The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [21]
Pyke was impressed with the ruthlessness with which Peel had dealt with Fox.
But Sir Richard was not quite beaten. ‘Pardon me, Home Secretary, for bringing up a matter so trifling as the law, but will the arrangements you propose earn the approval of the House?’
Peel wasn’t even slightly thrown by the question. He explained that it was for precisely this reason that he’d invited Sir Henry and William Gregson to the meeting. Perhaps he might hand over to Gregson to explain where the government stood from a legal standpoint? Gregson ran through some preliminary details and stated that so long as any authority with a mandate relating to policing functioned under the guidance of a sitting magistrate appointed under the terms of the 1792 Middlesex Justices Act, it had the full sanction of the law.
Fox sank back into his chair, folded his arms and said nothing. Pyke made a guess that the ‘sitting magistrate’ selected by Peel and Gregson would be Brownlow Vines.
Behind them, Pyke could still feel the intimidating presence of the anonymous heavy-set man.
‘Now that’s been taken care of,’ Peel said, moving swiftly on, ‘and since all of us here share some kind of interest in these terrible murders, perhaps we can direct our attention to possible avenues of enquiry, so that Charles can properly proceed with the investigation.’ He looked across at Hardwick and said, ‘I believe Mr Hardwick here has some ideas he’d like to share with us.’
Whereas Peel had delivered his address from the comfort of his chair, Hardwick rose to his feet and turned to face the group, as though about to give a lecture. He was a weedy man, a bookish type who looked as though he had been bullied at school and had never recovered from the experience. In Pyke’s view, although this type might be successful in their adult life, they always remembered their humiliation at the hands of others and, as a result, set out to wield their intellect like a weapon. His hair had been oiled and slicked back and his face, even without powder, was so wan that he seemed almost transparent. It took him five minutes to outline his own credentials.
Pyke yawned loudly and did not bother to cover his mouth.
‘In recent years,’ Hardwick explained, ‘psychiatrists and criminologists have begun to devote their attention to a seemingly new phenomenon: examples of extreme violence usually enacted within domestic settings and displaying cruel and unusual properties that do not have a clear-cut explanation. We have called such a condition “homicidal monomania”. Let me give you an example. A man, let’s call him Edwards, without any record of violence or history of insanity, attacks a young child with a hammer for no ostensible reason. Why? Is this a passing outburst or a permanent state? And are both of these states mutually exclusive? At present the intervention of psychiatry into the realm of the law is only partial and questions such as these can only be answered provisionally, but having briefly looked over the details of this particular case, I believe it to be another example of homicidal monomania. As such, I would suggest that we are looking for a deeply disturbed man, not necessarily with a history of insanity in his family but one who displays, I am afraid to say, a pathology of the monstrous.’
Hardwick looked at his audience, expectant and pleased with himself.
Without raising his hand, Pyke said, ‘I’d imagine that - how did you put it - “the intervention of psychiatry into the law” will be personally beneficial to you. It’ll give you patients and, of course, status.’
Hardwick frowned, as though he had not understood the question. ‘I’m sorry? You are . . . ?’
‘I mean, I can see how you might personally benefit from inventing a condition such as - how did you phrase it? - “homicidal monomania”. You say something exists, so it exists.
And because