Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

It was Tilling’s pity more than his anger which cut the deepest.

‘It wasn’t your gift to give. If it was, how could Mayne snatch it away from me so easily?’

Tilling shook his head. ‘This isn’t about Mary Edgar or wanting to find whoever killed her. You just want to make us look bad.’

‘Can’t you simply accept I might want to do something… good?’ He couldn’t find a better word and stared at Tilling, not knowing what else to say.

‘When it comes down to it, Pyke, you’re a selfish creature. You are now and you always have been. If you were honest about it, I might be able to forgive you. But you’re doing what you’ve always done: constructing a spurious morality to fit the circumstances you find yourself in.’

Pyke could feel his pent-up anger burning the tips of his ears. Tilling was already walking away from him along the corridor, his heels clipping in a tight-lipped fury. Then Pyke was alone in an unfamiliar building, and more than anything he wanted to run to the nearest apothecary and lose himself in a tincture of syrupy laudanum.

‘I’m worried about him, Pyke. I think you should be, too.’ Godfrey stood at the window of his apartment. It was the following afternoon and Felix was talking with an older, scruffily dressed boy below them on the street.

‘Then you shouldn’t encourage him to read things he’s not ready for.’ Pyke turned to face his uncle. ‘I never wanted you to write that damned book in the first place. I certainly never expected that my own son would read it.’

Godfrey reddened slightly. ‘I’m not his father, Pyke. It’s not my responsibility to tell him what he should and shouldn’t be reading.’

Pyke bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Apology accepted.’ Godfrey paused. ‘Did you know that he was caught playing truant from school today?’

‘That’s probably my fault. I ambushed him and Jo yesterday morning on their way to school and persuaded them to accompany me to the zoological gardens.’

Pyke had joined his uncle at the window. He watched his son with a mixture of pride and consternation, amazed at how tall he had grown and how different he looked. Older, almost a man.

‘For a while he hardly left his room. Now he’s taken to spending more and more time outdoors.’

Pyke studied the lad Felix was talking to. It looked as though they were deep in conversation. ‘Do you know who the older boy is?’

Godfrey pushed his spectacles up his nose and frowned. ‘Never seen him before.’

‘I know you mean well,’ Pyke said, ‘and I don’t mind the lad pouring over the Newgate Calendar, but could you please make sure that he doesn’t read another word of Confessions?’

‘Point taken, dear boy.’ Godfrey cleared his throat. ‘But if you were to find somewhere large enough for you, Jo and Felix to live, you wouldn’t have to worry about the lad finding something morally degrading here in my apartment.’

Pyke had no answer to that, so he turned and went outside. As he walked down the steps, Felix looked at him. The older boy did, too, and then ambled across the street in the direction of Camden Place.

‘Is he a friend?’

Felix stared down at his boots. ‘I just met him.’

‘What were you talking about?’

‘Just things.’

Pyke looked at the older boy, who’d turned around and was grinning. ‘I don’t want you to talk to him again.’

‘He admired my coat.’

‘I said I don’t want you to see him again. Is that understood?’

Felix looked up at him defiantly. ‘I’m not a child any more.’

‘I know.’ Pyke waited. ‘But child or not, you shouldn’t play truant from school.’

‘They don’t teach us anything worth learning, so why should I go?’

‘Because I say so.’ It was an inadequate response, but Pyke couldn’t think of a better one.

Felix dug his hands into his pockets. ‘Have you found us a place to live yet?’

‘Is that what you really want?’

Pyke hadn’t wanted to ask this question for fear that Felix might, when it came down to it, prefer to remain at Godfrey’s. As it happened, Felix just shrugged and mumbled that of course it was what he wanted.

‘I’m looking for somewhere. Really I am. But you have to be patient.’ Pyke hesitated, wondering whether to say what was on his mind. ‘In the meantime I’m trying to do something that will make you proud of me.’

That got Felix’s attention. ‘Why do you want me to be proud of you?’ The idea seemed difficult for him to grasp.

‘For one thing, I don’t want you to think of me as that character in Godfrey’s book.’

A brief silence passed between them. Felix scrunched up his face. ‘That person stole from time to time and he even killed a few people.’

‘Like I said, he’s a made-up character.’

‘But that man in the bookshop accused you of killing the other man’s father.’ Felix’s face was hot with fear and indignation.

‘There are some things you’re not old enough to understand.’ Pyke looked up and saw that Jo was in the front window, watching them.

‘So it is true, then.’ Felix’s eyes were bulging. ‘He said you stabbed the other man’s father in the neck and threw him out of a window.’

Pyke could feel the heat under his collar. What was he supposed to say? What could he say? ‘That man was a liar and a drunkard. You shouldn’t believe him over your own father.’

‘So why did you agree to fight him in a duel?’

Flummoxed, Pyke tried to think of different ways to answer Felix’s question. He tried to think how Emily might have answered it but she had known Felix only as a young boy; now he was maturing rapidly. She would have been so proud of him, Pyke decided. But she still wouldn’t have known how to answer all his questions.

In the end, Pyke told Felix it was nearly dinner time and made him promise not to miss any more school. Reluctantly Felix agreed and followed Pyke up the steps to the apartment and then went on to his bedroom.

‘What do you know about Jemmy Crane?’ Pyke asked Godfrey, once he was sure they were alone.

‘Crane?’ Godfrey’s face was suddenly creased with worry.

‘He said he knew you.’

‘We used to know some of the same people back in the old days. Why do you ask?’

Briefly Pyke told his uncle about the murder investigation and his suspicions regarding Crane, and also about Field’s interest in Crane.

‘He’s a nasty one, that’s for sure. Ruthless, too. He used to be an associate of Dugdale’s back in the twenties. The market for free-thinking tracts on religion and politics died away and men like Crane and Dugdale turned to pornography. Dugdale clung on to his radical beliefs but Crane never had any such beliefs in the first place.’

‘You haven’t come across him for a while, then?’

‘Not for years. But I don’t doubt he’s the same as ever. A man like that wouldn’t think twice about slitting your throat if there was a profit in it.’ Godfrey hesitated. ‘But then again, you could say the same about Field.’

‘I know.’

‘Field once poured lamp oil down another man’s throat and lit it with a match. He read the newspaper while the man choked to death. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.’

‘A rock and a hard place.’

Godfrey considered what Pyke had just said. ‘Of course, you could just walk away from everything. Spend some time with your son.’

Pyke let this last remark pass without an answer.

As he waited for a hackney carriage, Jo emerged from the apartment and joined him on the pavement. ‘I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed our trip to the zoological gardens.’ She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.