Grace blinked at the coins for a moment before scooping them up, wiping each one clean with his handkerchief and then pocketing them. He studied me for a long moment with a puzzled expression, as if I were a sum he had added up incorrectly and even now could not make work. ‘Well. It seems you are in Mr Fleet’s debt, sir,’ he said at last, and stalked off.
I stared up at my unexpected benefactor. It was hard to feel grateful, given his reputation. ‘Mr Fleet,’ I said, offering him a short bow. ‘How am I to repay you?’
Fleet grinned. ‘By staying alive, Mr Hawkins. And keeping me entertained.’ Then he drew back from the balcony into the shadows.
A few moments later I felt a tug on my coat tail. It was Benjamin, Gilbert Hand’s boy, returned with a large parcel of items wrapped in an old blanket and a hastily written note from Charles.
‘My dear Tom,’ he wrote. ‘Do not despair. I will find a way to help you. Until then I have given the boy some spare clothes, a cooking pot and a few other small items. For God’s sake be careful. I will pray for you. Your loving friend, Charles.’
I tucked the letter in my pocket. Benjamin had already crossed the yard towards my new quarters. Fleet’s room was in the first of the prisoners’ blocks, in the northwest corner of the gaol. As I strode after him I realised this must be Jack Carter’s brother. He’d been asking for Ben and now I looked I could see the resemblance. I stopped him at the main ward door and tried to take the parcel from him.
‘You should go to your brother,’ I said. ‘He’s asking for you.’
He snatched the parcel back and kicked the door open. ‘I’m working.’
And proud of it, too. Proud to be earning his keep. Benjamin had no need to climb the wall to escape the gaol like his brother Jack – he had found himself an occupation. But he couldn’t afford to stop working, even though he knew Jack would die tonight. Before I could stop myself, I pulled out half a shilling, vowing this would be my last good deed in this rotten place. The boy’s eyes widened and he went very still, holding his breath.
‘Here,’ I said, placing the coin in his hand. ‘You’re working for me tonight. Go to your brother, I’ll square it with Mr Hand. Go on, run, damn you! Before I change my mind.’
Fleet’s quarters were on the first floor. The room was bigger than the one I had just fled, with two beds and a large window overlooking the rackets wall and Acton’s house beyond. But it was so cluttered that I could scarce move without treading on something. It was more like a pawnbroker’s than a living space – a pawnbroker’s ransacked by lunatics. Towers of books teetered alarmingly against the walls, and the floor was a tussle of abandoned clothing jumbled with old wigs, dented tankards, spent pipes and what appeared to be an ivory tusk protruding from beneath a pair of leather breeches.
