Part 16 (1/2)

Phoenix Street was crowded and chaotic, and everyone was selling food, gin, bodies. A tinker stood in a doorway, clanging an iron pot, his nose caved in from the pox. He stank of p.i.s.s, the bottom of his coat sodden with it. I looked away, my head pounding in time to his noise.

There was a frost in the air this morning and I was grateful for it it woke me up, and freshened the streets a little. A man ran past us, dragging a hand cart filled with clothes. For a brief moment I thought I saw the chairman's coat buried in the heap, stained with blood. But the wheel almost ran over my toe and I was forced to leap back. By the time I'd recovered, the cart had vanished.

Fleet strode through the ragged stream of life, squinting at the winter sun with eyes more accustomed to the dark. A cl.u.s.ter of men nodded as he pa.s.sed, but most minded their own business. We turned into a sunless alley and Fleet sighed, as if coming home. Turned and twisted again until we reached a ruined courtyard, overlooked by gloomy, tumbledown houses. No carts rolled down here, no hawkers called their trade. Windows were shuttered tight against the day, and all was still. The ropes and walkways of the rookery loomed high above our heads, blocking the light. Here we were both in shade, the world dyed grey.

He tapped his toe against the cobbles, hands in pockets. 'D'you know this place?'

I looked about me. The press of broken houses, the narrow balconies hung with tattered sheets. This was where I had stopped last night, when I could run no further. This was where I had called Fleet's name and he'd answered.

He held out his hand. Two guineas glinted in his palm.

My payment for meeting with Mrs Howard in St James's Park. He had known all along that her husband would attack the carriage. He had sent me there without warning and I had almost died as a consequence. No doubt he thought last night had squared the matter. But if he had not lied to me when we shook hands upon the deal, then I would never have met Charles Howard in the first place. Kitty would never have been hurt and threatened and half drowned.

He pressed the coins into my hand with a smile. 'Take them, sir. Don't forget, your life is worth only half that.'

'You betrayed me.'

'Mr Hawkins,' he said heavily. Wearily. 'You knew the dangers. You betrayed yourself, sir.'

'What I should have guessed you worked for the queen?'

'I work for myself.' He snuffed back a laugh. 'Gentlemen. All that schooling . . . I forget what fools you are. You ain't equipped to live in the world. You strut about, so sure you're the cleverest souls in England. D'you think your wits are sharper than mine, sir?'

'I-'

'Of course you do. Even now. Tell me what was it you studied at Oxford?'

I scowled at him. He knew the answer full well.

'Divinity.' He chuckled, as if this were some great joke. 'Three years wasted upon the next world. Well I have spent eight and thirty studying this one. Who has the best of it, d'you think?'

'What do you want of me, d.a.m.n you?'

'You know, sir, you know.'

Aye I did. He had made a great deal of money working with his brother. Samuel had been a spy for the queen and for others, no doubt. Now I was to replace him with Sam to a.s.sist me, I supposed. A fine and lucrative deal, with very little risk for James Fleet. 'I will not work for you.'

He laughed and shook his head. Laughed again. 'It's not an offer, Hawkins. It's an order.'

A knot tightened in my throat. Now I understood why Betty had been so furious with me. She had realised at once what I had lost, in that fatal moment when I had shook James Fleet's hand. I thought of the Marshalsea of the tortures I'd endured to secure my freedom. Now a scant three months later I was a prisoner again. And for what? A brief dazzle of excitement. How could I have been so reckless? It was not enough to shrug and say it was my nature, not enough to rail at G.o.d or Fortune. I could have prevented this.

No wonder Fleet mocked me as a fool. He clapped me on the shoulder, and the weight of his hand felt like an iron chain. 'Breakfast,' he said.

'I'm not hungry.'

'Course you are.'

Of course I was. It's not an offer, Hawkins. I was Fleet's man now and the queen's. G.o.d help me I'd be lucky to survive the week.

As we headed back up Phoenix Street, Fleet plucked Eva's gauze neck cloth from his pocket and threw it into the gutter. For a moment it fluttered there in the filth, gold thread glinting in the sun. Then a street boy s.n.a.t.c.hed it and ran, scampering up a wall on to the rooftops and away.

Sam had brought a letter from Gonson a reply to my request to search Burden's house. Gonson railed at my insolence, though he had no choice but to comply. It will prove nothing, sir, he wrote, save your black-hearted cruelty and the innocence of Burden's children. You will be judged for this one day, Hawkins. Such devilish behaviour does not go unpunished. There followed more sermonising, which I did not read. All that mattered was his promise to send a constable to the house later that afternoon. In the meantime, Sam told me that the street boys had watched the house all night. No one had come and no one had gone the house had remained barred and silent, as if Burden were still alive, ruling the family with the Bible and his fist.

Gabriela served a late breakfast of plum porridge, richly spiced and delicious. I ate three bowls of it, much to her satisfaction. 'This how a man eat, Samuel,' she scolded her son, who had picked out all the currants and dotted them along the rim like dead flies. Then she bowed him to her breast and kissed his head, running her hand through his curls. 'Belo,' she smiled, her long scar puckering her face. Sam said nothing. But he closed his eyes for a brief moment, and smiled too.

A quick pipe and a pot of strong coffee, and I was eager to return home. Fleet had already thrown off his boots and was snoring softly in a hammock, recovering from the night's work. Kitty kissed Gabriela goodbye and we headed down the stairs.

'Could I not go with them, Ma?' Eva begged her mother. 'Mr Hawkins promised to make me a lady.'

What the devil . . .? Kitty and Gabriela stabbed me with a look. I raised my hands in protest.

'I would make a fine gentlewoman,' Eva trilled, swis.h.i.+ng her gown and fanning herself with her hand.

'A fine strumpet,' Sam muttered, dodging a slap as he ran for the stairs.

'You stay here with me, Eva,' Gabriela said firmly. 'We put you out in the world, I think you break it.'

I kept my borrowed hat low over my eyes as we reached Covent Garden. Most of the pa.s.sersby did not recognise me in such mean clothes. Those who did seemed wary and puzzled. How simple it had been yesterday when I was the monster, arrested and dragged to gaol by Gonson's men. They did not like me any better today, walking free about the streets in my eccentric suit of ill-matched clothes. No doubt the news of my enquiries had spread, creating even more confusion. What should they make of me? Was I to be pitied? Reviled? Feared? No one knew. And so they kept their distance, until they had an answer on which they could all agree. And G.o.d help me, I had best find Burden's killer before then. This was how mobs were born. Confusion and fear, and then a swift, angry decision. That one. He's to blame.

It struck me that both Fleet and the queen would be interested to see how I resolved my troubles with Burden's family. I had proved my reckless courage, protecting Henrietta Howard from her husband. Now my skills of reasoning would be tested as I searched for the killer. If I was successful, I would have proved myself useful to them. If I failed, I would most likely hang. It was a provoking thought.

I followed Kitty into the shop to hunt for paper. She was standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, staring up at the shelves. She picked up a pamphlet, dropped it back on its neat pile. 'Someone has been in here . . .' she murmured. She ran through the shop to the barren printing press, walking around it and frowning.

'Is anything stolen?' I asked, puzzled. 'Everything seems in order . . .'

'Perfectly in order.' She trailed a finger over the press, looking for dust. 'I have never seen it so clean and tidy.'

'Thank you, miss.' Alice appeared from the back storeroom carrying a mop and bucket, her gown hoicked up to her knees. Her face was hot, and stuck with straggles of blonde hair that had escaped from her cap. She gave a jump when she saw me and quickly untucked her gown, swis.h.i.+ng it back below her ankles. 'I've cleaned the whole house, top to bottom. Walls, floors, windows . . . Jenny was a good girl, but I must say . . .' she sniffed, not saying. 'That . . . boy wouldn't let me in his room.' Her eyes flickered to the door, where Sam was leaning against the frame. 'Not that I care. As if I have any interest in touching anything of his.' She scrubbed the mop back and forth with some violence, though the floor was clean enough to host a ball.

Kitty stared about her in astonishment. 'You must have worked all night.'

'I work hard, miss,' Alice said, pleased. 'Always have. And it was either that or lie in bed and wait to be murdered by someone. So I lit some candles and, well. As you see.'

I asked Alice to heat a few buckets of water. Kitty had bathed back in St Giles, but I could still smell the river stink on my skin. I found a sheaf of paper and took it upstairs to my desk. Sam trailed after me like a shadow. He seemed confused.

'Mr Hawkins. If I'd wanted to kill her . . .'

'That is not a happy way to begin a sentence, Sam.'

'Why would she feel safer was.h.i.+ng the floor?'

'I've no idea,' I sighed, dipping my quill. 'But we have a clean house for it, so my thanks for that.'

'But . . .,' Sam looked bewildered. 'It would be easier, with the mop and bucket. I could use them to wash the blood after and . . .'

I fixed him with a look.

'There's no reason to it,' he muttered and slunk up to his room.

I wrote a note to Budge, explaining that my meeting with Howard had not gone as hoped. I must find some other way to defeat him, given I could no longer attempt to befriend the devil. My only consolation was that he had not guessed I was working on the queen's behalf. I asked Budge to supply the names of Howard's cronies and enemies, old neighbours and creditors. And then I sat back, despondent. Howard's murderous attack on the barge should have been more than enough to hook the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he was a n.o.bleman. He could not be shamed or blackmailed by such behaviour. A light skirmish with a disgraced gentleman and his wh.o.r.e, no doubt that is how he would describe the matter.The court would shrug its shoulders and return to its card game.