The Vice Society (44 page)

The alley narrowed and began gradually to descend, channelling the beasts into a smaller and smaller area so that they would eventually pass in single file through an aperture from which they would emerge only as joints and cuts:

The slaughterman’s killing pit.

Mr Williamson felt the herd at his back as he searched for his fugitives. Cows began to surround him. Hides pressed closer and closer in upon him. He dug his elbows into the bodies in an attempt to lift his feet clear of the crushing hooves. The reek of blood was thick in the air; the bovine chorus of despair was horripilating. Where were the two men?

There was a strangulated cry. Cattle ahead seemed to stumble. Mr Williamson strained higher to see above the steaming masses. All moved ceaselessly forward.

Then, a body . . .

It was one of the men: dead or dying, his mortal form mangled and soiled almost beyond recognition by the innumerable limbs passing over him and crushing the life from his frail frame. There was a moustache . . . there was the dull glint of a medal . . . there was a mouth splashed with filth and open in a soundless scream of outrage at a life extinguished in the scatological mire.

The other man must be close.

But closer still was the tunnel.

Single file now. He struggled to maintain balance and stay clear of their legs. They descended deeper into the earth.

And there was the slaughterman himself: his bare, thickly muscled arms raised above his head . . . his eyes staring lifelessly at the spot on the hairy scull before him . . . his entire form bespattered with steaming gore. He brought down the poleaxe with a tremendous swing upon the animal’s head and, even before it could fall, his accomplices had pushed it from the side so that it toppled still further down into a cellar to be divided by the waiting knives.

And there . . . another man’s arm reaching up between bodies! The fugitive risking his life to stay low among the hooves.

‘Stop! Stop there! There is a man among the cattle,’ yelled Mr Williamson, his voice utterly lost.

There was no stopping the flow.

The poleaxe fell. The bodies rolled. The herd moved on.

‘Stop! You there – slaughterman! There is a man hiding there!’

The poleaxe went up. The eyes stared at the spot on the hairy scull. The poleaxe came down . . .

A human head of pale, mottled skin was where the cow’s forehead should have been. Weak brown eyes stared madly. A mouth opened too late to make a sound.

The axe drove into the delicate scull with as little hindrance as if it had been striking a hen’s egg. And the slaughterman’s eyes widened in amazement.

Unspeakable matter splashed across the heaving, protesting bodies of that hellish space.

A human form rolled into the blood-puddled pit.

And for an instant – for the merest few beats of the heart – it seemed to Mr Williamson that everything stopped: that there was no miasma of blood and urine, no ceaseless bestial clamour, no blizzard lashing the soot-blackened city. For that instant, there appeared to be a silence that suggested even the ignorant beasts had recognized the outrage of the scene and had paused, startled, at its horror.

The moment passed. Gore-bewrayed reality returned. Mr Williamson looked down to see that he was ankle-deep in blood.

TWENTY-EIGHT

For twelve hours the snow fell: a relentless, soundless assault through the night. It coated roofs and clogged gutters; it carpeted roads and blocked bridges; it drifted over steps, masking their form; it insinuated itself into alcoves and arches; it disguised the familiar with immaculate accumulations; and it transformed the charred metropolis into a pristine field of featureless white.

By morning, household curtains twitched and extra coal was put on fires. Shops stayed boarded against the still invading flakes. The chimneys of Southwark gaped emptily at the sky. All trace of human life was absent from the
tabula rasa
of the city.

By midday, the snow had stopped. Tentative patches of blue appeared in the sky. The temperature dropped again. Three feet of coverage muffled the sounds of the people emerging into that alien landscape to find themselves in a London that had momentarily become a wilderness as remote and inaccessible as any highland glen. But human industry persevered as it will. Within hours, boys were out with shovels and brooms cleaning the major thoroughfares. Inundated carriages were reclaimed from their frigid cocoons, and, by dusk, a number of shops were open, casting their eerie gaslight over the pallid streets.

And at one particular residence, Mr Williamson sat sombrely in front of the fire, staring into the flames and warming his stockinged feet. He was wearing the same clothes of the previous night’s activity, the ordure of Smithfield now crusted and congealed upon his legs and his saturated shoes curling slowly in the heat of the hearth. Snoring on the floor beside him was the hefty form of John Cullen, his trouser bottoms steaming where they came closer to the fire.

After the slaughter pit, and the necessary extrication of the corpses from the filth, Mr Williamson had trudged back to Snow-hill in the hope that his cab had remained. It had not, but another late-running (and particularly irascible) cabman had been persuaded to take him back to Bedford-row and the scene of the
rendezvous
. Mr Cullen had been waiting at the street door of the property.

‘My G—, sir! What has happened to you? Are you hurt?’ said the doughty ex-constable on seeing the reeking and bloody figure in the snow before him.

‘I am uninjured. Have you been inside? What has happened here? Has the inspector been inside?’

‘Yes, sir. I gained entry shortly after the gentlemen fled. Inspector Newsome has recently left. He went into the house, looked around and left in a black humour with his men. He said he would send the surgeon.’

‘The surgeon? Let us go inside.’

They entered the room that Mr Williamson had glimpsed through the broken window. The body was still on the floor and had evidently been turned over to discern his identity. Neither of the investigators recognized the body as Peter, the young man who had been sitting alongside Harold Jute.

‘A gunshot to the chest. And there is another, sir – here behind the sofa.’

They stepped round the furniture to look upon the other form.

‘Harold Jute,’ said Mr Williamson without emotion. ‘Where is Noah?’

‘He has gone, sir.’

‘Gone where? What happened here? Tell me everything.’

‘I told Inspector Newsome and he—’

‘I am not Mr Newsome.’

‘Yes, sir. I was waiting at the rear as arranged. I admit I was bored and so I strolled along to where the pump is: opposite Brownlow-street. It was there I saw two gentlemen running. I did not know what to do, so I waited . . . then I saw you, sir, running after them and I discerned that an escape was in progress.’

‘Very astute.’

‘Well, I called the other constable and we went around to Bedford-row. There was a kitchen door open and a scream coming from within, so we charged down the stairs and . . . a girl had had her throat cut. That was when we encountered the other gentleman.’

‘Which other gentleman?’

‘I did not know him. He hit the constable with something that sounded like a metal rod and the wounded fellow took me to the ground as he fell. I . . . fear I allowed the murderer to escape as I struggled to right myself.’

‘Never mind that. What of Noah?’

‘Once I righted myself, I saw that the kitchen of that building was curiously connected by a doorway to the next house, and that to the next. Evidently the men had passed under three buildings to escape at the end of the street. I walked through to where I knew the villains’ house to be and discovered these two bodies here. The two constables from the front appeared shortly thereafter with Inspector Newsome. It seems Noah had exited from the street door and called them in to apprehend the villains. Of course, there were none alive to apprehend and Noah ran off before they could discover this.’

‘It must have been James Tattershall who escaped you.’

‘If he was the man with the metal rod . . . I am afraid he has.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What of the other two? They who ran down Brownlow-street?’

‘Dead. One trampled by cattle, the other’s head cleaved open by an axe.’

‘O . . . I see.’

‘Did the inspector say anything about where he was going?’

‘No, sir. He looked quickly around, asked me about my entry into the building and then he left. He may have shouted something about the Continental Club to his driver.’

‘Fool. As if Mr Tattershall would return there.’

‘What do we do now, sir?’

‘No doubt Noah will contact us. I am of a mind to go home. I find myself extremely tired.’

‘And the bodies, sir? What shall we do with them?’

‘We will leave them for the surgeon. No harm can come to them now.’

And thus it was that the two men ventured south through the snows to the coldness of Mr Williamson’s empty home, where we recently saw them by the fire.

The reader will ask, however, what became of Noah Dyson on that eventful evening: how he had escaped the bullets, where he had rushed after leaving the house, and what had kept him as the snow fell thickly. Good questions all, and I would expect no less from the perspicacious handler of these pages. Since we are in the final chapter, and the covers are the boundaries of this world, I have little other option but to answer.

Or rather, I will let Noah do the speaking, for he arrived with Benjamin at Mr Williamson’s house shortly after lunch-time on that Monday. Both seemed subdued and looked tired as they took the seats offered to them and accepted cups of tea from the solicitous Mr Cullen.

‘I am glad to see you alive, Noah,’ said Mr Williamson.

‘By which tone I understand you are mildly discontented I have not come to you earlier,’ said Noah.

‘It is rather a long time to wonder whether a man is alive or dead.’

‘I was sure that Mr Cullen had advised you of my escape.’

‘Indeed he did – but to where, and why?’

‘Very well. There is no secret about it. The fact is simply that I have been busy in the name of justice. Before I tell you the story of my recent hours, perhaps you would first like to read this.’

Noah took a piece of folded paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Mr Williamson. The smeared bloodstains on it, though now dry, were unmistakable.

‘Benjamin
Black?’
said Mr Williamson, looking up from the sheet.

‘His own conceit,’ replied Noah for his friend. ‘In truth, he has no surname; he chose that one just for the occasion.’

‘Apt. Am I to presume that this confession was actually written by James Tattershall?’

‘He did not write it – Benjamin did. Young James, however, supplied every detail within and signed his name at the end. The signature is a little uneven, but legible and genuine. The gentleman had undergone a thorough interrogation by that stage.’

‘I do not want to know how that was effected.’

‘Indeed you do not,’ said Noah, rubbing his knuckles. ‘He was very reluctant to speak, but we managed to persuade him.’

‘Is the full confession as detailed in that first paragraph?’

‘Everything he knew; everything we could wish to know: all of the murders, the members of their disgusting little group (Poppleton among them, unsurprisingly), the incident at the Murder’d Moor, the Vice Society connection and the role of Eusebius Bean . . . everything is laid bare. Also the truth about Katherine . . .’

Mr Williamson nodded and returned his attention to the text, evidently skimming quickly through to the part he was looking for. His jaw set as he did so but his hands remained steady. The other gentlemen avoided looking at each other as he read.