Chris Nickson - Come the Fear

‘You’ll have something to drink?’ He began to reach for a mug. ‘How can I help you, Constable?’

‘Nothing for me today,’ Nottingham said pleasantly. ‘Just a few questions. Do you have many seeking work here?’

‘A few,’ Martin replied with a laugh. ‘Got to be careful who you take on in a place like this or they’ll be tipping the profits down their gullets.’

‘I’m looking for a girl who might have asked about becoming a servant.’

‘Oh aye?’ He folded his arms. ‘Never a shortage of those. There’s always too many lasses looking for work.’ He winked. ‘And some reckon they can make some brass on the side from the men.’

‘You’d remember this girl. She had a harelip.’

The man grimaced and the Constable noticed the small hand movement he made to ward off evil. Harelips were bad luck, cursed by God, their words twisted, their looks ugly. People shunned them lest their own babes became the same way.

‘Not had one like that here,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t have hired her, anyway. She’d drive business away.’

The Constable made his way down the street, stopping at all the inns to ask and receiving the same answer everywhere. She’d never sought employment at them and none would have taken her on. By the time he reached the Talbot he was downcast; the search seemed fruitless, but he’d go in and ask anyway.

With its cockfighting pit and gambling, the Talbot was a place he hated. The men were called there two or three times a week to quell fights or arrest a pickpocket. He’d have closed the inn if he’d had the power. As he entered he felt the conversation hush. The landlord spat on the stone floor and turned away to examine the spigot on a cask. Nottingham walked up to the serving trestle and waited.

‘Mr Bell,’ he said finally, and the man looked at him.

‘I’d not seen thee there,’ the man said flatly. ‘You’ll have a drink with me, Constable?’

Bell was a large man, strong and with the edge of danger in his temper. He’d fought bare knuckle when he was young and had the makings of a champion until he’d shattered the bones between his knuckles and wrist. Now there was a thick layer of fat over the old muscles, and the scars on his face and hands stood as the only reminders of his past.

‘Not today,’ the Constable answered with a smile. ‘All I’m looking for is some information.’

Bell eyed him warily.

‘Have you had a girl with a harelip asking for work here? It would have been a few weeks ago.’

The man chuckled.

‘What? Alice Wendell’s lass, you mean?’

‘Yes,’ Nottingham said with surprise.

‘No,’ he answered firmly, ‘she’s not been in here. She knows I’d never take her on. They wouldn’t be happy.’ He tilted his head toward the customers. ‘I’ve known her since she was a nipper. Lovely girl, do anything for anybody, mind, but not a clever lass. Why are you looking for her, then? She done something?’

‘She’s missing. I told her mother I’d ask after her.’

Bell frowned. ‘That’s bad news. I always had a soft spot for young Lucy. I’ll keep a lookout for her.’

So, nothing, he thought as he walked back to the jail. He could go through all the alehouses and dram shops, but that could easily take half a week. He sat at the desk, lost in thought. Lucy Wendell had been somewhere, and he was certain it had been in Leeds. It was probably the only place she knew, the only one where she’d feel that she might be safe. And in the end even that hadn’t helped to save her. He loved the city but sometimes it seemed cursed and dangerous.

Someone had bedded her and put a child in her. Whoever had done that had almost certainly been the one to kill her, too. That would take the start of this tale back several months, to when she was working for Cates, and that was food for thought. Men took advantage of girls working for them often enough, then dismissed them if their bodies quickened. He’d never heard of anyone killing a lass because of it, but men had certainly killed for much less.

By noon there was a high, gentle haze, as if someone had carelessly smudged sky and cloud together. The whores were out on Briggate, touting for business. Some held their fans coyly over mouths of broken teeth, eyes dancing, while others were more brazen, giving loud invitations to the men passing.

The street was busy as ever, servants and mistresses ducking in and out of the shops, argumentative carters guiding their teams on the roads with raucous shouts, the traffic stuck on either side of the Moot Hall, angry and yelling, fights brewing in frustration. The air was filled with sound, the city loud and vital.

Sedgwick knew some of the girls, but they were always changing. Lizzie had been one of them when they first met, a life she’d been happy enough to leave behind. Many of these would go elsewhere in a few weeks or months. A few would stay for years, growing old and weary far too soon in the profession.

He saw Caroline, a girl who’d been fresh on the street back when he’d started out as a Constable’s man. Now lines ran deep on her face, and she tried to hide them with white lead and beauty spots and pulled her bodice lower to try and attract the attention that had come easily when she was young. She’d seen them all and was sometimes a mother to the lasses of eleven or twelve who arrived lost and fearful.

‘Lovely day for it,’ he said with a wink.

She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. ‘If you say so, Mr Sedgwick.’

‘Sun shining, spring and the sap rising, should be good for trade,’ he told her playfully.

‘You’d better not be looking to buy,’ she warned him. ‘Your Lizzie wouldn’t be happy. And don’t you doubt I’d tell her.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t think I’d dare, love. She’d have my balls off. I’m just asking a few questions, that’s all.’

She cocked her head. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Did you see a girl with a harelip working a few weeks ago?’

‘Her? You’re asking about her?’ she said and he felt his pulse quicken.

‘You saw her, then?’

Caroline nodded her head sadly. ‘She never had a chance out here, poor little thing. Who’s going to pay for a lass like that? Especially one who’s carrying a child. Although I know some of you men have strange tastes,’ she added darkly.

‘Did you talk to her at all?’

She shook her head. ‘Never had the chance, Mr Sedgwick. She were only out here two nights. The first she was too scared to do owt and the next she came all bruised. Then she didn’t come back at all.’

He could feel the dryness in his voice. ‘How long ago was this?’

He waited as she concentrated.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted finally. ‘I can’t think.’

‘Was it before that big fire down on the Calls?’ he asked, using it as a marker. Caroline’s face brightened. ‘Oh, before that, I’m sure of it.’

‘Who was running her, do you know?’

She frowned. ‘Never heard, and whoever it was, he didn’t show his face round here. She was down by the old chantry chapel by the bridge. They often put the new ones down there. A fresh face to catch trade as it comes into town.’

‘I need a favour,’ he began, then stopped as something caught his eye. ‘Can you ask around and see who was running her?’ He dashed the words off even as he began to move. ‘I’ll look for you later.’

He ran quickly and quietly through the crowd, tall enough to keep watching his quarry. In just a few seconds he was able to reach out and hold the boy by his collar. The lad shouted out but no one stopped to help him.

‘You know you’re not allowed down here.’ James was wriggling hard, like a fish fighting the hook. Sedgwick jerked and the boy stopped. ‘Don’t you?’