Read The Detective Branch Online
Authors: Andrew Pepper
Tags: #London (England) - History - 1800-1950, #Mystery & Detective, #Pyke (Fictitious Character: Pepper), #Pyke (Fictitious Character : Pepper), #Fiction, #General, #Mystery Fiction, #Historical, #Traditional British, #Suspense, #Crime
The Detective Branch (33 page)
‘Is that what you really think?’ Pyke hesitated, wondering whether his son might be right. ‘I’m just trying to keep busy, to distract myself, that’s all. It’s too painful otherwise.’
Felix blew air into his hands and nodded. Pyke tried to ask him how he was coping with Godfrey’s death but the lad only shrugged and said he was doing the same thing, trying to distract himself. After that, they settled into an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the journey.
Martin Jakes met them on the pavement at the front of St Matthew’s; he was accompanied by his ward, Kitty, and once the introductions had been made, she took Felix by the hand and promised to show him around the inside of the church. Pyke stood with Jakes, watching them disappear into the building. ‘We had a bereavement a couple of weeks ago. An uncle. Felix has taken it very hard. He wants to believe that Godfrey has gone to a better place.’
‘And what have you told him?’
‘Godfrey didn’t want a Christian funeral. We buried him in Bunhill Fields.’
‘And this upset your son?’
‘If the decision had been left to him, I think he would have made different arrangements.’
Jakes was wearing a pair of old trousers and a tatty shooting jacket. He nodded, as if he understood the dilemma. ‘It can be hard sometimes, grappling with these big questions.’
‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure why I brought him here to see you,’ Pyke said eventually.
‘I hope you don’t expect me to give the lad answers.’ Jakes shook his head and laughed. ‘What would you say if I told you that sometimes even I’m not sure I believe what I’m supposed to?’
Pyke looked at him, intrigued. ‘I’d think you more than sane.’
‘It’s sometimes hard to maintain one’s faith in the face of so much scepticism; hard when men, women and children are dying every day from disease and starvation.’
‘But, as a man of the cloth, without faith, what is left?’
Jakes pondered this question for a moment or two. ‘I could ask you the same about the law.’
Pyke was impressed by the astuteness of Jakes’s comment. ‘I have colleagues who believe their role is to keep the poor in their place and make life more comfortable for the well off. I’m sure you could say the same.’
That drew a wry smile but Jakes held his tongue.
‘It’s also true that greed and cruelty are rewarded whereas compassion earns you nothing.’ Pyke hesitated, wondering whether he was talking about himself or men like Georgie Culpepper.
‘What you propose is a very bleak way of looking at the world.’ Pyke didn’t respond.
‘What if I can’t accept that you’re right, Detective Inspector?’
‘My wife was a compassionate person and she was killed for it. I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to the view that morality wins in the end.’
The concern was visible in Jakes’s eyes. ‘But look at you, Detective Inspector. I don’t imagine you’re prepared to let murderers line their pockets and succeed with impunity.’
‘I don’t have any great faith in the law but in the end it’s what separates us from the animals.’
‘And what about our consciences? Our spirit?’
They stared at one another for a moment. ‘You have your beliefs, Reverend, I have mine.’
‘Martin, please.’ His weathered face softened into a smile. ‘And don’t think I haven’t wanted to take my pistol once in a while and exact a little earthly justice.’
‘Now you’re sounding like the bandit and I’m the bureaucrat.’
‘I’m sorry to hear about your wife,’ Jakes said. ‘She sounds like a remarkable woman.’
Pyke didn’t feel comfortable telling him about Emily but what they had just discussed reminded him of the conversations he’d once enjoyed with her. He decided to change the subject. ‘Actually there was something I was hoping to ask you.’
A frown spread across the curate’s face. ‘If it’s about Francis, I’m afraid I haven’t seen or heard from him . . .’
Pyke held up his hand. ‘No, it’s not about Hiley - or not directly. I wanted to ask about a murder, two in fact, that happened five years ago in Soho. A young lad, a pickpocket, was found nailed to the door of a stable on Cambridge Street. About ten days before that, another boy was beaten to death with a hammer in St Giles.’
‘Yes, of course, I remember it,’ Jakes said carefully, choosing his words. ‘Given that it happened so close to St Luke’s.’
‘The stable in question was the same one a Catholic priest called Brendan Malloy used to take mass.’
‘Malloy? You asked me about him before, I think.’
‘And you told me you’d heard of him but that you didn’t actually know him.’
‘That’s right . . .’
‘A man called Morris Keate was tried and convicted of killing the two boys. I’d say it’s highly likely he knew Malloy and that he’d gone to Malloy to have an exorcism performed on him.’
‘Yes, that’s why I remember the name, I think.
Malloy
. He was known for carrying out these exorcisms.’
Malloy
. He was known for carrying out these exorcisms.’
‘But you didn’t actually know him - or Morris Keate?’
Jakes looked up and waved at Kitty and Felix, who were emerging from the church. ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Why do you ask?’
Pyke watched Felix and Kitty amble towards them; his son head and shoulders taller than Jakes’s ward, even though she was ten years older. ‘No reason.’ Pyke smiled. ‘So you don’t mind if I leave Felix with you for the day?’
‘Not at all. We’ll be serving soup at lunchtime again. If he doesn’t mind mucking in, I’d be delighted to have him here.’
Pyke took out his purse and gave Felix enough change for a carriage ride back to Islington. He was going to say something about being good but decided to hold his tongue because he knew it would embarrass his son.
SEVENTEEN
T
here were many stories about ‘Little’ Georgie Culpepper that stood out and made you realise you were dealing with a person entirely untouched by traits such as compassion and empathy. The first, which may or may not have been true, was that he had slept for most of his first seven years in a coal cellar with a pack of wild dogs and that he had learned to bark before he’d learned to talk. Perhaps he’d learned some of his viciousness from those dogs, too. Certainly he’d been able to catch rats with his bare hands before he was seven. Not just any rats, either, but the meanest sewer rats, the kind whose bite could take off your hand. Georgie would crawl into cesspits and tunnels and would emerge hours later with a bagful of vermin, some as large as cats, and he would sell them on to landlords for ratting contests. This activity earned him a lot of money and gave him his first point of entry into the underworld. The second story related to a burglary that Georgie had once taken part in. He’d been a runt of a boy, hence the name ‘Little Georgie’, but he had put his size to good use. Burglars would pay him to crawl through open windows of houses they intended to rob and unlock the front door. On one occasion, he had climbed through a window into the jaws of a guard dog. The animal, a Great Dane, would have been two or three times as large as Georgie but Georgie had taken out his knife and gutted the beast, even cutting off the testicles as a keepsake. The final story related to Georgie as a young adult. By this time, Pyke had lost touch with him, but he had read about his exploits in the newspapers. By all accounts Georgie had got into a fight with another man in a tavern and had cut his opponent’s face with a piece of broken glass. But rather than accepting his punishment and keeping quiet, the man had gone to see the magistrate; as a result, Georgie was tried and sent to prison for five years. The day after he was released, the man who’d made the original complaint against Georgie was found in an alleyway near his home. His head had been hacked off with a rusty axe and attached to a pole. Georgie had been questioned by the same magistrate who’d sent him to prison but this time he’d been able to call upon the testimony of twenty men, all of whom had sworn under oath that Georgie could not possibly have committed the murder because he’d been with them, in a pub, on the other side of the Thames.
here were many stories about ‘Little’ Georgie Culpepper that stood out and made you realise you were dealing with a person entirely untouched by traits such as compassion and empathy. The first, which may or may not have been true, was that he had slept for most of his first seven years in a coal cellar with a pack of wild dogs and that he had learned to bark before he’d learned to talk. Perhaps he’d learned some of his viciousness from those dogs, too. Certainly he’d been able to catch rats with his bare hands before he was seven. Not just any rats, either, but the meanest sewer rats, the kind whose bite could take off your hand. Georgie would crawl into cesspits and tunnels and would emerge hours later with a bagful of vermin, some as large as cats, and he would sell them on to landlords for ratting contests. This activity earned him a lot of money and gave him his first point of entry into the underworld. The second story related to a burglary that Georgie had once taken part in. He’d been a runt of a boy, hence the name ‘Little Georgie’, but he had put his size to good use. Burglars would pay him to crawl through open windows of houses they intended to rob and unlock the front door. On one occasion, he had climbed through a window into the jaws of a guard dog. The animal, a Great Dane, would have been two or three times as large as Georgie but Georgie had taken out his knife and gutted the beast, even cutting off the testicles as a keepsake. The final story related to Georgie as a young adult. By this time, Pyke had lost touch with him, but he had read about his exploits in the newspapers. By all accounts Georgie had got into a fight with another man in a tavern and had cut his opponent’s face with a piece of broken glass. But rather than accepting his punishment and keeping quiet, the man had gone to see the magistrate; as a result, Georgie was tried and sent to prison for five years. The day after he was released, the man who’d made the original complaint against Georgie was found in an alleyway near his home. His head had been hacked off with a rusty axe and attached to a pole. Georgie had been questioned by the same magistrate who’d sent him to prison but this time he’d been able to call upon the testimony of twenty men, all of whom had sworn under oath that Georgie could not possibly have committed the murder because he’d been with them, in a pub, on the other side of the Thames.
When Pyke asked for Culpepper in the crowded taproom of the Coach and Horses on Duke Street, the conversation around him fell away. The landlord stepped out from behind the counter and inspected Pyke’s expensive coat and leather boots. A coal fire was burning in the grate and the air smelled of soot. ‘No one ’ere by that name,’ the landlord said, almost without opening his mouth.
‘That would be Little Georgie Culpepper,’ Pyke added.
The landlord was wearing a green apron smeared with his own fingermarks. He shook his head. ‘I think you’d best be on your way, cock.’
‘Tell him Pyke’s here to see him. Tell him I used to live on Monmouth Street with him, when we were boys.’
The landlord called one of the pot-boys and whispered in his ear. The boy disappeared through a door and returned about a minute later, relaying a message to the landlord.
‘It seems he’ll see you, after all,’ the landlord said, uncrossing his arms. ‘But only on the condition that you leave any knives or pistols ’ere at the counter. You’ll ’ave to let me search you, too.’
Pyke did as he was told and the landlord ran his hands up and down his greatcoat to check for concealed weapons. Then he stood up, a curious expression on his face.
‘Just a word of warning, cock, no one calls him Little Georgie any more. At least not to ’is face. Not if they wants to keep their looks.’
Pyke followed him along a passageway and up a flight of steps to a room at the back of the building where Georgie Culpepper was playing a game of cards with some others. But it wasn’t Culpepper who Pyke noticed first. It was a brothel madam he knew: Clare Lewis. Pyke smiled wryly when he saw her: the last time he’d seen her she had been naked. Jo had been Pyke’s last serious affair; since then he’d slept with perhaps half a dozen women, some if not most of them prostitutes. Clare had once been a prostitute and years ago Pyke had paid handsomely for her services. But since she’d started to run her own brothel he’d seen her less and less, and on the few occasions he’d visited her no mention was made of money.
Pyke’s gaze passed from Clare Lewis to George Culpepper, who was rearranging a pile of coins on the table in front of him. It wasn’t the first time Pyke had laid eyes on Culpepper since their boyhood days. From time to time, he had passed the man in the street or spotted him across the floor of a crowded, smoky taproom, but on such occasions neither of them had given any indication that they recognised the other person. In his role as head of the Detective Branch, Pyke had come across Culpepper’s name, of course, and had already consulted the information they’d built up on the man in their files. Still, he hadn’t been this close to him for more than thirty years, and he struggled to recognise anything of the boy he’d once known. In the end, it was his scrunched, squirrelly features which gave him away: eyes that were too close together and a hooked nose that was too large for his mouth. Maybe it was the same for Culpepper, looking at him, Pyke thought. But the big man seemed bored rather than curious, more concerned with the game and the other players sitting around the table. Pyke moved into the room and Culpepper’s expression changed almost imperceptibly, the briefest of smiles passing across his lips.
‘Pyke?’ He said it as if the name conjured unpleasant memories. ‘I do remember you now. If you’re the one I’m thinking of, you were a vicious little bastard.’
‘Coming from you, Georgie, I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Culpepper gestured towards a vacant chair. ‘If you’ve got what it takes, we’re playing primero, no limit to what you can wager.’
Pyke remained where he was. ‘I’m a poor man on a fixed wage. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to afford what I’d doubtless end up owing you.’
‘So what is it you came here for?’
‘Well, I’m now a detective inspector at Scotland Yard. The Detective Branch.’
That changed the atmosphere in the room. Pyke could almost feel the walls closing in on him. In addition to Clare Lewis, Culpepper and the card players, there were five other men. For a moment, all Pyke could hear was the fire spitting in the grate.
Culpepper’s eyes were as small and hard as pebbles. ‘How in the Lord’s name did someone like you turn out to be a Peeler?’
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