Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

‘How many shares are we talking about?’

‘I don’t know. Five thousand, maybe.’

Pyke did a quick calculation. At face value these shares were worth fifty thousand pounds. Marguerite was quite right to say their actual valuation was far lower, but even so they could be sold on the stock exchange for perhaps five thousand, still a vast amount of money. He was immediately suspicious. ‘And why would you make me such a generous offer?’

‘I need the deeds. Eddy gave them to you as collateral for a loan you made him. If you give them back to me, I’m prepared to make it worth your while. That’s how business is done.’

‘But at current value, the shares still don’t cover the cost of the loan.’

Marguerite turned to him and smiled. ‘So find the money you loaned my husband and you can keep that, as well.’

‘And where would I look for it?’ Pyke caught her eyes and felt a sudden jolt in his stomach. ‘Under your pillow?’

But Marguerite had walked ahead of him without answering and the moment was lost. Pyke followed her, as they headed off the beaten track. ‘Do you know when the next meeting of the Grand Northern committee is?’

She looked at him, laughing bitterly. ‘You mean when they can all pick over poor Eddy’s carcass?’

‘And decide what will happen to the railway.’

‘Next week, I think. But you can find out for yourself easily enough.’ Marguerite shrugged, as though the matter weren’t important.

They walked for a while in silence. ‘There was a man at your ball with a mastiff. Jake Bolter. He said you gave him permission to bring the dog with him.’

‘So?’ Marguerite continued to walk, but a note of caution had crept into her voice.

‘So I was curious to know how you first became acquainted with someone of his character.’

‘I take it the two of you didn’t see eye to eye.’

‘You could say that.’ Pyke waited for a moment. ‘I don’t tend to think too warmly of people involved in the procurement and selling of children for profit.’

This time she stopped to face him. Her expression was a mixture of bewilderment and anger. ‘That’s a terrible thing to accuse him of. I’ve found him uncouth, of course, but quite reasonable.’

‘So you do know him, then?’

She looked over his shoulder. ‘From time to time, I donate a little bit of money to the orphans’ school in Tooting where he works. The man’s never been anything less than courteous to me. Unlike others I could mention.’

‘The man who owns the school, Bartholomew Prosser, procures children from the workhouses in the city, earns a fee from the workhouse managers, and then sells them to the sweaters in the East End, who put the children to work in their hovels for sixteen hours a day and pay them slave wages.’ He paused. ‘Your good friend Bolter helps to transport the children from the school to the sweat hovels.’

They walked for another hundred yards in silence, into an area of the gardens that was deserted and shrouded in darkness. ‘What’s it like?’ Marguerite asked eventually. ‘To always be right? To always know what to do and make the choices. It must be hard being so perfect.’

They were now facing one another and he could feel the heat coming off her face. ‘Is that what you think? That I don’t have to live every day with the consequences of bad choices I’ve made?’

‘Give me an example.’

‘My bank lent the sweater I’ve just described the money to start up his business.’

That mollified her a little. When Marguerite next looked up at him, her eyes had moistened and she even managed a smile. ‘And was letting me go all those years ago one of those bad choices, too?’

Pyke was momentarily lost for words.

‘Or marrying the wrong woman?’

In the darkness he could see her breath vaporise in the chilly night air. ‘Who said I married the wrong woman?’ But he could feel his heart beating a little quicker.

‘Don’t you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d come with me to France?’

Pyke swallowed some cold air and tried to avoid meeting her stare. ‘You know, I watched you climb aboard that stagecoach from the other side of the street. I hid behind a flower stall.’

‘You were there?’ Her voice was suddenly softer, warmer. ‘I looked up and down the street for you, willing you to appear.’

‘But you still left without me.’

‘And you chose not to join me,’ she said, stiffly. ‘I didn’t have a choice. I had to leave.’

She had owed money to someone, he remembered, and faced the prospect of a few years in a debtor’s prison.

‘We always have choices, Maggie. It’s just that the things we have to choose between aren’t always pleasant.’

This time her laugh was without any warmth. ‘You always did know how to hide behind false principles.’

Pyke chose not to respond and a fragile silence settled between them.

‘Do you remember how it used to be?’ Marguerite said eventually, while fingering the stitching on her skirt.

‘Fifteen years is a long time.’

‘Nearly sixteen.’ Marguerite hitched up her skirt and turned to leave. ‘And what pains me the most is thinking about the good life we could have had together.’ But before he had the opportunity to respond, she had started to walk away, leaving him in the park alone.

When Pyke returned to Blackwood’s bank, Sir Henry Bellows was waiting for him in a carriage parked opposite the Royal Exchange on Cornhill. At first Pyke thought about ignoring him, but one of his officers made it clear that the chief magistrate wanted to talk to him so finally Pyke relented. But rather than climbing into the carriage, Pyke peered in through the open window. Bellows sat forward, the light from a gas lamp illuminating his high forehead.

‘What do you know about a man called Septimus Yellowplush?’ Bellows wanted to know.

The question took Pyke by surprise. He hadn’t imagined that the chief magistrate had connections with Huntingdon. ‘Why is Yellowplush any of your business?’

‘His body was dug up the other day in a field outside the town.’ Bellows’s voice was as dry as a tinderbox. ‘He had been shot.’

‘It would seem that Huntingdon’s a dangerous place at the moment. Just ask the navvies who died there.’

‘An off-duty soldier was also shot and killed while pursuing a suspect.’

‘Then the question you should be asking is what an off-duty soldier was doing trying to keep the peace.’

Bellows leaned forward and whispered, ‘There are a dozen witnesses who saw you playing cards with Yellowplush on the night before he was shot in a coaching inn on the High Street.’

‘I thought your jurisdiction ended at Temple Bar.’

‘So you don’t deny arguing with Yellowplush?’

‘I asked him how much his integrity as a judge had cost. I might ask you the same question.’

Bellows looked at him, almost amused. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with here, do you?’

‘So enlighten me.’

‘Two fine men died that night in Huntingdon. As a man of the law, I intend to see that justice is served.’

‘And will the navvies get the same kind of justice?’

The skin wrinkled at the corners of the chief magistrate’s eyes. ‘Go back to your family and stay out of this.’ He paused for a few moments, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘And if you had any sense, you would persuade your wife to do the same.’

Pyke put his head through the carriage window. The inside smelt mildewed and sour. ‘What did you just say, Bellows?’

‘You heard me the first time. I’m not going to repeat myself.’

‘Then clear something up for me. Did you just threaten my wife?’