Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery (11 page)

‘I’ll do everything in my power to ensure your son is returned to his home safely.’

‘Thank you.’ Briefly she raised her head and Pyke felt that she was truly looking at him for the first time.

‘Am I to understand that my assistance was sought on your recommendation?’ He let his gaze linger on the whiteness of her neck.

‘Your ability as a detective is well known in this household.
Therefore when this terrible thing happened, it was naturally to you that my husband wrote.’

Pyke digested what Cathy had just told him, unsure what to make of it. It seemed to confirm what she had intimated the previous evening: that he was there at Jonah Hancock’s insistence, not hers.

‘Last night, your husband suggested I interview your son’s former nursemaid, a woman called Maggie Atkins. Apparently she left under a cloud. Do you think I should bother with her?’

‘Who …
Maggie
?’ Cathy tried to laugh but the tension in her voice was clear. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘Then why would your husband tell me she should be a suspect?’

She looked down and fingered a frayed piece of lace on her dress.

Pyke decided to try a different approach. ‘I met a friend of yours today. A man called John Johns.’

That was sufficient to puncture her façade. Her expression suddenly fell and she shot him a pleading look.

Pyke’s eyes darted around the room, aware for the first time that someone might be listening to their conversation. He stood up quickly and stretched. ‘That will be all for now. In the meantime, I’d just like to repeat what I said earlier. We will do our best to ensure that you and your son are reunited.’

As he went to leave, her eyes were moist and she mouthed a silent thank-you.

Dinner was an awkward affair; Jonah Hancock at one end of the table and Cathy at the other. Pyke was sitting opposite Zephaniah, who had to be fed by one of the servants. When Jonah wasn’t speaking, the only sound in the cavernous dining room was the clinking of silver cutlery on bone china. Zephaniah didn’t say much but his eyes didn’t leave Pyke.

‘In this household, Detective-inspector, we’ve always been assiduously reminded of your abilities.’ Jonah looked directly at Cathy, whose stare remained fixed on the food on her plate, which she barely touched.

It had been a petulant remark and once again Pyke thought about Zephaniah’s claim from the previous evening.
My daughter-in-law has always carried a torch for you
.

After dinner, the three men retired to the library to have their
brandies and cigars, and discuss Pyke’s plans for the rendezvous at the old quarry the next morning.

‘You’ll have to trust me to do my job. The letter instructed me to go there alone and so I will go there alone.’

Some of Jonah’s bonhomie had returned and he nodded briskly. ‘A sensible decision, sir. You have the hundred pounds?’

Pyke nodded. Zephaniah Hancock had given him the purse full of gold sovereigns before dinner.

‘Let’s just hope that tomorrow we’ll be clearer about the second letter and whether or not it was sent by my son’s kidnappers.’ With a cigar in hand, Jonah Hancock blew a smoke ring up into the air. He watched it rise and then dissolve.

Zephaniah looked at Pyke and smiled, as though they shared a secret. ‘I would trust the detective-inspector with my own life, son. He will do as he sees fit and we will support him.’

Jonah seemed perplexed by his father’s changed attitude towards Pyke and it took him a moment to recover. ‘Quite so.’

‘Perhaps, sir,’ Zephaniah said, still staring at Pyke, ‘you would tell us your opinion of my radiant daughter-in-law?’

Pyke saw Jonah stiffen. The old man was evidently savouring his son’s discomfort. ‘In what sense?’

‘Well, I believe you knew her when she was a girl. I was wondering whether you find her much changed.’

‘I’m sure that anyone who knew me as a child would find me much changed.’ Pyke took a sip of brandy and put the glass down on the table. ‘But to answer your question, sir, I find Catherine a charming, well-mannered young woman.’

‘Indeed so.’ Zephaniah’s eyes were glinting.

Pyke had had enough of the old man’s games and announced he was ready for his bed. Jonah ushered Pyke to the door, patted him on the shoulder and wished him luck for the morning.

‘Whatever you may think of me, Detective-inspector, and my father, I do love my son very dearly. That’s all that matters here.’

Pyke had climbed the stairs and was halfway along the landing when he heard her whisper his name.

Cathy was waiting for him in an alcove, shrouded in darkness.

‘I had to talk to you away from prying eyes and ears,’ she
whispered breathlessly. ‘My husband and father-in-law have made it their business to know who I talk to and what I talk about.’

Pyke could just see the whites of Cathy’s eyes in the half-light produced by a candle. ‘What is it they’re afraid you’ll say?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Why did you tell me I shouldn’t have come?’

Cathy took a deep breath. ‘I’d been drinking. I don’t remember. Please don’t hold it against me.’ She tried to smile.

‘I need to ask you a question, Cathy. Who do you honestly believe has your son?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Scottish Cattle?’ Pyked waited and added, ‘Maggie Atkins?’

That drew a snort. ‘Maggie was a saint. Her problem was that she was too close to me, took my side, stood up to my husband. It’s why they concocted that whole situation and threatened her with the police.’

‘Being treated like that …’ Pyke said, ‘it could make a person bitter.’

‘Not Maggie. You’d know what I mean if you met her. And she loved William, too. She would never do anything to put his life at risk.’

‘Maybe I should talk to her, just to rule her out as a suspect.’

‘You could do, but you’d have to travel to Scotland. She’s working for a family in Edinburgh.’

Pyke considered what she’d said. ‘Any other suspects?’

‘My husband has made many enemies in his years as an iron-master. The same goes for Zephaniah, more so. He’s always been more ruthless than my husband. In fact he treats Jonah with contempt, always describes him as weak and mollycoddled. It agitates my husband greatly, the fact that Zephaniah so clearly prefers his younger brother, Richard, and that spurs him to act in ways that belie his natural disposition.’

‘I asked Zephaniah about your family. He didn’t pretend he had much interest in your son beyond the fact that he’s heir to the estate.’

Cathy’s eyes darkened but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Pyke allowed his gaze to drift from her neck to her cleavage and
immediately he saw that she’d noticed this. She smiled and touched his arm. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Pyke thought about her husband downstairs and the fact that both of them were old enough to be her father.

‘It’s late, I’m tired.’ He looked into her cool, bloodshot eyes and felt the muscles in his stomach tighten.

It took Pyke a good hour to walk from the Castle to the ramshackle cottage near the old quarry but he left at five in the morning and made it there before sunrise, enabling him to slip into the cottage unnoticed. He didn’t know whether the kidnappers – if indeed that was who had sent the second letter – were watching the cottage, but if they were, he didn’t want his arrival to be spotted. By the time John Johns arrived at ten o’clock, to drop off the purse of sovereigns as Pyke had arranged, he supposed that someone would be watching them from the higher ground: they would watch Johns arrive with the purse and watch him leave without it and some time after that, they would venture down to the cottage to collect their booty. Pyke wanted to be there when this happened. He knew he was taking a risk – and potentially putting the Hancock boy’s life in danger by not following the demands of the second letter – but he wasn’t convinced that it had been sent by the real kidnappers.

It was easy to see why the cottage had been chosen as the site for the rendezvous. As a milky lightness appeared at the edges of the sky, Pyke saw that the place was surrounded on three sides by steep-angled hills, green and wet from the previous night’s rainfall. Anyone perched on one of these hills would have a bird’s-eye view of the cottage, and there was no way of sneaking up on it, in daylight at least, without being seen. Pyke peered out of the window. The previous night’s mist had cleared and visibility was good. Farther down the valley, he could just about see the blast furnaces attached to the Morlais works; beyond them the town spread out like a canker on an otherwise pristine landscape. It was seven o’clock. If he could just bring the Hancock boy home, that would be enough.

Through the window of the abandoned cottage, Pyke watched John Johns wander up the mud track. Clouds had rolled in off the hills and Pyke could see the first drops of rain. Johns kept his eyes fixed
on the cottage, as Pyke had told him to, his shooting jacket buttoned right the way up to his collar. He didn’t bother to knock, just pushed open the door and entered the dark room. He dropped the purse on to the mud floor and brushed the rain from the shoulders of his coat.

‘I think there are two of them up there.’ He pointed to their approximate positions. ‘One on each hill.’

Pyke nodded. He had suspected this. ‘Do you think you could double back on yourself when you reach Anderson’s farm road, and try coming at them from the other side of the hill?’

‘Depends on how much time I’ve got.’ Johns hesitated then added, ‘And what you want me to do.’

‘Just try to see who they are. But don’t let them see you. That’s the important thing.’

‘Bet whoever comes here to pick up the purse will get the fright of their life when they see you.’

Pyke wondered whether Johns had meant this as a criticism.

‘I should get going.’ Johns peered out at the rain. ‘That is, if you want me on that hill by the time someone arrives to pick up the money.’

They parted without exchanging another word. Pyke watched Johns make his way back along the mud track until he was a faint smudge in the distance.

When someone arrived about an hour later, he seemed nervous and distracted, not at all sure what he was meant to do. Peering into the abandoned cottage, the man waited on the doorstep for what seemed like minutes, perhaps trying to summon up the courage to step inside. Pyke had seen him from a distance and didn’t recognise him. He was dressed as a labourer and walked with a determined stride. Pyke waited until the man was inside the cottage before he revealed himself, stepping out of the shadows behind the door. Startled, the man jumped back and before Pyke could grab him, he’d turned around and bolted for the door. He ran about ten or fifteen yards back down the track then stopped. He turned around and was about to say something when a loud crack echoed around the valley. Pyke watched as a flower of blood exploded on the front of the man’s shirt. His expression froze and he stumbled forward with
nothing to break his fall. Pyke raced over to the spot where the man had fallen. Looking up at the hill, he saw that Johns was gesticulating towards the spot where the shot had come from but the marksman was nowhere to be seen. The only sound was the wind blowing in the long grass.

A few minutes later, Johns appeared, red-faced, by the side of the cottage, a rifle in his hand. ‘There were two of them all right. One of ’em must have seen me and decided to leave this behind.’ He glanced down at the body, which was surrounded by a thick pool of blood. ‘I saw they were armed but I never thought they’d turn their rifles on one of their own.’

‘Whoever he is,’ Pyke said, gesturing towards the corpse, ‘he isn’t, and wasn’t, ever one of them.’

‘As soon as the one on the farthest hill had got his shot off, they both ran away.’ Johns held out the rifle that he had retrieved from the mountainside.

Pyke took it from him and looked it over. ‘You recognise either of them?’ It was a new Baker’s rifle, one of the most expensive and accurate money could buy.

‘No, but if I saw the one who fired the shot again, I might be able to identify him.’ Johns looked up at the hill where the marksman had been positioned. ‘To hit a man square in the chest from that kind of distance … you’d have to be a professional soldier.’

Pyke nodded. He’d had the same thought. A Baker’s rifle was the weapon of choice for Her Majesty’s infantry. ‘There’s a barracks near here, isn’t there?’

‘That’s right. The Pennywenn barracks in Dowlais.’

‘Maybe you could go there, see if any of the faces are familiar?’

Johns seemed uncomfortable with this suggestion but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pointed towards the dead man. ‘Did he say anything to you before they shot him?’

‘He took one look at me and fled. That’s when he was shot.’

The blood had now seeped into the mud. Pyke knelt down next to the body and rummaged through the man’s pockets. Apart from a few coins, the only item was a notebook. Standing up, he flicked through it. It was a rent book. The address had been handwritten on the first page.

‘Where’s Irish Row?’

Johns frowned. ‘Dowlais, just around the corner from the Morlais works.’

Pyke held up the rent book. ‘According to this, that’s where he lived. Are you feeling strong?’

Johns wiped his hands on his coat. ‘How far do we have to carry him?’

They took it in turns to carry the dead body and made it as far as a public house on the Pennydarren Road. There, Pyke paid a man a couple of shillings for the use of his horse and cart and they rode the additional mile to the Castle in silence. Pyke had decided to take the body to the Castle in the first instance because he wanted to know whether there had been news about the Hancock boy.

Johns just nodded.

As they neared the entrance, Pyke turned to Johns. ‘So how well do you know Cathy?’

‘Mrs Hancock? I met her after I left the regiment and decided to come here to Merthyr to live.’

Waiting a moment, Pyke said, ‘Most people in your circumstances would’ve fled back to England.’

‘A couple of the men left the regiment at the same time as me. Got out of Wales as fast as they could.’

‘But you wanted to stay?’