The Sweet Smell of Decay (16 page)

Darkness. I could just make out a small ladder, wide, with only five or six rungs, leading up to a small archway. To either
side of it and above me were thick stone arches forming a vaulted ceiling. There were no windows and the air was cold. I was in a cellar. A weak light flickered from a distant flame, dancing, casting little shadows on the wall ahead. The source of it was behind me. Thinking to turn despite the pain, to try and raise myself, I was dissuaded by a loud sneeze.

‘Dusty down here,’ said a coarse, strangulated voice, flat and nervous. I visualised the owner as a youngish man, just turning into middle age, fat round the face and waist.

‘Aye, but dry,’ said another. This voice was younger, but spoke without hesitation. The voice of a brutal man, thin and lithe, not unlike John Giles in appearance, perhaps.

‘Must be dark by now.’

‘Likely it is, but we don’t leave until two of the morning.’

‘It’s dark enough now,’ First Voice insisted.

‘We take him out of town at two, like we said,’ Second Voice snapped impatiently, on the verge of anger.

‘My old lady will be very suspicious – my being out so late without ale on my breath.’

‘Aye, well we’ll have a pot or two after we’ve done.’

‘I don’t see why we can’t take him out now. It’s pitch-black and no one about. It’s just a short way down to the wharf.’

‘We said we’d take him out at two, so we’ll take him out at two.’

First Voice started to hum, then stopped. ‘We got him here safe enough, all the way from Bread Street without being seen, in the middle of the day.’

Second Voice didn’t reply.

‘Fact I don’t see why we has to take him out at all. Why can’t we kill him here, be done with it?’

‘The man wants him strung up, so we string him up. You
fain to argue about it, then you should have argued when you had the chance. Nay quoth Stringer, when his neck was in the halter.’

‘At least we could kill him first?’

‘We do as we’re told. No more to be said.’

‘He’s probably dead, anyway. You hit him mighty hard.’

‘He’s not dead. You have made fair speech, now rest.’

First Voice didn’t reply. The pain was almost unbearable. I could feel with my fingers, though they were frozen, immersed in the same cold puddle in which my face lay. My stomach still threatened to unload. I could feel a gash on the back of my head, throbbing. I was on my side, curled in a foetal position. Fortunately I wasn’t lying on either of my arms. My right arm was lying on a rough and lumpen surface, my hand was dangling limp in the water. I rubbed my arm gently against that surface. It felt like rope.

‘Is the rope thick enough?’ First Voice spoke, breaking the silence. I froze and held my breath.

‘The rope is thick enough.’

‘How thick is the pole?’

‘Thick enough. I looked at it yesterday. It’s been repaired recently, the wood is new and the fitting is sound. It will hold him.’

I was in no fit state to take on these two men. It would take me an age to sit, let alone stand up. My stomach had quietened. I didn’t breathe. The blood pounded at the back of my head, the front of my head, the back of my eyes and in my ears.

‘Has he paid you yet?’ First Voice asked.

‘We get paid when we done the job. Why do you challenge me, Mottram? Were you not there?’ 

‘I know, I know,’

‘Ye think he won’t pay us?’

‘No, course he will. Just asking, weren’t I?’

There was another long period of silence.

‘What should we do if there’s people around?’

‘We have discussed this many times.’ Second Voice sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth.

‘Methinks we didn’t talk it through well enough. He told a story as if it were simple, but now I am less certain.’

‘We’ll do the job as we said we would.’

I began to flex my muscles, one by one, slowly and systematically. By flexing my biceps my lower arm began to feel better. I flexed my thighs very slowly in order to avoid attracting attention. I tensed my calf muscles at the same time as my toes. I made no movements with my neck – the slightest movement resulted in searing pain around the wound on my head.

‘What time is it now?’

‘Half past one.’

‘Did he say leave here at two, or leave the wharf at two?’

‘He didn’t specify.’

‘If we get started now, then, we’ll likely be ready to leave the wharf at about two, wouldn’t you say?’

Second Voice sighed. There was a cracking noise and a shuffling like the sound of a man getting to his feet. ‘The candle is nearly dead, anyway. You pick him up and let’s be on our way.’

‘That’s more like it!’

I lay still and listened to Mottram’s heavy steps. Big hands grabbed my armpits. Gritting my teeth I stopped myself crying out as he slung me over his shoulder, the back of my
head rubbing against his elbow. The pain was twice as bad with my head hanging, the throbbing intensified. His coat was damp. He carried me up a short spiral staircase. As we emerged into a dark room at the top, I looked out of one eye. There was a big table laid out in the middle of the room, thick, with a row of knives hung up on one wall. The room smelt of rotting meat. At the end of the table next to the front door was a barrow. I was swung about and thrown into it, with my legs hanging over one side, and the back of my head landing with a thump on the bottom of it. I thought I was dying. I passed out again.

‘It’s yonder, just beyond your left shoulder,’ Second Voice called out. Those were the words that woke me. A cold wind blew up my trouser legs. There was something on my face that smelt of fish, weighing down on it. I felt rough prickles against my face. More rope.

‘Hey!’ Mottram said slowly.

‘What?’ Second Voice snarled.

‘I think I just saw him move.’ My heart seized.

‘How can you see him move when he’s bouncing up and down in the bottom of the barrow?’ Second Voice sounded fed up. Listen to him!

The wind blew harder and colder and I heard the sound of water lapping against the river wall.

‘There she is.’ Second Voice was ahead now. Mottram must be pushing the barrow.

‘I hope you don’t expect me to row us all the way to Westminster by myself,’ Mottram grumbled.

‘Come and help me get her untied.’ There was a thump, the sound of a man stepping down into a boat. The barrow was
dropped, again sending fresh waves of pain and nausea from my head to my stomach. It had to be now.

I pushed myself slowly and steadily upwards, my feet slipping to the ground, the rope rolling off my face and falling onto the flagstones.

‘Hey!’ Mottram’s voice shouted. I stood up straight and turned. A big, heavy man was holding a rope in one hand standing at the top of the wharf above the river. Mottram. The man I had seen at the Exchange. The rope led downwards. ‘He’s got up!’

‘Stop him, then!’ Second Voice cried out from beyond. There was the sound of feet scrambling on stone steps.

I turned and ran. I saw and recognised the spires of Mary Somerset, Mary Magdalene and Nicholas Cole. Beyond them the big square bulk of Old St Paul’s. This was Broken Wharf. Running up the hill as fast as I could I struggled to find strength in my stiff, tired legs.

‘You’re too damned slow!’ Second Voice shouted angrily at Mottram. It was him I was afraid of, not Mottram.

Looking over my shoulder I saw my demons in profile. Mottram was tall and stout and would not catch me, but the other man was shorter, more athletic – and close behind. I tried to run faster. My eyes burnt, my lungs were raw and waves of nausea rippled up from my guts, but I kept going thanks to the grace of … Second Voice was catching up, I could hear his steps behind. Fish! Where to go? Where to go? No idea! I darted left into a black alley and sprinted forward, careless of what might lie before me. Slipping twice on the cobbles I slid forward on the sole of one shoe, but righted myself both times. Left, right, left. Not once did I choose a blind alley. I chose the narrowest passages and darkest yards.
I emerged out onto a main street. Knightrider Street! West! St Paul’s Bakery! Looking behind, I saw the shadow of Second Voice emerge, turn, spot me and give chase again. But he was farther behind now, forty or fifty yards, and he was alone. I reached the corner of the bakery and headed straight for the wooden row of shops that was there, a hundred yards long. The shops were all alike, with window shutters made of Eastland board. I pulled at the first set of shutters. They were locked tight shut, and the second, and the third, but the lock on the fourth set was looser. I pulled it open with three mighty pulls and leapt through the gap, pushing against the window behind with my body. I landed in a heap on the wooden floor with glass chips all about me. Ignoring the pain of the shards that embedded themselves in my hands, I jumped to my feet. I pulled the shutters closed and held them, leaning backwards with all my weight in case Second Voice tried to pull on them. Breathing hard, my body complaining and threatening to retch I listened hard, but could hear nothing above the noise of the blood pounding in my ears.

Footsteps! Quiet footsteps, quick but cautious, stopping and starting, like a mouse or rat. Footsteps on the street. I held my breath and waited. The steps stopped. No sound. Slowly, very slowly, I leant forward and looked out through the gap in the shutters. Still I could hear nothing. I looked for shadows, listened for the slight crunch of shoe on dirt. Nothing.

‘There you are,’ said a low voice triumphantly.

Turning round in shock I saw Second Voice walking towards me, through the shops, the passage from one shop to another unbarred. He must have broken in somewhere else. Throwing myself towards him I caught him by surprise. He had expected me to run again. I seized him by the neck with
my left hand. He grabbed at me with both of his, leaving me free to punch at his face and ribs with my right, which I did, in panic, with much force. He gasped and fell, losing his balance. I kicked him in the side of the temple, and then kicked him again, before throwing myself back out of the window and onto Godliman Street. Feeling no pain, only the thrill of having escaped and the fear of being chased, I ran east, sprinting, not stopping until I came to the corner of Bread Street. I turned and ran up the middle of the street, not bothering to stay in the shadows, towards home.

My windows were dark and the door was closed. I shook my head and tried to ignore the agonising pain at the back of my skull. Instead I looked to All Hallows, with its broken spire, struck by lightning a century ago. The pain at my temples cut again like a long-bladed knife. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t see properly, just a small bright light, which slowly expanded into a curling whorl with blue and green teeth, pulsating and flashing. My stomach contracted and I thought I was going to shit and vomit at the same time. Couldn’t see, couldn’t walk. Stumbling into the graveyard of All Hallows I prayed that no one was watching me. I made my way slowly to the rear of the graveyard trying to keep my head totally still. There I found a big square gravestone and sat behind it, my back against the stone and my legs out straight in front of me. Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back, waiting grimly for relief from the agony in my head. I stayed in that position for three hours, enduring the pain and the freezing cold, the effort of it exhausting. The pain stayed with me, teasing me, while my joints stiffened, and new pains came. I cannot describe it. At last the cold winter sun rose, casting a red light on the dead morning. My head was still
sore, but the sharpest edge of it was dulled. I climbed to my feet gingerly. The streets were still empty, too empty for me to go wandering. Paul’s would be busiest soonest. I walked the short distance to the churchyard there; the biggest open space there was in London, silent and comforting at this time of day. Leafless trees stood like twigs in the long grass, their branches quivering in the gentle morning wind. Standing still, I looked up at the great square Norman tower. God’s house, indeed. And what the boggins was God trying to do to me?

When Dowling saw me he held one hand to his forehead and just stood there in the doorway of his shop. He danced out like a younger version of Harry Hunks and fussed over me like an old woman. Dirt was ingrained into my skin, hair and shoes. I felt like a dug-up corpse. A dug-up corpse in need of a bath, a drink and a soft bed.

‘What happened to you?’ He steered me through his shop and out into a room at the back. ‘I went to your house yesterday night and that Jane was wailing and gnashing her teeth. She found your wig on the floor, with blood on it, no less. I had every butcher’s boy from Newgate searching London for you.’

‘I was apprehended.’ On the back of the head. My head still throbbed inside and outside and I felt like I was going to be violently sick. The soft morning light speared through my eyes like sharp, shiny skewers. I really wasn’t in the mood for talking. ‘Can I go to bed now, please?’

There was a woman out the back cleaning up. She was a little old for my tastes, but her calves were lithe and muscular. When she turned to look at me I saw bright blue eyes and a kind, intelligent face. Aye – I could go for that, I reflected. Not now, though. Now bed.

‘Meet my wife,’ Dowling said proudly. ‘Lucy.’

I waved a hand at her, not wanting to bow my head. The room sort of shimmered, with soft, little white lights glistening where there could be no soft, little white lights. Then it suddenly shot off to the left. When I opened my eyes again I could see both Dowling and his wife staring down at me, the ceiling behind their faces. I had never been in so much pain since about an hour before. I spoke very softly so as not to disturb my eyeballs. ‘May I lie down on a soft bed in a dark room, please?’

The best part of two days I spent lying in a large lumpy bed in a dark room that actually didn’t smell too bad given that it was Dowling’s. The back of my head swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and my right eye was now the size of an apple. My ribs pushed down on my chest like the bars of an iron cage and made it hard to breathe. When I did fall asleep I was plagued by visions of Joyce’s head swaying on the end of a stick on top of Nonsuch; grey, drawn face, white eyes bulging from red-rimmed sockets. A woman with no eyes, grinning and talking, while blood slowly dripped from two bloody sockets. Though it was winter, I lay bathed in my own cold sweat. The only respite was being able to watch Lucy Dowling’s beautifully rounded mature buttocks shift beneath her heavy skirt, imagining my hands stroking them gently.