Free from all Danger

by Chris Nickson

  He lifted his mug and drank. ‘It sounds to me like you’re expecting a lot from her.’

  ‘I know, but …’ Emily frowned for a moment then looked up. ‘If she really is as clever as that, it’s a pity not to use it. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Perhaps she’s the one you should talk to.’ She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued: ‘Not now. Closer to the time. When she’s ready. If she’s ever ready,’ he added. ‘It’s very early days yet. She’s barely settled here.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Of course. I don’t want to force her.’

  ‘I thought the idea was that she could help here while Lucy looks after your baby. She won’t be able to do that as well as teach.’

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  He understood, and Emily was right. But that was the lot of most women, with lives of home and hearth.

  ‘See what she wants to do if the time comes. Not everyone’s as ambitious as you, remember that.’

  ‘I won’t push her. I promise.’

  ‘Remember that,’ Nottingham said. ‘Whatever she chooses will only be a waste if she believes it’s a waste.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ She grinned at him. ‘Why can’t all fathers be like you?’

  ‘Old and tired and ready for his bed, you mean?’

  Lister prowled the inns along Briggate. He heard more about Tom Warren than he’d ever known. Sorting facts from rumour would take time. But if he believed all the gossip, the man had been a forger and a coiner and possibly far more.

  By the time he trudged wearily home along the darkness of Kirkgate, he didn’t know what to think. People seem to take a peculiar relish in blackening Warren’s name. Why?

  At first he was too deep in his thoughts to notice the footsteps that shadowed him. By the time he turned, the man was only ten yards away. A heavy greatcoat, tricorn hat pulled down to hide his eyes.

  Rob reached into his pocket to grab his knife.

  ‘What do you want?’

  But the man didn’t answer, just kept coming at the same steady pace.

  ‘Stop.’ He drew the blade. Just three yards away, the man halted, his breath blooming in the air. Big, broad, with an air of menace.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m on my way home.’ A deep, unfamiliar voice.

  ‘Then off you go.’

  He waited until the man had vanished from sight before walking on, listening closely and hearing nothing. He must be on edge with all the killings, Rob thought, seeing danger where there wasn’t any. The man was probably telling the truth. Carry on like this and he’d start seeing ghosts. But he couldn’t shake the feeling, the prickle of death at his back.

  ‘I looked for you yesterday morning,’ Nottingham said as he settled on the bench in Garroway’s coffee house.

  ‘I had business,’ Tom Finer replied. He picked up the dish of coffee and drank.

  ‘You’ll have heard about Tom Warren.’

  ‘I expect all of Leeds has by now.’

  ‘He took care of your accounts, didn’t he?’

  Finer raised a thick eyebrow. ‘He did, and I’ll be needing them back from his office. When I went there yesterday, the bookseller wouldn’t admit me.’

  ‘Those were my orders,’ Nottingham said. ‘I’ll see they’re returned in good time. What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘He was good at his job. I don’t have the inclination to do it all myself.’

  ‘His clerk was a forger. He’s vanished, too. Everything gone from his lodgings.’

  Finer rubbed his chin. ‘Then that’s your answer. He killed Warren and ran off with whatever he could.’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t give a reason. ‘Warren was involved in something.’

  ‘Was he? What’s your proof?’

  ‘It’s there.’ No matter that there wasn’t a piece of evidence yet; he knew it inside.

  ‘Then my advice is to follow that, Constable.’ He gave a faint, hard smile. ‘But I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how to do your job.’

  ‘If you know something, now would be a good time to say.’

  ‘The man did my accounts. That’s all.’

  Nottingham stared out of the window, watching the wagons and coaches pass along the Head Row.

  ‘You’ve built up a little empire here, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’ve invested in things that offer good returns.’

  ‘Then you’re clever enough to know that empires can crumble.’ He brought out a farthing and flipped it in the air so it landed with a jangle on the table. ‘Sometimes it can happen on the toss of a coin.’ He started to rise.

  ‘Do you know Michael Barthorpe?’

  ‘No. Who is he?’

  ‘A man might know something.’ Finer picked up the dish of coffee and drank.

  Damn him. Nottingham never heard the name Barthorpe. Now he had to find him and hope Finer had sent him after something worthwhile. This had been a case of hints that led nowhere. Look for Charlotte, only to discover that the girl had gone. Information vanished into thin air.

  ‘Michael Barthorpe,’ Nottingham said as Rob walked into the jail.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone said he could help us.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

  ‘It could be nothing. But we need to find him.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ There was no point in asking who’d given the information; the man wouldn’t say. ‘I’ll tell you this: hardly anyone had a good word for Warren last night. To listen to them, he’d committed everything but murder.’

  ‘Do you think there’s much truth in it?’

  ‘Some of it, definitely. It ties in with what you told me about his clerk. But a strange thing happened on the way home …’

  The constable listened, then asked: ‘You didn’t get a look at his face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stay alert.’

  The constable went through the correspondence. A letter from York, acknowledging receipt of Nick. That all seemed like history now, something that happened a lifetime ago. Where was the girl, he wondered? Perhaps she’d last out this year, next if she was lucky. But he doubted she was too long for the world.

  Barthorpe. Rob spent the morning asking after the man. He was about to give up when someone directed him into Hunslet. He found the man bent over a potter’s wheel in a small workshop, shaping clay into a cup as his feet worked pedals to keep the wheel turning. In the far corner a kiln threw out its heat, enough to keep the place warm.

  ‘Michael Barthorpe?’

  ‘That’s me.’ He slipped a flat knife under the base of the cup and slid it on to a tray before gathering another handful of clay and slapping it down. ‘What can I do for you?’ He gestured and the finished items on the shelves, all glazed brilliant white. ‘Cups? Bowls? Every one good quality.’

  ‘I’m Robert Lister, the Deputy Constable of Leeds. I want to talk to you about Tom Warren.’

  ‘I see,’ Barthorpe answered and looked over his shoulder at the kiln. ‘We’ve half an hour before that lot’s fired. Ask your questions.’ He sat upright on his stool and rubbed his back.

  He looked around thirty, bearded, his hair unkempt. But there was an openness to his face and warmth in his eyes. A scrawny body, but his arms were taut and muscled.

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘Better than most, I suppose,’ the man replied quietly. ‘He was my cousin. His mother was my aunt. She’s dead now.’

  ‘So’s he. People are saying he was a criminal.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Barthorpe agreed. ‘He was always good with numbers, they came to him easily. Me, I’m good with my hands.’ He held up his arms for a moment. ‘I like clay. Tom was a clerk, and he discovered he could copy anyone’s writing. Between those two skills he found a way to make a living. A good one, if that’s what you like.’

  ‘Do you know why anyone would want to kill him?’

  ‘No. But if that’s how you make your money it’s not too har
d to imagine, is it? I didn’t see him often. Me, I’m married, we have children, I’m trying to earn my way. He had … a different life, I suppose. But he came here three days ago and asked me to look after something for him.’

  Rob felt his heartbeat quicken. ‘What was it?’

  ‘A package. He said he’d come back for it when he could.’ He bent and washed his hands in a bucket of water. ‘I’ll fetch it for you. Not going to be any use to him now, is it?’

  He’d hidden it up in the rafters of the workshop. Small, just as the man had said, wrapped in oilskin with a heavy wax seal.

  ‘You didn’t open it?’ Rob asked in surprise.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ Barthorpe said. ‘Why would I? But it’s not going to be much use to Tom now. Maybe it’ll help you find whoever killed him.’ He gave a sad, wry smile. ‘That would be some justice, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you. What other family did he have?’

  ‘Two sisters, if they’re still alive.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘There’s a body to bury.’

  ‘Then I’d better find an undertaker.’ He sat at the wheel again and began to push the pedals. ‘I have a family to support.’

  Rob pushed the packet deep into his pocket, looking around as he left Hunslet. It was ridiculous, but since last night he’d had the niggling sense that someone was behind him. No matter how often he stopped and turned, though, he hadn’t been able to spot anyone.

  Traffic was waiting at Leeds Bridge. A cart had lost one of its wheels, the load spilling across the road. Men were arguing and shouting. Nothing new; it seemed to happen at least once a week. The town was becoming too busy.

  The constable was composing a letter, dipping his quill in the ink and writing with careful slowness. It was one part of the job that he’d never enjoyed, a task he put off as long as possible; the words would never flow for him.

  He was just sanding it, ready to send, when Lister appeared and tossed down the packet with a triumphant grin.

  ‘From Michael Barthorpe,’ he said. ‘Warren left this with him a few days ago. They were cousins.’

  Nottingham picked it up and broke the seal. Papers inside, not too many of them. He unfolded the contents and started to read, frowning as he understood what the documents meant.

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘They’re deeds,’ Rob said after he’d gone through them. ‘For two houses.’

  ‘The property on Lady Lane, that’s one of the places Tom Finer built,’ the constable said.

  ‘That other one is the cottage where Smith the moneylender lived.’ Rob poured himself a mug of ale. ‘If Warren owned these, what was he doing living in a room on Water Lane?’

  ‘Maybe he forged the deeds.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Rob said, then shook his head. ‘But why would he wrap up a pair of forgeries and leave them with his cousin?’

  ‘Maybe someone was looking for them.’ Nottingham shrugged. ‘The first thing we need to do is find out if these are real.’

  ‘We have Smith’s account books here,’ Rob said. He began poring through the pages, then stopped, his finger on a line. ‘Rent to Mr Warren.’

  ‘Go to Lady Lane, find out who’s living in that house. I’ll see if I can start to make any sense of the papers in Warren’s office.’

  All the account books had vanished. Ogle the bookseller swore he hadn’t allowed anyone upstairs, but that hardly mattered. Mostly likely the killer had taken them. Nottingham spent an hour sifting through everything, trying to put it all in some semblance of order, but it was a hopeless task. Wood or Warren were the only ones who understood it all and they were gone.

  He wondered how Tom Finer would take that news.

  The constable left, frustrated, carrying a heavy bundle of papers. He had names on invoices, people who must have been Warren’s clients. It was some small consolation.

  Finer was at home, in the rooms he occupied looking down over the Head Row, just three doors away from Garroway’s Coffee House.

  The fire was burning bright in the grate, the room so close and hot that Nottingham’s chest felt tight. But the old man seemed to be more alive in the heat, pacing up and down as he listened.

  ‘I need those account books,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll ask the man who killed Tom Warren when I find him,’ the constable told him.

  Finer snorted. ‘I’d probably do better searching for him myself.’

  ‘No,’ the constable warned. ‘You won’t even start trying. Not unless you want to wish you’d never come back here.’ He frowned. ‘How did you know about Michael Barthorpe?’

  ‘Warren mentioned him once when we were talking. Said they were related.’

  ‘He’s a potter. And you didn’t tell me Warren had bought one of the houses you built.’

  ‘That’s how we met. What does it matter, anyway?’

  ‘He visited Barthorpe and left the deeds to two places with him. Why would he do that if he wasn’t scared?’

  Finer’s eyes widened little. So there were a few things he didn’t know.

  ‘I couldn’t say. I hadn’t seen him in a while.’ He stayed silent for a long time. ‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Amos Worthy. It was before Arkwright took you on, you wouldn’t remember. When he wanted to control everything here, he took care of all the competition. One way or another, it didn’t matter to him. All this is something he would have done.’

  ‘I seem to recall that you were part of that competition,’ Nottingham reminded him.

  ‘Why do you think I left Leeds?’ Finer said sharply. ‘He was going to kill me otherwise. Told me that to my face.’

  Amos Worthy. He’d never be rid of the man. Dead and buried, but his shadow still lingered. He’d been the one who tried to save Nottingham’s mother after her husband had disowned wife and child. He loved her, but she always turned him away. And then he’d tried for his joke beyond the grave with money left to Emily. But she had the final laugh, using it to help fund her school for poor girls.

  ‘He’s dead. That disease ate him until there was nothing left,’ the constable said. ‘I saw him go in the ground myself.’

  ‘We’d better hope he is.’

  The house on Lady Lane was just two years old but already it looked weary. The paint on the door was beginning to flake and crack, and the windows sat awkwardly in their frames. Cheaply built, never intended to last. Even as they went up, people had said how shoddy they looked. But Leeds was thirsty for houses. They were sold before they were finished.

  A servant answered his knock, a harried woman with a heavily-lined face and a squalling baby in her arms. Somewhere behind her he could hear another child running about and a voice trying to keep order, followed by a hard smack, a short silence, then wailing.

  ‘I’m the Deputy Constable of Leeds,’ Rob said. ‘I’d like to speak to your mistress.’

  ‘You’d best come in.’ She stepped aside. ‘Go through. The children are just being fractious.’

  The woman was in the parlour, a fire blazing. A young boy stood in the corner, rubbing a red cheek and blinking back tears.

  ‘Deputy Constable,’ the servant said, as if it was an explanation.

  She was tall, half a head above him, with thick dark hair and quiet blue eyes with a quizzical gaze that didn’t waver.

  ‘I know we haven’t met, sir. How can I help you?’

  ‘I believe you rent this house from Tom Warren. Mrs …’

  ‘Grey. My husband does, yes.’ She wore a plain woollen dress, good quality, but carried herself as if it was a silk gown for the ball. He tried to place her accent. Yorkshire, but he didn’t know where, with a veneer of breeding. No surprise. There was money here: the room was heavily furnished.

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you, but he’s dead.’

  ‘I see.’ Her expression betrayed nothing. ‘Perhaps you should talk to my husband, Mr …’

  ‘Lister.’

&nbs
p; She gave the briefest nod of acknowledgement. ‘He’s the manager at Dryden’s finishing house. You know it, I’m sure.’

  ‘Of course.’ Finishing cloth was skilled work. The manager would be handsomely paid.

  ‘He can tell you what you need. But we’ve never had anything to do with Mr Warren, I can assure you of that. We simply pay him our rent.’ She allowed herself a brief smile. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have a handful here. I’m sure you must have heard them.’

  Grey knew nothing when Rob talked to him. He frowned at the news, and asked a question or two. The family had moved from Halifax six months before when he took the manager’s job. He didn’t even know Leeds; all his time was spent at work or at home.

  ‘Where do you want me now, boss?’

  ‘See if you can make sense of all those papers from Warren’s office.’ Nottingham glanced out of the window. A thin, cold rain had started to fall, people hurrying past on Kirkgate. ‘At least it’ll keep you dry.’

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Rob asked.

  ‘I wish I knew. Apart from all the account books, I don’t even know what’s missing. It’s like a puzzle without a key.’ He stood and slid his arms into the greatcoat. ‘I stopped at Mrs Webb’s house earlier. It was time I met my granddaughter properly.’

  ‘How is she?’ Rob realized he’d barely given the baby a thought since he’d seen her, as if she wasn’t quite flesh and blood yet, just an idea.

  ‘Beautiful.’ He smiled. ‘Gaining weight every day. Doesn’t even cry much, she says. That’s a blessing. Emily used to scream her head off whenever she was hungry. She’s a bonny little girl.’

  ‘I need to go and see her again.’

  ‘Enjoy her while she can’t do much,’ Nottingham told him. ‘As soon as she starts crawling, she’ll run you ragged. It never stops after that. Mrs Webb said Emily’s going to bring her over to the house for a few hours on Sunday.’

  ‘Really?’ She hadn’t told him; perhaps she’d only arranged it early that morning.

  ‘Between her and Lucy, though, you might not get close.’ He tapped the bicorn hat on to his head. ‘I wish you well with the papers.’

  It was impossible, Rob decided after two hours. Without knowing what wasn’t here, he couldn’t even judge what was important. By themselves, the invoices and bills of sale meant little. All he’d achieved was a list of those who used Warren’s services. A few papers looked as if they might have been altered, but he couldn’t be certain.