Til Death Do Us Part (13 page)

As Tom returned to the ground floor he couldn't help but wryly think, ‘The old adage is right, isn't it? Marriage isn't always a bed of roses.'

He went to Alfie Bennett's cell and found him sitting on the side of the sleeping bench. Bennett's face was drawn and tense and as soon as Tom entered the cell he blurted out fearfully, ‘What did I do? I can't remember what happened. I must have been having one o' me funny turns. I aren't killed anybody, has I?'

The man appeared so genuinely distraught that Tom couldn't help but feel pity for him.

‘No, Alfie, you've not killed anyone. But you did assault me.' He pointed to his bruised and swollen cheekbone.

‘Oh my God! Was it me did that to you?' Bennett wailed, and his manacle chains rattled as he clutched his head in despair. ‘I'm going to prison for it, an't I? Oh my God! What'll become o' me Mam and Dad when I'm in prison? Oh my God!'

‘Now just be quiet and listen to me, Alfie!' Tom told him sternly. ‘I might let you go free and not bring any charges against you. But if I do that, you've got to tell me all you know about the fur cap man in return. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

‘Does you mean that, Master? Does you? You'll let me go free if I tells you about the fur cap man?' Bennett beseeched.

‘I do,' Tom assured him firmly. ‘You have my word on it.'

‘God bless you, Master! God bless you!' Bennett rung his hands in gratitude, but then choked out in dismay: ‘Trouble is, Master, I don't know all that much about him, excepting the marts he says he goes to. And that he never asks me how I comes by me furs. He always says that that's between me and the Devil, and then he winks and laughs, so he does.'

‘Don't worry, just tell me what you know, and I'll keep my word,' Tom reassured him.

‘God bless you, Master! You'm a true Christian, you am!' Tears shone in Bennett's eyes as he frantically babbled out a list of markets at which the pedlar claimed to do business.

Tom listened intently, committing the information to memory, and when the other man fell silent and stared anxiously at him, immediately unlocked the manacles and removed the chains, then ushered him from the lock-up.

Standing at the doorway watching Bennett scurrying away across the Green, Tom grimaced unhappily as he considered the widely dispersed locations of the markets, and the varying and sometimes conflicting days they took place.

‘I'm going to be spending a lot of nights away from home, and get a very sore backside jaunting around this lot. Amy's not going to be best pleased, is she?'

He sighed as he visualized her reaction when he told her what he was going to have to do. Then decided: ‘Coward that I am, I'll wait until she's had breakfast and is in a good mood. I'll go first and report to Joseph Blackwell, then go and tell Ritchie Bint what's to happen.'

Joseph Blackwell had just finished his own breakfast when Tom called to make his report. As always he listened silently, sitting at the dining table, forefingers steepled beneath his chin, until Tom had finished speaking. Then he carefully considered what he had heard before requesting clarifications.

‘Are you absolutely sure that the dogs have been stolen for their coats to be made into fur caps?'

‘I am, Sir,' Tom replied firmly.

‘But as of yet you have no actual proof that this particular pedlar is stealing the dogs himself, or buying their coats from the thieves?'

‘No, Sir. But I've got full descriptions of every dog, and their individual colours and patterning are rare and very distinct. I'm confident of recognizing a fur cap that is made from any of their skins.'

‘And on the grounds of your suspicion you want me to ask the Justices to issue a warrant for this pedlar's arrest? I'll tell you frankly, Master Potts, that in this case mere suspicion is not sufficient. These are only dog hides, not rare and costly furs. If it wasn't for the fact that the Earl is one of the losers, I'd not have had you waste a moment of your time investigating this case; and I'll not have the Justices issue any arrest warrant until you bring me better reason to. Good day to you, Master Potts.'

He waved his hand in dismissal.

‘But, Sir . . .' Tom protested, and Blackwell immediately cut him short.

‘But nothing, Master Potts! Even if you should find the man selling such caps, he would immediately claim that he found the skins abandoned with other rubbish. Or bought them in good faith from a travelling gypsy, or some other story, and it is impossible to prove otherwise.'

Knowing very well that to rouse his employer's wrath could bring unfortunate consequences for himself, Tom summoned all his resolve and doggedly stood his ground.

Blackwell's pallid features scowled warningly. ‘I have no more time to waste on this matter, Master Potts. I say again, good day to you.'

‘With respect, Sir, I don't want the warrant to be issued on these particular grounds. I want to be in possession of a warrant for his arrest on the grounds that he is defrauding the Commissioners of the Treasury.'

Blackwell's eyebrows raised in surprise, as Tom continued without pause.

‘Yakob Weiss holds the four pound per annum Pedlar's License, which as you know, Sir, entails that he backpacks his goods to market and between markets. I have solid proof and witnesses that in fact he uses a donkey to transport his goods. Which means that he should be in possession of the eight pound Hawker's License for his use of beasts of burden in the pursuit of his business.

‘Therefore, Sir, he is currently defrauding the Treasury of four sovereigns per annum. For which offence he can be imprisoned, or fined very heavily, and his goods be confiscated.'

Tom paused to allow Blackwell to digest this information.

A fleeting smile momentarily quirked Blackwell's thin lips, and he said quietly, ‘I do not need a lesson in Law, Master Potts. But knowing you as I do, I am sure that you have more to add to what you have just told me.'

‘I do, Sir.' Tom's nervous tension dissolved instantly. ‘What I propose is that I wait until I catch Yakob Weiss selling fur caps made from these particular dog pelts. I then arrest him for the license offence. But during the hours following that arrest I imply that should he give me the identity of the people he obtained the dog pelts from, and bear witness against them in the courtroom . . .'

‘. . . Then he will be treated very leniently by the magistrates for defrauding the Treasury!' Blackwell finished the sentence, and chuckled dryly. ‘Your seemingly bottomless well of deviousness never fails but to surprise me, Master Potts. Come back here at noon; I should have the warrant by then.'

‘Very well, Sir. In the meantime I'll go and tell Ritchie Bint what's afoot.'

Traversing the long narrow slum alleyway of Silver Street where Ritchie Bint lived, Tom was the target of resentful scowls and hissed jibes and insults, but he knew that there was very little danger of physical assault. His tough, much-feared Deputy Constable was also his close friend, and the denizens of Silver Street were in no doubt that should any of them lift a hand against Tom Potts, then Ritchie Bint would come after them seeking retribution.

Ritchie Bint's hovel was distinguished from the vast majority of its neighbours by having its windows intact and dressed with curtains. Its sparsely furnished interior was also in stark contrast to the majority, being clean and neat, the fetid faecal odours of the alley kept at bay by the bunches of fragrant herbs festooning the freshly limewashed walls.

A slatternly young woman opened the door to Tom's knocking and scowled.

‘If you'm after Bint, the rotten bugger's still abed.'

‘Then I'm sorry for disturbing you, but can you please tell him that I urgently need to speak with him?'

‘Tell the rotten bugger yourself, and you can tell him as well that I'm shagging him no more unless he weds me, and I bloody well means it this time!' She pushed past Tom and went away along the alley.

Tom smiled wryly. Ritchie Bint was a bachelor who, because he earned exceptionally high wages as a Needle Pointer, plus his Deputy Constable's fees, was considered to be a very good catch by the many girls who continually tried to inveigle him into marriage. An added attraction for these girls was that, unlike a sizeable number of the local males, he didn't abuse and beat his women, but instead invariably treated them with kindness and generosity.

‘Is that you, Tom?' Bint shouted from upstairs. ‘Come on in, I'll be down directly.'

Tom stepped inside as the other man came downstairs barefoot dressed in only his shirt.

Bint grinned and held up his hand. ‘There's no need to pass on Tilly's message. I heard it loud and clear. Now what can I do for you?'

Tom quickly explained about his projected journeying to the markets. ‘I'll have to be away most nights until I find Weiss selling the fur caps I need to catch him with. So starting this evening will you be able to stay and sleep in the lock-up after your work and cover for me? I'll make sure of a good stock of food, drink and tobacco for you there.'

‘O' course I can.' Bint grinned. ‘To tell the truth I'll be glad to get away for a bit from Tilly's nagging me about wedding her every time she shares me bed. Don't get me wrong, I likes her well enough and if I ever babbied her, or any other wench for that matter, then I'd wed 'um and give the babby me name. But I aren't in any rush to get wed. I likes being single and living on me own.'

Tom grinned ruefully. ‘Yes, there are occasionally moments when I wouldn't mind too much being single again either. Anyway, I have to get going now, so thank you very much for covering for me.'

Tom returned to the lock-up to find, much to his relief, that Amy appeared to be in a better mood, so he immediately told her, ‘This afternoon I'm going to go in search of the pedlar Yakob Weiss, to arrest him. I'll have to search the Worcestershire marts for him so I could be away for three or four nights on this trip.

‘I'll be getting a bed in Evesham tonight because it's a good twenty or more miles' journey. And I need to inform the local constables there what I'm going to do, and to be in the market at dawn tomorrow. Then I shall be at the Pershore Mart on Tuesday, and Worcester Mart on Wednesday.'

‘What's your plan exactly when you're at the marts?' she queried, and stayed silent until he had finished explaining.

‘What do you think of my plan?' he asked her.

‘I'm thinking that it‘ll fail,' she replied bluntly.

‘Why so?'

‘You can be sure that if he's been buying stolen pelts and using them to make fur caps with, then he'll have been doing it for years, and has learned very well how to get away with it. I don't think that you've any chance of catching him out about the dog-robbing with this half-baked plan of yours.'

‘Why do you call it half-baked?' he demanded indignantly.

‘Because you're forgetting that the pedlars and hawkers are mostly as thick as thieves with each other, and they sound the alarm when one of them spots a constable coming who's not the local man.

‘Most of the ones that work the Worcestershire marts come here for our Redditch marts as well, don't they? So they'll all know you, and because you're so tall and lanky they'll see you coming a mile off, and send the warning around the market like lightning. Then any one of them who's got something to hide will be away like a shot, and you won't see their heels for the dust.'

Tom could only stare at her in discomfiture as acceptance dawned that she was possibly right.

‘Well, what have you got to say to that, you great booby?' she challenged belligerently. ‘The cat's got your tongue now, hasn't it, you useless fool!'

Tom's own resentment rose against this undeservedly aggressive attack, and he told her sharply, ‘We'll see who's the useless fool when I bring back the pedlar; and I hope for once you'll be in a good temper when I return.'

I
t was snowing when Tom Potts, travel-stained and bone-weary, came limping painfully across the central crossroads of Redditch Town leading his limping horse behind him. The market stalls were already open for business and thronged with early shoppers. A stall-holder spotted Tom and bellowed.

‘Bloody hell, look what the cat's dragged in! It's Constable Potts again! And he looks like he's on the Retreat from Moscow!'

Instantly catcalls and mocking laughter sounded along the line of stalls and people hurried to see the target of this attention.

‘Watch out for them Rooshian Cossacks, Constable; there's a gang of 'um down by the Fox there.'

‘Where's Napoleon? Has he buggered off and left you by yourself again, like he did at the other marts?'

‘When am you going to eat your horse?'

‘It don't look as if there's enough meat left on the poor nag's bones to feed any bugger!'

‘You'd best jump into the cooking pot wi' it, Master Potts; it'll need you two bags o' bones together to make even a single drop o' gravy!'

Tom gritted his teeth, turned to his left, and keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead grimly limped northwards past the front of St Stephen's Chapel towards the top of Fish Hill and Joseph Blackwell's house, where he was dreading the reception he would get from his de-facto employer.

To Tom's relief the serving man who received the horse from him said that his master was not at home, and with barely veiled chagrin enquired, ‘What's you done to this poor mare? Her was in fine fettle when you took her from me. Now her looks ready for the bloody knacker's yard.'

‘We had a mishap yesterday morning at Droitwich Mart. She threw me and bolted, then collided with a cart.' Tom was feeling very guilty. ‘Believe me, I'm truly regretful that she should be hurt in any way whatsoever.'