Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

Alone up on the roof, Pyke thought about Emily and Felix and sought, in vain, to convince himself that he’d made every effort to ensure their safety. Earlier he had taken some laudanum to settle his stomach but the drug had had little noticeable impact. It still felt as if he was swallowing shards of glass. Climbing back into the garret at the top of the building, he tried to ignore the stink of ripe animal flesh that filled the room — the cellar had once been used as a slaughterhouse — and checked his fob-watch. The hands had hardly moved since he had last looked. Back at the window, Pyke saw what looked like an old man scavenging for scraps in the middle of the field, but within a few moments two of his men had appeared from the shadows, rifles slung over their shoulders, and dragged him from the field.

Afterwards, everything went quiet again. There was nothing left for him to do but wait.

An hour later, he left the building by the front door and stepped out into the field, staring up at the dark, starless sky. There were no sounds at all, not even the barking of a dog or the crowing of an early-rising cockerel. Soon the first glimpses of light would be visible to the east and then it would all happen, Pyke thought, trying to keep his nerves under control. The ransom demand had simply said ‘ Sunday. Smithfield at dawn ’. It was freezing, and Pyke pulled his greatcoat around him and dug his hands into his pockets. Sleet had started to fall and Pyke moved around quickly to keep warm, having a final word with each of the men before returning to his original position in the middle of the field. Though it was surrounded on all sides by buildings, no candles were burning in any of the windows and even the old hospital, on the north side of the field, looked to be deserted. On another day, Pyke might have appreciated the stark beauty and solitude of the scene, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Were Emily and Felix close at hand? And who would actually oversee the planned exchange, the letters in return for Emily and Felix? A dog barked and he jumped, startled by the sudden noise. He checked to see that both pistols were in his belt and ready to fire. A cockerel began to crow and Pyke surveyed the field, gulping down cold air. It was almost time.

Just before six, the sleet turned to snow: not just a light flurry but thick, heavy flakes that fell relentlessly from a grey sky and made it hard for Pyke to see more than a few yards in front of him. He was standing in the middle of the field and couldn’t see any of the buildings that surrounded him, nor any of the men he’d positioned at various places around the field’s perimeter. The settling snow, which had turned the field into a blanket of brilliant white, had also muffled any noise, and when the chimes of St Paul’s struck in the distance, it sounded as if Wren’s cathedral were miles away, rather than a few hundred yards. Feeling isolated and exposed, Pyke tried to quell a mounting feeling that he had already lost control of the situation. To calm himself down, he tried to think about what it would feel like to be reunited with Emily and Felix: to hold them in his arms. They would be close by now.

In the end he saw the carriage before he heard it, the clip-clopping of hoofs and the rattling of iron-shod wheels muffled by the snow. The carriage had emerged from a small street on the north side of the square, in the shadows of the hospital, one that Pyke hadn’t put a man on. Long Lane, perhaps. Or Cloth Lane, an even smaller street just to the south. It was pulled by two horses and it came to a halt in front of the hospital gates. Pyke didn’t stop to think about it. He ran towards it, his arms pumping up and down like pistons, and saw the cloaked driver jump from his station and land awkwardly on the hard ground. He saw the man dart into a nearby alleyway and wondered whether one of his men would chase after, and apprehend, him. No one apart from him was to approach the carriage. That had been the instruction he’d given to the men. Anyone who did was to be shot dead on sight. And under no circumstances were any shots to be fired in the direction of the carriage. Pyke didn’t want a stray bullet killing Emily or Felix. The field was still quiet as he neared the carriage. The two black horses tossed their heads up in the air and whinnied. Removing one of the pistols from his belt, Pyke circumnavigated the horses and approached the door. He peered through the mud-smeared glass and that was when he saw her. Alive. His heart leapt. Emily had been tied up and gagged and was wriggling to free herself. There was no sign of Felix. Ripping the door open, he pulled the gag from Emily’s mouth and took her in his arms. For a moment, he clutched her and sobbed, their mouths meeting in a messy embrace, a surge of desire rising up in him. She tried to say something but the words tumbled too quickly out of her mouth and he took her face in his hands, kissed her lips and told her to slow down. He pulled out his knife and began to cut the bindings around her wrist.

‘Felix,’ he started. ‘Where’s Felix?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. They came and took him from me yesterday. I tried to stop them but they tied me up. They were too strong.’

‘Who came to take him?’ Pyke had cut the bindings around Emily’s ankles and now helped her to her feet.

The snow had stopped falling and the entire field was quiet.

‘I don’t know.’ The panic in her voice was unmistakable. ‘They wore masks. We were locked in a cellar, not too far from here. But they came and took him away and now I don’t know where he is.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks. They embraced again, Pyke taking her in his arms and whispering, ‘I love you so much,’ and then adding, in the same breath, ‘You didn’t see their faces?’

Emily pulled away from him and shook her head. There were heavy bags under her eyes and slight bruising around her mouth where the gag had been tied, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.

‘I’m sorry, Pyke. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for keeping things from you. I want to tell you the truth.’

‘You’re Captain Paine. I know.’

Silently she mouthed the word ‘how’?

That was when he heard a dog’s bark. Close by. Pyke looked up and saw the tawny mastiff, Copper, standing no less than ten yards away, his black head cocked inquisitively to one side.

The first crack of the rifle came shortly afterwards and it took him a few moments to work out that it had come from one of the upper windows in the main hospital building in front of them.

Panicked, Pyke looked around and tried to make sense of what had just happened, saw Emily, toppling backwards, hands raised to her neck, blood pumping from a wound. She fell and he dived on top of her, instinctively, and far too late to save her from the bullet that had torn a hole in her neck and ripped through her jugular. Another shot was fired, this one whistling harmlessly past them, but the damage had already been done. As hard as he tried, there was nothing he could do to halt the flow of blood gushing from the wound. She looked at him, her eyes swollen with fear, and then tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come and then her eyes glazed over and her body went limp. Emily died in his arms, blood still pouring freely from where the bullet had hit her.

The first two rifle shots had taken the men he’d hired by surprise but they quickly retaliated, four or five of them firing shots at the upper-floor windows where the assassin had positioned himself; windowpanes shattering as their bullets punctured one side of the building.

Pyke didn’t know how long he sat there, covered — soaking — in his wife’s blood. A few minutes, perhaps. Maybe as much as an hour. He held her blood-drenched head and kissed her still-warm lips. He held her and he wouldn’t let go. As he retched and sobbed, giant flakes of snow fell around them, a patch of crimson in an otherwise endless sea of white. Finally he looked up and saw the mastiff, Copper, stooped next to him, licking her blood as if it were a puddle of water.