by Sam Christer
After the professor’s departure, I was returned to my cell and left to contemplate the final dilemma. He wanted Levine to contact Holmes on my behalf. I had told him to wait, and said I needed to sleep on it. Not that I would manage a wink. How could I send him and his brother to the gallows, and in the process endanger every man and woman who worked for the family? No, I really could not entertain such an act.
But doubt and paranoia plagued me. Was Moriarty’s tale of parentage in fact a lavish lie? A masterful manipulation to save his own skin and fortune? Over the years, the professor had perpetrated many deceptions on me. It was comfortably within his range of cunning to seek to silence me with the biggest form of emotional blackmail he could muster.
Maybe his suggestion of contacting Holmes was a clever bluff. Perhaps he knew Levine had no hope of clearing me, so to prevent me talking to Holmes he had woven this web of lies to catch and hold me in.
I dismissed the thought. Once Moriarty had said he was my father, I had seen clearly myself in him. That was why his gaze had always magnetised me. His eyes were a mirror of my own. His voice was my voice, only older and deeper. The broad, square shoulders and the way he stood – this was my form. The more I looked for similarities the more foolish I felt not to have seen them the very first moment we had met. My lord – to others, the mutual likeness must have been obvious.
I was Brogan Moriarty’s son.
There was no denying it.
The name Lynch, the one so generously afforded me before I could even speak, was the biggest lie of my life. I had never been fit to carry it, or the immaculate reputation of that kindly baker and his angelic wife. Equally, I knew I should not irrevocably stain it by having a noose put around my neck and being dropped through a trap and into history as a Lynch.
I was a Moriarty.
I had lived and killed as a Moriarty. And if I had to tread those boards and stand on that trapdoor, then I should die as a Moriarty.
I curled up on my bunk and my mind was as troubled as a hornet’s nest battered by sticks. Thoughts of my birth mother stung me most.
Alice.
Since childhood, I had stopped myself thinking about her. I had effectively wiped her out of my consciousness. Now I tried to imagine her as Moriarty had described. Young. Beautiful. Vulnerable. I had no face to envisage. No shape or form to picture. The only image that came to mind was the silhouette of the lady that sweet Philomena Lynch had given me as we entered the workhouse together.
I still had the shade. Faded and frayed, it had been carried from place to place and pocket to pocket for more than three decades. Never had I gone anywhere without it. It had been close to my heart when I had taken my first life. At the birth and death of my child. At the death of the woman I loved. I had held onto it during my arrest. After passing through the prison gates, the shade and the clothes that I stood in had been the only things I had been allowed to keep.
I reached beneath the bunk and slid it from its place in between the leg joint and slats. For a moment, I held it so I could study the profile and imagine the colour of my mother’s hair, strawberry-blonde like Elizabeth’s, her eyes as big and blue as Molly’s. I kissed the shade, put it to my heart, then most reluctantly returned it to its resting place.
I had to escape!
I would climb that damned chimney and pull out that troublesome block with my teeth if I had to. It was my only chance. I would seize it. And when I did, I would find poor Alice’s bones and bury her respectfully. I would visit Elizabeth’s grave and I would pray for forgiveness.
Then I would find Lee Chan.
I would find him and, so help me God, I would kill him. But I would not bury him. I would gut him like a fish and leave him by the Thames for all the lowest creatures of the earth to feast upon.
Over the next few hours, both my rage and the frigid weather changed. Rain hammered against my cell window and washed away the deposits of frost etched into the corners.
Elizabeth had loved the rain. Adored walking in it. She would sit by a lakeside bench on Moriarty’s estate and be mesmerised by droplets dancing on the surface. Sometimes she would tilt her face to the sky, close her eyes and open her mouth to the downpour. Then I would kiss her, while she was still wet and cool and more alive than anyone could possibly be.
Before the great blackness came, we had sat by the fire in our cottage and she had talked of how she’d teach Molly to dance in the rain – something her hypocritical Scottish father had chastised her for. She said she would teach our daughter a wild Celtic dance to clear the puddles from all the great lawns around us. How I longed to have seen it. I missed them both so terribly much.
After conviction, I had locked down my grief, but now it ran free inside me, its long talons trying to catch my wounded spirit and pull it down into despair and surrender.
Today and tomorrow – then I would be dead. And no just God would reunite me with my wife and daughter, for they were surely in heaven and I would go straight to the fires of hell.
It would soon be midday. They would hang me at dawn the day after tomorrow. Twelve more hours of today, twenty-four of tomorrow and perhaps six of the final day. Forty-two hours.
I had determined not to do this, to count down the hours. It only set my heart racing and my brain aching. But I couldn’t help it. Try as I might, the clock in my head could not stopped and it chimed off every hour as soundly as Big Ben.
A thump on the door and a rattle of keys was followed by a familiar command. ‘Stand back by the window!’
Johncock swept in, accompanied by Huntley and two older screws. ‘Getting near to the big day now, Lynch.’ His face was the happiest I had ever seen it. ‘Not long now. Not long at all.’
I didn’t answer. His goading had long since failed to rile me.
‘I have to say, I really am looking forward to walking you out there.’ He grinned expansively. ‘I’ll be as proud as a father taking his daughter to the marriage altar.’
There was a loud bang and one of the screws stumbled sideways. Dopily, he had leaned on the cell door believing it closed, while it had still been a little ajar. As a result, it had slammed shut.
‘Imbecile!’ Johncock scowled at him. ‘Stand up straight, man! You should know better—’
A second noise severed his sentence – a rumble. Rows of bricks in the corner of the cell tumbled onto the floor, dislodged by the bang.
Johncock’s eyes grew as large as those of a startled deer’s. ‘My, my, my,’ he said excitedly. ‘What do we have here?’
I tried to look surprised.
He leaned down and sifted the rubble, picking through the debris and dust. His fingers settled on several strips of paper that I had pressed into the cracks. At first he wasn’t sure what they were. Then he realised. He turned to me and smiled. ‘Clever, Lynch. Very clever. But unfortunately for you, not clever enough.’ He looked to his men. ‘Get down there. Delve beneath this devil’s cot and see what else he’s been up to.’
The two screws fell to the floor. They scrabbled in the rubble and I knew it would only be seconds before they found my stash.
‘I’ve got something, sir!’ The fool that had slammed the door surfaced with Father Deagan’s crucifix.
‘There’s more!’ shouted his colleague, with the excitement of a treasure hunter. ‘It’s a rag or cloth of some kind.’ He emerged with the silk altar sash and rosary beads.
‘Anything else, Lynch?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said contritely. ‘There are also two nuns and a boys’ choir hiding in there. They kept me awake all night.’
He punched me – a sound right-hander that hit me full in the mouth. I spat blood. Then he hit me again. My lips had already been torn, and slivers of tissue came away in my mouth. I spat again.
‘Get him out of here,’ he told Huntley.
‘There’s a cell shortage, sir. Where shall I put him?’
Johncock glowered at Huntley. ‘I don’t care. Just make sure it’s somewhere I can’t hea
r him until it’s time to drag him, weeping and wailing to the scaffold. I need to see the governor and decide what should be done with this creature.’
Johncock was back in full control. The execution was close and his time of absolute authority had come.
Huntley told the others to clear up the rubble, then he put me in walking chains and ushered me down the landing. ‘You made quite a mess back there, Lynch. Almost became the new Jack Sheppard, didn’t you?’
‘Tried my best, Mr Huntley.’ I looked directly at him. ‘If you’d left me a bigger nail then I might’ve done a better job.’
He stopped us in our tracks. ‘What do you mean? I left you no nail.’
His answer surprised me. I had been sure he had been my secret supplier.
I held up my right hand, ‘I mean, had I been equipped with more than nails bitten to the quick, then I might have escaped.’
Huntley said no more. He walked me on, through a gateway and onto another landing. We left the condemned block and entered a part of the prison that housed those convicted of lesser crimes. He opened a door to his left and barked out an instruction to me. ‘Step inside. You can wash your mouth out in there. I’ll be back once I’ve sorted your cell.’
I entered and he locked the door behind me. The room was narrow and stank of shit and cheap tobacco. Gaolers’ caps and coats hung from wall pegs. One side of the room was fitted with cracked and filthy sinks. Opposite was a series of toilets, some with battered green doors, some without. I guessed this was some kind of changing place for the screws.
I washed my mouth and spat in a sink. Used one of the toilets then quickly checked the windows. They were small, all barred and even higher than the one in my cell.
Huntley eventually opened up and called to me. ‘Hurry up, Lynch. I’ve found somewhere to put you. Come on.’
We walked together in silence along the landing. He stopped, opened a cell to his right and pushed me inside.
‘Here he is, boys, this is the one,’ he announced before closing the door.
Four men gazed at me.
Two were slim, young and swarthy. A third was big and bald. The fourth had his back to me and was facing the window. He was of medium height and build, with jet-black hair and the start of a thinning crown.
He turned and I saw immediately that he was Chinese.
‘My cousin Lee, he wishes you dead,’ he said through a broken wall of teeth. ‘And I also wish you dead, because you kill my friend Lin.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied coolly. ‘I have killed many people in my time, but never one of your kind.’
‘In your cell, you kill him.’
‘Ah, I remember now.’ I nodded in mock respect. ‘My condolences. Although I do recall that he was trying to murder me in my sleep. Perhaps you’re the fellow who can tell me how he got in?’
He smiled again. ‘Mr Boardman, he also wants kill you.’
‘Ah, of course he does.’ So I had been right. A turnkey had been in my room with the other intruder. There seemed little point telling the Chinaman the screw had killed his friend, had shanked him through the chest while I’d been merely choking him with my manacles.
The bald man cracked his knuckles and rose. He was well over six feet tall, thickly muscled. When he spoke his accent was horribly familiar. ‘Yow got moy friend beaten up by young mister Chan at that owse in London, remember?’
‘Yes, I remember. A Brummie bastard, if ever there was one.’
The two young convicts jumped down from the top bunk where they’d been sitting together.
The Chinaman glanced at them and then laughed. ‘You relax – they the only ones don’t want kill you, Mr Lynch. They just wish fuck you when you dead.’
‘Oh, that is of great comfort,’ I replied.
Baldy made his move. He grabbed for my chest with his big sausage fingers. Big mistake. I slammed my left fist into his throat. Between my knuckles was the nail I had put there while in the screws’ bathroom, looking to escape through a window. He screamed and coughed blood. His eyes widened as he guttered and choked.
I pulled out the nail and switched my attention to the Chinaman. My mistake. Baldy wobbled and fell into me. We staggered half a yard, his big arms circling my chest like twin snakes. His knees gave way but he held on, crashed me into the edge of a bunk and pulled me over. I hit the ground backwards, Baldy a dead weight across my chest and legs.
A foot stamped on my outstretched left hand, smashing down so hard that I released the nail from my fingers. The Chinaman came into my view. Dull steel moved in his right hand – a shank made from scavenged metal.
‘This is for Lee.’ His hand rose and fell.
I would have been dead. The shank would have sunk in my head or chest, had the cell door not banged open. It caught the Chinaman fully in the shoulder and he toppled over. Voices bellowed. Screws kicked their way into the cell.
Someone pulled Baldy’s corpse off me. Blood spurted from his throat into my face.
I got to my knees. Wiped my eyes with my thumbs.
Johncock stared at me. ‘By Jesus, Lynch, you just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?’ He dragged me to my feet. ‘I think the gallows might be the safest place for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Don’t be thanking me. I want you dead as dearly as Huntley does. I’m just prepared to wait a little longer and see it done legally.’
Huntley? My mind could not register him as anything but a friend, let alone a secret enemy.
Johncock turned to his men. ‘Get Lynch out of here and have him cleaned up and protected.’
The screws’ idea of ‘cleaning me up’ turned out to be nothing more than issuing me with a dry set of dead man’s rags, a bar of carbolic soap and a bucket of water, then turning me out into the cold of the Press Yard.
I stripped naked, washed myself clean of the Brummie’s blood and changed into the tattered garments.
I had killed again.
Not the life I had wished to take, but still a life. It seemed as though I was fated to murder until God stilled my hand and man piled earth thickly upon me.
I was taken back inside the gaol and chained up in a corridor for more than an hour before they found me a new cell. It turned out to be one vacated by a convict who had died from gaol fever. Another bucket of water, more carbolic and a scrubbing brush were brought for me to clean the place.
The floors and walls were still wet when Johncock strode in. This time he ordered his men to wait outside. He looked at the dripping walls, then at me. ‘Made yourself at home, Lynch?’
I didn’t answer. He hadn’t come here to check on my comfort.
‘You’ve done us all a favour today.’ He smiled gloatingly. ‘Thanks to you we were able to get a bad apple, a very bad apple out of our barrel.’
‘You mean Huntley.’
‘Aye, I do. I do indeed.’
‘May I ask how I acquired such good fortune that you intervened on my behalf at exactly the moment you did?’
‘Eyes and ears, Lynch. I have them on every landing in Newgate. Nothing happens in here without me knowing about it sooner or later.’ Water had gathered on the floor where it ran at a slope and hit the wall. Johncock placed his boot in a puddle of water then pleased himself by making a footprint on some dry stone to one side. ‘From the first day you came here there were contracts out on you.’
‘Contracts plural?’
‘Most certainly plural. There are Englishmen, Irishmen, Londoners, northerners and all manner of foreigners wanting your bones boxed and buried. Fortunately for you, only half a dozen of the devils in Newgate have the gumption to fulfil such a wish. I have had them all watched. And when Huntley arrived I had him watched as well.’
‘Why Huntley?’
‘All prim and prettified, posh and perfect, he was too good to be true. I can tell rotten without seeing rotten. And when he walked out of here at night at the end of his shift, he changed into clothes and went places that not ev
en the keeper could afford.’
‘So you had Huntley and the most dangerous men in the prison under observation?’
‘I did. The pair of pixies in the Chinaman’s cell – they were two of my snitches. I had them put into several cells before we identified Sun Shi as the man contracted to kill you. Indeed, had you got out into the exercise yard the first time Huntley wanted you to, then you would have run into him and his shank. You were only saved because those boys gave me the nod, and in doing so they confirmed my suspicions about Huntley.’
‘Mr Johncock, you put the great Sherlock Holmes to shame.’
‘In my opinion, there is nothing so great about him.’ He puffed out his chest. ‘Could he manage this gaol for a month? For a day? I think not. Twenty years I’ve been here, and never a slip up on my watch.’
‘What about Boardman?’
‘Boardman?’ he looked surprised.
‘Your big dumb screw was the man who shanked the Chinaman you found dead in my cell. He was going for me.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Sun Shi said it. I asked him outright how his friend accessed my cell.’
‘Then I will speak to him, and if you are correct Boardman will be dealt with.’
‘And what now of Huntley?’
‘The police have him. Not that it is any concern of yours. He’ll get his punishment, along with Boardman if he was involved as well.’
‘And the bald Brummie I killed?’
‘We could try you and hang you for it, I suppose.’ He gave me a look of mischievous amusement. ‘Or I could save myself a lot of paperwork and report it as self-defence. A fact that will come out if we get Huntley and Sun Shi to the Old Bailey.’
He splashed a foot in the puddled water again, stamped down his boot and lifted it to reveal a strong outline on dry stone. ‘Tobias Johncock always leaves his mark. Every day, in one way or another, he always leaves his mark.’
Two Days to Execution
Newgate, 16 January 1900
The following morning, as they cleared away the slop they called breakfast, I discovered that my new cell was something of an inconvenience to the turnkeys. Apparently, it was further from the Pinioning Room, the dreaded area in which they would bind my hands by my side so I might fall ‘straighter and cleaner’ through the trap. Screws liked things easy and a longer walk would give me more chance to stage a final fight for life.