A Plague of Sinners (17 page)

Dowling glared at me with similar ruddy cheeks. I feared I had offended him after all and so went to wait outside.

Strange how these godly men so quickly became anxious. Wasn’t the Lord supposed to rejoice over them with joy, and joy over them with singing? Where was all the joy gone?

Since Dowling wasn’t talking to me I had plenty of time to think during the walk up to Cheapside. We now had two lords and a bishop involved, as well as a couple of murderous torturers. Everyone we met stayed tight-lipped. All had the same tendency to stare off into the distance at critical stages of the conversation, and tell us nothing. We skirted the heart of this black affair, still to win a glimpse of the essence of it. The only intelligence given freely came from the gravedigger at St Albans, he who directed us to Bedlam.

And what of that? What was the significance of Pateson’s testimony? We were told two days ago that Morrison paid to keep him away, yet still hadn’t followed up. Now was as good a time.

‘Bedlam!’ I declared, striding north. ‘Let’s find out what Morrison and Gallagher have to say for themselves.’

Dowling muttered some dark utterance, but followed anyway. Unlikely he would talk to me again this day. A blessed relief.

Crowds thronged at Bishopsgate. Not to get out, but to get in, for the plague worsened in that parish by the day. The happy sun, shining bright in cloudless sky, sustained the sickness with a force that allowed it to multiply. The hotter the earth baked beneath our feet, the greater the poison rose, unseen and merciless. I thought again of Jane, determining to visit her before the day was out.

The spikes above the gate displayed only one rotten head, tattered, torn and peeling. Beyond spread a wasteland of disease and death. Only the watchers roamed with intent, now beholden to guard several houses at a time.

Bedlam was but a few yards up Bishopsgate Street. The air bloomed foul from behind the Bedlam gate. The great cesspit had not been emptied for several years, and on days like today, sun blazing, the smell hung in a steaming fog. Flies settled upon my jacket even as I walked, buzzed about my nose and mouth, occasionally touching the inside of my nose, cold and disgusting. I maintained a steady breath of air outwards as we crossed the courtyard.

The small anteroom was empty. None lingered, none drank wine. We made our own way down the dark gloomy passage towards the cells, lamentations echoing from beyond the open doorway. We stopped upon the threshold, listening for any sign of attendance, reluctant to call out or step further unaccompanied.

‘Oddfish,’ I remarked.

Dowling whispered behind me. ‘Since there is none here, I might have a look at the office.’ He hurried back the way we came. ‘I want to see their records.’

The office was bright and square, with one large window looking out onto the bleak landscape out front. Three panes were missing and two were cracked. Stacks of paper covered a large desk, piles flowing onto piles in an unholy mess that would take weeks to sort.

Dowling shuffled a handful of notes. ‘They have not been paying their bills.’ He continued poking. ‘I would find the register. They must have it in case they’re inspected.’

He cleared a space by his feet and began shifting paper from desk to floor, excavating for whatever lay beneath. I cleared a chair of debris, sat down and opened the top drawer. There sat a large, blue leather-bound book. I pushed a pile of paper onto the floor to make space for it. Dowling was at my shoulder before I could open the front cover. He quickly turned the pages. A neat spidery hand covered each one, filling five columns a page. In the first column a number, in the second column a name, in the third the date of admission, in the fourth the date of discharge and in the fifth were writ comments, usually a description of the inmate and his symptoms.

‘The last entry was made two months ago.’ Dowling stabbed a finger upon the last written page. He ran his finger fast back up the column of names, surprising me how fast he could read. ‘This place is Pateson’s life and blood. If men are unaccounted for, then he will be punished.’

‘What are you doing in here?’ a voice demanded. The ginger man stood at the door, the man we had met before, with hair like a carrot. ‘You shouldn’t be in here without Morrison.’

‘Where is Morrison?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him.’ He frowned. ‘Neither Daniel nor Franklin has been fed neither.’ He surveyed the room then pointed to a hook. ‘Yet he has left his keys
behind, which is peculiar, since he never takes them off his belt.’

‘So now you must feed Daniel and Franklin.’ Dowling walked over to retrieve the heavy ring.

The ginger man shook his head. ‘Not I. I would not go near Franklin if you paid me. He is a savage beast. No man is safe even close to his cell. He grabbed a fellow by the neck last year and near pulled his ear off.’

‘Someone must feed them,’ I said. ‘We will come with you.’

‘We cannot go to the vestry without Morrison,’ the ginger man protested. ‘He ordered it.’

‘Yet Morrison is not here,’ I pointed out. ‘What of Gallagher? Can he not feed them?’

‘Gallagher has not been here since Monday,’ the ginger man exclaimed. ‘I’m on my own it seems.’ He scratched at his scabby scalp and clicked his tongue. ‘Morrison has been gone three, four hours.’ He fidgeted and looked to the front door. ‘He never said he was going any place.’

Something was wrong. ‘Come.’ I grabbed the keys and led the way. I walked the passageway betwixt the cells without looking left nor right, and skipped through the Abraham Ward afore the thin man could tap me on the shoulder. The vestry door was the first one we found locked.

The ginger man leant over my arm and pointed at a small dark key sat snug amongst its fellows. ‘That one.’ The lock was well oiled and the key turned easily.

The first thing I saw was Daniel, long body stretched out in calm repose upon his tall-backed chair, wide smile upon his lips, lost in warm reflection, an expression of divine bliss on his big face. His eyes were closed, like he relished a long rest after many nights without sleep. He breathed slow and
regular, arms folded upon his chest. Why was he so happy?

Franklin’s cell was quiet. ‘Hold!’ I put up a hand and shuffled backwards. ‘Franklin’s cell is open.’ I could see his head and shoulders. He sat on a chair facing away from us. ‘He is still inside.’

‘We must close it,’ the ginger man whispered. ‘Else he will leap upon us. He once bit a man’s hand clean off his arm.’

‘A good story,’ I muttered, though I still recalled with a shudder those animal brown eyes and ravenous mouth. ‘He doesn’t move.’

There was no key in the lock. It would take no time to run to the cell door and throw it closed, yet to find the key on this great ring might take a minute. A picture formed in my mind of Franklin eating off Dowling’s fingers one by one as he attempted to hold the door shut while I fumbled. ‘Do you know which key locks Franklin’s door?’ I whispered to the ginger man, eyes fixed upon Franklin all the while.

‘No,’ he replied, a drip of sweat trickling down his nose.

‘Then, Davy, you will have to hold the door closed with a chair while I find it.’ I turned to him. ‘Do you have the strength to hold off a deranged lunatic?’

‘I am well acquainted with the machinations of deranged lunatics,’ Dowling replied, smiling without humour.

I pointed at a chair lain upon its side on the floor in front of us. Had it not been in Franklin’s cell last time we were here? ‘You run, pick up the chair and hold the cell door closed while I find the key.’

‘I will wait here,’ the ginger man said quickly.

‘If it is him at all.’ I peered. ‘Franklin had long black hair. That man’s hair is cut short.’ I glanced sideways at the ginger fellow. ‘Has he had his hair cut since Tuesday?’

‘He has never had his hair cut at all,’ the ginger man replied. ‘No sane man would go close to him with scissors.’

‘What strange mystery is this?’ Dowling growled, stepping forward. The figure did not move at the sound of our shoes upon the stones. His head tilted backwards as though he slept.

‘Godamercy!’ Dowling exclaimed, stood at the bars. ‘His throat is cut!’ He marched into the cell and took the dead man’s hair in one hand.

This man was big, bigger than Franklin. ‘Who is it?’

Dowling peered into the corpse’s white face. ‘Pestilence.’

‘Pestilence?’ I felt a small thrill of guilty delight.

Dowling rubbed his fingers across the dead man’s face, pulling at his loose flesh to see what spring remained. ‘Aye, the same. The flesh is cold, yet still hard.’ He pushed the head forward so it sunk upon his chest with a thick squelch. ‘He was killed last night.’

I felt suddenly unsafe, for the lunatic might be anywhere. If he had ne’er left this cell in ten years, likely he would be reluctant to venture too far away. ‘Where is he?’

‘Not in here.’ Dowling ran his finger along the edge of the man’s jagged flesh.

‘Yet the door was locked.’ I strode back to Daniel’s cell. ‘What happened?’ I shouted at Daniel through the bars, trying to awaken him.

Daniel opened his eyes slowly, still smiling like he was gone to Heaven.

‘He used a boning knife.’ Dowling called.

‘Daniel!’ I cried.

Daniel sighed deeply.

‘Who killed him, Daniel?’

A low rumble emanated from Daniel’s mouth. ‘He
discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.’

Bible talk. I nodded to Dowling. ‘You speak to him.’

‘Who killed him, Daniel?’ Dowling called.

Daniel turned slowly, eyes distant. ‘He is the wolf that dwelleth with the lambs.’

Dowling walked towards the bars of his cell rubbing his palms upon his shirt. ‘What is the wolf’s name?’

‘His name is Abimelech,’ Daniel declared. ‘He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.’

Dowling pushed his nose through the bars. ‘Was it Franklin?’

‘Franklin,’ Daniel repeated, shaking his head like the word was sinful. Then he leant backwards and closed his eyes once more.

Dowling shrugged. ‘I don’t know what he means.’

‘Methinks it clear enough,’ I considered. ‘I told War that Franklin was here when they tortured you at the Clink. Pestilence came to do to Franklin what they did to you and suffered the consequence.’

Dowling looked down, perplexed. ‘Then Franklin took the key from Pestilence and locked the vestry door on his way out? A strange thing for a lunatic to do.’

My own brain started tiptoeing in circles besides. ‘And where is Morrison?’

‘There is another door.’ Dowling pointed. Sat snug in the corner, at the back of the room, was a squat low door I hadn’t noticed before.

‘The key should be on the ring,’ called our escort, still reluctant to come forth.

Dowling took the keys from me and searched on the ring
as he walked. He dropped to his knees, for the door was short, and tried the keys one by one, until finally he succeeded in unlocking it.

The door led out to the back of the priory, a place we had not ventured before. We kicked our way through knee-length yellow weeds, grown sickly from the filth. Ahead of us grew the garden, overgrown with long grasses; cyperus and rush-grass among them.

The uneasy peace was broken by the squawking of a crow above our heads, flapping noisily to the centre of the tiny meadow, descending into an area where the grass lay flatter. Then a second, launching itself from atop the asylum, disappearing into the hollow. What did they seek? I pushed into the grass, surprised to find the ground wet and spongy beneath my feet.

The ginger man followed us, a pace behind. ‘Where the cesspit leaks,’ he explained.

I steeled my flagging will as moisture seeped into my shoes and surrounded my feet. The crows scrabbled and hopped heavy-footed ahead of us.

The second corpse lay prone, arms and legs sprawled, naked gut spilt over the top of his trousers. His shirt hung in tatters about his torso. The crows pecked at the hole in his stomach that someone had fashioned with a large serrated blade. His face scrunched up into a ball of intense concentration like he was breaking wind. A fly walked light-footed across his pursed blue lips.

‘Who is he?’ I wondered aloud, for it was not War.

‘Gallagher,’ whispered the ginger man, shaking.

Dowling waved an arm at the indignant birds. ‘The other jailer.’ The belly bloated, skin mottled purple and red. Fat
maggots squirmed within the body cavity, well fed and ripe.

‘He has been here about a week I would say.’ Dowling opened one eye with his thumb. The eyeball returned his stare, glassy, clouded and dull. He turned to the ginger man. ‘You last saw him on Monday?’

‘Or the day before.’ The ginger man held the back of his hand to his mouth and screwed his eyes up tight.

‘Stabbed in the gut and left to rot.’ Dowling stood. ‘What is your name?’ he asked the ginger man.

‘Smith,’ he replied, afore emptying his guts into the grass. The crows watched hungrily.

Dowling laid a long arm about his narrow shoulders and regarded him kindly. ‘What has been going on here the last few weeks, Smith?’

‘Nothing,’ Smith exclaimed. ‘Nothing I can think of. Pateson has not been here for several weeks, but Morrison and Gallagher said it was because his wife couldn’t abide living here, and I seen him anyway, he’s not dead.’ He looked up into Dowling’s eyes. ‘Leastways he wasn’t.’

‘We saw him day afore yesterday,’ Dowling assured him. ‘He wasn’t dead then. What of Morrison?’

‘As I told you.’ Smith’s voice sounded shrill. ‘He was here this morning, then disappeared.’

‘Did he say anything of Gallagher’s absence?’ I asked.

‘Yes!’ Smith held up a long, white finger. ‘Now you say it, so he did. He said Gallagher was sickly and would be coming back next week.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘And when he said it, he seemed sad. I thought Gallagher might be plagued.’

Dowling turned. ‘He has family?’

‘Aye,’ Smith nodded eagerly. ‘They live behind the wall, off St Mary Axe.’

‘Morrison and Gallagher knew each other well, it seems.’