playing with the other girls, do you remember that? She always seemed happiest on her own. And after she learnt to read, it was all we could do to pry her away from a book.”
“True,” he smiled. He couldn’t remember all the times he’d found her reading in bed when she should have been sleeping.
“Rose is like me. She’ll be quite content to settle down with her nice lad and have a family. But I don’t know that Emily’s ever going to be happy,” Mary said with a tinge of sadness. “Not really happy. And I know that’s a terrible thing to say about your own daughter, but it’s true. I think deep down she knows it, too. That’s why she’s so angry. She just wasn’t made for the world as it is.”
Nottingham knew she wanted to talk about this, but he was uncomfortable. He felt at home with facts, even ideas, but emotions always left him uneasy and restless.
“So what do we do about her?” he asked, hoping his wife would have an answer.
“I honestly don’t know, Richard,” Mary replied with a helplessness that reflected his own. “I wish I did.”
“She told me something that worried me.”
“What’s that?”
“Did you know she’d read
Mary laughed lightly, her eyes twinkling in the dim light.
“Of course I did, Richard. Who do you think lent it to her?”
The sun was shining, the sky clear and blue, with just the faintest breeze coming from the west. It was as if summer was enjoying its final gasp. Normally Nottingham would have enjoyed the weather, but now it seemed to be making a mockery of the day.
He’d borrowed a cart to take Meg to the church, and he was soberly dressed in his best coat and breeches, sweating under their weight as the grey woollen hose itched against his calves. The old woman was in the same dress she’d worn the last time he’d seen her — probably the only one she owned, he thought — leaning heavily against him for support as they walked very slowly on the path through the churchyard to the imposing wooden doors.
Mary and the girls were already inside, sitting in the front pew. Mary put her arms around Meg’s hunched shoulders, whispering in her ear as the new curate began the service.
He spoke sonorously, letting the litany of the words flow smoothly, much to Nottingham’s surprise. He’d expected Crandall to rush through the funeral. Cookson would have given him the task, and Pamela was nothing to him. He glanced at the others; Meg’s face was in her hands, Rose and Mary both looked down and Emily was gazing at the curate.
Outside, they followed the cheap coffin to the waiting grave in the far corner of the churchyard. The curate took his time, letting the power of the words flow into the listeners. Reluctantly, Nottingham had to admit that Crandall was a powerful, mesmerising speaker. He watched the curate pause, eyes moving around the mourners to gauge the effect of his voice, his glance lingering on Rose, and a little longer on Emily, before returning to the verses. Finally it was all done, the ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and Nottingham followed Meg in tossing a clod of dirt into the grave. Another life spent so fast, to be covered and forgotten as the days went by. At least Pamela had a proper burial, he thought, and remembered another whore in a pauper’s grave.
As he walked away, Crandall called to him and took him aside.
“I wanted you to know I don’t approve of this,” he said in a low, angry voice.
“Of what, Mr Crandall?”
The curate’s eyes were dark. He spoke quickly.
“Of burying a whore here. Of giving her a service in the church. Her profession was evil.”
Nottingham answered slowly, coldly, and carefully.
“Then understand this for your pains. You did your duty for a woman who was brutally killed, a woman who’d once been the servant in my house, someone who was loved. Think on that. Then try remembering that Our Lord took in Mary Magdalene. Wasn’t she supposed to have been a whore?”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
They rode back to Harrison’s almshouses. Mary, Rose and Emily would stay with Meg for a little while. Nottingham would return the cart and get back to work; Thursday was already slipping away. Sometimes he wondered if death wasn’t easier than life.
Sedgwick was waiting for him at the jail, nibbling the remains of a pie that was probably his dinner. He stood up quickly as Nottingham entered, crumbs falling from his cheap, worn waistcoat on to the floor.
“Sit down, John,” the Constable said, pulling off his coat and draping it over the chair. He felt exhausted, drained by the funeral, his heart empty. “Did you find anything more yesterday?”
“Oh aye,” Sedgwick grinned broadly. “I’ve finally got someone who saw Morton Monday night.”
“Oh?” Suddenly Nottingham felt alert again, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Where was this?”
“The Talbot.” The deputy let the name roll off his tongue.
The Constable raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I wonder why such an upstanding man of God was in a place like that,” he said. “It’s not filled with the holy spirit.”
The Talbot was notorious in Leeds. It had a pit for cock fighting, and a reputation as a thieves’ den, where violence was exchanged as common currency.
“Maybe he didn’t know what it was like,” Sedgwick suggested graciously.
“A couple of minutes inside should have told him all he needed to know,” Nottingham dismissed the idea. “You’ve got a good witness?”
“A man called Martin Hooper. He was at the Market Cross on Saturday, saw Morton preach. Called him ‘that bloody mouthy bastard.’ No mistaking the identity.” Sedgwick paused. He’d been carefully hoarding the last piece of information. “And he says Morton was drinking with Carver.”
“Carver?” Nottingham sat upright quickly. “What time was this?”
“He claims it was about ten.”
“And we know Carver left the Ship around nine with Pamela,” the Constable mused. “Did your witness say anything about her?”
Sedgwick shook his head.
“I asked him if there’d been a girl about. He just looked at me as if I was daft and said that of course there were bloody girls about, but he didn’t remember one in particular.”
Nottingham rubbed his knuckles over his chin. She might have been there, taken a shine to Morton’s money, and the old drunk could have become jealous… it was possible.
“Let’s have Carver in,” he ordered abruptly. “I want to hear him explain this.”
“I’ve already got a couple of the men on it,” Sedgwick answered. “But I think we’ll have better luck tonight once he goes out drinking.”
The Constable nodded his agreement. Like some strange beast, Carver only seemed to emerge as the daylight faded.
“Just make sure you find him before he gets pissed, then. We don’t need another fight.”
13
Nottingham needed information on Carver, and he knew the best place to find it. The merchants, the business elite who brought money into Leeds through their woollen cloth dealings, effectively ran the place by controlling the Corporation. Most of them would be unwilling to talk about someone who’d once been one of their own, even as dissolute and broken a character as George Carver.
But there was one man who might help. Three years before, Tom Williamson had been named the city’s Cloth Searcher. It was an ancient office, and largely ceremonial, although Williamson had taken it seriously. During his year long tenure he and Nottingham had become friends, quite easily and unconsciously straddling the social barrier that divided them. They didn’t see too much of each other now, but the goodwill had remained.
It was early afternoon and that meant there was a fair chance Williamson would be at Garroway’s Coffee House on the Head Row, enjoying a dish of tea. The merchants tended to gather there, conducting business in its
