Knox put down the letter and realised there were tears in his eyes. It wasn’t so much what had been written that had affected him; it was the fact that Felix cared greatly for the dead man and would now have to be told that his father had been murdered. Briefly Knox thought about his own father and how he would not mourn the man’s passing.
Further answers were provided by the final letter. This one was much briefer and to the point. Felix mentioned Pyke’s visit to Keynsham, referred to a kidnapped child and said that he hoped the child had been found. He finished the letter by announcing he’d been given a few days’ holiday from his studies and wanted to visit Pyke in Merthyr for a day or two. He said he would arrive some time on Sunday the twenty-second and stay with Pyke until the Tuesday morning.
Knox folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He had another look at the address. The station-house, Merthyr Tydfil. When Knox had first noticed Felix’s reference to an investigation, he’d assumed that Pyke was some kind of private agent but now it struck him that Pyke might be a policeman. The letter had also mentioned a kidnapped child. What if Pyke had been sent to Merthyr to try to find this child? Still, there was nothing in the letter that explained what had brought Pyke to Ireland — or who might have wanted him dead.
Knox looked down and saw that his hands were trembling. What if the corpse were a senior policeman from London? The situation made him feel ill.
Carefully Knox placed the letters in his coat pocket and thanked the landlord for the poteen he hadn’t touched.
Outside the sleet had turned to snow. It was midday and he looked up and down the street for any sign of a carriage or cart. Folk would be coming out of church and he might be lucky enough to find a ride back to Cashel.
‘Knox.’
He looked up and saw Maxwell hurrying across the street in his direction. Cornwallis’s agent was red-faced.
‘Someone saw you earlier and word got back to his Lordship. He has a problem and asked me to come and find you.’
Knox felt his stomach knot. ‘What kind of a problem?’
Maxwell seemed to notice Knox’s unease and appeared to enjoy it. He offered Knox a thin smile. ‘His Lordship will explain.’
They found Cornwallis in the stables. The aristocrat was wearing tan breeches, black leather riding boots, a bright red waistcoat and a grey cutaway coat. He was pacing up and down outside a stable door.
‘Your presence in Dundrum is most fortuitous, Constable. I presume you were visiting your family?’
Knox just nodded. He had no intention of telling Cornwallis the real reason for his visit.
‘I would like to think they’re happy in their new accommodation.’ He glanced over at Maxwell. ‘I imagine they will find things a good deal more pleasant where they are.’
Knox didn’t want to agree because that would put him in Cornwallis’s debt, but he didn’t want to disagree and risk eliciting the old man’s ire.
Cornwallis nodded impatiently. ‘Anyhow, boy, now you’re here, you can take care of a little problem for me.’
‘Has something happened, your Lordship?’
Cornwallis removed a key chain from his one of his pockets and went to unlock the stable door. ‘Maxwell here caught him red-handed. The brigand was trying to draw blood from one of my cattle.’
It took Knox a few moments to realise that he knew the man slumped on the wet hay. He was about the same age as Davy McMullan and they had known each other when they were children. Knox had last seen him about three years ago, when they had crossed paths on the main street in Dundrum and exchanged a brief, cautious nod. This time, Davy McMullan looked up at him indifferently. If he recognised Knox, he didn’t show it. His skin looked jaundiced, his whiskers were unkempt and his face was positively skeletal. His only item of clothing was a soiled smock-frock.
‘We’ve long suspected people have been stealing from us,’ Cornwallis said, triumphant, ‘but this is the first time we’ve caught one of them red-handed.’ He nodded for Maxwell to take up the story.
‘Clever buggers, they are. They cut a vein in the cow’s neck, draw off a pint or two into a jar, then stop the bleeding by putting a pin across the incision, holding it in place with a few hairs from the tail.’
Knox glanced at McMullan. He didn’t look strong enough to stand up without assistance, let alone commit theft. Bending down, Knox whispered, ‘When did you last eat a meal, sir?’
McMullan wouldn’t look at him but murmured, ‘Three days ago, I think.’
Knox stood up a little too quickly and felt dizzy. He turned to Cornwallis. ‘This man needs a good meal, not further punishment.’
The aristocrat stared at him, hands on hips. ‘I beg your pardon, man?’
‘Can’t you see this man is on the verge of starvation?’ Knox was desperately trying to censor himself but he was also angry.
‘And you think that’s my concern? Or your concern, for that matter? Do you think it’s unimportant that this man broke the law?’
Knox knew he’d waded into an argument he couldn’t win. ‘These matters are never un important…’
‘But you think I should pat this man on the back and perhaps set a place for him at my table?’
‘If he did, in fact, do as you said, he should be punished under the letter of the law. But anyone can see he’s starving. I think we should treat someone like this with a little compassion.’
The old man’s facial features seemed to shrivel into each other.
‘Since when does a man of your lowly rank tell me — a viscount — what is and what is not appropriate behaviour?’
Knox knew he’d said too much and felt his anger turning to contrition. ‘I’m sorry, your Lordship.’ He bowed his head, not sure what else to say.
‘If the law means nothing, perhaps we should permit people to rape and pillage as they see fit? Maim and murder, even. Is that what you would like to see, boy?’
‘No.’
‘But you still think I should show this wretch some compassion, even though he stole from me?’
‘If he committed a crime, then he should be brought before the magistrate.’
‘If?’ Cornwallis’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you doubting my word now?’
‘What I meant to say, your Lordship, is that of course he will be brought before the magistrate.’
‘See to it he is, boy. You’ll take him with you back to Cashel and deliver him to the barracks there.’
Knox nodded. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any transportation of my own …’
Cornwallis waved away his objection. ‘Maxwell will provide you with a horse and cart. I’ll send one of the stable hands to collect it from you in the morning.’
Knox stared down at the forlorn figure of Davy McMullan and felt as bad as he had felt in a long while.
Knox had long since become accustomed to other people’s suspicions, their sullenness in his company. Not their open hostility; just the notion that he had picked the wrong side and thrown in his lot with the enemy. For a few years, he had entertained the fantasy that he and his fellow constables, Catholics to a man, were united in a desire not to punish and coerce the local people but to help them, Catholics and Protestants together, keeping alive the spirit of the United Irishmen movement. Such a notion had, of course, been hopelessly naive, and as soon as the second potato crop failed and desperate men and women started to attack grain barges bound for Waterford, his complicity in a system established to safeguard the rich was impossible to ignore. Before this, Knox knew that some of the constables overlooked minor transgressions, a pheasant poached here, a rabbit taken there, as he had done, but since the autumn, their orders had been clear: no mercy, no tolerance. Two weeks ago, McCafferty had been dismissed for refusing to arrest a man who had dug up his neighbour’s turnips, and last week a second constable, Mearns, had been forced out for speaking his mind at a meeting.