Kill-Devil and Water (57 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’s why they took him away to the cells. For now. But I’d guess that if a credible statement is produced, that will be enough to ensure Crane’s release.’
 
Pyke gave this some thought. ‘The question is, how’s he going to arrange all this from inside his cell?’
 
‘Someone will have to come to him, but for the time being no one knows where he’s being held.’
 
‘Trevelyan knows.’
 
Tilling contemplated what Pyke had just said. ‘Go on.’
 
‘The story about Crane performing a public service is utter tripe. We both know it. We just need to find out why Trevelyan is willing to corroborate Crane’s story.’
 
Tilling scratched his head. ‘You think he’s been coerced into doing so?’
 
‘Crane’s smarter than I gave him credit for. He planned for this, for something going wrong. You’re right, I think he
knew
that Trevelyan would have to support his story.’
 
‘And lose his position at the bank in the process?’
 
Pyke shrugged. ‘What if he was a customer of Crane’s shop? Better to lose his job than be unveiled by Crane as some kind of sexual monster.’ He looked around the saloon. ‘Can you point Trevelyan out to me?’
 
‘I don’t think he’s here.’ Tilling’s gaze swept the room. ‘He’s been shut away in the governor’s chambers all morning.’
 
‘Can you at least describe him to me and find his address?’
 
That drew a heavy frown. ‘I won’t countenance any private action ...’
 
The man who’d waved to Tilling earlier had returned and was loitering as if he needed to speak with Tilling as a matter of urgency.
 
‘What if I could persuade someone close to Crane, someone he trusts
absolutely
, to go and see him and find out the whereabouts of the sewer-man?’
 
‘Could you do that?’
 
‘I might be able to.’
 
 
Samuel Ticknor was sitting at his desk in his private office, drinking a cup of tea, when Pyke pushed open the door.
 
‘How well did you know Elizabeth Malvern?’
 
Pyke’s sudden appearance in his office caused Ticknor to spill his tea. He tried to mop it up with the sleeve of his coat.
 
‘How much time did you spend in her company - when she volunteered for the Vice Society?’
 
This time Ticknor met his gaze. Pyke had to stop himself from jumping over the desk and grabbing the man’s throat.
 
‘I knew her well enough to see her for what she really was.’
 
‘Enough to remember what colour her eyes were?’
 
Ticknor removed his spectacles and blew on to the lenses. ‘Green. They were green, no question about it.’
 
‘You’re sure?’
 
‘Quite positive, sir. Now will you tell me what this is all about?’
 
Pyke stood there, trying to hold himself together. Different thoughts collided with one another in his head. He saw it clearly now; suddenly everything had fallen into place - about Mary, Elizabeth, the Malvern family, even Lord Bedford.
 
 
‘I presume you know there’s a rotten corpse out in the yard?’ Godfrey said, as soon as Pyke had stepped into his basement shop.
 
‘There wasn’t anywhere else to put it.’ The previous day, he had pushed Bessie Daniels’ corpse on a costermonger’s wheelbarrow, hidden under a canvas tarpaulin, from Dowgate Hill to St Paul’s Yard. He’d told Godfrey he needed the keys to the shop, but not
why
he needed them. Now, clearly, his uncle had found out.
 
‘And how long were you hoping to keep it out there?’
 
‘Another day, two at most.’
 
Godfrey ran his hands through his bone-white hair and sighed. ‘I called at the house to see you. Jo told me the news. I don’t have to tell you what I think. You’re mad to let her go, a complete fool.’
 
‘I’m not letting her go. She’s leaving.’
 
Godfrey pushed his spectacles back up his nose and made a dismissive gesture towards Pyke. At times like this, he felt like more of a father than an uncle to him and Pyke hated disappointing him.
 
‘So who is it? I couldn’t bring myself to give it a proper look.’
 
‘Hard to tell for certain but I think it’s Bessie Daniels. I found this ring on one of her fingers.’ Pyke held up the amethyst ring for his uncle to see. ‘The woman in the copperplate you bought from Crane.’
 
Godfrey collapsed into his armchair, suddenly looking his age. ‘Jesus. Poor, poor girl. And to think ...’
 
Pyke just nodded. His uncle was momentarily lost for words.
 
‘Who killed her?’ he said, after a while. ‘Crane?’
 
‘Looks that way.’ Pyke drew in a breath. ‘By tomorrow her corpse will be gone, I promise. But I have to do what I have to do. I hope you understand.’
 
‘To punish those responsible?’
 
Pyke nodded again. Godfrey stood up, walked over to the sideboard, took the decanter and poured himself a glass of claret.
 
 
‘I want you to talk to anyone who’s worked at Crane’s shop,’ Pyke told Saggers, after he’d found him in the Cole Hole on The Strand. ‘Be discreet but offer a financial inducement to anyone who’s willing to testify in court that a man called Abel Trevelyan was a customer there.’
 
‘How much of a financial inducement?’
 
‘Up to fifty pounds, depending on the quality of the testimony. To be paid if and when Crane is convicted.’
 
Saggers whistled, seemingly taken aback at the money Pyke was prepared to offer. ‘You must want this testimony a lot.’
 
‘I don’t expect you to do this for nothing, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
 
The fat man put on a wounded expression that was so clearly feigned even he gave up on it. ‘Well, I
do
remember you promising me a story a long time ago.’
 
‘Murder, pornography, robbery.’ Pyke watched Saggers’ nonchalance disappear. ‘Is that enough to be getting on with?’
 
‘That sounds more than acceptable.’
 
‘And I want you to find anyone who knew a girl called Bessie Daniels.’ Pyke handed Saggers a scrap of paper with Bessie’s old Whitechapel address scribbled on it. ‘Anyone, that is, who can identify this as belonging to her.’ He took out the amethyst ring and showed it to the penny-a-liner. ‘I can’t let you have it, I’m afraid. You’ll just have to describe it as best you can.’
 
Saggers inspected the ring and handed it back to Pyke. ‘So how quickly do you need all this?’
 
‘By tomorrow.’
 
Abel Trevelyan lived in a Palladian mansion overlooking Regent’s Park. Pyke could see how some people might have been impressed by the house’s neoclassical grandeur, and its size alone meant that it was hard to miss, even from the other side of the park. But he found it too ostentatious, as though an already over-egged pudding had been doused in cream and butter. It was a square brick box with five large bay windows on each of the floors. In the middle of the building, a pair of stone columns supported a pediment. There were extensive gardens at the back of the mansion. Earlier in the afternoon Pyke had positioned himself behind a shrub, close to one of the windows, and observed the comings and goings of the household. As far as he could work out, Trevelyan had a wife - a plump, dowdy creature who wore her hair in tight ringlets - and a number of young children. There were also as many as a dozen servants, and Pyke spent some of the afternoon speculating about how damaging the loss of his position at the Bank might prove to be. Trevelyan was definitely at home; from the description Pyke had been given, he recognised the man sitting at his desk in the ground-floor study at one end of the house. Trevelyan had been there for most of the afternoon, leaving only to take an early supper with his family at about six. Still, he had returned to his study by about half-past seven, and Pyke’s patience was finally rewarded. Just as it was beginning to get dark, Trevelyan stepped out on to the veranda to smoke a cigar.
 
From the shrub, it was maybe twenty yards to where Trevelyan was standing, and Pyke watched him for a few moments, trying to get the measure of the man and work out how best to take advantage of the situation. Trevelyan was silver haired and suave, but he suffered from the same weak chin that afflicted many men of his class. He was tall but his shoulders were hunched, and he didn’t look as if he would be able to handle himself in a fight. The fact that he couldn’t stand still, but kept pacing around the veranda, puffing his cigar, was the clearest indication of his unease.
 
Even though he was only twenty yards away, Pyke still wasn’t close enough to ambush him without the prospect of Trevelyan shouting for help. So he threw a stone high into the air and waited for it to land a few yards on the other side of his target. Startled, Trevelyan turned around and looked up at the roof and then towards the trees. Pyke moved quickly and quietly across the lawn; Trevelyan saw him only at the last moment and managed a muffled shout just as Pyke clubbed him with his cudgel. He went down without uttering another sound, and Pyke dragged him across the lawn to the line of trees. Still tense, Pyke waited for a few moments, to make sure no one had seen the assault from the house.
 
It took a hard slap with the palm of his hand to Trevelyan’s face to bring him around. Pyke had already bound and gagged him and Trevelyan struggled to make sense of his changed circumstances.
 
Bending down, with his knife in hand, Pyke held the blade to Trevelyan’s throat and pulled down the gag. ‘Any sudden movement, any attempt to shout for help,
anything
at all that makes me nervous, and I’ll slice through your veins and let you bleed to death. Nod your head if you understand.’
 
Trevelyan nodded; the terror he felt was reflected in his eyes.
 
‘What Jemmy Crane told the police, about being a good citizen, was a lie. I don’t need you to confirm it. What I
do
need to know is why you corroborated the lie.’
 
Trevelyan tried to speak but words failed him. Pyke pressed the blade a little deeper into the skin of his neck.
 
‘What hold does Crane have over you?’
 
The director looked up at him imploringly. ‘
Please
.’
 
‘You have a choice between life or death. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you and not give it another thought. Is that what you want?’
 
Trevelyan started to sob. Pyke inhaled and could almost taste the sourness of the man’s sweat. He closed his fist and slapped Trevelyan around the face once more. That brought the man around. His eyes popped open and his jaw went slack.
 
‘You’re a customer of his, aren’t you,’ Pyke said, a statement rather than a question.
 
Trevelyan simply nodded.
 
‘Did you know about his plan to break into the bullion vault?’
 
‘I didn’t think he was serious.’ It came out as a whispered croak.
 
‘So he told you?’
 
Trevelyan stared down at the ground. ‘He wanted to know about the deployment of guards.’
 
‘And what did you tell him?’
 
‘That the guardroom is manned at night with soldiers from the Tower.’ He swallowed, his eyes darting around. Pyke had to kick him to make him go on. ‘I also told him that the guardroom is situated next to the entrance to the bullion vault.’
 
‘But what about the arrangements for last night?’ As one of the directors of the Bank, Trevelyan would have been privy to the decision to move the soldiers from the guardroom to the outer fortifications to protect the Bank from the mob that had come to see the hanging.
 
Trevelyan squirmed. Pyke kicked him again, harder this time; he was starting to lose patience. He could just imagine how Crane would have courted Trevelyan, charmed him, used him.
Let me show you this one, sir. Perhaps you’d like to see something warmer, sir? Something even warmer still? Let’s see what can be done
. Sickness feeding sickness. The more depraved the better, as far as Crane was concerned. It would give him greater leverage over Trevelyan, so that the banker would have no choice but to answer all of Crane’s questions or risk being exposed.

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