The Talbot was a babble of confusion as they walked in, weapons drawn. A heartbeat later, they were surrounded by silence.
‘Where is he?’ Nottingham shouted. ‘Fair hair, he had a knife.’
Mutely, someone pointed to the door that led to the kitchen. Suddenly the pieces all fell into place.
Harry Meadows had even told him. He’d said he had two sons. It was there, if he’d had the brains to see it.
He crashed through to the kitchen, hearing Rob hobbling behind. The room was empty, the door to the yard hanging open, the back gate unlatched.
Nottingham ran up the stairs. One room was locked. He brought his boot down hard until it splintered. Inside, two women cowered against the wall. One older, one still young. The wife and the daughter.
‘Where are they?’ Just fear and silence. He raised the cutlass.
‘The churchyard.’ The woman’s words came out in a croak.
‘Which one?’ He took a step forward and saw her flinch.
‘St John’s.’
‘Don’t try to leave.’
Rob was searching, scattering everything off the table.
‘St John’s churchyard,’ the constable said. ‘Come in the back way.’
He raced back up Briggate, legs jarring with every stride. Nottingham knew people were stopping to stare as he shoved through the crowd and across the Head Row. A hundred yards ahead another bonfire was burning close to the grammar school, people laughing and cheering as another big branch collapsed.
At the lych gate, he stopped to catch his breath for a moment, then walked into the churchyard.
The glow from the blaze threw strange, flickering shadows across the churchyard. In the light he could see three figures standing close to the porch. He kept walking towards them until he was able to make out their faces. Harry Meadows stood in the middle, outlined against the darkness.
He fitted the memory in his mind to the figure who’d disappeared with Four-Finger Jane. But Nottingham didn’t know the young men with bland faces and fair hair who flanked. Each of them stood over a bundle on the ground. They all held swords.
‘I wondered how long you’d take,’ Meadows said. All the joviality was gone, the landlord’s false face vanished. ‘People said you were clever.’
He didn’t reply, just stared at them. Let Meadows waste his breath. Every word gave more time for Rob to arrive.
‘You see these?’ He kicked one of the bundles; it gave a muffled, frightened cry. ‘Two of the pimps. The third’s already dead. These two will be in a few minutes. We were going to leave them for you. Now you can have the pleasure of seeing them executed. You ought to pay me: I’m doing your work for you.’
‘Killing’s your work, not mine.’
‘What’s the line between work and pleasure?’ Meadows asked. ‘And when we’re done with these two, we’ll add you to the list.’
He said it so simply, as if it was no more than a fact, a matter of no concern at all.
The constable tightened his grip of the hilt on the cutlass and took a pace closer. In the distance, something fell with a dull crash into the fire and a wave of shadows sped past across the churchyard.
‘Stay there. After all, we want you to have a good view.’ Meadows smiled and chuckled. The right-hand pocket was missing from his old coat.
The man turned to his sons. ‘Are you ready?’
One of the bundles struggled, a final attempt to escape. But he’d been tied too firmly.
‘Then it’s time.’ He kept staring at the constable.
The young men were as efficient as butchers. A single deep stroke across the neck, then moving back to watch the blood gush over the flagstones. The bodies twitched and fought, but there was no hope. In the space of a breath it was over.
‘What do you think?’ Meadows asked. ‘Quick. It was almost painless, really. Humane. And my boys were like artists, hardly got a drop of blood on themselves. Excellent, wouldn’t you say?’
Nottingham stood, not letting himself show anything. Finer had been right, he thought. They had to die. All of them. And he had to stay alive. He raised his blade.
‘Good,’ Meadows said. ‘It’s time for you now.’
The young men moved, fanning out. Their eyes were cold and dead.
Which one would come first? It didn’t matter; the other would be close behind, attacking him from both sides. And that would leave the middle open for Meadows. He’d want to have the final blow.
Rob should be here by now. Hidden in the dark, behind a gravestone, preparing his shot. Pray God he was.
Nottingham swung the cutlass in an arc, keeping the men back. Once, twice. But soon enough, they’d keep coming.
His mouth was dry as dust. His head was pounding. He tried to swallow, but it felt like a lump in his throat. Nottingham swung it once more. The young men’s expressions were empty, eyes staring, no hint of how they’d move.
The shot echoed loud off the buildings. One of the young men crumpled. His sword fell, a sharp, brittle sound as it bounced on the stone and into the grass. His brother turned. Before he could do anything, Nottingham thrust the cutlass deep into his belly. He felt the soft yield of the flesh and pushed it home.
The man’s mouth opened but no sound came. The constable pulled and the blade came free, a rain of blood pouring from the wound as the man tumbled to his knees.
‘Neatly done,’ Meadows acknowledged with a nod. There was nothing in his eyes to show that he felt anything for his sons. No pain, no grief. He didn’t even give them another glance. ‘But they made it too easy for you. Now it’s just you and me, and I’m better than they could ever be.’
He didn’t move. Nottingham knew the trick: let the opponent make the first move, catch him as he came.
Off in the distance, an owl hooted as it hunted. The bonfire glowed bright for a moment, red and yellow light picking them out in the churchyard, stark against the blackness.
‘Not scared, are you?’ Meadows taunted.
But he was proof against words. They washed over him. It would take more than that to make him do anything rash. The constable held his ground, ready.
Meadows took a half-step to his right, pushing the point of his sword forward. It was a test, a feint. The man wanted to see what his opponent might do.
He could feel the pulse in his veins. Nothing else existed in the world except the man facing him. Meadows had a thin smile on his lips, even with his sons both dead just a few feet away.
It was time to end this game.
Nottingham raised the cutlass, ready to slice down. Meadows lifted his blade to parry the blow. It left him open. With his left hand, the constable brought the pistol from his greatcoat, thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger.
He was too close to miss. The bullet caught Meadows in the middle of his body, spinning him backwards as his chest seemed to explode. For somewhere in the night, the flash from a muzzle and the roar of a gun.
The man jerked forward like a puppet. For the smallest moment he stood, staring at the constable, mouth wide, his face coiled in – anger? pain? Then he fell, changing shape from flesh to ghost.
The constable stood. Smoke still curled up from his pistol and the harsh stench of gunpowder filled his nostrils. All three of them dead.
Slowly, the world seemed to creep in around him. The sounds of the revellers, the crackling of the fire, the woodsmoke and smudges of ash floating down through the air. He raised his head and blinked, turning to see the two young men behind him and the older one in front.
It was over.
He didn’t even notice Rob was there until the young man clapped him on the shoulder. He was grinning.
‘You did it, boss.’
He had. But it didn’t feel like a celebration. Just an ending of something awful. Five dead tonight. Six, if the boast about the other pimp was true. The threat might be over, but a butcher’s bill like that was hardly a cause for joy.
‘We did it,’ he heard himself say. The words seemed to come from someone’s else mouth. ‘I told you when I started that I was going to rely on you.’
‘I’ll call the men to come and take them away.’
‘Yes. And we need to put Meadows’s wife and daughter in jail.’
‘I’ll take care of that.’ He began to turn away, then stopped. ‘That last shot …’
‘What about it?’
‘I didn’t fire it.’
There was still a night to keep under control. As the families and the good folk drifted home, the mayhem began. The apprentices, the drunks.
He stopped at the Rose and Crown. John Reynolds looked at him and shook his head. Con was dead. No surprise. But he’d needed to hope for something; a miracle, perhaps. Now the beautiful music had gone from the world.
The bonfires had all burned down to cinders and ash. The town was silent, finally overtaken by the night. People slept. Even the drunks had stopped their yelling. Rob hobbled down Kirkgate, weary and aching. His knee had swollen again during the evening, tender and sore as he placed his weight on it.
The apprentices had been persistent, grouping and regrouping, in the mood for a fight. They’d had their battle. Now more than a dozen of them lay dazed in the cells, the others in their beds, nursing bruises and cuts as they dreamed.
Every minute had been full. He’d been too busy to think about Meadows and his sons. Now, in the quiet, it poured back into his mind. He’d killed a man. Not his first and it wouldn’t be his last. He didn’t like it, it would weigh on him for months. But sometimes it became part of the job. And with those three, they’d done Leeds a service. They’d needed to die.
Who had taken that final shot at Meadows? He’d been waiting, ready to pull the trigger if the boss needed it. Then he heard the bang, saw the flash from the corner of his eye, and watched Meadows stagger and fall. By the time he’d been able to struggle between the headstones, the gunman had vanished.
Mrs Meadows and her daughter were in a cell at the jail, sharing with three other women blind drunk from the celebrations. At first he was surprised to find that they hadn’t run. But then, where could they go?
He wanted nothing more than to tumble into sleep, not to have to think for hours on end. The boss had stayed, ready to talk to the Meadows women. He wanted reasons. Rob wanted rest.
A light burned behind the shutters on Marsh Lane. He could hear soft voices inside. As soon as he turned the doorknob, they stopped. Emily and Lucy turned to look at him.
Then she was there. He could feel her breath on his face.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. Just …’
‘Papa?’
‘He’s fine. Not a scratch on him.’
Suddenly Emily was holding him up. He was too tired to stand.