The Ladder Dancer Read Free Page B

they say?’
    He chuckled. ‘Every possible story under the sun, sir! But I hear you were there. Did you not give evidence at the inquest?’
    I did. And I said unequivocally that the horseman rode straight for the woman. Everyone else had said the fog was so thick no one could see an inch in front of their faces and the fellow was likely not to blame. Anyway, the woman had been drunk and had probably staggered into the path of the horse. The coroner, who’d been in the comfort of his own home at the time and hadn’t the slightest idea how foggy it had been, but did know the poor drank too much, had implied it had been the woman’s own fault and said that in future she’d do better if she kept out of the way of gentlemen in a hurry.
    ‘Do you know the woman who was knocked down?’
    The spirit sniffed. ‘I know her kind. She’s a whore.’
    ‘She lost a child,’ I said. ‘I don’t know a woman, whore or lady, who’d not be distressed about that.’
    The spirit sounded good-humoured. ‘With respect, sir, I’ve known a good many whores in my time. Plenty of them drink in the Old Man. And there’s none of them that don’t find children a burden.’
    I stifled my irritation; annoying him would do no good. Spirits have a tendency to brood on offences and to bear grudges; they have little else to occupy them. ‘But the child was an innocent victim,’ I pointed out.
    ‘True, true,’ he said with an air of philosophy.
    I was beginning to think there was nothing to be gained here. ‘Do you know of anyone who saw the incident but didn’t speak at the inquest?’
    ‘There’s Brewer,’ the spirit said. ‘The pig man. He’d just brought the animal for the ship’s crew and was having a beer with them before going home again.’
    ‘Do you know where he lives?’
    ‘Up by St Ann’s chapel somewhere.’
    ‘And he didn’t testify? Do you know why not?’
    ‘He’s dumb, sir. And none too bright, either.’
    I sighed.
    ‘There were some whores,’ the spirit said. ‘One of them had a customer in the alley.’ It laughed. ‘Couldn’t get it up, poor devil. Drunk out of his mind.’
    ‘Did you know him? Or the women?’
    ‘Never saw much,’ the spirit said. ‘Not in that fog. I heard ’em, but no one used names. No call for it in that kind of transaction.’
    I bid him goodbye and wandered across the Key to stare at the river and Gateshead Bank on the other side, with the tower of St Mary’s church peeking above the trees. There seemed only one thing to do. I needed to speak to the woman herself. Perhaps she’d known the man on the horse. Perhaps he’d been a customer; some whores are not above threatening a respectable man they’ll tell his wife about his activities. Most men are sensible and know the threat can be averted with a shilling or two; to kill the woman seemed a ridiculous over-reaction. But perhaps she’d unluckily picked on a man with a vicious temper. The horseman had been very angry; I’d felt the fury coming off him in waves, caught that brief glimpse of furious mouth and set jaw.
    So it might pay to talk to her. Which was not a pleasant prospect as, according to the evidence at the inquest, she lived on the Sandgate, just outside the town wall: one of the poorest, and most dangerous, areas of town.

Four
    A gentleman is known by the company he keeps.
    [ A Gentleman’s Companion , July 1732]
    The Sandgate lies at the far end of the Key, beyond the ruins of the old town walls. Hovels cluster at the river’s edge, dwarfed by the tall ships that moor here. Almost every accent you hear is Scotch and the whole place reeks of gin.
    They have their own watchmen here but none of them are elected or paid. They’re purely self-appointed but they put the watchmen in the more respectable parts of town to shame. One was following me from the first step I took beyond the ruins of the town wall: a thin young man with a coat so torn and grimy it looked as if it was about to fall off his back.