Kill-Devil and Water (23 page)

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Authors: Andrew Pepper

Tags: #Jamaica, #Murder, #England, #Sugar Plantations, #London (England), #Mystery & Detective, #Prostitutes, #Crimes Against, #Fiction, #General, #Investigation, #Historical, #London, #Crime

BOOK: Kill-Devil and Water
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‘That was how he
claimed
he first met the Malvern woman.’ Harriet Alefounder’s voice quivered slightly as she said the name.
 
Pyke considered this new piece of information. ‘If I wanted to talk to her, do you know where I might find her?’
 
‘Her father owns a big mansion in Belgravia - he made his money from sugar in the West Indies. As I remember it, she owned a much smaller house near Hyde Park.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Curzon Street, I think. I remember following my husband there, too.’
 
Later, as Pyke prepared to leave, she followed him to the front door and stood there for a moment, contemplating the willow tree through the window. ‘You must think me a heartless, disloyal creature but in my own way I still care for him deeply. And to answer your question, I don’t believe he’s capable of hurting anyone, certainly not in the manner you suggested.’
 
Pyke had his hand on the brass door handle when she added, ‘But you know what hurt me the most, when I saw the two of them walking arm in arm along The Strand? I was a long way away and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be but I swear there was a little of
her
, of the Malvern woman, in this mulatto girl.’ And when he looked up, her lips were trembling and her eyes had filled with tears.
 
 
The following afternoon, Pyke found Felix and the older boy on the pavement outside Godfrey’s apartment.
 
The older lad was teaching Felix a game using three coins. He had a malnourished face, with red rims around his eyes and yellow skin from a poor diet. When he saw Pyke, he adjusted his billycock hat, pulled up his knee-breeches and put the coins into the pocket of his monkey coat. He didn’t seem surprised to see Pyke and even managed to hold his gaze for a while.
 
‘Go back into the apartment and leave us for a while,’ Pyke said to Felix.
 
‘Eric was just teaching me a trick ...’
 
‘Go inside now and wait for me there,’ Pyke said, looking at the lad, Eric, rather than at Felix.
 
‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ Felix said, his voice quivering with defiance.
 
Pyke turned to him and immediately Felix scuttled across the pavement and up into the apartment. ‘I want you to leave my son alone,’ he said, refocusing his attention on Eric.
 
‘I can come and go as I please, cully,’ the boy said with a sneer. ‘You don’t own the street.’
 
‘I see you outside my uncle’s apartment again, I’ll come and find you, and when I do, you won’t even be able to hobble home.’
 
But Eric didn’t appear to be cowed. ‘Your boy’s a bit green, ain’t he? Wouldn’t last a week on the street.’
 
Pyke took a step towards him. ‘Anything happens to my son, God help me, I’ll rip your head from your neck with my bare hands.’
 
‘Why should I listen to a pathetic old jailbird like you? Felix told me ’bout you. Put inside for not paying your debts.’ He stood his ground but his face had turned white and his hands were trembling.
 
‘Did my son tell you that?’ Pyke could feel the anger gathering inside him.
 
Eric saw he’d unsettled Pyke and grinned. ‘That and a whole lot more about what a rotten father you are.’
 
For a moment it felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of nails. Pyke didn’t look up at the window of the apartment but he could sense he was being watched.
 
‘I’m going to count to five and if you’re not gone by the time I finish, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.’
 
But Eric folded his arms and remained where he was. ‘Who knows? In time, and with the right guidance, maybe Felix would make a good dipper.’
 
Pyke grabbed him by his throat and lifted him up off his feet. Choking, Eric tried to wriggle free from his grasp but Pyke held firm. He heard someone rapping on the window and looked up to see Godfrey and Jo. Then one of the neighbours appeared from their apartment and ordered Pyke to let the boy go. Pyke opened his hand and Eric fell to the pavement, holding his neck as though it were broken.
 
 
‘Given I’m used to eating horse or very possibly mule, this is a most welcome change indeed, sir,’ Saggers said, his mouth half open so Pyke could see the chunks of meat churning around inside. In front of him was the remains of a beefsteak that a few minutes ago had been as big as the plate itself. They were sitting at a table in the corner of the Café de l’Europe on Haymarket, well away from the rest of the early evening diners, as if to underline the fact that they didn’t belong in a place where the starched linen tablecloths were a brilliant white and the cutlery alone was worth more than Saggers earned in a month. ‘It’s not Halnaker’s venison but it’s a most acceptable cut of meat,’ he said, picking up the steak with his hands and gnawing the last bits of meat from the bone.
 
Pyke poured him another glass of claret. Saggers had already told him that Spratt, the editor, had refused to publish the story about the second body without corroboration from the surgeon, Mort, but that as yet he hadn’t been able to track the man down.
 
‘I tried to get George Luckins to go on the record about his daughter and even offered him a few groats for his effort but the man turned me down flat, said he didn’t want to profit from his daughter’s murder.’ Fat dripped down his chin. ‘Can you believe some people?’
 
Pyke didn’t know whether to laugh or despair. ‘So tell me what you’ve managed to find out about the West India Dock Company.’ This was the real reason Pyke had agreed to take Saggers to dinner.
 
‘Ah, yes.’ The fat man swallowed half the claret in a single gulp, his giant Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. ‘Most interesting.’
 
‘In what sense?’
 
‘The company is struggling but I suppose that’s no secret. Sugar revenues have been falling for some time now and with the end of apprenticeship and increased competition from French and Spanish colonies investors are beginning to look elsewhere. India, for example. I’m told the East India Company is flourishing.’
 
‘Go on.’
 
Saggers sat back and let out an enormous belch that filled the room and stopped the other diners in their tracks. ‘One of the reasons they’re so keen to distance themselves from our horrible little murder is they’re just about to try to raise fresh capital, and any whiff of scandal might deter potential investors.’
 
‘Why do they want to raise capital?’
 
‘The short answer is that they’re considering joining forces with the East India Dock Company to build a new, much larger dock farther down the Thames towards Tilbury.’
 
Pyke considered what he’d been told. ‘Did you get me a list of major shareholders?’
 
With a theatrical flourish Saggers produced a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his tweed coat and shoved it across the table. ‘The single largest shareholder is a man called Silas Malvern.’
 
‘Malvern.’ It took him a few moments to place the name. Elizabeth Malvern had had an affair with Alefounder. Could this be the wife or daughter?
 
‘I thought you’d be interested in him so I did a bit of digging. He sold up his interests in the West Indies a few years ago and bought a mansion in Belgravia. I’m told he’s paralysed down one side of his body and has to be carried around in a high-chair.’
 
Pyke’s thoughts turned to the old man he’d seen talking with Pierce in the atrium of the police building. ‘Any family?’
 
‘I didn’t ask,’ Saggers said. ‘Why?’
 
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Pyke took out his purse and threw a couple of sovereigns on to the table to pay for the dinner. ‘It’s been a pleasure, as always.’
 
‘You’re leaving so soon?’ Saggers tried not to show his disappointment. ‘But we haven’t even perused the dessert menu or smoked cigars or sipped the finest cognac from cut-crystal glasses.’
 
‘There’ll be enough there to cover whatever you want.’
 
‘But who shall I entertain with my repartee?’ Saggers shifted to one side of his chair and let out a deafening fart.
 
Pyke glanced around at the stony faces of the other diners. ‘Carry on like that, you’ll have to beat off your admirers with a stick.’
 
 
It was too late to make the trip out to Belgravia that night but the next morning Pyke caught a hackney carriage from a stand at the end of his street and asked the driver to take him to Eaton Place via Curzon Street, near Hyde Park.
 
Just by asking, Pyke found the house easily enough, though it wasn’t on Curzon Street as Harriet Alefounder had thought. It was a pretty, Georgian terrace on Pitts Head Mews. It was early, before ten, but the air was already warm, and as Pyke told the driver to wait for him, he removed his jacket and wiped his brow. The shutters were drawn and he couldn’t see any sign of life inside the house. He banged on the door and disturbed one of the neighbours, an elderly man with a cane and a slight limp, who told him in a hushed tone that Miss Elizabeth had very recently sailed for the West Indies and wasn’t expected back for a number of months.
 
As Pyke returned to the waiting carriage, he had one last look at the house and noticed movement in one of the upstairs windows, but as soon as the person - whoever it was - realised they’d been spotted, the curtains ruffled and the face disappeared from view. Later it struck him that he should have investigated this matter more closely, but he was eager to question Silas Malvern and he used the rest of the journey to prepare his thoughts.
 
The dazzling white stucco of the grand terraced mansions on Eaton Place in Belgravia screamed of their occupiers’ wealth. This, Pyke had heard someone say, was the most desirable address in London and, compared with the rest of the city, it was eerily quiet. These were the white, modern palaces of the parvenu rich, neoclassical in style with columns and porticos on the outside, vast windows of plate glass and rich cornices on the inside.
 
Having presented himself at the front door, Pyke was told to wait in the marble-floored entrance hall while the butler went to see whether ‘Mr Malvern’ was receiving visitors.
 
Malvern was sitting in a greenhouse attached to the back of the property overlooking the garden. He cut a frail figure surrounded by the tropical plants he’d doubtless imported from the West Indies to remind himself of his former home, but whereas the jasmine, honeysuckle, lilies and orchids probably smelled fragrant and alive in their native habitat, here they produced a sweet, sickly stench that was so overpowering Pyke had to cover his mouth with a handkerchief.
 
‘Excuse me, sir, but I told you to wait in the entrance hall,’ the butler said, when he saw Pyke step into the greenhouse. He turned back to his master. ‘I’ll show him to the door, sir. Rest assured, you will have your peace and quiet restored.’
 
Malvern looked up at Pyke, his eyes as small and hard as shrivelled acorns. ‘No, I’ll see him. Tell the blackguard to come and sit next to me.’
 
The butler bowed his head and approached Pyke, still glaring. ‘Mr Malvern will see ...’
 
‘I heard.’ Pyke pushed past him and pulled up a chair next to the old man.
 
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ The butler hesitated. ‘Would you like me to stay here with you?’
 
But Malvern dismissed him with a wave of his bony hand. For a while he studied Pyke’s face without speaking. ‘What’s your name, and why have you interrupted my morning sleep?’
 
‘My name’s Pyke, but I suspect you already know that.’
 
‘How would I know? We’ve never met before, as far as I’m aware.’ But his expression suddenly betrayed his wariness.
 
‘I saw you the day before yesterday talking to Inspector Benedict Pierce of the New Police.’
 
‘Is that a crime, sir? And what business is it of yours who I damn well talk to?’
 
‘Given you’re the major shareholder in the West India Dock Company and Pierce is leading the investigation into the murder of a woman recently arrived from Jamaica on one of your ships, I’d say you have some questions to answer.’
 
‘I don’t have to justify myself to a guttersnipe like you. I’ll ask you to leave me in peace.’ He rang a bell and looked expectantly towards the door.
 
‘I paid a visit to the West India Docks recently and was forcibly removed from the premises. That suggests to me I’ve hit a raw nerve.’
 
This elicited the older man’s attention. ‘Are you the brigand that set fire to one of the warehouses the other day? The company lost over thirty barrels of rum. I’m told they intend to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.’

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