The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [18]

‘No. Their rooms will be up in the attic.’

She listened closer, frowning in concentration. ‘It can’t be Judith. I suppose it must be Alice.’

‘With Stephen?’

There was a long, shuddering moan, then silence. Kitty pulled a face. ‘Ugh. That wasn’t Burden, was it?’

We threw up our hands in horror at the idea – then sniggered like children. Joseph Burden, proud member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, was fucking his housekeeper. Well, well.

‘Oh! Your gift!’ Kitty said, then reached under the bed and lifted out a handsome wooden box. She slid it towards me, a little nervous.

I put the box on my lap and rested the lid on its hinge. Inside lay a dozen packages, narrow and flat. I took one out and opened it up, conscious of Kitty watching for my reaction. Nestling in the envelope was a long, translucent sheath folded in two and tied loosely with a thin piece of ribbon. A condom.

‘I ordered them from France, for the shop. They’re made from sheep’s intestines.’

How arousing. ‘Yes. I’ve er… I’ve used them before.’

She slipped her hand in mine. ‘So… we don’t have to wait, any more.’

Her face gleamed in the candlelight. So young, so pretty. This was her gift to me, then. The last of her innocence. I brushed her hair from her face. She smiled, nervous, and looked deep in my eyes.

Tell her. Tell her why you’ve waited this long. Tell her that you want to marry her first and take care of her. That you want it to be different from all the other times. Tell her that you’re afraid if you don’t wait, she will never have cause to marry you.

Tell her that you love her, damn it.

I opened my mouth… and the words died in my throat. ‘I’m… I’m rather tired tonight, Kitty. After all that’s happened…’ And it was true, save for my lie of omission.

Her eyes softened with concern. ‘Oh. Of course,’ she agreed, embarrassed, shutting up the box at once and slipping it beneath the bed. She touched her lips to my cheek. ‘Of course.’

I blew out the candle and we lay in silence in the dark.

Part Two

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

‘Murderer!’

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

‘Monster!’

‘Burn in Hell!’

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

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

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

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

‘I’m innocent, Mr Guthrie.’

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

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

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

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

And now he feels it