The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [33]

‘Me?’ Alice gaped.

I gestured at her clothes, drenched in blood. She stank of it.

‘I told you – I never touched him.’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘I swear on my life.’

I glanced at Sam, raised an eyebrow. Truth? He tilted his head. Maybe.

It would have to do. ‘Very well. Hand me the knife.’

She hesitated, then handed it over. I picked up the candle and put a foot through the door into the cabinet, brushing aside a damson-coloured mantua. These were expensive dresses for the wife of a carpenter. Alice gripped my sleeve. ‘What are you doing, sir?’

‘Saving you from the gallows.’

She put a bloodstained hand to her throat. ‘I won’t stay here with him. Not without the knife.’

Sam gave me an eager look. If he could not stay here, reason insisted he must come with me. I sighed, and handed him the candle. Viewing murdered corpses was not usually part of a gentleman’s education, but what choice did I have? And I suppose he did have experience of moving about the place in darkness. Let him play link boy again, just for the night.

He slipped through, shielding the flame so it didn’t catch on the dusty clothes. I turned back to Alice. ‘Don’t leave this room. And don’t make a sound. Your life depends upon it.’

She gave me a frightened nod.

I pushed my way through the oak cabinet, praying that she was sensible enough to keep quiet. Sam was waiting for me on the other side, candle casting shadows across his face. Below us, the rest of the house slept on, oblivious. I glanced back at the armoire, a dark, solid presence that took up most of the wall. As solid as the man who had made it. I tiptoed towards the light in my stockinged feet, wincing at every groan in the floorboards. Something brushed across my face and I flinched. Cobwebs. I scrubbed them away.

‘No one on this floor,’ Sam whispered. There was almost no breath behind the words and yet somehow they were clear enough to understand. Another trick he’d learned from his father, no doubt.

We crept down the stairs to the second floor, my heart thumping so hard I feared it would wake the whole house. If we were discovered now, all was lost. I could hear the deep tick tock of a grandfather clock from the drawing room below, the steady snores of someone sleeping well and deeply. Stephen, I guessed, dreaming happily while his father lay murdered across the landing.

Sam cracked open a door, muffling the sound of the latch beneath a handkerchief. The door swung silently on its hinges; Burden must have oiled them so Alice could slip in at night without being heard. All that talk of sin and he was fucking a young girl against her will. Was his spirit watching us now, mute and helpless in the dark? Was he in heaven? In hell?

I took a slow, steadying breath and crossed the threshold, the dagger in my hand. It must be discovered with the body. If it were missing, everyone would assume that the murderer had crept into the house and taken it with him when he left. And who would everyone suspect…?

The bed was hidden beneath thick, red velvet drapes. Sam waited until I’d closed the door then drew them back in one fluid movement.

Burden lay naked on his back, his eyes open and turned to the ceiling. His flabby white chest had been butchered; flesh ripped open, flaps of skin hanging loose. I shuddered. He looked more flayed than stabbed. The violence of it made my stomach turn. His face was frozen, mouth contorted in a final grimace of shock. The bed linen was soaked in blood and smelled of piss and shit. I put a hand to my mouth.

Sam skirted to the other side of the bed, careful to keep the blood from smearing on his clothes. He placed a hand on Burden’s cheek. ‘Cold.’

I forced myself to look closer. Burden’s lips were blue. The blood had begun to dry on the sheets. He could have been killed hours ago. And then his murderer had walked calmly from the room and continued about his business. Ned, Judith, or Stephen. The names rose unbidden in my mind. If Alice hadn’t killed Burden, it must be one of them. I narrowed my eyes, looking for any trace of a clue, but there was nothing except for the blood and the blade. Reason told me Ned was the most likely suspect – he had the strength and the grievance – but reason had no place here. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe any of it. ‘Strange,’ I whispered. ‘To think of them all sleeping soundly so close by.’

‘All but one,’ Sam replied, moving the candle down Burden’s body.

I placed the dagger at the end of the bed.

Sam glanced at it. Raised an eyebrow. Pointed at the wound in Burden’s chest.

I gave a low groan. He was right. To protect Alice, to protect ourselves, we had to put it back where she had found it. Right back in the heart wound. I picked up the dagger. It was a handsome thing, save for the blood. I hesitated. Could I do this? Push a blade into a dead man’s heart?

Sam plucked it from my grasp and with a quick turn of the wrist plunged the steel blade back into the wound. It made a vile, slurping sound as it travelled deep into Burden’s chest. I turned away. When I looked back, Sam was examining the rest of the stab wounds.