'Ventricles.'

A month ago I would have been perplexed by this response. But I had learned to form sentences around the odd word he deigned to expel into the air. In this case: 'No, sir. I am not studying the mysteries of the human heart, but its mechanics. Including, for example, ventricles, a word I will now say out loud for my own unfathomable amus.e.m.e.nt.'

His lips curved into a faint smile.

'Where's Mistress Sparks?'

Nothing.

'The magistrate paid us a visit. Mr Burden accused you of breaking into his house. He claimed Stephen saw you though Stephen denied it. What do you say to that?'

Nothing.

'I defended you. Miss Sparks lied for you. Sam,' I prompted, exasperated. 'When a gentleman defends you against an accusation of theft, it's customary to express grat.i.tude. Much obliged to you, sir, for example. Thank you, Mr Hawkins, for defending my character. I am in your debt.'

Sam closed his book. 'Bliged.'

Just one vowel short of a word. A triumph. When Sam first arrived at the c.o.c.ked Pistol I'd thought he was shy with strangers, or missing his home and family. As the days had pa.s.sed, I'd come to realise that this was his natural temperament. He was a strange boy, no doubt but I had not considered him a danger to the house. Had I been too trusting of him?

I was about to venture out in search of a decent meal when a young lad entered the shop. His clothes were badly patched but clean, and he was well fed. One of James Fleet's boys. I glanced at Sam and caught the slightest flicker of fear in his eyes. Afraid of his father? Well he was not alone in that.

The boy handed me a slip of paper.

Hawkins. I have something for you. Come at once. Bring Sam.

I paid the boy and sent him on his way. I could feel Sam's gaze upon the note from across the room.

'Your father wishes to see you.'

His brows twitched. Ach, I knew that anxiety well enough. Tell a boy his father has summoned him and nine times out of ten it's trouble. I'd spent half my childhood in my father's study, staring at the floor while he expounded upon my failings. Weak. Obstinate. Wilful.

'I'll change,' Sam said.

I blinked, confused as if he had somehow read my mind. By the time I understood him he had slipped around the counter and was climbing the stairs to his garret room.

'You are dressed well enough,' I called up to him.

'Too well.'

A good point. I returned to my own room and threw on my drabbest waistcoat and breeches, and a fraying, mouse-coloured greatcoat. No silver b.u.t.tons, no embroidery. Not for a trip to St Giles.

St Giles is barely a ten-minute stride from Covent Garden but it might as well be another country. The Garden is not without its perils especially at night but the stews of St Giles contain some of the deadliest streets in the city. The last time I'd ventured in I had crawled out again upon my hands and knees, battered and b.l.o.o.d.y, lucky to be alive. I had been led there by a linkboy I'd paid to light my way home. Instead he had tricked me, leading me through the twisting maze of verminous streets into an ambush, where I had been robbed and beaten.

The same boy was at my side today.

Sam's father, James Fleet, was captain of the most powerful gang of thieves in St Giles. I would call them infamous, but their success hinged upon the quiet, secret way they went about their business. Fleet was careful not to make a name for himself, except where it mattered: whispered in the shadows. While other gangs swaggered about the town boasting of their deeds, Fleet's men were stealthy, silent and if caught never peached another gang member. For ten years James Fleet had ruled St Giles and barely a soul knew it.

As we left Drury Lane and crossed St Giles's road I put a hand on Sam's shoulder. It was a little over three months since he had led me into the stews. I was tolerably certain I'd forgiven him. We had been strangers at the time, after all and indeed his father had made amends, later. But I still remembered the look of pride and curiosity on Sam's face as I was beaten to the ground. The satisfaction of having pleased his pa. 'Do you remember the last time you brought me here?'

He tilted his face and looked up at me, black eyes cool and unwavering. 'Yes.'

'You've never apologised for it.'

He thought about this for a moment. 'No.'

I gave up.

The city streets are never fragrant, but St Giles wins the honour of being the foulest-smelling borough in London. It is impossible to walk a straight line one must gavotte around the piles of s.h.i.t, the clotting pools of blood, men lying drunk or dying in the filth. Sam weaved through it all with an easy tread, while I caught my heel in something so rancid I almost added my own vomit to the street. I reached for my pocket handkerchief, then thought better of it. There would be narrow eyes watching us from every alleyway, every rooftop. I did not want to enter St Giles waving my hankie to my nose like some ridiculous fop.

When Sam had first come to stay with us there had been a trace of the St Giles perfume trapped in his clothes, his hair, his skin. We had given him fresh clothes, clean linen, and several trips to a nearby bagnio where his skin was scrubbed and sc.r.a.ped and rubbed in sweet-smelling oil. I'd suggested that he might wish to shave off his curls as well, to discourage lice and other pests. Disdainful silence. Now he was back in his favourite 'old duds' a battered hat tipped low over his face, a torn and shabby coat, thin breeches. His father could have paid the best tailor in town to st.i.tch a new set of clothes for his only boy, but that would have drawn unwanted attention. Where did he get the c.h.i.n.k for such rum togs, eh? No one in James Fleet's gang wore fine clothes. Clean and modest that was the order. That's how I'd known the boy with the note was one of his.

Hawkins. I have something for you. Come at once. My stomach tightened.

A few nights before I had made a grave, foolish mistake. By chance I had met with Sam's father near St James's Park. It was not his usual haunt and he had looked somehow diminished, wandering through such a respectable part of town. Indeed he had seemed so lost that on a whim I had invited him to join me at the gaming tables near Charing Cross.

I did not think to wonder what he was doing in St James's. A man such as Fleet is not stumbled upon by chance. I am sure now that he had been waiting for me, but I did not even consider the idea at the time.

He had caught me at a ripe moment and he knew it, the cunning b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The Marshalsea had cast a long shadow on my soul. I had almost died, and it had changed me I could see it when I studied myself in the mirror. I did not trust any more to: 'and all will be well'. I was no longer the careless boy I had once been. But what was I then, in truth? Not a clergyman, despite my father's wishes. So then . . . what? What was my purpose? I couldn't say. And a man without a purpose is easy to trap.

I took James Fleet to the gaming house as if I were leading a pet lion upon a leash. Look! See what I have brought with me! I gambled away all the money in my purse and I drank until the floor pitched like a boat beneath my feet. All the vows I had made when I left prison fled before that cheap, seductive thought: d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l life must be lived! I had won my freedom from gaol. I had won Kitty's heart. I had won my safety. The game was over. So what now?

Another roll of the dice, of course. Because the game must never end.

I sat with James Fleet in a tavern so drunk I cannot even remember the name of it. And I confessed to him what I had barely admitted even to myself. That I was suffocating. That I had begun to suspect that a life without risk for a man of my nature was in fact a kind of slow death. Fleet had leaned forward, interested. 'I could use a man with your talents, Hawkins.' The next morning I'd woken with a pounding headache and the uneasy feeling that I had accidentally made a pact with the devil.

And now he had something for me.

Sam turned on to Phoenix Street, a long road that runs straight through the heart of St Giles like an arrow. Most of the houses were ruins, rotting roofs patched with tarred cloth, as if the risk of fire weren't grave enough amidst all the timber frames and gin stills. One building had collapsed into the street overnight a couple of thin, ragged street boys were loading the wood into wheelbarrows to sell. They saluted Sam, who gave them a tight nod as we hurried on.

There were eyes upon us in every window here. Men lurking in every shadow. I could feel the stares burning the back of my neck as we pa.s.sed. I stole a glance up at the rooftops, scouting the wooden planks and ropes that laced the houses together in one long, tangled forest of outlaws. The rookery, they called it a town for thieves hidden in the skies. A man could clamber right through it without once touching the ground. We pa.s.sed a gin shop, then another. And then another. At the fourth, a tattered sc.r.a.p of a boy was puking his guts into the street, blind drunk. A group of older lads jeered at him and kicked him on his way. There were no old men here.

James Fleet did not live on Phoenix Street. His house was hidden, tucked away like a coin buried deep in a miser's pocket. This was my first visit to his den, and Sam had led me on a strange, intentionally confusing route. But I had learned my lesson the last time he had brought me into St Giles, and I paid close attention to every twist and turn and double back.

Suddenly, without warning, he shoved open a door near the end of the street. It was stiff, and he had to throw all his weight behind it. Somehow he managed this without making a sound. It struck me that Sam used silence the way other boys worked with knives or their fists. I thought again of Jenny's whispered confession and felt a flicker of unease deep in my chest.

We climbed up through a tall, narrow house, its rooms part.i.tioned with sheets and blankets to cram in as many bodies as possible. No need to guess what happened behind those temporary walls. The air stank of s.e.x and bad liquor. Above the low sobs, the groans of pleasure and pain, I could hear a little girl crying out again and again for her mother. No one answered her. I stopped on the staircase, overwhelmed. Sam glanced back, and I could tell from his impatient expression that these sounds meant nothing to him. They were, after all, the sounds of his neighbourhood, of his childhood. He heard them the way I might hear the cry of gulls and the rush of the sea against the sh.o.r.e. We moved on.

At the top of the house we pulled ourselves through a trapdoor onto the roof, wind gusting fresh air on our faces. From up here we could see the city stretching into the distance, the dome of St Paul's far away to the east. Even Sam couldn't resist. He paused to look out over his father's estate, balancing lightly on a damp board that ran between two of the houses. A look settled upon his face that I recognised well the joy and anxiety of coming home.

'Your father will be pleased to see you,' I called out.

He spun nimbly on the beam. 'Stephen. He denied seeing the thief?'

Good G.o.d, it was bad enough that he barely spoke. Even worse when he hodge-podged conversations in such an eccentric fashion. 'He said it was too dark to be sure.'

Sam smiled. Then he padded over the beam onto the next roof.

The gambler in me found all of this exhilarating slipping across rooftops through the deadliest part of the city. Was this not life? Was this not something to make the heart beat faster? A quieter voice counselled that such risks may be exhilarating, but were not conducive to a long life. Oh, and for G.o.d's sake don't look down.

Sam was a few paces ahead of me, perched at the edge of the roof, staring down at a courtyard below. The houses huddled together to create a tiny, secret square in the middle. Sam rolled his shoulders. Stepped on to the ledge. And jumped.

I gave a shout of alarm and scrambled to the edge. Beneath me, about ten feet down, Sam had landed neatly on the balcony of a modest wooden house built in the heart of the square. Being two stories shorter than the houses surrounding it, there was no way of seeing it until you leaned right over the roof.

'What am I to do?' I called down.

Sam tipped back his hat. Crooked his finger.

'Don't jump for f.u.c.k's sake,' a voice growled through a window. A moment later, Sam's father swung out onto the balcony. A short, strong man, he was dressed in a plain shirt and waistcoat, sleeves rolled. His head was bare, scalp dark with bristle. 'You'll break your neck. Or tear a hole in my roof. Then I'll break your neck.' He grinned and pushed a ladder out until it lodged firmly against the roof where I stood.

I tested it anxiously with my foot. 'Will it take my weight?'

'Takes mine.'

I considered the iron muscles of his arms and chest. He was a head shorter than me, but still at least a stone heavier. I took a deep breath and climbed down slowly, conscious that I was crossing the threshold a.r.s.e first. Now there's a way to make a man feel vulnerable. Intentional, no doubt.

Fleet's den was the most curious place I had ever visited so unlike a normal home that at first I could make no sense of it. The rooms at the top of the house had been knocked into one or had been built that way. This one large, square room stretched right up to the pitched roof, with beams left open to crack your head upon. The balcony wrapped all the way around this top floor. From here one could throw a ladder onto any roof in the square or clamber down to the street by rope. It was a building designed for escape.

I presumed that this room served as a well-guarded meeting place for Fleet's gang, but there were also hammocks slung from the beams and a grate in one corner with a leg of mutton roasting on a spit. My mouth watered at the smell of it.

Sam dropped his hat on a hammock and pushed a hand through his curls, watching his father from the corner of his eyes. Something unspoken hung in the air between them a question or a threat. But then Fleet chuckled, and pulled Sam into a brief hug. He kissed the top of his son's head, then shoved him away.

'Gah! You smell like a wh.o.r.e. What do they wash you with, f.u.c.king rose water?'

'Lavender,' Sam replied, glaring at me as if I had spent the last month flogging him with razors.

I turned up my palms. 'You wish your son to pa.s.s for a gentleman. That includes smelling like one.'

'True enough,' Fleet conceded. He gave Sam a friendly shove. 'Run and see your mother.'

Sam hesitated. 'Pa-' He caught his father's sharp look and left at once, scrambling out onto the balcony and climbing down a rope to the next floor rather than use the stairs.

Fleet waved me over to a seat by the fire. The smell of roast meat was almost too good to bear, but I knew better than to ask for a slice. It was not wise to be indebted to James Fleet not even for a bite of mutton. I lit a pipe to stave off the hunger while he poured us both a mug of beer and settled down in the chair opposite. He was a handsome bull of a man, with a wide forehead and a sharp jaw line. He had the same striking black eyes as his son, but Sam's features were almost delicate, set in a lean face with high cheekbones. There was nothing delicate about James Fleet. His face and hands were traced with scars a map of old battles fought and won.

'How's Kitty?' he asked, taking a swig of beer.

'She's well.' My voice sounded thin.

He chuckled over his beer. 'Don't look so worried, Hawkins. I'm not going to eat her.'

I forced a smile. 'You have a proposal for me?'

He wasn't ready to discuss business. This conversation would play at his pace, not mine. 'So. What progress with my boy?'

'Good. Save for the incessant chatter.'

He snorted back a laugh. 'How long will it take?'

'To turn him into a gentleman?' I shrugged. A thousand years?

'No, no, no. To pa.s.s as one. You turn my son into a real gent and I'll wring your f.u.c.king neck.'

'Ah, well. That's the secret. There's no such thing as a real gent.' I was not speaking entirely in jest. If a man wore the right clothes and spoke in an easy, confident manner, there was a good chance he would be allowed into the court. The n.o.bility was such a strange collection of eccentrics, fools, and fops that even the most unlikely fellow could pa.s.s.

Fleet waved his hand, dismissing the notion. This sort of subtle distinction bored him. 'There are places I can't go. Opportunities I can't seize. Sam knows this world my world. I need him to understand yours too.'

I thought of Sam, sullen and silent behind the shop counter. 'I will do my best.'

Fleet held my gaze, just long enough for me to understand what would happen if my best did not meet his expectations. 'Well then,' he said, as the sweat trickled down my back, 'can't ask fairer than that.'

I took a sip of beer. 'We had a visit from Mr Gonson today.'

'Hah. Society of f.u.c.king Manners.'

'Our neighbour accused Sam of breaking into his house.' I paused. 'Is that possible?'

'Anything stolen?'

'No.'

'Anyone murdered?'

'Good G.o.d no!'

Fleet settled back, satisfied. 'Shall we discuss business?'

I had already decided as I climbed over the rooftops of St Giles that whatever James Fleet wanted of me, I must find a way to refuse.'Mr Fleet,' I a.s.sembled my most regretful expression, 'I fear I may not be able to help on this occasion-'

He stopped me with his hand. 'For pity's sake, Hawkins stop clenching your petticoat. A proposition, nothing more. Chance to make some money.' He fixed me with a look. 'Your own money.'

Oh, that stung, I admit. It was true I had been living off Kitty's fortune these past few months. A fortune she had inherited from Fleet's half-brother.

'I've had word from an acquaintance at court. A gentlewoman has asked for my help. Needs to be done secret. Quiet. I want you to meet her tonight. Find out what she wants.'

I narrowed my eyes, suspicious. That was all truly? Nothing more? Perhaps I could, just this once . . . Best not to refuse Fleet over such a trifling request. And would it not be encouraging, to earn a little spare coin of my own? 'How much?'

Fleet shrugged. 'If I can help her I'll pay you a tenth of the fee.'

'Half.'

A hacking laugh. 'One meeting with a f.u.c.king courtier? Let me consider.' He scratched his jaw. 'One-tenth.'

I took a slow pull on my pipe. This was Fleet's world he could slit my throat in here and never swing for it. But if I did not bargain with him now I would appear weak. 'If it's so easy, why not send one of your men? Why not go yourself?'

Fleet gritted his teeth, and said nothing.

I smiled at him through the smoke. 'Because you need a real gent. Someone who can pa.s.s. Someone who won't frighten the poor lady half to death.' A thought struck me. 'Your brother used to do this for you, didn't he? Play the gentleman.' A vision of my old cell mate, grizzle-cheeked and dressed in his shabby old nightgown, crossed my mind. Forgive me, Samuel, for calling you a gentleman. I meant no offence. 'You must have been forced to turn down quite a few opportunities these past months. Perhaps your friend at court will lose patience? Try someone new?'

Fleet scowled. 'Careful, Hawkins.'