It was as I made my toilet this morning that I heard a knocking upon my door. Looking out on the street, I saw a desperate-looking moocher with an overgrown shock of red hair pounding upon my knocker.
I cursed down on the muck snipe and then hawked a fine green one to seal it. It was not until her eyes flashed up at me in anger that I noticed that my visitor was a woman, some lowly dollymop.
‘Hello Augustus, we could have some fun with this,’ I said to myself slyly.
Taking her in, I seated her upon the hearthrug and had some warming broth brought it to her. As I poured myself a stiff brandy, I called on her to tell me her story, of how she found herself to be in such a position.
‘Rebekah is my name zurr,’ she said in a broad Lancashire accent. ‘Rebekah Brooks.’
‘I used to work at old man Murdoch’s match factory. Proud of me, was the old cur. And proud was I to work there making them matches 12 hours a day, even if he did lay his fingers upon me a little too often.
‘But cames the day when all the trouble started – a day when the matches were found to be going off in gentlemen’s pockets without them even being struck! There was lawsuits coming in left, right and centre from coves complaining of singed ballbags.
‘Everyone started blaming me, but old man Murdoch said he’d protect me. And I trusted him, I did. He took me into his mansion on the hill and said he’d make me a lady. Lady of the manor, little I!
‘Of course, he had to close down the factory, and all the workers went out on the streets, but I was safe, thank the Lord!
‘At least that was what I thought, zurr. It came to a week later when I got my marching orders – old man Murdoch had tired of me, found some new floozy. And I was out on the street with nothing but a farthing in my pocket.’ At this, a single tear trickled down Rebekah’s cheek.
‘I got my own back on the old buzzard though, heh heh,’ she muttered. ‘He had a surprise when he faced the dock that morning. No one will ever connect it to me though…’
To be continued…
