The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [144]
‘He had heard about your disagreements with Peel over the whole business of police reform.’
Fox shrugged. ‘He didn’t need to tell me that he’d fallen out with the Home Secretary himself. That much was common knowledge.’
‘Both of you united by your hatred of Peel.’
Fox looked at him, clear-eyed. ‘Is that so hard to believe? That I might hate someone who was seeking to pull down everything that I believed in? Everything I’d spent my life building up?’
‘You knew Peel was determined to bring Bow Street under the auspices of the Home Office . . .’
‘And in effect kill off the Runners.’ A little colour returned to Fox’s cheeks. ‘I thought that if Peel could be persuaded, if not by logic then by blackmail, to go back on his plans . . .’
‘Then the Runners might be saved.’
Fox nodded appreciatively. ‘Exactly.’
Pyke appeared to digest this information. ‘And your job, once the bodies had been discovered in St Giles, was simply to make sure that any subsequent murder investigation would implicate Davy Magennis, and eventually uncover his link to Tilling and hence Peel.’
‘Except that you did most of that work for me,’ Fox said, matter-of-factly.
‘All I had to do was lead you to Mary Johnson.’
Fox shrugged. ‘For what it’s worth, I took no pleasure in deceiving you.’
‘What about murdering an innocent young couple and their newborn baby? Did you take any pleasure in that?’
Fox seemed aghast. ‘I didn’t kill those people.’
‘But you as good as murdered them.’
‘I wasn’t told about the plan in detail. Of course, I was told there would have to be a murder. But I didn’t know a baby might be killed. I was as appalled by that as you were.’
‘You were so appalled that you carried on as though you were wholly innocent.’
‘None of this was easy for me, Pyke. I did what I did because I thought it would be in the best interests of the Runners.’
Pyke had not expected to lose his temper, nor to react to what he learned from Fox in a violent manner, but as he listened to the old man’s callow, pathetic self-justifications, he felt a heat rising up through his chest, a knotted ball of anger that had been kept in check throughout the previous months but was now billowing up inside him like a squall of wind, clearing the emotional debris from its path.
Reaching Fox’s cowering figure in a few steps and paying no attention to the difference in their respective size or strength, he hauled him to his feet and swung at his face. His fist connected with Fox’s chin and lifted him up off his feet. As Fox crumpled on to his desk, a blast of fetid breath escaped from his mouth.
‘And did you have to kill Lizzie, too?’ Pyke said, wiping saliva from his mouth with his sleeve.
‘Lizzie? ’ Fox still seemed to be dazed from the blow.
‘Why did you kill her?’
Fox pretended to be confused.
This time Pyke slapped the old man around the face, but the threat of further violence was enough to loosen his memory and tongue.
‘I didn’t mean to.’ His face had assumed a ghastly pale complexion. His hands were trembling as well. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend it to happen.’
‘Didn’t intend what to happen?’ It was as though Pyke had swallowed shards of broken glass.
Fox stared down disconsolately at the floor. ‘By that stage, it was too late, at least for me. The police bill was set to breeze through both Houses. I’d failed miserably. But Edmonton was cock-a-hoop. He not only believed he could destroy the whole Catholic Emancipation Bill but also felt he could ruin Peel’s career in the process. Meanwhile, Protestant vigilante groups were butchering Catholics right across the city. I just wanted it all to be over. I wanted to ruin Edmonton’s plans without exposing my own culpability. And I knew that, sooner rather than later, you would discover the truth and come after me. So I decided to protect myself from such a fate. I knew if you were no longer around, then the investigation into the St Giles murders would die a natural death and things could return to how they