by Death
‘I’m sorry it’s got to end this way,’ he said, advancing like a knight, lance tucked under his arm. ‘You know too much, my darling.’
‘I’m sure that we can come to some sort of arrangement,’ I said, trying to work out a way of getting down from the bridge. ‘After all, we’re both people of business, in our different ways.’ I took another step back, conscious that my back was now only inches from the wall.
He lunged at me with the pole. I dodged it, only to find he was coming now with the blade. Again, I swung away to avoid it, but there was no way that I was going to pass him on the narrow walkway. He frowned at his clumsy attempt, knowing that he had downed too much brandy for precision. I knew that he would only have to strike once to wound me fatally.
The pole was hampering him. Eyes on me, he propped it up against the handrail and gripped the knife again.
‘Let’s finish this now,’ he said, to himself more than to me, wiping his hand across his mouth. ‘I need to get going.’
‘Charles, don’t!’ My cry was enough to catch him off guard as he lurched into me. The knife caught the inside of my arm and a sharp pain sliced through me, but it was he who staggered. I seized my chance, grabbed the pole, cracked it hard on his foot and whacked it up into his groin.
He howled – whether in anger or pain, I couldn’t tell.
‘Damned fucking whore!’
I still couldn’t pass him. He was bent double, but I was trapped up against the wall.
He pitched towards me again with the knife. Without thinking, I swung the pole up, hooked it on to a metal rod full of hams and leaped over the handrail, clinging on to the pole for dear life. I had jumped off the bridge – but was now swinging in mid-air like a piece of meat.
Charles leaned over the rail and tried to grab me, but I was just too far out of reach. He threw a leg over and sat astride the rail to try again. As he reached for me I swung on the pole to escape his hands. He lost his balance and, with a yelp, crashed to the stone floor, landing badly.
His right leg was splayed at a horrible angle. From his cries, he was still very much alive, and in pain.
I was swaying on the pole, but my hands were starting to lose their grip, my arm was stinging with the pain of the knife wound, blood beginning to colour the sleeve of my gown. The sight of it made me feel sick. I would be joining him on the floor unless I could swing myself back on to the bridge.
There was a commotion below. Half a dozen men burst through the door. Tommy Bridgewater, Grimshaw and Carter flung themselves at the prone figure of Charles, while the others sprinted up the steps to the bridge, one ahead of the rest.
‘Do you think you can swing yourself towards the rail, Miss Hardwicke? I don’t think any of us wants to lean too far over it.’ It was William Davenport.
‘I’ll do my best. My hands are slipping.’
I began to rock my legs, like a child on a swing, increasing the angle with each effort, trying not to panic about my sweating palms and the pain screaming in my arm and in my face.
With another man holding him secure, Davenport reached for me. He clung tightly to my skirts and with a grunt tugged me over the bar. I fell on him and knocked him over.
‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, lying awkwardly on top of him.
‘Not a moment too soon, it appears,’ he said, voice muffled by a greater expanse of my chest than either of us might have wished.
We lay like that for a moment, each of us getting our breath back. I eased myself off him and stood to survey the scene below. Thomas Beech was being half-carried, half-shoved towards the door by Fielding’s men.
‘He told me everything, you know,’ I said to Davenport, as I tugged the top of my gown back to a more modest location.
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he said, dusting off his breeches, ‘it’ll add to what’s been found at Norwich.’
I must have looked surprised, because he added, ‘I sent a man to Reed’s house, you remember that I said I might? He brought back a pile of letters and notes this afternoon – just before your messenger arrived. They make for interesting reading.’
There were men milling around on the floor below us, gathering themselves to deal with a dead body. I started to feel light-headed and put a hand out to Davenport to steady myself.
‘May I escort you home, Miss Hardwicke? You look as though you need some rest.’
I nodded.
‘Thank you, Mr Davenport. I’d like that.’ Suddenly I was shaking. My legs wobbled uncontrollably, and I crumpled to the floor. He came to me, picked me up as if I were a child and, slowly, carried me down the steps, out of the butchery door and into the evening sun.
Chapter Fifty-one
It was daylight. I had a thumping headache, a sore arm and a throat like sand. For a moment, I had no idea where I was or what day it was. All I knew was that most of me hurt. Polly was sitting by my bed; I was home. I grunted at her, unable to form words properly.
She kissed the top of my head and said gently, ‘Shh. Lie still. Try not to speak.’
‘Where’s Mr Davenport?’ I croaked.
She laughed at me.
‘He’s downstairs. He asked me to fetch him when you woke up. He’s been here all night, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘He told us what happened. Charles nearly killed you.’ Her eyes began to water.
‘Don’t cry,’ I rasped, my throat on fire. I patted her hand. ‘I’m not dead. But tell Ma that I’m only attractive to gentlemen with very unusual tastes.’
She sniffed and nodded.
‘I’ll go and find Mr Davenport. And I’ll bring you some brandy.’
‘Not brandy.’ I couldn’t face that. ‘Tea. Sugar. Lots.’
I turned over and let quiet tears seep into my pillow.
He tapped at the door and entered with a tray.
‘Polly says you’re awake, but you’ve lost your voice,’ he said as he laid the tea on the table. ‘That sounds like a perfect outcome.’
I rubbed a hand over my face, brushing the tears away, and sat up. His face fell.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t joke about it. Forgive me.’
I shook my head.
‘Nothing to forgive. I’m only glad you helped me down from among the hams.’
He started pouring the tea, then put the pot down suddenly and snapped. ‘Why did you have to tackle Beech on your own? Why didn’t you wait for us to reach you? He could have killed you, you know.’
I closed my eyes. I didn’t like being scolded, especially given how much pain I was in. I had, after all, just caught a murderer for him. When I opened my eyes, I saw he was concerned, rather than cross.
‘If I’d waited, then he might have got away; he was leaving for France. I didn’t know how long the tailor’s lad would take to reach you and I thought I could keep him at the butcher’s. Besides,’ and this was the truth of it, ‘I needed to know, for myself, what he had done. I just needed to know.’
I took a gulp of tea and let it warm my throat, unwilling to admit that I also had a tendency to rashness.
He sat in the chair next to my bed and sipped from his own cup, nodding at my bandaged arm.
‘Are you still in much pain?’
‘Thank you, doctor, I’m sure I’ll survive.’
He muttered something to himself that I didn’t hear and then gave me a half-hearted smile. ‘Yes, I understand from young Sam at Bow Street that you’ve been asking about me.’
‘It seemed unfair for you to know about my past and for me not to know a little of yours.’
‘Touché, Elizabeth Vessey.’
The sound of my own name made me nervous.
‘Lizzie,’ I said. ‘Lizzie Hardwicke, always.’
He caught enough of my meaning to let the subject drop. He bent forward and untied the bandage before taking a careful look at the wound Charles had scored with his knife. He reached into a large bag that I hadn’t noticed was on the floor and spread a thin layer of some s
ort of ointment onto my skin. It stung, and I yelped.
‘This will help it heal faster.’
‘It seems to be making things worse at the moment.’
He snorted as he found fresh cloth and wrapped my arm again.
‘You can have more laudanum if you want.’ He nodded to the bottle on the table. I dimly remembered him forcing me to drink a glass of something last night when he brought me home. No wonder I had slept. ‘You’re lucky. He’s made a bit of a mess of your skin, but, beyond a scar, there’ll be no lasting damage.’
My eyes dropped to my old wounds, those criss-crossing my left hand and arm. Davenport noticed and picked up my hand to look more closely.
‘This looks a lot worse to me. You were cut, badly – a while ago. It wasn’t properly treated at the time.’ He touched one of the scars very gently. ‘Your uncle did this, I think.’
I took a breath. ‘It was my fault. I made a mistake. One day I told him that I wanted nothing more to do with him. He took a knife, held my arm, and cut my skin. There was a lot of blood and I passed out at the sight of it. I think he just kept cutting. He told the servants I had broken a glass in a fit of temper.’
He told me that if refused him again he would put a scar on my face.
‘It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. It itches sometimes; just an ugly reminder of my past.’
He ran a finger over the marks. ‘I’m not sure I can heal these.’
‘Lots of us carry scars, Mr Davenport; not all of them are visible,’ I said, touching my hand to his chest. ‘Some pains we simply have to live with.’
We were both quiet for a while. I went back to my tea.
‘What’s happened to Charles – Thomas Beech, I mean?’
He straightened up and shook his shoulders. His face assumed its usual serious expression.
‘Mr Fielding has sent him to Newgate. The men took him this morning, first light. He’ll be tried very soon and hanged before the month ends.’ He tilted his head to look out of the window. ‘He’s likely to go out with John Swann, although the irony will probably be lost on him on the day.’
It wasn’t lost on me, but the pretty poetry of it paled alongside the reality of what he had done to deserve his death. ‘He killed four people: George Reed, Sallie, Mr Groves and the real Charles Stanford.’
‘He tried to kill you too, of course, but I’m afraid that will be forgotten in the light of his greater crimes.’
‘At least Sallie will have her justice.’
He smiled a little. ‘Only because you refused to give up on her. It was Sallie’s button that led you to the tailor’s.’
The tailor’s shop made me think of Susan Groves.
‘Mrs Groves!’ I nearly sent the tea flying. ‘Is she still waiting for her husband? She won’t know he’s dead.’
‘Calm down, she knows. We’re not monsters at Bow Street. Mr Fielding sent a man round to speak to her.’
‘Not Mr Grimshaw, I hope?’ I couldn’t bear the thought of that man breaking bad news to such a fragile person.
‘No, not Jack. Subtlety is not Jack’s finest quality – although he has many admirable traits when you get to know him, really he does.’ I must have looked doubtful at this, because he kept repeating it.
‘At least she has Amelia to care for her, and I think she was hoping Tommy Bridgewater might stay too,’ I said. ‘Amelia can marry now and be respectable. She doesn’t have to linger in this pit of vice, this house of sin at least.’ Recalling our earlier conversations, I gave him the most lascivious wink my sore face could manage.
He ignored the wink; it can’t have looked alluring.
‘Mr Fielding sends his regards to you, by the way.’
‘Really?’
‘He asked me to invite you to Bow Street – when Beech’s trial is over. He would like to discuss how much he might pay you for the information that led us to Beech. And how he’ll pay you in future.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He smiled. It was a warm and open expression. I could genuinely like him when he smiled.
‘He was most impressed by you. We could do with someone in Soho, watching, listening to what’s going on behind these elegant doorways.’
‘Be like John Reading, you mean?’ I raised my eyebrows at him.
‘Like John Reading. But in better clothes.’
‘Working with you?’
He nodded. ‘Sometimes.’
‘And I’ll be paid?’
‘Not much, but yes – by results.’
I stuck out a hand.
‘I’ll do it.’
He took my hand and shook it firmly. It wasn’t only Mr Fielding who had been impressed, I was sure of it.
‘You’ve got your retirement fund to think of, after all,’ he said.
I didn’t know whether it was the money or the adventure that was uppermost in my mind. Or even the possibility that we might work together again.
‘Thank you.’ I put my hand over Davenport’s. I had nothing else to say.
He stood up. ‘I really must go,’ he said. He hesitated, ‘…ah, but I have something of interest for you. I nearly forgot. This will take your mind off your pain.’
‘What is it?’ I sat up, intrigued.
‘Among Reed’s papers we found the letters to Mrs Farley. I thought that you might return them to her for me. Of course, they are addressed to her, so really ought to be private—’
He handed me a small packet of papers with a knowing look. I smiled back and tucked them under my pillow to enjoy later. Whatever was in them, such knowledge would be enough to keep Ma off my back for a long time.
Historical Note
This is a work of fiction. However, as someone who has spent a lot of my life studying and writing about history, I feel duty-bound to offer some comments and disclaimers on the places where I have taken liberties.
Firstly, this is a twenty-first century take on the mid-eighteenth century and not historical pastiche. Although I have tried to make sure that my characters don’t speak too much in twenty-first century idiom, I have written for readers who do. Likewise, I have avoided too many eighteenth-century-isms that no one uses any more. I’ve sneaked a couple in, when the meaning is obvious, just because. I’ve held back on the swearing. They cursed fulsomely in those days and were much ruder than I have dared to be.
Secondly, a word about John Fielding. He was a real person (1721-1780), knighted in 1761 (two years after this story takes place). Along with his half-brother, the writer Henry Fielding, he began what became England’s police force. Most people who have heard of John Fielding know him as the founder of the ‘Bow Street Runners’. They were not called ‘runners’ until the 1770s, and the term was a nickname, rather than a proper name, but I like it – especially when it’s used by the more cynical characters in this book – so I have unashamedly allowed this anachronism.
Thirdly, John Fielding’s clerical staff kept meticulous and detailed reports. These would have been extremely useful to historians and novelists alike. Sadly, they were destroyed by fire in 1780 and what is known of them comes via the records of the Old Bailey. It means that a full and thorough account of Fielding’s work can never really be written. It also means that a novelist can take a good deal of licence, using her imagination.
Here are some of the books that I have found useful in my research for this novel. If you want to discover more about London, Britain and the eighteenth century, you might like to have a look at them.
Beattie, J. M., The First English Detectives. The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750-1840.
Beaumont, Matthew, Night Walking. A Nocturnal History of London.
Buck, Anne, Dress in Eighteenth Century England.
Cruickshank, Dan, The Secret History of Georgian London.
Gatrell, Vic, The First Bohemians.
McLynn, Frank, 1759. The Year Britain became Master of the World.
Picard, Liza, Dr Johnson’s London. Life in London 1740-17
70.
Porter, Roy, English Society in the 18th Century.
Pringle, Patrick, Hue and Cry. The Birth of the British Police.
Rubenhold, Hallie, The Covent Garden Ladies. The Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List.
Vickery, Amanda, Behind Closed Doors. At Home in Georgian England.
White, Jerry, London in the Eighteenth Century. A Great and Monstrous Thing.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Laura Macdougall at United Agents for being such a brilliant agent and fabulous person. I am grateful beyond words for her encouragement, attention to detail, and good humour.
Thanks to my editor, Laura McCallen, and the team at Canelo, for their imagination, expertise and enthusiasm for this book – and for their excitement at the prospect of more Lizzie Hardwicke novels.
The members of the Worcester Writers’ Circle were the first to hear me read chapter one of this novel and they giggled in all the right places and advised me to get on with it. Cheers, you lovely bunch.
Thanks to Hannah Persaud for her support, especially over the summer of 2018. It is possible, it seems, to meet someone on Twitter and click. And, in real life, we can talk for hours.
Thanks to fellow writers on Twitter for all the retweets and GIFs. You know who you are.
Only a few friends knew I was writing a novel. Their gentle encouragement kept me going more than they will know. I’m looking at you, Yvonne Pollitt, Elaine Willmore, Robert Jones, Amanda Woodd, Jenny Floyd, Mark Pryce, Charmian Manship and Sarah Henderson. Thanks also to my colleagues, Peter Atkinson and Michael Brierley, for showing entirely appropriate levels of interest and amusement – as always, chaps.
I’d like to thank my brother, John Byrne, for bearing with his odd sister and her need for lots of words. It’s such a pleasure to have a brother I can talk to for hours and connect with at such a deep level, and, from my heart, I thank him for encouraging me.