Chris Nickson's Blog, page 2

The Moment When The Centuries Touch

Sometimes the truly wondrous does happen. When that occurs, it etches a sharp, memorable line in a life.

In my most recent book, Them Without Pain, a true incident from Leeds history is the catalyst for everything that happens. In 1969, goldsmith Arthury Mangey was hanged for coin clipping – which was treason, as it debased the coinage. In his trial it was alleged that he had a secret workshop on Middle Row, the shops and workshops behind the Moot Hall in the middle of Briggate (see the superb cardboard model).

In 1825, the Moot Hall and Middle Row were finally demolished, opening up the town’s main street. But as the workmen tore down walls, they discovered…a hidden workshop, with two pairs of metal shears, a bowl and an Elizabethan coin.

In the book, Simon Westow is there, and in the hidden room he also finds a body. That provides the spark for everything that happens.

Why had no one looked for the room at the time of the trial? Did the things in there really belong to Mangey or had he been set up?

We’ll never know. But some of what was found has remained and will be used in an exhibition on Leeds writing later this year.

Yesterday I was giving a talk at Abbey House Museum, where I’m writer-in-residence. I had the real privilege of holding these shears, of touching history. Maybe Arthur Mangey really did use them to commit treason over 300 years ago and I was able to share that with him. A connection across the centuries.

I’d written about them, and they were real. Now that’s magic, isn’t it?

Forgive me for ending on a crass commercial note, but in the UK Amazon has both Kindle and hardback editions at very low prices. See here.

Want To Read No Precious Truth Before It’s Published?

My new book, No Precious Truth, will be published on April 1.

However, in exchange for an honest review, you can read it now. It’s available on NetGalley. You need to register with them – free and only takes a few seconds – then be approved for Severn House titles. If you’re not, please drop me a line and I should be able to fix that for you.

It’s the start of a new series, Leeds in World War 2, with a new female lead character I love, but yes, I’m nervous about it, even more so than when a series in established. I’d like plenty of people to read it and give their opinions, so you’d actually be helping me.

Thank you in advance.

If you are registered with NetGalley and approved for Severn Housem simply go here.

New Year, New Book, New Series

First of all, a happy 2025. May it bring you healthy and happiness and a sense of calm.

But…new year, new series?

It’s true, I’ve dropped hints and more on here about it. With No Precious Truth (out April 1) I’m shifting to the Second World War and Leeds in 1941.

To begin, I should say I wrote an entire unpublished novel with Cathy that detailed her start with the Special Investigation Branch. And I discovered that she, the era and the situation would not leave me alone. She demanded I write more. The last time that happened was with Annabelle Harper, so draw your own conclusions.

Cathy Marsden was born and raised in Leeds, growing up on Quarry Hill until the family was rehoused to the brand-new Gipton estate in 1934. The city and its people is in her blood – more than she realises at first. Her father receives a pension, lungs ruined by mustard gas at Arras in World War 1. Cathy is a policewoman, a sergeant. She’d been in charge of six female police constables and reporting to a female inspector – at least until September 1940, when she was seconded to the Special Investigation Branch, which had opened a small Leeds office in the summer. The idea was she’d show the five men in the squad around the city. The SIB was made up of former police detectives who’d joined the army or been in the reserve, only to end up in the military police, and then SIB. They have army ranks, are supposed to carry sidearms, and work out of a small office in the Ministry of Works office on Briggate.

Where was that? Does this look familiar?

Now take a look at this. It was supposed to be the flagship Marks & Spencer store, but it was requisition by the government for the ministry.

Entrance right here.

The secondment was meant to last three weeks. In that time Cathy proved to be vital to the squad. Working in plain clothes, with her local knowledge, her skills have chance to blossom and the period is extended until she’s there for the duration.

But there’s one other thing she does. Every Friday evening, from 6-10, she’s a firewatcher at the top of Matthias Robinson’s department store, just up Briggate (it became Debenhams, and just reopened as Flannels).

There have been air raids, but Leeds has escaped the horrors inflicted on other British cities – so far. But how long can that last?

Meanwhile, Cathy and the men in SIB are going to have a very big problem. The first inkling is the return of her brother, who moved to London as soon as he could and is, he’s told the family, a civil servant…well, read for yourselves.

From the corner of her eye, Cathy caught sight of someone else entering the room. Her eyes widened in disbelief. He wasn’t anyone she’d ever expected to see in this place. She folded her arms and glared at him.

‘What the hell are you doing here?

Daniel Marsden was five years older than her, the clever boy who won the scholarship to grammar school. The one who passed everything without seeming to do a stroke of work while she studied deep into the night, struggling with her lessons and failing half her exams.

He was the boy people noticed. They remembered him, asked after him, always full of praise, with Cathy a poor second. When Dan landed a Civil Service job and moved down to London, she’d said nothing, but deep inside she’d been glad to see the back of him. After so many years she had the chance to move out of her brother’s shadow. Even now, his Christmas visits each year felt like more than enough time together, watching everyone gather round him. She’d been quietly relieved when he’d said there was too much going on at the ministry last December to be able to come.

Now he was standing in the office where she worked. He smiled.

‘I like the way you’ve had your hair done. It suits you.’

Cathy felt herself bristle. At twenty-six, she’d spent four years as a woman police constable, then two more as a sergeant, before her secondment to SIB and a move into plain clothes. She’d had to fight for respect every step of the way. It had been the same when she started here. She’d needed to work hard to make the squad accept her. To understand that a woman could do this job. Cathy wasn’t going to let her brother dismiss all that with a flippant comment. Just the sight of him here, where she’d built a place for herself, made the excitement and pride at finding Dobson wither away.

‘I’m so very glad you approve.’

Dan shifted his glance away.

‘He’s been sent,’ Faulkner told her. ‘We’re working with him.’

She turned, fire in her eyes. Like the other men in SIB, Adam Faulkner had been a police detective before the war. He’d been in London, a member of the Flying Squad. They were famous, the best Scotland Yard had; everybody in the country had heard of them. He’d joined the army, eager to defend his country, only to find himself shuffled into the military police. Recruited for the Special Investigation Branch when it was formed the year before, last July he’d been posted to Leeds to set up this new squad. A sergeant, like her, but his was an army rank. A good, fair boss.

‘Sent?’ Cathy asked. ‘What do you mean, sent?’

Faulkner closed his eyes for a second. ‘Your brother is with the Security Service,’ he said.

I hope you’re intrigued by a female character front and centre in a Leeds WWII thriller. If you’re registered there with my publisher, No Precious Truth will soon be available to read on NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. If you’re not registered and fancy it, drop me a line and I’ll arrange it.

Or you could pre-order it, of course. Amazon has the Kindle edition of No Precious Truth pretty cheap in the UK and US. UK version here. In the UK, the cheapest hardback price is here. The cover’s pretty great, too.

And of course, the Kindle version of the latest Simon Westow book, Them Without Pain, is pretty decently priced in the UK. Find it here. The hardback is just over a tenner, too.

One final thing: Cathy arrives with her own soundtrack. Find the playlist here, but be prepared to dance and jitterbug.

Jingling James – An Annabelle Harper Xmas Tale

Actually, not quite Annabelle Harper. Still Annabelle Atkinson, a recent widow after her husband Harry died and left her the Victoria. But you’ll see for yourself.

Here were are, Christmas Eve, and this is the last of the Christmas stories dug out from the past. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. Thank you for reading, and for reading/buying/tolerating my books and posts. Happy holidays – what ever you celebrate – to you and those who hold dear. May 2025 be kind to us all and see us in good health.

Thank you again.

Leeds, December 1887

Annabelle Atkinson didn’t want Christmas to arrive this year. She didn’t feel any of the joy or the goodwill this December. It was barely three months since her husband Harry had died; the earth had barely settled on his grave.

They’d had a few good years before the heart attack took him. Now she had to look after the Victoria public house as well as the two bakeries she’d opened. On her own, sometimes she felt like she was drowning.

On Christmas Eve, once the last customer had gone, she intended to bolt the door, closed the curtains, and keep the world away until Boxing Day. She’d never been one to wallow in sadness; if you had a problem you took care of it and carried on. But these last few weeks…she’d been slowly sinking and she knew it. She felt like one of the jugglers in the halls, trying to keep all the plates spinning in the air. Too many of them.

‘Come on,’ she said to Willie Hailsham, taking the empty pint pot from his hand. ‘You’ve had enough. Get yourself off home so your wife can remember what you look like.’

The same with Harelip Harmon, Donald the Steel Man, and Jingling James, always moving the coins around in his pocket. They’d stay drinking all night if anyone would keep serving them.

‘Don’t you have homes to go to?’

It was the nightly routine, almost a comedy act after so long. They drained their glasses, said their goodnights and then the bar was empty. She locked the door, drew down the bolts and let out a long sigh. Glasses to wash, woodwork and brass to polish.

Better get started, she thought. The work’s not going to do itself.

Up a little after three to supervise the baking in the kitchen at the other end of the yard. The last day before Christmas, orders to fill, plenty of demand; the shops would be little goldmines today. And the Victoria would be packed from the time the factories closed.

Gossiping with the girls as they all worked together, mixing, kneading, baking, the smell of fresh loaves filling the air and making her hungry. Back in the rooms over the pub she made breakfast.

This was what hurt most: the silence. There used to be so much laughter here when Harry was alive. It seemed like there was always something to set them off. Now just being here was oppressive, all the weight of ghosts around her.

Dan the barman and Ellen the barmaid were already working hard with polish when she went downstairs. Sleeves rolled up and plenty of elbow grease, they’d be done soon enough. Nothing for her to do here. The dray from the brewery was due at ten, but Dan could take care of that.

Annabelle put on her cape and picked up her purse. Go into town and have a poke around the shops. An hour or two away might perk her up. But there was no magic in December this year. The pavements were full of people jostling around, weighed down by packages and bags. She felt removed from it all. The displays in the windows of the Grand Pygmalion didn’t make her want to part with her money. She was low, she knew it; a lovely gown or a good hat could usually tempt her. Today, though, there was nothing. No cheer.

Even a stop at the cocoa house for something warm to drink and a slice of cake didn’t help her mood. She trailed back out along North Street, through the Leylands and past the little park, back along to Sheepscar.

Soon enough the Victoria was busy, and it would stay that way until she called time. She took her place behind the bar, smiling, flirting the way she always had, and for a few minutes at least she could forget why she hurt inside.

‘Give over,’ she told one man who insisted he’d be a good husband. ‘I’d wear you out in one night, then I’d have to send you home to your missus.’ It brought laughter. As she walked around, collecting glasses, she brushed hands away, giving the culprits a look. It was all part of running a pub. A game; if you played it well, you were successful.  And she had the knack.

Annabelle promised old Jonas free beer for the evening if he played the piano in the corner, and soon half the customers were singing along the favourites from the music hall. It gave her a chance to breathe and Dan could look at the barrels.

By eleven she’d had enough. The pub was still busy, the till was overflowing. But all the noise made her head ache. She needed some peace and quiet for a while. She wanted the place empty.

‘Come on.’ She rang the old school bell she kept under the bar, next to the cudgel for sorting out the unruly. ‘Time for you lot to see your families. They probably don’t believe you exist.’

Slowly, the crowd thinned. Another five minutes and it was down to the usual four still standing and supping. Donald the Steel Man, Willie Hailsham, Jingling James, and Harelip Harmon.

‘That’s enough,’ she told them. Her voice sounded weary. She knew it and she didn’t care. They were regulars, they’d probably been coming in here since they were old enough to peer over the bar. ‘Let’s call it a night, gentlemen, please.’

James slipped off to the privy while she was ushering the others out, wishing them merry Christmas and accepting beery kisses and hugs until they’d gone and she turned the key in the lock.

Then James was there, looking bashfully down at his boots. He was a gentle soul, a widower with grown children. Fifty, perhaps, his hair full white, jammed under his cap.

‘Are you seeing your family tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Not this year.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘They all have their plans. It’s different now, everyone’s so busy. What about you?’

‘A quiet day. Maybe it’s better that way.’

‘When my Alice died I carried on, same as I always had. The bairns were grown and gone but I still had to work and put a roof over my head.’

‘I know,’ she agreed. The everyday tasks that carried on like a machine. Without thinking, he jingled the coins in his pocket.

‘Then her birthday came around. We never made a fuss when she was alive, well, who could afford to? First we had the little ‘uns, then it didn’t seem to matter so much.’

‘We were the same,’ Annabelle said. ‘No kids, but Harry’s birthday or mine, there was still the pub to run.’

‘Any road, the year she died, on her birthday it suddenly hit me how alone I was. Not just then, but for the rest of my days. Because no one could replace Alice. I had all them years in front of me.’

‘What did you do?’ she asked.

‘I sat there at the table and made myself remember all the good things. How she looked when she smiled, how she sounded when she laughed. The way she were pretty as a picture when we got wed. I said it all like she were sitting there and I was talking to her.’

‘Did it help?’

‘It did. I can tell you’re feeling that way. I can see it in your eyes. I just thought it might help.’ He gave her a smile and bussed her cheek.

‘You said you’re not going anywhere tomorrow?’ Annabelle said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Come round for your tea. It won’t be anything special, mind.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ll probably sick of my own company by then anyway.’

Maybe making an effort would help. Even a small one.

She locked the door behind him, hearing the jingling of his coins as he walked down the street.

1890 – An Annabelle Harper Christmas Story

It’s the next-to-last of the Christmas stories. I hope you’re enjoying them. I realise that charity has been a theme in them, along with compassion. No regrets about that. It’s right for the season. Meanwhile, take time over your tea and coffee and mince piece while you look at this. Thank you.

‘Excuse me, luv, do you have one like that in a plum colour?’ Annabelle Harper pointed at the hat on display behind the counter. It was soft blue wool, with a small crown and a wide brim, decorated with a long white feather and trailing lace meant to tie under the chin.

The shop assistant smiled.

‘I’m afraid not, madam. We only have what’s on display. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She put down her purchases, stockings, bloomers, garters, and a silk blouse. ‘I’ll just take those, please.’

Be polite to everyone, that’s what her mother had said when she was younger, and it was a rule Annabelle had lived by. It cost nothing, and a little honey always ensured good service.

The Grand Pygmalion was packed with people shopping. Women on their own, with a servant along to carry purchases, wives with long-suffering husbands who looked as if they’d rather be off enjoying a drink somewhere.

Four floors, two hundred people to help the customers, wonderful displays of goods. It just seemed to grow busier and busier each year. But it was the only real department store in Leeds. She waited as the girl totted up the totals.

‘I have an account here, luv.’

She saw the quick flicker of doubt and gave a kind smile. Couldn’t blame the lass. She didn’t sound like the type of person with the money to shop here. Then the gaze took in her clothes and jewellery and the girl nodded.

‘Of course, madam. What name is it?’

‘Mrs. Annabelle Harper. The address is the Victoria public house on Roundhay Road.’

Everything neatly packed and tied into a box, she walked out on to Boar Lane. A fortnight until Christmas and it was already cold. Bitter. A wind whistled along the street from the west. All around her she could hear people with their wet, bronchitic coughs. It’d probably snow soon enough, she thought.

Omnibuses, trams, carts and barrows moved along the road, a constant clang of noise. On the corner with Briggate, by the Ball-Dyson clock, a Salvation Army brass band was playing, their trumpets and tubas competing against the vehicles and the street sellers crying their goods.

She pulled the coat closer around her body as she walked, clutching the reticule tight in her hand. Plenty of crime this time of year. Married to a detective inspector, she couldn’t help but hear about it. And she had enough cash with her for something special; she didn’t want to lose that.

Strolling up towards the Headrow, all the lights in the shops were already glowing. Only three and it was almost dark. Roll on spring, she thought, then stopped herself. Never wish the days away. Who used to say that? She racked her brain. Come on, Annabelle told herself, you’re not old enough to forget things yet.

Then it came. Old Ellie Emsworth at Bank Mill. Annabelle was ten, she’d been at the mill a year, working as a doffer, still too young to be on the machines. Six days a week, twelve hours a day for not even two bob a week when all she wanted to be was out there, away from it all. Ellie had worked the loom all her life. She was probably no more than thirty-five but she looked old, worn-down.

‘I know you don’t like it here,’ Ellie had said to her one day as they ate their dinner. Bread and dripping for Annabelle, all her family could afford. ‘But don’t go wishing the days away. They pass quick enough, lass. Soon you’ll wish you had them back.’

                She smiled. For a moment she could almost hear Ellie’s voice, rough as lye soap.

                People pressed around her as she walked, some of them smiling with all the joy of the season, others glum and po-faced. Christmas, she thought. They’d never had the money to make a proper do of it when she was little. As soon as she had a little, after she’d married the landlord of the Victoria, she’d given presents and spent all she could afford.

                Even the Christmas after he died, she’d been determined to put on a brave face. A big meal for friends, presents that saw their eyes shine. It made her happy.

                And now she had Tom. She had the wedding ring on her finger and she felt happier than she had in a long, long time. This was going to be their first married Christmas and she was going to buy him something he’d never forget. A new suit. A beautiful new suit.

                Along New Briggate, across from the Grand Theatre, the buildings were bunched together. Business on top of business as the floor climbed to the sky. Photographers, an insurance agent, gentleman’s haberdasher. You name it, it was all there if you looked hard enough.

                The girl stood in the doorway of number fifteen, a broken willow basket at her feet. At first Annabelle’s glance passed over her. Then she looked again. For a moment she was taken back twenty years. She was ten again and staring at Mary Loughlin. They’d gone to school together, started at the mill together, laughed and played whenever they had chance. The same flyaway red hair that the girl had tried to capture in a sober bun. The same pale blue eyes and freckles over the cheeks. The same shape of her face.

                ‘Wreath, ma’am?’ The girl held it out, a poor thing of ivy and holly wrapped around a think branch of pine. ‘It’s only a shilling,’ she said hopefully.

                Her wrist was thin, the bones sticking out, and her fingers were bare, the nails bitten down to the quick, flesh bright pink from the cold. An old threadbare coat and clogs that looked to be too small for her feet.

                ‘What’s your name, luv?’

                The girl blushed.

                ‘Please ma’am, it’s Annabelle.’

                For a second she couldn’t breathe, putting a hand to her neck. Then, very gently she shook her head.

                ‘Your mam’s called Mary, isn’t she?’

                The girl’s eyes widened. She stared, frightened, tongue-tied, biting her lower lip. Finally she managed a nod.

                ‘She was, ma’am, yes.’

                ‘Was? Is she dead?’

                ‘Yes, ma’am. Three year back.’

                Annabelle lowered her head and wiped at her face with the back of her gloves.

                ‘I’m sorry, luv,’ she said after a while. ‘Now, how much are these wreaths?’

                ‘A shilling, ma’am.’

                ‘And how many do you have?’

                ‘Ten.’

                She scrambled in her purse and brought out two guineas.

                ‘That looks like the right change to me.’ She placed them in the girl’s hand. Before she let go of the money, she asked, ‘What was your mother’s surname before she wed, Annabelle?’

                ‘Loughlin, ma’am.’

                ‘I tell you what. There’s that cocoa house just across from the theatre, Annabelle Loughlin. I’d be honoured if you’d let me buy you a cup. You look perished.’

                The girl’s fingers closed around the money. She look mystified, scared, as if she couldn’t believe this was happening.

                ‘Did your mam ever tell you why she called you Annabelle?’

                ‘Yes ma’am.’ For the first time, the girl smiled. ‘She said it was for someone she used to know when she was little.’

                Mrs. Harper leaned forward. Very quietly she said,

                ‘There’s something I’d better tell you. I’m the Annabelle you’re named for.’

She sipped a mug of cocoa as she watched the girl eat. A bowl of stew with a slice of bread to sop up all the gravy, then two pieces of cake. But what she seemed to love most was the warmth of the place. Young Annabelle kept stopping and looking around her, gazing at the people and what they had on their plates.

                She was twelve, she said. Two older brothers, both of them working, and two younger, one eight and still at school, the other almost ten and at Bank Mill.

                ‘What does he do there?’

                ‘He’s a doffer,’ the girl said and Annabelle smiled.

                ‘That’s what your mam and I did when we started. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and went into service.’

                ‘But you’re rich,’ the girl said, then reddened and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

                ‘I’ve got a bob or two,’ she agreed. ‘I was lucky, that’s all.’ The girl finished her food. ‘Do you want more?’

                ‘No ma’am. Thank you.’

                ‘And don’t be calling me ma’am,’ she chided gently. ‘It makes me feel old. I’m Annabelle, the same as you. Mrs. Harper if you want to be formal.’

                ‘Yes, Mrs. Harper.’

                ‘What does you da do, luv?’

                ‘He’s dead.’ There was a sudden bleakness in her voice. ‘Two years before my mam. So me and Tommy, he’s the oldest, we look after everything.’

                Annabelle waved for the bill and counted out the money to pay as the girl watched her.

                ‘What work do you do? When you’re not selling wreaths, I mean.’

                ‘This and that ma’a – Mrs. Harper.’

                ‘And nothing that pays much?’ The girl shook her head. ‘You still live on the Bank?’

                ‘On Bread Street.’

                ‘Can you find your way down to Sheepscar?’

                ‘Course I can.’ For a second the bright, cheeky spark she remembered in Mary flew.

                ‘Good, because there’s a job down there if you want one. I own a pub and a bakery down there, and someone left me in the lurch.’ The girl just stared at her. ‘It’s not charity, you’ll have to work hard and if you’re skive you’ll be out on your ear. But I give a fair day’s pay for a fair days’ graft. What do you say?’

                For a second the girl was too stunned to answer. Then the words seemed to tumble from her mouth.

                ‘Yes. Thanks you ma’am. Mrs. Harper, I mean. Thank you.’

                Annabelle looked her up and down.

                ‘If you’re anything like your mam you’ll be a grand little worker.’

                ‘I’ll do my best. Honest I will.’

                ‘I know, luv. You’re going to need some new clothes. And I daresay the rest of your lot could use and bits and bobs, too.’ She took a five pound from her purse and laid it on the table. ‘That should do it.’ The girl just stared at the money. ‘Don’t be afraid of it,’ Annabelle told her. ‘It won’t bite. You buy what you need.’

                ‘Do you really mean it?’ The words were barely more than a whisper.

                ‘I do.’ She grinned. ‘When I saw you, it was like looking at Mary all over again. Took me right back. You’re just as bonny as she was.’ She stood, the girl quickly following. ‘You be at Harper’s Bakery at six tomorrow morning. Mrs. Harding’s the manager, tell her I took you on. I’ll be around later.’

                ‘Yes, Mrs. Harper. And…thank you.’

                ‘No need, luv. Just work hard, that’s all I need. You get yourself off to the Co-op and buy what you need.’

                The girl had the money clenched tight in her small fist. At the door, before she turned away, she said,

                ‘Mrs. Harper?’

                ‘Yes, luv?’

                ‘Sometime, will you tell me what my mam was like when she was young?’

                ‘You know what? I’d be very happy to do that.’

                She watched the girl skip off down the street. Who’d have thought it, Mary calling her lass Annabelle? She shook her head and looked up at the clock. A little after four. She still had time to go to that tailor’s on North Street and order Tom a new suit for his Christmas present.

Family – An Annabelle Harper Christmas Story

Leeds, December 1889

It was still dark when she finished the baking, and bitter outside the kitchen. She washed the flour from her hands, walked through the yard and unlocked gate that led to Roundhay Road. The draymen would arrive soon enough, the sharp sound of hooves as the horses stopped outside the Victoria. She peeked out into the street. The air was winter-heavy and wet with soot.

            It was early but there were already men out walking, on their way to jobs in the boot factories and tanneries, the mills and breweries. The gas lamps offered a faint glow. She turned and caught the silhouette of someone crouched on the doorstep of the pub.

            Someone small. A boy.

            “Waiting for something, luv?” Annabelle Atkinson asked as she crossed her arms. “We’ll not be open for two hours yet.”

            “I’m just sitting,” the lad answered. She could hear the cold in his voice. As she came closer, she was that his face was grubby and he was only wearing a thin shirt and a pair of ragged trousers that left his calves bare, his shoes were held together with pieces of string. He wasn’t local, she was certain of that. Annabelle knew everyone around Sheepscar, each man, woman and child. “No law agin it, is there?” he asked.

            “Not if you want to stay there,” she told him. “Warmer inside, though. The oven’s going. Cup of tea. Maybe even breakfast if you’re not too cheeky.”

            He was torn, it was plain on his face. The boy was thin as a stick and didn’t look as if he’d had a full meal in days. She didn’t say anything more, deliberately turning away to stare back up the road towards the endless streets of back-to-back houses and factories. December. It would be a good while yet before it was light. As light as it ever became when the air was filled with fog and smoke.

            When she looked again he was there, standing close, expectant and wary.

            “You’re not having me on, missus?”

            “No, luv, in you go.” She watched him run through the yard and into the kitchen. By the time she entered he was already standing by the oven, hands outstretched, soaking in the heat. She didn’t have any bairns of her own. Her husband had been older, then he’d died and she’d taken over running the pub. However it had happened, she’d never caught. Now she was courting again, a man called Tom Harper, a copper of all things, a detective inspector, set to wed next year if she could ever persuade him to pop the question.

            She cut two doorsteps of bread, buttered them thickly and placed them on the table in front of him. Before he could grab one she took hold of his tiny wrist and said,

            “You’re not eating with those filthy paws. Get them under the tap. Your face, too. We’re not short on soap.”

            He returned, skin scrubbed and glowing, grabbing the food before she could say anything more. Annabelle brewed tea, one cup for herself, another for him, milky, with plenty of sugar.

            “What’s your name?” she asked.

            “Henry, missus,” he answered with his mouth full.

            “You can call me Annabelle. Where are you from? I’ve not seen you around before.”

            “Me and me da just moved here two day back. We was living in Morley, then me mam and me sister got ill and died and me da started drinking and lost his job so we had to leave.” The words arrived in a rush. “He thought we might do better up here.”

            She smiled softly. The lad couldn’t be more than eight. But what had happened to him was no more than had happened in so many families.

            “We’d best get you home then, Henry. Your da’ll be worried. Get some food in you and I’ll walk you back.”

            “He din’t wake up yesterday, missus.” He said the words flatly.

            “What do you mean, pet?”

            “He’d had a few drinks the night before so I thought he were asleep. I knew he’d belt me if I tried to wake him up, so I left. When I got back the door were locked and he din’t answer. I don’t know anyone round here so I din’t know where to go.”

            “Right,” she said after a minute. “You tell me where you live, Henry and I’ll go and see your Da.” Emma the barmaid came into the kitchen, raising her eyebrows at the sight of the child. “Can you make him something hot?” Annabelle asked. “Bacon and eggs, whatever we’ve got. Poor little sod’s perishing. And see he gets a bath after. I’m off to see his Da.”

            “Are you posh, missus?” Henry asked, looking at the servant in awe.

            “No, luv,” Annabelle laughed. “I’m not.”

Armenia Grove ended in a big stone wall at the back of the dyeworks. A little further along, Gipton beck ran along past the school, down to the mill pond. Number six was the same as its neighbours, all blackened brick and rotting woodwork, the front door opening as the turned the handle. Henry and his father had the upstairs room at the front, the boy had told her. Locked, just he’d said. She knocked but there was no reply.

            Back on the street, Annabelle caught a glimpse of Bert Hardwick and shouted him over before he could duck out of sight.

            “There’s a door I need opening,” she said.

            He gave her a sheepish glance. “I don’t do that kind of thing no more. I’m over at the brick works now. It’s steady, like.”

            She shook her head. “I don’t want to take owt. Just work the lock for me.”

            It only took him a few seconds, working with the tip of his pocket knife. Before she could enter, he’d vanished, boots hammering down the stairs. Men, she thought. All bloody useless.

            Rags covered the window, blocking out the first light. But she could still see the shape on the floor, huddled under a threadbare blanket. Annabelle spoke his name but he didn’t stir. She reached out to touch his cheek then recoiled with a gasp as soon as her fingers felt his cold skin.

            Quietly, she left the house.

Dan the barman was emptying the spittoons and polishing the tables. She asked him to find the beat bobby and take him to the house on Armenia Grove.

            “He’ll know what to do.”

            She brightened her expression and walked through to the kitchen. Henry was sitting in front of the oven, wearing nothing more than a large towel. Emma had stoked up the fire and washed his clothes; they were strung up on the wooden rack, steaming as they dried.

            “You look better all cleaned up,” she told him. “Right handsome.”

            “Did you find my Da, missus?”

            “I did.” She stood by the chair and took hold of his hand. “What’s his Christian name?”

            “Edward,” the boy answered. “But everyone calls him Ted.” Worry flashed across his eyes. “Why, missus?”

            She gazed at him for a moment.

            “I don’t know how to tell you, Henry, so I’ll just do it straight. Your father’s dead. It looks like he passed away in his sleep. I’m sorry.”

            His grip tightened.

            “But…” he began, then the words failed him. He began to cry and she cradled him close, rocking him softly until the tears turned to slow hiccoughs.

“Tom, you’ve got to help him.”

            He’d arrived after work, close to eight on a dreary evening, exhausted and dirty. He’d ended up chasing a pickpocket out to Marsh Lane, finally bringing him down in the mud that passed for road there. She’d kept a plate warm in the oven for him, the way she always did, hoping he’d visit on the way back to his lodgings.

            “Where is he now?” Inspector Harper asked.

            “Fast asleep, poor little perisher.” She smoothed the silk gown and with a satisfied sigh, let down her hair so it fanned over her shoulders. The mutter of voices came from the bar downstairs. “He’s all cried out. I finally got him to tell me that his mother’s sister lives in Morley. She’s Temperance, so after his ma died, she wouldn’t have anything to do with his father because he was a drinker. What do you think? Maybe she’d take him in.”

            “Maybe. What’s her name?”

            “Molly Wild.”

            “I can get in touch with the station down there. Someone will let her know. I can’t promise. What about the father?”

            “Burial tomorrow up at Beckett Street.”

            He shook his head. “You’re paying?”

            “Guinea grace,” she told him. “Come on, Tom. He needs to be able to remember his da, doesn’t he?’

            “Yes,” he answered slowly. “I suppose so.”

            “It’s only money. I have the brass for that.”

Two days passed before the woman arrived. Annabelle had set Henry to work, washing glasses and helping with small tasks in the kitchen. He was an eager little worker, humming as he did whatever he was told. Only when the memories caught up with him would his face crumple and the tears begin. She fed him well and tucked him into the spare bed every night, watching from the doorway until he was asleep.

            “There’s a woman outside wanting to talk to you,” Sad Andrew told her as he entered the Victoria. It was a little after ten in the morning, the fog thick as twilight.

            “Tell her to come in, then,” she said. “I’m right here.”

            “She says she won’t come into a public house.” He mimicked a prim voice and Annabelle sighed, drying her raw hands on an old cloth before pulling a shawl around her shoulders and pasting a smile on her face.

            A horse and cart stood at the curb, driven by a man with hunched shoulders and a defeated expression. The woman had climbed down, glancing at the pub with a critical eye. Her bonnet was black, her gown a plain charcoal grey, button boots peeking from the hem.

            “You must be Mrs.Wild.”

            “I am,” she replied with a sniff.

            “I’m Mrs. Atkinson.” The woman’s gaze moved to Annabelle’s hand, no ring on the third finger. “I’m a widow.”

            “I see.” Her tone was disapproving. “The police came,” she said as if it was the most humiliating thing that could have happened. “They said Henry’s here and that his father’s dead.”

            “That’s right. Do you want to see him?”

            The woman stepped back as if she’d been slapped.

            “I would never set foot on licensed premises.”

            “Then I’m glad not everyone’s like you,” Annabelle said, smiling to take the sting from her words. “I’d be out of business in a week.”

            “Was it the drink that killed my sister’s husband?”

            “I don’t know, luv. All I did was take the boy in and see that his father was buried. But now you’re here, I’m sure Henry will be glad to have a home with you.”

            “We already have five children.”

            “Then you’ll hardly notice another.” She tried to make her voice light.

            “We have good, God-fearing children.”

            “You’ll love Henry. He’s a wonderful little lad.” She paused for a heartbeat. “He’s your own flesh and blood. Your sister’s boy.”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Tell me something,” Annabelle said. “You strike me as someone who likes to live by the Bible.”

            “Of course we do.” Mrs. Wild lifted her head.

            “Then what does it say in there about looking after those in need?”

            “Don’t you go quoting that to me!” the woman bristled. “I’ll not have that from someone who runs a place like this.”

            “What about someone who took your nephew in when he had nowhere else to go and arranged his father’s burial?” It didn’t matter who the woman was or what Annabelle needed from her. No one was going to speak to her that way. “Or doesn’t that count because I own a pub?”

            The man on the cart turned.

            “Just bring the lad out, missus.” He glared at his wife. “Don’t worry, we’ll look after him proper, won’t we, Molly? Like you said, he’s family.”

She stood on the doorstep of the Victoria, watching them drive away until they vanished into the fog. Henry had clung to her, not wanting to leave, crying once again as his aunt looked on, hawk-faced.

            But it was for the best, she told herself. They were family.

A Tom Harper December Tale

For today, a little sidestep from Annabelle to her husband Tom.

He finally found the woman at half-past five on a cold December evening. She was sitting on the pavement, knees clasped against her chest like a small child. Right there on Briggate, in the very centre of Leeds, people moved around her without noticing, without caring, just an impediment as they made their way home.

                Detective Inspector Tom Harper bent down next to her.

                ‘Ada?’ he asked and she turned her head slowly, as if she’d been off and away, thinking of other things.

                ‘Hello luv,’ she said. ‘Do I know you?’

                ‘No,’ he told her with a smile, ‘but everyone’s been looking for you. Do you think you can stand up?’

It had started twelve hours before, when a woman had dashed out of her house off St. Peter’s Place. Not even light yet but she was yelling, ‘Mam! Mam! Where are you?’ until the copper on the beat came running.

                ‘You’ll have the whole street up,’ he told her. ‘What’s the matter? Where’s Ada gone?’

                ‘If I knew I wouldn’t be shouting for her, would I?’ She gave him a withering look and started to shiver. Just a thin dress with a shawl caught around her shoulders to keep out the winter cold. No stockings, just a pair of clogs on her bare feet. ‘I woke up and looked in on her and she’d gone.’

                He looked at her. Constable Earnshaw had been fifteen years on the force, the last five of them around here. It was a poor area, no more than a loud shout from the nick down at Millgarth. Filled with rooming houses, the Mission, a run-down Turkish bathhouse in among the back-to-backs. Too many people crammed into houses that needed to be torn down. But it was what they could afford.

                ‘Outhouse?’ he asked.

                ‘I already looked,’ Millie Walker told him. She shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to cry. ‘She’s gone again.’

                The first time had been the year before. Ada Taylor was old, half-blind, spending more hours lost in the past than she did in the present. She talked to her husband, dead for nigh on twenty years, as if she could see him right there in the room, and to Dollie, Millie’s younger sister who hadn’t lived past the age of eight. Sometimes she was fine, making as much sense as anyone, cackling with the other women who gathered on the doorsteps and gossiped. But when her mind slipped, no one knew how long before it would return. Or even if it would come back.

                Everyone in the area kept an eye out for her, leading her back home if she began to wander. One day, though, she managed to just disappear, gone for an hour as people searched, until they found her down by Marsh Lane, standing and talking to someone that no other person could see, calling him granddad, listening to the answers only she could hear.

                There’d been two other occasions since. Once at the start of spring, when someone finally spotted her over on Kirkgate, so soaked after a heavy shower of rain that Millie was scared her mother would take a chill and die. Then in the summer when she ended up on the river bank – and God only knew how she’d walked so far with bad knees and swollen ankles – just sitting with her legs dangling and smiling up at the blue sky.

                This time, though, there was no telling how long she’d been gone.

                ‘I felt the sheets in her bed,’ Millie said, ‘and they were cold. Like ice.’ She was trying to keep her face steady and her voice strong. The weather had been bitter the last few days, she could almost taste the snow in the air, along with all the soot and the stink.

                ‘You get the people out around here,’ Earnshaw told her. ‘Go all around. I’ll get the bobbies out.’ He waited until she gave him a short nod then turned on his heel and dashed away.

Detective Inspector Tom Harper was at the station just before the shift changed at six. All the night men looking ready for their beds, faces red with the cold. And the ones on days looking glum at the idea of twelve hours out in the weather.

                ‘Sir?’

                He looked up, setting aside the report he was writing.

                ‘Morning, Victor. Time to go home for you, isn’t it?’

                They knew each other; Earnshaw had shown him some of the ropes when he’d been a recruit, in the days when he’d been too eager to please and believed everything anyone told him. The older man had helped him quickly rub off some of the green and give him an edge.

                ‘Not this morning, sir. I’ve got something. And old woman who’s vanished in the night. She’s a bit, well, you know.’

                ‘How long’s she been gone?’

                ‘Anytime up to eight hours, sir. That’s the problem. She’s done it before, an’ all.’ He explained quickly, giving a short description of the woman. ‘I thought I’d go back and help out if I can.’

                ‘What do you need?’

                ‘I know you get out and about. If you can pass the word, please, sir. I’ve let Sergeant Tollman know. Everyone’s going to be watching for her.’

                ‘I will,’ Harper promised.

                ‘Bless you, sir. A few of the lads are going to come with me. Happen we’ll find her soon.’

By dinnertime there was no sign of her.

                Harper had had a full morning trying to track a thief who’d broken into at least twenty houses. He had the man’s name, but he’d gone to ground somewhere, nowhere to be found. It was a time to go around the pubs and corners, to ask his quiet questions and mention Ada Taylor as he was leaving. Half the men he talked to couldn’t care – they could trip over her and not give a damn – but others nodded with serious eyes. They remembered their mams and their nanas.

                To make it worse, he was working alone; Sergeant Reed was in court, giving evidence in a fraud case and likely to be there all day and half the next.

                At three the word reached him. The man he wanted was hiding in an empty cellar on Commercial Street. Sold out for three shillings, and the inspector paid it gladly.

                The only way in was a set of steps off Packhorse Yard. At the top he took a deep breath and moved as quietly as possible, keeping one hand against the wall to steady himself. Under his boots he could feel the stone, greasy and slick. One slip and he’d tumble all the way down.

                The door at the bottom was pulled to, but gave when he pushed lightly on it. The day was already near dusk, the light dim. Inside it would be black.

                God alone knew what the man had in there to protect himself. And all detectives carried were their police whistles. It was going to be bluff.

                With a kick, he rattled the door back off the wall.

                ‘Police, Jem.’ He let his voice ring out. ‘I’ve got three coppers out here who are cold and angry. They wouldn’t mind warming themselves up on you. It’s your choice.’

                If he’d been given the wrong information he’d look a right bloody fool. And he’d be getting his money back from someone, no mistake on that.

                He waited, flexing his hands into fists. Ready. Harper knew his hearing was poor, all down to a blow six years before. The man could be creeping across the floor right now and he might not even know it.

                Then the face was there in the doorway. Dirty, hair ragged, a weeping sore filling one cheek. The inspector grabbed him, turned the man against the wall and snapped on the handcuffs on tight.

                One thing done, at least.

Writing out the report took an hour, but at least there was a good coal fire burning in the office. No sign of Ada Taylor, though. The word that she was still missing had rippled through the station. He could only imagine the thoughts going through her daughter’s mind.

                Ten past five and the door opened suddenly, Tollman peering through.

                ‘Disturbance, sir. Corner of Briggate and Boar Lane. Sounds like they need all the help they can get.’

                Harper ran full pelt, but it was still four full minutes to reach the scene. Traffic was stopped, omnibuses, carts, and trams all one behind the other. There had to be fifteen coppers already there, truncheons out, herding two groups of youths apart and cracking a head or two. All over bar the shouting and the arrests.

                In the December darkness it was time to call it a night. And that was when he saw Ada Taylor.

                He helped her up. She was cold, shaky, but she could shuffle along if she clung tight to his arm.

                ‘You’re like Bert,’ she told him with a coy expression. For a moment the years parted and he could see the pretty young girl she’d been so long ago. ‘You should have seen Bert. He was good-looking, too. I should never have turned him away for Eddie. I’d have had handsome children then.’

                The cocoa house was nearby. He helped her inside and bought her a cup, watching as she gazed around the place, not saying a word, drinking with dainty sips.

                ‘Come on, we’d better get you home,’ he said finally. ‘Your daughter must be beside herself with worry.’

                ‘I can see your fortune,’ Ada said. It came out of the blue and took him by surprise. The voice didn’t even sound like hers. It was darker, graver, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Her eyes seemed to be staring at something far away. ‘You’re never going to be a rich man unless you do one thing.’

                He’d play along, he thought. Who knew what was going on inside her head?

                ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

                But as quickly as it arrive, the moment passed. The confusion had returned to her face.

                ‘Who are you again?’ she asked, sounding like an old woman once more.

                ‘Someone who’s getting you home. There’s bound to be a hackney outside. You fancy a ride in that, Mrs. Taylor?’

It was the best part of seven o’clock before he climbed the stairs at the Victoria. A long day, but then they all were. Still, he had a thief ready to go to trial and there was someone back with her family. He’d experienced worse.

                ‘Tom?’ Annabelle called from the kitchen as he opened the door.

                He walked in and put his arms around her.

                ‘Busy day?’ he asked.

                ‘No more than usual. You look all in.’ She stroked his hair.

                ‘It was interesting,’ he said. ‘I almost found out how to be rich.’

                ‘What?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Don’t be so daft. What on earth are you talking about?’

                He smiled.

                ‘Honestly,’ he told her, ‘I wish I knew.’

If you like this, there are 11 books in the Tom Harper series, running from 1890-1920, as much about him, his family and Leeds as about crime. The first few are dead cheap on Kindle. Why not treat yourself (or someone else?). Find Gods of God, where it begins, right here.

Chance Encounter – An Annabelle Harper Story

Leeds, 1896

Annabelle Harper had gone five paces past the man before she stopped. There were beggars everywhere in Leeds, as common as shadows along the street. But something about this face flickered in her mind and lit up a memory. He was despondent, at his wits’ end, but unlike so many, he wasn’t trying to become invisible against the stones, to disappear into the fabric of the city. He might not like he was happy about it, but the man was very much alive. She stopped abruptly, turned on her heel in a swish of crinoline and marched back until she was standing over him, shopping bags dangling from her hands. It was the last day of February, a sun shining that almost felt like spring.

                ‘You, you’re Tommy Doohan, aren’t you?’

                Very slowly, as if it was a great effort, he raised his head. He’d been staring down at the pavement between his legs.

                ‘I am,’ he answered. His voice was weary, a broad Leeds accent with just the smallest hint of Ireland, easy to miss unless you were familiar with it. He stared up at her, baffled, with his one good eye, the other no more than a small, dark cavern above his cheek. ‘And who might you be? You don’t look familiar.’

                ‘Annabelle Harper,’ the woman replied. ‘Little Annabelle, when you knew me. Back on Leather Street where we were little.’

                His smile was weak. He looked as if the entire weight of the city had pressed down on him and left him small and broken. It had dropped him in this spot

                ‘That was a long time ago.’

                His suit had probably been reasonably smart once. Good, heavy wool, but the black colour had turned dusty and gritty from sitting so long. Cuffs and trouser hems frayed, threads hanging to the ground. Up close, she could see the grime on his shirt, no collar, no tie. The shine had long vanished from his shoes. He was bare-headed, his hair dark, growing wild and unruly. His cap sat upside-down between his thighs. In a rough, awkward attempt at copperplate, the cardboard sign propped against it read: But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you.

                ‘Luke,’ she said. ‘Chapter eleven, verse forty-one.’ Annabelle grinned. They’d been in the same class at Mount St. Mary’s School. ‘The nuns must have rapped my knuckles a dozen times over that one. Sister Marguerite would be happy it finally stuck.’

                ‘Ah, she did the same to me as well. Twenty times, at least. But they’d have a harder time doing that now.’ He held up his right arm, the hand missing two fingers and the thumb.

                Annabelle took a slow, deep breath.

                ‘My God, Tommy, what happened?’

                ‘Just a little fight with a machine,’ he said wryly. ‘I think I won, though. You should have seen the machine when we finished.’

                ‘How can you-’ she began, then closed her mouth. She knew the answer deep in her bones. You laughed about it to stop the pain. You joked, because if you didn’t you’d fall off the world and never find your way back. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of tea.’

                ‘I can’t let a woman pay for me.’

                She dropped the bags and stood, hands on her hips, face set.

                ‘You can and you will, Tommy Doohan. Get off your high horse. You’d have been happy enough if I’d put a tanner in your cap. Now, up on your feet.’ She looked along the Upper Head Row and across down Lands Lane. ‘We’re going to that place over there. And I’m not taking no for an answer.’

                For a moment he didn’t move. But her voice had a razor edge, and he pushed himself to his feet, scooping a couple of pennies and farthing from the cap before he jammed it on his head.

                He was tall, towering a good nine inches above her. Close to, he smelt of dirt and decay, as if he might be dying from the inside.

                ‘I’d carry your bags for you, but one of the paws doesn’t work so well.’

                ‘Give over,’ she told him, and his mouth twitched into a real smile.

He cradled the mug, as if he was relishing the warmth, only letting go to eat the toasted teacake she’d ordered for him. When he was done, he wiped the butter from his mouth with the back of a grimy hand, then felt in his pocket for a tab end.

                They’d been silent, but now Annabelle said: ‘Go on, Tommy, what happened to you?’

                ‘When I was sixteen, I headed over to Manchester to try my luck. Me and my brother Donald, do you remember him?’

                She had the faint recollection of someone a little older, tousle-haired and laughing.

                ‘What could you do there that you couldn’t here?’

                ‘It was different, wasn’t it?’ he said bitterly. ‘I’d been a mechanic down at Black Dog Mill, I could fix things, and Donny, well, he was jack of all trades.’ He smoked, then stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray in quick jabs. ‘We did all right, I suppose. One of the cotton mills there took him on, made him a foreman, earning fair money.’

                ‘What about you?’

                ‘Down at the docks. Long hours, but it was a decent wage. Lots of machines to look after. I met a lass, got wed, had ourselves a couple of kiddies.’

                ‘I’ve got one, too. A little girl.’

                Doohan cocked his head.

                ‘What does your husband do? You look well off.’

                ‘You’ll never credit it.’ She laughed. ‘He’s a bobby. A detective inspector. And I own a pub. The Victoria down in Sheepscar.’

                He let out a low whistle. ‘You’ve turned into a rich woman.’

                ‘We get by,’ Annabelle said. ‘Anyway, what about your family?’

                ‘Gone,’ he told her bleakly. ‘About two years back I was working on this crane, you know, hauling stuff out of the boats. The mechanism has jammed. I almost had it fixed when the cable broke. It’s as thick as your arm, made from metal strands. Took the fingers before I even knew it, and a piece flew off into my eye.’ He shrugged. ‘I was in the hospital for a long time. Came out, no job. They told me that since I didn’t have two full hands, I wasn’t able to do the work anymore. Goodbye, thank you, and handed me two quid to see me on my way like I should be grateful.’

                ‘Where was your wife?’

                ‘Upped sticks and scarpered with my best mate as soon as someone told her I wasn’t going to be working. Took the children with her. I tried looking round for them for a long time, but I couldn’t find hide nor hair. Finally I thought I’d come back to Leeds. I might have a bit more luck here.’ He sighed. ‘You can see how that turned out. On me uppers on the Head Row. Begging to get a bed.’ He spat out the sentence.

‘Couldn’t your brother help?’ Annabelle asked.

‘Donald was married, and he and his brood had gone off to Liverpool. He has his own life, it wouldn’t be fair. Me mam and dad are dead, but there are a few relatives who slip me a little something.’

She stayed silent for a long time, twisting the wedding ring back and forth around her finger.

‘How long did you work at all this?’

‘Seventeen years,’ Doohan said with pride. ‘Ended up a supervisor before…’ He didn’t need to say more.

‘Do you know Hope Foundry? Down on Mabgate?’

‘I think I’ve seen it. Why?’

‘Fred Hope, one of the owners, he drinks in the pub. He was just saying the other day that he’s looking for engineering people. You know, to run things.’

Doohan raised his right arm with its missing fingers to his empty eye.

‘You’re forgetting these.’

‘No, I’m not. You’ve got a left hand. And your brain still works, doesn’t it?’

‘Course it does,’ he answered.

‘Then pop in and see him tomorrow. Tell him I suggested it.’

He stared at her doubtfully. ‘Are you serious about this?’

‘What do you think?’

‘He’ll say no. They always do.’

‘Happen he won’t. Fred has a good head on his shoulders. He can see more than a lot of people.’ Annabelle opened her purse and pulled out two one-pound notes. ‘Here. It’s a loan,’ she warned him. ‘Just so you can get yourself cleaned up and somewhere decent to sleep. Some food in you.’

‘I can’t.’

She pressed the money into his palm.

‘There’s no saintliness in being hungry and kipping on a bench,’ she hissed. ‘Take it.’

He closed his fingers around the paper.

‘I don’t know what to say. Thank you. I’ll pay you back.’

‘You will,’ she agreed. ‘I know where you’ll be working. And your boss is a friend of mine. Now you’d better get a move on, before the shops shut.’

‘What about…?’ He gestured at the table.

‘Call it my treat. Now, go on. Off with you.’

At the door he turned back, grinning. He seemed very solid, filling the space.

‘Is this what they mean by the old school tie?’

Forgive the self-promotion, but it’s almost Christmas and Amazon has my newest book on sale (I’d prefer you to give your money to a local bookshop but…) for a low price, hardback and Kindle. If you want to give it a try, find it here.

The Very First Annabelle Harper Story

This is where Annabelle’s story began, long before she became Annabelle Harper. Here she is, a secondary character in a story about the Leeds artist Atkinson Grimshaw and a painting of his that I love (and which is now back here). She was young, naïve, hopeful. But insistent. After this, she wouldn’t leave me alone, and insisted I tell more about the life that came well after this. Her life with Tom Harper.

She became the heart of that series, and I’m so glad she came and sat with me. I’ve changed a few details in this to line up with what would happen later, but it’s essentially the piece I wrote years ago.

More Annabelle stories to come between now and Christmas, but for now, enjoy the beginning.

On both sides of the river rows of factory chimneys stood straight and tall and silent, bricks blackened to the colour of night. Smoke was only rising from a few today, but the smell of soot was everywhere, on the breath and on the clothes. It was the shank of a December afternoon and the gas lamps were lit, dusk beginning to gather in the shadows.  Quiet with all the men on strike,

He stood and looked at the water. Where barges should be crowded against the warehouses like puppies around a teat there was nothing. Just a single boat moored in the middle of the Aire, no sails set, its masts spindly and bare as a prison hulk.

He coughed a little, took the handkerchief from his pocket and spat delicately into it.

This was the time of year when it always began, when men and women found their lungs tender, when the foul air caught and clemmed in the chest and the odour from the gasworks cut through everything so that even the bitter winter snow tasted of it.

What sun there was hung low in the west, half-hidden by clouds. A few more minutes and he’d be finished, then walk home to Knostrop, leave the stink and stench of Leeds for trees and grass and the sweet smell of fresher air. First, though, he needed to complete the sketch, to capture these moments.

Tomorrow he’d start in the studio, finding the mood that overwhelmed him now, Leeds in the still of the warehousemen’s strike, no lading, no voices shouting, no press of people and trade along the river.

“What are you doing?”

He turned. He hadn’t heard her come along the towpath. But there she was, peering over his shoulder at the lines on the pad, the shadings and simple strokes that were his shorthand.

“Drawing?”

“Sketching,” he answered with a smile as he slipped the charcoal into his jacket pocket.

“Aye, that in’t bad,” she told him with approval, reaching out a finger with the nail bitten short and rimmed with dirt. “I like that,” she said, pointing at the way he’d highlight the buildings as they vanished towards the bridge, hinting at the cuts and alleys and what lay beyond.

“Thank you.”

He studied her properly, a young woman in an old dress whose pattern had faded, then hem damp and discoloured where she’d walked across the wet grass. She wore her small, tattered hat pinned into her hair.

She was no more than twenty, he judged. But her eyes were clear and full of mischief. She hefted a bundle in front of her like a shield. At first he wondered if she was a ragpicker, done for the day; then he noticed how she cradled the bundle close and realised it was what little she owned in the world.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Anabelle, sir,” she replied with the faintest of smiles. “Me mam said she wanted summat nice around her. She’s dead now. All the dust down at Black Dog Mill killed her.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, watching the water and the sky again. In a minute the clouds would part, leaving a late glimpse of sun, pale as lemon, reflect off the river. Perhaps the last sun of the year, except for a few days when the sun would sparkle on the snow around his home. He groped for the charcoal again, holding his breath for the moment, ready to work quickly.

“My name’s Grimshaw,” he said, squinting and distracted by the light, committing it to memory. ‘Atkinson Grimshaw. It’s my middle name,” said quietly, “bit I prefer it to my Christian name.”

“Why’s that, then?”

Very quickly he fumbled in his pocket, drawing out coloured pencils and adding to the sketch, the gentle shine on the river, the colour of a fading sun mingling with the browns and greens of the dirty water, smudging with the edge of his hand, thinking, putting it all away in his memory for tomorrow when he’d sit in the studio with his paints.

“It suits me better,” he answered her finally, squinting at his work, then at the scene before adding some more touches.

“That’ll do it,” she said slowly, as he was about to add more umber to the water. “That’s it.” There was awe in her voice, as if she couldn’t believe nature could be captured that way. “It looks alive.”

“This is just preparation,” he explained. “I’ll paint it soon.”

“That what you are, then? An artist?”

“I am.”

He was a successful one, too. Whatever he put on canvas sold, almost before it had dried. For the last nineteen years it had been his living, since he broke away from the tedium of being a railway clerk, the job he thought might crush his heart. With no training and only the support of his wife, he’d known that painting could make his soul sing. These days he was a wealthy man, one who’d made art pay. Now, in 1879, they knew him all around the country.

“You must make a bob or two.”

“I get by.”

“You’ve got them good clothes and you talk posh.”

He chuckled. “I grew up in Wortley. Not as posh as you’d think. My father worked on the railways. What about you, Annabelle? Where do you live?”
“Me Da’s up on the Bank.”

He knew them, squalid back-to-backs with no grass or green, no good air, and the children ragged as tinkers’ brats.

“I’m don’t live there now. I don’t live anywhere. I had a job as a maid in one of them big houses out past Headingley.”

“Had?” He eyed her sharply.

“The son of the owner thought he had rights. I didn’t, so they turned me away. Me da won’t want me if I’m not if I’m not bringing in a wage.”

“What are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “I’ll go and see what he says, I suppose. Find something. There’s work for them as is willing to graft. At least when they turned me out they paid what they owed. I’ll not go short for a while.”

He looked down at the sketch. It caught everything well, and it would be a good painting, one to bring in a good ten pounds or more. But it was a landscape unpeopled.

“Annabelle, can you do something for me?”

“What?” she asked warily, too familiar with the ways of men.

“Just stand about ten yards down the path, that’s all.”

“Why?”

He tapped the drawing with a fingernail.

“I want to put you in this, that’s all?”

“Me?” She laughed. “Go on, you don’t want me in that.”

“I do. Please.”

She shook her head.

“You’re daft, you are.” But she still moved along the path, looking back over her shoulder. “Here?”

“Yes. Look out over the river. That’s it. Stay there.”

He was deft, seeing how she held the bundle, her bare arms, the hem of the dress high enough to show bare ankles, and a sense of longing in the way she held herself.

“I’m done,” he told her after a minute and she came back to him.

“That’s me?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Do I really look like that?”

“That’s how I see you,” he said with a smile. She kept staring at the paper.

“You’ll put that in your painting?”

“With more detail, yes.”

“Like what?”

“The pattern of the dress, things like that.”

Self-consciously she smoothed down the old material, her face suddenly proud, looking younger and less careworn. He dug into his trouser pocket, pulling out two guineas. Far too much, but she’d never know.

“This is for you.”

“What?” she asked in disbelief. “All this?”

“I’m an artist. I pay my models.”

“But I didn’t do owt. I just stood over there,” she protested.

“I sketched you, and you’ll be in the painting. That makes you my model. Here, take it.”

Almost guiltily she plucked the money from his hand, tucking it away in the pocket of her dress.

“Thank you, sir,” she said quietly. “You’ve made my day, you have.”

“As you’ve made mine, Annabelle.” He closed the sketch pad and put away the pencils and charcoal, then tipped his hat to her before walking away.

“So what is your name, then?” she asked.

“Atkinson Grimshaw.” He handed her his card. “I wish you and your baby well.”

“Me in a painting. There’s no one as’ll believe that.” She began to laugh, letting it rise into a full-throated roar, and he smiled with her.

If you’d like to know how it all continues, there are 11 books in the Tom Harper series. Pick up the tale with Gods of Gold. (the Kindle version is dead cheap here). For some of what happened in between, here’s a video, her life before she and Tom were married.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEk0ovW9dsA

A Second Richard Nottingham Story For Xmas

This is the second (and last) of the Richard Nottingham stories I’m posting in the run up to Christmas. It harks back to much earlier in the series, about the time of Cold Cruel Winter, in one of the characters. Although it’s set in summer, after Nottingham, os no longer Constable of Leeds, the ideals seem right for this time of year.

Leeds, August 1736

Two years. It always surprised him. It should be longer, he thought. It felt longer. Time past, time passing. But not so quickly now, as if someone had slowed the hands of the clock. A chance to keep memory close. To hold on to ghosts.

            Richard Nottingham stirred. The dog days of summer, brilliant light through the cracks in the shutters. He’d woken before first light, just lying in bed and letting his thoughts wander. He heard his daughter Emily leave to go and teach at her school. Then Rob Lister, her man, now the deputy constable in Leeds, had gone with his clank of keys and the solid tread of his boots across the boards. Lucy the servant moved around downstairs, opening the door to the garden and tossing the crumbs for the birds.

            Life went on.

            He poured water in the ewer and washed, then dressed in old breeches and thin woollen stockings.

The road was dusty and rutted, the hot air tight in his lungs. Sun flickering through the leaves onto the water of Sheepscar Beck. He crossed Timble Bridge and walked along Kirkgate to the Parish Church, then over the path he knew so well.

            Two years, eight months, and thirteen days since she’d been murdered.

He went to visit his wife, to talk to her, the way he did every single day, thinking of nothing in particular. Just a few minutes of conversation, a chance to hear her voice in his head, to try and make amends once more, although he already knew she forgave him.

            And then he saw it. The pieces smashed and scattered across the grass.

            For a moment he couldn’t move. It had to be a dream. Then he was on his knees, scrabbling around all the pieces, the fragments, and piecing them together on her grave until her name was Mary Nottingham once more. Beloved. Died 1733. Beside it, the memorial to their daughter Rose was intact.

            Why? Why would anyone do that? He looked around and saw that a few others had been damaged. But he didn’t care about them. Only this one.

‘You must have heard them.’

            Jeb looked after the ground, sleeping in a small shed at the back of the burying ground. He was tall, like a long streak of water, a man in his fifties, back bent, straggly hair grey and thin.

            ‘I din’t,’ the man insisted. ‘I told you.’

            He stank of ale, eyes rheumy.

            ‘For God’s sake, Jeb, someone took a hammer to that stone,’ Nottingham said in disgust. ‘And you were so drunk you never stirred.’

            His mind was raging as he strode away to the jail. The smells in the building were so familiar. But there was another man behind the desk where he once sat. Simon Kirkstall. The new constable.

            ‘Visiting old glories?’ The man had a politician’s face, smooth and shiny, the periwig clean and powdered, his long waistcoat colourful in sharp reds and yellows.

Prissy. Exact. That was how Rob had described his boss. Fractious, a know-nothing who knew everything. Nottingham had listened and commiserated, glad to be gone from the job. He’d chosen to walk away from being Constable of Leeds and never regretted his decision. The corporation had given him the house and a small pension, enough for the little he desired.

            ‘I’m here to report a crime, Mr. Kirkstall.’

            The constable picked up a quill, dipped it in the ink and waited.

            ‘What’s happened?’

            ‘Someone’s been destroying gravestones at the church.’

            Kirkstall put the pen down again.

            ‘I see.’

            ‘My wife’s was one of them.’

            The man chewed his lip.

            ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But…’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘You know how it is. Too few men and too much crime. A murder, robberies, a young man missing for a week. I’ll make sure they ask around and try to find something. But that’s all I can promise for now.’

            Nottingham stood for a moment, staring at the man and seething.

            ‘I see. I’ll bid you good day, then.’

He wandered. Down to the bridge, watching carts and carriages lumber along in the heat. Past the tenting fields with all the cloth hung to dry and shrink, through the rubble of the old manor house and around, back to Lands Lane.

            Sadness, anger, emptiness.

            Why?

            Up on the Headrow, as he walked by Garraway’s Coffee House, a sharp tap on the glass made him turn.

            Tom Finer sat at the table, his hand resting against the window.

            ‘You look like a man with the world on his shoulders,’ he said as Nottingham settled on the bench across from him. ‘Would a dish of tea help? Coffee?’

            ‘Not today.’

            Nor any other day; he’d never developed the taste for them. Ale was fine for him.

            After almost twenty years away, older and claiming to have left his crooked past in the capital, Finer had returned to Leeds. Nottingham had still just been a constable’s man when he first knew him. Finer had a finger in everything, but nothing was ever proven against him before he vanished one night.

He seemed smaller than the last time they’d met, as if he was slowly withering away with age. In spite of the warmth Finer was well wrapped-up in a heavy coat, with thick breeches and socks.

            ‘You must have been to the churchyard.’

            Nottingham looked up sharply.

            ‘Why? What do you know?’

            ‘Not much more than you. I heard talk first thing so I went down there. I’m sorry.’

            ‘Do you have any idea who…?

            Finer shook his head.

            ‘If I did, I’d tell you.’ He paused. ‘But did you notice which ones they were?’

            ‘My wife’s. Why? Who else?’

            Finer was silent a few moments, chewing on his lower lip.

            ‘Go back and look again,’ he suggested. ‘Look outside your own pain.’

            ‘Why?’ Nottingham asked. ‘What is it?’

            Finer stared at him.

            ‘You’ll see.’

He stood by Mary’s grave, resting his hand on the broken stone, and let his gaze move around. He understood what Finer had been trying to tell him. If he’d been thinking he’d have noticed straight away.

            One was the memorial to Amos Worthy, the man who’d kept Leeds crime in his fist until the cancer rotted him and pulled him into the ground. Someone he’d hated and liked in equal measure.

            The other was the stone for John Sedgwick, Nottingham’s deputy, beaten and killed in his duties.

            Messages for him. From the past.

            He gathered the remains, puzzling them whole again on the grass.

            Why? Why would someone come crawling out of history now? He was no one these days. No longer the constable, not a man of note. Nobody.

Nottingham walked the courts and yards, asking his questions. He had no position any more but folk remembered. But all his talking brought nothing. No one knew, no one had an answer. Not even a hint. The closest he came was at the White Swan, when the landlord said someone had been asking for him.

            ‘Who?’

            ‘He wasn’t much more than a lad.’ The man shrugged. ‘No one I knew. Looked like a Gypsy, if you ask me. Left his lass and bairns standing in the doorway.’

            Strange, he thought. Were the two things connected?

            Morning became dinnertime. He pestered men as they ate. Nothing. Over the bridge and south of the river, into the streets that led off the London Road. No Joe Buck to ask these days. He’d left Leeds, searching for something more, the black servant Henry gone with him.

            The town he’d known for so long was changing.

The church bell rang four as he walked back up Marsh Lane. Head down, lost in his thoughts as the dust rose from his footsteps. He’d go out again later, round the inns and the beershops. Someone knew and he’d find out.

            ‘I heard about it.’ Lucy the servant eyed him. ‘Who did it, have you found out yet?’

            He slumped into the chair and shook his head.

            ‘I will, though.’

            ‘There was someone here looking for you earlier. Came at dinnertime.’

            Nottingham cocked his head.

            ‘Just a lad. Not much older than me. Had a lass and little ‘uns with him.’

            ‘What was his name?’

            ‘Didn’t tell me, just that he’d come back later.’

            ‘Did he look like a Gypsy?’

            Lucy thought.

            ‘Aye, happen he did. Who is he?’

            ‘I don’t know.’ Very strange indeed. He gave the girl a strained smile. ‘We’ll find out if he comes back.’

Emily returned home in a fury. She’d been to the churchyard and seen it for herself. Nottingham listened to her, seeing so much of Mary in her face.

            ‘Why would they do that to mama?’ she asked.

            ‘To hurt me.’ It was the only answer. Some sweet destruction to shatter his past. Before she could say more, there was a knock on the door. Maybe one mystery would be solved, at least.

            Yes, he was young, dark hair hanging straight to his shoulders. Ragged clothes, a bright hoop in his ear. But tall, bulky, already a man from the look on his face. Someone half-familiar, a face he believed he almost knew. A man with a smile on his lips.

            ‘Hello, boss. How are you?’

            With those words, it flooded back. All Nottingham could do was stop and stare. Joshua Forester, the young cutpurse he’d taken on five years before. His girl had died, the lad had been beaten and he’d chosen to go off with a band of Gypsies. But he looked well from it.

            ‘Come in, lad, come in. Your family, too.’

            Soon they were seated around the table. Lucy brought bread and cheese and small beer, standing by the door to catch this glimpse into Nottingham’s past.

            ‘I don’t remember your wife’s name,’ Josh said and reddened.

            ‘Mary. She’s dead.’

            ‘Boss, I’m sorry.’

            ‘I should tell you that John Sedgwick’s in the ground, too. Someone killed him.’ The boy always had high regard for Nottingham’s deputy constable. Old days, probably best forgotten. ‘And you, what have you been up to?’ He smiled at the children. ‘I can see some of the results.’

            ‘That’s Frances,’ he said, indicating the girl. The name of his girl who’d died. ‘And the boy’s called John. My wife, Nancy. She’s part of the Petulengro clan. I work with them. I’m a horse dealer now.’ He lifted his hands to show the thick calluses on his palms and fingers. ‘We’re camped on Woodhouse Moor for a few days, on our way down to Buckinghamshire. While we were here I wanted to see you.’

            ‘And you’re very welcome’

            It did make his heart soar to see someone doing so well, the new life amongst all the death and the senseless destruction. They talked for almost an hour until Josh gathered together his wife and family. At the door he saw them off just as Rob Lister was returning. Emily’s man and the deputy constable of Leeds.

            ‘Company?’ he asked.

            ‘Someone who worked for me a while ago. Passing through Leeds.’

            Lister glanced at the family walking towards Timble Bridge.

            ‘They look like Gypsies.’

            ‘They are. And you and I have something to discuss.’

            ‘Aye,’ Lister agreed. ‘We do.’

The night was balmy. It wasn’t hard to keep watch over the graveyard, and he wouldn’t trust Jeb to stay awake and sober. Nottingham never slept much any more. He sat in the church porch, letting the darkness wrap around him. He listened to the soft snuffling of animals in the dark, the last sounds of humans fading, then felt the embrace of the hours.

            A few times he stood and walked around, as silent as possible.

            But no one came. No more damage.

            With first light, he ambled up Kirkgate, smelling the cooking fires the servants had lit in the grand houses. Briggate was beginning to come to life, the butchers in the Shambles under the Moot Hall opening their shutters for early customers. He passed without a word, fading into the background.

            Tom Finer was up with the lark, already in Garraway’s, reading the London newspapers and enjoying his coffee.

            ‘You look like a man who’s spent a restless night,’ he said with a smile.

            ‘I have.’ He settled back on the bench. ‘How did you know?’

            Finer raised a thick eyebrow. ‘Know what?’

            ‘About the gravestones.’

            ‘A little bird told me.’

            Nottingham wrapped his fingers around the old man’s wrist. It was bony and brittle in his grip, as if it might snap all too easily. He stared into Finer’s eyes.

            ‘Which little bird?’ When the man didn’t answer, he squeezed. ‘That was my wife’s gravestone.’

            ‘A young man I pay to gather gossip.’ Finer tried to look unaffected, but his mouth was stretched and the skin was tight over the bones of his face.

            ‘A name?’

            ‘You wouldn’t know him.’

            Probably not, now he was no longer constable. But Rob Lister might. ‘A name,’ Nottingham repeated.

‘I know the lad,’ Lister said as they ate dinner in the White Swan. Stew for him, bread and cheese for Nottingham and mugs of ale on the table in front of them both. ‘I’ll find him this afternoon.’

            Rob had grown into a thoughtful young man. Hard when the job demanded, but compassionate, too, and utterly in love with Nottingham’s daughter, Emily. Seeing them together, the tenderness and humour between them, he was always reminded of the way Mary approved of the match: ‘They’re perfect for each other, Richard. Like two halves finding each other.’

            Nottingham would go home this afternoon and rest, ready to be out again tonight. What kind of man harmed gravestones like that? And why those three? What grudge, what anger could move someone like that? All through the night, as the stars moved through the sky, he’d tried to come up with names and found nothing that fitted.

            Who?

He’d been wearier than he imagined, sleeping into the evening only to wake disoriented and with aching limbs.

            Downstairs he sat with Rob as he ate. A young man’s hearty appetite after a long day of work.

            ‘He’ll meet you at eight on Timble Bridge.’

            ‘Does he know who did it?’ Nottingham asked.

            ‘He wouldn’t say.’

            ‘He’ll tell me.’ He’d make damned sure of it.

            ‘Watch out for him. He’s a little weasel. He’ll try to rob you if he can.’

            ‘But will he tell me the truth?’

            Lister considered the question for a moment. ‘If you don’t leave him any other choice. Take your knife.’

First, the graveyard. Still full light, the evening warm enough to sweat as he worked, picking up all the fragments. He’d cleaned up Mary’s headstone yesterday. Now he tidied Amos’s and John’s. He’d almost finished when he felt someone kneel beside him and looked across.

            Josh Forester, with a sad smile on his face and a colourful scarf knotted at his neck.

            ‘I went to your house, boss,’ he said. ‘Your lass’s man reckoned as you’d be here. Says you visit all the time.’

            ‘Every day. It’s all I have left of her.’

            ‘I understand.’ He ran hard fingertips over the carving in the stone. ‘I don’t know who’d do this, but I’ll tell you something I’ve learned. It’s probably not worth much, but a headstone doesn’t mean anything.’

            ‘I know.’ Nottingham’s voice was hushed.

            ‘Frances, she went in a pauper’s grave. No markings. You remember that, boss.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘But she’s still here. They’re alive as long as someone remembers. This…it’s just trappings, isn’t it?’

            ‘Maybe it is.’ He pushed himself upright, feeling the creak in his knees. ‘But it means something to me. I have to meet someone. It won’t take long. If you wait, we can go for a drink.’

            Josh smiled. Bright white teeth. Young teeth. ‘Aye, I’d like that. I’ll be right here, boss.’

He stood on Timble Bridge, hearing Sheepscar Beck burble and flow under his feet. It had been a dry summer and the water was low. The sound was pleasing, musical and rich. It filled his heart. But he was ready as he heard footsteps approaching.

            A boy? He didn’t know why he was so surprised. The lad looked to be ten or eleven, with suspicious eyes that darted around, dark, matted hair, and dirt ingrained into his skin.

            ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,’ Nottingham said.

            It was like coaxing a feral animal. Like the wary boy he’d been himself at that age, living for three years on the streets, surviving by wit and cunning and ruthlessness.

            He placed two pennies on the ground and moved away.

            ‘I only have one question – who’s been damaging the graves?’

            ‘I’d never seen her before.’

            ‘Her?’ The word shook him. He couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to imagine any woman doing that. He took a deep breath. ‘Tell me about her.’

            ‘I couldn’t see much. It were dark and she had a shawl over her hair. And a hammer in her hand. I wun’t going to get too close to that.’

            ‘Where were you?’

            ‘Sleeping. There’s a dip in the graveyard near High Court. I were in there and heard her.’

            ‘Is there anything you remember?’

            ‘She meant it,’ the boy said. ‘Not just for the sake of doing it. Like she hated those people. She knew which ones she wanted.’

            ‘I daresay she did.’

            ‘And she weren’t young. You could see that. She moved slow, like it hurt her.’

            ‘You’re an observant young man.’

            The boy shrugged and scooped the money from the ground.

            ‘Wait,’ Nottingham told him and brought out his purse. The boy darted for it, knife out to cut the strings. But Nottingham turned away, grabbing him by the hair and pushing him down to his knees. ‘Don’t. You’re too slow. I was stopping this long before anyone even dreamed of you. I was going to give you tuppence more.’

            ‘I’m sorry, mister.’

            ‘Maybe you are.’ He pushed the boy away, took out the coins and threw them on the dirt before walking away towards Leeds.

‘A woman?’ Josh Forester frowned, cupped the mug of ale and drank. ‘That seems odd.’

            They were sitting in the White Swan, a welter of conversation all around their heads. It felt strange to be here with Josh. His memories of the lad were of someone so young, so full of pain. And here he was, grown, filled-out. A man with a life that suited him.

            ‘It surprised me, too,’ Nottingham admitted. ‘But why not? Women can hurt, too.’

            ‘Do you think she’ll be back?’

            ‘I don’t know.’ He leaned back. The woman had done her damage. Why would she need to return?

            ‘And you’ve no idea who it is, boss?’

            ‘None at all.’ He gave a weary smile. ‘I’ll be out there again tonight. Maybe she’ll decide she hasn’t had enough yet. Who can tell?’

            Josh smiled. ‘Do you fancy some company?’

            He stared at the young man. ‘Are you sure?’

            ‘Yes. We’re going south tomorrow, this will be the last chance.’ He took another drink. ‘You changed my life, boss. I’d like to spend more time with you.’

It was a companionable silence. A warm, dry night, with just enough moon to throw light across the graveyard. They settled in the church porch and waited. The last drunks rolled and sang their way home. The nightjars called and turned silent.

            A snuffle of animals in the distance. A badger, a fox.

            He found himself starting to doze, chin settling on his chest, then quickly sitting upright, stretching his neck and looking round sheepishly at Josh.

            It must have happened again. He was aware of the touch on his shoulder, then warm breath and words whispered into his ear.

            ‘Footsteps, boss. In the churchyard.’

            Silently, he stood, ready, feeling the other man stir behind him. But he waited. Impossible to tell yet who it might be. A couple seeking out a private place. Someone with no better place to sleep.

            Time seemed to stretch. He breathed slowly, listening for the faintest sound. Then it came: the tapping on steel on stone.

            Nottingham pressed himself against the church wall, turning his head, waiting to hear it again, to know where the woman was in the graveyard. Josh had already disappeared, moving like a ghost through the night.

            It was unmistakeable. Mary’s headstone once again. Without thinking, he started to run, feeling every stride in his knees. He needed to get there before too much damage was done.

            He knew every inch of this ground, moving sure-footed without even needing to look.

            But he wasn’t fast enough.

            Josh had beaten him to the spot, big hands clamped around a pair of thin arms, stopping her from struggling.

            ‘She’s not going to cause a problem, boss.’

            ‘Keep her still. I want to see her face.’

            Nottingham pulled the shawl away. A small, faded woman with stringy grey hair. A thin mouth, most of the teeth missing. Eyes filled with hate. She drew back her lips and spat at him. But there was no power. It dribbled down her chin.

            He didn’t recognise her. Nothing about her.

            ‘Who-’ he began, but her rusted voice cut through his question.

            ‘Abraham Wyatt.’

            The years turned away and he groped for her name. Caroline. Something like that.

            ‘Charlotte.’ The word seemed to come of its own accord and he saw her cold grin.

            ‘Now you remember, don’t you? You killed him, you and Worthy and that other man.’

            They had, and the man had needed to die for all he’d done. Back then he’d let her go, though, never expecting to see her again.

            ‘Why? Why try and demolish my wife’s headstone?’ He didn’t understand that. But the answer was simple.

            ‘Because you don’t have one, and I’ve watched you come here and spend time with her.’ Her eyes glistened. ‘I knew this would hurt you.’

            She understood too much, he thought. Nottingham tried to picture her as she’d been when he last saw her, but the image refused to come into his mind. All he could see was the woman as she was now, living on the past and her anger. She’d loved Wyatt; that had never been in doubt. She’d remained devoted to him through all the years he’d been exiled, transported to the Indies.

            ‘What do you want to do with her, boss?’ Josh’s question interrupted his thoughts.

            ‘Take her to the jail.’

            She fought, pulled against him and dragged her feet. But the young man was bigger, stronger, used to wild beasts. A few minutes and the night man had her in a cell.

            ‘What’s the charge?’ he asked.

            Nottingham didn’t know.

            ‘Ask Mr. Lister in the morning.’ Rob could think of something.

Outside, the night was still, heavy with the scent of flowers.

            ‘Thank you,’ Nottingham said.

            Josh smiled and shook his head.

            ‘The least I could do, boss. I told you, I owe you a lot.’

            ‘On your way tomorrow?’

            ‘We pack up first thing.’ He raised his head and studied the sky. ‘In an hour or two. Then south.’

            ‘When you come through here again…’

            ‘I’ll stop, boss. I promise. You look after yourself.’

            ‘You, too. And that family of yours.’

            They shook hands. Nottingham stood and watched as Josh strode up Briggate, out towards the Gypsy camp on Woodhouse Moor. Finally he turned and began to walk back to Marsh Lane.

            A headstone could be replaced. But the woman could never destroy his memories. Josh was right. Mary was remembered.

If you fancy something else to read over the holidays and you’re in the UK, Amazon has both the ebook and hardback of my latest novel, set in the 1820s, for under £12. I’d be grateful if you treated yourself or someone else. Just follow this link.