Pyke got up and emptied his bladder into the commode. Downstairs, he lit the fire that his housekeeper, Mrs Booth, had prepared and waited for the kettle to boil on the range. As he broke three eggs into a jug and whisked the white and yolk together he wondered — not for the first time — whether he’d meant what he’d said to Jack Whicher.
Did he really want to resign his position? Could he afford to?
As an inspector he enjoyed a modest salary, most of which he spent on the running of the household. He owned the house in Islington and had inherited a small sum from his uncle Godfrey, the best part of which he was using to pay for Felix’s education. From time to time, he took the opportunity to augment his income by keeping back some of the items recovered from robberies or by pocketing jewels or other valuables that no one came forward to claim. He was comfortable rather than well off, but didn’t know whether he’d be able to support himself without his detective’s salary.
Once he’d poured the boiling water into the teapot, he collected the newspaper and the post from the doormat and began to sift through it, looking for anything interesting. There was a letter postmarked Merthyr Tydfil. He read the name on the reverse and it took him a moment to place it.
Pyke hadn’t thought about Jonah Hancock for five years. His wife, Cathy, had been the daughter of one of Godfrey’s friends.
Tearing the envelope, Pyke couldn’t think how the man knew his home address, until he recalled he’d written to Cathy to tell her about arrangements for Godfrey’s funeral. She hadn’t attended but had sent him a letter of condolence. Pyke tried to remember her as she’d been five years earlier, the last time he’d seen her: barely eighteen years old and pretty, her fine blonde hair arranged into ringlets. Pyke had seen for himself that she didn’t love or even much care for the man she was about to marry, yet he’d said nothing. Perhaps it hadn’t been any of his business. Still, if he was honest, he had known — he had always known — that she admired him and would have listened to him. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to court intimacy with her; she was too young for any good to come of it.
Cathy had been attractive and flirtatious but he wouldn’t have described her as sweet. She had always been too worldly, even as an eighteen-year-old. Instinctively she was aware of the effect she had on men, and Pyke couldn’t pretend that he had been immune to her charms. At times, when she’d held his hand and laughed, he had felt a powerful tug in his stomach and she had seemed to realise this. Cathy was wasted on her husband. Jonah Hancock was dull and boorish at his best but he was also fabulously wealthy and had been looking for a young wife. Cathy, who’d been devoted to her father and was easily impressed, had consented to the arrangement. Pyke hadn’t been invited to the wedding but he had met Cathy and Jonah Hancock a few weeks before it in London. The occasion had been pleasant at first but Hancock had drunk too much wine and, after lunch, Pyke recalled seeing them in the back of a phaeton, Hancock’s arm around her, pulling her closer, Cathy struggling to free herself from his grip.
A year later, Pyke heard from Godfrey that Cathy had borne Hancock a son. Now, it seemed, from the content of the letter, that the young boy had been snatched by kidnappers.
It was odd, Pyke mused as he reread the letter, that Jonah Hancock and not Cathy had written to him. Perhaps Cathy had badgered her husband to write to him. Perhaps she had told him that Pyke was head of the Detective Branch. Or perhaps the man was just desperate. Pyke had gone through something similar with Felix, when he was about the same age as the Hancock boy, and he could recall how helpless he had felt. Now Jonah Hancock was offering him a thousand pounds if he would oversee the safe return of his son.
At first Pyke didn’t seriously think about accepting the offer, despite the enormous sum of money being promised, but then he remembered that Bristol was on the way to Wales and he could stop there and see Felix, who had gone to study in Keynsham under a vicar they’d known in London.
Patting Copper, his three-legged mastiff, on the head, Pyke poured a cup of tea and sat down at the table. Perhaps it would do him good to get out of London for a while. He took a sip of tea and thought about the difference a thousand pounds would make to his bank balance.
Pyke knocked on the door of the Commissioner’s private chambers and waited for Sir Richard Mayne to answer.
Mayne was sitting behind his polished, well-ordered desk. He looked relaxed and was talking to Benedict Pierce, the Assistant Commissioner. They stopped speaking as soon as Pyke stepped into the room, their eyes following him as he crossed the floor. Without saying a word, Pyke took out the letter he’d received from Jonah Hancock and placed it on the desk in front of Mayne. Now he was glad that Cathy hadn’t written it: the ironmaster’s sanction gave the mission additional legitimacy.
The Commissioner had silver hair, a firm mouth and quick, intelligent eyes. He had been supportive of Pyke mostly because he’d argued for the establishment of the Detective Branch and couldn’t afford for it to fail. Still, their respective vision of the work detectives should perform was fundamentally at odds: Pyke had always argued that good detective work was founded upon the gathering of information from the criminal classes while Mayne worried that these encounters would inevitably corrupt the detectives under Pyke’s command. Mayne could be taciturn but he was fair. Pierce, on the other hand, was a punctilious man who had climbed the greasy pole through a combination of flattery and viciousness. Pyke had hoped that his appointment as Assistant Commissioner — the youngest man to have held this post — might have mellowed Pierce, but the evidence pointed to the contrary. It was no secret that Pyke and Pierce despised one another and Pyke didn’t doubt that if the man came upon something he could use against him, he would do so without a second thought.
Mayne passed the letter to Pierce and waited for him to read it. ‘I’ve met Hancock’s father, Zephaniah,’ he said, when Pierce had finished. ‘The ironworks they own is one of the largest in the country.’
Pyke just nodded. Mayne understood, without having to be told, that the kidnapping had wider political ramifications.
‘So you think it’s important that you attend to this business personally?’ Mayne said, cautiously.
‘Of course he does,’ Pierce exclaimed. ‘This man is offering to pay him a thousand pounds.’
Ignoring this outburst, Mayne stroked his chin, trying to assess the situation. ‘Why did he write in person to you, Detective-inspector?’
Pyke explained that he’d known Hancock’s wife and that he’d met Hancock himself just prior to the wedding five years earlier.
‘You must have made an impression on him.’ Mayne waited and added, ‘Or her.’
That drew a slight smirk from Pierce. Pyke decided that the remark didn’t warrant a response.
‘Still, I’m inclined to approve the request — on the grounds that it’s in the national interest.’ Mayne turned to Pierce. ‘Benedict?’
Pyke could see this had put Pierce in a difficult position. If he argued against it, he would be going against Mayne’s wishes.
‘I agree.’ Pierce looked up at Pyke and smiled. ‘I’m sure the Detective Branch can cope in the detective-inspector’s absence.’
This was something Pyke hadn’t considered — that Pierce might use his absence as an opportunity to interfere.
‘Jack Whicher is more than capable of overseeing things until I return.’ Pyke knew that Whicher — the ablest of his detective-sergeants — wouldn’t give Pierce the time of day.