Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery by Andrew Pepper Page A

nothing short of pirates.
    Pyke hadn’t mentioned the kidnapping and Flint hadn’t asked about it, or about Pyke’s reason for visiting the town.
    Before presenting himself at the Hancocks’ home, he decided to call in to the station-house, a two-storey building on Graham Street. There, he found Superintendent Henry Jones, a well-spoken, energetic man in his twenties. Clearly Jones knew about the kidnapping but he hadn’t been forewarned of Pyke’s visit. He greeted Pyke and lamented the shortcomings of the force he oversaw in Merthyr, perhaps worried how the operation might look to a detective-inspector from London. When Pyke explained that he wanted to speak to Sir Clancy Smyth, the young superintendent suggested they wander over to the old courthouse.
    ‘So what are your first impressions of our fair town?’ Jones asked, as they crossed the street outside the station-house.
    Pyke couldn’t tell whether he was being ironic. ‘Do you want an honest answer?’
    Jones laughed nervously. ‘It has its moments, you know. The Taff Valley is really rather beautiful.’
    They walked for a while in silence. The streets in the town centre were quiet, with just a few drays and carts making deliveries.
    ‘How many days has it been since the Hancock child was seized?’
    ‘Five or six, I think.’ Jones kept on walking. ‘I think a ransom note was delivered to the castle the day before yesterday.’
    When Pyke had first seen the Hancocks’ address, he’d wondered whether the first line – Caedraw Castle – was an exaggeration. Since arriving in Merthyr, he had actually seen it from a distance, a grotesque mock-medieval pile perched on one of the hills overlooking the town.
    ‘You don’t seem sure.’
    ‘As you’ll doubtless find out, the Hancocks have their own way of conducting their affairs. For whatever reason, our expertise, such as it is, has not been required.’
    ‘You don’t know who sent the note, then?’
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what was demanded but I’m told the ransom note was penned by Scottish Cattle.’
    ‘Scottish Cattle?’
    ‘Most folk just call ’em the Bull.’ Jones turned to face him. ‘To some, they’re defenders of workers’ rights. To us, they’re terrorists, plain and simple. These days, you’re more likely to find folk from the Bull in mining villages farther up the valley. They killed a man once, back in the thirties, but I haven’t heard much about them in recent years. Far as I know, they’ve never gone so far as to kidnap a master’s child before.’
    ‘You have your doubts about their involvement?’
    ‘I don’t know. Like I said, I haven’t seen the ransom letter; I don’t know what’s being demanded.’
    Ignoring the chill wind blowing off the mountain, Pyke looked up and down the street. Built from flint and stone, with two gable-ends and a porch covered in ivy, the courthouse was one of the oldest buildings in the town. Jones explained that it had once also been thefamily residence but some time after his wife died, Smyth had moved to an estate – Blenheim – about two miles farther down the valley.
    Sir Clancy Smyth had a round, lively face and a brisk, no-nonsense demeanour. His friendliness seemed genuine enough, especially after Pyke mentioned that Sir Richard Mayne had passed on his best wishes, but there was something about his performance that wasn’t quite convincing, a deadness in his eyes that seemed to contradict the curdling smile on his lips. He stood by the fireplace but kept shuffling from one foot to the other, as though being still was somehow beyond him.
    ‘Look, Detective-inspector,’ Smyth said, when the conversation turned to the matter of the kidnapping, ‘whether I care for the family or not, it’s true that the Caedraw ironworks is one of the largest of its kind. It employs three thousand men, women and children and the welfare of the whole town depends on its success.’
    Pyke could tell at once that Smyth did
not
care