Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

Pyke was thinking about going after him when he noticed Jem Nash slip into the room through a door used by the servants. He smoothed his hair back using the palms of his hands and helped himself to some food from the table. Marguerite walked through the same door a few moments later, arranging her hair. She looked flushed, the colour rising in her cheeks.

Pyke joined his assistant at the table and, for a while, they watched Marguerite in silence.

‘She’s quite a specimen, isn’t she?’

‘Who?’ Nash looked at him, frowning.

‘Morris’s wife.’

Nash sniffed. ‘A bit old for me.’ But he seemed flustered, and Pyke wondered whether something had taken place between him and Marguerite.

‘I knew her when we were both much younger.’

A shimmer of interest passed over Nash’s otherwise dull stare.

‘Back then she was just plain old Maggie Shaw, except there was nothing plain or old about her.’

‘Did you fuck her?’

Pyke looked at his assistant and smiled. ‘Straight to the point, eh?’

‘I can see why you might have wanted to…’ Nash paused, as though not sure what else to say.

‘But?’

‘But nothing.’

Pyke didn’t believe Nash held grudges but wondered whether he was still secretly rankled by their encounter in the banking hall. ‘I was young and selfish. I used her, in a way I’m not proud of. But I found out she was a cold fish, too.’

Nash regarded him sceptically. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Just be careful, Jem. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Be careful of what?’

Pyke was about to answer him when he reached down to touch his chain and keys and discovered they were missing.

Nash must have seen his expression change because he asked what the matter was. ‘Someone’s palmed my keys.’

‘What keys?’

‘The key to the bank vault and…’ Pyke hesitated and kicked himself. He couldn’t possibly explain the worth of the other. Nor could he ever replace it.

‘Are you certain someone took it?’

‘As opposed to me losing it?’

Nash shrugged. ‘If someone was going to try and break into our vault, they’d need at least five different keys.’

Pyke nodded and felt himself start to relax. Nash was right. But still, the idea that someone had picked his pocket upset him. He thought about the ravens. The tiny key that Emily had given him in the condemned cell at Newgate all those years ago was part of the same thing. Somehow not having it made Pyke feel exposed, vulnerable. He tried to think who might have stolen it. He’d had the keys when he arrived back in London, that was for certain. The old gypsy perhaps? Then he remembered what Freddie Sutton had said about his young daughter. A real magpie. The same little girl who had hugged his leg

…

‘Say goodnight to Morris for me,’ Pyke said, already moving towards the rotunda, wondering whether Sutton’s daughter had really palmed his keys.

‘Do you want me to check on the vault?’ Nash called out.

Turning around, he shook his head. ‘That won’t be necessary. But thanks for the offer.’

Outside, Pyke strode down the steps from the Doric portico, looking for a hackney coachman. He saw Marguerite standing with her back to him, staring out into the park.

‘Maggie?’

She spun around with a start and tried to hide the fact that she’d been crying. Her arms were covered with gooseflesh.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, gently.

Sniffing, Marguerite stared out into the darkness. ‘I had a blazing row with Eddy. He’s drunk as a lord. I have to leave him alone when he gets like this. He won’t listen to reason.’

‘I did try and warn you.’

She looked away and shrugged, her face streaked with the traces of her own tears. ‘People aren’t always who you think they are.’

‘And does that apply to your husband…’ Pyke waited for a moment and added, ‘Or me?’

The tip of her tongue brushed against her bottom lip. ‘Why didn’t you come with me to France all those years ago?’

Pyke stared at her and sighed, not sure what to say. ‘It would never have worked out, Maggie.’

She smiled at his use of her old name. ‘Perhaps.’ She took a step towards him and stopped. ‘The fact I won’t ever leave Eddy doesn’t mean I don’t desire other men.’

Pyke felt his throat tighten. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

This time she didn’t answer but took another step towards him. He could smell her, a sharp tangy scent that reminded him of lemons. ‘Eddy and I haven’t shared a bed in three years.’

Pyke looked around for a hackney coachman. ‘I’m going home to my wife.’

A look of disappointment, even bewilderment, registered on her face, and then she gathered up her shawl and started to walk back towards the portico.

‘Why did you insist to your husband that you wanted to live at Cranborne Park?’ he called out after her.

But she continued on her way as though he hadn’t spoken or she hadn’t heard him.

It was late, well after ten o’clock, by the time the carriage pulled up in front of the cottage shared by Freddie Sutton and his family. The coachman hadn’t wanted to venture into Spitalfields and had been persuaded only by the offer of a guinea. Pyke instructed the coachman to wait and banged on the front door. When there was no reply, he repeated the act, but still no one answered. It had started to rain and in the night sky the yellow moon, suddenly visible though a mass of low clouds, shone like a gargoyle. Pyke walked around to the window and peered into the room. In the neighbouring cottage he could hear a man and a woman arguing. There were no candles burning in the room and it was difficult to see anything through the broken, smeared pane. He tapped lightly on the window but nothing and no one stirred inside. A dog barked, and in the bushes he heard something move, but then it went silent.

Walking back to the front door, he knocked again, only louder this time, and then tried the handle, to see whether it was unlocked. The door swung open and he called out Sutton’s name. Still no one answered. Treading carefully, he stepped into the room and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he didn’t have to see anything to know what had happened. The smell was enough. On certain occasions, as a Bow Street Runner, he had visited the underground slaughterhouses in the vicinity of Smithfield and the sweet, putrid stench of fresh blood and ripe flesh had imprinted itself on his memory. Taking a box of matches from his pocket, he took one and struck it against the wall. The match exploded, temporarily filling the room with light. That was when he saw them, Freddie Sutton and his wife, propped up against an overturned ale barrel. Their throats had been cut and the floor around them had turned crimson with their blood. Pyke tried to cover his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, but too late. He felt the revulsion build in his stomach and then rise up to his throat until he could taste it in the back of his throat. The match died in his hand but not before he saw blood glistening on the toes of his leather boots. He retched but nothing came up.

Another match confirmed what he had just seen. Freddie Sutton and his wife had been murdered, their throats slit with a sharp knife. Their bodies were warm too, indicating they hadn’t been long dead.

That was when he heard the noise. At first he had thought it was a rat scurrying over the floor or possibly a small dog or cat. It came from under the table, and when Pyke bent down, the tip of the match still burning in his hand, and peered under the tablecloth, the little girl gasped and backed away, her eyes wide with fear. Crab-walking back to the wall, she stared at him, her lips ever so slightly parted, assessing him as a cat might regard a much larger dog.