Chris Nickson - The Broken Token

Nottingham was the first to admit he wasn’t an educated man. He could add and subtract, he could write and read, but he’d never really had the chance to study anything. He was methodical, he had good intuition, but he understood he wasn’t clever in the way most people used the word. He’d known and admired Ralph Thoresby, the local historian. Thoresby had been a truly clever man, his house full of artefacts and antiquities, the books he wrote about Leeds praised for their scholarship and erudition. He could never have done anything like that.

But what he did, he’d always done well. There’d been mistakes, of course, but never any that had cost lives — until now. With a heavy heart, he stopped on Timble Bridge and listened to Sheepscar Beck running loudly along its channel. His mind was drifting, dulled by the drink, so he didn’t hear the running footsteps until they were almost upon him, and turned, unsure what was happening.

“Mr Nottingham!” The man careened to a stop, panting, his face flushed red, and he made out Joe Ashworth, one of the night men. “You’d better come quick. It’s murder, sir. It’s Mr Sedgwick.”

He was pounding back up Kirkgate, immediately sober, feeling his heart thud in his chest. The night man was far behind now, unable to keep up Nottingham’s brutal pace. He’d told the Constable where it had happened, another of the innumerable little yards that spidered off Briggate, and Nottingham had sprinted away.

Images came unbidden into his head as he ran, of Sedgwick dead on the ground, or dying slowly, and he shook them away. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the cobbles like rapid gunshot.

The city was dark, but he knew the place too well. He slipped into ginnels and through archways, bouncing off walls as he turned corners without slowing. He splashed through large puddles left by the rain, his feet and legs soaked, but he barely noticed. Finally he rounded into a small open space. The yard was filthy, and he trod through litter scattered over the mud, hearing voices around him.

“Someone get a bloody light here,” Nottingham yelled urgently. In the corner a man struck a flint, but everything was too wet to catch.

“Boss?”

He turned sharply, following the direction of the word before kneeling in the dirt.

“John?” Nottingham touched Sedgwick on the chest and felt the ragged movement of his breathing. A sense of relief coursed hard through him, then a moment of doubt. He wanted to ask the question, but daren’t.

“I’ll be fine, boss,” Sedgwick anticipated him. He was sitting up, and Nottingham could faintly make out his grimace and shudder as he tried to move. “I put up my arm to defend myself, and he got me.”

“Christ.” The word whistled out of the Constable’s mouth.

Someone finally managed to light a torch, and as it guttered into flame, Nottingham’s could see the wide rent in the coat, and the thick, soft shininess of blood all over Sedgwick’s forearm, and puddling on the ground. His face was almost white, and a sheen of chilled sweat glistened on his skin. As he struggled awkwardly to his feet, cradling his right arm, he turned to Nottingham, his eyes wide and contrite.

“I was wrong,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t Carver. Look over there.” With his head he indicated a far, shadowed corner.

“Light over here,” the Constable commanded.

The corpses lay at the foot of a wall, a man and woman. This time the murderer hadn’t had the time to arrange them, and they lay sprawled on the ground, not touching. He dispatched someone for Brogden, so they could officially be pronounced dead, but by then he’d already felt their wrists; life had left them both a little while before. He glanced up at Sedgwick, standing very carefully still, clasping his arm against his body.

“What happened?” he asked, then ordered someone to bring a rag to tie around the wound.

“I’d met up with the night men, and I was down Briggate, on my way home, when I saw a couple coming in here,” the deputy recalled slowly. His eyes were closed. “There was someone else right behind them. It looked wrong, so I came up to follow him in. I heard him kill them. It was so quick…” He paused, almost in awe of the act. “He must have heard me running down here. He came pelting out. I tried to stop him, he hit me and then the bastard cut me. He’d gone before I could do anything.” There was a sense of failure in his voice and the Constable could make out Sedgwick’s mouth settling into a grim line. “I almost had the fucker.”

Nottingham didn’t wait for the coroner’s arrival. He wasn’t going to learn anything more about the bodies until he saw them in the light. Instead he accompanied a pale, shaky Sedgwick back to the jail, the rough bandage now bloody, and sent a boy to wake the apothecary.

“He took me by surprise,” Sedgwick admitted guiltily as they walked slowly down Briggate. He shook his head in anger. “He must have heard me running towards him. Next thing I knew he’d cut me and he was gone.’

Nottingham knew that shock was making the deputy talk, but he encouraged him, while his memory was still fresh.

“Did you see his face?”

“No,” he answered in frustration, but the Constable didn’t give up.

“What was he like? Think. Was he big? Small? Broad?”

Sedgwick concentrated. After a moment he replied hesitantly, “I don’t think he was as tall as me — closer to your size, maybe, boss. And he didn’t seem particularly broad. But he barged through me like I was nothing.”

“He was prepared for you,” Nottingham pointed out.

“He was right-handed,” Sedgwick recalled slowly, fleshing out the image in his head. “And he was wearing a cloak; I felt it brush against me. He moved very fast.”

“Good,” the Constable nodded. It all helped build a picture, and it kept Sedgwick’s mind off his wound.

The apothecary was waiting at the jail, and he set to work immediately, exposing the gash. It was long and vivid, the length of the forearm, and although the cut was deep, he soon slowed the flow of the blood. Gently the apothecary cleaned the wound, then sprinkled a powder on it. Sedgwick drew in his breath sharply.

“Christ, that hurt,” he complained through gritted teeth.

He waited patiently as his arm was swathed in a long linen bandage then secured in a sling. Nottingham watched with concern.

“Well?” the Constable asked finally.

“It’s clean,” the apothecary said, nodding his head with satisfaction. He glanced between the two men. “It should heal well, but it’s going to take time. You won’t have much strength in your arm for a while. Rest it,” he instructed, and Sedgwick nodded. “You’re going to have a scar, though.”

The deputy shrugged. One more scar wouldn’t make a difference.

“Any better?” Nottingham asked, once they were alone.

“It still hurts.” He winced heavily as he tried to raise his arm. “But it could have been a lot worse.”

In his cell, Carver began to snore. Sedgwick looked at the Constable.

“We’ll have to let him go. I’m sorry, boss,” he said quietly. “You told me he didn’t do it.”

“And then I decided you were right,” Nottingham pointed out. “He had the knife. He was seen with both Pamela and Morton on Monday night. There was evidence against him.”

But he was glad to have Carver’s innocence proved all the same. His faith in himself had been rocked more than he wanted to admit by the old sot’s apparent guilt. At least this meant he could still trust his instincts.

“So what now?” Sedgwick interrupted, crowding in on his thoughts. “Where do we go?”

“Back to the beginning.” The Constable sighed, then gave a weak smile. “Well, almost. At least we now know Mr Carver isn’t our murderer.”