The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  She opened the door and strode confidently through the bar, glancing sideways to the landlord. ‘Thank you kindly,’ she called, marching out of the street door and into the freezing air. She looked up at the ominously grey sky, certain that snow was imminent.

  Thirty-three minutes later, Ann re-entered Braemar Cottage, shivering. She found John in the parlour in front of the burning fire, building a tower from small rectangles of wood.

  ‘Where be your mum, John?’ Ann asked, trying to stop her teeth from chattering.

  ‘Upstairs,’ he replied, without taking his eyes from the stack in front of him.

  Ann touched his mousey hair with a smile.

  ‘Ann! Ann! Do that be you?’ Hester shouted from upstairs, her voice nettled and upset-sounding.

  Ann rushed up the stairs and into the main bedroom.

  ‘He be back to life!’ Hester declared. Her cheeks were lined with tears that plopped from her chin into her lap.

  Samuel was sitting up in the bed looking brittle and frail, like a man twice his age, shrinking back from the boundary between life and death. For the first time, he smiled. It was a thin smile which appeared to be effortful. ‘Hester be telling me you be saving my life,’ he wheezed. He feebly offered his left hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Ann shook his hand and could not contain her gratification at his recuperation. ‘How do you be feeling?’

  ‘Like I been struck by a cart,’ he answered. ‘You be freezing cold.’

  Ann shrugged. ‘I be needing to sit by the fire and you be needing rest,’ she advised sagely. ‘Now be getting some sleep.’ She patted his leg and made for the door, followed by Hester.

  ‘The Lord be looking favourable on you today,’ Ann said, upon reaching the parlour. Standing with her back to the fire, she folded her arms and held a posture of knowing self-importance.

  ‘What do that little comment supposed to be a-meaning?’ Hester snapped.

  ‘He granted your wish—the Aldington Gang be no more.’

  ‘Because why?’

  ‘Because they hanged Cephas Quested,’ Ann revealed. ‘He went to the gallows at Newgate this morning.’

  John looked up, interestedly. ‘Hanged him?’

  ‘What?’ Hester shrieked. ‘Oh, my good merciful Lord! And where did you be a-hearing such blessed news?’ Hester begged, doubt quickly abrading her initial elation.

  ‘It be all the talk at the Walnut Tree. Quested be dead and the gang be disbanded.’

  ‘The Aldington Gang be no more,’ Hester exhaled, in an almost dreamlike fashion. She moved over to the window and gazed out at the light dusting of snow falling from the sky, repeating to herself in a whisper, ‘The Aldington Gang be no more. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.’

  ‘They be hanging his body in chains in the village of Brookland—a warning to others,’ Ann added, delighting in her role as news-bearer.

  Hester turned. Her eyes locked with Ann’s but her thoughts were elsewhere. ‘’Tis time you be on your way.’

  ‘Pardon, Mistress?’ Ann said.

  ‘It be time you be a-leaving.’

  ‘Right this moment?’ Ann demanded. ‘In the snow? It be pretty nigh dark out there.’

  Hester raised her shoulders. ‘I don’t be a-wanting you in my dwelling-house no longer. Good day to you.’

  ‘Do she be going?’ John questioned.

  ‘Aye, that be right,’ Hester said.

  ‘But I be liking her,’ he complained.

  Ann crouched down so that she was level with the boy. ‘Goodbye, John. I be seeing you around, certain-sure of that.’

  Without another word, she raised herself up, opened the street door and stepped out into the dusky late afternoon. The door closed behind her and she stood, barefoot in the white ground with her back to Braemar Cottage.

  It was time to move on.

  Chapter Five

  6th March 1821, Aldington, Kent

  ‘What do you mean, she be gone?’ Sam asked. He was sitting up in his bed, cocooned in blankets, watching the snow softly tumbling outside his window, a small pile mounting against the glass pane.

  ‘I be a-meaning that she be gone—went on her way two day ago,’ Hester informed him. ‘She be a dirty street-vagrant. I don’t be a-knowing why it causes you such bother.’

  Sam didn’t quite know why it bothered him, either; but it did. He touched the ugly scarring on his right shoulder—all but completely healed, now. All because of Ann Fothergill, a stranger who had tended to his wounds for three weeks, but of whom his fever had clouded any lucid recollection. He knew, by the way that Hester spoke of Ann, that she likely had not been treated well in his house, despite her apparent altruism.

  ‘Did she be saying where she were headed?’ Sam asked, wincing in pain as he tried to lift his right arm higher than his chest.

  Hester shook her head. ‘To the godless back streets of Dover, I shouldn’t be a-wondering. A black-tan such as she be back in prison before the week be done.’

  ‘Were she treated good here?’ Sam asked.

  ‘’Course she were,’ Hester retorted defensively. ‘Now you be a-getting some rest, Samuel.’

  Sam slowly swung his legs out of the bed.

  ‘What do you think you be a-doing?’ Hester demanded.

  ‘Getting meself some work,’ he answered, reaching down to the bed frame for support, as he slowly shifted his weight onto his weak legs and stood up.

  ‘What? I been doing laundry work—we been a-coping fine.’

  Sam ignored his wife’s pleas and began to walk towards the door, his leg muscles tightening with each new step.

  ‘Sam!’ she protested.

  ‘Be looking at yourself, Hester—you be giving birth be Lady Day. Then what be happening?’

  ‘Then we be asking the overseers to be a-helping,’ Hester said.

  ‘The overseers?’ Sam begged. ‘Tell me you ain’t gone begging to them?’

  Hester shook her head. ‘Bain’t me what went a-begging—it were Ann. It were when I were unwell; we were a-given some mutton, barley and flour.’

  ‘Happen she be saving all our lives,’ he muttered, continuing to the stairs.

  ‘You be thinking Mister Banks be having you back out on them fields like this?’ Hester scorned.

  ‘I bain’t going to see Banks—I be going to see Quested to be getting me dues,’ Sam snapped, stopping at the top of the stairs to confront his wife.

  Hester reached out for his hand. ‘Quested be dead, Sam—he were hanged at Newgate.’

  Sam felt his calf muscles recoil at the news and he reached out to the wall to steady himself. The events of that last night smuggling spooled through his mind at high speed, before slowing down at the moment when he and Quested had reached the village of Brookland. They had been hidden behind a wall, he remembered that clear as day. Then Quested had got up, handing a pistol to a man who had turned coat and then captured him. And there his memory stopped. Whole days had been irretrievably removed from him, when he had been under Ann Fothergill’s spell. He searched the murky blackness of his mind, trying to force himself to remember what had happened next, but his request was rebutted by darkness.

  ‘What were he hanged for?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Smuggling—for what do you be thinking?’ Hester answered.

  With a renewed determination, Sam carefully made his way downstairs. His legs were cramping but he was becoming used to the pain. He hauled on his hat, coat and old boots, then pulled open the street door.

  ‘Sam—don’t be so dead-alive! It be a hell of a night out there—at least be a-waiting until mornin’,’ Hester remonstrated.

  Without another glance back, he closed the door, his boots crunching down into the fresh white powder. Through the fissured grey clouds, a strewing of subdued stars and a thin-sliver moon gave him just enough light by which to make his way from Braemar Cottage.

  The oppressiveness of the stark skeletal branches of the hedgerow, which lined the n
arrow lane, was softened by the pristine carpet of white upon which Sam walked. He lumbered along, without hurry, partly due to the resistance from his legs and partly to savour the return of his freedom. Breathing in long gulps of the chill air, he thought again on the fact that he seemed to owe his life to the benevolence of a stranger. A prickly qualm burrowed into his heart at the abruptness with which she had departed. He felt strongly that he owed her something, but then, what could he offer her in exchange for a renewal of his life?

  He chewed on the thoughts as he continued towards the village, unable to reach an answer which satisfied him. He came upon his destination with gratitude, hoping that he would be afforded a few moments’ rest. Rapping the iron knocker, he stepped back, removing his sodden hat from his head and tapping off the fresh snow.

  The door was pulled open by Quested’s widow, Martha, a small creature in her early thirties, whose efforts to conceal the grief from her puffy eyes had failed. ‘Hello,’ she greeted meekly. She took a step back and widened the yawn of the door. ‘Come on in.’

  Sam entered the cottage, clutching his hat to his chest. The parlour, which he had entered, was tiny and lit by the orange glow of two reed candles on the side dresser. ‘I be terrible sorry to hear about your husband,’ he said.

  Martha nodded but kept her eyes looking to the ground. She mumbled an answer which Sam failed to comprehend.

  ‘And…’ he began, but his words caught in his throat. ‘…with what they be doing with him—you know.’

  Martha looked up, perplexed.

  ‘With his body,’ he explained.

  Understanding pressed through the veneer of sorrow, enlightening her dark eyes and raising her frown. ‘His body be here,’ she said, tilting her head to the side.

  Sam looked in the direction which she had indicated and saw the edge of a coffin.

  ‘It were old Knatchbull, the Ashford magistrate what saved him. Got him brought back to Aldington for a decent Christian burial.’

  ‘It be only right,’ Sam agreed, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

  ‘He weren’t a God-fearing man, like. Church weren’t ever somewhere he liked to be, but still,’ she said. ‘Do you be wanting to see him? I be having a raft of folk wanting to pay their respects to him. Go on through.’

  Sam baulked at the idea. Although it was normal practice to display the dead at home until burial, he felt his acquaintance with Quested to have been minimal. But now that he was here and now that she was staring at him, encouraging him through, he needed to view the body and pay his respects. Despite himself, he found that he was moving into the adjoining room, which was shrouded in darkness. A single rush light in the corner of the room painted ugly, harrowing shadows on Quested’s face.

  Sam bowed his head and tried to search his mind for an image of Quested crouching behind the wall in Brookland. He failed. All that he could now see was the darkened soulless face in front of him, which looked to Sam as though it could never have been alive. His skin was grey and his eyes sunken against the rigid contours of his nose.

  ‘How do you be managing, with money I be meaning?’ Sam asked, turning his back on Quested’s body.

  Martha shrugged. ‘I bain’t managing,’ she muttered.

  ‘Before he died, he were talking of having some gold guineas hidden away at his aunt’s place,’ Sam ventured.

  Martha emitted a low laugh of derision. ‘That what he been telling you?’

  ‘You never be knowing my husband well. He were full of fanciful tales, full of promises,’ she derided. ‘Now be looking at him.’ Her eyes glistened, as she shot them to the coffin. She folded her arms and met Sam’s gaze. ‘He died with nothing. Not a shilling. That what you here for? What he be owing from smuggling runs? I bain’t got nothing to give you.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No, that weren’t it. I be wanting to see that you be alright.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, although Sam couldn’t determine whether she was being genuine or not.

  ‘I best be going,’ he said, moving towards the street door. ‘Again, I be truly sorry. If there be any help I can be giving…’

  ‘Thank you,’ Martha said, following him to the door. ‘Goodbye.’

  Sam found himself back out in the freezing night, having not had opportunity to rest his tired legs. He was desperate to return home but his work for the night was unfinished.

  The aching in his legs determined the slow trudge through the snowy lane. At a fork in the road, he turned away from the village and began to climb a dirt track that wound its way through an unmanaged woodland. Here, his pace further dwindled as the trees obscured what little light there had been and the incline of the hill was nigh-on unbearable. As he ploughed on, thoughts of despair began to creep into his mind. What if he couldn’t make it back home? What if he collapsed here? What would happen to Hester, John and the baby? Peculiarly, he thought again of Ann Fothergill, envisioning that she would return heroically to Braemar Cottage to help his family once again. Absurd, he told himself, nudging the thought to one side.

  Sam paused as a squat wooden house came into view, cowering under a fleece of white. The combination of the surrounding snow and the flickering amber light from within gave the property a pleasing romantic feel that belied its dilapidated condition. He watched the slow silhouetted movement from inside, whilst giving each leg in turn a brief respite by standing flamingo-like on the other.

  Snow had obliterated the path which ran past the house. Sam had been a few times before, casual-labouring for Widow Stewart’s now-deceased husband. He had fitted fences here and repaired a stone wall on her boundary, and so knew from memory that the path would bring him perilously close to the house; so, he opted instead to stick to the dark treeline.

  He slogged on, putting one foot in front of the other, stumbling and falling at regular intervals over snow-cloaked hazards. By the time he reached the top, Sam had become convinced that the wickedness of his deeds bestowed upon him the misfortune of finding each and every rabbit-hole, boulder or fallen branch.

  In every way imaginable, the pigpen was unremarkable and the most unlikely storage facility for a barrelful of gold guineas.

  Sam felt a sudden rush of foolishness. His cheeks flushed with anger and, even though nobody knew of his being here, embarrassment. Slumping down on the low wall, Sam finally gave in to the pain in his legs. As he exhaled noisily, the relief from his muscles gripped him.

  Several minutes passed and the cold began to permeate through his clothing. He stood again and looked at the pigpen. Now that he was here, he might as well take a look in the cellar. Clambering over the wall, he headed towards the stone enclosure. He poked his head inside the unilluminated room, startling the swine into a panicked squeal. ‘Sshh!’ he urged, brushing his left foot around the excrement-covered wooden floor, trying to feel for an indentation or perhaps a handle to gain access to the floor below.

  His foot caught on something and he reached down, touching with something sticky and wet. He traced the cold surface, realising that it was a pull ring. Exerting some degree of force, he pulled until the heavy door creaked open, falling backwards in a giant stretch.

  Sam crouched down and stared below. For all that the blackness revealed, the cellar might have been just a foot deep or the county’s deepest cave. Having no method of lighting the space, he had no choice but to try and get inside it. He sat down over the hole and began to dangle his legs into the void. He couldn’t feel the bottom. ‘Tarnal place be damned!’ he yelled.

  As far as he could see, he had two choices: he could leave now without the knowledge of what was down there, or he could drop down into the abyss and risk breaking his legs with little possibility of ever getting back out again.

  He thought no longer and pushed himself off the edge. He landed with a jolt just a few feet below. He sighed as he glanced up and saw the black outline of an inquisitive pig.

  With his hands outstretched in front of him like a blind man, Sam began
to search the cellar. It took little time, bouncing off the four walls, to realise that the room was empty. Completely empty. He even shuffled his boots around the stone floor to check that nothing had spilled out.

  Sam made one final sweep of the cellar before hoisting himself up into the foul mess of the pigpen floor. Slamming the door shut, he stormed back out, over the wall and down the path beside the house, not caring whether he was seen or not. What was Widow Stewart going to do if she caught him? The woman crawled around her house on all fours, so was hardly likely to rush out brandishing a weapon.

  His sense of his own foolishness swelled inside him, mutating into a burning anger towards Quested’s departed soul. He cursed the day that he had ever met him. But now, his options were few. With his injured arm, there was no way that he could continue his former work as a labourer. If he couldn’t work, then he would be thrown out of the tied cottage. In his heart, he knew the future; could see it like a little galley on the distant horizon, bringing him and his family ever closer to their destiny, to the poorhouse.

  Five days later, with no coal, candles or food and down to his last shillings, Sam Banister trudged through the gates of Ruffians Hill Farm, the humiliation of walking through them more injurious than the musket shot to his arm. In front of an open barn were some other men from the village: Thomas Chittenden, James Fry, Thomas Ashdown, Robert Butcher and George Horn. Men whose apparel—tattered and threadbare—revealed the desperateness of their situation. They looked up expectantly but their sudden switch to sullenness made explicit that it was not he for whom they were waiting. Most nodded or made vague murmurings of greeting, before settling their gaze elsewhere. Ruffians Hill Farm, run by the parish to provide provisional work for its unemployed men, was akin to a purgatory for the poorhouse. That the men and their families were just one step away from its doors was a fact implicit in their unsettled behaviour.

  Sam moved closer to them but nobody engaged with him. He dug the heel of his right boot into the ground. The fact that it was still frozen from the night’s frost and, but for a few muddy crumbs, refused to budge, gave Sam a knotting sense of foreboding.