The Masters of Bow Street Read Free Page B

of food, of gin and of ale, those who offered all the fun of the fair, began to do a roaring trade; men and women and some children sprang up as if from the ground carrying sheaves of single printed sheets. These were the forged or fictional stories, some based on things Jackson had said in prison, but few cared to wait for the official one the Ordinary would produce tomorrow morning.
    ‘Last speech and dying testament of Frederick Jackson, his very words, from first to last, only twopence. Read all the things you couldn’t hear because of the din. Jacker’s own words, words you’ll never forget.’
    And others hawked more newssheets and bills, whilst a few, with furtive air, began to offer pieces of the rope taken from Jackson’s neck; if genuine, each piece would fetch several pounds.
    ‘Death speech of Jonathan Wild, not a word missing, printed on special paper, only one penny.’
    ‘Who’ll buy The Daily Courant? Read all about the ‘orrible things that ‘appen in the Fleet. . .’
    And so they went on, raucous and never-ending.
    At one spot, eating hot pies and drinking lemonade, one family group was busy reading aloud pieces from the confessions while another was arguing amiably.
    ‘Tyburn’s the best place, I tell you,’ one man declared.
    ‘I like Newgate better; you don’t have so far to walk,’ the woman argued.
    ‘What’s the matter with Putney, then, or Kennington? You can take a coach to the gallows and watch everything without moving out of your seat.’
    Others of the party began to join in, some preferring the hangings in the Old Kent Road and Wapping, some showing a liking for those outside a shop where a thief had been caught and summarily tried.
    ‘There’s a book I read,’ the first man said, ‘calls London the City of the Gallows. The author says you can’t come into London by road or by the river without passing some.’
    A child, running, fell and began to cry and all thought switched from hanging to the scratches on his knee.
    John Furnival, with his three close attendants, walked through the thinning crowd towards Tyburn Pike, where his carriage was waiting. As he neared a little mound which commanded a good view of the hanging, a lad dressed neatly in tweed breeches, a jacket which reached halfway down his thighs and a shirt with ruffles at cuffs and neck ran forward. His slouch cap, of hogskin, was pulled over his left eye. He wore heavy boots, patched at the toes, with thick nails already wearing thin. Before Furnival realised what was happening, the lad took his hand and pressed it to his lips. For a moment the magistrate stood still, aware of the cool lips and the upturned face and the dark curls and touched to emotion because of the lad’s fervour; something stirred in his memory, too, but before the vision grew clear, the boy turned and ran, choking back tears. Furnival strode on, pointed out by hundreds, until suddenly he saw a woman in a dark-grey cloak and black bonnet standing in his path and staring at him.
    Again he stopped abruptly. The three men also stopped and put their hands to their pistols and looked about but no one who threatened danger stood nearby, unless the woman hid some weapon beneath the cloak she wore as a disguise.
    Furnival said, ‘If you need help, Eve Milharvey, come to me.’
    ‘I’d sooner ask help of the devil,’ she said. ‘I hope you die in agony, John Furnival.’
    She turned and walked away at a good pace, head held high, eyes still blazing with the hatred she had for the man who had hounded down her lover.
    No one followed her or recognised her. She was near the creaking cart on which they were now taking Jackson’s body away, drawn by two heavily built farm horses, when she saw a boy. Had she seen him only full face she might not have been so startled or so sure who he was. His profile allowed no doubt at all; the high forehead and the dark curly hair; the hooked nose; the deep-set eyes which might have been carved from marble;