The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

by Antonia Hodgson

‘She,’ Kitty said, whisking up and down the shop in a blind fury, ‘has just returned from Gonson’s house. That fucking guard who did this,’ she pointed at a bruise on her cheek. ‘He kept me waiting half an age, then said you were set free hours ago. Said you’d left with your black whore.’ She kicked over a stool. ‘He said you kissed her, in front of the whole world. Did you . . .? Oh, you villain – you did kiss her!’

  ‘Well, no, not precisely,’ I flustered. ‘She did somewhat rather . . . but she only kissed me to distraction. For distraction, that is. For distraction. A slip of the tongue.’

  ‘A slip of the tongue,’ Kitty mimicked nastily. ‘And I suppose your tongue just slipped into Betty’s mouth?’

  ‘Oh damn it, Kitty – it was an act, that is all. If you would let me explain . . .’ I reached for her, but she evaded my grasp, leaving the shop and running up the stairs.

  I glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Well, Sam. I suppose I had better meet my fate.’

  He grinned. Wrapped the rope around his neck and swung back and forth.

  Kitty was lighting a fire in our room. She heard me enter and sit down upon the bed, but she didn’t turn around until the hearth was blazing. She took off her cap and unpinned her hair, tossing her head so the curls bounced down her back. She knew I loved that.

  ‘Am I forgiven?’ I took off my wig and slung it in a corner. I was too tired to argue. Too tired to move. My limbs ached from the lock-up, and my mind was distracted, bouncing from thought to thought like a racket ball.

  ‘Betty.’ She loosened the ribbons to her gown and pulled out the stomacher beneath, exposing the soft parting of her high, round breasts.

  And suddenly, my mind was still.

  ‘D’you want her, Tom?’ She slipped off her shoes and balanced a foot upon my thigh. Slid it higher. Ahh . . . She rolled down her stocking. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Like this.’ She parted her lips and stared down at me from lowered lids. Need. Desire.

  ‘Oh, fie – plenty of women look at me like that. That is—’

  Kitty snorted and rolled down another stocking, flinging it at my face. ‘No, no – true enough. Half the town wants to fuck you and the other half wants to hang you.’

  I kicked off my shoes. ‘And you would like to do both, I suppose.’

  She clambered on to the bed, unfastening the buttons on my breeches. And then she kissed me, a kiss of possession. She slipped her hand lower, pulled my cock free. ‘Say you are mine,’ she murmured. ‘Mine alone.’

  ‘I’m yours.’

  She smiled. Oh, I wanted her. I wanted her now. No more waiting. I rolled her beneath me, pushing her gown high above her hips. Yes, yes, yes. I lay over her, placed all my weight upon my shoulders.

  Fuck! The pain ripped through my muscles and I fell back against the bed, panting hard.

  ‘Tom?’ Kitty sat over me. ‘You’re hurt?’

  ‘Gonson chained me to a wall.’ I flung an arm across my eyes. Damn it.

  She lifted my arm away. ‘Lie back.’ She undid my shirt and touched my bruised and aching shoulders. Ran her hands down to my wrists, chafed by the iron cuffs. ‘My love,’ she sighed, and unhooked her petticoat.

  I sat up beneath her, kissed her neck. ‘I can’t lie on top of you. My shoulders . . .’

  She pushed me gently back to the pillow and slid off my breeches. Wriggled free of her skirts. And then she sat astride me, leaning down to kiss my lips as she tilted her hips.

  I reached down, skimming my hand up her long, smooth thigh. Silk. Perfect silk. ‘This is not—’ I began, then gasped as she pressed against me. ‘ . . .how I imagined . . .’

  ‘Indeed?’ Kitty’s green eyes shone bright as she pushed back her hair. ‘It’s precisely how I imagined . . .’

  Afterwards we lay quietly, Kitty resting her head upon my chest. For all the time we had spent in bed together this was different. We talked for a while, drifting. Some good had come from the day after all. If I had become a parson, this would be my sermon. Take pleasure in these quiet, sweet moments of contentment. They are few – and they are everything. I smiled, and closed my eyes . . .

  ‘Oh! You’ve fallen asleep, damn you.’

  I woke with a jolt. ‘I wasn’t sleeping!’

  Kitty pecked my cheek. ‘You snore when you’re awake? Fix yourself a pipe, Tom – we have a great deal to discuss. At least, I will talk and you must listen for a while – and you listen far better with a pipe between your teeth.’ She crossed her legs beneath her, still naked, still beautiful.

  ‘I do not snore,’ I grumbled, groping for my watch. A quarter past eight. Fuck the stars. I must effect a meeting with Charles Howard tonight, and that meant crossing the river to Southwark. I slipped from the bed. ‘Forgive me, sweetheart. I have an appointment. We’ll speak tomorrow.’ I searched through my closet, shivering as the air nipped my skin. Howard was a nobleman – I would need to dress well to join his company. But the Southwark streets were filthy and the benches at the cockfight would be rough and splintered. Hmm. I rejected a pair of velvet breeches in favour of a brown silk knit, and had just selected a satin-fronted waistcoat when I realised that the room was deathly still.

  Had she fallen asleep? Or was she glaring at my back, seething with annoyance? I glanced around. Ah, yes.

  ‘We will speak tonight,’ Kitty said, from the bed. She threw my shirt over her head and padded across the room, half coquette, half tiger. ‘The last time you had an appointment you were attacked by a madman. Tell me what’s happened. Tell me everything.’

  And so I did. Almost everything. We sat by the fire and shared a pipe while I told her about the deal I’d made with James Fleet to meet Henrietta Howard, and the terrible fight that had ensued in St James’s Park.

  ‘Was it thrilling?’

  ‘No.’ Good God, no.

  ‘But you hoped it would be,’ she murmured, sadly. ‘You were bored.’

  It was true. And now she spoke that truth aloud, how petty and foolish it sounded. ‘Not with you.’

  She climbed on to my lap and took the pipe from my lips. ‘So what now? What tangle of trouble have you fallen into?’

  I told her about my visit to the palace.

  ‘The queen.’ She laughed in amazement. ‘Tom I could kick you – why did you not tell me of this before? So. We are to meet with Howard tonight?’

  I stared at her in alarm. The thought of Howard meeting Kitty, those mad, blazing eyes raking over her . . . ‘No, no. He’s a monster, Kitty – truly. You cannot come with me.’

  ‘Why – do you forbid it? Do you think you can command my obedience now that you’ve stolen my maidenhood?’ She pressed a hand to her forehead and mock-swooned.

  ‘Stolen? You flung it at me with both hands.’

  She giggled, burying her nose in my neck. ‘Let me help you, Tom. I’ve saved your life before.’

  Yes – and killed a man to do it. What would she say, I wondered, if I told her that the Queen of England knew what she had done? That she was holding that secret over me like a blade pressed to my heart? ‘It will be a bloody, dreadful night,’ I said, trying a different tack. ‘I’m to meet him at a cockfight in Southwark.’

  ‘A cockfight? Perfect!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I haven’t been to one in months.’

  As we dressed I told Kitty about my visit to the Burden house that afternoon.

  ‘Ned is Burden’s son,’ she murmured, lacing her boot. She knew the streets of Southwark of old and wouldn’t waste a good shoe on all that filth. ‘There is a resemblance, now I think on it. His mouth. The shape of his jaw.’

  ‘I believe Ned is innocent, at least. More than anything, he wanted to be recognised as his father’s son. Burden cannot acknowledge him from the grave.’

  ‘Judith murdered him,’ Kitty said, gesturing for me to tie her corset. ‘I’m sure of it. She hated her father.’

  And wished him dead – she had confessed that much herself. And yet . . . I frowned, pulling the strings of Kitty’s corset. If
only I could tie up Burden’s murder so neatly. Kitty swept up her hair and began to pin up her curls. I leaned down and kissed the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent. Rose water and the soft trace of sweat. I was glad to have confided in her – it helped to talk through my ideas. ‘I favour Stephen for it. Judith is too . . .’ I struggled for the best word and landed upon Mrs Jenkins’ description. ‘Delicate.’

  ‘Delicate?’ Kitty stabbed another pin into her hair. ‘Honestly. Did she swoon at you, Tom? Did you grasp her trembling hand? Oh dear Miss Burden, don’t be afraid, I shall protect you, you poor delicate daisy. Puh. All that lisping and whimpering – I don’t believe a word of . . . ow, not so tight,’ she gasped, loosening the corset a breath. ‘Leave room for pie. I’m half starved from traipsing about town all day . . . No – can you not see it, Tom? Judith with the blade, taking revenge upon her father at last? All those years playing the dutiful, obedient daughter, locked away in her room like a nun. And not one of your French nuns, Tom, stop drifting.’

  ‘You do not like Judith.’

  ‘I do not like Judith,’ she agreed. ‘I should not mind so much if she murdered her father. What – why should I mind? He wanted you dead! But she was cruel to Alice, and sneaking with it. She was always so meek and mild in front of her father. But she treated Alice like a dog as soon as they were alone. Slapping and pinching her for the slightest mistake.’

  I shook my head – but it was not so hard to believe. Judith was not the first mistress to take out her frustrations upon her servant. No wonder she was so furious about the marriage. Ned may have spent seven years as Burden’s apprentice, but Judith had served eighteen years’ hard labour as his daughter – and in the end had as little to show for it. And now Alice – the only member of the household over whom she had the slightest power – would rise to mistress of the household.

  It should have been enough to convince me of Judith’s guilt – but still the same question remained unanswered in my mind. If it were the marriage that made her so angry, why did she not kill Alice?

  I slung my sword low upon my hip, hoping I would not need to draw it tonight. The impossibility of the evening’s task pressed hard upon my aching shoulders. How the devil was I supposed to befriend the man I’d bludgeoned unconscious only a week before? Oh, I say – good evening, sir. Do you recall our meeting upon St James’s Park where I beat out your brains with your own pistol? How delightful to make your acquaintance again. Now, would you be obliging and reveal some scandalous details of your life that I might sell to the Queen of England?

  Perhaps Kitty might coax something useful out of the brute. She knew how to tease out secrets, how to listen in the shadows. Men underestimated Kitty, and she played upon it. Women too, for that matter. Which made me wonder . . . ‘Kitty – how did you come by all this gossip about Judith and Alice?’

  Kitty skimmed away, pulled out a gingham shawl. ‘Alice told me.’

  ‘Alice has run away. Judith threw her out.’

  ‘I know. She’s upstairs. I’ve hired her to replace Jenny.’ She drew the shawl over her shoulders. Caught my horrified expression. ‘We do need a maid, Tom. Unless you would like to scrub the floors and wash the dishes and darn your stockings and—’

  ‘—I do not question the need for a servant, Kitty. I just question the need to hire the one who crawled into our house last night covered in blood and waving a knife.’

  ‘Which I was able to use in negotiations. She’ll cost a shilling less than Jenny each month.’

  ‘That will be a great comfort when we are murdered in our bed.’

  ‘We must keep her hidden for now. Alice is afraid that Judith will accuse her now that you have been set free.’

  ‘She already has. There is still a chance Alice is guilty,’ I whispered, glancing anxiously at the ceiling.

  ‘No. It was Judith. I am decided, Tom.’

  Sam was downstairs, dismantling the old, broken printing press that lay gathering dust at the back of the shop. He liked mechanical objects – he enjoyed pulling them apart and putting them back together. I’d known boys like him at school – boys who wanted to peel back the skin of the world and see how it all worked. There was no mystery that could not be solved by close and careful study, preferably beneath a microscope.

  I told Sam to hire a couple of street boys to watch the Burdens’ house in case anyone tried to smuggle out a set of bloody clothes. Then I wrote a brief note to Gonson asking him to send one of his guards over tomorrow to help me search the house for evidence. My God he would hate that – but for all his faults, Gonson was a dutiful magistrate. He would do as he was bid – albeit through gritted teeth. ‘Deliver this to his home, Sam,’ I said, and gave him a couple of shillings. ‘And treat yourself to a good supper and a bowl of punch when you’re done.’

  He pocketed the coins. He would probably buy a cheap bowl of stew at some fleapit, and save the rest. After all, what was a body but another machine? Food was fuel, and nothing more.

  I took Kitty’s hand and we set off for Southwark. She wore her grey riding cloak with the hood lowered. She smiled up at me as we walked, a little shyly. No longer a maid. I squeezed her hand and grinned back. I’m yours.

  If I close my eyes now I can see us strolling through the town towards the Thames, feet slipping on the damp cobbles, talking about what we would do once our troubles were over. Our lives stretching ahead of us, so many paths to take.

  And then I open my eyes and all I see is the thick grey wall of my cell. I am in the condemned hold at Newgate, sentenced to hang. And Kitty is gone for ever.

  Part Three

  As they ride west down the Tyburn Road, the handsome new houses of Marylebone make way for rolling fields, dull brown and muddy. Black crows strut over the ridged ground, wings clasped behind their backs. Beneath the hedgerows, hard banks of snow thaw slowly in the pale spring sunshine. It has been a cruel winter. The air is fresher here, the sky more open. It makes him think of the Suffolk coast where he grew up. I will never go there again. I will never see my father or my sister again. I will never . . . I will never . . .

  ‘Oh, God!’ he breathes. Only his guards hear him. They watch and listen closely, memorising every detail. People will pay good money to hear of Thomas Hawkins’ last moments.

  And now, there is no road left. He can hear the roar of the crowds gathered up ahead. Tens of thousands have congregated on Tyburn Hill to see the spectacle, stretching far out into the fields beyond. Scores more have come to pick their pockets. Best place to thieve a watch, a hanging.

  The constables fight a path through the throng, beat the surging crowds back with clubs. People are climbing trees, hanging from ladders, balancing on the tops of roofs and walls and carriages. A father lifts his little boy on to his shoulders. The rich and fashionable folk sit in raised galleries next to the gallows, wrapped in greatcoats and scarves, chattering idly over the latest court gossip. Hawkers weave through them all, selling fruit and bowls of warm buttered barley. He can smell hot wine and sweet nutmeg in the air. His stomach rumbles. He has eaten poorly since the trial, his fine clothes hanging loose from his shoulders. And now, of all times, his appetite has returned – his body in protest, shouting its desire to live.

  The carts turn in a wide circuit to the left, and he sees the gallows at last. Tyburn’s triple tree. Three solid posts knocked deep into the earth, topped with three cross beams to form a triangle. Big enough to hang a dozen men. The hangman, John Hooper, lies along one of the cross beams, a pipe clamped between his lips, fixing the ropes with strong, deft fingers. As the carts approach, he flips one over. It tumbles down, swinging lightly.

  If the pardon comes, it must be now.

  The guards prod him to his feet. The Marshal is leaning down in his saddle, talking with his constables. He glances at the four carts, then gives a sharp nod and rides up to the gallows. ‘Friends,’ he bellows over the din. On his third try, the crowd quietens a little. ‘Good Christians.’ Someone shouts something from
the back and a whole patch of spectators laugh.

  Hawkins’ heart is pounding so hard he can barely breathe.

  The Marshal waits for silence. He slips his fingers into his saddlebag. Tugs out a scroll of paper, sealed with bright red wax. A royal pardon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I am told that evenings at the Whitehall cockpit are a genteel affair, where peers lose their fortunes with quiet dignity and ladies are barred entrance for fear of fainting. Southwark cockpits, by contrast, are a grand tour of hell. Howard, true to his nature, had chosen the very worst.

  The pit was hidden in a maze of back alleys off Deadman’s Place – a series of twists and turns I have no care to remember now. Kitty knew it well from her time working in the Marshalsea, and kept her cape and gown bunched high above the filth as she led the way. I walked a step behind with my hand upon the hilt of my sword, watching the shadows. We were too close to the gaol for my liking – I had earned myself a mean set of enemies in that damned hole, and a cockfight was precisely the place to find them again. I had conceived a bitter hatred of Southwark since my stay in prison, and this was the first time I had returned to the Borough in months.

  Another twist, and we arrived at the mouth of an alley blacker than a parson’s coat, rats scuttling and squealing in the darkness. A torch flickered at the dead end, beckoning us forward. A tavern without a name, hidden for a reason. I thought I glimpsed a movement up ahead, and touched Kitty’s shoulder, but there was nothing there. I had come to expect danger from every shadow in this city. As we paused, I heard footsteps behind us and a short, tough-looking rogue hurried past without a glance, hood covering his face, long cloak flapping at his heels as he ran. Not Howard, but a similar build – strong and solid – and fearless in a place bristling with danger.

  The windows of the tavern were boarded with thick planks, but we could hear the rabble inside, rowdy and violent. A guard stood at the entrance – a dark-skinned man with a grubby hat shoved onto his bald scalp. His face was a hideous mess of old scars, puckered and seamed like poorly stitched leather. A face to haunt nightmares, but for his eyes, which were clear and in this moment, at least – merry. He was laughing with the man who’d pushed past us, but his smile faded as we joined them.