Secret Lament by Roz Southey Page B

back.”
    He pulled back so quickly that he almost overbalanced. He put a hand on the cobbles to steady himself. “No.”
    “It’s not far,” I said, talking as calmly as I could. “Bedwalters is a writing master – he lives at his school on Westgate.”
    He scrambled to his feet. His face was shadowed and unreadable. “I don’t want to get involved in this.”
    “Damn it – ”
    “I’m not going.”
    “You can’t walk out on a murdered girl!”
    He snarled at me. “You go if you’re so concerned!”
    My back was aching with bending over the girl; I stood to face him. “Bedwalters lives next to the Assembly Rooms,” I said evenly. “You can’t miss the house.”
    “Go yourself!” he roared. And walked off.
    I could not believe the callousness that would leave a young girl dead and uncared for on the cold cobbles of a public street. I drew the thin muslin over Julia
Mazzanti’s head and called for a spirit. After a moment, I heard the thin wail of a child, two or three years old, crying for her mummy. Damn it, there must be more spirits than that in the
street! But I had to walk out of Amen Corner and down the street into one of the poor alleys around the Castle Gate before any replied to me. Half of them must be feigning deafness; that feeling of
distrust returned in full force now. Not that living men were much better – how could Corelli walk away?
    The spirit who finally answered had been a middle-aged woman in life by the sound of her, who clucked and tutted and promised to send a message for Bedwalters straight away. I walked back to
Amen Corner. There was a pain in my back and a stitch in my side and I found it difficult to catch my breath. I had to stop once or twice, leaning against a wall to ease the pain. At last I turned
back into Amen Corner –
    There was a man bending over the body.
    I thought at first it must be Bedwalters. Perhaps he had been close by and received the message almost at once – spirits can send a message across town in the time it takes a living man to
draw a breath. But the figure was too slender and slight a figure to be Bedwalters. Uneasily, I called out. The man’s head jerked up. Damn the poor light. He took a step or two backwards. Did
I see a flash of light on metal? A knife? I bellowed in rage. The man jerked back.
    Then he started to run, and I started to run, and he was gone down a side street in a flash, and I was left staring at empty air and cursing.
    And after that, there was nothing to do but sit on the stone base of the churchyard railings and wait for Bedwalters. And pray that the ruffians did not come back.

11
    Died: Suddenly, Miss Julia Mazzanti, in the 17th year of her age. By her death, the theatre has been robbed of a promising ornament.
    [ Newcastle Courant 19 June 1736]
    I sat in the drawing room of Mrs Baker’s lodging house listening to the sounds of grief. The door was ajar to the hallway; it was a small house and sounds carried.
Upstairs, John Mazzanti was shouting with rage – I heard Bedwalters the constable raising his voice unwontedly in an effort to calm him. Across the hall, Ciara Mazzanti was sobbing,
melodramatic hysterical wails; Mrs Baker’s soft consoling murmurs were hardly audible.
    And there was Philip Ord too, raising his voice to snap at Bedwalters. Ord was closer, halfway up or down the stairs.
    The ornate clock on the mantelpiece ticked; a fox barked outside in the street. I could not stop thinking about the events of the night, as if reliving them might somehow change them.
    Bedwalters had taken twenty minutes to reach Amen Corner; he must have been in bed and needed to dress. He looked worn, as he increasingly did these days. He stared down at me as I hunched
against the stone base on which the churchyard railings stood, then at the bundle of white fabric. He bent to examine the body.
    I was disorientated, still half-drunk and aching, still stunned by Julia’s death. I could not get out of my mind that