Free from all Danger

by Chris Nickson

  ‘Someone gave me the information.’

  The mayor nodded. It was done, one worry lifted from his mind. All the missteps and fumbles forgotten. For now, at least. And exactly as he predicted, no mention of the girl, as if she’d never existed.

  Lucy had bought a capon at the market and stewed it for their meal. Rob wolfed it down, wiping the bowl with a piece of bread.

  Emily was talking, something about the school, but his mind kept going back to the question: what would he have done if he’d been the constable? Would he have let her go? True, she’d told them where to find Nick. But she was guilty, too. She’d helped in the robberies, and she’d done it very willingly. That deserved punishment, not freedom.

  But the boss had been right on one thing. Nobody had mentioned her during the day. All they’d cared about was Nick, wanting the tale of how he’d been taken.

  ‘Rob?’ Emily said.

  He jerked up his head. ‘What?’

  ‘I was saying that Annie’s taken to reading. She’s already making out her words well in a book. And she’s taken to numbers, too. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘I was miles away. Sorry. That’s wonderful.’

  ‘You’re as bad as Papa.’ She gave him a teasing smile.

  Rob glanced at Nottingham. He was quiet, looking at something in the distance, just as far away as he’d been himself.

  Nick had been taken to the prison in the cellar of the Moot Hall. This morning he’d be escorted to York. When the assizes began in a few months, he’d be tried. Nottingham knew he’d be called to give evidence. But that wouldn’t happen until December. He might not even be constable then.

  The weather had changed and he was grateful. Warmer, with a faint breeze from the south that felt like a balm after the harsh cold. Another week and they’d be lighting the bonfires. With the drinking and the apprentices on the loose, the night would be long and rough.

  But there was plenty to do before that. Finally he could give all his time to the killings that had crowded back into his thoughts since they arrested Nick. There was a pattern of some kind; there had to be. Yet try as he might, he simply couldn’t make it out.

  He walked up Briggate with his greatcoat unbuttoned. The shutters were down on the shops, servants and mistresses bustling around to buy this and that, smiling and chattering away. A pale, hazy sun had broken through the clouds, enough to raise the spirits.

  Con was up at the market cross, rubbing rosin on his bow. He looked up and smiled as he heard the footsteps.

  ‘Better weather today, Mr Nottingham.’

  ‘Two days of this and we’ll think summer’s returned.’

  ‘You found the boy. It was all the talk last night at the inns.’

  ‘We did. Now it’s back to other matters.’

  Con frowned and raised the fiddle to his shoulder, plucking each string lightly, then adjusting one until the note pleased him.

  ‘I haven’t heard a thing.’

  ‘No one has. That’s the problem,’ the constable said.

  ‘I hope you find him.’ He began to play a quick little jig and then he was lost in his own world.

  Tom Finer wasn’t in Garroway’s.

  ‘Already been and gone,’ the proprietor said, wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. ‘Drank his coffee and left. Didn’t even look at the London papers. He must have some business.’

  The constable talked to a few people he knew, but no one had anything to say. There was no word, nothing at all.

  Old Jem was down by the bridge, close to the old chapel. He was in the middle of a story, acknowledging Nottingham with the briefest nod, never stopping his flow of words. When he finished, listeners put a few coins in his hat and wandered away. Jem pushed himself slowly to his feet.

  ‘They’re saying you’re a hero for capturing that lad.’ He chuckled. ‘Happen I’ll have to start telling a tale about your bravery.’ He slipped the money into a purse and shouldered his pack. ‘I’m just off to your lass’s school.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  ‘Leeds is getting all smart now,’ Jem said as he glanced about. ‘New houses, plenty of brass around.’

  ‘For some.’

  ‘Same as ever: for them as make the laws and the money. They’re not likely to care about the rest, are they?’ With a quick handshake he disappeared into the school.

  How many times had he asked the same questions, Rob wondered. It seemed like dozens, all through the morning, until his throat was raw.

  The ale at the White Swan felt like nectar, going down slow and merry as he ate one of the meat pies the landlord’s wife baked. He’d almost finished when the constable sat on the other side of the bench with a long, low sigh.

  ‘A mug of twice-brewed and a bowl of stew,’ he told the serving girl and turned to Lister. ‘Tell me you’ve had some luck.’

  ‘None at all. Half of them are sick of hearing about it. I think a few are trying to avoid me since they’ve heard the questions so often.’

  ‘I know.’ Nottingham nodded. ‘But if we keep at it we might stir something up.’

  ‘We haven’t so far,’ Rob pointed out.

  ‘Someone killed them.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Stanbridge, Smith, Jane, Kidd, Grace, Bartlett. Six of them in just a few days.’

  ‘I know. Believe me.’ He was about to say more when there was a commotion at the door. A moment later a frightened boy, no more than ten, was pushed through the crowd to stand in front of them, clutching a cap in his hand.

  ‘I’m looking for the constable,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve found him,’ Nottingham answered. ‘What is it?’

  ‘They sent me down from Mr Colly’s dyeworks up on Mabgate, sir.’ He stared down at the ground. ‘There’s a body, you see.’

  The whole place fell silent as the crowd listened intently. Now a buzz of conversation began to fly around the room.

  ‘A man?’ He glanced at Rob.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The boy looked down. ‘I think so. I didn’t see it, they just told me to come and fetch you.’

  ‘Go back. Tell them we’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  The serving girl returned with the meal. Nottingham looked at it longingly, took a swig of the ale, and said: ‘No time today.’

  ‘If I had a penny for all the meals you’ve ordered and left …’ she began.

  ‘You’d have your own tavern. I’m sorry.’

  The dyeworks were lined along Sheepscar Beck. It was no more than a few minutes’ walk, but it was another world out there, almost in the country. Leeds felt distant, fields all around, brown now in the autumn, a few sheep grazing on scrubby patches of grass.

  The stream ran in dark purples and blues, oily patches of it floating the water. But it was the stench that hit them as they approached. How could anyone work here, the constable wondered, then answered his own question. Because they needed to make money.

  Colly himself was waiting at the door, an older man with a short wig and hair growing from his ears and nose. His eyebrows stuck out in dark, wild tufts and his clothes looked a size too small for his body.

  ‘About time, too,’ he said dismissively. ‘This way. Well, come on then.’

  He led them through a warehouse that held undyed cloth, then to a door to the bank of the beck.

  ‘Down there.’

  Stone steps led down into the stream, close to the discharge pipes for the works. The stink was overwhelming, but Colly didn’t seem to notice it. Nottingham felt the bile rising in his throat and saw Rob turn away, trying not to retch.

  The body moved slowly round and round in an eddy of the beck. A man, fully dressed, face down.

  ‘Are you going to get him out or just stand staring all day?’ Colly asked.

  ‘Do you have a hook or a pole?’ the constable said. He kept his eyes on the corpse; the figure didn’t look familiar. Colly gave two sharp whistles and a man appeared. A minute later he returned with a long, heavy sti
ck.

  It took time to draw the dead man close enough to haul up the steps. In the warehouse, water pooled around the corpse as Nottingham and Rob caught their breath.

  ‘Aren’t you going to see who he is?’ Colly asked. He was a few feet away, pacing anxiously around the room.

  ‘All in good time,’ the constable told him. ‘You can help us by sending someone for the coroner.’

  It was Rob who bent and turned the body, then looked up in shock.

  ‘It’s Warren.’ The words arrived slowly. ‘The bookkeeper.’

  One of those who’d been to dinner with Stanbridge on the night he died. The man who employed John Wood.

  Lister tilted back the head. The man’s throat had been slashed. The same as the moneylenders. A quick search of his pockets only brought a few coins. No keys, no notebook.

  ‘As soon as the coroner’s been, get two of your men to take him to the jail,’ Nottingham told Colly.

  ‘But they’ll miss work.’

  ‘And you’ll pay them for their time.’ The constable stared at him until the man nodded his agreement.

  ‘You take a look at his room,’ Nottingham said to Rob. ‘I’ll go to his office.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  They hurried away from the works, scarcely breathing until the air was cleaner and sweeter. But the stink of the place seemed to cling to their clothes.

  ‘What do you think now?’ the constable asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

  There were two or three customers in Ogle’s shop, one of them keeping the bookseller busy as the constable climbed the stairs.

  Warren’s office was unlocked, empty, papers scattered everywhere. Someone had gone through the place in a rush. No point in trying to gather everything up: it would take days to go through it all and he didn’t even know what to look for.

  He needed Wood.

  ‘Who’s gone up there this morning?’ he asked the bookseller downstairs.

  ‘Mr Wood was in first thing. He left almost immediately.’

  ‘Is the door up there usually locked?’

  ‘Of course. Mr Warren and Mr Wood both have keys. Why?’

  God save him from inquisitive shopkeepers, he thought.

  ‘Warren’s dead. Where does Wood live?’

  The man blanched. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Nobody goes up there now except me or my men. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ The bookseller nodded. ‘Of course.’

  A last thought came to him: ‘Did Warren have a key to the shop, so he could come and go as he pleased?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Warren’s killer had taken the keys, come during the night and gone through everything. What was he searching for? Could Wood have been the murderer? No, he had his own key and he’d have known exactly where to find everything. But why had he left so hurriedly?

  The Turk’s Head was quiet, men back at their work after dinner. Only the landlord, looking up hopefully as he entered.

  ‘John Wood drinks here,’ the constable said.

  ‘Sits right over there and has his dinner.’ The man nodded towards the bench by the wall.

  ‘Was he in today?’

  The landlord needed to think for a moment.

  ‘Like as not. No, wait.’ He shook his head. ‘Not today.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man shrugged. ‘You should ask Ezekiel Horton. They’re friends; he could likely tell you.’

  ‘And where will I find Mr Horton?’

  ‘He works at Williamson’s warehouse. The one as got hisself killed.’

  It only took two minutes in the shop around the corner from Water Lane for Rob to discover Warren’s address.

  It was a pleasant, three-storey building, the front door polished and glowing in the faint sun. He knocked, waiting until a whey-faced woman was facing him, her eyes quickly taking in his old clothes.

  ‘No room here,’ she said in a voice like flint.

  ‘I’m Robert Lister, the Deputy Constable of Leeds.’

  She’d started to close the door in his face. Now she stopped. She was perhaps forty, short and bony.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I need to see Mr Warren’s room.’

  ‘Why?’ She drew herself up. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Rob told her. ‘Murdered.’

  He knew how the word hit people. But he wanted her shocked.

  ‘He can’t be. I heard him come in late and go up the stairs.’

  ‘It’s not even an hour since we pulled him out of Sheepscar Beck.’

  She glanced up and down the street, watching for any nosy neighbours.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  She led the way up the stairs, pulling a ring of keys from the pocket in her gown. At the top floor she stopped and tapped lightly on the door, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d just told her.

  ‘What time did he return?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ All the acid had gone from her voice now. ‘I’d been asleep for a while when I heard the key in the lock and the footsteps.’

  ‘Just one person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you hear him leave again?’

  ‘No, I’m sure of that.’

  But she could have sunk back into her rest and never noticed. Warren could have come home and gone out again. Or someone else could have taken his keys.

  ‘Let me in there, please.’

  Nothing had been damaged, but the room had been carefully searched. That had taken time; whoever did it knew he wouldn’t be disturbed.

  Still, Rob took the time to look around. Papers lay in piles on the table, scattered, not tossed around. But no one appeared to have touched the clothes that hung on nails or torn apart the bed.

  The landlady was waiting outside.

  ‘When you clean the room, keep all Mr Warren’s goods,’ he told her. ‘We might need to look through them.’

  A funeral yesterday, business as usual today. But that was commerce, where money was king. Moving forward, little time for mourning. Tom Williamson’s warehouse was busy. Men hauled cloth on to a barge that bobbed on the river as a clerk stood by, counting each bale.

  Nottingham waited until they were done, impressed by the ease with which they walked along the plank from towpath to vessel under the heavy loads. Finally, the clerk tallied his figures, shook hands with the captain and marched back into the building.

  ‘Not the same without Mr Williamson around,’ he said sadly. The man had worked for Tom for a decade or more, a thin soul who looked dour at the best of the times. Now his face wore its sorrow plainly.

  ‘Nothing will be,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘I believe you have a man called Ezekiel Horton here.’

  ‘Over there.’ He pointed and shouted the man’s name. ‘Not done anything bad, has he?’

  ‘No,’ the constable said with a smile. ‘Nothing like that. But he might know where someone lives.’

  Horton looked puzzled as he gave the address.

  ‘John said he wasn’t doing anything wrong these days. He’d given that up since he started working for Warren.’

  ‘Maybe he hasn’t. But I need to see him and he’s not at work.’

  It was in one of the courts hidden away near the bottom of Briggate, close to the Leeds Mercury office. The only question, Nottingham thought, was whether Wood had fled yet.

  He had his answer quickly enough. The room was unlocked. Neat enough inside, but stripped almost bare of clothes and anything personal. A pair of women’s slippers, worn through on the soles, had been left behind.

  ‘As soon as Wood saw the office had been ransacked, he must have gone home, packed up what he owned and left,’ Nottingham said. ‘He knew it wasn’t a burglary. He realized Warren was dead.’

  ‘Or he killed him. Warren’s room has been searched, too. Strolled up the stairs in the middle of the night, calm as you please.’

&n
bsp; The body lay in the cold cell. The constable had turned out the pockets. No keys, but everything else – a good handkerchief and coins – had been left.

  He leaned back in his chair, picked up the mug of ale and sipped. The fire was blazing.

  ‘Seven dead. Now are you starting to believe?’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Rob admitted with a long sigh. ‘I know none of it makes sense. But why would Wood run like that unless he was the killer?’

  Nottingham shook his head.

  ‘He could take something from that office whenever he wanted. I think he went to the office, saw what had gone and thought he’d better run before he was next.’

  ‘Then what was it?’ Rob asked. ‘What did Warren have that was so important?’

  ‘Until we find the man who murdered him, we’re never going to know.’

  NINETEEN

  Seven o’clock by the Parish Church clock as Nottingham crossed Timble Bridge and walked up Marsh Lane. Tonight, Rob would go around the inns and ask his questions, but they both knew it would be fruitless. Nobody would talk because nobody knew.

  What had Warren been doing on Mabgate, anyway? What had lured him out there? He needed to stop beating himself with questions he couldn’t answer.

  Home was welcoming and cheerful. The food Lucy served was hot and filling, a reminder that he’d never had a chance to eat dinner. He felt weary, tired of so much death. He remembered when it was rare; now the bodies seemed to pile one on the other, day by day.

  He shared the table with Emily and her books. As he finished eating she packed them away and placed the cap on the ink bottle.

  ‘Papa,’ she began, and he knew she wanted to talk about something.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘You know, I’ve never had a girl who’s picked things up as fast as Annie.’ She pushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. ‘She said she’s never been to school before, but it’s hard to believe.’

  ‘Maybe she’s just bright.’

  ‘She is,’ Emily agreed with a fierce nod. ‘I know it’s only been a few days, but if she keeps on this way she’ll be ahead of everyone by the end of next year. It made me think … in time, I could have her teaching the youngest girls and I could be with the older ones.’