Without Fear or Favour

by David Field

  ‘Tuesday,’ he was told, and he nodded. ‘That must be right, because there were a big church parade two days ago when we went through Leicester, so that day must have been Sunday. So that must mean that I were given the money last Thursday, give or take a day, because I think we was on the road for four nights in all.’

  ‘You and them three bodyguards, you mean?’ Tom asked by way of clarification. ‘All four of you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Browne replied ruefully, ‘but as it turned out they was more like gaolers than bodyguards. Everywhere I went they was following me – they never stayed at the same inn, but wherever I were staying the buggers would be there all the time, hanging around by the door or insisting that I stay in my room. It weren’t too bad when we was on the road, but once we got here to Nottingham I had the days to myself, just waiting for someone to turn up and claim the money. Just sitting around in that gloomy bloody room for hour after hour – and the food they serve in that there Bell is just shit.’

  ‘How come you was allowed to play skittles with Edward Franklin, then?’ Tom enquired suspiciously, and Browne grimaced. ‘That were a big mistake, for me and him, as it turned out. I were allowed to sit and watch the games when I made a big noise about being cooped up in that room all day. I were sitting there, just watching the other players, when this feller come up to me and asked if I wanted to play. I’d played a few times back at home, so I said yes, and while we was playing he started to ask me where I was from, because I talked different from him. Then it occurred to me that he might be the feller what was meant to collect the money, so I asked him. He didn’t seem to know what I were talking about, but I think that Gerald feller – one of the so-called bodyguards, like I said – had overheard us talking. The three of them was sitting alongside the game, you see, like they didn’t even trust me to play skittles. Two of them forced me back into the room, then held me up against the wall and demanded to know what I’d meant by asking this feller if he’d come for the money, and what I knew about him. All I knew about him was that he ran the mill down by the river, and that’s what I told them. Then they locked me in the room, and come back yesterday morning and told me that they’d “fixed the problem”. That’s what they said, but you’ve probably worked it out for yourselves that they done for the poor feller, just because I were stupid enough to ask one silly question of the poor sod.’

  ‘From what you’re telling us,’ Giles thought out loud, ‘the identity of the person you was meant to hand the money over to is a closely guarded secret, along with the very fact that you was here to hand over money in the first place.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ Browne confirmed with a sad nod. ‘From the minute I took that there money, my life hasn’t been my own. And now I suppose you’re going to charge me with murder.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Tom replied, ‘but from your point of view that’s the only good news. You’ll be kept in this cell, if only for your own safety, until we catch the other three. What can you tell us about them three, or the feller you was supposed to hand the money over to?’

  ‘Nowt, I’m afraid,’ Brown replied sadly. ‘I appreciate you hiding me down here, because now I’ve been talking to you I don’t think I’d stay alive for very long once I were back out in the street. As for the other three, I think they’re Londoners – they talk like Londoners, anyway, and they was sent by that rich feller what I met in Rotherhithe, so I reckon they could be working for somebody important – maybe even royalty, or at least nobility of some sort.’

  ‘We’re going to be conducting a very thorough search for them three,’ Tom advised him, ‘and you’ve given us their names – “Thomas”, “George” and “Gerald”, as I recall – but anything else you remember – anything, mind – will make our work a lot easier.’

  ‘Their horses, for example?’ Giles added. ‘You obviously travelled up here by horse, so did the three of them have their own horses, and if so where are they stabled now? And come to that, where’s yours?’

  ‘Mine’s in the stable at the back of The Bell,’ Browne advised them. ‘As for the others, I’ve no idea. Not in the same stables, probably. But somewhere pretty close by, I’d reckon, if that helps.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ Tom admitted grudgingly, ‘although there’s lot of stables in the lower town. But thank you anyway. Enjoy your stay.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Well,’ Tom remarked as they returned to their room upstairs, ‘it’s looking pretty likely that we know who done Ed Franklin in.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Giles agreed with heavy sarcasm, ‘and it looks as if I were wrong to suspect the son. All the same, I’d like to know why he weren’t as upset as he tried to pretend he were about his old man being dead.’

  ‘He stands to inherit the mill, as you pointed out to me earlier,’ Tom reminded him. ‘And who knows how things was between them? Not all fathers and sons gets on well together. No, my money’s on them three what tried to do us in, just because we was making enquiries about them. Guilty consciences or what?’

  ‘Even if you’re right,’ Giles pointed out, ‘we still has to find the three of them.’

  ‘Any ideas?’ Tom enquired, but Giles shook his head. ‘Tell you what, though,’ he observed, ‘if Browne were telling the truth about not knowing who were to be collecting all that money, then at least one of the three what were keeping a close watch on him must know. Otherwise, how would they know if the money were being handed over to the right person?’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Tom agreed, ‘but that doesn’t go any further towards telling us who they are, and where we can find them, does it? And right now, I don’t give a shit who the money were intended for – the most important matter for us is to find them what murdered Ed Franklin.’

  ‘But don’t you think the two matters might be connected?’ Giles suggested. ‘The feller in London what trusted them three to keep an eye on Browne must have instructed them to kill anyone who got in the way of the money being handed over, or finding out who was to be collecting it, and that were the big mistake what Ed Franklin made when he got too friendly with Thomas Browne.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Tom sighed with irritation. ‘So when we find the three of them we can ask them that question as well,’ Tom frowned. ‘But we still got to find them, hasn’t we? So how do you propose that we does that?’

  ‘How about releasing Browne and following him until them three comes after him?’ Giles suggested, and Tom smirked as he looked pointedly at Giles’s groin. ‘You keen to get your nuts kicked again? And you were lucky you didn’t finish up with anything worse than that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you was living inside my hose this morning,’ Giles joked with a grimace, ‘and as for anything worse, you may have noticed how I dealt easy with that sword what you’re still wearing.’

  ‘You’re not the only constable what’s disarmed a feller with a sword,’ Tom grunted, ‘and there’s a limit to the number of times you can get away with it. There’s only the two of us, and three of them, so let’s not set out to be heroes.’

  ‘Do you know any better way of finding them three?’ Giles challenged him, and Tom shook his head. ‘No, but I knows a safer way – we start searching the local stables for three horses what was delivered there some time on Sunday. And we can make a start on that before either of us even thinks of having dinner.’

  By the end of the morning they’d examined every stable on the south side of the town, but had found no trace of the three mounts that the ruffians accompanying Browne must have stabled. As they stood outside the last of them, they argued over whether they should keep going on the north side after dinner, but Tom was of the strong opinion that they should go back to The Bell and tackle Ted Hollins over his apparent knowledge that Ed Franklin hadn’t committed suicide.

  ‘We’d be just chasing our own tales round in circles,’ Giles objected. ‘We should stick to the one line of enquiry until we get answers, so I reckon that we should continue looking at stabl
es.’

  ‘And how well does you know the north side?’ Tom challenged him. ‘At least here in the lower town we knew where to look; for all we know there’s stables on the north side what we don’t even know about.’

  ‘All the more reason why we should be looking,’ Giles countered. ‘And how long before the Sheriff starts asking why we’re not doing something about them girls what’s been attacked?’

  ‘Like what?’ Tom demanded. ‘We’re not supposed to make up our own complaints, remember? We just has to arrest them what’s accused by others, and has any of them girls what reckons they was attacked come forward and made official complaints? They’re just rumours at the moment, and my wife Lizzie’s got more information about them than us.’

  ‘There’s one girl complained, according to the paper what were on my desk this morning,’ Giles advised him. ‘If I hadn’t spent the morning smelling horse muck with you, I’d have been dealing with it. Anyway, it’s time for dinner, so let’s meet back at the Guildhall after then, and see if you can come up with something better than staring at horses’ arses.’

  ‘Have you done owt about them girls what was attacked?’ Lizzie demanded as she served the pickled pork and cabbage. Tom shook his head.

  ‘Don’t you start – Giles has been rattling my ear about that half the morning,’ Tom complained. ‘And so he should,’ Lizzie fired back. ‘That’s what you gets paid for, isn’t it? What have you been doing, anyway?’

  ‘Searching all the stables south of the market for three horses, but we hasn’t found them yet,’ Tom grumbled, and Lizzie stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Two sworn Constables of the Peace, and even working together you couldn’t find just three horses in what must be eight or ten stables?’

  ‘Not just any old horses,’ Tom explained patiently. ‘Three horses what belong to the three fellers what attacked us in The Bell last night.’

  ‘So they can go for you again?’ Lizzie demanded with raised eyebrows. ‘And for all it’s worth, let me remind you that it’s not your job to go looking for offenders. You’re just supposed to lock them up when somebody else makes a complaint. Why is it you always has to try and go one better, and stick your nose in where it’s likely to get cut off?’

  Tom sighed. ‘We’ve had this conversation more than once, and the answer’s the same one as I’ve given you time after time. A lot more crimes gets properly solved if I asks a few important questions of people what can supply the answers, and I never takes somebody’s word for it without checking. Otherwise I’m no better than the Chief Turnkey.’

  ‘You never have got over how your Dad and brother died, have you?’ Lizzie enquired sympathetically as she placed a consoling hand on Tom’s head. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you gave that a rest?’

  ‘Never!’ Tom growled as he pushed his dinner plate away from him. ‘There’s nowt wrong with this dinner – I’m just not all that hungry, I’m afraid.’

  Down in the lower town, only yards from the Guildhall, Giles had a very healthy appetite as he sat on the bottom step of the plinth of the Weekday Cross that marked the boundary between Low and High Pavements. His lodging was only just across the road, above a baker’s shop from which he was in the habit of purchasing a freshly baked loaf from the second firing of the day, then selecting some fruit from the stall that was always positioned a few doors down, in front of the apothecary’s chambers. He’d then sit and watch the world go by, mentally noting who was going where, who was talking to who, who seemed furtive and who looked unusually wealthy, while he chewed enthusiastically on his dinner.

  He’d been doing this for the best part of two years, and it was by watching the comings and goings that he’d developed his enquiring nature, and his talent for reading peoples’ minds from their actions and facial expressions. He was happy to be working more closely with Tom, since he also seemed to have a taste for poking around in corners, and forming his own conclusions about crimes reported by others, rather than taking their word for it.

  But Giles was obviously not meant to enjoy a quiet dinner today, and he groaned as he heard the complaining yell from behind him, and turned to smile at Susan Coleridge as she bore down on him with a disgruntled look on her wind-browned face.

  ‘There you are, you useless piece of empty cheesecloth! Sitting on your lazy arse, instead of making sure that the streets is safe for decent honest girls like me! I just come from the Guildhall back there, wanting to know what’s being done about the feller what done me behind The White Boar, and I’m told that you and that other useless pisspot Tom Lincraft’s spent the whole morning admiring horses!’

  ‘Morning Susan,’ Giles smiled warmly once he’d cleared his mouth of the plum whose stone he hurled after a strutting pigeon in the road in front of him. ‘I read that note we was left about you being set upon last night, but we’ve been too busy investigating the death of Ed Franklin.’

  ‘He done himself in – everybody knows that,’ Susan objected as she plumped down beside him and placed a hand on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘But now that I’ve found you, don’t you want to know what happened?’

  ‘The note said you was ravished,’ Giles replied with a slight smirk, ‘and I think I knows how that were done. If you tell me who done it, I’ll have him taken in, then put him on the list for the next Assize.’

  ‘He didn’t give me his name, nor – so far as I recall from our brief acquaintance - did he tell me where he lives,’ Susan replied caustically. ‘He were a stranger, I think – at least, I’d never seen him before, and I hardly got a good look at him, since he had me from behind, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘And where were this, exactly?’ Giles enquired, genuinely sympathetic, since Susan was not one of the town doxies who probably deserved every perverted act inflicted on them.

  ‘Out the back of The White Boar,’ Susan advised him indignantly. ‘I’d gone there with brother Jack and his wife Sarah, after we’d spent the day working in them fields out Sneinton way what’s owned by Earl Manvers. We’d all been paid for the day, and when we come back up through Fisher Gate we decided to have a small refreshment. Except it turned into a big one, then Sarah dragged Jack back home when he fell over through the ales he’d drunk, and that left me on my own.’

  ‘You should have left with them,’ Giles commented as he bit into another over-ripe plum. ‘A lass on her own isn’t safe in the likes of The White Boar,’ he added, and Susan smacked him across the bonnet.

  ‘D’you think I didn’t know that, you ninny? I weren’t that far gone, except I needed to do a tinkle before I set off home, so I nipped out the back into that there field where all the men goes to piss. They does it, so why shouldn’t lassies, when they’re caught short? Anyway, I’d just finished when this big bloke jumped on me from behind and did what I just told you.’

  ‘And you didn’t get a good look at him, you reckon?’ Giles enquired somewhat unnecessarily, and Susan tutted.

  ‘You wasn’t listening proper, was you? Or does I have to draw you a picture? He had me from behind, and not in the normal place for that sort of thing. And when I struggled he give me these here bruises. All I can tell you is that he had a bald head – I felt that when I reached behind me to try and push him away. But he were too strong. And it were black as a pig’s arse out there, so I didn’t see owt else. But I think he might be the same feller what were inside the White Boar earlier, shouting the place down about the quality of the ale. He were right about that, but if it’s the same feller, he had a big scar down his face, like someone had tried ploughing it with a knife or something.’

  Giles was immediately all ears. ‘A big bloke with a bald head and a scar, you said?’

  ‘Yeah – d’you know him?’

  ‘Not as well as I’d like,’ Giles smiled back. ‘In fact I’d like to make his better acquaintance, although not quite in the same way that you did.’

  ‘This is nowt to laugh about!’ Susan complained. ‘And I’m not the first, neither. It�
�s being put about that Alice Winters were given a few bruises by the same feller the night before – after he’d done her, of course. But that were down the road a bit from The White Boar – an alleyway down Malin Hill where she’d taken him by way of business, if you follow me.’

  Giles had no difficulty following her. Alice Winters might be getting well past her prime, but she still earned a precarious living as a town doxie, and that might explain why she’d made no official complaint to the authorities. No-one was likely to believe the complaint of a whore that she’d been beaten black and blue by a ‘mark’, even though a physical beating was not one of the normal services impliedly offered by women of her sort. But at least Giles knew where she lived, and his lively enquiring brain was already buzzing, particularly when he remembered where he’d last seen her.

  ‘How d’you know it were the same feller?’ he demanded eagerly, and Susan smiled sardonically. ‘Taking more of an interest now, is you? How come you’re more interested once it’s a whore what got done, when you couldn’t be bothered when it were an honest girl like me?’ Giles gave her the benefit of a long leer.

  ‘I remember learning all about your honesty down in the Trent Meadows a couple of years back, so don’t give me that, Susan Coleridge.’ She giggled and smacked him playfully across the nose. ‘You’re obviously still a naughty boy, Giles Bradbury, and any time you wants to go back down into the Meadows, just let me know. But not ’til you finds that beast what likes it the other way. To judge by what he done to me and Alice, it’s only a matter of time ’til he kills someone.’

  ‘He may have done already,’ Giles replied darkly, ‘and it just so happens that I’m already looking for him in connection with another matter, so I’ll let you know when we find him, and then you can tell your story at the Assizes.’

  ‘Will I have to?’ Susan frowned. ‘It’s kind of embarrassing.’