He returned to the office at the front of the jail and stirred up the embers in the grate before adding more coal from the scuttle. Sitting, the coat still wrapped close around him, he tried to think.
But there was nothing to consider. They had a body, a respectable man mutilated after he’d been violently murdered, and only one person knew the reason.
Nottingham pushed the fringe of hair off his forehead. The room gradually warmed and he finally shrugged off the greatcoat. Soon Sedgwick and Forester would arrive and he could begin delegating tasks. The Mayor would want this murder solved quickly, and, more important, very quietly. There could be no word of the skinning to spread a creeping panic among the moneyed class.
He heard a noise outside and glanced through the window. It was Isaac the Jew making his early rounds, calling, ‘Clothes! Old clothes!’ in his fractured accent. He was the only one of his faith in Leeds, a tall man with thick white hair and deep, sad eyes who’d come from somewhere across the sea. He made his living buying and selling rags and clothes, setting up his stall in the market twice a week.
They’d sold him Rose’s clothes after her death, taking the memories of her from her husband and pushing coins into his hand instead. Isaac had folded the items tenderly before pushing them into his pack.
Did he miss his own people, Nottingham wondered? Isaac was a solitary figure, walking the city mornings and evenings with his hoarse, broken shouts for business. As he sometimes said wanly, the few times Nottingham had talked with him, ‘Death and poverty, they have no respect.’ He shook a head full of old wisdom. ‘People alive, they always need the money to eat.’
The door burst open, letting in an angry breath of cold air. Sedgwick and Joshua Forester came through together, rubbing their hands and taking off coats in a quick, sharp bustle of activity.
Sedgwick had taken Forester, a young cutpurse turned Constable’s man, under his wing. From living rough, the way Nottingham had once survived himself, the boy had blossomed. He’d begun to fill out, to show a sense of maturity that belied his years. He was punctual and thorough, the thief set to catch thieves who’d proved surprisingly good at his job.
‘Anything more on Graves, boss?’ Sedgwick asked, and all Nottingham could do was shake his head.
‘According to his wife, I was wrong about him being retired. Graves was supposed to be on his way to London on business last Friday, but it looks as though he never got on the coach. That means whoever did this held on to the body for days, which makes no sense at all. Go to the King Charles, John, see if anyone saw him there, talk to the coaching people, find out if he’d booked a seat. Josh, did John tell you what had happened?’
Forester bobbed his head in acknowledgement.
‘People knew Graves here,’ the Constable explained. ‘He was respected. A lot of them liked him. But there must have been some folk who didn’t. You know what to do, ask around, open your ears. There’ll be plenty of gossip in the air today.’
‘What about the men?’ Sedgwick wondered.
‘Get them searching.’ Nottingham stood and began pacing around the small room. ‘He was killed and kept and skinned somewhere. We need the place, and we need to find it quickly. And not a word about his back, understood? Not even to the men. This stays with the three of us. Remind the ones who brought him in to keep quiet. Talk to the coroner, too. Can’t have him prattling.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Nottingham glanced at Forester.
‘Yes, boss,’ the boy answered soberly.
They left, and once he was alone again, a heavy wave of sadness shimmered through Nottingham. Not for Graves, but for himself, for the maw that had consumed his life. Since Rose’s death it came to him often, unexpectedly, unpredictably, emptying him of everything else. All he could do was sit, wrapped in its grip as it took him, the black curtains descending around his heart, sometimes for minutes.
This episode was mercifully short, and breathing softly, he let it pass, shaking his head to clear it. He couldn’t afford this. He needed to think about work, to do his duty. Study it as he might, there was little more he could learn from the corpse, but before he could release it for burial, he needed to talk to the Mayor.
They’d begun as adversaries six months before, when Edward Kenion was sworn in for his year of office. Even now there was little love lost between them, only a grudging respect.
The Moot Hall stood in the middle of Briggate, like a rock around which traffic swirled like water, with the Shambles — the butchers’ shops — stinking on either side of the street. Under the ground was the dungeon for those awaiting the Quarter Sessions, and up the stairs, where the wainscoting stood polished to a high, elegant sheen, were the offices of the Corporation.
Portraits of former mayors lined the walls, faces worshipful and haughty, watching as he walked over shining boards to Kenion’s office, where the windows looked up the street to the Market Cross, and thick Turkey carpets absorbed the sound of feet.
Nottingham knocked on the door and waited for the gruff command to enter. Kenion was at his desk, three heavy piles of papers in front of him. Bewigged, carefully dressed and groomed, and with his pristine stock tied just so, he was subtle about showing his riches: a suit of fine, understated cloth in a good cut, a close shave, and the aura of power that only came with ample money.
Like almost all the city’s mayors, he’d made his fortune as a wool merchant. He knew the business, and he understood all too well its value to Leeds, the way it came before everything else. Leeds was built on cloth.
Nottingham sat and waited. When Kenion looked up, he showed his jowls hanging like a hound, and a mesh of fine red lines across his nose from too much good wine and too many rich dinners. His belly pushed firmly against the expensive pale grey silk of his flowing waistcoat.
‘Sam Graves was good to me when I started out,’ he began briskly, but Nottingham could hear the slight catch under his voice.
The Constable waited.
‘I don’t like anyone murdered in my city, Mr Nottingham’ — he placed an emphasis on the title — ‘but especially someone like him.’
‘I don’t like it either,’ Nottingham agreed. ‘But much more than that, I don’t like what happened to him after.’
He described the skinning, the length of time the killer had kept the corpse, watching as the Mayor blanched before he concluded, ‘We can’t let word get out. You understand, I’m sure.’
Kenion nodded his agreement slowly. ‘I’ll talk to his widow and the undertaker. But it sounds as if we have a madman here.’
‘Mad possibly, but not a madman,’ Nottingham countered thoughtfully.
The Mayor looked at him quizzically.
‘This wasn’t a random murder. It’s too deliberate, too calculated.’
‘I don’t care if he’s rabid or as sane as me. Whatever he is, you’d better find him fast,’ Kenion ordered, his face hard, as if Nottingham would do anything else. ‘With some luck, we can keep this one fairly quiet. There’ll be rumours, of course, but if I hear more than that. .’
He let the words trail off. They didn’t need to be spoken. Nottingham stood. He’d achieved what he wanted; the Mayor would do all he could to ensure the skinning was kept quiet. The rest, as always, was up to him and his men.
He’d never been there, but he knew where Graves had his warehouse, just as he knew where most things were in Leeds. He’d scavenged its streets so often when he was young, finding places to hide and live, little refuges and sanctuaries of hope for a few days, that he knew the city intimately, like a lover. Grown, he patrolled them, and learned the city’s deeper secrets and shame.
The warehouse was one of the buildings by the river, downstream from Leeds Bridge. The stone was just beginning to wear, darkened by soot and rain, the main door painted a deep, forbidding black. He walked in, entering the office, where three clerks sat working at their high desks. They looked up together as his heels clopped on the flagstone floor.