Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

There were two liveried major-domos at the main gates checking the invitations of the guests; most had already passed through and were, doubtless, starting to take up their seats in the hall. Pyke withdrew as far as Lad Lane, which ran into one end of Aldermanbury, and waited. Fortunately he didn’t have long to wait.

Lad Lane was a narrow street that connected two larger thoroughfares and was used as a cut-through from one to the other. Within five minutes, two well-dressed gentlemen who’d had to jettison their carriage on Wood Street because of the congestion outside the Guildhall entered the lane. They didn’t see Pyke suddenly emerge from a doorway about halfway along, and were powerless to stop him knocking them unconscious with a plank of wood. Dragging them into an even smaller alleyway, Pyke picked the one who matched his height and build, stripped him naked and changed into the clothes. A minute or so later, he emerged from Lad Lane on to Aldermanbury with a top hat in one hand and the Lord Mayor’s invitation in the other.

He presented the invitation at the gates and was ushered through immediately. The two major-domos barely looked at him. Having mounted the steps leading up to the portico, two at a time, Pyke passed unchecked through the entrance, followed the line of well-fed, silver-haired men and eventually found himself in the banqueting hall. There, more liveried servants were waiting to guide the guests to their allotted seats, but Pyke slipped past this net and started his hunt for Alefounder.

The hall itself was cavernous; statues adorned the walls on one side of the room and a series of giant silk damasks hung on the wall opposite. Around the very top of the hall, a series of flags, including the Union Jack and several coats of arms, hung from their poles and from the panelled ceiling, and three giant chandeliers cast their light on to the guests below. There were three long rows of tables, all dressed with the finest linen, each row broken up into three smaller tables. At the very front of the hall was a raised ‘top’ table, where the privileged few looked down on the rest of the diners. Pyke did a quick calculation; there had to be somewhere in excess of two hundred men in the room, not including the vast army of servants whose job it was to cater to their every whim.

Some of the guests, Pyke noticed, were wearing wigs, powder and the gaudy trappings of a former era; others, perhaps the majority, wore more sensible attire: frock-coats, waistcoats, frilly shirts, neckcloths and silk cravats. Pyke didn’t look out of place in the clothes he’d stolen, nor did anyone pay him much attention as he strolled down one side the room, past the guests already assembled at the tables. Still, it was hard not to feel intimidated by the sheer scale of the venue and the collective wealth of the guests. He’d once owned a bank that made annual profits in the thousands, but he’d never even come close to being invited to such an event.

He found William Alefounder sitting at one end of a table situated in the middle of the room. The sugar trader, who was oblivious to his presence, was chatting to a man next to him. He seemed comfortable in this setting and was regaling his dining companion with a story that required exaggerated gesticulation of his arms.

From behind, Pyke grabbed a handful of Alefounder’s frock-coat and pulled him to his feet. For a moment the trader struggled to comprehend what was happening to him, and it was only when Pyke whispered, ‘Come with me quietly or I’ll humiliate you in front of these people,’ that he began to grasp his predicament. His companion and some of the other guests frowned at the rough manner in which Pyke had elicited Alefounder’s attention, but when they saw that the trader was following Pyke out of the hall willingly, they reverted to their conversations.

The first door Pyke could find led to the kitchens. He didn’t care where it took him; he just wanted to get Alefounder away from the prying eyes of the other diners.

‘I want to know how well you knew Mary Edgar and when you last saw her.’

The kitchen was a large room that extended all the way to the back of the building, so most of the cooks and servants were well out of earshot.

‘I don’t have to answer your questions, sir.’ But for the moment, Alefounder’s cocksure manner had vanished.

It was hot from all the coal-fired ovens and pans of boiling liquid, and Alefounder went to loosen his neckcloth.

‘I want to know when you first met Mary Edgar, when you first started fucking her and why you strangled her and dumped her naked corpse on the Ratcliff Highway.’

But if Pyke thought that the trader would crumple, he hadn’t counted on the arrogance of wealth.

‘I’ve said all I’m going to say to the people who matter.’

And when Pyke laid a hand on Alefounder’s arm, the trader went to brush it away, as if it were some kind of annoying insect.

‘If you touch me again, I’ll make sure you spend the night under lock and key.’ The skin on Alefounder’s face was as taut as a drum.

Pyke took a deep breath and allowed his chest to swell to its full girth. Alefounder was unprepared for Pyke’s first punch, which ripped against the side of his face, and was knocked to the floor by the second, a hammer blow that Pyke put his whole body behind and which caught Alefounder flatly on the chin. But if Alefounder believed that that was the end of his difficulties, he was badly mistaken. Pyke pulled him to his feet and dragged him across to a row of metal pots lined up on top of a large stove. There, he took the trader’s hand and held it over a pot full to the brim with bubbling liquid.

‘I’m giving you one more chance to answer me truthfully. Why did you meet Mary Edgar from the ship? And where did you take her?’

Dazed from the blows to his face, Alefounder struggled to remain upright, but still he didn’t respond to Pyke’s question.

‘Do you know a woman called Lucy Luckins? She was saved by the Vice Society, only to turn up dead a few months later.’

Alefounder offered Pyke a bewildered stare. The fight seemed to have left him. ‘Lucy who?’

Pyke forced the trader’s arm down towards the soup pot. ‘I asked you a question. Why did you meet Mary from the ship?’

Alefounder tried in vain to wrestle his arm from Pyke’s grip. ‘You have no authority over me, sir.’

Keeping his own hands out of the scalding liquid, Pyke forced Alefounder’s arm down into the soup and held it there for a moment. Alefounder’s agonised scream carried not only to the depths of the kitchen but also as far as the banqueting hall. Letting go, Pyke watched as the sugar trader fell to the floor, clutching hold of his arm, which was now covered with soup. A small audience had gathered around them, cooks, servers and even one of the major-domos. Their eyes switched between Alefounder, writhing around on the floor, and Pyke; their pity for the trader’s plight quickly turned to anger over the assault that had just taken place.

Pyke hauled the trader up. ‘If you don’t answer my questions, it won’t just be your arm in that pot…’

But now one of the cooks stepped out of the crowd and pulled Alefounder from Pyke’s grasp. Others began to shout for help. Instinctively Pyke knew that his moment had passed and he would leave the banquet hall empty handed. It felt as if he’d failed; as if Alefounder had beaten him. Turning around, he pushed his way through the crowd of bodies. No one tried to stop him, but the sting of failure stayed with him long after he’d found a way out of the building.

The first gin barely touched his throat, the clean aroma of the drink filling his nostrils. The second went down just as quickly. By the fifth he couldn’t feel his face, and it was only when he’d lost count of the gins he’d drunk that he remembered his promise to Jo. Outside on the street, he watched as a hackney carriage rattled past him; he made no effort to flag it down. She would be waiting for him, wondering where he’d got to. The feeling was a disconcerting one. From the tavern he’d been drinking in, he stumbled across St Paul’s Yard, in the shadow of the great cathedral, to the top of Ludgate Hill, where he found a young woman with dark hair and big hips. Thrusting a five-shilling coin into her palm, Pyke led her into an alleyway that was so dark he couldn’t even see the colour of her eyes. Wordlessly he unhooked his braces and let his trousers drop to his ankles. She had pulled up her layers of petticoats and as she guided him with her hand, he mumbled in her ear, ‘Can I call you Mary?’