by Sara Fraser
He rose and went to the desk, took a broadsheet from a drawer and held it in front of Tom’s eyes.
The front page bore a headline in large letters: ‘TOM FOOL! THE CONSTABLE OF TARDEBIGGE PARISH!’
‘I’ll save you the discomfort of reading the rest of this bilge.’ Blackwell almost snarled the words. ‘What has happened is that on the second day following your departure, Nellie Leeson announced that she was dying. But like Charles the Second, she took a long time in doing so, and during that period she repeatedly confessed to the murder of her husband. Doing this in the presence of My Lord Aston, Reverend Clayton, Doctor Laylor – all our illustrious Vestrymen and any other odds and sods who managed to squeeze into the room.
‘She said that she had murdered him because, in her own words, “The dirty old bastard was robbing all me money and giving it to them filthy whores he was fucking in the Abbey Meadows!”’
Blackwell smiled acidly. ‘A justifiable enough reason for killing him, I suppose … Then this broadsheet appeared in the town a few days since, and apparently copies are now circulating throughout the entire Needle District and beyond. The day after its appearance, My Lord Aston insisted on releasing Jared Styler from custody and has ordered him to be given money from the parish chest as recompense for wrongful arrest and detention on the five counts of murder. However, My Lord has retained Corporal Maffey in the post of Turnkey.’ Another acidic smile twitched his lips. ‘Perhaps to keep your good self securely in custody.’
‘May I, please?’ Tom held his hand out and Blackwell passed over the single sheet.
Tom duly noted that it had been printed by Solomons Bros., Birmingham. Then quickly read the jeering diatribes directed against himself as being a proven village idiot who only ever arrested innocent men. He smiled ruefully. ‘Being called these names don’t hurt me. But I do hope that I’m not greeted with volleys of sticks and stones when I next appear in public view.’
‘And I can only hope that you will pardon me for having so stupidly doubted you, Thomas Potts, when you asserted Styler’s innocence of any murders.’ Blackwell held out his hand. ‘Will you shake hands with me as token of that forgiveness?’
Tom rose to his feet, grasped the outstretched hand firmly and shook it long before asking, ‘Can I take it, Sir, even though I can’t guarantee any success? You’ll continue to assist me with funds and transport, for the furtherance of my investigation into the death of the Haystack Woman?’
For the first time ever, Tom saw tears glistening in Blackwell’s eyes as he answered gruffly, ‘You most certainly can rely on that continuance, Thomas Potts. As long as I have a breath in my body!’
‘Many thanks to you, Sir.’ Tom’s own voice began choking up and he quickly wished the other man, ‘Good Night, Sir,’ and departed before his own tears welled.
FORTY-FOUR
Redditch Town.
Friday, 25 September, 1829
It was six o’clock in the morning, a full hour before sunrise when Hector Smout rolled out of his bed, roused by the repeated volleys of loud knocking. Scratching hard at the grubby skin covered by his grubby nightshirt and long johns, he shuffled to open the cottage door, shouting angrily, ‘Stop that bloody hammering ’ull you! Aren’t it bad enough you’ve ruined me rest? Am you trying to smash me door down as well?’
‘Indeed not, Master Smout, but I’ve urgent need to speak with you,’ a voice answered.
‘Bloody hell! Is it you, Master Potts?’ Smout quickened his pace and unbarred the door, declaring, ‘Well, this is a surprise, Master Potts! Folks said you’d gone to London. And when that new broadsheet come around a few days since, everybody said that was the reason you’d run off to London and that you’d never be showing your face in these parts again for the shame of it.’
Smiling wryly, Tom answered, ‘Believe me, Master Smout, I am not feeling any shame whatsoever that Jared Styler has been released. However, I do pity whichever unfortunate woman becomes his next concubine. But now, I wish to ask you a question.’
‘You ask away, Master Potts.’
‘Clothes-lines, Master Smout. The ropes people hang their wet washing on. Did Nellie Leeson have any longish ones?’
‘What sort of a bloody question is that?’ Smout seemed almost bemused by the query. ‘O’ course her did! Everybody’s got bloody clothes-lines o’ some sort or other.’
‘Might you know where her clothes-lines are now?’
‘Ahrrr, I does. Theym coiled up in me shed wi’ a lot of other bits and pieces of ropes and suchlike. When the Poor-Law bloke come clearing out her furnishings to sell to the dealers, he said I could have the lines and oddments for helping him do the work.’
‘D’you think I might take a quick look at them, Master Smout?’
The gravedigger’s gnarled features displayed utter bewilderment as he mumbled, ‘O’ course you can, Master Potts. But why would anybody in their right mind come all the way down here, just to look at some pieces of old rope?’
Tom chuckled and told him, ‘Ah, well, Master Smith. You know the old saying, “It takes all sorts to make a world”. I might find some ropes and oddments in your shed that I would like to buy from you.’
‘Well, you knows the old saying, Master Potts, it takes all sorts o’ ropes to make a clothes-line, don’t it!’ Hector Smout cackled with laughter. ‘And if you finds any pieces in my shed that you likes, then youm more than welcome to take ’um wi’ you for nothing.’
‘Many thanks, Master Smout, and I’ll only be borrowing them temporarily.’
‘No thanks needed, nor wanted, Master Potts. Youm one o’ the good blokes in this wicked world, and can keep ’um for good if you wants to.’
The final ‘Warning Bells’ were ringing and men, women and children were hurrying to their workplaces. Tom’s return to the Lock-Up was made to the accompaniment of jeering insults, mocking gibes, raucous laughter and the universal chanting of ‘Tom Fool! Tom Fool! Tom Fool!’
But to his own self-wonderment, he felt completely unscathed by the verbal tirade. So much so that he made his next call at the Fox and Goose, knowing full well what his reception there would be.
‘My God, Maisie! Just look at what the bloody cat’s dragged in!’ Lily Fowkes shrieked in shock.
‘What’s you doing coming here, Tom Potts?’ Maisie Lock challenged angrily. ‘Am you come back here to bring more shame on poor Amy’s head? Folks am sneering at her and saying she must be the stupidest cow in England to have ever wed a bloody great Tom Fool like you!’
‘I would just like to know if Amy is well and her present whereabouts,’ Tom explained quietly.
‘Fuck off, Tom Fool!’ Maisie hissed, and both girls turned their backs to him.
Tom could only turn also, and walk out of the inn. But as he exited, the window casement above the door opened slightly and Gertie Fowkes’s voice sounded softly, ‘Amy went with the balloonists to Warwick nigh on a week since.’
An hour later, outside the Lock-Up, Tom did the final check of his saddlebags contents and mounted the mare.
‘With all respect, Sir, but you really ought to let me come wi’ you. I could scout around and find out what strength they’re in,’ George Maffey urged.
‘Many thanks, Corporal, but your post is here. Holding the fort until I return.’ Tom touched the brim of his tall hat in salute.
George Maffey snapped to attention. ‘I wish you Good Luck and God speed, Sir!’
He remained at rigid salute until Tom had disappeared from his view.
FORTY-FIVE
Warwick.
Friday, 25 September, 1829
Adjoining the canal basin in the Saltisford suburb of Warwick was the most elegant gasworks in the whole of Europe. Its front resembled a white-stuccoed ducal mansion, double-storied, with rows of windows and a central portal and flanked either side with tall octagonal towers, enshrouding the massive gasholders.
The ‘Vincent Sorenty Grand Aerostation Company’ were encamped on a large tree-lined
field on the opposite side of the canal from the gasworks.
Every morning, when Amy came from her tent, she would gaze at this white building gleaming in the sunlight and take pleasure from its elegance. For her it was a foretaste for the wonders she would see when Vincent Sorenty took her across the seas.
Every day since her arrival here, she had wandered throughout the city, marvelling at the towering grandeur of Warwick Castle. The grim walls of the massive County Gaol, the great County Hall and Judges’ Lodgings. The close-packed half-timbered houses, shops, taverns, inns, chapels and churches from earlier centuries. The wide Market Square and the ceaseless noise and bustle of commerce.
This morning Sorenty was waiting for her when she left her tent. She had not seen him or Mario Fassia since the day of her arrival.
‘Where have you been, Vincent? I’ve been wondering where you’d got to?’
He smiled and held up a roll of paper. ‘Among other matters, I’ve been having these posters put up in Birmingham and Coventry, and at this very moment they’re being put up all over Warwick and Leamington.’
With a dramatic flourish he unrolled the poster and held it up before her.
Amy gasped at the garishly coloured picture of a woman wearing a black mask a black hood and billowing robe, which had scarlet wings rising from the shoulders. Topping the poster in large scarlet lettering was a caption: ‘THE FALLEN ANGEL.’
Beneath the picture smaller lettering proclaimed, ‘She will fall from Heaven at the Saltisford Canal Basin Meadow, Saturday, 26 September. Admittance to the meadow is Two Shillings. By gracious permission of the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire.’
‘Is that me?’ Amy queried excitedly. ‘Am I the Fallen Angel?’
‘Of course you are. Now look over there.’ He pointed to the meadow gate where a large wagon and a group of men on foot were entering. ‘They’ve come to build the grandstand and fence off the field, and they’ll be keeping the crowd in order and guarding the gates on both sides of the basin. We’re going to make a fortune from this show, and you’ll get your fair share of it!’
Amy giggled mischievously. ‘Well, that won’t be much will it? Not after you’ve paid for the billposting and the gas and all these men, and the fencing and grandstand.’
Sorenty threw back his head and roared with laughter, then told her: ‘My new patron is paying me four times over the biggest fee I’ve ever had, and on top of that he’s paying for everything else. This show is a present for his Missus.’
‘Pheww!’ Amy’s eyes widened. ‘He must be a really loving husband, and a very rich one.’
‘Oh, he is, and he’s promised to make me a very rich man in the years to come.’ Sorenty beamed with satisfaction. ‘He’s Henry Richard Greville, the Earl of Warwick.’
‘What will I be doing as the Fallen Angel?’ Amy asked.
He lifted his forefinger to his lips. ‘It has to be my secret until tomorrow. But when you do it, you’ll become the most famous Aeronaut Maiden in the world.’
Amy was thrilled to hear the words. ‘The most famous Maiden in the world! That’ll be wonderful!’
Tom reached Warwick midway through the afternoon and asked another horseman, ‘Sir, do you know of a troupe of balloonists being here in the city?’
The man pointed at a garish poster on a neighbouring wall. ‘If those are the ones you’re looking for, they’re camped at the Saltisford canal basin. Just take that road over there and you’ll come to a canal bridge. Cross over and follow the towpath eastwards. It will bring you to their camp.’
‘Many thanks, Sir.’ Tom went near to the poster and stared at it for some time before riding on with very mixed feelings.
‘You, nor nobody else, can’t come on to the field till tomorrow, and then it’s two bob for entry,’ the cudgel-wielding man at the meadow gate told Tom.
‘But I’m a personal friend of Master Sorenty, and it’s he who has sent for me to come today,’ Tom argued.
‘And I’m a personal friend o’ the Earl o’ Warwick, and it’s him who gives the orders in these parts, not bloody Sorenty. So just clear off and come back tomorrow wi’ two shillings entry money.’
Tom realized the futility of arguing, turned his mount and rode back into the city, where he found lodging at an inn.
FORTY-SIX
Warwick.
Saturday, 26 September, 1829
It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and since mid-morning the numbers of men, women and children in the great meadow had been increasing until they were a noisy, seething mass of many thousands.
Close to the tree line the balloonists’ camp, launch pad and the grandstand for the Earl’s family and guests were concealed behind a high wall of laths and canvas, its entrance guarded by men armed with muskets and bayonets. As were the men taking the entrance money at the meadow gate and those patrolling the field fence.
Tom had come early, and on foot, with his saddlebags slung over his shoulder. He’d tried to gain entrance to the canvas-walled enclosure but had been brusquely turned away. Now he could only watch and wait.
Sitting inside her tent, Amy had been fully costumed for over an hour, except for the scarlet wings which could be fitted in seconds to her shoulders. But Vincent Sorenty had given her strict orders to remain concealed in the tent until he himself came for her. Sorenty had not yet said what form her performance was to take, and her mood now was a melee of longing for the crowds roar of approbation, resentment at still not knowing what she was to do, and nervous tension.
She heard him shouting orders as he came towards the tent and jumped to her feet, excitement flooding through her.
He came in, declaring elatedly, ‘It couldn’t be better, Amy! The clouds are blanketed, and they’re low, Amy! They’re low! It’s what I was praying for!’
He grabbed her hand. ‘Come on. The Earl’s party are in sight and I want you to be hidden in the gondola before they arrive.’
As they hurried towards the still flat balloon, she asked, ‘What am I going to do today, Vincent?’
‘Hold your bloody tongue, will you, Girl!’ He spat the command.
Amy was shocked into a resentful silence by this sudden display of temper, and her resentment still festered when she was lay concealed from view in the large gondola.
Tom heard the loud report which signalled the start of the balloon inflation, and nervous tension gripped him. He begged silently, over and over again: Please God, I beg you to protect Amy and keep her safe from death or injury
There came another loud report and the great silvery orb of the balloon soared up from the enclosing canvas walls. The crowd erupted, deafening roars of cheering filled the air and, in the gondola, Vincent Sorenty doffed his top hat and bowed repeatedly in acknowledgement of this tremendous storm of continuous applause.
The balloon rose higher and higher and thousands of voices howled in shock and protest as the silvery orb was abruptly swallowed into the blanketing clouds.
Tom’s knowledge of ballooning had been much refreshed by Charles Green, and on the first sight of this balloon he had noted that there were two tether ropes attached to the orb’s net cover, but could not see a winchline. Now Tom reasoned, ‘Sorenty must have already known he’d be going into the clouds, but why would he want that?’
As if in answer bright streams of sparks suddenly fell from the clouds and exploded. The crowd were momentarily dumbstruck into silence. Up in the gondola, two crewmen were igniting the touch papers of maritime flares and throwing them earthwards. More spark streams tumbled down, more explosions sounded and the crowd’s roars erupted afresh.
Vincent Sorenty rapidly attached the scarlet wings to Amy’s shoulders, fixed a harness around her waist and under her armpits and led her to an opened gateway in the gondola’s side.
All the time, she was continuously asking him, ‘Tell me what I’m to do, Vincent? What is it you want me to perform?’
He reached up to the circular hoop o
f the balloon’s mouth, pulled down a rope, clipped it on to the back of the harness and shouted, ‘This will make you the most famous Aeronaut Maiden in the whole world, Amy!’
He hurled her through the open gateway. She was screamed in terror-stricken shock as she dropped, jerked violently upwards, dropped, slowed and swung into an angled gliding descent through the clouds.
On the ground all eyes were fixed on the tumbling streams of sparks and explosions.
At the grandstand, Mario Fassia glimpsed what his eyes had been straining for and screeched with hysterical relief through his speaking trumpet. ‘Look there, My Lords and Ladies! Look there! The Archangels have won the battle! The Fallen Angel has been cast out of Heaven! Look up over our right-hand side! The Fallen Angel has been cast out of Heaven!’
At that same instant Tom also saw the Fallen Angel. ‘It’s a parachute! Amy’s flying a parachute!’
Though assailed by a surge of panic, he desperately tried to assess the rate of descent of the gliding parachute and judged that she would land further to the east. He pushed through the crowd, out of the entrance gate and ran eastward as fast as he could.
The crowd’s attention suddenly switched to another sensational sight: the balloon slowly spiralling down from the clouds, trailing a vast plume of flame and smoke then suddenly plummeting earthwards and smashing down on to the launch pad.
Totally fixated on the parachute, Tom was unaware of the balloon’s fall. Gasping for breath, legs and arms pumping furiously, he went on, struggling to speed across the rutted ground, tripping and reeling, recovering balance and forcing his body on. Then a protracted stumble brought him crashing to the ground, and when he struggled back to his feet the parachute had disappeared beyond some rising ground.
‘She must have landed! But what damage might she have done to herself?’
Panic again dominated his senses and he ran up the long slope of rising ground, breasted its crest and saw a row of tall trees. Entangled in the branches of two adjoining trees was the white sheet of the parachute and, dangling beneath it, the hooded, black-robed, scarlet-winged Fallen Angel.