it down on the table. He decided to concentrate on Morton’s body first, trying to keep his mind off Pamela, and yanked the sheet off the corpse. The dead man’s face had strong features, and his hair had recently been shaved to stubble under a costly wig. When the Constable turned the wrists, he saw Morton’s hands were those of a gentleman, soft and clean and unused to labour. Slowly, Nottingham unbuttoned the corpse’s long waistcoat and shirt, noting the two cuts on the chest, teasing the material away from the dried blood, working gently and patiently until he revealed skin.
He judged the blade must have been an inch across and finely sharpened. As far as he could tell, it must have been long, too, driven deep into the body between the ribs. He spent several silent minutes poring over the wounds and imagining the angle of the blows. Not a professional killing, he concluded; that would have only needed a single cut. Yet at the same time, it didn’t look like the crazed work of a madman. That wasn’t much help, but it was better than nothing at all.
The Constable turned his attention to Morton’s pockets. There was a notebook in his coat, almost new, with a few lines for sermons scribbled in it, and the letter from Rawlinson, written the month before, folded and refolded several times, inviting him to Leeds to preach. A handkerchief, well used, as if Morton had been suffering from a cold. The waistcoat only held a few small coins and a gold watch, still ticking, inscribed
He had to steel himself to move across to Pamela and pull down the shroud that covered her. In death she looked younger, more brittle. One of the men must have found an old, faded shawl in the court and folded it across her belly; the scrap of blue ribbon had been laid on top of it. He remembered Mary giving her that shawl years before, one spring night when she looked chilled. She’d kept it all this time, or maybe she’d never been able to afford a new one. Her dress had been mended so many times that in places it seemed more yarn than material.
She’d been stabbed twice, too. Like Morton, the blows had been to her chest. Even without pulling down the bodice of her dress, Nottingham could judge that the same knife had killed them both. One of them must have cried out, he thought, idly stroking his chin. Someone must have heard something.
Cuts and bruises covered her arms, some fading, others more recent. What interested him was a livid mark on her face, by the cheekbone. It hadn’t had time to bloom, but the blow had obviously been vicious. He could almost feel it and see her head snapping backwards. It would have been enough to leave her stunned, gasping and vulnerable.
Pamela’s small hands were bunched into fists, and he pried them open carefully. Her fingers were rough and red, the nails cracked and bitten, the palms heavily calloused. No one would have mistaken her for a lady.
Her hands were empty, and he understood the fists were her last small act of defiance against her murderer. There was no sign of the token he had given her. Had she lost it in the struggle, or had the murderer taken it? If so, why? He leaned back against the wall, gazing at the two bodies. Someone had put them together, thrown them away among the rubbish. But the way they’d been placed, in a harsh, deliberate parody of coupling, meant that whoever did it had wanted people to believe them together.
Perhaps they had been, Nottingham wondered. Morton would hardly the first preacher to succumb to sins of the flesh. In his time he’d known several whose words and deeds hardly matched, and Pamela couldn’t have afforded to be choosy about her men. Rawlinson had insisted his guest was a devout Christian man, but keeping secrets was easy. An evening stroll could quickly turn into a hunt for a woman.
Yet why kill them? What had they done, what had they seen?
Nottingham sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
Maybe someone had wanted Morton dead, and Pamela had been killed because she was in the wrong place. Or, he thought, turning the idea upside down, Pamela had been the victim, and Morton had been the innocent.
But it was too early for theories. He needed evidence.
7
Nottingham was finishing his daily report for the Mayor when Sedgwick returned. He knew it was pointless, but as he wrote he still attempted to play down the double murder, trying not to give it too much weight among the other events. The cut-purse had struck three more times, including a lady’s reticule. Still no one had seen or felt a thing. But however much he tried to hide it among other crimes, he knew the pressure to solve the preacher’s killing would arrive soon enough. Rawlinson would talk to the Mayor and the notes and questions would flow fast.
He put the quill down and stretched.
“Find anything, John?” he asked wearily. With his long legs, the lad always looked awkward, never seemed completely at home in his tall body with its pox-scarred face. But there was intelligence in his eyes and a warm smile that invited confidences.
“Bugger all,” Sedgwick replied, shaking his head in frustration. “The only glimmer I got was a man at the other end of the yard who heard a noise.”
“Anything worthwhile?”
“He said he might have heard a short scream, sort of stifled, then a blow.” Sedgwick shrugged and kept his eyes on the Constable.
And he wouldn’t have got up to look, the Constable knew. People didn’t want to see, because to see was to be involved, and he didn’t blame them. Most lives had trouble enough without seeking more.
“He was the only one who heard anything?”
“So far. I’m going back later and find the people who weren’t there this morning.”
“You were at the Market Cross last Saturday, weren’t you?” Nottingham asked.
Sedgwick grinned. “Oh aye. The way that preacher was acting I wasn’t even sure he wanted to get out. He seemed to enjoy the attention, if you ask me.”
“Why do you think they went for him?” the Constable pondered. He hadn’t understood their reaction. Maybe it had been a factor or motive for murder.
“Why?” Sedgwick looked astonished at the question. “Well, look at it, boss. They hear enough about God as it is, right?” Nottingham nodded. “You’re poor and someone tells you that your lot in life is to suffer but you’ll have your reward in heaven. Now, that’s meant to make you feel better about not having anything while you’re here, but it’s all nothing.” He glanced at the Constable, who was concentrating fiercely on his words. “Heaven isn’t helping when there’s no jobs and you can’t pay the rent, is it?” He felt himself begin to redden with anger but didn’t stop. “All it does is keep the rich richer. Then this bugger comes along, and he’s obviously got money, too. He starts spouting on about how we’re all equal in the eyes of God, when most of us know we have nothing. But he still wants us all to pray for our salvation. How would you feel?”
“So someone spotted him last night and decided to send him off to God?” Nottingham speculated. It was possible.
“Happen so,” Sedgwick agreed, his fury spent. “He was with a whore, after all.”
The Constable shifted in his seat. He had to tell the deputy about Pamela.
“There’s something you’d better know, John. That whore was once our servant.”
“Oh?” Sedgwick raised his eyebrows. The gesture tilted a small knife scar beside his mouth and gave him a ghoulish smile. “Did you have to turn her out?”
Nottingham gazed at him levelly. “She left nine years ago to marry a farm labourer. Evidently she came back to Leeds a year back, after he died.”
Sedgwick lowered his eyes. That explained a lot, he thought.
“Sorry, boss,” he apologised hurriedly, “I didn’t mean any disrespect. Do you think she’s important in this?”
“I don’t know,” the Constable admitted with a baffled shake of his head. For now he knew very little. “But we’re going to find out. She used to be called Pamela Watson, then she was Pamela Malham out in Chapel Allerton. See what you can find about her,” he ordered briskly.
“Yes, sir.”
“I talked to Rawlinson earlier. He said the preacher went out for a walk after supper last night. I want to know who saw him, where and when.” Nottingham paused, looking worried. “The Mayor’s going to want the person
