The Devil's Monk

by Sara Fraser

  Tom took up the paper, unfolded it and read with instant unease.

  ‘CAPTAIN SWING WARNS THAT ANY FARMER OR CONTRACTOR WHO THIS YEAR USES A MACHINE TO THRESH THE GRAIN HARVESTS WILL REAP HIS OWN RUINATION. BEWARE THE DAGGER.’

  ‘Last evening I dined with my friend, the Lord Goodericke, and he informed me that this filth was plastered all over Studley Parish days since! Why have you not reported this outrage to me, Potts?’ Aston challenged furiously.

  Tom chose his words with care. ‘Because, My Lord, I’ve had no reports of any such notices as this one being discovered in the Tardebigge Parish. Personally, I think it unlikely that there will be any “Threshing Machine” wrecking or other such related offences committed in this parish. Should there be, then of course I’ll do my utmost to bring the perpetrators to justice.’

  Aston slowly shook his head and gritted between clenched lips. ‘Oh, no, there’s no “should there be” about it. What you will do at this very moment is to abandon any further investigation into the death of this tramper woman and the old pauper and devote all your time and energies into working with the Warwickshire Constables to capture this “Captain Swing” and his fellow ruffians, and bring them before us.’

  Loudly grunting, he struggled to his feet then turned his back on Tom and requested Joseph Blackwell. ‘Will you please inform the Gentlemen of the Vestry that I and the Lord Goodericke have jointly authorized the constables of both counties to have powers of arrest across both counties.’ He bowed. ‘I bid you Good Day, Blackwell.’

  Blackwell stood up and returned the bow. ‘Good Day, My Lord. Be assured that your instructions will be followed to the letter.’

  Knowing from past experience the futility of protest, Tom stayed silent as Aston stamped out.

  Blackwell swung to face Tom and a wintry smile briefly curved his thin lips.

  ‘As the owner of several tenanted farms, and a fervent advocate of the use of these threshing machines, His Lordship naturally has cause for alarm about “Captain Swing”. But until “Captain Swing” actually breaks a threshing machine in this parish, just concentrate on investigating your current cases. I will deal with My Lord Aston’s fears for his farming profits.’

  Before Tom could react, Blackwell waved his hands in dismissal and ordered sharply, ‘Not a word, Constable! Go away! I have urgent work to catch up on. Go away!’

  He pulled on his spectacles and bent his head to study the open ledger on the desk before him.

  Tom exited the Red House suffused, as on many previous occasions, with an intense warmth of personal appreciation and liking for Joseph Blackwell. For whose powers of intellect and worldly wise shrewdness he held great respect.

  As he walked back towards the market, Tom considered the implications of Lord Aston’s present actions and what it would mean for his present ongoing investigations. His confidence of success suddenly soared, he smiled grimly and thought: You have unwittingly done me a good service after all, My Lord Aston, to gain me Powers of Arrest throughout Warwickshire. It will save me a deal of difficulties in investigating across the border.

  THIRTEEN

  It was ten o’clock and the market crowd was rapidly diminishing. Tom was making a patrol of the dark streets and alleys around the Green. The inns, taverns and alehouses were filled with payday revellers, but the day and evening had passed peaceably and Tom had encountered no excessive noise or disturbance.

  Then a sudden cry of pain caused him to look about and see some distance away, dimly lit by the lamplight from a tavern window, a man in a white smock and broad-brimmed slouch hat punching a woman in her face as passers-by made no effort to intervene.

  She cried out again and fell back against the tavern wall, crouching and covering her face with both hands as the man turned and walked away.

  Tom hurried towards them, shouting at the retreating man. ‘You there, in the white smock, hold fast!’

  The man kept on walking and Tom shouted again. ‘I’m the constable, and I’m ordering you to stop there in the King’s Name!’

  The man halted and half-turned to face Tom, who beckoned and shouted, ‘Get back here to me.’

  The man slowly raised the forked fingers of his right hand in the ancient archers taunt of contemptuous defiance. He then turned and ran; none of the onlookers moved to stop him.

  Tom reached the sobbing woman and told her, ‘You needn’t be fearful of me. I’m the constable and I’m here to protect you from that man. Are you badly hurt?’

  With her hands still covering her face, the woman abruptly collapsed at his feet.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ Tom gasped in dismay, and for brief seconds was torn between pursuing the assailant or aiding the woman. The dark blood oozing out between her clutching fingers decided his quandary. She could be sorely hurt. He’d have to go after that bastard later.

  He went down on his knees beside the woman, laid his staff aside and pulled at her wrists, telling her gently, ‘You must let me see your wounds, my dear.’

  He drew her hands away from her face and gouts of blood came out of her smashed nose. Tom took a handkerchief from his pocket and she cried out in agony as he pressed it against the wound. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but I must staunch the blood.’

  She sagged limply into semi-consciousness. Keeping the pressure on the handkerchief with one hand, Tom lifted his staff from the ground and rapped its crowned head against the framework of the tavern window from where lamp-light shone and sounds of voices and laughter came.

  He kept rapping several times until a man he recognized as the tavern keeper came out from the door, shouting angrily, ‘What the fuck’s going on here? Who’s trying to smash me fuckin’ windows?’

  Then he recognized Tom and noticed the woman. ‘Oh, it’s you, Master Potts. What’s amiss with the wench?’

  ‘A man’s just beaten her badly,’ Tom told him. ‘Was she drinking with him in your house?’

  ‘Well, this wench and man, whoever they might be, warn’t in my house!’ the keeper declared indignantly. ‘I don’t never allow any rows or knocking about o’ wenches. I keeps a respectable establishment, I does!’

  ‘I know you do, Master Worrell,’ Tom snapped impatiently. ‘Now, please! Can you get me some help to carry this poor woman to Doctor Laylor’s house?’

  ‘Well, if you’d had the sense to ask me that in the first place I’d have already got help for her.’ Worrell snorted irately, hurried back into the tavern and reappeared brief moments later with a group of men who were carrying a long table.

  ‘This ’ull serve to carry her on.’ Worrell took command, issuing curt orders: ‘Lift her gently, lads! That’s it! Lay her down gentle now. That’s it! Timmo, you keep this towel pressed down on her nose. Now take a corner each, and you and you take the sides! Lift careful now! Head for Doctor Laylor’s house! Quick march! Keep the bloody step, will you, Gerry! Youm causing the bloody table to rock too much.’

  Tom had been taken aback by the tavern keeper’s instant assumption of command and was standing motionless as the men stepped off.

  ‘Am you coming with us, Constable Potts? Or am you going to just stand there bloody gawping while we does all your bloody work for you?’ Worrell shouted back over his shoulder.

  ‘I’m coming with you, Master Worrell,’ Tom hastily replied, and hurried after the small cortège, whose numbers were rapidly increasing as the onlookers hastened to follow it – one of whom was Judas Benton.

  FOURTEEN

  Sunday, 26 July, 1829

  ‘Tom? What’s this I find? Sleeping on sentry duty is a serious offence, and you could well be shot for it!’ Hugh Laylor laughed accusingly.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Tom cried out in shock, propelled himself from the wooden armchair in which he had passed a very uncomfortable night and rushed to the side of the blanket-shrouded girl laid on the dissecting table in Hugh Laylor’s dispensary.

  Relief flooded through him to see her chest rising and falling, and hear the throaty breaths coming from he
r open mouth.

  ‘Oh, Hugh, I can’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes,’ he claimed shamefacedly. ‘I could see the dawning through the window and was telling myself that in a few more minutes there’d be daylight enough to enable me to douse the lamp.’

  ‘As there is now.’ His friend grinned and moved to extinguish the oil-lamp. ‘Don’t berate yourself, Tom. It’s not yet six o’clock so you can only have dropped off for a minute or so.’

  He came to bend over the girl and fingered the thick plaster cast which bisected her badly swollen face. ‘Though I say it myself, Tom – I’ve done a very neat piece of work here. With any luck her nose won’t be too grotesquely deformed.’

  She groaned and stirred and Laylor nodded with satisfaction. ‘See that, Tom. I also judged the opium measure exactly. She’ll be wide awake very shortly and you’ll be able to question her.’

  As he spoke his middle-aged housekeeper entered, carrying a tray which was laden with a steaming mug of coffee, freshly baked rolls and a large platter of ham and eggs.

  ‘Good Morning, Master Tom.’ She greeted him with a motherly smile. ‘Now you get this lot down you afore it gets cold.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mistress Blakely, this is most kind of you.’ Tom smiled.

  She set the tray down on the small table against one of the walls and pulled a stool before it. ‘Come on, now. Sit down this very second and start eating.’

  ‘You’d best do as she says, Tom.’ Laylor frowned in mock-warning. ‘Or she’ll blame me for keeping you from your breakfast.’ He assumed an air of self-pity and bemoaned, ‘And to think that I used to be her favourite Gentleman until you came into my life and she switched her affections to you.’

  The woman laughed fondly as she bustled out. ‘You’re still my favourite, Master Hugh, but you’ll just have to get used to Master Tom being my other equal favourite, won’t you.’

  When Tom sat down at the table the scents of the food filled his nostrils and kindled a sharp appetite for what would be the best meal he had eaten for days. Within scant time he had devoured all of its components and was savouring the final taste of the coffee.

  ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ Hugh Laylor grinned.

  Tom nodded. ‘I certainly did. It’s the best meal I’ve eaten since Amy …’ Without warning, the impact of losing her suddenly overwhelmed him afresh and he fell silent, his head bent.

  Laylor grimaced sympathetically and, realizing the futility of mouthing comforting platitudes to ease his friend’s sadness, said instead, ‘I have to go without delay and treat a patient who needs my attention, Tom, so I’ll leave this young woman with you. She’ll be wide awake and in her full senses any moment now, and then you’ll be able to question her to your heart’s content.’

  As Laylor had hoped, Tom thankfully seized on this distraction from his own bleak thoughts and stood up. ‘It’ll be fine, Hugh. You get along now.’

  Shortly after Laylor’s departure the girl moved restlessly and groaned.

  Tom went to her side and saw that her badly swollen eyes had opened into narrow slits.

  ‘Be easy, my dear,’ he told her gently. ‘You’re safe here and your injuries are not life-threatening. Your nose has been broken, but the doctor has reset it and the swelling will soon subside.’

  She pushed her covering blanket down, lifted her hands to her face and questioned hoarsely, ‘What’s this on me head?’

  ‘It’s the protective plaster over your nose. Don’t try to move it because it will ensure that as your nose heals it will retain its shape.’

  ‘What’s this place? How did I come here?’ she wanted to know.

  He explained fully, and then asked her, ‘What’s your name, my dear, and where do you live?’

  ‘Ermmm … erm … ermmm.’ She seemed confused, before blurting, ‘Smith! That’s me name! Smith! I’m Brummagem born and bred, and I’m looking for work and lodgings!’

  ‘And your first name, your Christian name, what’s that?’ Tom pressed.

  ‘Carrie,’ she answered immediately.

  ‘Well, Miss Carrie Smith, if you’ll tell me your parents’ address I can take the necessary steps to inform them of what has happened to you,’ Tom offered.

  ‘No! I won’t!’

  Her blurted refusal shocked Tom. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Me dad’s dead! He’s from Brummagem, born and bred, and he’s dead!’

  ‘And the name of the man who hurt you?’ Tom countered.

  ‘Ermmmm … ermmmm.’ Again her reaction was seemingly confusion. Then she suddenly cried out and, casting the blanket aside, levered herself off the dissecting table, wailing desperately, ‘I needs to shit! I needs to go to the privy right now! Where’s the privy, Master? I’m shitting meself! I can feel it coming!’

  Reacting automatically, Tom pointed at the door set in the outer wall of the room. ‘That door opens on to the garden, and the privy is down at the far end of it.’

  ‘Ohhh, I’m shitting meself. It’s coming out o’ me arse!’ she wailed frantically, and before Tom could say anything more she had gone through the door and was running down the garden path.

  Tom went to Mrs Blakely, who was in the kitchen. ‘The young woman has had to rush to the privy, Mrs Blakely.’ He hesitated a moment after informing her of this before adding delicately, ‘From what she was saying, I think that she may have need to cleanse her nether regions after using it. I need to supply her with the means to do so.’

  ‘Don’t you moither about supplying her with what she might be needing, Master Tom. That’s no task for a fine Gentleman like yourself. I’ll take her down the necessaries.’ The housekeeper grimaced disparagingly. ‘But truth to tell, from what I’ve seen and smelled of her since she’s been in this house, I don’t think she’s come from a family that bothers much with any cleansing after they’ve been to the privy.’

  She collected a bucket of water, a piece of rag and a strip of towelling, while Tom returned to the dissecting room.

  Some time elapsed before Mrs Blakely came to tell him: ‘There’s no sign of that young wench, Master Tom. She wasn’t in the privy and I’ve looked all over the garden and around the house, but nothing. She’s scarpered!’

  ‘Ohh, Jesus!’ Tom exclaimed in dismay and, snatching up his tall top hat and staff, hurried out, telling the housekeeper, ‘I’m going to search for her, Mrs Blakely. I think she must have gone over the rear fence, because I would have noticed if she’d come back this way.’

  Mrs Blakely called after him: ‘If she’s gone through the Rough then you’re wasting your time looking for her, Master Tom. She could have gone in any direction and you won’t be able to see which.’

  He went to the end of the garden and climbed over the fence. Even as his feet touched down on the steeply sloping, thickly bushed wasteland, Tom accepted the truth of the housekeeper’s words. She’s right! he thought. There’s no way of telling if the girl has gone uphill, downhill or straight ahead.

  The fact that it was so early on a Sabbath morning meant that it was unlikely there would be anyone out on the Rough who might have seen the runaway. No urchins playing or adults walking. No pig-keepers bringing their swine to root for food, no owners exercising their pets or working animals.

  He stood deep in thought, carefully evaluating the verbal exchanges he had had with the young girl. Her accent was that of a girl born and bred in the Needle District, not a native of Birmingham, he thought, but why should she lie about her origins, and then run away from me? What mischief has she been up to, perhaps in company with the man who beat her so brutally? Well, there’s one way to find that out, isn’t there!

  He climbed back over the fence, went into the house and requested Mrs Blakely.

  ‘Please tell Master Hugh what’s happened, Ma’am, and that I’ll speak with him later this week.’

  Then he went to seek out an old acquaintance.

  Tom walked quickly up the Silver Street, ignoring the hostile stares and gibes t
hat greeted his passing and taking care to avoid treading through the worst of the thickly strewn fetid filth and rancid puddles of sewage. At its southern end the alley terminated in a rectangular square surrounded by ramshackle hovels and a few equally ramshackle larger buildings, the most dominant of which was an ancient, four-storied, one-time residence of a wealthy Gentleman. Now it was known far and wide as Mother Readman’s Lodging House, and for a wide variety of unprivileged humankind served either as transient or permanent lodgings.

  As Tom walked towards its portico entrance, Mother Readman, six feet tall, raw-boned and hatchet-faced, clad in a man’s caped greatcoat and wide-brimmed slouch hat, was standing there smoking a long churchwarden pipe.

  ‘Good Morning, Constable Potts. I hope you aren’t come here to lock up any o’ my regular lodgers?’

  ‘Indeed no, Mother Readman.’ Tom smiled warmly. He had both respect and liking for this tough, formidable woman who ruled her house with an actual rod of iron, as many a troublemaker had found out to their painful cost …

  ‘I’m seeking Corporal George Maffey, late of the Thirty-second Foot.’

  ‘And I’m waiting here for that very same bloke. He’s gone to fetch me a drop o’ fresh milk from Taffy Morgan’s dairy. What does you want with him?’

  ‘The very same that I will be asking from yourself, Ma’am.’

  She grinned, displaying widely gapped, decayed teeth. ‘That’ll be information then.’

  ‘Indeed it will, Ma’am.’ He grinned back.

  ‘So tell me and then bugger off, because having you here aren’t good for my trade.’

  He quickly told her about the assault on the young girl. ‘She’ll be easy to spot by the plaster on her face. I want to know her name and where she might be living. I’d also like to know the same about the animal who served her so brutally. Incidentally, her Christian name may be Carrie, which was the only thing she told me without any hesitation. I’ll pay you, of course, and you know full well that no one will ever find out my source of that information.’