‘They’ll get you for this, you know, Mr Pyke. Edmonton won’t rest till you’re hanging from a scaffold.’
‘I look forward to a day of reckoning with your brother,’ Pyke said, pointing his pistol at Blackwood’s face. ‘But I do have a question for you.’ He smiled easily. ‘That first time we met, at Hambledon Hall, when your brother employed my services to investigate an alleged bank robbery . . .’
‘I remember.’ Blackwood’s hands were still trembling.
‘Am I right in thinking that no such robberies took place?’ Pyke asked. ‘That’s why you were so outraged at the disparaging remarks that your brother made about your business acumen.’ He glanced behind him, to see what was happening outside the carriage.
A thin smile passed across Blackwood’s lips. ‘And you walked happily into his trap.’
‘We were both used by your brother.’ Pyke met the man’s baleful stare and said, ‘Tell him I’ll be coming for him next.’
Townsend was attempting to haul Goddard’s bloodied corpse on to the back of the cart when Pyke joined him. The rear axle was already buckling under the weight of the trunk. In the distance, he could hear the sound of hoofs thundering against the square-set stones of the road.
‘We have to go.’ He shook Townsend’s arm. Townsend tried to push him away. Pyke saw that he was crying. ‘We have to leave him. There might be a horse patrol on its way.’
‘Leave him?’ Townsend stared through bloodshot eyes. ‘I’ve known him since he was a lad.’
Pyke pulled his arm, harder this time. ‘We can’t take him and the money.’
‘He’ll lead them straight back to me,’ Townsend shouted.
Pyke took his pistol and fired a shot into Goddard’s face. ‘Not if they can’t identify him.’
Townsend stared at him, uncomprehending. Pyke turned the pistol on him and said, ‘I’ll shoot you, too, unless you get up on the cart right now.’
The haul, when they counted it half an hour later, in an abandoned house, came to just under seven thousand pounds. Pyke said he would take a thousand of it, and Townsend could have the rest. He could keep it or give it to Goddard’s family or do what he wanted with it.
‘We agreed a three-way split. That works out as two thousand three hundred pounds each. I’ll give Goddard’s share to his wife.’
‘I promised you half of my split, if you told me where I might be able to locate the mother.’ Pyke’s expression hardened. ‘He was dead and the cavalry was coming. Even if we’d been able to balance him on the cart, do you think we would have been able to outrun them?’
Townsend shook his head, pushing some of the money away. ‘I don’t want your blood money.’
Pyke waited, hands on hips, for the moment to pass.
‘You can take the rest of my share and offer it as a reward for information about a man called Jimmy Swift.’ Pyke gave a brief description. ‘I also want you to get in touch with these radical types you were telling me about. I want to talk with anyone who might be interested in stirring up trouble on Edmonton’s estate.’
‘You forget I don’t work for you.’
‘But even now you hate Edmonton more than you hate me.’
The hotness of Townsend’s anger seemed to dissipate. Pyke picked up the disputed money and thrust it at Townsend. ‘Take it. Do what you want with it.’ He stared into the other man’s sullen face. ‘I didn’t kill Goddard. I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m sorry for his wife and his young girls. I’m sorry for leaving him behind. I didn’t think we had a choice. But, for me at least, this doesn’t end here. Maybe it does for you. If so, I accept. We’ll shake hands and go our separate ways.’ He shrugged. ‘But I need to know where the mother is.’
Townsend stared at Pyke for a moment, contemplating what he had said. ‘I was told she’s been locked up in an asylum in Portsmouth for the last fifteen years.’ He hesitated. ‘But if she wasn’t insane when she was placed there, I’m assured she is now.’
‘You’re suggesting she won’t be of use to me?’
‘I’m saying she won’t be in a position to furnish you with whatever information you’re looking for.’
Pyke picked up the satchel that contained his share of the money. ‘Who says I want information?’
‘Then why do you want to talk to her?’
‘I don’t want to talk to her,’ Pyke said, heading for the door.
‘Pyke?’
Something in Townsend’s voice made him turn around. ‘Yes?’
Townsend looked at him for a while and then sighed. ‘Do you need my help?’
‘This is highly irregular and most perturbing.’ Mr Ezra Kennett, who was not only the chief physician but also the administrator and general handyman of the establishment, waddled to keep up with Pyke, his round face and ruddy cheeks puffing with indignation. Dressed in a dark jacket, fitted trousers, black cloak and Wellington boots, Pyke had pushed past him into the entrance hall of the crumbling building, a row of terraces near the docks which had been haphazardly converted into an asylum. Interior walls had been knocked down to create space for a communal ward, but the construction work itself had been of poor quality and, even to an untrained eye, it was easy to see that the edifice was on the verge of collapse: walls were buckling, ceilings sagged and the unmistakable stench of rising damp saturated the air. In this higgledy-piggledy room no larger than a parlour, Pyke counted ten iron-framed beds, pressed so tightly together that even a skinny man would have struggled to navigate between them. In each, a pitiful specimen of humanity, little more than an amalgam of hair, skin and bones, was chained to the frame with hand-and leg-cuffs. The wails and cries emanating from their mouths collectively constituted a din that was so unpleasant Pyke was compelled to seek out Kennett’s private quarters. Townsend, who was dressed in the attire of a hospital porter, thrust a copy of the Chronicle into Kennett’s chubby hand as they walked, and pointed to an article, describing the work of Thomas Southwood Smith at the London Fever Hospital and drawing attention to a new treatise on fever he was about to publish. Pyke had come across the article the previous afternoon and formulated his plan accordingly.
‘A ship docked in the port last week from the East Indies,’ Pyke said, having barged his way into what he presumed was Kennett’s office, though the damp seemed even riper here than in the rest of the building. He placed his hat down on the table and tapped his cane against the stone floor, as though to chivvy a response from the physician.
Kennett seemed both befuddled and concerned by their unsolicited intrusion. He ran a private asylum that, Pyke supposed, had been financed by public money. The lunatics housed in the ward they had just passed through would not have come from poor backgrounds. Rather, wealthy patrons such as Edmonton would have paid handsomely for Kennett to take unwanted relatives off their hands and would not have concerned themselves with the conditions of care. Pyke was certain Kennett turned a considerable profit from the enterprise.
‘I was alerted to the possible manifestation of Asiatic cholera in one of the crew.’ Pyke wore a monocle and removed it to properly inspect Kennett. ‘Are you aware of this condition?’
The rotund physician wiped sweat from his brow. ‘I have heard stories of its relentless march across whole continents.’
Pyke nodded briskly. ‘It is a monstrous disease. The man in question was suffering from chronic diarrhoea and vomiting, severe dehydration and acute pain in the stomach and limbs. These are, indeed, the symptoms of Asiatic cholera. In addition, his ravaged skin had assumed a ghastly blue-grey complexion. But even more terrifying is its contagiousness; the speed with which it can spread across entire neighbourhoods. Entire cities.’ He sniffed the air.
‘You do not think . . .’ Kennett was not able to complete his sentence, perhaps fearing that his concerns might actually be borne out if he spoke their name.
‘The docks, as you know, are within a half-mile radius of your establishment. I have been instructed to visit all such premises, in order to determine the precise nature of any risk posed to those living in the vicinity.’ Pyke replaced the monocle and looked at Kennett. ‘Are you aware of my work on fever?’
The physician reddened. ‘This is a modest practice and in my capacity as—’
Pyke interrupted. ‘It is my belief that diseases such as typhus or indeed cholera thrive on account of particular atmospheric and environmental conditions. The laws of diffusion mean that anyone within a certain distance of an infected person is vulnerable to the disease. But the likelihood of the disease spreading is greatly enhanced by poor sanitary conditions: damp and filthy interiors, proximity to open sewers, use of dirty water,
