Paul Lawrence - The Sweet Smell of Decay

I stood up to face him. ‘No more preaching?’

He roared and threw himself forward, knife to my throat. We fell against each other, clutching and grappling. We writhed and wrestled on the floor, each struggling for the better position until he gasped, throwing back his head, eyes tight shut and teeth bared, white-lipped. His back arched and he peeled away from me, rolling gently across the floor.

I stood up and looked down. One half of my cane stuck out neatly from between two of his ribs, the tip poking into the ventricle of his heart, the silver lamb sitting aloft, untouched by the bright-red blood that pumped out around the bottom of the stick.

I pulled his body around a second time, and as I did so a glint of metal shone about his neck. It was a chain and the key to Bride’s was on the end of it. I walked out of the vestry door and painfully up the centre aisle. As I walked I saw movement again, out the corner of my eye, over to the east side beneath the tall, narrow windows.

‘Who’s there?’ I called, spotting a shadowy figure lurking in the gloomy south-east corner. No one answered.

‘Come out now,’ I shouted, walking across the pews towards it, beside myself with rage, relief and fear. But none replied. I walked slowly out of the church and into the wintry air I thought never to breathe again.

A familiar figure stood at the church gate, a large man with a hard potbelly and broad shoulders.

‘Hill?’

‘Aye, Harry.’

‘What are you doing out here for God’s sake?’

I saw the beads of sweat on his upper lip, the lines around his eyes. ‘I heard that you were to meet Keeling here. Has he come?’

This made no sense. ‘Heard what? I was here to meet you!’

Standing with his arms crossed and legs astride, he was barring my exit. ‘It is no matter.’

Walking up close I returned his unfriendly gaze. ‘You sent me a note.’ I pulled it from my pocket and gave it to him. ‘Where were you?’

Crumpling it into a ball, he thrust it deep into one of his pockets. ‘This is not from me.’

Lying cock. ‘You’ve been here the whole while. You would have watched me die.’

‘No,’ he shook his head slowly. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘You are Shrewsbury’s agent. Why would you betray me?’ A lump formed in my throat, unexpected and unwanted. ‘No, I don’t understand. Less it be for money. Ready whore, ready money. It is what you value above all things, is it not?’

‘Let me alone. Had it not been me then it would have been another, and I would have found myself floating in Thames river.’

‘My life for yours, then.’

‘I was around to watch over you, Lytle. I have met with Shrewsbury every day since this started, telling him what you have been doing, to whom you have been talking. I’ve hightailed it after you from here to Epsom, here to Shoreditch, here to Epsom again, and all about the slums and filthy pits of London. God’s mercy, it hath been most taxing.’

‘What assistance have ye lent me? Even now, you would have stood back and watched me killed.’ I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘You are no friend of mine, you shitty piece of scum.’

‘Aye, well.’ He bowed his head. ‘Soon we will all be dead, and I’ll receive judgement and so will you, and I am sure we will both be saying that we made mistakes and should have done better.’

‘You set me up to die.’

‘For God’s sake, Lytle! That is enough! I am fed up with your whining and complaining. I have been tending you like a wet nurse these last days, watching over you, making sure nothing happens to you. You don’t know what it has been like.’ He stepped forwards and tapped me hard on the forehead with his finger. I had to stop myself from snapping it off. Instead I punched him as hard as I could in the mouth. When he didn’t fall I hit him again, harder. He stumbled back with a hand up to his jaw. I had caught him hard and cut his lip and his gum. His lip was starting to swell already. I smiled.

‘Thanks be to thee,’ he mumbled.

I went to pass him. ‘Keep your thanks to feed your chickens, you piece of filthy scum. I’ll see you later.’

Three men I’d not seen before appeared from nowhere and blocked my passage.

‘What’s this, Hill?’

‘You are under arrest, Lytle. For the killing of Lord Keeling.’ Busying himself with his bleeding mouth, he would not look me in the eye.

That they put me in the same cell as Joyce may have been coincidence, I suppose. They took me to Newgate in a coach, wrists and ankles manacled. These men were sober, serious and very determined. They didn’t beat me or foul-mouth me, or indeed take any notice of me whatever, just made me go where they wanted me to go without any fuss or effort. In the coach one sat either side of me and one opposite. All three of them looked out of the window, eyes alert, practically silent. They spoke only when they had to, in short crisp sentences, very quietly.

We were at Newgate inside twenty minutes. They themselves escorted me through the prison, along the corridor and down the slimy steps into the stone hold, never once uttering a word to any. My protests were ignored, my feelings were of no importance. Once the door was open, they propelled me firmly across the threshold and clapped manacles about my wrists and ankles before closing it behind me. When the sound of their steps had petered out it was silent and utterly dark.

The floor beneath my feet was slimy and thick. It stank of piss and shit as it had done before. Through my shoes I could feel a thickish layer of mud and straw. God knows what lived in it. I leant against the wall as best I could, but the stonework was uneven and scattered with sharp edges. All was silent, save for the occasional rustle and squeak from the rats. Something bit at my ankle. I kicked out, though without much force. The manacles prevented it. No light, no noise, just me, all alone. I felt a sudden panic — what if none came to feed me? What if no one told any that knew me where I was? I stood there for an age, trying to quell the fear. But it was so black and so noiseless, and the rats kept nibbling at my feet. No hope. No life.

Why was I here? Shrewsbury had what he wanted, didn’t he? He wanted to have it over Keeling. Well Keeling was dead — I had killed him. So why was I here? Hadn’t I given him what he wanted? My legs began to ache, first at the knees, then the ankles, and then my thighs. My muscles got stiffer and stiffer as if I had been walking for miles. No way of knowing how quickly time passed, I tried to think of something else. My stomach rumbled, despite the foul air. My tongue was dry. Things kept biting at my ankles if I didn’t move my legs constantly. The manacles started to rub raw against my wrists and feet. My head started to throb and the backs of my eyes began to burn. If there was a Hell, it would be like this. Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Well, my fire would not be quenched either. Sometime soon someone would open that door. In the meantime there was nothing to do but wait.

It was not soon, but someone did eventually come. One of the gaolers strode in holding a torch above his head and gave me a ladle of foul water to sip. He threw a piece of green bread at my feet and then was gone.

At some point there came a time when I could no longer stand. I searched for the driest quarter of the small cell floor and gathered there the driest straw. Then I sat down and waited for the water to soak into the seat of my trousers.