by Roz Southey
Also by Roz Southey:
Praise for Roz Southey’s richly inventive historical mysteries:
You can see and smell the city, feel the mystery and tensions, and become drawn into the pursuit... It remains absorbing to the end... a must-read.
– Historical Novels Review Editor’s Choice
What really makes the novel come alive is its setting... she seamlessly incorporates the historical information into the novel... The dialogue, too, rings true: just ornamented enough to feel right for its time... A charming novel...
– Booklist, USA
A very entertaining story... Patterson is an engaging hero... growing and developing as a character as each novel progresses.
– Angela Youngman, Monsters and Critics
Original, unusual, and grabs your attention from the opening lines. The tension is maintained, the characters are engaging, and the reader is kept guessing right to the end.
– Sarah Rayne, award-winning crime writer
... plot as intricate as a fugue... wickedly pointed characterizations and the convincing evocation of the sounds and stink of a preindustrial city. Southey deserves an encore...
– Publishers Weekly, USA
... a masterpiece of period fiction that delights while it provides an intriguing puzzle that keeps the reader riveted until the end.
– Early Music America
First published in 2010
by Crème de la Crime
P O Box 523, Chesterfield, S40 9AT
Copyright © 2010 Roz Southey
The moral right of Roz Southey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Typesetting by Yvette Warren
Cover design by Yvette Warren
Front cover image by Peter Roman
ISBN 978-0-9550566-2-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-906790-89-9
A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library
www.creativecontentdigital.com
About the author:
Roz Southey is a musicologist and historian, and lives in the North East of England.
My thanks ...
...to Crème de la Crime and Lynne Patrick for continuing to have faith in Charles Patterson and his friends. Also to my editor, Lesley Horton, for all her hard work and perceptive insights.
...to Jeff for all his excellent company.
...to Jackie, Laura and Anu for their continuing friendship, and for their endless store of good stories. It will be a long time before I forget the story of Anu’s proposal...
...to Matthew. Many’s the happy hour we’ve spent swapping stories of musicians past – and, yes, there are one or two mentions of Handel.
...to all Crème’s other authors, especially Maureen Carter, Mary Andrea Clarke, Kaye C Hill and Adrian Magson, from all of whom I’ve had useful and often humorous advice.
...to all my family, including my sisters Wendy and Jennifer, and my brother-in-law, John, for their encouragement and support.
...and particularly to my husband, Chris, who is still supplying me with restorative cups of tea, and ferrying me to various literary events without complaint. And he even reads the books!
For Kirsten –
even though she prefers the
seventeenth century to the eighteenth...
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Historical Note
Charles Patterson’s Newcastle
1
Every time I come to England, I am struck by the dens of iniquity that exist in the dark corners of the cities.
[Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his brother Georges, 10 August 1736]
“Three shirts at least,” Hugh said, gulping down his beer. The din in the tavern was so loud he had to shout.
“I don’t have three shirts,” I shouted back.
“Devil take it, Charles, you musician fellows don’t know how to dress!”
“And you dancing master fellows are damned peacocks.”
He grinned. My friend Hugh Demsey likes his clothes and, unlike me, has enough money to indulge himself. Tonight, he was dressed in his best coat of turquoise blue, with a paler waistcoat and a cravat so white it must be brand new. Even at the end of the day, he looked neat and fresh. The clothes, and his black hair – he hates the itch of wigs as much as I do – always attract attention from the ladies.
“I’ve been to these country houses,” he said, signalling to a serving girl for more beer. “The gentry wear a different suit of clothes every day. If you take one shirt and one coat, you’ll feel like – like – ”
“A tradesman? That’s what I am, Hugh. I’m not going to this summer party as a guest – I’m going to work, to entertain the ladies and gentlemen.”
“Make them see you as something more than a tradesman!”
I laughed. “How?”
He looked at me, began to speak, closed his mouth again, breathed heavily. “Marry the lady,” he said in a rush, as if he knew he’d regret it.
“No,” I said forcibly.
The lady he referred to is wealthy and of impeccable family, much too good for a lowly musician. And with the added disadvantage, in the eyes of the world, of being – at thirty-nine years of age – twelve years my senior.
“I’ll wager you ten guineas you’ll name the day before the end of the year,” Hugh said.
“I will not.”
“I’ve a feeling it’s not up to you, Charles.” He tossed the serving girl a few coins. “The lady’s pretty determined.”
It was then that the message came. Something gleaming slid along the wall to my right. A spirit. I tried not to flinch. Spirits cluster in alleys and streets and houses, on doors and window-frames and roofs, each tied to the place the living man or woman died. Three days after death the spirit disembodies, and they form a network we living men can only guess at. We see them when they choose to let us see; they speak when they wish and not otherwise. If they want to cause trouble it’s difficult to prevent them; I’ve had recent experience of the havoc they can wreak. But this spirit seemed innocent enough; it was drunk – spirits in taverns tend to be –
but it made sense enough.
“Message for Mr Patterson. One of you two gents, is it?”
“I’m Charles Patterson,” I agreed.
“Message from the constable, sir. He wonders if you’ll come down to the lanes by the Castle. To Mrs McDonald’s in Walker’s Wynd. Third house from the Black Gate. It’s urgent, he says.”
Hugh groaned. “Involves a dead body, does it?”
“Didn’t say anything about that, sir. Just said it was urgent. Can I send a message back to say you’re on your way?” Spirits can send messages from one end of the town to the other in less time than it takes for a living man to speak them.
“Do you want to go?” Hugh asked. “It’s gone midnight. Aren’t you leaving town early tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “The carriage is coming for me at midday. If Bedwalters is asking for my advice, he must be worried. He usually advises me to keep clear of these matters.”
I’m a musician by trade and inclination but ten months ago now, last November, I was involved by chance in the machinations of a villain that led on to murder, and since that time two more such affairs have come my way. I seem to have a knack of unravelling crimes, of working out what happened, and finding the guilty party. I admit I like the feeling that I can mete out justice where others fail. Bedwalters the constable has inevitably been involved in these matters too and has had cause to be annoyed at my interference. But he’s a decent fair man and I like him very much.
Hugh fell into step beside me as we went to the tavern door.
“Handkerchiefs?” he asked.
“Half a dozen.”
“Neckcloths?”
“Another half-dozen.”
“Stockings?”
“And that’s another thing,” I said. “Why the devil should such things cost so much?”
The night was cold; we hesitated on the doorstep of the tavern looking left and right. A few sailors were still about, and two apprentices walked on the other side of the road earnestly debating the appearance of the latest comet. Most of the lanterns in the street had burnt themselves out, or were guttering.
“I wish you wouldn’t get involved in these things, Charles,” Hugh said as we walked down towards the castle. “It’s dangerous.”
“It pays better than music,” I retorted. So far I’d made sixty pounds from the affairs in which I’d been involved, more than my usual annual income.
The bulk of St Nicholas’s church was black against the starlit August sky – a full moon was rising high above the mass of narrow lanes beyond Amen Corner. Over all loomed the castle’s Black Gate.
“Sword?” Hugh asked.
“How can I afford a sword?” I protested. “I’ve been looking for a good cheap cane.”
“I mean,” Hugh said. “Are you by any chance totally unarmed?”
Belatedly, I saw why he asked. At the mouth of the alley leading up to the Black Gate, a pair of sullen lads were lounging against a wall, hands in pockets. One was smiling, unpleasantly.
“I’m unarmed,” I admitted.
Hugh dragged his hands out of his pockets and showed me the dark gleam of a pistol. “I was teaching in the country today, and thought I might have to ride back to town in the dark.”
“For God’s sake, put that away! They’ll attack us just to steal it.”
The lads let us pass, although they eyed Hugh’s fine clothes. This is the poorest end of the town, where thieves and thugs congregate, with probably not a penny between them. Hugh’s clothes must represent a year’s gin to anyone with enough daring. And they all clan up against outsiders, so if Bedwalters had a dead body in here, the chances of finding the killer were almost certainly remote.
The Black Gate obstructed the street ahead, ancient grimy stones topped with crenellations and pierced by tiny arrow slits. It was a long time since any warrior had defended this gatehouse and the stones were crumbling. We walked through the archway into another street and looked left and right for Mrs McDonald’s. No torches here, and in the darkness all the houses looked much the same.
A young girl darted out of a door. “Mr Patterson?” She was no more than ten years old and dressed up in so many ribbons and flounces it was difficult to see her shape. Rouge disfigured her face. I began to feel uneasy.
Hugh frowned. “Doesn’t Bedwalters’s inamorata live somewhere near here?”
Bedwalters the constable is a respectable man, running a respectable writing-school and enduring a respectable marriage to a respectable woman who doesn’t know what it means to be civil. And in the meantime, he conducts a liaison with a girl of the streets whom he patently adores, and who quietly heals all his worries and cares.
I’ve met her several times, a girl of eighteen or so, dressed in poor clothes but clean and tidy, her brown hair tied back simply. She plies her trade without complaining, accepting what is and what cannot be with equal stoicism. She once defended Bedwalters to me, passionately. A good man, she called him. Well, no one condemns a man for straying from home, especially not a man with so shrewish a wife.
The door was low enough to make both Hugh and me duck; we found ourselves in a bare, ugly hallway, hung with badly-framed engravings almost too embarrassing to look at. From upstairs came the sounds of several couples enjoying sexual congress; a murmur of voices filtered from the first room inside the house, immediately on the right.
The girl gestured to the half-open door. “Mrs McDonald’s in here.” I glimpsed the back of a gaudily-dressed woman, and pushed open the door.
Bedwalters sat by the side of a low bed; the straw mattress was torn and leaking, and topped by blankets stained by unimaginable activity. He was a man both feared and adored by his pupils, and so respected that the Vestry of All Hallows elected him constable year after year; he was known for his quiet and his calm, his decent demeanour. Now his middle-aged face was white as ice, his wig awry on his bald head, his clothes thrown on anyhow and mis-buttoned. He was staring into mid-air, like a man for whom the world is so painful it can only be ignored.
The woman glanced round, said in a broad Scotch accent: “Oh, thank goodness. Mr Patterson, is it? Pray sir, you do something with him for I can’t.”
I moved towards Bedwalters, hearing Hugh swear behind me. The constable was plainly not aware of my presence. His left hand clutched the hand of the girl who lay on the bed, staring at him with empty unseeing eyes. The girl Bedwalters so loved, who once told me she would do anything to protect him. A thin girl with dulled brown hair, dressed only in a thin shift.
A shift soiled by a browning stain of blood.
2
Shocking deeds are reported in the newspapers every day.
[Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his brother Georges, 10 August 1736]
I bent to check for the girl’s breath but she was patently dead; the flesh of her bare arm was chill. She had one wound, in the middle of her back, close to the spine. One wound and one wound only, but it had been enough.
“Stabbed from behind,” Hugh said contemptuously. “She wouldn’t have had a chance to defend herself.”
Mrs McDonald had drawn back to give us room. “He won’t let her go,” she said, nodding at Bedwalters. She was an elderly woman but tall and upright; her dress was gaudy, her face sour, and she had one of the broadest Scotch accents I’ve heard in a long time.
“What happened?”
“She had a customer. One of the other girls saw her bringing him in the door. Next thing, she’s screaming her head off.”
“Screaming’s not unusual in here, surely,” Hugh said, bending down and shaking Bedwalters’s shoulder gently.
“Not that kind of screaming,” she said dryly. “You can tell when they mean it. When they’re frightened. And Nell was.”
Ironic, I thought – I never learnt the girl’s name until after she was dead. “And?” I prompted.
“Nothing else to tell. When I got here, she was like you see. So I sent for the constable.” She nodded at Bedwalters. “I knew he
had an interest in her.”
“He was in love with her,” I said.
“He’s a married man,” she said, dryly. “Like all the rest. And he just sits there! Can’t shift him, can’t get any sense out of him. Not till he said to send for you.”
I looked round, at the bare room, the thin body on the bed, Bedwalters’s bleak absorption in his grief. Over the past year I’d become all too familiar with this sort of scene. Death is an everyday event, but illness and the acts of God, perplexing though they may be, are only to be expected. The acts of men, however, all too frequently fill me with anger.
“I need to speak to the girl who saw Nell and her customer,” I said. Mrs McDonald turned and bellowed into the back of the house. I knelt down in front of Bedwalters, put my hand on his arm. Recognition stirred in his eyes. He said hoarsely: “He didn’t need to do this.”
“No.”
“When did she ever hurt anyone?”
“Never,” Mrs McDonald said. “She’s been here six years, since she was twelve, and never once said an unkind word. And always ready to help them as needed it.” She added, “Wish I had a houseful like her.”
“So can you think of anyone who might want to hurt her?”
Mrs McDonald laughed cynically. “There’s some as like to do it for fun.”
“This isn’t a man going too far in the heat of passion,” I said. “This is a deliberate act of killing.”
“Maybe she recognised him,” Hugh said. “Maybe he was someone well known in the town?”
I shook my head. “If he’d wanted to keep his identity secret, he wouldn’t have come back here with her.”
A woman hesitated at the door. She was wearing a shawl over a shift that was patched with blood and the leavings of her clients. Her gaze settled on the corpse on the bed then shifted away again.
“Mr Patterson wants to know what you saw, Maggie,” Mrs McDonald said, jerking her head at me.
She shrugged. “I saw them.”
“When?”
“Hour, two hours ago.” Maggie had been born within a couple of miles of the house, to judge by her accent. How old was she? Three or four years older than myself – around thirty, possibly? Getting dangerously close to the end of her attractiveness even to the most undemanding of men.