Fair and Tender Ladies (11 page)

‘Just that someone had told her about a place where she could get rich.'

‘Where was that? Did she say?'

‘No, Mr Sedgwick. I din't bother asking, neither. I knew it were all words, it'd never happen. The likes of us never get rich, do we?'

‘True enough, love.' He dug in the pocket of his breeches and put two pennies in her hand, enjoying the way her eyes widened in joy and surprise.

‘You look after yourself, Molly lass,' he said.

‘Y
ou look far away, laddie.'

People seemed to be saying that to him too often these days, the Constable thought. But it was true, his mind kept drifting back to happier, loving times. He looked up and saw Finer watching him, amusement flickering across his mouth.

In the shank of an afternoon that felt too hot and too long he'd found a quiet, cool corner in the Old King's Head. A stream ran under the cellar to chill the ale. He took a sip before answering.

‘I was just thinking.'

‘Well, here is as good a place as any for it.'

‘I thought you'd be enjoying the sun, Mr Finer.'

‘There's a time for that and a time for this.' He raised the mug in his hand and gestured at the empty bench across the table. ‘Room for one more?'

‘If you like.' He didn't relish company but the man intrigued him. Finer settled with a slow sigh.

‘That's better,' he said. ‘Twenty years back I'd have stayed standing. Now I'm happy for a rest.'

‘Are you settling back into Leeds?' Nottingham asked.

‘I am.' He drank, savouring the liquid in his mouth, then swallowed and smiled.

‘No thoughts about what you might do?'

‘Do? I'm not going to do anything.'

The Constable raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I thought you might have had plans, Mr Finer.'

‘Been hearing things, have you, laddie?' He laughed.

‘Words are like wildfire here, you ought to remember that.'

Finer lifted his hands and spread them in surrender. ‘I'd like to give something to this place. Is that so bad?'

‘Not at all,' Nottingham agreed. ‘But I have my doubts that you're just doing it out of charity.'

Finer shook his head slowly. ‘I've told you, I'm not the man I was, Constable.'

‘So you say.'

‘I've no reason to lie.'

‘No?' Nottingham asked.

‘No,' Finer answered flatly. ‘I've walked around enough since I came back. I've seen all the poor here. There's that camp down by the river.'

‘Bessie looks after those folk well.'

‘I'm sure she does, but we both know they'd be better off with a roof over their heads. What'll they do in winter? I have more money than I need and no one else to spend it on. I might as well use to help those who need it.'

‘And make a profit along the way?'

Finer chuckled. ‘Not quite what you think, laddie. I'm not so daft that I wouldn't want my investment back. I didn't grow up here for nothing. But after that, all the money will go back into the workhouse to keep it running.'

‘So it's not charity at all?' Nottingham asked.

‘It's my money that'll pay to make the workhouse liveable again. Have you been in there lately?'

The Constable shook his head.

‘It's going to need hundreds spent on it.' He listed the points on his fingers. ‘Then there's finding contracts, a good master for the place. Do you have any idea how much they paid the last one?'

‘No.'

‘Fifty pounds a year and his lodgings.' He sounded outraged. ‘And he still let the whole bloody thing get out of hand. That's why they closed.' He stared at Nottingham. ‘It's going to cost me at least five hundred to have the place ready.'

‘A very tidy sum.' More than many merchants cleared in a year, he knew that.

‘I have it and I'll pay it.'

‘What if you don't get it back?' The Constable drained his cup, his eyes firmly on the man.

Finer shrugged. ‘Then I don't. I won't be starving without it. But I'm sure if it's done right, the workhouse can pay for itself. You know what the problem's been before?'

‘What?' He wanted to hear the man's opinion.

‘The people in charge of everything were clerks. How much do they really know about business?'

‘Certainly not business like yours.'

‘I've spent my life turning one penny into two, laddie,' Finer countered.

‘And how many have you hurt doing that?'

The man frowned, then replied, ‘I keep telling you, all that's in the past now. The Corporation's in favour of my plans.'

‘I've no doubt they are. They'll love anything that sweeps the poor off the streets and doesn't cost them a penny.'

‘Where the poor will be fed and have beds to sleep in,' Finer said pointedly.

‘Out of sight and doing something useful.'

‘You're never going to believe me, are you, Constable?'

‘Prove me wrong, Mr Finer,' Nottingham challenged. ‘Do that and I'll give you my apology.' He stood. ‘I'll tell you this, though – I'll be watching you carefully all along the way.'

‘You do that, Mr Nottingham. And when you see I've been telling you the truth I'll happily accept that apology of yours.'

The Constable meandered home along Kirkgate, his heels clattering quickly over the wood of Timble Bridge. He thought about the conversation with Finer. The man sounded persuasive enough, but when hadn't he? He'd always been the type to try charm first, and violence if words didn't work. Yet what if he was wrong, and Finer really had turned into a man of good works?

If. That small word. He shook his head to clear it. More doubts to fill his mind. For every two steps forwards he took, his mind would drag him back one.

‘When she's old enough I thought we could send Isabell to Emily Nottingham's school,' Lizzie said. The girl was settled on her lap, constantly leaning forward to reach for everything on the table.

‘That's a long way off yet.' Sedgwick was spooning pottage into his mouth, a mug of ale in his other hand to wash down the food.

‘She's a girl so she can't go to my school,' James pointed out smugly.

‘We know that, clever boots. But you want your sister to be able to learn, don't you?' He reached across and tousled the boy's hair.

‘I suppose so,' James answered reluctantly. ‘But George says girls aren't as clever as boys.'

‘If George says that to his mam he'll be getting a clout around the ear,' Lizzie told him. ‘He'll deserve it, too.'

The boy lowered his head and nodded but Sedgwick could see him smirking.

‘I'd better never hear you saying something like that.'

‘No, Da.'

‘What homework do you have tonight?'

‘Sums again.'

‘Right. You've finished your supper so go upstairs and do it.'

He waited until the lad had scrambled up the stairs.

‘I think sending her to school is a grand idea.'

Lizzie put the girl on the floor, watching as she pushed herself on to her feet and started to totter about the room.

‘Away from there,' she warned, then, ‘I want her to have the same chance as James.' The boy was learning so quickly at the charity school, dutiful in his work and starting to develop a good, clear hand for his writing.

‘So do I.' He extended his arm, waving his fingers until Isabell saw them, and began to walk unsteadily towards him. ‘If she has her letters and her numbers she'll never go hungry.' Only two years had passed since he'd learned to read himself. Back then he'd had dreams of becoming Constable after the boss retired. Now he knew better. He didn't have a face that fitted with what the Corporation wanted. He'd done the job for six months when Nottingham recovered from a wound and he'd been barely tolerated by those who held the power and the purse strings.

The boss might have spent much of his childhood as a waif while his mother had to whore for pennies, but he'd started life as a merchant's son. Underneath it all the ones who ran things believed he was one of them, something Sedgwick could never be.

Rob stood a better chance of being the next Constable than he did. His father was publisher of the
Leeds Mercury;
he knew the right people, could speak the right way.

‘John!' Lizzie's voice pulled him from his thoughts. She pointed and he scooped up Isabell before she could fall, tickling her to make her giggle wildly and kick against him with her short, stubby legs.

‘You're going to be a smart one, you are,' he told her. ‘There'll be better than this for you and your brother.'

Rob paced anxiously around the office in the jail. He'd completed the night report and looked in on the three drunks asleep in the cells. Outside there was the slow rumble of wheels as a cart made its early way down Kirkgate towards the Parish Church.

He chewed on his lower lip, starting at every noise and hoping it was the Constable arriving. In the distance he heard the bell at the Parish Church ring once for the quarter hour. Finally the door handle turned and he stood straighter.

‘Morning, lad,' Nottingham said. ‘Going to be another lovely day.'

‘Boss, there's something you need to see.' He picked up a piece of slate from the desk and passed it over. ‘This.'

I
t was a crude drawing, no more than a few lines scrawled with a stone. A stick figure in a dress with a noose around her neck, hanging from a gibbet. Nottingham examined it.

‘Where was it?'

‘At the school.'

The Constable looked at him sharply. ‘Whereabouts?'

‘I was down by there a little after three,' Rob explained. ‘The gate at the end of the back yard was open and someone had forced the door. It was on Emily's desk.'

Nottingham held up the slate, studying the picture again. There was no mistake about its meaning. ‘Anything else you could see? Any other damage?'

‘Just this.' Lister hesitated. ‘What do I do? Should I tell her?'

Nottingham stood by the desk, trying to untangle his thoughts. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe. He gripped the slate to try to hide the shaking in his hands. He was going to punish whoever had done this.

‘Go ahead,' he said eventually. ‘She needs to know. And make sure you walk her to school and back every day. I mean
every
day.'

‘Yes, boss.'

The Constable's mind raced as he imagined everything that could happen. ‘I want you to check inside the place each morning before she goes in. I'll tell John to have his men keep an eye on it during the day.'

‘I'll have one of the night men stay on watch, too. The husbands have stopped staying out.'

The Constable nodded his approval. ‘I'll have a word with the locksmith and see those doors are fixed and that gate's made secure,' he said. ‘There's a wall at the back of the property, isn't there?'

‘Yes, about as tall as me.'

‘And the gate goes all the way up?'

‘Yes, boss.'

Nottingham thought for a moment. ‘Did you put the incident in your report?'

‘I did.'

‘Write me a new one and leave it out,' he said. ‘I don't want everyone knowing about this. Do that, then take yourself off.'

The Constable was studying the slate once more when the deputy came in. No one was going to hurt his daughter. No one.

‘Take a look at this, John.' His voice was calmer than he felt.

‘A drawing?' Sedgwick asked in confusion. ‘Where did you find it?'

‘Rob did. Someone broke into the school during the night and left it on Emily's desk.'

‘Christ.' The deputy exhaled slowly.

‘It wasn't drunks the other night. Someone doesn't want her there.'

‘I'll keep Holden on the back of the place.'

‘Good. But I want all this to stay quiet for now.'

‘Why, boss?' Sedgwick asked. ‘If the women down there know they'll have their men out on guard again.'

‘And if they do that, they'll scare off whoever's behind this. I want to catch the bastard, John.'

‘We will, boss.'

‘I'm not going to have anyone do this to her.' He tossed the slate on to the desk, his gaze fixed on the picture. ‘Did Molly tell you much yesterday?'

‘She saw Jenny, but the girl didn't tell her anything useful. What about the Wades?'

‘Mrs Wade doesn't remember Jem Carter, and Jenny never went there. A waste of good time.'

‘You don't need to walk me to school,' Emily insisted. ‘I'll be fine by myself. You look like you need to sleep.'

‘I want to,' Rob said. ‘Besides …'

‘What?' she asked with a flash of irritation. He took hold of her hand. ‘What is it? I'm going to be late.'

‘Someone broke into the school last night, through the back door.'

‘Broke in?' She stopped abruptly, looking at him in disbelief. ‘But you said it was just drunks,' she began. ‘Did they damage anything?' She started to move away, ready to rush to the school, but he kept hold of her.

‘There's something else.'

‘What?' She looked at him. ‘What, Rob?' she said, fear in her eyes, then shouted, ‘What?'

‘There was a drawing on a slate,' he told her, keeping his voice low. ‘A girl, hanging.'

Emily stayed silent for a few moments, scarcely breathing.

‘Where is it?' Her face began to flush with anger. ‘I want to see it.'

‘I took it to the jail.'

‘And what did Papa say?'

‘He's the one who told me to escort you to and from school and check the room every day. He wants to keep you safe.'

‘I'm not going to let them scare me.' She tried to keep her voice firm, the words more for herself than for him. ‘I'm not,' she repeated, staring at Rob.