Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

This revelation brought a gasp of astonishment. For a short while, she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.

‘I’m not going to harm you, Helen. I just want to know whether Kate is still alive and if so where I can find her.’

She stared down at the straw on the floor of the cab. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.’

Pyke nodded calmly. He’d expected to meet some resistance. ‘How long have you been the princess’s lady-in-waiting? ’

‘I’m not her lady-in-waiting. I’m her lady of the bedchamber. ’

Pyke bowed his head, acknowledging the mistake. ‘How long have you been her lady of the bedchamber?’

‘About a year.’

‘And were you first appointed to this post by the duchess’s comptroller, Sir John Conroy?’

A brief tilt of her head confirmed this.

‘So how would you describe your dealings with Sir John? Do you find him to be a trustworthy employer?’

Gingerly she shook her head. They had travelled along the seafront and had come to a halt at the end of a track. Outside, the chalk cliff rose up from the sea like a vertical wall and the wind buffeted the side of the carriage.

‘In what way is he untrustworthy?’ When she didn’t answer, Pyke let out a heavy sigh and added, ‘Look, Helen, I can’t help either you or Kate unless you tell me something I don’t already know.’

This time she turned to face him, her eyes blazing with indignation. ‘Why should I tell you anything?’

‘Because I can help you. At the very least, I can keep you both alive.’

‘And who are you?’ she asked, suddenly curious.

‘My name’s Pyke. Before he was killed, Freddie Sutton asked me to try and find his daughter.’

‘Kate’s father?’ This seemed to change things and Helen stared out of the window, biting her lip.

‘If it helps, I think Sir John Conroy is a morally repugnant coward. But that’s just my opinion.’

She smiled at his apparent boldness before the frown returned to her expression. ‘Do you want to know something? The princess still believes I was planted by Conroy to spy on her.’

‘And were you?’

‘At first he wanted me to.’ She chuckled bitterly. ‘But he wanted me to do a lot of things for him.’

Pyke’s nod suggested he already knew about Conroy’s sleazy reputation. ‘I take it the princess isn’t exactly enamoured of her mother’s comptroller.’

‘That would be a gross understatement, sir. She hates him. Yes, hate would not be too strong a word.’

‘And this feeling is mutual?’

‘I should say so.’ Helen waited for a moment, to reflect on her answer. ‘But if he’s to be her private secretary when she becomes queen, I’d say he needs her more than she needs him.’

Pyke allowed a short silence to settle between them. Finally he turned to face her and said, ‘I don’t mean to alarm you, Helen, but I have another reason for wanting to find the letters that I believe Kate stole from Conroy. My wife and child have been kidnapped and, in order to secure their safe return, I need to produce the letters this Sunday morning. I want you to understand that I’ll do anything to make this happen. Anything. Now, if that means dragging you up those steps over there to the top of the cliff and holding you over the edge until you tell me what you know, I’ll do it without batting an eyelid. Now nod your head once if you understand my predicament.’

Dumbstruck, she nodded her head.

‘Good,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Now why don’t you take me to see Kate or tell me what happened to her?’

Helen stared at him with her large, liquid eyes and nervously licked her lips. ‘But I promised…’

‘So Kate’s still alive?’

Helen gave Pyke a forlorn nod. ‘But I swear, she’ll kill me, and maybe even shoot herself, if she thinks you’re there to harm her.’

‘What if I brought along her little sister?’

That drew another gasp of surprise. ‘You mean, you have Milly here?’

The girl before Pyke, wielding a pistol, in a sodden dress with pale, dirty skin, blue lips and dark, greasy hair, was more like a feral creature than the dutiful daughter Freddie Sutton had described.

But her resistance crumbled as soon as she saw Milly and her pistol slipped from her fingers as her sister ran towards her, Kate gathering her up in her arms. Their combined sobs lasted for more than a minute. Pyke and Helen stepped back across the threshold of the disused labourer’s cottage to give them a little privacy. They had walked for a mile or two across the top of the windswept cliff, Pyke carrying a tired Milly for some of the way on his shoulders. Now at the abandoned cottage, little more than a pile of stones and some branches with an old canvas tarpaulin as a roof, Pyke and Helen waited outside, staring up at the starry sky.

After about ten minutes, Kate appeared in the doorway and waved him and Helen back into the cottage. In place of her scowl, she now bore a smile and thanked him for what he’d done for Milly. Her cheeks were stained with tears. Milly stood at her side trembling but trying to hold herself together. Pyke supposed Milly had told Kate about their parents and could only wonder at the bewilderment and sadness she must now be feeling.

‘Milly tells me you took her into your home and treated her like she was your own daughter, Mr Pyke. For that, I’ll always be grateful.’

‘Did she tell you how I first came upon her?’ Pyke looked first at Milly and then at her sister.

Kate bit her lip and nodded, tears filling her eyes. ‘What were you doing there in the first place?’

‘My uncle’s Godfrey Bond. He asked me to try and find you.’

Her expression darkened. ‘No disrespect, Mr Pyke, but I wish I’d never laid eyes on that man.’

‘None taken. And just Pyke will do.’ He coughed. ‘In my uncle’s defence, he only gave you what you and Johnny wanted.’

Pyke’s mention of Johnny brought further discomfort to her face. ‘Have you seen or heard from him?’

The way Pyke shook his head told her what she needed to know. She gasped, tears flowing down her cheeks now. ‘My God, what have I done? Ma and Pa and now Johnny…’

‘You shouldn’t have to answer for Johnny. He saw a way of making some money and grabbed it with both hands.’

‘And my ma and pa?’

Pyke glanced over at Helen. ‘You did what you thought you had to.’

‘No, I did what I did because I was a greedy little bitch.’ Kate’s laugh was devoid of humour. ‘It’s been funny. I’ve lived here, with Helen’s help, for three weeks now, and you know something? I haven’t missed the fine bedding and fancy foods in the slightest. I can see the stars at night through the holes in the roof and I’ve even grown used to the cold. I used to think that having money would be the greatest thing in the world. Now Ma and Pa are dead and so is Johnny and I don’t give a damn whether I ever see a gold coin again in my lifetime.’ She reached down and gave Milly a hug.

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what happened, Kate. How you came to be caught up in this mess…’

‘Have you a few days to spare?’

‘I’d just like the truth.’ Pyke dug his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. ‘You owe me that much.’

Kate nodded solemnly. ‘I can’t offer you anything to eat or drink but maybe you’d like to take a seat.’ She motioned at the pile of hay.

Pyke told her he was happy to stand.

The tale that Kate Sutton told him was a depressingly familiar one in which none of the players, including herself and even Godfrey, came out looking good.

Pyke had already been told the first part of it by his uncle but listened quietly while she described her unwitting discovery of Conroy’s sexual liaison with the duchess and the pressure brought to bear on her by Johnny, when she mentioned it to him, to try to trade her revelation for money.