Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

‘Don’t mistake me, Sarah. I think the rationality we all cling to is paper-thin. Scratch a little and you’ll find an ugly world where goodness and morality have no place.’

Sarah seemed to agree with his point. ‘That’s what I feel when I paint.’

Pyke thought about the image he’d seen in her cottage. ‘What I saw in your canvas was either the punishment of a sinful woman by a vengeful God, or a world in which God doesn’t exist.’

‘That’s what I liked about Brendan. Even as a priest, he was able to countenance the notion that perhaps God wasn’t, isn’t, who we’re told he is.’ She drew closer to Pyke. ‘God is never simply vengeful on the one hand, and omnipotent and forgiving on the other.’

Pyke looked into her eyes, wanting to bridge the gap that existed and had always existed between them. He thought briefly about Ebenezer Druitt’s claim that she had killed her own child but dismissed it at once. Druitt, he decided, had been trying to play games with him.

‘But you do believe in the existence of a spirit world?’

‘Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’ She paused, seemingly afraid to say more.

Pyke thought fleetingly about what Godfrey had said just before his death: once you’re gone, you’re gone. It was just starting to sink in that the old man wasn’t coming back. ‘In the end, life is arbitrary. Things happen for no ostensible reason, good and bad. To acknowledge that, to truly acknowledge it, is terrifying.’

‘But patterns do exist, even if we call them coincidences. Or premonitions.’ Sarah let her hand settle on top of his. ‘I know you don’t give any credence to what I might see…’

Pyke wanted to dismiss this idea out of hand but even in the darkness he was aware of the anxiety in her face. ‘What is it, Sarah?’ he said gently.

‘I’m worried about you.’ She withdrew her hand and turned away from him. ‘The other night I had a dream. I found you in a room. Your nose had been cut off, your teeth pulled out, your fingers had been removed. And your eyeballs were being gouged out by a flock of birds.’

‘Some people would call that a nightmare.’

‘The last time I had a dream that vivid, my son died the following night.’

They stood for a moment or two in silence. Pyke dismissed her premonition, but there were other less charitable thoughts he couldn’t let go of. Since his last exchange with Druitt, he had been racking his brains to think how the felon could have known about his choice of reading. The only answer was that someone had broken into his house and passed the information back to Druitt. And for some reason, he had thought about Sarah. In one sense it was ridiculous, absurd even, to imagine that she would do anything to help Druitt. Druitt had murdered her child; she despised him; the two of them despised each other. But what if they didn’t? What if their mutual loathing was just a front? Sarah knew where he lived. She could have slipped in unnoticed, just as she could have sent Pyke the letter directing him to No. 28 Broad Street. Pyke didn’t like to believe she might be capable of such deception, but how well did he really know her?

‘I’m telling you this because I care for you; not because I’m trying to frighten you.’

‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. If you’re right, what can I do? If you’re wrong, and I hope you are wrong, well, life continues as before.’

Sarah bit her lip and looked away. Then she threaded her arms around him and pulled him close, her head resting just under his chin. He could feel her shivering. When she next looked at him, her eyes were distraught. She was grieving, Pyke told himself, for her child, and perhaps also for Brendan Malloy. That was it. She needed him and he could help her. That thought reassured him, until he felt the tightness in his stomach, the familiar stirring in his groin.

When they finally embraced, it was a coy, almost chaste kiss, their lips barely touching. Her eyes were closed as she whispered, ‘I’ve taken a room that’s not far from here.’

The following morning was bitterly cold, and despite the fire burning in the grate of the main office of the Detective Branch, they’d all decided against shedding their outdoor clothes. Still, the collective mood was not one that reflected the icy temperature. Shaw and Lockhart had some information they wanted to impart.

‘It’s about the men who tore up Mrs Keate’s room, just after she’d moved out,’ Shaw said, beaming.

‘We went back to the building and talked to the neighbours,’ Lockhart chipped in. ‘This time, one of them was willing to talk to us. He said he recognised a couple of the men. Told us they worked for George Culpepper.’

Wells had just walked into the room and Pyke repeated what Lockhart had just said. ‘For those of you who don’t know him,’ Pyke added, ‘Culpepper runs what we think is the largest swell mob in St Giles. He’s a suspect, perhaps the main suspect, in the matter of Sean Rafferty’s murder.’

Given Wells’s reaction the last time he’d mentioned this, Pyke half-expected a similar outburst, but the acting superintendent merely nodded.

‘The two boys who were murdered, Gregg and Clough, were part of Flint’s mob,’ Pyke said. ‘We think Culpepper killed Flint and took over.’

And now Culpepper’s men had gone after Keate’s mother. Pyke tried to work out what this meant but for the moment the connection was beyond him.

‘What it does mean,’ he said, a few moments later, ‘is we should make Culpepper’s life as uncomfortable as possible.’ Looking at Wells, he added, ‘Can we rely on reinforcements from the executive department to make that happen?’

Wells sucked in some air through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll do what I can but I’m short on men as it is.’

Briefly Pyke’s thoughts turned back to Sarah Scott, the warmth of her body next to his, the softness of her creamy white skin. He had left her unwillingly at dawn and could still taste her parting kiss.

‘Culpepper runs gin palaces, brothels, gambling clubs, teams of pickpockets and numerous slop-shops, a whole empire. At the moment, he’s secure and in control. We need to change that.’

‘Like I said, I’ll round up all the men I can spare. But I’ll do it in my own way and in my own time.’

Jack Whicher found Pyke in his office; he was carrying a file and placed it carefully on the desk. ‘I got that from one of the clerks in the commissioners’ office. It’s information about Sergeant Mark Russell’s career as a metropolitan policeman.’ Pyke had asked Whicher to dig up information about the man only the day before, and was surprised at how quickly he’d been able to do so.

Pyke took the file and scrutinised its contents. ‘Beat constable for three years, K Division, Stepney, followed by two years in A Division here at the Yard and then a promotion to sergeant and a transfer to Kensington Division.’ It didn’t tell him much. There was nothing else in the file to indicate that Russell was either good or bad at his job. Given that the man had been promoted, Pyke had to assume the former.

‘A Division,’ Whicher said, a few moments later. ‘You’d think Wells might remember him.’

Pyke had already arrived at the same conclusion. ‘Perhaps. But it’s the largest division and there must be, what, two or three hundred constables.’

Later, Pyke ran into Wells at the bottom of the staircase. ‘Walter, I need your help with something. I’m looking into the way the London Churches Fund has been administered.’

Pyke had thought long and hard about whether to tell him about Sir St John Palmer and his association with the Fund. In the end, he’d decided that Wells would find out soon enough and, anyway, he needed as much support within the New Police as he could get.