The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  All Her Majesty’s other prisons had far too much character. They stank of various levels in hell, burnt in summer and freezing in winter, and men went there to die from every imaginable disease. This one killed in a different way: not through the obvious, painful explosions of sickness and decay promised by traditional places - the Fleet, Newgate and the hulks - but a quiet, tactful death, a smothering with non-sense, with non-life, with non-anything; perfect physical well-being while everything else became as white and pale as the walls around it.

  And though Horatio Lyle knew, knew as rationally as he knew that there couldn’t be angel-demon people who could control others’ minds, as he knew that magic wasn’t real and that gravity would always make the apple fall, though he knew that he would get out and wouldn’t be there for long, there was no keeping out the little, irrational, terrifying thought that perhaps he’d made a mistake, and there would be no carriage waiting just outside the gates and no rope ladder and no distraction while he could sneak down, and no sliding the bar back across the door, and that would be it: he’d be stuck there, dying that quiet death each day all the days of his life.

  He curled up tighter into the blanket and half-closed his eyes, and tried to think happy thoughts, from his new cell inside the Model Prison.

  CHAPTER 9

  Smoke

  This was what Teresa Hatch was good at.

  Thomas had wanted to use a grappling hook and rope. But to Teresa that was messy; it smacked of sloppy practice and, the worst of all things in a life of crime, reckless adventurism.

  ‘Bigwig,’ she announced in tones no less reproving for their voices being hushed, so close to the prison walls.

  ‘Yes, Miss Teresa?’

  ‘I don’t know as how anyone’s never told you before, but a Good brush with death an’ adventurin’ type things is a Safe brush with death an’ adventurin’, right?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Teresa.’

  ‘It means bein’ all properly kitted up, makin’ sure you got your fence in the clear, your mark well greased, your team all in the know and the bobbies off the scent; it involves plannin’ an’ consideration an’ above all, steerin’ clear of anythin’ a stupid pad what thinks he’s the sharpest thing in the rookery can play with ’cos of how it’s got the glint, right?’

  ‘I think so, Miss Teresa.’ Thomas was sweating with the effort of simultaneous translation.

  ‘Oh, an’ never, ever press the thing marked “Bang”.’

  ‘What thing marked “Bang”, Miss Teresa?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought, but were I tactless enough to say it? No, ’cos I’m a well-bred young lady person. But who, I mean really, labels anything “Bang”?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a metaphor?’

  ‘Oi - no big words while I’m at work, Teresa’s rule of ... workin’. Got the gear?’

  ‘If you can call it gear . . .’

  ‘Who’s the professional here?’

  ‘I’m not sure if this is an area of employment in which you can seek such respectability, Miss Teresa.’

  Teresa gave the martyred sigh of all uniquely skilled people being thwarted by amateurs, and looked over her stash of essential supplies for the night’s work. Three large boxes, the fuse wires just visible over the edge, which Lin was setting neatly in the middle of the street, some distance from the carriage; a crossbow, all cogs and gears and springs, which Mister Lyle had proudly informed her could be loaded by ‘a one-armed gnome with the muscular integrity of a banking clerk’, the sack of goodies and a lot of rope for Mister Lyle, and of course, the thing that brought such disapproval from Thomas - the ladder. As far as Thomas was concerned, if you had to commit crime at all, you should at least do it in style.

  Tess beamed. It was a very, very good ladder. She was even thinking of giving it a name. They set to work.

  A sound in the night?

  Perhaps. It’s hard to tell, so hard. The mind plays tricks in the darkness; no sense can be trusted in silence as thick as this. Even mountains have more noises and support more evidence of life: the movement of insects or the pressure of an owl’s wings. But inside, tonight, it’s so difficult to know, while the fog below smothers even the meowing of the prison’s rat-hunting cat, with its one and a half twitching ears.

  Perhaps . ..

  The gentle thump of a wooden ladder being laid carefully against a wall, some way below?

  Perhaps . . . soft-soled shoes on an uneven surface, perhaps . . . the tiniest movement of something light, no bigger than a child, perhaps . . . the thump of something coming to land in the courtyard below, the flop of rope, perhaps . . . no way to judge, nothing against which to compare the volume of sound except the beating of the heart.

  When the distant church struck two a.m., it seemed so loud that Lyle nearly fell out of his bed. On the floor, he reassembled himself, gathered up a little dignity for the invisible audience that could so easily be waiting in that unloving darkness, and lifted one foot. He had, naturally, been searched, but what he was looking for was easy enough to hide. The small bundle of matches were tucked away just inside his shoe. He pulled one out, struck it easily off the wall and held it up to the high window. He repeated this three times over five-minute intervals, and sat back to wait.

  A sound? Perhaps . . .

  Something mechanical. Many cogs and springs greased tightly together, bending, turning, so efficient that a one-armed gnome with the muscular integrity of a banking clerk could operate them, perhaps? So hard, imagination knows what ’s coming, difficult to place it.

  And a definite sound, so close and so loud Lyle thinks that the entire prison must hear it, must wake to it, but then once it’s come and gone in a second, he’s not so sure, perhaps he imagined it, the strange half-dislocation of thought and imagination as if he’d just woken up and spoke, not entirely confident if this was a dream or not.

  The church bell struck two thirty, somewhere in the distance. A goods train from the north rattled by. An empty goods train from the south clattered northwards. The fog made whatever no-noise the fog made; the church bell struck a quarter to three. Lyle began considering plan B, and contemplated the effect of temperature on volume at a fixed pressure, and pressure on volume at a fixed temperature and all variations around a theme, to keep himself distracted from thoughts of doom.

  When the knock came, he hadn’t heard anything approaching and at first thought it was the warden come to demand what in God’s name was going on now, or else. When it came again, it was, however, accompanied by a little voice from the small window set in the upper part of Lyle’s cell. ‘Oi! Is this the right evil criminal person?’

  Lyle hastened to the window, jumping up on tiptoes to try and get the tip of his nose at the approximate height of the speaker. ‘Tess!’

  A shadow, darker than the darkness outside, dangled outside his window and exclaimed brightly, ‘Hello, Mister Lyle!’

  ‘Shush, shush!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Tess’s voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. ‘Hello, Mister Lyle!’

  ‘Are you all right there?’

  ‘You mean, apart from how I’m attached to a rope what’s attached to, all due respect, a bloody ballista bolt from your really-nasty-should-never-be-fired-playin’-around-with-too-many-cogs-an’-frankly-, if I might say so, not-gettin’-out-enough machine, embedded in a bloody crumbly-looking wall, attached to a prison at height?’

  ‘Language!’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘All right otherwise?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Is Thomas down there?’

  ‘Bigwig’s scared of heights,’ sang out Teresa, bouncing on the rope outside Lyle’s window with an abandon that made even Lyle a little green. ‘You’ll be wantin’ equipment for escapin’ an’ all then, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘If it wouldn’t inconvenience you.’

  ‘You just sit tight an’ let Teresa, as usual, save the day, don’t you worry about nothin’, Mister Lyle.’

  There was a rustling
sound outside the small pane of glass and bars, and a little tight squeaking. Over the squeaking came Tess’s conversational voice. ‘You know, that machine of yours what you said as how anyone could fire it an’ it’d be secure an’ everythin’ ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was thinkin’ - isn’t someone goin’ to go an’ notice as to how there’s a bolt with . . . with . . .’

  ‘Explosive expanding hooking implements?’ suggested Lyle hopefully.

  ‘I was thinkin’ really big pointy bits, but if you want . . . stuck in the prison wall?’

  ‘Well, ideally it’d crumble in sunlight . . .’ began Lyle with forced brightness as the squeaking sound went on at the glass.

  ‘It crumbles?’ Tess’s voice was a shrill, bat-killing squeak.

  ‘No, no, I said ideally!’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ The squeaking continued at a nonchalant pace.

  ‘But since it doesn’t, and since it should be embedded at least a foot and a half into solid stone considering the explosive force of the stored tension in the gears and taking into account deceleration due to gravity of around tenish metres per second per se—’

  ‘Since it don’t?’ sang out Tess, quick to sense any kind of information heading her way and cut it off before it could get the wrong idea.

  ‘Oh. Well, yes, since it don’t . . . uh, doesn’t . . . don’t . . . look, it’s just going to have to stay there and confuse a lot of people, all right?’

  ‘You don’t think as how that might be inc . . . incrim . . . risky an’ traceable evidence an’ all? Should anyone start askin’ questions? ’

  ‘Teresa, would you say I was the kind of man wilfully to break criminals out of prison?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then why should anyone ask?’

  ‘Oh. All right, fair enough. Hold on, stand back, I think I’m done here.’

  Lyle hastened back, away from the window. With a final little tortured squeak, a circle of glass slightly larger than the spread area of Tess’s hand popped out of the pane and tipped forward. Lyle grabbed at it before it could smash, with an inelegant cry of, ‘Whoops!’, and looked up to see Tess’s face peering in through the small hole above. She waved, rocking back and forth on the rope to which she was attached, suspended several floors above the ground and some yards below the bolt that had embedded itself in the building like a needle in a pincushion. ‘Hello!’ she hissed in another overdramatic whisper.

  ‘Hello. Have you got everything?’

  ‘Oh - no, I think I left it.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Don’t be such a mark, Mister Lyle, ’course I got it. You think I’d come all the way up here an’ all without it?’

  ‘Teresa, now is not the time,’ said Lyle with a scowl.

  Grinning, Tess wiggled a small bundle through the bars. It got about halfway through and then promptly seemed to take on a life of its own, bending inside its tight cloth wrapping so that a part of it attached itself very firmly to one of the iron bars near the hole. With great effort, Lyle hopped up and dragged it off only by the weight of his own body, pulling it free with a sharp clack. After that came three larger packets wrapped mostly in brown paper and string, with a little line of fuse trailing from one end of each. Tess said cheerfully, ‘So, when’ll you be wantin’ distraction? ’

  ‘Three a.m., stick to the time.’ A look of sudden guilt passed across Lyle’s face. ‘Oh dear, this is a long way past your bedtime, Teresa. Don’t get used to it!’

  ‘You sure three’s long enough?’

  ‘Teresa . . .’ growled Lyle in a warning voice.

  ‘Just sayin’, concern an’ that.’

  ‘Stick to the church bells,’ he repeated firmly.

  ‘All right! ’Byeee!’

  With a final cheerful wave, Tess dropped from sight. She didn’t so much climb down the rope as lessen her grip at a strategic point. She whizzed down in a cloud of hair and flapping clothes, repressing the instinct to go ‘Wheee!’ and landing without a sound in a courtyard a long way below, lost in the fog.

  Inside the cell Horatio Lyle, refusing to be rushed, methodically unwrapped his bundle of goods. Lock picks, hooks, magnets, mirrors, suspicious tubes and glassy spheres clinked under his fingertips.

  Lyle chose a long hook and slotted a mirror on to it, took another hook and walked up to the door. He walked up to the viewing hatch, and smiled with an undeniable edge of smugness as one of his magnets stuck to the iron sheet with a resolute thump. He drew the magnet across, and the hatch went with it, opening up easily to reveal the corridor outside. He dropped the magnet into his pocket, stuck the mirror out on the hook and turned it until he could see the large iron bolt running across the door on the outside. Standing on tiptoe, he eased an arm out, the other hook in his hand, until the end of the hook caught on the bolt. In the mostly-darkness, lit only by the unreliable moonlight coming through the small window, it was as much an act of luck and touch as an exercise in matching the eye to workings of the hand. When the bolt came loose, it was with a thunk and a reluctant, badly oiled rattle that made his heart race in time to each uneven slide of the bolt. He counted to thirty to still his heart and wait for retribution to come - and when it didn’t he knelt by the lock on the inside of the door, and drew out Tess’s finest lock picks, the ones she had chosen specially from a wide collection, with the words, ‘Big doors . . . well, big doors need good tools, Mister Lyle . . .’ With a long sucking in of breath, Lyle set to work at the lock.

  It was heavy work, rather than subtle - the springs inside the lock were few and crude, but stiff, and Lyle kept half-expecting his tools to fracture with the strain of it. The release of pressure when the lock finally went was, he thought for a moment, the pick snapping. Only the outward swing of the door at his careful push gave him grounds to breathe again. He rolled up his tools quickly and stepped into the darkness of the corridor. If anything lived or breathed, it hid it well.

  Lyle began the long, careful plod towards the centre of the prison.

  Nothing ever happened on the Caledonian Road to give it distinction. Sometimes the English going to Scotland or the Scots coming to England rattled down the Caledonian Road, sometimes the odd red lady was caught selling her wares towards the place where the railway terminated at King’s Cross. Sometimes barges blocked each other on the canal, but these days there was less traffic on the waterway as it was so much easier to send freight by train. The hoot of the locomotive’s whistle and the distant church bells were the only distraction, or the occasional wagon carrying prison inmates towards Portsmouth and a different kind of confinement.

  Theoretically, Lyle was a copper through and through. Once the criminal was caught, justice was justice, and if justice chose to put away the guilty in a prison like Pentonville, then all well and good. The law might not be a marvel, it might not work exceptionally well; but it was the law, universal and impartial, and everyone had to stick to it, otherwise what was the point?

  Tonight, however, it was secretly glad to be able to bring something different to the top of the Caledonian Road.

  Voices outside the prison? Perhaps one or two inmates of Block Four are awake at three bells of the church, perhaps they have noticed something thud into the wall, perhaps that strange sense of hearing that develops in the absence of all other sound detects . . . somewhere down in the fog . . .

  ‘I said that one!’

  ‘You said left, Miss Teresa!’

  ‘Yes, there!’

  ‘Miss Teresa, we’ve had this problem before. Left is that way!’

  ‘Oh. Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes! I am completely and utterly confident that you said that fuse! There!’

  ‘Oh well, too late now . . .’

  And the three boxes placed in the middle of the Caledonian Road, give a fizzle and a hiss, and promptly explode. They explode upwards, and they explode like fireworks. From the warden’s office to the outer gate to the topmost cell to the lower kitchens, the walls and ceili
ngs of the prison light up an explosion of green, white, blue, red and sodium orange with the reflected light from the rockets. The noise fills every cell, rattles every window pane with the shrieks of the screamers climbing up and the hiss of the candles and spitting of sparks as they fizzle gently out on their way back into the fog and the boom of the big bangers as they reach the top of their flight and rupture outwards. And as they explode, they shower sparks that glow like dying fireflies as they fall, and they spew smoke that settles above the fog, in the fog, blending with the fog, the lights from the explosions somehow made out-of-focus by the haze, the grey smoke distinguishable by a sharper, sweeter smell as it begins to settle.

  Inside the prison, Horatio Lyle looked up and smiled as the first bangs shook through the floor, and the first doors started clanging and the first voices started shouting. With intricate care he drew out the three paper-wrapped packages from his bundle of goods, struck a match off the wall and set the fuses burning. He threw the first down one corridor, tossed the second into another and, with a gleeful sense of satisfaction, chucked the final one into the main hall where the stretched-out wings of the prison joined. He counted to five, and heard the hiss-bang of the first package igniting, and grinned as from each corridor and hallway thick billows of smoke started to roll across the floor.

  It took ten minutes for the panic to set in satisfactorily. Thomas was surprised by that: he had expected the reaction to be prompt. But then, in the fog and the smoke and the darkness, his own hand in front of his face had taken on a strange, drained, featureless aspect, a fuzzy outline in the dark - and such a complete darkness as he had never experienced. What little moonlight there had been from above was now lost; there was nothing even to cast a deeper shadow. Somehow the busyness behind his eyes, when he closed them, was brighter than the utter black of the smothered night outside. At least behind his eyelids imagination could fill in sparks and colours where there was nothing else. But outside, with everything smelling of smoke and the acrid whiff of gunpowder residue, the rising sounds of shouting and bells ringing in the prison, left all too little space for imagination.