The Ladder Dancer (30 page)

‘In the Turk’s Head, for instance,’ Hugh said.

‘But what happened? Did you lose him?’

Ridley sneered; Heron’s sword lifted slightly. Esther sighed. ‘You really do not like to make things easy for yourself, do you?’

‘Having lost him,’ I continued, ‘you went to the Fleece thinking Nightingale must go back there sooner or later. And while you were waiting for him, you saw someone hurrying out of the alley.’ I glanced at the others and explained; ‘The attacker must have followed Nightingale down the Castle Stair because Nightingale was attacked first from behind – an attacker coming from the street would have attacked first from the front. So, if the attacker came
down
the steps, it would have been natural for him to run off into the street – which is what Ridley saw. In fact, I think he saw the entire attack.’ I stared down at Ridley. ‘Am I correct so far?’

He grinned, sat back and folded his arms. The attempt at dignity was spoilt by the water trailing down his cheeks from his sodden wig.

‘Then,’ I said, ‘you started your blackmail attempt. You’ve been following the attacker ever since – hoping to intimidate him.’

He said nothing.

‘Or perhaps to get more information on his activities. At any rate, you were following him when he went into the Fleece and stole Nightingale’s watch.’ I reflected that I still didn’t understand that incident; why had the attacker not finished Nightingale off then? ‘And you saw me there at the same time and decided to tease me. By talking to the sailors and making sure I knew you’d been there, you not only made trouble, you also hoped to draw my attention away from the real culprit. Leaving him to your own tender mercies.’

Ridley grinned, looked round each of us in turn. The coldness of my clothes was beginning to make me shake uncontrollably. Heron’s sword point, I noticed, was rock steady. ‘Come on,’ Ridley said. ‘We’re all sensible people here. What’s wrong with trying to get a little money?’ He smiled at Esther then looked up at me. ‘
You
don’t see anything wrong in it. And while we’re at it, how many people have seen the lady in such very
feminine
apparel.’ He smirked, and his gaze lingered on Esther’s breeches. ‘
Very
nice.’

I started forward but both Hugh and Heron stepped into my path. Esther sighed with melodramatic weariness. ‘I suppose you will grow up at some point,’ she murmured.

Ridley flushed brightly.

Hugh gave me a warning look. I bit back the anger, forced myself to return to the point. ‘The attacker didn’t like being threatened so tonight he tried to dispose of you. Only you were lucky and escaped his clutches. And your immediate reaction was to call for Kate and go and get the scissors. I presume he didn’t believe you had any evidence against him.’

Ridley said nothing. Again.

‘Well, here’s my best offer,’ I said. God knows it went against the grain to offer Ridley any kind of a deal, but I didn’t see any other way of dealing with the affair. ‘Give us the name of the attacker, and we’ll pass it on to the constable and he can remove a dangerous man from our midst. And in return—’

I met Heron’s eyes. Only he could make any kind of offer that would tempt Ridley. He looked stony-faced – I couldn’t read his expression. Eventually, however, he stirred, said brusquely, ‘An increase in your allowance and lodgings of your own. But no more help than that. Any trouble you get yourself into from now on is your own affair. After this, I wash my hands of you. And without my cooperation, you will get nothing more out of your mother.’

Ridley looked up at him. ‘I want the whole of my inheritance. My grandmother’s money.
Now
.’

‘No,’ Heron said, uncompromisingly.

‘That’s what I want.’

‘It is not legally possible. The money is held in trust until you marry.’

‘You can do it somehow,’ Ridley said, grinning. He crossed his arms and tried for a kind of damp dignity. ‘If you want the information, that is . . .’

And no amount of cajoling would shake him from that position.

Forty

Be assured: anything to your discredit will sooner or later become common knowledge.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, November 1732]

In the early light of day, I lingered at the door of Hugh’s lodgings with Esther and Kate, talking quietly to avoid waking the widow and her children. Kate was still inclined to be defensive, kicking at the wall of the alley and staring out at the deserted street as if she was eager to be off.

‘Why did you go along with Ridley’s demands?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me everything when we talked last time?’

She was as uncooperative as Ridley, hunching her shoulders against me and mumbling something almost inaudible.

‘Really, Charles!’ Esther said. ‘The answer is obvious.’ She looked at Kate. ‘He threatened Charles, did he not? He said he would hurt him if you did not cooperate.’

Kate flushed bright red, mumbled again.

‘That’s why she was out so late the night the watch was stolen,’ Esther said. ‘You told her to go into the house but she followed you down to the Fleece, just to make sure you were safe.’

Kate refused to meet my gaze. I was almost as embarrassed as she was. ‘Thank you,’ I said at last.

That brought her head up. ‘Only did it cos I got an interest,’ she said defiantly. ‘If Mr N’s dead, there’s only you left to help me, ain’t there?’ And she flounced off into the street.

Esther was smiling. ‘She refuses ever to let herself be caught at a disadvantage!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Charles, she is really remarkably good at that business, you know –
stepping through
into the other world. She knew exactly where and when you and Heron would be coming back; she had no doubts whatsoever – she led me there straight away.’

‘I’ve no doubt she could teach me a thing or two,’ I admitted.

‘That is not what worries me,’ she retorted. ‘I think we need to teach
her
a thing or two, about caution and discretion!’

We went out on to the street; I was relieved to see Kate loitering outside the clockmaker’s shop, peering through the shutters at the treasures inside. ‘Here,’ she said, her gaze settling admiringly on Esther. ‘Can I have a pair of breeches too?’

They went off and I lingered in the warming day until Hugh came down behind me and stood looking out on Westgate and the early risers. A farmer came in to the market, a chapman walked stolidly out to the villages and the fairs. A single cow plodded down the street, urged on by a small boy with a bunch of twigs. It wasn’t raining – I’ve never been so glad of anything in my life. A thin line of sunlight touched me and began to dry my clothes.

‘Thought you had to play in church this morning,’ Hugh said. ‘Hadn’t you better get some sleep?’

‘It’s hardly worth it,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to be up again in an hour or two. Besides, I promised Heron I’d help him get Ridley back to the Old Man. He’s given up trying to make him stay at his mother’s.’

‘He’s still trying to get the fellow to talk,’ Hugh said, rubbing at his left arm and adjusting the sling.

‘Any success?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think he’s going to hell in a handcart and we might as well wash our hands of him and let him go. Nothing short of an act of God is going to stop him.’

‘He’s like a child playing games,’ Hugh said. ‘Having a wonderful time setting all the grown-ups in an uproar.’

‘He’s no child,’ I retorted. ‘He’s the one who caused that baby to drown. That’s what rankles, Hugh! An innocent, with no way of protecting itself – and he’s going to get away with causing its death!’

Hugh nodded. ‘But he didn’t attack Nightingale.’

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘So we’ll have to look elsewhere. Who else might want to?’

I stared at the cow that had stopped to nibble at the grass beyond the railings of the vicarage gardens. ‘Nightingale quarrelled with half a dozen people that night, and some of them were unsavoury characters. And he flirted with a good few married ladies at the concert, annoying their husbands. Philip Ord, for instance.’

‘Good God! You can’t think Ord attacked him!’

The idea was tempting but I shook my head. ‘Ord would have done it face to face. Although, on second thoughts, he’d probably have thought Nightingale not a gentleman which means he’d never have dreamt of fighting him himself. He’d have sent a couple of servants to give Nightingale a thorough beating.’

‘Then was it a robbery after all?’

‘His watch wasn’t taken until later. And he’d no money on him.’

‘But if the robber was disturbed . . .’

‘He’d have grabbed the watch at least.’

Hugh snatched at my arm. ‘It’s the watch, Charles! The watch is what he was after. He couldn’t get it on the night, so he went back for it. There’s something special about the watch!’

‘It wasn’t its monetary value,’ I retorted. ‘It was cheap and nasty.’

‘Sentimental value then? It could have been some relative, someone come up from London to kill him.’

‘It had to be someone Ridley knew,’ I said slowly. ‘How could he have blackmailed someone if he didn’t recognize them? Which argues it was someone local.’

‘Not necessarily! Ridley’s just come north from London! Perhaps it was someone both he and Nightingale knew there!’

I had to admit this possibility. ‘But how could we ever find out? Short of a trip to London – and even then it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.’

Hugh sighed. ‘I’ve vowed off travelling.’ He tapped the broken arm significantly.

‘Until the next time you get restless feet.’

‘No, no – never again. And particularly not on barges. You’ll never get me on water again. Never.’

‘I know how you must have felt,’ I said. ‘Too damn wet.’

‘Your clothes feel three times as heavy as normal. And cold.’

‘Clammy,’ I agreed. ‘We’d know if there was a Londoner in town. At least if he’d come into contact with Ridley or Nightingale.’

We were silent as the sky lightened. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last night I’d actually spent in my bed; I was becoming nocturnal, forced into sleeping during the day. And even in the warming sunshine, I couldn’t stop shivering.

‘Scissors,’ Hugh said with a frown. ‘What kind of killer attacks with scissors? Knives are easy enough to come by, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Damn it,’ I said. ‘You’re right. That’s a very good question.’

Heron and I escorted Ridley back to the Old Man in the grimmest of silences, broken only by the squelching of our footsteps. He strode between us with a swagger, as if he felt he held a winning hand of cards. God knows what the passers-by made of us, all sodden, despite the brightening sunshine, and filthy.

At the door of the Old Man, Ridley turned to face us with a grin.

‘The thing is,’ he said as if we were resuming an interrupted conversation, ‘you’re not the fellows to let someone get away with murder. I know people, you see – I can read ’em like books. I know you inside out.’

‘I doubt it,’ Heron said.

‘And I know you’ll come round to my way of thinking sooner or later.’

‘No,’ Heron said.

‘And leave Kate alone,’ I added.

Ridley winked at me. ‘Treading on your toes, am I? And you newly married as well!’

Heron gripped my arm and held me back. ‘One thing is for certain, Ridley,’ he said, coolly. ‘You are not a man to live long.’

‘A short life and a merry one!’ Ridley grinned as he sauntered into the Old Man. We were left, wet and fuming, on the Key.

I was beginning to think I’d be the one to dispose of him.

I made it to All Hallows in time, without any sleep at all, and played by instinct, my only pleasures the feeling of good dry clothes and the mellow sound of the organ, about the only decent thing in a church that is rapidly falling down around everyone’s ears. The church was crowded as always and the congregation were good-humoured and dozed discreetly while the Rev. Mr Orrick stuttered and stammered through his sermon. I thought of Cuthbert Ridley; I was convinced he’d taken his imitation of a bashful young man from the curate – but that was part and parcel of his cruelty.

I dozed fitfully and tried to keep myself alert by surveying the congregation through the small mirrors above the organ console. There was Esther, in her neatest and smartest clothes, with Kate sitting mutinously beside her, openly yawning from time to time. The servants were in a little row at the back of the church, just behind the landlord of the Fleece. And I spotted the Jenisons too. At least, Mr Jenison and Mrs Annabella were there; Mrs Jenison was absent; I wondered if she was still unwell. Mrs Annabella sat with her handkerchief to her face, occasionally dabbing at her eyes, but, thankfully, not audibly sobbing. I even caught her casting a quick glance at a young gentleman in a pew opposite; I fancied it wouldn’t take long for her to recover.

I wandered off into speculation about Ridley and Nightingale and the death of the child and whoever it was that Ridley was blackmailing, so absorbed I almost missed my cue for the next hymn and was only brought back to my senses by everyone echoing the vicar’s
amen
at the end of the sermon with some relieved force. I nodded to the bellows blower, the organ wheezed and I launched into the first lines of the hymn; the last thing I saw as I glanced into the mirror was Cuthbert Ridley’s grinning round face.

Esther and Kate waited for me outside the church after the service so I could escort them home. Kate was behaving remarkably well, generally keeping quiet; my only fear was that she’d yawn in the face of some merchant or alderman. The sun cast long shadows from the gravestones across the path; two children and a dog were running about giddily, shrieking and laughing, and caring not a bit when they fell over. The organist’s cat watched with disdain then began to wash itself.

As I approached, I saw Robert Jenison pause to speak to Esther before nodding rather wearily to her and walking away to his own carriage where Mrs Annabella was waiting in eager conversation with one of her cronies. Esther turned a thoughtful gaze on me.