Chris Nickson - Come the Fear

Nottingham turned and caught Ben Cates glaring at him. The man stood with his sons, giving quick, whispered instructions. Robert was concentrating, nodding furiously, while Will glanced around, bemused, standing apart.

By the time the bell sounded again to finish trading most of the cloth had gone. Only a few sad lengths remained, material of poor quality, weeks of work wasted and families going hungry.

He stopped at the White Swan and drank a mug of small beer. The closeness was still pressing down on the city. If it remained, violence would abound tonight. Tempers would quickly shred, fists would become knives, men would bleed and die and women would weep.

By the Moot Hall the traders were setting up for the Saturday market, chickens already squawking loudly in their wicker baskets, fearful as the tang of blood rose from the Shambles to fill the air, sweet and sickening, mixing with the stench of shit and piss along the street.

Wives and servant girls crowded round the stall selling old clothes, small purses clutched tightly in their fists as they pulled and rummaged, drawing out dresses and shifts to hold against their bodies.

Girls had come in from the farms carrying butter, fresh that morning, and churns full of milk. The street was bustling, voices raised to be heard, a clamour of people moving, pressing to one side as carts tried to pass. A woman wandered through the throng shouting herself raw as she tried to sell bunches of lucky heather.

The Constable moved among the sellers he knew, asking if any of them recalled Lucy. Some thought they recollected a girl with a harelip but none could remember when they might have seen her. Too much time had passed, too many faces seen at markets in the towns all around.

He was wondering what to do next, who to ask, when a hand tugged at his arm. The woman’s face was tight and frantic.

‘You’re the Constable, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Can you help me? My son’s gone missing.’

He straightened, immediately alert and attentive.

‘How old is he?’

‘Just six,’ she said, the tears beginning to stream. She wiped at them with a hand that had seen plenty of work, her knuckles raw and red. ‘He wandered off a few minutes ago. The clock had just struck.’

He placed her now, the wife of Morrison the chandler down on Swinegate.

‘What’s your son’s name?’ he asked.

‘Mark.’ She fumbled in the pocket of her old dress for a kerchief and blew her nose. She was perhaps thirty and she’d been pretty once, the faint traces of beauty still around her eyes and mouth. But time and children had taken their toll, and now her skin sagged and her hair was limp.

‘Where did you see him last?’ He tried to keep the urgency from his voice.

‘Up by the cross. I was going to buy a chicken, I turned round and reached for him and he’d gone. .’ Panic filled her and her face crumpled again.

‘What was Mark wearing?’

For a moment she looked as if she couldn’t recall, then said, ‘His blue coat and breeches. They’re too big for him, they belonged to his brother and he hasn’t grown into them yet.’

‘How tall is he? What colour is his hair?’

She held her hand at her waist. ‘About this high. He’s very fair.’

Already Nottingham was looking around, but any boy that size would be almost invisible in the press of people.

‘You stay up by the cross,’ he told her. ‘I’ll start looking.’

He squeezed his way through the crowds, moving down to the Moot Hall, searching rapidly. Children were lost at the market every week. A woman would let go of a small hand to pay for something and the young one would be pulled away, as if out to sea. They’d be found a few minutes later, crying and terrified.

He gave the boy’s description to one of the stallholders, knowing it would quickly pass among them all, more eyes looking for the lad; it was what they did. He pushed between people, watching closely for small movements at the edge of his sight. Slowly he worked his way back up to the Market Cross, crossing and re-crossing every inch.

Mrs Morrison was there, standing as tall as she could, shouting out the boy’s name, the words lost in the tumult of the market.

‘I haven’t found him yet,’ he told her, seeing the terror grow in her eyes. ‘Don’t worry. All the sellers know by now, they’ll be watching for him.’ She reached for his hand and he took it, patting it gently. ‘We’ll find him. You stay here.’

He plunged back into the crowd, glancing at the stallholders who all shook their heads. Nothing. He could feel the first twinge of fear, the sense that something was wrong, creeping up his spine.

Someone should have spotted the boy by now. He kept looking, checking all the nooks and hidden areas he knew so well, hoping against hope that he’d see the flash of a blue coat or the wail of a tiny voice.

Around him people were beginning to drift away, their baskets full, the sellers slowly packing up their wares. Soon the bell would ring noon and the market would end. He walked back to the cross, where Mrs Morrison stood twisting a kerchief in her hands, still yelling her son’s name, her voice growing hoarse and desperate.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I can’t see him.’

The tears brimmed from her eyes and tumbled down her cheeks.

‘I’ll get the men out and searching,’ he told her. ‘We’ll find him. Go home. You have other children, don’t you?’

She nodded dumbly.

‘You go and look after them,’ the Constable said; it would give her something to do. ‘I’ll come as soon as I know anything.’ He waited. ‘Please. We’ll look everywhere.’

Finally she gave another nod and set off slowly down Briggate, walking as if she was in a dream, head darting hopefully from side to side.

He strode into the Rose and Crown, shouting to be heard over the crowd there.

‘There’s a boy missing. He’s small and fair, in a blue coat and breeches. His name’s Mark. Who can help?’

Several of the men drained their mugs and came to him. He divided them up, telling them where to look, then moved down the street to the Ship. More men volunteered. It was the same all along Briggate, until a small army was out looking for the lad.

He returned to the jail, thinking quickly. The boy must have wandered off somewhere. There were enough men to find him in a few more minutes, an hour or two at most.

Sedgwick was sitting at the desk, eating bread and cheese, a full mug of ale at his side.

‘We’ve got a missing lad, John.’

‘How old?’

‘Six.’

He could see the deputy thinking of his own son as he stood and pushed the food away.

‘Who’s out there?’

‘Some men from the inns, about thirty of them. I sent his mother home. She’s Morrison’s wife, the chandler. Get everyone organized. I want him found quickly.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Come and tell me as soon as you know anything.’

‘I will.’

Alone, behind his desk, Nottingham remembered the last time a child had vanished and not been found. It had been eight years before, a girl who hadn’t arrived home from the charity school. Men had searched through the evening, into the night and all the next day. They’d found her body, cold and long dead, in the orchard by the old manor house. Her mother drowned herself in the river a week later, weighted down by the heaviness of her heart, leaving a husband and two babies. He couldn’t allow that to happen again.

Anxiously he heard the bell ring each quarter hour, and with each minute that passed he understood that the chances of finding the boy were growing bleaker. Twice he took up his hat to go and join the search, then put it down again. He needed to be here, where people could find him.