‘Even small fish can put up a fight.’
‘Not these two. I’ve talked to them. I’d swear they had nothing to do with it.’ He finished the last of his meat and potato pie and asked the question that had been nagging at him. ‘Who was it who told you about that third missing pimp?’
‘Someone I’ve known a long time.’
‘Do you trust him?’
Nottingham’s chuckle surprised him. ‘Not as far as I can throw him. But I told you: he wouldn’t be responsible for anything like that.’
‘It worries me when people know things before we do.’
‘It’s always been that way.’ The constable shrugged. ‘If we’re lucky, they tell us. Just be grateful when they do. I learned long ago that you can’t know everything.’
‘We can try,’ Lister said.
‘For whatever it’s worth,’ the constable agreed with a shrug. ‘But it was impossible twenty years ago, and the place was smaller then.’ He looked around. ‘What chance do we have now? I’m happy if any secrets manage to slip out at all. Why, do you think we should be concerned about these disappearances?’
Lister shook his head. ‘I’d be glad if they all vanished. It would make our lives easier.’ Fewer cuttings, he thought, and fewer beatings.
‘We’re always going to have pimps to deal with. Anyway, what about Stanbridge? Any other ideas?’
‘Just ask people we know.’ It felt strange, wrong, to be giving him advice. But Nottingham listened and nodded. ‘Stanbridge mostly lent to people who own small shops and are having a bad time,’ Rob continued. ‘You know how it works – the interest keeps mounting so they can never repay it all.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the bench. ‘And they have to keep going to moneylenders because there’s nowhere else to turn.’
The constable rubbed his chin. ‘Do you remember Amos Worthy?’
‘Yes,’ Lister answered, surprised by the question. He’d never known Worthy; he died not long after Rob became a constable’s man. But there were enough stories about him and the boss and some strange connection that bound them. He knew that Worthy had left money to Emily, enough to start her school and keep it going. Some said that was his revenge on Nottingham, his laughter from beyond the grave. But they’d never talked about it, leaving it all buried in the past.
‘He lent money, too. But his went to the merchants and the aldermen. He let them use his whores, as well. It gave him a hold over them. Stanbridge was much smaller than that.’
‘Worthy caused plenty of misery, didn’t he?’ Rob said
‘Too much,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘We don’t want a return to those days.’
SIX
‘Papa?’
He looked up, taking his gaze from the flames.
‘What?’
‘You were miles away,’ Emily told him. She was sitting at the table, where she seemed to spend every evening, taking care of work for her school. A candle lit her face and for a moment she looked exactly the way Mary had when she was young.
He saw it in her sometimes, some trick of the light, the way she held her head, and it always made him catch his breath, like a memory he couldn’t quite touch.
‘Sorry. I was thinking about this killing,’ he said.
‘Rob seems certain the two of you will catch the murderer.’
‘Let’s hope he’s right.’ After a few hours talking to shop owners he wasn’t so confident. One or two had been customers of Stanbridge, he could tell it in the way they talked and shuffled from foot to foot, but none would admit it. Nowhere, yet again. ‘Where is he, anyway? It’s not like him to miss a meal.’
‘He’s meeting some of his friends at the Turk’s Head.’ She giggled and for a moment she was a girl again. ‘You’d better expect him to have a sore head in the morning.’
Lucy came from the kitchen, a broom in her hand, and started to sweep up invisible crumbs. This house was her kingdom and she was determined to keep it spotless; Nottingham winked at his daughter.
‘I saw the coalman’s lad when I was on my way home, Lucy. He said he’d like to come calling for you.’
She stopped and glared. ‘I hope you told him not to waste his breath, then. What do I want with someone all covered in dust and muck?’ Her arms stopped moving and she stared at him. ‘You’re having me on, aren’t you?’
‘Maybe a little.’ There were plenty of young men sweet on her, he’d seen them flirting at the market. But she was wedded to this place.
‘You’re lucky I don’t take this besom to you,’ she warned. ‘Making fun of a poor lass like that.’ But she was grinning and shaking her head. ‘I’ll tell you something. This job is doing you a power of good. You’ve already got your sense of fun back. I thought it had done a flit.’ She swept a little more. ‘Anyway, if he was sweet on me, he should have said something when he brought our coal from Middleton.’
‘Too shy.’ They both laughed.
‘Honestly, you two,’ Emily said. ‘I’m trying to work.’
Lucy put a finger to her lips and finished the floor in silence.
‘I’m away to my bed,’ Nottingham said.
‘Goodnight, Papa.’ Emily stood and kissed the top of his head.
‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ Nottingham asked. As he spoke, his breath clouded the air. Frost showed white in the late moonlight and he could feel the cold on his cheeks. Off in a fallow field he could make out the faint shape of a woodpile. Each day it grew until it would be a bonfire for Gunpowder Treason Night. Another year slipping away too quickly.
Rob grimaced. ‘My head feels like a horse galloped through it.’ He groaned and yawned. ‘But it was worth it. We had a good night.’
Crandall, in charge of the night men, was pacing up and down in the jail as they arrived. Kirkstall had appointed him, some relative of his wife, a man with a permanently worried, confused expression and a periwig that refused to sit properly on his head.
‘I was about to send someone for you,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Nottingham asked. ‘Has something happened?’
‘They pulled a body from the water just past Fearn’s Island. One of the men recognized it. He says it’s Toby Smith. I thought you’d want to know, what with …’ He let the words tail away, as if he was unsure how to finish the sentence.
‘Good work.’ The constable looked at Rob. His face was alert, the colour back in his cheeks, lips pursed. ‘Has anyone told the coroner?’
‘He’s already on his way.’
They strode out side by side along the riverbank. Past the warehouses and along the track that led to the fulling mill with its stench of stale piss and to Fearn’s Island. Not an island at all, it jutted into the river close to the old dam.
‘What do you think?’ Nottingham asked.
‘Two moneylenders dead in a few days?’ He shook his head. ‘Smith wasn’t the type to get drunk and fall into the water. Anyway, he lived at the other end of Leeds, out past Town End.’
Workers from the mill were standing in the cold and watching a group gathered around the body on the shore. Hoggart the coroner had arrived, and was giving an order to two of the constable’s men to turn the corpse.
The evidence was right there: a jagged cut across the man’s throat. Not as neat as Stanbridge’s wound, two awkward slashes this time, but Smith was just as dead. The silt and slime of the river clung to his clothes and his hair.
‘Another one,’ the coroner said wearily as he rose to his feet. ‘It looks as if you have your work cut out for you, Mr Nottingham.’
‘Where was he found?’ the constable asked.
‘Right there, sir.’ One of the men pointed. ‘His coat had snagged on one of the posts by that jetty. If it hadn’t, he’d be halfway to Hull by now.’ He gave a toothless smirk at his own joke. ‘One of them reporting for work at the mill noticed him.’
Rob was squatting, his hands going through the dead man’s pockets and emptying everything on to the dirt. A sodden notebook, coins, linen handkerchief. The water
had taken Smith’s shoes and muddied his hose and breeches. They’d find nothing to help them here.
‘Take him to the jail,’ the constable ordered.
‘Exactly the same way as Stanbridge,’ Lister said as they walked back towards the town.
‘Go and search his rooms,’ Nottingham ordered. ‘And let’s hope we have more luck this time. The usual – you know what to do.’
‘Yes, boss. Stanbridge was no loss but this one’s death is a blessing.’
‘You really suspected him of murder?’
‘Two of them,’ Rob said. He turned his head and spat. ‘He terrified people. Stanbridge was a lapdog next to him.’
For a moment Nottingham didn’t reply, considering once again the idea Tom Finer had planted in his mind.
‘Two moneylenders dead, three pimps vanished, all close together. The numbers keep rising.’
Lister shook his head. ‘You’re the only one who’s suggested a connection. The moneylenders, yes. But the rest doesn’t make any sense.’
Nottingham was silent for a moment. ‘Those pimps, did they have many girls?’
‘Not really, perhaps two each. I think the last of them only had one. Why?’
‘What were the pimps’ names?’
‘Heaton and Goldsmith were the first two. Brandon’s the most recent.’
‘What happened to their girls?’
‘I’ve no idea, I told you. Gone, or found someone else to look after them. Does it matter?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘We’ve got two murders to think about.’
It was full, grey light, a day of heavy clouds, the time just after dawn when the cold nipped hardest. Smoke was rising from chimneys all across Leeds, curling up into the sky as the town stirred. Men on their way to work gave them cautious glances as they passed.
At the jail, Nottingham said, ‘You go on and start looking into Smith. I doubt his body has much to tell us.’
‘Where are you going, boss?’
‘To see a man,’ he answered with a smile.
Rob watched the constable walk away, then poured himself a glass of ale, downing it in a single gulp. He was thirsty and his head hurt whenever he moved it. His own fault, but that didn’t matter; they’d had a grand time, going from inn to inn, merrier in each one.
He sighed, started to pour another mug and stopped. One was ample. He needed his wits clear. He’d relished seeing Toby Smith dead. It was the best thing that could have happened to the man. He’d preyed on too many.
And now the boss had wandered off somewhere and left him to do the work. He was right about one thing, though: they wouldn’t learn anything from Smith’s body. Perhaps his house would reveal some secrets.
It was a small cottage about a quarter of a mile along the Newcastle road. Carts and carriages trundled slowly past him as he walked, an endless procession of goods and people in and out of Leeds, but he barely noticed them.
The boss was better than Simon Kirkstall had ever been, but Rob was starting to worry about him. This strange idea about a connection between the disappearance of the pimps and the murder of the moneylenders. Going off on his errands with barely a word. Long silences when he seemed to vanish into that curious world that had occupied him for most of the last two years. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal.
And Rob knew he couldn’t say anything to Emily about it. He couldn’t leave her caught between him and her father. She’d been so happy to see him as constable again, with a purpose once more. And Lucy would take Richard’s part every time; there wasn’t a grain of sense in telling her about his reservations.
All he could do was keep it inside and do his job.
The door was locked but that barely hindered him; John Sedgwick had schooled him well when he started out as a constable’s man. Inside, the house had the clean scent of beeswax polish. He pulled the shutters wide.
Everything was tidy, the table cleared, wood shining. There was little furniture, a chair, a desk, that was all. No sense of comfort or home. The bedroom was clean, clothes hanging from pegs on the wall, two jackets, breeches, hose rolled into a ball on the table by a looking glass. In the kitchen the pots were all in their places.
It was a man’s house, bare and purposeful. Probably the only woman ever allowed in here was the one who cleaned and cooked for him.
He broke the lock on the desk and began sorting through the papers. Smith had been careless. There was plenty about his business: notes, a thick ledger detailing payments made and punishments meted out to who couldn’t stump up money when he came calling. He leafed back through the pages, checking names until he found the two he was seeking. Account closed! was marked by each. He’d been right. Smith had been a killer himself.
He’d just started to glance through the letters when the door opened wide and a woman marched in. She had an old bonnet on her head, a thick shawl over a plain gown and a clean apron. Small, almost as round as she was tall, her chins wobbled as she glowered at him.
‘What do you think you’re doing here?’
He stood, towering over her.
‘I’m Robert Lister, the deputy constable.’
‘Happen you are.’ She put her hands defiantly on her hips. ‘But this place belongs to Mr Smith.’
‘Not any more,’ he told her. ‘We pulled him out of the river this morning.’
Rob watched the colour drain from her face, mouth open as she gulped at the air.
‘He’s dead?’
‘He is.’ He didn’t have time to waste on sympathy; the man deserved to be in hell. ‘Do you know where he went last night?’
‘No.’ She sat, one hand clutching the table as if it could steady her. ‘I never saw him after dinner time and he told me not to leave a meal for him.’
He’d need to look elsewhere for that. No matter; he’d pulled enough gold from the desk.
‘You might as well go home,’ he said. ‘There’s no job for you here any more.’
She nodded slowly and after a minute composed herself enough to stand. At the door she turned.
‘I know what he did and it weren’t right. But he was allus fair to me. Paid me decent.’ With that, she was gone. It was an odd obituary, he thought. Half praise, half damnation.
At least his head had stopped hammering.
Leeds might be changing, but some things would always remain the same, Nottingham thought. Day or night there would be whores on Briggate touting for business. They stood at the dark little ginnels that led through from the street to the yards where people lived crammed together. A handy place for business, deep in the shadows.
Only two or three were out so early, looking weary and footsore. They smiled hopefully at every man who passed, as if his coins could bring salvation.
Annie was the first, nestled away from the wind that blew out of the north. She looked at him suspiciously as he took off his bicorn hat.
‘I’m looking for any girl that worked for Heaton, Goldsmith or Brandon.’
‘Why?’ Her hand moved to her pocket. If she had any sense, she’d carry a knife there. He held up his hands.
‘They’ve disappeared. I’m the constable here. I’m trying to find out what happened. Don’t worry, I don’t want to cause you any trouble.’
He took a ha’penny from his breeches and held it out to her. Annie snatched at it then stepped back a pace. He didn’t move.
‘There was a lass,’ she said. ‘Barbara. Not seen her in a week nor more. She was with Heaton. I heard he’d gone.’
‘Do you know where she went?’
She shook her head, dark, untidy ringlets waving.
‘Please,’ he said to her. ‘If you hear anything, I need to know.’
In a sudden movement she brushed by him, out to Briggate. But as she passed, she whispered, ‘Find Charlotte.’
Then she was gone, hurrying down the street, not looking back. Whatever she was afraid of, he didn’t want to make it worse. He lingered for a moment, listening to the noise of the carts and the voices, th
en moved on.
Neither of the other whores knew the pimps. One thought she’d heard of a Charlotte, but she wasn’t certain. He gave them each a farthing for their time and walked back to the jail. He’d try later, when more were around.
Rob sat at the desk, a heavy ledger open in front of him. He was scribbling notes as he went through the pages.
‘From Smith’s house?’ Nottingham asked.
‘All his business dealings,’ Lister replied with satisfaction. ‘The murderer’s name might be in here.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ He washed away the dirt of the town with a swig of ale. ‘Any important clients?’
‘None that I’ve found. Smith preferred people he could intimidate.’
‘Give me some of the names. I’ll talk to them.’
Lister tore off part of the sheet. ‘They’re just ordinary folk,’ he said.
Nottingham read through the list; he knew perhaps half of them. Working men, a few who were older. Honest people. But anyone could kill if they were desperate enough.
‘See if that book shows any who were far behind on their payments. Start by questioning them.’
‘Yes, boss.’ Rob grinned; that had been his plan, anyway.
The day brought no joy. Lister had three who were late with what they owed to Smith. One of them turned away to hide his black eye and the bruises on his face. Another wore a broken little finger strapped up, and the third hobbled carefully around. They were all thankful to hear the news. One of them cried for joy. But none of them was a killer; their faces made that plain. They were only cowed, frightened men.
He made the rounds of his informers, from the Head Row over to Holbeck, but none of them could help. Whoever murdered Stanbridge and Smith was holding his tongue. It was possible that someone was looking to take over the moneylending business in Leeds. But there was no whisper of it. Nobody was mentioning any names. That was odd; usually gossip and rumour flowed like a river.
It wasn’t Thompson, the third moneylender, he felt certain of that; the man was still in York, and he was a businessman, everything spelled out in contracts, above board and legal.
He returned to the jail as the light was beginning to fade. Already there was a nip of frost, his breath clouding in the air.
Free from all Danger Page 5
