Killing's Reward Read online

  BOOK THREE

  Killing’s Reward

  ANDREW WAREHAM

  Digital edition published in 2019 by

  The Electronic Book Company

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  Killing’s Reward

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Wareham

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents:

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the Same Author

  Introduction

  Killing’s Reward: Young Samuel Heythorne grows up and is encouraged by his mother to take a leading role in the family’s businesses. Although possessing the innocence of youth, he eventually learns that he must take drastic actions to ensure success. Nick, who is becoming increasingly obsessed with his cut-throat razors, has no such qualms when it comes to protecting the Heythorne family’s interests.

  Chapter One

  Author’s Note: I have written and punctuated Killing’s Reward in a style reflecting English usage in novels of the period, when typically, sentences were longer than they are in modern English. Editor’s Note: Andrew’s book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings, punctuation and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.

  Killing’s Reward

  Section One - AD 1752

  Josie Heythorne stood at the door in her widow’s blacks, exchanging bows with Mr Malone who had come to make a visit of courtesy following her week of seclusion after the funeral. She was worn by the days of grief, of caring for her children who could not understand what had happened or why, but was still a handsome woman, her fair hair framing an oval face and clear blue eyes. Malone wondered just how long she would remain a widow, with money and looks both to recommend her.

  Nick stood behind her, dressed formally - black frockcoat, cravat, breeches, half boots – making a menacing spectacle of mourning. He was no more than a small man, neither tall nor heavily built but the peculiarly blank expression, the empty, unblinking eyes, made him a man Malone would not care to cross. He had a reputation as a cold-blooded killer but Malone feared he was anything but, that he was a man who took pleasure in his work. With him at the lady’s side, she had no fear of insult, or of disagreement with her wishes.

  It was expected that the important men of the locality would make their visits on the eighth day after the funeral and they had planned accordingly. Josie swept Mr Malone into the gloomy drawing room – blinds properly drawn – and begged him to take a seat and called for a pot of tea.

  “Thank you for attending me, Mr Malone. My late husband often referred to you as one of the most important new men in Stoke and said how pleased he was to have been your partner. I shall, as no doubt you expect, be taking over his work with the coal mines, with the assistance of Mr Nick. Perhaps we could arrange to meet in the coming week? I have inherited, in my own right, my husband’s forty-nine shares and his Uncle’s two, as you will appreciate. I would not wish to use the majority to wantonly interfere in the running of a profitable enterprise, Mr Malone, but will preserve the family interest to the best of my ability.”

  Mr Malone showed surprised.

  “I had thought that trustees…”

  “No, Mr Malone. My husband discussed all of his business activities with me, in detail. Indeed, I acted as his chief clerk and kept all of our ledgers. I am quite familiar with the day-to-day running of the family firms. Our own coal mine, I shall manage in its entirety. Our joint venture, sir, will remain in your most capable hands, unless you prefer to hand over control? Please be sure that I will not attempt to coerce you into any particular choice.”

  Nick nodded and smiled in the background; his chair slightly withdrawn from the two principals.

  Mr Malone thought for a very few seconds. It was clear to him that he had been put on notice – he was to maintain their joint venture in coal as a profitable and expanding business, with fifty-one parts of the profits, calculated to the last farthing, paid regularly to Mrs Heythorne. The alternative was a visit from Nick. He had a choice – he could knuckle under, or he could kill Nick.

  Sending Nick to his long sleep was a very uncertain affair, he reflected, while continuing to take forty-nine per centum of the profits was a sure way of making good money. He was not a man who enjoyed taking risks.

  “We must indeed meet, ma’am. Perhaps on Thursday next? I could come here to your estate at about ten in the morning? I shall bring the account books with me, ma’am.”

  “Very good, Mr Malone. Mr Nick will sit in with me, he being in the way of taking a larger share of the activities of my late husband’s businesses.”

  “Certainly, ma’am. Will Nick be taking over the particular function played by Mr Makepeace, and for a short time by your husband”

  Nick stood forward, shaking his head definitively.

  “No, Mr Malone. Such would be most inappropriate! I was but a junior employee of that good man, Mr Samuel Heythorne, and could in no way attempt to step into his noble shoes. I am not fit for such a place in the world, sir. My place in life is to protect my late master’s relict and to aid her to bring up her three children in a fashion that would have made the sainted gentleman proud.”

  Mr Malone kept his composure, with some difficulty – he would not have referred to Sam Heythorne in quite those terms.

  “His place should be filled, however, Nick.”

  “It must, Mr Malone, and I know of no man better suited to it than yourself, sir, none more upright than you. Be sure that I would expect to hear your name mentioned in the role.”

  “You would have no objection?”

  “None, sir. I would, indeed, show willing to remonstrate with any who raised the least query. You have my permission to inform any such doubters of my potential delight in correcting any misapprehensions they might hold.”

  Nick made no mention of the cutthroat razors he would use in his corrections; Mr Malone was well aware of just what he was not saying.

  The two exchanged bows and Mr Malone left for his pony and trap, reflecting that he must soon purchase a town carriage in its place. The Upright Man of Stoke ought to protect his dignity.

  He drove slowly back to town, wondering what to do with the madman, Nick. By the time he drew up in the yard behind his largest inn, he had concluded that he had no need to do anything, other than treat him and his wards with scrupulous honesty. He passed the word that afternoon that all dues hitherto paid to Mr Makepeace and then to Mr Heythorne must now come to him, and that all requests
and demands for aid should also be brought to his attention. There would be a peaceful transfer of power, and any who thought otherwise might speak to his close acquaintance and dear friend, Nick.

  Nick was well-enough known in the whole area that he would need to say no more.

  “What of the distilleries, my lady?”

  Nick insisted on the obsequious and incorrect form of address and she had been unable to change his determination to use it.

  “I shall continue to mind the accounts, Nick. I would ask of you that you should take the position of supervisor to the actual establishments. I cannot, I think, with propriety show myself in the actual premises, and the men working there might not wish to accept orders from a mere female.”

  “Oh, my lady, I can assure that none would refuse twice!”

  She shuddered, knowing, or strongly suspecting, how he would ensure that to be the case.

  “Wiser not, Nick. I would be pleased if you would take over that aspect of our business as manager, taking wages for the position. It would serve to regularise your position, as well, Nick. None will be surprised to discover my most senior and valued manager at my shoulder. There are many who would whisper at the sight of my late husband’s most devoted friend there.”

  Nick was much struck by her wisdom and told her so, repeatedly and in increasingly florid terms.

  “That said, Nick, I would wish you to accompany me to the coal mine on the estate in the morning, tomorrow. There may be those among the collier men – who can be a rough crew – who might have doubts about working for a lady.”

  “There might, indeed, my lady. My presence will quell those doubts. Might I even venture to suggest, my lady, that you might bring young Master Samuel with you? He will come into the ownership in some sixteen years, on reaching his majority at age of one-and-twenty. The miners - as you say, an uncultivated and rude set – must be shown that you are to act for him, to protect his interests.”

  “You express yourself so clearly, Nick. It is always a pleasure to talk with you. Your lady must feel the same. She should be well gone with child by now. When does she expect the happy event?”

  “In about two months, my lady. You will know, far better than I, a mere male, that such matters can never be timed to the precise day, but she believes seven or eight weeks from now.”

  “Convey my best wishes to her, Nick. I will see you tomorrow at what, eight of the clock?”

  “I shall be here to the minute, my lady.”

  Josie sat down in the gig she used on the estate, her son Samuel at her side. He was a well-behaved boy, carefully schooled in his manners and conduct and precise in his speech, as much as he could be at a little more than five years of age. He was darker than his father and showed signs that he would be somewhat taller and more heavily built; his stone-grey eyes sparkled with a quick intelligence, watching and noting all he saw. He could read well already.

  “Mama, why should I be shown to the coal miners?”

  “They must know you, Samuel. When you grow up, the mine will be yours and they will work for you. Until you are a man, I will manage the mine for you – children are not permitted to be mine owners and managers. One day, in many years, you will be the owner, the man who has to pay their wages each week.”

  “But… what if I do not have the money, Mama?”

  “Then you will be a bad man, Samuel. The men give you their work. You must give them their wages. That is only right.”

  He solemnly promised to be good.

  “What happened to Papa, Mama?”

  “He died, Samuel. One day, I shall explain all. Hush now, here comes Nick.”

  “I like Nick, Mama. He is a kind man.”

  “So he is, my dear, to those he likes. Make your bow, now.”

  Samuel stood and inclined his head properly, his salutation returned by Nick in the gravest fashion.

  “Good morning, Master Samuel.”

  “Good morning, Nick. Are you to come with us?”

  “Yes, Master Samuel. I shall drive the gig and act as escort, as is proper.”

  They set off the short distance from Thornehills along the dale to the site of the mine, paralleling the trackway with its laden tubs trundling down to the roadway where the wagons picked up the deliveries for the kilns on the eastern side of the town.

  “Mama, why do the tubs stop at the roadway? Could they not go further?”

  “No. They roll downhill under their own weight. To go into Stoke, on the flat, they would have to be pulled by strong horses.”

  He listened and understood, wondering if there might not be a better way of arranging things.

  The mine was busy, never stopped, working a night shift as well as a day. Even on the Sabbath some men worked on maintenance and setting up pit props and clearing and tidying underground.

  “Six shifts of twelve hours, Samuel, the coal hewers to rest on the seventh day, for no man can work every day without a break. The men and women on night shift receive extra pennies for each hour, for it is unnatural to work at night.”

  Samuel listened and remembered, as a good boy should.

  “Are we to go underground, Mama? It seems very black there.”

  The pit was entered by a tunnel running only a little downhill, the seam being almost flat at this point. There had been a wide adit, which is an almost horizontal passage entering the hillside, but the props had been taken away where the coal had been removed, timber being expensive, allowing the dale to collapse except for the necessary working space of the tunnel.

  Josie looked across at the narrow entry, perhaps eight feet wide and nine high, the seam being rarely thick. A pair of wooden rails ran in, the trackway continuing underground to the working space in front of the coalface.

  “Far too black for me, Samuel. No, we shall not enter. We will talk to the foremen and gangers outside in the light of day. It is too dangerous inside the pit.”

  He thought that to be a wise decision, asked if no child was ever permitted entry.

  Josie knew that whole families worked together in gangs on the face, young women often bringing their babies with them in slings on their back. They could push a coal tub with the bairn slung behind.

  “None of our sort, Samuel. Hush now! Here comes the foreman.”

  The foreman wore a round hat rather than the flat cap or bandanna kerchief of the mere colliers. He was an older man, important in the mine and aware of the fact. They had never been introduced as such, although she had seen him before.

  “I am Mr Burkenshawe, ma’am, foreman of the outside works. May I express my deep sorrow, ma’am, at your great loss?”

  She noticed that Burkenshawe spoke without trace of the local accent which was developing in the Potteries. She must be equally precise, out of courtesy.

  “Thank you, Mr Burkenshawe. I am here this morning to inform you that I shall be acting in place of my late husband and that the books and all matters of finance are to pass through my hands, and those of Nick who is to act as my factotum.”

  Every man, including the great bulk who had never met him, knew of Nick. Mr Burkenshawe swallowed nervously, as if he had been introduced to the Grim Reaper in person. Nick smiled and nodded kindly.

  Josie continued with her planned speech.

  “I shall appoint a young man to deal with the commercial side of the pit, Mr Burkenshawe. Matters of sales and such, that is. All demands for expenditure should come to me. Looking at the ledgers, I discover that something in the nature of twenty pounds is spent each week on blacksmithing, on the repair of tools and tubs and such. Would it not be wiser if we were to employ our own smith?”

  “Can’t, ma’am, begging your pardon. A blacksmith must be apprenticed for seven years and then work his time as journeyman before setting up his own forge. Ain’t no blacksmith hereabouts would be an employed hand in a colliery; such as he is a master, not a man.”

  That was a rational answer, but not a thinking one, in Josie’s opinion.

  “What if
we were to offer employment to a journeyman, a passed apprentice who had worked his time? He would have the skills and we could pay more than he would receive in a smithy. Journeymen take home poor money and must often labour a score of years before they can set up their own forge. Were we to offer a skilled man’s wage, then in five years he could go on his own, if he still wished to. If he earned enough to start his family, he might prefer to stay with us.”

  It was a change, and Mr Burkenshawe was not much in favour of changing things. He liked the tried and sure in his life. He was considering how to word his rebuttal when Nick smiled at him and nodded.

  Burkenshawe turned two shades paler and rushed to say that he would personally go into Leek and speak to the pair of journeymen at the forge there, and if they were unwilling would send messages around the villages. He much suspected they might have their own smithy within the month.

  “Beg pardon, ma’am, but should we have our own coke oven too?”

  She did not know the answer but took the sensible course.

  “Cost it out for me, Mr Burkenshawe. I shall see whether we can afford it. The alternative will be to buy coke in, I presume.”

  “No, ma’am, ain’t no oven in these parts. Charcoal, it would have to be, and that is less commonly to hand than ever it was.”

  “And more expensive for being rarer, no doubt. I will bear that in mind, sir, and will give you a decision as soon as may be. I must introduce Master Samuel Heythorne, my son and heir to the late Mr Heythorne.”

  Samuel made his bow and Mr Burkenshawe responded equally politely.

  “I am honoured to meet you, Master Samuel.”

  “Thank you, Mr Burkenshawe. You are very good.”

  “A well-spoken boy, ma’am. He is what, five years of age, I believe?”

  “He is, Mr Burkenshawe.”

  “Forward for his age, ma’am! I could wish my grandchildren were his match.”