8. A Job for Mr Jackson
CHAPTER 8
A Job for Mr Jackson
L ouise looked up into Shaun’s eyes as her world splintered. Surely Joshua wouldn’t be so mad as to want to set fire to the building he was so keen to inherit? It made no sense. But then… the fires that had occurred so far didn’t seem to make any sense at all. Would an arsonist care about a specific target? A madman who just wanted to burn things would probably think a bookshop a wonderful target; so many books would create quite a bonfire.
“It can’t be Joshua,” she said slowly. “Why would he burn down a barn, and a cottage? That makes no sense.”
“Ah.” Shaun frowned thoughtfully. “You’re thinking the attacks are random?”
“Perhaps?” She shrugged a little helplessly, feeling as though she was floundering about in the dark. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me about the previous attacks,” Shaun requested, and Louise wracked her brain to recall the gossip Mrs Poole had shared.
“ Two barns,” Shaun said thoughtfully after she’d told him everything she knew. “And an abandoned cottage. And now, he’s tried for the bookshop. He’s escalating.”
“Esca…” she frowned. It wasn’t a word she was familiar with, at least not in English. “From the French, escalier… stairs?”
“It means to do things in a bigger way, so yes, probably does come from escalier… to climb stairs. I mean that he’s getting worse, he’s stepping things up. From a barn he may have thought was empty, to an abandoned cottage, then to a barn full of hay… and now to a business with people sleeping above.”
“Oh, I see what you mean!” Louise steadied her breathing, “As if the first few were a rehearsal of sorts.”
“He won't stop.” Shaun said it with a dark certainty, and Louise felt a shiver run down her spine. “I’ve seen men like this in the army… not necessarily arsonists, criminals of all sorts. They start small and get bolder and nastier, and they don’t stop, not until someone makes them stop. This is a serious matter, I’m afraid. Who is your local magistrate, would you introduce me?”
Louise winced. “I have bad news on that front. You already met him, outside the church yesterday. It’s my cousin Joshua.”
The bell tinkled as she said it, but Louise couldn’t look away from Shaun’s face to see who had come in, even though the Closed sign was still on the door. Shaun’s expression went from curious to horrified, before a kind of resolution dawned and he stood up even taller, if that were possible, his head almost brushing the shop’s ceiling beams.
“Then I’ll be staying in Hatfield until I’ve caught this miscreant,” Shaun said, and his voice was like the low, distant rumble of cannon fire. Grim and dangerous. “I’m an investigator. I’ll find him. I’m certainly not leaving y… this town to be terrorised by an arsonist.”
Had he almost said he wasn’t leaving her to be terrorised? The squirmy, delicious feeling was back in Louise’s stomach again, and she wanted to smile, despite the grim topic of discussion.
“Excellent,” another voice said, a familiar one, and Louise finally managed to tear her gaze from Shaun’s face to see that it was Lord Ferndale who’d come into the bookshop. The elderly baron was smiling up at Shaun with apparent delight. “It appears you’re just the man I’m looking for, then.”
“I beg your pardon?” Shaun turned and stared down at Lord Ferndale, and Louise realised she had better make introductions.
“Lord Ferndale, this is Mr Jackson. Formerly with the army as a quartermaster and investigator, he’s passing through Hatfield and has heard about the fires.”
“Not just heard about,” Shaun rumbled. “Darn nearly caught the scamp trying to burn the bookshop down last night!” He held up the tinderbox to show Lord Ferndale, who looked grave.
“Dear me, how dreadful! Are you quite all right, Louise? And Bernadette, Mrs Poole and Rosie?”
“No harm done, though I need to affix our fire shingle in a more permanent manner.” She lifted the shingle off the counter. “The culprit unscrewed it!”
“Outrageous!” Lord Ferndale huffed in annoyance, before turning his attention back to Shaun. “An investigator, hm?”
“Of a sort. I was more what you might call an auditor, mostly looking for financial discrepancies… but I can handle myself.” Shaun gave a self-deprecating little smile, and Lord Ferndale laughed aloud.
“Oh, I have no doubt of that, young man, no doubt at all. Well, I do believe you might have been delivered to me by Providence, because I was just about to request an express rider at the inn to take this to the Bow Street Runners for me.” Lord Ferndale held up a letter. “Requesting that they send me a man to find this blasted arsonist before he burns down any more of my property or anyone else’s. But since it seems there is an investigator here in town already… are you interested in a job, young man?”
“I feel like I’d be cheating you, to take your money for something I already planned to do,” Shaun said.
Louise honestly suspected she might have fallen in love with him at that moment. What an honourable thing to say!
“Nonsense,” Lord Ferndale said briskly. “At the very least, you must permit me to cover your bed and board, and shall we say perhaps a bonus to be paid when you apprehend this miscreant? Twenty pounds?”
“That is more than generous, my lord!” Shaun looked at Louise, as though to ask if Lord Ferndale meant what he said.
She offered an encouraging smile. “Lord Ferndale owned one of the barns that burned down. I’m sure he will consider you a bargain if you can bring in the arsonist for that price.”
“Both of the barns, and the cottage!” Lord Ferndale corrected her. “I was beginning to wonder if my property was being targeted specifically, but perhaps not, if they made an attempt at the bookshop last night. Either way, I want this man stopped, and I cannot trust our magistrate to get the job done.” He gave Louise a meaningful look.
She winced. “I was just explaining to Mr Jackson that the magistrate is Cousin Joshua.”
“Ah.” Lord Ferndale looked back at Shaun, catching the cynical look on his face. “You are an excellent judge of character, I see.”
“I like to think so.” Shaun offered his hand to Lord Ferndale to shake. “And talking of that… there are some men at the Red Lion. Returned soldiers, down on their luck a little. I’m wondering if you might see your way clear to letting me hire a few of them to help me out? Hatfield’s a fair-sized town to cover on my own, and if I’m asking questions during the day, I’ll want some men available to patrol at night.”
“An excellent notion! Why don’t we walk next door, and you can introduce me to them?”
Shaun and Lord Ferndale left the bookshop together, after polite farewells to Louise, and she sat with a silly grin on her face for quite a few minutes.
Shaun was staying, possibly for some time. Lord Ferndale had clearly taken an immediate liking to him, too.
Her gaze fell on the fire shingle on the counter, and she hummed thoughtfully, picking it up. “Maybe some glue,” she said. “And new screws.” She’d send Brutus over to the ironmonger when he came in, and she had some older glue which had dried quite hard upstairs. A hot-water bath should soften it enough to make a nice thick sticky paste, and it would dry again quickly. Let the arsonist try to get it off the wall then!
The bell jingled again, and Louise glanced up, expecting to see Ruth or Brutus - it must be almost time to open the shop. But it was neither of the youngsters; it was Shaun coming back in.
“Mr Jackson!” She shot upright. “Was there something else?”
“There is, actually.” He leaned on the counter and smiled down at her. “While Lord Ferndale has generously offered to cover rooms at the Red Lion for me and the three men we’ve just hired, I don’t actually want to stay there. Too many folk passing through, and,” he looked a little conspiratorial, “I did make a fair few enemies, while I was in the army. I’d rather not be in quite such an obvious spot. Could I press upon you to make enquiries of whether anyone has any rooms to rent?”
“I shall make it my utmost priority,” Louise beamed at him. “I already asked Mrs Poole yestereve about a house to purchase, and she knows everyone who’s worth knowing in Hatfield. I’d wager I’ll have an answer for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
She was bragging now, because those fluttery feelings were making her silly in the head. Mr Jackson was staying in Hatfield and he was performing important work. He was already possessed of so many excellent qualities, but if he brought down an arsonist he’d be a true hero, not just in her eyes but to the whole town.
“Much appreciated,” he said with a slow and warm smile that made her tummy flip again. How utterly glorious!
She waved him off again, content they would see each other very soon. Then she luxuriated in her present situation. Yes it was dangerous, but she was starting to think herself properly in love with someone.
Were these the same feelings Estelle had experienced with Mr Yates? When she wasn’t being an idiot about things, of course. To think, her eldest sister had fought with these same emotions and hadn’t wanted them. What a silly goose Estelle had been. Louise was going to be ever so much smarter about her predicament. In fact, she was determined to do the opposite of everything Estelle had done, skip the messy confusing parts and get straight to the happy bits.
Bernadette came down and delivered a stern look. “You’re wool gathering. I don’t suppose a tall man is the one with the wool?”
There was little point pretending anyone else had caught her fancy. Bernadette would tease her forever if she denied it, so Louise smiled and said, “Mr Jackson is staying in Hatfield, and I for one am delighted. Lord Ferndale has tasked him with finding the arsonist.”
Bernadette pulled up short and looked confused.
Louise made her way to the door and turned the sign to Open, as she was fully awake now and may as well open for customers. “I’ll fill you in, and I do hope Mrs Poole knows of someone with a spare room.”
For the next few minutes, Louise showed Bernadette the shingle and explained all that Mr Jackson had told her, plus the very recent intervention of Lord Ferndale.
Bernadette looked confused. “I thought it was the returned soldiers who were up to no good. As did you for a time, too. Do you think Mr Jackson would turn in one of his own?”
It was on the tip of Louise’s tongue to explain that Mr Jackson had spent the last few years turning in ‘his own’, but she kept that to herself. It made him sound a little less heroic. “He says to keep an open mind, so that’s what I’ll do too.”
“You really like him, don’t you?”
Louise grinned and those lovely fluttery feelings spread through her tummy again. “I really do.”
“You take all the fun out of mercilessly teasing you, you know that,” Bernadette confessed.
“ Quelle dommage! ” Louise said, fairly dripping with sarcasm. It was their late mother’s favourite expression when the girls didn’t get exactly what they wanted. “What a shame!”
The door opened and the bell above tinkled, as Brutus and Ruth came in to do a little work and enjoy the quiet reading time.
Louise lit up. “Ah, Brutus, just the lad I need. Our Fire Insurance shingle needs new screws. Would you take this to the ironmonger and purchase four long screws so we can fix it back to the wall?”
The lad nodded and asked, “Do we have an account with them?”
Louise thought for a moment. “I’m not sure we do, we seldom need screws or nails.” She fetched some money from the locked box and gave it to him, to cover what she supposed would be the fee.
“Do you have the old screws to measure the new ones?” Brutus asked.
That was rather sensible of him. “Let’s have a look out on the footpath and see if we can’t find one.”
They spent the next few minutes examining every crevice and crack, but there was no sign of the missing screws.
“I’m sure it’s no problem, Miss Louise, the ironmonger probably has a set size for the fire insurance shingles.”
She’d tell him about the arsonist later, when there was time.
He headed off down the street to the ironmonger, at the same time as Mrs Poole approached with a plate of breakfast for her. “Come in and eat, I’ll put this on the counter.”
Her tummy rumbled in anticipation of buttered toast and hot tea.
“When you see your Mr Jackson, tell him Mrs Bell across the street has a room she’d be happy to let. Oh, here he is now!” Mrs Poole fairly beamed as Shaun entered the shop for the third time that morning, and Louise smiled too.
MY Mr Jackson. How nice that sounds!
She took a moment to introduce Mrs Poole, who inexplicably rushed straight off again, but her disappearance was soon explained when she dashed back down the stairs two minutes later with a second plate of toast and jam for Shaun, who thanked her heartily.
“Mrs Poole has given me the good news that Mrs Bell across the street has a room to let. Mrs Bell is a local midwife, so does keep odd hours, and I’m sure she won’t mind you coming and going whenever you wish so long as you’re quiet,” Louise said, thinking even as she said it that this was a very good solution. As a midwife, Mrs Bell knew everyone in Hatfield - well, every woman, at least - and was even more familiar with comings and goings around town than Mrs Poole. She could be a very useful source of intelligence for Shaun, as well as a kind landlady.
“Well, that sounds tremendous,” Shaun said, after polishing off the bread and jam. “Conveniently close too.” He gave Louise that slow smile again.
“Convenient for, ah?” She was too dazzled by that smile to think straight.
“For meeting with my men at the Red Lion, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
“And for keeping an eye on the bookshop. In case the arsonist makes a second attempt.”
She felt a bit deflated. How very businesslike of him. “Well, let me take you across the street and introduce you to Mrs Bell,” she suggested. “If she’s home, that is. If not I shall write a note and ask her to come and find you at the Red Lion.”
Bernadette and Mrs Poole had been standing there the whole time listening to the conversation, and Ruth was probably hiding behind a bookshelf listening too, so Louise left them in charge and walked outside with Shaun, just as it started to snow.
“Oh, dear.” She looked up into the grey sky full of swirling flakes. “I hope it’s not doing this in the north. My sister Marie should be arriving in Cumbria today or tomorrow.”
“A miserable time of year to be travelling in the north,” Shaun noted, offering his arm to cross the street. They had to wait for several carriages to pass before making their way safely across.
“I’m afraid so, but when an earl orders more than a hundred pounds’ worth of books and demands they be personally delivered… one of us had to get on a coach.”
Shaun whistled between his teeth. “Whew. That’s a lot of money to spend on books, he must be very rich.”
“Very entitled, you mean.” Louise cast him a sideways grin. “It’s probably a good thing Marie went and not me. I might have told him what I thought of him.”
Shaun laughed, rich and low, as Louise knocked on Mrs Bell’s door.
Mrs Bell was at home, fortunately, and more than happy to rent Shaun a spare room when she heard Lord Ferndale had hired him to search out the arsonist. Louise left them negotiating about which meals might be included in his bed and board and made her way back to the bookshop with a spring in her step.
Shaun was staying .
Brutus arrived back just as she managed a safe crossing of the street, and she accepted the four screws and change which he handed to her.
“Shall we screw it back in now, Miss Louise?” he asked. “You did say you were going to show me how to use the other tools…”
“And I certainly shall, but first I want to prepare some glue. We’re gluing that shingle to the wall as well as screwing it in. Let anyone try to remove it then!”
Louise looked back at the other side of the street, and up to the window at the front of the upper storey of Mrs Bell’s house. The massive figure of Shaun was quite visible inside as he talked with his new landlady.
And let anyone try anything with my Mr Jackson on the case , she thought with a private little smile. Surely, with an expert investigator to hunt down the arsonist, he would be caught well before Christmas!