by John Creasey
It was like looking down on her husband, but this mood of nostalgia did not hurt. ‘What made you so late?’ she inquired at last.
‘I could not rest.’
‘You feel warm although ‘tis cold outside. Have you been walking far?’
‘Very far,’ he replied. ‘But that is not new to me.’
‘No,’ she said, echoing his words, ‘that is not new to you. Where have you been?’
He did not reply immediately.’
He was ten years old, yet in some ways a man. He was ten years old yet felt a great burden of responsibility for his mother and his sisters, and he felt shame because he had left them alone all day, one of the few days when he was free because the merchant for whom he worked knew that it was useless to open his shop on a Tyburn hanging day. It was the poor people’s holiday, and no one worked except those who must.
‘James,’ she said, ‘you must tell me where you have been.’
It was still some time before he answered, but there was no defiance in him, so she let him be, not trying to hurry him. Suddenly he buried his face in his hands and sobbed, so hard that she could feel the shaking throughout her body. Now both of her hands covered his head with a light touch which she hoped, prayed, was reassuring. He did not cry loudly and there was no fear that he would wake the others.
When at last he quieted and drew back, she asked, ‘Have you eaten this day, my son?’
He shook his head, his voice too hoarse for words.
‘Go and wash,’ she told him, ‘and then come to the table.’
He moved away, watching her, but she did not linger. She was young to be his mother, not yet twenty-seven; her body had natural sprightliness and she moved without effort. He went to a corner where there was a wooden slab with a bowl standing in a hole cut into it, a tall jug, and some soap so coarse it scraped the skin. He used very little of the precious water, emptied the waste into a pail, and rinsed in only an inch or two in the bottom of the bowl. He dried himself on a patched linen towel and, feeling refreshed, went to the table. Two pewter bowls of soup steamed at either end. He sat down and his mother sat opposite, head bowed and palms placed together in prayer. Half a minute passed before she said, ‘Thank God from whom all blessings flow, all food and sustenance comes, all health and all courage.’
‘Amen,’ breathed James Marshall and, when he was sure that she had finished saying grace, he began to eat; only when he started did he realise how ravenous he was! But his mother did not offer him more soup; that was for tomorrow. He had a crust of bread and some cheese from a wooden trencher, for all their china had been sold, and washed these down with water; then he pushed the roughhewn wooden chair back, feeling much better.
‘Can you tell me now?’ his mother asked.
‘I can and will but I do not know if it will please you.’
She looked at him for a long time and, unbidden, what little he knew of her history passed through his mind. She was the daughter of a dissenting minister who, somewhere in Berkshire, had gathered supporters and had built a small chapel until, persecuted by more orthodox Christians, he had become a wandering preacher, visiting inns and, on the fringe of London, alehouses and even brothels to carry his message. Richard Marshall had once saved him from a gang of ruffians in an alehouse and had taken him home. That was when she and Richard had first met.
James realised, as what he knew of these things drifted through his mind, that his mother was about to speak so he did not try to find the words he needed. Slowly she went to where a basket stood on a narrow side table. She fumbled in the bottom of the basket and brought out a folded paper with black printing.
He caught his breath as she unfolded it and held it out for him to see.
‘Is this where you have been?’ she asked.
The face of Frederick Jackson, drawn true to life, stared out of the page, and across the top were the words:
Confessions and Last Utterances on This Earth of the Famous Frederick Jackson - Hero
James stopped reading halfway down the page of the injustice done to Frederick Jackson by his persecutor, John Furnival. There was so much more in the same malicious vein, no insult not heaped on the head of the man who had provided evidence at the trial of a man he had been trying to bring down for twenty years.
The boy said, ‘They are lies - all lies!’
‘The only truth is that Mr. Furnival sent him to his death and he was hanged this afternoon.’
‘He was a murderer, a thief, a devil in human form.’
‘This is what Mr. Furnival is to some people,’ his mother replied.
‘You don’t believe that!’
‘No, I don’t believe it,’ Ruth assured him. ‘I believe him to be as good a man as your father, except in one way, and most of these statements are lies. But many will believe them, my son.’ Almost in the same breath she asked, ‘Why did you go to Tyburn today?’
‘It was not possible for me to keep away.’
‘Had you planned to go?’
‘Yes, Mother. I was set on it.’
‘Why?’ she asked, puzzled and frowning. ‘Why?’
‘If there is an answer it is that the ghost of my father drew me there,’ he said huskily. ‘I wanted to see for myself what he had often told me happened. And it did. Mother, did you know that he came near to worshipping Mr. Furnival?’
She nodded mutely.
‘And that was because he believed in all that Mr. Furnival believed in, and hated what Mr. Furnival hates. The evil system of thief-takers, who live by catching men, often innocent men, and having them hanged - like the seventeen I saw today!’ His voice grew louder, fiercer. ‘Except for the men Mr. Furnival pays, and a few paid by others who abominate the system, there is no honest thief-taker, scarce an honest magistrate, for each wants his share of the government’s blood money. Mr. Furnival believes the laws aid the criminals. They leave the safety of the wards and the parishes in the hands of these grasping justices. They allow two or three sheriffs to represent the King - and to make a profit out of crimes as best they can, by charging prisoners for favours, and by selling the body and the clothing of the men they have just hanged. And that is not all,’ tumbled on James, so fiercely that his mother gave up trying to interrupt him. He finally broke off as if hearing something of significance, and then cried: ‘Hark!’
In the stillness that followed, a frail voice sounded: ‘Eleven o’clock and all’s well. Eleven o’clock and all’s well!’
‘There is our sole protection against criminals, save for any we pay for ourselves. The Charlies!’ He sneered the word. ‘Men of the watch hired by the wards to patrol the streets to keep them safe. Those useless hour bawlers who will croak “all’s well” if a house is on fire or a girl is being raped or a man robbed in front of their eyes! They are nothing but bumbling old fools who doze in their boxes or in the watch-houses and keep themselves out of trouble. That is how the peace of London is kept. That is why crime is always increasing and justice has no meaning. And that is what my father pledged himself to fight - and what Mr. Furnival is fighting with all his strength.’
At last, exhausted, he stopped.
Looking up at his mother, it came to his mind that he had not seen her smile or heard her laugh since his father’s death. He realised also that except for the younger children these rooms had been rooms of mourning for half a year, yet before then they had been filled with laughter and song. He had never come home to find his mother crying or vexed and he had known so few other families - then - that he had not realised what a remarkable thing that happiness was. He had never come home to an empty table, to curses, to punishment unless it was merited. In this past half year his mother had become a different person, and so had he.
But his answer was not the full explanation of why he had gone to see his father’s murderer hang. He had not even known that murderer, had not known for certain until he had climbed these stairs and hesitated - not for fear of having hurt her, but for fear that hope would no
t be realised. For he had gone to Tyburn to see the end of the man who had brought such heaviness upon him and his mother and he had thought that with the murderer dead the weight would be eased.
But there was no easing of his heart or, he knew, of hers. He drew a deep breath and spoke so quickly that it was difficult for her to follow the words.
‘I thought it would exorcise the devil of hate from us, that’s why I went. I thought when life departed from him—’
‘No,’ she choked, ‘no, my son, don’t tell me that.’
‘If ‘tis not the devil, then who is it?’ he cried. ‘Why is this like a house of death?’
As he saw the tears well up in her eyes, he knew how he had hurt her but became aware of something else, of a secret to share with her: he knew deep within him that she had suffered the same fears; that since his father had gone it had been as if they were possessed of the devil.
But why, why, why? What wrong, what evil had they done?
‘James, my son,’ she said in husky whisper, ‘it is very late and you must be at the merchant’s by six o’clock. You will be hard to wake. In the morning you will have forgotten all such talk of the devil. Why, you should be ashamed and so should I! Your father laughed at all mention of the devil and declared that God would not allow him to exist.’
She laughed. Then for the first time in so many months they both laughed; together.
But when he was on the straw mattress in a corner of this room and his mother had gone to her bed, he saw those thrashing legs and he heard the voice of the Reverend Sebastian Smith asking God’s mercy for the man who had killed his father.
Then he remembered his father, alive.
He bit into the coarse sheet which covered him and forced back the stinging tears. He must not cry, he would not cry, a man never cried.
About the time that James Marshall reached his home, Red Foster and his pretty wife passed the pike at Tyburn, his horse prancing between the shafts of a fancy gig hired for this night’s work. It was very cold, and dark except for the clear light of the stars and lights at houses and taverns on either side of the highway and on other carriages. In the distance, lights showed at the windows of great houses and from farmhouses or from barns where cows were calving and in need of help. Now and again they passed little groups of people, tipsy-drunk, walking back to their country homes after the day at Tyburn Fair. Outbursts of laughter, oaths, shrieks of protest, came from the road which was usually deathly quiet except on the nights of death.
Foster was in his late twenties, a man from a good family which had disowned him for his gambling; but he took that ostracism easily, for he had won his Lilian at the gaming table and she was worth all the’ money he had ever lost. She held his arm as they went towards the Owl, an alehouse two miles from Tyburn Pike, where it was known that the notorious Dick Miller spent much of his time.
‘Red,’ Lilian said, ‘I think I’m very frightened.’
‘Fie! With me to protect you? And Harris and his men close by?’
‘But I haven’t seen them,’ she protested. ‘I haven’t caught a glimpse of them, and - and you know what Miller is like.’
‘Exaggeration, ma’am. Old wives’ tales which should never be believed by young wives. I—’
‘Red!’ she gasped. ‘Look!’
And there, not far ahead and directly in their path, was a man on horseback, coming towards them. He had chosen his spot well, for a ditch with banks too steep for horse and gig was on one side, while on the other side was a high stack of hay. From both hay and ditch there came a stench which made all who passed this way wish to hurry.
Red, perforce, slowed down.
Ahead, the solitary figure on horseback came on, and from behind there was a movement and a noise loud enough to make Lilian look over her shoulder in alarm. Silhouetted against the light of a big house was another horseman.
‘It’s one of Tom Harris’ men,’ Red muttered. ‘I swear it.’
There was no way of being sure.
There was only the darkness, so full of menace, and the riders both in front and behind, the snort of a horse, the creak of leather and the chink of bridles, for the wheels of this gig ran smoothly and made little sound. Red Foster’s wife was beginning to take in long breaths as deeper fear possessed her; knowing the risk of what they were doing, knowing Miller’s reputation, made the sense of danger far greater than if she had not known that she, at least as much as her husband, was a decoy.
Suddenly the rider in front spurred his mount and called: ‘Stand there! Stand and deliver.’ He came straight on into the path of the carriage and Red pulled at the reins and the horse slowed down. The man who had called out waited only for the carriage to stop before he moved to the side. ‘Get down, the pair of you,’ he ordered. He looked huge and menacing in the light from the carriage lamps. His pistol was levelled at Red Foster but his gaze was on Red’s wife, who was little more than a girl. Foster draped the reins over the rail and climbed down.
‘Take all I have,’ he begged, ‘but do not alarm my wife more, I beg of you.’
‘And how much have you got?’ demanded Miller, and he roared with laughter. ‘Precious little if I know anything about young gallants who bring their wives out of London without an escort. Or are you lying? Is she your wife?’
‘I swear it! I—’ Foster cast a desperate glance behind him. The man who had followed the carriage was dismounting and Foster now needed no telling that he was Miller’s man; there was no sign of Tom Harris or any who worked with him. He handed Lilian down and Miller rode close, covering them with his pistol and still looking at her. ‘I’ll give you everything I have! I was lucky at the tables tonight, I’ve ten gold pieces and—’
‘Deliver to my friend all you have,’ Miller ordered, and as he spoke the other came up, a slimmer man who looked as if a boy’s face might be hidden by the mask he wore. ‘Stand over him,’ Miller ordered his assistant, and slid from his horse, making a mock bow and a sweeping motion with his right arm. ‘Ma’am, it is my earnest desire to make your closer acquaintance,’ he declared. ‘It is a long time since I have seen a prettier wench.’ He made a swift movement and plucked her off the ground and into his arms. She cried out and kicked and beat at his face and shoulders but he did no more than laugh at her.
‘I beg you, do not take my wife!’ Foster flung himself down on his knees.
Miller placed his right foot against Foster’s chest and pushed him backwards, and at that moment one of Lilian’s nails scratched his cheek beneath the right eye. She could smell his gin-soaked breath, the odour of his clothes and body, and terror possessed her.
‘So you want it rough, my pretty,’ he growled. ‘Then rough you shall have it, with your fine husband looking on!’
He tossed her at the foot of the great stack of hay and, while Foster grappled desperately to free himself from the vicelike grip of Miller’s assistant, unbuckled his belt and let down his breeches. Lilian, staring up at the menacing figure, knowing that in a moment she would feel his hands, would have her clothes torn apart, would be another victim of Dick Miller, was so terrified that thought of Tom Harris went out of her mind.
Miller came down on one knee by her side and she felt his hand at the neck of her dress.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘God help me! God help me!’
‘As much use to call to Him as to your husband,’ Miller growled.
‘Perhaps someone else heard her, Dick,’ a man called from the top of the stack of hay.
Suddenly the place was alive with men who sprang down behind Miller and on either side. It was as if they had come out of the night air.
‘Leave your breeches down,’ Tom Harris ordered, rough laughter in his voice. ‘The lady’s husband may like five minutes to lambaste you before I take you in.’
Red Foster was already running. He ignored Miller and flung himself down by his wife’s side, while Miller stood helpless and his assistant was seized and manacled. When a man pulled his mask from
his face he showed for what he was: a lad of seventeen or eighteen. The girl was sobbing, Foster trying to reassure her. Miller began to hoist his breeches after Harris and another of the thief-takers had taken his pair of pistols and his dagger.
‘Let me go,’ begged Miller. ‘Let me go and I’ll put a name on a dozen thieves, each worth as much as I. Five hundred pounds’ worth, well nigh. Take what I have and let me go!’
Tom Harris clapped the heavy manacles on him, and rejoined: ‘The only place you’re going is Bow Street, and after Mr. Furnival has questioned you, to Newgate to wait trial. Do you know what I would do with the likes of you, Miller? I’d hang you from the nearest tree and swing on your genitals until you died. Get on your horse!’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Get on my horse, Miller; it’s mine in forfeit now.’
Soon, all of them were riding back to London, the carriage last except for one of Furnival’s men who had come with Tom Harris. Lilian was quiet now, her head resting on her husband’s shoulder, while Red Foster talked with an undertone of excitement in his voice.
‘There’ll be forty pounds each for the prisoners, m’dear, and the horses will be worth half as much again. We won’t know how much money Miller has on him but Furnival is an honest man; whatever there is we’ll get our share and I can be out of debt.’ For a moment he was silent, and then he went on: ‘I’ve been in terror of going back to Newgate, Lil. God bless you for keeping me free.’
She did not answer. She was crying.
John Furnival was sitting in the back room downstairs when Moffat came in a little before midnight. Lisa Braidley had been gone for nearly two hours, and Furnival had been reading, his legs up on a stool with a feather cushion on it, a blanket wrapped around him and a voluminous jacket over his shoulders. The embers- glowed both red and gold on the half-full glass of French brandy by his side, and a book was open and supported by another pillow on his thighs. When the mood took him he would go to the bed in the alcove, perhaps to sleep at once, perhaps to ponder.