The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [10]
On the far side of the street, Pyke was suddenly distracted by four boys closing in on a well-dressed man. Two stalked him from behind, two from the side. One of the boys from behind tipped the man’s hat and, as his hands left his pocket to catch it, Pyke saw his watch being removed and his vest pocket being emptied by the boy next to him. Only when the boys had parted ways and disappeared into the adjacent back alleys did the man realise what had happened, by which time it was too late. No one came to his rescue when he cried for help.
On Fleet Street there was a noisy procession involving a ragtag bunch of poorly dressed whiskered men; some were banging tins, others shouted anti-papist abuse. They were heading for Hyde Park, where one of Daniel O’Connell’s supporters was organising a rally in favour of Catholic emancipation. Pyke knew this because all the Bow Street foot patrols had been summoned by Sir Richard Fox to police the situation and keep the two warring sides apart. They had been told to act as peacemakers, but Pyke knew as well as anyone else that, should there be trouble, many of the assembled Runners would join forces with the Protestant mob and turn on the papist rabble-rousers. Pyke had no special affinity with the Protestant religion, which he saw as joyless and disciplinary. But he would not lose sleep over the spilling of Catholic blood. In the end, Catholics and Protestants could kill themselves and others to earn glory from a God who didn’t care about them, but Pyke would not be fooled into such pointless sacrifice.
But he was grateful for the distraction of the march, because it meant he could conceal himself in the crowds. As he walked, Pyke occupied his mind by trying to guess where Swift might be heading and, for no other reason than the habit of adjusting himself to the worst outcome, he opted for the rookeries of St Giles. A man could instantly lose himself in the warren of blind alleys, passages and yards that made up London’s most overcrowded slum.
Nowadays Pyke rarely ventured into the rookeries, both because of the physical danger and because the chances of catching someone were remote. Bow Street Runners were usually well known and often found their paths barred by hostile onlookers. Furthermore, the dense network of interlinked yards and passages meant that thieves could escape pursuers without too much exertion.
Yet when Swift crossed over on to Drury Lane and darted into a side passage adjoining one of the street’s many theatres, Pyke decided not to give up his pursuit, even though the alley led into the heart of the rookery. He was now excited by Swift’s presence in such a place. Who did he know here? And what was the purpose of his visit?
Pyke had grown up in this neighbourhood but still didn’t know all its nooks and crannies. Nor did it ever feel like home, whatever that term might mean. He had never tried to romanticise its narrow streets and ripe smells, either to himself or to others. It was a brutal place where desperate men and women lived desperate lives. He knew the buildings all too well, just as he knew what might be inside them, together with plagues of rats. Cobblers and gin distillers trying to put together a living in rotten hovels that stank of human faeces; broken-down forgers oxidising coins in substances that would eventually kill them; prostitutes fucking against alley walls while pimps waited in the shadows