The Broken Token

by Chris Nickson

  “What about the inn?”

  “Closed early, not much trade. All in their beds and asleep.”

  “Whoever’s doing this is either lucky or very canny,” Nottingham pondered. “He picks his spots well, places where no one will care or no one wants to know.”

  “It’s definitely the same man, then?”

  “Has to be. Killed by a knife, same position.” Could he have predicted and prevented this? he asked himself – although inside he knew he couldn’t.

  Sedgwick yawned and stretched slowly.

  “It means the killer didn’t single out Morton and Pamela,” Nottingham continued. “He’s murdering prostitutes and the men who’ve bought their services.”

  He looked pointedly at his deputy, and Sedgwick’s eyes widened at the implications. “Once the pimps and procurers realise that they’re all going to think the competition’s doing it.”

  “Exactly,” the Constable said glumly. “So they’ll be killing each other and the whores will be terrified. And don’t forget our friends on the Corporation,” he added acidly. “They like their regular tumbles, too.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Nottingham sighed and shook his head.

  “We’d better find him, John. As fast as we can.” He hesitated, grateful Sedgwick hadn’t mentioned the name yet, then said, “I’m going to discover where Carver was last night.”

  He’d sent Sedgwick home for a few hours’ sleep, after instructing him to send men out to search for the new killing ground. He needed his deputy, but he wanted his mind fresh and sharp, not raw after too many hours of work. He should have been resting himself, but his brain wouldn’t slow down. His eyes were gritty as he rubbed them. Along with weariness, he felt self-doubt beginning to creep in. What if Carver was the killer, and he’d let him walk away to commit two more murders? He’d told Sedgwick he’d live with the guilt, but words were cheap. He’d been wrong before, and more than once. That had been over petty crimes, though, not murder. Murders, he corrected himself soberly. Murders.

  Next door to the jail, the landlord of the White Swan was cleaning off the benches in a lacklustre fashion. The patrons were never too particular, so he didn’t care too much, either. Quiet morning drinkers were scattered around the place as the Constable walked in. A few heads turned to glance at the newcomer, then returned to their mugs of ale or wine. The landlord nodded his head in greeting.

  “Early for you, Mr Nottingham.”

  The Constable offered a thin, weary smile.

  “If only drinking would get rid of all my problems, Michael.”

  “But you’ll have something?”

  Michael Harding moved behind the bar, wiping his hands on his apron. He was a carefree sort, at least until someone crossed him. Then his tongue and his fists erupted like a sudden storm on anyone who deserved it. As soon as he was done, the mild, easy manner returned. His way kept the tavern quiet and generally peaceful, but Nottingham often wondered just how far below the surface the temper really lurked.

  “I don’t imagine you’ve come in here for a restful hour,” Harding said as the Constable sipped from the tankard.

  “I think I last had one of those about twenty years ago, Michael.” Nottingham laughed, but to his ears it sounded forced. “Seen much of George Carver lately?”

  “What’s the old bugger been up to now?” Harding drew himself some ale and leaned against the bar. “Heard you had him in yesterday.”

  Nottingham smiled again. Gossip spread like seeds on the wind in Leeds.

  “We had a chat,” he admitted, trying not to give anything away.

  “Aye, he told me all about it. Came in here after you let him go. Said he needed a drink, but when does George not need one?” Harding winked.

  “Did he stay long?”

  The landlord cocked his head to think.

  “Till ten, perhaps. He’d had a fair few by then.”

  “How was he?”

  Harding shrugged. “Moaning a bit, got a little loud a couple of times. Didn’t cause any trouble, though. You must have scared him.”

  “But not sobered him, obviously.”

  Harding gave a braying laugh.

  “I doubt if God himself could do that, Mr Nottingham.”

  “Was he going anywhere else?” Nottingham tossed out the question.

  Harding shrugged once more. “Not my business. He’d spent good money here, that’s all I care about.”

  To his surprise, Nottingham discovered he’d almost drained the mug. He finished it in one long swallow and brushed back his fringe.

  “Well, no rest for the wicked, or for those of us who have to try and stop them. Thank you for the drink, and the information.”

  “What’s George done, then?” Harding asked as the Constable walked away.

  “I’m not sure he’s done anything. I hope not, anyway,” Nottingham replied truthfully and let the door close behind him.

  That accounted for some of Carver’s movements, he thought, stopping on the corner to allow an overloaded farm cart to turn from Vicar Lane into Kirkgate. But he’d have gone on somewhere else. That was his way, to drink himself into insensibility every night. He assessed the options. There was the Old King’s Head, the Ship, the New King’s Head and even the Talbot, all within a distance Carver could stagger if necessary. And of course the Turk’s Head. Nottingham sighed; he’d have to check them all.

  It was a thankless business. For different reasons, most of the landlords had no great love of the law, and brought varying degrees of co-operation to their talks. But an hour later no one had admitted to seeing Carver the previous night and he was willing to believe them; it would be such a foolish thing to lie about.

  One thing was certain; tonight they’d talk to George Carver again, and Nottingham dreaded the meeting.

  15

  John Sedgwick could rarely sleep during the day. He always went hopeful to his bed, but if it was light outside rest rarely came. Today was no different. Instead he watched his wife and baby across the room from his straw pallet on the floor. James was running across the floorboards, chasing dust motes that glistened in the light while Annie mended his shirt.

  He closed his eyes and tried to will his brain to stop thinking, but the questions in it refused to go away. Why had the boss let Carver go? The man had to be guilty. He trusted Nottingham, but was certain he’d been wrong; the two new bodies proved it. But he couldn’t gloat; he’d seen the Constable’s face when he heard the news, the way it fell as he realised what it meant. There was no victory in that. At least finding Carver would be easy.

  Finally he was able to drift away and doze for a few minutes until James began to cry and Annie swept him on to her lap to feed him from the breast.

  They were luckier than many, he thought. Their room was a decent size and they didn’t have to share it. Since he earned regular money they never went hungry. They had clothes that were more than rags, although he’d love to be able to afford a newer pair of breeches for himself and a better dress for Annie. Still, that would come. This was a long way from running wild on the streets as he’d been when he was a youngster.

  Sedgwick sighed and rolled over. Sleep was a terrible thing when you needed it and you never got enough of it. His head ached and his body felt tight. Finally he admitted to himself that rest just wasn’t going to happen and got up off the bed.

  “I’ve finished your shirt,” Annie said sullenly, handing it to him.

  He put it on, thankful there was no longer a gap in the seam between sleeve and body. He wanted to say something to her, but wasn’t sure what. These days every word he uttered seemed to incite a row, and at the moment he couldn’t take that.

  Annie had never been an easy girl to live with. But once, not so long ago, they’d enjoyed a few happy times among the fiery arguments. They’d laughed. Everything had changed after James was born. She seemed to sink into herself then, finding a little world that only had room for herself and the baby. Now Sedgw
ick could barely put a foot right by his own hearth. He remembered when he was twelve or thirteen, imagining how easy life must be for grown-ups, with none of the problems he’d had as a lad. Well, he was wrong there. Now he looked back he felt that childhood was carefree, full of days spent playing and laughing, even if he knew there were plenty of dark, hungry times in there too.

  He looked at Annie, giving all her concentration to James as he sucked greedily on her nipple. He remembered the way she’d looked when they first met, glowing like a banked fire, the way she’d been willing to enjoy his bad jokes and find enough pleasure in simply being with him. Now James claimed all her time and affection.

  He was a grand lad, there was no doubt about that, and Sedgwick was proud of him, strangely happy at what he’d created. From the time he was born, people had said he looked like his father, although Sedgwick could never see it himself in the chubby cheeks and thick chin. He looked like a baby, nothing more or less. But he’d started to take on some character, and at two and a half had a very real, cheeky personality. When the nipper was a bit older they’d be able to do lots of things together. He’d teach him how to fish in the Aire, how to kick a ball and all the other things boys did. And he’d send him to school so he came out with the education, with opportunities ahead of him. James would make something of himself.

  Still holding the child to her breast, Annie stood and went to stir the pot that sat over the fire in the grate. A stew again tonight, the leftovers of yesterday’s meal which he hadn’t been home to eat. God only knew if he’d be back to help finish it. There was work that needed doing, and if he couldn’t sleep he might as well do it.

  She’d brushed most of the dirt off his breeches and coat, but they were both still in a sad state of repair. However, those were the only garments he had until he could afford more. Good clothes would only be wasted in his line of work, anyway. By the end of a day they were always dirty, sometimes torn. These were fine, and, to give Annie her due, she could work magic with a needle and make things last.

  He tugged on his clothes, kissed James and Annie, then left. He was hungry, but there was little food in the house until he was paid and it seemed unfair to take any. He could scrounge a meal from an inn or a pie seller; it was one of the few perks of the job.

  Yesterday’s sun had given way to thick clouds and a feeling of rain. He made his way back to Turk’s Head Yard to look at it in the light. There was little to be seen. With the bodies gone, everything existed more in his memory than in fact, illuminated by the torchlight of last night. Now there were only some stains on the flagstones of the yard that would fade with time. Everything else was in its place, exactly what you’d expect from somewhere that strove for respectability the way this did, with the hushed sound of voices from the inn.

  He walked on, looking for the two men he’d detailed to search for the murder ground. He found them up Briggate in the Ship, supping ale.

  “You’d better have a good reason for being here,” he said sharply to one of them, a haggard, underfed youth named Johnson.

  “We wanted somewhere to wait for you, Mr Sedgwick, seeing as you’d gone to get some sleep.” He winked, and his companion, a brawny, older man called Portman, nodded agreement.

  “Did you find the place?”

  “Oh, aye, and a right bloody mess it is, too.” Johnson laughed stupidly at his own wit, showing a mouth with most of the teeth missing.

  “Then you’d better drink up and show me, hadn’t you?” the deputy said testily.

  The pair looked at each other, drained their mugs and stood. Eager to be moving, to find something, Sedgwick followed them.

  It was in the old orchard just the other side of Lands Lane, perhaps a hundred yards from where the bodies had been left. The long grass under an ancient, gnarled tree was trodden down, the earth dark and still a little sticky with blood. Flecks of it were sprayed dully on some of the windfall fruit on the ground.

  “Did you find anything else here?” he asked.

  Each man shook his head in turn.

  “Right. Well done, lads. You go on now.”

  Once he was alone, Sedgwick began combing through the undergrowth around the tree. He didn’t expect that Carver would have left anything, but he still needed to search and be sure. After almost half an hour he gave up. Nothing. No buttons, scraps of cloth. Absolutely nothing that would help put the noose round the old drunk’s neck.

  He made his way back to the jail, stopping only for the gift of a warm meat pie from the seller at the corner of Kirkgate and Briggate. Nottingham was at his desk, deep in thought, only looking up after Sedgwick had collapsed into the other chair. He raised his eyebrows for a report.

  “They were killed in that orchard by Lands Lane. Close enough to pull them to the yard easily.”

  “Anything there?”

  Sedgwick shook his head. “I searched it myself. Was there anything on the bodies?”

  “Nothing to tell us who they were,” Nottingham replied in frustration. “I doubt we’ll ever know her name unless some pimp comes to complain about a missing girl.”

  “Oh aye, and it’ll snow in July next year.” Sedgwick pushed the last piece of pie into his mouth and stretched.

  “I want you to go out and start talking to the pimps and procurers,” the Constable ordered. “Take a look at her, give them the description. One of them might say something. After all, someone’s lost income with her gone.”

  “Are you going to bring Carver back in?” he asked. It came out as an accusation, but he didn’t apologise.

  Nottingham nodded very slowly. Sedgwick’s rebuke was perfectly justified.

  “I’ll find him when he goes out this evening. I did some checking; he was next door until about ten. After that none of the inns remember seeing him.”

  “Yes, boss.” Although he tried to remain grave, the deputy’s face seemed to light up.

  “I daresay I’ll be getting another summons from his Worship today,” the Constable observed. “He’ll doubtless be concerned about the murders of respectable citizens going unsolved.”

  “And what about the whores?”

  Nottingham smiled wryly.

  “I suspect the Mayor and the corporation will only worry about them when they can’t get one.”

  Carver, Nottingham thought when he was alone. Bloody Carver. Could he have been so wrong? Every sinew in his body had said the man wasn’t capable of murder. Even now he found it hard to believe. So far there was nothing to connect him with these fresh killings. But if Carver had committed them… then perhaps it was time to quit this post, before the Mayor dismissed him for incompetence. He tried to blink the tiredness from his eyes. He’d love to be away in his bed now, but there wasn’t going to be much sleep until all this was over.

  The door of the jail opened tentatively and Nottingham looked up sharply, brought from his thoughts. A woman stepped in, glancing around nervously, as if unsure what evil she’d find inside and bracing herself to face it. He stood and bowed slightly to her.

  “I’m looking for the Constable,” she announced in a quavering voice.

  “I’m the Constable,” he said, moving to hold the chair for her. She was about thirty-five but worn by age and work, in a homespun dress of fair quality – her best, he guessed. She wore a woollen shawl around her shoulders, the fingers of one hand clutching it tightly at her neck. Her skin had the leathery look of someone who’d spent plenty of time out in the fields, lines radiating from the corners of her eyes and mouth in a plain face, her eyes flickering around the room, frightened. She’d tucked her hair into a cap, but he could see strands that had freed themselves, a mix of mousy brown and iron grey. He decided his farmer’s wife had found him.

  “I’m Richard Nottingham, the Constable of Leeds,” he told her formally, settling into his own seat. “Might I ask your name, mistress?”

  “Nell Winters.” She blurted it out as her gaze took in the details of the room. He knew how forbidding it could look to innoce
nt eyes: thick walls, the doors to the cells stout and dark. It was a place for those who’d broken the laws, not those who lived by them. From the Constable’s office, spare and cramped, but at least warmed by a hearth, a corridor ran back long the building’s single floor, past the heavy, locked oak doors of each of the five cells to the windowless mortuary room with its pair of stone slabs.

  “I don’t think you’re a Leeds woman,” Nottingham prodded gently. “I don’t know your face.”

  “No.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it. “We live in Alwoodley.” He knew the area slightly, four or five miles to the north of the city on the road to Harrogate, with wooded hills and good grazing.

  “You’re looking for your husband, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, and he saw she was glad at first that he’d understood without her having to explain. Then realisation flooded into her mind, and her hands were covering her face as she said, “Oh God, no.”

  Nottingham knew she needed comfort as tears and sobs racked her, but he didn’t move. Propriety forbade it. Instead, the best he could do was offer his messy kerchief for her to dab her eyes and hide her face.

  “Is he dead?” she asked finally, her eyes rimmed with red.

  “How was he dressed when he came to town?”

  She gave a brief description.

  “I’m sorry,” Nottingham told her gently, and she began to weep again. The minutes passed, until she seemed drained of tears for the present, and he began asking questions. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, when she was struggling to keep afloat in her grief, but he had no choice.

  “What was his name?”

  “Noah.” She barely whispered the word and tried to keep her face composed. “His mam called him that ’cause he was born when it had been raining for days and she thought they’d all end up living on an ark.”

  “He was a farmer?”

  She nodded.

  “Why did he come into Leeds?”

  “He wanted a new suit.” She shook her head at the stupidity and waste of it all, and her fingers pulled at the kerchief as if she was trying to tear it apart. “For years he’d wanted some clothes made in the city. He’d done well, the farm had made money the last few years, and he decided it was time to treat himself, so he could dress a bit more like a squire.” She offered a faint, wan smile.