Free The Path of the Wicked by Caro Peacock Page B

in a hot summer, the air was damp, probably from being so near the river. A smell of drains and something half-remembered hung in the air. A rhythmic thumping and clacking came from a room below us and set the whole staircase vibrating.
    â€˜Treadmill?’ I asked.
    â€˜Looms,’ the warder said. ‘We teach them weaving – stuff for mailbags mostly.’
    The smell was damp hessian. We went along a corridor. Apart from the thumping looms, the place seemed quieter than a cathedral, with not even a whisper of a human voice. The bald man opened the door to a small windowless room, told me to wait and went out, closing the door behind him. Some minutes later, two sets of footsteps came along the corridor, so briskly they were practically marching. The door opened and I had my first look at Jack Picton. It wasn’t reassuring. He was glaring at me and, if he’d happened to be holding a piece of iron in his hand, I’d probably have ducked. As a man on remand, not yet sentenced, he wasn’t manacled or wearing prison uniform, but his clothes were rough: canvas trousers, an old jacket and waistcoat in dark wool, a dirty shirt open at the neck, labourer’s boots. They were probably the clothes he was wearing when arrested more than two weeks before. They looked too small for him. Everything looked too small – the room, his escort, my reason for being there.
    After the first glance, I realized it wasn’t simply a matter of size. He was tall certainly, probably six foot or more, and broad-shouldered, but what filled the room was the anger radiating off him. He’d marched in like a busy man sparing minutes he couldn’t afford for an annoying client, leaving the warder trailing in his footsteps like a clerk. Even without the glare, it would have been a forceful-looking face, with a square brow and large but well-shaped nose, dark brows over eyes the colour of oak bark. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him as an orator. He could have modelled as a general addressing his troops or Danton at the barricades. His hair was cut brutally short, his scalp stained brownish from some rinse, probably to kill head lice. His smell was frowsty.
    â€˜So, you’re doing me the kindness to worry about the state of my soul,’ he said. ‘I thought they left that to the clergyman at the foot of the gallows.’
    The bald warder said something about showing respect for a lady and then sat down on one of the chairs with his back against the door. This was disconcerting. I’d assumed that the prisoner would be allowed to take the second chair, but this arrangement left me seated and Jack Picton glaring down at me. I stood up and said the first thing that came into my head.
    â€˜I’m not in the least concerned about your soul, but I’ll have some clean linen sent in to you, if you like.’
    He blinked, surprise in his face, then annoyance at being caught off balance. Then just a glimmer of amusement. It didn’t last for long, but was just enough to show why women might think him a good-looking man.
    â€˜They have charitable funds for that, do they? So that the smell of me doesn’t offend the judges?’
    He had the Gloucestershire accent, but spoke with sharpness and precision. His eyes were sharp, too. At first he’d been too angry to look at me properly; now he was taking stock.
    â€˜Did you kill Mary Marsh?’ I said.
    Surprise again, and then a droll look came over his face. He spoke past me, to the warder sitting by the door.
    â€˜I’m being given the quality, aren’t I? I thought it was other prisoners you use if you want to get people to confess when their guard’s down. I get pretty young ladies offering clean shirts.’
    The way he said ‘pretty’, rolling it around on his tongue, was so insulting that I felt like getting up and walking out.
    â€˜Well, did you?’
    I let my anger sound in my voice. That surprised