Antonia Hodgson - The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins

‘Dear God!’ I cried. ‘Are you hurt?’

She said nothing, too terrified to speak. Her eyes were wild. And fixed upon Sam.

He took a step towards her and her hand flew up. She was holding a dagger. The blade was thick with blood from tip to hilt.

Sam moved back, hands raised. Alice’s shoulders dipped, the knife wavering in her hand.

‘Sam,’ I murmured, keeping a close eye upon the knife. ‘Fetch some brandy.’

As soon as he’d left the room, Alice gave a sob and dropped the dagger as if it were burning her hand. It clattered onto the floor between us. It was as I’d guessed and feared. She was afraid of Sam. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s dead,’ she answered in a numb voice. ‘Mr Burden. He’s dead.’

Oh… this was ill news indeed. I reached down, slowly, and picked up the knife. My hand was shaking. It was a fine weapon, with a turned ivory handle chased in gold. The steel blade was sharp, six inches long. A handsome, vicious thing. ‘Did you kill him?’

She shook her head. She kept her hands stretched out away from her body, away from all the blood and gore.

‘How did you come here? Did Sam let you in?’

Even his name made her flinch. ‘It was him,’ she cried. ‘It was him . Oh, Lord. He’ll kill me too, I know it.’ Her body buckled and she sank to the floor.

‘Sit down here,’ I said, taking her arm and leading her gently to the bed. She clung to me, weeping silently. I studied her as the tears streamed down her face, searching for any signs of a fight. Burden was a mountain of a man – if Alice had attacked him surely there would be marks upon her body. Her wrists were circled with small bruises, a few days old, and there were more across her neck – four upon the left and one larger one on the right, just under her chin. Four fingers and a thumb. Someone had seized her roughly by the throat. Burden, forcing himself on her. Holding her down. I felt a sharp desire to find the bastard and knock him to the ground. And then I remembered – he was dead. Murdered.

Alice had no fresh wounds upon her that I could see – not even a scratch. The blood was all his.

Dread shivered through me. My neighbour – the man I had threatened only hours before, who had promised to testify against me in court – lay dead next door. And here was his servant hiding in my house, covered in his blood. If Gonson heard of this he would hang us both on the spot.

‘Alice – I know what Burden did to you… I’m sorry…’

She bowed her head for a moment, as if shamed. ‘What will they say of me?’ she asked, in a raw, broken voice. ‘He made me… I had to visit him every night. I had no choice. But it was different tonight. The room was dark. I was glad of it. Glad I didn’t have to look at him for once. He never let me close my eyes. He made me pretend that I liked it, or else…’ She shuddered, then drew a deep breath. ‘I felt my way across the room and climbed onto the bed. It was soaking wet. So I lit a candle. I had to grope for it in the dark. I could feel the sheets, wet beneath my hands and then the flame caught and… He was lying there with that knife in his heart. The sheets were red. Thick pools of blood. Oh, God! I’d lain across it in the dark, in all that blood… My dress… my hands. It was all… it was everywhere. I had to stop myself from screaming.’ She held out the underside of her right arm to reveal a ring of teeth marks cut deep in the flesh. ‘They’d say I done it. Look at me! Look at me!’ She began to sob.

‘Why do you think it was Sam?’

‘He was the thief. I saw him . Nasty little rat, creeping about at night. I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Judith said I was mad. Stephen was the only one who believed me.’ Her face softened. ‘I knew I’d hang for it if they found me like this. And I couldn’t run away.’ She gestured helplessly at the blood. ‘Please, sir. If you tell them it was Sam they’ll believe you. You’re a gentleman .’

‘But, Alice, it couldn’t possibly be Sam. He can’t walk through walls.’

She stared up at me. ‘Yes he can, sir. Oh yes he can. And so can I.’

I blinked, confused. Perhaps Judith was right. Perhaps Alice was mad.

‘He planned it all, Mr Hawkins. He’s evil, sir. That’s why Jenny left. She said-’

The door opened, silently. Sam, returning with the brandy. In a flash Alice grabbed the knife and scurried to the corner again, bare feet crackling dried flakes of blood across the floor.

Sam seemed more amused than offended. He poured a glass of brandy and offered it to her. She shrank back. I took the glass instead and knocked it down. Not as good as the queen’s claret, but it helped.

‘She thinks I done it,’ Sam snorted.

‘I know you did!’ Alice cried. She pointed to a wall hanging fixed in the far corner of the room – faded green silk, embroidered with a white cherry tree design. I had never once given it a moment’s thought. If asked, I would have guessed it covered a patch of damp or a hole in the plaster. I crossed the room, growing more troubled with each step. I knew what I would find behind the hanging, even before I drew it back.

Alice really had walked through the wall. Or, at least, through a hidden door. Small, discreet, painted the same pale green as the rest of the room. I ran my fingers along its edges. It must have been sealed shut at some point, because there were cracks and splinters around the frame – clear signs that it had been chiselled open again. There was no handle, just a lock. The key was missing.

‘The windows and doors were barred, the night I saw him,’ Alice said, still holding the knife tight. ‘So I knew there must be a hidden passage. I’ve spent the last week hunting for it, every spare second.’ She pulled a hairpin from her apron and fiddled with the lock. There was a soft click, and the door swung free into the room.

The entrance opened into the back of a huge oak armoire filled with fine but old-fashioned gowns in dark silks. The smell of must wafted through the air, and for a moment I was transported home to my father’s house, to a forbidden room filled with my mother’s dresses, fading slowly.

‘They belonged to Mrs Burden,’ Alice murmured. She trailed her fingers across a petticoat with deep flounces – a style I had not seen since I was a child. ‘I’d planned to show this to Mr Burden, to prove I wasn’t lying, or dreaming. Too late now, isn’t it?’ She glared at Sam.

I pushed the dresses aside, but it was too dark to see into the room beyond. It was an ingenious idea, I had to admit. From Burden’s side, the door would appear to be the back of the large cabinet, unless one examined it very closely. This was the work of Sam’s late uncle, without question. Samuel Fleet had lived a complicated, dangerous life – one that needed as many escape routes as possible. I could see how it would have been irresistible to Sam. Had he discovered it by chance? Or was it a Fleet family secret?

‘You were the thief.’

‘Didn’t steal nothing.’

‘Didn’t steal anything ,’ I corrected, before I could stop myself. Yes, of course, that was the boy’s great crime in all this – his use of double negatives. ‘What were you doing over there, if you weren’t thieving?’

‘ Practising. ’

‘Oh!’ Alice cried, horrified. ‘Oh, I told you, sir!’

I put a finger to my lips. If anyone woke next door we would be in grave trouble. Sam was not confessing to Burden’s murder, he was not so foolish. He meant only that he’d been testing his skills; prowling about just as he had stolen into Jenny’s room in the middle of the night. He’d wanted to see how quiet he could be. Not quiet enough, by this account. It was disturbing behaviour, but not proof of murder. I rubbed a hand across my face. It had been a long, wretched night. ‘Did you kill Mr Burden, Alice?’