Pyke nodded.
‘The truth of the matter,’ Hancock added, tapping his nose, ‘is that Josiah Webb is too miserly to invest in new machinery. Instead he relies on manpower to do the work that the giant water wheels and steam engines perform at Caedraw.’
‘To be fair to the Webbs,’ Jones interrupted, ‘they’ve been stymied by the issue of the lease at the Morlais works.’
Hancock glared at the superintendent but remained quiet.
‘What issue?’ Pyke asked.
‘The lease is up for renewal at the end of this year but the landowner wants thirty thousand a year and Webb is only willing to pay ten. He says he’ll close the works rather than pay thirty.’
‘Lease or no lease, it’s true that Caedraw employs fewer workers than Morlais but ours are more skilled, better paid and better motivated. Contrary to what you may hear, sir, we treat our workers with respect — and we pay them in coin, not tokens they can only spend in the company shop.’
They had turned off the main road into a narrow street. Children as young as three raced alongside the carriage, banging their fists against the wooden panels, trying to frighten the horses. Ash-tips were piled up in front of each house and feral dogs roamed in and out of open doors. It was the smell that was most noticeable, though: an eye-watering stench of human and animal faeces.
Irish Row was a miserable street running parallel to the main road, fronted on both sides by dilapidated terrace houses, just a single room up and down. Most were sinking into the mud. There were no pavements nor gas lighting but the street was thronged with people; some had just finished their shift and some were about to start. At the far end, the buildings were more substantial and given over to lodging houses and beer shops with names like the Exiles of Erin and the Shamrock. Shafts of light and raucous shouts spilled from half-open doors. Number fifty — where the murdered man had lodged, according to the rent book — was a block farther than the last of the beer shops.
The carriage came to a sudden halt and was quickly surrounded by children. The driver tried to shoo them away with his whip, to no avail. Some climbed on to the wheels and pressed their faces against the glass.
‘You’re to stay in the carriage,’ Jones said to Hancock. ‘Your driver will see that no one bothers you.’
Hancock nodded. Suddenly the idea of stepping outside his private cocoon didn’t seem too attractive.
Jones removed his truncheon, and Pyke his pistol, and they opened the door, pushing their way through the crowd of children. Some tried to grab them, others begged for coins. Jones waved them off with his truncheon, then took a lantern from the carriage. Peering in through the front window of number fifty, Pyke couldn’t see any light or sign of life.
They knocked and, when no one answered, Pyke tried the door and discovered that it was unlocked. They stepped into the low-ceilinged room. The air was dank and mouldy. Jones held up the lantern. There was a chest of drawers pressed up against one of the walls. The drawers themselves were empty or lying on the floor but the ashes in the grate were still warm. A brief search of the rest of the house confirmed that it was deserted.
‘Looks like we just missed whoever was here,’ Jones said, looking out at the children’s faces pressed against the window.
But Pyke’s attention had been caught by something in the corner of the room, hidden behind one of the drawers. Bending over, he reached out and retrieved a child’s shoe and coat.
Back in the carriage, Pyke showed the items to Jonah Hancock. The ironmaster took the coat, pressed it up against his nose and sniffed. Trembling, he handed it back to Pyke.
‘That’s my son’s.’
‘I want all the stinking lodging and boarding houses in upper and lower Merthyr turned upside down and razed to the ground if needs be.’ Jonah Hancock was pacing up and down in the drawing room. ‘It’s clear that some Paddies have taken my son and I want to know what you intend to do about it.’
‘We don’t know for certain that the kidnappers are Irish…’ Pyke paused, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘But it does seem likely that there are two gangs. Presumably the man who was killed, the one sent to collect the first bit of the ransom, didn’t belong to the same gang as the marksmen who shot him.’
Jonah Hancock didn’t seem to have heard him. ‘I want every Irish pub and beer shop searched…’
‘Wait a minute, boy,’ Zephaniah admonished his son. ‘Do we really want to be stirring up a whole hornet’s nest of trouble?’
This seemed to bring Jonah to his senses. He stopped pacing for a moment and looked at his father.
‘Relations between the Irish and the Welsh are tense enough at present,’ Zephaniah croaked. ‘Think what this could do.’
‘Your father’s right. We should sit tight for now — until we’ve had a chance to work out who’s got your son,’ Pyke added.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Jonah spat.
‘If we insist that the police ransack the home of every Irishman in town, do you imagine they’ll accept the situation lying down? But they won’t turn on the police. No, they’ll vent their frustration on those nearest to them. And I can assure you, sir, that the natives won’t turn the other cheek. We’ve had a fragile truce between our Welsh and Irish workers these last few years. This could set us back years.’
Jonah stared at his father, still unconvinced. ‘You’re talking as an ironmaster, sir. I am talking as a father.’
‘Nonsense. I want the boy back just as much as you do. But tearing down the town for no good reason is only going to make matters worse.’
‘ No good reason? We found my son’s coat and one of his shoes in a house on Irish Row. What more reason do you need?’
The older man dismissed this with a flick of his hand. ‘Can you talk sense into my son, Detective-inspector?’
Pyke turned to Jonah. ‘Just hold off for a day or two and let me do my job.’ When Jonah didn’t respond, Pyke turned back to the old man. ‘Your son’s right about one thing. The boy’s life is more important than some industrial strife.’
‘If I thought it would help, I’d rip apart the town with my bare hands.’ Zephaniah held his hands up and tried to keep them steady. ‘But even if some Irish mob has our boy, which I don’t believe, stomping around Irish Row is only going to put the lad’s life in even more danger.’
That seemed to cool some of Jonah’s indignation. He turned to Pyke and said, ‘So what do you propose to do, sir?’
‘Right now, we’re at the beck and call of the kidnappers. We’re also at the beck and call of another gang who probably don’t have your son. What we need to do is take charge of the situation. Remember: you’ve got something they want. Money. We need to use this fact to dictate our terms to them. No more jumping to someone else’s demands.’
‘And how do you suggest we dictate terms to people we don’t know and can’t — at the moment — identify?’
‘We let it be known we want to get in touch with the kidnappers. What’s happened has probably unsettled them and they’ll be wary about bringing letters to the Castle. We need to find a third party, an intermediary.’
‘What do you propose?’
‘The local newspaper.’
‘Go on,’ Jonah said.
‘We place a personal notice — an oblique one, of course — and wait for a response. Then we make it clear what we want: for example, the terms under which we are prepared to pay the ransom.’
The tautness in Jonah’s face had disappeared. He turned to Zephaniah. ‘What do you think, Papa?’
‘Listen to the man.’ Zephaniah arranged the blanket over his legs. ‘He speaks a lot of sense.’
A scribbled note from Cathy had been slipped under the door, asking him to meet her outside in the garden next to the fountain.
Tired but intrigued, Pyke retraced his steps back down the stairs, then passed out of the Castle unnoticed and hurried around the building to the small, enclosed side garden. Cathy was standing under a tree, a black cloak obscuring her face. Startled, she looked up and tried to fall into his arms. As he caught her, Pyke checked to make sure that no one could see them from the Castle. Up close, her eyes were puffy and sore and her lips were stained with wine.