The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

  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.’

  My heart thundered. Boomed its feelings against her clothes, all but pounded them into her skin, her blood and bones. I clung to her out of dizziness and excitement.

  Elizabeth’s face touched mine. Her hair brushed my skin. A gentle sigh she breathed filled my lungs and yet left me breathless. My eyes were drawn to hers and once there were irrevocably locked. I could not look away. Could only close them and hide in my hopelessness.

  Her lips touched mine. So softly, I was unsure it had happened.

  Then more firmly.

  Then not at all.

  I stood there dazed, my eyes shut. Uncertain what to do, how to respond. Then I blinked and looked.

  She was gone.

  All that remained, were traces of her perfume, the sound of the clock ticking and the pounding of my heart.

  Eleven Days to Execution

  Newgate, 7 January 1900

  I have over the years become something of a learned man, but I confess I know not of any word, in any language, that adequately describes the mental torment of being condemned to death.

  It is more than the sum total of the worst of your worries. It is greater than the accumulation of your darkest fears and most awful days. It is all those things, multiplied by each waking second of your sentence.

  Imprisonment turns your thoughts into deadly enemies, mutinying troops that lay siege to your soul and your sanity. They are reinforced by personal regrets and you are powerless to defend yourself.

  At first I thought the small window in my cell beyond my reach. Then I learned it was possible to jump from the end of my bunk, grab one of the iron bars and hang for a while. Not that the view amounted to much. But it was a view. A gunmetal sky and a yard below, the place where all condemned men, except me, were allowed exercise. It was called the Press Yard, because stones used to be loaded onto the bodies of remand prisoners who had refused to plead, in order that they could be ‘pressed’ into confessing their crimes.

  Hour after hour dragged by. Time was chained as heavily as me and I in turn was manacled to my past, to my crimes and of course to Moriarty and the life he forced me to live in return for keeping me from the noose.

  It was late in the morning when two gaolers entered my cell. Both had mutton-chop whiskers and grey hair. Two peas in a wrinkly old pod. ‘We’re ’ere to take ya to chapel, Lynch,’ said the larger one. ‘Git ovva the other side, by that piss pot, an’ turn ya back to us.’

  ‘Chapel? I don’t want to go to chapel.’

  ‘We’ll you’re goin’. Mr Huntley said you should go, so you’re goin’.’

  ‘I am a Catholic,’ I protested.

  The larger man shrugged. ‘We don’t have no place for Cat-o-licks, so you’ll just ’ave to make do with the bleedin’ C of E, won’t ya?’

  I succumbed. Not out of a lack of principle, but because it at least offered an hour away from the stench and boredom of my cell.

  Once I was secured in walking restraints, they marched me to the chapel.

  It was a wretched place. Dank, dour and dirty. Only the strongest of daylight penetrated its high, filthy window. In a tainted shaft of light that broke through the grime, dust motes hovered like souls suspended in purgatory.

  My chains clanked on the floor and the eyes of all prisoners and staff turned to me. Everyone knew who I was. What I had done. Even here in the company of thieves, rapists and killers the exact nature of my two convictions marked me out as a monster.

  I shuffled into a pew reserved solely for those awaiting execution. Close to a dozen men sat there. We were like cattle. Singled out and penned separately from the rest of the convicts. Creatures heading to the Newgate abattoir.

  Tall wooden railings divided female prisoners from the men. The altar looked nothing more than a long table with a cloth thrown over it. Thankfully, the old habit of putting out a coffin for the condemned men had either been forgotten or dispensed with.

  Johncock and the governor, a small and pale man whose name I did not know, sat in a private, roped-off area, and did their best to look holier than the chaplain. Huntley was there, too. But he did not sit with them. He walked around, vigilantly checking his men were doing their duties.

  My attention drifted from him to the rest of the turnkeys and to the congregation. Was one of the men who entered my cell and tried to kill me among them? Had it indeed been a turnkey, as I suspected? Or was there a convict here who could come and go from cell to cell because he had some kind of master key? Such a person would be most interesting to find. Find and deprive of such a valuable instrument.

  An orderly ambled along the aisles carrying a box, out o
f which he distributed bibles and hymn books. He was a frail main, bald and bent, bowlegged by rickets and awkward in gait. When he got to the condemned pew, his bloodshot eyes caught mine and he stopped in front of me. He handed me my books but seemed to hang on to the bible as though he thought I wasn’t worthy of it. I was forced to tug it from him. His eyes caught mine. But there was not a look of judgement there, just acknowledgement. But of what?

  As he moved away, I realised it was the book.

  I opened it but saw only holy words. Words that over the years had lost much of their meaning to me. Slowly, I thumbed through the pages. There was nothing unusual. I closed it and began to think I had been mistaken. The spine rested against the palm of my hand and felt strangely uneven. I slid a finger down the outside. There was something concealed behind the binding. I opened the dark cover to release the tension on the fabric.

  Now I saw it.

  Glued vertically was a thin iron nail about four inches long, gleaming and sharpened at the end. I could think of a thousand uses to put it to. But first, there was the problem of removing it from the book and concealing it about my person.

  Prayer followed prayer, but there did not seem to be a moment when the eyes of the turnkeys were not on me.

  And then it happened. Five minutes from the end of the service, one of the female prisoners fainted. In the confusion that followed, I freed the nail and slid it through the waistband of my trousers into my drawers.

  The orderly collected the volumes and his gaze never met mine. Diligently, he gathered everything and under the supervision of a screw stacked the books at the rear of the chapel.

  No one moved until the keeper and Johncock made their exits. The gaolers then descended and our manacles and leg irons were checked before Huntley gave the signal for us to be escorted back to our cells.

  Inside the condemned wing, the two screws guarding me stopped outside my door to conduct a body search. ‘Spread your arms and legs then lean against the wall, Lynch.’

  I had manoeuvred the nail into the fold of my groin but the risk of it being discovered was still high. Hands felt my neck, shoulders, chest and waist. They grabbed my left ankle. Patted their way up my leg.

  ‘Hey!’ I kicked out at the screw doing the searching. ‘There’s no need for you to be touching me there, you sick bastard!’

  ‘Shut up, Lynch!’

  His inquisitive fingers jumped from my left thigh to my right ankle and once more inched their way up to my groin. As they neared the hidden nail, I shouted again, ‘For God’s sake, are you some kind of pixie?’

  They spun me round. An angry screw jabbed a fat forefinger into the middle of my forehead. ‘We’re doin’ our jobs, that’s all. Now get back in your bleedin’ cell.’

  As I chain-waddled through the door, I felt a much-anticipated kick in my backside and fell face first to the floor. The pair of them dropped on me, switched my chains, mumbled insults and left me with the big question: who had given me the nail?

  Not the orderly; he was just a harmless go-between, relied on to do as he was told and ask no questions. Who had decided to put the nail in that book and told him to ensure it was delivered to me and no one else?

  Had it been another prisoner? A man with power and sway within the gaol, someone who had heard about the attack and taken pity on me? Did I have a secret supporter within the community of convicts? Someone who knew who had attacked me and hated them enough to arm me against them? Or was it a gaoler? Huntley perhaps?

  The two screws who came to my cell said he had insisted I go to chapel. Had it been him? Had I finally found the perfect ally to escape this hellhole and all its demons?

  Derbyshire, October 1885

  My next lesson with Elizabeth proved to be an awkward and disappointing affair. Not that this surprised me. I had spent a sleepless night fearing it would be so, while at the same time hoping it wouldn’t.

  In my wildest dreams I imagined entering that awful drawing room and sweeping her off her feet. She would surrender herself to me in a spontaneous embrace that would see us descend in passion to the Persian rug while grand old men in oils frowned down on us from their jaded golden frames.

  The events that unfolded were nothing like that. It seems moments like this, ones preceded by such high anticipation, are destined to disappoint.

  I took a calming breath before walking into the room as confidently as I could manage.

  The cold blankness on her face warned me that my hopes were about to be crushed. Elizabeth was already seated at a table, my study books spread over it, a chair pulled out in readiness for me. ‘Come and sit, Simeon. We have much to learn today.’

  I took the chair. ‘You seem distant with me. Is that because of yesterday?’

  ‘It is. You are correct.’ Her tone was brusque. ‘Simeon, I overstepped the professional line that should divide teacher and scholar. I promise you I will not let it happen again.’

  ‘But you were nice to me. You encouraged me to talk of how I felt—’

  ‘I know what I did and it is something I should not have done. Oh Simeon, you are so young and I am charged with developing your character, not confusing you.’

  ‘I am not confused. I love you.’

  She looked startled. A moment passed. She shook her head. ‘You are too young to know anything of love. Pick up your books, please.’

  ‘What age does a man have to be to be capable of love? Can you teach me that?’

  She ignored me and held up her book. ‘I left a copy of this, Shelley’s Queen Mab, for you to read. Have you?’

  ‘I do not wish to talk of stupid poets!’

  ‘What you wish does not matter! The professor wishes for me to teach you lessons of culture and that is all I will do with you.’ She stood so quickly she knocked over her chair. ‘Or shall I leave this very minute and tell him you refuse to be tutored by me?’

  I began to rise.

  ‘Stay seated. Tell me your answer. Do we continue as we are meant to, or do I go to the professor?’

  I felt so much anger and frustration that I could not speak. I found my fists clenched and my mind urging me to strike out at something, to break the table, to rip apart all her damned books, to smash the whole room into a thousand pieces.

  Elizabeth righted her chair and placed her trembling hands on the top of it. ‘Do we resume, Simeon, or not?’

  ‘We resume,’ I answered. A more sensible part of me reasoned this was a better option than explaining my foolishness to Moriarty.

  ‘Very well.’

  She sat. Pulled her chair closer to the table. ‘Did you read any of the poetry I left you?’

  I could not look up at her. I studied my clenched hands and slowly stretched out my fingers. How could she make me feel like this? One moment my spirit was higher than those tree branches I had climbed in the orchard. The next, I felt lower and more wretched than the tiniest, vilest insect in all of Christendom.

  ‘Did you read it, Simeon?’

  I looked up at her. ‘I did. I read of death and sleep, and right now I wish I were consumed by either of them. Anything other than this.’

  ‘Did you understand the poem?’ she persisted.

  ‘In parts. But most of it made no sense to me. There were too many words that I had never heard of to make a story out of it all.’

  ‘Then let me explain. Shelley has taken a character from Shakespeare, Queen Mab, and he pairs this fairy with the soul of Ianthe, his first child. Mab uses her powers to take him on a journey through time. She shows him how evil flourishes inside institutions that appear good, like religion, business and monarchy.’

  ‘That is not what I thought it was about. Not at all.’

  ‘And what did you think it was about, Simeon?’

  ‘I thought it was about a clever and beautiful woman who awoke wonderful and frightening feelings in a stupid and clumsy young man. About how she was able to see beyond what he was and could understand what he could become, if only she would let him, if
only she would help him.’

  For a second Elizabeth did not answer. A second during which I saw that my words touched her and melted some of the coldness.

  ‘No,’ she answered, unconvincingly, ‘that is not what it is about. Not at all.’

  Eleven Days to Execution

  Newgate, 7 January 1900

  With the cell door closed and the turnkeys engaged in their Sunday evening duties, I retrieved the nail from my underclothes and looked at it with a wonder that I imagine few men had ever felt in consideration of such a mundane piece of ironmongery.

  I wrapped my fist around it. It was less than half the width of a little finger and was not rusty, implying it had been selected from clean storage, not scavenged from old wood. Rightly or wrongly, this made me inclined to believe it had come from someone able to leave the gaol and return at will.

  Outside of the prison walls, the nail would have but one purpose and only a brief moment of use. It would be positioned on some specific part of timber, balanced on its point between thumb and forefinger, then hammered so flat it would become almost invisible. That would be its life.

  But inside this wretched place, my humble nail had many lives and more possibilities. It could pierce a man’s throat. Gouge out an eye. Rupture a temple. Slide through a rib cage. Perhaps it could even pick a lock. Given patience and dexterity, it might even dislodge a window bar.

  As precious as it was, I could not continually carry it on my person. Regular body searching would discover it sooner or later. I needed to hide it.

  My eyes roamed the dank walls of the cell until I saw the perfect place. A small gap in the wall, between door frame and brickwork, where years of banging and vibration had taken their toll. A sliver of space, large enough to push the metal into, small enough to escape the eye.

  It fitted perfectly.

  For once, I wished away the rest of the day. Longed for night to come and for the lazy screws to lock us all down until daybreak and settle into their nocturnal habits of skiving and drinking.