The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [88]

‘Are you sick, sir?’ he asked, drawing a chair to my bed. He did not show any signs of pity.

I lay listlessly upon the mattress, hand flung across my brow. How could I explain that I was grieving for Kitty, when I had pushed her so violently from my life? I knew she came to the gaol every day only to be sent away. She wrote to me each day too – bribing the turnkey to smuggle the letters straight into my hand. Each day I threw them into the fire without reading a word. ‘Tell her this,’ I told the guard as the flames licked the pages. ‘Tell her she wastes her time and her money.’ She had taken to writing messages upon the envelope, large capitals underlined. READ THIS, DAMN YOU! and TOM – YOU MUST LET ME HELP, YOU STUBBORN BASTARD. I loved her for it with all my heart. And tossed her words to the flames again.

‘The town has turned against you,’ Eliot said. He handed me a broadsheet he’d found pinned to the wall at Moll’s. It described Burden’s death in horrific detail – the nine stab wounds, the knife plunged into his heart, right to the hilt. Judith’s desolate cries of ‘murder’ echoing in the night air, ‘sending a chill to the soul of all Christianlike men who heard them’. There were sketches too. One showed my arrest, bare-headed and fighting the guards. Another showed the murder itself. The artist had drawn Burden in his bed, fast asleep. I stood over him, blade held high, about to strike. I looked demonic, lips pulled back in a horrible grin.

I crumpled the paper in my fist and collapsed back upon the bed.

Eliot leaned closer. ‘Do you not see the danger you are in, Hawkins? For God’s sake, man – what ails you? Why do you not defend yourself?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Are you guilty?’

I roused myself enough to glare at him. ‘No.’

He snuffed in irritation. ‘No. Always no and nothing more. It is not enough, sir! Do you wish to hang?’

I covered my face in my hands. And despite my best efforts, I began to weep.

When I was recovered I rubbed my face and sat up. Eliot had not tried to comfort me, or offered any words of kindness, but his expression had softened a little. He picked up the crumpled broadsheet and smoothed it across his knee. ‘We must counter this. Give me something to tell the town. Let them hear your defence.’ He hesitated, cleared his throat. ‘Mr Defoe has offered to visit you and write of your story…’

Daniel Defoe. Well, he had written Jack Sheppard’s story – and made a tidy profit from it too.

‘He is inclined to believe in your innocence,’ Eliot said. ‘The prosecution’s case is weak. You are being tried by the town, Hawkins. Defoe could turn them about. Remember how the mob protected him when he was in the pillory? He wishes to speak with you and with Kitty-’

‘No.’ I sprang to my feet. If Fleet suspected that I’d engaged Daniel Defoe to tell the real story of Burden’s murder, Kitty’s life would be forfeit and so would mine. ‘I forbid it,’ I said fiercely. ‘Do you understand, Eliot? Do not speak further with Mr Defoe, nor to anyone else.’

Eliot rose from the chair, baffled and frustrated. ‘What ails you, sir? Kitty is convinced of your innocence, and yet you act as if you are guilty.’ He sighed, puffing out his fat cheeks. ‘I have practised law for over thirty years. I know when a man is hiding something. I am your lawyer, sir. I am bound to keep your secrets safe. You must trust me. You must tell me everything – or else I cannot help you.’

It was tempting. My God, how I longed to unburden myself at last. Holding in the truth was making me ill. My dreams were nightmares and my waking hours were worse. But I couldn’t risk it. What if he told Kitty? What if he even hinted at the truth?

‘There is nothing to tell. I am innocent. That is all.’

Eliot’s shoulders sagged. ‘I will visit again in the morning-’

‘-No. No more visits, sir. I thank you, but we have no more to discuss.’

‘Mr Hawkins! Your trial is set for the day after tomorrow…’

‘I am quite aware of the date, sir.’

Eliot frowned. ‘I think you are determined to hang,’ he said, defeated. ‘Well. Eat some supper, at least. And call for a barber, for God’s sake. The jury expects to see a young gentleman on Thursday, not Robinson Crusoe.’

He left, no doubt cursing me under his breath. And who was I to Eliot, after all? Kitty’s idle, drunken beau, a feckless rake who would squander her fortune if he could only get his hands upon it. He didn’t know the iron core that ran through me. Obstinate. Wilful. My father’s favoured words for me as a child. I could waft happily through life when it suited me, but when I had set my mind upon something I could not yield – ever.

Still, Eliot’s visit had not been without value. I could not risk selling my story to Mr Defoe, but if I might concoct a way to write it myself in secret, with close instructions for its safekeeping… The thick, dank fog of melancholy that had surrounded me ever since I had arrived at Newgate dissolved a little. My future was no longer mine to shape – it rested in the hands of twelve men and one woman. But the past still belonged to me.