I slung my sword low upon my hip, hoping I would not need to draw it tonight. The impossibility of the evening’s task pressed hard upon my aching shoulders. How the devil was I supposed to befriend the man I’d bludgeoned unconscious only a week before? Oh, I say – good evening, sir. Do you recall our meeting upon St James’s Park where I beat out your brains with your own pistol? How delightful to make your acquaintance again. Now, would you be obliging and reveal some scandalous details of your life that I might sell to the Queen of England?
Perhaps Kitty might coax something useful out of the brute. She knew how to tease out secrets, how to listen in the shadows. Men underestimated Kitty, and she played upon it. Women too, for that matter. Which made me wonder… ‘Kitty – how did you come by all this gossip about Judith and Alice?’
Kitty skimmed away, pulled out a gingham shawl. ‘Alice told me.’
‘Alice has run away. Judith threw her out.’
‘I know. She’s upstairs. I’ve hired her to replace Jenny.’ She drew the shawl over her shoulders. Caught my horrified expression. ‘We do need a maid, Tom. Unless you would like to scrub the floors and wash the dishes and darn your stockings and-’
‘-I do not question the need for a servant, Kitty. I just question the need to hire the one who crawled into our house last night covered in blood and waving a knife.’
‘Which I was able to use in negotiations. She’ll cost a shilling less than Jenny each month.’
‘That will be a great comfort when we are murdered in our bed.’
‘We must keep her hidden for now. Alice is afraid that Judith will accuse her now that you have been set free.’
‘She already has. There is still a chance Alice is guilty,’ I whispered, glancing anxiously at the ceiling.
‘No. It was Judith. I am decided, Tom.’
Sam was downstairs, dismantling the old, broken printing press that lay gathering dust at the back of the shop. He liked mechanical objects – he enjoyed pulling them apart and putting them back together. I’d known boys like him at school – boys who wanted to peel back the skin of the world and see how it all worked. There was no mystery that could not be solved by close and careful study, preferably beneath a microscope.
I told Sam to hire a couple of street boys to watch the Burdens’ house in case anyone tried to smuggle out a set of bloody clothes. Then I wrote a brief note to Gonson asking him to send one of his guards over tomorrow to help me search the house for evidence. My God he would hate that – but for all his faults, Gonson was a dutiful magistrate. He would do as he was bid – albeit through gritted teeth. ‘Deliver this to his home, Sam,’ I said, and gave him a couple of shillings. ‘And treat yourself to a good supper and a bowl of punch when you’re done.’
He pocketed the coins. He would probably buy a cheap bowl of stew at some fleapit, and save the rest. After all, what was a body but another machine? Food was fuel, and nothing more.
I took Kitty’s hand and we set off for Southwark. She wore her grey riding cloak with the hood lowered. She smiled up at me as we walked, a little shyly. No longer a maid. I squeezed her hand and grinned back. I’m yours.
If I close my eyes now I can see us strolling through the town towards the Thames, feet slipping on the damp cobbles, talking about what we would do once our troubles were over. Our lives stretching ahead of us, so many paths to take.
And then I open my eyes and all I see is the thick grey wall of my cell. I am in the condemned hold at Newgate, sentenced to hang. And Kitty is gone for ever.
Part Three
As they ride west down the Tyburn Road, the handsome new houses of Marylebone make way for rolling fields, dull brown and muddy. Black crows strut over the ridged ground, wings clasped behind their backs. Beneath the hedgerows, hard banks of snow thaw slowly in the pale spring sunshine. It has been a cruel winter. The air is fresher here, the sky more open. It makes him think of the Suffolk coast where he grew up. I will never go there again. I will never see my father or my sister again. I will never… I will never…
‘Oh, God!’ he breathes. Only his guards hear him. They watch and listen closely, memorising every detail. People will pay good money to hear of Thomas Hawkins’ last moments.
And now, there is no road left. He can hear the roar of the crowds gathered up ahead. Tens of thousands have congregated on Tyburn Hill to see the spectacle, stretching far out into the fields beyond. Scores more have come to pick their pockets. Best place to thieve a watch, a hanging.
The constables fight a path through the throng, beat the surging crowds back with clubs. People are climbing trees, hanging from ladders, balancing on the tops of roofs and walls and carriages. A father lifts his little boy on to his shoulders. The rich and fashionable folk sit in raised galleries next to the gallows, wrapped in greatcoats and scarves, chattering idly over the latest court gossip. Hawkers weave through them all, selling fruit and bowls of warm buttered barley. He can smell hot wine and sweet nutmeg in the air. His stomach rumbles. He has eaten poorly since the trial, his fine clothes hanging loose from his shoulders. And now, of all times, his appetite has returned – his body in protest, shouting its desire to live.
The carts turn in a wide circuit to the left, and he sees the gallows at last. Tyburn’s triple tree. Three solid posts knocked deep into the earth, topped with three cross beams to form a triangle. Big enough to hang a dozen men. The hangman, John Hooper, lies along one of the cross beams, a pipe clamped between his lips, fixing the ropes with strong, deft fingers. As the carts approach, he flips one over. It tumbles down, swinging lightly.
If the pardon comes, it must be now.
The guards prod him to his feet. The Marshal is leaning down in his saddle, talking with his constables. He glances at the four carts, then gives a sharp nod and rides up to the gallows. ‘Friends,’ he bellows over the din. On his third try, the crowd quietens a little. ‘Good Christians.’ Someone shouts something from the back and a whole patch of spectators laugh.
Hawkins’ heart is pounding so hard he can barely breathe.
The Marshal waits for silence. He slips his fingers into his saddlebag. Tugs out a scroll of paper, sealed with bright red wax. A royal pardon.
Chapter Thirteen
I am told that evenings at the Whitehall cockpit are a genteel affair, where peers lose their fortunes with quiet dignity and ladies are barred entrance for fear of fainting. Southwark cockpits, by contrast, are a grand tour of hell. Howard, true to his nature, had chosen the very worst.
The pit was hidden in a maze of back alleys off Deadman’s Place – a series of twists and turns I have no care to remember now. Kitty knew it well from her time working in the Marshalsea, and kept her cape and gown bunched high above the filth as she led the way. I walked a step behind with my hand upon the hilt of my sword, watching the shadows. We were too close to the gaol for my liking – I had earned myself a mean set of enemies in that damned hole, and a cockfight was precisely the place to find them again. I had conceived a bitter hatred of Southwark since my stay in prison, and this was the first time I had returned to the Borough in months.
Another twist, and we arrived at the mouth of an alley blacker than a parson’s coat, rats scuttling and squealing in the darkness. A torch flickered at the dead end, beckoning us forward. A tavern without a name, hidden for a reason. I thought I glimpsed a movement up ahead, and touched Kitty’s shoulder, but there was nothing there. I had come to expect danger from every shadow in this city. As we paused, I heard footsteps behind us and a short, tough-looking rogue hurried past without a glance, hood covering his face, long cloak flapping at his heels as he ran. Not Howard, but a similar build – strong and solid – and fearless in a place bristling with danger.