The House Of Smoke (15 page)

News of the execution was relayed via Boardman and Baker, two of Johncock’s most trusted cronies. They entered my cell mid-morning, snapped on my walking chains and cuffed my hands behind my back.

‘Mr Billington did a real neat job on the bitch,’ beamed Boardman then scratched at his red beard as though he had lice. ‘An artist, that’s what Mr Billington is. An artist.’

‘Pleasure to watch a drop like that,’ added Baker. ‘Real pleasure.’

Foolishly, I imagined I was being taken to the Press Yard for my first spell of open-air exercise since incarceration but as we turned a corner and they opened a gate it became apparent something more sinister was planned.

‘Welcome to the execution shed,’ announced Boardman with a flourish. ‘What do you think of that scaffold then? It’s the finest in Britain.’

I stared at a raised platform of light wooden boards. Above it stood the ghastly frame of the single-beamed gallows. The rope had gone but I could see the iron rings through which it had been woven. There was an area of flooring marked off with broad white lines, beyond which darkly stained trapdoors hung ominously open. Beneath them, blocks of straw, broken by the fall of Louise’s dead body.

To the side of the bales stood a large, tightly packed sack of sand, not unlike ones I had driven my fists into while learning to box. Only this served a different purpose. It had been hung from the rope beforehand to take all the stretch out of it.

There are not many sights in life that have rendered me speechless but this was one. Here was the place I would die. Few people know the exact location, the precise time and full nature of their death. Even fewer are shown it in advance or are made aware of what will be said to them in that final minute of existence.

‘Billington left ’er ’angin’ for close to forty-five minutes,’ added the leathery youth.

‘Standard time,’ remarked the older man, glad of the chance to demonstrate his experience. ‘Though lately, I’ve seen ’em cut down after fifteen. Unless of course their ’eads come off, then they’re down much sooner.’ They both laughed.

Baker nudged me as though we were great pals. ‘Looked pretty as a picture she did, when she were stood up there. Sweet as a peach in her newly laundered dress.’

‘Like she wanted to dance,’ joked Boardman, waggling two fingers to mimic how her legs kicked when she was hanged. ‘But not so pretty when she turned purple an’ shit ’erself though.’

Amid another peel of laughter, Baker pointed to a handcart in the corner. ‘Once she’d done her little jig,
mademoiselle
departed in that there carriage. Proper
ooh la la
it was.’

‘Though we took ’er to the coroner, not to that French lover wot she killed ’er kiddie for.’ Boardman shoved me at the cart. ‘Why don’t you try it for size, Lynch? It’s same one we’ll be layin’ you out in.’

I broke my silence. ‘I’ve rested in worse places. And I’ll wager your wife would rather stretch out in there with me than in bed with you.’

‘Watch your tongue,’ he snapped. ‘Or I might just forget I’m responsible for your ’ealth an’ welfare, an’ do you some mortal ’arm.’

I squared up to him. ‘Try it.’

He gave me a hard stare. The look of a bully. The glare of a man wanting to do something he could brag about.

‘Go on.
Do
it. My legs and arms are chained, so if you are aching to hurt me then chance your arm and see what happens.’

He swallowed. A lump of doubt slid like a chunk of apple down his throat.

‘I didn’t think so. Now what about my exercise?’

Young Baker yanked my wrist chains. ‘You’ll get your exercise all right.’ He spun me around, pulled me backwards, down a long landing. We turned a corner and he pressed me tight against a wall. Keys rattled. A cell door was unlocked.

Boardman swung it open. ‘This was ’ers, Lynch. That bitch’s pit.’

It was bleak and empty. The single blanket that had given her comfort during her last night lay crumpled on the floor. It was easy to imagine Louise Masset holding it. Letting go of it for the last time as she stood and walked out.

‘Can you smell ’er fear?’ asked Baker. ‘
Can you
?’ His face contorted with a sickening pleasure. ‘
I
can smell it. The whiff of dyin’ is as pungent as piss. It’s so thick an’ nasty we won’t never be able to scrub it away.’

Boardman drew my wrist chains high up my back. ‘Suck it in!’ he demanded. ‘Pigs like sniffin’ other pigs’ shit, so go on, you murderin’ swine, get a snout full of ’er stink.’

He had said too much. I smashed the back of my head into the bridge of his nose.

He let out a grunt of pain, spat blood, then smiled. ‘Thank you, Lynch. You’ve just given me the excuse I needed.’

I kicked my heel hard against his shinbone but didn’t catch him hard enough.

Boardman punched the side of my head. A meaty blow that set my ear ringing. I soaked up the pain and shuffled backwards into him until he toppled over.

‘Man down!’ shouted Baker, ‘man down!’ He blew hard on his whistle.

I turned.

Boardman got to his feet and started to come for me.

I kneed him between the legs.

Air whooshed from his mouth.

I tried to kick out but the irons snagged my ankle.

He backed up against the outer wall of the cell, his hands protecting his groin. It was a stupid move – it left his face unguarded.

I butted him again. Teeth snapped and stuck in my forehead.

Boardman fell, moaning, to the stone floor and I dropped alongside him. Quickly, I slid my legs either side of his neck.

He grabbed at my ankles, but it was too late – I had already trapped his head.

I shifted my hips and started a move that would at its worst render him unconscious and at best kill him.

A baton smashed my head. Hands snatched at me. Fingers grabbed my chin and hair, twisted my neck, hauled me off him. I was forced upright and pushed into Louise’s cell. Leg chains snapped my ankles and I fell. My chin cracked the floor and I bit through my bottom lip.

Pain pinned me to the ground. Beyond me, noises simmered then came to a shouting, whistling boil. Angry voices raged at each other and called for reinforcements.

Then silence.

Delicious, hear-a-pin-drop silence.

Someone had taken charge. Wiser ones had discovered Baker and Boardman had not had been given the governor’s permission for our little walkabout, and now there would be hell to pay. Old heads were fathoming out how they could exonerate themselves from this debacle and cover up everything that had just happened.

I managed, in great pain, to roll over and rest against the wall. Opposite me was Louise’s bunk.

The sight of it made me wonder what her last night had been like. Had she slept a wink? Prayed all night? What had been her final thoughts when they had come for her and marched her to the scaffold?

I pressed my back hard against the wall and managed to stand up. Blood trickled down my forehead and touched my lips. I thought of Boardman’s broken teeth and spat. I straightened up and took several deep breaths to steady myself.

Then it happened. The most unexpected thing.

I heard a key slip into the lock of the cell door but I did not turn. A diaphanous movement across the room held my attention. A young woman in a long white dress was sat on the bunk. She clutched a blanket tightly to her bosom. I understood why she held it close. The tatter of cloth was the last softness she was afforded. The only thing that embraced her without revulsion, that brought a modicum of warmth and comfort to her skin and bones.

‘We’re coming in, Lynch,’ shouted a gaoler.

‘We don’t want any trouble,’ cried another.

My attention stayed with the woman. Her face was white and her eyes full of tears, but she smiled at me. A smile of sympathy and understanding.

‘Come quietly and we won’t hurt you,’ said the turnkey. ‘There’ll be no recriminations. We only want to return you to your cell.’

The woman dropped the blanket, rose like a balloon and vanished. There was a rush of cold wind.

Heavy hands grabbed my shoulders and forearms. Men dragged me from her cell. Amid this mass of hot and heaving gaolers, I felt only the shuddering chill of the apparition.

A corridor away from the women’s block, the turnkeys grew less rough and let me walk more freely between them. ‘Louise …’ I asked a young gaoler whom I had not seen before, ‘how did she behave on the gallows?’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ the man shouted in my ear.

An older and calmer voice said, ‘She stood tall. Had her chin up. I think she had accepted who she was and had made her peace with the Lord.’

Cab wheels crunched gravel. In a cold, night sky the waning moon seemed to glisten with ice. We stopped in front of a gaslit front door. I glanced at Alex then hopped down from the carriage. Beside me, horses steamed from their exertion and snorted white breath into the blackness.

Within two pounds of the brass doorknocker, a plump and surly butler opened up. Warm light and aromas of roasted meats spilled from the wainscoted space behind him.

‘Can I help you?’ His tone suggested I should have been at the tradesman’s entrance.

‘I am here for Monsieur de Breton.’ I dipped into the sack given to me and produced the bogus letter. ‘An important message for his
immediate
attention.’

‘Wait here,’ he commanded and closed the door in my face.

Several minutes passed before the door reopened. ‘You may enter,’ announced the butler.

Across a floor of chequered white and grey marble, I saw Sirius Gunn in a dinner suit. Alongside him was a young brunette with a hooked nose reminiscent of a vulture. Opposite was an older version of her and a white-haired, corpulent man in his sixties.

I raised my voice and spoke to Sirius from the doorstep. ‘I have a letter from your house in London, sir. It came today via France. The messenger was too exhausted to take directions here.’

Sirius looked to the lord in what I presume was a passable French accent. ‘Please excuse this untimely interruption; I will deal with it as quickly as possible.’

The old man nodded and Gunn advanced. I handed him the sealed parchment; he broke the wax and opened it.

‘
Non! Non! Non!
’ he exclaimed. ‘
Mon papa!
’ He held the paper to his breast and seemed distraught.

‘What is it, Thierry?’ The young vulture flew to him.

He passed her the letter and stayed slumped in grief.

‘Oh, my dear!’ she exclaimed and fluttered back to her parents. They crowded her as she translated from French:

Victoria was close to tears when she finished. Her mother gathered her close. Her father took the letter and solemnly reread it.

Sirius gradually stirred from his shock. As though remembering his manners, he turned to the master of the house. ‘My lord, please excuse me. I need to take the messenger outside so I can compose an answer for him to rush back. Then perhaps you and I may conclude our
private
discussions.’ He looked pained. ‘I still have much I wish to say to you, and hopefully, with your blessing, to Lady Victoria.’

‘Most proper of you,’ concluded the lord. ‘But you and your man must not stand outside in the elements.’ He gestured to a passage on his left. ‘Take a moment in my study to compose both yourself and your reply. Giles will show you the way.’

We followed the butler to a room of panelled oak and the smell of old cigars. The servant checked Lord Graftbury’s desk to ensure we would not have sight of any confidential papers. He removed several documents and the family seal, then commented, ‘You will find pen, ink and paper there, sir. I will wait outside until you require my services.’

‘
Merci
,’ said Sirius. He waited until Giles had left, then checked the door had been firmly closed. ‘Get your sack open. Quickly.’

I loosened the drawstring and Sirius unfastened his jacket. From a voluminous inside pocket, he produced a small tiara that glinted brightly. I only saw it briefly, as he put it into the sack, but it was strikingly beautiful. A glorious glittering of silver, diamonds, pearls and rubies.

‘How much is that worth?’ I whispered as I secured the drawstring.

‘More than your life is, so be careful.’ He left me and hurried to the desk. There, with quill, ink and paper, he deftly fashioned a note to his dying father. When completed, he blotted the paper, nodded to me and said quietly, ‘Open the door; we are ready.’

As Sirius had anticipated, the others had already gathered in the corridor and they witnessed him passing the note to me and the instruction, ‘Go quickly and safely, for you carry the most precious of messages.’

‘I shall,’ I promised and headed for the door.

‘Wait,’ commanded Lord Graftbury.

I halted, mid-step.

‘Give your sack to Giles.’

My heart froze.

‘Give it me, boy, come on.’ The butler held out his hand impatiently.

My eyes found Sirius and I saw that he shared my nervousness.

Giles half-turned. From a narrow hall table, he lifted a small cloth parcel. ‘Cook has wrapped some cold meat for you; let me put it in there for your long journey back.’

‘I have no time, sir,’ I said and dashed for the door.

As I opened it and stepped into the night, I heard Sirius apologising for my discourtesy.

The coach had been drawn rudely close to the house and there was no opportunity to run away, had I still harboured the notion. Indeed, it seemed to me that the coachman might well have been carrying a shotgun beneath the black cape that covered his hands and knees.