Free At the Dying of the Year by Chris Nickson Page B

attention to all he said. He was friend to them all and banker to a few when they needed it, if the rumours were true. And that meant the Constable needed to move very carefully. An accusation against Jeremiah Darden, especially one like this, was very dangerous.
    Hot food at the White Swan would have to wait. Instead, he marched down Briggate to the Talbot.
    â€˜You didn’t slip down and let them out in the night, did you, love?’ Sedgwick asked with a sly smile.
    The maid at the Crown and Fleece stared squarely at him. She was in her late thirties, hands red and raw from washing pots and sheets, face pinched from years of hard work, strands of grey in the hair that escaped from her cap.
    â€˜No, I bloody well did not,’ she told him. ‘And if you call me love again you’re going to walk out of here with a slapped face.’
    He held up his hands in apology. ‘Well, someone must have let them out. They didn’t just fly away.’ She glared at him. ‘I just thought you might have felt sorry for them.’
    The maid snorted and pushed the sleeves higher on her fleshy arms. ‘If they were daft enough to believe that sod they can go and be a soldier for all I care.’
    â€˜Could someone else have done it?’ he asked. She seemed the type to harbour a suspicion. ‘The potboy, a serving girl.’
    â€˜Happen,’ she conceded, then her eyes flashed in triumph and she sniffed. ‘But the serving girl sleeps in the same room as me. She wasn’t up in the night, I can tell you that. And that stable lad could sleep through the day of judgement. It wasn’t him.’
    It hadn’t been the landlord or his wife, either; after talking to them the deputy was certain of that. They were a couple who simply wanted a quiet, uneventful life, a road that ran straight before them all the way to the churchyard.
    He’d walked around the stable, gone inside and climbed up to the loft where the hay stood at least almost as tall as a man, ready for winter. But he couldn’t see how the two recruits could have vanished without help, and it hadn’t come from the inn, he was certain of that. He didn’t know the answer and maybe he never would. As he left the inn he saw the sergeant and the drummer boy ahead of him, starting on their way to Wakefield. The soldier walked with his shoulders slumped, all the confidence gone from his stride.
    The Talbot was crowded. Men filled the tables, bent over their dinners; the smell of stew filled the air, heavily spiced to hide the rancid taste of meat long past its best. But the food was cheap and hot and it filled the belly.
    He walked up to the long trestle where the landlord was drawing ale and carefully avoiding his glance. The Constable waited half a minute then brought the silver tip of the stick down sharply on the wood. Every head jerked towards him.
    â€˜Mr Nottingham,’ the man said with a forced smile. ‘I didn’t see you standing there.’ He wiped his hands slowly on his leather apron.
    â€˜I’m sure you didn’t, Mr Bell. You worked hard enough not to. I want a word with you.’
    â€˜We’re busy and the girl’s off ill,’ the landlord protested.
    â€˜Then the quicker you give me answers, the sooner you’ll be serving again, won’t you? Down that end where it’s quiet.’
    Bell kept glancing back, making sure everything remained orderly. The noise in the tavern slowly grew again.
    â€˜Is this about them two who died?’ he asked. ‘I told that lad of yours, they were outside.’
    The Constable didn’t reply. He kept staring at the landlord, making him uneasy. That way there was the chance of dragging a little truth from him.
    â€˜They started fighting in here but I kicked them out, and that was an end to it as far as I was concerned.’
    â€˜When did you last hold a cockfight?’
    The question took Bell by surprise. ‘A week ago