‘You didn’t send the second letter, though? The one directing me up to the quarry.’
She shook her head.
‘Know who did?’
‘No.’
Pyke studied her expression and decided he believed her. ‘But you — Cathy — must have believed Jonah would pay.’
‘I was nursemaid and nanny to that boy for four years. Jonah had his faults, plenty of them, but he loved his son.’
‘It would have been cruel, then, what you all planned to do. Take his son away from him, presumably start a new life with the twenty thousand?’
‘Let me put it a different way. He loved the idea of his son. But most of the time he hardly saw William.’
Pyke considered this. It made him think of his own failings as a father. The same accusation could have been levelled at him. ‘What happened, after Johns set up the kidnapping? Where did you keep the boy?’
‘That hut, up the slope from his cabin.’ Maggie’s cheeks coloured slightly. ‘I think I saw you from the window one day…’
So the Hancock boy had been there the first time Pyke had visited. No wonder Johns had poked a rifle in his face.
‘Did Cathy say whether Jonah or Zephaniah suspected anything?’
‘That was her main worry. She thought one of them, especially Zephaniah, would work it out. But she didn’t think they had, even at the end.’
‘So what went wrong with the kidnapping?’ He was starting to form an impression of Maggie Atkins: a devoted servant who had seen Cathy’s unhappiness and decided to help.
‘John had this notion that someone was following him. There were people he trusted, radicals, the ones who’d helped him carry out the kidnapping. So the day before the rendezvous at the railway station, he had them stage an ambush in the middle of town — to check whether anyone really was following him, and make people think he’d disappeared. He wanted to lie low for the night, make sure no one knew where he was. His task was to collect the ransom money — meet the train at Cwmbach, collect the suitcase and then jump off between there and Fernhill.’
So it hadn’t been Wylde and his bullies who had snatched Johns in broad daylight. But Smyth had known about it because that was how Pyke had found out.
‘What was your part in the whole affair? You were looking after William, right? All being well, he was due to arrive on the eleven o’clock train.’
‘The night before, Johns took me and the boy to Fernhill. We stayed in a room near the station. He said he would let me know if all went well; then all I had to do was put William on the train.’
‘Weren’t you worried the boy might say something to his father afterwards? He would have been part of the deception, or at least he would have had to play along with it. Wasn’t that too much of a burden to put on his shoulders?’
‘You never met William, did you?’ Maggie’s eyes started to mist up again.
‘No.’
‘He was a thoughtful, intelligent boy. In all honesty, he hated his life at the Castle, hated to see his mother so sad. His father was an abstraction to him and he cried whenever Zephaniah tried to take him in hand. Cathy was his life, and when she asked him if he’d be happy to move somewhere else, start again, he said yes. He could be cunning if necessary. And stubborn, too. He knew what was at stake.’
‘So Cathy’s plan was to take William back to the Castle for a while, pretend everything was fine. Then what? Disappear one night and never return.’
‘Something like that.’ Maggie wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress. ‘Cathy felt it was too risky, fleeing straight away. Better to let the dust settle, pick her moment. Perhaps when Jonah and Zephaniah went to London on business or their home in Hampshire.’
Pyke considered the plan and tried to work out whether it was stupid, foolhardy or brilliant in its own way.
‘So what happened? What went wrong?’
‘That night, I was in the room in Fernhill, with William. Neither of us slept much, as you can imagine. As it was getting light I heard voices, whispers, outside the window.’ Maggie had to pause, the rawness of the memories still too much for her. ‘I’m sorry.’
Pyke looked around the barren churchyard, the headstones. ‘Take all the time you need.’
Maggie nodded forlornly. ‘I rushed over to the window. That’s when I saw him: he was standing outside, face clear in the dawn.’
‘Saw who?’
‘Sir Clancy Smyth.’
Pyke stared at her; he hadn’t expected this. He still didn’t know how the magistrate was implicated in Felix’s death but he hadn’t suspected Smyth’s involvement in the kidnapping.
‘You knew who he was?’
Maggie nodded. ‘I’d seen him at the Castle a few times.’
‘But he wasn’t on his own?’
‘No.’ She took a breath, trying to control her emotions. ‘There was another man with him, someone I couldn’t see properly. A moment or two later, his man kicked down the door. He was wearing a handkerchief over his face. He picked up William with one arm and there was a pistol in the other hand. He was as close as you are. He aimed the pistol at me and I think I screamed. Then at the last moment, he turned, fired it into the wall. William was shouting, trying to wriggle free, but the man’s grip was too strong. He took the boy and I heard the carriage leave. That was the last time I saw him.’ Tears were flowing down her cheeks.
Pyke offered her his handkerchief but she declined. He was trying to make sense of what she’d just told him, the unidentified man firing but deliberately, it appeared, missing her.
‘So what did you do next?’
‘I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I didn’t dare get on the train. I thought they might be waiting for me at the station. So I walked — ran, actually — back to Merthyr, picked up a ride that took me to Caedraw, and from there I went to the cabin, I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘And did Cathy and Johns come and find you?’
Maggie nodded. ‘Eventually. John came. I told him what had happened. He said the suitcase wasn’t on the train.’
‘I left it there, in the first-class carriage. I saw the train pull out of the station.’
‘Well, according to John, it was gone about five minutes later, when he joined the train at Cwmbach.’ Pyke thought about the two men in the first-class carriage. Perhaps one of them had taken it after all.
‘Did he say who he thought had taken the money?’
Maggie wouldn’t look at him.
‘Maggie?’
Slowly she lifted her head to meet his gaze. ‘Your name was mentioned. Then I told him what I’d seen, who I’d seen. That changed things. He left and I didn’t see him again.’
‘And Cathy?’
‘She came later; she was out of her mind with worry. When I told her what had happened, she broke down.’ Maggie took another deep breath.
Gently Pyke placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘And?’
‘She didn’t tell me what she planned to do. I assumed she was going back to the Castle. We agreed that it was no longer safe to hide at John’s cabin. I told her I would come up here, to an abandoned stone cottage near the cemetery. She promised she’d come and find me.’
‘But she never did.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘A little later, I heard about William, that his body had been found in the town.’
‘You assumed Smyth and the other man must have killed him.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve been living up here ever since?’
‘I didn’t know where else to go. Every so often, I went back to John’s cabin, to see if anyone had been there. I thought John might return. Or Cathy.’ She shook her head. ‘Yesterday, when I saw the light, the fire, I thought it must be one of them. I crept up and saw you in the window. That’s why I left the note.’ She looked at him, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘Who do you think killed the boy?’
‘I don’t know. It’s hard not to point the finger at Smyth, though.’ Yet Pyke couldn’t see what the magistrate would have to gain from it, apart from using the death as an excuse to send in the troops.
‘I don’t know what to do, sir. I don’t know whether I should go to the police and tell them what I know, or…’