The Great Stink

by Clare Clark

  It was some hours after the hand had taken back his lunch plate that he heard footsteps along the iron passage. They were lighter than the footfalls of the gaol attendants and more urgent. William felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. A moment later the iron trap opened. It was Rose. This time the lawyer did not waste time on courtesies.

  'I think we may have something,' the lawyer rushed. 'Not enough, not yet, but something. Something that might incriminate your Hawke.'

  William cried out in spite of himself. He stared at the eyes framed by the iron slot and for a moment he felt that his heart had burst open, flooding the hollow of his chest with warm sticky blood. His head swam so dizzily he was sure he would faint.

  'I —' he managed.

  'The contract you spoke of, I have found it.'

  It had taken till four in the morning. In the cold quiet hours of the night Rose had worked his way methodically through the box of papers he had taken from the police station. A great deal of it was concerned with the day-to-day business of a brickyard and Rose's head swam with figures, column after column of them: tunnelling, 6s.6d. per cubic yard; Portland cement, 13s. per cubic yard; brickwork, £14 per rod; stock bricks, 35s. per thousand; day labourer, 3s.6d. If there were secrets hidden in these accounts then they remained obscure to Rose. It was only at the bottom of the box that he had come across the contracts. A thick stack of them there were, tied together with ribbon inside a buff-coloured cover. Most were for small amounts, agreements with building speculators, the occasional minor vestry project. Most were more than a year old. Only one was dated December 1859. A contract for the supply of bricks to the Board by the undersigned, Alfred England of England & Son, Battersea. Hawke's signature was there, a serrated blade of black spikes, and England's too, in a soft childish hand with fat looping characters. Where May's signature was required there was nothing but a pencil cross, so harshly executed that the lead had torn the paper. Rose had stared at it so long, willing it to give up its secrets, that the words had ceased to have sense or meaning.

  'Oh Mr Rose, oh my God —'

  'I have your knife also,' Rose continued. 'It is reasonable to guess that the weapon found in your office was planted there to implicate you. But it's extremely circumstantial. It would not stand up in court. We need more. Something that places our man there, in the sewers, at the time of the murder. Something definite.'

  Very slowly William brought his hands up to cover his face. He remained like that for several minutes. Then he raised his head. His eyes were bright, whether with hope or tears Rose could not tell.

  'You believe I did not kill him,' William whispered.

  It was not a question and Rose did not answer it.

  'We do not have enough to convince a jury,' he said instead. 'I want you to go over your story again. Every detail.'

  Again William covered his face. His roughened lips scraped the palms of his hands and his breath was hot between his fingers. In his chest the rush of blood cooled and congealed. He must not be afraid. On his forearms the scars swelled and burned. He had to retain his composure. He bit his lip, pressing the sharp tips of his incisors into the chapped flesh with such savagery that he drew blood. He sucked at it, letting the familiar metallic taste bead upon the tip of his tongue, then pressed it like mortar between his teeth. His tongue would bleed too, if he bit it hard enough. It was not necessary, not yet. But it calmed him. The roar in his ears quietened a little. Carefully he took up the straws he had laid out earlier, one for each sound, and, tearing them as though he would rip from within them the most insignificant of their secrets, he forced himself to remember.

  When he was finished he looked up. The eyes in their iron slot slid away.

  'It is not enough, is it.'

  Again it was not a question.

  'A legal defence is like one of your sewers,' Rose said quietly. 'Correctly constructed it can withstand any onslaught, however unpleasant. If, however, any of the bricks one has used is rotten or poorly fired or placed incorrectly in the structure it runs the risk of collapse. And if you have insufficient bricks —'

  Bricks. The scrape of brick on brick. It meant something, that sound. It had a shape to it, a familiarity, just as the shrill protest of metal and the drip of water had in childhood always denoted washing day. Long after his mother was gone William would hear the sound of a mangle and think it Monday. In the same way this noise brought with it tastes, feelings. William closed his eyes. The scrape of brick on brick. The weight of the knife in his hand. The taste of blood in his mouth. A cold dank smell in his nostrils. Darkness. Stabbing, stabbing. A white face, eyes like dark holes. No, no, not that. The tunnels. The darkness of the tunnels. The wonderful throb of pain in his arm. Outlines sharp, hands, face, heart, solid and cool, present. Clarity. Peace. William heard himself as he cried out, gasping with sudden longing. Desperately he tried to wrap himself around the feelings, to hold them steady, but they were already gone, shadows lost to the light. William did not open his eyes but his teeth sought out the damaged part of his lip, driving down towards the warm taste of blood.

  'Mr May?' Rose asked anxiously through the slot. 'Are you ill? Do you need water?'

  William opened his eyes.

  'He hid something,' he said. 'He hid something.'

  'Who? Hawke?'

  'Yes. He hid something. In the wall.'

  'He did? What?'

  'I don't know. But I know that's what happened. I used to — I hid things too. The bricks were rotten. They came out easily. You could hide something down there and be sure that no one would ever find it.'

  'So you're saying —'

  'He hid something down there. Perhaps something important. Something he didn't want discovered.'

  'The weapon?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'Papers?'

  'I don't know.'

  'No. But something.'

  'Yes. Something.'

  'You're certain?'

  'Quite certain.'

  Rose's face was pressed so hard up against the iron door that its rim pressed painfully against the bridge of his nose.

  'You can tell me where?'

  William nodded.

  'The gangers, they know the tunnels —'

  'They'll take me down?'

  'Perhaps. If you pay them.'

  'Pay them. Yes.'

  It was a long shot and Rose knew it. But the trial was scheduled for the following Monday. He had only a few days left. He could not confront Hawke, not yet, not with what he had. But if there was something down there, well, it might change everything. It might not be enough to implicate Hawke in the murder but that hardly mattered now. He had only to cast sufficient doubt upon the prosecution's case against May to ensure the jury would be obliged to acquit. He would be the barrister who got the madman off. They'd take him seriously then, even his father and his hunting cronies who cared nothing for city professions except that they might provide a useful source of income when things were a little tight. They'd sit up and take notice of him, thrusting their red fingers at his name in the pages of their periodicals. He'd have made it then. There he goes, they'd say, as he strode through the Temple in a new suit on his way to the Old Bailey, there goes the famous lawyer who defended the indefensible. You never saw anything like that one, they'd say. If one thing is certain, it is that Sydney Rose QC was born to the law.

  William coughed, a spasm that shook his frame and rattled the chains on his legs. The clank of the irons recalled Rose from his reverie. Pride was a sin, he reminded himself sharply, his face flushing at his own ridiculousness. He listened attentively to what May told him and took precise notes. But he felt a tickle of anticipation still, running like a stream of bubbles along his vertebrae. Don't fear it, he told himself, and this time he was gentler with himself. Without it you send a man knowingly to the gallows, a man with a wife and two children, a man who might be innocent. Never be afraid of hope.

  XXVII

  The answer was no, the ganger said, and he
shrugged his powerful shoulders. More than his job was worth, and that was the truth of it. Ever since it'd come out that the body of the brickyard owner'd been dragged out the tunnels there'd been a fair flood of folks interested in having a poke around underground, mostly men from the newspapers, of course, their noses twitching like bloodhounds. Then there was all them snooper types who could always be relied upon to take a special interest in happenings of a grisly nature. Rose wasn't the first one to beg a tour, not by a long chalk. There'd been winks and nods, the ganger and his boys'd been offered money, and sometimes fair sums of it. But they wasn't having none of it. They was in the employ of the Board now, answerable direct to no less than Parliament herself, and the Board's orders'd been plain. There wasn't a soul to go down without their particular say-so. Now, of course, if Rose wanted to take things up with the likes of Mr Grant or Mr Lovick, obtain the right paperwork, get things above board, then it'd be a different matter altogether. Then the ganger'd be happy to take him all the length and breadth of the system. Until then, he was sorry, sure enough, but rules was rules.

  'But you don't understand. I have to get down today, tomorrow at the very latest,' Rose insisted, fumbling clumsily in his pocket for coins. 'For pity's sake, a man's life depends upon it.'

  The ganger frowned. The whys and the wherefores of Rose's personal affairs were none of his concern, he said sharply. He'd said it once and he'd say it again. There wasn't no one to go down without the proper authority. Far as he was concerned that was the end of it. Meantime, he had work to get on with. He picked up a lantern and fiddled with its shutter.

  'Will you go?' Rose asked suddenly. 'To watch, I mean. When they hang him.'

  The ganger grimaced, discomfited.

  'Dunno. Might, I's'pose. Hadn't thought.'

  'But you knew him?'

  'Course,' the ganger conceded.

  'What did you make of him?'

  The ganger shrugged.

  'Dunno. Quiet sort. Polite.' The ganger shook his head, remembering. 'Kept himself to himself. Happy as a rat in the tunnels, though. Struggle to get him out it was, some days, he was that wrapped up in it. I'd never've believed it of him, not if I'd not seen it myself, him all to pieces and striking out like —' He looked up at Rose who nodded encouragingly. Abruptly, the ganger's face snapped shut. Rose waited but the ganger remained silent, his eyes intent upon the lantern in his lap.

  'He says there's something hidden down there,' Rose said at last, very quietly. 'Evidence that would exonerate him. If only it could be found.'

  Still the ganger said nothing.

  'It would be terrible if they hanged the wrong man,' Rose murmured. The words settled around him, soft as dust. Very slowly he began to gather his possessions, settling his hat, pulling on his gloves, reaching for his umbrella. The ganger clamped his lips between his teeth and sucked at them, the lantern untouched in front of him.

  'Still, rules is rules,' Rose conceded, almost to himself. 'Rules is rules.'

  Tipping his hat to the ganger he picked up his portfolio of papers and walked towards the door.

  'There is a bloke might do it.' The ganger's voice was gruff. 'He'd want paying, o'course.'

  'Where do I find him?'

  The ganger named a tavern in the lanes north of Regent-circus.

  'Ask around. They'll all know him.'

  'And his name?'

  The ganger shrugged.

  'Everyone just calls him Long Arm Tom.'

  The boy left him at the end of the lane in St Giles, pointing with a dirty finger. He couldn't take him no further but if Rose turned left at the end and then straightways right, almost back on himself, he'd find the place they called East-court. Then he was gone. It was unnervingly silent, although the afternoon was not yet dark, and Rose saw no one as he picked his way through the churn of muck. He kept his hands clenched tightly behind his back. He had never seen so wretched a place. The lane was barely more than a fissure between the buildings, throttled with filth and the putrid stink of excrement. On every side the houses crumbled and rotted, their broken windows patched with rags and paper, their splintered doors slumped on their hinges. Colourless rags slapped from clothes lines strung above his head, barring what little remained of the sky. The lane was ankle-deep in refuse, puddles of slops and decaying vegetable matter that had rotted in the mud. On more than one occasion Rose stumbled upon an ash-heap and choked as the stifling stench rose from its depths. It could have been no more offensive if he had wandered into the sewers themselves. The mean houses seemed to crowd in upon him like beggars, their foul breath hot upon his neck. He saw no one but all around him darkened doorways and low-pitched archways bristled with threatening shadows. Rose swallowed, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead, but still he was certain that he caught glimpses in each one of the whites of lurking eyes, the flash of a knife or a garrotter's wire. He hastened his pace as his stomach churned, the nausea souring his saliva. It was madness that had possessed him to come here alone, unprotected. The proprietor of the Black Badger had as good as said so, even as he had offered him his lad as an escort. Wouldn't want him to miss the place, he'd said, his head swivelling on its shoulders as he'd shaken it, taking in Rose's pressed suit, the polished leather of his shoes beneath their crust of mud. He didn't wish Tom no trouble, he'd said, his eyes bulging greedily from his head. He'd licked at his wide mouth as he studied Rose's card as though he might find traces of gravy still left there from lunch. A lawyer, was he? Most interesting. Well, the publican was not a man to get in the way of the due processes of the law. He wasn't giving away no secrets if he told him that Tom might be found always at East-court, left side as you stood in the entrance, two floors up.

  The entrance to the court was through a slit of a gap between two houses that leaned treacherously in towards each other, their sagging walls black with soot and decay. It opened into a space barely wider than a clothes-press, so that by extending his arms Rose might have touched the two doors on either side of it simultaneously. It resembled more a narrow cliff-chasm than a place of human habitation. The reek of drains and unwashed bodies was sickening. Rose felt a powerful urge to run, to get away from the place as fast as he was able, but something held him there, less a determination to complete his errand than a sense that if he fled, the ganglion of interlacing alleys and lanes would close in around him, all the time darkening and shifting so that, however frenzied his efforts, he would never find his way out. Clenching his hand into a fist he banged hard upon the door. Then, tentatively in the dark silence of the court, he called out Tom's name.

  Through the broken gap in the window Tom could see the crown of the man's hat. Cursing under his breath he waited. The man called out again. His voice was high, a girl's voice you might almost've said, and it rattled in his throat like a spoon in a tin cup. He didn't sound like a peeler, that much was for sure. Tom peered through the window. The man tipped his head back, sudden like, looking upwards, and Tom ducked into the shadows. He was taller than Tom, you could see that, but for all his gentleman's clobber he had an undernourished anxious look about him. Tom reckoned he'd have to do no more than spit on the man's hat for the weight of it to knock the bugger flat.

  'Please,' the man begged, thumping again upon the door. 'I beg you, if you are there, come down. Mr Harker, the ganger, I've come from Mr Harker. He sent me. He said you might help me.'

  Tom hesitated. Harker'd been a decent sort of bloke, before the Government got a hold of him and silted up his head with rules and regulations. Tom and him'd known each other a score of years or more. For all Harker was a Board man now he'd not've set out to land Tom in trouble.

  'I'd pay you. Tom? Can you hear me? Name your price. You are my last hope. Tom?'

  The voice was despondent, downright pitiful. Tom peered down into the court. The man raised his fist to beat one last time upon the door but it was like something got the better of him because he never struck the wood. Instead he let his arm fall to his side. He glanced up a final time
at Tom's window and turned away, his shoulders slumping as he squeezed himself through the gap in the wall. All that was left in the churned muck of the yard were the neat imprints of his feet.

  Tom slipped out the back. He cut across the gent's path just as he reached the end of the alley. The man started at the sight of him, his hands clutching at his mouth. The hands were red but his lips were white as ash and his eyes fair started out of his head. He looked to Tom like he might weep with fear.

  'Calling for Long Arm Tom back there, were you?' Tom asked.

  The man swallowed, his face stretched tight with fright.

  'It's just he's a friend of mine,' Tom said offhandedly. 'So I thought, maybe I could take him a message.'

  A friend?' Rose managed to stammer.

  Tom nodded. Rose swallowed again, attempting a smile. His red hands shook.

  'A friend. That — that's — wonderful. Could — could you take me to meet him?'

  Tom shrugged.

  'Mebbe. Depends on what's the nature of your interest. In trouble, is he?'

  'Oh, goodness me, no, absolutely not.' Rose shook his head vigorously. 'Nothing like that. I wish only — I need his help. I would pay him, naturally.'

  'What kind of help?'

  'I'm afraid that would have to remain private between your friend and myself.'

  'But you'd pay him.'

  'Of course. I'd pay you too, if you took me to him.'

  Tom thought for a moment.

  'What is it, then, your line of business?' he asked.

  'I — I'm a lawyer.'

  Even in the fading light Rose saw the suspicion bloom in the old man's eyes.