He smiled. Thoresby, the historian, had told him about the old shire oak years before, but he’d never paid much attention. In those days he’d been too busy surviving the present to concern himself with the past.
They parted at the jail, and he waited by the door until she vanished up Briggate with a wave. Grown up and gone, off into her own life. He smiled and unlocked the door.
He expected a note from Sedgwick, saying the body had been claimed and giving her a name, but there was nothing. He could smell her corpse, rotting by the hour in this weather, the stink of her decomposition clawing at his throat.
The Constable was surprised, and worried. By now, surely, someone must have missed her and come looking. She couldn’t have lived too far away. Then his mind fell to the practicalities. The way her body was turning, if no one arrived tomorrow they’d have no choice but to put her in the ground, to tip her into a pauper’s grave before she became too rank.
There was something wrong, skewed, about all of this. Why would someone leave her at the abbey where she was going to be found? Who wanted to kill her and leave her that way? And the biggest question — why was she still nameless? It was as if someone wanted her to be a mystery, to tantalize.
It could have been her husband who’d killed her, he mused. If that were the case, no one would report her missing for a time. It was easy enough to spin tales to cover a wife’s absence. He gave a sigh; until he had information, everything was just a guess. He pulled a ragged old handkerchief from his breeches, put it over his mouth and glanced around the cell door at her face, so empty and lonely in death.
She was buried the next day. They could do nothing else; the foul stench of her filled the jail. Once she’d been carried out, it still took hours for the air to sweeten enough so they didn’t gag when they breathed.
On Tuesday morning, as Nottingham sat with his quill, scratching at the paper to ask for more money from the city for the night watch, the door opened and a man entered cautiously, glancing around as if not sure he should be there. He cleared his throat, clutching his hat in his hands, blunted fingernails scratching at the felt of the brim as the Constable looked up at him.
‘My wife’s disappeared,’ he said.
Four
The Constable was instantly alert, sitting up sharply at the desk.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Samuel Godlove,’ the man answered. He looked to be in his late forties, comfortable in his coat and stock, his face wind burnt and his eyes like next year’s hope. A farmer, Nottingham judged from his appearance, but definitely a prosperous one, dressed for a visit to the city. The material of the coat was expensive, the cut that of a fine tailor, his face glistened with a fresh shave, pores wide, a full-bottom wig of the best chestnut hair hanging far over his collar. But for all he might be worth, there was no authority in his bearing. He looked like a man who was fearful of life.
‘Sit down, Mr Godlove.’ The Constable gestured at the chair. ‘Your wife’s disappeared?’
The man perched on the edge of the chair, shoulders pulled in awkwardly close to his body. ‘Yes,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I expected her back yesterday, but she never arrived.’
‘She didn’t send word?’
‘No.’
The man’s eyes darting nervously round the room. This wasn’t going to be easy, Nottingham thought.
‘Where had she gone?’
‘To see her family. She gets lonely out where we live, there’s not much for her to do. She wanted some time with her mother and father. She went Thursday last. She was going to surprise them.’
‘And where are they?’
‘Roundhay,’ Godlove answered. The Constable knew it vaguely, farming land a few miles to the north east of the city.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Near Horsforth. I have a farm. .’ He let the words tail away, as if he didn’t want to reveal too much.
Horsforth wasn’t far from Kirkstall, Nottingham mused.
‘Have you seen her parents?’ he asked. ‘Did she leave there?’
Godlove looked up at him, his eyes wide and moist.
‘I was worried. I rode over late yesterday. They said she’d never arrived.’
The words hung in the air. Nottingham sat up straighter and rubbed a hand across his chin. The farmer looked lost, trying to blink the tears away.
‘What’s your wife’s name, Mr Godlove?’
‘Sarah.’ He said the word tenderly, lovingly, a caress as much as a sound. ‘We’ve only been married a year.’
The Constable kept his eyes firmly on the man’s face. There was no dissembling here, just a tumult of grief and confusion. Godlove was a lost man.
‘How old is she?’
‘Eighteen.’ Even as his skin flushed, Godlove raised his head higher, as if daring the other man to question him about age.
Nottingham just waited, not rising to the bait.
‘What does she look like?’ he asked kindly, although he suspected he already knew the answer.
‘She’s small,’ the man said, raising an arm to indicate her height. ‘Fair hair, blue eyes. A lovely girl.’ He smiled. ‘Too thin, though. I keep telling her she needs to eat more.’
‘Was she wearing a wedding ring?’
Godlove looked at him quizzically, not expecting the question. ‘Yes, of course. She always wears it, she’s a married woman.’
‘Does she have any marks? Is there anything that might make her stand out?’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘No scars?’ Nottingham prompted. ‘Nothing at all?’
‘Just a little one, here,’ the farmer said after a few moments’ thought. He showed his left hand. ‘Almost like a circle. You’d hardly notice it. And she can’t take the sun. The last couple of months she’s had to have a parasol and a bonnet every day to keep it off her. She burns very easily. It’s painful.’
Nottingham was silent. So now he had a name for the corpse. He didn’t know what private sorrows the man was carrying, but he knew he was going to add to them.
‘Mr Godlove,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I have no comfort for you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Godlove’s voice rose in panic and confusion.
‘Someone who matches the description you just gave me was found dead at Kirkstall Abbey on Saturday.’
‘What?’ The farmer’s head jerked up as if someone had pulled him hard by the hair. Words tumbled from him. ‘No, it can’t. . but. . no. . Kirkstall?’
The Constable nodded his head sadly. ‘The body had the same scar. I’m sorry, she’d been murdered.’
The man slumped forward, pushing his chin against his chest for a few seconds. Nottingham watched him breathe slowly, trying to regain control before he raised his head again, eyes full of pain.‘I don’t understand,’ he said simply, adrift now in a country he didn’t know. ‘You said she’s dead? And someone killed her?’
‘Yes.’ Godlove stared at him, and he knew he had to give the man the truth. ‘She’d been stabbed.’
‘Why?’ he asked, uncomprehending, barely murmuring the words. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t even know who she was until you arrived.’ He paused, wondering how to phrase the next part. ‘We had to bury her yesterday. The heat. .’
He watched Godlove but the man was too stunned by his wife’s death to take in the fact.
‘Murdered?’ The word came out in wonder and astonishment.
The Constable stood up and began to pace, the sound of his boot heels hard on the flagstones. He needed the man’s attention. He had a name for the girl now, but he needed more, everything he could learn, and he needed
