Without Fear or Favour Read online

  Without Fear or Favour

  David Field

  © David Field 2019

  David Field has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  Published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Endnote

  Chapter One

  Tom Lincraft, Senior Constable for Nottinghamshire, and his eager colleague Constable Giles Bradbury, were racing hard to keep up with Robert Franklin in his enthusiasm to show them his father’s corpse. Down Turncalf Alley, and through the marshy ground that lay between it and the Leen River, the two men puffed and panted to keep up with their informant. Tom was the older of the two, at thirty years of age, but he was hardened by many a chase through the narrow back lanes of the town, and he was only a few yards behind the younger and naturally fitter Giles as they squelched to a halt in the boggy grass in front of the mill.

  It was now almost August, and the wild flowers that decorated the flood plain in promiscuous abundance were daring to expose their stamens for the bees to spread their pollen, only to have them trampled down by heavy constabulary boots as the two men doubled over at the end of their enforced run, anxious to refill their depleted lungs.

  ‘Not bad for an old codger!’ Giles grinned as he straightened up.

  ‘Mind your manners, you cheeky young beggar!’ Tom growled between hoarse intakes of laboured breath. ‘You come down here to learn how I does things, not to see how fast I can run. And keep your big boots out of that muddy mess to the side there.’

  ‘D’you want to see this or not?’ Robert Franklin demanded from the platform itself, his face betraying his annoyance at the delay.

  ‘Just getting our breath back,’ Tom assured him as he led the way, then launched himself forward onto the wooden boards of the mill platform, prior to raising himself back to his feet. He leaned down and helped Giles up behind him, and the two officers of the law turned in order to contemplate the reason for their being summoned down to Leen Mill.

  The body of Edward Franklin was swinging slightly in the morning breeze from the main beam of his own flour mill on the north bank of the river. The big wheel was motionless, indicating that the sluice had not been opened before the man who had run the family mill had seemingly opted to end it all. The morning sun had been playing on his corpse for at least two hours, judging by the number of flies buzzing enquiringly around his face, and Tom frowned as he walked around the circular platform that led to the grinding stones, and took a long hard look at the back of the man’s head.

  ‘I can’t believe he done it!’ Robert Franklin wailed. ‘There were no reason for it, because trade were good, and we had a good flow of water these past few weeks. And we had a full order book. What can I tell Mam?’

  ‘Tell her he didn’t do it,’ Tom replied quietly and distractedly, and Giles moved round to stand next to Tom as he whispered ‘What have you found?’ Tom continued staring at the fly-ridden overweight carcass suspended from the creaking rope as he spoke quietly from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Ever seen a person what had hung himself?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ Giles replied, slightly aggrieved. ‘I’ve been a Constable for two years and more, and I’ve had my fair share of them. Why?’

  ‘What colour were their faces?’ was Tom’s next question.

  ‘Purple and black, most of the time.’

  ‘Most of the time, or all of the time?’ Tom persisted, and Giles conceded ‘Well, every time, since you ask.’

  ‘And what colour’s his face?’ Tom continued with a nod towards the body swinging in front of them.

  ‘Well, it’s not purple nor black, anyway,’ Giles conceded, and Tom nodded.

  ‘So what does that tell you?’ Giles thought for a moment, then gave up the struggle. ‘It’s different from the others?’ he offered weakly, and Tom nodded.

  ‘It’s different because he didn’t hang himself.’

  ‘So why’s he dead, and why’s he hanging there?’ Giles challenged him, and Tom sighed. ‘Use your bloody eyes, man.’

  Giles peered carefully at what was dangling in front of them, then finally noticed what Tom had spotted immediately. ‘That looks like a big lump on the back of his head,’ he observed.

  ‘Big as a bowling ball,’ Tom agreed. ‘And how do you reckon he came by that?’

  ‘Maybe when he took the dive off the platform?’ Giles suggested, and Tom shook his head. ‘It’s wet out there, remember? Wet and muddy. To launch himself off this here platform, he’d need to climb onto it with the rope round his neck. Do you see any boot marks on the platform apart from them what we just made?’

  ‘No,’ Giles conceded. ‘I get you. So he didn’t hang himself, you reckon?’

  ‘I’d bet my life on it,’ Tom replied. ‘So tell me, as your first lesson in separating the truth from what we was supposed to think, how did this feller come to be dead?’

  ‘Somebody crowned him to the back of the head, then strung him up to make it look like he’d done himself in.’

  ‘Correct,’ Tom smiled. ‘You’re learning, boy. Now, you’re a big strapping feller – could you have done it, all on your own?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Giles conceded. ‘So there was more than one of them, you reckon?’

  ‘Definitely two, and maybe three or more,’ Tom confirmed. ‘He were a big feller, as you can see, and once he were dead, he would have been pretty heavy to lift.’

  ‘A dead weight, you mean?’ Giles joked, then apologised as Tom shot him a foul look.

  ‘Part of what you’ll learn from me is to show respect for the dead,’ Tom growled as he jerked his head to where Robert Franklin was sitting on the edge of the platform entrance, facing outwards with his head in his hands, sobbing quietly. ‘And now we got to ask questions of the poor bugger what found him – his own son, remember. But before that we got to look at the ground out there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s got a lot to tell us, that’s bloody why!’ Tom advised him in an irritated tone. ‘Now get back down there with me, and don’t put your boots anywhere unless I says you can.’

  Back on the ground, with Robert Franklin still making sobbing noises five feet above their heads, Tom led the way slowly to a patch of churned up mud and grass to the side of the mill, and pointed downwards.

  ‘What can you make out down there?’ he enquired of Giles, who frowned.

  ‘Looks like somebody did a lot of dancing around,’ he agreed. ‘Take a closer look,’ Tom insisted, and when Giles remained silent Tom became fractious again.

  ‘Have your never seen a horse?’ he demanded, and Giles looked more closely. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean. There’s hoof marks in that there mud.’

  ‘More than one,’ Tom added. ‘See, there’s one with a full set of nail marks, and another what’s missing a couple? So two horses at least, and maybe more.’

  ‘But that could have been done by horses what was calling at the mill,’ Giles objected, and Tom nodded. ‘Now, what questions should we be asking of this poor sod what just lost his father?’ Giles shrugged, and Tom sighed. ‘Listen and learn, young feller. But first of all, pick up that spur what you obviously missed.’

  Giles did as instructed, and listened attentively as Tom walked back to where Robert Franklin was sitting and adopted a sympathetic tone.

  ‘It must have been quite a shock, finding y
our Dad like that, but I needs to ask you a few questions. That alright?’

  Robert nodded, head down, and wiped his nose roughly on the sleeve of his shirt as Tom began.

  ‘First of all, how does folk deliver their grain, and collect the finished stuff, from this here mill?’

  ‘By horse and cart, obviously,’ Robert replied, and Tom continued. ‘Does any of your customers come from the nobility, or maybe just the rich folk up in the town?’

  ‘No,’ Robert replied with a shake of the head. ‘There’s Peter Baker, up in Stoney Street. He’s probably the richest of them, but in the main our customers is all more humble folk – folk with long gardens what grows their own grain, then brings it to us to have it ground.’

  ‘And they uses horses and carts, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Some of them just uses barrows and suchlike. Peter Baker has a cart, and we’ve got one of our own, what we sometimes uses to deliver to folks what don’t have their own. That’s it, over there where the horse is grazing.’

  Tom nodded sagely. ‘It’s just that we just found a spur in the mud to the side there. Can you think of any visitors to the mill lately what had spurs on their boots?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Robert assured him. ‘Spurs is only for the rich folk, and most of them uses the mill further down on the Trent, alongside Hethbeth Bridge.’

  ‘Very well,’ Tom replied as Giles moved alongside him. ‘My fellow constable and me is of the opinion that your Dad didn’t hang himself. We think that someone whacked him on the back of the head, then hung him up to look as if he’d done the deed himself. So there’s some comfort in knowing that. But the problem with that, see, is that we got to take the body back to the Guildhall and let the Coroner know as how there’s been a murder.’

  ‘I understand,’ Robert nodded sadly, ‘but what do I tell Mam?’

  ‘Tell her that we’re going to be asking questions around the town, even though it’s not officially part of our duties. We’re supposed to just lock them up when somebody else gives us the facts that entitles us to do that. I don’t suppose your Dad had any enemies? Anybody who’d want to kill him?’

  ‘No,’ Robert replied sadly with a shake of the head. ‘He were a popular kind of feller, you know? You need to keep well in with folks if you’re running a business like ours, and Dad were always smiling and laughing, joking with the customers and so on. He liked his pot of ale, too, and he were always standing his turn when he had the money.’

  ‘Where did he drink?’ Tom enquired. ‘“The Bell”, on Beastmarket Hill,’ Robert replied. ‘Do you know it?’ Tom and Giles both grinned as Giles replied ‘There’s not a constable in the county who don’t know The Bell.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Robert conceded ruefully, ‘it can get a bit rough some nights, but Dad were well respected. He always liked to play skittles out the back of there. In fact, me and him were there last night ’til quite late on.’

  ‘Playing skittles?’ Tom enquired, and Robert nodded. ‘Dad were, anyway. With some new feller we’d never seen in the town before.’ ‘Was your father gambling?’ was Tom’s next question, and Robert shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. I were too busy chatting to Polly, the lass what serves the pots in there. She can be right friendly, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Know her well,’ Giles murmured with a glint in his eye, and Tom stared his disapproval as he continued with his questions. ‘Did your Dad seem to be getting on well with this new feller he’d just met? Could they have had a falling out over something? You get the idea – could this have been the person what come down here this morning and did him in?’

  ‘I thought you said there had to be more than one,’ Giles reminded him, then fell awkwardly silent in response to the glare that he earned himself.

  ‘My colleague’s right to remind me of the fact that there was likely more than one of them what did the deed,’ Tom conceded, ‘but for all we know, this feller weren’t travelling alone, and your Dad might have done or said something to make him angry.’

  ‘That don’t sound like Edward Franklin,’ Robert replied with a shake of the head. ‘But you may be right, because I couldn’t think of anybody here in the town as would want to do my Dad any harm, so it must have been a stranger. And the feller looked a bit – well, like as if he were anxious about something.’

  ‘Any idea what?’ Tom prompted him, but Robert shook his head. ‘No, not really. But he were always looking behind him, like he expected somebody to sneak up with a knife or something. And he disappeared once or twice, claiming that he needed to check something in his room. It got Dad a bit annoyed, because then the skittle alley would get claimed by other players, and Dad had to wait ’til this feller come back down again.’

  ‘Your Dad told you all this afterwards, did he?’ Tom enquired, and again Robert nodded. ‘Yeah, when we was walking home down through Greyfriars. We always made sure we was together if we come back from The Bell late at night, in case of footpads, you know?’

  ‘Very sensible,’ Giles acknowledged. ‘So that were the last time you seen him?’

  ‘Yeah, although he shouted a good morning as he left to open the mill this morning,’ Robert recalled. ‘That were our normal way of doing things. Dad would get up first, fix himself some breakfast, then come down to the mill in the cart to open up the sluice and get the wheel turning. Then I’d come down an hour or so later to help lift the first load up onto the platform and then onto the stones.’

  ‘So you still lives in the same house as your parents?’ Tom queried. ‘That’s right,’ Robert confirmed. ‘I never married, so it were easier for all of us if I lived at home and worked the mill with Dad, as well as doing things for Mam, like fetching water and chopping wood.’

  ‘And this morning were no different?’ Tom pressed him. ‘Your Dad left the house an hour before you, that right?’

  ‘Yeah, near enough. It’s only a five minute walk to the mill from where we lives, in the mill cottage under the Castle rock.’

  ‘And when you got here this morning, you found your Dad hanging the way he was when you called us in?’

  ‘That’s right, yeah.’ Tom thought for a moment before explaining what was on his mind.

  ‘To my way of thinking, your Dad were killed during that hour. But whoever done it either got lucky, or they knew your normal arrangements, and was waiting for him to turn up for work as normal.’

  ‘Or somebody followed him,’ Giles added helpfully, and Tom nodded. ‘Good point, Giles.’ He turned back to Robert. ‘You didn’t hear no noise of horses or nothing before you set out for the mill?’

  ‘No,’ Robert replied, ‘and the track from the house to the mill’s pretty quiet at that time of day. The sun had been up a good couple of hours, but it were still early in the working day.’

  ‘And you saw nothing as you was coming down to the mill itself?’ Tom enquired. ‘A couple of town doxies lying in the grass, fair gone with the drink by the look of them,’ Robert recalled with a faint smirk. ‘I don’t reckon they could have done it, not the state they was in. But nobody else, no.’

  ‘Is owt missing from the mill?’ Giles enquired. ‘You know, bags of stuff, or tools, or even maybe money? Somebody could have been robbing the place when your Dad caught them at it.’

  ‘Nah,’ Robert replied with a shake of his head. ‘There were nothing of any value left here when we wasn’t here to guard it.’

  ‘Which brings us back round again to the likelihood that whoever did it were interested in killing your Dad for personal reasons,’ Tom concluded. ‘We’ll need to get his body up to the Guildhall, so can we borrow that wagon of yours?’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ Robert agreed. ‘Do you need a hand to get the body into . . . I mean, down to . . . .’

  The pain was written all over his face once again, and Tom took pity on him.

  ‘No thanks, that’s why only big strong fellers is appointed as constables. We can look after that, but you can help us no end if you can think of somebody what wante
d the old man dead.’

  ‘I really can’t,’ Robert confirmed in a voice that was almost a plea to be excused further questions, ‘but maybe you should find out a bit more about that feller that Dad were playing skittles with last night. He looked a bit on the rough side, and I can’t be sure that there wasn’t a couple of other blokes watching them playing, but like they wasn’t interested in skittles, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘We’ll certainly pay a call on the proprietor of The Bell,’ Tom assured him as he and Giles climbed back onto the mill platform. Tom took the large knife from the belt at his waist, swung the staff of office that hung from the same belt to one side so that it didn’t impede his movements, and instructed Giles to lean out over the well beneath the platform, take the weight of the corpse, and be prepared to drape it across his shoulder when it slid down following the hasty slashing of the rope. Together they lowered it from the outside of the platform into the waiting cart, hitched up the grazing horse and set off back up the roughly defined track through the wet undergrowth, on their return to Turncalf Alley and back into the town proper.

  ‘Did you take a good look at his face?’ Giles enquired as soon as they were out of Robert Franklin’s hearing. Tom looked sideways at him with raised eyebrows, and Giles duly obliged. ‘He were making noises like he were crying, but there was no tears. I always pay attention to folks’s faces when I’m asking questions, and you can learn a lot from the looks on their faces. Not a tear in sight, that one.’

  ‘So you reckon he weren’t too unhappy about his old man being dead?’

  ‘Why would he? He gets to inherit the mill, from what he were saying.’

  ‘So you’re prepared to conclude that it were the son what did for the father?’

  ‘Not yet, no. I’m just saying that he weren’t all that upset, that’s all.’

  Just before they reached the entrance to the narrow Turncalf Alley, Giles appeared to be looking intently to his left, towards the foot of the Castle rock as it descended into Leenside. He caught the flicker of something light coloured and muttered to Tom that he’d be back shortly, then set off at a quick trot in the direction of the movement he’d spotted. A few moments later Tom clucked with impatience as he watched Giles talking in an easy manner with two women whose facial expressions even from that distance left little doubt that they were enjoying the exchange.