The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

  I was mistaken. He was far from alone. A gang of his loury men trailed after him and as I placed my palms on the cold bricks, a prison baton cracked the back of my legs.

  I fell to my knees and through gritted teeth managed a verbal response: ‘I sense you boys have not come first footing then? No ale or gifts to welcome in the New Year?’

  ‘Shut your insolent mouth!’ shouted my uninvited guest. Heavy hands pushed my face into the brickwork. ‘I am Mr Tobias Johncock, the assistant keeper – or deputy governor, as modernisers like to say.’ He pronounced modernisers with contempt. ‘Turn ’im around, men. Let’s get this over with.’

  They kept me on my knees but dragged me around to face him.

  Johncock stepped closer and smirked wickedly. ‘I have been tasked with the pleasure of organising your execution.’ He spread his arms wide to his colleagues. ‘I am the man to lynch Mr Lynch.’

  They gave him the laughter he craved.

  I’ve ’anged more scoundrels than any other screw in London,’ he boasted. ‘And I can name all the toppers, right back to Thomas de Warblynton in the thirteen ’undreds and clumsy Jack Ketch, that blessed bungler who shamed the Duke of Monmouth with a blunt axe. Messy, messy, messy. I don’t like messy, Lynch. Don’t like it at all.’

  I lowered my head. The cell’s cockroaches had gathered in one corner as though frightened of Johncock. The sight of them made me smile. Given a chance, I could kill this cocksure cove quicker than I could exterminate them.

  ‘Look at me!’ he shouted.

  His men tugged my hair so I had no choice but to raise my eyes to his.

  ‘There’s fierce competition on the ’Angman’s List for the ’onour of stretching a double murderer like you.’ He reached into his tunic pocket and produced a handsome pipe. ‘The clever money is on James Billington. Though I’d top myself rather than let a northerner do it.’ He raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘I was ’ere when Billington did that bitch Amelia Dyer. The “Angel Maker” they called ’er. She swung for the murder of only one infant but I ’ave friends in the constabulary and they say she killed ’undreds, bloody ’undreds of poor babes in arms.’

  Johncock pulled tobacco from a pouch and pushed it into the pipe’s bowl. ‘Then there was the “Ripper” ’anging. A doctor he was. Went by the name of Thomas Cream. Stood right on the traps where you’ll be quivering.’ He stretched out his arm to demonstrate the next movement in his tale. ‘Billington was pulling the lever when Cream shouted “I am Jack the—”. Boom! The traps rattled open and ’e swung. Never got a chance to complete what ’e wanted to say. If ’e ’ad, it might’ve been the confession of the century.’

  Johncock struck a match. The acrid smell brought relief from the putrid stink of the cell. He took several quick, short draws to raise a red crackle in the pipe bowl, exhaled and announced, ‘I ’ear you’re an ’andful, Lynch. Got a bit of a temper on you. Now that’s not desirable in a prisoner. No, no, no. Not desirable at all.’ He checked the tobacco was lit, then added, ‘I thought it of mutual benefit to pay you a visit and explain my ground rules. They are very simple. You give me no trouble and I give you no beatings. Because I promise you my beatings will cause you twice the pain of any trouble you inflict upon me.’

  He nodded to his men and walked away. A cloud of tobacco smoke rose as he neared the doorway. His men had landed the first of their blows before he reached the corridor outside. A knee hit the side of my skull. A kick followed to the ribs. A stick set fire to my spine.

  I could not manage to stand, so I grabbed a leg and upended one of my attackers. Others rained blows on me. I, in turn, inflicted maximum distress on the fellow I had brought down. His shrieks of agony alerted Johncock, who whistled down the gallery for more men.

  They came piling into the cell, flailing sticks. I knew I had little time before they overwhelmed me and absolutely no hope of overcoming them all.

  I got up on my toes but they beat me into a wall. A hand snagged my wrist. Someone pulled at an ankle. Boots piled into my stomach and genitals. My right arm was twisted up my back. A big skull butted my face.

  Johncock shouted, ‘Come away! Leave ’im now. Much as I’d like to kill the bugger we ’ave to save that joy for the ’angman.’

  Voices shouted around me. Feet slapped stone. Keys jangled.

  I slipped into blackness. Drifted in time. Back to my youth, to when I was free. When I first met Sebastian the Jew and he warned me about life and luck.

  Manchester, 1884

  I settled easily with the Scuttlers and quickly found them to be a gang unlike any other I had encountered.

  They stole for a living. Nothing unusual about that. They were capable of extreme and cold-blooded violence. Again, commonplace. What made them different was Sebastian. He was organised. Controlled. Calm. From my experience, gang leaders tended to be the toughest and loudest, the biggest and most brutal, the braggarts and the bullies.

  Sebastian was none of these.

  I doubt he had ever thrown a punch in his life. He led through intelligence and cunning. Was quietly spoken yet always had everyone’s attention.

  An insight into the small man’s power came soon after I arrived. He had departed early in the morning, without his animals or any of his men. When he returned in the middle of the day he was smiling broader than a loom beam. He was well dressed, in green check tweed and polished brown boots. Tucked beneath his arm and balanced in his hand was a long, rolled-up, beige document tied with ribbons.

  Heading directly to his private rooms, he motioned to Fingers and Danny to follow him, which they duly did. The rest of the afternoon was spent behind closed doors with them and other men who, one at a time, were also summoned into his sanctuary.

  By early evening, the only people left in the big room were me and a dim-witted scrag of a boy called Zack.

  ‘What’s going on back there?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno,’ he shrugged. ‘They never tell me nuthin’.’

  Zack got told plenty, just not anything he wanted to hear. His role was to clean and empty things. Sort out the piss pots. Unblock the shit pits. Sweep the floor. Wash plates and cutlery.

  ‘But what do you think they’re doing?’ I pressed. ‘They’re up to something, aren’t they?’

  ‘Work,’ he offered. ‘They’re up to work.’

  Work, I took to be thievery and the exact details most probably lay on that big roll of paper Sebastian had carted in.

  After a time, Danny appeared in the doorway. ‘Terry, you’re wanted.’

  I rose quickly and covered the twenty yards to Sebastian’s quarters at a pace indecently close to running.

  His quarters were handsomely decorated but dark except for splashes of light thrown upwards by the gas lamps. Instead of the bare bricks present in the rest of the mill, the walls were panelled in cheap oak, punctuated with oils depicting hunting scenes. There was a small, open fireplace, stacked with fresh coal, and a long and heavy trestle table flanked by pew benches that looked as though they’d been stolen from a church.

  ‘Time to earn your keep,’ said Sebastian. ‘Come and join us.’

  I took a seat in the midst of a pool of smoky yellow light and stumpy forest of elbows.

  ‘Let the dog see the bone,’ he urged his men. One by one, they moved hands, pipes and arms so I could view the plans spread across the table.

  ‘Goddard Grange,’ Sebastian explained. ‘Stuffed to its old woodwormed rafters with Persian carpets, Dutch oils, Roman silverware and Indian jewels.’

  ‘Very nice,’ I said.

  ‘Very beautiful. The lord of the manor, a Mr Wilberforce Singleton, is an antiques trader. In a few hours’ time he will be meeting a ship in Southampton and taking delivery of prized Etruscan artefacts. We, meanwhile, will be taking possession of everything of value in his lavishly furnished country home, the place detailed on the plans in front of you.’

  We all scanned the large document, already marked with crosses, showing where the family s
ilver, jewellery, oils and sculptures were located.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ I asked.

  ‘Tonight, you will be a carrier,’ replied Sebastian. ‘Joel, tell our young friend what his duties are.’

  A thickset fellow with receding brown hair coughed to clear his throat and shifted his feet nervously as he spoke. ‘You waits outside, by the windows, then when the stuffers brings you their sacks you carries them to the carts.’ He coughed twice more then added further instructions, with the emphasis of someone who had clearly been told the procedure many times. ‘You does it quickly but carefully. No running or stumbling. No dropping or throwing sacks down – not unless coppers come and you have to leg it!’

  His last remark brought laughter from the entire group. Once it had died down, Sebastian looked at me with an intensity I had not seen since our first meeting on the riverbank. ‘Can you do that, Terry? Does it fall within your abilities and your definition of honest labour?’

  ‘I can do it. And more if needs be.’

  ‘Needs will be. But not tonight. Tonight you start at the bottom.’

  Night fell.

  In an instant of near-military coordination we all moved. More than a dozen covered carts rumbled out from our riverside abode and took us miles through the deepening blackness of the countryside. I was at the back of the convoy and noticed each driver kept a good two minutes’ distance from the one in front, presumably so as not to attract undue attention. Down long unlit roads, rutted country lanes and winding hillside tracks we travelled for hours.

  We halted with the same precision that had moved us. For twenty minutes or more we idled in a tired silence. Coughs were stifled with cupped hands. Patience of the highest kind was called for.

  Finally the pointsmen came. Called us from the carts in whispers. We clambered out. Dropped noiselessly onto soil and grass. There was no need for prompting. Every man knew his job. We moved quickly, calmly.

  Bent low and backlit by the moon, we trod carefully across the carpet of turf that rolled up to the big house.

  As instructed, I watched for the swing of a lantern outside the east wing. When it came, I dashed over with my arms full. I was laden with large hessian sacks, specially made for the oil paintings. Deep bags packed with balled newspapers to swallow silver goblets, urns and plates. Soft cloth pouches for delicate personal jewellery such as bracelets, rings and necklaces.

  We descended like locusts.

  Within the hour we had stripped the house bare.

  By the time the last of the carts had been loaded, my lungs were on fire and my legs had turned to jelly. Thick sweat greased my face and back as I walked the mile to the crossroads where I had been told we would be picked up.

  Joel was already waiting with a large four-wheeler drawn by big black horses. He handed us ale then sat up top with the coachman as four of us climbed inside and exchanged excited chatter about ‘the job’.

  There was more drink when we got back to the mill. Enough to float a ship. The tables in our lodgings creaked from the weight of the food piled upon them. Huge slabs of beef and pork. Great rounds of cheeses. Baskets of fruit and bread.

  There were women, too. Blonds. Brunettes. Redheads. Young. Old. Tall and small. I felt too awkward to go with any of them. Their light dresses and heavy sexuality repulsed rather than attracted me.

  The celebrations grew noisier by the hour and by the glass. Once singing began there was no stopping the Scuttlers. They mangled many music hall numbers, belted out bawdy shanties. And more than once, they roared at the top of their voices a song I’d heard during my days in London:

  Up and down the City Road

  In and out the Eagle

  That’s the way the money goes

  Pop goes the weasel!

  Tankards rose and clanked together on the final line. Ale had to be downed in one and was followed by riotous cheering. The only voice missing was that of Sebastian.

  Nor was he present the following morning, when even the sound of bird song was too loud for our delicate heads.

  Not until late afternoon, when the last of the drunks were sober again, did he return. On seeing him, the older men roused themselves from their seats and headed over like moths to a flame. He in turn welcomed them to the warmth of his guarded quarters.

  I counted the time that passed, mere minutes, before one by one they returned to the main room. All were smiling. The younger ones were then called through. They returned in similarly happy spirits. None flaunted the money they had been given, but from their excitement it was apparent they had been paid well for their labours.

  I was not. Not a penny. My name was never called.

  The moneyed men spent the night discussing what they would do with their newly acquired clink. There were clothes and women to be bought. Debts needed settling. Dreams to be chased.

  I went to bed and dwelled on the events of the day but not the fact that I had been excluded from the payout. This, I assumed, was simply part of my initiation. I had to earn my way in.

  So be it.

  No, my mind was on other things.

  I was focused on the easy success of the burglary and the many questions it raised.

  The whole caper had been aided by architectural plans of the house and precise information about when it would be deserted, save for a dithery old butler, sleepy cook and young housemaid who most sensibly did not put up any resistance. I thought it quite strange that the owner had left no beefy brutes to guard his goods and concluded that Sebastian had either paid them off or had his men tackle them before we arrived.

  None of the coachmen who carried away our haul had been known to any of us in the mill, except to Sebastian and possibly Danny. Yet they were allowed to drive away with the haul in the dead of night. To where? Some industrial warehouses, dockside sheds or farm outbuildings? I had no idea. Did Sebastian have even more Scuttlers working for him? Men other than those I slept and ate with every day? Or was he in fact working for someone else? I felt certain that the latter was the case, although it occurred to me there was another distinct possibility.

  Perhaps nothing had been stolen. Things might simply have been moved to another location. Sebastian could have been hired by the owner to empty the house while he was away, so he could fraudulently claim money from some big London insurance company.

  The real reason never materialised. Not that I cared. In the months that followed, I was given a fair share of coin as I graduated from carrier to stuffer, then from stuffer to lifter, and from lifter to breaker. Finally I made it to pointsman, the role that under Danny’s tutelage involved coordinating all ground operations, transport, men and timings. It made a welcome change to use my brain rather than my fists. Nevertheless, I was wary of going soft, of losing my physical strength and the protection it afforded me.

  Every morning I would train hard. As soon as light broke through the big mill windows I would rise and begin a two-hour regime. At first, it involved nothing more sophisticated than a long run then sessions of lifting and squatting with heavy rocks. And shadow boxing.

  I had boxed, during my childhood in a London workhouse, so I always finished with furious bouts with my silhouette. Initially, some of the other men came and laughed at me. Then they wanted to join in. Sebastian got us gloves and we began to spar. There were even calls to stage matches between ourselves and take bets, but for reasons that will soon become apparent, this was something that I refused to take part in.

  Often I would swim in the river at the back of the mill. I had taught myself to do it after escaping from London, venturing deeper and deeper into streams, rivers and canals and then panicking my way back to dry land via a mixture of sinking and swimming.

  One day, I was emerging from a post-run dip in the river when I saw Sebastian approaching with his dogs. It was unusual for him to be about so early in the day.

  ‘Good morning!’ I shouted, still dripping water while I grabbed a towel.

  Normally he had a smile for me, but on t
his occasion only a hardened stare. ‘Get yourself dressed, then come to my room, immediately.’ He turned and tugged the dogs around to follow him. Dee and Dum yelped objections at having an anticipated walk curtailed so abruptly.

  I towelled dry, dressed and made my way into his sitting room. It was, as always, in virtual darkness bar a crack of light through the curtains. Sebastian was in his wing-backed chair, looking through the gap into the daylight. ‘You need to pack your belongings and leave, Terry. And you need to do it now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I told you to.’

  ‘What have I done wrong?’

  A voice that wasn’t his replied, ‘Nothing.’ It came from the darkness at the back of the room.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I moved towards Sebastian but he shook his head to warn me not to.

  ‘What is going on,’ continued the man’s voice, ‘ is that you are leaving here to work for me.’ He spoke without class or accent, English but with an almost foreign drawl that was beyond my ability to place it.

  ‘I choose who I work for,’ I protested.

  The speaker appeared inchoately in the shadows. ‘Not any more.’

  I didn’t answer. The man stepped into the table light.

  He was only slightly smaller than me. I put him around forty but he could have been older. Brown hair, eyes the colour of roasted chestnuts, a dark beard speckled with grey but well-groomed enough to reveal gentle cheekbones and a powerful neck. A richly tailored woollen suit of chequered browns fell from broad shoulders and tapered at a waist that had probably once been as firm as his shoulders but was lost now to little exercise and lots of food.

  Cradled in his hand was a stout unlit pipe, trimmed in silver with some form of crest embossed on it. He thumbed tobacco into the bowl and smiled at me. ‘I think I’ll call you Simeon. Simeon Lynch. That, after all, is your real name, isn’t it?’

  I turned and ran.

  The door I had come through was now locked. The handle twisted hopelessly in my fingers and would not open. I spun towards the window – if necessary, I’d hurl myself through the glass.