Cold Cruel Winter

by Chris Nickson

  The door burst open, letting in an angry breath of cold air. Sedgwick and Joshua Forester came through together, rubbing their hands and taking off coats in a quick, sharp bustle of activity.

  Sedgwick had taken Forester, a young cutpurse turned Constable’s man, under his wing. From living rough, the way Nottingham had once survived himself, the boy had blossomed. He’d begun to fill out, to show a sense of maturity that belied his years. He was punctual and thorough, the thief set to catch thieves who’d proved surprisingly good at his job.

  ‘Anything more on Graves, boss?’ Sedgwick asked, and all Nottingham could do was shake his head.

  ‘According to his wife, I was wrong about him being retired. Graves was supposed to be on his way to London on business last Friday, but it looks as though he never got on the coach. That means whoever did this held on to the body for days, which makes no sense at all. Go to the King Charles, John, see if anyone saw him there, talk to the coaching people, find out if he’d booked a seat. Josh, did John tell you what had happened?’

  Forester bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘People knew Graves here,’ the Constable explained. ‘He was respected. A lot of them liked him. But there must have been some folk who didn’t. You know what to do, ask around, open your ears. There’ll be plenty of gossip in the air today.’

  ‘What about the men?’ Sedgwick wondered.

  ‘Get them searching.’ Nottingham stood and began pacing around the small room. ‘He was killed and kept and skinned somewhere. We need the place, and we need to find it quickly. And not a word about his back, understood? Not even to the men. This stays with the three of us. Remind the ones who brought him in to keep quiet. Talk to the coroner, too. Can’t have him prattling.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Nottingham glanced at Forester.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ the boy answered soberly.

  They left, and once he was alone again, a heavy wave of sadness shimmered through Nottingham. Not for Graves, but for himself, for the maw that had consumed his life. Since Rose’s death it came to him often, unexpectedly, unpredictably, emptying him of everything else. All he could do was sit, wrapped in its grip as it took him, the black curtains descending around his heart, sometimes for minutes.

  This episode was mercifully short, and breathing softly, he let it pass, shaking his head to clear it. He couldn’t afford this. He needed to think about work, to do his duty. Study it as he might, there was little more he could learn from the corpse, but before he could release it for burial, he needed to talk to the Mayor.

  They’d begun as adversaries six months before, when Edward Kenion was sworn in for his year of office. Even now there was little love lost between them, only a grudging respect.

  The Moot Hall stood in the middle of Briggate, like a rock around which traffic swirled like water, with the Shambles – the butchers’ shops – stinking on either side of the street. Under the ground was the dungeon for those awaiting the Quarter Sessions, and up the stairs, where the wainscoting stood polished to a high, elegant sheen, were the offices of the Corporation.

  Portraits of former mayors lined the walls, faces worshipful and haughty, watching as he walked over shining boards to Kenion’s office, where the windows looked up the street to the Market Cross, and thick Turkey carpets absorbed the sound of feet.

  Nottingham knocked on the door and waited for the gruff command to enter. Kenion was at his desk, three heavy piles of papers in front of him. Bewigged, carefully dressed and groomed, and with his pristine stock tied just so, he was subtle about showing his riches: a suit of fine, understated cloth in a good cut, a close shave, and the aura of power that only came with ample money.

  Like almost all the city’s mayors, he’d made his fortune as a wool merchant. He knew the business, and he understood all too well its value to Leeds, the way it came before everything else. Leeds was built on cloth.

  Nottingham sat and waited. When Kenion looked up, he showed his jowls hanging like a hound, and a mesh of fine red lines across his nose from too much good wine and too many rich dinners. His belly pushed firmly against the expensive pale grey silk of his flowing waistcoat.

  ‘Sam Graves was good to me when I started out,’ he began briskly, but Nottingham could hear the slight catch under his voice.

  The Constable waited.

  ‘I don’t like anyone murdered in my city, Mr Nottingham’ – he placed an emphasis on the title – ‘but especially someone like him.’

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘But much more than that, I don’t like what happened to him after.’

  He described the skinning, the length of time the killer had kept the corpse, watching as the Mayor blanched before he concluded, ‘We can’t let word get out. You understand, I’m sure.’

  Kenion nodded his agreement slowly. ‘I’ll talk to his widow and the undertaker. But it sounds as if we have a madman here.’

  ‘Mad possibly, but not a madman,’ Nottingham countered thoughtfully.

  The Mayor looked at him quizzically.

  ‘This wasn’t a random murder. It’s too deliberate, too calculated.’

  ‘I don’t care if he’s rabid or as sane as me. Whatever he is, you’d better find him fast,’ Kenion ordered, his face hard, as if Nottingham would do anything else. ‘With some luck, we can keep this one fairly quiet. There’ll be rumours, of course, but if I hear more than that . . .’

  He let the words trail off. They didn’t need to be spoken. Nottingham stood. He’d achieved what he wanted; the Mayor would do all he could to ensure the skinning was kept quiet. The rest, as always, was up to him and his men.

  He’d never been there, but he knew where Graves had his warehouse, just as he knew where most things were in Leeds. He’d scavenged its streets so often when he was young, finding places to hide and live, little refuges and sanctuaries of hope for a few days, that he knew the city intimately, like a lover. Grown, he patrolled them, and learned the city’s deeper secrets and shame.

  The warehouse was one of the buildings by the river, downstream from Leeds Bridge. The stone was just beginning to wear, darkened by soot and rain, the main door painted a deep, forbidding black. He walked in, entering the office, where three clerks sat working at their high desks. They looked up together as his heels clopped on the flagstone floor.

  ‘I’m Richard Nottingham, the Constable.’

  Like brothers used to each other but not to outsiders, the men glanced between themselves before one dared clear his throat and ask, ‘How can I help you, sir?’

  ‘Have you heard about Mr Graves?’ he asked.

  The man stared blankly, while the others looked confused.

  ‘He’s in London, sir, he left on Friday,’ the man responded with an uneasy smile. ‘He’ll be back next week.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but he won’t,’ Nottingham told them, watching their faces as the words captured their attention. ‘Mr Graves was found dead yesterday here in Leeds. Someone killed him.’

  There was a low stir of voices between the men.

  ‘I need to know about his plans, and about the business,’ Nottingham interrupted them.

  The man who’d answered him was somewhere in middle age, his back bent from years of writing, his fingers permanently stained with the deep blue-black of ink. He cleared his throat softly.

  ‘This is one of the biggest warehouses in Leeds,’ he said with pride, as if he owned it himself. ‘We export cloth all over, to Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, sir. We’re always busy. Mr Graves said he was going to London to discuss a contract there.’

  His eyes were cast down slightly, not cowed, but trained by a lifetime of deference to those who’d always have more than him.

  ‘I thought he’d retired.’

  The man smiled wanly and shook his head. ‘He tried, sir. He really tried. It lasted about three months. But Mr Graves wasn’t a man who could take his ease too well. He’d planned on selling the business, but then he decid
ed to keep going himself. He needed it, he said.’

  ‘How are your order books?’ Nottingham asked.

  ‘Full, sir, they’re always full.’

  ‘And how long have you three worked here?’

  ‘I’ve been here twenty-five years, sir.’ He gestured at the others. ‘Mr Rushworth’s been a clerk with us for almost twenty years, and Mr Johnson eight years. Mr Graves trusts us to run things.’ His face reddened briefly in embarrassment and sadness. ‘I mean, he trusted . . .’

  ‘Do you know who he was meeting in London?’

  The man shook his head. ‘He never said, but I’m sure there will be letters in his correspondence. I can look if you’d like, sir.’

  ‘Do that, if you would. I’ll need everything you can find,’ the Constable told him. ‘What time was his coach?’

  The men looked between themselves again, shrugging.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, he didn’t tell us that, only that he’d be gone to London for a few days. Mrs Graves might know,’ he added, then paused. ‘Do you know what might happen to the business now? And to . . . us?’

  ‘I don’t. I’m sorry.’ He understood their fear, not knowing whether they might be cast out in a week or a month. But there was nothing more he could learn here at the moment. ‘Can you bring all his correspondence about London to the jail, please?’

  Outside, a weak, watery sun had started to shine, but its faint brightness did nothing to warm the air. Nottingham pulled the coat close and the tricorn hat down tight and trudged back along the river, then over the patches of ice on Lower Briggate to the jail. The drunks had woken, and he let them go with a warning. They’d be back soon enough anyway, if they didn’t freeze on the streets first. All anyone could hope was that the weather would break soon, and that spring would arrive. They all needed new life, he thought grimly.

  He sat, letting the heat from the fire slowly fill him. A scrawled, almost illegible note on the desk told him that the undertaker had collected Graves’s body. Tomorrow there would be men hacking at the frozen earth for his burial and the day after a sombre crowd in thick woollen coats in the churchyard to hear his eulogy.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, then sweeping the fringe off his forehead, he gathered together what he knew about the killing. It was precious little, a spider’s web made up of mystery and questions.

  To the best of his knowledge, Graves had never been one to frequent the inns and taverns. On a few occasions Nottingham had seen him at Garroway’s coffee house, and the merchant had seemed uncomfortable enough there, surrounded by brittle noise and the prittle-prattle of chatter.

  He was at the Parish Church every Sunday, in his own pew with his wife and some of the servants, parading down Kirkgate and back, the soul of rectitude. And that was what he might have been, a man who lived for his work and his family. But now, no more.

  That wasn’t the question that gnawed at him. What he couldn’t understand was why one man would take the flesh of another. Why had he held on to the body? What could he do with the skin? There seemed to be no reason behind any of it. His imagination could conjure up nothing, and that left him at a disadvantage.

  The more he considered it, the more certain he was that there could be nothing spontaneous about the killing. Everything had been planned with the greatest care. It had taken place somewhere the skin could be removed, and the murderer had held on to the corpse somewhere before leaving it, quite deliberately, to be found.

  That meant someone had a deep reason to kill Graves. So someone, somewhere, had a motive, some history, some explanation for it all.

  That much he could accept. But the skinning still made absolutely no sense.

  For now all he could do was wait until Sedgwick and Joshua returned, and hope they’d discovered something. In the meantime there were lists to complete, reports to be written, the terrible minutiae of his job.

  Writing never came easily to him. For his daughter Emily, who maybe still harboured the secret, ridiculous notion of becoming a writer, words flowed easily, like water in a brook. For Rose, like him in so many ways, they never had. She’d been a kindly girl, with few pretensions, one who greeted each little twist of life with a smile.

  He sighed loudly, aware once more of the large void in his life. In his head he knew others had suffered more, much more, but that was no comfort while his heart still broke at each memory.

  Nottingham picked up the quill and dipped it in ink, hoping to lose himself in the effort of work. He’d learned to read and write as a young boy, before his father had convinced himself that his wife had been unfaithful and the lad was not his. He’d thrown the pair of them from his merchant’s house, and a life of luxury became a daily fight where books and words held no place.

  He’d come back to his letters reluctantly when he took the job as a Constable’s man, but still found no pleasure in them. Now he was teaching Sedgwick to read and write, watching as the deputy eagerly embraced this new world of learning like a child, his writing shaky at first, then quickly becoming firmer, his eyes striving to make sense of words on the page, forming them slowly, then with more confidence. He worked hard at it. Nottingham knew Sedgwick had ambitions to succeed him as Constable, and he’d need these skills for the job. In time, he thought, it might happen. Maybe even sooner than anyone had imagined, he thought, if his weariness with the world didn’t end.

  He was still scribbling when the door opened, forcing in a hard rush of bitter air, and Sedgwick entered, shaking a few flakes of snow from his hair.

  ‘It’s started again,’ he complained, taking off his coat and standing close to the fire, holding out his hands as if to grasp its warmth.

  ‘What did you manage to find at the inn?’ Nottingham asked.

  ‘Graves was booked for Friday’s coach, but he never got on it. Paid for his seat, too, so they were surprised when he never took it.’ He rubbed his palms together. ‘He used to take the coach every two months, they said, and he’d always been punctual.’

  ‘What time did the coach leave on Friday?’

  ‘It was a little late – supposed to go at ten, but it was almost eleven when it finally got off. There’d been a problem with one of the wheels, and they had to repair it before they could leave.’

  Nottingham looked at the deputy. ‘Did anyone see Graves on Friday morning?’

  ‘Maybe, they’re not sure.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘You know what it’s like there when there’s a coach, boss. It’s always madness for a few minutes. Then they had to take care of the wheel and the passengers. A couple of the men say they might have seen him, but they’re not sure; no one’s going to swear to it, they were all too busy.’

  ‘What about strangers?’

  Sedgwick gave a hopeless smile. ‘I tried that one, too. Between the travellers and the gawkers, they’re all strangers. No faces anyone remembered.’

  The Constable sighed. He hadn’t truly expected much, but he’d hoped for something. He thought for a moment, then said, ‘John, go down to Graves’s warehouse. I was there earlier. They don’t seem to know much, but try asking them about anyone who’s been sacked.’

  Sedgwick nodded and gathered up his wet coat, which was just beginning to steam in the heat, then left.

  Nottingham needed to speak to the widow Graves again. It was never easy, cajoling the bereaved into the past, the last place they wanted to visit, picking and probing at wounds that were still fresh. But he knew it had to be done. Give them a day, that was the way he’d been taught, just long enough to dull the first shock but while things were still clear.

  Once again the widow received him in the sitting room, the fire a bright, roaring blaze. She looked as if she hadn’t slept, eyes rimmed red, her skin pale and waxy. She glanced up as he entered, staring not so much at him as through him, as if he were a ghost, without substance, and she was straining to see the reality.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to come again,’ he began, not even sure she’d heard him. Her old hand was curled tight
around an embroidered linen handkerchief as if it was a rope that could save her.

  ‘I know this is a difficult time,’ he continued gently, watching the blankness of her face. ‘I need to ask you some more questions, so I can try and find the man who killed your husband.’

  At the last two words she looked up sharply.

  ‘He’s dead, though, isn’t he? You told me that yourself. Nothing I say is going to bring him back.’ Her voice was distant, speaking through the haze of a thousand memories.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but it might bring him justice.’

  She returned to her lost silence. He tried again, kneeling by her chair so his face was level with hers.

  ‘You said he didn’t have any enemies, Mrs Graves. But someone killed him, something happened to cause that. Is there anything you can think of, anything at all? It doesn’t matter how long ago.’ He realized he sounded as if he was pleading, but it didn’t matter. He needed information, the tiny scraps from the table of Graves’s life.

  ‘I know he was a good man, but I’m sure my husband wasn’t always a saint in his work.’ She spoke slowly, sadly. ‘He never really talked about his business at home, but I know there were times he must have cheated and stolen a little. He didn’t tell me, of course, but it was obvious. That was years ago, though.’ She glanced at him, her eyes suddenly focused, her voice sharper as the words began to rush from her mouth.

  ‘I know he had some sort of feud with George Williamson for a while. Do you remember him, Tom Williamson’s father? He died a couple of years ago. And I’m sure that from time to time Samuel had to dismiss men who worked for him, but he never talked about that with me, and it wasn’t my place to know. He didn’t play cards often, he rarely gambled, as far as I know he didn’t have any debts, and he wasn’t interested enough in women to keep a mistress.’

  ‘I see,’ was the only way he could respond to her candour.

  ‘What I mean, Mr Nottingham, is that I really don’t know of any reason someone would kill my husband.’ She paused, letting her thoughts collect. ‘If he’d been worried about anything, I’d have known it; after so many years, you can tell without words. He seemed hopeful. He’d been going to London regularly for a few months. All I know is that he was negotiating for a contract of some sort.’ Her eyes opened wider. ‘I suppose if we’d had a son, he’d have followed Samuel into his business, but we only had girls. He’d talked about taking on an apprentice or a partner for years, but he’d never done it.’