Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

‘There are no friends in business. People will always try and cross other people to make money.’

‘What’s money?’

Pyke was momentarily startled by a magpie that landed on the path in front of them. Quickly he looked around for another. ‘Money is freedom, Felix, but you can’t have freedom without security. Security is like curling up inside your blanket. If you can’t protect your family and loved ones from other donkeys and foxes, you’re not a good husband or father. And you won’t ever be free to do what you want.’

At some point they had crossed over into Morris’s land, and though Pyke could just about see the outline of Morris’s Palladian house in the distance, it took him another ten or fifteen minutes to locate the field where he had been the previous night.

They weren’t alone, either. Marguerite and another gentleman, this time definitely not Morris, stood over the grave. Concealed behind an oak tree, Pyke watched them more closely. The man had a shovel in one hand and a dog leash in the other; at the other end of the leash, an enormous English mastiff was trying to peer down into the grave. Even from this distance Pyke could see that the man was not Marguerite’s equal. His appearance and clothes were too scruffy and he stood a deferential distance away from the grave. Who or what had just been buried? he wondered. A family pet perhaps? Or a young child? But if a child had just been buried, why was Morris not there at the graveside? And why was there no clergyman presiding over the events?

Felix was becoming restless. ‘What are they doing?’

Pyke pressed his finger to his lips and said, ‘Ssshhh.’

He had been sufficiently intrigued by his encounter with Marguerite the previous night to return to the scene, but now he was there he felt uneasy, as though he had intruded on a private moment that he’d had no right to see. Later, he recalled Marguerite’s willowy figure, her blonde locks pinned under a black lace bonnet, and it was hard not to be moved by her sadness.

‘Come on,’ he whispered to his son. ‘The carriage is waiting for us. Your mother will be wondering where we’ve got to.’

Felix fell in beside him. ‘What kind of dog was that?’

‘A mastiff.’

‘Oh.’ He trotted happily along next to him. ‘Who was the woman?’

‘A neighbour.’

‘Why didn’t we go over and say hello?’

Pyke stopped and bent over to face his son. ‘I want this to be our little secret. Can you keep a secret?’

‘Of course I can.’

Smiling, Pyke patted him on the head. ‘Because you know what happens to people who can’t keep secrets?’

‘No, what?’ Felix stared at him.

Pyke raised his arms above his head and roared. ‘The hungry lion eats them.’ He started to chase Felix along the path.

But Felix tripped on a loose branch and fell on to his knees. He began to cry and Pyke felt a familiar shame washing over him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for the lad — throw himself in front of a pack of wild horses if it meant keeping Felix from harm — but he did sometimes worry about the boy’s robustness and his worrying penchant for tears.

On Monday, the flagstone pavements in the City of London were filled by eight in the morning: a mix of red-faced jobbers clutching sheaves of paper, bank clerks on their way to early morning meetings at the Baltic coffee house and the London corn exchange; street vendors trying to make themselves heard over the clanging of wheels and clattering of hoofs; old ladies selling hot pies from wooden stalls; dead-eyed men on street corners displaying their stocks of knives; petty thieves surreptitiously offering stolen trinkets; and costermongers selling fruit and fresh fish from rickety hand-pulled carts.

Blackwood’s bank occupied the upper floors of a dilapidated Georgian town house on Sweeting’s Alley, a narrow passageway that ran between Cornhill and Lombard Street. It was not a particularly auspicious home for a bank, and even their most loyal customers complained bitterly about having to climb up a steep, winding staircase to reach the main banking hall, which at one time had been someone’s drawing room. For a while, Pyke had considered moving to better accommodation, but whereas the additional space and a more prestigious address would be welcome, he had grown fond of the old building, of its homely charm and low rent. It had everything he needed, and if it meant the customers had to walk up some stairs then so be it: to earn the high interest rate his bank was prepared to pay for their custom, most would doubtless be prepared to struggle all the way to the very top of the building.

At nine o’clock, Pyke swept into the boardroom only to find that his two partners, Jem Nash and William Blackwood, were already seated. Blackwood was leafing through some documents, while young Nash had his boots up on the table and was reading the personal advertisements on the front page of The Times, as he liked to do each morning. ‘You know what it tells me?’ he had said to Pyke once. ‘That the whole world is for sale. Everything, but everything, has a price. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a child for sale.’ Pyke had told Nash that he’d once seen a baby for sale at the annual Bartholomew’s fair and that piece of information had seemed to delight him further. ‘Isn’t this a great time to live? Nothing is outside the market.’ This time Nash put the paper away, to greet him, while Blackwood murmured ‘Good morning’ as Pyke took his usual seat by the fire and handed the clerk his coat and gloves, making it clear that he wanted them to be left alone.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, before he’d even taken his seat, ‘I have some exciting news to report.’ He told them about the proposed deal with Morris and outlined the likely rates of return. ‘In the first year alone, we’ll earn as much as seven or eight thousand in interest payments.’

Nash smiled and nodded his head. Blackwood, unsurprisingly, seemed concerned. He reddened slightly and stared down at the polished grain of the table.

‘Is there a problem, William?’

‘I was just wondering about the wisdom of taking on yet more risk, especially at a time when we’re already more exposed than I’d like to be.’ Blackwood was a small, timid man with thinning hair and rotten teeth, who crept around the building like an old retainer.

Pyke chuckled bitterly. ‘If you had your way, we’d simply lock up our customers’ money in the vault and leave it there. This business is founded on risk.’

‘The money we invested in General Steel has yet to pay a penny in dividends and, as I’m sure you know, the Grand Northern share price has fallen under ten pounds for the second time this month.’

‘So?’

‘The bank’s most fundamental obligation is to pay cash to all of its customers on demand. If just a quarter of our customers demanded their money tomorrow, and gave us the necessary notice, we wouldn’t be able to pay their balances.’

‘Everyone gets their twice-yearly interest payments, don’t they? People who want to close their accounts receive their full balances.’ Pyke shook his head. ‘Your problem is you’ve got no balls, William. No guts. No courage.’

Blackwood stared at him, aghast at being spoken to in such a frank manner. ‘And you’re nothing but a… gambler, recklessly speculating with your customers’ money to line your own pockets.’

‘Don’t forget your pockets, William. You earned what last year? One and a half thousand. That’s almost a thousand more than you earned the previous year and the year before that. I didn’t hear you complain then.’

Nash sat back in his chair, grinning. Since Pyke had given him a small percentage of the business, Nash supported him come what may in these meetings.