Come the Fear by Chris Nickson

calculated for a moment.
    â€˜Six months, as near as dammit. Too long, really, for what little she could do.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ Nottingham stood. He’d learned what he needed.
    â€˜You’re wondering why I didn’t tell her mother, aren’t you?’ He sighed. ‘How do you tell someone her daughter’s not only stupid but a slattern as well?’
    â€˜I understand,’ the Constable told him.
    â€˜I didn’t think she’d come to you.’
    Nottingham looked at him calmly. ‘I don’t think she had anywhere else to turn, Mr Cates.’
    He walked back down Briggate. The market had ended and the men were packing away their wares, laughing and boasting and comparing profits. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the rough, raw scrape of a fiddle. Ragged, hopeful children darted out of the shadows to grab at fruit that had fallen, holding it close, a meal for the night, survival until tomorrow. He’d been one of them himself, long ago in a lifetime he’d put away. After his father, one of the merchants, had thrown out his wife and son, they’d had to scrabble on the streets. His mother had become a whore and Nottingham had lived by theft, work, anything to keep body and soul together.
    A pair of women wandered like ghosts through the detritus, eyes sharp for anything they might be able to use, scraps of food, pieces of tin, a dress too ripped or threadbare to sell. They moved silently, hopelessly, so pale and thin they looked like wraiths caught between life and death. One he’d seen for at least five years, her back bent and her grey hair lank, no expression on her face. He took a coin from his breeches and slid it into her cold hand. She didn’t even look up at him. Sometimes he believed that the line between the poor and the dead could barely be seen.
    Once he reached the Calls he only had to ask once to find the address he needed. It was a single room in a cellar, the only light a window high in the wall that would never catch the sun.
    She owned little, but she kept it clean, the place spotless and scrubbed, a coat and dress hanging from a nail on the wall, a sheet folded carefully over the straw of the mattress in the corner.
    â€˜You’ve seen him, then?’ Alice Wendell asked, her back straight, her gaze direct.
    â€˜Yes.’
    She waited quietly for his response, her face composed, eyes intent on him.
    â€˜Cates dismissed her four weeks ago,’ he began. ‘He wasn’t happy with her work, but mostly it was because she was with child.’ He paused. ‘That’s why he didn’t want to tell you.’ The woman remained still. ‘He said she didn’t even seem to know she was going to have a baby.’
    â€˜Aye, that’d be Lucy,’ she said in a soft, tired voice. ‘She’s a lovely lass but she’s not always in this world. Someone will have had his way with her and she’ll not even remember who it was.’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ the Constable told her. She put a hand on his arm.
    â€˜Nay, it’s not your fault, lad. There’s plenty happy to take advantage of a girl like that. Now I have to find her before anything else happens.’ The woman sighed. ‘She’ll be too ashamed to come back here where I can look after her.’
    â€˜I can have my men keep their eyes open for her.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ For the first time, she gave a brief smile. Four weeks was a long time; he knew she understood that. The chances of finding the girl were small. But it cost nothing to have the men keep watch.
    â€˜What does Lucy look like?’
    â€˜She’s easy enough to spot, is our Lucy. Lovely long, pale hair and blue eyes. But you can’t miss her. She has a harelip.’
    â€˜A harelip?’ His head jerked up and he thought again of the girl from the fire.
    â€˜Aye,’ the woman said with slow resignation, as if she’d had to explain