Airs and Graces (2 page)

‘More blood,’ Hugh said. He was standing at the door into the interior of the house. Stairs climbed straight up from the door; a small bloody footprint was imprinted on the bottom stair.

‘It’s the child’s,’ Hugh said. ‘But it’s coming
down
the stairs. She had blood on her feet
before
she saw the boy.’

I looked up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to go up to whatever horror awaited there. But there was no choice. Hugh took hold of another candlestick and we climbed by the light of the child’s candle, following a trail of bloody footprints.

At the top of the stairs was a dark living room and another flight of steps. The bloody footprints came down the upper flight and in silent agreement, Hugh and I went up to a tiny landing whose boards creaked horribly.

A door on the right stood open. In the thin light of the candle, we saw a woman lying in bed, a woman in her fifties, long grey hair in a plait over her shoulder. She lay on her back, hands resting on the sheet, a red stain covering her breast. Her husband lay on his side, turned away from us; I edged through the narrow space between the bottom of the bed and the wall, and held the candle over him. His blood was still dripping on to the floor.

I went back on to the landing. A tiny stair went up again just outside the door, to the attics presumably. No blood on those stairs. We turned to the only other room on this floor. A smaller bedroom, with frivolous draperies of white and pink. A girl lay huddled on the bed, dark hair tangled, her back a mass of blood.

‘They were all killed in their sleep,’ Hugh whispered. He cleared his throat. ‘At least they’d have known nothing about it.’

I was looking at the bed on which the girl lay. It was wide, and she was on the nearer side of it. On the other side, a second pillow was dented with the mark of a head; the blankets had been thrown back. There was no blood on that side.

I lifted my gaze to the far wall. The window was open. Snow swirled outside over the dark river, drifted in the casement and settled on the floor.

‘Damn,’ Hugh said.

We had not witnessed an elopement. We’d seen a murderer making her escape.

Two

The ladies will simper at you, and blush, and lower their eyes becomingly, but they are game for anything, my friend, I promise you.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 17 January 1737]

I went down the stairs in a wild rush, into the dark shop. Esther and the child were at the door and half a dozen people with them, neighbours in nightshirts and nightgowns, dressing robes and shawls, holding up lanterns and straining to see in. Esther had positioned herself to block their entrance; as I pushed past, I heard her say, ‘We’ve sent for the constable  . . .’

Outside, I nearly went head over heels on the slippery cobbles and slowed, breathing heavily. Injuring myself wasn’t going to help catch the killer. It was probably too late anyway – the girl would be long gone. We might even have passed her; in this blizzard we might have come within three or four feet without seeing each other.

The snow swirled around me. The girl must have come ashore by the landing steps just upstream from the bridge. I stumbled along to the steps; on the Key at the top were the dog’s tracks again and a man’s, close together. Then another set of prints. Pointed toes, and small heels – the marks of a fashionable female shoe.

Not ideal for running in and the wearer had been trying to move too fast – after only a few steps she’d measured her length in the snow. I saw scuff marks where she’d hauled herself up again. The tracks angled across the snow; she’d skirted the Sandhill, where the smart buildings of the town are, and turned west, heading for the shabby streets on either side of the broken-down town wall.

I staggered on, head down against the blizzard. The wind blew the snow directly into my face, tugged at the skirts of my greatcoat. The streets were silent and empty. The prints of man and dog crossed towards the tumbledown town wall; the girl’s footprints carried straight on to the narrow streets and alleys beyond the wall – the haunts of less than respectable people: inns and lodging houses for sailors, shops selling secondhand clothes and taverns dispensing gin.

The woman had slipped again as she came up to the first houses but not fallen. I followed her footprints along the front of a shuttered tavern, to an alley that looked derelict. I stopped, cursing. The alley was narrow and the buildings on either side had kept out the snow; the footprints disappeared.

A female voice above my head said, ‘And what do you think
you’re
doing?’

I looked up. In the driving snow, it was difficult to be certain of anything but I thought I saw a gleam high up under the eaves of a house at the entrance to the alley. A spirit. And plainly an unfriendly one.

My heart sank. Every living person must come to this sooner or later; death claims us all. After death, the spirit lingers on in the place of death, for eighty or a hundred years, before final dissolution, and fate is kinder to some more than to others. Those that die in the comfort of their own homes can enjoy the company of friends and family, almost as if they still live. That is my ambition, as it is of every living man or woman.

But there are all too many who die alone and angry, and who grow angrier by the day. By the sound of her voice, this spirit had been a young woman; anyone dying in an alley like this was likely to have been less than respectable in life. And the weather could only make things worse – spirits don’t like the cold; it bleeds the strength out of them.

But it’s never wise to offend spirits; they possess a surprising ability to do harm, if only by spreading malicious tales. I said in as friendly a tone as I could manage, ‘I’m looking for a woman  . . .’

‘I wager you are,’ she said. ‘That’s all any man thinks of !’

‘She may be in danger—’

‘Yes,’ she said, stridently, ‘And I know who from! Well, I can do for you, sir!’ And she shrieked at the top of her voice. ‘Help! Rape! Help!’

No one came in response, no one poked their heads out of the broken windows in the abandoned houses. Her cries became ever more shrill.

There was no point in staying to argue; my quarry was long gone. I turned back for the bridge. The blizzard was behind me now and blew me along, almost faster than I wanted to go. Ahead, on the bridge, lanterns blazed; shadows moved between the snow-shrouded shops; pools of light glimmered on the river and on the snow around the landing steps. Something gleamed where the woman had fallen.

A coin. Tarnished and old, badly misshapen and thinned by years of use. I turned it over and saw an effort had been made to shine it, revealing an unfamiliar design, a strange shaggy head. A foreign coin, no doubt, brought in by a sailor. I dropped it in my pocket. Had she been a thief after all, looking for the shop’s takings? This foreign coin could have been among them.

The bridge was crowded with people. All the neighbours, and whores and sailors who’d run up from the taverns on the Key. Esther and the child were nowhere to be seen. A watchman, big and burly, stood at the door of the shop to keep people out; he smelt of beer, and turned a bleary eye on me as I came up, obviously knowing who I was. ‘No luck, eh?’

I shook my head.

He let me in and closed the door behind me. Several branches of candles had been lit in the shop; I blinked against their brilliance. The only occupants were Hugh and the new constable of All Hallows’ parish, Mr Philips, the brewer. Philips turned as he heard me come in; his face was sheened with sweat and he was trembling visibly, despite being fully dressed and covered with a heavy greatcoat. Hugh gave me a speaking look.

‘Mr Philips is not at all well, Charles,’ he said. ‘I was trying to persuade him to get back to his bed.’

Philips coughed, a hack he obviously couldn’t control. He shook his head, croaked, ‘My duty—’ More coughing. I brought one of the ridiculously delicate chairs and insisted he sit.

He broke into another coughing fit. I whispered to Hugh, ‘Where are Esther and the child?’

He jerked his head towards the stairs. ‘They’ve gone up to the drawing room. You didn’t catch her then?’

‘Lost her in the alleys outside the town wall.’

Footsteps on the stairs. A great hulk of a man stepped down into the room: James Fleming, the stationer, who has the shop next door. He was in his nightshirt and dressing robe, and the nightcap still clung crookedly to his bald head. He said bluntly, ‘It’s Samuel Gregson all right. And his wife. The girl’s his youngest daughter, Sarah. Sixteen years old, she was.’

Hugh swore.

‘And the lad?’ I asked.

‘The apprentice, Ned. Sixteen, maybe seventeen.’

A watchman came down the stairs behind Fleming, with an opened bottle of brandy and several glasses. He looked startled to see us but we weren’t in the mood to complain about petty depredations; Hugh took the brandy and poured a large glass for Philips, and another for me. Fleming shook his head. The watchman went back upstairs.

I sipped the brandy and felt warmth creep back into me. ‘Tell us about the Gregsons.’ I suddenly remembered Philips’ presence – he had the authority here – but he waved a hand at me to carry on, still struggling to control his cough.

Fleming pursed his lips judiciously. ‘I’ve lived next to them nigh on thirty years. Gregson was a decent man. Hardworking, thrifty.’

This sounded faint praise to me. ‘How old?’

‘Fifty-five last All Souls’ Day.’ Fleming drew himself up with a sigh. ‘His wife, Sophia, was a year or two younger. Good housekeeper but there was always something wrong with her world. Too cold, too hot, too few customers, too many – you know the kind.’

I nodded. ‘And the daughter who died?’

‘Sarah? A gentle girl. Wouldn’t hurt a soul.’

‘The apprentice?’ Philips managed, hoarsely.

‘Good lad. Bit shy.’

‘And the child?’ I asked.

‘That’s the granddaughter, Judith. Her mother died when she was born and the father couldn’t be bothered with her, so the grandparents took her in.’

‘She sleeps in the attic,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ve been up there while you were away. Little cubby hole under the roof. Nice dolls, pretty clothes.’

‘They idolized her,’ Fleming agreed.

‘Just before the child screamed, we saw a woman climbing down a rope from the window over the river,’ I said. ‘She ran off into the town and I couldn’t catch her. Do you know who she might be?’

Fleming said heavily, ‘She killed them?’

‘She certainly has questions to answer,’ I said, then relented my evasiveness. I said, ‘The victims have only just died, and she was seen fleeing from the house. Who is she?’

‘The other daughter,’ Fleming said. ‘The one from London.’

The Gregsons, according to Fleming, had ten children of whom five had survived to adulthood. Even these had evidently been too many for Gregson’s purse; two of the older children, a boy and a girl, had been packed off to Mrs Gregson’s childless elder brother in London; another daughter was sent to Bristol to a cousin. The woman I’d seen running off was Alice, the daughter who’d been brought up in London.

‘Mrs Gregson’s brother died,’ Fleming said, ‘and there was nowhere for the girl, except to come home to her parents.’

‘When had she last seen them?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Probably not for twenty years or more. She left when she was three.’

I wondered how Alice Gregson had felt about coming back to live with people who must have been complete strangers. We paused for Philips to splutter over his brandy; Hugh trimmed a guttering candle.

‘She arrived on Tuesday,’ Fleming said. ‘Less than a week ago. A little fair thing with ringlets and a simper. Petticoats worth a fortune on her back.’

The watchman came down the stairs again and said, somewhat unnecessarily, ‘The surgeon says they’ve all been stabbed, sir. More than once too. Except for the boy.’ The watchman made a point of shuddering. ‘Stabbed the old gent five times and the woman four.’

I glanced at Philips but he was huddled round his brandy glass and made no effort to ask questions. ‘Does it look like there’s anything missing? Any sign of robbery?’

‘There’s some jewellery upstairs that’s been left – trumpery stuff. But there’s an empty box in the cellar that mebbe had money in it.’

Fleming frowned. ‘There won’t have been much. Samuel wasn’t one for keeping money in the house. He invested it with local coal owners almost as soon as it came in. He was worried about those burglaries we had last year.’

I remembered those – a couple of local lads had netted a surprisingly large amount of money before being caught; they’re presumably now robbing the residents of the Colonies. And from the way the woman had moved, I couldn’t think she was carrying anything particularly heavy, like a bag of coins.

‘Surely it doesn’t matter whether Gregson kept money here or not,’ Hugh said. ‘It only needed someone to think he
might
.’

‘It must have been a burglar,’ Fleming said. ‘How could a girl murder her parents? It’s not natural.’

I poured myself more brandy. ‘Did she get on well with them?’

He shook his head. ‘She wanted to go back to London. Nagged her father all the time over it, no matter who else was present. I heard her myself.’

Philips moved convulsively. We had to wait while he got over another coughing fit. ‘Need an inquest. Swear in a jury.’

‘You’re in no state to do anything of the sort, sir,’ Fleming said bluntly. ‘In any case, we can’t do anything on a Sunday. Put a guard on the door and get home to your rest.’

Philips staggered up. ‘Mr Patterson, Mr Demsey – you’ll be on the jury of course?’

Hugh looked alarmed; I said, ‘As witnesses, I think it would be better not.’

Fleming turned Philips firmly to the door. ‘I’ll sort out your jury, Mr Philips; the neighbours’ll be more than willing. Now
get you home!
’

Philips spluttered into his handkerchief. His shoulders sagged. He was on the verge of giving in; Fleming hastened the process. ‘The girl’s been in the town only four days, sir. She doesn’t know the town. She’ll be in custody before morning.’