Free from all Danger

by Chris Nickson

  Warren scarcely raised his head as Nottingham sat on the other side of the bench. His long fingers were heavily stained with ink and his shoulders were stooped; too long spent bent over a desk.

  ‘I believe you’re a bookkeeper.’

  That made the man pay attention. He looked up, eyes widening a little but showing nothing.

  ‘What if I am?’ He had a deep bass voice that seemed to rise from somewhere deep in his chest. ‘What does it matter to you?’

  ‘You ate with Robert Stanbridge last night.’

  Warren put down the newspaper and leaned back against the wall.

  ‘And if I did?’

  ‘I’m the Constable of Leeds. I’m looking into his murder.’

  The word didn’t bring a tremor to the man’s face.

  ‘It’s a sad business. But it’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Where did you go after you left the Rose and Crown?’

  ‘Home,’ Warren replied. ‘On my own.’

  He was offering nothing but miserly answers, as if every word cost him money.

  ‘And where might that be?’

  ‘I have a room on Water Lane.’

  ‘What about Mr Stanbridge? Where did he and Mr Ferguson go?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘He didn’t talk about his plans?’

  ‘Not to me. Maybe to Mr Ferguson.’

  ‘Was there anywhere he went regularly at night?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Mr …’

  ‘Nottingham.’

  ‘I dined with the man occasionally. That’s all. I know nothing about the rest of his life. Or his death,’ he added pointedly.

  ‘Where do you have your office?’

  ‘Above Ogle’s bookshop on Kirkgate.’ Warren allowed himself a thin smile. ‘Quite close to your jail.’

  ‘I believe Tom Finer is one of your clients.’

  ‘That would be for him to say.’

  ‘What about Mark Ferguson? How well do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t,’ the man answered. ‘He was one of Stanbridge’s friends.’

  Nottingham drained the mug and stood. ‘Then I thank you for the information.’ He left with a wave for Meadows.

  He had no doubt Warren was a bookkeeper of sorts, maybe even a good one. But there were other things that he was keeping hidden; he could feel it. He was someone to watch and see again. But next time it would be where he had his office.

  Ferguson sat uncomfortably on the hard chair. He was fashionably dressed, fastidious in his gleaming white hose, breeches as tight as decency allowed, and the stock tied just so at his neck. But his good clothes looked too elegant and out of place in the dirt of the jail. Lister watched him quietly, letting the man stew and sweat a little before he began with his questions.

  A snore came from one of the cells, a weaver who’d celebrated too much after the cloth market, dead drunk and stung for half his money by a whore. They knew her name; she’d be behind bars soon enough.

  Lister knew he’d had good teachers in this job. John Sedgwick, so natural in his post as deputy until he was killed. He could charm anyone and have them opening up before they even realized it. And the boss, back when he was sharp. His questions circled slowly around the heart of the matter until the time was right to pounce.

  But Rob could never be like them. He didn’t have that skill. He could listen but he never quite heard the way they had. Instead, he’d developed his own method. Not as subtle, not as flowing. Not always as successful. But it was what he had.

  He paced around behind Ferguson, watching as the man kept shifting on the chair. Finally he leaned forward until his mouth was close to the man’s ear and said, ‘Tell me about Robert Stanbridge.’

  Ferguson seemed relieved to talk and break the awkward, pressing silence. The story spilled out in a torrent. He liked women and they liked him. Widows in particular; they were grateful for some attention and happy to lavish him with gifts. He’d come to know Stanbridge not long after a woman near York had been very generous to him. The man had suggested investing a little money with him to use in his business, and he promised a good return.

  ‘Did you receive it?’

  ‘At first,’ Ferguson replied, craning his head to try and see Lister. ‘But lately it’s been less and less. He said that business was in a bad patch, that’s all.’

  ‘But you still had dinner with him last night.’

  ‘We dined together once a month. He invited someone else last night. I didn’t know him. Never met him before. A bookkeeper,’ he added with distaste.

  ‘Where did you go afterwards?’

  ‘I went to my rooms.’ He tried to turn his head again, but Lister moved to the other side.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did Stanbridge say anything about his plans?’

  ‘No. I was shocked when I heard about him this morning.’

  ‘If you weren’t getting a return on your investment, you had good reason to want him dead.’

  ‘What?’ He began to rise. ‘No!’

  ‘Sit down, Mr Ferguson,’ Lister ordered quietly, waiting as the man settled back on the chair. ‘Right now you’re the best person I have for this murder. You said it yourself, you had a reason.’

  ‘But—’ the man began.

  Lister rode over his words. ‘Cutting a man’s throat and dropping him in the river is easy enough to do. Even for someone like you.’

  ‘I was with a lady last night,’ Ferguson said reluctantly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Hardisty. Her coach brought her at ten and collected her at two.’

  He gave her up readily enough, Rob thought. Not an ounce of gallantry when it came to saving his neck.

  ‘And what did you do together?’

  ‘We … sported.’ He blushed a little.

  ‘Will the lady confirm all this if I ask her?’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can. This is murder, Mr Ferguson. Do you really believe I’m going to take your word for it? Where does she live? Or should I start shouting her name around town until I find her?’

  The man slumped a little, defeated. ‘She lives at Town End. Her husband died last year.’

  Rob knew her now. The widow of Hardisty the merchant. About thirty, wealthy, attended all the balls and concerts. Every eligible man in Leeds paid court to her. Why in God’s name would she choose someone like Ferguson?

  He had a fair build, and his black hair and sallow skin gave him the look of a changeling. Maybe that appealed to her. But he had no money of his own, very little of anything to attract women of substance. His prowess must lie elsewhere.

  ‘I’ll ask her,’ Lister warned. ‘And if she says she was never with you, I’ll have you in the cells. Do you understand?’

  The man was innocent; he was convinced of that by the time he watched Ferguson leave. He could happily strip widows of their fortunes but he’d never be able to kill a man. There wasn’t enough will about him. Still, he’d send Mrs Hardisty a note and ask her discreetly. At least it would mark the end of that association, he thought with satisfaction.

  As they walked home in the evening gloom they were no further along in the case. A breeze shimmered the leaves and a few floated down into the water of Timble Beck, carried along to the river.

  Nottingham felt weary to his bones. He hadn’t missed all those times of being woken in the middle of the night and then working all day. But he felt something beginning to stir in his core. A sense of returning, of desire.

  ‘How did the girls like Jem?’ he asked Emily as they ate.

  ‘It was the only thing they could talk about for the rest of the day.’ Her face glowed in the light from the hearth. ‘I’d forgotten half the stories he told them. It was a wonderful idea, Papa.’

  ‘I wish I’d known,’ Lucy said as she carried through a loaf of bread from the kitchen. ‘Most of the tellers I’ve heard couldn’t hold a tale in a sack.’

/>   ‘He’s coming back next week,’ Emily told her. ‘You can sit with us.’

  ‘Is he really going to stay in Leeds?’ Nottingham asked in surprise. He knew the offer was there, but Jem had always moved on after a few days.

  ‘All winter, he says. He claims he’s too old for the snow on the roads now.’

  ‘Then you’ll have plenty of chances to hear him,’ Nottingham told Lucy.

  Full, he sat by the fire for a few minutes. Emily was busy correcting exercises and preparing lessons. In the kitchen, Lucy was scouring the pots. Rob was reading the Mercury.

  He felt his eyes beginning to close. Time to sleep, he told himself. It had been a long day. But every day would be like this until the job ended and a new constable was appointed. Before he could leave the room, Lister coughed and said, ‘I meant to tell you earlier. One of the men said this afternoon that Brandon the pimp hasn’t been seen for two days.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s three of them. It looks as if the information you had was right. Your man couldn’t have had anything to do with it, could he?’

  The constable shook his head. In the old days it wouldn’t have been beyond Finer; he’d revelled in deceit and destruction. But not now; he’d become a respectable businessman.

  FIVE

  ‘We need to know where Stanbridge went after he left the Rose and Crown,’ Nottingham said. It was still full dark, frost sharp in the air, as they marched across Timble Bridge and into Leeds. The cocks had barely crowed and the dawn chorus was a cacophony of song from the branches. He dug his hands deeper into his greatcoat pockets to keep them warm.

  ‘I told the night men to go around asking,’ Lister answered. ‘They might have something for us.’

  ‘See if you can follow his path.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Exhausted as he was, the constable had lain awake long into the night, thinking and trying to make sense of the death. He felt like he was treading over ice, not sure whether it would hold his weight, scared of moving the wrong way.

  Smoke was starting to rise from the chimneys along Kirkgate as servants set the morning fires. The town was beginning to come alive, breathing in the day. He unlocked the jail and stirred the coals left to bank on the fire, releasing the warmth.

  The night man’s report lay on the desk. He glanced through it, then passed it to Lister. Two drunks in the cells, another man brought in for fighting.

  They’d found two places where Stanbridge had been seen: at the Pack Horse on Briggate, then an inn just south of the river where he’d played cards in a back parlour until midnight.

  ‘He was probably killed on his way home,’ Lister suggested. ‘Knifed and then thrown off the bridge. That would be easy enough to do.’

  ‘Very likely.’ There’d been hardly any money on the corpse. If he’d won, someone could have followed and robbed him. ‘I’ll go over there. You take the Pack Horse.’ He didn’t need to say more; Rob knew what to do.

  Nottingham walked past the inn. The door was closed, shutters up in the windows. But there was somewhere else he wanted to go first. Early still, but the streets were already bustling, men and carts on the move, women and servants with their baskets gossiping together as they walked off for their errands.

  He stopped at a gleaming door on a small street and knocked three times. It was a full half minute before he heard footsteps inside, then someone drew back the bolt. He stared at a black face that slowly creased into a smile. Older now, the curls of hair turning white. But they were all ageing, uncomfortable with the pains of living and starting to make their peace with death.

  ‘Mr Nottingham. I heard you were back. You look well.’

  ‘No need to lie, Henry. I look like someone who’d be better off put out to pasture and we both know it. Is he up?’

  ‘Just finishing his breakfast. Come on, I’ll tell him you’re here. He’ll be right pleased.’

  Henry had been Joe Buck’s servant for years, his molly boy, his friend, his bodyguard. He could never think of one without the other. The man opened a door and stood to one side with a wink.

  Buck was sumptuously dressed. An impeccably cut coat, stock as dazzling as snow, and a long waistcoat of turquoise silk embroidered with some elaborate design. But he’d always been vain with his clothes, spending money on them like it was water. He’d never been short of brass, though; for many years he’d been one of the biggest, subtlest fences in Leeds, always two steps ahead of justice. Crook that he was, with his easy, merry laugh, it was impossible not to like the man.

  ‘Well, well, well.’ He put down a piece of bread and wiped his hands on a linen napkin. ‘Turning up like a bad penny. I told Henry it wouldn’t be long before we saw you.’ He stood and gestured to a pair of chairs in front of a roaring fire. ‘Settling back into the job yet, Mr Nottingham?’

  ‘It would be easier if I wasn’t starting with a murder.’ From nowhere, Henry appeared with a mug of ale for him.

  ‘A certain moneylender, from what I hear.’ Buck lit a clay pipe from a taper and blew a thin stream of smoke.

  ‘I don’t suppose you were out playing cards the night before last?’ He knew Buck’s passion for gaming.

  ‘Perhaps I was.’ He gave a slow smile. ‘A few of us play every week. It’s more a way to pass a dreary Monday night than anything. The stakes are never especially high. The gentleman we’re talking about has joined us a few times. A confident sort, very cocky.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a curious thing. Somehow he always managed to lose. You’d think he was old enough to know better after several lessons. We were never going to let him win. Of course,’ he added with a wink, ‘a little bird might have seen him as a mark and tipped him off there was a game to be had. It’s his own fault if he lacks skill at cards. And he’s a fool if he keeps coming back in hope.’

  ‘How much did he lose?’

  ‘Everything he’d brought. We cleaned him out, poor soul, and sent him on his way at midnight.’

  ‘How was he when he left?’

  ‘Downcast. I don’t know what he was like in business, but he was reckless at the table.’

  ‘Was he drunk?’

  Buck shook his head. ‘No. It’s not that sort of evening.’

  ‘Could someone from the place have followed him? Anyone there you didn’t know, Joe?’

  ‘Mr Nottingham, there are more and more people around Leeds that I don’t know,’ he answered with a chuckle. ‘I’m not even sure I recognize the town any more. But no, there was nothing I saw. We all went home ourselves soon after.’

  ‘I’ll go to the inn and see if they can tell anything else.’

  ‘Take Henry with you. The people there can have poor memories. They know him, they’ll talk more freely, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I do.’ He nodded. ‘And thank you. Is business good?’

  ‘Business is business.’ He drew on the pipe. ‘That’s changing, too. About time to let it go, I think.’

  ‘You were saying that long before I retired,’ Nottingham reminded him.

  ‘Was I?’ The ready grin returned. ‘Then perhaps I’ll do it one of these days.’

  The inn must have been a house once. A crudely painted sign over the door showed an attempt at a bishop’s hat and the words The Mitre. Nottingham hammered on the door, waiting until a man appeared with a cudgel in his hand and a weary, angry look on his face. Before he could say a word, Henry stood tall and said, ‘Mr Buck would like you to help this gentleman, Billy. He’s the constable.’

  Grudgingly, the landlord let them in. He answered gruffly, still trying to pull himself awake. Yes, Stanbridge had been there three or four times. Always on a Monday. He played cards with the other gentlemen in the back room. Left somewhere near midnight.

  ‘Did anyone else follow him out?’ Nottingham asked. ‘Were there any strangers in here?’

  The man’s laugh was like an ugly bark.

  ‘It’s hard enough to get folk in here when they’ve just been paid. On a Monday, when they’ve hardly go
t a farthing to their names? You must be joking. No. Nobody I didn’t know.’

  One more road that led nowhere, the constable thought as he walked back into town. He stopped on the bridge. Barges and boats were loading cloth from the warehouses that lined the riverbank. More buildings than ever now, as the wool trade kept growing and the men at the top grew richer and richer.

  Could Stanbridge have been killed right here and bundled over the parapet into the water? It would have been so simple, exactly as Rob said: a cut and a push, then the quiet splash as he entered the river in the darkness. Deep in the night, would anyone have even noticed? No lights burned here. It seemed as likely an explanation as they were ever likely to find.

  At ten in the morning the White Swan was still quiet, a few older men gathered in a corner, talking and eking out their ale.

  ‘A serving girl at the Pack Horse remembered Stanbridge,’ Lister said. ‘She said he tipped her well. But she didn’t notice him leave. The landlord never even saw him. He must have gone over the river after that.’

  ‘Then we’re back to the beginning.’ He watched Nottingham frown as he toyed with his bread and cheese.

  ‘We’ve traced him to midnight. That’s something.’

  ‘It doesn’t bring us closer to the killer, does it?’

  ‘I know,’ Lister agreed quietly. ‘Just remember, boss, Stanbridge is no loss.’

  But he understood the constable’s frustration. He needed to prove himself. In part to the mayor and the corporation, but above all to Richard Nottingham, to show he was the man he used to be, that he was still master of the job.

  ‘I’m sure he’s not, but we still have to find whoever killed him.’ The constable’s face softened. ‘How would you do it?’

  ‘The same way you have,’ Rob admitted after a moment, and he was pleased to see the man give a brief grin. ‘We’ve followed his trail, we know where he went. We’ve talked to his main competitor and the ones we know who owe him money.’

  ‘How many more moneylenders are there?’ Nottingham asked.

  ‘Apart from Toby Smith? Just that one who was away from town. And a couple of very small fish on top of that.’