The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [132]
‘Well, it couldn’t have been Edmonton. I mean, he didn’t want me locked up or executed. It didn’t suit his plans. Think about it. He wanted me out there, stirring up trouble and making the connection between Magennis and you public. You see, the moment I was arrested his plan failed. The whole conspiracy was finished. In the end, nothing about the link between Peel and Magennis was ever made public. And Peel, the administration, all of you, emerged unscathed.’
That seemed to placate Tilling. ‘So all along, you’ve been working from the premise that Peel arranged to have your mistress killed and then you framed for the murder.’ He still sounded shocked.
‘Maybe I still am. For a start, there was the timing. I happened to mention Davy Magennis to you and two days later Lizzie is murdered and I’m in prison. What am I meant to think?’ Tilling stood there, with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Then there’s the business with Brownlow Vines,’ Pyke added.
‘What business with Vines?’ Tilling’s confusion seemed to be genuine. ‘What’s he got to do with this?’
Pyke told him what had happened on the night of Lizzie’s murder.
Tilling stared at him, aghast. ‘None of this came out in the trial.’
‘What was the point? I assumed the verdict had already been determined before the trial had even started.’
‘And you believed that Vines was dispatched by Peel in order to drug you?’
‘It made sense at the time.’ Pyke stared out across the city. It was almost dark. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind Vines administered the drug. I just assumed he had cut a deal with Peel. A top job in the new police force or something like that.’
Tilling seemed to find such a notion amusing.
‘I’m glad you find my predicament funny.’ But Pyke felt confused more than anything.
Since his return from Ireland, he had known that his initial suspicions regarding Peel’s involvement in the St Giles murders were unfounded. Nonetheless, he had still been convinced of Peel’s complicity in Lizzie’s murder. It was not that he believed Peel to be a heartless monster. Rather, he had assumed Peel had taken the decision to kill Lizzie and frame him for pragmatic reasons. Now, though, Tilling’s forceful denial had deflated that theory, and Pyke had to face up to the unappealing truth that he had no idea who had butchered Lizzie.
In the gloom, Tilling’s expression darkened. ‘I was only laughing because, as I said earlier, I find the idea Peel might have involved himself in such a base plot to be, quite frankly, ridiculous. I have worked with him for twenty years. He might be self-interested, arrogant and aloof but he is not a cold-blooded murderer.’
‘I’m almost persuaded by your testimony.’
‘Almost?’
‘You didn’t see the note Peel sent me while in prison.’
‘Ah, the note.’ Tilling smiled. ‘We can say cruelty is used well when it is employed once and for all, and one’s safety depends on it and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects.’
Pyke remembered the volumes in Tilling’s library. ‘Peel gave me the impression he was the admirer of Machiavelli.’
‘He has read The Prince. But Peel is a politician, not a philosopher or an intellectual. What do you expect?’
Tilling shrugged. ‘I’d wager you and I are the amoral pragmatists.’
Suddenly Pyke felt foolish for having suspected the Home Secretary.
‘However much he might have wanted to, Peel was not in a position to grant you a pardon,’ Tilling said, matter-of-factly. ‘That was all the note was supposed to indicate.’
‘And Vines?’ Pyke said, hollowly. He had been so sure of Peel’s hand in Lizzie’s murder and his own imprisonment that he had not even contemplated an alternative scenario. Now, he had no idea how he would avenge her death.
Tilling shrugged. ‘We did approach Vines and consulted him about the police bill in order to determine where his loyalties lay.’
‘And?’
‘As far as we could tell, they remained squarely aligned with Sir Richard.’
Pyke nodded, trying to digest this information. ‘I’ll need a private audience