“You remember the girl who was attacked and then went back to Leeds?”
“Course I do. Lovely lass she were, until that madman attacked her and her husband.”
“Her husband?” Nottingham asked sharply. Martha turned her head to gaze at him uncertainly.
“Aye,” she continued. “They were walking up to the Black Swan one Saturday night when someone tried to stab them. The knife got him, but she started screaming so loud people said they could hear her on t’other side of Gledhow Valley and he ran off. You remember that, Sir Robert.”
“Yes,” he answered sadly, “yes, I do.”
“She were with child,” Martha told Nottingham, her face crumpling at the memory. “Lost it two days later from t’ shock. They’d been praying so hard for the bairn an’ all. They’d lost two before.”
“What about the husband?” the Constable said. He needed to know.
“He were hurt bad in t’ chest, but she nursed him back,” Martha recalled easily. “But he weren’t same after. No strength,” she explained with a sage nod. “Dead within six month. Couldn’t even get out of bed towards the end.”
“And his wife?”
“Poor lass.” The servant dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her dirty, greasy apron. “I’ve never seen owt like it. She lost her faith. Said a real God wouldn’t have let her man and her babies die like that. Ranted and raved. Refused to see the curate. When he called on her, she threw him out of the house. Finally the master had to turn her out. He didn’t want to, mind,” she added hastily, “but he needed the cottage for a couple to do the work. Last I heard, she went back to Leeds, a year back.”
“What was her name?” Nottingham asked, holding his breath. He was certain he already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the confirmation.
“Pamela Malham,” Martha replied.
“Tell me,” Nottingham asked, “did she wear something round her neck?”
“Aye, she did,” the woman answered, her eyes widening. “I’d forgotten about that. Half a coin, a token she called it, although it didn’t look much to me. Always had it on.”
“Thank you,” he said and turned away, walking slowly down the driveway. Before he’d reached the lane, Bartlett had caught up with him.
“That was your girl, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nottingham answered simply. There didn’t seem to be more to say. Now he knew what had really happened to her before her return and why she’d changed. Not that the knowledge made anything easier, he reflected. It was an answer, but not the answer he needed.
“I’m sorry,” Sir Robert said with the tentative tone of a man unused to expressing emotions. “Come and take a glass of wine with me before you go back. You look like you need one.”
“I think you’re right.” The Constable felt shaken, his heart booming, a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth.
They strolled back along the track and through the village. After the constant noise and traffic of Leeds the empty streets seemed eerie, as if the people had simply vanished. But soon his ears picked out the sounds of voices and looms in the cottages and animals in the fields.
Bartlett left him in silence, and Nottingham was thankful. He needed some time where he didn’t have to talk or be polite, where he could simply let his mind work. Was there a connection between the attack here and the one in Leeds? If not, then her killing was death’s black joke, but he couldn’t believe that. There had to be something.
But if he believed that, it raised more questions than it solved. Why had the murderer killed others too? Was he trying to cover his crime with more deaths, or had he found a taste for corpses?
Most importantly, who could he be? In his bones Nottingham could feel that the answer was here among these cottages.
Before he realised it, they were back at Bartlett’s house, with the scrawny manservant bringing wine. Once they were alone, Bartlett stared thoughtfully at the Constable before shrewdly saying, “You believe her attacker here was her murderer in Leeds.”
Nottingham swirled the wine, watching the deep red colour move and shimmer in the glass.
“I do,” he answered finally. “Which means her killer either lived here and moved to Leeds or still lives here and comes into town.”
Bartlett shook his head.
“As I told you before, no one’s moved except your girl. A few casual labourers, I’m sure,” he said dismissively, “but you can’t keep track of them.”
The Constable knew how true that was. People arrived for harvests and drifted off after. Some stayed a few months then disappeared suddenly, often just ahead of due rents or creditors. He felt the surge of hope dying in him. He knew more, but it did him no good.
“It gives me a start, anyway.”
“Oh?” Bartlett asked, raising his eyebrows.
“We can ask around and look for people who might have arrived in Leeds from this area,” Nottingham explained. “We’ll find some, talk to them. Even if one of them’s not the murderer, they might be able to offer some ideas.”
“Do you think that can work?” Sir Robert asked sceptically.
“It’s the best we’ve got for now,” the Constable replied with a small, helpless shrug. “ To tell you the truth, it’s the best we’ve had at all.”
He finished the wine and placed the glass on the delicate, elegant table at the side of the chair.
“You’ve been very helpful, and very gracious, Sir Robert,” Nottingham said, bowing courteously. “I’d better get back and start my men on this.”
Bartlett rose and offered his hand.
“It’s been an education, Constable. I’m just sorry your girl suffered so much.”
“Thank you,” Nottingham told him sincerely. He liked the man. Unlike so many gentlemen he’d met, this one didn’t affect airs and demand respect. He wore his title and his power quite casually. Escorting him to the waiting horse, Bartlett offered,
“I’ll keep asking. If I learn anything more I’ll send you a note.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
The Constable mounted in his clumsy fashion, aware of his awkwardness on display, and leaned down to make his farewell.
“I hope you solve this soon, Mr Nottingham,” Bartlett said sincerely. “I’m sure it’ll be in the
The journey back to the city seemed to go faster, but his mind was racing, paying little attention to the road. It wasn’t much, not what he’d hoped, but he knew a little more than he had this morning, and now he could push the attention of his men in the right direction.
People moved into Leeds all the time. Some arrived from local villages like Chapel Allerton, others from much farther afield, settlements and hamlets across Yorkshire, up into the Pennines and the Dales. To all of them, it was a large city, beckoning with its chance to become rich — or at least not as poor. It drew workers and beggars, the hopeful and the hopeless, and from them his men could find names.
But time was crucial. They had to work fast, and find this man before he killed again. Nottingham hoped Sunday night had made the murderer wary, but it wasn’t something that would last forever.
And once they’d caught him, when he was finally sitting in the cells, the Constable would be able to discover just why Pamela and the others had to die. Because, for the life of him, he didn’t understand it.
It was late afternoon when he reached the jail, to find Sedgwick at his desk, a preoccupied look on his face. As Nottingham walked in, he started, as if surprised at having his thoughts interrupted.
“What did you do with the lad?”
“I sent him back to his lodgings for a while. I thought I’d take him out tonight, so I told him to get his head down for a few hours.”
Nottingham nodded. “Good. I’m going to want everyone out this evening.” He outlined what he’d learned in Chapel Allerton.
“So what do you want us to do, boss?”
“Talk to people. He’s here, he has to be. Ask around, find out who’s moved to Leeds in the last fortnight or
