was distant, speaking through the haze of a thousand memories.
‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but it might bring him justice.’
She returned to her lost silence. He tried again, kneeling by her chair so his face was level with hers.
‘You said he didn’t have any enemies, Mrs Graves. But someone killed him, something happened to cause that. Is there anything you can think of, anything at all? It doesn’t matter how long ago.’ He realized he sounded as if he was pleading, but it didn’t matter. He needed information, the tiny scraps from the table of Graves’s life.
‘I know he was a good man, but I’m sure my husband wasn’t always a saint in his work.’ She spoke slowly, sadly. ‘He never really talked about his business at home, but I know there were times he must have cheated and stolen a little. He didn’t tell me, of course, but it was obvious. That was years ago, though.’ She glanced at him, her eyes suddenly focused, her voice sharper as the words began to rush from her mouth.
‘I know he had some sort of feud with George Williamson for a while. Do you remember him, Tom Williamson’s father? He died a couple of years ago. And I’m sure that from time to time Samuel had to dismiss men who worked for him, but he never talked about that with me, and it wasn’t my place to know. He didn’t play cards often, he rarely gambled, as far as I know he didn’t have any debts, and he wasn’t interested enough in women to keep a mistress.’
‘I see,’ was the only way he could respond to her candour.
‘What I mean, Mr Nottingham, is that I really don’t know of any reason someone would kill my husband.’ She paused, letting her thoughts collect. ‘If he’d been worried about anything, I’d have known it; after so many years, you can tell without words. He seemed hopeful. He’d been going to London regularly for a few months. All I know is that he was negotiating for a contract of some sort.’ Her eyes opened wider. ‘I suppose if we’d had a son, he’d have followed Samuel into his business, but we only had girls. He’d talked about taking on an apprentice or a partner for years, but he’d never done it.’
The Constable nodded. Girls, he thought. Just like himself.
‘Is there anything else?’ she asked, her mood suddenly imperious.
‘No,’ he told her. ‘No, there’s nothing.’
She didn’t attempt a courteous smile. ‘Then, please, leave me now. I really don’t think there’s anything more I can do to help you.’
Four
He’d trimmed the paper to the right size, carefully tearing the sheets. He’d prepared his words, a rough draft written on fragments that he’d gathered in a pile and were now ready for a fair copy.
The rough table was uneven and he steadied it with a shim of wood under one leg. As he sat he tested it, nodding approvingly when it barely moved. He inspected the quill, pleased with its sharpness, then dipped it into the pot of ink. He breathed deeply before making the first mark on the paper.
Every man has a tale to tell, or so they always say. This is mine, the story of one who has been wronged by life. It is a tale that needs to be told, for people to hear, a tale I have kept in for far too long. Now, though, in this cruel winter, it is time for me to sit and write this. I have been maligned, but I have stood tall always, and now these are the days of my revenge.
I am not a Leeds man by birth. I came here later, seeking work and finding it. I was a clerk, I knew my letters and my sums, and I had a fair hand. I still do, as you can see. Leeds held opportunity for someone like me.
I was born in Dronfield. It is a place few people know, little more than a piece of dust on a map of the kingdom. The village itself is in Derbyshire, six miles from Chesterfield, a city famed only for its market and the crooked spire of its church, and not so far from Sheffield. Dronfield was a mean place during my childhood, the stone houses cold and damp, the inhabitants poor and low-spirited. My father was a labourer, my mother a laundress to the vicar and his family.
I suppose I should be grateful for that connection, as it helped me gain an education. I was intelligent, precocious and eager. If I had been otherwise no doubt I would still be there, passing a scythe over a field or wasted away to my death.
But the vicar saw my talents, and in his good, Christian way, wanted to encourage them. It was through him that I was able to go to the Fanshawe School, founded by no less a man than one of Good Queen Bess’s courtiers. A haughty man by all accounts, his name in all the beneficence in the area.
I was the ragged one in a class full of those from good homes, with their refined manners and good clothes. They disliked me for that, cruel as all children are. But once it was evident that I outshone them in the classroom, they shunned me. When they did deign to speak, they taunted me, pinched me, hurt me. My lot was to be cleverer than they, and they didn’t like that in such an urchin.
They were the first to make me feel inferior.
He sat back, looking at his work. The copperplate script was beautiful, a delight to the eye. But after so many years of clerking, it should have been. He put down the quill, flexing his fingers.
In Christ’s name, it was bitter here. Even with a fire, there was a chill deep in his soul, one that felt as if it would never leave. He’d spent too many years away from English winters, down in the heat and the sweat, and it had lightened his blood.
Still, the cold weather had brought something good. It had been easier to keep Graves’s corpse without the smell of rot filling the air. And then, when he was ready to let it be discovered, there were so few people on the streets that moving it to the riverbank had been a simple task.
Yes, there was luck involved, but also planning and preparation. He’d spent years readying himself for this, filling his days and dreams with the triumphs. Now it was becoming real, the first stage almost complete.
But it wouldn’t be finished until he’d celebrated it, written it all down, and sent it on to be read. His only regret was that he wouldn’t see the looks when he revealed his secret, and allowed them to understand what had mystified them.
Still, a man couldn’t have everything in this life. But he’d get much of what he wanted. Enough, certainly enough.
Five
Leaving Graves’s house, Nottingham turned back towards the jail, then changed his mind and walked briskly up Briggate before turning at the Head Row towards the fuggy warmth of Garroway’s Coffee House.
As always, the exotic smells of coffee, tea and tobacco overwhelmed him. Steam plumed from a kettle, and low, murmured conversation filled the air, a mix of business and gossip from the merchants who frequented the place, smoking their pipes as they talked and drank.
It was one of them he was seeking. Tom Williamson was sitting by himself, grimacing as he read the
Williamson raised his eyes and began to grin until he remembered.
‘Richard. I heard about your daughter. I’m so sorry. .’
Nottingham set his mouth in a grim line and nodded. There was so much he could say to this man, as close as he had to a friend among the merchants, but it was better to keep his peace. If he began to talk about the things on his mind he might never stop.
‘Sit down. Do you want something to drink?’
Before Nottingham could reply, he was signalling for two dishes of tea to be brought. In his thirties, Williamson had taken over the family business on his father’s death. He’d been groomed for it all his life, apprenticed to a merchant in his teens, then spending time abroad to understand the markets before coming back to Leeds. In the two years he’d been running Williamsons, so Nottingham understood, business had boomed. He was a symbol of the success of Leeds, the rise of the city, the dominance of the wool trade.
‘How are you, Tom?’
