True Adventures of Richard Turpin

Paul Sayer

Description

A novel telling the true story of the life and times of Dick Turpin, 18th century highwayman, robber and murderer.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: eBookPartnership.com
• Date de parution: 11 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783013623
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF RICHARD TURPIN
by Paul Sayer
The True Adventures of Richard Turpin
On an October afternoon in 1738 Jack Peaker, a lackey at York Castle Prison, and his boss Tom Griffith, take delivery of a new prisoner. The man is surly, taciturn, though he spends the winter quietly at the gaol while information is sought about the horse-thefts of which he is suspected. Then someone comes from Essex claiming to know the true identity of the prisoner. And the city of York is rocked to the ground when the inmate thought to be no more than a common thief is revealed to be the most wanted man in England: the robber and highwayman Dick Turpin.
While the evidence is gathered to bring Turpin to trial, Jack befriends him and seeks from him the details of his life: from his days as a butcher at Thaxted, his joining a gang of ex-deer-stealers, his life on the road, and the catastrophic events that drove him to the North and his date with destiny at the upcoming Assizes.
Based on actual events, The True Adventures of Richard Turpin tells, for the first time ever, the real story of Dick Turpin. It is the tale of a sometimes cruel, powerful and enigmatic man, far removed from the mythical figure so popular today.
About the Author
Paul Sayer is the author of seven previous novels, including The Comforts of Madness , winner of the 1988 Whitbread Book of the Year Award, the Booker Prize long-listed The Absolution Game, The God Child, and Like So Totally. His work has appeared in ten different languages.
The True Adventures of Richard Turpin
by Paul Sayer
Letter from York
Since he was suspected to be Turpin, the whole country have flock d here to see him, and have been very liberal to him, insomuch as he has had wine constantly before him. And the gaolers at York Castle are said to have made 100 by selling liquors to him and his visitors.
General Evening Post
23 March 1739
Part One
BOTHER AND TOIL
York Castle Prison 1738
In a dusty room known as the office of the Master Turnkey, me and my boss Tom Griffith are sitting either side of a table, drinking our beer, watching each other. With not an ounce of trust between us.
On the table there are nine stacks of coins, side by side in order of value. This is the garnish - the weekly money that I ve collected from the prisoners for their upkeep while they wait to learn their fate at the Assizes. For some this might be no more than a fine, or a few bloody licks of their backs with the whip, or a sizzling of their sticky grabbers with the branding iron, when they get to sniff their own flesh frying (like honeyed bacon, if you re interested). For others, it might mean a splash over the sea to that savage place called America. Or a much nippier trip south of the city to the Knavesmire, to gurgle on that cheery rig known round here as the Three-Legged Mare. But whatever their destiny might be, while they re guests in our cold stony mansion, they still have to pay for their bread and straw. Unless they ve a fancy for something better, and the cole to pay for it, in which case a word with Griffith, or myself, Jack Peaker, will usually find their needs satisfied. Though, as is only right, there ll be a shaving of the cost of these goods for ourselves. For the bother and toil that is our lot in this place.
It s steady work, though it pays more kicks than ha pennies. It can be terrible dull too, with each day scarce unlike the one that s gone before, or the one that s to follow. And while me and Griffith sup our northern nog and glance at each other, there s still naught to suggest that this particular day might end up any different from the rest.
Bugger all, in fact.
Is this it? says Griffith, who s wearing the same cow pat-coloured tunic he always wears, his thick belt up round his fat gut.
It s all they got, Tom. An some of the relatives are complainin again about the price of the bread.
The relatives should choose their kin better if they don t want the cost of keeping em alive. He leans to his side and looses a rackety fart that hums of some poor animal that must ve crawled into his guts and died a sorry death, a long time ago. Then he sucks a rumbling ball of snot up his nose and swallows, before turning his bull s noggin to the side to inspect again the heaps of gelt with his good eye, while his other orb, a dead and creamy thing, does a weird little hop in its socket. The crowns, half-crowns, shillings and bits of bronze have been scraped together by both the prisoners in the debtors part of the gaol - the upper storey - and the shufflers, brawlers, and general villains who we hold on the lower floor. The poorest amounts have come from those we keep crowded up to ten at a time in the back cells. A desperate portion of humanity these bodies are, their hair like rook s nests, eyes like fish on a slab, while they wait the long years for their trial, an event that often seems to have been entirely forgotten about by the city s Recorder. Some of these men and women, long ago forsaken by any relatives or friends they might ve had, get so desperate in their waiting that they beg to take their chances on the transports rather than spend another year in York Castle Prison. They might even say they d prefer a ride up to the Mare, such is their misery. Though nature and a harsh winter often does the job for both them and us, and I get the task of hauling their rackabones bodies on a dray out of the city to find some bare heathen ground to bury them in.
And nobody pretends it s just and fair. Not me or the God that sits in silence above us.
Griffith scowls, the skin folding over the bridge of his bashed-in nose. It s the moment when I m meant to look away. Which I do, making a show of examining the pile of rusty fetters in the corner, heavy enough to hobble a bull; the box of tallow candles on a shelf; a great leggy spider above the door that seems to have been here as long as me which, since I reckon my nineteenth birthday passed some weeks before, is nearly three years now. Then I study the mouse droppings on the floor and the besom with which I ll be expected to sweep them up, along with the dust that I can only ever shuffle about the place and never get rid of. And the big keys on a row of hooks by the door, and the mullioned window which looks down onto the exercise yard and the forecourt between the Sessions House and the Grand Jury House.
When I look back at the table, as expected, the heaps of coins have shrunk a little.
Like I say, a bit on the light side, Griffith says. He leans over, grimacing, to fart again, but nothing comes and thanks must be given for that. Then he begins the official totting up, counting the grigs and baubees - the farthings and halfpennies - into his chubby palm. Won t go far, this. Not for those hungry bastards.
There s always the black bread.
He grunts. Aye, always the black bread. If it were down to me I wouldn t even bother wi that. I d have the string on the lot of em, an let God and the devil take their pick of who they want. He turns his good eye to the half-crowns and shillings, mouthing the numbers as he counts. And when he s finished his laborious reckoning, he says, Seven pounds, six shillings an fourpence. Are we agreed? I ve no option but to say yes, since he knows full well that I will also have shifted a few shillings into my own pocket on the way up from the cells. How else am I meant to get by on the pittance they pay me to turn up here, day after day? So I write down the amount he s come up with in the ledger, a task which has become mine since he reckoned his good eye was becoming as useless as the other, though the truth is that his making of numbers and letters has always been poor. But I don t mind, and when I ve sanded the ink and put the book back in the drawer among the rolling pistol balls we keep there, I go to the jug on the window sill and pour a fresh small beer for myself and a bigger one for Griffith. Then we sit, marking time on what s been a typical dull shift, so far.
But this will not be the usual kind of day at all. Rather, though we mightn t realise it for some months to come, this day will mark the start of a period in our city that might even be written down in history books, along with the doings of kings and queens. Aye, for sure, while we sit, dumb as the bones in the Minster crypt, and while we drink, there s a man bearing down on York who, before the coming winter is up, will change all our lives.
As he rides at a clip along the wheel-rutted road, his first view of York will be the same as that which has greeted people for ages long gone. Be they kings, Norsemen, or shifty-eyed higlers, it s an eyeful that begins for all with the same feature: the three haughty towers of the Minster. And this afternoon they re set against the lemony October sky, with the spires of lesser churches about them, and the terracotta roofs of terraced streets nestling behind the butter-coloured girdle of the city walls. Soon the sails of ships on the Ouse will come into view, and the limes and elms of New Walk: a new curving promenade by the river for fancy-dans and their ladies to stroll along of a Sunday afternoon. He might then spot the useless stone heap of Clifford s Tower, known to us lower-arsed citizens as the Minced Pie, on account of its resemblance to that seasonal sweetmeat. And, if he s even more sharp-eyed, he might pick out the grey roof of the place where Griffith and me are, at that very moment, supping our ale in silence. Though, as he passes by the cows grazing beneath the city wall and the Sheriff s man exercising his boss s falcons, and on towards Walmgate Bar, he may not yet believe that the gaol is a place that should concern him for long.
As he canters through the barbican where mud has been splashed seven feet high by the coaches and carts that pass through all day long, he might actually be feeling some queer sense of relief. For we ll come to learn that he cared little for the