Cold Cruel Winter

by Chris Nickson

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Go home, the pair of you. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’

  Alone, he drained the cup. The evening outside was loud with the sound of voices, carts, and horses. He wanted the peace of silence. He wanted to be somewhere the thoughts didn’t crowd him, where all this vanished and he could feel free.

  Terrible as it was, he knew this murder was what he needed. It was forcing him out of himself, pushing him away from the darkness that had consumed him since Rose died.

  Nottingham looked at the names of the two convicted men scrawled in his notebook. Had he given evidence at both their trials? He couldn’t recall. But he’d testified so many times, against so many men, that it was impossible to bring many details to mind.

  Elias Wainwright had been found guilty of stealing cloth from the factory. It was just scraps and offcuts that would have been thrown away anyway. But he’d taken them without permission, and that was a crime. He’d almost certainly have been released long ago.

  Abraham Wyatt had been more calculating, he remembered that much. A clerk, he’d been clever enough to embezzle from Graves, and it was sheer accident that he’d been caught. Everyone expected him to hang, but he’d pleaded benefit of clergy and instead he’d been transported, given seven years in the Indies, something many considered worse than the noose. Death out there came slow, he’d heard, from heat and sickness. Few ever came back. Not many lasted a single year, let alone seven.

  He banked the fire and blew out the candle, locking the heavy door behind him as he left. A thin wind funnelled down the street and he pushed the collar of his greatcoat close around his neck. Kirkgate was quieter now, the people gone to their houses, trying to keep the winter at bay for another night and praying for the advent of spring.

  Six

  A long week passed and they found nothing. Whoever had killed Samuel Graves had left no clues, no hints. For all the hours of questions and long searches, he might as well have been invisible.

  Deep down, Nottingham knew full well that the man was still in the city. There was more to come, he could feel it. There had to be; no one did that then just vanished. All he could do was keep looking and wait.

  Graves’s papers arrived. He’d pored over them for hours, reading through every piece of correspondence. He’d been going to London to try to secure a contract to provide blankets for the army. It would have made him a very wealthy man if it had happened, but the Constable was certain that it wasn’t the cause behind a murder like this.

  Every day the Mayor ranted at him to solve the murder. Every night, when he lay in bed, it preyed on him, until the thoughts of Rose replaced it with something even deeper and darker.

  What baffled him still was the skinning. It was easy enough to make sense of a killing, however warped it might be. But so carefully, so delicately, to remove the skin from someone’s back? There had to be a reason, but for all his thoughts he couldn’t find it.

  He’d managed to learn that Wainwright had died, another victim of the killing winter. He’d dispatched a letter to London to learn if Abraham Wyatt had died in Jamaica or been released, but it could well be weeks before he received a reply.

  Seven frustrating days had passed since Sedgwick had found the body, days of half-hopes that proved as substantial as October mist. The only consolation was that the weather had hesitatingly begun to warm, melting much of the ice and turning packed snow into grey, creaking slush.

  He’d been sitting in the jail since seven. Sedgwick and Forrester had gone out to ask more questions, although he already knew the answers would be of no help. On Briggate the sounds of the Tuesday market echoed loudly, cheerful and competitive as the traders vied with each other.

  The door opened and a boy entered hesitantly, his eyes wide at being in such a place. Nottingham looked down at him and smiled gently.

  ‘Please sir . . .’ the boy began in a small voice. He was tiny but already careworn, and from his rags he was obviously one of the urchins whose life on the streets of Leeds would be pitifully short.

  ‘What do you need?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone told me to give this to the Constable.’ He brought a small parcel from behind his back, wrapped in an old sheet from the Leeds Mercury.

  ‘I’m the Constable,’ Nottingham told him kindly. ‘Who told you to do this?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ the boy answered. ‘But he gave me a penny for it.’

  ‘I see.’ He was alert now, staring at the package the boy had put on the desk. ‘And when did he do this?’

  ‘Just a few minutes ago, sir. Over near Lands Lane.’

  ‘What did he look like? Do you remember?’ He tried to make the questions sound casual; he didn’t want to terrify the boy into silence.

  The lad shook his head. ‘I couldn’t really see him, sir. He had a hat pulled down, and a heavy coat.’

  ‘Was he big? Small?’

  ‘Not so big,’ the boy said with confidence. ‘But he said he’d watch me and if I didn’t do the job he’d take the money back and hurt me.’

  ‘Well, you’ve done it, so everything is fine.’ Nottingham smiled at him. ‘What’s your name?

  ‘Mark, sir. My mother said it’s for one of the followers of Jesus.’

  ‘She was right. Where is she now?’

  ‘Dead, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Mark. You can go now, you’ve done your job well.’

  As the door closed, he sat down and unwrapped the package.

  Seven

  They were the first to make me feel inferior.

  Nottingham realized he’d been holding his breath and forced himself to exhale slowly. He was sitting at his desk, holding the slim, bound volume. The binding was pale brown leather, thin and crinkled, and dry to the touch.

  He ran his thumb across it, feeling the rough texture. On the front, in exact, immaculate copperplate, was the title: The Journal of a Wronged Man, and underneath, in smaller letters, In Four Volumes written in ink the dark, rich red of fresh blood.

  Revenge, he thought. Abraham Wyatt. He didn’t know why but it had to be; he could feel it, the way some pieces fell into place so perfectly that it was impossible to be any other way. Wyatt must have survived the Indies somehow, to be carried home by hate. He’d had eight years to plan all this.

  He picked up the small book and began to read again, his face set in a frown, concentrating intently on the even, copperplate script.

  And then there was Samuel Graves. That should be a name to capture a reader’s attention in this place and this time. He was another to think less of me because of my beginnings. He looked down on me, and offered no respect for my talents. But more of him later.

  At school I revenged myself on my fellows in minor ways. Small things went missing, belongings of theirs, or items from the school that appeared among their possessions and brought them harsh punishments. I was sly and careful. Suspicion was on me, but I made certain that they could never prove a thing.

  My education was too brief. I could have done great things, I know this, but the opportunity and the time were not there for one like me. Poor circumstances make their own needs. There were mouths to be fed in my family; they required me to bring in a wage. So I was torn from my school and each day I walked into Chesterfield and back to do my work as a clerk for a grain merchant. Six miles each way for the privilege of being little better than a slave.

  The pay was miserly, and he worked me long and hard. He made money, and plenty of it, far too much for such a stupid man. Once I understood his system, it was not difficult to take some of his profits. He never even realized.

  My intention was to amass enough money to enter business myself. Having seen the dubious qualities of those who managed to do well in life, I knew I could be successful. I left my position before anything might be discovered and moved to another. Slowly I accrued some small savings.

  Then I was trapped by a ruthless girl. She was friendly enough, and soon free with h
er favours. But then she came to me, saying she was having our baby, and wanting marriage. There was I, barely sixteen, with my plans, my ambitions. I had tupped the girl with pleasure, but intended nothing more, certainly not wedlock and a life of misery and poverty. I had seen enough of that. Instead, I gave my small fortune to the whore who had tried to trap me, and took to the road.

  That was a meagre time, with jobs in Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster. There was a little money to be made from my skills as a clerk, and a little more, over and above, from my native intelligence. Finally I arrived in Leeds.

  However, more of that will come in the future. That is a tease, I know, but there is something more immediate to be told. It is full of sensation and horror, all those things people love but claim to hate.

  Samuel Graves. He did me the gravest wrong, and so he paid the greatest price. I have found that a man can learn a great deal by listening. People talk to listen to their own pompous voices with no thought of who else might hear them. If a man is quiet and still, he can often go unnoticed; it is a skill I have learnt over the years, and put to good use here.

  Following Graves – I cannot feel enough respect to offer him the honorific of Mr – I was able to discover a great deal. Initially, it was a pleasure to find him still alive, still hale and hearty and involved in his work. If he had died before our paths crossed again, I would have been sorely disappointed, and this volume would never have been written.

  It only took a few days to hear about his plans to take the London coach, and when he would be leaving. I knew that would be my chance. After all, Graves lived a remarkably ordered life between his warehouse, home and church. If I had not known him somewhat better, I might have been tempted to call him a good man.

  In the clamour surrounding the arrival of a coach, it is quite remarkable what a man can do if he is quick and thinks on his feet – another skill I acquired in my travels.

  Some damage to a wheel ensured a delay and loud frustration among the passengers. In that time it was very easy to be Graves’s shadow, and once he was alone, to take advantage of the situation. A little something in his drink, and suddenly he was no longer feeling too well.

  What should happen but a caring friend appears to help him away to a quiet place? One man helping a drunk, hardly an uncommon sight in any city in the kingdom at any time of day, as I am sure you will agree. A different hat, some dirt on the coat and the wig gone and no one would recognize Graves or even give the pair a second look. Nor would he really be missed as the coach rushed away late.

  By now I am sure you must have realized I have a place somewhere, and I took him there. When he woke, of course, he was firmly bound and gagged – after all, I did not want him shouting for help, did I? Not that it would have helped him. There was plenty of time to apprise him of all the things he had done to me, for him to be aware of his responsibilities, and how he would pay for all the ills he had caused me. You might even say he was a lucky man, really, for how many of us come to learn of the time and manner of our death before it happens?

  Nottingham felt a shiver of fear in his spine. His palms were clammy, although the fire was low in the grate. He set the book down on the desk and paced around the room for a minute, trying to take in what he’d just read. Wyatt was insane, there seemed little doubt of that, but at the same time the man’s mind was filled with a clarity whose focus scared him.

  And he was positive, beyond any shadow of doubt, that it was Abraham Wyatt. The clues were there, clear to anyone who could read them. Finding Graves alive, the mentions of the things Graves had supposedly done, the grievances of the murderer, they gave so much away.

  The book was a taunt, a piece in a game he was playing, a tournament of catch-me-if-you-can, a direct challenge to the Constable. The way he relished putting it all on paper, the sheer pleasure Wyatt was taking in every step of this, disturbed and chilled him. He brushed the fringe off his forehead and forced himself to sit again, taking a deep breath before he picked up the book.

  For whatever it’s worth, I killed him on the Saturday morning, with one slice of the blade across his throat. He knew it was coming, I had told him, and, to offer him a little credit, he neither fought nor flinched. He understood his time had arrived at my hands and accepted it with equanimity.

  There was a great deal of blood, of course. But a chilly room is a fine place to keep a corpse so it does not stink, and a workroom and the lengthy winter have been good to me in that. When I was ready, disposing of the body was an easy task. I was only surprised that it took so long for anyone to notice him lying there.

  But there is something more you want to know, is there not? There is something you cannot understand, something that makes you believe I am inhuman. Why, you wonder, did I remove the skin from his back?

  I had not told Graves about that, it would have been far too cruel, even to a man like him. The knowledge of his death was punishment enough, not the use to which he would be put, and after death what would it matter to him, anyway?

  Some of the skills a man learns in rural areas are very strange. But in a place where self-sufficiency is vital, it is important to be able to turn a hand to everything. So, among many other duties, I was taught how to skin a beast and to cure the hide. The technique is not especially hard, and even the act of skinning is not particularly complex, once one learns how to do it properly. For what it is worth, the real art is in peeling the flesh away evenly, and I had an old, excellent teacher with some long-held tricks and a very sharp knife.

  The difficulty here was in curing the skin. Ideally it should have had at least a week longer, but I confess I was eager to share my triumph.

  But no doubt you are mystified as to exactly what I mean. Why would I cure the flesh as if Graves was no better than a common beast?

  The answer is, quite literally, in your hands.

  Take a look at the cover of this small volume, Constable. If it seems like good quality leather, that’s a testament to my meagre skill. It seems very apt, somehow, to have the description of the death of Samuel Graves wrapped in his own skin.

  Nottingham stood up quickly and the book fell to the floor. His mouth filled with bile, and for a few short moments he struggled for breath, certain that he’d vomit, the room swimming in front of him.

  Jesus. He held on to the desk, eyes closed, the sweat cooling rapidly, chilling on his skin, as he tried to steady his lurching stomach. The relish which the murderer – Wyatt, it had to be Wyatt – took in all this went beyond any belief. In his job he’d dealt with madmen before but none who came close to this. This was evil. He’d read the words, but he couldn’t begin to understand the mind behind them.

  He glanced down, seeing the book on the flagstones. To know he’d touched it, laid his hands on a dead man’s flesh, made him shudder, and once again he tasted the sickness in his throat and forced it back down. He’d have to pick it up, to read what remained, and then comb through it all again and again for any hints it might offer.

  Those would be precious few, he was certain. Wyatt might be moonmad, but he was cunning as Reynard, one who’d hide his tracks well. He’d planned carefully, and he had luck on his side. And that, Nottingham knew from experience, could be a dangerous combination.

  Gingerly he sat again, reaching for the volume but loath to touch it and feel death on his fingertips. Very cautiously, hands pressing on the paper, not the binding, he read on:

  Have I horrified you? Have I revolted you? I trust I have. After all, what I have done is inhuman, is it not?

  You will recall that I wrote that this book will extend to four volumes. When they are all done, my revenge will be complete. If you are a clever man, and I trust you are to have your position, you may already have deduced who I am. That is of no import. Think of me merely as an instrument of retribution. Three more volumes will mean three more victims. What should concern you are their identities. Who are they, and how can you keep them safe? Even if you know who they might be, how do you dare to tell them
the truth without causing a panic?

  And now I’ve presented you with a challenge, Constable. When my mission is complete I shall leave Leeds, and if that happens, you will never be able to catch me. So now you have it. You need to find me, to stop me. I don’t believe you can. I have had a long, long time to plan this, what felt like lifetimes, and all you can do is try to keep up with me. Forgive me if I do not say that I wish you well.

  He sat back, staring at the book, lost in thought. Time passed, he had no idea how long. The door banged open and Sedgwick ambled in, frowning, snapping the Constable back to the present.

  ‘John,’ Nottingham said quietly, ‘let’s go next door to the Swan. I need a drink, and believe me, you’re going to, as well.’ He slid the book into the desk drawer, picked up his coat and walked out into the cloudy, suddenly unreal day.

  Eight

  ‘Christ Almighty.’ Eyes wide, Sedgwick shook his head in disbelief as Nottingham told him about the book. ‘He’s not a man, he’s a devil.’

  ‘Oh, he’s a man, no doubt about that. But he’s evil – that’s absolutely certain.’ He took a long swig of strong ale to clear his mouth. A low buzz of conversation filled the inn, but he’d been talking quietly, anxious not to be overheard.

  The book had shaken him. It had terrified him. His hands felt unclean, tainted; he could still feel the brittle dryness of the binding against his fingers. That was horror enough. What was far worse was what he saw when he looked beyond that.