Richard and Judy Bookclub - 3 Bestsellers in 1: The American Boy, The Savage Garden, The Righteous Men. Andrew Taylor

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       Chapter 51

      As to time, Mrs Frant was as good as her word. Hooded and cloaked, with a pair of pattens in her hand, she met me in the passage. We passed no one as we threaded our way across the upper floors of the house to the flight of stairs that descended to the lobby and side door. Impatient to be gone, she lead the way down to the dingy hall, which was lit by a solitary lamp.

      The door was bolted, not locked. It opened on to a narrow alley on the other side of the house from the lane with the tavern. Mrs Frant slipped on her pattens and took my arm. We picked our way through the gloom to the lights of Westgate-street.

      People were still abroad. The paved footways on either side were covered with a feathery layer of snow; the cobbles of the pitching were coated with rutted, partly frozen slush. We saw no one resembling Mrs Johnson in either direction.

      “Let us walk up towards the crossroads,” Mrs Frant suggested. “If she did not call in at the house, we must assume she went in that direction.”

      So we set off, looking into the dark mouths of doorways and alleys, glancing into brightly lit taprooms, examining every passer-by. We did not speak. The hood of Mrs Frant’s cloak was across her face, so nothing was visible of her except a pair of eyes. I feared she might fall, for there were patches of black ice concealed beneath the powdering of snow. I listened anxiously to the sound of her pattens clinking and scraping on the pavement, ready to hold her more tightly if she should slip.

      We passed St Nicholas’s Church. A few yards beyond was another of the city’s principal inns, the King’s Head on the corner of Three Cocks-lane. Two servants loitered in the doorway, no doubt waiting to light their masters home. They were smoking and, despite the cold, had the air of men who were at their leisure. I asked if they had seen a lady in the last quarter of an hour, not in the best of health, perhaps, and wearing a long cloak.

      “Hear that, Joe? The gent here’s looking for a lady.” He poked the stem of his pipe towards Mrs Frant, waiting some yards away with her back to us. “Another lady.”

      Joe chuckled. “Ain’t we all? Could be in luck. Plenty of ladies tonight. If you ain’t too particular.”

      I felt in my pocket and produced a shilling. “A lady in a cloak. She came up from the lane beyond Fendall House. You know where I mean?” The shilling was on the palm of my hand and I let the light fall on it from the lantern beside the door. “She is not well – we are looking for her.”

      Joe scooped the shilling from my hand. “Aye, sir. There was a skirt come up from there – ill, you say? I’d say she was lushy. Slipped on some ice, fell on her arse in the gutter, and let fly like a trooper.”

      “Which way did she go?”

      “They went up Westgate.”

      “They?” said Mrs Frant just behind me. “She was not alone?”

      “No, ma’am.” Joe studied her and would have come closer if I had not taken a step forward to prevent him. “A gent come running up from behind when she fell down, and he helped her up and gave her his arm.”

      “What did he look like?”

      “I don’t know. Big fellow. Well set-up. I expect you’d know him, sir, eh? I expect he’s one of her friends as well.”

      There was no mistaking the impudence, though it was phrased in such a way that there was no objecting to it either. The shilling had not been enough to buy respect as well as information.

      Mrs Frant took my arm again and we hurried down the street which sloped gently upwards to the ancient crossroads at the centre of the city. A burst of ribald laughter followed us.

      “Loathsome men,” she murmured.

      “Not loathsome,” I said. “Merely ordinary.”

      I felt her hand tighten on my arm but she said no more. I knew she was upset. Joe and his fellow servants might indeed be ordinary men, but they were not ordinary men of the type with which she was familiar. It shocked her to discover that Mrs Johnson had sunk to become a figure of fun, a drunken woman to be ridiculed when she fell on the street rather than helped to her feet; a woman whose morals were perhaps suspect in all matters – at least in the opinion of those ordinary men.

      The snowflakes still floated silently down from the great darkness of the sky, though less urgently than before. It was as cold as charity. We hurried onwards as fast as we dared. We reached the crossroads, and lingered for a moment on the corner by the Tolsey, the building where the city’s business was transacted.

      “What СКАЧАТЬ