The Hanged Man Rises

by Sarah Naughton

  When they’d got a safe distance away Titus muttered: ‘Who is that?’

  Pilbury paused by the stable and clicked his tongue into the darkness. A few minutes later a grey horse trotted up. Its head was high and the whites of its eyes were visible around the large brown iris.

  ‘She looks scared,’ Titus said.

  ‘She’s every right to be,’ the Inspector murmured, running the back of his hand down the animal’s nose. ‘Have you heard of the Wigman?’

  Titus nodded. ‘Course. He’s been killing slum kids all summer. Taking a bit of their hair as a souvenir.’

  ‘Yes. That is one of his trademarks. There are others the press haven’t been told about, to prevent all the local lunatics wasting our time with their confessions.’

  ‘Is it him in there?’ Titus whispered, jerking his thumb back towards cell three. Pilbury nodded.

  Titus threw a glance over his shoulder at the black metal door of cell three. He wasn’t superstitious but it had been hard not to be affected by some of the stories whirling around the Acre: that the devil himself was stalking them, to punish them for their sinful deeds.

  ‘How did you catch him?’ he said.

  ‘He left footprints on the riverbank and a doctor of anatomy told us their owner must be at least six feet. A giant like that stands out in the Acre.’ Titus nodded, but he couldn’t help wondering about the medium at the window.

  ‘He sounds mad,’ Titus said. ‘Will he escape the gallows because of it?’

  ‘I believe the madness is affected for that end. I don’t like sending any man to be hanged but this one . . .’ He tailed off. Digging his hand into his pocket he brought out a saffron bun, which the horse gobbled gratefully.

  ‘I didn’t realise buns was part of your kit, sir,’ Titus said.

  Pilbury smiled. ‘My old housekeeper will insist on trying to feed me up. The house is heaving with pies and cakes and bloody buns. Would you like me to bring some in for you?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m sure we’ll manage.’

  ‘Very well,’ Pilbury said, then he laid a hand lightly on Titus’s shoulder. ‘But is there nothing I can do to help you both?’

  Titus cleared his throat and looked away before replying:

  ‘Perhaps a few buns then, if you can spare them. For Hannah.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They walked together to the gate and said goodnight.

  6

  He hammered on the door until Mr and Mrs Pincher finally came down.

  ‘Is she here?’

  The dancing candle flame contorted their features, throwing shadows of beaks and claws against the wall behind them.

  ‘Did you think we would throw a poor orphan out into the street?’ Mrs Pincher said.

  He barged past them into the hallway and began mounting the stairs to their old apartment.

  ‘Not that way!’ the old woman called.

  He came back and followed them down the hall to the cellar door. As they descended the stairs into the cellar Mr Pincher told Titus how they had struggled to get the bodies inside:

  ‘We wanted to do right by them, for we were so fond of your poor dear mother.’

  Titus’s jaw clenched. They had called his mother a drunken slut on more than one occasion.

  As they neared the bottom there was a strong smell of earth and rats’ urine. Mr Pincher stepped out onto the mud floor and held up the candle. Along the wall on the opposite side were two shrouded bodies. Titus took a step towards them. His mother’s hand protruded from beneath the sheet, a depression in the flesh marking where the ring had been. Already her skin was waxy yellow. He knelt and tucked the hand back under the sheet.

  They had misunderstood him, thinking he wanted to know where his parents were. Still, it was kind of the old buggers to have given them somewhere to be at peace. Hannah must be at Stitcher’s.

  But as he stood up a movement from the other side of the room caught his eye. Hannah was curled on a wooden pallet in the corner. Though it was freezing cold and damp she had no covering, nor any pillow. She did not register his presence but stared in the direction of the corpses, ceaselessly rubbing at her lips with her fist. Titus turned on the old couple who shrank back up the stairs.

  ‘You forced her to stay with their bodies?’

  ‘There was nowhere else!’

  ‘There was your own lodgings.’

  His mouth curled in disgust as they sighed and mumbled and wouldn’t meet his gaze. Then a frail voice called his name.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, turning back and sinking to his knees beside her, ‘I’m here now.’

  He took her in his arms and embraced her while she whimpered, stroking her hair and murmuring words of comfort. Eventually she fell asleep and he laid her carefully back onto the pallet, with his own jumper as a pillow. When he looked back at the stairs his landlords had vanished, leaving the guttering candle on the stairs. Exhaustion finally overcame him and he lay down on the mud next to her, on his side to create a wall between her and what lay beyond.

  When he woke she was staring up at the ceiling. A little morning light came down the stairs from the open door at the top, and coloured her face a sickly yellow. His father always said her eyes were as blue as cornflowers, but in the light of that cold morning they were the opaque green of stagnant water.

  Mrs Pincher was good enough to let Hannah wait in her kitchen while Titus did his best to clean up the room. It wasn’t as bad as it had appeared when the fire raged: only the most flammable items – the linen, the straw mattress and bedframe – had burned, while the roof and walls were only scorched and stained with soot. They would have to sleep on the bare cot until he found the money to replace the linen. Where that was to come from he had no idea. There was no sense trying to maintain the dressmaking business. Besides the destruction of all the work waiting to be done, his mother had an excellent reputation, built up before her marriage, and no-one would trust a cack-handed boy and his little sister to produce work of the same quality. Little did they know that their fine dresses had been produced by just such a pair for the past year.

  At ten the men arrived to take their parents’ remains to the paupers’ burial ground at St Bride’s. They were quiet and respectful and when Titus asked the time of the funeral service they told him gently that there would be a mass burial at four that afternoon, in a communal pit.

  ‘The air is not so sweet, and the preacher not so devout as you would wish, son,’ said the older man with a sad smile. ‘Why not simply say a prayer and drop a flower into the river? God will hear you.’ When he placed his wiry hand on Titus’s shoulder Titus almost crumpled with the safety and strength of it. Before he climbed up onto the cart the younger man reached beneath the shroud and snipped off a lock of his mother’s chestnut hair. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘remember her as she was.’

  The sun was beginning to set when he descended the stairs for the final time, the bucket slopping black water over his trousers. He had changed it six times, trekking to the pump on the corner of the street, ignoring the curious eyes and shouts of the street children. Stitcher made a brief appearance to slap some of the younger ones about the ears until they fled crying, before telling Titus how sorry he was.

  ‘I can’t remember nothing about my folks, though Rosie says when they found me I was wearing a silver locket. Someone pinched that soon enough, course. Never mind. Me and Charly got each other at least.’

  He nodded up at Mrs Pincher’s window: ‘I could give them two a hiding for you if you like.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Titus said. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  He went back up for a final check of the room before Hannah came up. Even now, after a good clean, it was a grim and depressing hole. Its shape may once have been square, but age had bowed it, so that on one side the wall lurched inwards, and on the other it leaned drunkenly away. Mildew spread up the walls and across the ceiling, making it feel as if the room was in the middle of a dark wood
.

  The only furniture left in the room was the bare cot and the poor little songbird’s cage. Hannah always wanted to set it free, imagining her own love for the bird was reciprocated strongly enough for it to return of its own free will, but Titus knew it would have been out of the window in a heartbeat and set upon by gulls or crows. A kinder death, perhaps. Despite passing so close to it the flames had left the cage almost untouched, although the brass was now black, but the heat and smoke must have been too much for the little creature. He took it from the cage and, with nowhere else to put it, slipped the frail body into his pocket. Then he made his way downstairs.

  Hannah was staring out of the window while Mrs Pincher pored over her ledger. On a plate next to it was a half-eaten pie, and she was smearing its grease over the pages as she wrote.

  ‘Come on, Hannah, time to go back up.’

  The scratch of Mrs Pincher’s pen paused.

  ‘Back up?’ she said.

  ‘To the room. I’ve cleaned it and it’s now habitable.’

  ‘Oh no, son.’ She bent her thin lips into an innocent smile. ‘The room is taken.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. By the poor family who lost their home yesterday.’

  She laughed at the expression on Titus’s face.

  ‘What, d’you think I’d be letting it out for free to a couple of guttersnipes without a bean between them?’

  For a moment he couldn’t speak. It was Hannah who finally broke the silence.

  ‘You let him do all that work knowing you was gonna throw us out?’ she said.

  ‘Your parents were dead drunk.’ Her smile drew as fine as wire. ‘If they’d been sober they would have got up and put out them first little flames and there would have been no damage to the room.’

  Titus stared at her. She swallowed a piece of pie crust and the little lump moved down her scrawny throat to be lost amidst the brown folds. Her neck was as thin as a chicken leg. His hands clenched into fists at his side.

  Then Hannah’s fingers wormed into his.

  ‘Come on,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ll go to Stitcher’s place.’

  ‘That’s it,’ the old woman mumured. ‘Birds of a feather . . .’

  Titus inhaled deeply, then cleared his throat.

  ‘Perhaps you would consider letting us stay this one night, as it is too late to organise alternative lodgings.’

  ‘I told you the room is already taken.’

  ‘Is there not a hallway or storeroom we might use. I should pay you back of course, once I am salaried.’ She laughed.

  ‘Oh, of course. I hear all the businesses are clamouring to hire illiterate orphans.’

  ‘I can read and write. I learned at the One Tun School.’

  ‘Oh yes, Ragged Schools are famous for producing millionaires,’ she tittered, returning to the ledger. ‘Well, when you are salaried you will be more than welcome.’

  They were supposed to leave now but, despite his revulsion for the landlady and his shame at having to beg, he stayed where he was. He owed Hannah at least one more attempt.

  ‘If you will not help us, just for this one night, then we will have nowhere to go.’

  ‘There’s always the workhouse.’

  He flinched. Then he took Hannah’s hand and led her to the door. If they had any chance of securing beds for the night they must leave now. The pawnshop two streets away might give them a few pence for Hannah’s coat.

  ‘Wait a minute, my dear.’

  Mr Pincher’s voice wheedled from the corner of the room where Titus now saw him, curled on his overstuffed armchair like a spider feeding on a fat fly.

  ‘What about the basement room?’

  Mrs Pincher blinked at him.

  ‘The cellar?’

  ‘No, my sweet,’ he stared at his wife with bulbous grey eyes, ‘I mean the basement.’

  Comprehension spread across her face like syrup.

  ‘For some time we have been planning to renovate downstairs and although, as you have seen, it is not quite ready for immediate habitation, perhaps we could hold it for you, for the price of, say, tuppence a week, until such time as that amounts to a month’s deposit.’

  ‘We’ll sleep there tonight, if you have another pallet, and I’ll get you the deposit as soon as I can.’

  ‘No!’ Hannah cried.

  ‘We have no choice!’ he hissed at her.

  ‘No deposit, no room,’ Mrs Pincher sing-songed, returning to her ledger.

  It didn’t look like the old bag could be persuaded. But in the long run it might be worth keeping on the right side of them. Tuppence a week was very cheap, especially if they were going to do up the place. And if Titus managed to find work he might scrape the deposit together quite quickly.

  ‘You will do what needs to be done quickly? The walls must be painted and a floor laid.’

  ‘Oh I agree, the walls do need painting,’ Mr Pincher said, ‘and a wooden floor should certainly be laid if it is to be comfortable.’

  ‘Tuppence a week?’

  The old man nodded, smiling.

  ‘Then hold it for us and I will be back with the deposit as soon as I can.’

  He leaned forwards and shook Mrs Pincher’s hand, holding her gaze with a confidence he did not feel. Despite the grease and clumps of meat under her nails it was like holding a bag of sticks. Hannah leaned heavily against him, her breath soured by fatigue and hunger.

  ‘To seal our arrangement,’ he said, ‘perhaps you might share with us a little of that meat pie.’

  Mrs Pincher threw back her head, stretching taut the sinews of her neck.

  ‘The boy is a chancer!’ she cried. ‘Here!’

  She tossed over the grey lump and then licked the fat from her fingers.

  Hannah munched her way solidly through the pie as they passed out of the streets of the Acre into Victoria Street. All hunger had left him, however, and his throat was bone dry.

  What he was about to do, the plan that might save them, meant betraying the last person in the world he had left to love.

  7

  To delay the moment he took a meandering route, eastwards towards the Houses of Parliament. Hannah soon realised that they were not going to Stitcher’s.

  ‘We must spend the night at the workhouse,’ he told her.

  ‘What? No! I’d rather die!’

  ‘Just for the night. Tomorrow I’ll find work and get us some lodgings.’ He could barely shape his lips to form the treacherous words. ‘You can manage one night, can’t you?’

  ‘Why can’t we just go to Stitcher’s?’

  Because, he wanted to say, we will never come out again. Because it would be as easy as breathing to slip into his old ways again. Because they would both be happy for a while: amongst friends, with enough to eat and drink, warmth and comfort. Because he was beginning to wonder why he ever thought it wrong.

  ‘Because I don’t want to live like that any more. Please, just trust me.’

  After he’d spoken he bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

  The river was as busy as ever and people streamed across the bridge from Lambeth. On their right the Palace of Westminster raked the sky, leaving wheals of scarlet in the grey. Inside those walls MPs would be dining on mutton and gravy, plum pudding and custard, Stilton cheese. They would sup champagne, claret, port and brandy, and then topple groaning onto the pavement where their drivers waited to whisk them back to Belgravia. He understood what drove Stitcher and his crew to rob and terrorise with such indifference to their victims when they could be so warm and loyal to their friends. Stitcher and Titus and their kind were nearer to dogs than they were to the men who paced those hallowed halls. Their concerns were of simple animal survival, where these people existed in a world where the stitching on one’s hat was a matter of life and death. A single gold button from their waistcoats would keep Titus and Hannah in food and lodgings for a week.

  The tide was coming in and the water surged onto the beach below. Soon it would
be submerged, but this was no deterrent to the mudlark who delved in the last few inches of sludge in front of them, occasionally plucking something out, wiping it on her smock and pocketing it. The current was strong enough to snatch her away if she did not leave soon, but her survival was just as dependent on the mud of the riverbed.

  Was survival worth so much pain?

  He gazed down at the water. A quick release for himself, and quicker for Hannah, who would have no warning and so no fear. Then he felt something pressing against his hip and drew from his pocket the body of the songbird. His body heat had kept the little thing warm and supple, and its tissue-thin eyelids were closed, as if it were only sleeping. The sun broke through the clouds as he hurled it out across the river and it arced down like a falling star. As it drew near to the surface of the water the wind caught its wings and threw them wide. This slowed its fall momentarily, but then there was some convulsion in the little body and, even as the waves stretched their fingers to receive it, the bird bobbed, hovered and rose up. Had a gust of wind decided to tease it a little before tossing it away? But now it was flying against the wind; diving forwards, soaring. Its head was raised and, even over the wind and the thunder of carriages, it was possible to hear its song.

  Titus laughed with exhilaration. The mudlark, too, had witnessed this resurrection and stood transfixed as the bird tumbled through the air. Hannah finally stirred and her hair flashed in the sunlight, yellow as the bird’s feathers, as she turned to follow Titus’s gaze.

  ‘See, Hannah! I have set her free! I have done it!’

  They kept sight of the speck of gold until the river bent southwards.

  ‘Course she’ll be gobbled up by the crows,’ the mudlark called, picking her way back up the now inundated beach, but her voice was bright.

  For a few minutes his heart was light, watching Hannah squint into the distance for one last glimpse of the bird, but as the lower edge of the sun came to rest on Chelsea Bridge he knew it was time to continue their journey, into the gloomy alleys of Little Almonry.