Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery by Andrew Pepper Page A

differing social stations – a breach of decorum. Either he felt he had no choice but to reveal their friendship or he didn’t care what Pyke thought. Pyke wanted to ask how good a friend Cathy was but he knew Johns wouldn’t elaborate. Instead, he turned his thoughts back to his conversation with Flint.
    ‘Bill Flint said something interesting. Made it seem like the Hancocks might use this situation as an excuse to clamp down on dissent at the ironworks.’
    Johns dug his hands into his pockets. ‘What are you suggesting?’
    ‘I don’t know … Would you put it past the Hancocks to arrange the kidnapping, and then use it as an excuse to come down hard on whoever is suspected?’
    Johns didn’t have an answer but Pyke could see he’d struck some kind of nerve.
    When he returned to the Castle, Pyke found Cathy Hancock taking tea on her own in the drawing room. Her blonde hair had been arranged into ringlets and she was wearing an elaborately brocaded pink silk dress with puffed sleeves and a waist gathered in by a whale-boned corset. She looked like she was there to ornament what was an otherwise masculine room. The paintings on the walls were of unsmiling old men and a pair of deer antlers hung to one side of the fireplace. When Cathy saw Pyke, she sat up straighter and smiled; a display of politeness rather than an indication of intimacy.
    ‘Detective-inspector,’ she said, taking care to avert her eyes from his. ‘I believe you wanted to ask me some questions.’
    Pyke sat down in the armchair nearest to her and whispered, ‘Last night, why did you tell me I shouldn’t have come?’
    ‘
Did
I?’ She lifted her blue eyes to his and smiled, two dimples appearing at the sides of her mouth. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember.’
    Pyke tried to find some indication of the person – the girl – he’d once known. ‘You must have had a reason for saying it – even if you don’t remember speaking the words.’
    ‘This last week has been a stressful time for me. I’m sure you can understand.’ She pulled a dainty woollen shawl over her shoulders.
    ‘Quite so.’ Pyke removed a notepad and a piece of charcoal from his pocket. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what happened last week. I believe that you and William were returning from the cemetery at Vaynor.’
    She nodded carefully. ‘My husband and I had a daughter, Mary. She died two years ago. Every week I go there with my son to put flowers on her grave.’
    ‘And your carriage was ambushed on the road back into town. You remember how many of them there were?’
    She bit her lip gingerly. ‘Four, I think. One of them held me down while another one snatched William.’
    ‘Do you remember anything about the man who held you down?’
    Cathy inspected her gloved hands. ‘He was dirty – that much I do remember. His breath smelled of beer. He’d tied a handkerchief around his face, to hide his features, but I could see he had a beard and two small, quick eyes.’ Until this point she hadn’t displayed a modicum of sentiment but now her top lip began to tremble. ‘It was horrible, quite horrible. Just the thought of it makes me quiver with fear.’
    ‘I’ll do everything in my power to ensure your son is returned to his home safely.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Briefly she raised her head and Pyke felt that she was truly looking at him for the first time.
    ‘Am I to understand that my assistance was sought on your recommendation?’ He let his gaze linger on the whiteness of her neck.
    ‘Your ability as a detective is well known in this household.Therefore when this terrible thing happened, it was naturally to you that my husband wrote.’
    Pyke digested what Cathy had just told him, unsure what to make of it. It seemed to confirm what she had intimated the previous evening: that he was there at Jonah Hancock’s insistence, not hers.
    ‘Last night, your husband suggested I interview your son’s former nursemaid, a woman called Maggie Atkins. Apparently she