Holden looked anxious, peering into the moving crowds, shuffling from foot to foot.

  ‘Simon!’ Relief flooded his face. ‘There you are. I hoped you’d be able to come after …’ The words seemed to fall away from him.

  ‘What is it? What’s so urgent?’

  ‘The commissioners came back to Leeds yesterday. They’ve been in Manchester and Bolton. They want more testimony. They asked to talk to you again.’

  ‘Me? Why?’ He’d imagined they’d forgotten his words as soon as he left the room.

  ‘They said it was very powerful. It had an effect on them, Simon. You had an effect on them.’ His eyes shone with excitement. ‘I really think we might be getting somewhere. They’ve been talking about a report to Parliament. Something might really happen, if you’re willing to help.’

  Simon nodded. He’d relived it all in his mind so often. Opening up the scars once more wouldn’t make any difference. Maybe Holden was right. It might help if hundreds more like him, up and down the country, gave their evidence. It might stop the same things happening to more children. In his heart, he doubted anything would happen. Promises were cheap and too easily broken. But he’d try; maybe he owed Holden that much.

  ‘All right.’

  The same room, polished and clean. The same three men sitting behind their table. The same clerk hidden in the corner. As if time had curled around on itself.

  He felt as if he’d been here in another life. That it had happened to someone else and he’d stood by and observed it all. So long ago it was seen through a veil.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Westow. We have a few more questions we’d like to ask.’

  None of this could touch him any more. The pain of the past had gone. All that remained was the anger. But that was fine. It stayed. It burned. The flames kept you alert. They kept you alive.

  ‘I believe that you became a bobbin-hugger when you were ten years old. Can you describe that?’

  Words to men with grave faces who’d forget everything he said as soon as he left the room.

  Anger. That was pure. That was real.

  ‘I was big, so they chose me for the job. I had to carry baskets full of bobbins on my back up to the weaving room. They weighed about forty pounds and they were kept in place with a leather strap around my forehead …’

  Jane sat in the darkness of the attic, rubbing her knife over the whetstone, honing the edge. She’d spent the day wandering through Leeds, one more invisible girl in the throng. Into the yard off Wood Street. White’s blood had gone from the flagstones. Washed away, covered with dirt. Down towards Lady Lodge, the place where he’d bested her, held her by the hair with his blade to her throat. She stared and imagined it all crumbling to dust before her eyes.

  Down in the old blacking factory by the river, the small fire was dead ashes. Nobody there, just a few old sacks tossed into the corner. With night, the people would return. To sleep, to be safe.

  Late in the afternoon she’d gone to the copse beyond Drony Laith, making sure no one saw her. She dug up a tin box covered in oilcloth and opened it. From her pocket, Jane took the money Simon had given her. Half the amount Lizzie Henry had paid for White’s death, and her share of the fee for finding Hannah Milner. She added it to the money already hidden.

  Two hundred and fifty pounds. That was what she had now. Enough to live like a lady if she wanted. To vanish somewhere and have a comfortable existence. Money made you weightless. You could go anywhere. Be whoever you wanted to be. So simple, just a step and a heartbeat.

  No. She had no reason. Not yet.

  Jane never would ask Simon about the choice White had given him. She didn’t want to hear a lie and she didn’t dare to hear the truth. And she didn’t want to see his eyes as he spoke. Silence was better than words. It was safer.

  Silence could keep the world from shattering.

  A bowl of hot stew for supper as Rosie and Simon fussed around the boys. Jane asked about their time in Kirkstall and heard their halting replies. But she wasn’t really there. She was alone, behind her walls and doors. Locked away.

  Now the house was silent. She moved to the window, standing and gazing down at the street as she twisted the gold ring on her finger.

  No one watching. Not a soul to be seen.

 

 

  Chris Nickson, The Hanging Psalm

 

 

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