Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

‘Malvern.’ It took him a few moments to place the name. Elizabeth Malvern had had an affair with Alefounder. Could this be the wife or daughter?

‘I thought you’d be interested in him so I did a bit of digging. He sold up his interests in the West Indies a few years ago and bought a mansion in Belgravia. I’m told he’s paralysed down one side of his body and has to be carried around in a high-chair.’

Pyke’s thoughts turned to the old man he’d seen talking with Pierce in the atrium of the police building. ‘Any family?’

‘I didn’t ask,’ Saggers said. ‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Pyke took out his purse and threw a couple of sovereigns on to the table to pay for the dinner. ‘It’s been a pleasure, as always.’

‘You’re leaving so soon?’ Saggers tried not to show his disappointment. ‘But we haven’t even perused the dessert menu or smoked cigars or sipped the finest cognac from cut-crystal glasses.’

‘There’ll be enough there to cover whatever you want.’

‘But who shall I entertain with my repartee?’ Saggers shifted to one side of his chair and let out a deafening fart.

Pyke glanced around at the stony faces of the other diners. ‘Carry on like that, you’ll have to beat off your admirers with a stick.’

It was too late to make the trip out to Belgravia that night but the next morning Pyke caught a hackney carriage from a stand at the end of his street and asked the driver to take him to Eaton Place via Curzon Street, near Hyde Park.

Just by asking, Pyke found the house easily enough, though it wasn’t on Curzon Street as Harriet Alefounder had thought. It was a pretty, Georgian terrace on Pitts Head Mews. It was early, before ten, but the air was already warm, and as Pyke told the driver to wait for him, he removed his jacket and wiped his brow. The shutters were drawn and he couldn’t see any sign of life inside the house. He banged on the door and disturbed one of the neighbours, an elderly man with a cane and a slight limp, who told him in a hushed tone that Miss Elizabeth had very recently sailed for the West Indies and wasn’t expected back for a number of months.

As Pyke returned to the waiting carriage, he had one last look at the house and noticed movement in one of the upstairs windows, but as soon as the person — whoever it was — realised they’d been spotted, the curtains ruffled and the face disappeared from view. Later it struck him that he should have investigated this matter more closely, but he was eager to question Silas Malvern and he used the rest of the journey to prepare his thoughts.

The dazzling white stucco of the grand terraced mansions on Eaton Place in Belgravia screamed of their occupiers’ wealth. This, Pyke had heard someone say, was the most desirable address in London and, compared with the rest of the city, it was eerily quiet. These were the white, modern palaces of the parvenu rich, neoclassical in style with columns and porticos on the outside, vast windows of plate glass and rich cornices on the inside.

Having presented himself at the front door, Pyke was told to wait in the marble-floored entrance hall while the butler went to see whether ‘Mr Malvern’ was receiving visitors.

Malvern was sitting in a greenhouse attached to the back of the property overlooking the garden. He cut a frail figure surrounded by the tropical plants he’d doubtless imported from the West Indies to remind himself of his former home, but whereas the jasmine, honeysuckle, lilies and orchids probably smelled fragrant and alive in their native habitat, here they produced a sweet, sickly stench that was so overpowering Pyke had to cover his mouth with a handkerchief.

‘Excuse me, sir, but I told you to wait in the entrance hall,’ the butler said, when he saw Pyke step into the greenhouse. He turned back to his master. ‘I’ll show him to the door, sir. Rest assured, you will have your peace and quiet restored.’

Malvern looked up at Pyke, his eyes as small and hard as shrivelled acorns. ‘No, I’ll see him. Tell the blackguard to come and sit next to me.’

The butler bowed his head and approached Pyke, still glaring. ‘Mr Malvern will see…’

‘I heard.’ Pyke pushed past him and pulled up a chair next to the old man.

‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ The butler hesitated. ‘Would you like me to stay here with you?’

But Malvern dismissed him with a wave of his bony hand. For a while he studied Pyke’s face without speaking. ‘What’s your name, and why have you interrupted my morning sleep?’

‘My name’s Pyke, but I suspect you already know that.’

‘How would I know? We’ve never met before, as far as I’m aware.’ But his expression suddenly betrayed his wariness.

‘I saw you the day before yesterday talking to Inspector Benedict Pierce of the New Police.’

‘Is that a crime, sir? And what business is it of yours who I damn well talk to?’

‘Given you’re the major shareholder in the West India Dock Company and Pierce is leading the investigation into the murder of a woman recently arrived from Jamaica on one of your ships, I’d say you have some questions to answer.’

‘I don’t have to justify myself to a guttersnipe like you. I’ll ask you to leave me in peace.’ He rang a bell and looked expectantly towards the door.

‘I paid a visit to the West India Docks recently and was forcibly removed from the premises. That suggests to me I’ve hit a raw nerve.’

This elicited the older man’s attention. ‘Are you the brigand that set fire to one of the warehouses the other day? The company lost over thirty barrels of rum. I’m told they intend to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.’

‘If they do, you can be sure I’ll drag your family’s good name into the mire surrounding Mary Edgar’s murder.’

As Malvern stared at Pyke, perhaps trying to gauge the threat he posed, Pyke added, ‘The clerk I talked to didn’t want me to know Mary Edgar had been met from her ship by a sugar trader called William Alefounder. I take it you know him?’

‘ Smith, dammit, where are you, man?’ The old man’s voice didn’t carry very far and he rang the bell again.

‘I’m guessing you must know him because until quite recently I’m told he was intimate with your daughter.’ The shock on Malvern’s face seemed genuine. ‘Elizabeth is your daughter, isn’t she?’

The butler appeared in the doorway, glancing nervously in Pyke’s direction. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Tell this gentleman to leave and if he refuses to go, send one of the lads to fetch the police.’

‘I want to talk to her.’

Malvern stared up at him, his cheeks hollow and his eyes lifeless. ‘That would be rather difficult to arrange in the current circumstances.’

‘Why? Because she’s sailed for Jamaica?’

The fact that Pyke knew this was another blow to the old man’s defences. He gripped the edge of his chair to stop his hands from trembling. ‘Get him out of here,’ he barked at the butler.

But Pyke had got what he wanted: confirmation that Elizabeth was out of the country. Ignoring the butler, he crouched down next to Malvern and whispered, ‘Did you know Mary Edgar by any chance?’

‘I’ve said all I’m going to say.’ Malvern folded his arms and looked across at his butler. ‘Fetch the police.’

‘Guilt can be a powerful agent, can’t it?’ Pyke pushed the butler to one side and made for the door. ‘I bet late at night when everything else is silent, you can hear the screams of the slaves whose lives you destroyed.’

Carriages were backed all the way down Aldermanbury from the Guildhall, the venue for the Lord Mayor’s banquet, as far as Milk Lane and even Cheapside: a multitude of vehicles, but all reflected the wealth and privilege of their owners. In the heart of the City of London, horses stood, blowing air from their nostrils and shitting on the cobbles, while footmen and drivers dressed in their finest livery conversed with old friends in hushed tones. It was a night when men came to slap one another on the back and congratulate themselves for their success. Alefounder would be in there and Pyke intended to put some difficult questions to him. From the beginning, the trader had shown scant regard for Pyke’s investigation — treating it as an annoyance or even an irrelevance — and he had used his contacts to ensure that his affair with Mary Edgar remained a subject beyond discussion. He’d assumed his position was a sufficient bulwark against the vagaries of a murder investigation and that, in spite of Mary Edgar’s death, his life could continue as if nothing had happened. Pyke intended to disabuse him of this notion.