Read Online Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery by Andrew Pepper - Free Book Online

town.’
    ‘Like China?’
    Pyke shrugged but said nothing. ‘There is someone actually. A good fellow called John Johns. He’s a former soldier but don’t hold that against him.’ Smyth relaxed into his shabby armchair. ‘To be honest, he’s rather a queer chap, likes to keep himself to himself, but I’m told he’s good with his fists and I know for a fact that he speaks Welsh like a native.’
    ‘Where can I find him?’
    ‘He rents a shack about a quarter of a mile out of town, on the road to Vaynor.’
    As Pyke turned to rejoin Jones in the hallway, Smyth stood up and followed him to the door. Putting his hand on Pyke’s shoulder he said, ‘I don’t mean to alarm you, Detective-inspector, but a friendly word of advice. Please watch yourself in your dealings with the Hancock family.’
    Pyke was about to ask what he meant when Jones appeared and without another word Smyth turned and closed the door to his office behind him.
    Caedraw Castle was a hideous construction with faux-crenellated walls and numerous turrets of different shapes and heights. Pyke didn’t know which was worse: the ugliness of the building or the vanity it spoke of. Its proximity to the ironworks, meanwhile, was a stark reminder to those who toiled there of their lowly place in the world, for it meant that the Hancocks could keep an eye on their fiefdom from their drawing-room window, like a jealous master unwilling to let his mistress out of his sight.
    It was dark by the time Pyke approached the Castle from the road and a damp fog was rolling in off the mountains. At the top of the hill he turned to face the works. It
was
an impressive sight, he supposed: jets of fire streaking up into the darkness from the top of the blast furnaces and the eerie glow of the tips that sprawled downthe balding mountain on the far side of the valley. Even from this vantage point, the noise was prodigious too: the clanking of iron chains, the bashing of hammers, the grinding of water wheels. Turning back to the Castle, Pyke took a deep breath and tried to work out what was causing the butterflies in his stomach.
    When the butler opened the door hatch and peered out, he told Pyke that the family was not receiving any visitors. Pyke introduced himself and told the man he’d come at the family’s request from London to investigate the kidnapping. Eventually the door swung open and he was ushered into the gloomy entrance hall.
    Jonah Hancock’s girth had spread since Pyke had last seen him but otherwise the man was just as he remembered: a tall, commanding figure with sandy-coloured hair, and a strong lantern jaw. But it was his air of superiority that Pyke remembered most, as though everyone he talked to was a lesser species. He pumped Pyke’s hand and then strode into the adjoining room, expecting Pyke to follow. A log fire was roaring in the grate and slumped in an armchair next to it was an old man. Jonah introduced Pyke to Zephaniah Hancock.
    As he answered Jonah’s predictable questions about his journey from London, Pyke’s stare kept returning to the old man. He’d heard stories about Zephaniah Hancock’s viciousness and opportunism and it was difficult to reconcile these with the emaciated figure hunched before him, a thick blanket over his legs. Wrinkled skin sagged from his face and gathered in leathery folds around his neck, and the few strands of ash-white hair that remained on his liver-spotted head were as fine as spun cotton. But the moment Pyke looked into his tiny, red-rimmed eyes, he saw that the old man’s mind was undiminished.
    Significantly it was Zephaniah who spoke first about the case. ‘We haven’t made the mistake of relying on the good men of the Glamorgan constabulary but, on the recommendation of Jonah’s wife, we chose instead to solicit the assistance of Detective-inspector Pyke of Scotland Yard.’ While the old man caught his breath, Pyke tried to work out whether there was a note of mockery in his voice. ‘I hope