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The master kicked him again, harder than the first time, sending Jude tumbling into a room off the corridor. He reached down to a set of keys hanging from his belt, slammed the door and locked it.

I felt so strangely compelled to protect Jude that I resolved to return and free him somehow once at liberty myself. He would be safe as long as the master was preoccupied with me. I could hear his fists drumming away at the door as I was carried away.

I was thrown onto a bed in the master’s room. I protested as he tore at my clothes but was offered only increased violence in return. As my lip split from a heavy blow and blood began to escape down my chin I realised that surrender would probably protect me more than protestation. I did not want to end up bruised and battered, as was the norm for the other girls.

As vulgar and abhorrent as the situation was, I felt that if I complied with his wishes the interlude would probably pass quickly and I could return to rescue Jude. Compliance would protect me and I decided to do as I was told. I stopped struggling, removed my own clothes, and to my relief the violence subsided.

To a mere child such as I was, his grunting and panting was actually quite amusing. The initial sharp pains eventually subsided and my usual stoicism returned. He glared into my eyes, but I simply glared back in defiance, not afraid, not resisting, all senses fully awake.

He drew back from me as if I were a she-devil, shocked by my reaction. Then his body froze, his face convulsed in the final moment of ecstasy and he collapsed exhausted on top of me. I let out a loud laugh of intense relief.

As the sweaty and grotesque figure lying heavily upon me began to grunt and snore, I summoned all my strength to push him aside and struggle free from his bulk. He did not wake. I hurriedly pulled on my clothes and rushed from the room.

I ran through the dank corridors of the house seeking Jude, my hair bouncing about my shoulders and my bare feet softly padding the tiles. No-one stirred, my whole world was asleep.

I ran past dormitories full of exhausted bodies. Their hands were like my own, slashed and hardened by oakum picking, bodies wrecked and minds numbed by infinite hours of physical labour. I contemplated how surreal and pointless life seemed in such a place. But my thoughts were diluted by the immediacy of my search and Jude’s certain fate unless I could reach him before the man who had just taken my virginity.

I found the room and stood in front of the locked door, panting slightly.

“It’s Red, just keep quiet and I will get you out,” I whispered.

I needed a key; there was no other way to open the door. I sighed heavily, resigned to what I had to do.

“I’ll come back for you, I promise,” I called out and hoped that the resolve in my voice would calm his fears.

I could hear him whimpering and retching, sick with fear and the knowledge that another beating would probably be his last. I felt humbled by the notion that someone so weak had been so brave for me.

I headed back to the scene of my earlier detestable experience with renewed revulsion for its perpetrator.

My bare feet trod softly back into the school master’s room. I was afraid to breathe for fear of waking the pale and bloated form. I looked about for the keys. The master had thrown his trousers and belt to the floor and I presumed the keys would still be attached. I could hear the silence, it was so oppressive, hear the beating of my heart. I did not take my eyes off the sleeping monster and grappled with the trousers and belt frantically on the floor.

A voice suddenly came from behind me.

“Looking for these?”

It was like a cannon blast cutting through the silence. For a second I was too scared to move, listening to the rapid beat of my heart. For some reason I glanced from my crouched position towards items which caught my eye beneath the bed. I had a remarkable eye for detail, an observant and watchful nature. What I saw was about to change my life.

I leapt and turned around to face the voice. In the doorway stood the manager of the house, his huge powerful frame throwing menacing shadows into the room. The motionless figure on the bed began to wake.

In the weak light from the single oil lamp beside the bed I could make out the manager’s fine clothes and unblemished hands, the mark of a man who supervises the labours of others.

He reached over to a hook beside the door and took down the keys for which I was searching. Clearly my assailant had hung them there when we entered the room and I was too distracted in the struggle to have noticed.

The manager shut the door behind him and locked it. I was very afraid as he was regarded by all in the house as a ruthless man. He aspired to give the house such a fearful reputation to the outside world that no-one would come to his table unless they were utterly, utterly desperate.

“Get up!” he shouted to the figure on the bed. The master jumped up and grappled with his trousers.

“Why do you think you are free to wander at will child?” the manager asked in his sinister voice.

He was standing very close to me now, his warm, foul breath drifting across my face. I stood silently defiant, looking him squarely in the eye, refusing to show my fear. Then, I felt a painful sting across my face as he slapped me.

“Answer me, damn your impertinence!” he cried, his face turning deep crimson. “Answer me!” he bellowed, lunging for me, throwing his body against me and clamping his hands around my throat.

“She’s the Devil’s child this one, sir. Look,” said the school master as he held out his arm, “see the scar from where she bit me in the school room a year ago.”

“Then I will punish her as she deserves,” declared the manager as his grasp around my neck tightened even more.

I couldn’t breathe; I thought of Jude, the injustice of it all and that I didn’t want to die so young. And then I remembered what I had seen under the bed.

I forced myself to think clearly. I reached for the oil lamp and swung it into the manager’s face. It shattered and he screamed as glass and flame tore at him. He let go of me and I fell, purposely tumbling as close to the bed as I could and lay motionless pretending to be unconscious.

The schoolmaster walked over to help his superior who was screaming obscenities and scratching at his face.

While they were preoccupied I reached under the bed, retrieved what I needed and then became still again. My heart beat furiously but I was determined to stay calm.

I lay perfectly still, not even flinching when the manager recovered enough to turn his fury on me.

I waited until his hands were about my throat again crushing me to the floor, his body on top of mine. Then, I swung the knife which I had snatched from under the bed and sank it into his side. As he raised himself in shock and pain I stabbed him again in the chest, and again.

Blood gurgled from his mouth and he rolled away as more blood oozed over the floor. The school master was frozen with shock.

I got slowly to my feet still holding the knife. The school master was now clearly afraid of me. The balance of power had shifted in my favour and he held up his arms in surrender as his manager lay dying.

I swiftly knelt and reached back under the bed for the pile of rolled notes which I had noticed at the same time as the knife. The manager let out a final rattle, stopped thrashing and became motionless, silent.

I had killed a man but could think only of what I must do next. I reached down for the keys which the manager had dropped when he lunged at me, unlocked the door and backed out before locking it shut again with the school master inside.

As I ran down the corridor I could hear him hammering on the door screaming out about how I was a devil, a guttersnipe. I ran past silent dormitories, everything so familiar but strangely different. This was no longer my world, I had transcended it now, permanently broken the spell of apathy. I had finally woken up.

I reached Jude’s room, unlocked the door and lifted his fragile body. He had fallen unconscious, winded badly by the kick in his stomach and consumed with fear.

I walked back out into the corridor, covered in blood, knife in hand and with Jude over my shoulder. I walked hastily to the entrance hall. Never again would the manager sit in his office watching the main doors, keeping people in and keeping people out. His murder had assured me safe passage.

Once in the hall, I ran to the door, pulled back the bolts and pushed it open. I stepped out into the cold winter evening air, which jolted Jude from his senseless state.

I felt more alive than ever, far less alone. Jude was standing beside me now, shocked and shaken, concerned by my split lip, bruised face and bloodied hands. We looked back at the Whitechapel and Spitalfields Union Workhouse, the only world we had ever really known, the only consistency and stability in our young lives. Then we turned forward and looked ahead into the black London night.

We stood for a few seconds, holding hands like the children that we were, then ran furiously into the labyrinth of Whitechapel streets, and disappeared.

Chapter Two

I was very particular about the fire in my study. Unless it was constantly roaring I would flounce from the room and summon a minion to add more logs. Such was the nature of my life during my first marriage. I believed that I had achieved absolute power and distinctly remember pondering this concept before my meeting with Mr Eustace Whitaker.

I settled back into a leather chair behind my magnificent oak desk and lifted my tumbler of Scotch. A nameless servant poked the fire. My every wish was catered for and I felt intellectually and physically superior to all those around me. I had their complete respect, submission and fear. Or so I thought.

I stared into the amber depths of my glass as the servant scurried from the room. The flames of the fire were straining for the mantle shelf once more. Everything was perfect.

“Moriarty, you may wish to add this to your safe,” said Mr Whitaker, bouncing into the room proudly carrying a bag of loot and a fist full of notes, with Jude following behind.

Whitaker was a well respected thief with a modicum of intelligence and flair, an old timer past his best but eager to please. He handed me the thick pile of notes.

“Clearly you have had a successful evening,” I exclaimed, motioning towards the chair at the front of my desk.

Whitaker settled himself opposite me. Jude lurked at his shoulder while I put the money on the desk.

“It’s everything from the safe at the house, enough to cover the amount I borrowed from you plus the agreed interest,” he explained.

I began idly counting the pile. An excellent return on the figure we lent Whitaker to finance a team and plan this burglary. The team, of course, consisted mainly of my own personnel as it was a condition of the loan. I needed to ensure that operations would run smoothly and trusted the expertise of my own team above all others.

“And how about the painting?” I asked.

Whitaker smiled and heaved an artwork wrapped in brown paper onto the desk. I pealed back the paper to reveal an exquisite rural scene. I checked it for damage and then counted out the amount due to us from the pile of money. I handed him the remainder.

“More than enough for my retirement,” he smiled, fingering the notes.

“You wish to retire?” I inquired.

“Indeed yes, this was the very last time for me. I am so weary of the game, Moriarty, so tired of it all. I shall use this to leave the country and begin a simple life somewhere in Europe, away from this dammed impenetrable London fog,” he replied.

“Will you not miss the excitement of it all, the application of your skills, the wealth?” I asked as I slowly opened the top draw of my desk and took out a Colt Navy revolver.

“Why should I? I have sufficient funds now to last comfortably for the rest of my life and care nothing for the excitement anymore.”

“Then you and I are very different, Mr Whitaker.”

I raised the revolver and fired the projectile straight at his heart, piercing his body like a knife slicing through softened butter.

As his arms clawed at the air, I gathered up the money I had given him and returned it to the pile on the desk.

“Check his pockets Jude, I’m sure he has more money,” I said, and Jude began his task as Whitaker gurgled his final breath.

He found various sums in different pockets.

“Please attend to the body as we planned,” I instructed as I stood and lifted the painting. “I must take this to my husband.”

“Why does he want it so desperately? And why insist on Whitaker being killed?” Jude asked as he began to lift the body from the chair.

“Ours is not to reason why,” I sighed, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze and leaving the room to take my husband his spoils.

My journey from the poverty of Whitechapel to a palatial town-house, from which I assisted my first husband in the running of his vast criminal empire, would fill a whole journal by itself.

I remember so clearly how initially elated Jude and I both were when we ran away from the workhouse on that memorable night, overjoyed to be free and have a world of possibilities to explore together.

We kept running until we came to a panting halt somewhere by the docks, utterly overwhelmed by the activity around us. Huge ships were being unloaded, their vast cargo of goods from the empire being hauled ashore. The place was alive with exciting new sights, smells and sounds.

We explored like eager children, hiding behind crates and baskets, trying to get as close to the ships as we could. We were in awe of their size and marvelled at how they could possibly stay afloat.

The water was full of stinking filth but for us the overwhelming smell was the scent of freedom, of possibilities yet to be explored.

We stood watching the workings of the busiest docks in the world, completely invigorated by our own new-found release.

Inevitably, we spent many days living to excess. We bought plenty of food and alcohol with the money I had grabbed from under the school master’s bed. We over-indulged on things never tasted before, fresh bread, fruits, cakes and chocolate - failing to notice how rapidly the money was running out.

Everyone seemed so friendly, hiding us in their squalid houses in return for money as the police swarmed over the London underworld trying to find us. More precisely, they were trying to find me, the devil child who had murdered and stolen. But their actions simply pushed us further into the arms of the criminal underclass, ready and eager to accept us as long as the money held out.

The city’s rapid expansion meant it became intensely over-crowded. Many, like my parents, had drifted in from the countryside in pursuit of work. But the city was also home to increasing numbers of Irish, to people from the colonies, from India and Australia, even a vibrant Chinese community.