He was up at the Head Row, about to cross over and see if there had been any problems on New Street when someone called his name. He turned, one hand sliding into his pocket for the knife, only to see Kearney the butcher.
‘Thank God I’ve found you,’ he said, his voice urgent and afraid, his eyes wide. ‘I think you’d better take a look. There’s a body at the top of Lands Lane.’
Fifteen
Rushworth, he thought anxiously. It had to be Rushworth.
He dispatched a boy to find some of his men and rouse Brogden the coroner, then he walked up Lands Lane, following it from Briggate, around the corner, up to where it met the orchards of the old manor house.
He could see the body from a hundred yards away, its shape dark and rounded against the glittering white of the snow. Nottingham slowed his pace, eyes on the ground, seeing how many had left footfalls.
Ten yards from the corpse he stopped completely. This wasn’t Rushworth. He recognized the small cap pinned to the hair and the tumble of rags that served as clothing. It was Isaac the Jew.
He edged closer, eyes examining everything. A runnel of blood under Isaac’s head had left a wide stain. He reached down and dipped his finger in it. It was cold now, but it had been warm enough to melt the snow a little.
The corpse lay on its side, head tilted back, old empty eyes gazing to heaven, hands clenched into small, gnarled fists.
Isaac had told him once where he was born, but he’d forgotten the name of the country. It had sounded like poetry in the man’s faltering English.
‘Here you hunt animals,’ he’d said, his accent guttural and heavy. ‘There they killed us for their sport.’ And the mist of tears would cover his eyes as the memories came, to stay unspoken.
He’d tried to explain, too, about the skullcap and what it meant, but Nottingham had never understood its significance. Now it was just a circle, another scrap of old cloth.
The Constable walked very slowly around the body, kneeling, examining. Someone had hit Isaac hard on the back of his thin old man’s skull. Nottingham gradually widened the circle of his search, looking for Isaac’s pack, for a bloodied branch, for anything that might help.
By the time Brodgen arrived, heavily bundled, face flushed by the cold air, he’d found the murder weapon. A dead branch ripped from one of the apple trees in the orchard, just yards away. It was heavy enough to need two hands, but easy to swing hard, and deadly. Fragments of bone clotted with hair and brains were stuck to one end.
There was no sign of the man’s pack.
‘Constable,’ was all Brodgen offered as a greeting. Nottingham dipped his head in reply. The coroner seemed determined to make everything as simple as possible and return to the warmth of his hearth.
‘Murder?’ he asked.
‘No question,’ the Constable said.
Brogden nodded, not even pausing to look closely at the body. It was just another poor man of no interest, someone beyond his horizon and past his concern.
‘Murder it is, then,’ he agreed and walked away. The judgement had been given; the corpse could be moved. He waited until the men arrived with the old door and the winding sheet stained with the blood of so many. They’d take Isaac to the jail where he could lie until he filled a pauper’s grave.
He had no idea what the Jews did for their dead, how they shrived them. He didn’t even know what had brought Isaac to Leeds, why he’d stayed or how lonely he’d been for his own kind.
Josh arrived as the Constable was writing his daily report detailing the riot. The apprentices were already at the Petty Sessions to wait on their fines and their masters’ wrath. The boy’s eyes were red-rimmed, his face tight.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Nottingham asked, and Josh shook his head.
‘It’s like my head won’t empty. The thoughts won’t go away.’
‘That’s what happens,’ the Constable sympathized. He’d experienced so many nights like that since Rose’s death. ‘They build up and gnaw at you.’ He paused. ‘Someone killed Isaac the Jew last night.’
He watched as Josh’s face sharpened and his mind focused. ‘Where?’
‘Lands Lane, by the orchard. Hit him on the head with a branch and cracked his skull open.’
‘He gave me and Frances clothes.’
Nottingham waited.
‘Back when I started working for you. He told me I was doing a good thing, so he was going to do a good thing. He had some strange word for it.’
‘Do you know where he lived?’ Nottingham ran a hand through his hair.
‘The last I knew he had a room in that old court off Vicar Lane, you know, the one everyone says is haunted.’
Nottingham knew it well. The story had circulated for years, probably even generations. A woman who’d starved to death in the days of Queen Bess was supposed to appear screaming out for God’s mercy on herself and her child. It was a good tale, and there were plenty of those who’d sworn they’d seen her. When he was young he’d waited there for her himself, still and silent through a pair of long autumn nights. But cold bones were all he’d received for his pains.
‘I’ll go and see what he had.’
‘I can come with you,’ Josh offered quickly.
‘If you like.’
So that was the plan, he thought. Keep the lad close to him to help hold Wyatt at bay. Josh was willing enough, but he was too young, too slight. Wyatt was ruthless; the boy wouldn’t stand a chance.
On Vicar Lane the ample richness of the Vicar’s Croft gave way to smaller dwellings, the entrances to the courts like knife openings between houses. He let Josh lead the way, sliding down a small passage with snow hard underfoot, the walls of the buildings rough and dark against his shoulders.
‘Over there,’ Josh pointed. ‘Top floor.’
‘Are you coming in with me?’
‘I’ll wait out here.’
Nottingham nodded. The boy was taking his duty seriously, and he was glad about that. Josh was dedicated; he’d proved to be a good find.
Half the stairs were missing, making the ascent dangerous. The only light came through a single broken window on a landing, shards of glass on the wood covered with years of cobwebs and grime.
At the top a door had been forced off its hinges, hanging forlorn, awkward and broken. Nottingham gripped the knife in his pocket and eased his way through the gap.
Perhaps the room had been neat yesterday. Now, though, it was chaos. A chest had been broken open, the jaws of its lock gaping, the contents cast wide on the floor. The bedsheet had been cut, and the old straw of the mattress scattered.
Other than destruction and violence, there was little to see. A six-pointed star, beautifully carved from wood and polished, was nailed to the wall. The glass inside the tiny window was clean and clear.
So someone killed Isaac then came here looking for something, he thought. He walked the room, five paces by four, inspecting the floorboards to see if any were loose, looking for any hiding place. There was nothing.
No papers, no memories. Isaac was dead and there were no anchors of his life here. A few clothes, worn but carefully cleaned, a spare pair of shoes. But what did any poor man have to leave behind besides debt and despair?
He turned, ready to leave, and was shocked to see an old woman standing in the doorway. For a moment he thought the stories were true after all, that the ghost did walk. She was so frail as to be insubstantial, and he wondered if he blinked whether she’d be gone. Then he saw her eyes, blue, sightless, and knew she was very real.
Her back was as straight as a girl’s, her wrists as thin as wire, her clothes fashionable three decades earlier but cared for, the apron and cap starched crisp and white.
‘So you thought you’d rob him, too.’ Her voice was firm, unwavering. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’
No, he thought with admiration, you’re afraid of nothing.
‘Mistress, I’m the Constable of Leeds,’ Nottingham introduced himself.