Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

‘One fuck and everything is just as it was before. Is that it?’ Pyke shook his head, already sorry he’d said it. ‘I have a family, Maggie. I have a wife and I have a son.’

For a moment he wasn’t sure whether she’d cry or scream. In the end, it was something between the two. ‘Well, I fucking don’t.’

‘Is that what this is about? Punishing me because I have what you want?’

‘Do you think I want you? Eddy may have been a molly but he was still twice the man you’ll ever be…’

‘ What did you say?’

Ignoring him, Marguerite said, ‘After James died, Eddy picked me up out of the gutter and took care of me. I always felt safe with him, Pyke. That’s something I never knew with you.’

‘You said Edward was a molly?’

‘What?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Didn’t you know? Pyke, the once famous detective, didn’t know my husband was a mandrake?’

Pyke stood up and walked across to the window. She was right. All the signs had been there. He’d just missed them: her offhand references to a Platonic marriage, Morris’s outburst on the night of his death when, apparently, he’d called himself a ‘dirty monster’. Rationally Pyke knew it made sense but it didn’t alleviate his shock.

‘I never asked what he did or who he slept with. It didn’t bother me at first. And I slept with other men.’

‘And later?’

‘Later it disgusted me.’

‘What Morris did with other men?’

She shook her head. ‘The situation disgusted me, what we’d allowed ourselves to become, a sham of a marriage.’

Could she have killed Morris? No, she had arrived home around the same time he had last been seen alive. Perhaps she had paid someone to do it for her. Or perhaps Morris killed himself. That was another possibility he’d have to consider.

‘You should be glad he’s dead, then.’

Marguerite sniffed and cleared her throat. ‘Maybe you’re right. I should be. But I still miss him.’

‘Do you think he killed himself?’

She shrugged, the hardness returning to her face. ‘Like I said before, I don’t know. It’s possible. Most of the time, Eddy put on a jovial face, but deep down I think he hated what he was.’

Pyke sat down again on the edge of the bed and touched her ankle. She flinched ever so slightly. ‘So what happens now?’

‘What do you mean, what happens now? You go back to your nice family and live happily ever after. I get to keep this place.’ Marguerite looked at him and smiled. ‘I forgot to tell you. Someone sent me the deeds in the mail.’

That got his attention. ‘Who?’

‘It was an anonymous letter sent from somewhere in the city. There was no return-to-sender address.’

‘Just like that?’

She stared at him and shook her head. ‘Why does that upset you?’

‘It doesn’t upset me; it just follows that whoever sent you the deeds also stole the money I lent Eddy.’

‘Maybe no one stole it. Maybe Eddy hid the money somewhere and it’s waiting to be found.’

‘The deeds and the loan papers were stolen from the vault at my bank. Now they just turn up on your doorstep.’

‘I hope you’re not accusing me of theft.’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything.’ Pyke let out a sigh. ‘Listen. A while ago, you mentioned you wanted to sell Eddy’s shares in the Grand Northern. I’ll buy them off you at the market rate, plus an additional ten per cent.’

‘Is that why you fucked me? To lay your hands on my late husband’s shares?’

‘It’s a simple question,’ Pyke said, ignoring the insult. ‘Do you want to sell me his shares or not?’

Marguerite fiddled with her hair. ‘I’m afraid I’ve promised them to someone else.’

‘Who?’ he said, quickly. Perhaps too quickly. ‘Who have you promised them to?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

Pyke went to pick up his coat from the floor. ‘There’s a meeting early next week to decide the fate of Eddy’s railway.’

‘It isn’t Eddy’s railway and it never was. And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if a single yard more of track is laid or not.’

‘Eddy put the last years of his life into that enterprise. Are you going to let some chinless fools piss his legacy up the wall?’

‘You’ll excuse me if I don’t see you to the door,’ Marguerite said, without looking up at him.

Pyke hadn’t told her about Emily and Felix and, as he walked along the driveway, he wondered why not. He hadn’t wanted her pity, for a start. But was that all? The question that he kept returning to was this. Did Marguerite already know? Was it possible she had somehow been involved? She hadn’t made any reference to his difficulties but there were elements of their conversation that bothered him, in addition to her revelations about their son and Morris. James, if indeed he had ever existed, had perished shortly before his fifth birthday. Felix’s fifth birthday was fast approaching and now he was in grave danger, too. Marguerite had met Emily, as well. What if she had decided to drive a stagecoach through their lives, ruin things for them just as her life had been ruined? As soon as he’d had these thoughts, he dismissed them as ridiculous. Ultimately Marguerite was as selfish as he was but she wasn’t a kidnapper, or worse, a murderess. She wouldn’t deliberately harm anyone. He was relieved by this realisation, but as soon as he’d reassured himself of Marguerite’s innocence, another thought struck him. She was somehow acquainted with Bolter. Bolter and his mutt had stood alongside her when she had buried someone — or something — in a field on the estate. He had to know who or what had been buried that day. He’d intended to walk the five miles back to Hambledon. Now he would just take a path that skirted the same field; and, hopefully, a shed where he would find a shovel and a pick…

It was a cold, blustery morning and the ground was almost frozen. Having found a shovel and a pickaxe, Pyke retraced his steps to the spot where he had seen Marguerite and Jake Bolter that day and paced around the sodden field, trying to determine the exact place where the hole had been dug. There was no makeshift headstone or cross, but right in the middle of the field the grass was shorter and dirtier, and Pyke started to dig there. It was back-breaking work and at times he needed the pickaxe to break the frozen ground. After an hour of digging, the hole came up to his chest and a further half-hour after that, the tip of his shovel struck something hard. It took fifteen minutes to clear enough earth away in order to see what he’d found. The coffin was made of solid wood but by Pyke’s estimate it was only four feet in length. For a while, Pyke stood in the tiny annexe he had dug next to the coffin and thought about what he was about to do, how wrong it was to desecrate a grave.

Tentatively Pyke tied a handkerchief around his mouth and bent over, gripping the lid of the coffin with his fingers. He eased the lid upwards and, as he did so, a sulphurous whiff escaped from the coffin, its pungency almost inducing him to retch. Pulling the lid a little higher, he saw that the body was human rather than animal. A little boy. Pyke had to blink, to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks; he looked again and saw what seemed to be the body of his own son. This had been his first impression, but when the shock had finally subsided he saw the little differences. This boy was taller and broader than Felix, for a start. His face was fuller and his blond hair was less wispy. Nonetheless the likeness was startling, and for a while Pyke stood there staring down into the coffin, both appalled and relieved at the same time. It had been more than a month since he had watched, with Felix, the informal burial, and the corpse had started to decompose. Taking care to replace the lid, Pyke pulled himself out of the hole and, from there, began to shovel the earth back into the grave.