‘I’ll go and see what he had.’
‘I can come with you,’ Josh offered quickly.
‘If you like.’
So that was the plan, he thought. Keep the lad close to him to help hold Wyatt at bay. Josh was willing enough, but he was too young, too slight. Wyatt was ruthless; the boy wouldn’t stand a chance.
On Vicar Lane the ample richness of the Vicar’s Croft gave way to smaller dwellings, the entrances to the courts like knife openings between houses. He let Josh lead the way, sliding down a small passage with snow hard underfoot, the walls of the buildings rough and dark against his shoulders.
‘Over there,’ Josh pointed. ‘Top floor.’
‘Are you coming in with me?’
‘I’ll wait out here.’
Nottingham nodded. The boy was taking his duty seriously, and he was glad about that. Josh was dedicated; he’d proved to be a good find.
Half the stairs were missing, making the ascent dangerous. The only light came through a single broken window on a landing, shards of glass on the wood covered with years of cobwebs and grime.
At the top a door had been forced off its hinges, hanging forlorn, awkward and broken. Nottingham gripped the knife in his pocket and eased his way through the gap.
Perhaps the room had been neat yesterday. Now, though, it was chaos. A chest had been broken open, the jaws of its lock gaping, the contents cast wide on the floor. The bedsheet had been cut, and the old straw of the mattress scattered.
Other than destruction and violence, there was little to see. A six-pointed star, beautifully carved from wood and polished, was nailed to the wall. The glass inside the tiny window was clean and clear.
So someone killed Isaac then came here looking for something, he thought. He walked the room, five paces by four, inspecting the floorboards to see if any were loose, looking for any hiding place. There was nothing.
No papers, no memories. Isaac was dead and there were no anchors of his life here. A few clothes, worn but carefully cleaned, a spare pair of shoes. But what did any poor man have to leave behind besides debt and despair?
He turned, ready to leave, and was shocked to see an old woman standing in the doorway. For a moment he thought the stories were true after all, that the ghost did walk. She was so frail as to be insubstantial, and he wondered if he blinked whether she’d be gone. Then he saw her eyes, blue, sightless, and knew she was very real.
Her back was as straight as a girl’s, her wrists as thin as wire, her clothes fashionable three decades earlier but cared for, the apron and cap starched crisp and white.
‘So you thought you’d rob him, too.’ Her voice was firm, unwavering. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’
No, he thought with admiration, you’re afraid of nothing.
‘Mistress, I’m the Constable of Leeds,’ Nottingham introduced himself.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she asked, and he saw her hand tremble before she clutched her dress. ‘I thought he must be when he didn’t come home. He always came home. And I knew it when the others came.’
‘The others?’
She answered his question with one of her own. ‘Did they kill him?’
‘I suspect they did,’ he told her.
‘There were two of them. I live under here. I heard their footsteps and their voices during the night. They woke me. By the time I could dress and get up here, they’d gone. Was he murdered?’
‘Yes,’ Nottingham told her. ‘I’m sorry.’ That was why he’d never heard her. She was intimate with this place and moved silently, knowing each inch.
‘They were looking for his gold. Not that there was any to find. Isaac was as poor as me. Look around, you can see that, can’t you?’
‘I can,’ he agreed.
‘But people think, he’s a Jew, he must have a fortune hidden away.’ He could hear her bitterness. ‘We ate together. He cooked for me, he gave me clothes.’
‘He was a good man,’ was all Nottingham could say. ‘Did you hear anything these men said?’
She stayed perfectly still. Only fury and sorrow were stopping her vanishing before his eyes, he thought.
‘Not the words.’
‘But?’ He could sense there was more.
‘The tone. They were young. There was money in their voices.’
‘I see.’ He walked across the room, careful to avoid what was left of the things here, the detritus of Isaac’s life. Gently he took her hand, her skin like aged vellum under his fingertips. The texture reminded him of Wyatt’s book and he let go quickly.
‘What was he like?’ Nottingham asked.
‘Like?’ She turned into his words, and he was disconcerted to see blind eyes looking up at him. ‘He was a good man, just as you said.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘He kept his faith when most would have given up. Do you know, ten years ago he walked to London and back because they have a synagogue there — that’s where the Jews pray. When he returned he seemed to sparkle for a while.’
‘How old was he?’ Nottingham asked her. She shrugged briefly.
‘He thought he might be seventy, but he didn’t really know. He always said he was a man who walked across the world. He was a boy when he saw his family killed. He never even knew why it had happened. After that he just began walking.’
‘And ended up here.’
‘Eventually.’ She smiled wanly. ‘It took him many years. He had plenty of stories to pass the evenings.’
‘How long did you know him?’
‘Longer than I’ve known anyone.’ Her hand clutched his, her fingers surprisingly strong. ‘It wasn’t long enough. He should have lived for a long time yet.’
‘Yes,’ Nottingham agreed soberly, ‘he should. What’s your name? In case I need to talk to you again.’
‘Hannah. Hannah MacIntosh. My family came down from Scotland when I was small.’ She allowed herself a small, quavering smile. ‘So I know about wandering, too. I was born blind, just in case you were wondering. But I’ve learned to see in other ways.’
‘Can I do anything to help you?’
She shook her head. ‘No need for that. I’ll manage. But thank you, Constable.’
He left her standing at the entrance to the room and made his way gingerly down the stairs, not daring to look back lest he’d imagined her.
Josh waited in the court, idling against the wall.
‘His room’s been ransacked. I saw the woman who lives in the room below. She heard two young men.’ He decided not to mention the idea of a wealthy family. ‘I couldn’t find his pack there or near the body, so someone has that. They’ll probably try to sell the clothes.’
Josh nodded his understanding.
‘Get out there, start looking, talk to people. They’ll help. Isaac was well-liked.’
The boy hesitated and Nottingham took him by the arm.
‘I know John told you to look after me, but we have work to do.’ His face softened. ‘Don’t worry, I can look after myself if Wyatt comes for me. Now go on, let’s find whoever killed Isaac.’
Josh took off at a run, with all the energy of youth. Nottingham pulled up his coat collar against the cold and made his way through the ice and snow.
At the jail, Sedgwick was sitting behind the desk, his face dark and sober. As the Constable entered, he stood, the chair scraping back loudly on the flagstones.
‘Boss-’
‘You saw Isaac’s body?’
‘Boss.’ There was foreboding, warning, in his voice.‘Rushworth,’ he said.
Nottingham closed his eyes and felt the world explode. He’d become distracted; for a few hours he’d forgotten about the clerk.
‘Is he here yet?’
‘In the cold cell with Isaac.’
He walked through slowly, knowing what he’d find but hoping to put off the moment, to make it wait forever. The deputy followed, a lit candle in his hand.
‘Where was he?’
‘Down by the river. Close to where I found Graves.’
> So this was Ralph Rushworth, he thought. He made a small corpse, with a bare, concave chest. His white breeches were dusty and dirty, stained with piss at the crotch. Nottingham stared down into the face. The features were tight, compact, the mouth drawn back over yellowed teeth, the nose long and bulbous at the tip. He lifted the right hand, light, almost weightless in death. The fingers were deep-stained with ink, calloused from years of holding a quill, nails bitten down roughly and rimmed with dirt. Just another clerk, with nothing to distinguish him from hundreds of others besides a few words spoken years ago in court.
He pushed the corpse on to its side. The skin had been neatly taken off the back, removed in a single sheet. What remained was livid and bloody, the body within no longer contained. Like Samuel Graves. This is the way they’ll find me in time, Nottingham thought, if Wyatt has his way. He lowered Rushworth again.
‘Anything by the body?’
‘There was a set of scuffed footprints down from the bridge,’ Sedgwick answered with a shrug. ‘For what that’s worth. No blood, nothing else.’
‘Just one set? No sign he’d dragged Rushworth?’
‘Only one,’ the deputy confirmed. ‘I’d just left home when a lad came and grabbed me. They’d gone down there for a snowball fight and seen him.’
‘None of the night men saw anything?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Sorry, boss.’
Nottingham turned to look at the deputy.
‘Two corpses in one night,’ he said sardonically. ‘Spring must be here.’
‘Isaac. . any idea who killed him yet?’ Sedgwick asked.
‘Two of them, by the sound of it. He was up on Lands Lane, by the orchard. They ransacked his room, too.’
‘So they’d been watching him.’
‘Seems like it.’
And we failed him. We failed both of them, he thought. We can’t keep people alive. If the weather doesn’t claim them, sickness does. If not that, then it’s a knife or a blow. They all die, and we can’t stop it. He felt as if the cold was seeping through his flesh and deep into his heart.
‘We can’t do anything more here. Let’s go into the warmth.’
He put more coal on the fire, thinking as the blaze began to take hold.
‘Get the men out and question people as they cross the bridge later. Someone will remember one man carrying another in this weather.’
‘I’ve already got two of them asking around,’ Sedgwick told him.
Nottingham smiled. ‘I’m sorry. You know what to do. But get down there yourself. You’re smarter than they are. You know what to ask, and how to listen. Even a good description of Wyatt would be something.’ The Constable continued, ‘Josh is looking into Isaac’s murder.’
‘We’ll get Wyatt, boss.’
‘Will we get him in time, though?’ He sat down and ran a hand through his hair. ‘You’d better put a closer watch on the judge, too.’
‘And what about you? Who’s going to watch you?’
Nottingham smiled slightly.
‘You tried that with Josh. We don’t have the men for it. I’m ready for Wyatt if he comes.’ He paused and corrected himself. ‘When he comes.’
‘Boss.’
He looked up and saw the anguish on Sedgwick’s face. The deputy began to pace.
‘I’ve never gone against you, have I?’
‘No, John, you haven’t,’ the Constable said mildly.
‘Do you want to get yourself killed?’
‘No.’ Even as he answered, he considered the question. A month ago, even a week ago, he might not have cared. Now that he’d felt Mary’s touch again, seen Emily smile, life had the possibility of becoming liveable again. ‘No, believe me, I want to stay alive.’
‘Then why won’t you let me put a couple of the men on you? It could make all the difference.’
‘Because. .’ Nottingham began. If he was going to be abruptly honest, there was little reason beyond his pride. He needed to show he was better than a murderer, however wily the killer might be. ‘Who do we have who wouldn’t be spotted in a minute by Wyatt? Apart from Josh.’
‘No one,’ the deputy admitted reluctantly.
‘We’ve got men on the judge, we have men looking for Wyatt, Josh is out hunting for Isaac’s killer. We just don’t have enough people. Certainly not enough good people.’
‘I know.’
‘Go back to the bridge. See if the men have heard anything, and start asking some questions. If we can learn something, if we can take Wyatt soon, none of this will matter.’
Sedgwick nodded briefly, an agreement and an admission of defeat.
Alone, Nottingham penned a brief new report about the two murders. He knew that the Mayor would only be concerned with one of them, and then only for the murderer, not the victim.
He gathered up the paper and went out into the thin, angry cold to deliver it. As he passed the White Swan a figure emerged from the shadow of the door. His coat collar was turned up high, the hat pulled down to protect him from the weather.
As he passed the Constable he stumbled and slid on the ice, arms flailing for support, then grabbing Nottingham’s coat. The Constable felt panic soar through his body. He’d let his guard fall. He couldn’t react, couldn’t reach his knives. Christ, this was Wyatt.
Sixteen
The man hissed two words — ‘For Isaac’ — righted himself and strode on quickly. For all the world it was an incident of the weather.
Nottingham turned back to the jail, bile rising in his throat. His hands were shaking, his back coated with a clammy sheen of sweat. He steadied himself against the wall for a moment, glad of the crude, real feel of the stone against his palm.
Inside, away from eyes that might see too much, he reached into his pocket and removed the scrap of paper that Hawthorn the Peacher had put there.
‘The Henderson brothers’ were the only words.
He breathed slowly, feeling his heartbeat slowly calm as he paced the floor. God save me, he thought. How could he have been so stupid? A moment was all it ever took. Any stranger, any man, could be Wyatt. He drank some ale from the mug on the desk, gulping at it greedily, waiting until the fear had all drained out of him. Then he looked at the paper again.
The Henderson brothers. Peter and Paul. It made sense, he thought, terrible, awful sense. For the last three years they’d felt themselves above the law of ordinary men. They’d swaggered around the city as if they felt it owed them everything, that it was theirs to claim.
He’d had them in the jail at least a dozen times, accused of theft, beatings, even rape on two occasions. But their longest stay had been overnight. The accusations had always been withdrawn. It was all a mistake, he’d be told; the wrong men identified, no crime really committed. Then he’d been forced to release them, impotent as he watched them leave the jail with the smirks wide on their privileged faces.
Their father was Alderman Henderson, a wool merchant who’d been on the Corporation for more years than Nottingham could recall. A man of influence, a man with money, who’d spend it to keep legal stains from the family name.
Nottingham was sure the man knew the truth about his sons. But to admit it would mean admitting his failure with them. So each time they were arrested the family lawyer came scurrying. He jingled money in his purse, the walls of power were quickly thrown up, and the law was turned away empty-handed. It was the cobweb justice that prevailed throughout the land. The small were caught fast, helpless. Those who were bigger simply broke their way through.
Murder, though, was something else. If he could find the proof, Peter and Paul might yet dance on the gibbet. And he’d make an enemy for life on the Corporation.
It wasn’t what he’d expected from Peacher Hawthorn, but he was glad to have the names. Now Nottingham had to do his job and find evidence strong enough to convict. At least there’d be plenty willing to talk against them; Isaac had been well-respected in Leeds. The Hendersons’ ways might have bought them sycophants
, fearful of their arrogance, but they had precious few friends.
To start, he’d bring them down here, a duty he’d relish. Let them see he knew the truth and was going to prove it. He locked the jail behind him, eyes taking in the faces on Kirkgate, straining at the shadows. His right hand was in his pocket, fist close around the knife hilt. He’d been given a warning, and he knew better than to trust to luck to keep him alive.
The return of the bitter weather kept the streets quieter than usual. Carters were reluctant to risk their valuable horses on the slick ice of the roads. Men trod carefully, their heads down. At least the city smelt clean in the cold, all the usual stinks of shit, piss and life buried away under snow and ice.
As he made his way down to the bridge he stayed aware of others, where they walked, how close they came. But if he wasn’t going to accept one of the men following him, this was how it would have to be. Constantly aware, constantly ready.
Nottingham only let himself relax when he saw Sedgwick. He was questioning a man with a heavy pack on his back, pointing down at the riverbank. The man rested the weight on the stone parapet of the bridge for a moment, his eyes looking up at the deputy intently, then shaking his head. He stood slowly, shifting his body forward to settle the large bundle, then trudged on into the city.
‘Anything, John?’
‘Bugger all so far.’ Sedgwick rubbed his hands together to warm them, then spat in disgust. ‘You’d think Wyatt was invisible.’
‘I can give you a little joy, at least.’
‘Oh?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘The Henderson brothers for Isaac. The Peacher passed me the word.’
The deputy started to smile, then looked suddenly dubious. ‘You think we can make it stick?’
‘If we can find the evidence, yes. Then even the alderman won’t be able to buy them off the scaffold. Want to come up and help me bring them to the jail?’
Sedgwick grinned.‘I think you’ve just made me a happy man, boss.’
The alderman’s house stood close to the top of Briggate, above the market cross, near to the Head Row. It was an old place, he knew that, but Nottingham had no idea how long it had stood there. The wood of the frame was dark with age, the limewash still bright and fresh after being renewed the year before. Inside, he knew, the rooms were filled with dark wood and hardly any light. It might be ancient, but there was precious little beauty about it.
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