‘It is my understanding that money is brought to you by, how should I put it, less than salubrious figures, money I should add that has been acquired illegally, and that your generosity as a banker allows these figures to leave your premises with Bank of England notes that bear no trace of criminality.’
Pyke studied Peel’s expression and tried to assess whether he was bluffing or not. ‘I take it you can substantiate these claims?’
Peel’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. ‘Do I need to?’ He cleared this throat. ‘By that I mean, if the claims are entirely without validity, then you have nothing to worry about.’
Pyke waited and said nothing.
‘But if there is more than a speck of truth in them, the last thing you want is your premises raided and your reputation, such as it is, tarnished.’
Quickly, Pyke weighed up his options, or lack of them. Peel wasn’t someone to be underestimated and, if Pyke refused to help him, the Tory leader could make his life very difficult.
‘I’ll give you one name. You can deduce from it whether I’m to be taken seriously or not.’ Peel sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘Ned Villums.’
Pyke kept his stare blank. ‘Perhaps I can ask you a question, Sir Robert,’ he said, wondering who might have given Peel his information. ‘Why have I been singled out for this task?’
‘You’re a resourceful fellow.’
‘And it has nothing to do with the fact that my wife is acquainted with many of the radicals?’
‘Let’s just say you’re in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the right time.’
Pyke bowed his head, not wanting the Tory leader to see the heat in his face. ‘So let me ask another question. Why do you suspect this Captain Paine is mixed up with the business of the headless corpse?’
‘I don’t suspect anything of the kind.’ Peel looked searchingly into his face. ‘But the possibility that there might be a connection makes me nervous.’ He held up a sealed envelope. ‘Give this to the magistrate in Huntingdon. It might help to open doors.’
‘If I accept the envelope, it doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to do what you want me to do.’
‘Take the damned thing and use it as bum fodder for all I care. But you’ll do what I’ve asked you to do because it’s in your own interest.’ Peel paused, his stare losing some of its intensity. ‘Just go to Cambridgeshire with Morris. Listen to him. Unlike me, he can offer you a positive inducement.’
‘And if I find out that Julian Jackman and Captain Paine are the same person, will these unsubstantiated claims against my bank… disappear?’
Peel’s brow was pricked with sweat. ‘You’re walking a fine tightrope, Pyke. Just do as you’re asked and let everything else work itself out.’
‘You’re not offering me any guarantees then?’
‘ Guarantees? ’ Peel’s laugh was without warmth. ‘You, of all people, should know there are no such things.’ But he followed it up with a flattering smile. ‘Remember, too, that we’re both on the same side this time.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘You’re one of us, now.’
Outside in the New Palace yard, Pyke didn’t notice the imposing figure of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and the King’s brother, striding towards him until they almost collided with each other. The duke, who sat in the Lords and had taken charge of the Tory Ultras (so called for their unwavering support of traditional values, the empire and the Protestant ascendancy), was deep in thought and looked up only at the last minute. He was a tall man dressed in military uniform and still bore the scars of battle on one side of his face. For a moment, Pyke didn’t think the duke would recognise him — he had once humiliated the man in a courtroom before hundreds of spectators — but as their stares met, the duke’s expression darkened and he pushed Pyke away, muttering, ‘God, what are you doing here?’
But the duke had brushed past him before Pyke had time to answer and strode into the yard shaking his head.
It was a cold, wet afternoon and the wind was gusting off the choppy waters of the Thames. ‘I have my carriage,’ Morris said, choosing not to remark on Pyke’s exchange with the King’s brother. ‘Perhaps I could offer you a ride back to Hambledon? As you might know, we’re practically neighbours. My wife fell in love with Cranborne Park and insisted we snap it up. It came on to the market and she was suddenly desperate to move to the countryside.’
Pyke smiled non-committally but the idea that Morris should have moved to within a few miles of Hambledon at the same time as wanting Pyke’s help in an unrelated matter seemed too coincidental.
They sat in silence as the carriage clattered out of the Palace yard and up Whitehall, finally crossing over on to St Martin’s Lane after waiting for a collision between a wagon transporting barrels of Truman’s ale and a costermonger’s barrow to be cleared away. The air was laced with the scent of hops and a few scavengers were on their hands and knees, lapping up the beer from the gutters.
‘Peel wouldn’t tell me how the two of you became acquainted,’ Morris said after a few moments.
‘Before I married, I was a Bow Street Runner.’ Pyke waited. ‘An incident that I’d rather not talk about brought me into contact with Peel, who was then the Home Secretary under the Duke of Wellington. Peel came to my rescue when his hand was forced, but he never warmed to me.’
Morris nodded awkwardly. ‘He can be a cold fish on occasions, I’ll grant you that. But when he’s among those he knows well, he’s a changed chap. He loves a bawdy tale as much as the next man.’
Pyke nodded blankly. They sat in silence for a while as they crawled their way up Charing Cross Road. In the past two years he had noticed an increase in the number of vehicles using the roads. Not just the drays, wagons and carts used to transport goods around the capital but also the brightly painted private carriages carrying well-fed men and women to and from their homes. There used to be a time when broughams and open-topped phaetons were the preserve of the very rich, but now it seemed that parvenus like him had decided en masse they couldn’t get by without owning their own carriage.
‘Do you miss it?’ Morris wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘Being a Bow Street Runner?’
‘Since the new police were set up, the job isn’t what it used to be,’ Pyke answered, still bridling from his encounter with Peel.
‘But do you miss the work?’
‘Sitting behind a desk hasn’t been kind to my waistline but four years at the bank have made me a lot richer than ten years as a Bow Street Runner.’
It was as close as he’d come to admitting that he did sometimes miss it. Exploiting people’s weaknesses and tilting events to suit his own circumstances were elements that applied just as well to banking as to policing, but it was hard not to remember the business of piecing together different scraps of information, pursuing suspects, questioning witnesses and forcing confessions out of people without some residual affection.
‘Good answer,’ Morris said, toying with his silk cravat. ‘But perhaps I could ask you another question?’
Pyke shrugged, wondering what kind of inducement Morris might offer him and whether it would offset the bitter aftertaste his encounter with Peel had left.
‘Don’t look so worried, old chap. I’m not about to beg for money.’ Smiling, Morris put on his spectacles and pulled out a watch from the fob pocket of his purple waistcoat. ‘As I mentioned earlier, there’s a meeting of the Grand Northern’s Cambridge committee next week. I’d like you to accompany me and then travel onwards to Huntingdon, to see if there’s any truth in these rumours about radicals stirring up trouble among the navvies.’ He rubbed his eyes, sighing. ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not against unionisation. I think men should be paid a fair wage for their labour and if they’re not, they have a right to organise together in order to improve their circumstances. But I am very worried about worsening relations between the navvies and townsfolk in Huntingdon. I suspect animosity is being stirred up by a local landowner who is absolutely opposed to the railway passing through his land. Sir Horsley Rockingham led a horrible campaign to kill off the railway while the Bill was being heard in the Commons.’