‘Let him be,’ Barton said.

  Jane didn’t move. Rosie, Sally, all three of them stood firm.

  ‘You killed my son.’ Not an accusation. A judgement.

  ‘Do you know what he did? He betrayed you.’ Fox’s voice rose. ‘He wanted us to fleece you dry. He hated you.’

  Barton stood, eyes fixed on the other man. ‘Perhaps he did. But he failed.’

  ‘Do you know why he killed himself?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Guilt. It had been growing in him for months. It must have become too much for him to carry.’

  Barton stepped forward. A knife appeared in his hand.

  Fox was ready, suddenly holding his own weapon and sneering. ‘What are you going to do? See if you can kill me?’

  ‘Andrew was fine until you appeared.’

  ‘My wife,’ Fox continued as if the other man hadn’t spoken. ‘She was the one who spotted your son. That hatred of you was already there inside him. She brought it out, that’s all, and it was easy enough to do. She seduced him. But she grew a little too close. Do you know what she said? She was going to leave me to be with him. The last time I saw your son, I told him he was the reason I had to kill her.’

  His wife leaving would have been a humiliation, Jane thought. Fox wouldn’t have been able to stomach that. Now he’d turned it into a weapon.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ Barton asked.

  ‘To finish the story.’

  ‘You had plenty of chances before.’

  ‘I wasn’t ready. I wanted you terrified, always looking over your shoulder. Never knowing when I’d come for you. Now …’ He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing else.’

  Enough, Jane thought. The time had come to end all this. They’d been employed to keep Barton safe.

  She glanced towards Rosie; her eyes were fixed on Fox. Sally saw her look and nodded.

  ‘Fox,’ Jane said.

  He turned his head to look at her. She waited, aware of the minute hesitation before Sally darted in and brought the branch down on his arm and made him drop the knife. Before he could move, Jane and Rosie were close.

  She stared into his face. Still empty, as if the emotion had been wiped away. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘No.’ Barton spoke. The light caught his eyes and for a second they seemed to glow. He lunged forward.

  She saw the knife plunge into Fox’s belly, as deep as he could force it, then it slid slowly back out.

  ‘He killed my son.’

  Jane and Rosie both moved forward to hold Fox as his knees buckled. They lowered him to the ground as the thin trickle of blood from the wound grew into a dark, sodden stain that covered his trousers.

  No doctor could save him now. Barton stared with a gleam of satisfaction. Jane recalled how he’d looked when he saw Andrew drowned in the beck. This would bring him an hour’s joy, but it would fade into more pain to weigh down his heart.

  Then the inspector pushed her aside. She’d been caught in the moment, never heard him arrive. He had his men beside him. The toe of his boot prodded Fox.

  ‘Nobody to reprieve you now.’ He spat; the phlegm landed beside the man’s hand. ‘You attacked Mr Barton and he defended himself. I saw it happen with my own eyes.’ He let the words hang in the air. Nobody would challenge him.

  Fox moved his hand to cover the wound, as if he could stop the blood leaving his body.

  ‘Why did you kill Shackleton?’ Rosie asked quietly.

  The man breathed in and gasped with pain. ‘Gave him money to kill him …’ He nodded towards Barton. ‘Got here and he refused. Gave him food and lodging. Tried to persuade him three times.’ Another gasp. ‘He had to pay.’

  Jane cradled his head. Pale pink foam was starting to come out of his mouth. Death had its hand on his shoulder.

  Sally’s question took her by surprise. ‘How did you get your pardon?’

  His lips turned up as he tried to smile. It turned into a laugh. A clot of blood flew from his mouth. ‘Luck,’ he said. ‘Pure luck. I prayed for it and it happened.’

  The blood became a torrent and his eyes closed. Jane waited a moment then placed her hand against his neck. Nothing.

  She lowered his head and stood.

  All of them standing, staring down at a dead man. Whoever he’d been, however bad, that was done.

  Barton was the first to leave. He turned, went into his house and closed the door on the scene.

  With a final kick at the body, the inspector left, his men falling in behind as Simon hurried in, face contorted and bathed in sweat.

  He knew how he must look. Dangerous, like a madman with the blood and gore spattered all over. People on the streets had moved away in horror. One man had shouted something; he’d paid it no mind, intent on getting here.

  Too late. Fox’s blood had soaked into the dirt, his life gone. Jane, Sally and Rosie were standing by the body.

  ‘Who?’ he asked them.

  Rosie replied, ‘Barton.’

  That shook him. ‘Is he …’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  He’d seen too much death and pain today. He could smell it each time he breathed in. Taste it on his tongue. It was going to live with him for years.

  ‘We can’t do anything more,’ he said. ‘Nobody can.’

  He needed to wash off the stink and the blood. To destroy the clothes. To try to feel clean again.

  There were days, weeks ahead to discover what had happened.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The town clattered and thrummed as they walked, but neither of them seemed to notice it. Jane heard a few faint notes from Davy Cassidy’s fiddle, but for once she knew it couldn’t soothe her. This was a time for silence.

  Sally stayed by her side. The girl’s face was pinched tight from all the effort and strain of the day. She’d pushed herself too far. Time and rest would cure that. Her body had recovered well; she was almost back to the way it had been. Her mind, though … Jane had seen the small hesitation before she acted against Fox. Another time that could be fatal.

  Maybe they needed to spar; a little practice with her knife could help. But that was an idea that could wait for another day, when the air wasn’t so full of blood and dying.

  At the house behind Green Dragon Yard, they sat outside on the bench. Mrs Shields looked at them both with knowing eyes and vanished to the kitchen. She brought out two mugs holding a drink whose smell Jane didn’t recognise.

  ‘Drink it,’ the old woman told them.

  It tasted of … she wasn’t sure. Nothing unpleasant. Something that reminded her of fields and forests. She drained the cup and rested it in her lap as she thought about Barton.

  He’d had a hollow joy in his eyes as he used the knife on Fox. The grief for his son had been building in him since that afternoon by the tiny church out at Lead. This wouldn’t rid him of his devils. After this, they’d ride him harder than ever.

  Now he’d carry the guilt of murder on top of everything else.

  Jane turned her head. Sally was staring without seeing. Her eyes glistened as if she was on the edge of tears.

  ‘Can we start reading again tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  The girl nodded. She was silent for a while.

  ‘Do you know why I want to learn?’

  ‘No.’ She’d wondered about it, but hadn’t managed to find a reason.

  ‘When I was ill, I realised what I want to do. Not yet,’ she added quickly. ‘Once I’m a few years older.’

  ‘What is it?’ It was hard to imagine Sally making plans like that.

  She began slowly. ‘My parents had a farm. Animals, growing things.’

  The silence returned. Jane waited.

  ‘I’m not happy in town. I’m never going to be, not really. I’ve tried.’ She turned her head. ‘Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d seen it on the girl’s face, the way she seemed to come alive when their walks took them out of Leeds, among the fields and the woods. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to find a little piece of land and buy it. Mine, where nobody can make me leave. Ever. A farm. The children can live there and help me. You know working for Simon pays. I can save my money.’

  A dream, a wish, Jane thought. But the resolution was set on Sally’s face.

  ‘What does that have to do with reading?’

  ‘If I know how to read and write, no one can cheat me.’

  So simple, so straightforward. She had it all clearly laid out in her head. It would never be that easy, but Jane stayed quiet. She’d teach and be glad to see her pupil blossom.

  Sally stood, suddenly looking flustered, as if she’d said more than she intended.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone. Especially Simon.’

  ‘Our secret,’ Jane promised. She had plenty of those, more than she could count, all tucked away in her mind. ‘Do you want me to walk with you?’

  A quick shake of the head. ‘No need.’ The knife flashed in her hand. ‘I’ll be safe now.’

  The clouds threatened, dark and dreary. But no rain. Simon stood by the coffee cart on Briggate, listening to people talk about Fox’s killing. Plenty wanted to know his version, but he could honestly tell them he hadn’t been there for it.

  Rosie had recounted it all to him as he scrubbed his skin bright pink and rinsed pieces of brain and bone from his hair. His mind was still numb, not wanting to believe any of it. But under that, he knew the truth far too well. He’d heard the shots in Middle Fold, he’d seen the body outside Barton’s house. However much he wanted to deny it, it was all real.

  Rosie was filled with regrets that she hadn’t been able to stop Fox’s death, but what could she have done?

  The man was a murderer. There was never a chance he’d stay alive long enough to stand trial. If Barton hadn’t killed him, the inspector would have done it.

  The luck that had pardoned him had ended.

  ‘You beat me.’

  Simon turned. Alexander Brady was facing him.

  ‘Was it a race?’

  ‘You know damned well it was.’ The man glared. ‘There was money to be made from him. We could have shared it.’

  ‘There was justice to be done.’ He glanced at the battered valise by Brady’s feet. ‘I wish you a comfortable journey home.’

  He placed the tin cup on the trestle and began to walk away, knee throbbing. Easier than yesterday but twisted and aching from the fall. Sally appeared at his side. She still had the fading remains of bruises from her black eyes, and the scar would never go, but she seemed to be almost recovered.

  ‘What do we have to do today?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘Nothing at all.’ Nobody needing their services, and for once he was glad. His mind, his body, they both needed rest. He had to see Barton, but that would wait for a little while.

  She nodded and hurried away. Alone, he turned, moving slowly through the people who crowded Briggate, over the Head Row to Mudie’s shop.

  At the circulating library, Jane picked the book from the shelf and opened it to the title page. The Betrothed, she read, by The Author of Waverley. A favourite writer; this was the one to read next. She bought two pies from Kate and took them home to share with Mrs Shields.

  A return to the comfort of familiar routines and faces.

  Wilfred hadn’t returned that morning. She had nothing for him to do, anyway. Maybe he’d decided this life wasn’t for him.

  Throughout the afternoon she sat outside, caught in the strange, tangled plot and the world of men in the wilds and castles of the Welsh Marches. She was startled when Mrs Shields tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘I called you to eat, child. You must have been miles away.’

  ‘I was.’ Glad of it, too; the words on the page banished thoughts from her mind.

  Last night she’d expected Fox or Porter with his vanished face to come to her dreams. Instead, it was the girl again, her screams cutting through sleep, bringing her awake and gasping. She sat up in bed, staring down the darkness while her heartbeat slowed again and the dread that filled her mind receded.

  There was the first hint of an autumnal chill in the early evening air outside the cottage. She gathered the shawl around her shoulders, and was about to move indoors when Sally arrived, eager to read and learn. An hour with her, then they walked down to Swinegate as the twilight grew around them.

  Friday night and the alehouses were doing good business, roaring and racketing. Jane didn’t feel any fear of the drunken men. She kept a hand in her pocket, fingers loose around the hilt of her knife, and stayed aware of everything around her.

  She returned up Briggate, pools of light from the windows illuminating the street. Stopping for a word with Dodson, the old soldier with the wooden leg, as he folded his blanket ready to return to his room for the night.

  Up by the market cross, Davy Cassidy was playing a sprightly tune that ended as she drew close. He gazed around with his sightless eyes and a girl appeared, whispering a word into his ear. He lifted his bow and began to play again. Low, mournful. Then the girl stepped forward and began to sing.

  Jane knew her face. She’d lived with it for months. She’d seen it contorted with pain as the girl was carried from the mill, her leg in shreds, then when it returned night after night in her dreams. Now she was here, one-legged, supported by a crutch, her voice as unearthly sweet as a visitation as she sang about a girl who moved through the fair.

  She stood, transfixed as her disbelief fragmented and disappeared. The pain she’d heard in the girl that day in February had become beauty. The small crowd was silent, caught in the words, the singing, while the world receded around them.

  The last note ended. A stunned silence, then applause and people pushing forward to put coins into the hat on the ground. Jane added her money, then looked up. She couldn’t see the girl. It was almost as if she hadn’t been real.

  The memory of it lifted her home and into bed. No need for a book tonight. She had the song in her head.

  Inspector Fry came to see him during the morning. Fury still burned in his eyes, but his voice was sober. Until a new man was appointed, he was the constable, responsible for the law in Leeds.

  ‘I need to know how it happened, Westow. What happened when Fox opened that door?’

  As he told it, Simon understood yet again that there was nothing they could have done. No reason to believe Fox had his pair of pistols, that he’d shoot.

  Once he’d finished, Fry looked up at him. ‘One more question.’

  ‘Ask it,’ he said, although he knew what it would be.

  ‘Why is he dead and you’re still alive? You don’t have a mark on you.’ He stood, nodded, and let himself out.

  Simon had kept wondering the same thing. Fate. Luck. But the man was wrong. No mark on the outside, but plenty in his head and his heart.

  ‘He thinks he should have been able to stop it,’ Rosie said. ‘Then he came too late to take his revenge against Fox.’

  No screams to rip open her sleep. Not even the memories of Porter and Fox. Jane woke to daylight seeping through the shutters. She stretched, feeling the rare joy of a deep, unbroken rest.

  Last night’s chill remained and she was glad of the shawl around her shoulders as she strolled down to Central Market to buy food, a basket over her arm. Carts and coaches filled Briggate, women stopped on the pavement to stare into shop windows.

  The market came as a relief. Crowded and familiar, men shouting their wares, women searching for a bargain. She bought what she needed, then wandered down Kirkgate, past Grey’s Court, down beyond the parish church and East Bar to the butcher she liked on Timble Bridge.

  On the way home, Kate the pie-seller took her pennies as she handed over the food.

  ‘You look different, pet.’

  ‘Do I?’ How? she wondered.

  ‘I’m not sure. Content, perhaps?’ The woman smiled. ‘Whatever it is, I’m pleased to see it. I’ve known you all these years and I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen you happy.’

  Maybe she was. Jane thought about it, then let her mind drift. No plans beyond reading and spending time with Mrs Shields, learning one or two more of the old woman’s secrets with herbs and remedies.

  She was reading, deep in the evening and caught up in the book, when she heard the footsteps and the pounding on the door. She opened it to see Sally.

  The girl was pale, drained, panting after running.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Jane felt the panic rise.

  ‘Simon’s heard a rumour that the men are going after the children again. He said a couple of people were talking.’

  Jane glanced over her shoulder at Mrs Shields. The woman stared at her, then gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘Where are they?’ she asked as they marched side by side.

  ‘That empty land the far side of Great Waterloo Street.’

  The other side of the river. A large open space, some houses rising out of the ground.

  ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’ Jane asked.

  The girl looked exhausted, but her eyes were fixed straight ahead. ‘Yes,’ she answered after a moment. Then, more firmly: ‘I have to be.’

  Fifty yards away, where they were building, the walls of a house offered protection. A pile of bricks and wood provided ammunition to defend themselves. Better than being caught in the open.

  No need to douse the fire in the middle of the open ground.

  ‘We’ll let it burn,’ Sally decided. ‘The men will go there and then we can take them by surprise.’

  Now they had to wait.

  As soon as he overheard the men speak about the attack, Simon had hurried home to warn Sally of the danger. Now he was back out, fading into the heart of a Saturday night. The end of the work week, men out drinking their wages, seeking pleasure and a fight.