A hot spike of bile spewed from his mouth. Instinctively he reached out and shook the boy; his son’s skin was as cold and stiff as marble. At once he knew; he didn’t need to check for a heartbeat. There wouldn’t be one. Felix had been dead for a while, at least a day. The body didn’t even look like his son; the cheeks were pale and wax-like, the eyes like those of a dead fish. Pyke opened his mouth and fell to his knees, but what came out was more of a strangled cry than a scream. His son was dead; Felix, dead. He could see the truth of the words but he couldn’t accept them, accept that Felix would never walk or smile or talk or argue with him ever again. Pyke fell on top of his son, enveloped his body in his arms, his cry becoming a sob, and he imagined just for a moment that he was dreaming, that none of this had actually happened. But Felix was real, his son’s corpse was really in his arms, and then it struck him, the finality of it, that Felix wasn’t ever coming back.
Numb and sobbing, Pyke lay on top of Felix’s lifeless body, hugging it, hugging him, no longer sure how long he had been there, time a blur. This was the moment he had been dreading ever since Felix was born, that his son would die first, that he would have to bury the lad and live the rest of his life knowing that he had somehow let Felix down; that he had, wittingly or otherwise, caused his son’s death, either through neglect or as an unintended consequence of the way he lived his life, the kind of universe he existed in, a sordid, violent world in which life was cheap.
A while later, Pyke laid Felix down on the bed. How had the lad died? Pyke’s mind was working like a policeman’s, almost in spite of himself. There was no blood, no obvious wounds. Had he died on the bed or had someone carried him there? It took Pyke five minutes to remove Felix’s clothes, the body limp and pathetic on the bedcovers. There was bruising around the neck but not the kind that would indicate the boy had been strangled. The room continued to spin around Pyke, all of it unreal, the fact that he was in Merthyr, far from home, staring down at his beloved son’s naked corpse. Pyke had long since reached the conclusion that God was little more than a fancy but Felix had given over his life to the Church and this was how he had been repaid. Hands still trembling, Pyke dressed Felix again, as best he could.
Briefly his thoughts turned to his long-deceased wife, Emily, and the day she’d given birth to Felix. He was aware of the fact that he, the most unworthy one, had outlived them both, and was now totally alone. He felt his legs buckle, and had to take a few deep breaths, the physicality of his pain almost too much to bear. Again he stared down at his son’s corpse and realised that he was still crying, tears that were hot and salty and full of such utter desolation that he wanted nothing more than to curl up next to the lad and take a knife to his own wrists, to let the blood seep out of his wounds until he drifted out of consciousness.
PART III
TWENTY-TWO
SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER 1846
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
It was Sunday morning and Market Square was deserted, just a few soldiers standing outside a tent, blowing into their hands to keep themselves warm. Everyone else was at church or at home. The previous night had been quiet, with hardly anyone on the streets. The violence had dissipated, the need for retribution giving way to collective revulsion.
The wind was blowing off the mountain, an easterly blast that rippled the tops of the puddles. Next to the police station-house was a grocer’s and farther along was the undertaker where, two weeks earlier, Pyke had taken his son’s corpse. He told them to preserve it as best they could, and make a coffin, so that he could accompany his beloved son back to London and bury him in Bunhill Fields next to his uncle. It was hard to remember everything through the fog of grief, a pain so unbearable that Pyke had thought, more than once, about turning his pistol on himself. Each morning, when he woke up, there it was, a canker that made it difficult for him even to move. He had wept during the funeral, a short service attended by a handful of people, but not since, as though a veil had come down, shielding him from his grief. Martin Jakes had wanted to bury Felix at Keynsham but Pyke had refused to sanction a Christian burial even though it was what Felix would have wanted. There was no way Pyke could listen to Christian homilies about God and the afterlife. Jakes had come to the funeral in London because he was a good man and he had loved Felix, but they hadn’t spoken after the ceremony.
Pyke had been waiting on Graham Street for two hours and he was finally rewarded for his patience when Superintendent Jones emerged from the station-house and headed in Pyke’s direction.
Jones didn’t notice him until Pyke fell in beside him. ‘I heard you have John Wylde in custody. I need to see him.’
It took Jones a few seconds to realise who was standing next to him. ‘ Pyke.’ He didn’t seem to believe Pyke was there.
‘I want to see Wylde.’
‘I didn’t think we’d see you again, at least not here, not after what you did.’ Jones glanced nervously up and down the street.
Pyke didn’t respond immediately but it confirmed that people still assumed he’d taken the twenty thousand pounds and left the Hancock boy to his fate.
‘ What I did? ’
Jones shook his head. His brow was beaded with sweat, despite the cold.
‘I was shot.’
‘Shot?’
‘By Wylde.’
Jones regarded him carefully but said nothing.
‘I was told by one of your clerks, Jim Massey, that my son had arrived and taken a room at the Southgate Hotel. I went to meet him. Wylde and his men were waiting there to ambush me.’
‘Massey’s dead.’
‘I know.’
Ostensibly he had been another victim of the violence that had briefly spiralled out of control. His body had been found in Glebe town two weeks earlier.
‘Do you want to know what I think?’ Pyke looked up at the snow-covered mountain. ‘If they’d killed me, buried me in an unmarked pit, it would have been easy to blame me for running away with the ransom money.’
‘Public opinion has tried you in your absence and found you guilty.’
‘I didn’t come back here to defend myself.’
‘Where have you been?’ Jones shot him a sceptical look. ‘Apart from recovering from your so-called pistol wound?’
Pyke unbuttoned his greatcoat, peeled back his frock-coat, and pulled up his shirt, to expose the scar, which was still raw. ‘Satisfied?’
‘If you didn’t steal the twenty thousand, why wait so long to come forward?’
‘I had to go back to London.’ Pyke hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth. ‘I went home to bury my son.’
Just saying the words made Pyke wince. He had come back to Wales and now all he felt was the crushing sense of his own failure. Whereas once upon a time he’d trusted in his ability to turn any situation to his advantage, now he realised how impotent he really was and how little he could determine his own fate. Felix was dead; so was William Hancock. Many others had been killed in the rioting — and for what? The blast furnaces were still burning. And when it was all over the dead would be forgotten about by everyone except their close family. And the town would still be in the grip of men like the Hancocks and Josiah Webb.
Jones hadn’t known about Pyke’s son. No one had known.
‘I’m sorry.’ Jones’ concern appeared genuine. ‘How did he die?’