Chris Nickson - The Broken Token

“I have,” Nottingham said. “It’s Crandall, the new curate at the parish church.” He heard a crescendo of sound around him and raised his hand. “I want you to go out and find him. He lodges with Mrs Cliffe, but he’s not there. I want two men on the place, front and back, in case he tries to return. He claimed he was going back to Harrogate, where his family lives. Check the coach inns and the stables, let me know if they’ve seen him. The rest of you get out there and start looking.”

Sedgwick rose, but Nottingham held him back as the others left.

“I want you with me.” He explained briefly about Emily and the token. “Worthy knew what it meant. I don’t know how, but he’s ahead of us. I don’t think he’s got Crandall yet; if he had he’d be crowing.”

“Where do you want to start?” the deputy asked, rubbing his arm in the sling.

“Crandall hasn’t been here long,” Nottingham considered. “He’ll want somewhere he feels safe.”

“The church?” Sedgwick suggested.

“It’s a good bet.” He reached into one of the desk drawers and removed two pistols.

“How’s your arm now?” Nottingham asked.

“Getting by,” Sedgwick answered, although it was far from the truth. The Constable loaded and primed the guns, and handed one to his deputy.

“Just in case,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to use it.”

They walked together down Kirkgate. Apart from pockets of noise outside a pair of taverns, the city was quiet. A few torches gave out moments of light in the darkness.

Sedgwick breathed softly and glanced at the Constable. There was a hard, determined cast to his face, and his hand kept straying to his coat to rub the pistol. God help Crandall when they found him, he thought.

His mind slipped back to the thing it hadn’t been able to shake. If there was one person he could tell, it was the boss.

“Annie’s left,” he said casually, as if the news wasn’t so important. “Took James with her.”

“Are you going to bring her back?” Nottingham didn’t break his stride, although now he understood why the deputy had been so quiet. “You’d be within your rights, if you wanted.”

He didn’t even need to consider the question.

“No. She was always nagging and arguing.”

“What about James?”

Sedgwick straightened his back and chewed his bottom lip. They walked a few more yards before he answered with determination,

“I’m not letting him go. She can go to hell, but I’m having my son.”

“The law’s on your side,” Nottingham told him with certainty. “You can claim him and keep him.”

“Thanks, boss,” he answered sincerely.

“Just remember, though, you’ll need someone to look after him. It won’t be easy.”

“Aye, I know that,” Sedgwick said. He’d been giving a lot of thought to the responsibility of raising a child, and the way his own parents had been. “But he’s worth it. And I can see he’s brought up right.”

Nottingham touched his arm lightly. “I’m sorry, John.”

“It’s fine,” he lied glibly. “Everything’ll sort itself out.”

At St Peter’s they separated. Sedgwick lit a candle and explored the deep, shadowy nave while Nottingham searched in the vestry. Nottingham knew that Cookson wouldn’t be happy if he ever heard that the law had gone through his church, but it had to be done. There was no sign of Crandall, but one chest lay open, a surplice crumpled on the floor beside it, with books and a pile of papers roughly strewn over the stone floor. Crandall had been here, he was certain of it. He looked in the tall cupboards, pulling the doors open in a sharp motion, but they only held elaborate vestments. Holding a lantern, the Constable entered the body of the church and called, “Anything?”

His voice echoed around the high emptiness of the building.

“I don’t think so,” Sedgwick answered with caution. His light flickered around the font at the far end of the building. “But there are a hundred places someone could hide in here.”

“He’s been in the vestry. The question is, how long ago?”

Nottingham felt awkward as he walked around the altar and the chancel, as if he had no right to be there and was doing something sacrilegious. He pushed the light into dark corners, finding nothing more than a family of mice.

From the corner of his eye he could see the flame of Sedgwick’s candle moving around. Methodically he checked each of the elaborately carved family pews, kneeling to be sure Crandall hadn’t tried to tuck himself under the wooden benches.

Pigeons nesting in the rafters gave soft coos, their sleep disturbed by the noise below. Nottingham edged around pillars, feeling the prickly chill of holiness on his skin.

Finally they met in the middle of the nave. Sedgwick shook his head.

“We can come back when it’s light,” Nottingham decided. “Let’s go.”

Outside, the wind had picked up, and thick clouds scudded from the west to obscure the stars and bring a promise of fresh rain soon.

“Where now?” Sedgwick asked as they walked through the graveyard. He craned his head around, hoping to see a sudden movement behind the stones.

“I don’t know.” Nottingham was thinking hard. Crandall must have panicked when Worthy’s men grabbed Emily, not knowing what was happening, thinking that somehow they’d come for him. If he’d fled the city, where would he have gone? Not Harrogate, he was certain of that. There were plenty of places in England where a man could change his name and hide, but he didn’t have Crandall pegged as someone with the endurance for that. He was a son of privilege who’d probably taken to the church only because he had an older brother who’d inherit the estate and the wealth. But his father would still grant him an allowance; curates made less than Constables. Abroad, though, a man could live handsomely off very little money…

“We’ll take a walk down by the river,” the Constable announced suddenly. “There’ll be barges loading early for Hull. He might try and get on one of those.”

Sedgwick glanced at him speculatively but said nothing, simply loping along beside him. With his arm close against his chest in the sling he looked like an awkward, wounded bird. It was quiet along the Calls; only a few lights shone in the windows of rooming houses and somewhere a drunk vainly tried to remember the verse of a broadside ballad.

They followed the path past the water engine, its pumps pulling liquid from the Aire along pipes to feed the reservoir up by St John’s Church. At the riverside the bridge loomed above them, the roar of the current through the arches achingly loud.

“Keep your eyes open for Worthy’s men,” Nottingham warned, taking the pistol from his coat pocket.

They tried the doors to the new brick warehouses, checking they were locked and secure, moving cautiously and quietly.

“I can hear something,” Sedgwick whispered. They stopped to listen, taking shallow breaths, ears and minds alert. “Over there,” he said finally, pointing to the undergrowth that rose from the quay up to Low Holland.

“An animal?” Nottingham whispered.

Sedgwick shook his head.

“No idea.”

“We’ll wait here for a while and see what happens.”

They remained tense, muscles cramping from standing still, hidden by the deep shadow of the buildings.

“It’s there again. It’s too big for an animal.”

The Constable had heard nothing, but trusted him. He leaned against Sedgwick, speaking softly into this ear,

“Give it some more time.”

He’d never hunted, although he had very faint memories of his father riding off with the hounds as he watched with his mother. Or perhaps that was simply his imagination. Here, though, there were no horses and hounds, no trampling of crops and spills over hedges. This game involved stealth and patience, and not even the certainty he had the right quarry. It could be just someone sleeping rough in the grass; he’d done that often enough in his youth.