Fair and Tender Ladies

by Chris Nickson

  He asked here and there, but all he received were shakes of the head and blank looks. There were so many places a man could disappear in Leeds. He knew that from his younger days, a time when disappearing could mean staying alive.

  Nottingham walked through the courts and the yards that ran off Briggate, finding those he knew and asking them. But no one had even heard of the man. By dinner he was beginning to believe he’d imagined it, that Johnson had never been at the market at all. He wandered down by the school, hearing Emily’s voice through the open window, confident and caring as she corrected one of the girls.

  He cut through the ginnel and came out on Call Brows, his eyes alert for anyone hiding and waiting, but the street was empty. Finally he gave up, and settled in the Old King’s Head for a pie and cold ale. Part of his mind expected Sedgwick to slide on to the bench across from him, ready to eat and pass on some snippet he’d learned during the morning. But never again. They’d never know why John had died, what had made King attack him. Another useless death.

  Most of the people he cared about in the world were dead, and too soon, all of them too soon.

  The Constable ate quickly, not really tasting the food. It was just something to fill his belly and keep him until evening. Outside, he felt the sun on his face and sighed.

  Rob only knew Matthew Wilson from the nights, a man who shunned company and kept out of the light. He remembered the flush of surprise that had covered Wilson’s face when he’d addressed him; he was a man used to being invisible.

  Rumour was that he lived off the Bradford road, well beyond Burley Bar, with only animals for company. Lister set off, not sure quite where he was going, removing his stock and wiping the sweat from his face with it.

  He was the deputy now. He knew he wasn’t ready for it, he still had so much to learn. And he’d never be as good as John. The man had taught him everything about the job. In his life he’d been luckier than most; he’d never lost anyone close before. The killing of Emily’s mother had torn at him, but nothing like this. All the questions he still wanted to ask, all the laughter he wanted to hear.

  He looked around. Beyond the town the houses were farther apart, and there were sheep in the fields, and the sound of clacking looms from the open windows. He knocked at a door, smiling as he looked down at a small girl.

  ‘Is your ma home?’ he asked, and she moved aside, replaced by a woman with a suspicious look in her eyes.

  ‘If you’re selling owt we’ve not got the money to buy.’

  ‘I’m looking for Matthew Wilson. Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Him.’ She snorted. ‘What do you want with him?’

  ‘Just some business,’ Rob replied mildly.

  ‘Aye, well, if you have business with him you should know where he lives.’ She nodded along the road. ‘Third house down on the other side. But don’t be surprised if the old bugger dun’t answer.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he told her, and moved on. The place she’d indicated was set back down a rutted track. As he drew close he could hear barking. The house looked neglected, roof slates hanging askew, some missing, one window empty of its glass. At the door he took a breath and brought his fist down.

  A chorus of dogs howled, four or five of them, he guessed. He tried again, then again, but no one answered. Finally he stood back and shouted, ‘Mr Wilson, I need to speak to you.’

  The words brought more barking and eventually the shuffle of footsteps inside. The heavy door opened a crack, just enough to show the man’s face.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Rob asked. ‘I work for the Constable.’ He didn’t feel comfortable calling himself the deputy. Not yet.

  Wilson nodded.

  ‘I need to talk to you about something you might have seen,’ Rob said.

  For a moment he believed the man might turn his back and lock the door. Then he nodded briefly and Lister entered. There was little light in the room, and it stank of too many years without cleaning. The dogs clamoured around, snuffling at his hands with wet noses and rough tongues until they were satisfied he was a friend.

  There was a simple table and a single chair, a straw pallet in the corner and bowls on the floor for the animals. A small life, Rob thought. Wilson was a ragged man with a thick beard that hung on to his chest, clothes mended far too many times to count. His eyes looked hunted, as if he’d spent years avoiding something. Maybe he had.

  ‘You were out walking, a week ago Tuesday night. Mr Granger, the night watch at the water engine, saw you.’

  ‘I remember.’ It was the first time he’d heard the man speak and he was surprised by the richness of his voice, deep, warm and educated. ‘I know Mr Granger. Another man who lives in the dark.’

  ‘He saw a man helping another man that night, just after two. It was on Briggate, near Megson’s Court.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson answered slowly, closing his eyes. ‘The moon was bright.’

  ‘How well could you see them?’

  ‘Well enough.’ He smiled, showing broken, stained teeth.

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘I should ask why it’s so important that you know, Mr … Lister, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you related to the publisher of the Mercury?’ Now he’d begun, Wilson’s words came readily enough.

  ‘He’s my father. And one of the men you saw was probably a murderer.’

  ‘The dark one, I’ll wager.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because he wasn’t helping the other man. He was dragging him, swearing and cursing.’

  ‘Can you recall what he looked like?’

  ‘A big man. Broad.’ Wilson put a hand against his bony chest to illustrate. ‘He had long hair, his own, not a wig. Well dressed, very fashionable.’

  ‘You have good eyes,’ Rob told him.

  The man smiled. ‘Age doesn’t ruin everything, young man. Don’t ever believe it does.’

  ‘Was there anything else about him?’

  ‘His hands,’ Wilson answered without hesitation.

  ‘Hands?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen hands that big on anyone before. I had to stare at them to believe it.’

  Few would have hands large enough for people to notice. And those who saw wouldn’t forget. Rob felt the sharp surge of excitement. Now they’d find him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said and the man dipped his head in acknowledgement. At the door Lister paused; there was a question he’d wanted to ask for a long time. ‘Tell me, what is it that takes you out at night, Mr Wilson?’

  ‘Ask your father,’ the man replied mysteriously. ‘He can tell you.’

  ‘We don’t speak.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should.’ Wilson shook his head. ‘Your father will know what I mean, Mr Lister. Maybe being reminded of the tale will make him think. I’ll lock the door behind you.’

  Walking back through the town he looked at every man he saw, gauging the size of their hands, watching for any that appeared particularly large. At the jail he wrote down the details he’d learned from Wilson, going through it again to add a little here and take away something there until he’d caught the heart of the conversation.

  He poured a mug of ale and sipped it. Warm, but it took the edge off his thirst.

  ‘What did you find?’ Nottingham asked. Rob passed the paper across the desk and the Constable read quickly. ‘Big hands?’ he asked. ‘A smith? A labourer?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered, boss. But well-dressed?’

  ‘True,’ he agreed with a nod. ‘You’re sure this man Wilson is right?’

  ‘I believe him.’

  ‘Then we’d better start looking more closely at people. If he has good clothes, he has money. That narrows it down. And dark hair.’

  ‘That still leaves plenty.’

  The Constable raised his eyebrows. ‘But it’s somewhere to start.’

  Nottingham cut down through the tenting fields, where lengths of washe
d cloth were tied out in the sun to stretch on the frames, the air heavy with the winter scent of damp wool. But as he reached the riverbank he caught the first smell of something different on the wind and looked west to the horizon. Clouds. No more than a few yet, all light as fog, but there’d be rain behind them. A few more hours and it would arrive; he could almost taste it. Enough to please the farmers, he hoped, and to do more than damp down the dust.

  Bessie was sitting at the entrance to the shelter she’d built, a raggle-taggle affair of worn canvas and old blankets between tree branches. Her hands held a pair of wooden needles and she seemed to move them without thinking, taking up yarn from a skein to knit.

  ‘Now you see how I spend my time, Mr Nottingham.’ She greeted him with a warm smile.

  ‘Useful, I’m sure.’

  ‘Aye, gloves, mufflers, there’ll be plenty glad of them come winter. I heard about the workhouse. All gone, is it?’

  ‘Destroyed,’ he confirmed. ‘I think that’s the end of that scheme.’

  ‘For now, anyway,’ she cautioned, placing the knitting in her lap. Somewhere close by a sparrow was chirping its shrill song, answered by another farther away. ‘I’ll not say as I’m sorry. But you know what they’re like. Sooner or later it’ll be back.’

  ‘Not until long after we’re in the ground, Bessie. No one’s said anything to you about starting it?’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare. They know what’d happen.’ She looked directly at him, her voice firm, until he gave her the smallest of nods.

  ‘I’ll leave it at that. Just stay dry later.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, Constable. I’ll be fine here.’

  ‘Tell me you had nothing to do with it, Richard.’

  His mind had drifted away again as he sat in the jail, thinking of a time when the people he cared about had all been alive. Then Tom Williamson had burst in, pulling him back to the present. He looked worried, careworn.

  ‘The workhouse?’ Nottingham guessed.

  ‘I was just up there. It’s gone. There’s nothing left.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice sounded tired. ‘I was called out in the middle of the night to help fight the blaze.’

  ‘Do you know who started it?’

  The Constable waved his hand at the window. ‘It could be anyone. You saw all the rubbish piled outside yesterday. All it needed was a spark from someone’s flint.’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘The one thing I can tell you is that it wasn’t me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Williamson had the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘But …’ He didn’t need to say more; they both understood.

  ‘They can’t blame you.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Nottingham assured him. ‘Your job was to look at the figures. Nothing more than that.’ The merchant gave a small, tight smile. ‘Even Tom Finer took it well.’

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘As the fire was dying down.’

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ Williamson said.

  ‘Not needed. In your shoes I’d have wondered the same thing.’

  As the Constable locked the jail, the promise of rain was so heavy in the air Nottingham felt he could touch it. Even before he reached the Parish Church it began, a teasing summer shower, warm and gentle, tender on his face, that faded as quickly as it arrived.

  But no sooner had it passed than another came, this one heavier and more violent, the drops bouncing up from the street to soak his hose and boots. He looked for shelter and ran to the church porch, hearing the noise of the downpour growing louder until it became a roar to fill the world. For a minute or two the rain was so heavy that he couldn’t even see as far as Kirkgate. All he could do was wait and watch the tiny runnels of water growing wider and deeper, running like streams across the dry ground.

  During the afternoon he’d spent time in the inns, looking and listening, asking questions about Simon Johnson, and about a man with dark hair and large hands. It had all been fruitless, frustrating. But he was familiar with the feeling; he’d had it all too often over the years. He wouldn’t give up. These would be the two last things, and he’d take care of them both. It would only need one small piece of information, a name …

  If John was here, he began to think, then shook his head. No more. No more.

  The rain began to slacken. At first it seemed more promise than fact, then gradually it eased away until all that remained was a light drizzle, leaving the air fresh and clean. He glanced up at the sky; the clouds scudded away, blue over on the horizon, and a wind stirred the leaves.

  The Constable walked out of the shelter and over the sodden ground to stop at the graves. His daughter, his wife. The words on Rose’s headstone stood out, wet and dark. Mary lay next to her, the dirt settled to no more than a small hump of earth, the grass grown over it, glittering with raindrops, covering her like a Turkey rug.

  In his head he talked to her every day, heard her laugh and saw her smile. But standing here now he found that the words wouldn’t come; for once, all he could summon up was a picture of her bones, pale and empty, her soul escaped.

  He sighed and slowly made his way home. Sheepscar Beck was in full spate as he crossed Timble Bridge, the morning’s trickle turned to an evening flood that licked at the banks and the willows hanging low over the water.

  Marsh Lane was muddy, the dirt clinging to his boot heels, and he tried to scrape it away before he entered the house; if he didn’t, Lucy would complain at him for tracking it over her clean floors, just the way Mary would have done. For a fleeting moment he could hear the comfort of his wife’s voice in his ear, chiding him, and he smiled at the memory. Emily was sitting at the table, her pen scraping away on paper. The smell of cooking came from the kitchen, the scent of beef and cabbage filling the place.

  ‘Were you caught in it, Papa?’

  ‘I missed the worst of it. How was school?’

  She beamed. ‘The girls behaved all day.’

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Even Joanna Harris managed not to answer back.’

  ‘That must be a first.’

  ‘It feels like it. And the new books for them should be here next week, then they can really start to read and learn.’

  He felt her excitement. ‘We’ll make sure nothing happens to them,’ he promised her. ‘Is Rob back yet?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s still out.’

  Lucy came through, carrying plates brimming with food.

  ‘He’ll have to take his chances later, then,’ she said. ‘It’s hot now.’ As they ate the girl kept glancing at him. ‘Have you been over to see Lizzie again?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Nottingham said. ‘She needs a few days.’

  ‘You should go.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Soon, please,’ Lucy said, and something in her tone made him stare at her. In truth, he’d meant to go during the day but things had pulled him here and there, the fire, the snippet of information about Carter’s killer. Tomorrow, he told himself. He’d make time then.

  It was strange, he thought as he ate. Lucy was young but the head on those small shoulders was wiser than all of them. She’d been the one who gave him courage after Mary’s death, who kept him steady. She’d pushed him, cajoled him, argued with him if he needed it. She might be a servant in name, but she was as much a part of his family as any of them. God help the man she ended up marrying; she’d be a grand wife but she’d expect a lot from her husband.

  ‘The workhouse is gone then,’ Lucy continued. ‘That’s no loss.’

  ‘Only to those who’ve put money into it.’

  She snorted her dismissal. ‘But not for those who don’t have anything.’ She examined him. ‘All those ashes have put holes in your coat. I’ll sew it for you.’

  Nottingham glanced across at Emily. Her head was carefully bowed over her plate, and he could tell she was attempting not to smile. They both knew Lucy’s s
ewing. She tried hard but she had no skill for it, the stitches awkward, her repairs worse than the damage.

  ‘Don’t bother, it’ll only get more.’ He took the last mouthful, chewed slowly and lowered the fork. ‘I’ll—’ he began, then the door crashed open.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘You’d better come, boss. We’ve found a body.’ Rob looked bedraggled, clothes covered in mud and dirt, his hair dried wild from the rain.

  Even before he’d finished speaking, the Constable was standing, ready.

  ‘Where?’ he asked as they hurried along Marsh Lane.

  ‘The far side of Upper Tenters. Someone was out ratting and his dog started digging.’

  ‘Have you sent someone for the coroner?’

  ‘Already done, boss.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A girl. She’s not been there more than a day or two by the look of it. The earth’s still fresh.’

  ‘Do you know her face?’

  ‘No, boss.’

  Rob led the way, through Low Tenters, steam rising from the wet cloth that was stretched out, then out beyond Upper Tenters and into the woods beyond, following a slim, slippery track through the trees to a clearing.

  Two of the men stood with their shovels, a pile of dirt beside the grave, their faces covered with linen. As soon as he drew near Nottingham understood why. The stink from the body was putrid, enough to make him gag and pull a kerchief from the pocket of his breeches.

  ‘Has the coroner been yet?’ he asked.

  ‘And gone,’ one of the men answered, the cloth muffling his voice. ‘Wouldn’t even come close.’

  Breathing through his mouth, the Constable knelt at the edge of the grave. There was still just enough light to make out her features. She was young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, long brown hair framing her face. He brushed the maggots away from her nostrils, lips and eyes. There were no marks on her face or neck that he could see and when he lifted her hands, no cuts of any kind. The skin of her palms and fingertips was hard. Whoever she’d been, she’d spent a few years working hard. The weather hadn’t been kind to her corpse, heat quickly ripening her flesh and eating away at anything inside. The gown that covered her body was cheap, fourth- or fifth-hand most like, worn through at the elbow and fraying at the neck. Another dead body in the endless procession.