Page 30 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘You can keep your word – I’ll keep the money. Five pun’ in me hand. Two years in advance. That’s my terms. Or they can stretch his neck for all I care. I’ll come and watch.’

An older woman appeared behind her, coming in from the scullery at the back. ‘Whatcher doin’, Tab? Whoyer talkin’ to?’

‘It’s him from up the Castle. Wants me to tell police William was with me that night.’

Mrs Mattock evidently knew which night was in question. She came up close behind her daughter and squinted up at Richard’s face. Then she smiled at him ingratiatingly, showing the stubs of her discoloured teeth. ‘She’s a respectable girl, my Tabitha. Respectable girls don’t like to have nothing to do with the police. Doesn’t look good. Girl like my Tabitha goes inside a police station, everyone knows about it. There’s talk. She was supposed to be prop’ly married by now, but that wicked man jilted her at the altar. What’s she supposed to do now, with no job and no money? And she’ll never get another job if she’s seen going in a police station.’

‘She won’t have to,’ Richard said. ‘I’ll speak to the police, and they’ll send someone here to take her statement. I just need you to promise to tell them the truth, Miss Mattock. About seeing William that evening.’

The old woman laughed. ‘She can tell ’em about seeing William all right!’

‘Stow it, Ma,’ Tabby growled. To Richard she said again, ‘Five pun’. That’s my terms.’

‘I haven’t got that much on me,’ Richard said.

‘Then you’ll have to come back,’ she said flatly. ‘Before the pleece come. If it’s not in me hand before they turn up, I’m saying nothing.’

‘And what’s to say you’ll speak up once you’ve got the money?’ Richard said. ‘Two before, and three when I hear from them you’ve done it right.’

‘You’re not as green as you look, Mister Richard Tallant,’ she said, with an unpleasant laugh. ‘All right, but I better get it, or it’s back to the police I’ll go and tell ’em you bribed me to lie to save William’s neck. Then you’ll be in trouble and he’ll get stretched.’

‘Agreed,’ Richard said. ‘I’ll be back.’

‘You better,’ Tabby said, and shut the door.

Inside, mother and daughter exchanged a look. Mrs Mattock said, ‘A fiver?’

‘He said he’d support the baby, a shillin’ a week. I said two years in advance or it’s no go.’

‘But I thought you was going to that Miss Eddowes and givin’ the baby away?’

‘Well, he don’t have to know that, does he? Why d’yer think I want the money in advance?’

‘I dunno, Tab. Talking to the pleece – it’s dangerous. What if they finds out about the other chap and what you did—’

Tabby could move like a cat, too. She had her mother by the throat. ‘You shut your mouth, old woman. Nobody never knows about that, d’you hear?’ She let her go. ‘You talk too much.’

‘Sorry, Tab.’ She was frightened of her daughter when she got in a mood. Years of pulling beer pumps had given her mighty strong arms and hands. And if she lost her temper . . . She’d lost it with that other chap, the skinny one. Two of ’em giving her the brush-off in one night. It was no wonder she’d gone a bit crazy-like. That soft William was lucky she’d bashed him first, before she really got her rile up . . .

‘Anyway, once I got that fiver and the baby’s out the way, I’m off out of here. They’ll never find me, even if they look. But if I ever find out you bin talking, I’ll come back and kill you, all right? You know I’d do it.’

‘I won’t talk,’ said Mrs Mattock. ‘Not about – that.’

‘Not about anything, you hear?’

Sergeant Mayhew was sternly disapproving. ‘I don’t say you haven’t come by some useful information, but you should have brought it straight to us, sir, and let us investigate, not gone asking questions yourself. Who knows what damage you might have done?’

Richard assumed humility. ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant. I didn’t think of that. I was just eager to prove William’s innocence.’

‘We have our job to do, sir, and it doesn’t make it any easier to have well-meaning members of the public getting in our way.’

‘I have no wish to get in your way, Sergeant, I assure you. And I’m more than happy to leave everything else to you. Can I take him home now?’

‘Certainly not, sir. We shall have to check up on it ourselves before we can accept the truth of it. And there’s still the question of the scratches and the black eye, and all his lies.’

Richard suppressed a grin. ‘I have an idea about that, Sergeant.’

Uncle Sebastian was back, and appeared at dinner that evening. He seemed subdued, but in a thoughtful way rather than sad or depressed. The dowager and Rachel were in London, so it was to the audience of Sebastian, Kitty and Alice that Richard told the day’s news.