The House Of Smoke

by Sam Christer

  ‘Simeon …’

  I didn’t let him continue. ‘I thank you for your openness. Now I am sorry, I really have to be elsewhere.’

  Sebastian caught my sleeve. ‘If you ever need to come back, for whatever reason, I can hide you. You can trust me with your secrets.’

  I shook him off. ‘You make such an offer only because you fear me. You are not my friend, Sebastian, so don’t pretend to be. You are just frightened I might turn on you because you gave me up to Moriarty.’

  ‘No, Simeon, I—’

  I did not listen to whatever lie he was constructing. Instead, I headed towards the door determined to take some air and shake off my rising anger. I never reached the doorway because Surrey came into view, demurely clad in a long black mourning dress, hat and pulled-back veil.

  ‘So there you are!’ she said with relief. ‘I have been searching for you.’

  ‘Am I really so elusive?’

  ‘I hope so. Being difficult to find may save your life one day.’ She put her arm through mine and forced a thin smile. ‘You must come now; it is time.’

  I knew what she alluded to. The thing that had been decided upon before I knew her or Moriarty, before even Sebastian knew of me.

  I allowed Surrey to guide me to a small reception room in the east wing. The curtains were drawn and Alexander and Sirius stood at the far end of a large rosewood table. On it were variously sized surgical knives, a collection of bottles of coloured inks, several pads of cotton, a bowl of water, two white towels and some lengths of bandages.

  ‘I shall wait outside.’ Alex hobbled up to me and gripped my arm reassuringly. ‘The professor has asked me to say he is proud of you. As you’ve seen, he is unfortunately tied up with other mourners, but he sends his best wishes and his thoughts are with you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded. ‘I will notify him the moment it is done. Good luck, Simeon.’

  The three of us watched the door close after he exited. I heard the turn of a key in the lock and wondered whether this was to keep people out or keep me in.

  ‘We do it the old-fashioned way,’ announced Sirius. He picked up a small silver knife. ‘A wound is opened and indelible ink rubbed into the incision to provide a permanent reminder of our mutual allegiance.’ He put down the double-bladed instrument, took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Where is it to be, Simeon? Bicep or shoulder? Forearm or ankle?’

  I slipped my own jacket off. ‘Across my heart.’

  ‘Bravo!’ He clapped sarcastically. ‘Always tougher, braver and infinitely more foolish than those around you. So be it. Take off your shirt and lie on the table.’

  I watched him select the coloured inks as I finished undressing, then I lifted myself up onto the table and lay down. The wood was cold on my back and the brightness of the great chandelier over my head forced me to close my eyes.

  I heard both Sirius and Surrey talking. Felt their hands on my chest. The nip of hot steel cutting my warm flesh.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ said Sirius.

  Surrey stared down at me. ‘I hope you have learned the words the professor gave you, for you have to respond to this part.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Good.’ She lifted a knife into view, cut her own finger and passed it to Sirius. He followed suit, then they jointly declared, ‘We bleed for you, brother, as we hope you will bleed for us. In giving of our blood, we swear an oath of loyalty to you and to the Trinity, to all it stands for, even if such loyalty costs every drop of our blood and your blood. Do you so swear?’

  It was time for my lines. ‘I do so swear. And I swear that I will shed my blood without hesitation and without reservation for you, the Trinity and for all we stand for.’

  They squeezed blood from their cuts and rubbed it into the droplet-shaped wound that Sirius had carved on my left breast. Surrey kept her finger there as she kissed my forehead and both my cheeks, then she stepped away.

  Sirius did the same. He helped me upright. Embraced me. ‘It is done, brother. You are to us in equal measure and dependency as we are to you. May God protect us all.’

  Surrey held a pad of cotton to the raw tattoo and as my blood flowed I thought of that I would have to spill from the veins of other people. Would they all be as bad, as evil as Moriarty had assured me they would be? I knew that this could be more than a nagging doubt. It could be the ruin of me. The professor had spoken plainly enough. Kill or be killed. The survival of the fittest. I knew also that I was in too deep to ever get out.

  Sirius left briefly, to tell Alex that the ceremony had been completed.

  He returned with a decanter of whisky, poured us all a measure two fingers deep and raised his glass. ‘To Michael Brannigan; may he have a hell of a time in heaven, or a heavenly time in hell.’ We clinked our tumblers and downed our drinks.

  Toast followed toast, and I buried those remaining doubts about my conviction to the cause – buried them so deep I barely remembered I had harboured them.

  When the decanter was empty we left the room arm in arm. Amid the shedding of blood, swearing of oaths and downing of drinks the three of us had bonded. A new Trinity was forged and I truly felt closer to them than anyone else in the world.

  Moriarty smiled at us from across the grand dining room and raised a glass of red wine in our honour.

  ‘Goodnight, brother.’ Sirius drunkenly embraced me before heading off after the professor.

  ‘G’night!’ I called after him. Then lost my footing on the first tread of the stairs.

  ‘Oops!’ said Surrey. ‘Steady on there.’ She slipped her left arm around my waist and moved my right arm over her shoulder. We giggled our way up the stairs and collapsed laughing on my bed. The ale had gone to my head and my world rocked like a bumped cradle.

  Surrey took my hand and leaned over me. ‘Can I sleep here tonight? I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight.’

  I made a noise. It wasn’t a yes. Nor was it a no. It was a sigh.

  Surrey extinguished the lamp. Moonlight shone through the window but my eyes had not yet adjusted. In the dark I heard the rustle of her falling dress and petticoats, her groans as she struggled out of her corset, then the creak of boards as she crossed the room and hung garments over a chair. I saw her standing and stretching, while I clumsily undressed and let my clothes fall to the floor.

  Sleep was fast overcoming me. Its velvet ropes pulled me into that soft world where there is no pain and no hate. I lay down and felt Surrey climb up behind me onto the mattress. Her hand came to rest protectively over the wound on my chest. She pressed her knees and thighs against the back of my legs and kissed my neck and shoulders. Her flesh on mine created an exquisite sensation that even overwhelmed my drunkenness.

  My heart was drumming fast as she put a hand on my shoulder and rolled me over so I rested on my back and faced her.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I know how to make everything all right.’

  And she did. Slowly and patiently, she took away part of a great hurt that I had carried for so long that I had become unaware of what it would be like to be free of it.

  Eight Days to Execution

  Newgate, 10 January 1900

  My feet had blistered and burst. But still the gaolers made me trudge around the Press Yard. The envelope of grey above my head was smudged with the darkness of incoming night. Freedom was so visibly near, and yet still beyond reach.

  Through the door of the yard strode Huntley. A step behind him came Johncock, followed by several new turnkeys who stopped and mingled with the old guard. As I continued my slow circuit, Johncock jabbed a finger into Huntley’s chest before storming out, closely followed by his cronies.

  Huntley watched them go and then walked over to me. There was triumph in his eyes. ‘You can stop walking, Lynch,’ he called from a few yards away. ‘Johncock has been given his own marching orders – all the way to the governor’s office.’

  The pendulum of prison pow
er had swung back in the younger man’s favour. Not that I had the strength to care. I fell onto my knees and almost collapsed completely.

  Huntley bent down to aid me. ‘Good God, man, you look dead on your feet.’

  ‘A bad choice of words,’ I said through a mouth as dry as a desert.

  ‘Let’s get you back inside and give you some water and food.’ He shouted to two of the screws who had accompanied him into the yard. ‘Leadbetter, Reece, come here.’ They crossed the yard quickly. ‘Support him under his arms. Get him back to his cell and see he has water and food.’

  They took my weight and I extended an arm over the shoulder of each screw. Within minutes I was back in the warmth and stink of my cell. The assistant keeper had been right about one thing: I was strangely pleased to be back inside its four walls. Lukewarm tea and a bowl of cold, hard gruel was all that could be mustered but I finished every mouthful.

  About an hour passed before Huntley was let in. Again he had his men wait outside.

  ‘Mr Johncock overstepped the mark today. You should not have been treated so primitively.’

  I looked up from the blistered skin I was inspecting on my feet. ‘Is that an apology, Mr Huntley?’

  ‘Not officially, no. But I am personally sorry that you were treated in such a fashion. The governor was not in his office today, so I could not have Mr Johncock’s intervention immediately countermanded. Indeed, I had to go to the governor’s home to seek it.’

  I raised an eyebrow in mock approval. ‘Then I am indeed honoured. But you know, Mr Huntley, one way or another, I will be gone in a little over a week, and Johncock will still be here. Though unable to collect my winnings, I would safely wager that he will make your life hell.’

  ‘I have met many Johncocks in my life. He is in every prison I have worked in. Cold Bath Fields, Holloway, Strangeways, they all have their Johncocks, but in time they are replaced by better men.’

  ‘Is that what you are, a better man?’

  ‘I hope I am.’

  ‘Then you should do better than work here.’

  ‘And I shall. After a little more experience, I will be in contention to be governor of a new prison. Until then, Newgate is vital to me. It has history and profile, both advantageous for a man of ambition.’

  ‘Newgate is no better than a broken privy.’

  He nodded. ‘Sadly, you are correct, but nonetheless, it remains an important place for me to make my mark. It constantly has the attention of both the public and the government. Many famous people have passed through its gates: the great lover, Casanova; the pirate Captain Kidd; and Lord Gordon – he of the Gordon Riots.’

  ‘Please save me your roll call of the famous and fallen; it is of no comfort to me.’

  ‘Of course not, and I must leave you. Be on your guard, Lynch. Johncock has been put in his place today, but my experience is that old dogs like him cannot be taught new tricks. He will wander out of his place and want to bite you every bit as badly as he wishes to sink his teeth into me.’

  Derbyshire, May 1886

  Surrey raised her head from my pillow and squinted through the shafts of morning sunlight that bisected the room. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked in a voice softened by sleep. ‘Come and lie down.’

  Sweat poured from me as I perched on the edge of the bed, shaking off the last vestiges of a nightmare. ‘I was remembering my early life.’

  ‘What about it?’ Surrey was naked, save for the bed sheet around her. She edged nearer to me and draped a part of it over my bare shoulders.

  ‘I was dreaming about Philomena.’

  ‘Philomena?’ she said suspiciously. ‘Who was she? A lover?’

  ‘Philomena was the generous lady who cared for me after my mother died.’

  ‘I am sorry …’

  ‘You weren’t to know. She and her husband Cyril, a baker, took me in for a while, taught me what little I know. When Cyril died, the debts were too great and she and I were for the spike.’

  ‘A common enough tale.’

  ‘I know. That’s where Philomena died. Where my life really changed.’ I felt emotional. ‘This is not something I have ever spoken of.’

  She kissed the back of my neck. ‘Then tell me. Let the demon out, so it cannot torment you.’

  I stared straight ahead. Set my eyes on the sunlight beyond the window, remembered the smoke from the workhouse chimneys, the stink of its corridors and bedrooms, the whimpers of the child that I had once been.

  ‘Matron came and told me that Philomena was dead. Showed me her corpse. It frightened me, her being so white and cold. It terrified me. I was still in shock when I was dragged into a classroom full of children and everyone was told she was dead.’

  ‘How awful for you.’

  ‘“He’s been told.” That’s what Matron said to the teacher. “He’s been told. Best thing for him now is to go on as normal.” I will never forget her words. Normal? Nothing was ever normal again.’

  ‘She sounds a proper bitch,’ said Surrey.

  ‘She was. I made my way to my desk. Past all those staring eyes. Carrying my loss like I had soiled myself.’

  ‘You poor darling.’ She leaned her head against me.

  ‘Laid out on my desk were all the things we worked with. A rough slate. A small cloth. Some cheap chalk. Things to copy down stupid words scrawled upon a wallboard. I was so shaken by the news that I couldn’t wipe the slate clean. I fumbled it. Dropped it. The thing fell to the floor and broke into pieces. One child, a boy called Jimmy, who used to bully me, shouted “Idiot! You’re a right flat, Simeon Lynch.” Then his brother Charlie joined in, “Mummy’s boy broke his toy, broke his toy, broke his toy. Mummy’s boy—”’

  I couldn’t continue.

  Surrey rubbed my arms comfortingly, kissed me. ‘You don’t have to go on. Lie down and rest.’

  ‘I want to go on. I have to. If I don’t speak of it now, then I never will.’

  It took me a few more seconds to compose myself.

  ‘I had intended to bend down, to pick up the pieces of the broken slate, apologise to Mr Addison, the teacher, for my clumsiness. But the teasing changed all that. Something inside me snapped – the thing that had held together all my fear, my restraint, my goodness. I picked up a sliver of slate, turned and slashed Charlie Connor in his face. Straight into his cheek. Almost put it through his eye.’

  ‘He deserved it.’

  ‘Maybe. It doesn’t matter if he did or not. I remember feeling a surge of relief. It was like crying an hour’s worth of tears in a split second and feeling stronger for it.’

  ‘You were letting out your pain.’

  ‘I was. And once Charlie went down screaming, his brother came for me. Rushed straight at me. I didn’t think how to react; I just stuck that same piece of slate in his stomach. And when I did, my dearest Surrey, I cannot describe to you how happy I felt.’

  ‘What happened to the boy? Was he badly injured?’

  I shook my head. ‘Neither of them were. The wounds were shallow but the shock was great.’ I turned to face her. ‘What I did that day changed me. The workhouse master made me fight the boys as a punishment, box them. He said it was to teach us a lesson. And it did. It taught me how to sharpen my anger and wield it like a sword.’

  She put a hand to my face. ‘I have anger similar to yours, so I understand your pain.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My parents were not good people, not like those who tried to raise you. They taught me to kill. Or at least my father did.’

  ‘I am not sure that I understand.’

  ‘There has always been a Breed in the Trinity. My family has served the Moriarties for generations and my father was a close aide to Brogan’s father. With no sons in the family line, he wanted to prove his loyalty by making sure I could fill the gap he would leave.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I said. ‘This is no life for a lady.’

  ‘A lady,’ she laughed. ‘Is that how you see me now
?’

  I laughed as well. ‘I do. I do indeed. Now can we please stop talking?’

  ‘We can.’ Surrey pushed me back on the bed. ‘Consider our talking well and truly stopped.’

  One Week to Execution

  Newgate, 10 January 1900

  My feet were swollen and sore from the six hours that Johncock made me walk the yard. I had no more water with which to soothe them or to quench my thirst. My stomach grumbled from hunger and there seemed not a part of me that did not ache from some brutality or other.

  I sat in the darkness of the cell and listened to the turnkeys settling down. It was gone midnight and I knew their habits well. All doors had been checked, names called and the gallery gates secured. No mistakes had been made, no opportunity afforded me to escape. No gaoler would now walk the landings again until about an hour before daybreak. Despite another day passing, my resolve to be free burned brightly.

  In my hands was the nail some mystery helper had given to me. Although I had no proof, I was all but certain it had come from Huntley. He had sent men to take me to chapel and had been in the room when the orderly had passed the bible to me. He had fought for my right to fresh air and exercise and was the only man within this place of damnation who appeared to have any spark of humanity in him.

  I manipulated the nail in the lock of the leg manacles and counted until I managed to open it. Two minutes.

  I tried again. A hundred seconds.

  A third attempt reduced the time to eighty seconds.

  For the next two hours, I practised but could not improve beyond the one-minute mark. It was too long a time to free myself in the Press Yard if I ever had the chance. I threw the nail to the floor in anger, roared like a wounded animal and banged my fists against the walls to vent my building frustration.

  My knuckles were grazed. Blood seeped into the tears of skin. I licked the wounds.

  ‘Quiet back there!’ boomed a turnkey’s voice. Feet slapped the floor towards my cell. I grabbed the nail and plunged it back into the recess by the door, snapped the leg irons shut and lay back down on the bunk.