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 (6 page)
‘I’ll ask you again, Sir Richard,’ Pyke said. ‘Is this my investigation?’
Mayne gave Pyke a cool stare and reiterated the importance of co-operation between divisions.
‘I asked a question, sir, and I’d appreciate an answer. Is this my investigation?’
‘Yes, for land’s sake, I told you it was . . .’
Pyke stood up and straightened his frock-coat. ‘Then until I’m told differently, I’ll run it as
I
see fit.’ He didn’t take another breath until he was out of the room, and he waited until he was halfway along the corridor before he punched the wall.
I
see fit.’ He didn’t take another breath until he was out of the room, and he waited until he was halfway along the corridor before he punched the wall.
THREE
W
hile his men were gathering in the main office, Pyke was able to open a note from Ned Villums. It had been left for him by one of the clerks. The note simply said:
Harry Dove went to shop to inspect a jewelled crucifix, very valuable
. Pyke put the note in his pocket and turned this new information over in his mind. So Dove had gone to Cullen’s shop on business. For some reason, the mention of a jewelled crucifix seemed familiar and he made a note to check the daily route-papers detailing items that had been reported as stolen.
hile his men were gathering in the main office, Pyke was able to open a note from Ned Villums. It had been left for him by one of the clerks. The note simply said:
Harry Dove went to shop to inspect a jewelled crucifix, very valuable
. Pyke put the note in his pocket and turned this new information over in his mind. So Dove had gone to Cullen’s shop on business. For some reason, the mention of a jewelled crucifix seemed familiar and he made a note to check the daily route-papers detailing items that had been reported as stolen.
As soon as Pyke stepped into the main office, the four sergeants looked up at him and their conversations ceased. It was always the way, and Pyke had increasingly been trying to interpret their reticence in his presence. Shaw, he felt, was afraid or in awe of him whereas Gerrett resented him in the way a stupid, lumbering dog resented its master. Whicher didn’t say much to the other men and had either excluded himself from their social circle or been excluded; Pyke didn’t know which. But it was Lockhart’s silence which Pyke found the hardest to read. Aside from Whicher, he was the most intelligent of the detectives and his work was thorough and imaginative, but Pyke couldn’t help feeling that Lockhart resented him in some way. Pyke recognised Lockhart’s indifference because he had once behaved in a similar manner with his superiors. As a Runner, Pyke had operated according to his own agenda and had had little time for the chief magistrates he’d served under. Now he was head of a department, he had to inspire men to do their best for him, and this meant making sure they either respected or feared him.
Pyke’s detectives had come from working-class backgrounds and, like most working lads made good, they were used to taking their orders from men like Mayne or even Benedict Pierce, who had been able to reinvent himself as a blue-blooded defender of Church, Crown and Empire. But Pyke had no idea what they made of
him
, whether they saw him as an establishment figure or an outsider. They would have heard a little about his past, of course, because it had been openly aired at the time of his appointment; they would know, for example, that he had once been convicted of murder and that he had been sentenced to hang before escaping from Newgate and earning a pardon. Or that more recently he’d served nine months in Marshalsea prison for not paying his debts.
him
, whether they saw him as an establishment figure or an outsider. They would have heard a little about his past, of course, because it had been openly aired at the time of his appointment; they would know, for example, that he had once been convicted of murder and that he had been sentenced to hang before escaping from Newgate and earning a pardon. Or that more recently he’d served nine months in Marshalsea prison for not paying his debts.
Two days earlier, following an arrest that Gerrett had made, a shoemaker and a father of four from Shoreditch had been convicted at Bow Street for stealing a gentleman’s greatcoat. The man’s pleas for clemency had fallen on deaf ears and the magistrate had sentenced him to serve eight years in the House of Correction for the County of Middlesex, otherwise known as Coldbath Fields. Gerrett had gone around the room seeking the acclaim of the other men. When he’d come to Pyke, he had stood there like a schoolboy waiting to be praised. Pyke had congratulated him on a job well done and then reminded him that a poor man with four children had been sent to prison for eight years for stealing a coat. He had also mentioned the case of a stockbroker who’d defrauded investors of thousands of pounds and who had walked out of the courtroom without incurring a fine. Only Jack Whicher had seemed to have understood what he’d meant.
Pyke invited the men into his office and waited for them to file into the small room and take their place in a semicircle around his desk. He started by telling them about the suspicions regarding the Raffertys; the fact that they had visited Cullen’s shop a few weeks earlier and pressed the pawnbroker to receive stolen goods and that some men, possibly the Raffertys, had been seen firing their pistols on wasteland behind King’s Cross. He also described his encounter with Conor Rafferty and said that a roomful of people were willing to swear the Raffertys had been drinking in the Blue Dog on Castle Street at the time of the shooting. For the time being, he decided not to say anything about the crucifix.
He turned to Shaw. ‘Tell us how you fared at Bow Street. Was Cullen’s wife telling the truth when she intimated Cullen had never been convicted of a crime?’
Shaw took out his notepad and wiped his nose. ‘Cullen’s served two prison sentences. One as a debtor, six months in the Fleet. The other for receiving stolen goods. Two and a half years in Coldbath Fields.’
There was a murmur of approval from the others.
‘When was that?’ Pyke asked.
‘About four years ago.’
Pyke digested this information. It didn’t change much - in fact, it only confirmed what he’d already suspected: that Cullen was a disreputable but insignificant figure, a man on the fringes of the city’s underworld.
‘Good work, Frederick.’ The others congratulated him, too. Shaw stammered that he’d been lucky.
Turning to Gerrett, Pyke tried not to pay too much attention to the disgusting mound of wobbling flesh around the man’s neck. ‘What news from the inquest?’
‘The jury ruled the deaths to be wilful murder committed by a person or persons unknown.’
‘And are the bodies still at the Queen’s Head?’
‘In the upstairs room.’ Gerrett shot a sideways glance at Lockhart. Most of the time, he didn’t breathe without Lockhart’s approval. ‘The landlord said the bodies can stay where they are; he’s happy to let people traipse upstairs to see them, thinks they’ll stop for a drink after. He didn’t need any convincing it would be good for business.’
‘Anything else from the inquest?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Gerrett said, his hands in his pockets.
‘I’m presuming it didn’t shed light on the identity of the other two victims?’
‘You presume right.’ Gerrett folded his arms and sniffed.
Pyke chose to ignore the big man’s attempt to needle him. ‘Well, someone will recognise them soon enough, at least the one who was shot in the back rather than the face.’ Pyke made sure he didn’t meet Jack Whicher’s stare.
‘There’s already a queue outside the Queen’s Head stretching back as far as the Theatre Royal,’ Gerrett added.
‘I want you there as soon as the landlord opens his doors.’ Pyke paused, wondering whether he should assign Shaw to help. ‘Some of those waiting in the queue will be desperate to convince you the dead are their friends or loved ones. Don’t ask me why, because there’s no financial advantage in it, but people like to be associated with something like this. Your job is to sort out the wheat from the chaff. So don’t be afraid to ask difficult questions and, remember, to make a positive identification, you’ll need corroboration from two independent witnesses.’
Pyke turned to Whicher, who didn’t seem particularly enthused by his discoveries. ‘Your turn, Detective.’ He didn’t like to call him ‘Jack’ in the company of the others, because this singled Whicher out as his favourite.
‘The wife’s disorganised so the books are in a real mess,’ Whicher said, looking at Pyke. ‘I’d say it’s a small operation; it doesn’t seem to make more than a few pounds a month, barely enough to pay the rent.’
‘That’s a good start,’ Pyke said. ‘But now, I’d like you to focus on something else.’ Pyke glanced across at Lockhart and quickly explained that the detective sergeant had found an eyewitness and gave a description of what the elderly man had seen: a single figure fleeing the scene, brandishing a large pistol.
‘The man walking past the front of the shop, Morgan, told me he heard three shots fired in rapid succession. If they all came from a single gun, we can rule out a conventional flintlock pistol. But I’ve read about a new gun called a revolver that some gunsmiths have begun to import from America.’ Looking at Whicher now, he added, ‘I’d like you to visit every gunsmith you can think of and get names and descriptions of anyone who’s purchased one of these weapons in, say, the last month.’
Whicher nodded briskly. He seemed happy about the prospect of not having to return to the pawnbroker’s shop.
Pyke turned to Lockhart. ‘I hope you don’t mind me telling the men about your findings, Detective.’
To his credit, Lockhart shrugged and said he wasn’t concerned. ‘I sat with the witness for quite a while,’ he added, looking at Whicher and Shaw. ‘In the end, he gave me quite a reasonable description of the gunman. Our suspect is at least six foot tall, well built, with short, black hair. He’s swarthy, clean shaven, and wears expensive clothes.’
‘A gentleman rather than a poor Irishman, then?’ Pyke asked.
Lockhart made a point of avoiding his eyes. ‘It could have been a disguise.’
Pyke nodded. He didn’t like the men arguing with him but Lockhart was right; it was wise to keep all avenues of enquiry open.
‘Actually there was something else,’ Lockhart said, sensing that Pyke was about to move on.
‘Yes?’
‘A crossing sweeper by the name of . . .’ Lockhart had to look down to consult his pad. ‘Jervis. He reckons he saw a policeman in the vicinity of the pawnbroker’s around the time of the shooting.’
This was new and potentially important information. ‘Before or after?’
‘The sweeper said just before. Then he heard the shots. He told me he looked round and the policeman was gone.’
Pyke turned to Whicher, not bothering to hide his concern. ‘Who was the first to arrive at the scene?’
‘Constable Kent, E Division. Badge number E78.’ He paused while he read through his notes. ‘The witness, Morgan, ran up to him outside the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane.’
‘So this policeman the crossing-sweeper saw, or thought he saw, outside the shop on Shorts Gardens couldn’t have been Kent.’
Whicher shook his head.
Pyke turned back to Lockhart. ‘Are you absolutely sure your witness wasn’t having you on?’
‘He was adamant.’ Lockhart folded his arms. ‘He gave quite a detailed description, too. Said the man had black bushy hair under his stovepipe hat and a bad limp.’
Pyke took a moment to ponder what he’d just been told. It made no sense. If a policeman had been near the shop at the time of the robbery, he would at least have raised the alarm. Still, if the crossing-sweeper was telling the truth, it was good detective work on Lockhart’s part.
‘I’ll look into this. But tomorrow I’d like you to find this new witness and bring him here so I can talk to him.’
Lockhart pursed his lips. ‘He’ll just tell you exactly what he told me.’
Pyke was about to respond but he managed to restrain himself. As he looked around the room, he could feel the heat rising in his neck.
Lockhart leaned over and whispered something in Gerrett’s ear. The taller man grinned and, as he did so, he looked at Pyke.
‘Something amusing, Billy?’
Gerrett reddened but said nothing. Next to him, Lockhart’s smile turned into a smirk.
Rankled, Pyke stared Lockhart down. ‘I want to make one thing perfectly clear: what we discuss in this room goes no farther.’
No one spoke or even moved. ‘And let me say this: if I find out that
any
of you have been passing information about this investigation to parties not present in this room I’ll drum you out of this office and back into uniform quicker than you can say Benedict Pierce.’
any
of you have been passing information about this investigation to parties not present in this room I’ll drum you out of this office and back into uniform quicker than you can say Benedict Pierce.’
Later, when Pyke returned home, he found Godfrey in ebullient mood, railing against the latest income tax demand he’d received, and Felix lying next to Copper, seemingly picking fleas from the mastiff’s tawny fur. Felix’s face was rigid with concentration. It was the same expression he had while reading or doing school work. In these circumstances, it was almost impossible to rouse him, even to come to the table to eat. Pyke found Felix’s dedication to his studies commendable but he also worried about his son becoming too closeted from the world around him.
Other books
Life Will Have Its Way by Angie Myers Lewtschuk
Porn Star by Keith Trimm
Todo bajo el cielo by Matilde Asensi
A Most Inconvenient Marriage by Regina Jennings
Gold by Matthew Hart
Pent Up by Damon Suede
The Eager Elephant by Amelia Cobb
Gisborne: Book of Pawns by Prue Batten
Dead Worlds (Necrospace Book 2) by Sean-Michael Argo
The Real Rebecca by Anna Carey