The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins (33 page)

‘
Choice?
No indeed, Mr Hawkins. Howard is my servant. She will do
precisely
as she is told.’

There was a long, angry silence. There was something deeper here – old wounds of betrayal. Henrietta had been the queen’s servant long before she became the king’s mistress. They had been allies and confidantes once, when they were young women. When the queen was still the Princess of Wales, just a few years married. Still beautiful and still adored, by all accounts.

‘It is a hard thing to lose a son,’ the queen said at length. Her gaze slid to mine.

She knew I must have heard the stories – the prince and princess banished from court in disgrace, their children held hostage. The King had given Caroline a devastating choice: stay at court with her children or leave with her husband. Her youngest boy had been just a few weeks old and very sick. He had died before the family had reconciled.

And then there was her oldest son, Frederick, raised alone at the court in Hanover – a stranger to the entire family, including his mother.

The queen understood the agony of losing a son – through death and through estrangement. Now she would inflict that torture upon Henrietta. It was pragmatic, necessary – and cruel. But who was I to judge her now?

‘Twelve hundred a year,’ she said. ‘The king will accept that. He will rail and kick his hat about the room for a few days. In a few weeks he will be pleased that we have saved him eighteen hundred pounds per annum. In a few
months
he will believe it was all his idea.’ She tapped her fingers playfully against the arm of the sofa. ‘Adequate, Mr Hawkins. Adequate. You will do.’

A clear dismissal. I was released – at least for one night – and at no great cost, save to my conscience. I bowed low, feeling ashamed and relieved in equal measure.

On a whim, she tugged the diamond ring from her finger and dropped it into my palm. ‘For your little trull. For her courage. I am glad she left a mark on the brute.’

Mrs Howard waited in the antechamber. If she were anxious she didn’t show it. Small wonder that her face was so smooth and unlined. An even temper made for an even countenance. Given all that she had endured, her equanimity was nothing short of miraculous. But maybe that was why she had survived for so long, through all those years of torture at her husband’s hands. And now she would suffer again, because of me.

‘You look pale, sir,’ she said. ‘Was Her Majesty not pleased with your news?’

I stared at my shoe. I had polished the silver buckle so hard that I could see my face in it, distorted. ‘She was satisfied, I believe.’

She drew closer, tilting her head so that she could look into my downcast eyes. ‘The queen lays her traps very well,’ she said, softly. ‘We only see them when they bite down upon us. Whatever you have done, whatever she has made you do . . . you must not blame yourself, sir.’

I couldn’t answer her. She meant to be kind, but her words shamed me. The truth was, I had seen the trap and I had thrown her upon it, to save myself. Little comfort that Howard would now retreat and leave her in peace. Henrietta would never see her son again.

I was saved by Budge. ‘My lady. Her Majesty wishes to speak with you.’

She curtsied and went to see her mistress. Now at last I could look at her; her straight back, her smooth, graceful step. Would the queen enjoy telling her husband’s mistress she had lost her son for ever? Or would she choose to be kind? And there lay her power. There lay the motive for all Queen Caroline’s plots and schemes. The power to choose.

Budge led me back through the winding passageways and on to Pall Mall. It was very cold and clear, and the sky was blazing with stars. I lit a pipe and found that my hands were trembling.

‘Her Majesty has an effect,’ Budge observed. He tucked a wad of tobacco into his cheek and began to chew. ‘How go your enquiries?’

‘Very ill.’

‘Unfortunate. I hear reports. The town’s against you, Hawkins.’

‘The town can fuck itself.’

He spat a thin stream of brown liquid onto the ground. ‘Joseph Burden was an arsehole by all accounts. But he lived in that house for twenty years without trouble. Then you arrive next door. Rumours of violence. Rumours of murder. Rumours you can’t seem to shake . . .’ He held up a hand, refusing my objections. ‘Burden says he has proof you killed a man. You threaten him. He dies the same night. I’m struggling to see this as a coincidence, Hawkins. And I like you.’

‘It’s not a coincidence, I’m sure. The whole street saw me fight with Burden – including the killer.’ I held out my arms. ‘I am the perfect scapegoat.’

‘That is,’ Budge said, ‘the problem with waggling a sword in a man’s face.’

‘True enough. But even had I
not
threatened Burden, everyone knew he planned to testify against me.’ I paused. ‘I have been thinking upon this matter a great deal.’

Budge rolled the tobacco around his cheek. ‘No doubt.’

‘You said it yourself, sir. Burden lived on Russell Street for twenty years without trouble. He ruled his house as if he were the keeper of a gaol, not the head of a family. Lectured them from the Bible each night. Punished every act of defiance, no matter how frivolous. No mother to soften the blows, to offer any warmth or kindness.’ I paused. Budge was watching me, curious. I wondered if he had guessed the truth – that my own childhood had not been so very different. Well, well. Nor ten thousand more, no doubt. ‘Judith and Stephen obeyed him all their lives. Ned lived under his yoke for seven years and never once rebelled.’

‘First apprentice in history.’

‘It was not fear alone that made them obedient. I believe . . . it gives me pain to say it, but I believe they
respected
him. Ned said that for all Burden’s faults, he was a fair master. He lived by his own strict rules. That would have meant a great deal I think, in such a closed, private household. That he was an honourable, Christian man.’

‘Then they found out he was fucking his housekeeper.’

‘Precisely. The night that . . .’ I stopped. I had almost said Sam’s name. ‘The night Alice cried “thief”. They’d obeyed him without question year after year – and this was their reward. Ned was to be thrown out of the house without a farthing. Stephen was to be removed from school. Judith must watch as her servant became her stepmother.’

Budge pondered this. ‘I’d say the apprentice had the most to lose.’

‘True. But I shared a bowl of punch with Ned the night of the murder. He wasn’t angry with Burden because of the money. He was angry because Burden had broken his word. All those years of lectures, teaching them how to be good, honourable souls. He taught them too well.’

Budge snorted. ‘He was killed for his sins?’

‘No, not that. Think on it for a moment. Once Judith found him with Alice, he gave up the pretence. We heard him through the walls, Budge. He forced Alice to cry out so that everyone might hear.
Gah
 . . .’ I dashed my spent pipe to the floor and broke it beneath my heel. ‘But still he expected them to obey him, as though nothing had changed.
That
is why the attack was so ferocious. It was not the beatings and the lectures that drove one of them to stab Burden to death. It was his
hypocrisy
. It
wasn
’
t fair
.’

Budge touched my arm, a subtle warning. I stopped, chest heaving. I must have been shouting. A couple of young beaux strolled past, smirking at one another. I knew one of them from the gaming houses, the youngest son of some lesser nobleman. Did he recognise me? Oh, very good. Another piece of gossip for the coffeehouses.
I say, did you hear about Hawkins, shouting like a lunatic on the Mall? The fellow
’
s gone half-mad with guilt, no doubt
 . . .

I feared I was pouring my own feelings too deep into this story. My own father was a strict and sober man. He had lectured me on my wilfulness and wickedness on countless occasions, made me feel as though I were a sinful child . . . and then later I’d discovered I had a half-brother, Edward. Younger than my sister and me, but born while our mother was still alive. While she lay dying of a long illness, in fact. Even now, I could summon the anger in a moment. The furious sense of injustice. That said, I had never felt the urge to pick up a dagger and stab my father through the chest for it.

‘
Why
did he become so reckless? After all those years?’

Budge had no answer. And I was back at the start again, running about in circles.
Ned, Judith, Stephen
.

We had reached Charing Cross. This was where I’d had my first encounter with Charles Howard, when he’d almost run me down in his sedan. Now one of his chairmen was dead. A memory surfaced from the night before. The blade ripping fast across his throat, blood spurting from the sudden gash. His expression, puzzled, then terrified. A terrible noise in his throat, a choking wet sound as he tried to breathe.

Had he been the one holding the back of the chair? The one who had nodded his apology as he passed, and smiled at me? God help me, I couldn’t even picture his face. Only his eyes, at the very end. Pleading.
I
’
m dying. I
’
m dying
–
help me.

I rubbed my face. And Howard survived. Worse. The bastard had
won
. ‘Did you know that Burden was a brothel bully, twenty years ago?’

Budge was amused, but not surprised. No doubt he had heard of a thousand such secret hypocrisies.

‘Ned told me he worked there to pay off his debts.’

Budge closed one eye, searching his memory. ‘Don’t remember him. And I visited a fair few brothels back then . . .’

I cast my mind back. Howard had talked about the place last night, had he not? What
had
he said about it . . .? It had unsettled me at the time. ‘Seven Dials, I think. Devilish place, by the sound of it.’

Budge came to a sudden halt. ‘Aunt Doxy’s.’

I shrugged. Howard hadn’t mentioned the name. ‘He said there was a room for every vice.’

Budge spat the last of his tobacco to the ground. ‘
Fuck
. Burden was the bully at
Aunt Doxy
’s . . . That was . . . have you not heard the stories?’

‘Only what Howard told me last night. He said that if a girl was badly beaten or cut, Burden would keep quiet – for a price . . .’

Budge gripped my arm, shaken. Budge was not the sort of man who allowed himself to look shaken. ‘Wicked things happened in that place, Hawkins. There was rumours . . . A man could ask for anything he wished.
Anything.
More of a club than a brothel. Invitation only. Then one night, it burned down to the ground. All the whores escaped, and the customers too. They stood on the street and watched the flames tearing up the place. Then they heard the screams. Man and a woman. Aunt Doxy, for certain. The man . . . No one knows. They was burned alive, Hawkins, slowly. Bad way to die.
Very
bad. You could hear ’em screaming way over on Castle Street. They found the bodies later, what was left of them. Chained together in death.’

‘They never found who did it?’

‘The whores knew, but they was too scared to say. Or too glad, maybe. I heard it was revenge. Some young jade, got her face all cut. Foreign girl – Spaniard, I think.’

My heart dipped
.
The truth began to circle about me, wheeling like a bird of prey. ‘What happened to her?’

‘Don’t know. She died, maybe. Maybe not.’ A shrug.