P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Perhaps he mistook the time.’

‘Hardly likely, my lord, if he’s confessing. And it’s hard to make a mistake about something like dawn. Noon perhaps, but not dawn. And in any case, I can’t see Andy Nixon climbing any awning or scaffolding to get to a high window, not with his hand the way it still is. He was badly beaten up on Sunday night and his hand trodden on. I doubt he could do it now.’

Lowther was staring at Carey from under his bushy eyebrows, as if at some two-headed wild man of the New World. Carey ignored him and carried on pacing until Kate Atkinson was brought up from the prison by Dodd and Archie. She stood staring round at them and Carey saw she was ghostly white and shaking.

‘Tell us what you want, Mrs Atkinson,’ said Scrope.

‘I…I want to confess to k…killing my husband.’

‘In the name of God,’ growled Lowther. ‘This is a bloody farce.’

‘Just a minute, Sir Richard,’ said Carey. ‘Are you getting this down, Mr Bell?’

‘Ay sir.’

‘Mrs Atkinson, tell us how you killed your husband?’

‘I crept upstairs after I’d given the children their porridge, and he was still asleep, so I took a knife and I…I cut his throat like a pig’s.’

‘While he was in bed on the Monday morning?’

‘Ay sir. And then I sent for Andy Nixon…’

‘Your lover,’ put in Lowther contemptuously.

‘My friend,’ said Mrs Atkinson firmly. ‘I sent Mary for him and when she brought him, he said he would ask Mr Pennycook, who he works for, what to do.’

‘Ahah,’ said Carey, one suspicion confirmed.

‘Yes sir. Mr Pennycook was busy at the Castle, sir, about the renewal of the victualling contracts and when he came back he was very upset. He told Andy and me to hide the body and pretend nothing had happened, so we put m…my husband under the bed while he finished his business wi’ you, sir. I had to wash the sheets, though, or the blood would have set in them, so I told my gossips I’d miscarried of a wean in the night, to explain it, you see. When he came back again, he lent Andy his old handcart and when it was dark, we took the cart and Andy p…put Mr Atkinson’s body on it, and he left it in Frank’s vennel. Mr Pennycook sent his clerk Michael Kerr with your servant’s knife as well as the cart and Andy had gone and gotten your glove and so that’s how we left him, sir.’

She looked at the floor as the silence settled around her. Carey had stopped his pacing and was now staring at her with his arms folded and his eyes like chips of ice.

‘Are ye satisfied wi’ this, Sir Robert?’ asked Lowther sarcastically.

‘At least it’s possible,’ he said levelly in return. ‘Which Andy Nixon’s tale is not.’

Kate Atkinson looked up at that name and then returned to examining the toes of her boots.

‘You are a very wicked woman,’ said Scrope gravely. ‘You have committed a most serious and terrible crime.’

‘Ay sir, I know,’ muttered Mrs Atkinson.

‘Your husband is your rightful lord, according to the Holy Bible and all civilized laws. To murder your husband is more than murder, it is treason.’

‘Ay sir, I know.’ Tears were falling down Mrs Atkinson’s face.

‘Why did you commit this evil deed, Mrs Atkinson?’ Carey asked her gently.

She stared at him wildly, with the tears still welling. ‘Sir?’

‘Did he treat you badly? How was he worse than other husbands?’

‘Well, he wasna, sir. He beat me sometimes but no worse than any other man.’

‘Why did you do it, then? You must have known what could happen.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Robin,’ warbled Scrope. ‘I expect she did it so she could marry her lover. She’s only a woman, she probably didn’t think what would happen to her.’

Mrs Atkinson had bright colour in her cheeks and she took breath to speak, but then let it out and stared at the floor again.

‘Ay sir.’

‘Is that why?’ Carey pursued. ‘So you could marry Andy Nixon?’

‘Ay sir.’

Lowther let out a long derisory snort but held his peace.

‘What were you wearing that morning?’

‘Sir?’

‘Sir Robert,’ said Scrope. ‘What is the point of all this?’

‘Bear with me, my lord.’

‘Oh, very well. But get on with it. I haven’t had dinner yet.’

‘What were you wearing that day, Mrs Atkinson?’

‘What I always wear, except Sundays, sir. My black bodice and my blue kirtle and petticoat and my apron.’ She was puzzled at that.

‘What you wore when I came to speak to you yesterday.’

‘Ay sir.’

‘What you’re wearing now, in fact?’

‘Ay sir.’ She looked down at herself and frowned.

‘But Mrs Atkinson, your sheets were soaked and so was the mattress, and the rushes. How did you keep the blood off your clothes?’

She shut her eyes. ‘I…I was careful, sir.’

Carey stood and stared at her for a moment, mainly with exasperation.

‘But…’

‘Ye may well ask,’ muttered Lowther in general to the tapestries.

‘I think we’ve had enough of this,’ said Scrope. ‘Take the woman back to the cells, Sergeant. You’d better chain her, I suppose.’

‘Ay sir,’ said Dodd stolidly, not looking at Kate. He jerked his head towards the door at her and she went in front of him with her hands clasped rigidly together at her waist, as if they were already manacled.

Janet Dodd nee Armstrong had ridden into Carlisle all the way from Gilsland that morning, on an errand of assistance. The previous day her father had sent her youngest half-brother with a message for her about the twenty horses from King James’s stables that they were looking after for Will the Tod, who was hiding them for some of their disreputable relatives. That had caused her enough trouble, to scatter the horses among their friends the Pringles and Bells. He had added the information that Jemmy Atkinson had been killed, because he knew she and Kate had been friends when Janet was in service with the old Lord Scrope years before. And so once she was sure the Deputy Warden would not be able to find the horses and, if he did, he wouldn’t connect them with herself and the Sergeant, she saddled Dodd’s old hobby Shilling and brought her half-brother Cuddy Armstrong on Samson their new workhorse with her to Carlisle. To make the ride worthwhile she took some good spring cheeses, a basket of eggs, a basket of gooseberries and another of wild strawberries to sell to Lady Scrope and while she rode she thought of the price of hay and how much they might get for their surplus if she sold direct to the Deputy instead of going through Hetherington or Pennycook as a middleman. Her baskets would have cost her four pence toll at the City gate if she hadn’t been married to a garrison man. Bringing in vittles on the Queen’s prerogative was one of Dodd’s few worthwhile perks.

The first thing she knew about the further disaster of Kate’s arrest was when she arrived at the Atkinson’s house to find it locked and empty. A couple of workmen on the scaffolding around the Leighs’ roof called down to her that she should try the Leighs’ door and they’d do their best to be of service too-with much winking and leering.

She was about to shout something suitable back at them when she saw a tight knot of women in their aprons gathered opposite, talking vigorously. Maggie Mulcaster with the withered arm called her over.

She was enfolded into a whitewater of talk and speculation and disapproval and after a quarter of an hour had the full tale as known to the local women. It passed belief that her own husband could have been so cloddish as to arrest Kate Atkinson for murdering her husband. You expected idiocy from a gentleman, but she had honestly thought Henry would have more sense. She was about to say this when she spotted Julia Coldale, Kate Atkinson’s cousin and maidservant, standing at the back of the group, looking as knowing and superior as any sixteen year old maid can. She took Julia aside and cross-examined her and fifteen minutes later she mentally took her apron off, rolled up her sleeves and prepared for battle.