The Broken Token (17 page)

But at times it was all beyond his control. If a man spent his money on a prostitute, he took his risks. Sometimes it was a few minutes of satisfaction. Sometimes it meant a dose of mercury and
a lot of prayer. And sometimes it meant robbery or death. Anyone who wanted to play a game with those odds couldn’t complain at the outcome – but they did anyway, if they had the money
and power enough to believe themselves untouchable. They thought money bought all the privilege in the world. On a few occasions he’d wanted to haul them down to Amos Worthy so they could see
real power, the control of bodies and souls, and meet someone who’d end a life without a second thought. That made all the gold in the vaults seem like tin, and the protection of brick and
glass crumble like sand.

Yet he knew he could never do that. To let them see that they didn’t really run the city in the way they imagined, that the way they thought of themselves was an illusion, would be more
than they could take. And more than his job was worth. So he’d bowed at the right times and to the right people and allowed it all to fall like rain off his back.

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.”

They stopped as the door opened, and men brought in the bodies, wrapped in their winding-sheets. Nottingham unlocked the mortuary and guided them in, then uncovered the dead.

The man had the undistinguished look and clothes of a clerk, worn and weary even in death. He was in his forties, as far as Nottingham could judge, cheeks sunk where most of his teeth had been
removed. The cloth of his coat and breeches was cheap, third- or fourth-hand, the sewing uneven and ragged. The soles of his shoes had worn through in several places. His fingers were dark-stained
with ink, the joints knotted by a lifetime of writing. It was a poor death after a poor life.

The girl was pretty enough, probably fourteen or fifteen, with fine blonde hair and blue eyes, but the bloom had already gone off the rose. Her young features were coarse, her skin reddened
across the nose and cheeks. Her homespun dress looked reasonably new, maybe the gift of a pimp or merchant who’d been particularly pleased with her. Her wrists were thin and bony, and her
unadorned fingers nearly as small as a child’s.

Once again they’d each been stabbed with two precise strokes, and Nottingham wondered at this murderer. He didn’t just slash, he truly cut to kill, and he knew what he was doing,
even when he was rushed.

“John,” he called into the office.

“What is it, boss?”

“Come and take a look at this.”

Sedgwick walked in, his movements slow and a little unsteady.

“You see these wounds?” Nottingham pointed them out.

Sedgwick looked confused. “What about them?”

“If you were trying to kill someone with a knife, would you know where to put the blade to do it properly and efficiently?”

“Well…” he began, then realisation dawned. “So maybe someone with medical knowledge?”

“Maybe,” Nottingham agreed. “Or someone who’s been a soldier, or learned to fence… I don’t know,” he said with a frustrated shrug. “But
it’s one more thing we know about him.”

“I should have seen more of him,” the deputy said with embarrassment, and Nottingham shook his head.

“You were lucky, John,” the Constable told him with heartfelt relief. “I’m just glad you’re alive. I’m going to need you to help catch him. Now go home and
rest. That’s an order.”

He woke Annie as he tried to undress. Raising his arm was painful and he cried out softly, enough to make James stir and start wailing. Sitting up sleepily, Annie cursed under
her breath and reached for the child, starting suddenly as she sensed someone else in the room.

“John?” she whispered and she pulled the baby close.

“Help me,” he said. “I can’t get my bloody clothes off.”

She lit the remains of a candle, gasping as she saw his arm.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he told her quickly, seeing the dried blood on the bandage.

“Work done that?” she asked without a trace of sympathy as she began to ease off the sling and his clothes. “I’ll be up all night mending your coat. And I’ve only
just sewn your shirt, now it’s in rags.”

“You don’t care how I am?”

Annie rolled her eyes.

“You’re here and moaning, so you can’t be too bad. Take your son so I can get to work.”

Sedgwick sat on the bed, cradling James in his left arm until the lad fell back to sleep. He lay the boy down tenderly and walked softly over to his wife, watching the needle move swiftly and
surely in her hands.

“Is there any food?” he whispered.

She stopped and fixed him with a hard stare.

“No, there’s no food, John.” Before he could speak, she added, “We had the last of it tonight, and you haven’t given me money to buy any more.”

Guiltily, he reached into his pocket and brought out his wages.

“How much of it have you spent on drink and whores?”

“Nothing,” he hissed, careful to keep his voice low. It was like this every time with her accusations and barbs. “I’ve been working.” He felt his anger rising, the
way it did whenever they talked. “What do you think I do?” He held out his bandaged arm. “The man who did that could have killed me.”

“And where would I be then?” she retorted, putting down the sewing. “On my own with a babbie and no money. You think more of your Constable than you do of us.”

“He’s given me steady work!” Sedgwick protested. “More than I’d have found elsewhere.”

“Work that keeps you out all hours.” Anger flashed in her eyes. “Do you imagine I like it when people tell me they’ve seen you in the inns or talking to
prostitutes?”

“I told you what the job involved when I started it.” He’d explained it to her carefully, but she hadn’t believed him. “You didn’t say anything
then.”

“And how was I to know what it would really be like?” There was a vicious edge in Annie’s voice. “You didn’t tell me all the hours I’d be on my own, or how
little you’d make.” She let the coins fall through her fingers on to the table. “We’re not going to get rich on your earnings. We’re lucky we can eat on
them.”

“You don’t mind spending my money – and I know it doesn’t all go on food,” Sedgwick accused, pushing his face close to hers. “You think people don’t
tell me things, too?”

“Believe what you want, John,” she told him dully. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

He settled back on the bed, his body tense. That was the truth of it, he thought: it really didn’t matter to her. And maybe it didn’t to him either. Slowly the anger began to seep
away, and he left her behind as he drifted into sleep.