In a small way he reminds me of Godfrey.’

‘What?’ Felix’s stare intensified. ‘Are you looking to replace Godfrey already?’

Before he could stop himself, Pyke reached out and grabbed his son’s wrist. ‘How dare you doubt my feelings for Godfrey.’ The extent of his anger took him by surprise.

When he let go, Felix waited for the shock to wane and inspected the red marks on his wrist. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.’ His head had fallen and he seemed to be on the verge of tears.

Immediately Pyke felt bad for losing his temper. ‘I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to hurt you… It’s a difficult time for both of us.’

‘Then why are you carrying on as if nothing’s happened?’ This time Felix’s voice was pleading rather than accusatory.

‘Is that what you really think?’ Pyke hesitated, wondering whether his son might be right. ‘I’m just trying to keep busy, to distract myself, that’s all. It’s too painful otherwise.’

Felix blew air into his hands and nodded. Pyke tried to ask him how he was coping with Godfrey’s death but the lad only shrugged and said he was doing the same thing, trying to distract himself. After that, they settled into an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the journey.

Martin Jakes met them on the pavement at the front of St Matthew’s; he was accompanied by his ward, Kitty, and once the introductions had been made, she took Felix by the hand and promised to show him around the inside of the church. Pyke stood with Jakes, watching them disappear into the building. ‘We had a bereavement a couple of weeks ago. An uncle. Felix has taken it very hard. He wants to believe that Godfrey has gone to a better place.’

‘And what have you told him?’

‘Godfrey didn’t want a Christian funeral. We buried him in Bunhill Fields.’

‘And this upset your son?’

‘If the decision had been left to him, I think he would have made different arrangements.’

Jakes was wearing a pair of old trousers and a tatty shooting jacket. He nodded, as if he understood the dilemma. ‘It can be hard sometimes, grappling with these big questions.’

‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure why I brought him here to see you,’ Pyke said eventually.

‘I hope you don’t expect me to give the lad answers.’ Jakes shook his head and laughed. ‘What would you say if I told you that sometimes even I’m not sure I believe what I’m supposed to?’

Pyke looked at him, intrigued. ‘I’d think you more than sane.’

‘It’s sometimes hard to maintain one’s faith in the face of so much scepticism; hard when men, women and children are dying every day from disease and starvation.’

‘But, as a man of the cloth, without faith, what is left?’

Jakes pondered this question for a moment or two. ‘I could ask you the same about the law.’

Pyke was impressed by the astuteness of Jakes’s comment. ‘I have colleagues who believe their role is to keep the poor in their place and make life more comfortable for the well off. I’m sure you could say the same.’

That drew a wry smile but Jakes held his tongue.

‘It’s also true that greed and cruelty are rewarded whereas compassion earns you nothing.’ Pyke hesitated, wondering whether he was talking about himself or men like Georgie Culpepper.

‘What you propose is a very bleak way of looking at the world.’ Pyke didn’t respond.

‘What if I can’t accept that you’re right, Detective Inspector?’

‘My wife was a compassionate person and she was killed for it. I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to the view that morality wins in the end.’

The concern was visible in Jakes’s eyes. ‘But look at you, Detective Inspector. I don’t imagine you’re prepared to let murderers line their pockets and succeed with impunity.’

‘I don’t have any great faith in the law but in the end it’s what separates us from the animals.’

‘And what about our consciences? Our spirit?’

They stared at one another for a moment. ‘You have your beliefs, Reverend, I have mine.’

‘Martin, please.’ His weathered face softened into a smile. ‘And don’t think I haven’t wanted to take my pistol once in a while and exact a little earthly justice.’

‘Now you’re sounding like the bandit and I’m the bureaucrat.’

‘I’m sorry to hear about your wife,’ Jakes said. ‘She sounds like a remarkable woman.’

Pyke didn’t feel comfortable telling him about Emily but what they had just discussed reminded him of the conversations he’d once enjoyed with her. He decided to change the subject. ‘Actually there was something I was hoping to ask you.’

A frown spread across the curate’s face. ‘If it’s about Francis, I’m afraid I haven’t seen or heard from him…’

Pyke held up his hand. ‘No, it’s not about Hiley — or not directly. I wanted to ask about a murder, two in fact, that happened five years ago in Soho. A young lad, a pickpocket, was found nailed to the door of a stable on Cambridge Street. About ten days before that, another boy was beaten to death with a hammer in St Giles.’

‘Yes, of course, I remember it,’ Jakes said carefully, choosing his words. ‘Given that it happened so close to St Luke’s.’

‘The stable in question was the same one a Catholic priest called Brendan Malloy used to take mass.’

‘Malloy? You asked me about him before, I think.’

‘And you told me you’d heard of him but that you didn’t actually know him.’

‘That’s right…’

‘A man called Morris Keate was tried and convicted of killing the two boys. I’d say it’s highly likely he knew Malloy and that he’d gone to Malloy to have an exorcism performed on him.’

‘Yes, that’s why I remember the name, I think. Malloy. He was known for carrying out these exorcisms.’

‘But you didn’t actually know him — or Morris Keate?’

Jakes looked up and waved at Kitty and Felix, who were emerging from the church. ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Why do you ask?’

Pyke watched Felix and Kitty amble towards them; his son head and shoulders taller than Jakes’s ward, even though she was ten years older. ‘No reason.’ Pyke smiled. ‘So you don’t mind if I leave Felix with you for the day?’

‘Not at all. We’ll be serving soup at lunchtime again. If he doesn’t mind mucking in, I’d be delighted to have him here.’

Pyke took out his purse and gave Felix enough change for a carriage ride back to Islington. He was going to say something about being good but decided to hold his tongue because he knew it would embarrass his son.

There were many stories about ‘Little’ Georgie Culpepper that stood out and made you realise you were dealing with a person entirely untouched by traits such as compassion and empathy. The first, which may or may not have been true, was that he had slept for most of his first seven years in a coal cellar with a pack of wild dogs and that he had learned to bark before he’d learned to talk. Perhaps he’d learned some of his viciousness from those dogs, too. Certainly he’d been able to catch rats with his bare hands before he was seven. Not just any rats, either, but the meanest sewer rats, the kind whose bite could take off your hand. Georgie would crawl into cesspits and tunnels and would emerge hours later with a bagful of vermin, some as large as cats, and he would sell them on to landlords for ratting contests. This activity earned him a lot of money and gave him his first point of entry into the underworld. The second story related to a burglary that Georgie had once taken part in. He’d been a runt of a boy, hence the name ‘Little Georgie’, but he had put his size to good use. Burglars would pay him to crawl through open windows of houses they intended to rob and unlock the front door. On one occasion, he had climbed through a window into the jaws of a guard dog. The animal, a Great Dane, would have been two or three times as large as Georgie but Georgie had taken out his knife and gutted the beast, even cutting off the testicles as a keepsake. The final story related to Georgie as a young adult. By this time, Pyke had lost touch with him, but he had read about his exploits in the newspapers. By all accounts Georgie had got into a fight with another man in a tavern and had cut his opponent’s face with a piece of broken glass. But rather than accepting his punishment and keeping quiet, the man had gone to see the magistrate; as a result, Georgie was tried and sent to prison for five years. The day after he was released, the man who’d made the original complaint against Georgie was found in an alleyway near his home. His head had been hacked off with a rusty axe and attached to a pole. Georgie had been questioned by the same magistrate who’d sent him to prison but this time he’d been able to call upon the testimony of twenty men, all of whom had sworn under oath that Georgie could not possibly have committed the murder because he’d been with them, in a pub, on the other side of the Thames.