Chris Nickson - Come the Fear

‘I never liked her,’ Anne told him finally. There was curdling spite in her voice. ‘She didn’t look right. Made me shudder every time I saw her.’

He didn’t need to ask what repulsed her.

‘How often did you see her?’

‘He’d make me go over to his mam with him whenever Lucy had a day off from that big house.’

‘They were a close family,’ the Constable said.

‘Oh aye,’ she agreed with a sneer. ‘He doted on her. Couldn’t do enough for her. And if I said owt he’d hit me. Wouldn’t hear a word against his precious Lucy.’

‘What about their mother?’

‘She liked them all together. No one else wanted Lucy, did they? So the family was all they’d got. Not a surprise, the lass was so stupid.’

‘Are you glad she’s dead?’

The girl stroked the bruises on her arms. ‘Does it look like I should be?’ she wondered. ‘All he does these days is drink and use his fists. Never really says owt.’

‘Did you kill Lucy?’

‘Me?’ She began to laugh. ‘If I was going to kill anyone I’d start wi’ him, mister, for all he’s done to me. I didn’t like her but I’d not have hurt her myself.’

‘If you hate Peter, why do you stay with him?’

She looked hard into the Constable’s eyes. ‘And where would I go? You tell me that. I don’t have a mam and dad to run to. I don’t have anything.’ She waved a hand round the room. ‘You see what’s here, all the things he hasn’t sold yet? They’re his. I got nothing, mister. Any time I have a coin it’s because he gives it me to buy food. So you tell me what I’d do if I left him, or where I’d go.’ She paused to draw breath. He could see the fear in her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you summat else for nowt, an’ all. He’d find me if he wanted to. He’s told me often enough what he’d do.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He’d kill me.’

‘Do you believe him?’

Her voice was as steady as her gaze when she answered. ‘You’ve not seen him when he’s been drinking. Of course I bloody do.’

‘When did he last see his sister?’

She shook her head and snorted. ‘You think he tells me where he goes?’

The Constable paused, then said, ‘When do you know he saw her?’

‘When she had a day off. He went over to see her and his mam.’

‘I thought you said he always took you. Where were you?’

‘He’d done me so bad the night before that I had to stay here.’ She nodded over at the bed. ‘In there.’

‘How was he after he learned she was dead?’

Anne shrugged, a small gesture that expressed nothing. Her fingers moved over the fabric of her dress, finding a stray hair and winding it tight around her finger.

‘Was he worse?’ the Constable asked. ‘Better? What did he do?’

‘He was just him,’ she replied. ‘Quieter, mebbe, I don’t know.’

‘He hasn’t said anything?’

‘To me?’ She shook her head again. ‘He doesn’t talk to me, never has. Got his friends for that. I’ll tell you summat, though, he’s not been over to his mam’s as much.’

‘Why?’

‘No Lucy, is there? And his mam just nags him about his drinking.’

‘Is he at work today?’

‘Aye, putting in his labour for the money he’ll spend on drink later.’ She sighed.

He stood slowly. ‘Thank you,’ he told her.

‘If you talk to him, you won’t say owt, will you? About. .’

‘Not a word,’ he promised.

Could Peter Wendell have killed his sister, Nottingham wondered as he returned to the jail? It seemed unlikely, if he cared for her as much as Anne claimed, but certainly not impossible. He could be a man with a twisted sense of family honour, who decided her pregnancy had brought shame on the family. But that didn’t answer where she’d been for two weeks before the fire. Still, there were enough questions to warrant talking to the man.

‘Where do we start?’ Lister asked Sedgwick as they crossed the bridge. The river was flowing fast and free from rain up in the Pennines. Barges creaked where they were moored, and wood rubbed against stone as the water lapped on jetties and along the bank.

‘Same as we always do. We just ask. Find out if anyone saw a woman with a lad that wasn’t hers, if anyone new has moved in.’

‘But where?’

The deputy pointed at the large new houses along Meadow Lane, where merchants had moved away from the city for cleaner air and more land to display their wealth.

‘We can forget those. If anyone from them had been doing it the servants would have seen something.’

They walked into the poorer streets, courts where colour and light and hope seemed to have been leached from the air.

‘We’ll do it like we did on the Calls,’ Sedgwick announced. ‘You take one side, I’ll take the other. And when we’ve finished here we’ll move on to the next road.’

‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Rob asked in an unsure voice.

‘No idea, lad. But for now it’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?’

By afternoon they’d only covered five streets, repeating the same questions over and over. The dust had settled in their throats, their voices were strained, the answers they heard all too similar. No one had seen a woman with a child that wasn’t hers. New people came and left all the time. The old women kept an eye on things and knew who was who and where they lived, but none of their hints or gossip had come to anything.

‘I need to go,’ Rob said finally. ‘We’re doing no good here and I’m working tonight.’

‘Going to see that lass of yours first?’ the deputy asked with a grin.

‘I am, but. .’

Sedgwick raised his eyebrows. ‘Like that, is it?’

Lister shook his head. ‘I told her that my father didn’t want me to marry her.’

‘You shouldn’t be so daft as to think on marrying yet.’ The deputy glanced around. ‘Come on, there’s a beer shop over there. Let’s get something down our throats before we die of thirst. You’ve got time for a drink.’

Rob knew better than to refuse. And he was parched, it was true; some ale would go down well.

The place was almost empty, save for two old men in the corner, eking out their days over mugs of beer. They glanced up briefly at the newcomers then returned their stares to the bench.

Sedgwick banged on the trestle to bring the owner out of the back room, a small man with a face set in a sneer.

‘What’s the best you have here?’

‘That,’ the man answered without hesitation, pointing at a barrel. ‘Fresh brewed, that is. Just ready to drink.’

‘Two, then.’

At the table they drank deep, letting the ale wash away the grime and the words of the day. The deputy wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

‘By Christ, I needed that. It’s thirsty work, this.’ He looked at Lister and shook his head. ‘You’re not really thinking of marrying the boss’s daughter, are you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Rob took another drink and sighed with frustration. ‘I just told her what my father said and she thought it meant I didn’t love her.’

‘Why doesn’t he want you marrying Emily? She’s a grand lass.’

‘He says she’s not good enough.’

‘What?’ Sedgwick put the mug down hard. ‘The Constable’s daughter isn’t good enough? Where does he get ideas like that?’

‘He thinks I should marry someone with position and money.’

The deputy laughed. ‘Aye, if she’d have you.’

‘I don’t want anyone else.’

‘Have you told him that? Have you told Emily that?’

‘I’ve told her.’ Rob took another drink. ‘She says she doesn’t want someone she can’t trust. She thinks I might give in to my father. .’

‘Well, you can’t blame her there,’ Sedgwick told him. ‘But keep trying. Give her some time. She’ll come around, they all do once they know you mean it.’