Wanted (Flick Carter Book 1) (22 page)

‘Well. The mayor, er, you, your eminence, tell me to do stuff, and I do it, no questions asked. Pays well. Look, I ain’t proud, but I got a missus to support and a kid on the way.’

‘And are you a good henchman, would you say?’

‘Well I ain’t had no complaints. Not from you anyway.’

There was nervous laughter from the gallery.

‘Thank you. That will be all.’

The next witness came as a complete surprise to Flick; it was Maggie. She was seated on the back bench of the gallery, and stood in response to the mayor’s request, answering her name, without looking in Flick’s direction. Then he asked her what she saw.

‘After the May festival, Flick, er, Felicity that is, and me were talking in her workshop…’

‘Workshop?’

‘Yeah, she makes stone tools–knives, axes, arrows, that kind of thing–and sells them.’

‘Okay. Continue.’

Maggie spoke hesitantly, looking straight ahead and never turning her head towards Flick. ‘So we were talking and she hears someone outside. Well she goes to see who it is, and makes a big show of it being Rosie–her sister–and then she gets rid of me pronto, so I reckoned it was this outlaw, Shea O’Connell, and so I snuck back and overheard the two of them plotting. They were going to run away together.’

‘I see. And did she mention anything about the inn?’

There was a long pause.

‘Mrs Watson, please answer the question.’

There was another long pause before Maggie spoke quietly. ‘Yes, she said she’d have to burn it down first.’ She stared at the floor.

‘Thank you. You may sit down,’ Dixon said.

‘Maggie, how could you?’ Flick didn’t even try to stand up. She looked away. She saw the mayor was staring at her with a big grin on his face, and she knew that somehow the mayor had got to Maggie. Whatever she said, she had been forced to say it. She wondered what he’d done to have such power over her.

Lieutenant Dixon glared at her but said nothing.

Flick pointed at the mayor, ‘He did it!’ she shouted. ‘He killed them! Oh, not himself, oh no, but he gave the order!’

‘Miss Carter, be silent,’ Dixon said, the annoyance clear in her voice.

‘How could you even suggest that?’ The mayor ignored the Kingsman’s warning. ‘After I took you in, and tended to your injuries. And how did you repay me? You tried to burn down my house too!’

Dixon glared at the mayor. ‘That goes for you too,’ she growled.

‘He’s got a room,’ shouted Flick. All that mattered now was that someone heard the truth. ‘A room in his house that’s full of glowing pictures and people in faraway places, and…’

People started murmuring, but the mayor cut in, raising his voice in order to be heard. ‘Preposterous! The product of a fevered imagination, brought on by the heat and smoke…’

Lieutenant Dixon banged the gavel repeatedly.

‘Enough!’ she roared, and the room quieted. ‘Miss Carter, if I hear one more word out of you, I will have you gagged. And you,’ she turned to the mayor, ‘will conduct yourself properly.’
 

She cast her eye around the room, daring anyone to make more noise.

‘Now, is Mary Griffin present? The mayor’s wife?’

Mary raised her hand from the front bench of the gallery.

‘Please stand and tell us what happened in your house.’

Mary stood and recounted her story, ‘My son Joe found Felicity lying on the cobbles outside the inn. It was obvious that she’d got too close to the fire having started it. He brought her up to the house and we tended and bandaged her. When she had recovered enough to be up and about, I found her trying to burn our house down. She’d poured lamp oil onto the carpets and was trying to set light to them.’

‘But that’s not what…’ Flick started.

‘Silence!’ bellowed the lieutenant.

Several other witnesses were called, but they all told a similar story of how they’d overheard Flick plotting, or seen her acting suspiciously, or seen her lighting the fire. Flick just sat and stared dejectedly at the wall opposite. The mayor had done a good job; nobody would speak for her, or against him.

Eventually the mayor banged the gavel one last time. ‘We have heard all the evidence and testimony presented here. The prisoner will return to the cell and we will consider our verdict.’

The sergeant and corporal took Flick back down to the cell and locked her in. She crawled into the corner and sat on the hard floor, now that there wasn’t even the filthy stool to sit on, and sobbed.

PHASE ONE OF basic training was over, and Adam had been passed as capable of knowing how to stand up straight. Phase two was about to begin. Camp Churchill was a few miles north of the city, and he was in a classroom; a rare chance to sit down and not be running or jumping or crawling through mud and dirt or doing push ups or sit ups or pull ups, all the while being shouted at by a drill sergeant. In this particular session, the instructor had been droning on and Adam’s mind had started to wander; it was just like being back in school, apart from the uniforms.
 

The door opened, and the camp second in command, Captain Scott Ward entered the classroom. The room was brought to attention, jolting the class out of its temporary reverie.

‘As you were,’ the captain dismissed the room and went into a huddled conversation with the instructor. Several times they looked in Adam’s direction, and he wondered what was going on. The instructor saluted and the captain left.

Then the instructor turned to him. ‘Cadet Carter, you are to report to the C.O.’s office immediately.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Adam jumped up, saluted and left the room, wondering what he’d done wrong; he hadn’t had time to get into trouble–basic training barely left time to eat or sleep, yet alone get into mischief. Maybe they’d decided he was the wrong person and it had all been a mistake and were going to send him home. Several cadets had already been summoned to the C.O.’s office and not been seen again, presumably discharged. But they had been struggling. Adam wasn’t top of the class, but he wasn’t bottom either. He really hoped they weren’t going to send him away, he liked it here. He’d made new friends; he was living the life.

There was an aide seated at a desk outside the C.O.’s office door. Adam reported nervously to him, ‘Cadet Carter to see Major Shaw.’

The aide looked up. ‘You are expected,’ he said. ‘Please wait here and I will inform the major that you have arrived.’

He knocked on the door and slipped into the room. Adam stood at ease, and looked at the pictures on the wall. He realised he was sweating and his hands trembling ever so slightly, but after a few moments the aide came out.

‘He won’t keep you long,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take a seat while you’re waiting?’

Adam sat down uncomfortably and waited.

And waited.

Now his mouth had gone dry, to add to the butterflies in his stomach. Nearly an hour went by before the aide finally deigned to notice him again. ‘The major will see you now,’ he said.

Adam knocked on the door.

‘Come!’ came from inside.

Adam went in and closed the door behind him. He saluted, trembling slightly. Major Lee Shaw was standing at a large table, covered in maps and documents. Also at the table were Captain Ward and the red-haired Kingsman–Lieutenant Dixon, as he’d later learned–that had spoken to him at the museum in Faringdon.

‘Stand easy,’ Shaw said, and Adam shifted.

Shaw rolled up the maps. ‘Seems we’ve got a bit of a situation developing, and it’s one we think you can shed some light on.’

‘Me, sir? I’m not sure I know what you mean sir.’ Adam still couldn’t think of anything he might have done that was bad enough to be called in front of the C.O. And not just the C.O., the captain and lieutenant too. But he must have done something…

‘Well, not you directly. Seems your sister, Felicity, has got herself in a spot of bother with one of our on-going investigations, so we want to ask you a few questions. Improve our knowledge of the situation.’

Adam groaned with relief and he sagged slightly as the tension disappeared out of his muscles. It wasn’t him, it was his too-good-to-be-true sister. Seems she wasn’t so good after all. ‘What’s Flick gone and done now, sir?’

‘Reports are somewhat confused on that matter. She may have done nothing, at least nothing criminal. It seems there may have been a fire, and there may have been some deaths, but we have no information concerning who or what. We are preparing a team to go and assess the situation.’

‘And you want me to…’

‘No.’ Shaw cut him off. ‘You will remain here and complete your training. If there is news of your sister that we feel you need to know, then you will be informed. What we want from you is information.’

‘Sir.’

‘Where would you say her loyalties lay?’

‘Loyalties?’

‘Yes, to the Crown, or to the Scavs? To the mayor–Griffin, I believe? I understand she has an on-going relationship his son?’

‘Yes sir, last I heard. It’s been on again, off again several times sir, so that might have changed again. I’d say sir she’s loyal to herself. She’s got no great love for the Kingsmen or the Crown, but no great hatred either. Same goes for the Scavs. “Leave alone as leaves alone” is what she says.’

‘So she could turn against us?’ Ward asked.

‘I s’pose, if she was pushed hard enough.’

‘And would you say she is violent or aggressive?’ Dixon asked.

‘She’s a good shot, ma’am, with a bow and arrow, and not bad with a throwing knife neither.’

Dixon raised an eyebrow.
 

Adam continued, ‘Animals. She wouldn’t hurt people… Gentle as a lamb. But we has fresh meat in The Crown, more times than not, and more often than any other inn in town.’

Dixon chuckled. ‘I’ll bet,’ she said.

‘Yeah, she makes the blades herself out of local flint. Sells them too, all round the area. Everyone says they’re the best.’

‘Okay thank you. That will be all. If we need anything else we will send for you. Dismissed!’

‘Sir, one last thing?’

Shaw sighed. ‘What is it?’

‘I know it’s not my place,’ Adam began, ‘but it is my sister, and well, we’ve had our differences, but I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, if it’s at all possible? And also if there is a chance, tell her “Hi”?’

‘It’s not up to me,’ Shaw replied. ‘Lieutenant Dixon is running this mission. Out in the field, what she says, goes.’

‘No promises,’ Dixon scowled.

‘There’s your answer. Now, dismissed,’ Shaw said, a slight hint of irritation showing in his voice.

‘Sir, ma'am.’

Adam saluted, turned and left the room. By this time, the class that he’d been called out from had finished, and his next assignment was on the rifle range. He double-timed so he wouldn’t be late, wondering on the way what all that had been about, and what Flick had done.

THE DELIBERATIONS SEEMED to go on for a long time, during which Flick was left alone in her cell. The black curtain was still up over the bars, so she could neither see nor be seen, but she heard people coming and going up and down the stairs. There was not a word spoken that she could hear or understand.

It was chilly in the cell and she shivered in spite of the thin blanket and shawl. Flick couldn’t help wonder now if the clothes Mary had sent her had just been a salve for her conscience.
 

Eventually the sergeant and corporal came back.

‘Time to go Miss,’ the sergeant said, ‘very sorry, but we’ve got to put the restraints on–orders.’

Flick’s heart pounded. There was no escape; not only were the two men much bigger and more powerful than she was, but the door to the cell was locked. She would have to overpower the corporal and get the key off him, but she’d also have to overpower the sergeant too, and then unlock the cell door. But even then she was still trapped because the outer door to the jail was locked, and neither Watchman had that key. Her only option would be to go up the stairs and then she’d be in the court room, which was what they wanted anyway.

No, she had to let them handcuff and chain her and lead her to her fate.

As she was led into the court room, she saw a few differences. The mayor now had a proper chair; not the high backed one that the Kingsman was sitting in, but also not the shit-encrusted stool that he’d been made to sit on earlier. None of the mayor’s thugs was present. That gave her a little hope for justice, or at least, leniency; there were just her Watch guards and the four armed Kingsmen. The gallery benches again were filled, and Flick noticed Joe and Maggie and Mary, but they all avoided looking directly at her.

The sergeant chained Flick’s handcuff to the railing, and Mayor Griffin banged the gavel and called for order.

‘This court has come to a decision on the charges brought before it,’ he intoned, looking directly at Flick. ‘Based solely on the evidence given in this proceeding, the court finds you guilty on the charge of arson…’
 

Flick’s heart sank. She steeled herself.
Here it comes
.

‘…And guilty on both charges of murder.’

The bottom fell out of her world. She knew the mayor must be saying those fateful words,
you will be taken from here to a place of execution and there you will be hanged from the neck until you are dead
, but she didn’t hear them. Instead the world went into a slow motion blur. She could hear far off screaming and wailing, and someone yelling. She realised in a disconnected sort of way that it was her, and that she was struggling and pulling at her chains. The two Watchmen were grabbing at her arms and holding her down.

Then the world snapped back and she sank back onto the chair and sobbed.

The mayor was still banging his gavel and calling for order. When the room quieted down, he ordered Flick to be taken back down to the cell.

Flick had no memory of being taken back down the stairs to the cell, or the people filing out, or the curtain being taken down. When she came to her senses, she was lying in the middle of the stone floor, wrapped in the blanket. The old three-legged stool was back, just as smelly, and the bucket too, but at least it was empty. There was a bowl of thin soup on the floor, although there was no spoon. Flick sat up and reached for the bowl. The soup was cold; it must have been there for some time, but she drank it regardless.