She was a Constable’s wife, but even after all these years she’d never come to terms with the violence that was part of his work. He rarely told her about the crimes; if she knew even a fraction of the truth she’d be horrified. But this time he knew he had no choice.
“One of the victims was Pamela,” he said softly.
She stopped and turned to stare at him, her eyes suddenly wide in utter disbelief.
“Pamela?” she asked. “Our Pamela? Pamela Watson?”
He nodded, with no idea what else to say.
“Oh, dear Jesus,” Mary cried, and he pulled her close again, stroking the back of her neck beneath the mob cap as if he was comforting a child. Suddenly she pushed him back.
“It can’t be her,” she announced with sudden confidence. “She married that labourer in Chapel Allerton, you remember that. She doesn’t even live in Leeds any more!”
He looked down at her sadly.
“He died, love.” Nottingham spoke in little more than a whisper, watching tenderly as the final shred of hope died in her. “Seems she came back about a year ago and didn’t tell us. It’s her, it’s definitely her.”
The tears came then, flowing silently at first, then she started to wail. He knew Mary had felt especially close to Pamela, spending every day with her. They’d been mistress and servant, but the bond had gone far beyond that. They’d known each other’s lives and secrets. Now all he could do was hold his wife until the crying stopped. He didn’t say anything more.
Finally, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she sat at the table and drank deeply from his untouched cup. The track of a last tear wound its way like a slow river through the flour on her cheek.
“How?” she asked shakily.
He reached over and took her hand. It seemed small in his, and he squeezed it lightly before shaking his head, indicating he wasn’t going to tell her and knowing she’d guess.
“Have you found whoever did it?”
“No,” he admitted. “And right now I don’t even know where to begin. I went to see her grandmother — you remember Meg? I promised her we’d take care of the funeral.”
“Of course we will.” She tightened her grip on his fingers as if she was holding on to life. “You’re going to find her killer, aren’t you?”
He loved the full, simple faith she had in him.
“I hope so,” was the closest he dare come to a promise. “I’ll do everything I can.”
Mary stood slowly and walked to the window, clasping her hands together tightly and looking out to the fields in the distance. For a long time she remained silent, letting her thoughts and memories fly. He watched her, trying to imagine what she was feeling. The minutes seemed to stretch until she eventually wondered, “What are we going to tell the girls? They’ll both remember her, especially Rose. She was seven when Pamela left.”
“Maybe it’s best just to tell them she died,” he suggested. How did you tell the young about murder, he thought. “They don’t need more than that.”
Mary nodded her agreement sadly.
“Where are they, anyway?” he asked.
She turned back to him, trying to cover her sorrow with a wan smile.
“Rose took little Michael from next door down to the river to play so the Earnshaws can finish their cloth.” Their neighbours were weavers, and the clack of their loom could usually be heard for all daylight hours along the street. “She’s good with children. She’ll make a fine mother herself one day soon.”
He understood his wife’s need to talk about everyday things right now, to ground herself in life and run away from death. But her statement caught at him. He’d always thought of his daughters as little girls, but they weren’t any more. They were almost grown. Time was rushing on, not only outside but within himself, too.
“And what about Emily? Where’s she?”
“She announced she was going over to Caroline’s after school.” Like her sister before her, Emily attended the local dame school, at Mary’s insistence. She believed girls needed reading and writing as much as boys. But where Rose had loved to learn, Emily went sullenly, paying little attention to her lessons. She was clever, there was no doubt of that, but she believed herself too advanced and grown up for the basic education the little school provided. Nottingham had seen her reading adult books which he would hesitate to approach himself.
“Announced?” He found his voice rising sharply. “That lass has got far too many airs and graces.”
They both loved the girls, but all too often despaired of their younger daughter. For the last year Mary had insisted Emily would eventually grow out of her moods, but if anything they’d become worse. Punishments had no effect on her. With her sharp tongue and impertinent ways, Nottingham fretted that she’d end up wearing a scold’s bridle one market day, on display outside the Moot Hall.
“I’d better get back to work,” Mary said, to herself as much as to him, seeking something to do. “I still have to finish kneading the dough for tomorrow’s bread.”
Her hands began to move rhythmically in the bowl. Nottingham knew there were more things she wanted to say, but they weren’t going to come out now. That had been her manner for as long as he’d known her. Sometimes it infuriated him, knowing she was keeping words and feelings carefully locked inside. But they’d emerge eventually. It had taken him a few years after their marriage to understand that. Once he did, he knew it was one of the reasons he loved her. She was someone who needed to approach the world in her own time and in her own way, after consideration and thought.
But in their bed she’d always been passionate, working with her body rather than her mind. Even after twenty years she was still like that, as playful as the young girl he’d courted and tumbled in the woods by the old manor house. Sometimes her urgency astonished him, her need to be touched, to simply be. And it always made him respond and transported him. If the girls or the neighbours heard them, he didn’t care. She was his wife, the woman he loved. He had no apologies to make.
9
Sedgwick doubted he’d be finished before midnight. It wasn’t a job he’d trust to any of the men; they were fine for keeping the peace, but none of them could use their brains. He’d started south of the river, canvassing the inns to see if Morton had been in any of them the previous night, without any luck. Then he’d crossed back over Leeds Bridge to cast his net wider. The landlord at the Old King’s Head thought he remembered someone in good grey broadcloth, but he wasn’t certain. So far no one else had come up with even an inkling of recognition.
When he was finished he’d return to Queen Charlotte’s Court to question the people he hadn’t seen that morning. It was going be another exhausting day, and he knew that when he finally returned to his room his shrewish wife would accuse him of being out drinking and whoring. She’d been uneasy when he began this job, but in the two years since he’d become deputy it had grown worse; at any excuse she’d begin shouting until her voice was raw. Then things would be fine, at least until the next night, when she’d start all over again.
Even her own father had advised him not to go through with the marriage.
“Her mother were bad enough, God rest her soul,” the man had said miserably as they shared a jug in the Talbot. “But Annie’s ten times bloody worse. Do thisen a favour and steer clear of her, and I say that though she’s me own blood.”
But he had been seventeen, and youth and lust won out over sense; he’d been paying the price ever since. His job meant long hours, some of them spent in taverns with tipsters and criminals. And if he’d been out whoring a couple of times, it was simply because he needed a little warmth. Since the birth of their boy James, two and a half years ago, Annie’s embraces had been cold, her tongue even sharper than before. A man needed something to keep him going, and whatever it was, Sedgwick wasn’t receiving it from his wife.
He slipped into the passageway that led from Briggate to the Ship, hoping they might still have some food he could eat as he asked his questions. Nottingham would be at home by now, sitting with his family, and Sedgwick envied him the calmness of his house. Not only the space, but the serenity that seemed to fill the place, as if the troubles of the world couldn’t touch it.
The food was all gone so he was left hungry, but at least there was a tankard in his hand as he chatted to the landlord, a ramshackle, wiry man in his fifties with muscled arms and wild, dark hair that grew in a bushy mass
