‘They could live handsomely on that for a few months,’ the Constable said. ‘What makes you think they’ve come up here?’
‘Someone told my employer they’d left for Leeds. So I’m here to find them.’ Walton smiled, showing gaps in his teeth.
‘I suppose they could have come,’ the Constable conceded slowly. ‘People arrive every day, Mr Walton. But I haven’t heard of any family like that named Cooper.’
‘I’ll need to search for them.’
‘Of course,’ he agreed. He’d expected that; he knew how thief takers worked, though there had been none in Leeds; they were mostly a London breed. They existed on the edge of the law, hired by victims to find those who’d robbed them, or for a fee to act as go-betweens for the return of property. Some even stole the goods themselves, he’d heard, and sold them back for a reward. But it surprised him to find one so far from home. ‘What will you do if you find them?’
‘Take them back with me,’ Walton answered with a grin. ‘Let them face justice. And I’ll collect my money.’
‘They must be paying you well for you to come up here.’
‘The money’s good if I find them,’ the thief taker answered impassively.
Nottingham sat, rubbing his chin slowly.
‘You’re quite welcome to look for these people in Leeds,’ he said finally. ‘But I’ll expect the same of you as anyone else. You obey the laws while you’re here. You understand that?’
‘I do,’ the man replied with a nod.
The Constable cocked his head.
‘Then you’re free to do your work, Mr Walton. I hope you find the people you’re looking for.’
The man bowed again and left. Nottingham let out a long, soft sigh and shook his head. The last thing he needed was a thief taker. From all he’d heard, most of them were ungodly rogues, willing to go one way or another for some ready silver. But this one. . his manner seemed too certain, and something in his tale about the Coopers rang false. Two hundred miles was a long way to give pursuit. Either he really was being very well paid or there was a truth he wasn’t telling. Probably he imagined everyone outside London to be a bumpkin. It would be worth keeping an eye on Mr Walton.
For now, though, a different business needed his attention. He walked down Briggate, gazing around at the houses, some put up just the previous year, others dating back to Queen Bess, their fronts low, bowed and sagging, wood blackened with age. He stopped where the entrance to a court of tenements snaked back from the street between two buildings. The passageway was barely wider than a man, and disappeared quickly into deep shadow. He leaned against the stone wall and waited, the image of the burnt girl and her baby all too sharp in his mind.
Just a few minutes later a man scurried out and past him, his wig and hat pulled low, but Nottingham paid him no mind. In a few more moments she was there, stepping out into the light and blinking, her hand still adjusting her dress, tugging up the bodice and smoothing the hem.
‘Hello, Jane, love.’
‘Mr Nottingham.’ She was small, barely reaching to his shoulders, her dark hair falling out of its pins and all a-tumble on her neck. From a distance she looked young, with soft eyes like velvet; seen close, the lines around her mouth gave the lie to that tale.
‘Business good?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘I’m not starving yet.’ She looked up at him, holding a battered fan to cover the hint of a smile on her face. ‘It’s not often I see you these days. You must want something.’
He laughed, knowing it was true.
‘Have you heard of Joshua Davidson?’
‘No,’ she said with tired certainty. ‘Who’s he, anyway?’
‘He’s new here. I’ve heard he’s doing some pimping.’
She shrugged again.
‘I want a word with him’ he went on. ‘There’s a few coins in it if I can get his address.’ He reached into the pocket of his breeches and jangled the silver. Jane sighed.
‘How soon?’
‘A quarter of an hour? I’ll be at the Old King’s Head.’
‘Go on, then, seeing it’s you,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll ask around. But I’ll still want paying even if I can’t find owt.’
He nodded his agreement and strolled away. The inn stood at the corner of Currie Entry, an old building of dark panelled corridors and tiny private parlours, the window mullions stained by years of smoke, the wood of the tables so scored and rough a careless man could cut a hand on it. He bought a mug of ale and sat by himself in the corner. A few of the customers cast awkward glances at him but he just stared back, slowly enjoying the drink and letting the time dissolve.
He thought once more about the girl lying in the cold cell with her dead babe and the taste of ashes filled his throat like dirt. Whoever could kill them that way and set that blaze was someone who’d given up his soul. Once they had him, the Constable would relish seeing him gasp and choke at the end of a noose on Chapeltown Moor.
First, though, they had to find him. With any luck, Sedgwick and Rob would learn something useful. But somehow he feared this would be no easy trail. Nottingham drained the rest of cup in a long swallow and pushed it away. He was just about to stand when Jane entered, eyes glancing around until she spotted him.
‘I hope you’re grateful,’ she scolded breathlessly. ‘I’ve been all over the bloody place, I had to ask four different girls. Whoever this Joshua Davidson might be, most people have never heard of him and they don’t care. But he’s over on Mill Hill, right across from Shaw’s Well.’
‘Thank you,’ he told her, putting two coins down on the bench. Her hand darted out from under the fan to retrieve them, so quick that if he hadn’t known he’d never have noticed she only had four fingers. Two years before, her pimp had imagined she’d been cheating him and had exacted his price. A fortnight later he’d been pulled from the Aire, a knife forced to the hilt in his chest before he’d been tumbled in the water.
The Constable walked down towards the Bridge then turned on to Swinegate, as he had so often before, threading through the press of people in front of the shops. Hammering echoed from the smithy, the reek of horse dung hung about the ostler’s yard. There were puddles of piss in the road where night soil had been thoughtlessly tossed. Up in one of the houses a child was crying loudly, even as its mother tried to calm it. Amos Worthy had lived along here, six months dead now and already forgotten by most. Even his money and power couldn’t halt the cancer that whittled away at his large body until all that remained was withered and useless. Now the door to his house was closed tight and Nottingham wondered if someone else was living there, or if the place held only memories in the cobwebs and the dust on the floor. In a curious way he missed the man, the devil he’d come to know all too well.
The was no real slope to Mill Hill, just a name and tumble of houses across from Shaw’s Well, ramshackle old buildings whose timbers were strained and cracking, barely standing and held together by habit and the sheer grace of God. He pushed the fringe off his forehead, knocked on the door, heard the sound echo inside, and waited.
Finally a man answered, his fair hair tousled. From the way he wore his clothes he’d just dressed, an old, mended shirt hanging down outside a pair of faded breeches and the waistcoat inside out. He was perhaps twenty-five, pasty-faced and thin.
‘Are you Joshua Davidson?’ Nottingham asked. The man straightened his back and waited a moment before answering, as if wondering whether to admit the fact.
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘that’s me. What can I do for tha?’
‘I’m Richard Nottingham. I’m the Constable of the city. I’d like to have a talk with you.’
Davidson looked at him, eyes wary and curious. ‘I’ve done nowt wrong.’
‘I didn’t say you had, Mr Davidson. But we’d do better not standing on your doorstep.’
‘I suppose tha’d best come in, then.’
The man turned and limped down the hallway, heavily favouring his right leg, moving with awkward,
unequal grace. In a parlour furnished with only an old, chipped settle he leaned against the wall and waited.
‘I hear you have some girls, Mr Davidson.’
The man weighed the statement and then bobbed his head quickly.
‘Aye,’ he admitted. ‘There’s just the pair of them. Me sisters. I look after them.’
‘Where did you come from?’
‘Wakefield. Not that there was ever owt there for us, mind,’ he said sadly. ‘’Appen we can make a bit of brass up here.’
‘And have you?’
The man shrugged noncommittally. ‘Early days yet. We’ve barely been here a month.’ Davidson sounded cautious. ‘I’d not have thought the Constable would have bothered with us, mind.’
Nottingham smiled. ‘I’ll just tell you what I say to all the other whoremasters. I know men are going to pay to have girls. They always have, I’m not a fool. You stick with that and you’ll have no trouble from me. Get into anything else or cause any trouble and you’ll be out of here in a day. Understood?’
‘Aye.’ Davidson agreed readily. ‘I’d find some work myself if I could, and we’d have none of this. It’s not summat I like but we need to eat.’
‘Your leg?’ the Constable asked.
‘Run over by a cart about ten year back,’ he explained. ‘It never did set reet. I were a messenger lad before that. Can’t run so fast now.’ He gave a small, wry grin. ‘Don’t worry, sir, you’ll not have a problem with us.’
‘Good. Then I wish you well in Leeds, Mr Davidson.’
John Sedgwick sat on the bench in the dram shop, Lister at his side. It was the main room of a shabby cottage made over to sell gin, the trappings cheap and gaudy, their poor shine long since worn away.
The woman across the table from him had been worn to the nub by time. The hair under her cap was sparse and metal-grey, only a few discoloured teeth remained in her mouth and her clothes were fifth-hand rags from market trestles, but there was still a small, glittering spark of intelligence in her eyes. Her hand clutched the glass tightly. The deputy signalled for another taste and waited until it arrived.
‘Let’s go over it again, love,’ he said, filling her cup as she watched greedily. ‘What time did you think you saw someone coming out of the empty house?’
She took a drink and let it swirl in her mouth before answering.
‘I told you, I don’t know, do I?’ She paused, then said, ‘I think the Church might have rung seven.’ Her voice was rough and metallic. ‘It were coming nigh on light, I know that. Had to be to make him out.’
The deputy nodded. It was the third time through the tale and he was ready to press her for details.
‘What were you doing?’
‘Emptying t’ pots. All the piss has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?’
‘Did you see where he came from?’
She shook her head quickly and took another small nip of the gin, looking fondly at the remaining liquid. ‘He were just there, so it must have been somewhere close, I know that.’
‘Could he have come through the ginnel?’
‘Mebbe,’ she said eventually, with a grudging shrug. ‘I looked up and he were crossing the street.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘Just his back.’
‘Can you remember what his was wearing?’ Lister asked and she slowly shifted her gaze to him. Sedgwick pulled three small coins from his waistcoat pocket and let them fall on the wood.
‘Just ordinary,’ she said.
‘What’s ordinary?’
She drained the glass, making sure she took every last drop.
‘I don’t know. Dark coat, dark breeches, hose, shoes.’
‘What about his hair?’ the deputy wondered. ‘What colour was that?’
He watched her thinking, trying to remember. Finally she just shrugged again.
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s all right,’ he told her, pushing the money across the table and standing up.
Outside, the deputy kicked at a stone, and sighed as it skittered across the dirt.
‘She’ll be in there until it’s all gone.’
‘She wasn’t much help,’ Lister said.
‘I still think she saw summat. She wouldn’t have stuck to it like that if she hadn’t. We’d better go around and talk to people along here, see if anyone else noticed anything. You take the houses on that side, I’ll take these.’
‘I’d rather be on my way home to bed.’
Sedgwick grinned.
‘You can do that once you’ve talked to them. What do you think we pay you for?’ He ruffled Rob’s hair and gave him a friendly push. ‘Come on, there’s a dead lass and her baby to think about.’
The deputy found few people at home. Most were off at their work, wives and husbands both. Children of all ages ran wild between the houses and on the road, scattering and reforming like flocks of birds. They ran to him eagerly when he brought a coin from his pocket and let the light play on it. He squatted, looking from one face to the other, some still clean, others with the grime of a week or more on their skin.
‘Listen,’ he said, raising his voice to quiet them. ‘You, hush. I’m trying to find out about the fire over the road. Who saw it?’ They all nodded and started to speak but he was louder. ‘How many of you were out before it started?’
Three of them raised their hands.
‘Right. You lot come over here.’ He waited until they gathered close, the others wandering off, already bored. ‘This is important,’ he told them. ‘What did you see before the fire? Was there anyone around the house?’
Two of the boys shook their heads but one girl looked thoughtful.
‘You mean a man?’ she asked.
‘Anyone or anything,’ Sedgwick said gently.
She rubbed a runny rose with the back of her hand and closed her eyes to fix the picture in her mind.
‘Them as lived there had gone last week,’ she began. ‘I heard them move out in the night when it were quiet.’
‘What’s your name, love?’
‘Meg. Meg Smith.’
‘Right, go on, Meg,’ he encouraged her.
‘Yesterday my mam woke me up early to go and buy a jug of ale for my da so he could go to work,’ she said.
‘What time was it? Do you know?’
‘Don’t know,’ she answered, ‘but it wasn’t light yet. Just a bit lighter over there.’ She pointed at the horizon and looked at him questioningly. He nodded his understanding. ‘The door was open.’
‘Of the house, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see anyone?’
She shook her head. ‘Not until I was on my way back. There was a man coming out. He closed the door behind him and then he went down towards the church. I don’t think he saw me.’
The deputy smiled at the girl. ‘What did he look like? Did you see him properly?’
‘Not really,’ she replied slowly, concentrating. ‘He was big.’
‘As big as me?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said doubtfully.
‘What was he wearing?’
She thought and finally shook her head. ‘Just clothes.’
He smiled at her. ‘Anything else you can remember?’
‘No,’ she answered with quick honesty.
He took her small hand and folded it around the coin.
‘You take that and keep it for yourself, Meg. Don’t let your mam or your da know you have it, all right?’
‘Yes.’ She ran off to join the others, her fist tightly clenched.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start and it made the woman’s story less of a drunkard’s dream. Now he had to hope others had been out and about, their eyes sharp and able to give a better description. Down here, though, there wasn’t much hope of that. They’d learned to look at the law with distrust and knew it was better to say nothing than a word too much.
He waited until Lister had finished his few brief questions of
a man, and walked over to him.
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Rob answered wearily.
Sedgwick looked at the lad, his face drawn, the skin dark under his eyes. He’d need to be rested to work tonight.
‘You get on home. I’ll cover this.’
‘I will. It’s always harder to sleep during the day, isn’t it?’
‘You get used to it,’ the deputy told him with a laugh. ‘Like everything else in this job.’
Once Lister had gone he set to work again. He knew there was a chance he’d discover more if he worked alone. Rob was good at plenty of things, and he’d learned well since starting the previous summer, but he didn’t yet have the skill of talking to the poor. He’d never been one of them, he couldn’t read their faces yet or understand what might be in the things they didn’t say. He’d learn, in time, but right now things would go faster without him.
He spent the rest of the afternoon moving from house to house along the Calls, going all the way down to the Crown Inn by the graveyard of the Parish Church. The bells rang the hour a few times as he tried to cajole and charm the folk he found, but for all his hope and persistence there was little of help. Only two thought they might have seen someone and neither had paid attention to a figure on the street in the early morning.
Finally he’d had enough. His throat was dry from asking questions, his feet ached from standing, and he wanted to be at home with Lizzie and the baby. He stretched out his back and set off for the house on Lands Lane.
He felt the pride swell in him each time he unlocked the door. It only had a single hearth and a bedroom atop a large kitchen. But it was a house. All his life he’d lived in rooms, sometimes shared with other families, some dark and dank spaces. This felt like riches and grandeur. James had explored the place like another country and Lizzie had walked around slowly, touching everything in disbelief and wonder. The boss had upped his pay back in September, just after the new mayor took office, and they’d been able to afford this.
Lizzie looked up from her chair, a weary smile on her face. Isabell was in her arms, taking the nipple, only her head showing from the swaddling.
‘How is she?’ he asked.
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