The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [21]

‘Anyone arrested?’

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

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

‘Defending a lady.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Was it not?’ Betty asked, softly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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