Fair and Tender Ladies

by Chris Nickson

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s very kind, but we’ll … get by.’

  The Constable stood. ‘I do want to help.’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie said. ‘Thank you.’

  By the time he reached home it was close to full darkness. Lucy brought him the plate she’d kept warm, sitting across from him at the table.

  ‘You’d best be careful, that’s hot,’ she warned. He ate a mouthful and smiled.

  ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Did you go and see her?’

  ‘I did,’ he answered, noticing the relief on the girl’s face that he’d kept his promise.

  ‘How is she?’

  Nottingham chewed slowly, framing his answer. ‘Like I was after Mary died.’

  ‘I could visit her again,’ Lucy offered.

  ‘Leave her be for now.’

  ‘Is that what she wants?’

  ‘I think it’s what she needs,’ he answered eventually. ‘All we do is remind her.’

  She nodded, her mouth tight, waiting to take his dishes back to the kitchen.

  ‘You helped,’ he assured her. ‘She needed someone to look after the children.’

  ‘I’d have stayed if she’d let me.’ Lucy glanced around the room, at Emily, her head over a book and Rob dozing in a chair. ‘Look at you, you’re fine here, all of you. Anyone could take care of this house.’

  ‘No. You’re family here,’ the Constable told her simply.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You know you are.’

  Finally she gave a quick nod and disappeared into the other room.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nottingham woke early, and left the house well before the first band of daylight to walk into town. The night man had left a few scrawled lines: no problems at the school. He wrote up the daily report, hearing Leeds come to life through the open window, the clop of hooves and drag of wheels on the roads, the shouts and laughter of the people.

  As the clock struck seven he went over to the Moot Hall. Outside in the Shambles the butchers were hacking at carcasses, blood running in the gutters, dogs barking and howling for meat. Inside everything seemed hushed, as if he’d stepped into another world, separate, richer.

  He expected to find Cobb the clerk outside the mayor’s office, but it was another man who was working there and greeted him with a sober nod.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Nottingham.’

  ‘Good morning.’ He put the paper on the desk. He’d seen the man before, he was sure of that, but where? He was older, grey peppered throughout his hair, his face long and deeply serious. The clothes had seen better days but they were clean and presentable; he was washed and freshly shaved. ‘Where’s Mr Cobb?’

  ‘I believe Mayor Fenton decided he’d prefer a different clerk, sir.’

  So Cobb had paid the price for passing on the mayor’s secrets to the Constable. For a moment he felt guilty. But only for a moment. Without the information he’d never have secured a pension or rent payment for Lizzie.

  ‘I’m sure he’s found a good one. What’s your name?

  ‘Roundell Jenkins, sir.’ His face stayed impassive as he answered.

  It wasn’t familiar. Sooner or later, though, he’d place the man.

  Back at the jail he’d scarcely seated himself when a boy ran in, a letter clutched tight in his hand, eyes wide in awe of seeing such a place.

  ‘What is it, lad?’

  ‘For the Constable, sir. Came in on the mail a few minutes back.’

  He passed the lad a farthing and tore open the seal. It had taken less time than he’d expected; maybe everything moved faster down in London.

  Sir,

  I trust this finds you in good health. Your request was passed to me but I had no knowledge of Tom Finer, so I needed to ask others who might be familiar with him. He is, as you already suspected, a well-known figure to some in the law, although he has never been convicted of anything.

  I endeavoured to make my inquiries on your behalf as extensive as possible, and I have learned that Mr Finer was active both here in the City and in Westminster. He was, I am reliably told, suspected of involvement in at least ten murders over the years, although there was never enough proof to bring him to court. The members of the watch in both areas are certain he sold stolen goods, but again, this was impossible to prove.

  In the last several years Mr Finer is known to have invested in property in Covent Garden. There was speculation that he forced his way into some of the deals, and when the buildings were later sold that he amassed a goodly sum of money. According to my information he made many contacts, both in business and government. Some found him to be charming and good company but others have claimed they were afraid of him.

  According to those who know, he left London with neither warning nor word to anyone. He simply dismissed the servants who worked for him, had his belongings packed and left, not even saying where he was going. One thing I can tell you is that there was no special investigation under way into him and no one wishes to recall him to the capital for any reason. Without your letter we would have been unaware of his whereabouts.

  I wish you well of the man, sir, and hope that this is of assistance to you.

  Your Servant,

  Joseph Franklin

  Assistant Clerk, Central Criminal Court

  He read it again, paying as much attention to what was unstated as to the words on the page. Finer had left London with his fortune in his pockets. Just as it had been in Leeds, the authorities knew what he’d done but they’d never managed to catch him for it. Witnesses would have suddenly vanished, payments would have been made and he would never have seen the inside of a jail.

  So what had made him leave London so suddenly? There was no mention of someone after him, and Nottingham knew it wasn’t simply a rush of desire to spend his declining years quietly in Leeds; the man had already shown his colours in his dealings at the workhouse.

  He’d hoped for more, for some reason to send Finer back to London in chains. That wasn’t going to happen; as the clerk had gratefully pointed out, the Constable would have to look to the man himself. And there was little in the note that Finer hadn’t said himself, either in fact or hints. Suddenly a connection fell into his mind, and he realized he’d seen Roundell Jenkins, the mayor’s new clerk, drinking with Finer in the Talbot. So the man has his source in high places now. He’d need to be very careful about what he put in his daily report in future. He glanced at the letter a final time and tossed it aside on the pile before walking out. There was work to be done.

  Rob had waited, ready to leave, impatient for Emily to dash down the stairs. As it was, the women were already waiting outside the school when they arrived, and he stood aside for them all to enter once the door was unlocked. Another night without damage.

  He began to stroll up Briggate, then broke into a run as he heard the shouts of an argument, a man and a woman at the entrance to one of the courts. By the time he arrived, the man had his fist raised, ready to hit her a second time, his face flushed and twisted with anger. Lister pinned him against the wall, the cudgel ready in his hand.

  ‘She told me it were free,’ the man protested.

  He knew the girl. Kate. She’d been a servant once, then let go when she couldn’t hide the bulge of a baby any longer. Since then she’d been a whore, scraping by, never giving any trouble. She had a hand to her cheek, trying to cover the red mark where she’d been struck, tears in her eyes.

  ‘He’s a lying bastard, Mr Lister.’ She spat at the man’s feet. ‘I told him a penny ha’penny and he said yes.’

  Rob turned to the man, tightening his hold on the collar. ‘Well?’

  The man glared, then finally nodded, deflating, the fury still in his eyes.

  ‘Then you can give her tuppence.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘The extra’s for hitting her,’ Rob said, raising the cudgel so the man could see it. ‘Turn out your pockets.’

  He waited as the man obeyed, spilling c
oins on the ground.

  ‘Take your money,’ Lister told the girl, and she scrambled around, picking up two coins then vanishing. ‘And you, you’d better cause no more trouble.’

  ‘For not paying a slut?’ the man asked incredulously.

  Rob pushed his face close enough to smell the fear on the man’s breath.

  ‘You’d better be glad you didn’t end up in the jail.’ He let go and watched the man slump.

  Rob had barely gone ten yards along Briggate before Kate was at his side.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Lister,’ she said. ‘I thought he were going to hurt me.’

  He caught sight of her face; the mark was spreading. ‘It looks as if he already did.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse. There’s some right buggers out there. At least he didn’t break anything.’

  ‘You need to watch yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised. He expected her to leave. Instead she stood there, looking at him. ‘It’s terrible what happened to Mr Sedgwick.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed grimly.

  ‘I feel sorry for his Lizzie with those bairns. He were allus good to us out here, allus fair.’

  ‘I’ll try to be the same.’

  ‘Nay, I’m not saying you wouldn’t.’ She smiled and touched his arm lightly. ‘That body you found. The one buried past Upper Tenters.’

  ‘You know who she was?’ He hoped as he waited for the answer.

  The girl shook her head. ‘But I think I saw summat,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  Kate took a breath. ‘Well, it were late Sunday last. Middle of the night. I’d no money nor food so I thought I’d go out and see if anyone were looking.’ She glanced at him and he nodded for her to continue. ‘There’s allus a few out late and some of them might be in the mood. I’d given my little one a tot of gin, so I knew she’d sleep. Anyway, there were no one with owt to spend.’ He listened patiently, waiting for whatever she really had to tell him. ‘I went out along Mill Hill, up toward Shaw Well and Boar Lane to see if there might be anyone there. You know where I mean?’ He nodded, fixing it in his mind’s eye. ‘I saw someone taking the path down towards the woods there.’

  ‘Was he carrying anything?’ He could feel his heart beating faster.

  ‘Summat.’ She shrugged again. ‘It were too dark to see much. But I’ll tell you, he were a right big bugger. I could tell that.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’

  Kate looked at him as if he was simple. ‘What was I going to say, Mr Lister? I didn’t know who he were. It could have been nowt.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Two, three mebbe. I’d not even have thought about it again if there hadn’t been talk about the lass who was found, and then seen you.’

  ‘Did you see the man’s hands at all?’ Rob asked hopefully.

  ‘His hands?’ She stared at him blankly. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He fumbled in the pocket of his coat and passed her a coin, seeing the brief flash of gratitude on her face before she left.

  ‘What do you think, boss?’

  ‘It could be anything,’ the Constable said carefully. ‘But at that time of night I’d wager it was nothing legal. It’s a pity that lass didn’t see his hands.’ He stroked his chin. ‘One thing bothers me, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I just wonder … Jem Carter was beaten, he’d had his throat cut. The girl we found had no marks on her at all. Whatever did for her, it wasn’t violence. I think it was probably poison. People don’t usually change the way they kill. It doesn’t make sense.’ He paused, thinking. ‘Everyone who’s seen him has said how big he is. If he’s that large, why can’t we find him?

  ‘Maybe we’re not looking in the right places.’

  Nottingham sat back and looked at Lister. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s somewhere in Leeds, we know that much,’ Rob began. The Constable nodded, and he continued, ‘Maybe he’s keeping out of sight during the day.’

  ‘I’d believe that, except old Hercules at the Rose and Crown saw the man eating with someone he thought was his sister.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re both killers. She’s the poisoner and he was getting rid of the body.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Nottingham agreed reluctantly. He didn’t know; it just felt too complicated. ‘But why those two? Carter didn’t have anything. Neither did the dead girl, from the look of her.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The Constable steepled his fingers under his chin. ‘Neither do I. There’s no sense behind it.’

  ‘And then there’s Jenny Carter’s suicide. Maybe there’s more to that, too.’

  ‘No,’ Nottingham disagreed. ‘There’s nothing to show she didn’t kill herself. Unless we learn something, we have to believe that.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Rob spent much of the morning asking after a large man with big hands. Someone like that should stand out, especially if there was a sister. A few claimed to have noticed him but had paid no mind, nothing more than a pinprick in their memories.

  And he wasn’t going to forget about the school, either. Even if there was no more damage, the business wasn’t over until the man was caught. Yet he felt he was going round and round, simply chasing himself. No one had any information.

  Yet by late afternoon he knew no more about anything than he had first thing that morning. Another day of frustration. If John … he started to think, then stopped himself. That was history now. It was over. He was the deputy. He had to live up to everything Sedgwick had taught him.

  Emily was pacing in the schoolroom, her face drawn, biting her lip. As soon as she saw him, she gathered up her books, waiting as the closed the shutters and locked up.

  ‘How were they?’ Rob asked.

  ‘Fine.’ Her tone was sharp enough to make him stop.

  ‘What is it?’

  She shook her head and started off along the Calls, fast enough that he had to hurry to catch up, suddenly worried.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened? Tell me, please.’ But she said nothing.

  He followed her along the path by the river, beyond the warehouses, then up a track into a copse. She’d brought him here once before, to show him the secret place she’d shared with her sister, back when they were children, when Rose was still alive. Now, with the bushes and branches full and thick, the hollow was hidden, a place apart from the world where no one would interrupt them. Emily settled on a fallen log, smoothing down her dress. Rob sat beside her, anxious, trying not to press her, to let her air her troubles when she was ready.

  She picked a thread from the skirt, fidgeting, her face set, anxious.

  ‘I’m going to have a baby,’ Emily said finally, staring straight ahead. There was no joy in her voice.

  ‘What?’ He’d been expecting something terrible, his mind racing through every bad thing that could have happened. But he’d never thought of this. ‘Are you sure?’

  The look she gave him was withering. ‘Of course I’m sure. Mama taught me how to know.’ She stood, walking around the clearing in quick circles. ‘I don’t want this,’ she told him. ‘Not now.’

  ‘But …’ he began, then didn’t know what to say. He rose, ready to hold her, to comfort her, but she moved away.

  ‘I’ve only just started the school.’

  He let the silence grow for ten heartbeats, then asked,

  ‘What are we going to do?’ A woman became pregnant, her belly grew, she gave birth and then there was the baby; that was all he knew. Even with Emily, he’d never truly imagined himself a father. The two of them simply existed together. They were, and that was all. The thought of someone else, a child, had never been part of it. He hadn’t looked that far ahead.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered emptily, slumping next to him, then putting her head against his chest and sighing. ‘I’ve been trying to think of that since I first realized.’
r />   ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Long enough. Lucy guessed.’

  In the world where he’d grown up, the rules were unwritten but perfectly clear. No wife would work. She was there to keep a home, to provide an heir or daughters to marry off. But Emily had made her own world, so different from everything he’d known before.

  ‘We’ll need to marry,’ Rob said, and she nodded glumly. She’d always said she’d never wed, never be the property of a man, and he’d accepted that. But this changed everything. She knew that as well as he did. She was the Constable’s daughter. Folk might turn a blind eye to Rob lodging in the house, but for Emily to be pregnant and unmarried was out of the question; it would never be tolerated.

  ‘I know.’ She sounded so small, lost, hopeless. He’d never seen her like this before. Even after her mother’s death, in the long silences of grieving, there’d been a sense of iron about her. Now everything she’d believed in was falling away around her. ‘Can I trust you enough?’ she asked, looking straight into his eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t hesitate. If she was his wife, all she owned would become his; that was the law. The money she’d inherited and used to start the school would belong to him. He could spend it however he chose and she had no recourse. ‘I don’t want your money. You know that.’ He paused. ‘I love you.’

  She tried to smile. ‘I’m scared, Rob. I’m terrified. This, the school …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ he told her. ‘Your father—’

  Emily shook her head quickly. ‘I don’t want him to know. Not yet. Please.’

  He nodded. In the past he’d dreamed she’d turn to him with the desire to get married, but never like this, drifting into it because there was no other choice. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it lightly. She didn’t pull away this time.

  ‘I’m not going to give up teaching,’ she said after a while. ‘I can’t. Not now. The girls need me.’

  ‘But you’ll have to,’ he told her.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why? Tell me that. I’ll still be the same person. I can teach just as well when I’m carrying a child or after it’s born.’

  He couldn’t answer. All he knew was the way he’d been taught, what was acceptable.