The Last Days (33 page)

‘There.’ Jo stood up and smiled. ‘Done.’

She went to retrieve her bonnet but Pyke had already picked it up. He handed it to her. ‘This may sound like an immodest question, but are you aware of who I am?’

Jo stared down at her feet. ‘My mistress felt it was necessary to inform me of certain things.’

‘Such as?’ He raised his eyebrows, half-aware that he might be flirting with her.

‘That, unless crossed, you were not a dangerous man. That you didn’t tolerate fools. That your bark was worse than your bite.’ She looked away and blushed slightly. ‘She also warned me you were . . . rather dashing.’

‘She said that?’

‘Well, she actually said exceedingly dashing but I thought I’d appeal to your modesty.’ Jo laughed nervously. She seemed more confident of herself now and even allowed her gaze to meet his.

‘And why do you think Emily furnished you with this information?’ Pyke watched her carefully. She was remarkably attractive. He wondered whether she was aware of this fact.

‘I don’t know. To warn me, perhaps.’

‘Warn you to be on your guard?’ Pyke could not help but smile at this prospect. Clearly Emily did not trust him, but did he trust her? And could he be certain that her loyalties did not, as she put it, lie at Hambledon?

‘Have we met somewhere before?’ He studied her features closely.

‘Aside from when you first visited my mistress in Islington . . .’

‘Your face seems familiar,’ he said, absent-mindedly. ‘It’s a pretty face, of course . . .’

Jo blushed again and edged towards the door. Impulsively, he moved into the space between them, leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. She did not resist but nor did she make any attempt to reciprocate. Unthinkingly, he tried to pull her closer, smelling perfume on her clothes, but this time she baulked and, instinctively perhaps, her entire body recoiled backwards. For a brief moment, they stared at one another, opaquely, neither certain what the other was thinking. Finally, without saying a word, Jo turned to depart, leaving Pyke angry at himself that he had done such an utterly stupid thing and wondering whether Jo would tell her mistress.

It was only later that it struck him where he had seen her before. It was not her face that he recognised but her voice - the voice that had warned him in the Blue Dog. He could not be absolutely certain of this but, if it was the case, it meant that Emily’s servant had been keeping an eye on him even before he had first visited Hambledon Hall.

TWENTY

I
n thick early-morning fog that made it all but impossible to see for more than a few yards ahead, the armoured carriage departed from the Bank of England on Thread-needle Street shortly after six o’clock, just as Emily had predicted. It had rained heavily during the night and the streets, though empty of traffic, were muddy and treacherous. The occasional gas light illuminated the otherwise gloomy route. Pyke followed the carriage at a respectful distance, riding a clapped-out nag Townsend had procured from a band of gypsies on Hampstead Heath. The carriage was a converted stagecoach: iron bars protected the doors and windows. Alongside the driver were two heavy-set figures dressed in black cloaks and hats. Pyke presumed them to be security men and supposed they were armed. The coach itself was pulled by four sturdy horses. The newly macadamised turnpike beyond would be more heavily patrolled and, on such ground, the carriage would be able to outrun them without difficulty, which was why they had opted to attack it in the city. Such a tactic also meant they would be able to lose themselves in the vastness of the metropolis before any alarm could be raised.

The thickness of the fog made it hard for Pyke to keep the armoured carriage in sight but he did not mind the inconvenience because the poor visibility would assist them in the robbery.

It was still too early for traders to be setting up their stalls - it was barely light and in this part of the world commerce did not properly commence until eight or nine in the morning - but the streets were not entirely clear of carts and barrows. As they rattled along Bishopsgate Street they passed the occasional street sweeper and beggar pushing a makeshift cart, scouring the roadside for scraps of food. Sewer rats as large as dogs scuttled down deserted alleyways, startled by the clip-clopping of iron hoofs on stone cobbles.

The laudanum Pyke had ingested earlier had calmed him slightly, but as they reached the outskirts of Shoreditch he felt his nerves jangle and the muscles in his stomach tighten. Reaching down, he made sure that the two pistols and length of iron pipe were safely tucked into his belt. Nearing the spot where the attack was due to take place, Pyke kicked his boots into his horse’s midriff and urged it on. The beast responded, though less willingly than he would have liked. Evidently concerned by Pyke’s presence, the driver of the armoured carriage conferred with the two guards and proceeded to lash his whip against the horses’ backs to quicken their pace. Pyke stepped up his pursuit. Ahead of him, the carriage bounced more vigorously as it raced across the uneven surface of the road. The guards were shouting at each other and, as far as Pyke could make out in the fog, had turned to look at him, rather than focus on the road ahead.

It meant they would not see the wire that Goddard and Townsend had pulled taut across the entire width of the road and fixed to gas lamps on either side of the street.

Ahead were the rising spires of St Leonard’s church. Pyke prepared himself for the attack. The carriage was now speeding across the uneven cobbles at such a velocity that when it passed under the wire - for it had been set at such a height to ensure that the carriage and horses would pass under it without any problems - the three figures sitting on top were pulled from their seats and dumped on the road.

Pyke heard them land on the cobbles with a dull thump but did not have time to determine the exact nature of their injuries, though he was relieved to see that there had been nothing as calamitous as a beheading. This had been Townsend’s fear: that the wire, if placed at the wrong height, might slice clean through their necks and behead the driver and guards. Rather than concerning himself with these matters, Pyke took care to duck underneath the wire himself and pursue the now driverless carriage as it careened onwards, zigzagging across the road and narrowly avoiding a fruit seller who was hauling his barrow up on to the pavement. It had been his plan to overtake the carriage, if this was possible, and somehow bring the horses under control, but such was their speed, or his own nag’s weariness, that the best he could do was pull alongside the back wheel of the now out-of-control carriage and thrust the length of lead piping into the wheel’s spokes. The effect was instantaneous. Pyke pulled back behind the carriage as the wheel splintered and disintegrated; the carriage teetered momentarily on its one good rear wheel before toppling sideways and crashing into the pavement, where a chestnut seller was setting up his stall. The carriage obliterated the wooden stand and narrowly missed the man himself, who just managed to take evasive action. The impact of the crash snapped one side of the yoke and freed two of the horses, but the other side of the yoke somehow held together, and the petrified beasts continued to surge forward, dragging the stranded carriage on its side through mud and puddles, producing a grim, ear-splitting noise.

Eventually, the effort of having to drag a heavy object on its side through thick mud took its toll and the two horses slowed to a trot and then a complete stop, and neighed to show their unease. As Pyke dismounted, he saw that Goddard and Townsend were rattling towards him on their horse and cart. All of them had pulled black handkerchiefs up over the lower part of their faces.

Afterwards Pyke could not remember exactly what had happened next, though he knew, for obvious reasons, that it was Goddard who had first approached the rear door of the prostrate carriage. Later, Townsend told him Goddard was attempting to rip off the damaged rear door when a shot, fired from inside the carriage, struck him squarely in the chest. He died before either of them reached him.

While the guard who had fired the shot attempted to reload his pistol, Townsend tore open the door, hauled the trembling man out and kicked him into an unrecognisable mess of quivering, bloody flesh.

Pyke attended to the contents of the carriage. A small crowd had gathered, albeit at a distance, around the crash site, and he knew they did not have much time. He had expected the carriage to be empty of everything except its cargo, but as he peered into the darkened recesses of the coach, through fog and gunpowder smoke, he came upon the dazed face of William Blackwood. Edmonton’s brother had scrambled on top of a metal trunk. His expression was a mixture of fear, veneration and defiance. Somehow, during the crash, he had managed to retain his pistol, which he held in trembling hands.

Pyke pulled the handkerchief from his face and watched Blackwood’s fortitude dissolve as easily as the carriage’s wheel.

Once Pyke and Townsend had, between them, carried the trunk to the waiting horse and cart, Pyke returned to Blackwood; the banker had started to weep.

‘They’ll get you for this, you know, Mr Pyke. Edmonton won’t rest till you’re hanging from a scaffold.’

‘I look forward to a day of reckoning with your brother,’ Pyke said, pointing his pistol at Blackwood’s face. ‘But I do have a question for you.’ He smiled easily. ‘That first time we met, at Hambledon Hall, when your brother employed my services to investigate an alleged bank robbery . . .’

‘I remember.’ Blackwood’s hands were still trembling.

‘Am I right in thinking that no such robberies took place?’ Pyke asked. ‘That’s why you were so outraged at the disparaging remarks that your brother made about your business acumen.’ He glanced behind him, to see what was happening outside the carriage.

A thin smile passed across Blackwood’s lips. ‘And you walked happily into his trap.’

‘We were both used by your brother.’ Pyke met the man’s baleful stare and said, ‘Tell him I’ll be coming for him next.’

Townsend was attempting to haul Goddard’s bloodied corpse on to the back of the cart when Pyke joined him. The rear axle was already buckling under the weight of the trunk. In the distance, he could hear the sound of hoofs thundering against the square-set stones of the road.

‘We have to go.’ He shook Townsend’s arm. Townsend tried to push him away. Pyke saw that he was crying. ‘We have to leave him. There might be a horse patrol on its way.’

‘Leave him?’ Townsend stared through bloodshot eyes. ‘I’ve known him since he was a lad.’

Pyke pulled his arm, harder this time. ‘We can’t take him and the money.’

‘He’ll lead them straight back to me,’ Townsend shouted.

Pyke took his pistol and fired a shot into Goddard’s face. ‘Not if they can’t identify him.’

Townsend stared at him, uncomprehending. Pyke turned the pistol on him and said, ‘I’ll shoot you, too, unless you get up on the cart right now.’

 

The haul, when they counted it half an hour later, in an abandoned house, came to just under seven thousand pounds. Pyke said he would take a thousand of it, and Townsend could have the rest. He could keep it or give it to Goddard’s family or do what he wanted with it.

‘We agreed a three-way split. That works out as two thousand three hundred pounds each. I’ll give Goddard’s share to his wife.’

‘I promised you half of my split, if you told me where I might be able to locate the mother.’ Pyke’s expression hardened. ‘He was dead and the cavalry was coming. Even if we’d been able to balance him on the cart, do you think we would have been able to outrun them?’

Townsend shook his head, pushing some of the money away. ‘I don’t want your blood money.’

Pyke waited, hands on hips, for the moment to pass.

‘You can take the rest of my share and offer it as a reward for information about a man called Jimmy Swift.’ Pyke gave a brief description. ‘I also want you to get in touch with these radical types you were telling me about. I want to talk with anyone who might be interested in stirring up trouble on Edmonton’s estate.’

‘You forget I don’t work for you.’

‘But even now you hate Edmonton more than you hate me.’

The hotness of Townsend’s anger seemed to dissipate. Pyke picked up the disputed money and thrust it at Townsend. ‘Take it. Do what you want with it.’ He stared into the other man’s sullen face. ‘I didn’t kill Goddard. I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m sorry for his wife and his young girls. I’m sorry for leaving him behind. I didn’t think we had a choice. But, for me at least, this doesn’t end here. Maybe it does for you. If so, I accept. We’ll shake hands and go our separate ways.’ He shrugged. ‘But I need to know where the mother is.’

Townsend stared at Pyke for a moment, contemplating what he had said. ‘I was told she’s been locked up in an asylum in Portsmouth for the last fifteen years.’ He hesitated. ‘But if she wasn’t insane when she was placed there, I’m assured she is now.’

‘You’re suggesting she won’t be of use to me?’

‘I’m saying she won’t be in a position to furnish you with whatever information you’re looking for.’

Pyke picked up the satchel that contained his share of the money. ‘Who says I want information?’

‘Then why do you want to talk to her?’

‘I don’t want to talk to her,’ Pyke said, heading for the door.

‘Pyke?’

Something in Townsend’s voice made him turn around. ‘Yes?’

Townsend looked at him for a while and then sighed. ‘Do you need my help?’

 

‘This is highly irregular and most perturbing.’ Mr Ezra Kennett, who was not only the chief physician but also the administrator and general handyman of the establishment, waddled to keep up with Pyke, his round face and ruddy cheeks puffing with indignation. Dressed in a dark jacket, fitted trousers, black cloak and Wellington boots, Pyke had pushed past him into the entrance hall of the crumbling building, a row of terraces near the docks which had been haphazardly converted into an asylum. Interior walls had been knocked down to create space for a communal ward, but the construction work itself had been of poor quality and, even to an untrained eye, it was easy to see that the edifice was on the verge of collapse: walls were buckling, ceilings sagged and the unmistakable stench of rising damp saturated the air. In this higgledy-piggledy room no larger than a parlour, Pyke counted ten iron-framed beds, pressed so tightly together that even a skinny man would have struggled to navigate between them. In each, a pitiful specimen of humanity, little more than an amalgam of hair, skin and bones, was chained to the frame with hand-and leg-cuffs. The wails and cries emanating from their mouths collectively constituted a din that was so unpleasant Pyke was compelled to seek out Kennett’s private quarters. Townsend, who was dressed in the attire of a hospital porter, thrust a copy of the Chronicle into Kennett’s chubby hand as they walked, and pointed to an article, describing the work of Thomas Southwood Smith at the London Fever Hospital and drawing attention to a new treatise on fever he was about to publish. Pyke had come across the article the previous afternoon and formulated his plan accordingly.