The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [10]

Шрифт
Интервал

When Sam had first come to stay with us there had been a trace of the St Giles perfume trapped in his clothes, his hair, his skin. We had given him fresh clothes, clean linen, and several trips to a nearby bagnio where his skin was scrubbed and scraped and rubbed in sweet-smelling oil. I’d suggested that he might wish to shave off his curls as well, to discourage lice and other pests. Disdainful silence. Now he was back in his favourite ‘old duds’ – a battered hat tipped low over his face, a torn and shabby coat, thin breeches. His father could have paid the best tailor in town to stitch a new set of clothes for his only boy, but that would have drawn unwanted attention. Where did he get the chink for such rum togs, eh? No one in James Fleet’s gang wore fine clothes. Clean and modest – that was the order. That’s how I’d known the boy with the note was one of his.

Hawkins. I have something for you. Come at once. My stomach tightened.

A few nights before I had made a grave, foolish mistake. By chance I had met with Sam’s father near St James’s Park. It was not his usual haunt and he had looked somehow diminished, wandering through such a respectable part of town. Indeed he had seemed so lost that on a whim I had invited him to join me at the gaming tables near Charing Cross.

I did not think to wonder what he was doing in St James’s. A man such as Fleet is not stumbled upon by chance. I am sure now that he had been waiting for me, but I did not even consider the idea at the time.

He had caught me at a ripe moment and he knew it, the cunning bastard. The Marshalsea had cast a long shadow on my soul. I had almost died, and it had changed me – I could see it when I studied myself in the mirror. I did not trust any more to: ‘and all will be well’. I was no longer the careless boy I had once been. But what was I then, in truth? Not a clergyman, despite my father’s wishes. So then… what? What was my purpose? I couldn’t say. And a man without a purpose is easy to trap.

I took James Fleet to the gaming house as if I were leading a pet lion upon a leash. Look! See what I have brought with me! I gambled away all the money in my purse and I drank until the floor pitched like a boat beneath my feet. All the vows I had made when I left prison fled before that cheap, seductive thought: damn it all to helllife must be lived! I had won my freedom from gaol. I had won Kitty’s heart. I had won my safety. The game was over. So what now?

Another roll of the dice, of course. Because the game must never end.

I sat with James Fleet in a tavern – so drunk I cannot even remember the name of it. And I confessed to him what I had barely admitted even to myself. That I was suffocating. That I had begun to suspect that a life without risk for a man of my nature was in fact a kind of slow death. Fleet had leaned forward, interested. ‘I could use a man with your talents, Hawkins.’ The next morning I’d woken with a pounding headache and the uneasy feeling that I had accidentally made a pact with the devil.

And now he had something for me.

Sam turned on to Phoenix Street, a long road that runs straight through the heart of St Giles like an arrow. Most of the houses were ruins, rotting roofs patched with tarred cloth, as if the risk of fire weren’t grave enough amidst all the timber frames and gin stills. One building had collapsed into the street overnight – a couple of thin, ragged street boys were loading the wood into wheelbarrows to sell. They saluted Sam, who gave them a tight nod as we hurried on.

There were eyes upon us in every window here. Men lurking in every shadow. I could feel the stares burning the back of my neck as we passed. I stole a glance up at the rooftops, scouting the wooden planks and ropes that laced the houses together in one long, tangled forest of outlaws. The rookery, they called it – a town for thieves hidden in the skies. A man could clamber right through it without once touching the ground. We passed a gin shop, then another. And then another. At the fourth, a tattered scrap of a boy was puking his guts into the street, blind drunk. A group of older lads jeered at him and kicked him on his way. There were no old men here.

James Fleet did not live on Phoenix Street. His house was hidden, tucked away like a coin buried deep in a miser’s pocket. This was my first visit to his den, and Sam had led me on a strange, intentionally confusing route. But I had learned my lesson the last time he had brought me into St Giles, and I paid close attention to every twist and turn and double back.

Suddenly, without warning, he shoved open a door near the end of the street. It was stiff, and he had to throw all his weight behind it. Somehow he managed this without making a sound. It struck me that Sam used silence the way other boys worked with knives or their fists. I thought again of Jenny’s whispered confession and felt a flicker of unease deep in my chest.

We climbed up through a tall, narrow house, its rooms partitioned with sheets and blankets to cram in as many bodies as possible. No need to guess what happened behind those temporary walls. The air stank of sex and bad liquor. Above the low sobs, the groans of pleasure and pain, I could hear a little girl crying out again and again for her mother. No one answered her. I stopped on the staircase, overwhelmed. Sam glanced back, and I could tell from his impatient expression that these sounds meant nothing to him. They were, after all, the sounds of his neighbourhood, of his childhood. He heard them the way I might hear the cry of gulls and the rush of the sea against the shore. We moved on.


Еще от автора Антония Ходжсон
The Devil in the Marshalsea

WINNER OF THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD 2014.Longlisted for the John Creasey Dagger Award for best debut crime novel of 2014.London, 1727 – and Tom Hawkins is about to fall from his heaven of card games, brothels, and coffeehouses to the hell of a debtors' prison. The Marshalsea is a savage world of its own, with simple rules: those with family or friends who can lend them a little money may survive in relative comfort. Those with none will starve in squalor and disease. And those who try to escape will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of the gaol's rutheless governor and his cronies.The trouble is, Tom Hawkins has never been good at following rules – even simple ones.


Рекомендуем почитать
Статский советник Евграф Тулин

Книги, входящие в серию, созданы на основании записок действительного статского советника по полицейской части Тулина Евграфа Михайловича. Сюжеты книг погружают читателя в поиск украденных чертежей, кладов, фальшивомонетчиков и уникальных коней. 1. Георгий и Ольга Арси: Дело о секте скопцов. Исторический детектив Тулину Евграфу Михайловичу в свою бытность сыщиком московской сыскной части пришлось распутать клубок интриг, связанных с похищением секретных чертежей нового оружия на Императорском оружейном заводе в Туле.


Девонширский Дьявол

В графстве Хэмптоншир, Англия, найден труп молодой девушки Элеонор Тоу. За неделю до смерти ее видели в последний раз неподалеку от деревни Уокерли, у озера, возле которого обнаружились странные следы. Они глубоко впечатались в землю и не были похожи на следы какого-либо зверя или человека. Тут же по деревне распространилась легенда о «Девонширском Дьяволе», берущая свое начало из Южного Девона. За расследование убийства берется доктор психологии, член Лондонского королевского общества сэр Валентайн Аттвуд, а также его друг-инспектор Скотленд-Ярда сэр Гален Гилмор.


Оттенки зла. Расследует миссис Кристи

Писательница Агата Кристи принимает предложение Секретной разведывательной службы и отправляется на остров Тенерифе, чтобы расследовать обстоятельства гибели специального агента, – есть основания полагать, что он стал жертвой магического ритуала. Во время морского путешествия происходит до странности театральное самоубийство одной из пассажирок, а вскоре после прибытия на остров убивают другого попутчика писательницы, причем оставляют улику, бьющую на эффект. Саму же Агату Кристи арестовывают по ложному обвинению.


Лоренцо Великолепный

Наталья Павлищева – признанный мастер исторических детективов, совокупный тираж которых перевалил за миллион экземпляров.Впервые автор посвятила целую книжную серию легендарному клану Медичи – сильнейшей и богатейшей семье Средневековья, выходцы из которой в разное время становились королевами Франции, римскими палами.Захватывающие дворцовые игры и интриги дают представление об универсальной модели восхождения человека к Власти, которая не устарела и не утратила актуальности и в наши дни.Неугомонный Франческо, племянник богатого патриция Якопо Пацци, задумал выдать сестру Оретту за старого горбатого садовника.От мерзкого «жениха» девушка спряталась в монастыре.


Длинные тени грехов

Тени грехов прошлого опутывают их, словно Гордиев узел. А потому все попытки его одоления обречены на провал и поражение, ведь в этом случае им приходиться бороться с самими собой. Пока не сверкнёт лезвие… 1 место на конкурсе СД-1 журнал «Смена» № 11 за 2013 г.


Ситуация на Балканах. Правило Рори. Звездно-полосатый контракт. Доминико

Повести и романы, включенные в данное издание, разноплановы. Из них читатель узнает о создании биологического оружия и покушении на главу государства, о таинственном преступлении в Российской империи и судьбе ветерана вьетнамской авантюры. Объединяет остросюжетные произведения советских и зарубежных авторов сборника идея разоблачения культа насилия в буржуазном обществе.