Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

Pyke was walking back towards the main gate when he looked behind him and saw Jake Bolter appear from one of the outbuildings, his mastiff Copper choking on the end of its leash. Even at a distance of a hundred yards, he could see the man’s injuries as a result of his assault. Bending down, Bolter took off the leash and suddenly the giant mastiff was tearing towards him across the lawn, barking and growling, his paws chewing up chunks of turf. Pyke just managed to climb over the painted fence before the dog took a piece out of his ankles but it didn’t stop the beast from pressing its nose up against the wrought-iron railings and baring its teeth.

Bolter ambled down to the fence and patted the mastiff on the head. ‘Not so brave now, are we?’ Up close, Pyke saw that the gash around his left eye hadn’t properly healed and a flap of skin hung down, surrounded by congealed blood.

‘Tell Prosser that I’m going to close this place down and throw him on to the street where he belongs.’

‘Is that right?’ Bolter was grinning now. ‘A blackguard like yourself, caught up in an apron-string hold.’

Pyke stared at Bolter through the wrought-iron fence, his jaw clenched. ‘What did you just say?’

‘I heard you was living on Queen’s Street. Do you want me to be more plain still, sir? I’m saying your piece wears the breeches.’

Pyke absorbed the insult but he could feel the heat in his own face. ‘I talked to the man at the Colosseum. He admitted he lied at the coroner’s inquest.’

‘Now why would the cull go and do a thing like that?’ Bolter regarded Pyke with scepticism. Down at his feet, the dog was still barking and baring its teeth.

‘He named you.’

‘Named me in what?’

‘The conspiracy to kill Edward James Morris.’

This time Bolter’s grin broadened. ‘I see your plan, sir. You’re putting your line in the water and hoping the fishes bite. Reckon you got it worked out. Except this little fishy ain’t hungry.’ Reaching down, he patted Copper on the head.

‘Who or what did you bury in the grounds of Cranborne Park a few weeks ago in the company of Marguerite Morris?’

For a moment Pyke thought he saw something register in Bolter’s eyes but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a bland expression that suggested Bolter regarded Pyke merely as a nuisance.

‘You want to know about the lady’s business, ask the lady herself.’ With that, he turned around and walked back across the lawn towards the old house, the mastiff trotting happily at his side.

The hack-chaise dropped Pyke at Cheapside, just as the shopkeepers were pulling up their wooden shutters for the night and the lamplighters were working their way along the street, the greasy flame of the lamps hissing in their wake. It was a miserable evening, and the rain had turned the dung and mud into a slushy liquid that coated the trousers and breeches of pedestrians. Sweeping past them and spraying more of this foul brown mulch on to the pavements were the omnibuses, Shillibeer’s originals recognisable by their green markings and others belonging to different operators, all packed, the knife-boards on their roofs filled with back-to-back passengers shivering under tarpaulins.

Pyke had walked perhaps fifty yards along Cheapside in the direction of St Paul’s Cathedral when he realised that someone was following him. At first it was just a feeling, an intuitive sense gained from years of experience as a Bow Street Runner following other people: even among the throng of pedestrians, when he stopped, he could sense someone stopping behind him, even without turning around to check. At the corner of Wood Street, he waited until the last moment and ducked into a bazaar, following a narrow passageway until it opened up into a room adjoined by a myriad of smaller shops set in alcoves, with a refreshment counter at the back. Hiding behind a collection of exotic plants, he waited to see whether someone had followed him into the bazaar, the twittering of parrots and cockatoos drowning out the buzz of voices and the cries of vendors seeking to advertise their wares. Through the green foliage, he surveyed the faces of those entering and leaving the room but didn’t see anything or anyone acting in an unduly suspicious manner. Relaxing a little, he retraced his path to the passageway.

They saw one another and froze. Pyke was close enough to see his glass eye and smell the gin on his breath. Just for a moment it wasn’t clear who was the hunter and who was the hunted. He was a lithe, wiry man, his face covered by a ragged beard and a bushy untrimmed moustache that ran into each other and covered his mouth completely. It was Pyke who moved first, lunging for the man’s arm, but he was quicker than Pyke had expected and had spun around before Pyke could grab him. Barging shoppers to one side, the glass-eyed man set off along the passageway back towards Cheapside, Pyke following him outside on to the street. There the man turned right and stepped out on to the road, just missing a phaeton that swept past at a canter, arms pumping as he broke into a full sprint. Ducking out of the way of a costermonger’s barrow, Pyke kept up with the man in pursuit and shouted, ‘Stop, thief,’ hoping that someone might intervene and bring the man down for him.

Further cries of ‘stop, thief’ reverberated ahead of Pyke, but to avoid being tackled by a random passer-by, the glass-eyed man had swerved on to the road, narrowly avoiding a dung sweeper, weaved his way through the traffic to the end of Cheapside and then crossed over on to St Paul’s Yard, the mighty dome casting its vast shadow over the entire area. But the man was quick and Pyke was able to make up only a few yards, not enough to prevent him racing around the side of the cathedral and entering it through the doors on the west side.

Pyke followed him into the cathedral through the main entrance and stopped for a moment: the evening service had just started and the glass-eyed man had pushed his way through a procession of godly men wearing ceremonial robes, gasps of astonishment and shock accompanying his actions. Pyke took the less populated route along the north aisle and managed to cut the glass-eyed man off on the main floor just under the dome, forcing him to take refuge behind the table, where a visibly frightened canon was preparing the communion Eucharist. By this point the choir had stopped singing and the procession had come to a halt farther down the aisle, no one quite knowing what to do or how to address the disruption.

But though cornered, the glass-eyed man was, by no means, finished. Taking out a knife from his monkey coat, he pulled the shaking canon towards him and held the blade to his throat. Behind the ink-black tangle of hair, his one good eye shone with a peculiar malevolence. Someone had seen what was happening and screamed for assistance. Other anguished cries followed. Pyke held up the palms of his hands and took a stride towards the table.

‘Stay there, cully,’ the glass-eyed man barked, ‘or the priest gets cut.’ He started to back away towards the entrance down to the crypt, dragging the canon along with him. As he did so, he picked up the communion cup with his one free hand and took a swig of the wine, streaks of the claret liquid spilling down the sides of his mouth into his tangle of hair. He let out a burp and grinned. ‘Tell that bitch of yours to watch her back,’ he said in a low, gruff voice that sounded almost animalistic in its tone. Around them, the air was thick with the smell of candle wax.

Hot with anger, Pyke started to follow him but the glass-eyed man dug the sharp point of the blade into the canon’s throat and ordered to him to stay where he was. At the top of the stairs that led down to the crypt, a good twenty or thirty yards from where Pyke was standing, he drew the blade across the canon’s throat in a single motion, let the stricken man fall to his feet and turned and disappeared down the steps. But by the time Pyke had covered the ground across to the top of the stairs, checked to see that the canon could not be saved, blood pouring from his neck where the jugular had been severed, and descended the stone steps three at a time, the glass-eyed man had left the building through one of the many side doors and was nowhere to be seen. Above him, Pyke could hear wails of grief and outrage, and rather than trudge back up the stairs and face the combined wrath of the clergy and the congregation, he slipped out of the same door the glass-eyed man had used and closed it behind him.