The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [75]

St Giles – in the dead of night. A short stroll into hell. But first I needed a guide.

The previous morning, Fleet had told his men that I worked under his protection. The word was passed about the gang. One small benefit of our agreement and one I had not expected to need so soon.

Fleet had said that if I needed to speak with him, I should leave a message at the Coach and Horses on Wellington Street. I headed there now through the ink-black streets. The tavern was empty, but a message was sent. Ten minutes later, one of Fleet’s men arrived and motioned me towards a dark corner of the room.

‘The Captain’s working.’

I nodded. In fact, I had depended on it. ‘It’s urgent.’

‘He won’t come here tonight, Hawkins.’

I lowered my voice, though there was no one to hear us. ‘Then take me to Phoenix Street. I can wait for him there.’

He chewed his cheek, thinking. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Not your business.’

He frowned at that, but it was the right thing to say. He wouldn’t trust a man who spilled his secrets so easily. Thought some more. ‘I’ll take your pistol.’

I feigned reluctance, then handed it over. I had kept my dagger, hidden in the lining of my coat. Fleet’s man gave my pistol to the landlord for safekeeping and said I would collect it later. Later. An imagined time, when the night was over and I was safely home again. We would see.

We carved a straight route through St Giles; none of Sam’s scampering back and forth. I knew where Fleet lived and there was no need to hide it now. We sauntered down streets that would have throbbed with danger had I walked through them on my own. I still felt fierce eyes watching us, heard the whispers in the walkways above our heads, but I had been granted safe passage into the heart of the stews. How I would come out again I wasn’t sure. I never was very good at planning ahead.

We came into Fleet’s house through the square this time, instead of Sam’s preferred route over the rooftops. Ducked into a mean timber house and then out again through a narrow passageway to the back yard. We had reached the centre of the hidden square. Candles burned at the top of Fleet’s home, but otherwise all was still. It was four-thirty in the morning. Most of the gang would not return until dawn.

A few men stood guard inside, drinking and playing cards to pass the time. They nodded as I passed them. The message had reached them long before we had.

Gabriela sat by the fire, in the room at the top of the house. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she looked very tired. Another night keeping vigil for her husband. How could she stand such a life?

I bowed quickly and rubbed my hands to warm them. It was a bitterly cold night. There were a few flakes of snow sparkling on my coat. It had begun falling as we entered St Giles and now the world beyond the windows was a blizzard, bright white and silent.

Her lips puckered in amusement. ‘You blue with cold again, sir?’ She drew up another chair close to the fire. ‘We wait here. James will be home soon.’

Not too soon, please God. ‘I was hoping we might speak, Mrs Fleet.’

‘Gabriela. Sit. They have taken your weapons, yes? I am sorry, I must ask. We are alone.’

She poured me a cup of hot wine. We were not alone, of course. Fleet’s men were close by. Did she guess that I might have a dagger, hidden about me? It would be a mistake indeed to underestimate her: James Fleet’s wife. No doubt she too had a blade somewhere, tucked beneath her skirts. I let my gaze wander across her gown. It was plain and grey, but it fitted neatly to her figure. If it had been stolen, someone had restitched it very well. Her waist was thick from bearing her six children, but she was still a fine, handsome woman, save for the scar. And even that seemed to suit her, now I had grown more used to it.

A golden brooch glinted at the centre of her chest and I thought of Eva’s red gauze scarf, threaded with gold. Her mother, it seemed, allowed herself at least one small trinket.

I had been studying Gabriela, but she was watching me too, her eyes a warm, coffee brown, fringed with thick lashes. She looked very much like Sam, but she was less awkward, more comfortable in company. ‘The wine is good?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Is what they give on the road to Tyburn.’ She drained her cup, sucked the wine from her lips. ‘Last drink of the damned. You stare at my scar, Mr Hawkins. Calma, calma,’ she laughed as I flustered my apologies. ‘I know why you have come. I am not bird-witted.’ The last word was pure St Giles, the tt lost somewhere in the back of her throat. She leaned forward. ‘There are men downstairs. I call them, they slit your throat. So we speak quiet and you leave. Yes?’

I stared at her. I had not ventured a single word about Joseph Burden, or the brothel in Seven Dials.

She touched a finger to her scar, traced the line down her ruined cheek. ‘This is my life. My story. I know when a man want to hear it.’ She tucked her bare feet beneath her gown. ‘I am a Jewess, you know this? My family lives in Portugal for hundreds of years. We convert,’ she fluttered her hand, showing the shallow extent of that conversion. ‘The Inquisition does not trust we are faithful. You know what they do to such people? Burn. Torture. So we run – sail for England and freedom. My mother and father, my two brothers. My sister. This is… twenty-one years ago. I am thirteen.’ She gazed into the fire, eyes hollow. ‘There is a storm. They die.’