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portrait of the baron and his wife, the paint barely dry, hung over the fireplace. Gibton sat down without offering any refreshment or comfort.
    â€˜A Constable doesn’t come with good news,’ he said gravely.
    â€˜No, your Lordship,’ he admitted. ‘Do you want your wife here?’
    The man waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’ll tell her everything myself later. Is Sarah dead?’
    â€˜I’m sorry, she is.’
    Lord Gibton looked into the empty hearth, not showing any emotion, and the Constable was astonished and baffled by the man’s attitude. It wasn’t the way a father should act. If it had been Emily he’d have railed and needed to know every detail.
    â€˜I believed she must be when her husband came here two days ago.’ His voice was low and even. ‘A girl like Sarah doesn’t simply vanish.’
    â€˜She was found on Saturday,’ Nottingham began to explain. ‘We didn’t know who she was.’
    Gibton waved away his words. ‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘Not now.’ His hands rubbed over his knees, a gesture without thought, just something to do.
    â€˜Yes, my Lord,’ the Constable agreed reluctantly, amazed at the man’s lack of interest. ‘There’s one thing I have to tell you, though.’
    â€˜What’s that?’ Gibton didn’t even turn his head.
    â€˜She’d been murdered.’
    â€˜I’d surmised that much, Mister  . . . Nottingham, was that it?’ There was flintiness in his voice. ‘You’d hardly ride out here for a simple death.’
    â€˜When she left to come here, her maid was with her. That’s what her husband said.’
    â€˜Yes. Anne had been her maid for years. Sarah never went anywhere without her.’
    â€˜No one’s seen the maid.’
    Gibton looked up at him, engaged and curious for the first time. ‘Are you implying Anne might have had something to do with this?’
    â€˜I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to establish facts, my Lord.’
    He considered that and nodded finally.
    â€˜Where did Anne come from?’ Nottingham asked.
    Gibton sighed. ‘She was a village girl, the same as the girl we have now. Tell me, did you stop in the village, Constable?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Nottingham admitted. ‘I needed directions here.’
    â€˜And what did they tell you? That we were above ourselves?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘My family used to own all this land. All of it. Then my sot of a great-grandfather gambled almost all of it away. There was a small amount left, enough to live but not in any kind of comfort or style. Still, my wife insisted that Sarah should have a maid. A girl needs that. None of them around here liked it. And they think even worse of us now we’ve inherited a little money.’
    The Constable made no response. He didn’t like this man, apparently so unconcerned about the killing of his daughter but taken over and eaten through with money and position. He wanted to be away from here, out in the clean air. He’d done what he needed to do and broken the news. He’d be back, he knew that, but only once he knew what questions to ask. Quietly he took his leave of the baron and let the horse make its own slow way back into Leeds as he thought.
    Everything felt wrong in the Gibtons’ house. He didn’t know what to make of it, but there was a darkness, a chill there that disturbed him.

Six
    Sedgwick eased himself slowly down on the bed and sighed with exhaustion.
    â€˜That feels better.’
    Lizzie grinned at the pained look on his face and the way he stretched out his long legs.
    â€˜I thought you’d said you’d been sitting down all day.’
    â€˜Aye, on a bloody cart.’ He shifted position carefully. ‘My arse feels like someone’s spent the last few hours kicking it. I don’t suppose we have