Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

Gore seemed amused rather than hurt. ‘And you knew Edward well?’

When Emily didn’t answer, Gore bowed his head again and turned to greet some of the other mourners. As they filed past him, Pyke whispered, ‘Why did you have to say that?’

Emily’s laugh was coruscating. ‘Don’t tell me you actually like the man now?’

Pyke didn’t answer her — he didn’t know whether he liked Gore or not, but he did believe that Gore was genuinely upset by Morris’s death. What else could have explained his laudable actions at the coroner’s meeting? They walked on in silence, neither wanting to cede ground.

It wasn’t difficult to spot Peel’s brougham. It was the largest and shiniest on the street and was attended to by four liveried footmen. Pyke asked Emily whether she’d wait for him in their carriage and went across to join Peel, who was standing on his own, watching someone in the crowd.

‘Why did you want me to go to Huntingdon?’

Peel regarded him with an amused look. ‘Straight to the point, eh? I wouldn’t have expected anything less.’

‘Someone tried to kill me. I think that gives me a right to be blunt.’ His sharp tone cut through Peel’s feigned bonhomie.

‘Perhaps we should talk in the carriage,’ the Tory leader said, pointing at the door. ‘There might be more privacy.’

Once they were both settled inside, Peel nodded and the footman pushed the door closed. The mahogany interior gleamed in the fading afternoon light.

‘Well?’ Pyke kept his stare fixed on the leader of the opposition. ‘Did you know there was going to be a riot?’

‘You think too much of me.’ Peel’s smile was devoid of warmth. ‘I have a certain talent for oratory but I’m afraid I can’t predict the future.’

‘But you suspected something might happen?’

‘As I told you before, I’d heard some rumours about an increase in radical activity in the area,’ Peel said, watching him carefully. ‘Who tried to kill you?’

‘Townsmen who’d been sworn in as special constables. And soldiers

…’ Dangling this revelation in front of him.

Peel took the bait. ‘Soldiers were used to put down the rioting?’

‘Dragoons.’ Pyke wondered whether Peel had heard about the shooting of one of them or not.

‘How many of them?’

‘Six, perhaps.’

‘In uniform?’

Pyke nodded. Peel didn’t seem to know anything about the use of soldiers but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He was a canny operator who hid his feelings well. ‘The magistrate had it in mind that I was Captain Paine.’

The Tory leader didn’t know whether to be surprised or amused. ‘Why would he have thought that?’

‘You’ll have to ask him,’ Pyke said, wanting to see whether Peel had heard about Yellowplush or not.

‘Perhaps I will.’

Pyke looked searchingly into his face. ‘Why were you so interested in the headless corpse?’

‘I explained all that to you before.’

‘Try again. I’m a slow learner. I don’t pick things up very quickly.’

There was a disconcerting glint in Peel’s eyes. ‘Why do I get the sense that you’re not telling me something?’

‘You think I’m the one who’s lying to you?’

‘I’m aware of your skills as an investigator. Given our last chat, I don’t think you would have returned from Huntingdon empty handed.’

‘People were trying to kill me. Forgive me for not caring about your problems.’ Pyke rearranged himself on the horsehair seat. ‘Tell me why you’re so interested in this Captain Paine and Julian Jackman?’

Peel gave him a sardonic look. ‘Did you find out whether they were one and the same?’

‘With the benefit of hindsight, and in spite of your efforts to blackmail me, I can’t see why you’re so interested in Jackman.’

‘Blackmail is a very impolitic description.’ Peel shook his head, his lips pinched together. ‘But in the light of the price you’ve already paid, what would you say if I gave you certain guarantees that your liaison with undesirable figures like Villums will remain our secret?’

‘Just like that?’

Peel nodded but didn’t say anything.

‘Do you want to know what I really think?’ Pyke asked, again wondering how the Tory leader had known about his dealings with Villums in the first place. ‘For a start, and in spite of your claims to be merely helping a friend, I don’t think you give a damn about the navvies or about the progress, of lack thereof, of the Grand Northern Railway. I think you were hoping to use the radical protests for your own ends.’

‘Those are serious allegations.’

Pyke waited for a few moments. He’d wanted to try to draw Peel out of himself but the Tory leader’s defences were impregnable. ‘How well do you know a landowner called Sir Horsley Rockingham?’

‘He made his fortune from sugar in the West Indies and from what I’ve heard he’s an obstinate bugger and rather full of himself.’

‘You don’t make him sound like much of a threat.’

‘Should I?’

‘I think he was responsible for orchestrating the disturbances in Huntingdon.’

‘Go on.’

‘He didn’t want the railway to run across his land. And now the construction work has ground to a halt in Cambridgeshire and Morris is dead, it doesn’t appear likely that it will.’

By reputation Peel was a scrupulously moral person but virtue, for him and others like him, was defined by its consequences, and Pyke didn’t doubt, for a moment, that he would roll up his sleeves and dirty his hands if it might result in a perceived good.

‘What if I told you I didn’t believe Morris committed suicide?’

This time, Peel’s interest was unmistakable. He leaned forward and said, ‘I’d ask you to justify your claim.’ In the fading afternoon light, his skin glowed with a peculiar intensity.

‘You’d be prepared to entertain such a notion?’

‘I would want his death to be properly investigated.’

‘I attended the coroner’s inquest earlier. Under pressure from Sir Henry Bellows, he declared it to be suicide.’

‘Bellows?’ The news was clearly a surprise; he stared out of the window, turning it over in his mind. ‘You’re saying the verdict was rigged?’

‘I’m saying it’s strange the chief magistrate took time out of his busy day to give evidence at a corner’s inquest when he didn’t know the deceased and had no jurisdiction over the death.’

‘But your suspicions are based only on gut instinct?’ Peel sounded disappointed. ‘By that I mean, you don’t have any evidence to refute the verdict returned at the inquest?’

‘Only a sense that people like Rockingham have profited from Morris’s death.’

‘People like Rockingham or just Rockingham?’

‘Are you suggesting I should think about other suspects?’ Pyke asked, detecting something in Peel’s voice.

But Peel would not be drawn on this subject. A long, awkward silence followed.

‘Since you refuse to disclose your own interests in all of this,’ Pyke said, finally, ‘you force me to speculate.’

‘About my intentions?’

‘You’ve seized control of the party from Tory Ultras like Eldon and the Duke of Cumberland. Now it’s a question of taking power back from the Liberals.’

‘You make it sound like a despicable ambition.’

‘Melbourne’s second ministry is already teetering on the brink. The King doesn’t like him. Nor does the Church, the bar, much of the landed gentry and a sizeable minority in the Commons. He was only able to form a government with the support of the radicals and the industrial North.’

‘Don’t forget O’Connell.’

‘Of course,’ Pyke conceded. ‘But the radicals are starting to turn on their former allies: what happened in Huntingdon is likely to drive a further wedge between the two factions. It’s my guess you’re trying to exploit the situation for your own gain.’