coat and feeling luxuriantly fresh and cool against his face. He ducked through the door and rubbed a hand over his hair, pushing the wet fringe back from his forehead.
‘Bit damp, boss?’ Sedgwick laughed.
‘Careful, John, or I’ll send you out to buy us some ale.’ He sat behind the desk. ‘Any joy on the servants yet?’
‘Nothing at all. You said Worthy’s men were out looking for them?’
‘That’s what he told me.’
‘It’s strange,’ the deputy said worriedly. ‘No one I’ve talked to has mentioned them.’
Nottingham pursed his lips in concentration.
‘He’s got to have men out, he can’t ignore this.’
‘So they’re looking in different places. That’s what worries me.’
The Constable rubbed his chin. It meant that they had some information of their own, something the law didn’t know.
‘Do you have any ideas?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been asking, but no one’s saying anything. Maybe his men have been putting the fear of God in everyone. He must really want that lass.’
‘He does, and if he gets her first she’ll be a corpse by the time we see her. The same for anyone with her. Amos needs this to keep his reputation. And he needs to find her quickly.’
‘Maybe they’ve already gone,’ Sedgwick offered hopefully.
‘For their sake, I hope so, but I doubt it. Come on, John, anyone who’d steal from Amos Worthy can’t be too smart. They’ll still be here somewhere. Somebody knows something.’ He glanced out of the window. The shower had moved east, leaving the air clear and clean, the sky pristine. ‘Just keep looking. Give them money if you have to. I need to go and see the mayor.’
The Moot Hall bustled with the busyness of any working day. Clerks scurried along corridors while aldermen in their finery stood and chatted, comparing clothes and profits. He caught the eye of Grady, the mayor’s man of all work, who gestured him through.
Kenion was in his chair. He looked up briefly from a lengthy document and waved the Constable to a chair. Minutes passed in the muted tick of the longclock before he finished the last page.
‘Right, that’s that. What do you want, Nottingham?’
‘I was wondering what you’d heard from the Gibtons about their daughter’s murder.’ There had been no summons, no demand for action, and it troubled him.
‘Three notes so far, and probably another one today.’ The mayor ran a hand over his pink jowls. ‘The last time they threatened to go to the Lord Lieutenant.’
‘What have you told them?’ He was intrigued. Normally the mayor would have been ranting for an arrest. This hatred must run deep, he thought.
‘That you’re doing everything you can and hope to have an arrest soon,’ he said with aching weariness, as if he’d repeated the lines far too often. ‘Does that sum it up?’
‘As much as it can,’ the Constable agreed.
‘I told them that if they want to go to the Lord Lieutenant, they can, but it won’t make a damn bit of difference.’ He sat back again and folded his arms, glancing up from under bushy eyebrows. ‘Do you want to know why I haven’t been roasting you? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ he admitted.
‘I don’t like their ways. High-handed as they come. If they lived in Leeds it might be a different matter. And,’ he added, ‘two more months and I’ll be done with all this. Come September John Douglas will be sitting here, and good luck to him. I’ve had enough of it. I’ll be glad to get back to business.’
‘What about Godlove? Have you heard from him?’
‘He wrote that he wanted to be informed of all the progress, and that he was sure we’d find her killers. Sounded like a man lost in grief to me. Anything else?’
‘That’s everything.’
The Constable rose to leave.
‘Nottingham,’ the mayor said. ‘Find whoever did it.’
Without mistake, it was an order.
Thirteen
Lister was waiting when he returned to the jail. The lad looked thoughtful, as if he was trying to work out an answer to a vexing question.
Nottingham poured himself a mug of ale and asked, ‘What did you find?’
‘She was here on the Thursday, right enough. Stabled her horse about ten, as far as the ostler remembers. Will’s landlady let her and her maid in a little later and they stayed for two hours.’
‘I don’t suppose she happened to hear any conversation?’
Rob shook his head.‘Not for want of trying, though, from the look of her.’
‘Did she see Sarah when she left?’
‘Just heard the door. And Will went out soon after. Sarah collected the horse and left early afternoon.’
‘Good, that’s one more piece.’ He smiled at Lister’s look of confusion. ‘Do you ever play puzzles?’
‘I did when I was young.’
‘Sometimes a crime is like a puzzle and you need to discover the answer bit by bit until you reach the answer. This one’s going to be like that. You knew Jackson. Do you know who his close friends were?’
‘Some of them.’
‘I want you to talk to them, see if they knew he had a girl. We also need to find out where he was after Sarah left and the day after that. Go to his business, too, see if he was there and working.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘When you get down to it, most of what we do is asking questions,’ the Constable explained. ‘When we’ve done that we sift through the answers and hope for important information.’
‘Wheat and chaff,’ Rob said. ‘I’ll do my best, boss.’
‘Good lad.’
Alone again, he tried to make sense of things. He was glad that the mayor was obstructing the Gibtons. When progress was so slow it made his life easier. Still, however difficult it was, they were crawling forward, inch by inch. It was just as he’d told Lister; there’d be no quick solution to this.
And then was the problem of the false servants. He knew that there was a good chance Worthy could discover them first using threats and violence to find information. If he did find them and kill them, proving he was behind it would be a difficult matter. Nottingham knew all too well just how cunning the pimp could be. When it came to his own survival, the man had no scruples. He’d cover his trail and even sacrifice one of his men if it would keep him out of prison and away from the noose.
What else could they do? Sedgwick knew his job, he’d do all he could to find the thieves. Still, the Constable had a few sources that were purely his own; perhaps it was time to talk to them.
Hercules lived in a tiny outbuilding tucked at the back of the yard of the Rose and Crown. No one knew if he’d been born with that name; few had ever asked. His room had an earth floor and a small pallet of ancient straw covered in blankets once used for horses. Age had stooped him into a figure dressed in patched rags, looking more like a scare-the-crow than a man. In return for his lodging and the scraps of food left by customers, he swept out the inn and cleaned the stables. He was the man no one noticed, an invisible heartbeat, but someone who heard everything. Sometimes, in exchange for a few coins he’d never spend, he gave Nottingham information.
He was exactly where the Constable expected to find him, in one of the stalls, brushing the coat of a horse to a soft shine. Hercules had little love for most people, but he was content around horses, whispering tenderly to them in a voice wracked and ruined by the years, and they responded to his gentle care. He heard Nottingham approach and pointed him to a corner as he continued working.
‘You’ve heard Amos Worthy was robbed?’
