Sinistrari Read online

  After a minute or two of silence Doctor Pasha Rose picked up his bag and followed Dennison and Jenkins down the steps into the hanging pit, their footsteps rebounding from the brickwork in harsh echoing crackles that scraped on Chaplain Thrift’s ears like sharply spoken accusations of failure as he flustered about near the door of the execution chamber. He had allowed a man to go to his death unrepentant, damned to perdition for all eternity. He hurried into the scaffold and quickly made the sign of the cross over the open scaffold, muttering prayers as he did so.

  Dennison grasped Sinistrari’s legs to stop the swinging of the body as Rose hooked his stethoscope into his ears, climbed onto a step stool that Jenkins placed for him by the body and then carefully checked for any signs of life in the hanging man.

  ‘The prisoner is dead,’ he called up after a long drawn minute. ‘All signs of life are extinct and death was almost certainly instantaneous. The prisoner Edward James Sinistrari is pronounced dead as of …’ He consulted his pocket watch, ‘12.07AM on Monday, 2nd June 1888. The cause of death will be confirmed by autopsy and my report will be made available for the inquest tomorrow.’

  ‘A fair hanging, Dennison,’ Billington declared, ‘Very fair indeed. My official report will reflect that.’

  ‘Thank you sir, ’e’ went well, went as a gentleman should.’

  ‘But you should have made more allowance in the drop, Dennison, to take into account the prisoner’s height; you could have easily botched it again, left him choking in the wind. Bear that in mind in future. My report, of course, will also mention that fact.’

  ‘Yes sir, of course sir, thank you, sir. Bastard,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Gentlemen, I think that this calls for a drink. Botting? Rose?’ Billington asked, wondering whether he would still have time afterwards to visit Madam Martine’s as usual. The hanging had aroused him and he was eager to have his buttocks paddled, preferably by Suzette, a French farm girl built like a Percheron mare who really knew how to lay it on and who would then ride him like a horse before bringing him to a juddering climax. He surreptitiously squeezed his blossoming erection before leading the way back to his office and the brandy bottle. Naturally, Dennison and Jenkins were not included in Billington’s invitation and after locking the scaffold pit the two men made their way down to the warder’s rest room and took a glass or two of rum with Binns and Calcraft and some of the other off duty warders in celebration of Sinistrari’s execution.

  IT WAS TWO HOURS LATER WHEN THE HANGMEN RE-ENTERED THE PIT, ready to take Sinistrari down from the gallows and prepare his corpse for post mortem by Doctor Pasha Rose. After they had stripped him, they would wheel his body on a trolley into the mortuary that was next door to the execution chamber. Then their duties were finished and they could go back to the warder’s rest room and take another glass of rum. Or two.

  JENKINS TURNED THE KNURLED KNOB OF THE VALVE AND LIT THE GAS GLOBES. In the deathly silence of the hanging pit the soft hiss of the flaring gas seemed extra loud in the hangmen’s’ ears, neither man was fanciful, the brutality of their trade saw to that, but the sound of the hissing gas seemed menacing somehow, almost as if there were some fell serpent in the room with them, waiting to pounce. The light from the gas lamps only served to harden the shadows in the corner of the room and both men looked around nervously, anxious to get the task done and get on their way. The menace within the hanging pit was palpable and the hangmen busied themselves to their tasks, anxious to be away.

  Jenkins hurriedly brought the medical trolley through from the mortuary next door, ready to transport Sinistrari’s corpse back there for post mortem. One of the rear wheels of the trolley wobbled and squeaked, grating further on Jenkins’ stretched nerves.

  The easiest way to strip a hanged man is whilst he is still hanging from the gallows and so after removing the pinioning straps Jenkins took off Sinistrari shoes and socks as Dennison eased the costly worsted frockcoat and white silk waistcoat away from his torso, clucking his tongue in frustrated anger at the loss of the money he would have made from the sale. And as for the hanging rope, that was another waste in Dennison’s eyes, if not sold, a good rope could be used for a dozen hangings or more.

  ‘Fancy bit of stuff this, Jenks, I mean, look at the quality o’ this bend,2 and ’is shirt, finest China silk, I reckons, none of this Macclesfield stuff for us lordship here. We should ’a’ made a few bob out of this clobber and no mistake,’ Dennison said, fingering the quality of the cloth. Jenkins had not been party to the sale of the effects to Fred Cavey and Dennison saw no reason to enlighten him now.

  ‘These shoes ain’t no bad bit of stuff, neither, handmade to measure, I reckon. Wouldn’t mind a pair like this me self, they’re ’bout my size,’ Jenkins added meaningfully, and then wondered why he was whispering.

  ‘More than our jobs is worf, Jenks, me old son. Sir Bully Boy Bilious finds out you nicked ’em, it’ll be you be ’anging here next, you mark my words, s’not like this was any old geezer we crapped, s’not like you could do a quick swap and nobody notice no different. Stick your old ’ob nails in with the rest o’ his stuff and they’d stand out like a couple of boils on the Bishop’s arse come Sunday buggering time.’

  ‘Bleedin’ criminal you ask me, not allowing us to have his goods an’ that, robbing the working man of ’is just rewards, that’s what it is. Criminal – and ’im as what ordered it, Maffews, ’Ome bleedin’ Secretary, ’e ought to be locked up in ’ere an’ all and no mistake. Barstid!’’

  Together the hangmen continued to strip off the remainder of Sinistrari’s elegant clothes, still grumbling about the loss of their traditional perk, tossing the garments to one side where they lay in a crumpled heap. As the clothing was not coming to them, the executioners saw no particular reason to take care of it.

  Dennison was about to remove Sinistrari’s silken long johns when he stopped and sniffed loudly, three or four times. ‘Notice something, Jenks?’ Jenkins stopped and sniffed noisily as well, rumpling up the pitted skin of his big nose into crinkled creases.

  ‘Nah,’ he said and shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s it, there ain’t nothing.’ ‘So?’

  ‘He ain’t shit his self. Nor pissed. They allus piss and shit their selves. Never done one yet that didn’t.’

  ‘Well, ’e was a nob, weren’t he, gentrified and all that, p’raps the upper classes don’t shit. In case it offends their long snooty noses.’

  ‘Aye, they prob’ly get the fucking butler to do it for ’em.’

  ‘And carry it out on a silver tray.’

  ‘Still, it’s strange an’ all make no mistake, they always shit and piss their selves, even the ladies.’

  ‘Specially the ladies.’

  ‘So why h’ant this bugger?’ Dennison asked as he began to strip off Sinistrari’s underwear.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t ’ave no dinner or nothing, nothing inside of ’im to come out?’

  ‘Aye, maybes.’

  Sinistrari’s body was now naked, swinging slowly at the end of the rope, the movement caused by the manhandling of the executioners as they removed his clothes. Above them, the hempen rope creaked against the cross bar, a slow rhythmic creaking back and forth that got on the hangmen’s nerves, heightening the sense of unease that they still felt.

  ‘Let’s get this bastard down sharpish, Jenks, this place is giving me the bleedin’ creeps and I ain’t ashamed to admit it. Though you ever tell a soul and I’ll call you out for a fucking liar, so help me, you hear?’

  ‘Fine by me, Jack, I don’t mind admitting I’ll be glad when we’ve done and out of here. T’aint natural in ’ere somehow.’

  ‘Right, I’ll hoist him and you get the rope off of around his neck.’

  ‘You was dead right about the drop, Jack, wiv’ his slender neck, I mean,’ Jenkins said, still hoping to sweeten a tip out of the notoriously tight fisted Dennison, but that seemed unlikely now that they could not sell the dead man’s cloth
es.

  ‘It’ll be a bit slenderer now, I should think, his slender neck,’ Dennison answered, ignoring the compliment – he was well out of pocket already and there was no way Jenkins was getting a tip, however much flattery he tried

  ‘Aye, you’re right; ’e’ll have a neck like a fucking giraffe by now.’

  ‘Don’t know about the neck of a fucking giraffe, Jenks, but ’e’s got a prong on him like a giraffe all right, come look at the size of his knob!’

  ‘Strewth, it’s pointed ’an all, look, it comes to a sharp point at the end.’

  ‘P’raps that’s what he stabbed them poor lasses with weren’t a knife at all.’

  ‘Aye! Poked ’em to death with his pointy poker.’

  The hangmen continued to joke, hiding their disquiet behind a thin mask of ribaldry, but anxious glances cast around the damp chill brick walls of the execution pit betrayed their nervousness. Dennison took the folded shroud sheet from the trolley and wrapped it around Sinistrari’s body, reluctant to touch his cold flesh and then bent his knees, grasped the swaying corpse and lifted it high enough to release the weight on the noose so that Jenkins could release it. Panting with their efforts the hangmen laid Sinistrari’s flaccid body on the trolley, placing his arms down by his sides. Behind them, the gas lighting in the globes on the wall hissed ominously and flickering shadows danced across the walls like writhing black ghosts.

  Dennison removed the white hood from the head of the corpse. Sinistrari’s head lay awkwardly to one side, sure sign of a broken neck. Around his throat, a vivid weal completely encircled his neck like the scarlet collar stock of a guardsman’s uniform, the marks of the rope so clear in the stretched flesh of the neck that the imprints of the individual strands of rope were clearly visible.

  ‘Ugly bastard, weren’t he?’ Dennison said.

  ‘No bugger looks pretty after an hour or two on the gallows.’

  ‘Too fuckin’ good for ’im, a nice quick ’anging, they should’ve hung, drawn and quartered ’im like they used to in the old days. Strangle him real slow, but not to death. Then chop off ’is donkey prong and bollocks and pull ’is rotten guts out through his arse with a red-hot corkscrew, all done before his very eyes while ’e’s alive and then burn his heart. Then nail bits of him to the city wall so’s all could see ’e’s got his just deserts. That’s what they should’ve done, not a quick ’anging like this, not after what ’e did to them girls an’ that.’

  ‘And ’e gets to get a Christian burial now, an’ all, s’not like ’is body gets sent to the surgeons to practice on, like they used to, an’ all. T’ain’t right. Surely to God that ain’t right?’

  ‘Noffin’s right in this world for the likes of us, Jenks, noffin. Nor ever will be. So let’s cover the ugly barstid up, wheel ’im next door for the doc and let’s get out of here.’

  As Jenkins moved to cover Sinistrari’s torso and face with the shroud, the eyes of the corpse suddenly opened wide, the eyes flaring hideously yellow in the gas light, feral and slitted, like those of a wild beast trapped in torchlight.

  ‘I think not hangman, I think not,’ Sinistrari hissed with a vile grate, his long pale tongue flicking across his blue lips like a swollen maggot. His arm shot out from under the sheet and he seized Jenkins with one hand around the throat, raising himself to a sitting position as he did so, and his strength enormous. ‘Just deserts hangman, now feel how it is to choke out your miserable life gasping for breath.’ Still holding Jenkins by the throat Sinistrari swung round his legs and got to his feet.

  Dennison yelped like a beaten dog, all colour drained from his face and his legs turned to rubber, refusing to work. He stumbled and fell back into the corner, cowering and gibbering, rigid with shock and fright; thin snakes of yellow urine wriggling in delta tracks across the cell floor where he had pissed himself in fear, his gullet working frantically, trying to recover the power of speech, unable even to scream in his terror.

  Jenkins gurgled deep in his throat as Sinistrari lifted him bodily from the floor and pinned him to the wall like an exhibit in a museum, the heels of his hob-nailed boots drumming against the brickwork, echoing like gunshots around the walls of the hanging pit. His eyes popped, bulging wide as though thrust out from their sockets from within, hands scrabbling at Sinistrari’s wrist and fingers in a vain effort to ease the pressure swelling inside his brain, choking, fighting for life. Sinistrari lifted him even higher, still holding him only with one hand. The stench that clogged the pit as Jenkins voided his bowels was noxious and foul, trickles of urine splashed down from the tips of his boots and splattered against the wall as Jenkins still feebly kicked and struggled.

  ‘See, they always shit and piss,’ Sinistrari said conversationally. ‘Never done one yet that didn’t.’ A final convulsive heave in a vain effort to draw air into his bursting lungs and Jenkins was dead. Sinistrari tossed him aside like a petulant child with a rag doll. Jenkins’ head hit the brick wall with a sickening thud that reverberated in dull crumps like that of distant artillery fire.

  In the corner, Dennison still whimpered; frantically crossing himself before scrabbling across the stone-flagged floor of the hanging pit towards the locked door; his eyes staring in terror as Sinistrari approached, looming large over him. The fiend was naked-his erection huge and swollen, curving and aciculate, jutting out before him like the horn of a fighting bull about to hook into the body of a matador.

  ‘Blood will have blood, hangman,’ Sinistrari spat, his voice deeply sibilant, frighteningly reptilian.

  ‘No, please. Please,’ Dennison begged, finding his voice at last, scuttling backwards on his hands and feet like a broken legged spider. ‘I meant nothink by it, just doing a job, is all. A job. Please, guv’, I’ve a wife and kids, Jenny she is. Jenny. And little Jack. PLEASE NO,’ he screamed as Sinistrari reached for him.

  ‘Remember Genesis, hangman, Chapter IX, verse 6, “Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”.’ No one heard Dennison’s solitary scream as Sinistrari lifted him up, forced open his jaws and then tore out his tongue with his fingers. ‘Welcome to Hell, hangman. Welcome to Hell.’

  Chapter 3

  NEWGATE PRISON

  LATER THAT NIGHT

  HUMMING TUNELESSLY AND SWAYING SLIGHTLY AS HE WALKED, DOCTOR PASHA ROSE made his way down the ill-lit corridor towards the prison mortuary. He leaned forwards to try to keep his balance with the result that his head and body preceded well in advance of his feet that were constantly hurrying on to try and catch up with the rest of his body. ‘Shuddled have had another brandy,’ he told himself, unaware that he was speaking aloud. ‘Good stuff, though. Damn fine brandy Billington keeps. Damn fine.’

  He lurched forward rather more than usual, tried to get balance again and caromed sideways into the wall, banging his elbow and dropping his bag. ‘Whoops,’ he said aloud again, ‘Solly, I mean, sorry.’ He picked up his bag, not without difficulty and then giggled to himself, stopping to take his bearings.

  The walls of the prison around him were quiet and for a minute or two he was quite disorientated, he should have waited for a warder to escort him down to the mortuary, but normally he knew his way round well enough, just a bit brandy befuddled that’s all. Damn good brandy at that.

  The Governor had been anxious to get away after the hanging, kept on rubbing at his crotch when he thought no one was looking, ‘Cunning swine, he’s got some little dolly mop doxie lined up somewhere I shouldn’t wonder,’ Rose mumbled to himself. ‘S’all right for shome. But shome of us ’as to work. Got to autopsy Mister Sinis … Sinis … Sinistrari. Damn silly time to hold an autopsy. What?’ he swirled around, as if he had heard something behind him. ‘What? Who’s there? Sir William?’ Even though Billington had left after only one more brandy, leaving Rose to kick his heels for an hour or more before he could think about performing the autopsy.

  The cold glazed tiles of the corridor walls echoed his mumbled words back at him.

  ‘Rats,’ he
told himself. ‘Damn great rats. Vermin everywhere in this damn place. Most of ’em human.’ He giggled away to himself and carried on weaving towards the mortuary.

  Doctor Pasha Rose had carried out the post mortems on dozens and dozens of executed criminals at Newgate, and at Brixton and Wandsworth goals. As a young boy, aged no more than eleven or thirteen, many more years ago than he cared to remember, his uncle Cartwright had taken Rose to attend the public hangings outside Newgate1 and to the public dissections of the executed criminals at the now demolished Surgeons Hall, adjoining Newgate, also at the public dissecting rooms at Hicks Hall, the Clerkenwell Sessions House. The excursions had been intended as salutary lessons as to the consequences of criminality, but Rose had been fascinated by the sight of blood and gory strings of internal organs and so found his vocation in life.

  He had lost count of the autopsies he had performed throughout his career, many hundreds to be sure – thousands. In fact, Rose been responsible for popularising the use of a V-shaped incision so that the front of the neck could be taken out and the larynx removed for separate examination; a procedure still used today in the autopsies of strangulation suspects.

  He sometimes carried out autopsies with the aid of an assistant, usually Richard Brandon, but Brandon was today ill with the fever and so Rose would carry out the autopsy on his own. Not a problem, in fact he preferred to work alone. Brandon was such an inveterate chatterer, usually about nothing of any great interest that Rose often felt like sewing up his lips with the needle and thread such as he used to stitch a corpse together after autopsy. No, even working on his own, it would not take long to conclude that the death of Edward James Sinistrari had been caused by the dislocation of the vertebrae, i.e. the breaking through of the odontoid process at the base of the skull into its ligament and the crushing of the vital centres in the medulla oblongata, such effect brought about by judicial hanging by the neck. ‘And damn good riddance,’ he muttered.