He knew the smells of Leeds at night now. They weren’t as strong as in daylight, the shit of carters’ horses worked hard into the street and dried, the harsh steel tang of blood around the Shambles fading with nightfall, the rank stink of unwashed bodies now locked behind closed doors.
He made his way down to the river, hearing the water flowing and seeing a pair of fires glowing on the bank, looking for all the world like an entrance to hell. The sight made him think of tales of the gabble ratchets his governess had scared him with when he was young. Looking around, he half expected to see the eyes of the dogs made by the devil from the souls of children who’d died before they could be baptized. Instead he saw faces: people who had arrived a month or so before with the first warmth of spring. He’d met them on their first night, just men and women who had nothing, keeping each other safe in the darkness and looking for fitful work in the city or the country that surrounded it.
There were more of them now, maybe forty in all, a mix of the wounded and the weary, the hopeless and the defeated. The trust had vanished from their eyes, and the love from their hearts. They left with the dawn, only coming back when dusk fell.
They kept the fires burning all through the night, sleeping close to the flames for warmth and protection. The men kept cudgels close to hand to fight off the drunks who came for sport or rape.
One man stood as Rob approached. He was slight, his hair lank, but he stood out from the others, wearing clothes that had he kept carefully clean, his boots shiny from spit and effort. His right arm was withered, wasted and useless, life’s dark joke that would always be with him.
‘Mr Lister,’ he said.
‘Evening, Simon.’
Rob joined the others in the circle around the blaze. He saw some eye him suspiciously, wary of any authority. But Simon Gordonson was the one who seemed to speak for them all, a smiling man who persisted through a life that had done him no favours.
He’d made his way as a clerk for a shoemaker until the sleeping sickness had taken his wife and children at the tail of the previous summer, just as the nights grew chill. In his grief he’d given up his home, the things that no longer had meaning to him, and taken to wandering. He’d come back to Leeds a few weeks before, bringing the others who’d joined him, a strange, dispossessed band.
The men passed a jug of ale around and Rob took a short swig before handing it on. A pan of something bubbled over the fire. The women sat further away, almost in the shadows, babes and small children asleep on their laps, their bodies warmed with coats or threadbare blankets. Dogs rested nearby, raising their heads occasionally to sniff something on the breeze.
‘Crime keeping you busy, Mr Lister?’ Gordonson asked. He was an affable soul with a ready smile. Only rarely did it slip, but Rob could see the bottomless sorrow beneath the mask.
‘There’s no danger of ever being out of work,’ he answered.
Gordonson laughed softly. ‘God’s kingdom’s never so peaceful as he’d like it to be. I thought I saw you out with a lass the other day. Courting, are you?’
‘I suppose I am,’ he answered with a small laugh.
‘Pretty girl,’ Gordonson said quietly.
‘She is,’ Lister agreed. ‘But my father’s warned me I’d better not marry her.’
‘Not marry?’ he asked in surprise. ‘Why wouldn’t he want that? A man needs a wife and bairns to complete him.’
‘You tell him that.’ Rob couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘He doesn’t want me to marry her because her father’s the Constable.’ He saw the other man’s confusion. ‘She’s not good enough for me, evidently.’
‘Good enough is what rich folks can afford.’ Gordonson stared at the ground then looked up. ‘Are you rich, Mr Lister?’
‘No,’ Rob replied slowly, then said, ‘Middling, maybe.’
Gordonson leaned forward. ‘In that case I’ll tell you something for free. Nothing’s better than love.’
‘It won’t fill your belly, though, will it?’ Lister asked.
‘Maybe not, but food won’t fill your heart, either.’
Rob looked at Gordonson carefully. ‘And what about if the love goes? What then?’
Simon tapped his head. ‘Memories, Mr Lister. Memories. They can keep a man warm for many a long night.’
Rob sat and considered the words. A wind soughed lightly through the reeds and the tall grass by the water. Finally he stood.
‘I should get back to my work,’ he said. ‘Tell me, did you have a girl down here with a harelip? It would be a few weeks ago now.’
‘You mean that Lucy?’ Gordonson asked.
‘Yes, that’s her name.’
‘She stayed with us for a few days. You’d need to talk to Susan, she was the one who looked after her.’
Rob scanned the faces almost lost in the darkness. ‘Where is she?’
Gordonson shook his head. ‘Not tonight, Mr Lister. She’s off working. You come back tomorrow and I’ll see she’s here for you.’
Rob nodded. ‘Do you remember when Lucy was here?’ he wondered.
‘Not really,’ Gordonson told him with a gentle smile. ‘Time’s the one thing we have plenty of here. Maybe that’s why we don’t pay it much heed. Ask Susan tomorrow, she might know.’
Eight
‘So we know she whored for one night after Cates dismissed her,’ the Constable said. He sat behind the desk, hands playing with the quill pen as he talked. ‘And she was down with these folk by the river.’
Rob nodded. He stood close to the door, breeches and hose still dripping from wading into the water to pull out a body below Leeds Bridge. The corpse sat in the cold cell they used as a mortuary.
‘That’s the start of a picture,’ Nottingham continued, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘We need more. You find out what this woman knows, Rob. John, I want you to talk to the servants up at the Cates house. Lucy was there a few months, she must have become friendly with one of them.’
‘Yes, boss.’ The deputy sat on the other chair, longs legs stretched out in front of him.
‘Either of you have any idea where else she could have gone?’
Neither of them spoke. This was a story they’d need to piece together, a puzzle they’d need good fortune to complete. But the Constable was determined that they’d continue until the picture was finished.
‘According to Davidson and his girls, Lucy said she couldn’t go home because he’d find her there. See if you can discover who the he is.’
They nodded.
‘And there’s one other thing,’ he announced. ‘Yesterday evening I had a note from our Alderman whose house was robbed. It seems that his property has been returned.’
Sedgwick sat up straight. ‘What? What do you mean, boss?’
‘If I had to guess, I’d say our thief taker has a hand in this,’ Nottingham said ‘For a fee he arranges the return of the property.’
‘What about the thief?’ the deputy asked.
‘He’s paid for his efforts and probably makes more than he might if he sold the items to someone like Joe Buck. And with everything returned and the householder satisfied, no one will testify to a crime.’ He threw down the quill. ‘I’ll be talking to Mr Walton later. It looks as if his advertisement might have paid for itself already.’
‘It’s wrong,’ Rob said.
‘Of course it’s wrong,’ the Constable agreed angrily. ‘But the law of the land says it’s legal, as long as Walton didn’t arrange the burglary himself.’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘Right, you go home, Rob. John, see if you can give our drowner a name.’
Sedgwick was the one to talk to servants. The Constable knew that. He had the touch, the mixture of charm and easy banter that gained their trust and opened them up to say things they might never utter otherwise. They seemed to understand he was one of them.
Today, though, all he felt was a brittle weariness in his bones, as if he might snap into pieces at the lightest touch. Isabell had had another
bad night, Lizzie up every hour to tend to her, feeding and soothing. And he’d lain awake, wondering what to do about James. He could take his belt to the boy, the way his own father had done often enough. But he knew it would do no more good now than it had then. The lad might be young but he was already like his father, bull-headed. As soon as the pain wore off and the tears dried James would be more determined than ever.
What sleep he’d managed had come in brief snatches, and now the skin on his face felt tight and his eyeballs gritty. He’d identified the dead man quickly enough as Jacob Miller; the deputy had known his face for years. There were no signs of violence, so he’d likely tumbled in the Aire when he was drunk. God knew that enough managed it as a way to die, by accident or design.
The Cates house was up at Town End, just beyond the Head Row. It was barely a few years old, its genteel, plain front as broad a notice of money as any. But that entrance was for the gentlemen and ladies who’d come to call on the family. He looked around until he saw his way to the back, where the servants and those in trade could come and go without the master having to notice them.
The kitchen door was open, the room steamy with the smell of cooking and the heat from the fire. A young girl was chopping onions, stopping to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand, her apron ill-fitting and stained. He could hear the cook yelling her orders. He knocked and walked in. The room went silent.
‘Who are you?’ the cook asked finally. She was a heavy-boned woman, short and squat, hair pushed awkwardly under a cap, face red and flushed with sweat.
He smiled. ‘I’m John Sedgwick,’ he said. ‘I’m the deputy constable. Have you got a moment?’
The cook had no time for gossiping, with a meal to prepare and have on the table for guests at noon, but she called down one of the serving girls to talk to him. Grace was a plain little thing; she looked thirteen but swore to three years older. She glanced nervously at the deputy, fingers working together nervously at having to talk to authority. He found a quiet nook where they’d be out of everyone’s way, the dark wood around them smelling freshly of polish.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ he told her, ‘you’ve done nowt wrong. You’re not in trouble.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She bobbed her head quickly and he smiled.
‘No need to call me sir, either. I’m just John. Did you know Lucy?’
Grace’s eyes brightened. ‘She was lovely, was Lucy.’
‘You were friends, were you?’
‘We shared a bed up in the eaves,’ she said. ‘But she didn’t talk too much. She hated it ’cause the words all sounded funny. Once you got used to it, it were easy enough to understand her, really.’
‘You know she was pregnant?’
Grace nodded seriously. ‘I tried to tell her, sir, but she wouldn’t believe me.’ She paused and blushed. ‘John.’
‘Why not?’
‘She didn’t know how girls get babies.’
He raised his eyebrows slightly in disbelief. Still, if she was as simple as everyone said, it was possible.
‘Do you know who the father might be?’
She shook her head, but it was too quick, too adamant.
‘Do you?’ he asked softly.
She lowered her head to hide her expression but he could see the livid colour rising up from her neck.
‘Was it someone here? I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered in a voice so quiet he wasn’t sure whether he’d imagined it.
‘Do the men here . . .?’
At first she was perfectly still and he stayed silent, waiting to see if she’d reveal anything. Then she gave a tiny nod.
‘All of them?’
Grace glanced around hurriedly to assure herself no one could hear then whispered, ‘Mr Cates and his sons.’
He kept his face blank and his voice steady. ‘With you?’
‘Yes.’ She sounded resigned and hopeless.
‘And with Lucy?’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked up at him and he could see the tears in her eyes, thin shoulders shaking with the sorrow and secrets she’d been keeping inside for a long time. ‘They didn’t like her, they laughed at her. So maybe they didn’t.’
‘Didn’t she say?’
The girl pulled at the hem of her apron. ‘No.’
‘Did she have anyone she saw when she had free time?’
‘Just her mam and her brother.’
‘Was she happy here?’
‘Yes.’ Grace smiled again briefly, her face lighting up, blue eyes bright and glistening. ‘She was. We looked after her, you see. She felt safe here.’
‘What was she like when she had to leave?’
‘She cried. All the girls did.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘No. She didn’t know.’
‘Not to her mam?’
‘She said she couldn’t, not now.’
‘Did she say why?’
Grace looked confused. ‘I just thought it was because she was having the baby.’
‘Thank you, love. You’ve been very helpful.’
He stood and she looked up at him. ‘You won’t . . .?’ she asked, then begged. ‘Please.’
‘I promise,’ he assured her. ‘Honestly.’
The Constable strode up the Head Row, his face set hard. A little before the impressive brick of the Red House he knocked on a door and waited for a servant to open it.
When one finally arrived, he gave his name and was shown into a withdrawing room that looked out on a tidy garden. No fire had been laid and he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat to keep them warm. He listened for the sound of the servant’s heels in the hallway.
He knew that Alderman Ridgely had dropped his case, and he was sure of the reason why: he was going to pay good money to the thief taker for the return of items that already belonged to him. But Nottingham wanted to look the man in the eye and hear the words from his own lips. It wouldn’t be satisfaction, but it would be a small beginning.
When the servant finally returned, he looked abashed.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but the master says he doesn’t have time to see you.’
The Constable gave a small nod but said nothing. He picked up the tricorn hat from the chair where he’d left it and walked out. Word of this would run all around Leeds before the day was done, how the man had snubbed Nottingham. But who would look worse for it, he wondered? Men in Leeds would laugh at anyone fool enough to pay twice for his own property.
At the Talbot he asked for Walton, and a potboy was sent scrambling up the stairs to fetch him. The Constable sat at a bench, a stoup of ale and two beakers in front of him. When the thief taker arrived he motioned him to a seat and poured him a drink. The man was dressed in his grey suit, sponged clean now, his stock and the cuffs of his shirt rimed with dirt.
‘Your business is off to a good start, I hear.’ Nottingham raised his mug in a small toast. Walton smiled, showing the gaps in his teeth dark as the devil’s word.
‘I’ll not say it is, since they say pride’s a sin. But God willing, it’ll prosper, Constable.’
‘Only if you deal with criminals, Mr Walton.’
‘I return items that have gone missing,’ the man said carefully, his gaze straight and direct. ‘I don’t ask how they vanished.’
‘Or how someone else now has them?’
‘That’s not my business,’ the thief taker answered slowly. ‘If someone’s stolen them, it’s for God to judge him, not me.’
‘No doubt He will,’ the Constable agreed. ‘And it’s a pious enough turn of phrase. But I’m concerned with the here and now, not what might happen at the gates of heaven.’
‘That’s your job,’ Walton conceded. ‘When a man pays me for the return of his property, that’s all that matters to me. Not the criminal or the crime.’
‘And my job is catching those criminals and seeing they’re punished. I told
you I’d let you work here if it didn’t interfere with the law.’
‘And has it, Constable?’ Walton spread his hands on the table, the nails bitten short, the tips of his fingers dark with grime. ‘Has anyone lodged a complaint?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone reported a crime I’m preventing you from solving?’
‘Someone has withdrawn his report of a robbery.’
‘So there’s nothing outstanding?’ The thief taker grinned. ‘No cause for you to worry at me this way?’
Nottingham drank and slowly put down the cup. He stared at the other man.
‘There’s plenty of reason, Mr Walton. You’re treading very close to the edge of my patience. Sooner or later you’ll cross the line.’
‘If that happens I might have some powerful people here in my debt. Have you thought of that?’
The Constable ignored the question. When the time was right, no friends would save the thief taker.
‘The law is the law. Break it and you pay the consequences.’
‘I’ve lived long enough to know that money can speak louder than law sometimes, Constable. I’ve found it to be a fact well worth remembering.’ He stood. ‘Good day to you.’
Nottingham finished his ale and left. Returning to the jail he decided it would be a good idea to have someone follow Walton. The man was going to cause trouble. With some care they might be able to stop it early.
‘John,’ he said, ‘our thief taker’s staying at the Talbot. I want a man following him day and night.’
Sedgwick stared thoughtfully into space for a few moments.
‘We can rearrange the men,’ he suggested.
‘Who’s best at blending into a crowd?’
‘Probably Tom Holden. You can look at him and forget he was ever there.’
‘Good. And among the night men?’
‘There’s no one, really,’ the deputy admitted. ‘Best to let Rob pick someone, they’re his men.’
‘True. I suspect we’re going to see a few burglaries. Have everyone keep their eyes open.’
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