The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

Saved. Thank God. His knees almost give way with the relief. Damn them to hell for torturing him all the way from Newgate to Tyburn. Bastards.

The Marshal breaks the seal and unscrolls the pardon, holding it above his head. The wind tugs at the paper, almost pulling it from his hand. ‘His Most Gracious Majesty George II has granted his royal pardon to one of those condemned here today.’ He pauses and the crowd cheers. This is better than the opera.

The Marshal smiles. ‘His Majesty pardons…’ Another pause.

Hawkins growls quietly between clenched teeth. He grips the edge of the cart, knuckles white with tension.

‘… Mary Green.’

A deafening roar. Mary’s friends pull her from her cart and carry her along on their shoulders, shoving the constables out of their path. Strangers reach out to touch her gown. Lucky, lucky. She passes close to his cart. Her face is dazed with shock at the sudden reprieve.

His throat closes with fear. There must be another one. There must be a second pardon.

But the Marshal has jumped down from his horse. He is arguing with a surgeon’s assistant, a stringy lad with pale brows and bulging eyes. His master is expecting four bodies for anatomising, not three. There are costs to consider. The transportation. The guards. The coffins. ‘You will be compensated, sir,’ the Marshal assures him, patting the air with his hands. ‘You will be compensated.’

Hawkins collapses to his knees. He is lost. Now, at the end, he knows it. He will hang, marked for all eternity as a murderer. His family will be forced to bear the shame – his poor sister and his father, already sick and weary of life. The strain upon his heart – it will kill him for certain.

What a fool he’d been, to believe their promises. He curses them all as the constables guide his cart beneath the gallows. And he curses himself too. He should have listened to Kitty. She’d warned him.

Kitty. He stands quickly, searching the crowds for a flash of red hair. Pale freckled skin. She’s not there. Of course not. How could she be?

Chapter Sixteen

I had begun the day in the slums of St Giles. Now it was night and I was being smuggled back into St James’s Palace. A horse blanket again, and deserted back corridors. Up the servants’ stairs by torchlight to the queen’s antechamber.

Budge had sent a note in response to my request for more information on Howard. ‘No time. Mtng tonight. Await carriage.’

I paced the floor alone for a few minutes, longing for a pipe. It was not satisfactory, pacing a floor so heavily covered with thick silk rugs. I wanted to hear the stamp of my feet, to feel the jolt of it through my body. I would suffocate in this warm, quiet room with its tapestries and terracotta busts and marble furniture. I should pick up a gold-legged footstool and throw it through a window. At least the cold air would help me to think.

Damnation, I needed that pipe.

What was I supposed to tell the queen? My encounter with Howard had ended in disaster. Perhaps she would dismiss me and find another poor fool to resolve the matter. Yes, yes – and perhaps she would knight me and shower me with diamonds.

‘Mr Hawkins. How pleased I am to see you, sir.’ Henrietta Howard glided into the room in a dove-coloured damask gown, embroidered with a burst of silver flowers. The gown creaked a little as she moved, stiffened beneath with glue to push out the skirts. Her expression was serene, her lips parted in a half-smile of welcome. What did it cost to bury one’s feelings so deep? Was she not afraid she might lose them one day? Treasure sinking slowly to the ocean floor and nothing left but the surface, becalmed for ever. ‘You met my husband last night.’

I bowed my head.

‘He spoke of me.’ A statement, not a question. She must know the foul stories he spread about her around the town.

‘Nothing of consequence.’

She did not believe the lie, but seemed grateful for it. She paused, then added, ‘My son?’ Somehow she made the question sound quite casual, though no doubt she longed for news of Henry.

I bowed again, thinking of the young rake spewing vomit into the Thames. His dumb astonishment when I put a blade to his throat. ‘A good-natured young gentleman.’

She smiled. This she chose to believe. ‘He was always a merry child – and quite devoted to me. It infuriated Charles. He would abandon us for months in our tiny hovel. Henry and I muddled along together well enough, I suppose. It’s strange – I thought myself quite wretched, then. But perhaps I was happy.’ Her brow furrowed, as if trying to remember an old acquaintance.

‘It is very cruel of Mr Howard to keep your son from you.’

‘He is a cruel man,’ she agreed with a shrug. ‘D’you know, Mr Hawkins, I have not seen Henry since he was ten years old.’

I stared at her, aghast.

‘We were separated when the two courts split. I was forced to make a decision – to remain with Her Majesty, under her protection – or return to live with my husband. I couldn’t…’ she trailed away. ‘I had to leave Henry behind, with Charles. I couldn’t save him.’

And Howard had spent the next eleven years poisoning the boy against his mother. He had shaped Henry in his own image: a drunken brat with a fathomless, sprawling hatred of Henrietta.

‘I’ve always hoped that one day Henry would understand why I had to leave him,’ she added. ‘Surely reason would prevail and he would be released from his father’s spell. Even now – I still hope. But the reports I receive of him, his wild behaviour… I fear Charles has taught him too well.’

‘He’s just a boy – one and twenty. I’m sure I was just as wicked at his age.’

‘And now?’

‘Oh – much worse.’

‘I do not doubt it.’ She laughed, and I caught a glimpse of how she might look stripped of all her burdens – light and happy. A soul made for sunshine but lost in shadow.

There was a soft clunk as the door to the queen’s chamber opened. Budge peeped through the narrow gap, like Mr Punch peering around the curtain. He beckoned me with a crook of his finger, then opened the door wider.

I stepped back to allow Mrs Howard through first, but Budge stopped her with a subtle shake of the head.

‘I am not required?’ Four words, laced with meaning. This meeting was of great significance to Henrietta. For weeks she had been held under siege, a prisoner in the palace – all because of the man who had tormented her for more than twenty years. Was she not entitled to hear my report on the matter? But no – she was not required. The queen and her games of power and revenge, played out in small denials, countless cruelties, day after day.

The room was stifling; thick, tasselled drapes sealing in the heat from the fire. Behind them the windows rattled in their casements, under attack from a violent rain storm. The queen sat at her desk, dressed in a loose green velvet gown – a curtain in human form. She dropped her quill as I entered and pushed herself slowly to her feet. I bowed and she held out a gloved hand to kiss.

She settled down on her sofa, lifting her feet onto an ottoman. She picked up an ivory fan pocked with jewels and flapped it about her bosom in a gay fashion. I’d heard the queen described as a grave, devout woman, but in private she and Budge shared a mischievous, pantomime humour. It sat strangely upon them both tonight – a merry jig played over a battle scene. An enormous plate of confectionery rested just within her grasp – a jumble of sugar biscuits, macaroons and candied ginger too large even for her prodigious appetite. Presented for comical effect again, I was sure – a parody of her own gluttony emphasised to grotesque proportions. A joke only she was entitled to make.

A pretty girl of about seventeen was playing a game of chess against herself at a small table. One of the queen’s daughters – Princess Caroline or Amelia I guessed, from her age. Her blonde hair was powdered white and decorated with silk flowers, her lithe figure robed in a lavender gown fringed with pearls. She bore a close resemblance to her mother – a beguiling hint of Caroline’s own youth, when her beauty matched her wit. But, whereas the queen’s expression settled naturally into bright interest and amusement, her daughter appeared sullen, slapping the chess pieces down upon the board as if she might like to crush them beneath her fingers. She caught my glance and frowned at the impertinence. I took a hurried interest in the ceiling.

‘He is not at all handsome, Mama,’ she complained, as if she had been sold a ruined bolt of silk. ‘I do not like his arms, and his feet are too big. His legs are tolerable.’

The queen chuckled. ‘Emily, ma chérie, opinions are vulgar. You must be more like Mrs Howard. She has said nothing of consequence since…’ she fluttered her fan, considering, ‘…1715?’

‘I would rather die than be like Mrs Howard.’

‘Of course you would. Life is wretched. The world is hateful. How uncharitable of God to make you a princess.’

Princess Amelia rolled her eyes. ‘He should have made me a prince.’

The queen grunted in agreement. ‘And poor Fritzy a princess. Laissez-nous maintenant, chérie. I must speak with Mr Hawkins about something of tremendous interest.’

‘Oh!’ the princess exclaimed, sweeping the chess pieces to the floor. ‘Order him to tell me something interesting, Mama. Or I swear I shall die of boredom, right here on this horrid rug.’

The queen’s lips twitched. ‘Well, Mr Hawkins. Something interesting for the princess. Not too interesting,’ she added hastily.

I thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘Has Her Royal Highness ever heard of a female gladiator?’

Princess Amelia had not. I described Neala and her fight at the cockpit, how she had used her strength and stamina to defeat her opponent – in very few clothes. The princess sat with her large blue eyes fixed on mine, enraptured.

‘I should like to meet this Irish woman,’ she said, when I was finished.

The queen removed her glove and reached for a bonbon. ‘And you never shall,’ she promised. She dismissed her daughter with a wave, but then called her back and kissed her on both cheeks. When Amelia had left, she turned her gaze on me. ‘A shrewd choice of story, Mr Hawkins. Rather too shrewd, I think. And now you have one for me, I believe.’

‘Your Majesty,’ I said, and began to describe my meeting with Mr Howard. She stopped me mid-breath. ‘No, no. I wish to hear first about your neighbour. Mr…’ she pretended to reach for the name. ‘Beadle? Boodle?’

‘Burden, ma’am.’ She remembered the name well enough. Teasing again. I told her as much as I could, given that I could not mention Alice’s bloodstained arrival through the wall, or Sam’s midnight prowl around the house. Burden was murdered and I was suspected – that was the crux of the matter.

‘You threatened him with a sword? In front of witnesses? A little rash, sir.’

‘It won’t happen again, Your Majesty.’

‘Clearly. No need to threaten a dead man.’

‘I only mean-’

‘Yes, yes. Don’t be dull.’

I paused before speaking again. It was not enough to be useful to Queen Caroline: one must be entertaining as well. I supposed this was to counteract the many hours she spent in the king’s tedious company. He had – I believe – only two topics of conversation: either detailed discussion of historic military campaigns or the wonders of his beloved Hanover and how it eclipsed England in every respect. So I must make up for her husband’s failings. Gratitude might do the trick. ‘I must thank you, ma’am, for securing my release from custody yesterday.’

The queen glanced at Budge, sweating by the fire. ‘Did I deign to do that, Budge?’

‘Either that or find a new recruit, ma’am. And that would have been diff-’

‘-tedious. And now here Mr Hawkins stands on his tolerable legs, expressing his gratitude. Mon dieu. We have indeed been generous. He might be languishing in gaol were it not for our generosity. He might be sentenced to hang.’ She wiggled her fingers over the teetering pile of confections and selected another macaroon, smiling in triumph when the rest stayed miraculously in place. ‘So I’m sure he has discovered something tremendously helpful about Mr Howard.’

‘Your Majesty. Forgive me, I-’

‘-You have heard, I’m sure that Howard caused a grave disturbance just two nights ago? Stood in the courtyard screaming that his wife is a whore and insisting that we give her up to him? His Majesty was furious – he cannot bear to have his sleep disturbed. Poor Mrs Howard must have been mortified.’

‘Your Majesty, could Mr Howard not be arrested, or at least-’

‘The law is with the husband, Mr Hawkins!’ the queen snapped, for a moment truly angry. ‘He has every right to claim his wife, and by force if he wishes. What – d’you think the king should have him arrested? And then I suppose you would like to see a public trial about the matter?’ Her blue eyes – so like her daughter’s – blazed so hard I feared I might be scorched by them. ‘You were released in order to resolve this matter. Was I too generous, Mr Hawkins? Perhaps you did murder your neighbour. Perhaps Mr Budge should speak again with the City Marshal.’

I placed my hands behind my back, planted my legs. I had suffered such cruel blackmail before, in prison. I would not buckle beneath her threats. ‘I am innocent, Your Majesty.’

‘That is hardly relevant. Tell me what happened last night and we shall see if we can sift something of value from the dirt together. As you are too dim-witted to discover it alone.’

I described how I met with Howard at the cockpit in Southwark, the disgraceful stories he had spewed up about his wife, and indeed the king – some treasonous. Might that help? The queen looked bored and contemptuous. So I continued with our trip along the Thames, Howard’s assault on me and his attempted rape of Kitty.

For the first time, the queen seemed interested. ‘She fought him off? Without your aid?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ I described how Howard had fired a pistol at us as we plunged into the river. Attempted murder – might that be of use? No, apparently it would not. I finished my story, from our freezing, desperate swim to the steps, to our escape through the city to St Giles and our rescue at the hands of James Fleet. I did not mention the poor chairman, his throat cut solely to encourage his master to run. And so my story ended, as it must, and we reached the part I had dreaded.

The queen rinsed her fingers in a pretty porcelain bowl. ‘Your little trull is a spirited creature, is she not? So. How do you propose we stop the brute?’

I had no answer. Howard was a nobleman, the heir to an earldom. There were different rules for such men. I knew it. The queen most certainly knew it. The whole world knew it. What did it matter if he threatened a young woman with no family and no reputation? Who the devil cared if he vowed to murder me? Who was I? A disgraced gentleman from an obscure family, living above a notorious print shop, translating whores’ dialogues for money.

‘Sir?’ the queen prompted, watching me twist and turn on her rope. Watching with a gleam of interest – encouragement, even. Another test for her new servant.

I must think of something. If I left this room without giving her what she needed, I might as well hang myself tonight and save everyone the trouble. I had been released from Gonson’s custody solely on this promise – that I would provide the queen with something she could use against Howard. But what?

I forced myself to think calmly. Howard held the winning hand, and I could not change that. What, then? When a man held all the cards, what could one do?

Let him win.

And there it was. So neat. So simple. Let him win. Blackmail would never have worked upon Howard – he was too powerful and too volatile. One did not back a wild animal into a corner. Coax him out. Bribe him. But with what? Not money. The king had refused his demands of three thousand a year. A title? I dismissed the thought – that would be more complicated and costly still.

The room was silent. I could feel the queen and Budge watching, waiting. Concentrate. What did Howard want? Henrietta. No – that I would not do. And he didn’t want her, not really. He just wanted to make her life as wretched as possible. He wanted to torture her for making that one terrible mistake of loving him, a very long time ago.

And then I knew the answer. There was one very simple way to satisfy Howard. It would cost the queen nothing. But poor Henrietta… It would cost her everything.

I wouldn’t say it. I wouldn’t ruin a woman’s life solely to save my own. I would conjure something better. Something kinder.

‘His son.’ The words slid from my tongue and the betrayal was done.

A look of puzzlement crossed the queen’s plump face. And then she understood. Already her clever mind was turning, turning.

‘Henry Howard was on the boat last night.’

She grunted. ‘Henry. I remember the child. A sweet, foolish thing. What age is he now, Budge? Fourteen? Fifteen?’

‘Twenty-one, ma’am,’ Budge replied softly. His expression was sombre, all the play and mischief drained from his face.

‘Twenty-one.’ And now she too seemed to have caught the melancholy mood. She reached for a sugared almond.

‘He was very drunk,’ I said. ‘Asleep under the table most of the night, and vomiting the rest of it. Forgive me, ma’am…’

She waved away the apology.

‘…Howard takes great pleasure in corrupting the boy. Henry doesn’t have his father’s cruelty-’

‘-Not yet. Hard liquor makes a hard man.’

True enough in most cases. But I had to believe Henry had enough of Henrietta’s sweet temperament to counteract Howard’s influence. There must be hope in all this. After all, I had spent the last few years drinking and whoring and gaming like a fiend, and my own heart had emerged intact. Hadn’t it?

‘Howard is determined to turn Henry against his mother. He has convinced Henry that she’s a whore.’

‘That must have taken considerable effort,’ the queen said, rattling the sugared almond against her teeth.

‘He wants revenge upon Mrs Howard. He wants her to suffer. More than anything. He would not refuse three thousand pounds a year, of course… but it is his hatred of his wife that propels him.’ I stopped, unwilling to speak further.

The queen continued to suck her confection, snick, snick, snick against the top of her mouth. She glanced at Budge, raised an eyebrow. ‘Mr Hawkins has dragged a sacrificial calf into the room. But he does not have the courage to slit her throat.’ She played with a diamond ring on her little finger. ‘Why, Mr Hawkins – would you have me wield the knife for you? Are you afraid to look in the poor, trembling calf’s eyes? Are you worried her blood will spoil your clothes…?’

My mouth was dry. The queen spoke the truth, and I was sickened by it. I had condemned both Henry and his mother tonight in this room. I had ruined both their lives to save my own. Not to say the words now, at the end, was mere cowardice. ‘Mrs Howard must write to her son. In detail. She must tell Henry that everything his father claims of her is true.’

The queen slid her gaze from mine, thinking. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Howard will like that. He always enjoyed humiliating his wife.’ And to her credit, she looked disgusted. ‘Is it enough? No,’ she answered herself. ‘Continue, sir.’

Somehow, I forced the words from my lips. ‘She must promise never to contact her son – to relinquish all claims upon him.’

‘Your Majesty,’ Budge interrupted. ‘I doubt she will agree to that. She fights a case at present in secret. She is seeking a legal separation from Howard.’

My heart sank. The Howards had lived apart for many years, but to pursue an official, legally binding separation – it was almost unprecedented. For a judge even to consider the case, there must have been the most devastating evidence of Howard’s cruelty. And here I was, delivering Henry into that monster’s hands for ever.

The queen was looking away into the fire with a soft expression. ‘We will give him his son. And the letter. And twelve hundred a year. Control, humiliation and a fat fee. It will suffice. In return he will not fight the separation. Yes. I believe this will work. Blackmail would have enraged Howard. He might have lashed out in spite. This way, he will believe he has won. He will like that.’ Her lips pressed into a tight line. ‘Men do.’

Aye, he will believe he’s won. Because he has. I cleared my throat. ‘Should we not consult with Mrs Howard, ma’am?’

‘With Mistress Switzerland?’ The queen fanned herself slowly. ‘What might she possibly contribute to the matter? She is neutral in all things.’

‘Not on this matter, surely, Your Majesty?’ I pressed. I owed Henrietta this much at least. ‘Not over her only child? She might prefer to leave the court? Should she not be granted the choice…’ I stopped abruptly. The queen’s cheeks had tinged bright pink.

‘Choice? No indeed, Mr Hawkins. Howard is my servant. She will do precisely as she is told.’

There was a long, angry silence. There was something deeper here – old wounds of betrayal. Henrietta had been the queen’s servant long before she became the king’s mistress. They had been allies and confidantes once, when they were young women. When the queen was still the Princess of Wales, just a few years married. Still beautiful and still adored, by all accounts.

‘It is a hard thing to lose a son,’ the queen said at length. Her gaze slid to mine.

She knew I must have heard the stories – the prince and princess banished from court in disgrace, their children held hostage. The King had given Caroline a devastating choice: stay at court with her children or leave with her husband. Her youngest boy had been just a few weeks old and very sick. He had died before the family had reconciled.

And then there was her oldest son, Frederick, raised alone at the court in Hanover – a stranger to the entire family, including his mother.

The queen understood the agony of losing a son – through death and through estrangement. Now she would inflict that torture upon Henrietta. It was pragmatic, necessary – and cruel. But who was I to judge her now?

‘Twelve hundred a year,’ she said. ‘The king will accept that. He will rail and kick his hat about the room for a few days. In a few weeks he will be pleased that we have saved him eighteen hundred pounds per annum. In a few months he will believe it was all his idea.’ She tapped her fingers playfully against the arm of the sofa. ‘Adequate, Mr Hawkins. Adequate. You will do.’

A clear dismissal. I was released – at least for one night – and at no great cost, save to my conscience. I bowed low, feeling ashamed and relieved in equal measure.

On a whim, she tugged the diamond ring from her finger and dropped it into my palm. ‘For your little trull. For her courage. I am glad she left a mark on the brute.’

Mrs Howard waited in the antechamber. If she were anxious she didn’t show it. Small wonder that her face was so smooth and unlined. An even temper made for an even countenance. Given all that she had endured, her equanimity was nothing short of miraculous. But maybe that was why she had survived for so long, through all those years of torture at her husband’s hands. And now she would suffer again, because of me.

‘You look pale, sir,’ she said. ‘Was Her Majesty not pleased with your news?’

I stared at my shoe. I had polished the silver buckle so hard that I could see my face in it, distorted. ‘She was satisfied, I believe.’

She drew closer, tilting her head so that she could look into my downcast eyes. ‘The queen lays her traps very well,’ she said, softly. ‘We only see them when they bite down upon us. Whatever you have done, whatever she has made you do… you must not blame yourself, sir.’

I couldn’t answer her. She meant to be kind, but her words shamed me. The truth was, I had seen the trap and I had thrown her upon it, to save myself. Little comfort that Howard would now retreat and leave her in peace. Henrietta would never see her son again.

I was saved by Budge. ‘My lady. Her Majesty wishes to speak with you.’

She curtsied and went to see her mistress. Now at last I could look at her; her straight back, her smooth, graceful step. Would the queen enjoy telling her husband’s mistress she had lost her son for ever? Or would she choose to be kind? And there lay her power. There lay the motive for all Queen Caroline’s plots and schemes. The power to choose.

Budge led me back through the winding passageways and on to Pall Mall. It was very cold and clear, and the sky was blazing with stars. I lit a pipe and found that my hands were trembling.

‘Her Majesty has an effect,’ Budge observed. He tucked a wad of tobacco into his cheek and began to chew. ‘How go your enquiries?’

‘Very ill.’

‘Unfortunate. I hear reports. The town’s against you, Hawkins.’

‘The town can fuck itself.’

He spat a thin stream of brown liquid onto the ground. ‘Joseph Burden was an arsehole by all accounts. But he lived in that house for twenty years without trouble. Then you arrive next door. Rumours of violence. Rumours of murder. Rumours you can’t seem to shake…’ He held up a hand, refusing my objections. ‘Burden says he has proof you killed a man. You threaten him. He dies the same night. I’m struggling to see this as a coincidence, Hawkins. And I like you.’

‘It’s not a coincidence, I’m sure. The whole street saw me fight with Burden – including the killer.’ I held out my arms. ‘I am the perfect scapegoat.’

‘That is,’ Budge said, ‘the problem with waggling a sword in a man’s face.’

‘True enough. But even had I not threatened Burden, everyone knew he planned to testify against me.’ I paused. ‘I have been thinking upon this matter a great deal.’

Budge rolled the tobacco around his cheek. ‘No doubt.’

‘You said it yourself, sir. Burden lived on Russell Street for twenty years without trouble. He ruled his house as if he were the keeper of a gaol, not the head of a family. Lectured them from the Bible each night. Punished every act of defiance, no matter how frivolous. No mother to soften the blows, to offer any warmth or kindness.’ I paused. Budge was watching me, curious. I wondered if he had guessed the truth – that my own childhood had not been so very different. Well, well. Nor ten thousand more, no doubt. ‘Judith and Stephen obeyed him all their lives. Ned lived under his yoke for seven years and never once rebelled.’

‘First apprentice in history.’

‘It was not fear alone that made them obedient. I believe… it gives me pain to say it, but I believe they respected him. Ned said that for all Burden’s faults, he was a fair master. He lived by his own strict rules. That would have meant a great deal I think, in such a closed, private household. That he was an honourable, Christian man.’

‘Then they found out he was fucking his housekeeper.’

‘Precisely. The night that…’ I stopped. I had almost said Sam’s name. ‘The night Alice cried “thief”. They’d obeyed him without question year after year – and this was their reward. Ned was to be thrown out of the house without a farthing. Stephen was to be removed from school. Judith must watch as her servant became her stepmother.’

Budge pondered this. ‘I’d say the apprentice had the most to lose.’

‘True. But I shared a bowl of punch with Ned the night of the murder. He wasn’t angry with Burden because of the money. He was angry because Burden had broken his word. All those years of lectures, teaching them how to be good, honourable souls. He taught them too well.’

Budge snorted. ‘He was killed for his sins?’

‘No, not that. Think on it for a moment. Once Judith found him with Alice, he gave up the pretence. We heard him through the walls, Budge. He forced Alice to cry out so that everyone might hear. Gah…’ I dashed my spent pipe to the floor and broke it beneath my heel. ‘But still he expected them to obey him, as though nothing had changed. That is why the attack was so ferocious. It was not the beatings and the lectures that drove one of them to stab Burden to death. It was his hypocrisy. It wasn’t fair.’

Budge touched my arm, a subtle warning. I stopped, chest heaving. I must have been shouting. A couple of young beaux strolled past, smirking at one another. I knew one of them from the gaming houses, the youngest son of some lesser nobleman. Did he recognise me? Oh, very good. Another piece of gossip for the coffeehouses. I say, did you hear about Hawkins, shouting like a lunatic on the Mall? The fellow’s gone half-mad with guilt, no doubt…

I feared I was pouring my own feelings too deep into this story. My own father was a strict and sober man. He had lectured me on my wilfulness and wickedness on countless occasions, made me feel as though I were a sinful child… and then later I’d discovered I had a half-brother, Edward. Younger than my sister and me, but born while our mother was still alive. While she lay dying of a long illness, in fact. Even now, I could summon the anger in a moment. The furious sense of injustice. That said, I had never felt the urge to pick up a dagger and stab my father through the chest for it.

‘Why did he become so reckless? After all those years?’

Budge had no answer. And I was back at the start again, running about in circles. Ned, Judith, Stephen.

We had reached Charing Cross. This was where I’d had my first encounter with Charles Howard, when he’d almost run me down in his sedan. Now one of his chairmen was dead. A memory surfaced from the night before. The blade ripping fast across his throat, blood spurting from the sudden gash. His expression, puzzled, then terrified. A terrible noise in his throat, a choking wet sound as he tried to breathe.

Had he been the one holding the back of the chair? The one who had nodded his apology as he passed, and smiled at me? God help me, I couldn’t even picture his face. Only his eyes, at the very end. Pleading. I’m dying. I’m dying – help me.

I rubbed my face. And Howard survived. Worse. The bastard had won. ‘Did you know that Burden was a brothel bully, twenty years ago?’

Budge was amused, but not surprised. No doubt he had heard of a thousand such secret hypocrisies.

‘Ned told me he worked there to pay off his debts.’

Budge closed one eye, searching his memory. ‘Don’t remember him. And I visited a fair few brothels back then…’

I cast my mind back. Howard had talked about the place last night, had he not? What had he said about it…? It had unsettled me at the time. ‘Seven Dials, I think. Devilish place, by the sound of it.’

Budge came to a sudden halt. ‘Aunt Doxy’s.’

I shrugged. Howard hadn’t mentioned the name. ‘He said there was a room for every vice.’

Budge spat the last of his tobacco to the ground. ‘Fuck. Burden was the bully at Aunt Doxy’s… That was… have you not heard the stories?’

‘Only what Howard told me last night. He said that if a girl was badly beaten or cut, Burden would keep quiet – for a price…’

Budge gripped my arm, shaken. Budge was not the sort of man who allowed himself to look shaken. ‘Wicked things happened in that place, Hawkins. There was rumours… A man could ask for anything he wished. Anything. More of a club than a brothel. Invitation only. Then one night, it burned down to the ground. All the whores escaped, and the customers too. They stood on the street and watched the flames tearing up the place. Then they heard the screams. Man and a woman. Aunt Doxy, for certain. The man… No one knows. They was burned alive, Hawkins, slowly. Bad way to die. Very bad. You could hear ’em screaming way over on Castle Street. They found the bodies later, what was left of them. Chained together in death.’

‘They never found who did it?’

‘The whores knew, but they was too scared to say. Or too glad, maybe. I heard it was revenge. Some young jade, got her face all cut. Foreign girl – Spaniard, I think.’

My heart dipped. The truth began to circle about me, wheeling like a bird of prey. ‘What happened to her?’

‘Don’t know. She died, maybe. Maybe not.’ A shrug.

Maybe not. Maybe I had seen her just this morning. Maybe she had saved my life last night.

Gabriela.

I made a hurried excuse and abandoned Budge in the middle of the street. He must have guessed from my countenance that something was troubling me – I was too disturbed to hide it. I wandered the streets for a long, wretched hour, scarcely noticing where I was headed. Surely I must be mistaken. There must be countless women with scars upon their faces.

And then I thought of little Bia, clambering on to the bed this morning. Tracing a pudgy finger down my face. Bad man gone. I’d thought she meant Howard. But she’d been tracing a scar. Her mother’s scar. Bad man. Burden. They did not sound so very different.

Somehow I found myself outside the familiar green door of the Cocked Pistol. I opened my watch. Not yet ten o’clock. I must speak with Gabriela – but not now. Not until I could be sure that her husband was out on his own business.

A night visit to St Giles, God help me. I would be damned lucky to survive it.

Sam was sitting on the stairs, sharp chin resting on his knees. He grabbed my coat as I passed him. ‘Mr Hawkins-’

‘Not now, Sam.’ Not now. And if my darkest thoughts were true – not ever.

Kitty waited for me by the fire in our room, her father’s journals in a stack by her arm. I was struck by the sharp hinge of her life. Nathaniel Sparks had been a distinguished physician and a gentleman, and the family had lived in great comfort. But he had died, and Kitty’s mother had lost herself to grief. Lost herself to gin too in the end, falling further and further until she was selling herself for it. Kitty had escaped, or had been abandoned – it was hard to say as she refused to speak of her mother. She might even be alive yet, though I doubted it. Half the town knew that Kitty had inherited a fortune when Samuel Fleet died, and from what I’d heard, Emma Sparks would have been the first in line demanding a hand-out. It was five years at least since Kitty had seen her mother. How she had survived on her own was a mystery. All I knew for certain was that she had somehow remained a maid, and could fight like a demon. No doubt these two facts were connected. I had tried to coax the truth from her, and she had bitten and snapped like a vixen until I gave up.

I had thought there would be time. We had only met last autumn and there had been no rush. And now I had more pressing concerns. Seeing Nathaniel’s medical papers reminded me how little I knew about Kitty Sparks. I knew her heart, at least – and I suppose that in the end that was all that mattered.

Alice brought us a late supper and then we retired to bed, exhausted by another troubling day. I held Kitty in my arms and we talked drowsily of small things. She had slipped the queen’s ring onto her wedding finger, where it twinkled softly against the sheets. I was tempted to ask her again to marry me, but I knew she would refuse. Tomorrow. I would ask her again tomorrow.

Chapter Seventeen

A soft pressure on my shoulder. ‘Sir. It’s time.’

I opened my eyes. Alice tiptoed out of the room and downstairs while I dressed haphazardly in the dark. I could hear Kitty breathing deeply against her pillow, quite still. I leaned as close as I dared and touched my lips to her hair.

I had asked Alice to wake me at four o’clock. She had stayed awake down in the kitchen, cleaning by candlelight. She poured me a bowl of coffee, which I drank quickly, feeling it sharpen my senses. She didn’t ask where I was going. It was not her place.

Sometimes, when I looked at Alice, I saw her as she had first arrived in this house, covered in blood. Red smears on a ghost-white face, and blue eyes staring fixed in terror. A gruesome palimpsest, the Alice of that night placed in front of the one she had become. Our Alice, always scrubbing and mopping and sweeping as if there were layers of dirt that only she could see.

Some part of me had always wondered if we had accepted her story too readily, but now I knew she was innocent and was glad Kitty had brought her here.

‘Keep the doors locked and the windows shuttered. Don’t let anyone in until I return. And don’t let Miss Sparks out.’

If Kitty knew where I was going tonight, she would insist on coming with me. I would not risk it, not after Howard’s attack on the boat. Let her curse my name and tear out her hair in fury, I didn’t care.

‘How will I stop her?’

A good question. ‘Just try your best, Alice.’

She nodded, frightened. I was sorry for it – Alice had suffered enough these past weeks – but it could not be helped. At least she did not know where I was going.

St Giles – in the dead of night. A short stroll into hell. But first I needed a guide.

The previous morning, Fleet had told his men that I worked under his protection. The word was passed about the gang. One small benefit of our agreement and one I had not expected to need so soon.

Fleet had said that if I needed to speak with him, I should leave a message at the Coach and Horses on Wellington Street. I headed there now through the ink-black streets. The tavern was empty, but a message was sent. Ten minutes later, one of Fleet’s men arrived and motioned me towards a dark corner of the room.

‘The Captain’s working.’

I nodded. In fact, I had depended on it. ‘It’s urgent.’

‘He won’t come here tonight, Hawkins.’

I lowered my voice, though there was no one to hear us. ‘Then take me to Phoenix Street. I can wait for him there.’

He chewed his cheek, thinking. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Not your business.’

He frowned at that, but it was the right thing to say. He wouldn’t trust a man who spilled his secrets so easily. Thought some more. ‘I’ll take your pistol.’

I feigned reluctance, then handed it over. I had kept my dagger, hidden in the lining of my coat. Fleet’s man gave my pistol to the landlord for safekeeping and said I would collect it later. Later. An imagined time, when the night was over and I was safely home again. We would see.

We carved a straight route through St Giles; none of Sam’s scampering back and forth. I knew where Fleet lived and there was no need to hide it now. We sauntered down streets that would have throbbed with danger had I walked through them on my own. I still felt fierce eyes watching us, heard the whispers in the walkways above our heads, but I had been granted safe passage into the heart of the stews. How I would come out again I wasn’t sure. I never was very good at planning ahead.

We came into Fleet’s house through the square this time, instead of Sam’s preferred route over the rooftops. Ducked into a mean timber house and then out again through a narrow passageway to the back yard. We had reached the centre of the hidden square. Candles burned at the top of Fleet’s home, but otherwise all was still. It was four-thirty in the morning. Most of the gang would not return until dawn.

A few men stood guard inside, drinking and playing cards to pass the time. They nodded as I passed them. The message had reached them long before we had.

Gabriela sat by the fire, in the room at the top of the house. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she looked very tired. Another night keeping vigil for her husband. How could she stand such a life?

I bowed quickly and rubbed my hands to warm them. It was a bitterly cold night. There were a few flakes of snow sparkling on my coat. It had begun falling as we entered St Giles and now the world beyond the windows was a blizzard, bright white and silent.

Her lips puckered in amusement. ‘You blue with cold again, sir?’ She drew up another chair close to the fire. ‘We wait here. James will be home soon.’

Not too soon, please God. ‘I was hoping we might speak, Mrs Fleet.’

‘Gabriela. Sit. They have taken your weapons, yes? I am sorry, I must ask. We are alone.’

She poured me a cup of hot wine. We were not alone, of course. Fleet’s men were close by. Did she guess that I might have a dagger, hidden about me? It would be a mistake indeed to underestimate her: James Fleet’s wife. No doubt she too had a blade somewhere, tucked beneath her skirts. I let my gaze wander across her gown. It was plain and grey, but it fitted neatly to her figure. If it had been stolen, someone had restitched it very well. Her waist was thick from bearing her six children, but she was still a fine, handsome woman, save for the scar. And even that seemed to suit her, now I had grown more used to it.

A golden brooch glinted at the centre of her chest and I thought of Eva’s red gauze scarf, threaded with gold. Her mother, it seemed, allowed herself at least one small trinket.

I had been studying Gabriela, but she was watching me too, her eyes a warm, coffee brown, fringed with thick lashes. She looked very much like Sam, but she was less awkward, more comfortable in company. ‘The wine is good?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Is what they give on the road to Tyburn.’ She drained her cup, sucked the wine from her lips. ‘Last drink of the damned. You stare at my scar, Mr Hawkins. Calma, calma,’ she laughed as I flustered my apologies. ‘I know why you have come. I am not bird-witted.’ The last word was pure St Giles, the tt lost somewhere in the back of her throat. She leaned forward. ‘There are men downstairs. I call them, they slit your throat. So we speak quiet and you leave. Yes?’

I stared at her. I had not ventured a single word about Joseph Burden, or the brothel in Seven Dials.

She touched a finger to her scar, traced the line down her ruined cheek. ‘This is my life. My story. I know when a man want to hear it.’ She tucked her bare feet beneath her gown. ‘I am a Jewess, you know this? My family lives in Portugal for hundreds of years. We convert,’ she fluttered her hand, showing the shallow extent of that conversion. ‘The Inquisition does not trust we are faithful. You know what they do to such people? Burn. Torture. So we run – sail for England and freedom. My mother and father, my two brothers. My sister. This is… twenty-one years ago. I am thirteen.’ She gazed into the fire, eyes hollow. ‘There is a storm. They die.’

She stopped. It had taken a great deal of strength to say those few stark words. Her loss hung between us, unspoken. After a moment, she continued.

‘I am thirteen and alone in London. Pretty. No one to care for me. I have only a few words of English. What do you think happens to such a girl?’ She shrugged at the ways of the world. ‘I am starving and afraid. A kind woman take me in. “Poor little Gabby. Call me Auntie”.She gives me clothes and food, a bed. And then she make me work for them.’

‘Aunt Doxie.’

She poured us both another glass of hot wine, blood-red liquid splashing from the jug. ‘You hear of Joseph Burden, I think?’

So much venom in her voice when she spoke his name. ‘Ned Weaver told me…’

A sharp tilt of the chin. ‘His son. Yes. I know this.’

‘He said Burden worked at a brothel in Seven Dials. Charles Howard told me the same story last night.’ I frowned at the memory, and reached for my pipe.

‘I remember him. He used to visit.’

‘He said it was different from other brothels. Nothing was forbidden.’

She curled her lip, mimicked her old bawd. ‘Whatever you want, sir. If you can pay. Whatever you want. And Mr Burden standing out on the front step, so tall, his arms like this.’ She clutched her own slim arm and gripped hard, as if it were solid oak. ‘A bully should protect the whores, you understand? He is paid to stop the customers when they grow too wild. Mr Burden, though – he takes money from the customers and he lets them do whatever they wish. Sometimes he watches. Sometimes he joins them.’

‘He cut you.’

‘This?’ Gabriela touched her scar again. ‘No, sir – let me tell you what Mr Burden did.’

But then she stopped and said nothing for a long while. Her breath was shallow and very fast. A slick of sweat shone on her face, though it was still snowing. She pressed her palms together and held her hands to her face as if in prayer. When she looked up once more, she had returned to herself. Calma. ‘There was a man. I will not say his name; he does not deserve to be remembered. He was old, very ugly. Very cruel. All the girls are afraid of him. He likes to frighten them, you understand?

‘One day he ask for me for the first time. Points at me as if I am some animal at Smithfield. That one. Aunt Doxie does not want to sell her little Gabby – some time he leaves marks and I am so pretty, worth so much to her. But… Whatever you want, sir. If you can pay. She names a fee – enough to buy every whore in the brothel. He laughs and pays double. It is a game to him. He likes to play games.’ She closes her eyes for a second. ‘He takes my hand. He feels that I am shaking all over and he laughs again. He likes that I am afraid. He knows I have heard the stories.

‘Aunt Doxie leads us to this man’s favourite room. It is high up, very high at the back of the brothel, very quiet. She tells to Mr Burden – stand outside the door and call if there is trouble. Then she leaves and we are alone. The man gives Mr Burden half a guinea. He says, keep your mouth shut.’

She picked up the poker and pushed it deep into the fire, turning over the coals and building the flames higher. She did not turn back to look at me, but kept her eyes always on the light. ‘This man. He ties my hands. He ties a cloth over my eyes. I stand like this for a long time, so afraid, waiting in the darkness. Then I feel a blade, here.’ She touched her throat. ‘He whispers in my ear, tells me all the things he will do with it. I start to cry. He strikes me so hard I fall to my knees.

‘I shall not tell you, sir, what he did to me then. Only… Before him, I would fly from my body, you see? Always. Like a bird, until it was done. But I cannot escape him. The pain and the fear, I think he will kill me. I dare not fly away. I am trapped. And I begin to think no, Gabriela, no. You are strong. You are not a child. Your family drown but you survive. You live. And I take my fists like this, still bound, and I push him away. I kick and shove until I am free. I pull off the blindfold and I run to the door, screaming, screaming.

‘Mr Burden stands there. He looks angry. He tells me I am a stupid whore, that I must not make trouble. I run past him towards the stairs, towards life. I am bleeding but I am free. Then I feel his arms about my waist, pulling me back. I try to fight, but he is too strong, like a nightmare. He carries me back up the stairs to the room. He throws me down on the bed. He puts his weight upon my back, pushes my head into the pillow and I can barely breathe. He says, “Be quiet, slut. Earn your keep.”

The other man thanks him. He points to his face – there is a small cut on his brow, just a light scratch. He takes his knife and says, “Hold her down. The bitch will pay for this.”’

Gabriela pulled her knees up beneath her chin, wrapped her arms around her legs.

‘When it was done they left me to bleed. I was too weak to move, too shocked. One of the maids found me. When Aunt Doxie saw, she cursed me. Cursed me. I was ruined, close to death. Worthless. She pushed me out on to the street. I don’t remember no more. I must have staggered into St Giles – I don’t know how. I should have died in the gutter. I think I wanted this. But see, here I am.’ She turned to me at last. ‘I survive.’

‘How?’

She smiled, like an angel – her eyes shining. ‘James. He found me. He carried me to his brother’s friend, Dr Sparks. He saved my life.’

Nathaniel Sparks – Samuel Fleet’s great friend. Kitty’s father had saved Gabriela. ‘Gabriela… you know that Kitty…’

‘His daughter. Of course! I know Kitty, when she was very tiny. My God the noise. She cry, cry, cry. I think I go deaf. That’s why we save you last night. For Kitty. What – you think I fall in love with your legs?’ She smiled again. A light had returned to her face, now the worst of her story was over.

If I were a wise man, I would have left her then. Everything I had feared was true. So leave, now - and quickly. Run from this world of butchery, murder and revenge. Grab Kitty’s hand and flee the city and let this tragedy play to its end without you. But I didn’t move. I stayed quite still, pressed into the chair. I must know it all.

‘The brothel burned down.’

Gabriela’s eyelids grew heavy. ‘Yes.’

‘Two people, burned alive.’ Aunt Doxie, and the man she would not name. Who did not deserve a name. Lost and unmourned for ever. ‘James did this for you?’

‘Yes.’ And there was love in her voice.

‘But he spared Joseph Burden.’

‘No, sir. We did not spare him.’ She hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I still dream of that night. So many times. I had escaped that room, you understand? But he dragged me back there. He held me down. You think to kill him was enough? A few moments of pain?

‘The night James burned down the brothel we could not find him. He’d fucked one of the new country girls. A fresh maid. Worth good money. Aunt Doxie found out and she have him kicked from the door. James and Samuel, they search the town and at last they find him. On his knees in church, sobbing like a child. He knows why the brothel burns down. He knows that now is his turn. James was going to slit his throat, but Samuel… Well. You knew Samuel, sir.’

Oh, yes. I knew Samuel Fleet. Never once chose a straight path if a crooked one were on offer. Or better yet, a maze of his own devising, full of twists and turns and general confusion.

‘Samuel said, “Think, Brother, is it not better to let the man live and suffer? Why should he escape the miseries of existence?” You remember, this is how he talks?’

‘I remember.’

‘He says, “Mr Burden – you train as a carpenter, yes? So you will take up your trade once more. You will become a respectable citizen, go to church, read the Bible. You will marry and have children. All that you earn, you will pay to us. And one day we will come back and we will finish what was begun today. We will take your life. But not today. And perhaps not tomorrow. If you run, we will find you. If you try to speak of this, we take you and we kill you slowly. So you think that burning alive is a mercy.” ’

Only Samuel Fleet could have dreamed up such a plan. It was so elegant, so cruel. So profitable. How he must have enjoyed watching Burden, trapped all those years in a dull, virtuous life. I doubted Fleet could imagine a worse torture for any man.

‘Twenty years, we let him live. He works like a dog and we take his money. Twenty years – always afraid one night my husband will come for him. I wonder sometimes if his heart burst from fear. But he lives. He marries and has children.’

‘Ned said his mother was a whore.’

‘His mother was a young girl. The country girl that Joseph Burden took for himself. Aunt Doxie threw her out too. She have nothing, so she steals. And she is caught.’

I sighed at the thought of another broken life. Ned’s mother had pled her belly at Newgate. Her son had saved her for that short while, but then she had died on her way to the colonies. ‘You made Burden take Ned in.’

Gabriela drained her glass. She was tired, of a sudden. ‘So. There is my story.’

‘But it is not finished.’

‘No.’ A long pause. ‘Samuel was killed in gaol. Of course he had lived next door to Burden for several years. He found it amusing. He would say, “Good morrow, neighbour, what – has my brother not killed you yet?” He said to Burden, “you must thank me”. That he was the only one who could persuade James to spare his life. And this was true. Samuel said to James, let the children grow up first. I agreed with this; they are innocent. When Samuel died, Burden knew his own death was coming.’

And now I understood Burden’s strange behaviour in the weeks preceding his murder. He knew he could be killed at any moment. He brought his son home from school to be close to him in his last days. He refused to move house, knowing that all the profits from his business had drained into James Fleet’s pocket. He refused to give Ned a position for the same reason. And – my God, of course. He forced himself on Alice. Ned couldn’t understand Burden’s behaviour in the last weeks of his life – it had seemed so out of character. The truth was quite the reverse. It was the previous twenty years that had been out of character for Burden. He may have gained some bullying satisfaction from his work with Gonson and the Society, but his natural inclination was very different. Why not fuck his maid, when Death lurked around every corner? When Gabriela’s son moved in next door, silent and watchful?

Sam Fleet, with his mother’s curls, his father’s black-eyed stare, and his uncle’s name. Sam Fleet, who crept into Burden’s house in the middle of the night. Practising.

Sam had grown up looking into his mother’s scarred face every day. He must have heard her screaming at night, when the dreams came. I had rejected him as the killer because he had no reason for it and because of the ferocity of the attack. In fact he had the strongest motive to kill Joseph Burden. Beneath that still surface he must have been in turmoil for weeks.

I must accept the truth, much as it pained me. Sam was Burden’s killer. Hadn’t I asked the boy that night, when we stood over the butchered, bloody corpse?

Did you do this, Sam?

And he had answered with his own question.

Why would I kill him?

Gabriela’s story had woven a spell upon me, while the snow storm blew through the town. Or perhaps it was just that I was exhausted, and sickened to my soul. I understood why she and James would seek revenge upon Burden. I could almost applaud them for the way they had extracted that revenge over the past twenty years, as long as I did not think upon Burden’s children and the dismal effect it had had on their own, blameless lives. But to send Sam to live next door… they must have known what would happen.

‘Did you order your son to kill Burden?’

Gabriela untucked her feet and stretched. ‘I think he is too young. But James say, “He cannot be apprentice all his life”, and I understand. It is a mother’s wish to keep her children always young, and safe. But Sam is fourteen. He is not a boy.’

So it was as I had feared. Sam had been sent to live at the Cocked Pistol in order to murder Joseph Burden. James Fleet had never wanted a gentleman for a son – he’d wanted a killer. It was, after all, a family business.

We both fell silent. Downstairs, Fleet’s men were still caught in a rowdy game of cards. Someone was playing a tune on a penny whistle, shrill and jaunty. My head was throbbing from the wine, and the heat of the fire. I should leave. Fleet would return home soon. If he knew that I suspected Sam, I was sure he would kill me. I had begun to wonder about Gabriela, too. Had she kept me here all this time, waiting for her husband to arrive?

‘You wonder how to leave,’ Gabriela said, toying with the gold brooch at her chest. ‘You are afraid.’

‘Foolish not to be.’

‘Foolish.’ A half-smile. ‘You are clever in your own world. A gentleman’s world. But here… Ahh, sir. How I wish you had not come here. I wished it from the first moment you walked into this room. I am thinking, thinking…’ She tapped her forehead. ‘How to save you. I should like to save you, Mr Hawkins. A shame for you to die.’

I shifted slowly in my seat, thinking of the dagger tucked in my coat. I could reach for it in a heartbeat. And, what? Stab her? Could I really do such a thing?

‘I must protect Sam,’ she said. ‘And you are fond of him too, I think.’

‘Yes.’

Her smile deepened. ‘You are a good man.’

‘Sometimes.’And what splendid rewards it brought me. ‘You shouldn’t have sent him to me. I thought I was helping him. I knew he was the thief, that night. In my heart I knew it. I should have stopped him.’

‘You cannot stop a tiger, Mr Hawkins.’

I stared at her, speechless. Is that how she saw her son? As a tiger? He was not a predator, for God’s sake. He was a boy. And between her pride and my neglect, we had lost him.

‘I have a suggestion, Mr Hawkins. Kitty tells me this morning about Alice. About her dress. Covered in blood…’ She raised an eyebrow.

I nodded, struggling to keep an even expression. I understood her meaning. If I was willing to accuse Alice of Burden’s death and use the dress as evidence, I would be free to leave. Otherwise – I would not escape St Giles with my life. I pretended to consider the proposition. Rubbed my face wearily. ‘Yes. Very well.’

I rose to my feet, turning to the window. It was still dark, but the roofs were covered in snow that glowed in the moonlight. Gabriela rose too. She was very beautiful in this strange half-light. I had been watching her for so long that I hardly noticed the scar any more, though it cut so deep through her brow, and down to her jaw. She leaned closer, and for a strange, fluttering moment I thought she meant to kiss me. But no, no – I caught the tightening around her eyes. The sudden set to her mouth. I leaped back just as she sprang forward, pulling the brooch from her chest. Not a brooch but the hidden top of a dagger, slid between her breasts.

I was a good man. And she had not believed me.

She swiped again with the blade, and I threw myself back, stumbling towards the balcony. The dagger sliced along my arm. I felt a sharp sting and then warmth as the blood began to flow. She was shouting now too, calling for aid.

I barrelled through the door out onto the balcony, groping desperately for the ladder. And now the household was in uproar – I could hear cries from below as Fleet’s men responded. The first footsteps upon the stairs. A moment later Eva ran into the room.

‘Ma!’ she gasped, her face white. ‘Ma, no!’

Gabriela spun around, distracted. I grabbed the ladder and flung it across the gap. It hit the roof opposite with a dull thud, knocking away a patch of fresh snow. I had to clamber up – it was the only way across to safety. But all Gabriela had to do was snatch the ladder from this side and I would fall. I hesitated, clutching my wounded arm. And suddenly Eva pushed her way past her mother, throwing herself between us.

‘Eva!’ Gabriela snapped, furious.

‘Go!’ Eva hissed.

Without another thought, I clambered on to the ladder. It bowed under my weight, rocking a little with no one to hold it steady. I inched my way along, terrified that Gabriela would shove Eva aside and I would be tipped from the ladder to my death. But no, here was the rooftop ahead of me. I flung myself up on to the icy timber. The ladder scraped from the roof and crashed to the ground.

I lay on my back, the sky spinning above me as the cold air caught my breath. Snow melted through my clothes. Stand up, stand up. I rose carefully to my feet. Rooftops, stretching out far into the distance. Frosted rooftops, ice sparkling in the halflight. I put one foot out and it skated ahead of me. One careless step and I could break my neck.

On the balcony below, Gabriela was pointing up at me. One of Fleet’s men clambered down to collect the ladder, rested it against the house below me. He began to climb up to meet me.

I slid carefully to the other side of the roof. There was a balcony below. I jumped down, then dropped from there to the street, landing heavily on my hands and knees. I pulled the dagger from my coat and ran down Phoenix Street. If I could reach the Garden, the market traders would be filling the piazza. Fleet’s men would not risk attacking me in such a public fashion – it was not their way.

The streets were quiet and I must have seemed half-crazed, even for St Giles, with my dagger in hand. Who would risk attacking a man under James Fleet’s protection? And then, as I turned a corner he was there, in front of me. I ran straight into him.

We stared at each other, the one as surprised as the other. And I thought of the man behind me, only a few paces away.

Fleet recovered first. ‘Hawkins. What the devil…’

‘Gabriela. Sir, you must go to her now. She’s in danger. Run, sir, run!’

A tumble of words that made no sense. Only that I knew now his one weakness. How much he loved his wife, and the lengths to which he would go to protect her. Gabriela. Danger. It was enough. He didn’t stop to wonder why I was in St Giles. Why I was running in the opposite direction. He thought only of his wife. He ran towards her, and I fled through the streets, faster than I had ever run in my life.

As I reached the turning to Long Acre, I was almost crushed beneath the wheels of a vegetable cart. I leaped to the pavement, panting hard, my heart hammering against my chest.

‘You stupid arsehole!’ the cartman yelled over his shoulder. ‘Almost killed you!’

I waved my apologies. People were staring. My stockings were soaked and ripped from my scrabble across the rooftop, my wig and hat lost in the chase.

I didn’t care. I was safe – and I had the truth. Now I must decide how to use it.

Chapter Eighteen

^‘You must leave the city. At once.’

I leaned over the hot punch and breathed in its steam. ‘I know, Betty. I know.’

We were hidden in a quiet corner at Moll’s. I’d sat at this table many times before, nursing a sore head after another night’s debauch. But it was not liquor that made my head pound now, or my hands shake. I reached for my tobacco and built another pipe, conscious of Betty studying me hard under those thick black lashes. She knew that I had run foul of Fleet’s gang, nothing more. Anyone who knew Gabriela’s story would be in danger, and I had no wish to put Betty’s life at risk.

I drank a glass of punch in silence. After the exhilaration and relief of my escape, here was the crash back down to earth. I should go home, pack my belongings and leave within the hour. But home meant Sam. I couldn’t face him, not yet. I couldn’t bear to look into those black eyes and see the truth staring back at me.

I had never felt so angry before. My body was shaking with it. I had witnessed cruelty before – even murder. But James Fleet’s crime, and Gabriela’s… surely even God couldn’t forgive it. They had corrupted their only son beyond all hope of return. A boy of fourteen. If I reached out and told this story to the man at the next table, his head bent low over his Daily Courant, he would shrug his shoulders. Some black-hearted villain from St Giles raises his son to be a killer. What of it? What news was this? Sam had lived among thieves and murderers all his life. Why should any of this matter? Son of a whore, son of a cut-throat gang captain. If any boy had been born and raised to kill, it was Sam.

But there were other paths he could have taken, with that sharp, inquisitive mind. He could have been a lawyer or a stockbroker or a physician or an anything he damned well chose, given time. And now? Even if he escaped the rope, those paths were closed to him for ever. He had stolen into a house and stabbed a man to death. It would shape the rest of his life. How could it not?

How could a father want this for his son? Even a killer such as James Fleet – did he not dream of better for his only boy? And I wondered – did he send Sam to me with an order to kill Burden? Or had he simply placed him next door and waited for the inevitable act? Did he think that absolved him of the sin? No – Fleet would care nothing of absolution. He was a murderer many times over. He must have ordered the boy to do it.

I thought of Sam creeping around the Burdens’ home at night, knife in hand. Practising. He’d confessed in that one word, but I’d refused to hear it. He’d tiptoed into Burden’s bedroom, ready to strike… only to find Alice Dunn curled up next to her master. An unexpected complication. He couldn’t kill Burden in front of a witness – she would have woken the whole house. So he’d waited for another night, when Burden was alone – then thrown suspicion on poor Alice.

I thought back to the night of Burden’s murder. Sam had been most anxious to let Alice take the blame. If she had run, as Sam had suggested, everyone would have believed she was the killer, instead of me. Had he pressed for this out of some twinge of loyalty, or guilt for placing me in danger? Or was Alice simply a more suitable scapegoat? Gentlemen don’t hang, as a rule. But a lowly servant, with no friends and no capital…?

I could no longer trust my feelings in the matter. What did I know of Sam, truly? This was the little moon-curser who just a few months ago had led me to his father’s gang to be robbed and beaten. And still I had trusted him. I’d followed that flickering torch without question through his narrow, twisted maze – and it had brought me here.

I didn’t blame Sam. If anything, I blamed myself. All this time he had spent under my roof and I did not have the wit to see he was in trouble. Jenny had warned me there was something wrong with the boy. He had sneaked into her room while she was sleeping, for God’s sake! If I had only paid more attention. If I had listened. Instead I had landed on some fool notion that Sam and I shared some unspoken affinity. I too had suffocated beneath my father’s expectations. The difference was, my father was a country parson. Sam’s father was a murderer.

I should have helped the boy, not colluded with him. Now it was too late and Sam was set upon a path that led only to more death, including his own. How many boys from St Giles had begun this way and ended up swinging from a rope before they even reached their twenties? I could be kind to myself and say that Sam’s fate was sealed the day he was born into that family of thieves and murderers, but I knew better. I was furious with James Fleet and with Gabriela – a white-hot anger pouring like burning metal through my veins. But I saved a portion of that anger for myself. Somehow, surely, I could have prevented this.

Betty touched my wrist, fingers brushing lightly against my skin. I blinked. How long had I been staring out across the coffeehouse, lost in thought? My pipe lay upon the table, burned-out. The man at the next bench had left, and a group of lawyers’ clerks had gathered by the fire, stamping their feet to thaw out their toes.

I took a last swig of punch. It had turned cold. ‘I must return home.’

Betty’s hand tightened about my wrist. ‘Fleet will be watching the Pistol. Mr Hawkins – you must leave London now. I can send a message to Miss Sparks.’ She leaned forward, forcing me to look her in the eye. ‘Go to my lodgings now and hide there. I can bring you clothes, food, coin – everything you need within the hour. There is a coach to the coast that leaves from the George…’

I scarce heard her. Kitty. I rose from the table, struck with a sudden fear. Kitty was at home, oblivious to the danger we were in. What if Fleet had sent his men to the shop? She wouldn’t know to bar the door to them. They could be there even now as I sat witlessly over a bowl of punch.

Betty gazed up at me as I stood, her lips pursed. ‘No one ever listens…’

‘One half-hour, that is all. I must fetch Kitty.’ I smiled. ‘Thank you, Betty.’ And on a whim I leaned down and kissed the disapproval from her lips.

She let me, just for a moment, then pushed me away. ‘Fool,’ she muttered.

The bells of Covent Garden were striking seven as I left Moll’s. Light had begun to build in the sky. The market on the piazza was still busy, the scent of ripe fruit and warm barley mingling with the pungent but not unpleasant smell of livestock. A knife sharpener had placed his cart beneath the sundial in the middle of the square. I winced as I passed, the high shriek of metal scraping along stone almost unbearable on the ear.

So – it was resolved. Farewell to London and the life I’d built here. My flight would convince the whole world of my guilt, but I would live and keep Kitty safe. The career of a gang captain was a short one. I had never seen a man hang at Tyburn older than forty.

Perhaps when James Fleet was dead, we might return and resolve matters. The taverns were full of villains who’d been transported and stolen home again to live in secret.

As I hurried through the square, I began to sense a crowd gathering at my back. More choice gossip for the scandalmongers of the Garden. I searched the crowds and rooftops for Fleet’s men but found only sullen glares from old neighbours who had once smiled and nodded in friendship. Was there something more sinister about their behaviour today? There was a boldness in their stares that unnerved me. I sensed a brewing anger, as if they had decided, en masse, that they had reached the end of their patience. A ripple of fear ran through me as I crossed briskly on to Russell Street. Anger of this kind could turn a crowd into a mob very fast – and a London mob showed no mercy.

The knife sharpener’s wheel turned again, grinding the steel.

I reached Mr Felblade’s shop. The apothecary stood on his step, pounding something into powder with a pestle and mortar. He grinned, lips stretched over his assortment of rotten teeth and wooden plugs. ‘Disciples, Mr Hawkins?’

I glanced back over my shoulder. A dozen or so men were indeed following me at a short distance, clumping through the grey slush of melting snow. They were led by Joshua Purchase, who ran the gaming shop on the other side of the Pistol. I cursed them all under my breath. How was I supposed to escape the town in secret now?

I turned and confronted them, feigning nonchalance. ‘May I help you, sirs?’ I asked in an imperious tone. It held them back for a heartbeat, men so used to deferring to their betters… but my clothes were in tatters, my wig and hat lost in my desperate flight from St Giles. How thin a line between a gentleman and a low rogue. Clothes and confidence. I drew myself as tall as I could manage. ‘Well?’

They glanced at one another, then nudged Purchase. He had always struck me as a sneaking, cowardly fellow, but he seemed to have drawn courage from his elevation to mob leader. He pointed a finger at my chest. ‘Murderer.’

My heart skipped. Murderer. Accused in the street for all to hear. Flung like a gauntlet at my feet. Something had changed – some invisible boundary had been crossed. What now? Did they want to take that final step into riot? Did they want to turn on me and tear me to pieces? I could see the uncertainty in their faces – to act or to back down. The wrong word, the wrong gesture and I was lost. No one would come to my aid.

Purchase leered at me. He was so close I could smell the gin on his breath. He must have been drinking all night.

I took a step back – and made a short, mocking bow. As if I were amused. Indifferent. And then I turned my back upon them all. It was a risk, and I feared that they would jump upon me and drag me down. But to show fear to the mob would only give them courage and an unspoken permission to attack. To walk away with my back straight and my head high was my only chance.

As I turned, a slight figure emerged from the shadows. Sam. He tilted his head up the street, towards the shop.

‘Trap,’ he mouthed. ‘Run.’

I hesitated. It could be true. Or this could be the trap. Perhaps James Fleet was in the Pistol with Kitty. Would he hurt her? Kitty’s father had saved Gabriela… but Fleet was a practical man. He would do whatever was necessary.

A mob at my back. A gang up ahead. The blood pounded in my ears as I walked faster towards the Pistol. Sam’s eyes widened in panic. ‘Mr Hawkins!’ He shook my arm, as if I might need waking. ‘Run!’

There was a shout up ahead, and a group of men spilled from the Cocked Pistol. I gave a sharp intake of breath. Those were not Fleet’s men. Gonson’s constables were gathered at the shop door, armed with staves. The magistrate stood in their midst in his ridiculous long wig, peering down the street. Our eyes met and he gave a start, then beamed in triumph.

‘There he is! Seize him!’

Before I could run, the mob at my back surged forward, pushing me to the ground. I bucked and fought, but it was no use; it felt as if the whole damned street were holding me down.

Gonson approached, surrounded by his men. I raised my head as best I could, sun glinting in my face. Crowder placed his boot on my face and pushed it into the mud. The dust and filth filled my mouth and nostrils and I began to choke, eyes streaming.

‘Lift him up,’ Gonson ordered. Rough hands brought me to my feet. I spat the dirt away. My ribs ached from my neighbours’ boots.

I struggled against the guards. ‘What is this? You have no right…’ Crowder cuffed me across the jaw.

Gonson had begun to address the growing crowd. The news had escaped into the streets, and people were running from the shops and taverns and coffeehouses to witness the spectacle. ‘My friends,’ Gonson cried and pointed his stick at my chest. ‘Witness this wretched villain. Guilty of every foul sin known to man. My Society has warned you of rogues such as this, polluting our great city. We good citizens have been silent for too long. We have avoided our duty for too long. And in our complacency we have allowed evil to flourish. Let this be a lesson to us all. It is our responsibility to rid these streets of such vermin.’

It was a long speech, delivered as if he were some high minister of government. No doubt he had practised it in the glass this morning. He paused as the crowd cheered its approval, his chest swollen with satisfaction. No matter that half the crowd was comprised of the vermin he was railing against. Take away the sinners and who would be left? The honourable Mr John Gonson alone, striding about the empty town, shouting valedictory speeches to himself. Perhaps that was his great dream.

He pulled out an arrest warrant and held it up to the crowd. ‘Thomas Hawkins. This morning Edward Weaver discovered a hidden passage between your attic and the home of Mr Joseph Burden. I knew Mr Burden. He was a good man. An honourable, blameless man. And you killed him.’

‘That’s a lie!’ I cried, struggling beneath the guards’ grip. ‘I’m innocent.’

Crowder struck me another blow, splitting my lip. I tasted blood, hot and metallic on my tongue. Another guard clapped my wrists in iron. People were cursing my name, shouting ‘Murderer!’ and pressing forward, snatching at my clothes. In the chaos, they began to fight with the guards to reach me. Gonson was shoved in the back, his hat and wig slipping askew. ‘Good people!’ he cried, struggling to be heard over the din. Someone kicked him in the shin as they clambered past, and he fell to the pavement, sprawling in the freezing mud. Two of the guards ran to his aid.

‘Move,’ Crowder hissed in my ear, shoving me forward with his club. We stumbled along together with a great press of bodies at our backs, Gonson scurrying to the head of the procession with his guards forming a tight band around us. As we reached the Pistol, Kitty flung herself out of the door.

‘Tom!’ she cried. Then she was bundled back inside. The door slammed and I was dragged away, unable to save her, unable to save myself.

The mob followed us all the way down the Strand and along Fleet Street. The noise was unbearable and terrifying, drowning out the usual cries of the street. People stopped in their business to stare, a few joining the ragged procession as if it were a day at the fair. Gonson had deliberately chosen the most public of streets to ensure my humiliation and disgrace. The whole town would learn the news within hours. Thomas Hawkins – murderer. Dragged in chains through the city with the mob at his back. What jury would believe in my innocence now?

This was Gonson’s revenge, I was sure of it. He had been forced to give up his enquiries against me and I had mocked him for it. Now he was vindicated. He was positively radiating with righteous triumph as we reached Old Bailey.

And so we arrived at Newgate. I had entered prison in chains before, but that had been alone save for one bailiff, in a quiet back alley in Southwark. Newgate was a grand palace of villainy and shame, and I was led there with half the town baying at my back. I knew the gatehouse to the prison well – I had passed it many times. But oh – the sight of it now, with its twin turrets and iron portcullis! My arrest had felt like some terrible dream. Now I was awake.

I half stumbled and the crowd jeered. ‘Look!’ someone cried out. ‘The Lord tripped his feet to show His wrath.’

Oh, indeed? Is that how God spends His days? Tripping up sinners with His celestial boot? Madness – but Gonson nodded his approval. I had thought better of him. For all his pride and rigid manners, I did not think him a vain man, to play to the crowds.

The main gate to the prison was closed behind the portcullis. Crowder banged on a postern door in one of the turrets and it creaked open an inch. A turnkey peered out at the mob, worried. ‘Bring him inside. Quickly, damn it!’

The guards pushed me towards the door. ‘I’m innocent,’ I called out to the crowds. ‘I swear it!’

The turnkey shut the postern gate on them all – guards, neighbours, gossips, and villains. My shoulders sagged with relief. They would have thrown a rope around my neck and hanged me from the nearest shop sign, given the chance. I was in prison, but I was safe. For this much at least I could thank Gonson. Everything must be done in the correct manner, with the correct paperwork. He probably wrote a release order for his cock before he pissed from it.

And here indeed were papers to complete, signatures to flourish, seals to press. And one last lecture to give. ‘Mr Hawkins,’ he murmured, tilting his head to observe me better. ‘God has punished you at last. You murdered a good man and tried to throw the blame upon his grieving children. Now you must pay for your monstrous crimes. You had best look to your soul, sir. I doubt you will live above a month.’

He walked away without another word.

The turnkey watched Gonson leave with a sour expression. ‘Prick,’ he muttered, then turned to me. ‘You’re a gent,’ he said, half statement, half question. ‘Governor says you have capital.’

I tapped the purse nestled in my coat pocket. He drew it out and tipped a stream of coins into his hand. I held out my wrists and he unlocked the chains.

‘You’ve been in the clink before,’ he guessed.

‘For debt.’

‘You’ll know how to behave then.’

I nodded. I had indeed learned a great deal of gaol etiquette from my time in the Marshalsea. Don’t punch the turnkey. Don’t accuse the governor of murder. And most of all, mind my own fucking business.

‘Governor thinks he can find room for you off the Press Yard. Best cells in the gaol if you can pay.’

‘I was expected?’

The turnkey shrugged and led me through the prison to the Condemned Hold. He locked me in, leaving me to grope my way in darkness for a time. When he returned, he pulled back the hatch on the door and offered me a cheap tallow candle, for thrice its value. I took it and did not complain. As I said – I understood gaol etiquette. Let the bastards squeeze you and say nothing.

I settled the candle on the rotten board hammered into the wall. It gave off a wretched, stuttering light that spat shadows around the cell. The tallow added to the stench of the place, the bad air laced with shit and vomit from an overflowing bucket in one corner. Flies buzzed about the rim, feasting on the filth. The reek of it hit me each time I passed by. And yet I could not stop pacing, around and around, restless in my confinement, angry at the injustice. And afraid, yes – to my very soul.

As I paced I tried to find a solution to my troubles, but my mind kept wandering back to Kitty. I was worried about her, alone with Gonson’s guards. Would they have left by now? But then what of Fleet’s men? What if they were waiting for just that opportunity to attack? I kicked the wall in impotent fury. How could I protect her when I could not even protect myself?

The candle died and the room returned to darkness. I felt my way to the small bench and waited.

At last the door opened and Mr Rewse, the governor, stood in the doorway. His twin keys of office hung from a ring attached to his sagging belt. They were huge – over a foot long and at least an inch thick – and clanged together when he moved.

He crinkled his nose. ‘Fie, it stinks in here,’ he muttered, as if this were nothing to do with him. He waved me out into the corridor and led me to his own private lodgings close by. A chink of hope opened in my heart. Had the queen used her influence again? Was I to be released?

Rewse ushered me into a snug, pleasing room with good furniture, paintings and sketches upon the wall, embroidered cushions. Evidence of a Mrs Rewse, I supposed. ‘Call for me when you’re done, sirs,’ he said, then bowed and left.

John Eliot – Kitty’s lawyer – stood with his back to the blazing fire. He smiled briefly, but his eyes were grave. Any dreams I’d had of rescue sputtered and died in that one look.

He clasped my shoulder. ‘Hawkins.’

‘Kitty-’

He squeezed my shoulder with his pudgy fingers. ‘Quite safe.’

‘Thank God. I’m innocent, sir. I swear it.’

‘Of course.’ The kindness and trust in his voice broke me in a way Crowder’s club never could. Tears sprang in my eyes. I brushed them away roughly.

We sat down by the fire and I fortified myself with a bottle of burgundy Eliot had brought for the purpose. He asked if I had discovered anything of use during my own investigation, but there was little I could offer without plunging us all into even greater danger. I could scarcely admit that Sam had murdered Joseph Burden. I feared for my life in here as it was, locked up with half of London’s villains. One or two must belong to Fleet’s gang. If I peached on Sam, or Fleet himself, I would not survive the night, and nor would Kitty.

Nor could I implicate anyone else, not with good conscience. And even if I did, who would believe me? I was the most obvious suspect.

Burden had accused me of murder. I had threatened him the night before he was killed in front of half the street. My only defence had been that the house was locked, with no way in or out. Now that Ned had found the passage, how could I possibly be innocent? Eliot did his best to strengthen my spirits, but I was not a fool. If my case came to trial, I would be convicted and I would hang.

I put my head in my hands, rubbing my scalp. In the tumult of the last few days I had not found the time to visit the barber, and my hair was growing back. I must shave it. There would be lice in this prison, rats in every corner, and fleas in the sheets too, no doubt. Oh, God. I had thought I’d left all this behind. At least I could not catch gaol fever a second time. Yes – what excellent news. There was every chance I would live long enough to be hanged from the neck.

‘I’ve spoken with Rewse,’ Eliot said. ‘He can offer you a decent room by the Press Yard. It’s part of the Keeper’s House. For the better sorts of prisoner.’ He coughed, embarrassed. ‘You will have more privileges than most. Light, good air, the yard for walking. And you will not be chained. That is good news, is it not? It will not be so very bad.’

‘How much will this cost?’

Eliot worried at his lip.

‘How much, sir?’

‘Ten shillings a week,’ he confessed. ‘But you know, sir – Kitty would spend her last farthing to secure your comfort.’

Ten shillings a week. I could rent half an inn for that. ‘How does she fare, sir? Are you sure she is safe?’

‘I’m sure she is,’ Eliot replied, puzzled. ‘Why would she not be?’

My stomach knotted. She had been spared so far, but for how long? ‘She must be protected, Eliot. You must see to it.’

‘Why, is she in danger? My God, what has happened, sir? What is it you are hiding from me?’

I must find a guard to protect Kitty – and Alice for that matter. Someone strong, and skilled with a blade. But how could I trust such a man under my roof, with Kitty? I couldn’t. And then I smiled. Not a man. But a woman…

It took me a while to persuade Eliot that hiring an Irish gladiator called Neala Maguire to guard the house was not some garbled act of lunacy, but I pressed him on it until he capitulated. ‘And you must advise Kitty to send Sam home at once. It would not be seemly for him stay now.’

‘Seemly…?’ Eliot raised an eyebrow. Behaving in a seemly fashion had never been a great priority of mine. And given that Kitty had been living – unwed – with a man now accused of murder… But he saw I was determined, and what did it matter to him if some boy from St Giles was sent home or not?

Once I had persuaded him and he had given me every possible assurance that he would comply, I felt my spirits lift a little. If we could all survive tonight, we might still find a way to resolve this.‘Mr Rewse was kind to lend us this room.’

Eliot sniffed. ‘It’s not for charity. Not yours, at least. He made a fortune out of Jack Sheppard. Paying visitors. They’d line up to peer through the grate. Rewse hopes you’ll prove equally profitable.’

‘Sheppard escaped prison four times. The whole town was obsessed with him. No one will pay to see me.’

‘Forgive me, sir, but I fear you’re mistaken. You’re a gentleman. Young. Handsome. The details of your story – the fact that you insisted on investigating the case and interrogating Mr Burden’s family. It will cause a sensation.’

My heart sank. I had seen this before. By morning there would be ballads and pamphlets and broadsheets about the murderous gentleman Thomas Hawkins. No matter if I escaped death, I would be branded for ever as an infamous monster.

‘I have a message from Kitty,’ Eliot said, more quietly. ‘Gonson has her under guard at present – he wishes to question her tonight. But she said she would bring the dress tomorrow, at first light.’ He paused. ‘She’s not planning to dress you as a woman and smuggle you out, is she? No, no – best not to say a word. It worked for Sheppard that time, I suppose…’

I sat back hard against the chair. Alice’s dress. Yes – it might still work, we might still be able to swing the suspicion upon Alice. Her bloody clothes. Her appearance through the attic door, holding the knife. Sam and Kitty would bear witness to that. Was it not more believable that Alice had turned to Burden in bed and stabbed him? Given what he had done to her night after night? With the dress and the witnesses, it would make a good case.

A dark shadow settled on my heart.

Chapter Nineteen

There was no choice to be made. I could not send an innocent girl to the gallows just to save my neck. Yet still I didn’t sleep that first night in gaol. A sly, insistent thought crawled through my mind, leaving a trail of poison. Save yourself. Whatever the cost.

It is a hard thing to hold a key in your hand and not turn the lock. It seemed to me that there were two of us in the cell that night. My true self, pacing the floor, banging my fist against the wall and cursing all the mistakes I had made. And then there was my shadow, who waited for daylight only to betray Alice and free himself. As the slow night hours passed, there were times when I was tempted to become that shadow. I would live. But as what? Not as the man who had entered this cell, that much was certain.

I was mortally afraid. I didn’t want to die at the age of six and twenty. I didn’t want my name cursed and spat upon, down through the ages. I didn’t want my father to think I was a murderer.

My father. I groaned aloud at the thought of him. Three years ago, at our last meeting, we had thrown cruel, bitter accusations at one another and I had vowed never to see him again. Then last autumn, after my release from the Marshalsea, he had astounded me with a letter filled with regret and forgiveness. It had made me wonder if the stern, unyielding man I remembered was just a phantom. I had even contemplated returning home and joining the clergy – but I had been weak from gaol fever at the time. London was my home. Kitty was my home.

And so I’d stayed, translating whores’ dialogues, drinking and gambling and growing bored with my cramped, narrow life. The same old traps into which I had fallen so many times. I’d written to my father once a week, telling him nothing of substance about my life. I would speak of the books I had read, or news from the court and the town. I would describe the streets and buildings growing up all around me, and the foreign travellers I met, passing through the city. My father would reply in a meandering scrawl I barely recognised, the effort clear in every line. That alone was enough to tell me what he never could put down upon the paper – that he loved me.

How I wished I could speak to him that long, cruel night! Not for counsel – I knew what I must do. Nor for his lectures, heaven help me – I’d heard enough of those over the years. What I yearned for was his comfort and reassurance. My father would understand and approve of my decision to save Alice, though it threatened my own life. And he would pray for me.

Kitty would neverunderstand. She would throw Alice to a pack of starving wolves if she thought it would save me. True, she did not know for certain, as I did, that Alice was innocent. But did I honestly think that would have made a difference to her? The fact that I could ask the question and not know the answer was disturbing.

Alone in my cell I faced the bare truth of the matter at last. I must renounce Kitty, for her own sake. She loved me with a ferocity that made her reckless. It was a dangerous love – one she had risked her life for. One she had killed for.

I could become the shadow crouched waiting at the door. I could walk out of Newgate tomorrow and take up my old life. And an innocent girl would hang.

It had never been a possibility. My old life was gone. It had only ever been a short dream between two prisons. I must awake from that dream and accept my fate. The shadow lifted and dissolved.

Light filtered through the barred window, brightening the room. I could hear the swish and scrape of a broom as a maid swept the floor outside my cell. Morning. Kitty would be hurrying through the streets, a dress covered in thick bloodstains rolled up in her basket. Hurrying to save me, not knowing it was my turn to save her this time – her life andher soul.

I took a deep breath and readied myself, practising the words I must say until they fell easily from my tongue. When the turnkey arrived, I was ready, straight-backed and cool, with a hollow space where my heart had been.

‘Are you turned mad?’ Kitty hissed. She grabbed the edges of my coat as if hoping to shake the sense back into me. ‘Tell him the truth, for God’s sake.’

We stood in Mr Rewse’s private room, a fire glowing in the hearth, tea and slices of pound cake upon the table as if we were visiting an old acquaintance. Kitty had unrolled Alice’s gown and thrown it, triumphant, across the desk. It lay there for the governor’s inspection, a nightmare of a thing mottled with rust-red stains. The heat of the fire had loosened the faint scent of stale blood into the air.

Rewse bowed over the dress, examining it with a mixture of revulsion and growing excitement. He scraped at a dried scab of blood, crumbling it between his fingers. He could charge visitors extra for this. ‘You say this dress belongs to your maid?’

‘Alice Dunn,’ Kitty said, releasing me. ‘We both saw her in it, the night Mr Burden was murdered. She escaped through the attic, holding the knife. Sir, this dress is proof that Mr Hawkins is innocent. You must summon Mr Gonson immediately. We will explain everything.’

She was holding on to his jacket now, pulling and twisting the material in her anguish. Stepping back out of the scene I could see her with the governor’s eyes. She looked frantic and desperate and very young. He tugged his coat free and turned to me, not sure what to make of the story. ‘Well, sir?’

I hesitated. Kitty began to shake. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Please, Tom. Don’t.’

‘Mr Rewse, I wish this were true. But I cannot implicate a blameless young girl. I have never seen this dress before.’

Rewse inhaled sharply. ‘Mistress Sparks. This was a wicked act…’

‘The guilt is mine,’ I replied. ‘Miss Sparks is a foolish jade, easily duped. The dress was my idea. I grew afraid last night and in my fear I conjured up this story. But in the light of day…’ I glanced at Kitty. ‘I find I cannot throw the blame on to an innocent soul.’

Kitty stared at me, bewildered. ‘Why do you say these lies? They will hang you, Tom. Please. Please. I cannot bear it.’

‘You see, sir,’ I said, forcing myself to ignore her. ‘A pretty, empty-headed bauble. I fear she would do anything to protect me. Indeed I’m sure she would confess to the murder herself if she thought she might save me.’

‘I suppose…’ I could see him pondering his choices. Creating false evidence was a serious matter, but I had owned to it. He did not seem inclined to punish Kitty as well.

I drew him to one side. ‘She believes herself in love, poor wretch. Makes fools of us all, does it not?’

His eyes softened. He gave a rueful nod.

I lowered my voice further. ‘I would be most grateful if you could dismiss the entire matter.’

He sucked his bottom lip, hiding a smile. He had not missed the implicit bribe. Gratitude meant one thing in prison. Payment.

We shook hands – two men of reason who understood the frantic foolishness of young, heartsick girls. It was how Rewse saw the world, and I played upon it. One more lie and then I was done.

Kitty’s face was very pale. She knew what I was about – she would have done the same for me if she could. ‘I am not a fool. I am not empty-headed. I am telling the truth. I have another witness-’

‘-Enough,’ I snapped. ‘Enough, Kitty. Go home. And do not come here again.’ I glanced at Rewse. ‘I would be most obliged if you could escort Miss Sparks from the prison. I do not wish to see her again.’

I left the room without another word. Kitty gave a low, hollow moan of grief that echoed off the prison walls. Then silence. I asked the turnkey waiting outside to return me to my cell.

As we walked deeper into the prison, the walls began to press in upon me. I stopped and reached out a hand to steady myself, the stone cool and damp beneath my fingers. I had just destroyed my best – perhaps only – chance of release, but I knew I had made the right decision. If I had confirmed Kitty’s story, Alice would have been found guilty. She would hang for it, without question. And then I really would be guilty of murder.

There was a cost, of course there was. That is the secret the priests and bishops never preach from the pulpit. They speak of the cost of sin with great relish, but they never admit there is a cost for virtue, just as painful to bear. I had lost my freedom and I had lost my love. I might even lose my life. And what had I gained in return? The right to look myself in the eye and say, ‘I am Thomas Hawkins. I remain myself.’

Only two people could help me now. Queen Caroline was my best hope. She could not prevent the trial from going ahead but she might persuade her husband to grant a king’s pardon – if she were so minded. I would not walk free – not from a sentence of death – but it could be commuted to seven years’ transportation.

And then there was James Fleet. Dangerous, but not without power and influence. Would he come to my aid after all that had happened? Perhaps – if it were in his interest.

We had reached my cell. I leaned closer to the turnkey and murmured in his ear. ‘I must send a message, in secret.’

The turnkey smiled.

How much simpler prison was, with money in one’s pocket.

Fleet did not come at once. Let me stew for three days, the bastard. In the meantime, Mr Eliot helped me prepare for my trial. He was brusque with me now, conducting our business with a cold civility that wounded me, though I didn’t show it. As I had been charged with murder, I must present my own defence at trial. Eliot could support me solely upon specific points of law. He brought me books and papers as I requested, but added no words of comfort or sympathy. I was the rogue who had broken Kitty’s heart – ignored her visits and left her letters unread. He tried only once to speak of her, and I reacted angrily, ordering him from the cell. He never mentioned her again. After that I would sometimes catch him looking at me from the corner of his eyes, wondering and full of doubt. But I could not risk telling him the truth.

He did at least – unknowingly – perform one valuable service. Amidst a pile of letters to be delivered I tucked a short message to Mr Budge, offering my unwavering service to his mistress and begging for her aid. The next day came a response, of sorts. All in hand. Be patient. Eliot handed the note to me with the rest of my correspondence, not realising he was acting as messenger to the Queen of England.

It was a Sabbath when James Fleet visited me at last, and I had just returned from chapel. Half a dozen prisoners were condemned to hang on the morrow. They had sat together on a black bench in the middle of the room. The prison Ordinary, the Reverend James Guthrie, gave a tedious, hectoring speech. A few of the condemned wept, and one pissed himself – through fear or drunkenness I couldn’t tell. The yellow stream trickled slowly across the flagstones as those nearest lifted their feet out of the way. I decided not to return to chapel.

James Fleet was waiting for me in my cell, smoking a pipe. He stood up as I entered, and we shook hands, warily. He sat back down on the bed while I leaned against the wall. It was a frosty morning and the chill of the wall against my back helped keep my senses sharp. I had slept poorly, these past days.

‘I know Sam killed Burden.’

Fleet breathed out a long stream of smoke. Shrugged.

‘You ordered him to do it.’

‘He botched it. Should’ve used a pillow. Stifled the bastard. Coroner would have said he died in his sleep. But nine stab wounds…’ He shook his head. ‘No disguising that. He botched it.’

My hands curled into fists. Burden had held Gabriela down while she was cut and tortured. Sam had grown up with the scars of that night – the one on his mother’s face and the ones she buried deep inside her. He’d heard her screaming in terror when she dreamed herself back in that room, night after night. And Fleet had used the hatred this had instilled in his son as a weapon. What did he expect, sending Sam to live next door to Burden? Sam had killed the bad man – just not in the way Fleet had intended.

‘I misjudged him,’ Fleet said. ‘But the boy had to start his trade somehow.’

I said nothing. I was struggling to breathe, I was so angry.

Fleet waited. He saw my bunched fists, he knew I despised him. He was not the sort of man to apologise or explain himself. He was not interested in arguing the morality of his actions with me. He had chosen to live his life this way a long time ago and I would not jolt him from it now. And of the two of us, who was faring better? Once this meeting was concluded, which of us would walk through the prison gate a free man?

‘I’ve told no one,’ I said at last.

‘That’s why you’re still alive, Hawkins.’

I ignored him. ‘I will remain silent on one condition.’

‘Kitty,’ he guessed.

‘She knows nothing about Sam, or Gabriela. What happened at Aunt Doxie’s.’

He flinched and looked away for a moment. Still angry after all these years.

‘I will say nothing – to my lawyer, to the jury.’ I pushed myself from the wall and crossed to the bed, forcing myself to sit down next to him as if we were easy companions. ‘You know I would do anything to protect her, just as you protect Gabriela and your family. So let us be plain. As long as Kitty remains untouched, you have my silence.’

Fleet pulled the pipe from his lips and gazed at the tip of the stem. ‘Could just kill you.’

‘That is true.’ I had prepared for this. I’d been waiting three days for him to visit me and had used my time wisely, considering every possible reaction.

‘I have a man in here. One word and you’d find a knife between your ribs.’

‘You could arrange that,’ I agreed. ‘But it would seem suspicious. The coroner would investigate.’

‘Coroners can be bribed. And my man would die before giving up my name.’

‘He would hang for it, though. You’d like to avoid that, I think?’

He took a final draw of his pipe, the tobacco crackling in the bowl. The smoke curled above his head. ‘I have no wish to harm you, Hawkins. You’re useful to me. I only kill for profit or protection.’

And for revenge.

He tapped my arm. ‘Convince me.’

And so I made my case to a jury of one. I told him that I had broken all ties with Kitty – had not spoken or written to her since she’d visited with Alice’s dress. She knew nothing – he could be sure of it. If she had even suspected Sam she would have told the world by now. Fleet accepted the truth of this. Kitty was not one to stay quiet, even if her life were at risk.

‘I have sent a message to the queen. I have every hope she will arrange my pardon. When it comes, most likely I will be sent away on some service. Or transported, I suppose.’

‘Hmm.’ Fleet tilted his head from side to side, weighing these possibilities. ‘Or you will hang.’

I shifted uneasily. I’d heard no more from Budge or his mistress – but the note had counselled patience. ‘If I’m hanged then you will have no need to harm Kitty. You are fond of her, I think. Gabriela says you knew her as a baby.’

‘Enough,’ Fleet said, holding up a hand. ‘Enough. Let me think.’ He stared at the ground for a long, agonising pause. Then, with a sudden decisiveness, he tucked away his pipe and held out his hand. I shook it. He rose slowly, hands on his knees. He was getting old for a gang captain. He wouldn’t last much longer, surely. That would be my mission in life, should the pardon come – to outlive James Fleet.

He banged on the door to attract the guards’ attention. They were playing cards at the far end of the ward and it took a while to rouse them. Fleet, unconcerned, waited with his hands tucked in his pockets. ‘You’re treated well?’

‘Tolerably.’

‘Need anything?’

Not from you. Kitty was still paying Eliot’s fees and – I presumed – all the other debts I was accruing in here. I doubted my bill came to more than a couple of guineas. I had lost my appetite in the last few days.

‘Should have let the maid swing for it.’

‘She’s innocent.’

‘So are you. Can’t afford honour in this world, Hawkins. It’ll kill you faster than the plague.’

Chapter Twenty

After that the days dragged on inexorably to trial. Gonson helped prepare the case against me and found a long line of outraged citizens to speak against my character. Most of them paid subscription to the Society for the Reformation of Manners.

There was no clear proof that I had murdered Burden. There were no witnesses to the murder. But I had threatened to kill him in front of a dozen neighbours, many of whom were willing to testify against me. Meanwhile, who could I ask to defend my honour? My father was too weak to travel, and my sister must stay with him. They both sent letters to the court, devastated and sorrowful and speaking of my kind and gentle nature. But what else could be said of me? I was a rake and a gambler, thrown out of the Church because of my scandalous behaviour. Most of my respectable friends had abandoned me years ago, and my new ones had vanished the second Gonson slapped the iron cuffs about my wrists.

I had two old friends I might have called on, given more time. One was in Scotland, entangled in business he couldn’t leave. He wrote a letter in my defence – at the risk of his own reputation. The other – a friend from Oxford – was travelling on the continent. By the time the news reached him, my troubles would already be over, one way or the other.

And then there was my oldest friend, Charles – but we had not spoken since my time in the Marshalsea. Charles. I could not think of him. There was only misery and pain there – a black cloth thrown across our friendship for ever.

Kitty of course remained true, but I could not call upon her.

I was alone – and it did not suit me. I am a man who likes company, the noisier the better. Sitting alone in my cell day after day weakened my spirit and gnawed the hope from my bones. Yet I found I could not bring myself to speak with the other prisoners nor even venture into the press yard save to stretch my limbs. Buried in my narrow cell, I had become almost numb to my surroundings, as if hibernating from all my troubles. I had also lost my appetite, to the point that Mr Rewse grew concerned and sent a message to Eliot to pay me a visit. He looked tired – perhaps the new baby was keeping him awake. Dorothy had given birth the day after my arrest. More likely it was the strain of defending London’s most notorious villain.

‘Are you sick, sir?’ he asked, drawing a chair to my bed. He did not show any signs of pity.

I lay listlessly upon the mattress, hand flung across my brow. How could I explain that I was grieving for Kitty, when I had pushed her so violently from my life? I knew she came to the gaol every day only to be sent away. She wrote to me each day too – bribing the turnkey to smuggle the letters straight into my hand. Each day I threw them into the fire without reading a word. ‘Tell her this,’ I told the guard as the flames licked the pages. ‘Tell her she wastes her time and her money.’ She had taken to writing messages upon the envelope, large capitals underlined. READ THIS, DAMN YOU! and TOM – YOU MUST LET ME HELP, YOU STUBBORN BASTARD. I loved her for it with all my heart. And tossed her words to the flames again.

‘The town has turned against you,’ Eliot said. He handed me a broadsheet he’d found pinned to the wall at Moll’s. It described Burden’s death in horrific detail – the nine stab wounds, the knife plunged into his heart, right to the hilt. Judith’s desolate cries of ‘murder’ echoing in the night air, ‘sending a chill to the soul of all Christianlike men who heard them’. There were sketches too. One showed my arrest, bare-headed and fighting the guards. Another showed the murder itself. The artist had drawn Burden in his bed, fast asleep. I stood over him, blade held high, about to strike. I looked demonic, lips pulled back in a horrible grin.

I crumpled the paper in my fist and collapsed back upon the bed.

Eliot leaned closer. ‘Do you not see the danger you are in, Hawkins? For God’s sake, man – what ails you? Why do you not defend yourself?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Are you guilty?’

I roused myself enough to glare at him. ‘No.’

He snuffed in irritation. ‘No. Always no and nothing more. It is not enough, sir! Do you wish to hang?’

I covered my face in my hands. And despite my best efforts, I began to weep.

When I was recovered I rubbed my face and sat up. Eliot had not tried to comfort me, or offered any words of kindness, but his expression had softened a little. He picked up the crumpled broadsheet and smoothed it across his knee. ‘We must counter this. Give me something to tell the town. Let them hear your defence.’ He hesitated, cleared his throat. ‘Mr Defoe has offered to visit you and write of your story…’

Daniel Defoe. Well, he had written Jack Sheppard’s story – and made a tidy profit from it too.

‘He is inclined to believe in your innocence,’ Eliot said. ‘The prosecution’s case is weak. You are being tried by the town, Hawkins. Defoe could turn them about. Remember how the mob protected him when he was in the pillory? He wishes to speak with you and with Kitty-’

‘No.’ I sprang to my feet. If Fleet suspected that I’d engaged Daniel Defoe to tell the real story of Burden’s murder, Kitty’s life would be forfeit and so would mine. ‘I forbid it,’ I said fiercely. ‘Do you understand, Eliot? Do not speak further with Mr Defoe, nor to anyone else.’

Eliot rose from the chair, baffled and frustrated. ‘What ails you, sir? Kitty is convinced of your innocence, and yet you act as if you are guilty.’ He sighed, puffing out his fat cheeks. ‘I have practised law for over thirty years. I know when a man is hiding something. I am your lawyer, sir. I am bound to keep your secrets safe. You must trust me. You must tell me everything – or else I cannot help you.’

It was tempting. My God, how I longed to unburden myself at last. Holding in the truth was making me ill. My dreams were nightmares and my waking hours were worse. But I couldn’t risk it. What if he told Kitty? What if he even hinted at the truth?

‘There is nothing to tell. I am innocent. That is all.’

Eliot’s shoulders sagged. ‘I will visit again in the morning-’

‘-No. No more visits, sir. I thank you, but we have no more to discuss.’

‘Mr Hawkins! Your trial is set for the day after tomorrow…’

‘I am quite aware of the date, sir.’

Eliot frowned. ‘I think you are determined to hang,’ he said, defeated. ‘Well. Eat some supper, at least. And call for a barber, for God’s sake. The jury expects to see a young gentleman on Thursday, not Robinson Crusoe.’

He left, no doubt cursing me under his breath. And who was I to Eliot, after all? Kitty’s idle, drunken beau, a feckless rake who would squander her fortune if he could only get his hands upon it. He didn’t know the iron core that ran through me. Obstinate. Wilful. My father’s favoured words for me as a child. I could waft happily through life when it suited me, but when I had set my mind upon something I could not yield – ever.

Still, Eliot’s visit had not been without value. I could not risk selling my story to Mr Defoe, but if I might concoct a way to write it myself in secret, with close instructions for its safekeeping… The thick, dank fog of melancholy that had surrounded me ever since I had arrived at Newgate dissolved a little. My future was no longer mine to shape – it rested in the hands of twelve men and one woman. But the past still belonged to me.

And so the day came for my trial – Thursday 26th February. I took Eliot’s advice and called at dawn for the prison barber. He grumbled when he saw the thick black stubble that covered my scalp and face – I had not been shaved since my arrest. It took him a half-hour and three passes with the blade before he was done, and he charged double the usual fee for his trouble. Once he had left I dressed in my sober black waistcoat and breeches. I had no mirror and could only guess at my appearance. Judging from the way the clothes hung from my frame, I supposed I must be an alarming sight, gaunt and haggard. My eyes felt raw from lack of sleep. Well, there was nothing to be done – and indeed it would appear odd if I bounded bright-eyed into court.

My hands began to tremble as I wound my cravat and so I paused and sat down upon the bed. I had never felt so alone as in this hour. All my life I had sought the company of others, happy in a large, boisterous crowd. Now there was only silence and a cold cell. My friends were gone or unable to help. My family were many miles away. My sister had written several letters and I had wept over them all, knowing that she if no one else would always believe in my innocence. But how I’d shamed her! How would she ever find a husband now, with such an infamous brother? My dear sister Jane – always so good to me. And here was her reward. I closed my eyes and imagined myself home, walking the old coastal path, the sea sparkling beneath an endless sky. A taste of salt and clean air on my tongue.

Someone began to play the fiddle in a neighbouring cell and voices filled the air, new words set to an old ballad.

Tom Hawkins was a parson’s son

With evil in his heart

A deed most wicked he has done

And so he’ll ride the cart.

He stabbed Jo Burden with his blade

The blood is on his hands

A noose old Hooper he has made

The gentleman will hang.

The key rattled in the lock and Mr Rewse stepped into the cell, a set of iron chains slung over his shoulder. He had let me live unfettered these past weeks, but now I must be chained again for all the world to see. I rose and let him fix the manacles to my wrists. This is a play, I told myself. Act the part you have been given and you will be spared. They led me through the ward, my fellow prisoners shouting and joking to one another as I passed. I had not tried to win friends in Newgate, keeping to my cell as much as possible. I had not repented, nor had I fallen in with the lower sorts who drank and whored their way to the gallows. Worst of all, I had continued to protest my innocence, which infuriated the good and the wicked alike. So there was no fellow-feeling as I walked through the gaol. They sang my ballad again to send me on my way, while the turnkeys chuckled to themselves.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that Budge was still endeavouring to secure my release. He had written again, briefly, to say that his mistress would prefer the matter to be resolved at trial and hoped that I would be set free without her aid. I wished that too, in the way one might wish one could fly or pluck gold coins from the air. Wishing would not make it so.

We took a passage beneath the street, connecting the prison to the Old Bailey. My chains clinked as we walked, the sound echoing through the tunnel. Eliot stood waiting for us at the other end.

‘You look ill, sir.’

‘You would have me skipping like a spring lamb, I suppose?’

‘The King’s Council has called Kitty to testify.’

I stared at him in horror. He seemed to draw some comfort from my reaction – proof that I was at least decent enough to care for Kitty’s reputation. ‘She wishes to speak in your defence. You may call her as a witness.’

I shook my head. God knows what she would be prepared to say in order to save me. Eliot sighed, as if he had expected my response. He seemed so dejected that on impulse I clasped his hands. ‘Thank you, sir, for all you have done.’

He gave an exasperated laugh, as if to say – you have let me do nothing.

‘You are a good man, Mr Eliot. And an excellent lawyer.’

‘Aye…’ He glanced towards the courtroom, where the judge and jury waited. ‘But what sort of a man are you, Hawkins? I fear I cannot tell.’

And so we entered the court and the world knows what happened next. I will not write of it here. To place myself in that room again, the sweat pouring down my back, mouth dry, barely able to breathe with fear… and all about me the rows of spectators, half of them old acquaintances, all craning to get the best view as if this were the theatre and not my life. James Fleet was there, tucked quietly in the shadows, to be sure I behaved.

And on the front row, Charles Howard, face set throughout in grim, glowering concentration. When at last it was over and the verdict came down, he rose and picked up his hat, pushing past his neighbours to reach the aisle. I passed not two feet from him as the guards led me in chains back to prison. He smiled, teeth bared, but it was his eyes that I remembered, alone in my cell. Those terrible eyes, gleaming in cold triumph.