The House Of Smoke (12 page)

‘I do. And I know that it is not so very long ago that these walls and the hangman’s noose once punished priests like me for the “offence” of being a Catholic. Criminal acts are
seldom
what they seem.’

‘Mine is. And be I Catholic, Protestant or Jew, I am damned for my most dreadful crimes.’

‘Not so. God forgives the smallest and the greatest of sins. Not unconditionally, of course. But He forgives.’

‘So even the Lord has conditions in his contracts.’

He saw the joke and smiled. ‘Only one.’

‘And it is?’

‘Repentance.’

‘Repentance?’

‘Yes. It means being contrite. Turning your back on sin. Regretting what you have done and wishing you had not done it.’ He studied my face and saw that he had struck a nerve. ‘Tell me, my son,
do you
repent? Do you feel contrite and wish you had not lived the life you have?’

I gave him an honest answer. ‘I am not sure I do. There are people still alive that I dearly wish dead and people dead whom I very much wish were alive.’

‘That is not the answer I was searching for.’

‘I know.’

‘Only God has the right to
make
or
take
life. You might have the will and strength to kill another man, but you have no right.’

‘Father, I understand that. Maybe I
do
regret the life I led. I wish I could have written poetry and painted, had many children, grown old and been a grandfather. But it was not to be.’ I glanced pointedly to the barred window. ‘Maybe
this
is what was meant to be. If there is a God, then perhaps his grand plan for me is being played out.’

‘Then let me take your confession, heal your soul and prepare you for the moment you meet your maker.’

‘I am not ready for that, Father. Not now. Perhaps not ever. But thank you for coming here today and for not judging or berating me. That in itself has lifted my spirits.’

He bent his head respectfully. ‘Then I will leave you to contemplate and will seek to try again.’

‘Please do not waste your time …’

He laughed. ‘You are a captive audience. Such things are rare and present opportunities that must not be squandered.’

I laughed along with him.

‘So, be certain that I will return. Your soul may yet be saved.’

‘I have no soul, Father. I sold it to Satan a long time ago.’

‘Then we must get it back.’

I watched him leave then listened for the door to close and the locks turn and bolts slide. One at the top. One at the bottom. One in the middle. They missed none. I stared at the recessed hinges. Old and rusted, but firm.

I kept on staring.

There had to be a weakness. Most doors I had come across had a weakness. And if they didn’t, then the men behind them certainly did.

I spent the afternoon skulking in the orchard. Climbing the bigger trees. Biting and throwing sour apples at large black crows come to peck fallen fruit. When I was done with them, I edged up as high as the laddered branches would allow and there in the thinned-out foliage gazed at distant hills and forests.

I thought about the police in London and how vigorously they might be hunting me. About Elizabeth and whether she could ever feel towards me the way I felt towards her. And the Chans. The mysterious Chinese family I had heard Sirius and Surrey talking about. Were they really a threat to Moriarty? He seemed so rich and powerful that it was difficult to imagine him being bettered by anyone.

My reflective state was broken by Brannigan’s voice booming from below the boughs of the tree. ‘What in sweet Jesus’s name are you doing up there?’

He was dressed in his usual filthy vest and baggy training pants. Pleasingly, his sweaty face now showed bruising from the punches I had landed during our fight. His right eye in particular was a satisfying riot of purples and reds.

‘Nothing,’ I finally replied. ‘Just looking.’

‘Then get the fuck out of that tree and do your
looking
down here.’

Reluctantly, I descended. At the bottom, I rubbed my hands on my trousers to clean them of dusty bark and sticky apple juice. ‘Is there some law against climbing trees?’

‘Yes, my law. Now, what were you up to in those branches?’

‘Like I said, I was just looking.’

‘At what?’

‘Them hills,’ I pointed. ‘Them big ones over the other side of the fields.’

‘That’s Dovedale over there. Big one is Thorpe Cloud.’ He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Shouldn’t you be in lessons with Lady Elizabeth?’

‘She wasn’t feeling well, so we stopped and I came out here. Had nothing else to do.’

‘Right then, if you’re at a loose end, I’ll find you something. Follow me.’

My heart sank.

Brannigan left the orchard at a brisk pace, while I deliberately lagged behind. The longer it took to reach wherever he wanted to go, the less time there would be for me to do whatever he had in mind.

It soon became evident he was suffering from a bad cough for every hundred yards or so he had cause to stop and bark out disgusting mouthfuls of phlegm.

‘If you’re not feeling well, Mr Brannigan we don’t have to do anything.’ I called him
Mr
to soft-soap him a little. ‘I can go back to the house if you prefer.’

‘I’ll tell you what I prefer.’ He quickened the pace again. ‘I prefer you don’t talk too much. I
prefer
that I could spit you away like that horrible cud. But thanks to the professor, I can’t. I am stuck with you.’

‘I fear we are not going to be friends, then?’

‘That mouth of yours is most unfriendly. It will get you killed one day. Not that I care. But I do mind if it endangers others close to me. So learn to shut it. Listen and don’t speak. Do you understand?’

I deliberately didn’t answer. If silence were to be my new weapon, I intended to use it immediately.

‘Do you understand?’ He stopped and clenched a massive fist.

I halted and shifted my weight. Balanced myself. Lifted my hands into a boxing stance.

His eyes lost their intensity and instead sparkled with amusement. ‘You would, wouldn’t you, you little bastard? You
really
would fight me again.’

‘In a blink,’ I answered defiantly. ‘And to my death if necessary.’

He laughed. ‘It may well be necessary. But not today.’ He winced a little and put his big hand to his chest to quell another bout of wheezing.

‘What’s that?’ I pointed at a tattoo on his bicep. ‘Some kind of sailor’s tat?’

Brannigan flexed his bicep so the inked image grew. ‘Do you have no idea what it is?’

‘A flabby arm marked with a black triangle that has a red ball inside it.’

He slapped it proudly. ‘It is a drop of blood, not a ball, you young fool. And the symbols represent our brotherhood. This a
very
special tattoo.’ He looked at me scornfully. ‘Mucus like you should never be considered for such a badge of honour.’ He added bitterly, ‘but apparently the professor thinks you should.’

‘Fuck you! Fuck your tattoo and fuck the professor. I don’t want—’

His massive hand grabbed my throat. Fingers found flesh faster than I could blink. Shock hit my brain. Air bulged in my throat. Brannigan’s reach was so long, the desperate punch I swung fell inches short of his face. I kicked out – my foot failed to reach him.

Hot with anger, he raised his big muscular arm and forced me up onto my toes. ‘I told you to
listen
and not speak. Now if you value what life you have left you will obey me.’ He lifted me clean off my feet. My toes twitched in the air.

Fortunately, Brannigan began coughing again and it was so severe he had no choice but to drop me.

I stumbled as my feet hit the ground. Gasped for air.

He fell to his knees and vomited. Panted for ten or twenty seconds then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Sour ale,’ he announced as he rose. ‘Get up. We set out to do something, so let’s get it done.’

I followed him again, my hands nursing my throat as we walked. When we next halted we were at the far side of the estate, where crops grew and farm animals were penned.

‘Pigs, cows and bulls over here.’ He pointed them out. ‘Over there, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits.’

‘The professor likes his pound of flesh,’ I noted.

‘Spread out in front of you is all manner, shape and size of life. Young, old, weak, strong, small, big, parents and children, brothers and sisters.’

‘What of it?’

‘Choose which one you want to kill.’

‘
What?
’

‘You heard me. Every day, from now on, you will perform this task. So make your choice.’

‘Then it’s a rabbit or a chicken.’ My eyes roamed the pens. ‘I’ve killed both before, but only to stay alive, to eat.’

‘This is no different. You are learning to kill, in order to stay alive. Take your pick.’

I knew from experience that cornering a chicken was trickier as they could fly as well as dart around. ‘Rabbit.’

‘Rabbit it is.’ He walked towards the pens.

I followed. ‘Do you have a knife?’

‘No knife. Just your hands. Your hands are the only weapons you are guaranteed to have. You must learn to use them to their fullest abilities.’

The wire cages were as tall as me and ran for maybe ten yards. Inside was a line of rough wooden hutches where fat parent rabbits lay with their offspring. Cabbage leaves, straw and excrement were scattered across the stone-flagged floor that prevented them burrowing away.

For a moment Brannigan rested on the fence, then he unpegged the door and let me in. ‘Be quick about it.’

More than a dozen rabbits bounded back to hutches or corners. I wondered if they were used to the sight of cooks coming here to gather them for dinner.

I had used rocks in the past. Caught the animal, held it and despatched it quickly. There was no such implement of death inside the wire cell.

‘Get on with it!’ came the shout from outside.

Rabbits scurried away. I had to run right, left and right again before I cornered one. It wriggled in my hands and kicked to escape. I stroked it. Beneath the soft fur, a heart beat furiously and in young, black eyes I saw a reflection of myself.

‘Don’t make me have to come in there!’ shouted Brannigan.

Anger flashed inside me. I remembered something from a long time ago, from a period I had hoped never to recall. I dangled the animal by its ears and then chopped the back of its neck viciously with a rigid left hand. I dropped it to the floor, where it lay motionless.

Slow, sarcastic slaps of applause came from outside the wire, then Brannigan let himself into the pen.

He walked straight to a corner and grabbed a rabbit. ‘Let me show you a better way.’ He grabbed a large rabbit. Held it tightly by the back legs. Slid his fingers down and around the neck. Pulled hard and twisted. There was a cracking noise, and the rabbit’s head lolled loosely in his hand.

He swung it and threw it to me. ‘Dead in under three seconds. No fear. No struggle. You just pull until you hear the bones crack. Now you do it.’

I did.

‘Again!’

I had to kill ten more before he shouted, ‘Enough! Now gather them up and take them to the kitchen. They’ll skin ’em and cook ’em for servants’ suppers.’

I looked at the broken bodies strewn around the pen and then at Brannigan. ‘Does it please you to kill things?’

‘Neither pleases nor displeases me. It is just death. Every kill makes the next one easier. You’ll learn that. Learn it fast. Now be off with you; kitchen likes to have those creatures while they’re still warm.’

I did as I was told and trudged back to the house.

Mrs Ellis, the cook, was a fat woman in her fifties, dressed in an apron as white as her hair, except for brown and red smears where she had recently wiped her hands. ‘Put ’em on the block,’ she ordered wearily as I lumbered forward with my arms full of victims.

I dropped them on a large wooden butcher’s block and she and one of her maids inspected the haul while I washed in a deep white sink near the window. Outside, I saw Brannigan sitting on a low wall, lighting a pipe, coughing and spitting by his feet.

I left the kitchen and resolved to settle some unfinished business. Not with Brannigan and not of a violent kind. I returned to the drawing room and knocked.

‘Enter,’ called Elizabeth.

I opened the door quickly for I was afraid my courage would disappear.

She was in a chair reading and looked shocked by my visit.

‘Forgive me – I must speak with you before the day passes and with it my bravery.’

She put the book down on a side table and rose cautiously. ‘What is it, Simeon?’

‘I know you said that I did not need to apologise for my words, but I feel I must. I am clumsy around you and people like the professor.’ I approached nervously. ‘Especially clumsy around you, and I … well I just don’t want you to hate me for my awkwardness … and—’

She cut me off by putting a hushing finger to her lips. ‘Simeon, you are not awkward; you are just a little innocent in emotional respects. Behind every hardened young man lies a childhood without a great deal of love and feminine affection. Am I correct?’

My face confirmed that I did not know how to answer her.

She looked pained for a moment, then continued, ‘The professor instructed me to prepare you for
whatever
challenges society can throw at you.’ She smiled. ‘And that includes issues of the heart.’

‘So you are not angry with me?’

Her face softened again. ‘Of course not. But if I am to be of assistance, then you need to help me understand you.’

‘I should like that.’

‘Good, then answer me this: has there been anyone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A woman in your life, one who has given herself to you?’

My embarrassment set my face aflame. ‘No. There has been no one.’

‘My goodness. But you have been kissed, haven’t you?’ Hesitatingly, she added, ‘and
loved
of a sort?’

I felt such peculiar shame that I could not answer.

‘Oh, my dear Simeon.’ Her eyes grew soft and she gently embraced me. ‘You should have been loved, cared for, taught these things.’