Pyke stared at her without speaking. Perhaps she was right; perhaps he had used her and was continuing to do so. But he couldn’t say the words she wanted to hear.
‘I’ve thought a lot about what happened between us, the night before you left for the West Indies…’
Pyke nodded, vaguely aware that he hadn’t thought about her very much while he was away.
‘I’ve used the time that you’ve been away to think about my life, what I’ve been doing, what I want to be in the future.’
Pyke watched her, trying to reconcile his very immediate urge to kiss her again with the sense that he was using her in some way. ‘And what have you decided?’
‘I didn’t arrive at any decision. I couldn’t.’ She still wouldn’t look at him. ‘Not until you came back and looked straight through me
…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Pyke said, frowning. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I did think about you while I was away, about the night we spent together. I missed you, too.’
‘Like you missed Godfrey?’
‘If you’ll forgive me for saying, I don’t find my uncle quite as attractive…’
That made her smile.
An awkward silence settled between them. ‘We can talk about this again tomorrow, Pyke. For now, I’d like to be left alone.’
TWENTY-ONE
The Bluefield lodging house was as dismal as Pyke remembered. The last time he had visited, the day had been cool and cloudy, but this time the heat was almost suffocating and the air in the sunless court was choked with dust. He had been told that it hadn’t rained for a month and the ground underfoot seemed to confirm this. In the depths of winter, when the city shivered under a blanket of freezing fog, he would dream of summer days when the air would feel soft against his skin, but when these days finally arrived and brought with them dust clouds, plagues of horseflies and a pungent stink exacerbated by the searing heat, it made him long for the cool days of autumn once more. This was one of those days. Pyke’s back was drenched with sweat before he’d even entered the lodging house.
Thrale recognised him immediately. They met in the kitchen and the landlord adopted a pose of exaggerated servility. ‘It certainly is a hot ’un,’ he said, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. ‘How about stepping outside for some air?’
In the yard, where it was a little cooler, Pyke said, ‘I need to find a blind man called Filthy. I think he was known to Mary Edgar and Arthur Sobers.’ The notion that Filthy might in fact be Phillip Malvern had stayed with him ever since he’d talked to Mary’s mother, Bertha, in Accompong.
‘You told me that already and I’ll say what I said back then. I don’t know him. I’d tell you if I did.’
The former bare-knuckle fighter could certainly take care of himself in a fight and Pyke didn’t want to antagonise him needlessly. ‘Do you mind if I question your guests, see if anyone else knew him?’
‘Long as you don’t upset anyone.’
‘I take it you haven’t seen or heard anything more about Arthur Sobers.’
That drew a frown. ‘I thought you’d have heard about him.’
‘Heard about what?’ Pyke felt his heartbeat quicken. ‘I’ve been out of the country.’
Thrale shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. ‘Peelers got him. Last I heard he was waiting to be tried.’
‘When was this?’
‘A week, maybe two weeks ago. One of the lodgers remembered him, said they’d read about it in a newspaper.’
By this time Pyke was halfway across the yard.
It was only ten in the morning but already Saggers was too drunk to get up from his seat. The first thing Pyke noticed was the wet patch around the crotch of his tweed trousers. There was a plate of gnawed chop bones on the table in front of him and five or six empty pots of ale.
‘How can a man write when hunger gnaws at his tummy? Should a man of my talents be lying down in the same room as coiners and mudlarks?’ He was speaking to a man whose head was resting on the table next to him. ‘A man of my talents grubbing for a living when scriveners and compositors, with their sticks and frames, take home fifty shillings a week? Fifty shillings, I say. I used to think that making words was the noblest of all professions but now I see my reward — being denied the victuals that a man of my modest appetite requires to sustain him — and I wonder that I should ever see a bowl of stewed mutton again.’ He cast a stare in Pyke’s direction. ‘Or a half-buck of Halnaker’s venison.’
Pyke tossed a five-shilling coin down on the table. It landed among the gravy and chop bones. Saggers ordered the pot-boys to fetch him another ale and a serving of steak and kidney pudding.
‘You’re darker than I remember,’ Saggers said, licking gravy from the coin. ‘I talked to your uncle. He at least was kind enough to tell me of your departure.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving. In the end I didn’t have the time.’
‘Luckily for you I’m the forgiving type,’ Saggers said, inspecting the silver coin. ‘I’ll be even more forgiving if you tell me about your travels and give me something nice and juicy I can slap on to Spratt’s desk.’
‘One day soon I will. I promise.’ Pyke waited. ‘In the meantime, how’s the story?’
‘How’s the story? he asks.’ Saggers’ voice boomed around the empty room. ‘And what story would that be? The one you abandoned without a word to your partner-in-crime?’
‘The last time we spoke, you were trying to persuade Spratt to publish the story about Lucy Luckins’ corpse. What happened?’
‘I found Mort, the surgeon at St Thomas’s, and he confirmed, in private, what the mudlark Gilbert Meeson told us. But, for obvious reasons, he wouldn’t give me the official confirmation that Spratt needed. So Spratt refused to publish the story and, since then, it has ebbed away to nothing.’ Saggers’ mood was momentarily lifted by the fresh pot of ale put down in front of him.
‘No further developments?’
‘Not from my perspective.’ Saggers emptied the contents of the pot in three gulps and let out a belch. ‘I had an idea there might be more bodies. I mean, if this man, whoever he is, has killed two women, why stop there? I left word with mudlarks like Gilbert Meeson to keep their eyes open for another corpse, pardon the pun. I even managed to persuade Spratt to part with ten guineas as an inducement. But I’ve heard nothing, and any interest that we managed to build up in the story has vanished.’ He shook his head. ‘We made all those boasts, Pyke; we made the police seem stupid. But who looks stupid now? The police have gone about their work quietly and methodically and now they’ve found this negro fellow, Sobers.’
‘I heard,’ Pyke said. ‘What else do you know about it?’
‘Just that the Peelers nabbed him a few weeks ago and now they’ve charged him with the murder. He’s due to stand trial in a couple of days.’
‘Do you know where they’re holding him?’
‘Newgate, I think.’ Saggers looked around for some sign of the steak and kidney pudding. ‘I should warn you that the Crown’s lawyer is going to play up the ritual aspect of the murder. Some of the newspapers have already carried stories to this effect. Spratt has asked me for something — assuming the chap is found guilty.’
‘Human ape runs amok in London because it’s in his nature?’
‘That kind of thing,’ Spratt said, wincing a little.
Pyke shook his head but he knew such stories were inevitable. ‘I need you to go back to all the mudlarks you spoke to and ask them about a blind man, goes by the name of Filthy. I want to know if they’ve seen him recently and if so where can I find him.’ This time Pyke placed a half-crown down on the table.
Saggers swept it into his lap and considered Pyke’s request, his chin wobbling slightly. ‘Would it be fair to say that you’ve been somewhat parsimonious with the truth regarding this investigation?’
‘Yes, I suppose that would be a fair comment.’