Beloved Poison (42 page)

At eight o’clock, Dr Hawkins came to see us. We made a sad group, Gabriel’s face raw with crying, Will silent and subdued. I was gaunt and dazed, my eyes bloodshot in my red mask, which had turned an ugly greyish colour, so sickly and ashen had I become. Mrs Speedicut sat on her chair, an empty mug in her hand. Tears stained her flabby cheeks. Dr Hawkins shook my hand. ‘I’m sorry, Jem,’ he said.

‘He’s innocent,’ I said. ‘You know that, Dr Hawkins?’

He nodded. ‘It’s against my judgement to applaud his chosen course of action, but I cannot find it in my heart to stop him.’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes. He too looked as though he had been up all night. ‘Nathaniel is dead,’ he said. His expression was bleak, and he looked at me strangely, with a mixture of sympathy and horror I had never seen before. I knew, then, that he had seen the future: my father’s and mine. ‘You slept?’ he said.

‘It hardly matters today,’ I replied.

He did not look at me but allowed his gaze to rest on his hands, his fingers smoothing away the creases in his white buckskin gloves. ‘I wonder if I might – that is, if you would allow – I hardly know how to ask—’

‘You wish to anatomise him,’ I said.

Dr Hawkins nodded. ‘If it’s not in the blood, then we must look to the mind – the brain. The connection between the two is little understood. If we could—’

‘You have Nathaniel.’

‘Yes, but a comparison would be most instructive—’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Though I imagine Dr Magorian will be there before you.’ In my pockets, I balled my hands into fists. Would I watch my father die on the gibbet, and then have to wrest his body from the medical men crouched like scavengers at the foot of the gallows? They would be sure to be there, waiting for their prize, and a felon was accorded no choice in the matter.

‘I have paid the hangman to ensure my prior claim,’ said Dr Hawkins. ‘It’s all settled. Your father was adamant that his remains should come with me, but I wanted to speak to you too.’

‘You’ll take him to Angel Meadow?’

Dr Hawkins nodded.

‘May I see him there?’

‘You know he may not . . . he may not look himself.’

‘All the same—’ I did not want to discuss the matter. Dr Hawkins inclined his head. He shook my hand once more.

I had witnessed hangings before. Any corpse was worth fighting for and more than once I had accompanied Dr Bain, when he and Dr Graves had sought to secure a body for St Saviour’s dissection rooms. But how murder could be made into entertainment and spectacle I could never understand. I knew what to expect: the crowds that filled the streets, faces at windows and peering from rooftops, people climbing up lamp-posts and onto window ledges, all eyes turned towards the scaffold, and the rope. And so it was for my father’s hanging. I stood with Will, amongst the crowd. Should I have stayed away? My father had told me not to come, but I could not leave him to his fate, alone, without anyone there to think well of him as he died. I closed my eyes as a man appeared beneath the gallows, but I knew what was taking place: in my mind I could see the rope, the man examining it, testing its strength and evaluating the drop. I looked up. The rope had been approved. And now here was the Ordinary, come to say a prayer with the condemned man. His appearance was the cue for silence, and silence there was. How extraordinary a thing it is, for whole streets filled with people to be completely without sound. How strange it was to hear it, to feel it, the presence of so many, but all of them, for a moment, holding their breath.

I saw Dr Hawkins, at the foot of the gallows, nod to the Ordinary, and the hangman. And then my father was brought forward. His hands were behind his back, his white head bowed. He was so thin that it was as though a puff of wind might blow him away. Would he be heavy enough to make the drop a fatal one, or would he dangle there, kicking and thrashing until someone had the heart to pull on his legs – I could not bear to think of it. I let out a moan, and almost crumpled to my knees, but Will was there. He put his arm about me and held me up.

‘Don’t look, Jem,’ he whispered. ‘I will tell you when it’s done.’ But I shook my head. I would not look away, I would not desert him. For, as long as I was looking at him, I was with him; I was there beside him upon the scaffold and, somehow, I was certain he would know it and would take courage from it. And so I turned my gaze to my father, up there beneath the noose, and I did not flinch.

I heard the Ordinary recite the Lord’s Prayer, my father’s head still bowed. At the end of it, my father looked up, out across the crowd, and despite the hordes of people, the thousands of faces, he saw me instantly. He looked at me for a moment – looked at me and no one else – and then he smiled. He closed his eyes and I saw his lips move. Was he thinking of me? Was he saying a prayer to the God who had taken so much and given so little in return? But he would die with my mother’s name on his lips, I knew. And I? I would be left behind, alone, uncertain, counting the days until my own fate became clear.

The clock began to chime; the final moments were upon us. They tied his hands and covered his face. The crowd began to shout and hiss; there was laughter and hoarse cries; the air prickled with excitement, and a curious ripple of energy passed through us all. I shivered as it touched me and I felt instantly filthy, sullied by the repulsive enjoyment of the crowd, and as though all the water in London could not wash me clean. As the clock struck ten, the air thrummed with expectation. A hush held the city, as if it were sealed in a bubble beneath a great silent ocean. And then came the harsh rattle of the drop as the trap opened, the gasp of the crowd as ten thousand onlookers drew breath at the same moment; and then the gentle groan of the rope, the rhythmic creak of its burden. There was a moment of silence as we all watched the body, my father’s body, swing . . . swing . . . swing . . . and then still.

As if from some distant place I heard the roar of the crowd. I clapped my hands to my ears and sank down onto my knees, leaning forward to retch. It was over. He was gone. He had made me who I was, and now, without him, I did not know how I was to live. Nothing could be the same. He had left me no guidelines, no set of instructions, no list of things I must accomplish. I was lost and alone, and I did not know what to do.

Somehow, Will dragged me through the crowd. They had been distracted by the spectacle, but now it was over they were free to look again at one another. When they saw me they knew straight away who I was. A boy threw a stone and it hit my forehead. The warm blood running over my face brought me to my senses, and I began to push my way back towards the infirmary. Ahead of us, in the middle of the crowd, a carriage blocked the road, positioned sideways so as to command the best view of the scaffold. I recognised it straight away, and before Will could stop me I bounded forward and wrenched open the door.

There, perched on plush maroon cushions like a crow in a boudoir, was Mrs Magorian. She was sitting upright, her pale blue eyes fixed upon me, her mouth pursed in a bitter smile. Across from her sat Eliza, dressed in black from neck to toe, her face stony. I stared at her, at her face stained with tears, but at that moment I could think of no one but my father, dead, disgraced; murdered, just like Dr Bain, Mrs Catchpole, Joe Silks. My voice, when I spoke, was raw with rage and sorrow, so that I hardly even recognised myself.

‘Six coffins. Six effigies. Six girls buried beneath the churchyard wall. Buried by your husband, madam, and by
you
!’ I knew people had stopped to listen, I could feel them at my back watching, muttering amongst themselves, and I was glad. I raised my voice to the volume of a street vendor. ‘You think no one knows what you’ve done? You think it’s all in the past? Well, I will drag it into the present and then I will drag you to the gallows, and the world will know what you are!’

Her eyes flickered, as if she had blinked, though I had not seen her eyelids move.

‘He was seen, madam,’ I shouted. ‘In St Saviour’s churchyard. And you with him.’

‘I?’ Her lips curved slightly, as if she were amused by my accusations.

‘Oh, don’t trouble to deny it,’ I cried. ‘Don’t insult me. It was
you
who accompanied him. It was you who flung Joe Silks into the pit.’

Eliza put out her hand to me. ‘Jem, please. Can’t you see she’s frightened—’

I shook her off. ‘Frightened?’ I spat the word out. I did not look at Eliza now but kept my eyes fixed upon her mother’s face. I could not weaken, and I would not feel pity. ‘Twenty years ago your husband killed six girls. I don’t know why, but I’ll not rest until I find out. And there will be no escape for you in this world, or the next, until I do.’ I raised my hand, my bloody face fearful to look upon, and I pointed at her heart. ‘I will follow you wherever you go. Wherever you look, I will be there. In your nightmares you will see me, and I will worry you and haunt you, and I will uncover every one of your secrets. Make no mistake, but I
will
find out. And when I do—’ My hand was shaking with fury, and it was all I could do to stop myself from reaching in and dragging her off her cushions, out of the carriage and into the mob. ‘When I do, you will watch
him
hang, as I have watched my father hang. And then you will follow him to the gallows and you will die, alone, in shame and fear, with nothing but a felon’s grave and an anatomist’s knife awaiting you.’

D
r Hawkins took my father’s body directly to Angel Meadow. He used one of the hospital’s carriages. I made my own way there, with Will for company. I could not speak. I felt as though I could hardly move, and if it had not been for Will I might still be standing, staring up at the gallows.

Dr Hawkins was in his room at the top of the building. There was a tray of tea waiting for us. I wanted nothing, but Will forced me to drink a cup of the stuff, hot and sugary, and my mind began to clear. I forced myself to attend to what was going on. I had not been to Angel Meadow since Mrs Catchpole had been found dead. I had to be alert.

‘He’s downstairs,’ said Dr Hawkins. ‘Would you like to see him?’

I nodded.

‘But first . . .’ Dr Hawkins was standing with his back to the window, so his face was in shadow. ‘Your father loved you, Jem,’ he said. ‘Though I know he did not always show it.’ He turned to his desk and picked up a box. ‘He asked me to give you this.’

It was a box of polished yew, smooth to the touch and coloured a rich amber. I had never seen it before, though I could tell before I opened it that it had been well-handled – the catch was discoloured with the repeated pressure of a thumb, the hinges loose from opening and closing. But it was oiled and cared for, as though what was inside was too precious to be left untouched. Somehow I knew, even before I opened it, what would be inside.

It was a miniature, a small portrait of a young woman, no older that I. She was sitting on a chair, wearing an olive-coloured dress sprigged with summer flowers. Her eyes were green, her face pensive but happy, her hands resting on the bulge of her pregnant belly. I looked at her, in silence, for a long time. Then I put the picture away. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ I said. I held the box to my heart. It was all I had of them now.