Sedgwick was always amazed at the way the pimps hid their wealth. If he had even half their money he’d own a good house with four or five hearths and live like a gentleman. Maybe they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, he thought, although what they did was no worse than the way some merchants and businessmen acted.
They all ran strings of girls. Sometimes one of the lasses would leave without a word, but there was never a shortage of new blood arriving from the country, thinking they might make their fortune in Leeds. But no girl was going to make money on her back for anyone but the man who ran her. Most of them would be lucky to survive to twenty-five.
After years in his job he knew all the pimps and procurers in the city. A few even seemed like decent folk, most treated their girls like objects, and some of the worst ones he could have happily killed — and would have, once or twice, if the Constable hadn’t stopped him.
Whores were a fact of life. There was no more getting rid of them than fleas. But he could try to stop men openly murdering them.
Sedgwick walked down Briggate, beyond Boar Lane, following the gentle slope down to the Aire and across the stone bridge that spanned the river, its parapets old and wide. Someone had told him that at one time they used to hold the cloth market here, long before the Cloth Hall was built, and it had been designed for displaying the wares, bales of cloth spread out over the stone.
Around him carters were urging on their teams, the clack of horseshoes and wheel rims sharp and loud on the cobbles. Men bowed by heavy packs on their backs negotiated the traffic with stoic looks on their faces, coming to sell or going home disappointed. A few smiled, hands jammed in their pockets to keep thieves from their profits.
That set him thinking. They’d heard nothing more about their cutpurse for a day or so now. Could he have moved on, deciding he’d tried his luck as far as it would go in Leeds? It was possible, but unlikely. Every thief he’d met liked to push it to the limit, and most ended up caught and hanged. It happened so often it almost seemed like a natural law.
At the south end of the bridge he turned into a warren of streets. Much of the area to the west, on Meadow Lane, was given over to grand houses built by the merchants as symbols of their success, with expensive brick fronts to illustrate their wealth. But back in these yards was someone who could give them a run, guinea for guinea.
Without even needing to find his bearings, he made his way through the tiny streets. Few people were around; they were mostly off at their work, or in their rooms, sleeping off labour or drink. It was a place without joy, without hope, like so many others he saw every day, where most people existed rather than lived.
Not Jane Farnham, though, Sedgwick thought as he stopped and knocked on a door. She was a woman who broke all the rules. She relished her life as a bawd and she’d made a small fortune pandering to the needs of others. No Amos Worthy, perhaps, but with plenty of money just the same.
A grille in the wood opened and a pair of eyes looked out. Sedgwick didn’t bother to say anything. Whoever was looking would know his face. A thickset man let him in, a fearsome scar on a face that had been battered several times, the nose broken and awkwardly set.
“Henry.” Sedgwick nodded. The servant wasn’t wearing a waistcoat or jacket, and the muscles of his arms and chest bulged against the old linen of his shirt. He’d been a soldier once, at least that was the tale, and had killed his sergeant with his bare hands before deserting. Not that anyone, except perhaps Henry himself, knew the truth. And after all this time perhaps he’d chosen to believe the legend.
“What dost tha want?” The man’s voice always sounded hoarse.
“Is she around? I need to talk to her.”
Henry eyed him impassively before leaving him inside the door and going into another room, emerging a few seconds later and tilting his ugly head as invitation. Sedgwick followed. He’d been here a number of times, but on each occasion it took his breath away. Jane Farnham’s morning room was the equal of any fine lady’s residence, the furnishings expensive and exquisite, with a thick carpet of Oriental design like a cushion under his feet. From the outside of the building no one would have guessed at this interior.
But Sedgwick also knew that decorating her rooms in such a manner was as close as Mrs Farnham would ever come to society, for no procurer could ever be received by polite people. So she created her own rich world that would have intimidated most of the people she’d never be likely to entertain, and established her own superiority.
Farnham herself, wearing a fine jade silk gown of a fashionable London cut, her hair elegantly pinned up in an elaborate coif, looked up from the delicate chair where she sat. No one had ever seen Mr Farnham, if he even existed.
“Yes?” she drawled. She was a small woman, her head barely reaching Sedgwick’s chest, and nearly as thin as a consumptive. There was a fine, moneyed air about her. She was used to her comforts. No one who didn’t know would ever have guessed that she was a madam with a bawdy house and girls on the street. She strove to seem cultivated, always with a book open on the table. At times she seemed too genteel and tiny to be an effective pimp. But Sedgwick had seen her lose her temper with a whore. She’d beaten the lass so hard and long that the girl had to be carried away. The refined behaviour, he reflected later, was a very thin mask.
“We’ve got a dead prostitute in the jail,” Segwick blurted. “Have you had a girl gone missing lately?”
Farnham exchanged a glance with Henry, who shook his head briefly.
“No, we haven’t,” Farnham informed him in a soft voice. “If we had, of course we’d have told the Constable’s office.”
Aye, if it suited you, Sedgwick thought to himself. With a slightly envious glance around the room, he bowed his head and left.
One down, he thought, crossing the bridge again, but so many more to go. He’d do as the Constable ordered and talk to a few more pimps, but he wasn’t hopeful. He reckoned he might be better off chatting to some of the girls, describing the dead lass to them and see if anyone knew her. A few would certainly have seen her and might even know her name. Ultimately, though, it probably didn’t matter. By tomorrow she was going to be just another dead body in a pauper’s grave, mourned and missed by next to no one. There were dozens of them each year.
David Sheepshanks and Edward Paley didn’t aspire to the same luxury as Farnham. Both were small time, with just four or five girls each. Neither of them had a girl missing and knew of no one who did. Two more brief visits revealed nothing, and Sedgwick began to believe it was going to be a waste of time.
So he followed his instinct and started canvassing the girls. There were always plenty around, no matter the time, in the inns or on the streets, touting for trade. As they learned all too quickly, it wasn’t a business for the shy, unless they had an inclination for starvation. Some of them were mean bitches, women he wouldn’t dare cross for fear of his life, but most were simply trying to get by and live.
Lizzie Lane was like that. It had been her and her daughter since her man left — ’listed for a soldier when drunk, some people said, although no one seemed to know for sure. She was cheerful, brash and bawdy whenever Sedgwick saw her. For more than two years she’d been a fixture near the Old King’s Head on Briggate. She kept her large breasts pushed high, almost out of the top of her dress, and she loved to trade lewd banter with passing men, usually getting a fair share of customers that she took to her dingy room down the grubby yard.
“Hello, John,” she yelled as she saw him approach, a warmly lecherous smile crossing her face. “Come looking for the company of a real woman?”
“Now then, keep your voice down, you might put off trade, talking to the law,” he told her, laughing, before adding in a quieter voice, “And my missus might hear about it.”
“She didn’t last time,” Lizzie winked and folded the small fan so many whores carried.
“Aye, but if she found out she’d hurt me.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed in mock frustration.
“You’re not here for me, anyway, are you, luv?”
“Not today,” he admitted.
“Well, you’d better not take long, then. Not that most do, anyway,” she chuckled.
“You’ve heard a couple of girls have been murdered?”
Lizzie nodded.
“There’s one, we don’t know who she is, and the Constable would like to find out. The pimps I’ve talked to aren’t saying anything.”
“You think those bastards would?” she interjected.
“Just ask around and see if anyone’s gone missing, would you?”
“What did she look like?” Lizzie asked.
“Tiny thing, blonde hair, pox marks, scar on her chin, old blue dress,” he said.
“That could be half of them around here,” she pointed out wistfully.
“Can you ask a few questions and let me know if anyone says anything?”
Lizzie brightened. “Course I will. Can’t have some prick killing us.”
“You’re a good lass,” Sedgwick said with a grin.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the ones who can help me.” He winked and walked away.
Nottingham knew Carver wouldn’t be too hard to find. He poked his head around the door of a couple of inns with no luck, then discovered him once more in the Ship, already on his third drink, according to the landlord.
“George,” he said genially, standing over the figure on the bench who was contemplating his ale. The man looked up and answered mildly, “Am I to be harassed daily for the rest of my life then, Constable?”
“I hope not,” the Constable said without a smile. “But I need to ask you a few more questions.”
“Then pull up a seat and take a drink with me.”
Nottingham shook his head.
“Not here. We’ll talk at the jail, I think.”
Carver shrugged, drained his tankard in a single swallow, and stood with barely a hint of unsteadiness.
“I’m at your service,” he announced with a small flourish.
They walked together in silence. The older man smelled especially ripe, his coat crusted with even more food stains, which didn’t seem to concern him in the least.
At the jail he waited until Nottingham sat, then positioned himself on the chair opposite.
“Now, how may I help you Constable?” he asked, for all the world a gracious host relaxed in his own home.
“I’m wondering where you were last night.”
Carver pondered the question for a minute.
“I woke in my own bed, so I can’t have gone too far,” he replied seriously. “Beyond that I’m not sure I can be too much help.”
“You were at the White Swan until gone ten,” Nottingham told him.
“Was I?” Carver asked. “Then you seem to have a better grasp of my whereabouts than I do.”
“Where were you after that? Did you go to the Turk’s Head?”
The merchant bit his lip as he thought, and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied succinctly.
“Two more people were murdered last night,” Nottingham informed him.
“I see.” Carver considered the question gravely. “And what exactly does that mean, Constable?”
Nottingham shifted slightly in his chair and brushed the hair off his forehead. He was too exhausted to play any games, tired of answers that were no use at all.
“It means you need to recall where you were last night, and I need some witnesses who might have seen you.”
Carver raised his hands, palms upwards.
“As I told you, I don’t recall. I’m sorry.”
“Then I’m afraid I have no choice but to arrest you,” the Constable snapped. He’d see if that made Carver remember.
A long silence filled the room. Nottingham impatiently studied the other man, who appeared to be thinking carefully.
“You must do your duty,” Carver agreed finally. “I hope your cells aren’t too uncomfortable.” He stood, waiting to be escorted.
Nottingham unlocked the first cell and waited until Carver was inside before closing the door and turning the key. It was too easy, he thought with a twinge of guilt. Would a murderer, even a mad one, allow himself to be herded like a sheep? Maybe Carver really did have no memory of the events.
“I’ll see you get some supper later. There’s water in the jug.”
“Bring me ale, too,” Carver pleaded.
Nottingham smiled to himself. The man could probably survive for days without eating, but without drink he’d wither in a matter of hours.
“I will,” he promised. “I need your address and the key to your room, too.”
Carver gave both willingly.
He went next door to the White Swan and arranged for a potboy to take Carver food and drink. The city could pay; at least the man wouldn’t cost too much. That done, he stood outside the inn and felt exhaustion hit him like a stone. Sedgwick had rested, but Nottingham had been working since the early hours and now it had caught up with him. He ached to go home and sleep without thought of waking. But first he had to go and search Carver’s room, and do it now while he was still moving.
It was a filthy attic up three rickety flights of stairs, and he wondered how Carver managed to climb them each night. One small, dirty window gazed down on a rubbish-strewn court, its outlines blurred in the growing darkness. The Constable lit a stub of candle and looked around. The room was crammed with possessions, a stack of books climbing up the wall, some trinkets on the sill, piles of faded papers cluttering the floor. The bed was a bundle of straw covered with an old sheet; it smelt as though it hadn’t been changed in years.
A flimsy table that looked like someone had thrown it out was covered with worn quills and paper filled with scribbles that made no sense. Carefully, the Constable moved them aside. Underneath, not even properly covered, was a knife. It hadn’t been hidden, simply laid down and forgotten. It was not the one Carver had shown him before.
Nottingham picked it up and carefully studied the blade in the bleak candle flame. It was about the right size and length, the steel roughly cleaned. But as he examined it more closely, he noticed a series of dark flecks on the metal. He rubbed at them with a wetted finger, and watched the stains slowly smear, the deep rust colour lightening.
It was blood, beyond a doubt.
Christ. It felt like a blow on the head. Had he been as wrong as that? He bowed his head slowly and clenched his fists. Fuck.
His instinct had failed and he’d let himself be taken in. Carver had conveniently lied about a bloody knife. God alone knew how little of what he’d said was the truth. Walking back to the jail, he felt a bitter fire inside. He wanted to confront his prisoner, to find out what he’d really done. No, he decided after a pause, tomorrow was better, once he was rested and he’d had time to consider all of this. Tonight he was too tired to think properly, and for Carver he’d need to be sharp. He put the blade in his coat pocket and went home.
His legs carried him along the familiar route. He walked past the turning to the White Cloth Hall, past Alderman Atkinson’s grand mansion with its distinctive cupola, and the dark holy bulk of the parish church. Across the road an orchard stretched all the way to Sheep Scar Beck, its ground almost carpeted by windfall apples as the leaves began to turn and die.
There was a reassurance in the scenes. He’d lived through them all for so many years. They kept him anchored to this place he knew and loved so well.
At home the enticing smell of a lamb stew greeted him as he entered, and he followed his nose into the kitchen where Mary stood surrounded by the steam and heat of cooking. Sweat shimmered on her face, and he watched, smiling, as she wiped her forehead with her arm, a single lock of hair plastered to her skin. His heel banged against the floor and she turned with a shock.
“My God, Richard, you startled me.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologised, feeling a deep, loving tenderness for this woman.
“Are you back for the night?” she asked.
“God, I hope so,” he said fervently. “I’m dead on my feet.”
“Do you want something to eat? The stew’s nearly done.”
He shook his head, then beckoned her to him, folding her in his arms as she nestled against him. He could feel the warmth she gave off and let it soak into him like a hot bath.
“I think we’ve found him,” Nottingham told her, but there was no sense of triumph in his voice. All he felt was his own failure of judgement as he spoke the name. “George Carver.”
She pulled away from him slightly.
“The drunk?”
He nodded.
“But why?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll find out tomorrow.” Suddenly he didn’t want to discuss it any more, even with Mary. “I need to go to bed. When the girls get back, make sure they keep quiet. And if anyone wants me, it had better be life or death.”
She looked up at him with an understanding smile. How many times over the years had he come home like this and said words like those, he wondered. And on each occasion she’d protected his sleep carefully, making sure he was able to rest until he woke refreshed.
It was some measure of his station that they had a house with two bedrooms, he thought, climbing the staircase and feeling the plaster of the wall rub against his coat. He stripped off his clothes, down to the linen shirt, pulled the covers over his body and felt peaceful oblivion overwhelm him.