Cold Cruel Winter (3 page)

‘Why?' she asked him. ‘Who would want to kill him?' Her voice rustled, as thin as paper. ‘Do you know?'

‘No, we don't,' he admitted bluntly. ‘Not yet. We only found him a few hours ago. Do you know of anyone . . . ?'

She stared directly at the Constable, weighing the question he'd left hanging, and slowly gathered her strength to answer.

‘No, Mr Nottingham, I don't. He was a good man in thought and in deed.' For a moment she drifted into contemplation, then wiped at a tear leaking from the corner of her eye, the first of many she'd shed in the coming days, he guessed. ‘He was my husband for forty years, and he loved me every one of them. There wasn't an ounce of malice in him. He made friends, not enemies.'

He'd heard words like this so often before, and he knew that many times they were no more than a façade, covering complicated webs of deceit, lies and anger. There were few truly good men in this life. Graves could have been the exception, but he doubted it.

‘So he's probably been dead since Friday?' she asked. Even in grief she was astute.

‘Yes,' Nottingham admitted reluctantly. ‘He might well have been.'

‘Then you'd better find whoever killed him,' she told him.

‘I'll do everything I can,' he answered, offering her honesty rather than certainty.

Her fingertips absently traced the rim of the glass, the skin of her cheeks pale and bloodless. ‘I can believe that far more than any promise,' she told him with a short nod. ‘Thank you. You have a good reputation, Mr Nottingham.'

He raised his eyebrows for a moment, surprised not just that she knew of him, but more that she knew what he'd done. To most of her class he was an invisible man.

For now he could sense her holding desperately on to an inner reserve. Tonight was no time for more questions, but there was one he needed to ask now.

‘Why was your husband going to London?'

‘He had business there.'

‘I thought he'd retired?'

‘Retirement didn't suit Samuel well,' she explained. ‘He was a man who needed to be doing things, and business was what he did best.'

He noticed that she was already using the past tense. She drained the rest of the brandy, and he could sense her slipping away from him.

‘I'll get one of the servants for you,' he said, leaving softly to find a maid in the kitchen. He let himself out. The chill of the darkness was harsh and stinging after the overheated room; the wind lashed his eyes and made them tear.

By the time he reached Timble Bridge he felt frozen, even wrapped in the heavy greatcoat, as the night closed its grip on him. Just taking a breath hurt, the cold air knife-sharp in his lungs.

He turned on to Marsh Lane, his house just yards away. He glanced up, seeing a light burning behind the window, knowing it should seem welcoming. But rather than walking faster and rushing home, as part of his heart wanted, his footsteps faltered and stopped.

Inside, the fire would be banked for the night, good Middleton coals glowing red, their slackening warmth still filling the room. Mary would be sewing by the light of an acrid tallow candle, eyes squinting, her face creased and serious with concentration, square, rough fingers moving without thought to make a seam.

The place would be spotless, every surface scrubbed down to rawness, clean enough to ward off death.

He was scared for them, he realized. For Mary, for Emily, for the only two precious things left in his life, scared of losing them the way he'd lost Rose. The idea of his own existence trickling away caused him no pain – he'd been close to death too often to fear it – but the bitter, searing pain of losing someone else close halted him.

Each night when he came home, he held his breath as he opened the door, unsure if he'd find them alive and well. That was the demon perched on his shoulder, one he could only wrestle with privately and never talk about with anyone.

He began to walk again, slowly covering the distance, grasping and turning the handle, exhaling softly as the room opened before him and he saw his wife and daughter.

‘You're so late, Richard,' Mary said solicitously, putting down her needle and rising immediately. ‘I was wondering what'd happened to you. You must be hungry. I'll bring you something to eat.'

He wanted to hold her, to feel her warmth and life against him, but she quickly bustled off into the kitchen as if all the small normalities could patch the gaping hole in their lives. Nottingham smiled at Emily, who was lost in thought, a book closed in her lap, and then followed his wife.

‘Was the road from York bad?' she asked, feeling his presence as she cut bread and cheese and poured him a mug of ale.

‘No worse than you'd expect,' he answered, looking helplessly at her back, ‘but there was something waiting. A murder.'

For a moment she stopped, and he knew the image of death was in her mind. Then she continued her movement, turning to hand him a plate. His hand covered hers for a second, her warm flesh brushing momentarily against his palm, before her face turned away from him.

He ate as Mary cleaned the table, wiping away the crumbs meticulously. He hadn't realized how hungry he was; his teeth tore at the food and he swallowed it so quickly he barely tasted it before drinking deep from the mug. When he finished eating, she took the plate to wash and dry fastidiously with an old cloth.

For one brief moment, as she left the room, Mary let her fingertips trail lightly on his shoulder. Nottingham drew in his breath, surprised by the first spontaneous sign of affection since Rose's death. Had she done it deliberately, he wondered, or was it just idle memory that moved her hand?

Left alone, his belly full, his mind moved back to the corpse in the jail. Why would anyone want to kill Graves? But, more importantly, why would someone take the skin off his back? That wasn't murder, it was the working of a sadistic mind, of someone with special knowledge. It wasn't a random killing, he was sure of that; it must have been planned. What could be the purpose behind it?

He reached for more ale and swirled it in his mouth. Animals were skinned for a reason, leather for boots and shoes, pelts for furs. But skinning a man . . . he couldn't even begin to imagine why someone would need to do that.

Graves would have made enemies during his life; no one could succeed as a wool merchant by being a saint. But it was business that was cutthroat, not life. How long had he been dead? When had he left home to take the coach to London?

He rubbed his cheeks. Tomorrow they'd start asking the questions and piecing together the final hours of Samuel Graves. Finding out who could have done such a thing to him, though, that would be a different matter.

In his mind he could picture the man's back quite clearly, the large wound red and livid, mottled with dirt and frozen by snow. The cuts had been straight and exact, and as far as he could judge, the skin had been peeled off smoothly and cleanly. Whoever did it had an experienced, steady hand. He wasn't someone easily revolted by a man's flesh.

But what could anyone do with that skin? It was most of Graves's back, but really that wasn't so much. A trophy, a souvenir? Whatever the reason, it terrified him to know that there was someone like that in the city. His coldness made the cruel winter seem mild.

Nottingham stood up and stretched. He could feel every moment of the day in his muscles, the ride from York, and the long hours of the evening piled atop all the compacted emotions that plagued him. He needed to sleep.

Three

Nottingham was on his way to the jail by six, boots crunching over the ice, slipping and sliding in places, shivering as he walked quickly. The first pale band of dawn lightened the horizon to the east. The city was already waking, plumes of chimney smoke rising to the sky, the sound of voices from the streets and courts, the clop of hooves and grating squeak of wheels as the first carters made their way around.

Two drunks slept in one cell, better here than freezing to death outside. He kept his greatcoat bundled tight, then lit a candle and marched through to look at the body again.

He turned Graves over and brought the light close to the skin. Part of him wanted to touch the man's back, to feel it for himself, to know it that way, viscerally, but he held back, revolted even as he was intrigued.

He'd been right; this work had definitely been done by someone who knew how to skin animals. The cuts were clear and confident, long, single strokes that met cleanly, and the skin had been peeled off evenly. Despite himself, he reached out, running a fingertip lightly down the line where the blade had gone.

This had been done after Graves had died. The lines were too sharp, the work too precise and etched for the man to have been alive. At least there was that, small comfort that it offered.

So now he knew a little more, but the knowledge didn't answer the important questions. What could anyone gain from doing such a grotesque thing? Taking a man's flesh seemed like sacrilege, leaving him less in death than he'd been before. Why would someone do this to Samuel Graves? What was the point of it? What was the meaning? Why had he kept the body for four days? Graves hadn't been just any man, either, but one of the leading citizens of Leeds, wealthy, powerful, not someone who could disappear easily.

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.