The journey back to England was a nightmare. The weather was appalling, the trains crowded and uncomfortable. The baby – his regular and peaceful regime so arbitrarily disturbed – was fretful and difficult. Afraid to spend money that might somehow be used to help Matt, she travelled second class together with the uncommunicative Spider and Jem, who had insisted upon accompanying her as far as the Channel.
After a dozen attempts to drag a coherent story from Spider and after the dozenth reiteration of ‘—the Guv’nor knows what ’appened. ’E‘ll tell yer—’ she gave up, trying unsuccessfully to govern a raging and fear-filled impatience. The facts that she did elicit were basic; Moses was dead, his throat cut in one of the bedrooms at the Song and Supper Rooms, and Matt had been taken and charged with the crime. And – to add to her frantic worry – all this had happened months ago, at the beginning of November, whilst she had been contentedly wandering the autumn woodlands of the Lot. Genevieve’s plan to protect her had worked all too well – Luke had sent Spider to Paris to find her, and the unprepossessing little man had, until the stroke of luck that had taken him to Lucette and her accurate if ill-founded guess, met with a wall of silence. It had taken him nearly three months to track her down. And Kitty now had to face the thought that during that time anything might have happened; she might already be too late.
On the way through Paris she called upon Genevieve, a flying visit to tell her what little she knew herself of what had happened, and to tell her too of her decision with regard to Michael. Genevieve gestured with milk-white hands, helplessly philosophic. ‘It must be as you wish, of course, my Kitty. But I tell you – you will not be able to hide the child – especially now, with such trouble come upon you. If they hang your brother the newspapers will—’
‘They won’t! Don’t say it! He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it. I know him. There’s been some terrible mistake, that’s all.’
‘Of course, chérie, I’m sorry—’ Genevieve was soothing, but her voice was unconvinced.
And for all her brave words Kitty herself suffered the most agonized misgivings as once more they sped northwards, towards the Channel. As she sat, rigidly sleepless and uncomfortable beside the dozing Jem, Michael’s small head a cramping weight upon her arm, it seemed to her that the rhythmically clicking wheels mocked as they rode – and the words they used she had heard before, and never forgotten since they had been spoken that day that their troubles had begun: Are you familiar, Matt Daniels – the humming wheels spoke in the light, supercilious tones of Sir Percy Bowyer – with the saying that those who are born to hang will never drown – never drown – never drown – And then Luke’s voice – we’re the other kind – born to hang – born to hang – She could not stop the words that hammered in her brain.
She said goodbye to Jem at Boulogne almost peremptorily, her mind abstracted with anxiety, her every thought concentrated on her need to get home to Matt. The crossing was rough and Spider was miserably sick. Kitty, determinedly, was not. She sat huddled on a cold and windblown bench, her child clasped to her, and tried to think coherently, to make some sensible plan. Until now she had thought of nothing but getting back to London as swiftly as possible. Now it came to her that in a very few hours she would be there. She had to make up her mind what she intended to do. But first she had to try to ensure Spider’s silence upon the matter of Michael.
She tackled him with misgiving as they waited, cold and depressed, for the train that would take them on the final leg of their journey.
‘Spider – I wanted to – ask you something. A favour.’
The little man looked at her, his face blank to the point of hostility.
With sinking heart she struggled on. ‘The child—’ She hesitated. ‘You must have wondered why I ran away from Paris? Why I hid?’
‘It’s nothin’ ter do with me.’
‘But it is. Because you know about the child. And – I want you to keep it a secret.’ She cuddled the baby to her, hiding the dark hair, the huge, black eyes. Spider had hardly glanced at the child, had shown in fact no interest at all after the first shock. Please God, he had not marked the resemblance. ‘The child – isn’t Luke’s. That’s why I hid. I was afraid. And, Spider – surely you can see that we’ve all got quite enough trouble to contend with at the moment? If Luke should find out…’ She let the words die between them, miserably. Their breath hung, chill mist upon the bleak, dark air. With a huff of steam the great engine was pulling into the platform.
‘Spider – please?’ she said, urgently, hating the need to beg.
‘It’s nothin’ ter do with me,’ he said again, shrugging.
‘You mean – you won’t tell him?’ She despised the desperation in her own voice but could neither disguise nor prevent it.
He made an irritated, dismissive half gesture with which she had to be satisfied. They spoke only once more before reaching London, when Kitty roused herself to ask him if he knew where Pol was living and Spider muttered that she and Barton Wesley had rented a house in Pascal Road, just three doors from where Amy was living. Kitty relaxed a little – that at least was good news.
At Victoria Station Spider left her, ungraciously ignoring her halting attempts to thank him. She stood alone with the child, surrounded by what luggage she had brought with her – the rest Genevieve was sending on from Paris.
‘Cab, lady?’
With relief she nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Where to?’
She hitched the child tiredly onto her hip. ‘Paddington,’ she said. ‘Pascal Road.’
Early darkness had fallen by the time she reached the address that Spider had given her. With relief she saw that lights gleamed behind the lace curtains of the small windows. The cab driver deposited her luggage upon the pavement, then cheerfully held the child as she hunted for the coins to pay him. Then he flicked a finger to his cap, swung expertly back up onto his high driving seat and at a touch of his long whip the horse ambled off into the gathering darkness. Mist hung about the street lights, smudged darkly with the soot of winter fires. It was bitterly cold. Kitty stepped to the door and knocked loudly.
She heard Pol’s voice before the door was opened. ‘’Oo the blazes is that at this time of the day? Bart? Bart – you there? There’s someone at the door! Oh, all right. Might ’ave known. If yer want somethin’ done, do it yerself—’ Grumbling good-naturedly she swung the door open. ‘Yes? ’Oo is it?’ She stood, plump and solid, outlined against the light, garish hair like a nimbus of fire about her head – so familiar, so dear, that for a moment Kitty, clutching Michael to her breast, could not speak.
‘Well, dearie?’ Pol peered into her shadowed face. ‘What can I—?’ She stopped. There was a moment’s incredulous silence. ‘Kitty? It can’t be – Kitty!’
‘Yes. It’s me.’
‘Kitty!’ Pol threw herself upon her, arms stretched to hug her. Kitty felt her stiffen and then draw back. Kitty followed her into the light. Michael whimpered. ‘Gawd Almighty,’ Pol said, very softly. ‘Great Gawd Almighty. So that’s it?’
Wordless, Kitty nodded.
Sober-faced Pol parted the shawl that protected the tiny head.
‘Pol,’ Kitty said, and was appalled at the helpless wobble in her voice. ‘Oh, Pol!’ she was crying then, crying and babbling, her face buried awkwardly in the other girl’s shoulder. ‘Oh, Pol, I’m so glad to be home – I never thought I’d get here – I’m so frightened – what’s happened? How’s Matt—?’
Pol held her for a long moment, comfortingly, including the baby in her embrace, patting Kitty’s shoulder, making wordless, soothing noises.
Kitty drew back at last, sniffing. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just – it was such a shock – about Matt, I mean. And it’s been such a horrible journey.’
‘’Course, love. I understand. But you’re ’ere now. Nice cup of tea. That’s what’s called for – Bart!’ She raised her voice to a muted shriek that might have been heard at the far end of the street. ‘Bart! Come down ’ere! Look ’oo’s come ’ome to us!’
Barton Wesley, obviously alerted by the commotion, had already appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘By cracky! Kitty!’ He came down the stairs like a small avalanche, gave her a smacking kiss on her tear-wet cheek then, as Pol had done and with much the same expression, stood back to survey her whimpering burden. ‘Whew!’ he whistled softly, and exchanged a glance with Pol.
‘No questions,’ Pol said, firmly. ‘Not till later. Let’s get you in an’ make the babe comfy. Then we’ll talk.’
Kitty allowed herself to be enveloped by the brisk ministrations of her friend. Tea was made, baggage brought in from the pavement. Settled in peace and warmth by the fire in the tiny parlour, she fed Michael and made him comfortable, settling him securely in the depths of a massive armchair which she pushed against the wall. Then she took her empty tea cup and went out into the hall, following the sound of voices to the half-open kitchen door.
‘A kid, eh?’ Pol was saying, her voice edged clearly with anxiety. ‘What a turn up for the book. As if she ’asn’t got enough on ’er plate!’
‘Is it ’is, d’you think?’ Barton asked.
Pol snorted. ‘You blind as well as daft? ’Course it is. Gawd ’elp the poor little bugger.’
‘Well – it’s just – all them stories that went around—’
‘All them lies, more like.’
‘What lies?’
Pol spun to where Kitty stood at the doorway. ‘What lies, Pol?’ Kitty asked again, quietly.
Pol opened her mouth, hesitated, then said flatly, ‘Word was that you’d gorn orf with some feller. Some rich Froggy count or somethin’, Lottie said.’
‘Lottie?’ Kitty cut in.
‘Lottie,’ Pol repeated, grimly. ‘She said that when they saw you in Paris you were knee-deep in Russky princes an’ flashy French aristos. An’ ’is Lordship certainly came ’ome with a flea in ’is ear, anyone could see that. So – well, when you disappeared word was that you’d found yourself a nicely feathered little nest somewhere—’
Kitty stared, appalled. ‘And you believed that?’
Pol shrugged. ‘Didn’t ’ave much reason not to.’
‘And – Luke? He believed it too?’
Another shrug.
Kitty sat down hard upon a wooden chair. Here was a complication she had not envisaged.
Pol poured her another cup of tea. ‘Gawd, what a mess! Still, when ’e sees the bairn—’
‘No!’
They both blinked, startled at her vehemence.
‘No,’ she said again, determinedly. ‘He’s not to know. I don’t want him near Michael. I don’t want him anywhere near my baby.’ Tears were close again. She shook her head angrily.
‘But – you can’t do that! ’E’s bound ter find out sooner or later.’
‘Not necessarily. Not if you’ll help me. You will help me, won’t you? We can hide him – I can find someone to look after him for me – he’s mine, Pol. I won’t give him up and I won’t have Luke take him from me. When this awful business with Matt is sorted out—’ She had been talking feverishly. At the flicker of pain that crossed Pol’s open face at the mention of Matt’s name she stopped. Dead silence fell. She looked from one to the other. Barton could not meet her eyes but stared gloomily into his empty cup. The compassion in Pol’s face brought a wave of panic, fluttering suddenly in Kitty’s throat, all but stopping her breath. ‘What’s happened?’ she whispered through dry lips.
Pol shook her head slowly. ‘The trial’s over, love. For what it was worth.’ Disgust and distrust for the law and all its works harshened the last words.
‘And?’ Kitty asked.
‘Guilty,’ Pol said, and the quiet word hung in the air between them like the hangman’s noose. ‘An’ the appeal turned down.’
‘Oh, no! Oh, God! No!’ Kitty buried her face in her hands, trembling. It was a very long time before, white-faced, she lifted her head. ‘What happened? Tell me. I don’t know what happened.’ She was suddenly and unnaturally calm.
Pol cast her a worried look. ‘Drink yer tea.’ She pushed the steaming cup to Kitty and watched as she made a gallant effort to sip it. Then she took a long breath. ‘There was bad blood – real bad blood – between Moses an’ Matt after you left—’
‘Over the girl? What’s her name? Sally-Anne?’
‘That’s right. Seems Matt was more smitten than any of us realized. ’E wanted the girl out of The ’Ouse. Moses didn’t care much fer that—’
‘But still – Matt surely wouldn’t have killed him?’
‘Someone sure as ’ell did,’ Pol said, sombrely. ‘And Matt it was that they caught not yards from the body with the knife in ’is ’and an’ Moses’ blood all over ’im.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t know?’
She shook her head tiredly. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘Matt’s story was that ’e’d seen a note from Moses sayin’ that ’e’d be at the Song an’ Supper Rooms that afternoon—’
Kitty frowned. ‘A note? Why would Moses send Matt a note?’
Pol and Barton exchanged a quick glance. ‘The note wasn’t to Matt,’ Pol said. ‘It was to Luke.’
‘Then how did Matt come by it? And why did he go to the Rooms?’
‘The kid that took the note couldn’t find Luke. So ’e asked Matt to deliver it for ’im,’ Pol said. ‘Matt wanted to talk to Moses about the girl. Moses ’ad refused point blank to discuss it – seems that Matt thought this’d be a good opportunity.’
‘So he never gave the note to Luke?’
‘Luke wasn’t around.’
‘So – what happened?’
‘Matt swears ’e don’t know. ’E says someone was waitin’ for ’im at the Rooms, someone with a bloody great truncheon or somethin’. When ’e came to ’e was in the bedroom with Moses’ corpse, smothered in blood and with a knife in ’is ’and. An’ the place crawlin’ with bleedin’ coppers. He tried to get away, but they caught ’im, knife, blood an’ all. ’E didn’t stand a chance. Overwhelming circumstantial evidence, the judge called it.’
‘But – who called the police? What were they doing there?’
‘’Oo knows?’
‘And – why in heaven’s name was he still carrying the knife? Surely – he could have got rid of it – left it?’
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. She looked from one to the other, frowning. ‘Well? What is it?’
‘The knife—’ Pol said.
‘Yes?’
‘It belonged to Luke. Matt recognized it – yer must ’ave seen it yerself. ’E carries it everywhere with ’im.’
‘I’ve seen it.’ Her voice was bleak.
‘Well – seems it occurred to Matt that if the knife was found Luke’d be in trouble – so ’e tried to get it away.’
Very slowly Kitty sat back in her chair. ‘Luke again,’ she said, her voice oddly flat.
Pol said nothing.
‘A note to Luke. Luke’s knife. And my brother is to hang?’ Hard-faced, Kitty shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.’
‘Kitty—’
‘You say there was bad blood between Matt and Moses?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that, of course, came out at the trial?’
‘They made quite somethin’ of it.’
‘I’ll bet they did,’ Kitty said bitterly. A picture had risen in her mind – a picture of Luke in her dressing room at the Moulin d’Or, Lottie’s small hand possessively on his arm. ‘And Luke and Moses?’ she asked softly, ‘there was no bad blood there?’
The tense silence fairly shrieked an answer.
‘And – was that made much of at the trial as well?’
Pol shook her head.
‘I thought not.’ Kitty stood up composedly. ‘Would you give an eye to Michael for me? He’s fed and sleeping – he shouldn’t be any trouble. He’s absolutely exhausted.’ She reached for her coat, that Pol had hung behind the kitchen door.
‘Kit – leave it – at least for tonight. Give yourself a chance to rest.’
Kitty paused, the coat slung halfway about her shoulders, looking at Pol levelly. ‘Rest? You think I could rest before I’ve heard the truth? Luke knows. Doesn’t he?’
‘There are rumours—’
‘Are there indeed?’ Kitty set her small fur hat upon her head and deftly slid the long hatpin into place.
‘Where are you going?’ Barton asked, worriedly. Exasperated, Pol cast her eyes to the ceiling.
‘To find Luke Peveral,’ Kitty said, and her voice was grim.
The cab driver flatly refused to venture into the maze of alleys that led down to the canal and the derelict church. ‘Not likely, love. You want ter get yer throat cut – that’s all right wiv me – but I don’t ’ave ter ’ang about an’ watch, do I? Let alone ’ave mine slit along a yours.’ He eyed her curiously.
She had until that moment all but forgotten her changed appearance. It suddenly seemed a very long time since she had ventured into this dark warren of streets. ‘Oh, very well – here.’ Smouldering anger had brought her this far. She would, she had told herself, see Luke Peveral if Lucifer and all his angels stood in her way. But after she had paid the cabbie, and watched as the lights of the vehicle disappeared into the darkness, she stood alone in the narrow street, collar turned up against the swirling fingers of soot-laden fog, her confidence wavering. The houses leaned above her, menacing. Familiar, awful smells assaulted her nostrils – the foul odours of disease, of poverty, of neglect and of filth. A nearby shadow moved, startling her: a youth’s thin, rat’s face glimmered at her in the fitful light of a street lamp. Across the road she could see a familiar alleyway. It led, she knew, to the lane where stood the derelict church. She had come too far now to give up. Hands in pockets, hunching her shoulders against the cold, she hurried across the street, willing herself not to turn to see if the rat-faced youth were following, her ears strained for an echo of footsteps behind her. It suddenly seemed unbelievable to her that for so long she had walked these streets with no real fear; in those days she had been a part of them, ragged, threadbare, no target for anyone. She cursed herself for her foolishness – a cab, a fur hat and fur-lined collar. The past year had softened and sheltered her, and suddenly she was afraid. Foolhardy to have allowed her ungovernable anger to bring her so far!
And then the vision rose in her mind of Matt, alone in Newgate Gaol, living in the shadow of the most terrible of deaths, and she gritted her teeth and hurried on. There must be something she could do. There must be! And instinct told her that the only place to start was at Luke Peveral’s door.
But he was not there.
At the top of the winding, narrow staircase a lamp burned steadily outside his door, holding out the hope at least of some return, but the door was firmly locked and the room beyond quiet as the grave. Fighting tears of frustration, disappointment and something she did not like to admit might be fear, she crouched, shivering, upon the top step and set herself to wait.
The only thing that kept her there, finally, as the hours passed and dark evening became darker night was the knowledge that as she had waited so the menace of the streets had increased a hundredfold. To venture out alone now would be rash to the point of foolishness – so, stubbornly, she waited, frozen to the marrow and near-distraught with anxiety, knowing that, save for the danger of freezing to death it was now safer to stay than to leave. Sooner or later he must come. She huddled closer to the lamp, leaned her head upon her folded arms and, shivering, uncomfortable, but exhausted, she slept.
She woke from nightmares to find him standing above her, his face deep-cast in shadow as he looked down at her. How long he had stood so, watching her, she did not know: long enough, certainly, for her to have lost any advantage of surprise. She it was who jumped, and gasped, and scrambled to her feet, heart pounding with a nerve-wracking combination of fright, relief and anger. He stepped past her with no word and unlocked the door. She followed him in silence, eyes still blurred with sleep. The room was freezing, the unlit fire laid ready for a match. With the graceful economy of movement that was so much a part of his attraction he turned up the lamps, lit the fire, splashed brandy into two glasses and – still in silence – handed one to her as she stood, stone cold and shivering in the middle of the familiar room.
She shook her head.
‘Drink it.’ They were the first words he had spoken.
She brought the glass to her lips with trembling fingers. Her lips were almost too cold to feel the strong liquid as it trickled onto her tongue. The fire of it burned her throat and spread in her stomach. Her muscles were stiff and aching. He shifted a deep armchair closer to the fire. ‘Here. Sit down.’ The words were brusque.
She perched on the edge of the chair, holding hands pinched and translucent with cold to the pale, blossoming flames that as yet held little warmth. In silence still Luke tossed back his brandy in one movement, poured himself another large measure, then came to sit in the armchair opposite hers by the fire. As he passed, a faint, pungent perfume drifted to her nostrils – a perfume she had smelled before. Lottie, she remembered detachedly, had been wearing it in Paris. A sudden sense of weariness overcame her. What in God’s name was she doing here – tired, worried, sick with anger? Of all the men to face at such a disadvantage, this must be the worst—
He eyed her coolly. ‘And where, for Christ’s sake, have you been?’
The chill hostility of the words, oddly, far from intimidating her served to bring her to herself where a softer approach might not have done. She stiffened. ‘I’ve been unwell.’
He waited for long enough for the silence to be insultingly disbelieving. ‘I see. May an old friend ask – where you’ve spent all this time being – unwell?’
She kept her voice even. ‘A friend took me to the country.’
‘A friend.’
‘A mutual friend.’ She watched his face. ‘Jem O’Connell.’
That shook him, and she was savagely pleased to have caught him off balance. ‘Jem?’
‘Jem.’ She let the single word hang between them, made no attempt to explain or qualify. Let him think what he would.
He rolled his glass between his long fingers. ‘What was the matter with you?’
She made a small, impatient sound. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake – does that matter now? I’d been overworking. I had a – nervous collapse. Jem knew a place where I could rest. That’s all. It isn’t what I came to talk about.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t for a moment suppose that it was.’
She lifted her head. ‘I want to know what happened,’ she said quietly. ‘And I want the truth.’
He looked into the crackling fire.
‘Luke?’
His face was in shadow and she could discern no expression. ‘How much do you know?’
‘I know,’ she said, very softly, ‘that Moses Smith was murdered with your knife. I know that someone trapped Matt into taking the blame. I know that you’ – she paused, chose the word very deliberately – ‘reek – of Lottie Smith’s perfume.’
There was a long, long silence. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t kill Moses.’
‘Neither did Matt.’
‘No.’
‘Then – who?’
He took a long breath and leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m not sure you’ll believe me if I tell you.’
‘You do know, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then in God’s name why is my brother lying in the condemned cell at Newgate!’ For the first time the violence of her emotion showed in her voice, raw and passionate.
‘Because the trap was laid too well! Because what we know and what we can prove are two different things! Because we live on the wrong side of the law, and the creatures of the law are not interested in justice for the likes of us!’ His tone matched and surpassed hers in violence. ‘If there had been anything I could do to save Matt – do you think I would have left it undone?’
She lifted her head, looked at him with a cool, level gaze. ‘If in doing it you might have incriminated yourself? Yes, I do.’
He took a sharp, angry breath. She sensed his battle for self-control.
‘You spoke of a trap,’ she said. ‘What trap? Who would wish to trap Matt?’
He drained his glass, held it before him, watching the flames through the distorting glass. ‘The trap was not laid for Matt,’ he said at last. ‘It was laid for me.’
‘By whom?’
He leaned back in his chair. For the first time, she saw the tiredness in him. ‘By Oliver Fogg,’ he said.
For a moment her mind was blank. ‘Fogg?’ The name was only faintly familiar. Then from some hidden recess of her memory rose a face – a cadaver’s face, sharp-boned and ugly. ‘But, I don’t understand – what has Fogg to do with all this? You said that he was a policeman. That he was after you—’
‘And so he was. What none of us knew was that he was after Moses too. He wanted me behind bars.’ He turned his dark head and stared into the fire. ‘He wanted Moses dead.’
‘But, in heaven’s name, why?’
He sat for a moment in silence, then spoke quietly. ‘A couple of years ago – just before you and Matt came – a young girl that Moses had working in The House killed herself.’ He held his empty glass before him, watching the distorted flames through it. ‘She was Oliver Fogg’s daughter. His only child.’
‘What!’
‘Sally-Anne knew her. Knew who she was. Knew the story all along. It just never occurred to her to tell anyone.’
‘But what was a respectable girl doing in The House?’
He smiled, bitterly. ‘A respectable young man got her into trouble, and her respectable father threw her out. How else? Don’t tell me you’ve not heard the story before.’
‘Then it was Fogg’s own fault that she was there?’
‘Of course. But he didn’t see it that way. After she died, eaten up with guilt, he vowed revenge. He tried first to stay on the right side of the law – watching Moses, trying to gather some kind of evidence that would put him behind bars or, preferably, hang him. You remember what happened – Moses, thinking he was protecting me, applied the screws and Fogg was warned off. That was when he decided to take the law into his own hands. He planned and he waited. He wanted Moses dead, and he had a score to settle with me. When rumours reached his ears that Moses and I weren’t exactly on the best of terms he knew his time had come. He stole my knife and killed Moses with it, then sent me a note, ostensibly from Moses, to get me to the Song and Supper Rooms.’
‘But it was Matt who saw the note, and Matt who went—’
‘Exactly. So Fogg took second best. He needed a murderer, and one that the law would be only too pleased to take. Since I had not obliged, he substituted Matt.’
‘And Matt made things worse for himself by taking the knife because he recognized it as yours—’
There was the smallest of silences. ‘Yes.’
She looked at him, a small puzzled frown on her face. ‘How do you know all this?’
The silence this time was much, much longer.
‘Luke?’
He rolled the empty glass between long fingers. ‘Fogg told me,’ he said, ‘just before he died.’
He might have struck her. She gasped, staring, speechless. He did not look at her. She swallowed noisily. ‘What have you done?’ she whispered at last.
‘What had to be done.’
‘What had to be done? What had to be done?’ She was trembling with rage and grief. ‘You killed Fogg? The man who might have been able to clear Matt’s name? You killed him? And now there’s no hope—’
‘There was never any hope.’ His voice cut across hers like a pistol shot. ‘From the moment Matt was taken, yards from the body, covered in blood, the murder weapon in his hand, there was never any hope. Matt himself knew it. The trial was a travesty. No one ever intended it to be anything else. A criminal murdered by a criminal. Two birds with one stone. He never stood a chance.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing! You want justice? You have it – the only justice you’ll get. Fogg’s dead.’
‘I don’t want anyone dead! I want Matt out of there – alive—!’
He said nothing. She sustained his dark, direct gaze for a moment, then with a sudden movement buried her face in her hands. ‘I don’t believe this. I don’t believe any of it.’
He neither spoke nor moved to comfort her. She was trembling again, violently. She felt him remove the empty glass from her nerveless fingers, heard his movements as he refilled it. When he returned she lifted her head, took the glass and swallowed a mouthful of the fiery liquid. The cold knot of nausea in her stomach resisted it. ‘What made you suspect Fogg?’ she asked, dully. ‘How did you know it was him?’
‘He was in charge of the policemen who captured Matt. Sally recognized his name at the trial, and told me about the girl. It had already struck me as being fishy – his being so conveniently on hand. I decided that perhaps we should have a little talk.’
‘And he admitted it.’
‘He took some persuading.’
She turned from him, sickened. ‘This is your fault,’ she whispered at last. ‘All your fault. If Matt hadn’t become involved with you – if I hadn’t become involved with you – none of it would have happened.’
‘Do you think I don’t know it?’ His voice was bitter and pain-filled, but she was a long way past any sympathy for him. He dropped into the chair again, sat hunched, elbows on knees, dark hair falling forward across his forehead, shadowing his eyes. The flames leapt and danced in the fireplace, limning the bowed head in light.
‘Is there truly nothing we can do?’ she asked of the silence.
‘Nothing.’
Are you familiar, Matt Daniels, with the saying that those born to hang will never drown?
‘Oh, God,’ she said. And then: ‘When?’
His voice rasped. ‘Next Thursday.’
‘I want to see him.’
‘Of course.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll take you.’
She opened her mouth to protest, closed it again. What did it matter? What did anything matter? Oddly, the thought brought Michael to mind. She stood up abruptly. ‘I have to go.’
He looked up at her in tired surprise.
‘Pol will be worried,’ she said.
‘She won’t expect you back at this hour, surely?’
She looked at him tiredly. ‘You think she’d expect me to stay?’ She made no attempt to disguise the weary bitterness of her tone.
He watched her for a moment, his face inscrutable. Then he reached for his coat. ‘I’ll walk you to the cab.’
The silence that fell between them as they walked the lanes of Whitechapel that night lasted into the following morning when Luke came to collect her from Pol’s. It was as if what had happened stood between them like a wall, precluding any possibility of communication. Through the dark hours of an anguished and sleepless night her suspicions of Luke and of his motives had grown and festered. A note to Luke, supposedly not received. Luke’s knife, so conveniently stolen. Luke and Lottie through all the time she had known them. And then, most damning of all, it seemed to her, Fogg dead, executed, and by Luke’s hand, and only his word for the justice of the action. She sat wordless in the jolting cab beside him, unable to bring herself in her anger and distrust to speak, and though she was sure that he sensed what she felt he too said nothing. For the moment anyway, as the hansom rolled along Holborn, past the church of St Sepulchre’s and into Newgate Street itself, the street dominated by the grim granite fortress that was the prison, her every sense, every nerve was taut, strung like wire against the ordeal to come. She had no energy to fight Luke, nor to fling at him the questions that needed to be answered. With dread as they drew near she surveyed the massive, windowless stone walls of Newgate, the forbidding arched gateway.
‘They won’t let me come with you to see him,’ Luke said, breaking their strained silence for the first time as they approached the iron-bound door. ‘Visiting is restricted. Even bribes don’t work all the time – it was all I could do to get you in.’
She nodded. For all the use it was at the moment her tongue might have been cloven to the roof of her mouth. After the early spring sunlight of the street the stone and iron half-light of the prison struck her like the shadow of death. The rank smell of urine pervaded the place; the very walls, chill and grey, seemed to reek of it. Sound was muted – the distant clang of a metal door, a single, smothered shout, the echo of a footstep. It was a different, nightmare world and she felt the force of its hatred and suffering pressing upon her like a physical weight. She heard Luke’s voice, low and persuasive as he spoke to the guardian of the massive gate and, remembering his words of a moment ago, for the first time it occurred to her that they might not let her see Matt – and the despicable, irresistible surge of relief that the thought brought with it almost nauseated her. She was ice-cold, her body taut as a bow, teeth gritted, bones aching as if pressured in a vice. Her bowels grumbled uncomfortably.
Luke touched her arm. ‘Go with him. I’ll wait for you outside.’
Numbly she followed the grim-faced uniformed warden along what seemed like endless miles of chill, foul-smelling corridors punctuated by countless clanging iron doors, to be led at last to a small room within which stood something akin to a wooden sentry box, a tiny window in its back, barred and grilled with fine mesh. The silent warden indicated that she should seat herself upon the wooden stool that was set within the box. For the first time then it came to her that she would not of course be allowed to see her brother alone – to touch him, even. She began to tremble violently. Almost she collapsed onto the stool, then hunched her shoulders tightly, clamping her hands together in her lap to still their shaking, fighting for some small armour of self-possession before Matt should appear.
When he came, if she had not known, she would not have recognized him. A tall, very thin figure shambled to the other side of the grille, heavy, ill-fitting boots dragging upon the floor to the clink of chain. Through the distorting mesh she saw the haggard face, the shorn head, the coarse, arrow-marked clothes that might have been made for a man twice the size. Then the gaunt apparition smiled, and despite the ageing lines and the prison pallor that might already have been the pallor of death, she knew her brother. She put a trembling hand to the grille, as if to touch him through it, though such a thing would certainly have been impossible.
‘Don’t touch the grille, Miss.’ The warden’s voice, though sharp, was not unkind.
She let her hand drop into her lap.
‘Well, moi owd gal. Here’s a to-do – eh?’ It seemed to her that even his voice had changed; it was dry and husky, as if he spoke with difficulty. ‘I’d hoped you wouldn’t hear,’ he said, ‘until it was over. I told the Guv’nor not to try to find you.’
She found her own voice then. ‘How could you? If only I’d been here – I might have been able to help.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘No, Kit. Not this time. Here’s a mess not even you can fish me out of.’
‘But – you didn’t do it! There must be some way to show them?’
A glimmer of the old, feckless laughter shone in the thin face. ‘Remember where you are – this is Newgate, Kitty – we’re all innocent here, didn’t you know that? Not one of us but isn’t wrongly imprisoned. Isn’t that so, Mr Wilkins?’
The warder who sat beside him listening nodded, stone-faced.
‘But you really are! And we can’t give up—’
He shook his head and shifted a little on the stool. She saw the man he had called Wilkins stiffen very slightly, watching him.
‘But—’
‘Leave it, Kitty. Believe me, there’s nothing anyone can do. We have to face that.’
She stared at him, a wave of helpless misery stilling her tongue.
‘Well, now,’ he said, gently, ‘tell me about Paris.’
She saw then the tears that stood, stubbornly unshed in his eyes. ‘It was wonderful,’ she found herself saying, shakily. ‘Absolutely wonderful. You’d have loved it—’ She stopped, swallowing noisily.
‘I heard tell you were a great success?’
She shrugged a little. ‘They’ve probably forgotten all about me by now.’
He shook his head. They were watching each other with a strange intensity, eyes fixed each upon the other’s face as if in some communication other than speech. There was a long, oddly speaking silence. ‘Do you remember the beach at Dunwich?’ he asked, suddenly and softly. ‘So wide, and windy, and empty, and free?’
It seemed to her that the vowels of Suffolk had crept back into his Londoner’s voice. ‘And the birds,’ she said, ‘the gulls, and the kittiwakes—’
He leaned forward a little and once more she saw his guardian’s wary movement. ‘And your voice, singing in the wind – what was that song that you and Anne were always singing? Something about green willow?’
Oh young men are false and they are so deceitful. Her throat constricted. She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember.’
He sat back. ‘It all seems so very far away.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll go back, I expect, one day,’ he said, unexpectedly. ‘Oh, not to the Grange, or to Dunwich – but somewhere like it. The city isn’t right for you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It isn’t.’
‘Wasn’t all that right for me either.’ Again there was an echo of the old, graceless Matt in the words.
‘No,’ she said, the word husky.
He watched her for a moment. ‘Kitty? Will you do something for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Don’t blame the Guv’nor. It isn’t his fault.’
‘I think it is,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly hard. ‘And I do blame him. I’ll always blame him.’
He sighed. ‘I don’t want that.’
‘I can’t help it.’
They fell to silence again, a difficult silence this time. Simply to break it Kitty asked, ‘Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?’
He half-smiled, bleakly. ‘I’m in prison, Kit. Not hospital. No – there’s nothing I need – nothing they’d let you give me. Don’t worry – I’m not treated badly. The food’s almost decent now they’ve decided to hang me, and I get all the baccy I want. Don’t I, Mr Wilkins?’ he asked, softly.
Still impassive, the other man nodded again.
Now they’ve decided to hang me – the words, spoken in a brittle, matter-of-fact tone, hit her like a blow, and she gasped at them. She was shaking uncontrollably, a violent, distressed trembling that seemed to emanate from somewhere deep within her body and which she could not suppress. It was as if a chill of misery, of helplessness, of terror had invaded her very bones.
‘—and they make sure that I’m not lonely, too, don’t you, Mr Wilkins? Always someone in my cell, day or night – and lots of visits from parsons and rectors and hymn-singing ladies who want to save my poor, damned soul—’
The sudden despair that threaded his voice twisted in her like the blade of a knife. ‘Matt!’
‘Not even when I die,’ he said, softly bitter, ‘not even then will I be alone. They tell me that soon – soon – there’ll be no more public executions. Soon,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘But not soon enough. Eh, Mr Wilkins?’
Here was a horror she had not even contemplated. Public execution. She clenched her mind against such abomination.
He lifted his voice sharply. ‘Promise me something.’
She lifted her head, struggling with tears.
‘Don’t come. Don’t be there. I couldn’t stand that. Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
In the silence that followed the warder who had brought her said gruffly, ‘Two more minutes.’
They looked at each other in sudden desperation. Two more minutes? In lieu of a lifetime? She had stopped trying to stem the flood of tears. They flowed disregarded in silence down her ice-cold face, dripped dark as blood onto the soft velvet of her skirt. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ she asked.
‘Look after Sally-Anne for me?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘And – the Guv’nor. He needs you, Kitty, though he’d never admit it. What’s happened isn’t his fault—’
‘Whose then?’ The words were bitter.
He shook his head.
‘You know what he did?’ she asked, low and violent. ‘You know how he—’ She stopped, glancing at the silent prison officer. Unforgiveable treachery, even in extremes of anger, to betray Luke to these hostile listeners. If nothing else, Matt would die hating her, and she could not have stood that.
He shot her a fierce, warning look. ‘Yes. I know. He was right.’
‘How do we know? We only have his word!’
‘That’s good enough for me.’ His voice was even, now. ‘Leave it, Kitty. It’s all too late.’
‘You don’t think that he—?’ She could not say it, but she saw from his eyes that he had understood her question.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t. Kitty – I was there. You weren’t. Accept what he tells you. It’s what happened.’
She said nothing.
He smiled at her, gently. ‘Tell me something – was Lottie right? Were you really hobnobbing with some handsome French aristo?’
She opened her mouth to lie, automatically. Shut it again. She could not.
His eyes were curious. ‘Kitty? It doesn’t matter – if you don’t want to tell me?’
And then it came to her that this was, after all, something she could give him. The truth – and a truth that carried with it hopefully some small grain of comfort, some promise of immortality.
‘Time to go, Miss,’ the warder said.
‘Wait. Just a moment.’ She leaned to the grille, speaking urgently. ‘Matt – listen – I had a baby. A little boy. He’s dark, and he’s going to be tall, just like you. I called him Michael – after Father. He’s healthy, and he’s wonderful, and I’m going to keep him safe. I’m going to get him away from here, and I’m going to keep him safe—’ She stopped. ‘Michael,’ she said again, seeing his tears and knowing that he could not speak. ‘After Father. He’ll grow up strong and happy, I promise you. He’ll never know any of this.’
‘Come along, Miss. Please.’ Surprisingly gently the grim-faced warder took her arm. ‘Time’s up.’
‘Matt?’ she whispered, stricken.
He lifted a hand. His guardian stepped to his side and helped him from the stool upon which he sat. In silence and with no word of farewell he allowed himself to be led away.
She stood like stone staring after him.
‘Can’t stay ’ere, Miss,’ the prison officer said. ‘Won’t do no good. Come along, now.’
As she followed him back along the oppressive maze of stone corridors she heard in the distance the ominous and heavy clang of a single door shutting.
Two days later, at the gates of Newgate, Matt Daniels was hanged for murder. There was a good turnout to watch the spectacle, and a brisk trade in the penny leaflets that told of the brash young thief’s scandalously wicked road to ruin and his just deserts. The lad bore himself well, the old hands had to admit, though for some a death met with dignity and courage was a disappointment. The spectators were as one that the impending cessation of such edifying entertainment was nothing short of an outrage. Nothing could take the place of a good turn-off.
Matt Daniels died just one month short of his nineteenth birthday.