Constant Lovers by Chris Nickson

deputy.
    â€˜Positive, boss.’ Sedgwick poured himself a drink. ‘The men are bringing him over here.’
    â€˜Right. We’d better get him in the ground as soon as possible in this weather. The church won’t have anything to do with him if he’s a suicide.’ He turned to Rob. ‘What about his family?’
    â€˜I remember his parents died during the last year of his apprenticeship. And I seem to recall something about sisters.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t remember more than that.’
    â€˜Do you know where he lived?’ Nottingham brushed the fringe off his forehead.
    â€˜Near the bottom of Briggate somewhere, I think.’
    â€˜Good. You two go and see what you can find and then go over to his work and talk to them. Then we can be finished with this.’
    The Constable saw Lister grimace at the rough dismissal of the death.
    â€˜Rob,’ he said gently, ‘I’m sorry. But this is a suicide. We have plenty to keep us busy without that. You’ll learn that.’
    The lad nodded.
    It only took a few minutes to obtain the man’s address. They knocked on the door of a pleasant-looking house set fifty yards up from the river and the housekeeper reluctantly took them up to the rooms Jackson rented. His front window looked down on the street, the bedroom at the rear over the long, neat garden.
    â€˜He didn’t leave a note at the Cloth Hall,’ Sedgwick explained to Lister. ‘See if there’s anything here, anything to show why he killed himself. You look in here, I’ll take the back.’
    Jackson had money; he certainly hadn’t lived hand to mouth. There were three suits, all of good cut, spare shirts and hose. The furniture was old but of good, lasting quality, the mattress of goose down, the sheets clean, expensive linen.
    Why, the deputy wondered? Why would someone with all this, someone with a business, kill himself ? There was no sense to it. He kept looking but there was nothing to answer his question and he went into the living room.
    â€˜Have you looked at the desk yet?’ he asked Lister.
    â€˜No.’
    It was there, lying on top of a pile of papers. The last thing Jackson would have written. In flowing script on a clean sheet of paper, he’d penned, ‘My sweet S is dead. There can be no more for me with her gone.’
    The quill had been cleaned, the small knife for sharpening it lying next at the side, the inkwell carefully capped. A man’s final actions.
    â€˜Rob,’ Sedgwick asked, ‘how well did you know Will?’
    â€˜Not well at all, I told you,’ Lister answered distractedly. ‘Why?’
    â€˜I think he might be connected to the murder we have.’
    He left the lad to sort through the correspondence, trying to find anything he could – love letters, the names of relatives, more about Jackson’s work. That was something he could do easily enough without anyone gazing over his shoulder. Sedgwick hurried back to the jail, the note carefully folded in his pocket.
    Nottingham was still labouring over his reports, the remains of a mutton pie on the desk.
    â€˜I think you’d better have a look at this, boss.’
    He waited as the Constable read and then the two men looked at each other.
    â€˜Sarah Godlove?’
    â€˜That’s what I was wondering.’
    Nottingham reached into the desk and found the note he’d discovered in the dead girl’s dress. He placed it next to the brief lines Jackson had left. The writing matched.
    â€˜That would explain her being away one day each week, meeting him, I suppose.’ He sat back, scraping a hand over his chin. ‘Good work, John. I think we’d better find out all we can about Mr Jackson. Men have murdered their lovers before.’
    Sedgwick nodded. ‘Rob’s going through his things.’
    â€˜What do you think of him?’ Nottingham asked.
    â€˜He’s got plenty