The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins (18 page)

I felt a moment’s relief. Crowder couldn’t touch Kitty now – not unless he fancied a battle with the most powerful gang in London. He pushed his club deep into my back, pressing me forward.

‘Mr Gonson!’ I called out to the magistrate, striding proudly at the head of the procession. ‘Where is your evidence? Where is your
warrant
? You cannot . . .’

Crowder struck me hard across the back of the head. Pain flashed through my skull and I staggered, half-blinded. The guards dragged me on through the streets. I kept my mouth shut.

Chapter Ten

^‘
So, Mr Hawkins – are you ready to confess?’

Gonson paced the cell, hands clasped behind his back. He wore the satisfied air of a man unburdened with doubt; a man who walked in the light, oblivious of his own shadow. He had removed his hat and cloak; I supposed they must be drying by a fire somewhere. Here, in this room, there was no fire. He was warm enough in his frock coat, though his brown wool stockings were damp and spattered with mud. His long, full-bottomed grey wig smelled like wet goat.

Crowder guarded the door, thick arms folded high upon a belly grown fat with ale.

I shifted a little, chains clinking against the wall. I was barefoot and sore, hoisted almost on tiptoes on the ice-cold stone floor. My wrists were raised above my head, iron links fixed to a hook in the ceiling. I had thought when Gonson arrested me I would be slung in the Westminster lock-up, but instead I’d been dragged to a private house in a quiet courtyard. The guards had ripped off my stockings and waistcoat out of spite, and brought me down to the basement. Then they had left me alone for an hour, until my legs were shaking and my arms and shoulders burned. My fingers were numb; when I looked up I could see them blue-white and bloodless.

I had not expected this of Gonson. He was a man of the law. Why bring me here to this private place, except to hide what he was about? This was not lawful. Now he had returned, expecting to find me cowed and terrified, ready to confess.

Did he know what had happened to me in the Marshalsea? Did he look at me and think I was so easily broken? I glared at his smooth, bland face. ‘You have no right to keep me here, sir.’

Gonson paused in his pacing, fiddling with the fraying cuffs of his soil-coloured coat. Unlike most city magistrates, he was proud to say that he was incorruptible, which would explain his drab clothes and the outmoded square toes of his scuffed shoes. Or perhaps he thought good clothes were the devil’s work. ‘My guards have searched your rooms. They found bags packed with clothes and money – enough for a long journey. It is quite clear that your intention was to flee.’

I cursed silently. I’d packed those bags before my visit to the palace last night – and clean forgot them. ‘You have no proof I killed Burden. I thought better of you, Mr Gonson. You have a reputation for being a fair man. This is not lawful—’

‘No, sir!’ Gonson roared. ‘Do not dare lecture me on the law! Do not dare!’ He clenched his gloved fist, and for a second I thought he would strike me. Then he pulled away. ‘I should have listened to Mr Burden, but I refused to act without proof. Now he lies dead – at your hand.’

‘For God’s sake! How do you propose I murdered him? The doors and windows were locked and bolted. It must have been someone in the household, don’t you see? What if one of the children—’

Gonson signalled to Crowder. He strode across the cell and placed his hands upon my shoulders. Then he pressed down hard, wrenching my arms in their sockets. I screamed, and he grinned, pushing so fiercely that I thought my body would be torn apart. I screamed again, the pain ripping through me like fire.

At last, I was released. I sank back against the wall, my body shuddering with the shock. ‘I thought better of you, sir.’ I rasped.

Gonson frowned, stung by the insult. ‘No fault but yours, Hawkins. You force me to use these methods.’ He reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out an arrest warrant, my name scratched upon it.
Thomas Hawkins, for the charge of murder.
Beneath it lay Gonson’s signature. I drew away, as if I might be damned by reading it. No man wishes to see such a thing. This was the arrest the queen had spoken of – the one she had overturned in exchange for my help with Charles Howard.

Gonson folded up the warrant and tucked it away. ‘I had planned to arrest you this morning. I have a witness swears you shot a man last September, in Southwark. Mr Burden had promised to testify. He heard you discuss the murder with your whore.’

‘He lied. They both lied—’

‘Quite enough to bring you to justice at last,’ Gonson said, refusing to hear me. ‘And yet the ink was barely dry upon the warrant when I was summoned to the Marshal’s house. He ordered me to cease my enquiries.’ He paused, lips pressed into a tight, bitter line. ‘He said he had been given no choice. The
City Marshal
, corrupted and threatened on your behalf, sir. I thought you were merely a foolish, whoring fellow – but I see now that you are a devil. I have examined Burden’s corpse, sir. You butchered the man. Who is it protects you, Hawkins? My Lord Walpole? The king?’ He grimaced at the thought. ‘I doubt your
benefactor
will feel as generous when he learns how you used your freedom.’ He patted his pocket. ‘I’ll wager this warrant will be granted before the sun sets tonight. And until then you will remain here, safe from the reach of your
friends
.’

They left me then, my arms still raised and pinned to the wall. The room was dark as night without a candle. I stared unseeing into the shadows, stunned and exhausted. I hadn’t expected this from Gonson. It was a cunning move on his part. He had no proof that I had killed Burden, but by arresting me in such a public way he had sent a challenge to the queen, my secret benefactor. Was I truly worth protecting now?

The hours passed. No one came. I had no food, no water. My mind began to wander, then fracture. I would never confess to Burden’s murder, not in a thousand years. But as I stood chained to the wall, freezing and crippled with pain, I began to wonder if I should confess to the murder on Snows Fields. If I told the whole story – if I explained that I was defending myself, there was a chance I would be spared. Transported for a few years perhaps, rather than hanged. Surely I could survive that.

And with that decision, the weight lifted from my heart. There was nothing more to be done. By rights I should have died that night in September. Instead I had been granted a few months of happiness with Kitty – a reprieve I had done little to deserve, God help me. So let Gonson charge me, and Fate would decide the rest. One last gamble. If the world were just, I would be spared.

Yes, I am aware how foolish this all sounds – gambling upon a just world, indeed. In my defence, I had been standing on tiptoes with my arms pinned above my head for God knows how long. I invite you to try it and see how soon your common sense flies out of the window. Something Gonson had been counting upon, no doubt.

The cell door slammed open. Crowder strode into the room with his club held high. I braced myself for another beating. He came closer, wheezing softly. Then he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked my chains.

I collapsed to the floor with a groan of relief. Moments later I was seized in agony as the cramps ripped through my shoulders and arms and along my bare, frozen calves. My fingers began to throb as the blood returned, but when I tried to bend them it felt as though someone was slamming red-hot needles into my knuckles. I lay upon the floor while Crowder tried to kick me to my feet.

At last, when the cramping stopped, I dragged myself up and hobbled from the cell in a daze of pain, Crowder snorting with impatience. After a few limping steps he put his arm beneath my shoulder and half-carried me up the stairs towards a room at the front of the house. Light spilled out from the open door and I could hear a woman’s voice, high and wavering. Kitty? No, please God – she would confess to anything to save me. I staggered forward, using the walls for balance. After the freezing cellar, the heat of the room hit me like a furnace. A fire blazed in the hearth, a thick stew bubbling away on the range. Gonson’s men sat together at a table, drinking small beer. Gonson himself stood by the fire, wearing a look of mild revulsion as a young woman knelt at his feet, sobbing into her apron. Not Kitty, I realised with astonishment.
Betty
.

‘Oh, sir, please!’ she shrieked, her voice muffled by the cloth. ‘I ain’t done nothing. Don’t hurt me!’

‘Calm yourself, hussy!’ Gonson snapped. He leaned down and pulled her hands roughly from her face. ‘How did you hear of the Marshal’s order? Tell me quick before I throw you in a cell for obstructing my work.’

‘I’m not obstructioning, I swear!’ she whimpered, wiping her eyes. ‘Oh, I think I shall faint, sir – please don’t lock me away!’

Gonson huffed in frustration. ‘Hawkins. D’you know this foolish creature?’

I rubbed my ruined shoulders. ‘There is an order from the Marshal, sir?’

He coloured and said nothing.

‘I should like to see it, Mr Gonson.’

He hesitated for as long as he could – as if he wished he might give me anything else in the world. At last he took a letter from a drawer and held it out to me. I grabbed it and read it quickly, heart leaping as I understood its purpose.

The letter was from the City Marshal, requesting my immediate release. More than that, it demanded that Gonson apologise for questioning my good character and that . . . I blinked, and read the line again, to be sure I had not dreamed it. It said that I had been charged by the Marshal himself with investigating Joseph Burden’s murder. And that Gonson must give me every assistance in my search for the murderer.

‘When did this arrive?’

Gonson’s blush deepened. He must have held on to the letter for hours, hoping I might confess, or at least give him some new information in the meanwhile. And I almost had. I almost had.

I glowered at him. ‘And you speak to me, sir, of corruption.’

Oh, what he wished to say to me then! The fury and frustration throbbing through his veins. But he could not accuse me now, not without risking his own position. Instead he took his annoyance out upon Betty, shouting at her to get to her feet and to stop her mewling. ‘How did you learn of the Marshal’s letter? Answer me, hussy!’

Betty just shook her head, whimpering with fright.

‘Leave her be, Gonson,’ I said. ‘She’s only a coffee maid. She works at Moll’s – half the town spills its secrets in there.’

Gonson was disgusted – by Betty, by the thought of Moll’s, by the whole world he was forced to inhabit. ‘And what business is this of yours, woman? Why should you hurry over here and cause all this fuss? Are you a spy—’

Betty wailed in horror, drowning out his question. ‘No, no sir! I only come here because . . . Oh, Mr Hawkins, you must tell him the truth! You know I’d do anything for you, sir!’ And with that she scurried across the room and flung her arms about my neck. Before I could reply she pressed her lips to mine, warm and sweet. I had just begun to enjoy myself when she broke away.

‘Silly slut.’ Gonson shuddered, scandalised.

I spied my waistcoat and stockings piled in a corner. I sat down and put them on, then slipped on my shoes. ‘I believe I am owed an apology, Mr Gonson. By order of the City Marshal.’

‘Get out.’ Gonson’s face had turned a remarkable shade of purple. ‘Get out, you devil.’ He spun back to the fire, unable to bear the sight of me leaving, a free man with my order in hand. He pretended he was warming his hands by the fire, but his shoulders were shaking with rage.

We hurried as fast as we could up King Street. Betty wore pattens over her shoes to save them from the muddy streets, metal soles tinking along the pavement. My own feet throbbed after long hours stretched out upon the cold basement floor, and my legs were trembling. I was exhausted and anxious, but I was free – and the rain had stopped, the sun shining through soft grey clouds. I narrowed my eyes, dazzled by the light.

We walked in silence for a short while, Betty leading the way north past White Hall. My bare scalp and missing frock coat drew a few curious glances until we reached the fringes of Soho, where men chose to mind their own business. We crossed into a quiet backstreet, Betty’s feet tip-tapping to a halt.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That was—’

Betty pushed me violently against the wall. My back and shoulders sang with pain, still sore from my punishment.