Supply and Demand Read online

  Supply and Demand

  Cheynne Edmonston

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  Contents

  Preface

  Supply and Demand

  Dedication

  Newsletter

  Enjoyed this book?

  About the Author

  “A gentle craft, I sit so snug,

  With hammer, knife and nippers;

  I thumb away, and cut, and tug,

  At boot, and shoe, and slippers.

  And if I can make both ends meet

  My awl, through no great treasure

  My work, though trodden under feet,

  I’ll work for you with pleasure.”

  Little Jack of All Trades (London, 1823).

  Essex, England. September, 1747.

  ‘That it then?’ asked Randall, perched on his horse and squinting at a rundown farmhouse a hundred yards or so in the gloomy distance. It was surrounded by an overgrown garden and not much else other than wheat fields sprawling away in every grim direction. Though there did appear to be a barn located to the rear of the property. A very big barn.

  Two crows cawed as they cut across the slate sky and Shanklin shifted in his saddle while he checked the address scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper, his tricorn tipped back, reins loose in one gloved hand.

  ‘Aye,’ he finally mumbled, eyes narrowed as he gazed at the ruin, pulling his hat back into place.

  Randall let out a long breath like he’d been holding it for days. Like it was the worst news he’d had in a while.

  ‘Christ, if that was what I called home,’ he said, ‘I’d be wanting payment from the fucking landlord to live there, not the other way round.’

  ‘Well, you don’t live there,’ said Shanklin, folding up the paper and slipping it back into the pocket of his great coat. ‘Some silly bastard who owes money to Mr. Ditchwater does. Besides which, it’s not this creepy crib our man’s fallen behind on the rent, it’s the bootmaker’s shop he leases from Ditchwater back in London.’

  Randall scratched his balding pate and spat into the weeds groping the muddy track that led up to the wreck. ‘Wherever it is, the place gives me the shivers.’

  Shanklin glanced sideways at him. ‘You scared, Fluff?’

  ‘Fuck off, am I! And don’t call me Fluff, I’ve told ya. Seen prettier cemeteries, that’s all.’

  Shanklin grinned. Randall hated the fact he was losing his hair. It seemed like he’d only grown the muzzle on his chin to try and make up for it somehow. But staring at that decrepit, crumbling excuse for a house, Shanklin had to concede that his long-term partner in all things murky did indeed have a point. It needed a little more than a lick of paint. It needed a priest. If they were giving out prizes for joyless, shriven buildings then it deserved a rosette. It was like something out of a frightening fairytale, with its chimney so wonky that Saint Nicholas would have trouble shoving anything down it. A broken first-floor window. Missing roof tiles. Ivy crawling up the flaking walls like long, green talons. Shanklin had seen more soul in a corpse and he’d seen a few of those in his line of work. Not that he’d made any. Not yet. He left killing to the likes of Bob Creech, a maniac with a firmer stomach for it. Though it wasn’t like Shanklin wouldn’t turn someone off if the situation presented itself, it was just that, in all his years of pushing people around the opportunity hadn’t arisen. Not yet. And he was hoping it wouldn’t today either. He’d managed to avoid the noose up till now and he had no intention of another stint in Newgate, whether it was for cold-blooded murder or not.

  ‘Our man got a name then?’ asked Randall.

  ‘Abraham Grave,’ Shanklin said, ‘maker of the finest boots you’ve never worn.’

  ‘Expensive?’

  ‘You might say that.’

  Randall sneered as he pulled out a pistol. ‘Well, maybe I’ll ask him to make me a pair before I stick my barking iron under his nose and not after.’

  ‘Then you’d better hurry up,’ Shanklin said. ‘The business ain’t been going a year and he’s in deep water already.’

  Randall looked up at the increasingly menacing sky. ‘So will we be if we don’t get a move on.’

  Shanklin was adjusting the gun in his belt and checking for the hilt of his knife for the fifth time that morning. ‘Then maybe if you’d got your arse out of bed early like I’d asked?’

  Randall spat again. He did that when he had nothing to say. They were only an hour’s ride from London but they were already running later than Shanklin had hoped, not that he was particularly looking forward to getting back home to Sarah. The mood she’d been in lately made him wish he had more jobs that took him as far from London as possible. Even now he thought he could still hear her nagging then realised it was just another crow.

  He pulled in a long, deep breath through his broken nose and sighed. ‘Well, we could sit around talking about Grave’s woes all day or we could go add to ’em. Let’s go give our man a knock, shall we?’

  With the heel of his boot, Shanklin nudged his mare, Jess, and the horsemen set off down the track leaving behind them a weather-beaten signpost that read: THE OLD TANNERY

  The house didn’t get any prettier the closer you got. There were gaps in the brickwork like a child’s missing teeth and a toppling wall surrounded what might have once been a garden but now resembled a forest fit for midgets. The men dismounted, Shanklin unbuttoning his coat and letting it flap open in the chill breeze sweeping from the west. He liked his gun within easy reach. It wouldn’t be the first place he’d visited only to have the tables turned on him. Randall always had his back but Shanklin liked to rely on what was left of his own wits.

  They tied the horses to the post of a sloping porch and he walked up the three creaky steps to a flaking front door. He gave the heavy iron knocker two hard raps and thought the whole place might fall down like a tower of cards.

  Randall wiped at his nose with his coat sleeve, looking a little twitchy like he always did on these debt collecting jobs. You never knew who was gonna pop out or what they’d be carrying when they did. A pistol. A musket. A blade. A frying pan like the old woman was swinging two weeks ago while the husband hid out the back. Shanklin felt none too good with himself for giving her a smack but the fucking thing was still red hot with grease.

  He knocked again, harder this time.

  Silence.

  Randall swaggered over to a sitting room window and pressed his nose up to the streaked glass.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Shanklin.

  ‘No lamps lit,’ Randall said, shielding his eyes as he peered inside. ‘But you don’t need a candle to see that it’s a proper fucking mess in there.’

  Curling his top lip back over his teeth, Shanklin sucked in foul tasting air. He knew they should’ve got here sooner. If Grave was out then how long for was anyone’s guess.

  ‘He might’ve seen us approach?’ said Randall, straining his eyes into the gloom. ‘Gone and tucked himself away somewhere, hoping we’ll get bored and go home.’

  Stepping back from the door Shanklin looked at an upstairs window. ‘Except that I ain’t bored yet and we ain’t going anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait here with the horses. Go try round the back and see if you can flush him out.’

  Randall didn’t need telling twice. He was already on a short leash for making ’em late and well he knew it, so he set off clomping around the corner and out of sight. For a skinny bastard he wasn’t too light
on his feet but he was as reliable as a drover’s dog, if lacking the intelligence of one.

  Looking back at the track in the direction they’d come, Shanklin watched the clouds creeping in, black and heavy and draining all the colour from the world. He might’ve had the ache with his partner but, truth be told, it felt good to get out of the city. He didn’t mind these pickups too much. Most were straightforward enough, and the debtor always paid up in the end, whether with coin, valuable items or, very occasionally, a finger. ’Course there was usually a bit of brave talk to kick things off, arguing their case and the like. The man of the manor would puff up his chest in front of the wife and the kids and start preaching on how so-and-so was fleecing them for this or that. Sometimes Shanklin felt a touch sorry for ’em. He saw their point of view more than once. Some unfortunate bastard at low tide and no one to turn to, forced into breaking shins from a dun. He can’t pay back the high interest so Shanklin is asked to step in and put some pressure on. Or some greenhorn lacking any savvy whatsoever having lost out to a sharper at the gaming tables once too often. Never a good feeling to see someone up to their ears in debt.

  But the worst one was the family he’d evicted onto the street only a few months earlier. That tore him up a little. Had him thinking hard about things for a few days. Had him wondering whether he should just give up this line of work altogether and stick to robbing the rich from the relative comfort of their stagecoaches. It was a damn sight easier to take money from the beau monde than it was to steal the very bed from under a child. But Shanklin had a kid of his own to feed and putting steam on the table meant others had to pay. Sarah didn’t ask too many questions as to where all the kelter came from, yet if she’d known half of how he earned it she’d probably have walked away years ago, happier to live penniless than put up with him any longer.

  It was quiet out here. Peaceful. Away from the turmoil of London’s streets and the chaos of being in his own home. There was a calm to the place despite the house of horrors behind him. Christ, it might’ve even come close to a good dose of laudanum if you closed your eyes for long enough, but those days were gone. Not far enough gone if you asked Sarah, but some habits were harder to break than others. It’d taken time but he’d finally given up the cheap drug, having once been addicted to its painkilling qualities.

  Shanklin shut his eyes and let the quiet wash over him.

  The silence.

  He breathed it in, long and deep. Held it there in his chest.

  Piss.

  His eyes flashed open as it caught the back of his throat making him almost gag. And so it seemed that, like laudanum, being in the country had its side effects. A hazard he should’ve smelled coming when they picked a tannery for their dirty work today.

  A click from behind him and Shanklin spun, a hand on his pistol as the front door squealed open.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Randall asked, holding up a key and grinning like a cat covered in cream. ‘Found a spare.’

  ‘Rear window?’

  ‘Kitchen, naturally. Left a bit of a mess back there but it all adds to the character of the place. Come and see what he’s done, darling, you’ll simply love it!’

  Shanklin brushed past him into the dim hall. ‘I didn’t hear glass break,’ he said. ‘You’ve done this before.’

  ‘I was a glazier in a past life,’ Randall said, smirking as he closed the door.

  What struck Shanklin, other than the smell of damp, was the lack of paintings on the walls. Or the lack of anything. What was left of the peeling wallpaper looked like it’d been up since the house was built and it was anyone’s guess how long that’d been.

  ‘Could do with a spring clean,’ he said.

  ‘Wait till you get a whiff of the tannery out the back,’ said Randall. ‘No wonder our man’s got no fucking neighbours.’

  Shanklin drew the gun from his belt. ‘You checked the sitting room?’

  ‘Clear; of people that is. You can’t swing a cat for the clutter.’

  ‘Study?’

  Randall shrugged. ‘Nothing worth reading.’

  ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘Messy like everywhere else. You can’t move for tripping over something and the bed sheets could do with changing.’ He smiled, teeth stained brown and yellow. ‘But who am I to judge?’

  Shanklin’s frustration was starting to show as he frowned into the gloom of the hallway. If Grave was hiding out here then he’d find him. If he’d been in his tannery out back while Randall was smashing windows to get in, then he’d have come up to see what all the fuss was about. And if he was the type to shit his breeches instead, then he’d no doubt be on his toes across a field by now. It was a debt they were collecting not a fugitive and Shanklin would be wanting a larger purse if he was to go galloping after runaways.

  But he wasn’t for giving up now. ‘The barn,’ he said, making for the kitchen, moving a little quicker and starting to think that he might actually chase the elusive bastard through a field if it meant getting a result today. He was feeling that familiar fury rising in him as he dashed down the hallway, past the sitting room and study and towards the back of the house.

  With his boots crunching on the glass Randall had left sprinkled all over the kitchen flagstones, Shanklin plucked a key from a hook hanging by the back door. Twisting it in the lock, he yanked the door open and set off down a narrow path that cut through weeds reaching up to his knees and led towards a huge stone barn about fifty yards from the house itself. A large wooden wheel was fixed to one of its walls, turned by the flow of a narrow river snaking alongside. He hurried on, flecks of rain pecking at his face, breath sharp in his throat and that smell of piss getting stronger with every step. Randall was on his heels, never too far away in a situation, even one partly of his own making.

  ‘It’s locked!’ he was calling out as he followed after Shanklin. ‘You can see it’s locked from here!’

  Yet, despite the obvious rusting padlock, Shanklin kept moving as though it might magically fall away when he got near and the doors would swing open to reveal Abraham Grave trembling in a corner and clutching an envelope full of Ditchwater’s money.

  ‘Shit,’ he said when the lock didn’t come apart as he tugged at it.

  Making his way round to the side of the large barn where the wheel was located, Shanklin found a small window stained with years of built-up grime. Peeking through the glass he saw that it was a sombre sight inside. What little light there was revealed the innards of a working tannery: shaved skins hanging from beams and stretched taut on timber frames, sharp blades glinting on dusty work surfaces and mean-looking hooks. He could see no tanning pits but the smell in the air was testament to them being in there somewhere. And no sign of the bootmaker himself, though being as the barn was locked from the outside, it shouldn’t have come as a revelation.

  Randall was stroking his beard and glancing at the fields. ‘Y’think he took off? Saw us approaching and had it away?’

  Shanklin gazed towards the smudge of what looked like a wood. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The kitchen door was locked. He ain’t been here. Not for a while.’

  Shoving the pistol back into his belt, he took several long strides away from Randall, placing himself at a safe distance in case he did something he might later regret. That rage began to bubble again, hot and dark and dangerous. With clenched fists, Shanklin did his best to focus on the fleeting glimpse of calm he’d experienced only minutes before, trying hard to keep the anger from spilling over.

  It didn’t work.

  ‘Ffffuuuck!’ he screamed into the drizzle. A drizzle that was, like his mood, getting heavier by the minute.

  He spun to face his oldest and most stupid of friends. ‘Didn’t I tell you to get your arse up early?’ Shanklin snapped.

  Randall’s hands went up, a pistol in one. ‘Now hang on, Shank! If I’d known it was gonna take over an hour to get here—’

  ‘Then what? You’d have kicked that tart out your bed sooner, would ya? How many times y
ou gonna do this to me, Randall?’

  Turning on his heel, Shanklin made off back towards the house, leaving the worst of the bitter smell behind him.

  ‘It was the first time in weeks I’d got my pipe sucked, Shank,’ Randall was saying as he tried to keep up. ‘You’d have done the same thing!’

  ‘No! No I wouldn’t,’ Shanklin said over his shoulder, clomping mud through the kitchen and into the hall. ‘I was up with the larks and ready to go. You can find cunny on any street corner on any day of the week …’ Pausing at the doorway to the sitting room, he turned. ‘But try finding me a fucking shoemaker first, eh?’

  Glancing at the mess strewn all about, Shanklin felt like he was wading through a swamp of pointless shit. Dirty pewter bowls, teaspoons, jugs, boxes, discarded rags, a pair of scissors. Half-burned candles and battered books and metal tubs filled with tallow laying all about the floor where the dirt was half an inch thick. It seemed that the house wasn’t so much for living in as it was for storing animal fat, no doubt removed from the same cattle their reputable shoemaker carved his skins from. Must’ve saved a small fortune on buying candles anyway. It was a petty thief’s paradise and if he had the inclination, Shanklin might’ve found something worth selling on.

  ‘Boots,’ said Randall.

  Shanklin was frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘He makes boots, not shoes. That’s what you said.’

  Scratching his head, Shanklin frowned harder. ‘I couldn’t give a fuck if he makes dresses for grown men, he ain’t here!’ Turning, he threw his hands up in desperation. ‘And neither’s a fucking drinks cabinet by the look of it! Christ, I’m gasping. Let me know if you find one, will ya?’

  Randall was puffing his cheeks out. ‘I think the Devil would have trouble finding his own tail in this mess.’

  Kicking a box out of the way, Shanklin flipped open a battered chest that had little but crumpled papers in it. ‘Well, I’m sick of chasing mine,’ he said, slamming it shut again when he realised it didn’t contain anything that remotely resembled a drink.