Chapter 26 - Confessions

As the new day began to break, deep in the wood it was still dark. Intermittently sunshine penetrated through the thick canopy of forest, shinning a spotlight on three figures negotiating a tricky path through the thicket of trees.

After a number of hours of hiking through the darkness, the children rested for an hour or so, dozing beneath the growing warmth of the new day.

When they began their journey once more, Maggie repeated that she thought they were travelling in a southeasterly direction. Jack, especially, was in no position to argue about what direction they should pursue; Tom didn't appear to care and badgered Maggie for another rest.

"Please, Sis, just five minutes more."

"No, we must carry on. They will come after us - that's one thing you can be sure of. Come on, keep moving."

They came to a clearing in the wood and crossed a field, which led down to the canal. They stopped and rested beneath an oak tree on the canal towpath. The sun was now beating down upon them but they had no idea where they were, or where, indeed, they were headed.

"We should follow the canal," said Maggie. She stretched out beneath a tree, Tom lay next to her, placing his head on her lap.

"I'm tired, Sis. Really tired. How much longer are we going to walk for?" He asked.

"Just a bit more," replied Maggie.

Jack stood at a distance. He had removed himself from the others and had been quiet for most of their trek through the woods. He stood on the other side of the tree, his back to Maggie and Tom.

"I'm sorry," Jack said letting the words hang in the air.

There was no reply.

"It's my fault all of this has happened," Jack began to explain in a distant and stilted voice. "I heard of strange stories about children going missing off the streets. Wild, silly tales about where these missing went. People always spoke about a dark carriage, with an even darker woman on board. They said she took children away to a better life. Laughable and stupid, I know. Depending on who you listened to, she either took them away and they was never to be found again. Or they were given a life of luxury. I thought they was all fairy stories."

He began sobbing and Maggie crouched around the tree to look at him.

"It's all my fault, I caused all of this," he continued.

"It was an easy mistake to make," said Maggie. "You were not to know the intentions of the Countess."

All the while she had been formulating a terrifying picture in her mind about the Countess. She imagined her, late at night, in the depths of the folly, the bath, the caged children and blood. Lots of blood.

"Not the Countess," he mumbled through sobs. He stood up above the two of them and lifted his head to look at the branches above them.

"How were you to know what she was up to?" intervened Thomas. "How was you to know what all of them was up to?"

"That's not the point, Tom. It was me who got us in this pickle in the first place."

"We all jumped aboard the carriage together. As I think on it, it was Maggie who got aboard first," Tom said trying to reassure a still tearful Jack.

"Oh thank you very much, blame me," said Maggie.

"No, listen!" Jack shouted. "It was me who set this all up. It was me who got Whitmore to take us there," he pointed aimlessly back towards the woods.

"What are you talking about?" asked Maggie.

"Remember I told you that we - Charlie and me - met Whitmore?"

"Yes, we decided to leave because you said Charlie was going to turn us in."

"That's what I told you. But it was all lies. Well most of it anyways."

Thomas and Maggie stared back at Jack. He was holding something back and the pain of the confession to come was taking its toll. His eyes moved down to his feet, the ground beneath him, resting upon anything but the two children's eyes looking up to him.

"Tell us what happened, Jack. Please tell us the whole truth," pleaded Maggie. "No more lies, please!"

With tears rolling down his face, he threw himself down on his knees before them: "You is my best friends now. I've grown to truly like you. I fell for his lies - that sneaky rat Whitmore!"

Over the next ten minutes, with only a couple of interruptions for clarification by Maggie and Thomas, Jack told them the whole truth.

He had been out with Charlie, looking for an opportunity to turn up. They had been up and around the market all morning. They spilt up and decided to meet back outside the gang's abandoned house.

"I was watching a performance of a couple of tricksters, waiting to see if a nice silk handkerchief or pocket watch would present itself with the opportunity to be filched," he explained. "As I walked around, I had a strange feeling, like someone was looking at me, tailing me around the market. I kept moving, always looking back to see if there was anyone on my tail. Every time I looked behind, I saw these two suspicious coves. That sly one, Whitmore, was especially looking at me in a way that made me feel ill in my gut."

He continued and told them how he had decided to find Charlie, and was about to give the men the slip, when the considerable frame of Beagle confronted him, blocking his path. "Grinning at me like a large cat who has cornered a mouse. I turned to run the other way and was caught in the arms of Whitmore. He said that he was undercover police and not to make a scene. I thought, this is it Jack old boy: transportation or a life in the prison hulks. And here was me saving away, planning to get enough money to leave the life behind some day, but these two undercover peelers had collared me. I didn't even know what undercover meant then. On the streets some started talking about a special gang of peelers, men who wore their own stitches to blend in with the crowds."

"They took me to an inn, plied me with ale, and made me an offer. Help them out or give up my freedom. Simple as that, they said. Then they asked me about two street children - you two it as it turns out. They knew so much about you. Said you been helping your escaped father avoid the authorities. He was a dangerous man, they said, who had to be caught. Said you'd committed a serious crime too. They wanted me to keep an eye out for you. If I was to spot you, I was to come and meet them at this inn, leave a message with the innkeeper. If I didn't help them, they was going to track me down, have me arrested and sent off for transportation."

"Then, the next day Charlie pointed out the reward posters. I told him we should keep you for another couple of weeks. I reckoned the price on your head would go up. Get an extra couple of quid, I told him. Later, I met up with Whitmore and Beagle all by myself. I knew you wouldn't tell Charlie any of what I'd been telling you about these two coves."

"It started to look like a perfect plan. Keep you in the dark and keep Charlie at bay with the thought of cashing you in for a bigger reward. When we was planning our escape to Sanctuary, I was meeting with Whitmore and his mut. They was happy I had you safely stashed away, 'as good as them being in prison' the fat fool said. Whitmore told me of his plan. He, like you Maggie, asked me what I would most want in the whole wide world. Whatever it was, I could have it - as a reward for bringing him you two. I told him I wanted to find my old ma. He said if I went along with his plan, he would find her and I would be ever so richly rewarded."

Maggie looked at Jack with sadness and a sense of betrayal. Tom could no longer look at his friend, as he continued his tale, and sat listening, looking out along the canal towpath in front of him.

"Anyways, the night we was going to leave and make our way to Sanctuary, I made an excuse and vanished for a few hours knowing that Charlie and the gang would be out of the way. And you would be alone in the hideout. I met up with Whitmore and Beagle and they told me to go fetch you. They also said that there had been a change of plan. They asked me while they were busy searching for my old ma, how would I like to stay in the greatest luxury with a kind, old foreign lady in countryside. He told me all about the Countess. She was harmless, if a bit cuckoo, he said.

Whitmore also said you were going to stay there too for as long as they could properly charge you with your crimes." He turned to the other two. "I didn't know, honestly I didn't know how it was going to turn out."

"Go on," asked Maggie.

"I was to stay at the Countess' crib and keep an eye on you two - so as you wouldn't run away or anything. And if you got suspicious or got any ideas, I was to have a word with the Countess. When Whitmore come to the house the other night, I thought it was to bring me news about my old ma. And -" here he tailed off for a second. "And to take you away to prison."

Maggie, silent for a while, now glared at him. "You filthy traitor. You would've had us murdered just to satisfy your own selfish needs. You snake!"

"What would you have done, Maggie? I was going to be arrested for thievery, assaults, vagrancy and any other charges that Whitmore could think of and pin on me. They was going to get me locked up, transported maybe."

"You rat!" shouted Thomas. "You Judas! You betrayed us. I thought you were my best friend."

Tom, with tears of anger in eyes, stood up and walked off towards the canal.

Jack had tears streaming down his face, too. "I wanted to see my old ma!" he shouted to Tom. "They promised me...they said it would take a while. But they promised me."

Maggie stood up and walked toward Jack. Jack was wiping his face with his sleeve. Unexpectedly, she smiled at him. "I suppose you did what you had to do?" she said.

"I did, Maggie. Lord knows now I wouldn't do a thing to harm you - or Tom," he replied, relief and a smile beginning to take shape upon his face.

Without warning, Maggie swung a clenched fist towards his nose. Jack tried to duck but was caught on the side of the jaw. Shaken, he looked back at her. "I ain't going to hit a girl, Maggie. Even if you ain't dressed like a proper one. No way. I ain't going to hit you. I like and respect you so much - you can forget all this."

Maggie swung again and missed again, as Jack took on the posture of a pugilist: his fist raised but, as he kept reminding Maggie, only in defence. Maggie was spitting words of defiance and anger at Jack and swinging and kicking. Then from his blind side, Tom jumped him and grappled with him, clutching him around the neck, trying with all his strength to drag him down. Jack swung around and tried to shake Tom from his back. Seizing the opportunity, Maggie charged with her head and plunged the top of her skull into Jack's stomach. With a roar of anger and pain, Jack gripped Maggie by the waist and thrust forward (with Tom flailing about on his back) and over the canal's edge and into the cold water below, all three plunged.

***

They all sat looking miserable, shivering in the early morning sun, their clothes still wet, canal water dripping from their bodies.

"Where now, Sis?" asked Tom blinking to avoid the glare of the sunlight.

I'm not sure. Any thoughts?" she asked Jack.

"I'll leave the thinking to you if you don't mind. My actions have landed us in enough trouble. What's your opinion at present?" he asked in a flat tone.

"I don't think they will expect us to go back to London. Maybe they will go to the nearest town or village and seek us out there. Maybe they know we were heading to Sanctuary - they seem to know everything about us," she said looking to Jack.

"What do we do in London, Maggie?" asked Tom.

"Find Blake, the policeman. See if we can persuade him to investigate Whitmore, the Countess, the whole lot of them."

"I ain't going to no peelers," said Jack frightened.

"We find Blake and get justice. Get justice for those missing children. You could have been one of their number, Jack," said Maggie.

"I ain't going to no peelers."

"You don't have to. I'll go alone if necessary."

"What if they nick you for rolling over the drunk?"

"It's a chance I'll have to take," she replied.

"We don't even know if there ever was missing children in those cages."

"You were locked in there, weren't you? Aren't you a missing child? Not so hard to imagine others being locked away, is it Jack," she said.

Jack remained quiet.

"I'll come with you, Maggie," said Tom. "You know that don't you, Sis?"

"I know that, Tom. But I want you stay out of it. Just in case. Just in case Jack's correct and I am arrested." She turned to Jack, "We need to make a decision. Do we go on to Sanctuary? Or some place else? Or, as I suggest, London?"

"They will track us down like dogs, that's for sure. They will track us down and slaughter us. Don't you see that?" said Tom to Jack. "We've got to go back to London. It's our only chance."

***

Metropolitan Police Evidence: The Power Papers - Document 17

Incomplete journal entry, written by Mr William Turner, dated 27th May 1842.

I suppose I am a believer in the after life, and of the Supreme Being who made all living creatures. Thus with a maker to meet - hopefully not until some point in the far and distant future - I write these words not only with my own mortality in mind, but also to rescue what is left of my conscience.

Mark tonight! - May 27th 1842 - as the day I finally became a man. After forty-eight years on this earth, all my past weaknesses and vices have caught up with me. In the guise of two children, simple in their wants and needs - yet truly brave of heart - I have been forced to reflect on the many betrayals I have committed.

Thus, here I shall write it all. And, as Othello demanded, nothing shall I extenuate.

I have these past three years been working for a special government agent, a man who goes by the name of Whitmore. Though I doubt it to be his real name, such is the cunning nature of the creature.

In short, I've been a traitor to the cause I helped to build over these past few years. I have spied upon friends and fellow Chartists; I have misled and concealed things from those close to me; and I have been duplicitous in both my words and deeds.

The simple fact is I left myself vulnerable through my many weaknesses. And one man took advantage of one of these terrible character flaws. How Whitmore knew of my gambling debts, I am unsure. Desperate losers sometimes talk too much, I suppose. Anyhow, he knew of them and it was enough for him to begin to turn the screw, to extract all he could from me. And I, being the coward that I am, obliged him. There was money involved too. Every traitor must have his thirty pieces of silver.

In recent years my most deplorable act was the desertion of my old friend, Mr Thomas Power, at his trial for treason. Power had put far too much stock in the value of my testimony, in my reputation as the acceptable face of Chartism. But I may have been able to sway the jury and saved him from transportation. Unfortunately, I took the coward's way out and left him to battle alone the lies provided to the court by Rickets and Beagle. I told Power I had a prior engagement to speak at a university in Edinburgh, an opportunity too good to pass upon. I lied and while my friend faced the full force of the law and the underhand plotting of Whitmore, I was sent to the country to Whitmore's Aunt - a strange foreign Lady who claimed she was of noble ancestry. I was treated royally and while I was bathed in luxury, Power's fate was sealed.

Thus I have decided to let it be known, to all those who need to know, especially the authorities - that Rickets and Beagle and the many other men working alongside Whitmore, have all subverted and obstructed justice. They are all criminals, men capable of

[Text ends here.]

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