Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'What sort of girls?'

'Common girls, Captain, girls that had caught their eye on the street.'

'They were kidnapped?'

'They were kidnapped,' Berrigan said. 'Kidnapped, raped and paid off.'

'And all the members did that?'

'Some were worse than others. There's always a handful that are ready for any mischief, just like in a company of soldiers. And then there are the followers. And one or two of them are more sensible. That's why I was surprised it was Skavadale that scragged the Countess. He ain't a bad one. He's got a ramrod up his arse and he thinks he smells of violets, but he ain't an unkind man.'

'I rather hoped it would be Lord Robin,' Sandman admitted.

'He's just a mad bastard,' Berrigan said. 'Bloody rich, mad bastard,' he added.

'But Skavadale has more to lose,' Sandman explained.

'Lost most of it already,' Berrigan said. 'He's probably the poorest man there. His father's lost a fortune.'

'But the son,' Sandman explained, 'is betrothed to a very rich girl. Perhaps the wealthiest bride in Britain? I suspect he was ploughing the Countess of Avebury and she had a nasty habit of blackmail.' Sandman thought for a moment. 'Skavadale might be relatively poor, but I'll bet he could still scratch together a thousand pounds if he had to. That's probably the sort of money the Countess asked for if she was not to write a letter to the wealthy and religious bride to be.'

'So he killed her?' Berrigan asked.

'So he killed her,' Sandman said.

Berrigan thought for a moment. 'So why did they commission her portrait?'

'In one way,' Sandman said, 'that had nothing to do with the murder. It's simply that several of the Seraphim had rogered the Countess and they wanted her picture as a trophy. So poor Corday was painting away when Skavadale comes to visit. We know he came up the back stairs, the private way, and Corday was hurried off when the Countess realised one of her lovers had arrived.' Sandman was sure that was how it had happened. He imagined the silent awkwardness in the bedroom as Corday painted and the Countess lounged on the bed and made idle conversation with the maid. The charcoal would have scratched on the paper, then there would have been the sound of footsteps on the back service stairs and Corday's ordeal had begun.

Berrigan drank again, then passed the bottle to Sandman. 'So the girl Meg takes the pixie downstairs,' he said, 'and throws him out, then she goes back upstairs and finds what? The Countess dead?'

'Probably. Or dying, and she finds the Marquess of Skavadale there.' Would the Countess have been pleased to see the Marquess, Sandman wondered. Or was their adulterous tangle already at an end? Perhaps Skavadale had come to plead with her to withdraw her demands and the Countess, desperate for money, had probably laughed at him. Perhaps she hinted that he would have to pay even more, but somehow she drove him into a black rage in which he drew a knife. What knife? A man like Skavadale did not wear a knife, but perhaps there had been a knife in the room? Meg would know. Perhaps the Countess had been eating fruit and had had a paring knife which Skavadale seized and plunged into her, and afterwards, when she lay pale and dying on a bed of blood, he had the whimsy to put Corday's palette knife into one of her wounds. And then, or just about then, Meg had returned. Or perhaps Meg had overheard the fight and was waiting outside the room when Skavadale emerged.

'So why didn't he kill Meg as well?' the Sergeant asked.

'Because Meg isn't a threat to him,' Sandman guessed. 'The Countess threatened his betrothal to a girl who could probably pay off the mortgages on all his family's estates — all of them! And the Countess would have ended that engagement and there's no greater tragedy to an aristocrat than to lose his money, for with his money goes his status. They reckon they're born better than the rest of us, but they're not, they're just a lot richer, and they have to stay rich if they're to keep their illusions of superiority. The Countess could have put Skavadale in the gutter, so he hates her and he kills her, but he didn't kill the maid because she wasn't a threat.'

Berrigan thought about that for a moment. 'So he takes the maid off to one of the mortgaged estates instead?'

'That seems to be the size of it,' Sandman said.

'So why is Lord Robin Holloway trying to kill you?'

'Because I'm a danger to his friend, of course,' Sandman replied forcefully. 'The last thing they want is for the truth to be told, so they tried to bribe me and now they'll try to kill me.'

'A big bribe, it was,' Berrigan said.

'Nothing compared to the wealth that Skavadale's bride will bring him,' Sandman said, 'and the Countess put that at risk. So she had to die, and now Corday must die because then everyone will forget the crime.'

'Aye,' Berrigan allowed. 'But I still don't understand why they didn't just scrag this maid Meg. If they thought she was a danger they wouldn't let her live.'

'Perhaps they have killed her,' Sandman said.

'Then this is a right waste of time,' Berrigan said gloomily.

'But I don't think they'd have taken Meg all the way to Nether Cross just to kill her,' Sandman said.

'So what are they doing with her?'

'Maybe they've given her somewhere to live,' Sandman suggested, 'somewhere comfortable so she doesn't reveal what she knows.'

'So now she's the blackmailer?'

'I don't know,' Sandman said, yet as he thought about it, the Sergeant's notion that Meg was now blackmailing Skavadale made sense. 'Perhaps she is,' he said, 'and if she's sensible she's not asking too much, which is why they're content to let her live.'

'But if she is blackmailing him,' Berrigan suggested, 'then she'll hardly tell us the truth, will she? She's got Skavadale strapped down tight, don't she? She's got the whip on him. Why should she give all that up to save some bloody pixie's life?'

'Because we shall appeal,' Sandman said, 'to her better nature.'

Berrigan laughed sourly. 'Ah well, then,' he said, 'it's all solved!'

'It worked with you, Sergeant,' Sandman pointed out gently.

'That were Sally, that were.' Berrigan paused, then sounded embarrassed. 'At first, you know, in the Wheatsheaf that night? I thought it was you and her.'

'Alas no,' Sandman said, 'I am well spoken for and Sally is all yours, Sergeant, and I think you are a most fortunate man. As am I. But I am also a tired one.' He crawled under the carriage, bumping his head painfully on the forward axle. 'After Waterloo,' he said, 'I thought I'd never again sleep in the open.'

The grass was dry under the carriage. The springs creaked as one of the prisoners shifted inside, the picketed horses stamped and the wind sighed in a nearby stand of trees. Sandman thought of the hundreds of other nights he had slept under the stars and then, just as he decided that sleep would never come in this night, it did. And he slept.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Early next morning Sally brought them a basket with bacon, hard boiled eggs, bread and a stone jar of cold tea, a breakfast they shared with the two prisoners. Mackeson, the coachman, was phlegmatic about his fate. 'You didn't have much choice, did you?' he said to Berrigan. 'You had to keep us quiet, but it won't do you no good, Sam.'

'Why not?'

'You ever seen a lord hang?'

'Earl Ferrers was hanged,' Sandman intervened, 'for murdering his servant.'

'No!' Sally said in disbelief. 'They hanged an earl? Really?'

'He went to the scaffold in his own carriage,' Sandman told her, 'wearing his wedding suit.'

'Bleeding hell!' She was obviously pleased by this news. 'A lord, eh?'

'But that were a long time ago,' Mackeson said dismissively, 'a very long time ago.' His moustache, which had been waxed so jauntily when Sandman had first seen him, was now fallen and straggling. 'So what happens to us?' he asked gloomily.