The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

On now – the procession carries them to the narrow stone bridge and the Fleet ditch. He smells it long before he sees it: a stinking slurry of shit and offal. Not so much a river as a running sore, oozing its way down to the Thames. Thank God it is a cold, sharp day in March, not the dense heat of summer. The wind whisks the stench away down south towards Blackfriars. Hawkins closes his eyes, his body swaying as the cart turns on to Holborn Hill.

‘Murderer!’

An old woman’s voice pierces the air. His eyes snap open. She screams it again and he sees her, a stranger in the swirling crowds, her face twisted with hatred. Others take up the call, shouting curses down upon him.

‘Monster!’

‘Burn in Hell!’

How they hate him. Not just for the life they think he took, but for the life he squandered. A young gentleman, given every opportunity. Money, good health, an education – all wasted.

A gang of apprentices leans out of a tavern window, waiting for the cart to pass below them. As it does, they throw a hail of stones at him, laughing at the sport. They are drunk and most of their shots sail wide, but one catches him hard. Blood spurts from his temple. He shields his head with his hands, half-stunned.

A lean, black-clad figure clambers on to the open end of the cart and crawls towards him. The Reverend James Guthrie, the Newgate Ordinary. He holds out a handkerchief. ‘They would hate you less if you confessed.’

Hawkins presses the handkerchief to the wound and leans back, staring up into the cold, white sky.

‘I’m innocent, Mr Guthrie.’

‘Mr Hawkins…’ Guthrie begins, then thinks better of it. He cannot help a man who will not help himself. He jumps down from the cart. ‘God have mercy on your soul,’ he says loudly, as he strides away. Playing to the crowd.

By the time they reach the edge of St Giles, the bleeding has stopped. St Giles. Drowning in vice, soaking in gin. Shake a house in St Giles and more thieves, whores, and murderers will tumble out than you’ll find in the whole of Newgate Prison. It’s a fitting place for one last drink. The horses stop outside the Crown tavern without a prompt from their riders. They have taken this road many times before.

The guards help him down from the cart. It is so cold he can see his breath, escaping in clouds from his lips. Someone passes him a cup of mulled wine, pats him on the shoulder. He curls his fingers around the cup, grateful for the warmth. The dark-red wine looks almost like blood, steaming in the freezing air.

The crowds are friendlier here. They shout encouragements and promise to pray for him. They are the lowest of men and the lewdest of women: cutpurses, highwaymen, fraudsters and cheats, only a step from the noose themselves. For the first time in his life he wishes he could linger here, but he has barely finished his wine when he is ordered back on the wagon. As the Crown fades into the distance a thought comes into his mind, hard and certain as prophecy. That was the last time my feet will ever touch the earth.

And now he feels it – the horror that he has fought off for so long. It knocks him reeling, harder than any stone hurled from the crowd.

He is about to die.

No. No! They promised. He will live.

He is a coin, spinning on its edge. Heads or tails. Life or death.

Chapter Six

It was almost a week before I was ready to step into the world again. My jaw was so black and swollen for the first few days that I could only eat light broths and syllabubs. The gouges in my neck worried Kitty so much she insisted on washing them in hot wine twice a day.

‘I’ll stink like a tavern floor,’ I complained, flinching as the wine invaded the cuts.

‘Clean wounds mend faster,’ she said, dabbing a home-made salve over my throat. Kitty’s father Nathaniel had been a renowned physician – and a close friend of Samuel Fleet. When she first moved in to the Cocked Pistol, Kitty had found a cache of his books and journals locked in a chest in the cellar. She would read them avidly when the shop was quiet, or late at night, squinting by the light of the fire.

One morning, a few days after the attack, I was lying in bed when there was a soft tap on the door. I had just propped myself on my pillow when Jenny slipped into the room. She stayed close to the door, fingers on the handle. Her eyes trailed to my bare chest, then darted away. ‘May I speak with you, sir?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m afraid… I’m afraid I must leave your service, sir.’

I hid my dismay. ‘Because of Sam? I’ll arrange a bolt for your room, Jenny, I promise – it’s just that I’ve been distracted these past days…’ I gestured to my wounds. ‘I will speak with him too, if you wish-’

‘It’s not that, sir. At least – only in part.’ She shielded herself behind the door, half in, half out. ‘I’ve found a position in a house on Leicester Fields. I met the family at church.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, Kitty will miss you.’ She’ll be furious. ‘D’you need a reference?’

She shook her head, alarmed by the offer. ‘It’s kind of you, sir, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention to no one that I worked here. They… they say such dreadful things about you in church.’

I chuckled. ‘Oh, I can imagine.’

‘No, sir.’

Her words stilled the room. No, sir. An interruption and a contradiction. This was not how Jenny spoke to me. A chill crept over me; a premonition that whatever she said next would destroy everything. I wanted to jump from the bed and cup a hand to her mouth. Instead, I waited, and a silence stole up between us.

Jenny twisted her fingers together in an anxious fashion. Her hands were red and chafed from her work and there was a small burn at the base of her thumb, where it had brushed against a hot pan. She too seemed reluctant to continue. Her lips were pressed together and she was breathing hard through her nose. She’s scared.Scared of me.

Don’t ask. Don’t ask her.

‘What do they say of me, Jenny?’ The fear made my voice turn cold. The question had sounded almost like a threat, even to my ears.

She swallowed. ‘They say you killed a man, sir. In the Marshalsea.’

There was a long pause. She began to shake.

‘You must know that is a lie,’ I said.

She nodded, without conviction.

‘Who is it, who tells such foul lies about me?’ But I knew the answer even as I asked. ‘Mr Burden?’

Another nod. She took half a step on to the landing. ‘He said Mr Gonson will prove it.’

‘And people believe him?’ Jenny attended St Paul’s church at the west end of the piazza. Half the neighbourhood worshipped there of a Sunday.

‘No… at least… not so much, sir. But then you was seen coming home all beaten and covered in blood and people began to wonder. Sir – I must think of my own reputation, you see? This new position, it’s most respectable…’

‘I understand,’ I said, and relief washed over her face. ‘I would be grateful, Jenny, if you did not speak of this to Miss Sparks.’

‘No, sir. I won’t say nothing. I promise.’

‘You do not believe I am a killer, Jenny?’

‘No, sir!’ she said. But oh – the pause before she answered. It near broke my heart.

‘Very good.’ I dismissed her with a nod.

She dipped a curtsey and closed the door. Packed her few belongings and left within the hour.

Damn Joseph Burden, spewing his poison. Rumours spread like the pox in this town – before long half of London would know me as a murderous villain. Heaven knows, I looked the part with my black eye and swollen jaw. I dared not venture out or even downstairs into the shop in such a dreadful state – that would only complete the portrait and set our neighbours gossiping afresh. And so I brooded alone in my room, prowling up and down as if I were back in prison.

I didn’t tell Kitty about Jenny’s confession. Kitty’s love was fierce and volatile as wildfire and it would only bring more trouble. At best she would worry. At worst she would confront Burden. So I kept quiet and prayed for the rumours to die away.

But Kitty was no fool, and she soon grew suspicious of my behaviour. I have always preferred to be out and in company. It was not in my nature to hide away in my room, not even for the sake of vanity.

One night I dreamed that I was trapped once more in the Marshalsea. The guards came for me in my cell and dragged me through the yard towards the wall. They were taking me to the Common Side, to the Strong Room. I began to scream, but I had no voice. They laughed and pushed me inside, locking the door behind me. I was alone. Breathing in the stench of death. The rats, writhing and squealing about my feet. I took a step forward and cold, dank fingers wrapped about my ankles. More hands, fleshless skeleton hands pulling me down. A pile of rotting corpses. I staggered and fell among them. They were holding me down, wrapping me in a tight embrace as the rats swarmed over us, claws scrabbling at my face. The more I struggled, the deeper I sank into the pile, until I couldn’t breathe and there was earth in my mouth and I would never be free, I was trapped in here for ever…

‘Tom!’Kitty shook me awake.

I sat up, heart racing. My shirt was soaked with sweat.

She reached for my hand in the dark. ‘You were screaming.’

‘Gaol.’ But it had been more than that. I could still taste the soil in my mouth. And there was a tinge in the air – the high, sweet scent of putrid meat. I had dreamed of Death and it clung to me still, even though I was awake.

‘It’s no wonder you’re dreaming of prison,’ Kitty said. ‘You’ve been trapped in this room for too long. You must go out, Tom.’

She was right. The longer I stayed locked in the house the more I would feel like a prisoner. And the more old dreams would return to haunt me. I lay back down against the pillow.

Kitty curled up beside me, stroking my chest. ‘Your heart is beating so hard… Are you in trouble, still?’

We both are, my love, if I can’t stop Burden from spreading his lies. I kissed the top of her head. ‘No.’

She sighed, her breath warm against my skin. ‘I hate it when you lie to me.’

The next evening Kitty decided to visit the Eliots. She tried to persuade me to join her but I refused, insisting she take Sam instead. I didn’t like her walking the dark streets alone and it would do Sam good to spend some time in decent company.

‘Stay close to Miss Sparks,’ I said, as he wound my best cravat around his neck. ‘And remember what I taught you about good conversation.’

He looked at me in the mirror. ‘Sentences.’

‘Yes, indeed. Sentences.’ I paused. ‘That wasn’t one, for example.’

He tied up his hair with a black ribbon. I had still not persuaded him to shave his head. He would never pass as a gentleman without a wig. Then I tried to imagine Sam in a wig, bowing to ladies and exchanging idle banter with other gents – and was struck once again by the folly of my endeavours. Sam would never be a gentleman – counterfeit or otherwise. He might as well keep his curls if he loved them so much.

I waited until he and Kitty had left, then dressed and strode out into Covent Garden. My jaw was still a little swollen, but my eye was much better. The night would hide the worst of it.

Moll’s coffeehouse was as rowdy as ever – the din carried halfway down Russell Street. The customers I knew well, the girls even better, flashing glances at me through the yellow haze of pipe smoke. Another life,I reminded myself, with a twinge of regret. I had not come here for sport but for information. This was the best place to discover how far Burden’s lies about me had spread. And how much trouble I was in.

Moll King was winning a game of cards, surrounded by drunken admirers. No one knew Moll’s real age – middling thirties, I guessed. She was no longer in her prime, but she had a wicked charm, more alluring than the sweet complexion and slim ankles of her freshest girls. Once, her husband Tom had ruled the coffeehouse and the marriage – and Moll had the scars to prove it. But she had worked and waited over the years – always sober, always clever – as the drink weakened him. Now he sat by the fire, bloated and gouty, with half his teeth rotted from his head, while his wife flirted and schemed and ran the place as if he were already in his grave. His name remained above the door, but this was Moll’s place and the world knew it. I had been one of her favourites for a while, but she had lost interest now I shared my life with Kitty. I gave her the odd secret from the gaming tables to keep her friendly, but there were so many other young men in town, willing to spend money on her and on her girls. She blew me a kiss across the room and returned to her game.

It was Betty I needed, Moll’s black serving maid. I found her making a pot of coffee by the fire. She tilted her chin to a corner table away from the main company. After a few minutes she brought me a bowl of punch, taking a glass for herself and settling down across the table.

People underestimated Betty. They ignored her, in fact. There was always one black serving maid at Moll’s – it was a tradition. And she was always called Betty – no matter her real name. Two years ago this Betty had replaced another girl. Some customers hadn’t even noticed the change – she was just the black maid pouring their coffee. The first time I saw her, it was a quiet evening. I was pretending to read a newspaper while listening to a conversation at the next bench. I’d glanced up to find Betty watching me from a corner, a half-smile on her lips. I grinned back. She’d caught me eavesdropping on the customers and I’d caught her spying on me. Kindred spirits.

I liked Betty – I liked the way she watched the world from beneath her thick black lashes. I think she liked me too. There was something unfinished between us – some path I had missed too long ago to trace again. A secret heat I felt in her gaze. Another life, indeed.

She sipped her punch. ‘Gonson paid us a visit last night.’

This was not surprising news. Gonson seemed to spend half his days raiding the Cocked Pistol, and the other half searching the coffeehouses for thieving whores to punish. For a man who hated vice so much, he certainly spent a great deal of time immersed in it.

‘Anyone arrested?’

Betty cupped a hand to my cheek and guided my attention towards the next bench. Two of Moll’s girls were astride the table, lazily pulling up their skirts for an elderly judge and a fawning band of lawyers. The men watched with glazed expressions as one of the girls knelt down, then ran her tongue up the other girl’s thigh and… Well. Not everyone shared Gonson’s crusading moral spirit, it seemed.

‘Mistress King has a lot of friends,’ Betty said, then sucked in her breath. Her fingers traced the bruises along my jaw. ‘I heard you was attacked.’

‘Defending a lady.’

Betty looked amused. I raised my hands to protest my innocence.

‘Gonson asked about you last night.’ She leaned closer. Betty wore a rare perfume, laced with the warm, sweet scent of jasmine. It smelled expensive and intoxicating, an intriguing counterpoint to the rough tang of coal smoke caught in her hair. How could she afford it? Perhaps she had a secret lover; a nobleman, or a rich merchant who traded in exotic scents. And at the thought of this I felt a tinge of jealousy, though I was not entitled to such a feeling. She put her lips to my ear. ‘He wanted to know if you’d killed a man. And there was plenty willing to talk.’

I muttered an oath. ‘What did they say?’

‘Lies. Half-truths. Your neighbour came with him – Burden. Went about the room, offering to pay good coin to any man who’d tell the magistrate what a foul villain you were. He’s set upon chasing you from your home.’

Or worse. I covered my mouth with my hand. A few months ago I would have laughed at such nonsense and dismissed it. But I had learned not to be so careless. Gonson was persistent and patient, and Burden hated me. A dangerous combination.

Across the room, Moll was calling for more wine. She would not drink it – but she was playing cards with a gang who would. Easier to win against drunken fools. Her table cheered their approval and it seemed to raise the din throughout the coffeehouse, as men shouted to be heard over their neighbours. But Betty’s voice was soft against my ear. ‘Gonson knows about the murder on Snows Fields.’

And for a moment, that dark night enveloped me once more. The desperate fight to survive. An open grave and the taste of dirt in my mouth. The smell of gun smoke and blood. Kitty. ‘It wasn’t murder.’

‘Was it not?’ Betty asked, softly.

I drank my punch while Betty watched me, worried. ‘Gonson follows the law,’ I said, as much to reassure myself as her. ‘There is no evidence. Nothing for him to discover.’

‘Then you should stay in your fox hole, Mr Hawkins. Let the hounds pass you by. There’ll be someone fresh for them to chase soon enough.’

It was good advice, as ever. Betty had tried to help me once before, and I hadn’t listened. A few minutes later I had been arrested and thrown in gaol. ‘I just want to be left in peace, Betty.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course. That’s why you’ve been working for James Fleet.’

Ah. That was the unfortunate thing about Betty. She really did know everything.

Betty returned to her work while I lit a pipe, thinking about Burden and Gonson, and about Betty’s advice. I supposed it would be wise to leave London for a time. I could visit my father in Suffolk. That would require leaving Kitty alone, which I did not like. Or taking her with me to meet my father, which I did not like still more.

I had no desire to leave the city. Why the devil should I? Why should I be chased from my home by Joseph Burden? Perhaps I should spread a few rumours about him, the blasted hypocrite. Perhaps I should tell the world that the man who lectured his neighbours on their manners all day was fucking his housekeeper at night?

I took a draw upon my pipe and settled back in my chair, breathing smoke in a lazy stream to the ceiling. I felt comfortable at Moll’s, especially here on the fringes with a bowl of warm winter punch at hand. Disgraceful things were happening in dark corners, half-glimpsed in the fluttering candlelight. I relaxed – feeling more at ease than I had in days – and poured another glass. How many rumours had I heard and dismissed in this coffeehouse in the last three years? The punch sent a golden glow through my veins, bestowing a false contentment.

The men at the next table were discussing the latest rift between the king and the Prince of Wales. ‘All that gold. All that power, and they still can’t muddle along together,’ one of them said, shaking his head, as if the gold and the power weren’t the problem in the first place. It’s a trifle hard to find your son agreeable when he’s tapping his toe behind you, waiting impatiently for you to snuff it.

Bored by the conversation, I let my gaze drift across the coffeehouse. Then sat up straighter, craning my neck to look over the crowds. Was that…? So it was. Ned Weaver, Burden’s apprentice. I hadn’t spoken with him since the night of the invisible thief. And I had never seen him at Moll’s before. Burden would not allow it, surely. How curious. He was sitting on his own at the edge of a rowdy bench, head slumped in his hand. I knew the other men at his table – a foul bunch of villains and drunks who had prompted many of the worst fights at Moll’s. Regular customers had learned to keep their distance.

Their leader – a short fellow, all sinew and sneer – muttered something to his companions. They shifted as one and glowered at Ned. He stared into his bowl of coffee, oblivious.

What the devil was he doing here? In the three months I’d lived on Russell Street I had never once seen him out in the taverns and coffeehouses of Covent Garden. The men were whispering to each other now, scowling openly at the foreigner washed up upon their land. Ned was a strong, solid lad with powerful muscles from his years of labour. I’d seen him run down the street carrying an oak table twice his size on his back. But these men were ferocious bastards in a fight – and there were six of them.

I should mind my own business. I had my bowl of punch and a fresh pipe – and troubles of my own. Stay in your fox hole, Mr Hawkins.

Ned rubbed his hands over his face. His clothes were in disarray, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his shirt loose. He looked close to tears.

Damn it. If he were only a bully like his master, someone I could despise and ignore. I should not trouble myself… And yet here I was, rising to my feet and pushing through the crowds. Might a few coins settle this? I arrived at the bench just as one of the gang shoved Ned hard in the ribs. He started as if from a dream, then leaped to his feet, fists raised. Oh, God – not another fight. Pain stabbed through my jaw at the thought. If someone hit me again tonight my head would probably fall off.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said, putting a hand on Ned’s shoulder and pulling him back.

Six men scowled up at me. There was a moment’s tense silence. I kept my shoulders back. Ned was tall and strong and so was I. Between us we could… run very fast for the street, God help us.

And then, to my astonishment, all six men drew back, nervous. After a moment’s pause, the leader dipped his chin at me. ‘Mr Hawkins.’ The rest of the gang followed, nodding sharply and turning back to their punch.

I looked from face to face, amazed by my good fortune and not quite sure I believed in it. But no – it seemed they had no appetite for a fight this evening, possibly for the first time in their lives. Half faint with relief, I grabbed Ned and led him away, back to my table. ‘That was a piece of luck,’ I muttered, leaning across to borrow a glass for him from the next table.

Ned stole a glance across the room as I poured him some punch. ‘There was no luck to it, sir. They was afraid of you.’

‘Nonsense.’ I relit my pipe.

Ned took a mouthful of punch, then coughed half of it back on to the table. He wiped his mouth with a smile of embarrassment. ‘Mr Burden don’t allow liquor in the house.’

‘So I hear.’ I took a long draw on my pipe. ‘But he allows Alice in his bed.’

Ned’s handsome, open face flashed with anger. ‘That… that is not true,’ he floundered. He was a terrible liar.

‘The walls are very thin, Ned.’

He struggled for a moment, loyal to his master. But I could see the desire to confide in someone playing through him, and there was anger there too. His fists, resting on the table, were clenched tight. ‘It’s wicked, sir,’ he said at last. ‘Alice Dunn is a respectable woman. But if she doesn’t… If she refused him… She’s nowhere to go. She’d end up like them.’ His eyes flickered to the girls at the lawyers’ table, gowns pulled down to their waist. Hands working under loosened breeches.

I laid down my pipe. ‘He’s taking her against her will?’

‘It started a few weeks ago, in secret. We didn’t know. Then Alice cried thief the other night – from his bed. We all heard her.’ He hung his head. ‘Now he don’t bother to keep quiet. I scolded Alice for it, told her it was a sin. She swore Mr Burden made her do it. She said he makes her cry out so we can hear. I don’t know. I suppose… perhaps she lies…’

But I could tell he did not believe that. There were tears in his eyes, as if the shame were his and not his master’s. And in truth how could he stand to lie abed at night and listen to it? We had laughed, Kitty and I, when we heard Burden and Alice together. It made me sick to think of it.

And what of Burden’s children, Judith and Stephen? Did they know the truth – did they understand? I hoped to God they did not. I thought of Judith crouched on the stairs that night, spitting Alice’s name as if it tasted foul upon her tongue. And Stephen, threatening to tell Gonson what he saw. What he truly saw that night.

I felt a terrible rage growing inside me. This was the man who was spreading foul lies about me? The man who dared to judge me a villain? I closed my eyes. How I hated him in that moment. And the thought came to me before I could stop myself. I wish that he were dead. ‘That is terrible, Ned. How can you bear it?’

Ned rolled his empty glass around and around in a despondent fashion. He had the hands of a busy carpenter – battered and grazed, quick and clever. ‘There’s something wrong with him. He ain’t himself. I’ve been his apprentice for seven years. Six days a week working at his side. He promised me a paid position once I’d finished my apprenticeship. And now it’s done…’ His voice fractured. ‘He’s ordered me to leave by the end of the week.’

‘My God!’ To promise a position for seven years, to benefit from Ned’s labour for all that time – and then withdraw the offer when the apprenticeship was over? It was nothing more than slavery. ‘Can he not afford to pay you?’

‘Ten times over! There’s no sense to it. How will he manage without me? The old fool can’t survive on his own, not at his age.’

‘Perhaps he expects to hand the business to Stephen?’

‘Stephen? He couldn’t lift a hammer.’ Ned’s face crinkled in amusement and I was struck once again by his kind nature. I would have felt bitter and resentful in his place. Ned seemed more perplexed. As if his master had been replaced with a stranger. It was the puzzle of it all that seemed to trouble him the most. ‘What am I to do, Mr Hawkins?’

‘I shouldn’t worry, Ned. You’re an honest man with a good trade. Strong and healthy…’ I patted his arm. My God, strong was right. His muscles were hard as iron. ‘You’ll have no trouble finding a position.’

‘But it’s my home, sir.’ He paused, eyes filled with tears once more. ‘I thought he was proud of me. But he doesn’t care if I starve in the street. Seven years. Seven years for nothing.’

I frowned in sympathy. Poured him another glass.

By the time we’d reached the bottom of a second punch bowl – of which Ned had drunk half a glass – I had boiled myself into a drunken fury. How dare Burden use Ned in such a cruel fashion? And how dare he blacken my reputation in the neighbourhood? Leaving the coffeehouse, I stumbled out into the piazza, Ned trailing anxiously at my heels. The cold night air slapped at my face and the cobbles buckled at my feet. I had not felt this drunk for a long time. I had barely touched a drop since my fight in St James’s Park, and I had forgotten to eat supper.

When I reached Burden’s house, I pounded my fist against the door.

‘Burden! Come out and face me, you son of a cunt!’ What had I just said? Son of a… what did that mean? I shook my head, clearing it a little.

Ned put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Mr Hawkins, sir…’

He was strong, but there is no one stronger than an outraged drunk. I wrested myself free and kicked the door, slamming my heel into the wood. When no one came, I kicked it again. I kicked and pounded at it until the blood ran from my knuckles. And then I drew my sword and slammed the pommel into the wood.

At last the bolts swung back and Burden stood in the doorway, angry and defiant – until he saw the sword in my fist. ‘What is this?’

I slotted the sword back in my belt – after several failed attempts. It is a hard procedure when there is more punch in one’s veins than blood. ‘You have been spreading lies. Vile, scoundralous lies.’ I paused. One of those words was not, necessarily, a word.

‘Ned,’ Burden called, beckoning him inside.

Ned shouldered his way past, looking sheepish. As Burden moved to close the door I pushed back, glaring at him through the crack. ‘How dare you judge me,’ I hissed. ‘When you’re fucking Alice Dunn against her will?’

Burden looked stunned at this – but he recovered fast enough. He grinned, baring his teeth. ‘Mr Gonson visited the Marshalsea today. One of the turnkeys swears you killed a man.’

And of a sudden, I was sober.

‘They’ll hang you for it,’ he crowed. ‘That is a promise, Hawkins.’

He closed the door in my face.

Fear washed through me. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t possible. I was innocent. But I had made enough enemies in gaol – and I could think of several turnkeys who would be happy to perjure themselves for a price. Or worse – tell Gonson what had really happened. Oh, God – no. The ground pitched beneath my feet and I had to clutch the wall to steady myself.

Now the heat of fury had left me I felt exhausted. My hands were throbbing. I stared down in confusion and saw to my horror that my knuckles were raw and bloody from pounding at Burden’s door. Oh God. What had I done? The street was alive behind me, summoned by the drumming of my fists. The girls in the brothel across the road grinned and waved as I caught their eye while our more respectable neighbours stood frozen on their doorsteps, mouths open in shock. They hadn’t heard Burden’s accusation, but they’d seen me beat down his door, raving like a lunatic. With a sword in my hand.

I hurried home, closing the door on the world. Collapsed on the stairs. Tore off my hat and wig and loosened my cravat, thinking hard. I should flee to the continent – set off tonight before Gonson could arrange a warrant. I leaped up the stairs, then stopped on the landing. Leave without Kitty? Impossible. If Gonson spoke to the wrong people she would be in just as much danger.

Eliot would help us if we told him the truth. Perhaps he had guessed some of it. Yes – that was the best course of action, at least it seemed to be. My head was still muddled by the drink. I collected a few things for Kitty – some clothes, her father’s papers, her jewellery – and all the money I could find in the house. I had just begun on my own clothes when there was a sharp rap at the door.

I cursed and moved to the window. A carriage stood outside the shop, guarded by two men with clubs. My heart swooped like a hawk. I was too late. Another guard stood at the door, a musket at his shoulder. He glanced up and saw me at the window. ‘Mr Hawkins. Open up, sir!’

With a rush of relief, I recognised him as the guard I’d saved in St James’s Park. These must be Henrietta Howard’s men.

I hurried downstairs, gathering my wig and hat from the floor. As I opened the door, the guard gave a short bow and beckoned me to the carriage.

I gestured inside. ‘I will leave a note for-’

‘-no time,’ he interrupted.

I hesitated, suddenly suspicious. ‘Where are we going?’

The guard signalled to the others. In a second they had seized me and slung me into the carriage. I tumbled to the floor, a pile of clothes and a jumble of limbs. I struggled up on to the bench while the guard settled back on the opposite seat and slammed the door tight. With a soft cry, the driver urged the horses forward and we raced away, down Drury Lane towards the Strand. I held on to my seat with my bruised hands, feeling somewhat dizzy from the swaying carriage and the speed of my capture.

The guard tapped his swollen jaw. ‘Yours is healing well. But you’re a young man.’ He grinned, revealing a fresh gap in his teeth. With his flattened nose and old smallpox scars, his face was a brutal sight, but he seemed friendly enough. ‘Budge,’ he said, holding out his hand.

I shook it. ‘Am I in trouble, Mr Budge?’

He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Up to your neck, Mr Hawkins.’

Chapter Seven

As we reached the entrance to St James’s Palace, Budge ordered me to lie on the floor and threw a coarse wool blanket over me. It stank of horse. There was a short exchange with the guards, and then the carriage rolled forward again, rattling across a large courtyard. The horses made a sharp turn and we rolled to a halt. I felt a tap on my shoulder. ‘Wait here.’ I began to sit up, but Budge pushed me back with a sharp prod.

I lay cramped in the dark, trying my best to prepare myself for my unexpected appointment with the king’s mistress. What in heaven was Mrs Howard thinking, to smuggle me into the palace in such a fashion? She must be quite desperate. The thought made me uneasy. She may not have the power to help Mr Gay find a suitable court position, but I had no doubt she could make my life uncomfortable if she chose. As if it were not uncomfortable enough, lying beneath a horse blanket in the freezing cold.

I shifted position, then winced as the hilt of my sword poked against my hip. Deep in my pocket, my silver fob watch ticked softly. It had been a gift from Samuel Fleet. What would my old cell mate make of all this business? Why, he’d be delighted of course – perfectly thrilled. Fleet had lived for trouble. Died for it too.

How late was it? How much time had passed? It was too dark to read my watch. I couldn’t risk waiting much longer – I must reach Kitty and flee the city with her tonight. Perhaps I should leave now, escape into the dark city streets. But how would I explain myself to the guards at the gate house? How would they react if they discovered me creeping through the king’s palace with a sword at my hip? Knowing my luck, they’d charge me with treason and burn me at the stake.

Footsteps. I shrank beneath my blanket, but it was only a groom, come to free the horses and lower the shafts. The carriage tilted and I slid along the floor, cracking my ankle bone against the seat. I uttered a low curse. The footsteps drew closer. A lantern flared at the window, flooding the carriage with light. I lay still, holding my breath for a long, tense minute. Then the carriage darkened and I was alone again.

Another hour passed before Budge returned. By now I was quite sober and my head was pounding. I threw off the blanket and stumbled from the carriage, stretching my aching limbs and back.

‘Too tall,’ Budge observed, as if I might want to rectify the problem. ‘Apologies for the wait. The king. Speechifying.’

We moved quickly through the stables, the horses stamping and snuffling in the dark. The courtyard beyond was lit with lanterns and torches, bright after my long vigil in the dark. I blinked up at the rambling maze of red brick buildings that formed the palace, marvelling at it all. In spite of my misgivings, I could not help but feel a flicker of excitement.

We crossed the yard, pausing in the shadows as a couple of footmen rushed by with lanterns. When all was still again we turned towards a discreet, unguarded side door. Budge unlocked it and beckoned me forward.

‘Quiet now,’ he breathed, though we had not spoken a word since I left the carriage.

The corridor beyond was very dark and we had no light, so we were forced to stretch out our hands and brush the walls with our fingertips to guide the way. The walls were smooth and dry. I’d heard St James’ was a crumbling, dank old place but it seemed solid enough to me.

My foot grazed against something in the dark and I scuffled forward, almost colliding with Budge. He gave a tiny hiss of annoyance. Sam would be silent down here, I thought. All this time I’d been giving him lessons – I should have asked him to teach me some of his own tricks. After a few moments I caught a dim light ahead. We had reached an old back staircase, bowed from the heavy tread of servants labouring up and down. Candles flickered low in their sconces.

On the first landing we passed a fine porcelain chamber pot, the lid left carelessly askew. I wrinkled my nose at the stench. We must have reached the living quarters. So – I was to meet Mrs Howard in her private rooms, with a pounding headache and stinking of horse blanket. Excellent.

At the top of the stairs, Budge relieved me of my sword and dagger, then led me into a small antechamber. The walls were covered with tapestries and silk hangings that shone softly in the candlelight. Silk rugs covered the burnished oak floors. A tall cabinet held a collection of books bound in green leather and embossed with gold. The room was so rich and opulent – and such a contrast from the back stairs we’d just climbed – that it took me a moment to breathe. And all this for the king’s mistress. Perhaps Mrs Howard was in better favour than Eliot thought.

Budge knocked on a door at the far end of the room and disappeared into a second chamber, leaving me alone. I took the opportunity to practise my speech, pacing the rug with a soft tread. ‘Lady Howard – I trust you are recovered from your ordeal. I was honoured to come to your aid, my lady – but I regret that I am now caught in troubles of my own…’ I faltered, and stood still, a question forming in my mind.

How had she found me?

I had not given her my name. She had scarcely seen my face in the dark. Enough to say, what? That I was a young gentleman. Long-limbed. Dressed in a black suit and red waistcoat.

So. How had she found me?

James Fleet. It was the only possible answer. Mrs Howard had hired him, after all – using Budge as her messenger, no doubt. Fleet must have given my name to Budge and told him where to find me. That was unsettling.

And now I began to suspect that there was a deeper game being played here. My task had been to meet with Mrs Howard that night and hear her story, no more. So how was it that I found myself being smuggled into the king’s palace in the middle of the night?

I had no time to think further on the matter. Budge reappeared, followed by Mrs Howard. She was dressed in a rose-pink gown fitted close to her waist, a short strand of pearls at her throat. Her thick chestnut hair was tied in a simple knot and decorated with a piece of lace. She must be nearing forty, but she seemed much younger – blessed with a fresh complexion and a graceful figure. And very pretty indeed.

I bowed low. ‘My lady.’

She inclined her head. The terror of the attack in the park was long buried – her expression was mild, her blue eyes steady. I’d heard that her nickname at court was ‘The Swiss’ because she remained always calm and neutral, both in her appearance and her opinions. The Swiss. It suited her.

‘Mr Hawkins. How kind of you to come.’ Her voice soft and seemingly quite sincere. But she was a lady of the court. She must have had a good deal of practice, seeming sincere. She held out a slim, gloved hand. I bowed again and kissed it. As I stepped back, I searched for the woman I had seen in the park. But this Henrietta was quite composed, her smooth features set in a polite mask. Was this what pleased King George? A pretty bauble, bland and sweet. Well, he was said to be a dull sort of fellow.

‘How brave you were,’ she said, eyes brightening with admiration.

I decided she was not quite as bland as I had first thought. ‘It was an honour to serve you, madam.’

‘There are few men fearless enough to stand against my husband in his rage.’

‘Your husband!’ I cried, before I could stop myself. That monster was her husband? I could scarce believe it. I tried to remember what I knew of Charles Howard. He’d been a servant to the old king, I thought. A drunken rake by all accounts, with a cruel temper… but I had not realised how cruel. The man I had met in the park had been half-wild.

‘I thank you, sir, for saving me from him. I was sure he meant to kill me. He has threatened it before.’ Her voice was quite steady, but as she spoke she folded her hands together. A subtle sign, but one I had seen at the gaming tables. She was afraid, and fighting with every breath to conceal it. So terribly afraid – even here in the palace.

She drifted towards a tapestry on the wall. I put my hands behind my back and followed her, playing the gentleman. She had taken so much trouble to hide her feelings, it would be ungallant to expose them. ‘A fine piece,’ I nodded, though I did not care a fig for tapestries. Could I dare hope she had summoned me here solely to thank me? That would suit me very well, if she might hurry it along. Although payment would not go amiss.

I thought of Gonson, gathering his evidence. I did not have time to admire old needlework, even with someone as pretty and intriguing as Henrietta Howard.

‘Madam, I am glad you are recovered. But I am not sure how I may assist you?’

Her lips parted in surprise. ‘Oh! I have not summoned you here, sir. It is my mistress who wishes to speak with you.’

‘Mr Hawkins,’ Budge called across the room. ‘Her Majesty the Queen is waiting.’

The queen. I knew of course that Mrs Howard was a Woman of the Bedchamber, but had not thought for a moment that it was her mistress who had ordered me to the palace, and under such strange circumstances. I stared from Budge to Mrs Howard in bewilderment. What the devil did the Queen of England want of me? Perhaps I was dreaming. Asleep, dead drunk at Moll’s, with my head upon the table.

‘Mr Hawkins,’ Budge prompted.

There was no time to compose myself. Brushing the horse hair from my coat, I followed Mrs Howard through the door into a larger room.

Queen Caroline sat on a red damask sofa, knitting. Her pale, straight brows were drawn in concentration as she bent over her work. A heaped plate of candied fruit rested on a table at her elbow. Behind her lay two long sash windows, velvet curtains pulled back. They would offer a fine view of the park in the daytime. Now, the world outside was black and jewelled with stars.

The Queen of England. This was no dream, but still I could not quite believe my eyes. All the world knew that Queen Caroline of Ansbach was the great power in this family; everyone save her husband. Those famous, mocking lines played about my head. You may strut, dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain, We all know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign.

Mrs Howard glided behind her queen, the modest servant, attentive and silent. Budge stood sentinel by the fire. I glanced at him for instruction, but he gazed ahead, shoulders back. Mrs Howard gave a subtle gesture, bidding me to wait. I stood with one leg half behind the other, poised to bow.

The only sound was the fire crackling in the hearth and the knitting needles clicking back and forth. The queen twirled the wool with her thick fingers and said nothing. There was nothing to do but consider her, and doubtless that was her intent. Let the speechless fool gawp for a while until he regains his senses. Her dress was plain and somewhat sombre – a mantua gown in dark-blue silk matched with a black quilted petticoat. There was a prodigious dollop of black lace fixed atop her head, quite mysterious in its design and almost comical.

She had once been as fair as her husband’s mistress – fairer, in fact. A quarter-century ago every prince in Europe had wanted her hand. Fragments of her beauty still remained – her thick mane of greying blonde hair bouncing in ringlets down her shoulders, her butter cream complexion. The half-smile that played lazily on her pillow lips. But she had grown stout from childbirth and a sweet tooth. She seemed inflated somehow, swollen to twice the size of her rival, standing quietly behind her. No doubt that was why she wore a mantua, the bodice loose and unboned – not a fashionable style, but a good deal more comfortable.

‘Howard,’ the queen said without looking up. ‘Bring me the papers on this boy.’ Her voice was warm and rich, laced with a strong Bavarian accent. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

Mrs Howard crossed to a writing table piled high with books and correspondence. The queen paused in her knitting and began to count the stitches to herself in French, tapping her finger along the needle. The work was very neat. She gave a satisfied grunt and at last fixed me with a look, holding her knitting to her nose like a woollen veil. A deliberate, playful gesture that somehow merely confirmed her power. The world was hers to play in as she chose. She was chuckling to herself as I made my bow, but I could feel her eyes lashing over me like a whip.

‘Oh, mon dieu. Up! Up!’ she said, after I’d bent myself double for a long, back-breaking minute. As if she had not been the one keeping me there. Mrs Howard gave a curtsey and handed a sheaf of papers to her mistress. What a curious, uncomfortable situation for both women. I wondered why the queen allowed it.

‘Thomas Hawkins,’ the queen said, rolling my name around her mouth as if it were one of her sugared confections. She opened up a letter and read the first few lines – or pretended to. She folded the letter and dropped it on the sofa beside her. Settled back against a cushion. ‘Well, sir – I hear you fought a great battle in the park. Saved poor Howard from an unhappy reunion with her husband. He is a beast, of course – quite the worst man in England. Mrs Howard has not been as fortunate as I in her choice of husband.’ Her eyes gleamed. She had placed emphasis upon the word choice. Henrietta had chosen to marry Charles Howard.

The queen glanced at her servant, her husband’s mistress, her once-friend. ‘How long have you been married, Howard? I forget.’

I doubted that very much.

‘Two and twenty years, Your Majesty. I was sixteen years old.’ Mrs Howard’s voice was clear and perfectly composed. But there must be pain somewhere, buried deep. Twenty-two years, married to such a man! How had she survived him all this time?

‘Sixteen,’ the queen snuffed, as if that were quite old enough to know better. She skewered me with her gaze. ‘You are not married, sir.’

‘No, Your Majesty.’

‘No, Your Majesty,’ she mimicked, with surprising skill. ‘God forbid, Your Majesty. Why should I marry my red-haired trull when she opens her legs and her pocket for free?’ She caught my look of dismay. ‘You are surprised I know of this? I surprise myself, sir. I soil my petticoat walking through your sordid little life, hmm?’ She lifted the hem of her gown as if in disgust, revealing a pair of exquisite red-heeled slippers, her plump feet bulging over the top.

There followed a short pause, while everyone pretended not to be mesmerised by the queen’s feet. And then she dropped her gown, and turned quite serious. ‘Well, Howard. Tell Mr Hawkins of your troubles.’

Mrs Howard folded her hands. ‘I humbly beg Her Majesty to first permit me to acknowledge the many kindnesses she has bestowed upon her most grateful servant? My pleasing suite of rooms, my position at court, the happy and contented life I lead here full of diverse entertainments and friendships – these are blessings indeed and I am most grateful for Her Majesty’s generosity.’

The words were spoken with a grave sincerity – and fell from Mrs Howard’s tongue with such fluency I was sure she must have spoken them a thousand times before. To my eye, Mrs Howard did not seem happy nor content, but sometimes words such as these must be spoken, by rote and ritual, to appease those with power over us.

The queen’s eyes were hooded. ‘You are indeed most fortunate, Howard,’ she acknowledged, ‘in your diverse friendships.’ She waved at her most grateful servant to continue.

‘My husband and I are estranged,’ Mrs Howard began.

‘Estranged! Aye, as a wolf is estranged from a rabbit,’ the queen interrupted. ‘You must know of course, sir, that Mr Howard was servant to the late king.’

I nodded. And how extraordinary this was, that such a turbulent, ill-tempered man should fawn about the court when it served him. I knew also – as the whole world knew – that the old king had fallen out violently with his son some years ago and the two courts had been torn in half as a consequence. Some had remained loyal to the king, others had followed the Prince of Wales into exile – a short stroll away in Leicester Fields. Mrs Howard had been an integral part of that secondary court. Had it been loyalty on her part to leave the old court behind? Or had she simply seized the chance to escape her husband?

‘Now he serves no one save himself,’ the queen said. ‘And has no income of his own. He has squandered it all – all of his inheritance, and his wife’s too. Every last penny.’ She dropped a macaroon in her mouth and bit down, closing her eyes in pleasure. Waved again at Mrs Howard to return to her story.

‘Mr Howard has made certain demands of His Majesty. And violent threats against me.’

The queen swallowed the confection, sucking the sugar from her teeth. ‘Demands and threats! Insolent rogue – he is abominable. D’you know, Mr Hawkins, when Mrs Howard was a young woman he abandoned her in some hovel in… I fear I cannot even pronounce it. Holl-born?’

‘Holborn, Your Majesty,’ Mrs Howard offered.

The queen threw me a mock-baffled look, as if Holborn might be somewhere upon the moon. ‘Abandoned her to starve along with their baby son, while he rollicked about the town with whores and scoundrels. Mrs Howard grew so desperate she even thought to sell her own hair. But you could not get a fair price for it, could you, Howard?’ She leaned forward, conspiratorial. ‘Mrs Howard is quite famed for her fine chestnut hair.’

I could not think what to say to this and so said nothing, glancing instead towards Mrs Howard in the hope I might offer some silent expression of sympathy. But her head was tilted in mild contemplation, her eyes cast softly to her feet – as if she were listening to a piece of light chamber music and not the horror that was her marriage.

And still I wondered: what did the queen want of me? I was beginning to suspect it involved Charles Howard – his certain demands and violent threats. In fact, I seemed to have blundered into a rather devious trap. Easy to miss in such a room, with its velvet curtains, its fine old portraits of grave old men covering the walls. The blazing fire and towering heaps of confectionery.

‘The truth is,’ the queen said, ‘I am concerned for my poor Howard. Her husband has always loathed her with a demonic passion but he has kept his temper and his distance for years – I never could fathom why. Now it transpires he was harbouring certain expectations, following His Majesty’s coronation. A position. An income. He has been disappointed in those expectations.’

‘He blames Mrs Howard for this,’ I guessed.

The queen bridled. ‘No, sir – fie! I should think not! Mr Howard knows full well – as the world knows full well – that his wife has no influence upon His Majesty. Not this much!’ She pinched her finger and thumb together, allowing no space between them.

I gave a hurried bow of understanding.

‘Mr Howard is determined to create scandal and disruption. He demands that his wife is returned to his… shall we say into his custody?’ She nodded grimly to herself. Custody. That seemed a fitting word for it.

‘But, forgive me – he cannot crave such a reunion.’

The queen slid her gaze towards Mrs Howard, and I thought I caught a flicker of fellow feeling. ‘No indeed. Mr Howard is more cunning than he seems. He was a soldier for many years, and a good soldier relies upon strategy more than brute strength. Mr Howard does not want his wife, but in law he may insist that she is returned to him. He has persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to write in support of his suit.’ She gave a sour look that made me very glad, in that moment, that I was not the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘It is all a game, naturally: to cause his wife distress and to force the king’s hand.’

She paused, quite furious. Half the world knew that Henrietta Howard was the king’s mistress – but it was an unspoken fact that could be ignored by the court and parliament. Charles Howard’s threats to expose the affair in such a public and sordid manner, and to involve the Church, could not be dismissed lightly. At the very least the king would appear ridiculous, at worst, weak and vulnerable. Not a favourable situation, barely six months into his reign.

The queen, meanwhile, seemed to have recovered herself. ‘Now. I shall tell you a fine tale, sir. It will shock you. A few weeks ago I was working alone, there at my desk, when the door was flung open boof! and Mr Howard burst in, snarling and snapping like a rabid dog. Raving drunk of course – the man is seldom sober. He must have his wife back. He insists upon it. If I do not give her up at once he will drag her from my carriage by her hair the next time we venture out. “Well, sir,” I said. “Do it if you dare.”’ She squared her shoulders at the memory. ‘He stormed up and down, comme ça,’ she pointed with her finger, whisking it back and forth, ‘raving and cursing and threatening to throw me out of the window if I did not oblige him. Well. I informed him that he should do no such thing. But he is in truth so brutal, as well as a little mad, and always so very drunk. And the sash was open. I did half expect to find myself sailing out of the window at any moment.’ She crinkled her lips, amused by the thought.

‘Your Majesty! Was he not arrested?’

She shrugged. This was a private matter. ‘I said, “Why, Mr Howard, we are both rational beings.” I flattered him there, did I not? “Mrs Howard is a loyal and obedient servant and I could not bear to part with her. Let us settle this as reasonable people, sir. Tell me what you desire and be plain about it.” Well, once he had recovered from being called rational and reasonable he presented his demands.’ She took another candied fruit. ‘Three thousand pounds per annum to compensate for his prodigious loss. Else he will seize his wife at the first opportunity and in a most violent and outrageous fashion.’ There was a pause while she ate. ‘The King is not inclined to pay.’

So much for gallantry. Mrs Howard had been the king’s mistress for ten years. Three thousand pounds was a great fortune – but the king could afford to pay it if he wished. Instead he was prepared to let her live in constant terror, trapped in the palace. I’d heard the king was a miserly man – but this was cruel.

‘Poor Swiss has not left her rooms for weeks,’ the queen added, unmoved. ‘And His Majesty is quite furious. He describes his fury to me at great length, every evening. It is an intolerable situation.’ She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she stared directly into mine with a fierce, unblinking gaze. ‘You will resolve it for us, Mr Hawkins.’

‘Your Majesty…?’ Sweat trickled down my back as the room closed in on me.

‘Come now, sir – I did not summon you here to admire your calves, handsome as they are.’ She gave Henrietta a sidelong glance. ‘My dear Howard, you have entertained us with your celebrated wit long enough. Pray leave us.’ She flicked her hand to the door.

Mrs Howard gave a low curtsey, then two more, and backed from the room without a murmur of protest. I had to struggle not to run after her – flee the room, the palace, the city, without turning my head once. I knew what this audience had become – an interview for a position I did not want and could not refuse.

‘You are a trifle pale, Mr Hawkins,’ the queen said. ‘Is it your mother’s Scots complexion, or are you palpitating in my glorious presence?’

‘Both, Your Majesty.’

She smirked. ‘A glass of claret for the boy, Mr Budge.’

Budge brought me the claret in a crystal glass that sparkled in the candlelight. I drank it gratefully.

‘You were a friend of Samuel Fleet,’ the queen said.

‘He was my cell mate.’

‘He was my servant. Odious, treacherous little man. I was quite fond of him. He resolved a few trifling situationson my behalf.’

My heart thudded hard against my chest. Fleet had confessed to me – shortly before he died – that he had been a spy and an assassin for many years. He’d also told me that he had collected too many secrets along the way – that he had thus become too useful to kill and too dangerous to keep alive. So he had been thrown in gaol to rot. I’d guessed his master was powerful, that much had been plain. I’d never suspected his master was the queen.

‘It is a great pity Fleet died in gaol.’ Her lips tightened at the inconvenience. ‘He must be replaced. His brother believes you might serve.’

Fuck James Fleet to hell – I should have guessed this was his doing. ‘Your Majesty, I fear I would be a grave disappointment-’

‘-Come now, sir. I cannot abide false modesty. You discovered Mr Fleet’s killer, did you not? And you fought off Mr Howard unaided. Have you not realised you were being tested that night? Well. Perhaps that is disappointing.’

‘Forgive me, Your Majesty…’ I fell silent, gathering my thoughts. Mrs Howard had not arranged the meeting? No – of course not. It had been a bold move to engage James Fleet and organise a secret assignation in the middle of the night. Mrs Howard was not a bold woman. The queen, on the other hand…

She smiled. ‘I was curious to see if Mr Howard’s threats were genuine. So we fixed his wife to a hook and dangled her in front of him. Fleet’s brother ensured that Howard learned of the meeting. I must say we did not expect events to turn quite so violent. Poor Budge lost a tooth. And he had such a charming face.’

Budge gave a lopsided grin.

‘I have grown tired of Mr Howard’s insolence. Samuel Fleet would have resolved the matter in a heartbeat.’

I thought of the deal I’d made with James Fleet – his promise of one simple meeting, a chance to earn my own money. He had known all along that Charles Howard would attack Henrietta’s carriage. Had known too that I was being tested to replace his late brother as the queen’s private spy.

‘I am not Samuel Fleet, Your Majesty.’

‘No indeed,’ she laughed. ‘Let us be kind and call Mr Fleet an eccentric.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘And a little too clever. You, Mr Hawkins, are just clever enough.’

It was not the finest compliment I had ever received. But under the circumstances, I had to agree with her. If anything, she was being generous.

The queen picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Mr Howard must be stopped. Here is a list of his favourite taverns. Gaming houses. Brothels.’ She handed the list to Budge, who handed it to me.

A hollow feeling grew in my chest. ‘Your Majesty. I cannot… I am not an assassin…’

The queen looked astonished. ‘For shame, sir! I am not asking you to murder the man – what an extraordinary notion. He’s the brother of the Earl of Suffolk. You must befriendhim, Mr Hawkins.’

Befriend him? I thought of Howard tearing at my throat, snarling in fury. Upon reflection, perhaps murdering him was preferable.

‘Once you are on friendly terms, he may let down his guard. You must learn his secrets. Some weakness we might use against him. Seek him out, Mr Hawkins. Apologise for your encounter in the park. Earn his trust. Encourage him in his most bestial behaviour. He knows you are a violent man – he’ll appreciate that.’

‘Your Majesty, I am not in the least violent.’

She plucked another letter from the pile. ‘From Sir Philip Meadows. You stayed at his lodge last autumn, I believe. He says you were a charming guest… until you broke a man’s nose.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘I was provoked, Your Majesty.’

The queen’s eyes glittered. ‘And were you provoked when you shot a man dead, out in Snows Fields?’

She held my gaze. There was a dark, almost eager smile on her lips. The smile of a woman who has just slid a blade between a man’s ribs – softly and with great precision.

‘That… I was forced to defend myself.’

‘The first shot saved your life, of course. But the second?’ She tapped the spot between her brows. Where Kitty had aimed and fired. ‘What do you think, Budge?’

‘He must have stood over him, Your Majesty. Reloaded his pistol. Shot him right between the eyes.’

‘Murder, then.’

Budge threw me an apologetic glance. ‘Your Majesty.’

The blood was pounding in my ears. I stayed silent, breathing hard. I couldn’t trust myself to speak. Any word could be a betrayal.

The queen leaned forward. ‘Do you deny this story? That you shot and killed a man last autumn, out on Snows Fields?’ Her voice was soft – almost tender.

I swallowed, mouth dry. The fire crackled and sparked. On the mantelpiece, a gilded clock struck the quarter hour. ‘No, Your Majesty. I do not deny it.’

There was a long, heavy pause. And then she smiled. Somehow – miraculously – I had given the right answer. The queen studied me closely, as if I were some new addition to the royal zoo. Then she lifted a final paper from the pile – a short note clearly written in haste. ‘Budge has been gathering information on you for some time. This message came to us two hours ago. There is a warrant planned for your arrest at dawn tomorrow, for murder. There is a witness. A disreputable one,’ she conceded. ‘But your neighbour swears he heard you confess to it.’

Burden. ‘Damn him!’ I cried, forgetting myself. ‘That is a lie!’

‘I should hope so,’ the queen replied, amused by my outburst. ‘I should hope you are a good deal more discreet than that, Mr Hawkins. We shall send word to the magistrate to destroy the warrant; Budge will arrange that tonight.’

I bowed deeply. ‘Your Majesty. I am in your debt.’

‘You are indeed.’ The queen pinched her lips. ‘Be sure to repay it, Mr Hawkins. His Majesty is vexed by this tiresome business. And when my husband is vexed we all suffer. You will find something for us, to stop Mr Howard’s threats. Within the week.’

I bowed again in understanding. She did not say it, but the implication was perfectly clear. If I did not solve the king’s vexing problem in the next few days, I could expect no further protection from Gonson and his arrest warrants. There was just one thing I couldn’t fathom. I hesitated, afraid I would cause offense. ‘Your Majesty. Mrs Howard…’

‘You wish to know why I go to this trouble to protect her? Why not let her vile husband drag her from the palace by her fine chestnut hair, hmm?’ She looked away towards the fire. In profile she was suddenly more striking, with her long neck and strong features. I could see it now, how beautiful she had once been. ‘I have grown accustomed…’ she began. Paused. ‘It is a comfortable arrangement. Howard is discreet. Modest. And as I say – quite without influence.’ A small, satisfied smile.

I remembered what Eliot had said about Mrs Howard – how friends such as John Gay had hoped for preferment when the king came to power last autumn. And how it had transpired that she had no sway with her lover at all – after all those years of service. It must have been a humiliating blow. And a triumph for her rival. How many hours had the queen devoted to securing such a complete victory?

The queen was a pragmatic woman. If her husband must take a mistress, let it be someone as passive and powerless as Henrietta Howard. She was beautiful, yes, and charming. But the king would never turn to her for advice, and that suited the queen very well.

‘It would be tiresome to train a new servant.’

The queen agreed, pleased by the careful dance we had taken about the subject. She gathered up all the papers she had collected on me and handed them to Budge, who threw them on the fire. She rose slowly to her feet and held out her hand. I knelt and kissed it. She bent down, closer to my ear. ‘I know it was your little trull who fired the pistol,’ she murmured. ‘You must love her very much, to take the blame for murder. To lie to your queen.’

I kept my head down. ‘Your Majesty.’

‘I believe you would do anything to protect her.’ She paused – smiled as I met her gaze. ‘I am glad you have come to my attention, Mr Hawkins. I think you will be a most loyal servant.’

She waved her hand. I was dismissed.

Chapter Eight

Home. I locked the door and leaned against it, closing my eyes with relief. Here in the dark I untied my cravat and slipped a hand beneath my shirt, reaching for my mother’s cross. I was safe – for now. No need to fear a visit from Gonson. No need for a moonlight dash from the city. But for how long – and at what cost?

‘Tom…?’ Kitty stood at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in an emerald wrapping gown embroidered with silver thread that twinkled softly in the candlelight. ‘You went out at last,’ she cheered, skipping lightly down the stairs. ‘I’m so glad! Have you been drinking at Moll’s all evening? You must-’

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, long and deep. A moment’s surprise and then she flung her arms about my neck. I pushed her gently against the wall and kissed her throat, her jaw. ‘Angel,’ I murmured, cupping her face as I kissed her again.

She snatched off my wig, my coat, unbuttoned my waistcoat. Drew me closer. My sword clattered to the floor. I ran a hand under her gown to find her naked beneath. Felt myself grow hard. I moved my hand higher and she moaned softly, guiding me. There. No. There. ‘Tonight,’ she whispered, biting my ear. ‘Tonight, Tom.’

Yes, yes, tonight – why not, damn it? After all that had happened, why wait another moment? I was tempted to take her there in the hallway, but I wanted her in bed, the first time. I gathered her up and carried her to our room, while she giggled with surprise. Dropped her down on the bed and knelt over her, unwrapped the gown so she lay naked beneath me. Just her necklace, with Fleet’s gold poesy ring hung upon it. I paused, just for a moment. Then I pulled off my shirt and lowered myself over her. I traced my tongue across her breasts and then lower, lower. She shuddered and arched her back, gasping with pleasure. She was mine, she was mine – and no one would ever take her from me.

She pulled me back up the bed, eyes heavy with desire. Slid her fingers down and unbuttoned my breeches. Hesitated. ‘My hands are cold,’ she said, blowing on them.

I took them between mine and chafed them together roughly. ‘There.’

She stared down at my knuckles, bruised and bloodied from pummelling Burden’s door. I had almost forgotten. And I had told the queen I was not a violent man. Kitty sat up slowly. ‘What’s this? You were in another fight?’

‘With a door.’ I reached to kiss her.

She pushed me away.

‘Sweetheart… it means nothing. Come here.’

She drew her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her knees. The cold chill of disappointment seeped over the bed. Again.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I sighed. ‘I drank too much punch and scraped my knuckles, that is all. There’s no need to make such a damnable fuss.’

Kitty, it is fair to say, did not agree with this assertion.

Exile, then. Cast out of my own warm bed. Most certainly not tonight, Tom. I stamped upstairs, shirt and blanket under my arm, scowling to myself as if I were the injured party. As if I had not in fact kicked and beaten at our neighbour’s door and waved my sword in his face in front of the entire street. Damn Kitty. Damn her stubbornness and her temper. Damn the world and everyone in it.

At least there was a spare bed at the top of the house, in Jenny’s old room. I placed the candle on the chair by the bed, threw on my shirt and huddled beneath the covers, seething to myself. There had been no fire lit in this room for days and the walls felt damp to the touch. A crack in the window let in a thin draught, sharp as a blade. Even with an extra blanket, I couldn’t stop myself from shivering.

Anger boiled through me. I should leave – storm from the house to the nearest bagnio. Find myself a wench who wouldn’t ask anything of me, wouldn’t expect anything of me save a coin or two. A merry, easy jade who would be grateful to share a bed, skin against skin in the night.

The candle fluttered then righted itself. Oh, God help me. I was coupled to the most infuriating girl in the kingdom. And I loved every damned inch of her. I closed my eyes, imagining her in the room below, pacing the floor and cursing my name. And crying, I thought, with a heavy heart. You’ve made her cry, again.

What if tonight were the night she grew tired of me? The night she realised that I’d only brought trouble to her door? Trouble and an empty pocket. I’d thought I’d lost her once before, and the grief had been intolerable. I would apologise tomorrow. We would begin afresh.

The candle burned low and flickered out.

I dreamed of Howard, drunk and raving in the moonlight. He screamed at me to fetch his wife, his lips flecked with saliva. ‘You are my friend,’ he cried. ‘You must help me.’ His lips pulled back into a snarl, his teeth yellow fangs sliding from his gums, his breath like rotting meat. He clawed at my shirt, shaking me, shaking me…

‘Mr Hawkins. Wake up.’ Sam’s voice, low and urgent. His hand was on my shoulder.

I sat up, squinting as he held a candle to my face. ‘Sam. What on earth…?’

Orange flame reflected in his coal-black eyes. ‘Murder.’

Kitty. I tore the blankets from the bed and sprang to my feet. Sam blocked my path. ‘Sleeping,’ he whispered, putting a hand to my chest as I tried to pass him. He pressed a finger to his lips then led me stealthily across the landing to his own room, unlocked the door.

The room was still, and black as ink.

A rustle in the darkness. The low creak of floorboards by the window. And someone’s breath, sharp and ragged. I backed away, thinking of my blade, so far beyond reach in the hallway, two floors below.

Sam raised the candle higher and the room came to life. A bed, a table covered in books of medicine and anatomy, the charcoal sketches pinned to the wall, a mirror… and a young woman cowering in a corner, blonde hair hanging wild about her face. Alice Dunn – Burden’s housekeeper. How the devil did she come to be in Sam’s room?

She stumbled into the light. I cursed and drew back in shock. She was covered head to foot in blood. Dark stains spread across her pale-blue gown. Thin streaks clung to her tangled hair. Her apron was smeared with gory trails where she had tried to wipe her hands clean. She looked as if she had walked through hell.

‘Dear God!’ I cried. ‘Are you hurt?’

She said nothing, too terrified to speak. Her eyes were wild. And fixed upon Sam.

He took a step towards her and her hand flew up. She was holding a dagger. The blade was thick with blood from tip to hilt.

Sam moved back, hands raised. Alice’s shoulders dipped, the knife wavering in her hand.

‘Sam,’ I murmured, keeping a close eye upon the knife. ‘Fetch some brandy.’

As soon as he’d left the room, Alice gave a sob and dropped the dagger as if it were burning her hand. It clattered onto the floor between us. It was as I’d guessed and feared. She was afraid of Sam. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s dead,’ she answered in a numb voice. ‘Mr Burden. He’s dead.’

Oh… this was ill news indeed. I reached down, slowly, and picked up the knife. My hand was shaking. It was a fine weapon, with a turned ivory handle chased in gold. The steel blade was sharp, six inches long. A handsome, vicious thing. ‘Did you kill him?’

She shook her head. She kept her hands stretched out away from her body, away from all the blood and gore.

‘How did you come here? Did Sam let you in?’

Even his name made her flinch. ‘It was him,’ she cried. ‘It was him. Oh, Lord. He’ll kill me too, I know it.’ Her body buckled and she sank to the floor.

‘Sit down here,’ I said, taking her arm and leading her gently to the bed. She clung to me, weeping silently. I studied her as the tears streamed down her face, searching for any signs of a fight. Burden was a mountain of a man – if Alice had attacked him surely there would be marks upon her body. Her wrists were circled with small bruises, a few days old, and there were more across her neck – four upon the left and one larger one on the right, just under her chin. Four fingers and a thumb. Someone had seized her roughly by the throat. Burden, forcing himself on her. Holding her down. I felt a sharp desire to find the bastard and knock him to the ground. And then I remembered – he was dead. Murdered.

Alice had no fresh wounds upon her that I could see – not even a scratch. The blood was all his.

Dread shivered through me. My neighbour – the man I had threatened only hours before, who had promised to testify against me in court – lay dead next door. And here was his servant hiding in my house, covered in his blood. If Gonson heard of this he would hang us both on the spot.

‘Alice – I know what Burden did to you… I’m sorry…’

She bowed her head for a moment, as if shamed. ‘What will they say of me?’ she asked, in a raw, broken voice. ‘He made me… I had to visit him every night. I had no choice. But it was different tonight. The room was dark. I was glad of it. Glad I didn’t have to look at him for once. He never let me close my eyes. He made me pretend that I liked it, or else…’ She shuddered, then drew a deep breath. ‘I felt my way across the room and climbed onto the bed. It was soaking wet. So I lit a candle. I had to grope for it in the dark. I could feel the sheets, wet beneath my hands and then the flame caught and… He was lying there with that knife in his heart. The sheets were red. Thick pools of blood. Oh, God! I’d lain across it in the dark, in all that blood… My dress… my hands. It was all… it was everywhere. I had to stop myself from screaming.’ She held out the underside of her right arm to reveal a ring of teeth marks cut deep in the flesh. ‘They’d say I done it. Look at me! Look at me!’ She began to sob.

‘Why do you think it was Sam?’

‘He was the thief. I saw him. Nasty little rat, creeping about at night. I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Judith said I was mad. Stephen was the only one who believed me.’ Her face softened. ‘I knew I’d hang for it if they found me like this. And I couldn’t run away.’ She gestured helplessly at the blood. ‘Please, sir. If you tell them it was Sam they’ll believe you. You’re a gentleman.’

‘But, Alice, it couldn’t possibly be Sam. He can’t walk through walls.’

She stared up at me. ‘Yes he can, sir. Oh yes he can. And so can I.’

I blinked, confused. Perhaps Judith was right. Perhaps Alice was mad.

‘He planned it all, Mr Hawkins. He’s evil, sir. That’s why Jenny left. She said-’

The door opened, silently. Sam, returning with the brandy. In a flash Alice grabbed the knife and scurried to the corner again, bare feet crackling dried flakes of blood across the floor.

Sam seemed more amused than offended. He poured a glass of brandy and offered it to her. She shrank back. I took the glass instead and knocked it down. Not as good as the queen’s claret, but it helped.

‘She thinks I done it,’ Sam snorted.

‘I know you did!’ Alice cried. She pointed to a wall hanging fixed in the far corner of the room – faded green silk, embroidered with a white cherry tree design. I had never once given it a moment’s thought. If asked, I would have guessed it covered a patch of damp or a hole in the plaster. I crossed the room, growing more troubled with each step. I knew what I would find behind the hanging, even before I drew it back.

Alice really had walked through the wall. Or, at least, through a hidden door. Small, discreet, painted the same pale green as the rest of the room. I ran my fingers along its edges. It must have been sealed shut at some point, because there were cracks and splinters around the frame – clear signs that it had been chiselled open again. There was no handle, just a lock. The key was missing.

‘The windows and doors were barred, the night I saw him,’ Alice said, still holding the knife tight. ‘So I knew there must be a hidden passage. I’ve spent the last week hunting for it, every spare second.’ She pulled a hairpin from her apron and fiddled with the lock. There was a soft click, and the door swung free into the room.

The entrance opened into the back of a huge oak armoire filled with fine but old-fashioned gowns in dark silks. The smell of must wafted through the air, and for a moment I was transported home to my father’s house, to a forbidden room filled with my mother’s dresses, fading slowly.

‘They belonged to Mrs Burden,’ Alice murmured. She trailed her fingers across a petticoat with deep flounces – a style I had not seen since I was a child. ‘I’d planned to show this to Mr Burden, to prove I wasn’t lying, or dreaming. Too late now, isn’t it?’ She glared at Sam.

I pushed the dresses aside, but it was too dark to see into the room beyond. It was an ingenious idea, I had to admit. From Burden’s side, the door would appear to be the back of the large cabinet, unless one examined it very closely. This was the work of Sam’s late uncle, without question. Samuel Fleet had lived a complicated, dangerous life – one that needed as many escape routes as possible. I could see how it would have been irresistible to Sam. Had he discovered it by chance? Or was it a Fleet family secret?

‘You were the thief.’

‘Didn’t steal nothing.’

‘Didn’t steal anything,’ I corrected, before I could stop myself. Yes, of course, that was the boy’s great crime in all this – his use of double negatives. ‘What were you doing over there, if you weren’t thieving?’

‘Practising.’

‘Oh!’ Alice cried, horrified. ‘Oh, I told you, sir!’

I put a finger to my lips. If anyone woke next door we would be in grave trouble. Sam was not confessing to Burden’s murder, he was not so foolish. He meant only that he’d been testing his skills; prowling about just as he had stolen into Jenny’s room in the middle of the night. He’d wanted to see how quiet he could be. Not quiet enough, by this account. It was disturbing behaviour, but not proof of murder. I rubbed a hand across my face. It had been a long, wretched night. ‘Did you kill Mr Burden, Alice?’

‘Me?’ Alice gaped.

I gestured at her clothes, drenched in blood. She stank of it.

‘I told you – I never touched him.’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘I swear on my life.’

I glanced at Sam, raised an eyebrow. Truth? He tilted his head. Maybe.

It would have to do. ‘Very well. Hand me the knife.’

She hesitated, then handed it over. I picked up the candle and put a foot through the door into the cabinet, brushing aside a damson-coloured mantua. These were expensive dresses for the wife of a carpenter. Alice gripped my sleeve. ‘What are you doing, sir?’

‘Saving you from the gallows.’

She put a bloodstained hand to her throat. ‘I won’t stay here with him. Not without the knife.’

Sam gave me an eager look. If he could not stay here, reason insisted he must come with me. I sighed, and handed him the candle. Viewing murdered corpses was not usually part of a gentleman’s education, but what choice did I have? And I suppose he did have experience of moving about the place in darkness. Let him play link boy again, just for the night.

He slipped through, shielding the flame so it didn’t catch on the dusty clothes. I turned back to Alice. ‘Don’t leave this room. And don’t make a sound. Your life depends upon it.’

She gave me a frightened nod.

I pushed my way through the oak cabinet, praying that she was sensible enough to keep quiet. Sam was waiting for me on the other side, candle casting shadows across his face. Below us, the rest of the house slept on, oblivious. I glanced back at the armoire, a dark, solid presence that took up most of the wall. As solid as the man who had made it. I tiptoed towards the light in my stockinged feet, wincing at every groan in the floorboards. Something brushed across my face and I flinched. Cobwebs. I scrubbed them away.

‘No one on this floor,’ Sam whispered. There was almost no breath behind the words and yet somehow they were clear enough to understand. Another trick he’d learned from his father, no doubt.

We crept down the stairs to the second floor, my heart thumping so hard I feared it would wake the whole house. If we were discovered now, all was lost. I could hear the deep tick tock of a grandfather clock from the drawing room below, the steady snores of someone sleeping well and deeply. Stephen, I guessed, dreaming happily while his father lay murdered across the landing.

Sam cracked open a door, muffling the sound of the latch beneath a handkerchief. The door swung silently on its hinges; Burden must have oiled them so Alice could slip in at night without being heard. All that talk of sin and he was fucking a young girl against her will. Was his spirit watching us now, mute and helpless in the dark? Was he in heaven? In hell?

I took a slow, steadying breath and crossed the threshold, the dagger in my hand. It must be discovered with the body. If it were missing, everyone would assume that the murderer had crept into the house and taken it with him when he left. And who would everyone suspect…?

The bed was hidden beneath thick, red velvet drapes. Sam waited until I’d closed the door then drew them back in one fluid movement.

Burden lay naked on his back, his eyes open and turned to the ceiling. His flabby white chest had been butchered; flesh ripped open, flaps of skin hanging loose. I shuddered. He looked more flayed than stabbed. The violence of it made my stomach turn. His face was frozen, mouth contorted in a final grimace of shock. The bed linen was soaked in blood and smelled of piss and shit. I put a hand to my mouth.

Sam skirted to the other side of the bed, careful to keep the blood from smearing on his clothes. He placed a hand on Burden’s cheek. ‘Cold.’

I forced myself to look closer. Burden’s lips were blue. The blood had begun to dry on the sheets. He could have been killed hours ago. And then his murderer had walked calmly from the room and continued about his business. Ned, Judith, or Stephen. The names rose unbidden in my mind. If Alice hadn’t killed Burden, it must be one of them. I narrowed my eyes, looking for any trace of a clue, but there was nothing except for the blood and the blade. Reason told me Ned was the most likely suspect – he had the strength and the grievance – but reason had no place here. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe any of it. ‘Strange,’ I whispered. ‘To think of them all sleeping soundly so close by.’

‘All but one,’ Sam replied, moving the candle down Burden’s body.

I placed the dagger at the end of the bed.

Sam glanced at it. Raised an eyebrow. Pointed at the wound in Burden’s chest.

I gave a low groan. He was right. To protect Alice, to protect ourselves, we had to put it back where she had found it. Right back in the heart wound. I picked up the dagger. It was a handsome thing, save for the blood. I hesitated. Could I do this? Push a blade into a dead man’s heart?

Sam plucked it from my grasp and with a quick turn of the wrist plunged the steel blade back into the wound. It made a vile, slurping sound as it travelled deep into Burden’s chest. I turned away. When I looked back, Sam was examining the rest of the stab wounds.

‘Sam. Enough. Come away.’ The ground was tilting beneath my feet. I could taste blood in the air – a heavy iron tang. I still couldn’t believe that Burden was truly dead. I half expected his corpse to sit up of a sudden and laugh, as if this were all some macabre jest at my expense.

Ned, Judith, Stephen… There was one other possibility of course. ‘Did you do this, Sam?’

He did not seem in the least put out by the question. Had seemed more offended, in fact, when I had accused him of thieving. ‘Why would I kill him?’ he asked, putting a hand to Burden’s ruined chest.

‘That’s not an answer… Oh, good God! Stop that.’

He ignored me, probing each wound with deft fingers. ‘Not gentlemanly?’

‘This is not a game, Sam.’

He gave a soft, secret smile, as if this were the best game in the world. ‘Nine stab wounds.’

I stared at the savage gouges in his chest, the glistening clots of blood. Nine stab wounds. This was not the work of a cool-tempered assassin. Whoever murdered Joseph Burden had acted in a frenzy of hate and fury. He would have been covered head to foot in blood when he was done.

Who had more reason to hate Burden than Alice? And I had left her alone next door while Kitty slept downstairs, with no warning or protection.

It was time to leave.

I took one last look at Burden’s bloody and butchered corpse. He’d wanted me dead – had been prepared to lie on oath to see me hang. My enemy in life – and he still had the power to destroy me in death. God damn it. I would not hang for this. Wherever Burden was now – heaven or hell – I would not give him the satisfaction.

Chapter Nine

I need not have worried about Kitty. When Sam and I returned to his room, she was standing over Alice – with a pistol in her hand.

‘And when did you plan to explain this, Tom?’ Kitty asked, tilting the barrel towards Alice’s bloodstained clothes. ‘Is it true? Is the old bastard dead?’

‘Stabbed through the heart.’

Kitty tapped Alice’s shoulder with the pistol. ‘D’you kill him? If that bloated hog tried to force himself on me, reckon I’d stab him.’

‘I never touched him.’

I closed the door between the attic rooms. Sam slid the hanging back in place.

‘He was stabbed many times,’ I said.

‘Nine,’ Sam clarified.

‘Whoever killed him would be covered in blood…’

We all looked at Alice.

‘I told you, it was dark. I didn’t see the blood until…’ She put her face in her hands and rocked softly. Kitty gritted her teeth, frustrated, while Sam watched them both, unblinking. No doubt he would sketch this, later. The maidservant drenched in her master’s blood and the girl with a pistol in her hand.

‘You must see, Alice, how this seems. You have the very best reason for wanting Burden dead.’

Alice dropped her hands. ‘Save for you, sir.’

There was a short, cold silence. And then a sharp click, as Kitty cocked the pistol. ‘Look at yourself, Alice! Tell me why we should not drag you at once to the magistrate?’

‘I didn’t do it!’ Alice howled, desperate. ‘You must believe me! There’d be no sense in it.’

‘Why not?’

Her shoulders slumped. ‘He was going to marry me.’

We stared at each other in consternation.

‘He announced it while I was serving dinner yesterday. Didn’t bother to ask me first. No warning. No argument. Judith ran outside and puked in the yard. Imagine. Her maid was now her mother.’

Kitty lowered the pistol. ‘You consented?’

‘What choice did I have?’ Alice looked utterly exhausted. ‘At least I’d have some protection. Why – do you think I wanted his rough hands all over me? His fat, sweating belly pressing down so I could scarce breathe? He made me sick. I fought him off the first time. But he said he’d tell the world I’d thieved from him. Who would hire me after that? I’d be on the street and on my back for every pox-ridden bastard with a halfpenny to spend. Mr Hawkins, sir – you know he’d have done it. He told all those lies about you in church.’

‘What’s this?’ Kitty asked sharply.

I frowned, but there was no value in shielding her any more. ‘He was spreading rumours about me. He said that I killed a man, down in Southwark…’

‘He swore an oath to Mr Gonson,’ Alice said. ‘Said he heard you through the wall, confessing to it. He was lying, I know. He hated you both. Because you was happy, I think. Happy and young.’ She paused. ‘I’m glad he’s dead. Bastard. I’d have liked to marry him first, though, just for the money. And the look on Judith’s face. She’ll throw me out on the street now.…’

Kitty paid her no mind. She was staring at me from across the room with a stunned expression, as if the house had collapsed around her. ‘Why did you not tell me? What possessed you…’ She trailed away, staring at the pistol in her hand. ‘Oh, Tom…’

I couldn’t explain my actions in front of Sam and Alice, but I didn’t need to. Kitty understood. If she had known that Burden planned to testify against me, she would have confessed to the murder in a flash, in order to protect me. Just as I had lied to the queen to protect her. The difference was that Kitty had indeed pulled the trigger. One bullet for defence. The other for revenge.

She crossed the room and put her arms around me, her head pressed hard against my chest. I drew her close and held her for a long, perfect moment. There. I was forgiven. And all I’d had to do was prove myself willing to die for her. How simple and charming love is.

She stood on tiptoes and pressed her lips to my ear. ‘I would never let you hang on my account,’ she whispered. ‘Never. Do you understand?’

It was almost dawn. We needed to send Alice back before the household woke and somebody discovered Burden’s corpse. Kitty took Alice downstairs to dress her in a clean gown. We would have to take her innocence on trust – and a fair degree of common sense. Alice clearly had little to gain from Burden’s death, save for a moment’s revenge. Yesterday she had been set to become his wife and share his fortune. Today she had nothing. Who would hire a servant whose previous master had been murdered in his bed?

Whoever had killed Burden had been perfectly content to let Alice take the blame. Ned, Stephen, Judith – they all knew of Alice’s nightly visits to Burden’s bed. Alice had screamed like a banshee when she caught Sam in the room that night. Burden’s killer must have counted upon her screaming again, when she found the body. The household would have rushed to her aid… and discovered her upon the bed, crouched over the corpse. Covered in his blood.

A brutal murder, fuelled by a burning rage. But this attempt to turn suspicion upon Alice had been cold and clever.

Ned. Stephen. Or Judith.

Impossible.

I told myself it was none of my business who killed Burden. Gonson might suspect me, but as long as he did not discover the attic door I was safe enough. And yet… and yet… It was not a comfortable thought, knowing I was the most obvious suspect. It would be better to learn the truth – in case I needed to prove my innocence.

Sam drew a candle over his bed. Pinched his lips. ‘She’s left blood on the sheets.’

‘If Alice had married Burden, she might easily have borne a child. Several, in fact. How old is Alice? Nineteen? Twenty?’

Sam dipped a neck cloth in a jug of water and began to scrub hard. ‘Five and twenty,’ he suggested, with a fair degree of malice.

If Alice had a child, Stephen might lose his inheritance, or at least part of it. And then there was Judith, sickened by the idea of Alice becoming her stepmother. Loss of money, loss of pride. Either could have led to murder. But then… surely they would have killed Alice, not their father?

Ned Weaver was angry with Burden, but angry enough to plunge a blade into his heart? If I were forced to gamble on it, I supposed I would bet on Burden’s apprentice – cheated and betrayed. He had the strength for it – but not the heart, surely. Truth was, I would not risk money on any of them. ‘Are you sure you didn’t kill him, Sam?’

He paused in his scrubbing. ‘With a knife?’ He picked up a pillow, gripped it tightly in both hands. ‘Best way – smother them. Looks natural.’

‘That’s… rather sinister.’

‘Bad man. Bad death. Deserved it.’ He plumped the pillow and dropped it back upon the bed. ‘Blood on your shirt.’

I glanced down. There were smudges all down the front from where Alice had clung to me. On purpose, to incriminate me? No, surely not… Damn it. It would have to go on the fire – it was too badly stained and I couldn’t risk it being discovered. Gonson was sure to pay me a visit before the morning was over.

‘Why’re we helping Alice?’ Sam asked.

‘She’ll hang if we don’t.’

He stared up at me, peat-black eyes filled with frustration. ‘They’ll blame you instead.’

‘Gonson won’t arrest me without proof.’

He tossed the bloodstained neckerchief on the fire. It sizzled and spat, damp against the flames, sending grey smoke into the room. He coughed against his sleeve. ‘Give her money, Mr Hawkins. Enough to run away.’

I hesitated. I had not considered the idea. It was tempting. Why should I place myself in danger for a girl I barely knew? If Alice left tonight she could begin a new life with a new identity. Sam’s father could hide her for a few weeks, then send her wherever she pleased. True, everyone would assume she had killed Burden, but she’d said herself that the best she could hope for now was a ruined life on the street. Was this not the kindest choice, for everyone?

I opened my mouth to speak. Very well. Let’s send a message to your father. But there was a lump in my throat and I couldn’t say the words. My conscience. My damned conscience. If I sent Alice away now she would be named a murderer for ever. She would live a life of fear while the real killer escaped punishment. And what if she were caught and brought back home to be hanged? What then?

Alice appeared in the doorway in the plain, coarse wool dress Kitty used to wear in the Marshalsea. The one she’d been wearing the first time I saw her in Sarah Bradshaw’s coffeehouse. It was tight on Alice, especially about the chest, but it would pass.

Sam was not happy. ‘What if shetells them about the door? What if she blames one of us?’

‘Then we show them this,’ Kitty said, holding up Alice’s bloody gown. She threw it to him. ‘Hide it somewhere safe, away from the house.’

Satisfied at last, Sam grinned and hurried from the room.

Kitty patted Alice on the shoulder. ‘Insurance,’ she said, sweetly. ‘In case you planned to mention the door. Or tried to place suspicion upon Mr Hawkins in some other fashion.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘No. You won’t, will you?’ Kitty agreed with a touch of menace. She drew back the wall hanging and ushered Alice through the door, whispering orders in her ear. Start the day as usual. Light the fire and sweep the floor. And wait for someone else to scream murder.

Kitty built a fire in our room while I pulled off my ruined shirt, shivering in the cold dawn air. My head was spinning, my eyes raw and dry. I glanced mournfully at the bed, wishing I could bury myself beneath the blankets and escape the world for a few hours. But I could not have slept – my mind was too restless and alert. I thought of Burden lying dead on the other side of the wall. Murdered, just a few inches from where Kitty had lain sleeping. A thought struck me.

‘Did you hear anything in the night, Kitty? A struggle? A cry for help?’

‘Nothing.’ She ripped up my shirt and dropped the pieces on to the fire. ‘Perhaps he took a sleeping draught.’ She brushed the soot from her hands, eyes cast down. She was thinking of another murder, back in the Marshalsea. I crossed the room and held her.

‘When things have settled down, let’s leave London for a while. We could go to Paris, or Italy.’ I rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. ‘Somewhere warm.’

Kitty handed me a fresh shirt. ‘Italy.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sure we’ll find new books for you to translate there.’

I had been thinking of travel and adventure, not months cramped over a desk, scratching imaginary lust on to blank pages. But I smiled too, and kissed her forehead. A promise.

I was buttoning my shirt when a scream pierced through the wall. Judith. The screams turned into a low howl of grief. And then Stephen’s voice, muffled through the walls.

‘No! Oh, Father, no! Murder! Murder!’

It had begun.

By the time we joined our neighbours on the street, Ned Weaver was standing guard at the door, his face drained white. He held a large wrench in his hand, turning it in his palm as I approached to play my part. I must appear as curious and ignorant as the rest of the street.

‘My God, Ned, what’s happened?’

He pushed me back with his free hand. ‘Keep away from here, sir.’

‘Is it true? Mr Burden has been killed?’

He studied my face for a long moment. ‘Aye,’ he breathed, at last. There was grief in his eyes and a kind of dull shock. But if he’d killed Burden he’d had hours to prepare his reaction. It told me nothing.

Judith emerged from the hallway and stood at Ned’s shoulder, her dark hair in a tangle down her back. She was dressed in a straw-coloured wrapping gown, the bottom stained with her father’s blood. Not as much as there had been on Alice’s dress. She had discovered him in daylight and must have drawn back at once.

‘Miss Burden,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘I have just heard-’

‘You killed him,’ she said, her voice hoarse. ‘You killed my father.’

‘That is not true…’

‘Murderer!’ she cried, throwing the word high into the air. I felt the street fall silent at my back.

Ned leaned down and whispered in her ear. Judith savaged me with a contemptuous look, then retreated back into the house. Ned tapped the wrench at my chest. ‘I’ve sent for Mr Gonson. I’ll tell him how you threatened Mr Burden last night.’ He tilted his chin over my shoulder, to the street beyond. ‘We all heard it.’

I glanced around. Our neighbours were huddled in groups, whispering and staring as if Ned and I were actors in a play. And judging by their black looks, they had cast me as the villain. I turned back to Ned. ‘Did you kill him, Ned? You’d have cause enough.’

Ned wanted to punch me – I could see it in his eyes – but he was no fool. Judith had accused me of murder, but the house had been locked tight last night. An apprentice with a hot temper, betrayed by his master? Aye, that would play well enough in court. ‘Go to hell,’ he barked, loud enough to be heard halfway down the street. But he kept his fists lowered.

As I returned to the shop, I heard hisses at my back. Even the brothel girls seemed wary, muttering to one another and refusing to meet my eye. When I reached the shop, Kitty was scuffing away tears of frustration and rage. I sat down at the table to fix myself a pipe. My hands were trembling. I stretched them out in front of me, willing them to stop shaking before Gonson arrived.

Kitty sat down opposite me and tucked her knees under her chin. ‘If it comes to it, I’ll confess to Snows Fields. You are not a murderer, Tom.’

‘No more are you, Kitty.’

She looked down at the table, a tear sliding slowly down her cheek. We had never spoken of what had happened out in Snows Fields that terrible night last September. What could be said? She had saved my life – and risked her soul for it. I reached over and brushed the tear away. Passed her my pipe to steady her nerves. She took a long pull, closing her eyes as she breathed out a stream of smoke. ‘Italy.’

I covered her hand with mine.

It was a strange, tense hour waiting for the knock upon the door. We heard Gonson arrive at Burden’s house and hurry upstairs with his men to view the body. Judith’s voice, high and trembling with distress, carried through the walls, though we couldn’t make out the words. Then Gonson, slow and measured, asking questions.

It began to rain, a strong wind hurling fistfuls against the window. The room darkened as grey clouds blocked the light. Kitty stoked the fire and held her hands to the flame. ‘I can’t bear this,’ she muttered.

I took off my wig, rubbed my hands over my scalp. And still the puzzle of it turned in my mind, around and around like a clockwork spit. Ned. Stephen. Judith. One of them had stabbed Burden nine times in the chest, then calmly waited for Alice to find the body. And now, just as calmly, waited for the suspicion to fall upon me. How obliging I had been, threatening Burden last night. Well. Let Gonson arrive and have done with it. Let him make his accusations – he had no evidence to support them, unless he discovered the passage between Sam’s room and Burden’s attic.

A pounding at the door. A wooden club, not a fist. I rose as if in a trance and opened it. Gonson stood in the doorway in a dark-grey cloak, surrounded by his men. He was unshaven and had clearly dressed in a rush, his cravat askew and the buttons of his waistcoat matched to the wrong buttonholes. So eager to stake a claim upon the murder. I bowed. ‘Sir.’

He leaned upon his stick, studying me closely. His hat and the ends of his long wig were sodden with rain. ‘Mr Burden is dead.’

‘So I hear. If you have come to accuse me, sir-’

‘No, Mr Hawkins. I’ve come to arrest you.’

Before I could respond, two of the guards thrust themselves through the door and grabbed me by the arms. I struggled against them, digging my heels as they tried to drag me outside. ‘Let me go, damn you!’ I cried. ‘I’m innocent.’

‘You are guilty, sir!’ Gonson thundered. He shoved his face an inch from mine. ‘Do not think me a fool! Burden was set to testify against you this very morning and now he lies murdered in his bed – at your hand. He was a good man. A brave man.’

‘He was a hypocrite,’ I spat. ‘And a liar.’

Gonson gave a nod and one of his men punched me hard in the gut. I doubled over, knees buckling. The next moment Kitty was at my side, screaming curses at them all. A guard struck her with his fist, dashing her to the floor. I leaped at him, but there were too many of them. They took hold of my arms and legs and pulled me outside into the pouring rain. As I fought to free myself, someone knocked me to the ground with a cuff to the head. By the time I’d come to my senses, my wrists were fixed in iron. The guard captain swaggered closer, pulling a thick riding whip from his belt. He pressed it against my throat. ‘Attack me again,’ he sneered. ‘I’ll flay the skin off your back.’

I held still, eyes cast down as the rain soaked my bare scalp. I had seen men flogged before, heard their screams echoing through the streets. The captain chuckled, pushed the whip harder against my throat until I began to choke. ‘Your slut has more fight in her. I think I’ll pay her a visit while you’re locked up. I like a whore with spirit.’

I had felt anger like this before and had lashed out, my temper flaring before I could stop myself. My first day in gaol I had been mocked by the head turnkey and smashed my fists into his jaw before I could stop to think of the consequences. But I had been a boy then. I had survived torture and gaol fever and betrayal. Now I was a man, and my rage burned as ice, not fire. I lifted my chin. This guard, this ape with his whip was nothing. Nothing. I looked him deep in the eyes. ‘If you touch her, I will kill you.’

The guard’s grin faded.

‘Mr Crowder!’ Gonson called, irritably. He was standing a few paces from us and had not heard his captain’s threats. He pulled his heavy wool cloak close around his shoulders. ‘Enough chatter.’

Crowder and his men dragged me towards Covent Garden. One of them stayed behind to hold Kitty back, but I could hear her shouts and curses all the way down Russell Street. As we reached the piazza, I spied Sam returning from the market. I called out to him as we passed and he ran alongside us, eyes wide with shock.

‘Take Kitty to your father,’ I said as the guards jostled me away. ‘Keep her safe, Sam!’

He nodded and raced off at once.

I felt a moment’s relief. Crowder couldn’t touch Kitty now – not unless he fancied a battle with the most powerful gang in London. He pushed his club deep into my back, pressing me forward.

‘Mr Gonson!’ I called out to the magistrate, striding proudly at the head of the procession. ‘Where is your evidence? Where is your warrant? You cannot…’

Crowder struck me hard across the back of the head. Pain flashed through my skull and I staggered, half-blinded. The guards dragged me on through the streets. I kept my mouth shut.

Chapter Ten

^‘So, Mr Hawkins – are you ready to confess?’

Gonson paced the cell, hands clasped behind his back. He wore the satisfied air of a man unburdened with doubt; a man who walked in the light, oblivious of his own shadow. He had removed his hat and cloak; I supposed they must be drying by a fire somewhere. Here, in this room, there was no fire. He was warm enough in his frock coat, though his brown wool stockings were damp and spattered with mud. His long, full-bottomed grey wig smelled like wet goat.

Crowder guarded the door, thick arms folded high upon a belly grown fat with ale.

I shifted a little, chains clinking against the wall. I was barefoot and sore, hoisted almost on tiptoes on the ice-cold stone floor. My wrists were raised above my head, iron links fixed to a hook in the ceiling. I had thought when Gonson arrested me I would be slung in the Westminster lock-up, but instead I’d been dragged to a private house in a quiet courtyard. The guards had ripped off my stockings and waistcoat out of spite, and brought me down to the basement. Then they had left me alone for an hour, until my legs were shaking and my arms and shoulders burned. My fingers were numb; when I looked up I could see them blue-white and bloodless.

I had not expected this of Gonson. He was a man of the law. Why bring me here to this private place, except to hide what he was about? This was not lawful. Now he had returned, expecting to find me cowed and terrified, ready to confess.

Did he know what had happened to me in the Marshalsea? Did he look at me and think I was so easily broken? I glared at his smooth, bland face. ‘You have no right to keep me here, sir.’

Gonson paused in his pacing, fiddling with the fraying cuffs of his soil-coloured coat. Unlike most city magistrates, he was proud to say that he was incorruptible, which would explain his drab clothes and the outmoded square toes of his scuffed shoes. Or perhaps he thought good clothes were the devil’s work. ‘My guards have searched your rooms. They found bags packed with clothes and money – enough for a long journey. It is quite clear that your intention was to flee.’

I cursed silently. I’d packed those bags before my visit to the palace last night – and clean forgot them. ‘You have no proof I killed Burden. I thought better of you, Mr Gonson. You have a reputation for being a fair man. This is not lawful-’

‘No, sir!’ Gonson roared. ‘Do not dare lecture me on the law! Do not dare!’ He clenched his gloved fist, and for a second I thought he would strike me. Then he pulled away. ‘I should have listened to Mr Burden, but I refused to act without proof. Now he lies dead – at your hand.’

‘For God’s sake! How do you propose I murdered him? The doors and windows were locked and bolted. It must have been someone in the household, don’t you see? What if one of the children-’

Gonson signalled to Crowder. He strode across the cell and placed his hands upon my shoulders. Then he pressed down hard, wrenching my arms in their sockets. I screamed, and he grinned, pushing so fiercely that I thought my body would be torn apart. I screamed again, the pain ripping through me like fire.

At last, I was released. I sank back against the wall, my body shuddering with the shock. ‘I thought better of you, sir.’ I rasped.

Gonson frowned, stung by the insult. ‘No fault but yours, Hawkins. You force me to use these methods.’ He reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out an arrest warrant, my name scratched upon it. Thomas Hawkins, for the charge of murder. Beneath it lay Gonson’s signature. I drew away, as if I might be damned by reading it. No man wishes to see such a thing. This was the arrest the queen had spoken of – the one she had overturned in exchange for my help with Charles Howard.

Gonson folded up the warrant and tucked it away. ‘I had planned to arrest you this morning. I have a witness swears you shot a man last September, in Southwark. Mr Burden had promised to testify. He heard you discuss the murder with your whore.’

‘He lied. They both lied-’

‘Quite enough to bring you to justice at last,’ Gonson said, refusing to hear me. ‘And yet the ink was barely dry upon the warrant when I was summoned to the Marshal’s house. He ordered me to cease my enquiries.’ He paused, lips pressed into a tight, bitter line. ‘He said he had been given no choice. The City Marshal, corrupted and threatened on your behalf, sir. I thought you were merely a foolish, whoring fellow – but I see now that you are a devil. I have examined Burden’s corpse, sir. You butchered the man. Who is it protects you, Hawkins? My Lord Walpole? The king?’ He grimaced at the thought. ‘I doubt your benefactor will feel as generous when he learns how you used your freedom.’ He patted his pocket. ‘I’ll wager this warrant will be granted before the sun sets tonight. And until then you will remain here, safe from the reach of your friends.’

They left me then, my arms still raised and pinned to the wall. The room was dark as night without a candle. I stared unseeing into the shadows, stunned and exhausted. I hadn’t expected this from Gonson. It was a cunning move on his part. He had no proof that I had killed Burden, but by arresting me in such a public way he had sent a challenge to the queen, my secret benefactor. Was I truly worth protecting now?

The hours passed. No one came. I had no food, no water. My mind began to wander, then fracture. I would never confess to Burden’s murder, not in a thousand years. But as I stood chained to the wall, freezing and crippled with pain, I began to wonder if I should confess to the murder on Snows Fields. If I told the whole story – if I explained that I was defending myself, there was a chance I would be spared. Transported for a few years perhaps, rather than hanged. Surely I could survive that.

And with that decision, the weight lifted from my heart. There was nothing more to be done. By rights I should have died that night in September. Instead I had been granted a few months of happiness with Kitty – a reprieve I had done little to deserve, God help me. So let Gonson charge me, and Fate would decide the rest. One last gamble. If the world were just, I would be spared.

Yes, I am aware how foolish this all sounds – gambling upon a just world, indeed. In my defence, I had been standing on tiptoes with my arms pinned above my head for God knows how long. I invite you to try it and see how soon your common sense flies out of the window. Something Gonson had been counting upon, no doubt.

The cell door slammed open. Crowder strode into the room with his club held high. I braced myself for another beating. He came closer, wheezing softly. Then he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked my chains.

I collapsed to the floor with a groan of relief. Moments later I was seized in agony as the cramps ripped through my shoulders and arms and along my bare, frozen calves. My fingers began to throb as the blood returned, but when I tried to bend them it felt as though someone was slamming red-hot needles into my knuckles. I lay upon the floor while Crowder tried to kick me to my feet.

At last, when the cramping stopped, I dragged myself up and hobbled from the cell in a daze of pain, Crowder snorting with impatience. After a few limping steps he put his arm beneath my shoulder and half-carried me up the stairs towards a room at the front of the house. Light spilled out from the open door and I could hear a woman’s voice, high and wavering. Kitty? No, please God – she would confess to anything to save me. I staggered forward, using the walls for balance. After the freezing cellar, the heat of the room hit me like a furnace. A fire blazed in the hearth, a thick stew bubbling away on the range. Gonson’s men sat together at a table, drinking small beer. Gonson himself stood by the fire, wearing a look of mild revulsion as a young woman knelt at his feet, sobbing into her apron. Not Kitty, I realised with astonishment. Betty.

‘Oh, sir, please!’ she shrieked, her voice muffled by the cloth. ‘I ain’t done nothing. Don’t hurt me!’

‘Calm yourself, hussy!’ Gonson snapped. He leaned down and pulled her hands roughly from her face. ‘How did you hear of the Marshal’s order? Tell me quick before I throw you in a cell for obstructing my work.’

‘I’m not obstructioning, I swear!’ she whimpered, wiping her eyes. ‘Oh, I think I shall faint, sir – please don’t lock me away!’

Gonson huffed in frustration. ‘Hawkins. D’you know this foolish creature?’

I rubbed my ruined shoulders. ‘There is an order from the Marshal, sir?’

He coloured and said nothing.

‘I should like to see it, Mr Gonson.’

He hesitated for as long as he could – as if he wished he might give me anything else in the world. At last he took a letter from a drawer and held it out to me. I grabbed it and read it quickly, heart leaping as I understood its purpose.

The letter was from the City Marshal, requesting my immediate release. More than that, it demanded that Gonson apologise for questioning my good character and that… I blinked, and read the line again, to be sure I had not dreamed it. It said that I had been charged by the Marshal himself with investigating Joseph Burden’s murder. And that Gonson must give me every assistance in my search for the murderer.

‘When did this arrive?’

Gonson’s blush deepened. He must have held on to the letter for hours, hoping I might confess, or at least give him some new information in the meanwhile. And I almost had. I almost had.

I glowered at him. ‘And you speak to me, sir, of corruption.’

Oh, what he wished to say to me then! The fury and frustration throbbing through his veins. But he could not accuse me now, not without risking his own position. Instead he took his annoyance out upon Betty, shouting at her to get to her feet and to stop her mewling. ‘How did you learn of the Marshal’s letter? Answer me, hussy!’

Betty just shook her head, whimpering with fright.

‘Leave her be, Gonson,’ I said. ‘She’s only a coffee maid. She works at Moll’s – half the town spills its secrets in there.’

Gonson was disgusted – by Betty, by the thought of Moll’s, by the whole world he was forced to inhabit. ‘And what business is this of yours, woman? Why should you hurry over here and cause all this fuss? Are you a spy-’

Betty wailed in horror, drowning out his question. ‘No, no sir! I only come here because… Oh, Mr Hawkins, you must tell him the truth! You know I’d do anything for you, sir!’ And with that she scurried across the room and flung her arms about my neck. Before I could reply she pressed her lips to mine, warm and sweet. I had just begun to enjoy myself when she broke away.

‘Silly slut.’ Gonson shuddered, scandalised.

I spied my waistcoat and stockings piled in a corner. I sat down and put them on, then slipped on my shoes. ‘I believe I am owed an apology, Mr Gonson. By order of the City Marshal.’

‘Get out.’ Gonson’s face had turned a remarkable shade of purple. ‘Get out, you devil.’ He spun back to the fire, unable to bear the sight of me leaving, a free man with my order in hand. He pretended he was warming his hands by the fire, but his shoulders were shaking with rage.

We hurried as fast as we could up King Street. Betty wore pattens over her shoes to save them from the muddy streets, metal soles tinking along the pavement. My own feet throbbed after long hours stretched out upon the cold basement floor, and my legs were trembling. I was exhausted and anxious, but I was free – and the rain had stopped, the sun shining through soft grey clouds. I narrowed my eyes, dazzled by the light.

We walked in silence for a short while, Betty leading the way north past White Hall. My bare scalp and missing frock coat drew a few curious glances until we reached the fringes of Soho, where men chose to mind their own business. We crossed into a quiet backstreet, Betty’s feet tip-tapping to a halt.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That was-’

Betty pushed me violently against the wall. My back and shoulders sang with pain, still sore from my punishment.

‘God in heaven,’ she spat, amber eyes blazing. ‘D’you know the trouble you’ve caused?’

I glared back at her. ‘What? And how is this my fault?’

She spat out an oath and stepped back, hands on her hips. The frightened, wailing hussy had vanished. I rubbed my tender shoulders. Now I thought of it, Betty had never once struck me as the frightened, wailing hussy sort. She had played her part to perfection – presenting herself just as Gonson would expect. A silly strumpet without the wit to know anything of value. He had let a diamond fall from his grasp without even realising his mistake.

‘I warned Budge you wasn’t ready,’ she muttered. ‘They never listen to me.’ She strode off again towards Soho, pattens raised high above the filth. Tink, tink, tink.

‘You work for the queen?’ I called, catching up with her.

She didn’t miss a stride. ‘Who doesn’t? And Mr Hawkins,’ she added, after a short pause, ‘the next time I kiss you as a distraction, mind where you put your hands.’

‘Next time?’

Betty gave me a look that could wilt flowers. But when I glanced down a moment later she was smiling, just a little.

‘How did you find me?’ I asked. Gonson hadn’t taken me to his own lock-up, but to private rooms. He’d wanted time to sweat the truth from me without interruption, away from the reach of my benefactor.

‘Damned fool dragged you through the streets in chains. Half the city saw you.’

I frowned. What one half of the city saw, the other half would know of by nightfall. I had been paraded through the middle of London like a criminal. Put a fine coat on a man and he is halfway to a gentleman. Wrap him in chains and he must be a rogue. The town would not forget it.

I had never visited Betty’s home before. In truth, if I’d been asked, I would have guessed she slept in the wooden shack next to the coffeehouse. I was surprised she could afford to rent a room of her own – even on a gloomy yard off Wardour Street. She made me wait until all was quiet, walking ahead to open the door. Once she was inside and the yard was clear, I strolled past the house as instructed, then doubled back, keeping to the shadows. When I was sure no one was looking, I tiptoed down the cellar steps and slipped inside.

The room was tiny – no more than six paces wide and five long – but clean and pleasant nonetheless. The floor had been freshly swept, and sprigs of lavender hung from the ceiling, scenting the air along with the jasmine perfume Betty always wore. It was, in fact, the sweetest-smelling room I had ever visited in the city, including the queen’s chamber. Betty’s scant belongings were stacked neatly on shelves. There were only a few pieces of furniture – a narrow bed, a cane-backed chair, and a small table with a wash bowl and jug. Her pattens and shoes were lined neatly by the door. Betty walked barefoot in her own home.

She closed the shutters and knelt in front of the hearth, striking sparks from a tinderbox. The kindling under the coals took flame, bringing more light and a touch of heat to the room. She put her finger to her lips. ‘No visitors allowed. Especially gentlemen.’ Her gaze flickered to the ceiling. ‘Landlord would throw me out if he found you here.’

I stood over her, warming my hands by the fire. ‘That must be inconvenient.’

‘Perhaps I prefer it this way.’ She settled a pan on its trivet and stood up, clapping the soot from her hands. ‘Lie down and rest while I cook this broth. You look half dead.’

I opened my mouth to protest, then realised I was indeed half dead with fatigue. There were no marks upon my skin, but my muscles were bruised and sore from being fixed for so long in one position. I lowered myself down upon the bed, wincing with the pain, and removed my shoes. There was a short passage pinned to the wall, written in a rough hand.

I waited patiently for the Lord;

and he inclined unto me,

and heard my cry.

The fortieth psalm. My father had stamped them into my brain, indelible as a mariner’s tattoo. I stretched out upon the bed, but my feet dangled from the edge, so I rolled upon my side and drew my knees to my chest. I sighed into the pillow. I was free, thank God – at least for now – and safe here in my temporary sanctuary.

So much had happened in the last few hours that my head could not rest upon one thought, never mind plan what I should do next. One moment I would think of the queen, and then of Mrs Howard. And then Burden. The sound of the dagger sliding back into his chest. Sam’s face as he examined the body, cool and curious. And Howard – I must find him… must… and then it would all whirl about again, a dance I had never learned, where each step was misplaced, each partner unwanted. Well… had I not grown tired of my quiet, cramped existence? Had I not craved this? But for the life of me, I could not remember why. I closed my eyes… and in an instant had dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke to the sound of broth bubbling in the pot. I sat up slowly, rubbing my face. Betty gestured to the table, where hot water was steaming in the jug. I poured it into the bowl and washed my face, neck and hands. It felt so good that I tore off my shirt and soaked my chest and back, rinsing away the grime of the lock-up. Betty glanced up then away hurriedly, stirring the broth with her back to the bed.

When I was dressed again, I settled back in the chair by the fire and ate a bowl of the broth with a coarse chunk of bread and a mug of beer. Betty ate her own dinner standing up, studying me under long black lashes. She had fixed me a fresh pipe which I smoked gratefully, stem clamped to my lips. Slowly, I was returning to myself. I rubbed my wrists, where the iron had chafed the skin.

‘You think you are free,’ Betty said.

I held up my unchained hands.

‘You are not free.’

I took another draw on my pipe, breathed out the smoke in a soft cloud. ‘This sounds like the beginning of a lecture.’

She threw a shawl about her shoulders. ‘It is too late for that. You are the queen’s man now, Mr Hawkins. Those chains are stronger than iron.’

‘I didn’t think she would save me again.’

‘Howard stormed into the palace last night. He stood in the courtyard screaming about his wife and the king and demanding justice. He has lost all sense. The queen saved you because she is desperate. There’s no time to find someone else.’

‘I do not understand why they tolerate it. Why do they not lock him up? Or…’ I trailed away. Or have him killed. I knew why. Because he was a nobleman. ‘And what if I can’t resolve the matter?’

‘You know what will happen. Don’t look for comfort from me.’ She pinned her cap, tucking her tight black curls beneath the cloth. Her face was stronger and more severe with her hair scraped back, but still handsome. Almost regal, in fact. ‘I’m late for work. Here.’ She tossed me a wig and hat. ‘Some drunken fool left these at Moll’s the other night.’

‘D’you know…’ I squinted at them. ‘I think these are mine. Oh! You didn’t find a shoe, I suppose?’

Betty muttered something to herself. ‘Put out the fire once I’m gone. Don’t let a soul see you leave. Takes a long time for someone of my complexion to find somewhere respectable to live.’ She fastened the ribbons on her gown, until her chest rose high and firm. She caught me staring and pursed her lips. ‘Budge sent a message. Mr Howard will be in Southwark tonight, at the cockfight.’

I cursed into the fire. After all I had endured today, I had no desire to spend the night with that beast. ‘Damn it. Well. I suppose I have no choice in the matter.’

‘You had a choice!’ Betty hissed, rounding on me. She kept her voice low, but there was a force to her words, even so. ‘I told you months ago! Go home! Honour your father’s wishes and join the Church. Become his heir again. Become his son again. All that good fortune and you threw it away. For what?’

I frowned at her. ‘For a life.’

‘A life that will kill you.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve watched you, Mr Hawkins. You throw yourself at the world – so sure it will catch you every time. But one day you will fall.’

‘My father would adore you,’ I muttered, slapping on my hat. I crossed the room and wrapped my hand about her slim wrist. ‘This is my nature, Betty. I can’t be what I’m not.’

Her pulse thudded against my fingers. ‘Perhaps.’ She hesitated, then drew away. ‘But you could be so much more than you are.’

Back on Russell Street, my neighbours greeted my return with worried glances and sharp intakes of breath. The monster had returned. When I stepped into the chandler’s on the corner to purchase some fresh quills and paper, the mistress of the shop informed me – in a high, trembling voice – that my credit was revoked. I was no longer welcome. I found the same reception in the grocer’s.

As I trudged defeated towards home, a flat, nasal voice called out behind me. ‘Quite the leper, Mr Hawkins.’

Mr Felblade, the apothecary, matched his step with mine. He was a most peculiar old man – eccentric, to use the queen’s charitable term – and a very poor advertisement indeed for his various lotions and tinctures, with their promise of good health and prolonged youth. He was excessively lean, with a long, narrow face, made longer by a towering wig that rose in twin horns upon either side of his head. His clothes – unfashionable since Queen Anne’s day – hung from his bony frame as if embarrassed to be seen with him.

‘And do you have a cure for leprosy, Mr Felblade?’

He chuckled, then ran his tongue across his wooden dentures. They had a tendency to stick against the inside of his lips, and his mouth was in constant motion, licking and spitting to moisten them.

‘It’s not wise to walk with me, sir,’ I said, hoping he might leave me in peace. ‘Bad for business.’

‘What do I care if you killed Burden?’ he scoffed. ‘Couldn’t stand the man. No one could. Hypocrites!’ He wheeled about and waved his fist at the rest of the street.

He was not the most comfortable ally.

‘You’ll need a draught for your nerves,’ he declared, rummaging in his bag. ‘I have a packet.’

The thought of taking anything prepared by Felblade made my stomach turn. I wouldn’t use his powders to dust my wig. ‘I’m quite well, sir. But thank you.’

‘Sanguine nature,’ he said, crinkling his lips in disapproval. He halted outside Burden’s house, glancing at me in surprise when I joined him. ‘They won’t let you in the house, sir. Not in a thousand years.’

I tugged the Marshal’s order from my pocket. ‘Care to make a bet, Mr Felblade?’

Felblade’s eyes danced, anticipating trouble. He knocked on the door with his cane and shouted his name. After a long wait, Ned Weaver opened the door. When he saw me standing behind Felblade his jaw dropped.

‘Where is Miss Burden?’ Felblade elbowed his way into the hallway. ‘Lead me to her, sir.’

Ned hurried to close the door behind him. I stopped it with my foot and poked the note through the gap. ‘I’m ordered to speak with you, Ned.’

There was a short pause as he read the Marshal’s order, cursing as he began to understand its meaning.

‘Well, Ned?’ I’d given him quite enough time to read the order. ‘Let me in.’

He opened the door, the note dangling loose from his hand. But he didn’t move, and I couldn’t pass. He might as well be another door, he was so solid. ‘For pity’s sake. Judith and Stephen… we are all grieving, sir. Have the decency to leave us in peace at least until the morrow.’

I snatched the order from his hand, all patience gone. ‘I have just spent the day chained to a wall because of this damned family. I will speak with them now.’

Chapter Eleven

Ned refused to answer my questions, stamping down to his workshop and bolting the door behind him. There was a loud crash as a table was overturned, followed by something splintering hard against a wall. I left him to his rage and went in search of Burden’s children. Orphans, now. God forgive me, but I could not help but think they were better off. And wondered, indeed, if one of them had been harbouring the same thought.

The drawing room was empty, the grandfather clock tocking like a beating heart in one corner. It was a cheerless space with bare walls, lacking the trinkets and soft touches a wife might have brought to the home. The furniture was well made, but very plain – more suited to a Quakers’ meeting house than a family room. There was only one comfortable chair, matched with a plump footstool and drawn close to the hearth. I would have bet ten guineas this was Burden’s chair. I could just imagine the old sod stretched out by the fire with a pot of ale, while his children shivered together on the hard bench opposite, night after empty night.

And yet I was supposed to believe they were all in deep mourning. Deep shock, perhaps – I would grant them that much. But mourning? Stephen and Judith, trapped and bullied by their father all their lives; and Ned, betrayed after seven long years of service. Rebellious son, cowed daughter, and bitter apprentice. They all had good reason to plunge a knife in Burden’s heart.

A voice drifted through the ceiling, toneless as an old bagpipe. Felblade. As I ventured upstairs, my skin prickled with a kind of mournful dread. I had walked this floor only a few hours before, examining Burden’s corpse by candlelight while his family lay sleeping. I opened the door to Burden’s room and stepped inside. The curtains to the bed were drawn back, but the body had gone and the sheets had been stripped – burned, most likely. The mattress was propped against a wall, waiting to be thrown away. A dark stain had spread through it. Someone had endeavoured to clean the floor by the bed. Alice? If so, she had done a poor job of it, only half-finished. The blood had smeared into the grain of the wood, wiped carelessly. Burden’s heart blood.

Motes of dust danced in the late afternoon sun. I felt a moment’s pity for Burden, lumbering upstairs last night with no idea that he would never wake again. Then I remembered how he had forced himself upon Alice each night in that bed, and my pity vanished.

A hand touched my shoulder. I jumped back in alarm. ‘Damn it, boy!’ I snapped without thinking, to cover my surprise.

Stephen stood in the doorway, dressed in his father’s black coat. The cuffs covered his hands almost to his fingertips. It would have been comical at another time, but the boy’s face was marked with pain, eyes red and swollen. He was also holding a dagger: a six-inch steel blade with a gold and ivory handle. The same dagger I had seen a few hours ago, in Alice’s hand. The same dagger Sam had pushed back into Burden’s chest.

I took a careful step away from it. ‘Stephen. I’m glad to have found you. I have been asked to investigate your father’s death.’ I drew out the note and held it out to him.

He didn’t look at it. ‘Mr Burden.’

‘I’m sorry…?’

‘My father is dead. You must call me MrBurden now.’ He squared his shoulders, puffing out his chest in a weak imitation of his father.

‘Of course.’ I smiled politely, eyeing the blade.

‘You will leave my house at once.’

I tilted my head in agreement. I doubted he had the nerve to use a dagger, but someone had thrust a blade in Burden’s chest last night. I had no desire to be gutted by a fifteen-year-old schoolboy. ‘Very well.’

Stephen was pleased with himself. He moved aside to let me pass, lowering the blade. A mistake. I launched into him, slamming him so hard against the wall the air was punched from his lungs. It was easy enough; the boy was little more than clothes and bones. Before he could rally, I ripped the dagger from his hand and spun him around, pushing his face against the wall and dragging his arm behind his back. He yelped in pain – then fell silent as I placed the blade against his throat.

‘Did you kill your father?’

‘No!’

I twisted his arm higher.

‘No! I swear!’

‘You’ll inherit a fortune now he’s dead. Now he can’t marry Alice Dunn.’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ he sobbed into the wall. ‘Please, sir! Don’t hurt me.’ His narrow shoulders trembled beneath his father’s coat.

I sighed and stepped back. Damn it – what was wrong with me, torturing a grieving boy? And yes – despite expectation, I could see a deep and honest grief in Stephen’s eyes. But that did not preclude his guilt. ‘I’ve no wish to harm you, Stephen. I am not your father.’

He cringed, ducking his head away.

‘He beat you quite savagely, did he not?’

‘I deserved it,’ he whispered, miserable. He would not meet my eye.

‘That is not what I heard.’

Ned had told me the story the night before, over those two bowls of punch. So much had happened since then I had near forgotten it. He told me that Stephen had been desperate to leave Covent Garden. His father was building three houses near Grosvenor Square. Why not settle the family there? It was a fashionable and respectable part of town, and Burden was always grumbling about the decline of Russell Street: the brothels, the gin shops… the disreputable bookshops. There would be no need to lock and bar the house so early in a better neighbourhood. Judith would be able to walk the streets in safety.

Burden had refused – he claimed it was more Christian to stay in the Garden and work to restore its reputation. The Society for the Reformation of Manners relied upon decent citizens to live amidst all this vice, and inform on those breaking the law.

Stephen had persisted. He was a gentleman and this was not a gentleman’s address. His school friends mocked him for living amidst the lowest wretches on earth. They made lewd comments about his sister and the experience she must have gained just from looking out of her window each day. For the sake of the family’s reputation – could his father not see that they must leave?

Burden had grown angry. He would not be lectured to by a mewling child. He knew what was best for this family. He seized the terrified boy by the neck and pushed him downstairs into the workshop – threw him across the bench and ordered Ned to hold him down. Then he’d taken a leather belt and thrashed his son without mercy. When it was over, and Stephen crawled weeping across the floor, Burden grabbed him and pushed his face into a pile of sawdust.

‘This is what pays for your schooling,’ he snarled, as his son choked in the dust. ‘My hard sweat. All those years and what do they send back to me? A primping fop with porridge for brains. Well that’s an end to it. I shan’t pay another farthing. You will stay here and learn how to be a man, like Ned.’

That night Stephen had lain awake whimpering on his bed, battered and bruised, unable to sleep from the pain. And so he had been the first to hear Alice scream thief. The first to hobble out on to the landing. The first to enter his father’s room and discover Burden in bed with Alice. The hypocrisy. The injustice. No wonder he’d taken his revenge the next day in front of Gonson. ‘Are you sure I should tell them what I saw, Father? What I truly saw last night?’

And now I wondered: why had Joseph Burden been so determined to stay on Russell Street? There was something disproportionate in Stephen’s punishment – even for a father as stern as Burden. Ned had told me that Burden had never beaten his son so cruelly before. And for what? Asking for something perfectly natural – a decent home for himself and his sister. A chance for improvement.

Why had the thought of leaving Russell Street provoked such fury in Burden? Had he feared they would mock him – his new neighbours on Grosvenor Square? While his son had been transformed into a gentleman, Burden was still a craftsman, with battered hands and a rough demeanour. Was it that simple? Was he afraid of being humiliated by his betters? Here on Russell Street he was free to look down upon his neighbours. Out west they would look down upon him.

The story made me uneasy, even so – the old bear snapping and snarling and refusing to leave his cage. I wondered if he were concealing a darker truth – some pressing reason why the family had to stay on Russell Street. Perhaps the cage was locked.

I looked down at Stephen, weeping in his father’s clothes, and felt wretched for the boy. Wretched for myself too – there was no honour or decency in this. And I would gain no more from him now. I left him, crossing the landing to Judith’s room. I could hear Felblade speaking with an older woman: Mrs Jenkins, who ran the bakery across the street. Of course. She would have scurried here as soon as the news reached her, eager to offer comfort and lap up the drama. A foul-weather friend, Kitty called her.

I tapped lightly upon the door and entered unobserved save for Felblade, who offered me a dry, mirthless grin. Judith lay beneath the sheets, face to the wall. Mrs Jenkins sat beside her, murmuring the usual platitudes. Your father was a good man. He’s at peace now, my dear.

‘Twice a day, Mrs Jenkins,’ Felblade creaked, holding up a bottle filled with a viscous brown liquid. Opiates, I supposed, mixed with molasses. Or coal tar, knowing Felblade.

‘I must speak with Miss Burden before she drinks that,’ I said from the doorway.

Mrs Jenkins gasped as she saw me. ‘Oh! You devil! Have you come to murder us?’

It was only then that I realised I was still clutching the dagger. Unfortunate. I slipped it in my coat pocket. ‘No indeed, Mrs Jenkins.’

‘My heart! I shall die of shock!’ she declared, clutching her bosom and looking sturdy as a carthorse.

Judith sat up as if waking from a dream. Her dark hair hung lifeless about her face, falling into her soft grey eyes. She seemed shocked and frightened – just as she had the night Sam had stolen into the house. The night she’d discovered her father was sharing a bed with Alice.

I gave a short bow. ‘Miss Burden. My deepest condolences.’

Her brows furrowed. ‘You were arrested.’

‘A misunderstanding. I have been charged with investigating your father’s death.’

‘But you hated my father. No… no… do not deny it.’ A desolate look crossed her face. ‘I hated him too sometimes. There were times when… When I wished him dead.’ She began to shiver. ‘Wicked,’ she murmured under her breath. ‘Such a wicked girl.’

I sat down upon the bed, in the warm dent left by Mrs Jenkins. Judith cast me a timid look, pushing the hair from her face. Her left eye was bruised and swollen.

‘Who did this?’

She twisted the sheets beneath her hands. ‘It was my fault. I couldn’t stop crying. Stephen had to strike me, to calm me down…’

‘Stephen’s a good boy,’ Mrs Jenkins interrupted. ‘I’m sure he feared you might have another fit.’ She gave me a sharp look. ‘Judith is a delicate girl. We must all be very gentle.’

‘Unbalanced. Melancholic,’ Felblade agreed, packing away his bag. He slurped his tongue across his teeth. ‘A bleeding will restore her. I shall return tomorrow…’

‘No… no!’ Judith cried in alarm. ‘No more blood. No more blood.’ She closed her eyes and began to shake.

‘Shame on you, Mr Felblade,’ Mrs Jenkins tutted. ‘We will have no more talk of blood and knives, or corpses butchered like pigs in a market. We must not speak of such things! Murderers creeping about the place in the dead of night. Poor Mr Burden stabbed and stabbed again with a vicious blade. Murdered in his own bed while everyone slept! Where is your sensitivity, Mr Felblade? Miss Burden is not sick – she’s tired and frightened. And who can blame her after what she saw this morning? Oh! It makes me dizzy to think of all that blood… You’ve been very brave, my dear,’ she called across to Judith. ‘I’m sure I should have fainted clean away if I had seen my father with a blade plunged in his heart. Warm broth and bed rest, that’s what’s needed.’

‘Quite right, Mrs Jenkins,’ I said. There had been quite enough blood spilt in this house.

Mrs Jenkins’ face scrunched. ‘I’m sure I don’t need his approval,’ she huffed, and began scolding Felblade over the price of his opiates.

‘I’m sorry I accused you before, sir,’ Judith whispered. ‘I was… not myself. I am quite certain that you are innocent.’

I smiled thinly. Easy enough to whisper my innocence in a private room. She had already shouted my guilt to the whole street. I leaned closer. ‘Miss Burden. Who do you think killed your father?’

Judith stared at me in surprise. ‘Alice Dunn, of course.’

‘I see… But… I believe your father planned to marry her?’

‘Never!’ she snapped. She sat up very straight, her eyes fierce and dark as storm clouds. ‘My father would never marry that filthy whore. It was a jest – a silly jest. Alice Dunn – mistress of this house? No, fie – not in a thousand years! She killed my father, I am quite certain. And may she burn in hell for it!’

Silence, as Felblade and Mrs Jenkins stared at each other in surprise, and then at me. Mrs Jenkins rubbed her palms together. ‘Warm broth,’ she trilled, in an anxious voice. ‘And rest.’

I rose from the bed, shocked by Judith’s outburst. For a moment I had seen pure rage burning beneath her dazed, dreamy surface. Had that rage erupted last night? Could Judith have murdered Burden?

‘Alice ran away, Mr Hawkins,’ Judith called as I left. ‘Did you not know? She left this morning. So she must be guilty, don’t you see? She must be.’

In the workshop, Ned was sanding a stool, running his fingers softly against the wood to check for imperfections. There was no sign of his earlier outburst, save for a broken chair propped in one corner. I stood in the doorway, studying the tools hung neatly upon the back wall. They reminded me of the implements of torture hanging in the Marshalsea gaol. My throat constricted and I felt the iron collar fastened about my neck, biting deep into my skin. I put my hand to the door frame to steady myself, forcing myself back to the present.

Ned knew I was there, but he continued working, keeping his back to me. Stephen had been reckless and confused, muddled with grief and fear. Judith was dazed, and fixed upon her hatred of Alice. Ned’s anger was contained, focused.

There were only a few pieces of work on the benches – a half-finished side table, an oak tallboy. These were small projects, made for practice not profit. Burden had been a master carpenter and joiner, his business construction. The grand new squares west of Bond Street were built of brick, but they still needed joists and rafters, wainscots and doors. Ned had talked about his work with pride and passion at Moll’s the night before: the need for both strength and precision, an eye for a pleasing design, an understanding of geometry when building wall partitions and staircases. ‘An occupation for the body and the mind,’ he’d said, eyes bright. I’d envied him then, for finding a vocation that gave him so much satisfaction. I was – without question – not cut out for the clergy. Nor was I created to sit at a desk, translating whores’ dialogues. What would make my eyes shine, I wondered. Punch. Kitty.

I had no doubt that Ned would find a good position with another master. If not, surely the Carpenters’ Company would help him set up his own business. Assuming he had not killed his old master, of course.

‘I must speak with you, Ned,’ I said at last.

His back stiffened. ‘There is nothing to be said.’

‘I did not kill Mr Burden.’

Ned lifted the stool from the bench and turned slowly. ‘Those men at the coffeehouse. None of ’em dared look you in the eye. They was afraid of you.’

I leaned against the door frame, bone weary. ‘Because they were fool enough to listen to your master’s lies. I am not a murderer, Ned.’

‘Gonson arrested you.’

‘What – is that proof of my guilt, then? He hates me – you know that! He confuses a disreputable life with a wicked one. They are not precisely the same.’

‘If you had lead a decent life you would not be in trouble now.’

‘Oh indeed – that is how the world works. You were a model apprentice for seven years. How were you rewarded?’

Ned frowned. He thought I was taunting him. ‘Ask what you want and leave. Before I lose patience.’

Ned’s years of hard labour had left him strong and fit and solid as a Roman statue. There was also a wall of heavy tools at his back. I took a step back towards the workroom stairs, ready for a hasty retreat. ‘Did you kill Mr Burden?’

I asked only to watch his reaction. But I had asked him before, and this time he was not even angry. He resented the question, of course, but beyond that I saw only sorrow and a bone weariness.

‘You had good cause to hate him.’

He glanced away. ‘I have good cause to hate you, sir.’

‘Do you think I wish to be here, troubling you with these questions? I must prove my innocence, Ned.’

‘Aye – by placing the guilt upon my shoulders. Tell me, sir – how many gentlemen have you seen hang at Tyburn?’

‘I am not-’

‘None. That is the truth of the matter. Not one. And how many apprentices? Ten? Twenty? If I had been arrested this morning instead of you – would I have been set free again within a few hours? Would I have been granted permission to trouble a grieving family? Well damn you, sir – I will not go to the gallows in your place.’

I folded my arms. ‘Nor should you – if you’re innocent.’

‘Oh indeed,’ he laughed, throwing my own words in my face. ‘That is how the world works.’ He moved across to the back wall and plucked a hammer from its hook. Oh, fuck the world – Ned Weaver and his damned carpentry tools. ‘Do you know how long Mr Burden lived in this house? Twenty years.’ He gestured about the room. ‘Built it with his own hands. Twenty years without a moment’s trouble. Then you arrived, and within three months he’s murdered in his bed.’ He slammed the hammer against his work table. The sound cracked the air between us. ‘That is not chance, sir.’

‘No trouble? For God’s sake, Ned – he was fucking Alice against her will every night. He-’

Ned raised the hammer and moved closer. I pulled the dagger from my coat. Ned gasped as he recognised the ivory handle. ‘Where did you find that?’

‘I wrested it fromStephen. He attacked me, unprovoked. This damned house, Ned!’

Ned looked a little shamefaced. He slung the hammer into a corner and sat down, broad hands clasped on his knees. ‘If not you… If not me…’

I didn’t reply. He knew the answer. Stephen. Or Judith.

He groaned and put his head in his hands.

‘I’m sorry, Ned. I know they must seem like family…’

‘Seem?’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘There is no seeming about it. I’m their brother.’

Ned would not speak for a long time after that, dismissing my questions with a wave of his scarred hand. I settled down on the steps into the workshop and waited. Patience – patience was the key. The best confessions come unforced.

‘Mr Burden was a good man,’ he said at last. ‘He lived a sober, Christian life. But…’

Ah, there it was. But. We are all good men save for that one short word. I leaned forward. ‘But?’

‘He was led astray by ill company, when he was young. Lewd women. Low sorts. They encouraged him to swear and drink strong liquors. To visit bawdy houses.’ He paused, disgusted. ‘He abandoned his apprenticeship. Fell into debt, and was forced… Mr Hawkins, you must swear not to repeat this story to a soul. I only wish to explain…’ He stood up and began prowling the workshop, straightening tools and brushing dust from the table. A tidy room for an untidy story. ‘He found work as a brothel bully.’

I began to laugh, covering it with a cough when I saw Ned’s agonised expression. Well, well, well. Here was a rich story. Joseph Burden, guarding the door of a whorehouse for a living. And that sanctimonious prick had judged me. The gall of the man! My God, if he were still alive I would have enjoyed throwing that in his bloated old mug.

‘It was only for a few months, you understand,’ Ned added hurriedly. ‘He grew ashamed of what he saw. What he did. He joined the Society as an informer. He began attending church again and met Mrs Burden. Her dowry gave him the capital to build this house and start his business. She was a pious, devoted lady. Mr Burden often spoke of how she saved him.’

How her money saved him, more like. ‘But you are not her son.’

‘No, sir.’ He bowed his head, ashamed. ‘I was born in Newgate. My mother was a whore and a thief. She pled her belly to escape the gallows. After I was born she was transported. Died of a fever on the boat.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He brushed a rough hand across his eyes. ‘Never knew her. I was raised by my aunt and uncle down in Surrey. Good, honest folk – farmers. But they had seven children of their own. My uncle couldn’t provide for me so they wrote to Mr Burden. My mother always swore he was the father…’

I raised an eyebrow. Given her occupation, that would be hard to prove one way or the other.

‘Mr Burden didn’t believe I was his son – not at first. He took me on as his apprentice to atone for his past vices. He felt responsible for my mother’s death, because he had once… in a weak moment…’ He blushed.

Only once? I doubted that very much. And if Ned hadn’t lived such a buttoned-down life, he would see it too. A man such as Burden wouldn’t take a bastard into his home to atone for one brief episode of lust – not without proof or some other inducement. ‘But you are truly his son? You are certain?’

Ned smiled. ‘I worked with him in this room for seven years. He began to notice things. Not just my appearance, but the way I moved. My way with the tools. A hundred tiny things that no one else would ever notice. Look at me, sir. Now you know the truth – can you not see the resemblance?’

I tilted my head. It was true, Ned was as broad and strong as Burden, if not as tall. His brows were pale and his complexion fairer too, but that could have been an inheritance from his mother. Yes, there was a resemblance; a greater one than Stephen shared with his father, in fact – but then Stephen had spent the last seven years at his school desk instead of fixing roofs and nailing down floorboards. There was no way to prove it for certain, but Burden had clearly believed Ned was his son. And given it must have been a reluctant admission on his part, I was inclined to believe it too. He must have stared at the boy for hours, wishing away the likeness until he could deny it no longer.

‘If all this is true, why did he break his word to you, Ned?’

‘That was my fault! I wanted him to recognise me as his son. I vowed I would leave unless he told Stephen and Judith the truth. Ah – how I wish I had not pressed him so hard! My father was fair with me, Mr Hawkins, but he had a strong temper. I should have been patient and obedient, as he taught me. I do think… I do truly believe he would have changed his mind in time. If only for Judith’s sake.’

‘Judith?’

He coughed with embarrassment. ‘She has grown fond of me.’

Fond? Ah. ‘Oh dear.’

‘I didn’t dare tell Mr Burden, but… it was an uncomfortable situation.’

I winced, thinking of my own sister. Uncomfortable? Excruciating, I should say. Neither of us spoke after that, for quite a while.

The more I considered Ned’s story, the more I doubted he was the killer. With Burden dead, he’d lost any hope of being recognised as his son. Stephen might be weeping in his room, and Judith was swigging opiates to dull her senses, but it seemed to me that Ned was the most affected by Burden’s murder. No chance for reconciliation. No chance to make his father proud. Strange, that of all Burden’s children, it was Ned – his bastard – who loved him the most.

‘I’m afraid for his soul, Mr Hawkins,’ he said, as he escorted me to the door. ‘The manner of his death – it gave him no chance to repent his sins. He was not himself, these past few weeks. His treatment of Alice…’

I could hear Mrs Jenkins fussing over Stephen upstairs. They would never winkle her out of the house now – not unless someone more interesting was murdered. The queen should have hired Mrs Jenkins to investigate Charles Howard instead of me – the woman was a walking newspaper, crammed with gossip. The Daily Jenkins. Still, she would be a help too, with Alice gone. ‘Is it true that Alice has run away?’

Ned glanced up the stairs. ‘Judith threw her out. I warned her not to be so rash. And now you are released… Alice.’ He laughed without humour, marvelling at the thought. ‘I can scarce believe it, but she had most cause…’

I shook my head. Burden had been torturing Alice for weeks in secret. Why kill him now, when he had promised to marry her? Kill him after the ceremony, perhaps, when the ink upon his will was dry. But not before. I took the knife from my pocket. ‘Your father was stabbed nine times in the chest. That was rage. Revenge.’

His eyes widened. He tore the blade from my hand. ‘How d’you know that? How d’you know he was stabbed nine times?’

I shrank back, realising my mistake. How could I know, indeed, if I had not seen the corpse? ‘Half the town knows it!’ I protested, feigning indignation. But I sounded nervous, even to my own ears – and Ned was suspicious once more.

‘You were angry with him last night. And very drunk.’

So, we were back to this. Damn it. ‘The doors and windows were barred. I’m not a ghost, Ned. I cannot walk through walls.’

‘Perhaps there’s another way in.’ He paused, narrowing his eyes. ‘Alice said she thought there must be a passage between the houses…’

Thank God I played cards for profit. My face was a mask, but my heart was thudding so hard against my chest I was sure he must see it beating through my coat. Heaven help me – if Ned found the passage between the two attic rooms, I was lost without a hope. I clamped my hat to my head. ‘There are no doors and no passages. Whoever killed your father is still here in this house, Ned. If I were you, I should sleep with that blade beneath your pillow.’

Chapter Twelve

The Cocked Pistol was open for business. I watched from the street for a time, recovering my wits and savouring the last thin light of a long, cruel day. Business was steady, despite my ignominious arrest, customers entering with their usual furtive slide. Sam had taken charge of the shop. He was well suited to the task, swift and discreet – and the customers didn’t notice him studying them closely beneath lowered lids. Perhaps later in his room he would sketch that young servant, come to collect a fresh parcel of books. One of Lord Hervey’s men, I thought. His lordship was a great friend of the Prince of Wales. As he often ordered two copies of the same volume, we’d begun to suspect that one set was being smuggled to Prince Frederick for his pleasure and education. What would his mother think of that? Perhaps she would be pleased. It was vital the boy knew how to breed, after all.

Sam handed over the parcel and pocketed the small tip. For all the trouble he had caused with his moonlight skulks about Burden’s house, I had grown oddly fond of the boy. Fond enough to dismiss the notion that he could have killed Burden. Reason told me I should not discount him – the son of a murderous gang captain, the nephew of a master assassin. But I could not believe him capable of such a violent, bloody murder. And for what purpose – sport? No, Burden’s killer had been seeking revenge or justice. I doubted Sam had much time for either.

Burden’s children were another matter entirely. The more I considered the life they had endured, the more certain I was that one of them was guilty. Burden had kept Judith a prisoner all her life; she rarely left the house save for church. Well – she was free now. I glanced up at the windows, shuttered in mourning. I had seen her sitting there countless times, pale and drawn, watching hungrily as life passed beneath her gaze. ‘Poor Judith’, the gossips had called her, while Felblade delivered another draught for her nerves.

Stephen must have dreaded a similar fate, once his father refused to send him back to school. He’d been given a sharp taste of his new life – beaten half to death for daring to question his father’s authority. And then, bitterest of all, he had discovered his father was not only a violent bully, but a liar and a hypocrite. Had this been enough to kindle a murderous fury in the boy? That thin-limbed, trembling colt? Rage could give the weakest soul the strength of ten men. Cut off from his school and his friends, with his inheritance in peril, Stephen had powerful reasons to murder Burden. Money, justice, revenge. Of the three children, he would gain the most from his father’s death. Now he was master of the house – and free to live as he pleased.

Freedom for Judith, freedom for Stephen. In another world I would have walked away from the whole damned business – let God stand in judgement when all was done. But I had my own freedom to consider. My own precious neck.

I must press a confession from one of them, or at least discover some clear proof of guilt. The blade had been found with the corpse, but what of the killer’s ruined, bloody clothes? There would have been no chance to destroy them today, not with half the neighbourhood trailing through the house offering condolences. The clothes must still be hidden somewhere inside, and would remain there unless one of the children attempted to smuggle them out. One could hardly drop them upon the drawing-room fire.

I rolled my aching shoulders, glad to have found one small thread of hope. I would seek permission to search the house thoroughly tomorrow. In the meantime… A couple of tattered street boys stood outside the baker’s shop. Doubtless they might keep watch for a few halfpennies and a couple of Mrs Jenkins’s rolls. I crossed the street towards them, but they squealed as I approached, scampering away before I could explain myself. It was a melancholy moment. I was a monster now, was that it? And I felt a shiver in my soul, some pre-sentiment that more trouble lay ahead. Once a man was named a monster, the mob was rarely far behind.

Sam, at least, seemed pleased to see me returned safe from the lock-up – in his fashion. He clambered over the counter and took my hand, shaking it without a word. I showed him the order and his face took on an expression of awe. ‘The City Marshal’s hand,’ he murmured, brushing the paper as if it were the finest silk.

I plucked it back. He liked to practise different hands when it was quiet in the shop. ‘What’s the sentence for counterfeiting a Marshal’s note?’

Sam looped an imaginary rope about his neck and pretended to hang, swaying on the spot with his tongue hanging out. It was a little too convincing for comfort.

‘How many hangings have you seen, Sam?’

‘Hundreds. Saw Jack Sheppard nubbed. Stood beneath the cart.’

I’d seen Sheppard swing too – my first winter in London. The mob had loved him, pulling on his legs to help speed his passing. It had ended in a riot, his friends fighting to keep his body from the chirurgeons. Thousands upon thousands streaming through the streets, trampling everything in their path. I’d thought I would die in all that madness and had wished myself safe at home in Suffolk. When I survived, pulled clear by strangers into the nearest tavern, my shirt torn and my lip bloodied, I knew I never wanted to leave.

‘Thomas Hawkins. Oh, you wretch.’ The door slammed back upon its hinges. Kitty: face smudged, clothes damp with sweat despite the cold. ‘Look at you! Look at you here without a care in the world when I am half dead. I’ve trudged the streets all day searching for you. Every gaol, every lock-up. They laughed at me, Tom. They laughed and jeered and groped… How long have you been free? Oh! You cannot even guess how much I hate you, you thoughtless prick.’

‘I thought you were safe. Sam. You were supposed to take her to St Giles.’

He lifted a shoulder. ‘She weren’t inclined.’

‘She,’ Kitty said, whisking up and down the shop in a blind fury, ‘has just returned from Gonson’s house. That fucking guard who did this,’ she pointed at a bruise on her cheek. ‘He kept me waiting half an age, then said you were set free hours ago. Said you’d left with your black whore.’ She kicked over a stool. ‘He said you kissed her, in front of the whole world. Did you…? Oh, you villain – you did kiss her!’

‘Well, no, not precisely,’ I flustered. ‘She did somewhat rather…but she only kissed me to distraction. For distraction, that is. For distraction. A slip of the tongue.’

‘A slip of the tongue,’ Kitty mimicked nastily. ‘And I suppose your tongue just slipped into Betty’s mouth?’

‘Oh damn it, Kitty – it was an act, that is all. If you would let me explain…’ I reached for her, but she evaded my grasp, leaving the shop and running up the stairs.

I glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Well, Sam. I suppose I had better meet my fate.’

He grinned. Wrapped the rope around his neck and swung back and forth.

Kitty was lighting a fire in our room. She heard me enter and sit down upon the bed, but she didn’t turn around until the hearth was blazing. She took off her cap and unpinned her hair, tossing her head so the curls bounced down her back. She knew I loved that.

‘Am I forgiven?’ I took off my wig and slung it in a corner. I was too tired to argue. Too tired to move. My limbs ached from the lock-up, and my mind was distracted, bouncing from thought to thought like a racket ball.

‘Betty.’ She loosened the ribbons to her gown and pulled out the stomacher beneath, exposing the soft parting of her high, round breasts.

And suddenly, my mind was still.

‘D’you want her, Tom?’ She slipped off her shoes and balanced a foot upon my thigh. Slid it higher. Ahh…She rolled down her stocking. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Like this.’ She parted her lips and stared down at me from lowered lids. Need. Desire.

‘Oh, fie – plenty of women look at me like that. That is-’

Kitty snorted and rolled down another stocking, flinging it at my face. ‘No, no – true enough. Half the town wants to fuck you and the other half wants to hang you.’

I kicked off my shoes. ‘And you would like to do both, I suppose.’

She clambered on to the bed, unfastening the buttons on my breeches. And then she kissed me, a kiss of possession. She slipped her hand lower, pulled my cock free. ‘Say you are mine,’ she murmured. ‘Mine alone.’

‘I’m yours.’

She smiled. Oh, I wanted her. I wanted her now. No more waiting. I rolled her beneath me, pushing her gown high above her hips. Yes, yes, yes. I lay over her, placed all my weight upon my shoulders.

Fuck! The pain ripped through my muscles and I fell back against the bed, panting hard.

‘Tom?’ Kitty sat over me. ‘You’re hurt?’

‘Gonson chained me to a wall.’ I flung an arm across my eyes. Damn it.

She lifted my arm away. ‘Lie back.’ She undid my shirt and touched my bruised and aching shoulders. Ran her hands down to my wrists, chafed by the iron cuffs. ‘My love,’ she sighed, and unhooked her petticoat.

I sat up beneath her, kissed her neck. ‘I can’t lie on top of you. My shoulders…’

She pushed me gently back to the pillow and slid off my breeches. Wriggled free of her skirts. And then she sat astride me, leaning down to kiss my lips as she tilted her hips.

I reached down, skimming my hand up her long, smooth thigh. Silk. Perfect silk. ‘This is not-’ I began, then gasped as she pressed against me. ‘…how I imagined…’

‘Indeed?’ Kitty’s green eyes shone bright as she pushed back her hair. ‘It’s precisely how I imagined…’

Afterwards we lay quietly, Kitty resting her head upon my chest. For all the time we had spent in bed together this was different. We talked for a while, drifting. Some good had come from the day after all. If I had become a parson, this would be my sermon. Take pleasure in these quiet, sweet moments of contentment. They are few – and they are everything. I smiled, and closed my eyes…

‘Oh! You’ve fallen asleep, damn you.’

I woke with a jolt. ‘I wasn’t sleeping!’

Kitty pecked my cheek. ‘You snore when you’re awake? Fix yourself a pipe, Tom – we have a great deal to discuss. At least, I will talk and you must listen for a while – and you listen far better with a pipe between your teeth.’ She crossed her legs beneath her, still naked, still beautiful.

‘I do not snore,’ I grumbled, groping for my watch. A quarter past eight. Fuck the stars. I must effect a meeting with Charles Howard tonight, and that meant crossing the river to Southwark. I slipped from the bed. ‘Forgive me, sweetheart. I have an appointment. We’ll speak tomorrow.’ I searched through my closet, shivering as the air nipped my skin. Howard was a nobleman – I would need to dress well to join his company. But the Southwark streets were filthy and the benches at the cockfight would be rough and splintered. Hmm. I rejected a pair of velvet breeches in favour of a brown silk knit, and had just selected a satin-fronted waistcoat when I realised that the room was deathly still.

Had she fallen asleep? Or was she glaring at my back, seething with annoyance? I glanced around. Ah, yes.

‘We will speak tonight,’ Kitty said, from the bed. She threw my shirt over her head and padded across the room, half coquette, half tiger. ‘The last time you had an appointment you were attacked by a madman. Tell me what’s happened. Tell me everything.’

And so I did. Almost everything. We sat by the fire and shared a pipe while I told her about the deal I’d made with James Fleet to meet Henrietta Howard, and the terrible fight that had ensued in St James’s Park.

‘Was it thrilling?’

‘No.’ Good God, no.

‘But you hoped it would be,’ she murmured, sadly. ‘You were bored.’

It was true. And now she spoke that truth aloud, how petty and foolish it sounded. ‘Not with you.’

She climbed on to my lap and took the pipe from my lips. ‘So what now? What tangle of trouble have you fallen into?’

I told her about my visit to the palace.

‘The queen.’ She laughed in amazement. ‘Tom I could kick you – why did you not tell me of this before? So. We are to meet with Howard tonight?’

I stared at her in alarm. The thought of Howard meeting Kitty, those mad, blazing eyes raking over her… ‘No, no. He’s a monster, Kitty – truly. You cannot come with me.’

‘Why – do you forbid it? Do you think you can command my obedience now that you’ve stolen my maidenhood?’ She pressed a hand to her forehead and mock-swooned.

‘Stolen? You flung it at me with both hands.’

She giggled, burying her nose in my neck. ‘Let me help you, Tom. I’ve saved your life before.’

Yes – and killed a man to do it. What would she say, I wondered, if I told her that the Queen of England knew what she had done? That she was holding that secret over me like a blade pressed to my heart? ‘It will be a bloody, dreadful night,’ I said, trying a different tack. ‘I’m to meet him at a cockfight in Southwark.’

‘A cockfight? Perfect!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I haven’t been to one in months.’

As we dressed I told Kitty about my visit to the Burden house that afternoon.

‘Ned is Burden’s son,’ she murmured, lacing her boot. She knew the streets of Southwark of old and wouldn’t waste a good shoe on all that filth. ‘There is a resemblance, now I think on it. His mouth. The shape of his jaw.’

‘I believe Ned is innocent, at least. More than anything, he wanted to be recognised as his father’s son. Burden cannot acknowledge him from the grave.’

‘Judith murdered him,’ Kitty said, gesturing for me to tie her corset. ‘I’m sure of it. She hated her father.’

And wished him dead – she had confessed that much herself. And yet… I frowned, pulling the strings of Kitty’s corset. If only I could tie up Burden’s murder so neatly. Kitty swept up her hair and began to pin up her curls. I leaned down and kissed the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent. Rose water and the soft trace of sweat. I was glad to have confided in her – it helped to talk through my ideas. ‘I favour Stephen for it. Judith is too…’ I struggled for the best word and landed upon Mrs Jenkins’ description. ‘Delicate.’

‘Delicate?’ Kitty stabbed another pin into her hair. ‘Honestly. Did she swoon at you, Tom? Did you grasp her trembling hand? Oh dear Miss Burden, don’t be afraid, I shall protect you, you poor delicate daisy. Puh. All that lisping and whimpering – I don’t believe a word of… ow, not so tight,’she gasped, loosening the corset a breath. ‘Leave room for pie. I’m half starvedfrom traipsing about town all day… No – can you not see it, Tom? Judith with the blade, taking revenge upon her father at last? All those years playing the dutiful, obedient daughter, locked away in her room like a nun. And not one of your French nuns, Tom, stop drifting.’

‘You do not like Judith.’

‘I do not like Judith,’ she agreed. ‘I should not mind so much if she murdered her father. What – why should I mind? He wanted you dead! But she was cruel to Alice, and sneaking with it. She was always so meek and mild in front of her father. But she treated Alice like a dog as soon as they were alone. Slapping and pinching her for the slightest mistake.’

I shook my head – but it was not so hard to believe. Judith was not the first mistress to take out her frustrations upon her servant. No wonder she was so furious about the marriage. Ned may have spent seven years as Burden’s apprentice, but Judith had served eighteen years’ hard labour as his daughter – and in the end had as little to show for it. And now Alice – the only member of the household over whom she had the slightest power – would rise to mistress of the household.

It should have been enough to convince me of Judith’s guilt – but still the same question remained unanswered in my mind. If it were the marriage that made her so angry, why did she not kill Alice?

I slung my sword low upon my hip, hoping I would not need to draw it tonight. The impossibility of the evening’s task pressed hard upon my aching shoulders. How the devil was I supposed to befriend the man I’d bludgeoned unconscious only a week before? Oh, I say – good evening, sir. Do you recall our meeting upon St James’s Park where I beat out your brains with your own pistol? How delightful to make your acquaintance again. Now, would you be obliging and reveal some scandalous details of your life that I might sell to the Queen of England?

Perhaps Kitty might coax something useful out of the brute. She knew how to tease out secrets, how to listen in the shadows. Men underestimated Kitty, and she played upon it. Women too, for that matter. Which made me wonder… ‘Kitty – how did you come by all this gossip about Judith and Alice?’

Kitty skimmed away, pulled out a gingham shawl. ‘Alice told me.’

‘Alice has run away. Judith threw her out.’

‘I know. She’s upstairs. I’ve hired her to replace Jenny.’ She drew the shawl over her shoulders. Caught my horrified expression. ‘We do need a maid, Tom. Unless you would like to scrub the floors and wash the dishes and darn your stockings and-’

‘-I do not question the need for a servant, Kitty. I just question the need to hire the one who crawled into our house last night covered in blood and waving a knife.’

‘Which I was able to use in negotiations. She’ll cost a shilling less than Jenny each month.’

‘That will be a great comfort when we are murdered in our bed.’

‘We must keep her hidden for now. Alice is afraid that Judith will accuse her now that you have been set free.’

‘She already has. There is still a chance Alice is guilty,’ I whispered, glancing anxiously at the ceiling.

‘No. It was Judith. I am decided, Tom.’

Sam was downstairs, dismantling the old, broken printing press that lay gathering dust at the back of the shop. He liked mechanical objects – he enjoyed pulling them apart and putting them back together. I’d known boys like him at school – boys who wanted to peel back the skin of the world and see how it all worked. There was no mystery that could not be solved by close and careful study, preferably beneath a microscope.

I told Sam to hire a couple of street boys to watch the Burdens’ house in case anyone tried to smuggle out a set of bloody clothes. Then I wrote a brief note to Gonson asking him to send one of his guards over tomorrow to help me search the house for evidence. My God he would hate that – but for all his faults, Gonson was a dutiful magistrate. He would do as he was bid – albeit through gritted teeth. ‘Deliver this to his home, Sam,’ I said, and gave him a couple of shillings. ‘And treat yourself to a good supper and a bowl of punch when you’re done.’

He pocketed the coins. He would probably buy a cheap bowl of stew at some fleapit, and save the rest. After all, what was a body but another machine? Food was fuel, and nothing more.

I took Kitty’s hand and we set off for Southwark. She wore her grey riding cloak with the hood lowered. She smiled up at me as we walked, a little shyly. No longer a maid. I squeezed her hand and grinned back. I’m yours.

If I close my eyes now I can see us strolling through the town towards the Thames, feet slipping on the damp cobbles, talking about what we would do once our troubles were over. Our lives stretching ahead of us, so many paths to take.

And then I open my eyes and all I see is the thick grey wall of my cell. I am in the condemned hold at Newgate, sentenced to hang. And Kitty is gone for ever.