Kill-Devil and Water by Andrew Pepper Page A

understand what had happened but the words wouldn’t form on his tongue. He saw the fear and revulsion in the boy’s eyes. Pyke wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.
     
     
It had always amused Pyke that Holywell Street got its name from a holy well that stood in the vicinity and that pilgrims bound for Canterbury used to drink from; it amused him because ever since the radical presses had been disbanded or moved underground and the Jewish traders had relocated farther east to Spitalfields and Petticoat Lane, the street had become the centre of the city’s trade in pornography. He would have liked to have seen the pilgrims’ reaction to the lewd etchings and lithographs and snuff-boxes detailing men and women engaged in obscene sexual acts.
     
    Outwardly, little had changed on the street since Elizabethan times - it had escaped the worst ravages of the Great Fire and the lath-and-plaster houses with their lofty gables, overhanging eaves and deep bays were throwbacks to another era - but the air of gloom and disrepair had a modern countenance, as did the open manner in which some of the proprietors peddled their smut. None went as far as to display lewd engravings in their windows or place the latest ‘limited edition’ from Paris on the lean-tos outside the shops, but the lingering scent of grubby licentiousness pervaded the immediate environment. Pyke had even heard it called ‘the vilest street in the civilised world’.
     
    Jemmy Crane’s bookshop occupied a tall, four-storey building on the north side of the street. Outside, wooden trestles supported neatly stacked piles of antiquarian books and above the door a crescent moon sign gave the shop a veneer of respectability.
     
    ‘What can I do for you, sir? May I say you look like a connoisseur of bedroom scenes. Am I warm, sir?’ The elderly man behind the counter had a shambling gait and studied Pyke through the monocle attached to his left eye.
     
    ‘I want to see Crane.’
     
    The man gave him a kindly smile. ‘Oh, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’
     
    ‘He’s not here?’
     
    ‘Mr Crane has asked not to be disturbed.’
     
    Pyke pushed past him and made for the back of the shop, shouting Crane’s name. He had made it as far as the staircase when a man appeared at the top of the stairs, his face displaying a mixture of curiosity and irritation.
     
    Crane cut a dashing, rakish figure and looked younger than his forty years. His hair was ink-black and his skin was smooth and free from wrinkles. He had full, plump lips and a leering, sensuous smile that put Pyke in mind of Pierce Egan’s Corinthian rakes Tom and Jerry: the kind of man who both looked down on the filth and degradation around him, yet wallowed in it, too. Dressed like a dandy, he wore a tight-fitting brown frock-coat, a frilly white shirt, blue cravat and matching waistcoat over brown trousers.
     
    Behind Crane, silhouetted at the top of the stairs, was a much burlier, rougher creature, waiting to be told what to do.
     
    ‘To what do I owe this pleasure, sir ?’ Crane spoke in a clipped, polished accent, his tone, dripping with condescension.
     
    ‘My name’s Pyke ...’
     
    ‘I know who you are.’ Crane paused. ‘You once owned a ginnery on Giltspur Street. I used to be an acquaintance of your uncle, Godfrey Bond.’
     
    Pyke studied Crane’s expression, wondering what Godfrey would have to say about this man. ‘A week ago, you accompanied three men to a guest house on the Ratcliff Highway. Your men were heard arguing with one of the guests. I need to know why you went there and what the argument was about.’
     
    Crane’s expression betrayed nothing. ‘You like to get straight to the point, don’t you? I admire a man who knows his own mind.’ He seemed to be the kind of man who enjoyed the sound of his own voice.
     
    ‘What business did you have with Arthur Sobers and Mary Edgar?’
     
    ‘It was the old man who saw me, wasn’t it? I didn’t