‘And you should not judge me by your husband’s poor standards, madam.’
She slapped me hard across the cheek.
We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. And then she flung her hands to her face. ‘Oh! Why did I do that? It is just… you are so…’ She backed away, then turned and fled across the yard, her black silk skirts trailing behind her.
I was still rubbing my cheek when I heard a low, mocking laugh cut through the darkness. I peered into the gloom. Something rustled quietly – a whisper of a noise – then fell still. The hairs rose along my neck.
‘Is someone there? Fleet? Mr Hand?’
Silence. A cold breeze swept through the yard, lifting clouds of grit and dust into the air. Perhaps I had imagined it. I turned on my heel and walked quickly to the Tap Room. If someone was there, let them play their games alone in the shadows.
I was greeted with a loud cheer as I entered the Tap Room, Trim slapping my back and drawing me inside with a flourish as if to say, ‘Here he is! The man of the moment.’ Anyone might think I had passed an exam, or won some profitable new position, not been thrown into one of the most notorious gaols in London. Yes indeed. Well done, Mr Hawkins, I thought wryly to myself. You have excelled yourself.
I went straight up to the bar, where Henry Chapman, the tapster, was waiting for me. He was by no means as pleasing on the eye as Mary Acton – he had a low, surly manner and a piggish face. And he was Acton’s man; I could tell just by the swagger of him. A ‘trusty’, like Cross – prisoners who worked for the governor. I slapped down my six shillings garnish and he slid it quickly into his palm as if it might dissolve before his eyes.
As I settled down in a chair near the fire, Trim introduced me to the two other men at the table. Richard McDonnell was a quick-witted, garrulous Irishman known by all as Mack. He’d been a painter before he ran into debt. Now he ran Titty Doll’s, the prison chophouse, with his wife. He was already merry and red-cheeked when I arrived, his fine, musical voice carrying across the Tap Room. He spent much of the evening with an unsteady hand upon my shoulder, trying to persuade me I should buy all my meals from him. ‘Best meat in the Borough,’ he insisted, while Trim made a choking gesture over his head, eyes crossed, hands clutching his throat.
The second man was Mr Jenings, the nightwatchman, a thin, long-limbed, fretful man of few words. ‘Did I pass you in the yard just now, sir?’ I asked. ‘I thought you might have started your rounds.’
