The Great Stink

by Clare Clark

  Polly shook her head. Something about that lawyer, the way he'd talked, it had haunted her. Till he came along she'd been fine. She'd closed down the past, like she'd closed down the house in Lambeth, removing herself piece by piece until it was empty and quite dark. But the lawyer had put something back, a tiny flickering rush-light that wouldn't go out. And so she'd come. The way he'd looked at her, like a wild animal, she could hardly to bear to think of it. She pressed her fingers into her eyes, forcing another picture there, of William in his chair in Lambeth, Di set upon his lap. The oil-lamp flickered, casting its smoky light on to the pages of the picture book he held for the boy. She touched his shoulder and he looked up at her, his face calm above his white starched collar, and gently he smiled. Behind him the girl kneeled in front of the fireplace, blacking the grate.

  The cage jolted, throwing her off-balance, and she clutched at the bars to steady herself. Despite the handkerchief the sickening stench of the prison caught in her nostrils. Beside his wooden plate William's excrement had puddled in an uncovered bucket. He'd turned over, his chains clanking around his legs, for all the world like one of the filthy bears they kept at the Zoo, and the way he'd looked at her, it had been like he wanted to devour her.

  'Long way to come,' the warder said, with a shrug. 'For nothin'. Usually folks leastways want to say goodbye.'

  Polly was silent for a long time. When at last she spoke the warder had to strain to hear her.

  'I just did,' she said.

  XXXVI

  The ganger descended first, holding his lantern aloft so that Rose and the sergeants might find their footing on the iron rungs of the ladder. His eyes glinted in the lantern light, as opaque as a lizard's, as he gestured at Rose to begin his descent. Rose placed a tentative boot on the first rung. Already the stink coming up from beneath him was almost unbearable. It rushed into his nose as Rose lowered himself into the shaft, so overpoweringly that his gorge rose and his mouth flooded with sour saliva. He clamped his nose, breathing through his mouth in disgusted sips. He was certain he could taste it on his tongue, the nauseating stench of night soil. He stepped into the stream. The dark water reached to his knees and unspeakable lumps of brown matter nudged at his boots and swirled past him. The ganger directed him with a jab of his thumb towards the south before indicating to the first of the policemen to come down. The light from Rose's lantern made little headway in the foul thick darkness of the tunnel but around him he could make out crumbling brickwork, shiny with some kind of noxious grease. Beside him, where a rib of bricks jutted outwards from the curve of the tunnel, a putrid deposit of excrement slopped in a steep soft mound against the rotting wall and pale mushrooms sprouted with hideous fecundity across the tunnel's crown. Rose closed his eyes, clasping his fists at his sides. Thick sludge sucked sickeningly at the soles of his boots and he swayed. At the thought of falling headlong into the filthy stream his heart constricted. He opened his eyes, lowering his lamp so that he might stare into the darkness beyond. In its circle of light the water had the appearance of churned mud. A dead rat floated past, its fur slick against its narrow body and its naked feet stiffened into hooks. Rose swallowed. He could think of no punishment on earth, short of wading the River Styx itself, which might prepare a man for the horror he might find in the sewers of London.

  The second policeman stepped into the stream with a dull splash. The ganger muttered something and, thrusting his lantern out ahead of him, pushed past Rose to lead the party south. Rose flinched, hunching his shoulders so that he might not brush accidentally against the vile brickwork. Knobs of floating debris nosed softly at his boots as he walked but he did not permit himself to look down. Behind him the sergeants coughed and spat in the darkness, their breathing shallow with revulsion. Several times the ganger indicated to Rose to wait so that the policemen might not get left too far behind. They had walked for what Rose estimated to be about a quarter of a mile when the ganger unhooked his lantern from its pole and held it above his head.

  "Ere's where,' the ganger said laconically. His panelled face was expressionless but his eyes glittered in the lamplight.

  Rose looked around him. The tunnel curved away, heading down into darkness, but at the crook of the curve there was a bulge which had perhaps been built originally as a storm drain and now formed something like an antechamber to the main tunnel. The tide did not scour this part of the channel and the stinking sediment coated the walls and banked its corners in dreadful heaps. Although the roof was not high enough for the taller of the two sergeants to stand upright, it was broad and the stream shallow. Along its walls the brickwork was badly eroded, patterned with mould and poisonous-looking fungi. Fallen bricks scattered the floor. There were a hundred possible hiding places here, a thousand. Rose wanted to weep with revulsion.

  'This is it?' he asked, attempting briskness. 'The place on the map?'

  'Yep.'

  'Good.' The prospect of touching anything compressed his guts into cold heaves. 'How long have we got?'

  The ganger shrugged.

  'Hour. Hour and a half tops.'

  'Then we'd best get going.'

  Rose looked around at the two sergeants. The shorter of the two looked distinctly unwell, his pale face an unhealthy shade of green, his thick eyebrows and moustache limp with sweat.

  'We ain't touching nothing,' his fellow officer said sharply. 'We're here as witnesses, nothing else. That's our orders.'

  He glared at Rose, challenging the lawyer to object. Rose did not object. Instead he requested that both officers at least hold their lanterns up to assist him in his search. Then, as systematically as he could, trying to keep his mind empty, he began to feel his way along the slimy wall, sliding his fingers into the rotting mortar around each brick and tugging it to see if it would come away. It was awkward work in gloves. Rose persisted for perhaps fifteen minutes before, rigid with disgust and frustration, he tore them off. The feel of the foul bricks beneath his bare hands twisted his stomach and caused his throat to tighten. Several crumbled in his hand. One came out whole. With a rush of hope that swept away abhorrence, Rose thrust his hand into the hole. It was damp and filled with slime and fragments of crumbled brick. The sludge pressed between his fingers, insinuated itself underneath his nails. Blindly Rose threw down the brick and moved on down the wall, wrenching, twisting. Up and down, pressing, pulling, trying not to think, not to feel. He couldn't rush and risk missing one. Twenty minutes passed, thirty. The ganger watched him in silence. Still nothing. Rose scrabbled more frantically at the bricks, pulling and yanking at them, tossing the loose pieces into the stream. His hands were filthy, the tips of his fingers scraped and sore. His nails were torn. And still he ripped at the walls, his fingers pressing into the mortar, his hands twisting and tugging. For the first time a faint smile pulled at the corners of the ganger's mouth.

  'Reckon 'e won't be 'appy till 'e's buried us all alive,' he said dryly.

  The green-faced sergeant inhaled raggedly and closed his eyes, fanning himself with one hand.

  Rose reached the end of the bulge in the tunnel. The other wall. It must be the other wall. He splashed across the filthy stream and began to work his way back. He worked without speaking until he reached a patch of the wall that was in shadow. He had assumed it was simply a trick of the light but now that he looked more closely he could see that it was in fact a recess set into the tunnel wall running from knee to shoulder height and perhaps two feet across. The bricks seemed looser here, the recess patterned with holes and blackened stubs of brick like the mouth of an old crone. Rose called to the ganger to bring his lantern closer. He pressed his fingers around the misshapen bricks, twisting and tugging. And then he found it. The brick was almost whole, its corners not yet rubbed away, but its surface bore several deep scratches. Rose pulled it out. Behind it was a hole, dark with shadow. A hole much larger than a single brick. Rose felt his heart clench. This was it. He was certain of it. Trying to keep his hand from trembling he reached in, stretchin
g out his fingers. More sandy mortar, more brick. And then his fingertips brushed against something smooth. His heart thundering in his ears Rose closed his hand around it and pulled it out. A book, a leather notebook. Whatever he had expected to find it was not this. Rose turned it over in his hand. Embossed on the front were the initials WHM. And staining the tan leather, a large dark patch of ink. No, not ink. Not ink at all. Blood. Rose's mouth was dry.

  He opened the book. Pictures of flowers, each one beautifully executed in inks and watercolour and meticulously labelled. Then, in the centre of the book, blank pages, some unintelligible doodlings in the same hand. Rose turned to the back. The page was filled with a single word, written in capitals. Rose felt dizzy, the sweat like cold grease across his forehead. He turned the pages, crumpling them, tearing at them. Page after page, the same word, the same hand. The pencil had been pressed down so hard that the paper had ripped right through. And spattered across the pages dark brown stains, like thick ink. Or blood. The same, page after page.

  KILL. KILL. KILL.

  The loathsome reek of the tunnel pressed into him and against him, forcing itself up into his throat. Rose closed his eyes, tried to swallow the nausea. The leather binding of the book stuck to his hands. His heart sucked at his ribs, taking up the refrain. KILL. KILL. KILL. It was the green-faced sergeant who noticed the light on the water at the far end of the tunnel. Immediately he straightened himself up, gesticulating in silence and with all the authority he could muster to the ganger. The ganger shrugged but, emboldened by the resumption of his official duties, the sergeant shook his head sternly and shook his finger at the light. The ganger hesitated. Then, rolling his eyes upwards and shaking his head, he closed off his lamp and indicated to the others to do the same. Rose staggered backwards slightly, oblivious, striking his elbow painfully against the wall of the tunnel. It was the green-faced sergeant who seized his lantern out of his hand, slamming its shutter. It was quite dark but still Rose saw the words, repeated over and over, stamped in fiery red dust on the darkness.

  KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL.

  The voices were low but, amplified by the acoustics of the low tunnel, they carried plainly downstream.

  'The letter.'

  And then again, in the same harsh murmur, 'You cannot think me such a fool that I'd follow you any further. The letter.'

  Anxious, are we?' The second voice was rougher, with the misshapen vowels of a London tradesman. There was no mistaking the threat in it.

  'If you don't give me my letter I will kill the dog.'

  'Patience, patience.' There was a faint splash then, and the scrape of brick against brick. 'Now, what have we here?'

  'Give that to me.'

  'Very interesting letter, this one. Very interesting indeed.'

  'Listen, you filthy —'

  'I ain't no lawyer but I'm betting a letter like this one could get a man into very hot water.'

  'Give it to me.'

  'Her first.'

  A short pause.

  'Well?'

  'All yours. Pleasure doing business with you.'

  The rustle of paper was barely audible above the rush of the stream.

  'That's my girl.' The second voice was softer now. You could almost hear the smile in it. 'That's my sweet girl. Let's get you home.'

  And then, more roughly, 'This way.'

  The lights flickered. There was the soft splash of footsteps. Without making a sound the ganger began to slide along the tunnel in pursuit. Suddenly there was the whisper of metal against metal. The ganger froze.

  'Oh, I don't think so, do you?' hissed the first voice.

  'I'd not do that.' The second voice was hoarser than before but still it quivered with menace, taut as a garrotter's wire. 'Not if I was you.'

  'Ah. But you are not.'

  'I'm warning you, you so much as scratch me, she'll rip your throat out.'

  'Not if I rip hers first. Feel this blade? Sharp, isn't it? Does the job very well, as it happens. It doesn't take much, to cut a man's throat. A flick of the wrist, a little more pressure. Like cutting meat. Or gutting a dog. Of course, they don't always die immediately. England, now England even tried to run. But down here, who's going to hear a man scream?'

  'For the last time, I'm warning you —'

  'Mr England, now, he wept like a baby —'

  The shriek that followed pierced the tunnel like a blade. The green-faced sergeant gasped. Fumbling the truncheon from his belt, he pushed his way towards the light. The ganger followed, Rose behind him. Where the tunnel turned, a lantern had been hung from a hook in the brickwork. Behind it loomed a vast and terrible cave, buttressed and becolumned in the darkness like the underground palace of the Devil himself, hung about with vast spikes of nitre. The black floor shimmered, like a trap. And, caught like a stunned rat in the bright glare of the light, sprawled a man. In one hand he held a knife. A single ruby of blood glistened on its silver blade. With the other hand he clutched at the side of his neck. The blood gushed between his fingers in crimson streams. He was quite alone. The sergeant stared at him, his eyes round with horror.

  'What the — sweet Jesus!'

  The man looked up, his eyes frenzied in his bloodless face. Then, with a sudden burst of desperate strength, he twisted on to his feet and hurled himself into the stream. The sergeant was caught off guard. He stumbled and almost missed his footing but the ganger was faster. He seized the man, twisting his arms around behind his back. The man flailed madly, the blood from his savaged neck splattering the ganger's face with scarlet.

  'Mr Hawke,' the sergeant said, and his voice was sonorous with regret. 'Mr Hawke. I'm afraid you're under arrest.'

  XXXVII

  You never saw nothing like it, the day of a hanging. Though the prisoner himself weren't due on to the gibbet till eight the following morning, the crowds started gathering from midnight, boys and girls most particularly but men and women of all ages among them, all set upon securing for themselves a fine view of the proceedings. There was a smell about them, Tom thought, like tom-cats on a summer's night. Through Holborn and up Snow-hill they came, past St Sepulchre's and along towards Newgate, jostling and pressing, their eyes darting about in the darkness and the eagerness rising off them like steam. All along the way the gin-shop owners had abandoned their beds and taken their shutters down and were doing brisk business. From time to time the company appeared, all in a mass, to see how the workmen got along with their knockings and hammerings before the thirst forced them back inside for further refreshment.

  In the lanes the yellow globes of the gas-lamps were all swathed about with early morning mist and pipe smoke. People sauntered up and down the crowded streets and gathered in knots around those who fancied themselves authorities in the way of executions and who provided assurances to all who might listen about which way the prisoner would face and how the drop would be managed and at what point in the proceedings the noose would be secured around his neck. A barrier held the crowds back from the gallows itself, although there was already people crushed up against it by five o'clock and more than a few women who had fainted had to be passed back through the crowd, their dresses all disordered, so as to allow them some air. Atop a fair number of the houses in the vicinity rows of seats by way of a gallery had been set out on the roofs and, between trying to keep themselves steady on their precarious perches, all manner of bawdiness was called down from the occupants to the crowds below. When at last the grey dawn swilled like dirty water along the lanes, you could barely make out the bells sounding out the hours, so shrill and excitable were the screeches and the yellings and the singing-out of all kinds of lewd verse. You could hardly make out the words but you couldn't help but hear the name of Hawke thrust gleefully into every chorus, no matter if it didn't have nothing whatsoever to do with the song.

  With all the carry-on and commotion around it the scaffold itself had a quiet look about it, no more than a stump of black with a chain jutting out from a little door in the black wall
of the prison, its cross-beams like shoulders hunched away from the clamour. It seemed meagre somehow, hardly worthy of the great occasion.

  Tom threaded his way through the crowd, Lady at his heels. He'd been careful to lay low after that night, staying away from East-court and keeping to the dark secret corners of the rookery where outside folks never ventured. At night he'd bedded down on a sack in the cellar, Lady pressed warm against the back of his knees, listening for footsteps above the gentle rumbling of her snores. That night in the tunnels, they'd come from nowhere, three or more of the bastards, without so much as a warning shout. Tom'd had no more than the blinking of an eye to melt himself into the darkness. Even then he wasn't sure if they'd not seen him go. Straight off he'd reckoned it'd been Hawke'd set them up, for protection. But then he heard. They'd hauled the Captain off to gaol. Turned out they had him fingered for the death of that bloke in the sewers after all. There should've been satisfaction in that but it set Tom on edge. There wasn't any telling what the Captain'd tell the law once he got to thinking about the noose tightening around his neck. For days Tom's shoulder had twitched, anticipating the weight of the hand bearing down on it, the wrenching up of his arms behind his back. But time passed and still nothing happened. Tom'd not been back to East-court in more than a week but according to Joe there'd been no eager trap'd come banging at the bolted door or turning up down the taverns asking questions. Even Eddowes, the coffee-stall proprietor who knew everything, hadn't heard no mention of Tom in all the sorry tale. Still Tom'd waited. Perhaps they meant to flush him out, to jump him just when he thought the coast was clear. But today the bastard was to hang. Today, at last, even cautious Tom considered himself safe. Lady, bless her, might've left the Captain with enough throat to sing but, even if he'd tried it, it'd seem there'd been no one to hear him. And now the job was to be finished for him, official as you like. No less than the full weight of the law, Parliament and Her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria herself, taking up where Lady left off. There was something very satisfactory about that.