by Sara Fraser
‘Fuck off, Jack Sprat! Fuck off, Jack Sprat! Fuck off, Jack Sprat!’
Others shouted threats of physical assaults.
Tom hid his apprehension of this threatened violence, made a dignified withdrawal from the room and walked away to try elsewhere.
Four alehouses, two inns and four taverns later, he was losing hope, and then in the distance saw a red-coated figure.
‘Thank you, God!’ he breathed in gratitude and broke into a run, shouting, ‘Corporal Maffey! Stand fast, Corporal Maffey!’
The man’s eyes were wary until Tom explained his need of help, and offer of payment.
Maffey saluted smartly. ‘Give me your orders, Sir.’
Back at the Lock-Up, it took all of their combined strength to drag the coffin from the cell and lift it on to the handcart.
As on so many previous occasions during his life, Tom was sadly conscious of his lack of physical prowess. Now he was doubting his capability to push this load the considerable distance to the Old Monks Graveyard, or to control it on the steep descent of the Fish Hill.
Maffey was also conscious of Tom’s lack of physical prowess, and he offered, ‘I’ll help you bury this poor wench, and I want no payment for it, Sir. I’m doing for the memory o’ some old comrades in the wars, who never had anybody find where they fell and give them a Christian burial. God pity ’um!’
Tom was deeply moved by his companion’s words. ‘This is a truly kind gesture you’re making, Corporal Maffey, and I’ll consider it an honour to have you beside me.’
With Tom in the front shafts of the handcart and George Maffey pushing on its rear, they set out from the Lock-Up and almost immediately attracted attention. Heads poked from windows and onlookers came out from doorways of the neighbouring buildings, some shouting.
‘Who’s that you got in there?’
‘Where you going with it?’
George Maffey called back to one persistent questioner, ‘It’s the murdered wench.’
This information spread like wildfire, and an excited crowd materialized with astonishing rapidity, clustering around the handcart, bringing it to a halt.
Tom, aware that the funeral cart from the Poorhouse must already be at the Old Monks Graveyard, told the blockers, ‘Parson Clayton is waiting at the graveyard for us. We need to be there as quickly as possible. Show some respect for this poor woman by clearing the way and letting us pass.’
On the roadway a large, high-roofed wagon had been forced to halt by the crowd and the young man sitting beside its driver jumped down and came forwards, asking, ‘What’s happening here?’
Eager voices quickly told him and he frowned. ‘Burying a murdered woman, you say?’
‘Ahr, so I does,’ his informant asserted. ‘Beat to death wi’ hammers so her was, nigh on a couple o’ weeks past, and left on a fuckin’ haystack down on Parkman’s farm.’
‘Beat to death with hammers?’ the young man exclaimed disbelievingly.
‘Yes. Her was all smashed to bits, and dressed in fuckin’ man’s clothes as well. Her own kin wouldn’t have known her!’
‘But surely someone has identified her?’
‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I! Nobody could say who her was! Her was too smashed up!’
‘But is it known who killed her?’
‘Oh, yes. It was the Devil’s Monk.’
The young man returned to the wagon and clambered on to his seat.
‘What’s happening then?’ the driver asked.
The young man frowned thoughtfully. ‘Only a pauper burial.’
The crowd had quietened and begun moving aside to clear the way for the handcart.
Then a woman shouted: ‘Come on, Girls, let’s take the poor wench down to her grave. Let’s see her buried proper, wi’ our prayers to help her get to heaven.’
Immediately women ran to help push and pull the handcart while others followed in procession behind it. As they passed the wagon the young man averted his gaze and his white teeth clamped hard on his lower lip. Then he abruptly told the driver: ‘I need to do an errand. You go on and I’ll follow later.’
He got down on to the roadway and waited while the wagon trundled onwards and its high bulk concealed him from the driver’s view. Then he turned and followed the funeral procession.
NINE
‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen.’ John Clayton intoned the final words of the burial ceremony.
‘Amen,’ the encircling crowd echoed.
There followed brief seconds of silence, and then a hubbub of chatter and laughter erupted as the crowd dissolved into segments channelling through the gated entrance of the graveyard.
‘I must leave, Tom. Else the funeral party at Tardebigge will be wondering where I’ve got to,’ Clayton said.
As they shook hands in parting, Hector Smout came to the graveside and started shovelling the earth down upon the coffins. The clods thumped hollowly upon the thin wooden planks and Smout winked broadly at George Maffey.
‘I’ll bet if you was a’laying down in that box now, with them noises banging in your ear’oles, you’d be fearing it was Old Boney’s cannon balls trying to blow you to bits, ’udden’t you, Soldier Boy?’
Maffey’s jagged stubs of blackened teeth bared in a savage grin. ‘Bloody hell, no! I’d be thinking how bloody lucky I was to have such a comfortable bed to lie in! All my mates that was killed in action or died o’ fevers was stripped jack-naked and slung into shit pits wi’ not even a scrap o’ rag wrapped round their bollocks. It’s only the officers who had nice coffins like this ’un to lay in, not the likes of us silly buggers.’
Smout cackled with appreciative laughter. ‘Well said, Soldier Boy. Youm a man after me own heart!’
Tom heard the exchange and recognized the underlying tones of bitter resentment against the social system which so grossly favoured those who were born into the higher social strata of his country. ‘I sometimes share that resentment,’ he conceded wryly.
George Maffey saluted him. ‘Shall we get on the march now, Sir?’
‘Indeed we will, Corporal Maffey. I’ll bid you Good Day, Master Smout, and say thank you once more for your help. I owe you a favour.’
‘Ahr, you does, Master Potts.’ Smout cackled with laughter. ‘And be sure I’ll bloody well claim it from you some day. Tarrah to you both.’
Tom and Maffey took a shaft each and trundled the handcart down the cottage-lined lane towards the turnpike road.
‘And how have you been faring since I saw you last, Corporal Maffey?’ Tom was genuinely interested to know.
‘Pretty well, Sir. Me and Mother Readman gets on like a house on fire, and I’ve been travelling around the Needle villages. There’s a fair few blokes hereabouts that took the King’s Shilling and saw some service and, although they aren’t got much themselves, they don’t begrudge an old comrade a bit o’ charity.’
‘Have you heard much talk about our woman?’ Tom enquired casually.
‘Oh, yes. I’m well known now as the bloke who found her, and it’s done me a power o’ good, I’ll tell you. It’s kept me well supplied wi’ food, drink and bacca.’
‘I don’t doubt that there are those who claim to know who she is, and who murdered her,’ Tom observed.
‘Oh, yes.’ Maffey grinned. ‘There’s been a few such.’
Tom grinned ruefully. ‘I’ve met more than a few of such, but none who could prove what they claimed.’
They returned the handcart to the Red House stables and parted.
Tom rang the bell of the house and the manservant opened the door to announce: ‘My Master is not here, Constable Potts. I don’t expect his return until late tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning.’
‘Very well,’ Tom accepted. ‘Would you please inform him on his return that the dead woman from the Lock-Up has been interred in the Old Monks Graveyard.’
The man nodded, the door closed
and Tom walked across the Green towards the Lock-Up. He could not stop himself from staring towards the Fox and Goose in the desperate hope that he might see Amy outside its door or leaning from an open window. But as always that hope was again in vain, and the now-familiar desolation of loss swept over him, depressing his spirits.
Inside the Lock-Up, Tom’s desolation deepened and, desperate to distract himself from his own thoughts, he fetched buckets of water from the pump, took a brush and rags and began to scrub the floors, starting up in the garret and working his way downwards.
The hard physical labour gradually achieved its purpose, and by the time he had finished the ground floor his spirits had lightened and the hope that he would one day be reconciled with Amy was again on the ascendant.
It was mid-afternoon when a hand tugged on the long, thin iron bell pull outside the front door and the bells on the ground and upper floors jangled furiously.
Tom went to the front door and opened it to be confronted by Hector Smout, who declared, ‘You’d best come along wi’ me this instant, Master Potts.’
‘What?’ Tom exclaimed.
Smout scowled impatiently. ‘Just come along wi’ me, will you.’
‘Where to?’ Tom demanded.
‘The Abbey meadows.’ Smout walked away, shouting back over his shoulder. ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Why should I?’ Tom demanded.
‘Because it looks like the bloody Devil’s Monk’s been up to his tricks again!’
‘Clear the way, you gawpin’ buggers, and let the dog see the rabbit!’ Hector Smout bellowed as he and Tom walked up to the small crowd clustered at the side of the hedge-bordered ditch.
‘Clear the way, will you!’
Muttering and scowling resentfully, men, women and children shuffled to make a passage for the newcomers to pass through.
Tom drew a sharp breath when he saw the body of Methuselah Leeson splayed face downwards on the bottom of the dry shallow ditch, a rusty hatchet cleaving the back of his skull. Tom scanned the faces around him, and questioned aloud, ‘Where is his wife?’
‘In her cottage being looked after by her neighbours,’ a woman answered. ‘Her’s gone mad wi’ grief. Bawling and shrieking and wailing that it was the Devil’s Monk what’s done this.’
‘It could be Nellie Leeson herself who did it! Her’s tried to do it enough times afore when her bloody temper’s up. Like a bloody mad thing sometimes, so her is,’ a grossly obese woman snapped.
‘Who found him here?’ Tom asked.
‘It was Nellie herself,’ Hector Smout informed. ‘Her come skreeking to me just when I was shaping the last bits on that fresh grave.’
‘Did any one of you see Master Leeson coming into this meadow, or meet with him anywhere earlier today?’
The replies were negatives, and there was the shaking of heads.
Tom stepped down into the ditch and bent over the dead man. He felt the body which still held a degree of warmth, and noted that blood was still seeping from the cloven skull and oozing down into the pooled blood Leeson’s face was pressing into.
He was unhappy about the presence of these unwelcome sightseers, knowing that they could well begin to assume that the killer of Leeson was the same individual who had murdered the haystack woman. If this happened he knew from past experience that they would then turn on him for his failure to catch that killer, and blame that failure for the death of Methuselah Leeson.
He thoughts raced, then he clambered from the ditch and addressed the crowd. ‘If you please, I would request you all, in the King’s Name, to spread out and search the ground for any traces of blood leading in this direction. By doing so you will be aiding this investigation to discover the perpetrator of this wicked crime, and bring that evil villain to justice.’
A hubbub of voices erupted as the more literate explained to the illiterate the meaning of words such as ‘request, investigation, perpetrator’. Tom waited tensely for some seconds, then a sudden tumult of excitement erupted and the crowd dissolved into individuals spreading out across the short-cropped grasses of the meadow.
Hector Smout winked broadly at Tom. ‘Youm a cunning ’un, aren’t you, Master Potts. You’ve got ’um all eating out o’ your hand, instead o’ wanting to tear out your innards and feed ’um to the dogs for not catching the Devil’s Monk.’
Tom smiled wryly. ‘Well then, Master Smout, could I cunningly persuade you to go up to the Red House, and ask leave on my behalf to borrow the handcart and a tarpaulin sheet. The sooner I get Master Leeson safely secured in the Lock-Up the better it will be for all.’
Hector Smout winked and grinned. ‘I’ll go up there directly, Master Potts.’
‘And you go with my very grateful thanks, Master Smout,’ Tom told him sincerely. ‘Once he is secure, I shall then call upon the Widow Leeson. I’m not relishing intruding upon her grief, but I’ve no choice in the matter.’
‘Would you be wanting us to go together and call on her, Master Potts? Only I’ve been a good neighbour o’ both of ’um for a good many years, and Nellie ’ull be easier for you to talk to from me being there wi’ you.’
‘I’ll be very grateful indeed if you will be so kind as to accompany me, Master Smout.’ Tom accepted instantly.
As Smout left, Tom got back down into the ditch and carefully searched through Leeson’s pockets but found them to be empty, with none of the varied oddments that all men usually carried about. I’ll need to ask his wife what he normally carried about with him, he thought, because empty pockets could mean this is just a case of opportunistic foot-padding.
There was also no crutch to be seen, but Tom remembered how the man had appeared to walk very well without it. He also noted that Leeson’s distinctive tasselled cap was missing and thought dismissively: It could be anywhere. No self-respecting footpad would bother to take a greasy old cap?
Next, Tom closely examined the embedded rust-corrugated hatchet. For several years he had been experimenting with the esoteric art of identification of hand and fingerprints, and had achieved some success. But he knew that the corrugations would prevent any identifiable prints being left on the handle of this tool.
Could this be the same one that Nellie Leeson was waving in my face? He made a mental note to ask the Widow Leeson to produce her own hatchet.
The searchers were now returning to report that they had found no signs of blood, and to ask Tom, ‘What’s you going to do with him?’
‘I’m going to take him up to the Lock-Up when Master Smout returns with a handcart.’
‘I’ll help you take him, and I don’t want nothing for it,’ one man offered, and others followed suit.
The thought of the long and very steep Fish Hill impelled Tom to immediately accept these second uncommon offers of willing assistance in the space of one day.
When Hector Smout returned, many hands helped to lift Methuselah Leeson out of the ditch, place him face downwards on the handcart and cover him with the tarpaulin sheet.
But the return journey to the Lock-Up quickly became an unpleasant running of the gauntlet for Tom. As always, gossip had spread like wildfire throughout the town and as the handcart group neared and passed Needle Mills and workshops the workers flocked out to line the route. Men doffed their hats and caps, women prayerfully clasped their hands, excited boys and girls were cuffed to respectful silence and hostile accusatory glares centred on Tom, who, in company with Hector Smout, was pulling on the cart’s front shafts.
‘I reckon a good few of this lot am blaming you for what happened to Methuselah, Master Potts. If looks could kill it’ud be you under this tarpaulin,’ Hector Smout muttered, and even as he mouthed the words a man shouted angrily: ‘If you’d done what youm paid to do, you lanky bleeder, and catched the Devil’s Monk, then the evil bugger couldn’t have murdered poor old Methuselah!’
Some bawled in agreement, then were shouted at by others to keep silent and show respect for the dead.
Tom gritted his
teeth, kept his eyes to the front and doggedly struggled on up the steep incline of the Fish Hill and along the Green, every step of the way lined with spectators.
By the time they reached the Lock-Up all of the handcart party were feeling the effects of their work. So after the dead man was securely locked into a cell, Tom thanked his helpers and refreshed them with jugs of ale from the cask in the kitchen alcove.
Hector Smout drew him away from the group and queried, ‘Does you still intend to question Nellie Leeson tonight? Only the poor old soul is in such a terrible state, I don’t reckon her ’ull be able to answer you wi’ any sense.’
Tom was torn between the lust of his aroused hunting instinct, which made him want to question the old woman without any further delay, and his natural pity for her present grief over her tragic loss. After brief seconds his pity won the day.
‘No, Master Smout, I’ll not be questioning the Widow Leeson tonight. Tomorrow afternoon will be soon enough. But I hope that you will still be able to keep company with me when I call on her?’
‘O’ course I shall. If I aren’t in the graveyard then I’ll be in me cottage waiting for you.’
The men finally left as night shadows were deepening. Tom locked and barred the door and took rueful stock of what that day had brought.
Depression once more overwhelmed him. ‘I’ve had enough bad news, and faced sufficient hostility and blame for one day.’ He climbed up the stairs to the garret, opened the iron-barred chest and took from it a long-kept bottle of brandy.
‘This will put me to sleep for a few hours, and be damned to the sore head and sick stomach when I wake.’
TEN
Tuesday morning, 21 July, 1829
Sitting hunch-shouldered on a low stool in the single-storied cottage, Nellie Leeson was telling her story to Tom Potts and Hector Smout.
‘Last thing Sunday night I was in our privy emptying me bowels afore going to bed, like I always does, and when I’d finished and come back in here he was nowhere to be seen.’