The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

  I raised my footwear one at a time and he checked both the toes and heels before doing the same with Jimmy.

  ‘That’s agreeable.’ He dusted his hands together. ‘Now listen closely; from debilitating blows, you will have thirty seconds’ respite. Time must be spent on one bended knee, this being a signal to your opponent that you may not be struck by him until you once again stand fully upright. Hitting an opponent when he is down will immediately result in disqualification.’

  He took my right hand and Jimmy’s. Pulled us knuckle to knuckle. In a lower voice, almost a whisper, he told us, ‘You do as I say, when I say, or so help me God, afterwards I’ll hurt you twice as hard as you’ve managed to hurt each other.’

  With that remark, he stepped back and lifted his voice to its original volume. ‘You must start to fight upon hearing the command “Box!” and you must desist on hearing the shout “Time!” Now shake hands, go to your corners and be prepared by your seconds.’

  I was unsure what a ‘second’ was but I headed to the stool where Bosede awaited me. ‘Shut your eyes,’ he commanded. I did so and immediately he covered my face with his palms and rubbed into it some foul-smelling substance. ‘Animal fat,’ he explained. ‘It will slick away any punches that get around your guard.’ He wiped his greasy hands on the towel. ‘Are you ready, Simeon?’

  It was a fine question. One that dredged up all my fears. He slapped me hard across my left cheek. ‘I asked, are you ready?’

  ‘Yes!’ I answered.

  ‘Good, then fight. Fight for our honour.’

  I took a deep breath and walked to the scratch. The moustachioed official stepped back, made a downward gesture with his hand and shouted ‘Box!’

  Jimmy swiped wildly. Swung with his left and then his right. His arms wheeled through the air like blades of a windmill in a hurricane.

  I stepped to one side, left him flailing on a top rope. From down below, a man with a ginger beard shouted, ‘Hit him, Connor! Kill the little bleeder.’ Bosede had been wrong; I heard every sound. Saw every face.

  Jimmy punched again; landed a blow – a right-hander that stung my left ear. Sent a ball of humming pain bouncing through my skull. My head was down, vision blurred, knees weakened.

  I saw his silhouette across the grass, already stepping a triumphant dance, a victory jig.

  I heard the crowd cheering him on.

  ‘Kill ’im!’

  ‘Go on, lad! Get the bleedin’ little chicken!’

  ‘Lay ’im out!’

  Jimmy hit my other ear. The ball of pain bounced again. The crowd tasted blood.

  ‘Hit the fucker!’

  ‘Get stuck in there!’

  ‘Give ’im wot for!’

  Jimmy’s jubilant silhouette danced across me.

  That was when it happened. The terrible rage that had tormented me broke free of those layered blankets of fear. It possessed me. Raised my head. Bounced me on my toes. I smashed my right fist into Jimmy’s face. The exhilaration was sublime, beyond anything imaginable.

  He threw a counterpunch. I blocked it. Thumped his stomach. Again came a rush of joy.

  His shadow scurried away from me, and my anger chased it, hunted it down. Slammed a hard left into his nose. Followed by crisp combination punches.

  Left, left, right, right. Anger knew what to do. Anger was merciless.

  Jimmy dropped like a rock. His legs twitched.

  Anger stood over my tormentor. ‘Get up!’

  The referee forced himself in front of me. Pushed me backwards and counted, ‘… seven, eight, nine …’

  ‘Get up!’ I screamed.

  But Jimmy didn’t.

  They threw water on him. Carried him to his corner.

  I sat on the wobbly stool and watched the blurred eyes in his pale face search for explanations. There was pandemonium now. Clark, the referee, Beamish, and I think a doctor too, were all leaning over Jimmy.

  My bully was spluttering, moaning and whimpering. His brother Charlie shouted something and pushed Miller in the chest, then his eyes caught mine. They blazed with hatred.

  Anger made me smile at him across the ring. Charlie broke from the melee and before I could get from my stool, he was on me. He grabbed my shoulders, headbutted my nose.

  I fell backwards into the ropes, snorting blood. Pain burned in my forehead, but there was no fear. Only anger. Anger twice as big and powerful as before.

  I hurled Charlie off me. Hammered a fist into his nose. Broke it. Burst it. Bloodied it. He rushed me again and I dodged. He hit the ropes – was still off-balance when I cracked my forearm across the already broken bridge of his nose.

  Agony sank him to the floor, pulled screams from him that silenced the entire crowd. Blood gushed between his outstretched hands.

  Then I saw it. The exposed back of his head. The neck of the rabbit. My left came down like a guillotine and Charlie collapsed face first. Sprawled out.

  But still Anger wasn’t finished. I dropped to the ground, turned him and drew back my fist.

  Clark’s hand snagged my wrist. ‘Stop, boy! Stop now!’ He pulled me up and off him. ‘Get to your corner!’ He pushed me away.

  Charlie was getting up. I turned and tried to get at him again. Bosede held me back. ‘I’m going to kill you!’ I screamed. ‘I am going to fucking kill you!’

  Bosede lifted me clean off the ground. My legs kicked the air as he carried me away. My mouth was open but I wasn’t shouting – I was roaring. Wild, animal noises stampeded from my throat. The beasts of loss and sorrow had been freed.

  Bosede held me tightly so I couldn’t breathe. ‘Easy now, easy! You’ve won. You can calm yourself.’

  But I couldn’t. Beating Charlie had been like beating everything that had ever hurt me. And in that very moment I knew that Anger and Violence were my new friends. My protectors. My guides to survive and to prosper.

  Derbyshire, March 1886

  Michael Brannigan’s eyes had closed several times during my recollections of Bosede and the Connor brothers, but every time I stopped, one lid would flicker open and his frail hand or hoarse voice would urge me to continue.

  Finally, I was certain that he was asleep, for he was snoring and his chest rattled with every exhalation of breath. I pulled the bed sheets up and over his big arms then crept out of the bedroom.

  The old wrestler’s rapid decline had a visibly saddening effect on everyone in the house but in particular on the professor. His mood blackened by the week, and after each examination by Brannigan’s doctor, Moriarty would withdraw for several hours. One night, after such a call, he took me to one side and insisted I walk with him to a wing of the house that I had not previously seen.

  ‘I am touched by the peace you have made with Michael,’ he said. ‘It shows you have learned both humility and respect. It pleases me that he speaks fondly of you.’

  ‘He need not have been so generous with his words.’

  ‘No, indeed he did not, but he has been. Sadly, Dr Reuss tells me he is nearing the end.’

  ‘I am truly sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It may only be days now. The practitioner says a lesser man would have passed months ago.’

  ‘Mr Brannigan is no lesser man; he is a natural fighter.’

  ‘He is, but this is an unfair battle and one he cannot win. Which means it is imperative that you are properly prepared to fill his place.’

  ‘I will do my best.’

  ‘And I must ensure that your best is good enough.’ He unlocked a dark oak door and we entered a cold room that smelled of strange chemicals and a burned-out fire.

  Candles flickered. Wooden boards bowed and creaked beneath our feet. My eyes adjusted to the low light and it seemed at first that I had entered a private museum. A most macabre one, for on a series of small, circular tables, I saw more than a dozen severed heads. The skulls had been boiled free of flesh and rendered off-white by some chemical treatment.

  ‘They are real,’ Moriarty remarked, mildly amu
sed by the shock on my face. ‘I have them for academic reasons. I harbour an interest in phrenology; do you know what that is?’

  ‘Collecting heads?’

  He laughed. ‘No, it is the study of the brain. The brain and the craters of the cranium that control thought and emotion.’ He pointed past me. ‘There is a fine skull to your left. That one came from the medical school in Edinburgh.’

  I focused on a large head, ivory white with black holes where a nose, mouth, ears and pupils had once been.

  ‘Close your eyes and run your hands slowly over the top of it.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Go on. It cannot bite you.’

  I shut my lids and reluctantly rested my hand on the skull.

  ‘Do you feel the indentations, the edges that signify the end of one section of the mind and the beginning of another?’

  At first, everything felt uniformly smooth. Then I discerned distinctive peaks and troughs, ridges and bumps. ‘Yes,’ I confessed. ‘I feel what you mean. It’s like running through a field of grass. It looks flat but then your feet find it’s really uneven.’

  ‘You are correct. And your simile is actually most apposite, because the brain is simply a collection of fields, each one responsible for a different activity. Open your eyes and look.’

  I took off my hand and did as he asked. Areas of the skull had been marked in pen and labelled CONCENTRATIVENESS, SECRETIVENESS, CONSTRUCTIVENESS, SELF-ESTEEM, CAUSALITY and CAUTIOUSNESS.

  Moriarty walked over and put his hand on the skull. ‘It is all obvious, really. The human skull fits over the brain, like a glove fits over a hand. If you saw a glove you’d be able to identify the fingers, thumbs, palms and knuckles and describe in full their functions – writing, feeling, carrying, punching, stroking, et cetera. Look at the skull as a cranial glove and it is the same. We can identify feelings, fears, hopes and dreams and mark them down as easily as we could a finger or thumb.’

  It seemed to make sense. Certainly all those thoughts and powers had to be kept somewhere and I supposed it was the work of smart men like the professor to determine where.

  ‘Hippocrates started phrenology. Then it was continued by the Romans and most latterly the American publisher and lecturer Lorenzo Fowler, with whom I have had some discussions about starting a British Phrenological Society.’

  He rounded an exhibit in front of us and placed his hands on another to his right. ‘This is the head of John Bellingham. I had it stolen from Barts Pathology Museum and replaced with that of a lesser mortal.’ He caressed the cranium. ‘Do you know who Bellingham was?’

  ‘I am afraid I do not.’

  ‘He assassinated Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. Shot him in the heart because Perceval had introduced governmental policy that Bellingham said ruined him. Feel his skull, Simeon. Feel it with one hand while you compare your own. Tell me if you discern certain similarities.’

  I had no desire to do so and simply stared at the skull.

  ‘Do it!’ barked Moriarty.

  Reluctantly, I stretched out one hand and placed the other on my own head. My eyes were magnetised by Moriarty’s stare.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Is there anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t really tell.’

  ‘Try harder.’

  ‘Maybe a bump? A ridge?’ I speculated, desperate to please him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here?’ I fingered a vague point above my right ear.

  His eyes glowed with excitement. ‘That convex area above the ear is responsible for our dynamic energy. It is the source of fighting spirit, revenge and even violence. It is what we phrenologists call the Well of Destructiveness; it is from here that we draw our rage and anger.’

  I put both my hands to my head and felt the swell in the bone. ‘What does all that mean, for me?’

  ‘For you? It means everything, Simeon. It means that like Bellingham, you were born to kill. But let’s hope you avoid his fate – he was captured and hanged.’

  I must have looked shaken by his comments, for he added, ‘Do not worry. Bellingham did not have me or any other members of the Trinity to protect him.’

  ‘All these heads,’ I said, keen to move away from observations about me, ‘have they also come from museums and medical schools?’

  He laughed. ‘No, only those two.’

  ‘And all the others?’

  ‘They are the heads of my enemies.’ His eyes lingered on them with malicious nostalgia, before he added, ‘This is my trophy room and my laboratory. I have here, at my fingertips, the skulls of politicians, policemen, judges and members of every major criminal family in the country.’

  He passed from skull to skull and touched each one like a wine merchant might fondly caress bottles of valuable vintages. ‘I also have heads from palmers, nobblers, duffers, snoozers, cracksmen, macers and broadsmen. Every type of lowly felon you could imagine. From phrenology, I know what makes the broadsman a good card sharp, the macer an excellent cheat and the nobbler such a violent punisher of men.’

  I noticed all the skulls were unnamed and not even identified by numbers or codes. ‘There are so many – how do you know which head is which?’

  ‘Oh, I know them all. Know them intimately. I need no records or aide memoires. I remember each and every head, as it was when it was full of flesh and hair, when brains pulsed beneath these foolish foreheads and plotted against me. I even remember the foul words spoken by many of these gaping, silent mouths.’

  He turned around slowly. ‘They were monsters who preyed on society and when my path crossed theirs they threatened me or my family to such a degree that they had to die.’

  I counted more than thirty heads in the room. Thirty lives taken. ‘Is this everyone you have had killed?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. These are only the ones that mattered. The instigators. The leaders. The truly troublesome.’

  ‘Why are you showing me these things, telling me about all this?’

  He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘So you understand me. What my life is about and the cause that drives us all.’

  ‘Cause?’

  ‘Every life must have direction. Purpose. I spoke some time ago to Mr Herbert Spencer, a man from these Derbyshire hills and a great biologist. Like Mr Charles Darwin and myself, Herbert is fascinated by the evolution of mankind and I proposed to him my theory that life is about ‘the survival of the fittest’. He was quite taken by the phrase. I saw all expression on his face freeze at the thought. To survive, Simeon, we must eliminate our enemies, especially the most evil of them.’

  Moriarty walked towards the door, where one skull stood alone against a wall. ‘That specimen was from a particularly evil strain of mankind. It was harvested very recently by the talented Miss Breed. By the time the whole strain is wiped out, that entire wall will be filled with plinths and specimens.’

  He slapped his hand on the middle of the skull bone and a smile lit up his face. ‘Come now. We are late for dinner.’

  ‘Whose head is it?’ I asked as we left the room.

  ‘Not the one I truly wish for,’ he said as he closed the door and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘In time, I will tell you more, Simeon, much more. But not now. The duration of such a revelation would ruin what I hope is a very good meal.’

  Eight Days to Execution

  Newgate, 10 January 1900

  I know not how the days in gaol passed so quickly, only that they were gone.

  One hundred and ninety-two hours. This was the sum of time I had left upon God’s earth. Holmes was being proved right; each passing second brought me closer to insanity. I had scraped every bar and brick with that damned nail and had not loosened anything except my mind.

  Was escape still possible? It had to be. One of these ancient bricks would loosen. One of those idiot young turnkeys would make a mistake. My chance would come; I just had to remain vigilant.

  Noises gathered outside my cell. Perhaps this was the moment. Keys jangled, bolts s
lid, locks turned and the door creaked open.

  A rakish turnkey with a grey beard stood in the entrance. His eyes checked my chains. Satisfied himself that I was not a danger before he even spoke. ‘Time to get you weighed and measured. The ’angman, Mr Warbrick, wants to know your details, so he can prepare good an’ proper.’

  ‘You mean Billington?’

  ‘Warbrick. Billington has stepped aside, so his friend can have you.’ Greybeard slapped a baton in the palm of his hand while two other screws fitted walking chains to me.

  ‘Most generous of him,’ I said. ‘Who would have thought hangmen had hearts?’

  ‘He’s safe,’ declared a younger one, pulling at my links then standing clear.

  ‘Then get ’im movin’.’

  They marched me to a room close to the kitchens. Jostled me onto a cast-iron beam-scale that more regularly measured sacks of food sent from the merchants.

  ‘We got ourselves a meaty one, here,’ said a pimply young screw, as he gripped my biceps and held me still.

  ‘Meat to be tightly strung,’ quipped another, ‘like brisket or pork.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ demanded Greybeard.

  His minions struggled to select the correct weights that would determine my measure.

  ‘Sort yourselves out!’ demanded Greybeard. He looked to me and added, ‘An’ you, stand still. Mr Warbrick says he needs precise measurements so he can despatch you humanely, so don’t you move none.’

  ‘Twelve stones, nine pounds and three ounces,’ announced a third man.

  ‘’appen the executioner doesn’t want you ’anging around unnecessarily,’ added Pimples.

  Once they had their measure, I was bundled back to the cell and pushed to the floor. My arms were yanked high behind my back while they undid the walking chains and secured me again to the cold iron ring sunk in the floor.

  Greybeard stayed just out of my reach, staring at me. ‘I know what you done, Lynch. Who you killed.’ He spat on the ground. ‘I hope your visit to the scales has got you thinkin’ what it’ll be like.’ He put a hand to his throat. ‘The jerk of the rope. Your body fallin’ like a sack of rocks. You swingin’ an’ stranglin’, while your legs dance, an’ your rotten ’eart jumps clean out its ribcage.’ He stepped back into the doorway. ‘Think on it now, Lynch.’