Death of a Radical (33 page)

“Where did you get these clothes?” Jarrett demanded. The young man met his eye.

“I cannot tell you that, sir,” he replied.

Jarrett thought of Mr. Hilton sitting on the cart bench speaking of old Mr. Lippett, Miss Josephine's father—
He was a well-dressed man. Nothing but the best for him. Everything neat and proper to the day he died.
The garments were of a style that had been in fashion thirty years ago. Had someone kept old Mr. Lippett's clothes?

“Did a friend give them to you? Did you find them?”

“I will not say.” For a young man of twenty he was remarkable in his self-possession. It seemed unshakeable.

“Did you steal them?”

“No!” Jonas Farr lowered his head, as if he bent it before a storm. He did not raise his voice or protest. “I am sorry to disoblige you, Mr. Jarrett,” he said steadily. “I cannot in good conscience say more.”

“Good conscience!” exclaimed Jarrett.

“Only believe me, this suit of clothes has nothing to do with the murder of young Favian,” he said sincerely.

Jarrett frowned at him, perplexed. “You know but you will not tell,” he repeated softly. “Very well. Tell me this—why are you accused of this murder, do you think?”

“I know I am accused, but I do not know why.”

“I've heard a lot of things: talk of radicals and insurgency and Luddite plots. What do you say to that?”

“Nothing. I know nothing of such things.”

“I was warned about a Yorkshireman, come from Leeds—a known conspirator.”

“That must be some other man.”

“Is your grandfather not a convicted Jacobin?”

Farr's open face twisted in a resigned look. He sighed.
“He was twice imprisoned for distributing unstamped material,” he conceded. His words followed one another evenly, as if he had repeated himself many times and no longer expected to be believed. The attentive way Jarrett listened gave him courage, and his voice warmed. “It was back at the start of the French wars. My grandfather published works of Thomas Paine and others. A local magistrate was hot against him … They never saw eye to eye.”

Jarrett leaned back in his seat contemplating the sturdy young man wearing his borrowed clothes with his head held high. His life had often depended on his judgment of men. He relied on it. His every instinct told him the youth was honest.

“So you swear to me that you have carried no messages to workers here in Woolbridge?” he asked. “You have administered no illegal oaths, or attended secret meetings, nor otherwise made attempts to promote combinations or dissent against the legitimate authorities?”

“Listen to you!” jeered Bess. “I remember you when—” Farr put his hand over hers a moment. She fell silent. He gave her a sideways, private smile.
Poor fool!
thought Jarrett fleetingly.

“No sir,” Farr answered. He leaned forward, meeting his eyes directly, his hands on his knees. “I have sung ballads—and I will do so again. But that is not against any law. God created man as a creature of reason—I believe that; and I believe every man, be he pauper or a lord, has the right to inform himself. It is knowledge mends injustice. When men are pushed to riot, it is them that
suffer. The high are too mighty and they will not abide it. No.” He paused and took a breath as if such extended exposition was unnatural to him. “Decency cannot exist without law.”

“And if the law is unjust?” asked Jarrett.

“Then I will raise my voice against it, if I can.”

“I have heard you charged with taking part in seditious combinations in Dewsbury.”

Farr snorted. “I was no more than five years old when my family moved from Dewsbury. My grandfather, he belonged to a Friendly Society there and was active in it; it was a charitable association. But that was many a year ago now. We've lived in Leeds since then.”

They were quiet. The sun had almost gone. They sat in twilight. Duffin caught Jarrett's eye and signaled with a jerk of his head. They were expected in Powcher's Lane. There was a clatter of movement from the stage. Mr. Sugden led his band toward them. He pulled a conciliatory face.

“Not wishing to disturb, but we must get on. There's packing to be done. The wagons go out tonight, after the fair traffic has died down.” The actors clustered about their leading lady and her protégé. Greenwood stood behind Bess, one hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own.

“What will you do?” Farr asked Jarrett.

“Do? He'll let you be,” declared Bess. The actors stared at him defiantly.

Jarrett got up. “Do you go with them?” he asked Farr.
Farr nodded. “How do you plan to get him past the soldiers?” Jarrett asked Bess. “They are searching wagons on the roads out of town.”

It was Greenwood who replied. “We have a false-bottomed trunk—phantasmagoria and other optical illusions …”

“It's been Dick's salvation more than once,” Mrs. Sugden chuckled, “when pursued by cuckolded husbands and love-mad spinsters.”

“And this time there's no reward posted, so no one will be tempted to betray him,” returned Greenwood, meeting her eye significantly. They both laughed.

They were right about there being no reward posted, thought Jarrett. That was odd, given Ison's apparent determination to pursue his culprit. Either the colonel was uncertain of his ground or too mean to pledge his funds.

Jarrett reached out his hand and Farr took it. A grin transformed Jarrett's face. An answering one dawned in Farr's.

“Maybe I shall hear you sing again one day, Mr. Farr.”

“May be so, Mr. Jarrett.” Jonas's face turned solemn. “And I hope you find your cousin's murderer. He was a good lad, that Book Boy.”

“Thank you. And I will find the villain. You can be sure of that.”

Dusk filled the alley. The fading sky above blended into the shadow of the walls. Duffin indicated a half-court to the left. They climbed stone steps to a door standing half open to the pale gray light. Through it, lit by a fire burning in the hearth, Jarrett saw a woman sitting at a table with her arm about a young boy. Their heads were bent together, his soft cheek resting against her coarsened one. The woman looked up with laughing, youthful eyes. They darkened warily as they fell on him.

“Mrs. Watson?” Jarrett ventured. “Your son Dickon said we might find him here.”

“You are Mr. Jarrett, then,” she said.

“Yes. And this …” He turned back to Duffin who followed him. Her face lit up.

“I know him,” Mrs. Watson responded. “How are you, Ezekial?”

“As well as ever, Sara.” The boy flung his arms about the poacher's bulky waist. “Now then young man,” said Duffin, ruffling the child's hair. “Let me just …” He
opened his coat and produced a dead rabbit. Taking a piece of string from another pocket he tied it neatly about the back legs and hung it from a hook by the door. Sara kissed his cheek.

“You're a good friend,” she said. “Now sit you down. Dickon said you'd be by. He'll not be long, if you don't mind waiting.” The boy stared at Jarrett. “My youngest, Saul, Mr. Jarrett,” his mother said, the affection plain on her face. She went to the fire and lit a candle and brought it to the table, sheltering its flame with her hand. The light caught the gray threads deadening the brown of her hair. Jarrett smiled at the boy. Saul stood by Duffin's chair, leaning against the poacher's solid shoulder, his eyes downcast. Jarrett was reminded of Walcheren leaning over a fence; his horse would sometimes rest against him like that, when he was feeling affectionate. The boy was fiddling with something, rolling it between his fingers.

“What you got there?” asked Duffin. He boy held out his trophy. “Your Burned Man's button, eh? That's quite a thing, that is. What do you think of that, Mr. Jarrett?” Duffin glanced at Jarrett with a twinkle in his eye. Saul approached with his hand outstretched. Jarrett looked down at the scorched button. He became very still. The candlelight fell on his face. It caught the movement of his hand as it went to his breast and felt in a pocket.

“What is it?” asked Sara, her voice sharp with concern.

Jarrett drew out a wadded handkerchief. He unfolded it on the table. He laid Saul's button beside the first. The
scorching had dulled its tooling but it had the same cable border. He picked each button up and peered at the back, leaning in to the candlelight. The flame flickered over tiny maker's marks scratched in the metal. They matched. Saul edged closer, peering over Jarrett's arm.

“Where did you get the other?”

“It was given to me. Why do you call it the Burned Man's button?” Jarrett responded in an oddly distant voice. The boy leaned closer.

“Found it in t'loft after t'fire,” he said.

“The fire in Mr. Bedford's stable loft, a few weeks back,” Sara Watson explained. “Michael White, him that was coachman before this one, he died there. Saul was helping the carpenter afterward and he found that.”

“This Michael White—he was known to you?”

“He was a stranger these parts. Mr. Bedford hired him in Leeds. He was a drinker, poor man. Irish. And not happy Irish. More melancholy and solitary. They found him with a bottle at his side and an overturned candle. It was a straw mattress, you see. Must have knocked the candle over, I suppose, and set light to it, when he was too drunk to help himself.” Jarrett heard the doubt in her voice.

“Must have?”

“We-ell, my Dickon, he was one of the first there to put the fire out and he thought it strange the man was not more burned. They put the fire out before the mattress was completely gone and the man just lay there on his back—”

“On his back?” Jarrett queried.

Sara frowned slightly at his urgency. “Dickon can tell you himself; here he is now.” Rapid feet mounted the outer steps. “Son,” she greeted him as Dickon came through the door, “Mr. Jarrett wants to know about the night Mr. Bedford's coachman burned in his loft. How was it you found him?”

Dickon dropped a kiss on the top of his mother's head. He looked well satisfied with himself.

“Flat on his back, staring up at t'ceiling,” Dickon answered.

“His eyes were open?” demanded Jarrett, startled.

“Aye. Doctor said it were heat; muscles draw back the lids. Give me the shivers—along with the smell, of course,” the young giant added meditatively.

Jarrett met his eyes. “I've never heard that,” he said.

Dickon stiffened.

“Damn me! You don't mean another one?”

“Three deaths,” Jarrett replied, staring down at the two buttons in his hand. “Three murders, that's my guess—that wool buyer, Pritchard, my cousin and Bedford's coachman.”

“Never! What the hell's going on?” Dickon exclaimed. His mother dealt him a smart smack.

“I'll not have swearing in my house!”

“Beg pardon, ma,” he responded sheepishly.

“I wish I knew,” Jarrett said. “What about Lem? Have you found him, by any chance?”

Dickon's mouth broadened into a gleeful grin. He
turned a chair about and sat astride, resting his muscled forearms on the back. “Summat.”

“What?” invited Jarrett, amused.

“Well, it was Jinnie that found him. She and me, we talked to young Lem Porter together. The man in question's not tall. Well, Lem's a longshanks; he said about Sim's height.”

“That would make him five foot four or five?” asked Jarrett. Duffin grunted.

“Round about,” agreed Dickon, “and he's got a black beard, curly like, and works in town. Or at least, so the lad thinks.”

“That's it?” Jarrett was disappointed.

“He could be holding something back.” Dickon shrugged. “I almost knocked his block off, the way he kept sniggering and muttering how we didn't know the half of it. He was going to meet the fella again tomorrow, but Jinnie's talked him out of it.”

“Why did you let her do that?” Jarrett was exasperated. “We could have used the opportunity to find this villain.”

“Lem's daft, Mr. Jarrett,” protested Dickon. “He'll speak out of turn, say summat he shouldn't. He's neither quick nor strong and if this man is what we think him, he's murdered three already. Lem'll get hurt. You need to find another way.”

“You're right, of course,” Jarrett apologized ruefully.

“Besides,” Dickon went on. “I've got summat better. Lem told Jinnie who it was that brought him to this bearded man.”

“Oh yes? Who?”

“A poisonous piece of piss they call Nat Broom.”

“Him!”

“You know him?”

“Oh yes.” Jarrett exchanged a look with Duffin. He was thinking of his stolen boots. “And you know where to find him?”

“Harry Aitken does. He's heard Nat has a room in a passage behind Wharton's yard.”

“So what are we waiting for? Let's go see the man,” Duffin said.

“Read my mind.” Dickon raised his bulk from the chair. “He don't have friends, so we should find him in. Let me just fetch a couple of lanterns. It's dark down there.”

Dickon led them down the hill toward the tanneries by the river. He turned down a ginnel and then into a passage hardly wider than he was. It ran between two buildings and bent around the back. Jarrett turned the blind corner and saw Dickon stopped ahead.

“Up here,” he called back over his shoulder. “On the first floor.” A pale patch of light flickered on to the blank wall of the building opposite from a window above. There was a doorway and a staircase beyond.

“Let me go first,” Jarrett said. The weaver stood back to let him pass. The staircase was narrow and dusty. The treads creaked and cracked under his feet. The light bobbing ahead of him touched a landing. He heard scuttling and saw a rat with red whiskers. It looked at him briefly, then vanished into the shadows. The pool of light
illuminated a rusty trail of tiny footprints. He followed them to a lake of blood. His nose and mouth were filled with the sickly iron smell of it. The room was small. Sprays of blood arced on the lime-plastered walls. A bloody hand-print faced him. Beneath it lay a hunched shape that made wet, choking sounds. Jarrett crouched down, conscious of the liquid sucking at the soles of his boots. He gripped a bony shoulder and rolled the man over. His head had been battered and broken open. There was so much blood it was a miracle he was still alive. Nat Broom—his good servant's clothes were quite ruined.