“Don’t worry, lad, it was a good thought,” the Constable offered as a consolation. “We need you to use your brain like that.” To Sedgwick, he added, “You did right to come back here. Any luck last night following Worthy’s men?”
“Nothing.”
“Call them off, then,” Nottingham decided, noting the relief in the deputy’s eyes. “No point in wasting time, is there?”
“No, boss.” Sedgwick kept his head lowered to cover his slow smile.
“You’d better get back out there. The cloth market must be nearly over by now. Make sure we’ve got most of the pickpockets out of the way. That’s your job,” he added to Forester. “You should be able to spot a pickpocket from a mile away.”
“Yes sir,” Josh answered, unsure whether the Constable was serious until Sedgwick cuffed him lightly on the head and laughed.
Once they’d gone, Nottingham sat again, slowly scratching his chin with his index finger. The information had left him uneasy. Suppose the killer really was a woman, a very strong, brutal woman. Jesus God, he didn’t want to imagine it. He shook his head to dislodge the thought from his mind. It had to be a man.
He needed to go and check his informers again, and find out if any of them had heard even a faint whisper about this murderer. He didn’t expect it. If there’d been anything, they’d have come forward. This killer was operating completely outside the criminal circle. Either that or he was exceptionally good at keeping quiet. Whoever he was, he was leaving precious few clues, and he was going to strike again soon.
The Constable pulled on his coat and left the jail. The days were beginning to get colder, he thought, turning up the collar against the breeze. Another year falling away with the leaves, although there were fewer trees each year as more and more buildings were erected.
Still, that was how it had to be. People kept pouring into Leeds and they needed places to live. Its shape and character kept growing and changing. When he’d begun working for the Constable, no one could have imagined murders like this. There were killings, but they came from arguments and drink. Most of the crime had been petty, easily solved.
And the penalties had increased. What had once merited a whipping or a day in the stocks now brought time in York jail picking oakum until the fingers bled, or transportation or hanging. Not that it seemed to stop anyone. In the last two years he’d arrested more people than ever before. It wasn’t just the poor buggers, either; too often it was the well off just wanting to be richer. He had no qualms about handing them to the magistrate. For those without work or money — even for those with jobs — Leeds had become an expensive place to live. It scared him sometimes, wondering what he’d do once he retired. If he was lucky, and still had any friends left on the Corporation, there’d be a pension. But it would only be small, certainly not enough to live on. Then again, he told himself, he had to live that long first.
The clutter and clamour of market day on Briggate surrounded him and swept him along. The cries of the hawkers, offering five for threepence and a dozen for sixpence or fresh that morning, two for a penny, sounded like bird calls along the street. The clothes sellers had their wares ranged on tables, from the near-new that had recently graced the backs of the rich to the old rags of the poor. What do you need, what do you lack, they shouted, touting hopefully for trade. Nottingham knew the man he wanted would be along here, his stall set up, yelling for business with the rest.
William Farraday had been a tinker when Nottingham had first met him ten years before. He made a living going door-to-door in the city and surrounding villages mending saucepans and anything metal. It was a precarious trade, but one which took him into all manner of homes. Sometimes he heard things, and for a few coins would pass on information to the Constable.
Now he’d moved up in the world to a market stall, selling old pans he’d patched and working on those women brought him.
He spotted the old, worn canvas and piles of dulled metal. Farraday, with his shock of white hair and back stooped from years of carrying a heavy pack, was in deep conversation with a small woman, trying to sell her some of his wares. Nottingham waited until she’d paid him and walked off, satisfied, before he approached.
“You’re making money then, William.”
“A little here and there, aye,” Farraday agreed. Even after years in Leeds he’d never lost the more rounded vowels of his native Northumberland. “Need a saucepan for the missus, do you?”
“Information this time,” Nottingham answered with a smile.
“If I can, you know me.”
“Have you heard anything at all about this murderer?”
Farraday moved some pans around, trying to show them in their best light, changing the angles until he was happy.
“There’s been nothing to hear, Mr Nottingham.”
“No speculation?”
Farraday gave a hoarse laugh. “Always plenty of that, like. But if you mean is anyone giving names, then no, nowt like that. I’ll tell you this, though — whoever’s doing it is a canny mad bugger.”
“I’d noticed that,” the Constable commented dryly.
“Mr Worthy’s people are asking around, you know.”
“I know,” Nottingham admitted.
“He’s offering ten guineas to anyone who can name the killer and prove it.”
“A sum like that can bring a lot of false accusations.” Nottingham wasn’t surprised by the reward. The pimp had said he wanted the name; the reward was an indication of how much he desired it.
“You know what Mr Worthy’s like, sir,” Farraday said uncomfortably. “I don’t think anyone would dare lie to him. And if they did it once, they wouldn’t again, like.”
Nottingham nodded. Amos Worthy’s sense of summary justice was well known.
“And no one’s given him any names?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
That was something, he thought. Worthy was no further on than he was.
“I’ll let you get back to business then, William. If you hear anything, and I mean anything at all, let me know. There’s good money in it for you.” But nowhere close to ten guineas, he admitted to himself.
“Aye,” the man acknowledged, turning away towards a new customer.
Sedgwick and Forester were walking back up the Head Row from Burley Bar. To their right the city spread out in a jumble behind the old bulk of the Red House.
“He’s somewhere out there,” Sedgwick said, gazing into Leeds.
“Your murderer?”
“Our murderer now, lad, you’re one of us. I’ll tell you what, though, we’ll get him.”
“How can you be so sure?” the boy wondered.
“It’s what we do, son. It’s what we do, and if I say so myself, we do it bloody well.”
27
A round of the other informers had yielded no more than he already knew, and Nottingham made his way back to the jail. He’d barely been sitting for five minutes before a boy came in, wide-eyed in fear and curiosity about the jail, holding a note.
“For me?” the Constable asked.
“I don’t know, sir.” The high voice trembled a little. “I was just told to give it to someone here.”
He took the letter and gave the child a coin from his pocket before sending him on his way. Sliding a thumb under the wax of the seal, he opened the paper, glancing quickly at the writing.
