Sinistrari

by Giles Ekins

  He stopped and peered up at the small sign, hand painted letters on a piece of wood screwed to a green painted door. The sign was fixed above eye level and in the dim light it was difficult to read, but by standing on tip toe, not easy in his condition, and pressing his face to within six inches of the lettering Rose was able to make out the words ‘Mortuary’ and ‘Restricted Access’.

  ‘Good,’ he said and fished about in his jacket pocket for the keys that Chief Warden Brunskill had given him. ‘Mister Sinistrari, may you rot in Hell, here we come. Time to meet the knife.’

  After some fumbling at the keyhole, Rose finally got the door of the mortuary open and staggered inside. The mortuary was dimly lit, not all the gas lights had been lit, something the hangmen were supposed to do before they left, but by what light there was, Rose was able to see that a shrouded corpse lay on the porcelain mortuary table.

  ‘Ho hum, beeladle dum,’ he sang as he peeled off his jacket, managing to get the sleeves inside out in the process and made to hang up it one on the coat rack, but missed, depositing the coat onto the floor instead. He tried to bend down to pick it up, but a wave of giddiness swept over him and he had to stand upright again and swallow down the rush of vomit that scalded into his gorge.

  ‘Goodness gracious almighty.’ he swore, hanging onto the coat rack for support, breathing heavily. ‘Damn fine brandy, what?’ His jacket momentarily forgotten, Rose took down a filthy apron from a peg beside the coat rack. The apron had once been white in colour but was now stained with a thick coating of dried blood and corpse detritus, desiccated pieces of flesh stuck to the fabric as if they had been glued in place and the entire garment stank of old blood and decaying flesh.

  Rose was a doctor of the old school and did not subscribe to new-fangled notions about cleanliness and sterility. A corpse was a corpse was a corpse and no amount of filth and germs were going to harm it now. The fact that Rose might have used the same filthy garments whilst treating live patients never occurred to him and in the past, on many occasions in the past he had gone directly from an autopsy with the blood of a cadaver still on his hands to treat and operate on the living. Dr Rose had a high incident of post operation mortality, but never once in his career had he wondered why. Patients died under the knife on the operating theatre, and that was that.

  It was a fact of life, or death, and nobody could ever convince him that sepsis, introduced by Rose, and might be the cause. Stuff and nonsense.

  The gore-stiffened apron crackled like the thin skin of ice on a puddle as Rose approached the mortuary table and the shrouded corpse.

  ‘Dum-di-deee-di-dum-di-dum-dee-do,’ he warbled with brandy induced high spirits, momentarily forgetting his bout of nausea and the inconvenience of having to perform Sinistrari’s necropsy at this time of night ‘Now then, Mister High and Mighty Mister Sinistrari, let us see how high and mighty you are feeling now, shall we?,’

  Rose had very plump and hairy hands, flecked with aged dark liver spots, and they scuttled across the shroud like mating tarantulas as he pulled back the covering from the body, which lay, on the table. He blinked in owlish amazement and re-adjusted his spectacles more securely onto his broken-veined nose before peering closely at the broken necked corpse once again. ‘But no, you, you … you aren’t Sinistrari, no sir; this has to be some mix up. Now, where in the Devil are you, damned fellow.’

  Rose looked wildly about the mortuary as if expecting Sinistrari’s corpse to make itself known to him and then squinted back at the corpse on the table, perhaps hoping for it to transmogrify back into Sinistrari if he stared hard enough at it.

  ‘Good lord, it’s … it’s the hangman?’ Rose started as his fuddled senses recognised the corpse and he clicked his fingers in frustration, trying to remember the name of the executioners. ‘Jenkins! That’s it, Jenkins. Hangman Jenkins. Good heavens, what on earth?

  ‘Good evening, Doctor Rose. Or should I say good morning, it surely is a most ungodly hour for good men to be about their business.’ What sounded horribly like Sinistrari’s taunting voice cut across the gloom of the mortuary like a scalpel and Rose felt sudden icy chills of dread trickling down his spine, his heart seized in frozen terror. In his shock, he staggered into the mortuary table, knocking Jenkins’ arm loose so that it fell away and a dead hand brushed against his groin like a lewd caress. With a startled strangulated scream, he backed away, his hand to his mouth as he turned to face the horror he knew could not be there.

  By all that was holy and sacred, Rose knew that Sinistrari could not be there, Sinistrari was dead, hanged by the neck. No heartbeat. No possibility of brain activity. All life extinct. No, no, the drink had befuddled his senses and induced wild imaginings. Or else someone was playing a very unpleasant practical joke, one of the warders perhaps. Or maybe Dennison, although the hangman did not strike Rose as being a man for japes or joke.

  As he looked around Doctor Pasha Rose suddenly felt very sober, very sober indeed. Before him, in the deeper shadow of the corner stood the hanged man, Edward Sinistrari, leaning against a bench, one foot crossed over the other – tall – elegant – mocking.

  Very much alive.

  Dressed once more in the clothes in which he had been executed, the garments looking as fresh and crisp as though a butler had laid them out freshly ironed no more than an hour or so ago. Rose felt his bowels loosen, liquescent with fear.

  ‘You seem somewhat surprised to see me, doctor, startled almost? Do squeeze tight onto your sphincter, there’s a good chap. Awful smell and all that.’

  ‘But you! You’re dead,’ Rose managed to stumble out, his tongue knotted, ‘I saw you hanged, I know you were dead, and … and,’ he pointed to the corpse of Jenkins, ‘He was alive. I know; I saw him! You were dead and he alive.’

  ‘Mmmmm, a rather inconvenient situation, I thought, and so I arranged … how shall I put it? A metamorphosis, shall we say,’ Sinistrari said, waving a languid hand in the direction of body on the mortuary slab.

  ‘Metamorphosis?’

  ‘Yes. His life for mine. As St John so admirably puts it, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Not that we were friends exactly but we were acquainted, oh my word yes; acquainted in the most intimate of circumstances.’

  Sinistrari smiled, a chilling smile in which his eyes sparked like ice flows in the pale winter sun of the arctic. ‘As shall we, doctor, you and I.’

  Then, suddenly, without seeming to move, Sinistrari was alongside Rose, towering over him. With a cry Rose fell back, bumping into the mortuary slab once more, the sudden rush of warmth in his crotch as his bowels and bladder discharged unnoticed in his terror.

  ‘Oh dear, I did specifically ask you to control your bodily functions, did I not?’ Sinistrari mocked. He reached for Rose, his hands hooking like the talons of a bird of prey. ‘Time I think for an anatomy lesson.’

  THE BODY OF DOCTOR PASHA ROSE WAS NOT DISCOVERED until 6 o’clock that morning, when four prisoners under escort arrived at the prison mortuary to collect, as they thought, the body of the executed murderer, Edward James Sinistrari, for burial in the prison grounds.

  Rose had been anatomically dissected. A subsequent post mortem of his mutilated corpse indicated that many of the incisions had taken place whilst he had been alive. The final cut had been a V shaped incision to the front of the neck, allowing the removal of the larynx. Other organs, including Rose’s heart, liver and kidneys, were also removed and of which no trace could be found. Rose’s body had been tied to the mortuary table by strips of his intestines and his black doctor’s bag had been thrust into the cavity of his hollowed out abdomen.

  The body of executioner’s assistant Alfred Jenkins was also discovered in the mortuary. Apart from the marks of strangulation, his corpse was unmarked. The naked body of hangman Dennison was found in the execution pit. He was hanging by his heels from the noose with which he had executed Sinistrari. His corpse looked as though wild animals had savaged i
t. Deep scratches, like claw marks, ran the length of his torso and limbs, crisscrossing and overlapping in a frenzied scored patchwork so that Dennison’s skin had been all but totally scraped away.

  His eyes were ripped out and left to dangle like children’s playthings on the bloody strings of their membranous ocular muscles. Dennison’s genitals had also been torn away and stuffed into his gaping mouth, the tip of his penis hanging from the corner of his mouth in a grotesquely lolling parody of his missing tongue.

  Dennison’s stomach had been slit open and his intestines slowly been drawn out, stretched across the pit and then coiled in a heap in the corner like a nest of bloody serpents. As had been the case with Rose, many of the injuries had been inflicted whilst Dennison was still alive and the fact of being suspended upside down meant that the concentration of blood to his brain prevented him from passing out. He would have felt every slicing cut, every raking incision, lingering in agony for hours before finally expiring from loss of blood.

  Of Sinistrari, there was no sign. He had vanished from the prison as if he had been no more substantial than vapour, like the first thin curl of smoke from a newly lit fire evaporating into the damp morning air.

  Chapter 4

  OFFICE OFTHE METROPITAN POLICE COMMISSIONER

  LONDON

  TUESDAY MAY 5th, 1888

  JAMES MONRO STOOD UP TO SHAKE HANDS as Chief Inspector Charles Collingwood entered the room. Sir Charles Warren did not. He merely extended a limp hand across the breadth of his desk and then pointed at a chair with his pen, indicating that Collingwood should sit. He then carried on reading the letter he held in his hand.

  Sir Chares Warren was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and James Monro, Assistant Commissioner Metropolitan Police (Criminal Investigation Department).

  Collingwood took note of the obvious tension between the two men and then sat very still, calmly composed for his summoned meeting. He had a very good idea what the meeting would be about.

  A clock ticked loudly in the silence of the Commissioner’s Office as Sir Charles continued to read the papers on his desk, pointedly ignoring the two officers seated before him. After a long drawn two or three minutes, Warren finally signed some of the documents and then rang a bell on the wall behind him. His Private Secretary, Walter Boultbee, came in and took the signed papers but did not leave. Instead, he hovered close by Warren’s shoulder as the Commissioner dispensed a sheaf of papers and documents to him as though handing out Bible tracts at a prayer meeting. With an irritated flap of hand Warren then dismissed Boultbee who eased himself out of the room with the papers clutched to his chest as if afraid they might explode if he dropped them. In all this time, not a word was spoken.

  The desk behind which Sir Charles Warren sat was highly polished; gleaming, mirror-like – a statement of importance. Piles of neatly stacked papers and files – each pile square upon each another and an exact distant apart marched across the burnished surface of the desk like a column of Guardsmen on parade.

  At last, he turned to Collingwood. ‘Sorry to have kept you, Collingwood, I know that you must be a busy man, thank you for sparing the time.’ He did not speak to Monro.

  ‘At your service, sir,’

  ‘Quite. Quite. Now, one thing I must make perfectly clear. Nothing discussed in this room here this morning is to go beyond the three of us. Is that clearly understood?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Collingwood and Monro responded.

  ‘Good! As you probably have surmised, Collingwood,’ the Commissioner said conspiratorially, ‘I’ve called you here to discuss the ghastly events at Newgate Goal four days ago.’

  ‘Ghastly!’ echoed Monro. Warren looked surprised, not anticipating interruption at this juncture. He turned his cold eyes onto Monro.

  ‘Monro if you would be so kind.’ Warren said acidly, ‘If you would refrain from comment until I have finished, tend to lose one’s train of thought otherwise, don’t you know.’

  Monro bristled at the veiled rebuke, his thick walrus moustache quivering in indignation. In a closed world such as the Metropolitan Police Force, there are few secrets and the ill feeling between Warren and Monro was common knowledge throughout the ranks. Collingwood did not look at either man, although his sympathies lay with Monro. Monro wanted a more independent role for the Criminal Investigation Department, with which Collingwood agreed. It was also rumoured that Sir Charles had blocked the appointment of Melville McNaughton as Assistant Chief Constable. McNaughton was a friend of Monro’s from their service in India together.

  However, Collingwood did not want to be caught up in the internecine struggle between the two men and clasped his hands together; keeping his gaze fixed on the parade of papers lined up on the Commissioners desk as if expecting them to march off in fours.

  Having scored a small, if petulant, victory, Warren picked up a file from the fourth rank of papers on his desk and quickly scanned the contents. Collingwood recognised the document as his own report on the Newgate incident – the apparent escape of Sinistrari from the gallows and the murders of Doctor Rose and the hangmen.

  Sir Charles read slowly, reading with the obvious pedantry of one who had previously studied the document at some length but wishes to make a point. After some minutes he put down the report again, meticulously lining it up in precise formation with the papers below it before addressing Collingwood. ‘Chief Inspector, you carried out the preliminary investigation into the affair at Newgate?’

  Collingwood nodded in assent but remained silent; knowing that as Warren had just read the report his question was rhetorical.

  ‘According to Sir William Billington’s report, contained therein, the hangman, the unfortunate fellow killed … Dennison?’

  Dennison, yes Commissioner.’

  ‘According to Billington, Dennison was inexperienced and ineffective and so bungled the execution. Sinistrari must have survived the hanging attempt, thus allowing him to commit these outrages.’

  ‘Yes. That is Sir Williams’ assertion.’

  ‘But as to your own conclusions, sir? And Billington’s report?’

  ‘With respect, sir, I believe the Governor is trying to ensure that no opprobrium is directed towards him. The easiest way is to blame the hangman, who regretfully is dead and so cannot defend himself. However, in the absence of other possibilities I must concur with the Governor’s assertion,’ Collingwood answered carefully, fully believing that the Governor – ultimately responsible for the execution had seized on any excuse upon which he could hang the raincoat of culpability.

  ‘But it is possible to survive a hanging, is it not? There have been such cases recorded, indeed your own report contains examples of authenticated cases where a hanged felon has recovered after his execution, does it not?’

  ‘Yes sir, that is correct. There have been such cases,’

  ‘Quite, quite, it seems patently obvious that the hangman Dennison bungled the job and so allowed Sinistrari to survive the hanging,’ said Monro pointedly to Warren, as though the Commissioner did not understand the report. A tart look of annoyance crossed Warren’s face again at Monro’s intervention.

  ‘Yes sir, but only if the drop were too short and so did not dislocate the vertebrae.’ Collingwood said quickly, before Sir Charles could react.

  ‘As was the case here,’ Monro added. ‘Billington is quite specific that he admonished Dennison for not allowing sufficient drop.’

  ‘The drop given was five feet eleven inches, sir. According to my sources, such a drop ought to have been sufficient to cause instant death. In fact it has been suggested to me that this drop might have been too great; rather than too little.’

  ‘Nevertheless, the possibility, indeed the likely-hood, is that the drop was inadequate and Sinistrari survived?’ Warren asked sharply, determined to get the meeting back onto his own particular rails.

  ‘Yes sir that is how it must be. As to how he escaped death on the gallows, we do not know, but we must assume that Sinistrari
somehow, in some way, survived the execution and escaped.’

  Sir Charles lined up the ranks of files and papers on his desk again, even though they had been militarily precise – precise to an infinite fraction of an inch.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, somewhat grandiosely, ‘whatever the truth might be of this dreadful affair, not one word of this matter must ever reach the public ear, I have it on the specific instructions of the Prime Minister, conveyed to me in person by the Home Secretary. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Collingwood answered.

  ‘Monro?’

  ‘Aye! Aye, you said that afore.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Collingwood,’ Warren continued, ignoring Monro’s barbed response. ‘I can appreciate that the matter may not so clear cut as we would all wish it to be. The one thing that is certain however is that the general populace must never become aware that this man – this foul creature Sinistrari is free.

  That somehow he has evaded his just deserts. There would be panic and insurrection in the streets. Anarchy! This cannot be allowed. Lord Salisbury1 has made this abundantly clear. Your task, Collingwood, indeed your only task as from this moment on, is to track this down this fiend and bring him to justice. He is a condemned man and once captured can be re-executed without trail. Without public knowledge! Without public knowledge, Collingwood, I cannot stress that too highly. The very fabric of our society would crumble if it became known that our citizenry cannot be made safe and that we allow the vilest of villains to cheat the hangman. Such a revelation could bring this Government down and I do not intend for that to happen. I simply forbid it. Not one word must be breathed of this matter, not now or ever in the years to come!’