The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [84]

Ten shillings a week. I could rent half an inn for that. ‘How does she fare, sir? Are you sure she is safe?’

‘I’m sure she is,’ Eliot replied, puzzled. ‘Why would she not be?’

My stomach knotted. She had been spared so far, but for how long? ‘She must be protected, Eliot. You must see to it.’

‘Why, is she in danger? My God, what has happened, sir? What is it you are hiding from me?’

I must find a guard to protect Kitty – and Alice for that matter. Someone strong, and skilled with a blade. But how could I trust such a man under my roof, with Kitty? I couldn’t. And then I smiled. Not a man. But a woman…

It took me a while to persuade Eliot that hiring an Irish gladiator called Neala Maguire to guard the house was not some garbled act of lunacy, but I pressed him on it until he capitulated. ‘And you must advise Kitty to send Sam home at once. It would not be seemly for him stay now.’

‘Seemly…?’ Eliot raised an eyebrow. Behaving in a seemly fashion had never been a great priority of mine. And given that Kitty had been living – unwed – with a man now accused of murder… But he saw I was determined, and what did it matter to him if some boy from St Giles was sent home or not?

Once I had persuaded him and he had given me every possible assurance that he would comply, I felt my spirits lift a little. If we could all survive tonight, we might still find a way to resolve this.‘Mr Rewse was kind to lend us this room.’

Eliot sniffed. ‘It’s not for charity. Not yours, at least. He made a fortune out of Jack Sheppard. Paying visitors. They’d line up to peer through the grate. Rewse hopes you’ll prove equally profitable.’

‘Sheppard escaped prison four times. The whole town was obsessed with him. No one will pay to see me.’

‘Forgive me, sir, but I fear you’re mistaken. You’re a gentleman. Young. Handsome. The details of your story – the fact that you insisted on investigating the case and interrogating Mr Burden’s family. It will cause a sensation.’

My heart sank. I had seen this before. By morning there would be ballads and pamphlets and broadsheets about the murderous gentleman Thomas Hawkins. No matter if I escaped death, I would be branded for ever as an infamous monster.

‘I have a message from Kitty,’ Eliot said, more quietly. ‘Gonson has her under guard at present – he wishes to question her tonight. But she said she would bring the dress tomorrow, at first light.’ He paused. ‘She’s not planning to dress you as a woman and smuggle you out, is she? No, no – best not to say a word. It worked for Sheppard that time, I suppose…’

I sat back hard against the chair. Alice’s dress. Yes – it might still work, we might still be able to swing the suspicion upon Alice. Her bloody clothes. Her appearance through the attic door, holding the knife. Sam and Kitty would bear witness to that. Was it not more believable that Alice had turned to Burden in bed and stabbed him? Given what he had done to her night after night? With the dress and the witnesses, it would make a good case.

A dark shadow settled on my heart.

Chapter Nineteen

There was no choice to be made. I could not send an innocent girl to the gallows just to save my neck. Yet still I didn’t sleep that first night in gaol. A sly, insistent thought crawled through my mind, leaving a trail of poison. Save yourself. Whatever the cost.

It is a hard thing to hold a key in your hand and not turn the lock. It seemed to me that there were two of us in the cell that night. My true self, pacing the floor, banging my fist against the wall and cursing all the mistakes I had made. And then there was my shadow, who waited for daylight only to betray Alice and free himself. As the slow night hours passed, there were times when I was tempted to become that shadow. I would live. But as what? Not as the man who had entered this cell, that much was certain.

I was mortally afraid. I didn’t want to die at the age of six and twenty. I didn’t want my name cursed and spat upon, down through the ages. I didn’t want my father to think I was a murderer.

My father. I groaned aloud at the thought of him. Three years ago, at our last meeting, we had thrown cruel, bitter accusations at one another and I had vowed never to see him again. Then last autumn, after my release from the Marshalsea, he had astounded me with a letter filled with regret and forgiveness. It had made me wonder if the stern, unyielding man I remembered was just a phantom. I had even contemplated returning home and joining the clergy – but I had been weak from gaol fever at the time. London was my home. Kitty was my home.

And so I’d stayed, translating whores’ dialogues, drinking and gambling and growing bored with my cramped, narrow life. The same old traps into which I had fallen so many times. I’d written to my father once a week, telling him nothing of substance about my life. I would speak of the books I had read, or news from the court and the town. I would describe the streets and buildings growing up all around me, and the foreign travellers I met, passing through the city. My father would reply in a meandering scrawl I barely recognised, the effort clear in every line. That alone was enough to tell me what he never could put down upon the paper – that he loved me.