She untied the bonnet and shook out her hair.
‘I wish Mrs Rains would let me try some new things,’ she replied with a small pout. ‘I think we could have the girls reading and counting much better if we did.’
‘If anyone can persuade her I’m sure you can,’ he offered, hoping the girl hadn’t been too insistent.
‘We were talking about it on the way home.’ Emily reached out and took Lister’s hand, squeezing it tightly. ‘Did you see there’d been a fire on the Calls, Papa?’
‘I was there,’ he told her and turned to the lad. ‘Rob, talk to Mr Sedgwick when you go in tonight. Make sure you keep a couple of men standing guard on the house that burned. We don’t want it flaring up again or anyone going in. You’ll have to move the others around so everything’s covered.’
‘Yes, boss,’ he answered, and Nottingham saw the quick flash of relief at the change of subject. ‘I’d better go. I need to eat and be ready.’
‘Better not be late for work.’ They grinned at each other in brief shared understanding before Lister left. They were a good couple, he thought. He was a solid, steadying influence on Emily, tempering her away from wilder moments. And she brought something out in him. He’d come to care about people. Between the job and courting, he’d become a very likeable young man. She could do a great deal worse than end up with him.
The Constable didn’t want to enter the house until full light. It was simply too dangerous to risk blundering around among shadows and debris. Rob had stayed on to help and two of the men were hauling ladders. Yesterday’s sunshine had given way to high pearly cloud, but the soft spring warmth remained in the air.
‘I heard something odd after you’d gone yesterday, boss,’ Sedgwick said.
‘What’s that?’
‘A woman thought she saw someone coming out of here before the fire.’
Nottingham turned sharply. ‘What? Someone set this?’
The deputy shrugged.
‘We’d best see what we can find, then,’ the Constable said grimly.
The walls still stood, damaged and scarred, but solid. Inside, though, there was little left. Holes in the roof let light pour in like water. The floors had given way in places, fallen all the way through to the cellar where beams lay broken and burned.
‘See if there’s anything upstairs,’ Nottingham told the deputy. ‘Watch those steps, though. Lizzie’ll kill me if you end up hurt. Rob, you come with me.’
They lowered one of the ladders and the Constable climbed down to the cellar warily, turning slowly and picking his way across patches of the beaten earth floor, stirring up a fog of fine ashes with every step. The cloying smell of smoke filled the place, rubbing his throat raw as he breathed. The fire had done its work well. Apart from the wreckage there was little to see, just a few small pieces of rubbish pressed down into the dirt, the detritus of lives that had been lived there. He wondered again how the blaze had begun. Had the woman really seen someone leaving here? Why would anyone want to burn this place?
He moved on cautiously, hands exploring under timbers that were still warm to the touch. He’d almost finished when his fingertips pressed against something. He felt slowly along the shape, pursing his lips, his face grim.
‘Some light over here,’ he ordered briskly. ‘Get Mr Sedgwick down here and let’s get this shifted. I want to see what’s underneath.’
The wood had collapsed to make a roof over her. Without that she’d have burned like everything else, the house her funeral pyre. Lister and Sedgwick worked slowly and methodically to pry away each piece, gradually uncovering her as the Constable watched.
Even with the shelter there wasn’t much left, little more than a husk of who she’d once been. What remained of her flesh was cooked crisp, all blistered and cracked with the smell of roasted meat. Her hair had been scorched to the scalp, the bone showing through in awful, vivid white. The features of her face were almost all gone; the only things left were her nose and mouth; there was a split in her upper lip, and a jut of bone that could have been a break or a cleft palate. Only her shape gave away her sex, with a mound on her belly. Had she been pregnant?
‘Let me take a look.’
Nottingham crouched and moved closer to see her. Her hands were crossed over her breasts, the skin of her arms fused to her sides by the heat. It all seemed wrong, he didn’t understand it. He reached out to what remained of her fingers, feeling the brittleness of her flesh crumble under his touch to leave hard, opaque bone. Someone battling to live, to escape, wouldn’t have ended up like this, in this position of grace, he thought.
Slowly, gently, he blew the ash off her stomach, brushing away small fragments as he tried to make out what was there. Then he understood. The colour left his face. He stood abruptly and walked across the cellar, pushing his hands against his head, taking short, painful breaths, as if all the air in the place had withered. He squeezed his eyes closed to try and force the vision away. He believed he’d seen all the images of evil in his time, counted and stared deep into them to know them. But he’d seen nothing like this. This was beyond nightmare. A baby, and too small for a newborn. Whoever did this must have ripped it out of her body.
‘What is it, boss?’ the deputy asked.
‘See for yourself.’ The words came out as a croak and he hawked to clear the bile out of his throat. ‘Look at her, John.’
He watched as the deputy bent then backed away suddenly as he realized what he was seeing. He stood, shaking his head helplessly. It was beyond all comprehension.
‘Fuck.’
‘Rob, go and fetch the coroner.’ He paused to glance at Sedgwick. ‘Send the rest of the men away.’
Lister dashed off, just leaving the two of them to wait with the body.
‘How?’ the deputy asked, unable to take his eyes off her.
‘I don’t know.’ The Constable’s face was dark, his gaze returning to the body. ‘I thought I’d seen it all, but this. .’ He didn’t own the words to describe what he felt. ‘If the wood hadn’t fallen that way we’d never have known. There’d have been nothing left.’
They stood with the perfume of the destruction filling their nostrils.
‘Seems like that woman who thought she saw someone leaving the house before the fire might have been right,’ Nottingham said.
‘I know.’ Sedgwick’s voice was empty.
Nottingham knew he couldn’t pause to think too deeply yet about what was in front of him. He needed to keep his mind working.
‘You’d better talk to her again. See if you can get anything more from her.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘We’ll take the body back to the jail ourselves. For right now I just want us and Rob knowing about this.’
The light filtered down on them, so pale it seemed unnatural, something from a tale of ghosts and devils. Finally Brogden the coroner arrived, Lister at his side. He climbed down to the cellar awkwardly, testing each rung of the ladder before trusting his ample weight on it. At the bottom he stopped to inspect his costly clothes, brushing away a few flecks of dirt.
He could afford to dress well. In addition to being Coroner of Leeds, Brogden was also the city’s Sergeant-at-Mace and Clerk of the Market, all titles that lined his purse deeply for little work, bringing him more than most people would earn in five years.
He picked his way fastidiously through the rubble and wreckage, careful not to scuff his freshly-shined shoes with their glistening buckles.
‘Where’s the body?’ he asked, and the Constable indicated with his head. Brogden didn’t move any closer. ‘Was she burned to death?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘No matter.’ He waved his hand idly. ‘She’s dead, anyway.’ He turned to leave and stopped. ‘Was there something else?’
‘Take another look, Mr Brogden,’ Nottingham told him. ‘See what’s on her belly.’
The coroner peered for a moment, then pulled back, horrified, looking mutely at the others before leaving. That would live on in his dreams for many nights to come, the Constable thought.