Nottingham moved, gently closing Williamson’s eyes and pulling the covers over his body. He stood for a moment, staring down at the man who’d been his friend. Tom Williamson had always been so full of life, so happy to laugh at himself and the world. He was a man in love with his wife, who adored his children. His business thrived, he was an alderman – sooner or later he’d have had his year as mayor.
Now everything had gone. Stolen away from him.
Hannah Williamson sat in the parlour, clutching a shawl around her shoulders. Over the years her body had thickened, but there was still a childish look to her face, an innocence that wouldn’t vanish. She didn’t look up as the constable entered the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began. What more was there ever to say than that? She knew what those words meant. All he could ever do was listen to the pain and the anger. But she was silent, giving no more than a brief nod as she tried to hide her tears.
A few folk had assembled outside the house, clamouring for news. Nottingham walked past without a word, back towards the jail.
‘Go home and tell Emily,’ he said to Rob. ‘She knows Mrs Williamson, she’ll want to go and help.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Was there any way to prevent it?’
‘No. Williamson tried to stop him.’ Lister spoke slowly, seeing it all again. ‘Nick could have swerved around him without even trying. He ran straight into him. It was no accident. He must have had the knife in its hand.’
‘I want everyone out searching. Pull the night men back in. Make sure they’re all armed.’
‘Yes, boss.’
The constable took a deep breath. ‘I’d better go and talk to the mayor.’
‘Why?’ Brooke asked. ‘Can you tell me that, Richard?’ He blazed around his office, his face red with fury. ‘For God’s sake, Tom Williamson was an alderman. And,’ he added carefully, ‘one of your strongest supporters on the corporation.’
All the way here, Nottingham’s anger and frustration had been building to a head. A few sympathetic words would have tamped it down. Now he exploded.
‘He was also a very good friend. Someone I’d known for a long time. Have you forgotten that? What do you think – that I wanted to see Tom dead?’
‘No, of course—’
‘We’ve been hunting that cutpurse and his girl for days. There are eight of us to cover the town during the day. Eight. Then you and all the others expect us to take care of everything else, too.’ He stood, brought the keys from his pocket and slammed them down on the desk. ‘Since you don’t think I’m doing a good enough job, you’d better have these back.’
‘Richard—’
‘I’ve just had to stand and watch someone I like die, and I couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it. Then I had to go downstairs and see his wife. Do you think that’s a duty I enjoy? Well, do you? Do you believe I want it to happen?’
‘Richard,’ Brooke repeated, but his tone was softer now. ‘Please.’ He held up his hands. ‘We’re both on edge. Tom was a good man. We’ve just lost someone we both admired. We need his killer with a noose around his neck.’
‘My men are going through Leeds again right now.’
‘Good,’ the mayor agreed calmly. The frayed tempers started to knit up. Now there was the grim determination to find Tom Williamson’s killer.
‘You’ll need these,’ Brooke said as the constable stood with his hand on the doorknob. He tossed the ring of keys through the air.
‘Yes,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘I will.’
‘Emily’s with Hannah Williamson,’ Rob said.
‘Good. How many do we have out looking?’
‘With the night men I could rouse, there are twelve. I put them in pairs.’
‘Whereabouts are they?’
He pointed it out on the crude map of Leeds they had on the wall. New streets had been sketched in; every year the town grew larger.
‘There used to be a camp in the orchard beyond Lands Lane,’ Nottingham said.
‘They checked it the other day. I thought we’d start there.’ He’d expected the boss to complain about his meeting with the mayor. Instead he was close-mouthed, not even a glimmer of how it had gone. He stared at the map as if there was nothing more in his mind than the job at hand. The constable lifted an old cutlass off the desk and pushed it through his belt.
Rob selected one for himself. He’d had lessons when he was younger and proved to be good with a sword. Finally he was ready.
‘Let’s go and find them, boss.’
They walked without speaking, the swords banging against their thighs with each step. Out along Lands Lane, past the empty bowling green to Shaw’s orchards. The trees were bare, only one or two forgotten apples left on the ground.
No sign of any camp here, but Nottingham hadn’t expected to find one. They’d be further out where nobody went. He led the way past a collapsed wall, scrambling over the stones, and along a thin path through the grass.
He could smell something, wood smoke in the air, and halted, trying to sense its direction. Lister pointed. He nodded and moved again. More slowly and warily now. This was it, the scent was stronger, a few smudges of soot drifting by in the air.
Now the constable knew exactly where to find them. A pair of dilapidated, abandoned buildings hidden away behind a small rise. No doors, much of the roofs missing, but they’d offer a little shelter against the cold. It was where he’d found Lucy a few years before.
Only one way in and out, he remembered. That gave them the advantage.
He unsheathed the cutlass. Rob did the same. They were close enough to see the two buildings now, what remained of them. Ivy covered the walls; the land was slowly claiming them back. Smoke rose from an empty doorway.
‘Ready?’
Lister nodded and Nottingham took a breath.
There were five of them in the place, but no Nick or Kate. Two who were probably no more than six or seven, a pair of girls around ten, and a serious-looking boy who might have been thirteen. He stood as the constable appeared in the doorway, moving forward to try and protect the others.
‘We’re looking for a pair of cutpurses.’
‘There’s only us,’ the boy answered. He tried to sound grown-up, but Nottingham could hear his voice waver with fear.
The constable put up his sword. ‘I’m the Constable of Leeds. Do you know them?’
‘Yes.’ The lad swallowed hard.
Nottingham softened his voice. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Joseph.’ He kept still and wary, out on his own for too long to ever lower his guard.
‘Do you know where we’d find them, Joseph? They’re murderers now.’
‘I don’t.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the other, fearful children. ‘They’ve been here a couple of times. They took what we had. Nick beat Matty when she wouldn’t hand over her bread.’ He nodded at a girl with bruises on her dirty cheeks. ‘What will you do when you find them?’
‘They’ll be tried and hanged if they’re found guilty.’
Joseph nodded soberly. ‘Then I hope you catch them.’
‘Where else might they go? The man they killed was a friend of mine.’ It was worth asking again. Maybe the boy would be willing to give them something now.
‘They do what they want.’ He was trying to sound like a man, but tears were beginning to form in his eyes.
‘What did he do to you?’ Nottingham asked very quietly.
Without saying a word, Joseph pulled up his sleeve to show a long cut that was starting to heal. Quickly, clumsily, he hid it again and swiped the shirt across his eyes.
‘If you see him, I need to know.’ He looked at the boy, then the rest of them. One of the girls looked as if she might speak, but he continued. ‘I know you don’t peach. But this is different. They’re killers. Please.’
The boy gave one small nod. Nottingham took a pair of coins from his breeches and placed them in Joseph’s hand. Enough to buy a loaf and some cheese. That would keep them alive for one more day.
‘Do you think they’ll tell us?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t doubt it. Joseph would want his revenge on Nick. ‘Where next?’
They returned to the jail as the light was fading. The men were already there, waiting to make their reports and finish for the day. No sign of Nick and Kate, but they’d be very cautious now.
‘Send the night men round all the inns and lodging houses,’ he ordered.
‘They wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and take a room,’ Lister said.
‘They might. They have money, they’re looking to hide.’
‘Don’t you think they’ve left Leeds after that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nottingham replied wearily and ran a hand through his hair. ‘That would be the sensible thing.’ He gave a small, wan smile. ‘But these two don’t seem to think that way. Nick …’ He shook his head. The boy had his taste of death now. He’d want more.
‘What now, boss?’
He stared out of the window. Almost full night now. If the pair had found a spot outside the town it would be impossible to find them before daylight.
‘Go through every empty house,’ he ordered. ‘I want all the men on this. All the gardens, everywhere you can think of. It’s Sunday, there won’t be much else to fill their time.’
Very few of the whores were out. This was always a bad day for business, with the inns closed and men tucked at home as work loomed in the morning.
They were women with a desperate look in their eyes, shawls pulled tight around their shoulders as they shivered in the darkness. They’d take a minute or two to talk on the promise of a farthing.
He remembered one of them. She’d been Cassie when he knew her three years earlier. Now, she insisted, it was Alexandra. The woman had been at Four-Finger Jane’s funeral, saying nothing and vanishing as soon as the coffin was lowered.
‘Charlotte,’ he said.
‘Gone,’ she answered. ‘But they all have now, haven’t they?’
‘Did you know her?’
‘Not really. She wasn’t here long. Nice enough but lost.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘I talked to her once. Too innocent, that one. That was her trouble. Men took advantage.’
‘Do you know where she went?’ Nottingham asked, but the woman shook her head. ‘What about her pimp?’
‘He’s gone, too.’
This was taking him nowhere.
‘Did you ever see the girl who took over Jane’s place?’
‘Grace, you mean? Dark hair, very pale, young? Here a day, that’s all, before she was dead.’
‘That’s her.’ At least she had a name now.
‘I told her she should go back home. She wasn’t made for this.’
‘Where did she come from?’
‘Ossett,’ she said, ‘wherever that is. Too late for her now, isn’t it?’
But not too late for her family to know what had happened. He’d write to the constable there in the morning.
‘Who killed her?’
‘I don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you.’ She stared at him. ‘There’s too much death around.’
‘I know,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘I know.’
Nottingham could feel the prickle at the back of his neck. Someone was following him. He could feel it. But every time he turned there was nothing. His hand rested on the hilt of the cutlass.
All he could hear were his own footsteps echoing off the buildings as he walked down Briggate, but he was certain. Just before the bridge he ducked into the passageway where Jane had died, pressing himself against the wall and drawing his sword.
Hidden in the darkness, he held his breath.
There, at the edge of his sight, a flash of white.
Nottingham brought the blade down. He felt it graze flesh. And then a woman’s scream.