By a half-cocked moon, we made our way steadily through the streets and alleyways of Clerkenwell. I stayed close on the heels of Pretty Poppet until we reached the banks of the stinking Fleet. There stood the Hedge Tavern, a hunchback building, its beams bowed by the damp from the river.
Pretty Poppet took hold of my sleeve as I went towards the door.
‘Don’t use that jigger. That’s where they are,’ she said, pointing at the roof. ‘In the sky parlour.’
I followed her round to the back of the tavern through a midden of garbage, piled with empty barrels, where, clinging to the building, was a rickety staircase. I could feel Pretty Poppet’s excitement; it fluttered from her as at last she neared her prey. Not a sound did she make on the steps. I took out the pistol and pulled back the catch as I had seen Mr Crease do when he fired it at the bottle. Now voices could be heard – not words, groans.
Pretty Poppet stopped. ‘You have to show me to them,’ she said.
‘I will.’
I put my hand on the door.
‘Wait,’ said Pretty Poppet, and I watched as she pulled the flesh from her face so it was no more than a cloth covering her skull, her eyes floating in their sockets. She smiled at me. ‘I brought my friends – the ones like me.’
I turned and behind me beamed three dead faces. One carried a doll and they all glimmered with the energy of revenge.
‘They’re here for the same reason as me,’ said Pretty Poppet. ‘Make us visible and don’t fire that pistol until we are finished, ’cause we have waited longer than you for our turn in the dance.’
I heard the impatient tap of bone on wood, the victims waiting for the justice that no judge had seen fit to give them. I concentrated with all my being. If my gift was ever to be of any worth, this was the time.
‘Let them be seen,’ I prayed to the lord of chaos. ‘Let them be seen.’
‘Now,’ said Pretty Poppet. ‘Now, now!’
I pushed on the door. It was locked.
‘Who’s there?’ called Captain Spiggot.
‘It’s only me,’ said Pretty Poppet, ‘and some of my acquaintances, come to kiss your arses goodnight.’
There came a breathy laugh.
‘Go away, we don’t need anything, not now.’
‘Oh, but now it must be.’
We heard groans from behind the door and I thought that they were doing to Mercy what they had done to me. The noise grew into a duet of raucous grunts.
Pretty Poppet smiled at me and put a bone to her mouth. Her hand was webbed with skin that fell into small folds from her fingers. And then I felt a great pressure growing all around me, the noise of it grew and grew, the sound became a ferocious, whispering wind that rolled up the stairs with such strength that it blew the door open as if it were made of papier mâché.
Mercy was not there. My husband, his breeches round his ankles, was bent over a table, his hands gripping the edge, his fingernails digging deep into the wood. Wrattan was leaning over him and both were nearing the height of their pleasure. They looked up and slowly ecstasy was replaced by wilting horror.
Pretty Poppet flew at them and they pulled away from one another, Wrattan’s weapon rapidly losing its power. Spiggot covered himself with his hands.
‘What the devil…?’ he said.
Wrattan, white with fear, backed away, Pretty Poppet spinning round him, pulling at his clothes.
‘Mr Wrattan,’ she said to him, ‘don’t you want to see Eve’s custom house again?’
‘No!’ shouted Wrattan. ‘No!’
His hair was tied back and she tugged at it, pulling chunks from his scalp. He yelled in pain.
‘But I’m Pretty Poppet – you told me to dance for you. You said you wouldn’t touch me if I danced for you. But you did, until I danced no more.’
‘Victor, who are these fiends?’ cried Spiggot, his legs giving way as Pretty Poppet’s three acquaintances came fast into the chamber, on winds of retribution so powerful that the windows broke as the spirits whirled frantically this way and that. Their bony fingers pinched the men’s faces, pulled at their clothes. They laughed as they spoke.
‘You called me Chitty-Face,’ said one to Wrattan. ‘You jiggled me here – ’ she pointed to the front of her ‘ – you jangled me here.’ She pointed to the back of her. She turned over the table. ‘You broke me, you choked me, and you didn’t care.’
My husband’s face glimmered with sweat. Urgently he pulled up his breeches, and shouted at Wrattan. ‘Get my pistol – it’s in my coat.’
‘You called me Spider Shanks,’ said another spirit. ‘I was to cure you of the pox by my water fountain.’
And another said, ‘You called me Gundiguts, Mr Wrattan. It didn’t stop you taking me through the back door, your fingers round my neck. Don’t ask me to breathe, I never will.’
As Wrattan took the pistol from Spiggot’s coat, Spiggot was sidling round the room towards me.
‘Fire that pistol,’ said Pretty Poppet, baring her teeth at Wrattan. ‘Fire it, for all the good it might serve you.’
The girls joined hands and danced round and round, faster and faster. Spiggot, I could see, was coming for me.
Wrattan lifted the pistol. A look of recognition came over his face as he pointed it. ‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘I’ll fucking kill you, witch, if you don’t stop them.’
Spiggot was nearly on me. I held Mr Crease’s pistol with both hands and aimed at Wrattan. My pistol fired, as did Wrattan’s, and, at that moment, Pretty Poppet pushed me out of the way. Spiggot stumbled forward and fell to the floor.
Finding myself unharmed, I shouted, ‘Where is Mercy? What have you done with her?’
Wrattan’s face was a picture of horror at seeing his friend wounded. He reloaded his pistol.
‘I’m shot,’ said my husband, incredulously. ‘I’m shot.’
‘It was her, that witch,’ said Wrattan, pointing his pistol at me again.
Pretty Poppet whirled in all her grotesque finery and caught the bullet as you would a ball from the air.
‘Victor,’ moaned Spiggot.
Truly terrified, Wrattan ran from the chamber, Pretty Poppet in pursuit. She was not about to let him go. Her acquaintances, having taken their revenge, leapt out of the window and broke into a thousand specks of light, finally released of all earthly cares.
Mercy was not to be found anywhere in that labyrinth of chambers. I went back to the room where my husband had been left, and found him crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of blood.
‘Help me,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake, help me.’
I knelt beside him. ‘Tell me where Mercy is and I’ll help you,’ I said.
‘You bitch. I wish I’d killed you.’
‘Where is she?’
His head dropped heavy on the floor and I felt a hand grab my shoulder.
Spiggot moaned. ‘She shot me, my wife shot me.’
I still had hold of Mr Crease’s pistol.
The innkeeper managed to find a doctor among his drunken sops of customers and although he had the shakes he seemed to know what he was about as much as any drunken doctor might.
‘The two gentlemen kidnapped Mercy,’ I said to the constable who arrested me.
‘There will not be much mercy for you, my lad,’ he replied.
It hadn’t yet dawned on him that I was a woman. He took me downstairs and I held my head up for outside there was quite a crowd. They weren’t staring at me, but had their eyes glued on the roof of the tavern where Wrattan was clinging to the chimney pots.
I said, ‘You should arrest him for the crimes he’s committed.’
The constable was not listening for he, like everyone else, was transfixed at the sight of Pretty Poppet who was standing on the edge of the roof while Wrattan clung to a chimney pot. I tried to break free, but the constable had me held firm. With a tug he pulled me away to a waiting wagon.
That was when I saw Flora. She smiled at me, her teeth gleamed white, none missing. Diamonds were in her hair and her beauty had returned to her, unblemished. The constable stared at her, open-mouthed. Flora said not a word but took hold of his arm and snapped it as if it were nothing more than a chicken bone. He was so shocked that for a second his scream was silent and by the time he’d let out a howl we were gone.
‘Tish tosh,’ said Flora. ‘I have diamonds in my hair again.’
‘Take me to Mercy – please, Flora, I beg you.’
‘I drove in rich carriages and lay down on soft velvet. Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you. And then I’m going home.’
She walked along the bank of the Fleet, her feet never once touching the water. By a warehouse not far away, she stopped.
‘She’s in there,’ said Flora, and walked into the middle of the sluggish river. Whirling round, she threw her arms out and, free at last, dissolved into a myriad of diamond lights. I was alone, just me and the half-cocked moon.
It was an empty wooden structure. The moonlight shone through the slats on a shape hanging by a rope from a beam. Mercy’s feet were balancing precariously on a chair. I ran to her and lifted her body so she wouldn’t drop. Time stopped and all that had been, all that would be was no more than just that moment. If I let go, Mercy would die. I have no idea how long I held her, only that when at last Ned cut her down we fell together, willow leaves intertwined. I felt her hand flutter in mine.
‘Live,’ I whispered to her. ‘Live.’
I was arrested for attempted murder of Captain Spiggot and the grievous wounding of a constable. Victor Wrattan was not arrested: he had been trying to save his friend from a vengeful whore. I was taken to Newgate and there was nothing more I could do but pray for Mercy, pray to a God who I doubt cares tuppence for whores like us.