by Sara Fraser
‘That’ll be no problem for me, Master Parkman. I knows how to pick ’um and how to drive ’um,’ Styler affirmed confidently. ‘Usual offer, I take it. Top wages, with a fair bit extra if they works really well; plus we give them plenty o’ food, drink and a dry place to sleep in.’
Parkman grinned and winked broadly. ‘That’s it, Jared – promise the buggers the earth if needs be. We can settle any misunderstandings about their wages after the harvest is got in.’
Styler grinned and nodded. ‘That we can, Master Parkman, and I’m certain that we’ll win any arguments we might get into with any of ’um.’
‘Right then, that’s settled.’ Parkman handed Styler some coins. ‘Here’s some sweetener for you to use, and I’ll see you and the new gang at the farm tonight.’
The actual hiring was now steadily progressing, palms being spat on and loudly slapped between bargainers to seal agreements. The general atmosphere was becoming increasingly festive. As always at such gatherings, traders, pedlars and hucksters were displaying their assorted goods and artefacts. Food, drink and sweetmeat sellers were offering their refreshments. Fiddlers and drummers were playing. Balladeers were singing their songs of love and heartbreak. Broadsheet vendors were bawling dramatic news headlines.
‘DREADFUL MURDERS IN REDDITCH TOWN! THE DEVIL’S MONK RISEN FROM THE DEAD. A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG MAIDEN AND A FINE OLD GENTLEMAN SLAIN BY THE FIEND FROM HELL! READ ALL ABOUT IT FOR ONLY THREEPENCE!’
Tom was patrolling his allotted area of the lines when this hoarse bellowing sounded loudly in his ears. He turned, saw the vendor only yards distant and on impulse beckoned the man to him and purchased a broadsheet.
The front page of the flimsy doubled sheet of paper was covered in a crudely etched, black-and-white picture of a horned Devil, clad in in a monk’s habit, holding a woman’s dismembered head in his hands, which he was tearing the flesh from with his fanged teeth. The woman’s body was sprawled at his feet, entwined with the body of a man.
The other sides of the sheet were filled with the bloodcurdling testimonies of anonymous witnesses to the actual murders, who had themselves been pursued by the Devil’s Monk. These same witnesses also gave harrowing accounts of the terror which gripped the entire Needle District, and virulently criticized the failure of the Tardebigge Parish Constables and Magistrates to track down and capture the Devil’s Monk.
Tom, noting the printers were Solomons Bros., Birmingham, accepted that this nonsensical fabrication was standard practice in the production of broadsheets, and was resigned to the fact that he could expect a great many jeers and insults from its readers.
At the end of the line where Tom was standing, a young girl, her head covered and her features concealed by a voluminous shawl, came to an abrupt standstill as she sighted Tom’s motionless figure. Then she turned and walked rapidly away.
Dogging her progress, Judas Benton also sighted Tom and congratulated himself.
‘I’m bloody well right about this wench, aren’t I? She’s got something to hide all right, or else why should she shy away from bloody Potts like that?’
By noontime Jared Styler had recruited all but one of the Sickle Gang. He was very confident that his recruits would satisfy the needs of Andrew Parkman, but the single remaining recruit he now sought for was meant to satisfy his own personal needs rather than his employer’s.
‘Now then, Girl, what can you offer me in return for the very good wages I can offer you?’ Jared Styler smiled at the pretty young girl in the line before him.
‘What sort of work does you want me for?’ she questioned pertly.
‘Oh, just easy little odd jobs that might need doing, and I’ll show you how to do them if needs be.’
‘How many hours do I have to work a day?’
‘Five in the morning till sun down. An hour off for breakfast from eight till nine. Another hour off for dinner from one till two, and a fifteen-minute rest to drink your beer at four o’clock. Then work till dusk.’
‘And how much will a fine Gentleman like you be paying me for that?’ She smiled flirtatiously.
‘Whatever you proves to be worth.’ He chuckled. ‘And for a wench wi’ your good looks and spirit, I reckon it could be as much as a half-crown a day, plus plenty o’ good food and drink and a clean place to sleep.’
‘And whose harvest shall I be helping to get in?’
‘Master Andrew Parkman’s at Upper Bordesley Farm. I’m his Harvest Steward.’
‘And what’s your name?’
‘Jared Styler. But you must address me as Master.’
‘Oh, must I?’ She pouted coquettishly. ‘Why can’t I just call you Jared?’
He grinned. ‘Because I can’t have the other women thinking that I’m favouring you because youm pretty and I wants to be your friend. Now you tell me your name, if you wants to earn all that money I’m going to pay you. Plus whatever other reward I might give you, which the rest of the gang won’t know about, because it’ll be our secret.’
‘I’m Jenny Tolley.’ She bobbed a curtsey and giggled. ‘Your humble servant, Master Styler.’
He became brisk and businesslike. ‘If you wants the work, go into the Crown tavern at the top of the Fish Hill and you’ll find my reaping gang there. Tell the landlord that you’re one of my harvest hands and he’ll give you a free drink and a bite to eat. I’ll be coming to take you all to the farm as soon as I’ve finished my business here.’
He walked away, leaving her frowning in pique at this casual dismissal.
But on Jared Styler’s face there was a satisfied smile. Young Jenny Tolley was exactly the sort of girl he had been hoping to find that day, and he was confident that within a very brief time he’d be bedding her.
Savouring this prospect, he was threading through the encircling crowd when his name was called. He halted and turned as Carrie Perks ran to face him, pulling back her shawl to disclose her features.
‘Jared! where’ve you been? I’ve been looking all over the place for you ever since Sunday morning! Why did you take your stuff and leave our lodging?’
His gaze flicked around to see if she was attracting any undue attention from the people nearest them, as he demanded, ‘Now keep your voice down and tell me what’s that on your face?’
‘It’s the plaster the doctor put on it to mend me nose. You broke it, Jared! You broke me nose! But no matter how many times they asked me, I never told ’um it was you. I said I never knew who did it. I said I never saw the bloke before.’
Her voice faltered and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh, Carrie, I never wanted to hurt you like that.’ He sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘You knows very well that I feels terrible whenever I has to slap you to make you behave proper. But it’s your own fault for behaving so bad and driving me half-mad with your fuckin’ lies and whinging. I left the lodging because I’ve been worried sick and looking all over the place for you! Yesterday I went to Headless Cross and to Crabbs Cross, and Astwood Bank and Feckenham as well. Now I’ve only just this morning come back from searching Studley and Sambourne and Spernal Ash.’
Sobbing with relief she threw her arms around him, choking out brokenly, ‘Oh sweetheart, I been worried to death that you’d left me! I’ll be a better girl. I’ll behave meself, I swear.’
‘Youm the love o’ me life, and I’ll never leave you!’ he hissed fervently as he rearranged her shawl to conceal her features, then led her quickly away from the thronged Green.
Concealed in that throng, Judas Benton was a very intent viewer of this lovers’ reunion.
Ritchie Bint had been discreetly relieving his overstretched bladder against a wall of a hovel in a winding, narrow alleyway near to the Green, and was returning to his patrol area when a man and woman came walking quickly towards him.
Despite the closely drawn shawl around her head, he spotted the plaster dressing bisecting the woman’s face and noted that her companion’s appearance fitted the general description of Jared Sty
ler. The woman was clinging to the man’s arm and pressing her body as close to him as their quick pace allowed, and as they passed Ritchie Bint she reached up, pulled her companion’s head down and kissed his face. His long black hair fell forwards and disclosed his mutilated right ear.
‘That’s him, that’s Jared Styler,’ Bint realized but, mindful of Tom’s instructions, he made no attempt to stop them as they went on and entered the alleyway.
Then Judas Benton came past him, also walking quickly towards the entrance of the same alleyway. But when Benton reached it, he pressed close to the adjoining wall and appeared to peep cautiously down the alleyway. He withdrew his head, waited for a brief instant then peeped again, and this time stepped into the alleyway and disappeared from view.
‘He’s bloody stalking them!’ Ritchie Bint realized. ‘But what for? Is he hoping to “Peeping Tom” them having a shag or what?’ He shook his head and chuckled. ‘Well, whatever it is the sly bastard ’ull be up to no good, that’s for sure. I reckon Tom ’ull be real interested when I tells him.’
As soon as Tom heard the name Judas Benton, excitement pulsed through him. A couple of years previously Benton’s brother, Ishmael, had been involved in child trafficking until his own accomplices had murdered him. Tom was convinced that Judas Benton had been involved with Ishmael Benton in that same vile trade, but he had not been able to obtain enough legal proof to charge the pawnbroker.
Ritchie Bint finished his report and grinned. ‘What d’you think, Tom? Why was the bastard following them two? Is he up to no good again?’
‘I bloody well hope so!’ Tom stated emphatically. ‘Believe me, Ritchie, I’m going to go and have a little chat with Benton in the very near future.’
The isolated single-storied, mud-walled thatched cottage to which Jared Styler and Carrie Perks had journeyed stood surrounded by wasteland and patches of bushy undergrowth on the outskirts of Ipsley hamlet, some two miles south-east of Redditch Town.
When the couple entered it, sweat-soaked Judas Benton breathed a heartfelt wish. ‘I hope this is as far as theym going!’
Inside the tumbledown walls, Carrie Perks told her lover, ‘I’ll only be a tick getting me stuff, Jared. I’ve hid it up under the thatch. But you aren’t told me yet where we’re going to for the harvesting?’
He nodded. ‘That’s right, my wench. I aren’t told you, have I.’ Grinning savagely, he grabbed her and pulled her hard against him, using one hand to crush her face into his chest, ignoring her shriek of pain and hissing into her ear. ‘I aren’t told you where we’re going to for the harvesting because you won’t be coming with me!’
Judas Benton heard the shriek, and the other shrieks that followed, and leered spitefully. ‘Bloody hell! Her’s getting it good and hard, aren’t her just!’
He had been hiding in the thick undergrowth for more than an hour when Jared Styler came out alone from the small cottage and walked back along the rutted lane.
Benton frowned in surprise. ‘Why aren’t the wench with him?’
When Styler passed the ditch and went on in the direction of Redditch, Benton hesitated in a quandary. Should he go into the cottage and check on the girl or follow the man?
Styler disappeared from view.
‘I can always come back here later to talk to the wench.’ Benton exited his hiding place and hurried in pursuit.
Once again, Benton was sweating heavily long before Jared Styler reached and entered the Crown tavern on the top of the Fish Hill. The pawnbroker halted some distance away, mopping his brow while he debated whether to go into the building.
While he hesitated, Jared Styler reappeared, followed by a group of men and women carrying bags and sacks, some of them with sickles slung on ropes upon their backs. Styler led them down the Fish Hill. Benton smiled with satisfaction and made no move to follow. He was a regular customer at the Crown and knew that he could obtain all the necessary information he needed from its landlord.
EIGHTEEN
Tuesday, dawn, 4 August, 1829
‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Tom and Ritchie Bint shouted repeatedly as they hammered on the cell doors to rouse the overnight occupants, who for the most part reacted with groans, curses and shouts of complaint.
The jangling of the bells added to the cacophony, and when Tom opened the front door Maisie Lock greeted him with a further complaint.
‘Bloody hell, Tom Potts! This place stinks worse than a bloody pig sty!’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Tom agreed ruefully.
‘Tommy Fowkes wants to know how many breakfasts for the constables? And if you wants any grub sent across for the prisoners?’
‘Six of ham and eggs for we constables, bread and cheese enough for eight prisoners, and a small keg of Porter, please, Maisie,’ Tom informed her. Then asked, ‘How’s Amy this morning?’
Maisie’s eyes gleamed provocatively. ‘Her’s singing as sweet and merry as a lark, Tom Potts. Like her’s been doing ever since her left this stinking hole.’
Tom controlled the impulse to make a sharp reply and answered quietly, ‘I’m very happy to hear that she’s in good spirits. Now can you please tell Master Fowkes to have the food and drink sent over here as quickly as possible because this Sessions will be starting at eight o’clock. Remind him that My Lord Aston is to preside, and will be very displeased if the constables and prisoners have not received their lawful rights when he arrives.’
Annoyed by Tom’s calm reaction to her barb, Maisie Lock tossed her head and snapped, ‘Tommy Fowkes knows very well how to conduct his business, and he’ll have everything done in plenty o’ time before the bloody Sessions starts. You should do your own job proper and catch that Devil’s Monk who’s running round killing decent folks.’
Before he could reply she was hurrying away, and Tom could only shake his head resignedly. He turned and shouted to Ritchie Bint, ‘I’m going to have that chat with Benton. I’ll not be long.’
But when he reached the pawnbroker’s shop there were no lights glowing in its windows, and his knocking on its door brought no reply.
Tom walked away, wondering, Where’s he gone, and what is he up to?
On Andrew Parkman’s farm the harvest gangs had been roused before dawn, and as the sun rose above the horizon they were already hard at work.
Judas Benton had also risen before dawn and at sunrise he was walking along the river bank path. From a distance Benton saw moving figures on the higher section of a sloping field which ran upwards from the river. He halted, took a small telescope from his pocket and trained it on the activity, switching from one figure to another and grinning with satisfaction to find that they were the Sickle Gang, and he was able to identify the stationary horseman overlooking them as Jared Styler.
Benton considered his next move. The landlord of the Crown had known Jared Styler for some time, and had talked freely about Styler’s violent temperament and voracious appetite for young girls. He had also described the man as being a gambler and spendthrift, in constant need for money.
Benton touched the hard outline of the pistol in his capacious coat pocket. ‘This’ll make the bugger think twice about getting rough with me.’
Benton felt the lump of the purse in his waistcoat pocket. ‘And he’ll be only too eager to take this bait, won’t he?’
He put his telescope away and walked onwards.
NINETEEN
The Select Parlour of the Fox and Goose was the designated venue for the Court of Petty Sessions of the Parish of Tardebigge. This morning’s ‘Special Sessions’ was an extracurricular court being held solely to deal with any arrests made during the Hiring Fair, and Reverend the Lord Aston was presiding as magistrate by himself.
As always, the room’s furnishings had been rearranged for the Sessions. Lord Aston was now sitting in a capacious, sumptuously padded armchair facing tightly spaced rows of stools, chairs and tables. At Aston’s right-hand side was a small table bearing a selection of glasses and bottles of wines and spirits. From th
e moment of his arrival an hour previously to take breakfast at the Fox and Goose, Aston had been freely partaking of the selection on offer, and these libations, coupled with the after-effects of his previous night’s debauchery, had rendered him intoxicated. But his long years of heavy drinking had conditioned him to present a facade of sobriety.
To Aston’s left side, Magistrates’ Clerk Joseph Blackwell was sitting at a desk strewn with ledgers, sheaves of paper, quill pens, inkwells and a very large leather-bound Bible.
Tom Potts was standing beside the desk, his yard-long constable’s staff shouldered like a musket.
Tommy and Lily Fowkes were behind the counter feverishly filling tankards and glasses with drinks which Amy and Maisie were carrying to the noisy men and women cramming the room.
In the wide entrance corridor of the inn, Ritchie Bint, William Shayler and the three visiting constables guarded the manacled prisoners.
As the wall clock struck the hour of eight o’clock, Tom stepped forward and shouted, ‘Order! Order! This court is now in session! Silence in the King’s Name! Bring in the first prisoners.’
One of the visiting constables entered, carrying a small bulging sack bag in one hand and leading three heavily manacled, ragged, barefoot men who were chained together by their necks, and whose heads and faces were visibly bruised and bloodied.
‘What’s your name and parish, Constable? And who are these rogues?’ Aston demanded.
‘I am William Seymour, Constable of Alcester, Warwickshire, My Lord. These rogues are refusing to give me their names. But I have good reason to believe that they are the culprits who robbed a cobbler’s workplace in Alcester two nights since.’
‘What is that reason?’ Aston queried.
The constable tipped the sack he carried and six shiny, new-looking boots fell on to the floor. ‘They were wearing these, My Lord, and could give me no proof that they had come by them honestly. May I respectfully bring to your attention, My Lord, the invaluable assistance I received from Deputy Constable Bint to secure these rogues when they violently resisted arrest. With your permission, My Lord, I wish to take these rogues back to Alcester and have the cobbler identify these boots as his property.