Chris Nickson - The Broken Token

“It sounds like a long shot, boss.”

“Long shots have to pay off sometimes, John.” He poured a little more ale and drank.

Sedgwick cradled his left hand around the mug, staring into the liquid.

“Why?” Nottingham wondered aloud suddenly, gazing intently at the deputy. “Why did he start this week? Why’s he killing prostitutes and their men?”

“Does it really matter? The fact is that’s what he’s doing.”

“Yes, but…” The Constable’s words tailed off. Ultimately, he supposed, Sedgwick was right. The reasons were irrelevant. It was the act that mattered, the taking of lives, and trying to prevent him taking more. “So what do you suggest?” he asked.

“So far it’s been every other night, right?” Sedgwick pointed out, and Nottingham nodded.

“Then tomorrow night we flood the streets,” he continued eagerly. “Get twenty or thirty men out there. Stop everyone who looks suspicious.”

The Constable listened carefully. “Go on,” he said. “You’ve obviously been thinking about this.”

“It puts the odds in our favour,” Sedgwick said fervently, his eyes bright. “If he’s out there, and we have twenty people around, then we have a much better chance of catching him. And even if we don’t, it should scare him and stop him killing.”

“For one night,” Nottingham pointed out.

“Then we do it every night!”

The Constable smiled briefly, watching Sedgwick carried away by his enthusiasm.

“I think it could work,” he agreed, before asking, “but where do we get the money to pay everyone?”

“Go to the Mayor and ask!” Sedgwick said heatedly. “It’s his city. He doesn’t want people killed.”

“I can tell you right now that his Worship won’t give me another penny,” Nottingham said flatly. “After what happened with the aldermen this morning, he’ll want nothing more than for me to fail. It would prove his point. So he’s not going to do a bloody thing to help me succeed.”

“Even at the cost of more lives?” the deputy asked in disbelief.

Nottingham ran a hand through his hair. “It’s politics, John. Right now I think the Mayor would spend lives to make me look a fool.”

Sedgwick spat on the floor in disgust. “So we’re stuck?”

“Not necessarily,” the Constable answered slowly. The kernel of an idea was growing in his mind. “How many people do you think owe us favours?”

Sedgwick glanced at him quizzically, uncertain of his meaning.

“People we’ve let off when we could have arrested them, little things we’ve let go,” Nottingham explained.

“I don’t know,” the deputy assessed. “There must be quite a few.”

“I think this might be a good time to start calling in some of those debts, don’t you?” He grinned wickedly.

“They won’t like it.”

“I don’t give a toss if they scream and cry like babies.” The Constable’s voice was firm and hard, the thought fixed in his mind now. “It won’t hurt them to show a little public spirit for once.”

“You think it can work, boss?” Sedgwick asked doubtfully. “Bringing in people like this?”

The Constable shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m certain it’s the only way we’ll be able to get anything like this done. We’re not going to get the money to pay them, I know that.” He grinned. “So we’ll be creative instead.”

“Maybe the Mayor will be impressed,” Sedgwick laughed.

“I doubt it,” Nottingham said. “I hope not. I’d much rather he was upset.”

He could hear laughter as he approached the house, and picked out the voices of Mary, Rose and David, the young man who’d been courting Rose for months. As he opened the door, he was greeted by a wave of warmth. The fire glowed welcomingly, and the faces were happy. Nottingham could see Rose basking in the attention David was giving her. He wasn’t a bad lad, a draper’s apprentice who’d almost completed his time. Unlike most of the apprentices he didn’t run wild, but was sober and serious with plans for the future. And Nottingham knew his daughter liked him.

“Richard,” Mary said merrily, “come and sit down.” She patted a space on the settle. “Have you eaten?”

He nodded, making himself comfortable as Rose went to fetch him a cup of ale. He sensed anticipation in the room and wondered what had happened before he arrived. Once he was comfortable, sipping his drink, he saw Mary nod at David.

“Sir,” the young man began hesitantly, “I’d like… that is…” Nottingham could sense him struggling for words and began to understand, although he kept his silence. He’d suffered this once himself, and now the boy could do the same.

“I’d like your permission to marry Rose,” the youth blurted out.

He put the cup down and rubbed his thighs slowly, turning to Mary, who was beaming. His daughter was blushing, her face flushed deep red as she held the boy’s hand tightly.

“Then you’d better do right by the lass when she’s your wife,” he announced.

Suddenly Mary was hugging him, her eyes brimming with tears, as the young couple embraced tentatively. He pulled his wife close, savouring her smell and feeling her joy.

Rose was no longer his girl. Looking at her, seeing the adoration she had in her eyes for the man who’d be her husband, he knew that in the last few minutes she’d slipped away and given her allegiance to someone else. To his surprise, he found he didn’t mind. It was the way of women to move from one home to another. He leaned across and shook David’s hand, the lad grasping his firmly and looking him in the eye. He was reminded of himself at that age, when he’d wanted to marry Mary but had taken weeks to find the courage to ask her father.

“Where’s Emily?” he asked his wife quietly.

“I sent her next door,” she explained. “I didn’t think Rose should have to share this with her sister.”

“And how did you know I’d be home?” Nottingham wondered. She raised her eyebrow.

“If you hadn’t come soon I was going to send a boy with a message. Some things are more important than work.” She gave him a sly, womanly smile. “Rose and I have been trying to get him to do this for weeks. Neither of you stood a chance, Richard.”

“What did you think, I’d have said no?” He gestured at the young couple. “Look at them. They think the moon’s risen just for them.”

“It has.” Mary paused as the happy pair left for a walk. “You didn’t come and tell me what you’d said to Emily,” she resumed when they were alone.

“I had to get back to work. She has a young man too, it seems.”

“What?” She raised her head quickly. “Who?”

“I don’t know yet,” Nottingham told her calmly, putting his hand on her wrist. “Don’t worry, I’ll find out. I didn’t want to push her too much when she was willing to talk.”

She looked up at him worriedly. “Promise me you will.”

“I promise,” he assured her.

“She’s sixteen, Richard. She can’t be going out at night on her own. I know she thinks she’s clever, but she’s still only a girl.” Concern flickered in Mary’s eyes.

“I know, and I’ve told her what can happen to girls,” he answered. “I’ll go and get her now and we’ll talk more. I’ll find out about this boy and have her bring him here so we can meet him.”

He rose wearily, feeling his tired muscles protest as he walked out into the darkness. There was light showing through the shutters next door and he tapped on the door.

Norman Earnshaw was a bluff man with a warm face. His weaving business kept his family busy, and Nottingham knew he employed others, too, working in their own cottages to turn out cloth. He’d come down to Leeds fifteen years before from a village outside Bradford and worked hard to build a fair, honest living. He and the Constable had been friends of a sort for over a decade now; their wives went to market together, and Rose often looked after Earnshaw’s younger children.