Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

‘You live in a big house in the country,’ she said, closing her eyes, perhaps trying to conjure an image of it.

‘She knew Felix’s age.’ Pyke held her by the wrist. ‘How did you know his age?’

‘Leave her be, Pyke,’ Nash said, stepping between them and giving her the chance to wriggle free. ‘The old hag’s just playing with you. It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

‘What tragedy?’ he called out, as she darted behind them into Sweeting’s Alley. A few passers-by stopped to look at him.

The old woman disappeared into the darkness, moving quickly in spite of a limp. But later, as they rode in silence, Pyke couldn’t shake the feeling that the old woman had known more than he’d allowed her to say, and that he’d just been afforded a glimpse of his own unpleasant future.

A gargantuan edifice overlooking Regent’s Park, the Royal Colosseum was less a gladiatorial arena in the Roman sense of the word than a modern pleasure palace where the middle classes could go and wonder at the ‘Panorama of London’, which occupied an acre of canvas and stretched around the inside of the central rotunda. Morris’s charity ball was held on the ground floor under a tent-like roof that prevented people from seeing the panorama but partygoers could either walk up to the viewing promenade using a spiral staircase or take the ‘ascending room’, an iron cage powered by steam that transported them up to the spectacle without any physical exertion. Pyke left Nash in the rotunda and walked up the circular staircase to the viewing promenade, where Morris was greeting his guests.

Immediately Pyke could tell that Morris was inebriated. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused and his hands were shaking more than Pyke remembered. He didn’t know the older man well enough to tell whether this was in character or not, but he had to wait a full five minutes for Morris to acknowledge him and another five before he came to greet him. Briefly Pyke wondered whether the older man was still smarting from Emily’s implied criticisms of Marguerite.

‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Morris said, formally. ‘And I’m just sorry your wife couldn’t be here with us, too.’

Pyke acknowledged Morris’s conciliatory remark. He had argued again with Emily before she had left for the Midlands earlier that morning. He hadn’t wanted her to travel on her own but had been powerless to stop her.

‘I had a thought about what happened in Huntingdon.’

That drew a weary groan. ‘Can’t you leave it for tonight?’

‘If the Grand Northern terminates at Cambridge, it means the Birmingham railway will have a monopoly on freight and passenger traffic between London, the Midlands and the North. That could be worth a huge amount of money.’

Morris removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting Abraham had anything to do with that terrible business.’

‘Why not? He’s the chairman of the Birmingham railway, isn’t he?’

‘As I told you yesterday, Pyke, he’s also my oldest and best friend,’ Morris said, with a scowl.

Pyke looked around at the promenade, still thinking about the old gypsy who had approached him outside the bank. ‘Friend or not friend, Gore will stand to make a small fortune if your railway goes no farther than Cambridge.’

Morris shook his head angrily. ‘As you know, I’ve invited Abraham to the ball. I don’t want you peppering him with awkward questions, either.’ With inebriation came a belligerence that Pyke hadn’t seen before.

He waited for a moment, looking into Morris’s rheumy eyes. ‘When someone tried to kill me, the business in Huntingdon ceased to be just your problem. I’ll do what I think is necessary.’

They were the last words he’d spoken to Morris that evening.

The 360-degree panorama replicated the view from the top of St Paul’s in painstaking detail and was an impressive feat in its own right. Apparently the artist, Thomas Homer, had spent weeks in a cabin above the dome at St Paul’s, sketching the view in preparation. But Pyke couldn’t work out why people would pay money to see a painting of a view that they could witness for themselves, just by scaling Wren’s mighty dome.

‘Look, over there you can see the market where my parents once plied their trade.’ Pyke turned around suddenly, surprised to see Marguerite next to him. She was pointing towards New Cut on the panorama. She stared at him with her cool eyes, her shimmering crepe dress nearly filling up the cramped promenade with its puffed sleeves and flounced skirt.

‘As a child, I used to love the sight of that market at night, the candles and tallow dips twinkling among the fruit and vegetables.’ She wound her little finger around a coil of strawberry-blonde hair that had fallen on to her face. ‘But I can also remember the stink just as well. I like to think it taught me not to be nostalgic, to see things for what they are.’

They were standing at the end of the viewing promenade and beneath them was a sheer drop of a hundred feet on to the tented roof that hid the panorama from the guests on the ground floor.

‘You always did have a knack for stripping away other people’s pretensions.’

Marguerite joined him at the railing. ‘Your wife was angry at me for taking your son away from her yesterday, wasn’t she?’

‘I think she was surprised you were gone for as long as you were.’

‘And you? Were you angry with me, too?’ she asked, flirtatiously.

‘What do you want me to say, Maggie? That I lay awake last night thinking about you?’

‘You’re here, aren’t you? Without your wife, who I’m told is off somewhere trying to help the needy.’

‘She sends her apologies.’

‘And her best wishes?’ Marguerite asked, mocking.

‘Is it so wrong that she cares about more than her appearance and what clothes she wears?’

But instead of responding angrily, Marguerite chuckled. ‘Not all of us are cut out for sainthood. I would have thought you’d have appreciated that more than anyone. Just as I’m guessing you don’t really believe in her attempts to improve the lot of the working man.’

‘And why’s that?’ Pyke asked, gritting his teeth.

‘Because, like me, you’re a selfish bastard when it comes to it.’

‘When it comes to what?’

Marguerite smiled, apparently pleased that she’d rattled him.

Pyke looked around for some sign of Morris. ‘Did you know Edward’s more than halfway to being drunk?’

‘Yes, he’s upset about something.’

‘As in?’

‘Is that any of your business?’ she snapped at him. ‘Look,’ she added with a sigh, ‘it’s just difficult for Eddy to see the world as it really is; how ugly, cruel and deceptive people can be.’

‘You make it sound like a weakness.’ Pyke looked out at the panorama but could see the creaminess of her slender neck out of the corner of his eye.

‘My first years in Paris weren’t happy ones. I despised every man I slept with and I slept with a lot of men. Then I met Eddy. By then, my reputation, such as it was, was beyond salvation and I was past caring about it or myself. But Eddy didn’t seem worried in the slightest by what I’d done and what other people said about me behind my back. It didn’t matter to him because he only saw what he wanted to see. So you see, Pyke, I’m not suggesting his idealism is a weakness; just that I’d never known such unconditional acceptance, such gentleness and such goodness in a man.’

‘Then why doesn’t it sound like you’re paying him a compliment?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean. Unlike my younger self, I’ve come to value a good heart more than good looks.’

‘Then I hope it’s made you happy.’ Turning to face her, he felt a jolt of excitement in his stomach.