Andrew Pepper - The Detective Branch

‘I don’t know, let’s just think about it.’ Pyke paused, trying to arrange his thoughts. ‘All right. Guppy knew Morris Keate. We know this from Martin Jakes. We know Guppy was sniffing around Keate at the time the two boys were murdered. Let’s say the two boys had stumbled on to something they shouldn’t have and someone decided to get rid of them. What if Keate was picked to be the scapegoat?’

Whicher nodded but didn’t seem convinced.

‘Keate is arrested, tried and eventually executed,’ Pyke said, confident in what he’d said so far. ‘His family and close friends don’t believe he did it but the evidence seems to contradict that belief. A few years go by. Then Keate’s family, his half-brothers, start to hear rumours. At some point Johnny breaks into the archdeacon’s safe; perhaps new information comes to light suggesting their brother’s innocence. What would you do? One thing I wouldn’t do, in their shoes, is go to the police. Let’s just say they opted to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps they learnt that Guppy was involved; Charles Hogarth, too. What we do know is that the deaths were planned to coincide with the dates on which the two boys were murdered. Why? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Whoever killed Guppy and Hogarth wanted to send us a message. They wanted to rub our faces in the truth. Morris Keate didn’t kill those two boys. But they also wanted us to look into the original murders again. They wanted us to find out what really happened.’

Whicher nodded. ‘I suppose there might be a certain twisted logic to what you’ve just said.’

‘But?’

‘It still doesn’t explain where the theft of the Saviour’s Cross fits in.’

Pyke could see Whicher’s point. ‘All right. Let’s think about what happened to the cross after it left Cullen’s shop.’

‘Suppose Gibb had the cross with him at the time, and Sharp killed him and the other two for it,’ Whicher said.

Nodding, Pyke said, ‘We know Sharp tried, almost immediately, to sell the cross on to Alfred Egan. That’s when we interrupted them at the Red Lion.’

‘Six months later, the cross turns up in your garden,’ Whicher said, frowning. ‘So how did it get from Sharp to there?’

‘I don’t know.’

But Pyke had a good idea, even if he couldn’t prove it. Instinct told him that he had been set up, either by Wells or Pierce. Therefore, he suggested to Whicher, it followed that one of them had managed to retrieve the Saviour’s Cross from Sharp. Perhaps they had been in league with Sharp from the beginning and had taken the precaution of ending Sharp’s life before the man had been able to denounce them.

Whicher looked at him, the concern apparent in his eyes. ‘You really think one of them is involved?’

Pyke just shrugged.

‘Did you bring the daguerreotype we made of Sharp after his death?’ he asked, changing the subject.

Whicher dug his hand into his pocket and produced the copperplate. The image looked almost real and Pyke was taken back to the fight he’d had with the man in an alleyway behind Field Lane.

‘Any news on Palmer? Or Wynter?’

‘By all accounts, Palmer is unwell. He’s taken to his bed and hasn’t been seen at his place of work for more than two weeks. I’m told his house is better guarded than the Tower.’ Whicher sniffed. ‘Sergeant Russell’s called in sick, too.’

Pyke pondered this for a moment. ‘And the archdeacon?’

‘He’s left the capital on business. No one seems to know where he’s gone or when he’ll be back.’

It seemed clear that all three men were afraid of appearing in public and had taken the necessary precautions. ‘How are things at the Detective Branch, then?’

That drew a wry smile. After Pyke’s arrest, Wells had refused to sanction Whicher’s return to uniform and he’d been reinstated. Briefly, Whicher explained that Wells had taken temporary charge of the department. They’d been forbidden to bring up the subject of the Churches Fund; and had been told Charles Hogarth had died of natural causes, that Isaac Guppy had stolen from general parish funds and that this theft was to be treated as an isolated case. ‘Wells has gone back to trying to find Francis Hiley. Meanwhile, we’re investigating a house burglary in Clapham.’

‘What about Lockhart and Shaw?’

‘Everyone’s trying to keep a low profile. Wells is hardly ever there. It’s like a rudderless ship.’

‘I’d like you to do something for me, if you have the time. But it’s going to entail a trip out of the city.’

‘Aside from the burglary, my desk is clear.’

‘Keate’s stepbrother, Luke Gibb, served in the Dragoons. I don’t know, maybe he still does. I was told he was stationed somewhere in Cambridgeshire. I’m afraid that’s all I know, but there can’t be too many regiments in the county.’

‘You’d like me to find out which one he served in and talk to someone who knew him.’

Pyke smiled. ‘Exactly.’

Whicher stood up and stamped his boots on the frozen ground to warm his feet. ‘Same time tomorrow, then?’

Pyke stood up, too, and looked at the slate-coloured sky. ‘I wanted to say how grateful I am, for all you’re doing. I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances.’

‘I’m glad to do what I can.’

Pyke thought about their previous encounter in the privy at work, when he’d punched Whicher and told him he never wanted to see him again. It was funny how quickly some things turned around. On that occasion, Whicher had told him awful things about his family circumstances and Pyke had said nothing to him about them since. All of a sudden, he felt ashamed.

‘Jack, I don’t want you to think I…’ He tried to find the right words. ‘What you told me before, about your wife and child.. ’

Whicher seemed uncomfortable. ‘I know.’

‘Do you still go and see her?’

Whicher looked around the square and exhaled loudly. ‘Sometimes. Not often, though. She’s still in the same… place.’

‘I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I can’t imagine how terrible the whole thing must have been.’

Whicher bit his lip. ‘Sometimes life has a way of cutting off your arms and legs and then defecating on you from a great height.’

Nodding, Pyke wondered whether he should mention the child, who’d died from cholera, but in the end he resorted to patting Whicher on the shoulder. ‘You’re a good man, Jack. A good man and a good detective.’

In his dirty workman’s clothes, and with a soiled oilskin cap covering his shaved head, it took Clare Lewis a few moments to recognise him. When she did, she smiled and shook her head. ‘Somehow I knew you weren’t dead.’ But she wouldn’t turn around to face him and Pyke quickly saw why. The whole left side of her face was swollen and had turned purple and yellow, and her eyes were ringed by smudges of black. She held out her hands, as if to pacify him. ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’m not interested. Do you understand?’

Pyke gently turned her face towards him. The bruising was worse close up. ‘I don’t need to ask who did this to you, do I?’

‘I’m glad you’re alive. I really am. But I want you to leave.’

‘And the next time he comes for you, this time with a knife or a cudgel, what will you do then?’

‘You don’t understand.’ She folded her arms and looked up at him for the first time. ‘Even your presence here in the building is putting me at further risk.’

‘I used the back entrance. Nobody saw me.’ As he said this, Pyke wondered how true it was.

This seemed to make her even angrier. She took a few steps away from him and turned towards the window. ‘He did this to me because someone told him I was asking questions about those two boys.’