Free The Last Days by Wye8th Page A

than sixteen years of age, wearing a loose coat over a tatty wool dress. Her nails had been chewed but were clean, and before she could tell him in a soft voice that she didn’t do this sort of thing, he thrust a crown into her shaking palm. It was more than treble the going rate. He took her hand and led her, firmly rather than forcefully, outside. Her resistance crumbled when she saw the colour of the coin.
    Outside, when she tried to speak, Pyke pressed his hand against her mouth, harder than he had intended, and saw the fright register in her dull eyes. In other circumstances, he might have stopped to say something to her, reassure her, but on this occasion he was too far gone to stop himself. As he pushed her against a wall in an alley adjoining the coffee shop and guided himself into her, he closed his eyes and tried to block the image of what lay inside that metal pail from his head. Moments later, as Pyke emptied himself into the nameless girl, rigid with terror, in a series of grim spasms, he felt as though he were standing over the metal pail peering down at his own corpse.
     
    At one o’clock the following afternoon, Pyke was awoken by the unmistakable sound of cattle and sheep being driven along the narrow street below towards the vast market. On market days, the entire downstairs would be filled with traders, drovers, buyers and meat cutters standing three or four abreast along the entire length of the mahogany counter, smearing animal blood from freshly slaughtered carcasses on to cheap glasses from which they drank their gin. Even without the window open, Pyke could smell the filth and mire of the market and hear the screeching din of ten thousand frightened animals squealing, bleating, lowing and awaiting their demise. In spite of the rosemary and lavender sprigs thrown liberally on the floors throughout the building, the whole place would soon smell of offal, excrement and dead flesh.
    Lizzie must have heard him splashing his face with water she had left in a bowl for him, because shortly afterwards she was in the room with him, wanting to know how he felt and where he had been until five in the morning, masking her suspicions with affection. She was an ungainly woman, sinewy and powerful despite her apparently slight frame, and easily capable of throwing a man twice her size out of the bar when it was called for. Up close, Pyke could smell the soap he had bought for her last birthday on her scrubbed skin and felt a pang of remorse: remorse that, despite her physical toughness, business acumen and loyalty to him, he was never more than ambivalent about the notion of sharing his bed and his life with her.
    She had already lit his fire and piled it high with coal.
    When he had finished telling her something about the previous day, downplaying the grimness of the murder scene and omitting his visit to Whitehall, her face was still creased with worry. According to rumours circulating in the bar, a Catholic family had been burned from its home in Saffron Hill and a man of Irish descent had been clubbed to death in Hoxton.
    Pyke asked whether she had heard anything at all about the dead family. Lizzie shook her head.
    ‘Should I be worried ’bout you?’ she said, after a few moments of awkward silence.
    Pyke reached for the trousers he had tossed on to the floor. ‘I’ll not be able to see you much in the next few weeks.’
    ‘And you don’t think I’m used to that by now?’
    Pyke stared out of the window.
    ‘That’s all I’m owed, is it? A quick pat on the head and some words that don’t mean a ha’penny.’ Her skirt clung to her legs, emphasising the thickness of her calves.
    ‘Lizzie?’
    She looked up at him, surprised perhaps by the sudden tenderness of his tone.
    He almost managed a smile. ‘You know that you’re a better woman than I deserve.’
    Her expression filled with sadness and, as she turned to leave the room, her attempt to provoke a discussion dissolved into the space between