The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

by Antonia Hodgson

  ‘Perhaps. But I must try.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Midnight on Phoenix Street and the city was alive, pulsing with revellers celebrating my death. It had been a good dying. I had shown pluck and a certain swagger at the end. That was something to admire, especially here in St Giles.

  I stood with Sam, shielded behind a wall, waiting for a sprawling crowd to pass. His father was holding a vigil for me at home with all his gang. I’d kept my word and held my tongue – the greatest virtue among thieves. They honoured me tonight, now that I was safely dead. Sam had slipped away while they drank and sang and raised toast after toast to Mr Hawkins. They did not know that Sam had not killed Burden. How disappointed they would all be in him.

  A few revellers straggled into a gin shop. When it was quiet enough, we stepped out into the street.

  The night was mild and damp, a light rain misting the air. Sam had brought me fresh clothes to replace my suit of blue velvet – we had sent that to Hooper the hangman. A fair price for saving my life, I thought – along with whatever else Kitty had paid him. I had cost her a great deal these past weeks. I pulled the collar of my greatcoat around my ears.

  ‘They won’t see you.’

  I understood. People only see what they expect to see, and no one expected to see a dead man strolling about the town. But still, I preferred to keep my head down and my collar up. I bent my neck low and felt the bruise around my throat, where the rope had cut deep. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

  Sam held out a torch coated in thick black pitch. I took the tinderbox from my coat pocket and struck the flint, bright sparks flying from the stone. The torch caught fire and Sam raised it high. And of a sudden he was that young boy I’d met last September. The boy who promised to light me home and instead led me into darkness.

  ‘Well, look at you, Sam. A moon-curser once more.’

  He smiled a true, broad smile. ‘No, sir. Not tonight. Tonight I’ll see you home.’

  On Long Acre, the pavements were covered in broken glass, sodden broadsheets, and the occasional drunk. I almost tripped over an old watchman, dead to the world and snoring, his lantern burned out. It was always the same the night after a hanging. Tomorrow he would stumble into a coffeehouse, clutching his head and cursing my name.

  In the Garden, a few whores limped beneath the arches, clutching themselves for warmth and looking for a fresh customer. Most were busy, on their backs in their meagre rooms, or pushed up against a wall in a back alley. Men needed to fuck after a hanging, to feel the blood pumping in their veins.

  At Moll’s place, light glowed in the windows. Moll’s voice carried across the piazza, sweet and sad. A song of mourning.

  ‘Holding a wake for you,’ Sam said.

  So, this was how it felt to be a ghost. Some part of me yearned to draw near. Was Betty there, and did she grieve for me? She must have known the pardon would never come, even as she promised it. Her visit had ensured my silence between the trial and the hanging.

  Betrayal. Well. I had felt that sting before. I pulled my hat low and kept my eyes on the cobbles.

  We were home soon enough. Home. My heart rose. I had not dared to dream of coming home again. I tapped softly on the door and it swung free at once, Kitty waiting anxiously behind it. She had hurried back from St Giles under Sam’s protection hours before, to prepare and to keep a close eye upon next door. She kissed me in silent welcome as Sam extinguished the torch, grinding it into the iron snuffer fixed to the wall outside.

  ‘Alice is asleep in Jenny’s old room,’ she whispered. ‘Neala’s in the kitchen. I slipped a draught in her beer. She sleeps light.’

  Alice and Neala had kept Kitty company throughout my imprisonment, Neala standing guard through the nights. There had been threats from some of the neighbours, convinced that Kitty had been involved in the murder. Neala had kept them away. Felblade had spoken out for her too, it seemed. Strange to discover true friends in such times and in such unexpected quarters. I was grateful to them all and did not want them tangled up in tonight’s plan. Safer for them to think me dead, maybe for ever. Whatever happened tonight, I had not yet decided what should follow. There was, after all, a freedom in being dead. It could be a welcome chance to begin afresh, with a new name and none of the old ties I’d allowed to bind me. The thought of not being in the service of the queen, or James Fleet – of answering to no one but myself . . . Well, it had its appeal.

  Kitty grinned, excited by the fresh drama. Perhaps I should have slipped opiates in her beer. No, no. I had learned my lesson. I had chosen Kitty – and she had chosen me. For good or ill, we would face our troubles together.

  We tiptoed up the stairs, paying mind to every loose board. When we reached Sam’s room, I took out the pistol and handed it to Kitty. ‘It’s not loaded.’

  She scowled, then turned it around in her hand, testing its weight in her palm. Mollified, she tilted her chin towards the secret door, hidden behind the hanging with its white cherry tree design.

  Kitty went first, followed by Sam. I stood alone for a few seconds, the candle flickering in my hand, then plunged through to the other side.

  Burden’s house was very still. Kitty had been studying the household these past weeks, while I languished in my cell. Judith hadn’t replaced Alice – perhaps she could not find anyone to join such a cursed household. No one had visited, either, save for one very stern lawyer who came almost every day, clutching a fat bundle of papers. Rumour was the business was in trouble. Even Mrs Jenkins had been banished since she’d served her purpose at the trial. It had left her suspicious, the way she had been used and discarded – and her sharp eye noticed things she had missed before. One of her customers had seen Ned visiting the Carpenters’ Company. ‘Asking for charity,’ she’d guessed, and that guess had been transmuted into fact about the Garden.

  I took the candle and examined the gowns hanging in the cabinet, running my hands over the flounces and pleats. They smelled of campion. The heavy black mourning gown was missing.

  On the day I searched the house, Judith had dressed herself in that gown. She had thrown a heavy lace shawl over her head that fell all the way to her waist. She had pinned it carefully with an ebony brooch, to cover the fabric beneath. Her appearance had struck me as strange and affected even at the time. Why not order a new gown, or have the older one tailored to a modern cut? No one would have expected her to be in full mourning dress so soon. I’d thought it a sign of her grief, or an unbalanced mind. I had pitied Judith then. I had thought her weak.

  And so I had searched every corner of the house looking for bloodstained clothes, while Judith had sat primly in the drawing room, wearing the same dress she’d worn when she killed her father. Smiling on the inside while I searched like a fool for what was right in front of my eyes.

  Clever, wicked girl.

  Down on the next landing we paused, each drawing strength from the other. The plan we had agreed to on Phoenix Street had seemed simple enough. Kitty and I would coax the truth from Judith. Sam would stand watch. And we must be quiet. Ned would be sleeping downstairs in the workshop, Stephen across the landing in his father’s old room. If either woke we were all in trouble.

  ‘No blood,’ I whispered, for the hundredth time. I would not have another death on my conscience. Kitty and Sam exchanged guarded looks. I had the distinct impression they had agreed something rather different, out of my hearing. ‘Swear it.’

  They complied, eventually, with a good deal of reluctance and head-shaking. I stepped closer to Judith’s door; reached for the handle and turned it slowly. The latch clunked and the door opened, creaking softly on its hinges.

  The bed stood in the middle of the room, the canopy open to the night. I could hear Judith breathing softly. And this was shameful, was it not – stealing into a young girl’s bedchamber while she lay sleeping? I felt a prod in my back – Kitty urging me forward, most likely with the pistol. She was overly fond of that weapon. She closed the door behin
d us.

  ‘She murdered her father,’ Kitty whispered, catching the doubt in my eyes. ‘She let you hang, Tom.’

  Judith stirred, legs swishing under the sheets. Her dark hair fanned out across the pillow, a few damp strands clinging to her cheek. Her pale-blue night gown lay unbuttoned at her throat, revealing a silver cross on a delicate chain. She had let me hang. And now she slept, peaceful and content.

  Her eyes fluttered beneath closed lids.

  Kitty hurried to the bed and covered Judith’s mouth with a folded handkerchief. Judith’s brows furrowed, then her eyes opened wide in shock. She tried to scream but the sound was muffled by the cloth.

  Kitty clamped it harder to Judith’s lips. ‘Be still.’

  She gave a slight noise in her throat then nodded slowly, watching Kitty.

  I stepped forward with the candle held high. ‘Judith.’

  She flinched at the sound of my voice and saw me at last. For a moment she lay senseless with shock, eyes bulging as she tried to understand what she saw. Then she began to whimper. I moved closer and her eyes rolled back in her head. She slumped back down in a dead faint.

  ‘That was obliging of her,’ Kitty said. She pulled out a couple of rags and tied Judith’s wrists to the bedpost. She used the handkerchief as a gag.

  This did not sit well with me. I shuffled from foot to foot, the floorboards creaking beneath my weight.

  Kitty gave me an impatient look. ‘Find the dress.’

  I searched the closets while Kitty lit more candles about the room. I soon found the mourning gown and matching petticoat. I laid them out across the bed and lowered one of the candles over the skirts, tracing my fingers across the silk. It would have been drenched in blood the night of the murder. Judith must have spent many secret hours sponging it clean. There were still a few faint marks in the fabric. Some, caught in the stitched seams of the quilted petticoat, would be easily covered by an apron. The stains on the bodice were harder to discover, mere faded patches where Judith had scrubbed out the blood. I scratched a fingernail along a seam and a tiny dark brown fragment of blood flaked into my palm. A jury would call it dirt, an old smudge on an old dress, but I was satisfied. Judith had killed her father.

  It was not just the stains; it was the defiance with which she had worn the dress during the search. At my trial. At my hanging. The tiny smirk on her face, as she enjoyed her own private joke. It was only now that I began to understand Judith and the depths of her sickness. We had all dismissed her as a poor, timid thing. And perhaps she was – her life smothered and ruined by her father, flinching beneath his hand, his sharp words. But something else had grown beneath that fragile surface. Something strong, formed of anger and bitterness. Alice had known the truth about her mistress – but only Kitty had listened. Kitty had suspected Judith all along.

  Judith blinked, waking in confusion. Her face was pallid, her lips almost white. We had frightened her half to death.

  Kitty tipped a jug of ice-cold water in Judith’s face.

  She jolted with the shock, gasping beneath her gag. When she discovered that she was tied to the bed she gave a muffled cry and pulled at the ties, turning her wrists frantically as she tried to slip free.

  I sat down upon the bed and she shrank back, terrified.

  ‘Be still,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve not come to hurt you.’

  Kitty sat down on the other side of the bed, pistol resting in her hand. ‘Do not presume the same of me.’

  Judith stared at her, then nodded her understanding.

  ‘I wish to speak with you, Judith,’ I said. ‘If we remove the gag, do you promise not to cry out?’

  She nodded again.

  I loosened the knot, then lifted the handkerchief free. She was trembling violently.

  ‘Are you a ghost?’

  ‘No, indeed.’

  ‘I saw you hang. I watched you die.’

  I touched my throat, where the rope burns chafed my skin. ‘For your crime.’

  For a moment she seemed almost ashamed. Then she pursed her lips and looked away.

  I threw the mourning gown across her lap. ‘You did a fair job, soaking out the blood. But it’s still there.’

  A long silence. She knew, now, that she was caught. A tiny, petulant shrug. ‘Well, it’s a maid’s job, is it not? Scrubbing clothes.’

  ‘It was clever of you to wear it. Easier to hide the stains.’

  ‘All those dresses,’ she murmured. ‘Turning to dust. He never let me touch them. They were for a woman, and I was not a woman. I was his daughter. I must never grow up. Have you seen all those fine silk dresses, sir?’ she asked, in a slow, dreamlike voice. ‘I shall have them unpicked and made anew, cleaned and restitched in the latest fashions. I shall do everything my father denied me. I shall walk about the town. I shall visit the theatre and the shops.’ She paused, a light smile playing across her lips. ‘I shall marry Ned.’

  ‘Is that why you killed your father? So you could—’

  ‘—So I could live. And to see his face. Oh . . . his face! He thought I was Alice. His filthy whore come to his bed again. Then he saw the knife. He was so shocked he didn’t even cry out. I stabbed him and I stabbed him and all he could say was, Why, Judith? Why? Croaking like an old toad. Even as I plunged the blade into his heart.’ She laughed. ‘Why, Judith? Why? I told him, when it was over. When he was still. He never let me speak. Always lecturing. But I could talk to him now he was quiet. I could tell him anything I wanted. I am not a little girl now, am I, Father? A little girl could not kill such a big man so easily.’ Her eyes flickered from mine to Kitty’s. She giggled. ‘I have shocked you both. The rake and his whore. How funny. You knew my father, how he treated us all. I was suffocating.’

  ‘You could have run away,’ Kitty said.

  ‘No! No . . . I had to stay here. For Ned.’

  She didn’t know that Ned was her brother. I’d thought he might have told her by now – but then he had always worried about Judith. She was so fragile. I shook my head.

  ‘He loves me,’ Judith cried, mistaking me.

  ‘Quiet,’ Kitty warned.

  ‘Why do you not believe me?’ she wailed. ‘I told Father and he laughed at me. He called me a silly slut. He said that he would never let me marry Ned or anyone else. He said he would send Ned away. He pinned me down and he beat me. I thought he would kill me.’

  Ahh . . . here was the Burden I remembered. And I had almost begun to feel sorry for him.

  ‘Then he announced that he would marry Alice. And I thought, Oh, no, Father. You shall not. You shall die and everyone will think it was Alice or Mr Hawkins.’ She laughed again.

  I rose and walked to the shuttered window, loosening the catch. It would be light soon. I had the truth, from the lips of the murderer, but would she confess it in public, without a pistol to her chest? Of course not. I rested my head against the cool windowpane.

  ‘You let me hang, Judith,’ I said, turning back to the bed. ‘You knew I was innocent, and you let me die in your place.’

  ‘Innocent? You killed a man, when you were in gaol. The world knows it.’

  Kitty began to laugh. It was a mean, dangerous laugh.

  Judith pulled anxiously on the ties at her wrists. ‘Why do you laugh at me?’

  Kitty smiled at her. ‘I meant to kill you,’ she said. ‘But this will be much better. To let you live and suffer. I thought I’d lost Tom for ever. It broke my heart. So now, Judith, I shall break yours.’

  ‘Kitty . . .’ I said softly, in warning.

  She ignored me. ‘Has Ned asked for your hand?’

  Judith fell still. ‘He will. I know he will. He must . . .’

  Kitty laughed again. ‘Poor Judith. You have no idea, do you? Ned doesn’t love you. He can’t love you. Shall I tell you why?’ Kitty pressed her lips to Judith’s ear, soft as a kiss. ‘He’s your brother.’

  Three words. Each one a blade.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s why your father refus
ed his permission. Ned Weaver is your brother, Judith. He will never be yours.’

  ‘No!’ Judith screamed – a long, terrible wail. It tore through the room, a sound of desolation and despair.

  Kitty slapped a hand across Judith’s mouth, but it was too late. There was a thud as a door opened wide, followed by a short scuffle. I jumped from the bed, Kitty still struggling to silence Judith.

  Stephen burst into the room holding his father’s sword, closely followed by Sam. Stephen’s courage fled the instant he saw me, a living spectre standing over his sister’s bed. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the floor. The sword clattered from his hand. ‘Oh, God!’ he cried, hands clasped in prayer. ‘Protect me from this devil.’

  I kicked the sword over to Sam. ‘I am not a devil, Stephen.’ I pulled down my collar, so he might see the burns upon my throat.

  Stephen stopped praying. He raised his eyes to mine. ‘The Lord spared you,’ he said, in a dazed wonder. ‘He heard my prayers and in His wisdom He spared you. Oh, praise God!’

  I frowned at him. Why would Stephen pray for his father’s killer? Why was he so glad to find me alive? I remembered his empty room, the portrait of his sister stamped into the floor. I remembered he had hit Judith that first morning, after she had cried Murder! Not to calm her down, after all – but in anger. In shame.

  ‘You knew I was innocent.’

  He began to weep.

  Stephen had guessed his sister was guilty the moment he saw his father’s body. The rage of the attack had convinced him. He’d lived under the same roof in the days leading up to the murder, and had heard them fighting. Watched as his father beat Judith for speaking out. Heard her crying in her room, tears of hatred and frustration. He’d seen her face when Burden announced he would marry Alice, and banish Ned from the house. When Stephen walked into his father’s bedroom and saw the blood and the knife, he’d known. But then he’d pushed the truth from his mind. It was too painful, too horrifying to accept. ‘She’s my sister. I couldn’t . . .’