by Sarah Rayne
7.00 a.m. A mug of tea and a wedge of bread and butter has just been brought to us. I have eaten and drunk gratefully, but Esther shook her head and refused to eat or drink.
The pimpled attendant glanced at me, as if for help, but I could find nothing to say. The normal remarks such as ‘You must eat to keep up your strength’ or ‘You will feel better for some food’ scarcely apply. It does not matter if she feels better, for soon she will be dead.
8.30 a.m. A few moments ago Mr Glaister himself looked in to ask if there was anything I needed. I thanked him, and said not. Indeed, I have been able to wash and tidy myself in a small washroom, to which the attendant took me after my own breakfast. I feel better and fresher for doing so – better armoured against what is ahead.
People are gathering in the passage outside the cell. Mr Porringer is with them – I can just see him. He has the pale cheeks and flushed nose that indicates he is, or is about to be, bilious. This is unfortunate and also annoying, because we cannot be coping with biliousness at such a time.
Esther has refused to get dressed, despite all my efforts to persuade her. She will not even wear shoes or stockings. I have tried again to tie back her hair, but she fought me off, clawing at my face, then retreated into a corner, wrapping thick coils of her hair around her neck. For a moment I feared she was trying to strangle herself with her own hair, in order to cheat the hangman, but then she stopped, and fell back on the bed.
Several times she has called for the children again, and I cannot find it in my heart to tell her that her children will never come to her again. For how can we know what may happen to the soul in its last moments, and how can I know if those two little ones may not be waiting for her, ready to forgive her?
It is ten minutes to nine o’clock, and the cell door is being unlocked. The time has come.
Governor’s house: midday.
I write this still in a state of considerable shock, but it seems important to record it while it is still clear in my mind. Clear! May God help me, I do not think it will ever be anything other than clear to me for the rest of my life.
This is what happened.
With the clock showing ten minutes before nine, a small sad procession assembled immediately outside the condemned cell, in the narrow passageway
Two male warders took Esther Breadspear’s arms, and bound them behind her back, using leather pinions. She submitted docilely enough, but she was barely able to stand – whether from terror or the opium draught, I have no idea – and they had to hold her up.
The chaplain was wearing plain black vestments, and he carried the Book of Common Prayer. Behind him was Mr Glaister, and two male warders, and there were three other gentlemen. One was clearly a doctor for he had a medical bag, and I heard later that another was from the newspapers, since it is customary for an official notice to appear in the newspapers of an execution, and that must be written from an actual witness’s account. The other, I believe, was some official who was present in order to make a report of the proceedings. As they began to walk forward, I hesitated, not knowing quite what was expected of me at this stage. I did not want to interrupt the grim solemnity of the occasion, so I stepped quietly into line behind them.
Mr Glaister unlocked a door and a dull grey light filtered in. Esther seemed to flinch, whether from being faced with light after so many weeks in the windowless cell, or simply from fear, I could not tell.
The courtyard outside was stone-paved and rather ill-kept. Weeds grew through cracks in the stones. The execution block was some ten or twelve yards away – the short walk. The door of what Mr Glaister had called the execution shed was already open, and I could not help thinking that the word ‘shed’ was inappropriate, for it is a stone-built place, the stonework carved and weathered. Above the door were two of those carved stone faces – blow-cheeked cherubs with sculptured curls. I suppose they had originally been designed as benign – as serene, happy faces. But time had worn them, distorting their features. The lips of one had broken away, so that it appeared to be screaming silently through a lipless mouth, while the other one’s eyes had chipped, making it seem as if the eyes had been partly removed. As we walked towards the open door, I could not help staring at these two faces – the screaming and the blind – and thinking that the twisted faces of two children were the last things Esther Breadspear should see as she walked to her execution.
The chaplain was intoning the words of the funeral service as we went – and no matter the crime, it must be a terrible thing to hear your own funeral service read.
At the words ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust’, Esther looked up and saw the stone creatures, and that was when she swooned in earnest. She had to be lifted and carried the rest of the way, and between them, the warders got her through the door. And there inside, waiting for her, was the sturdy figure of the hangman, his hands gloved – black and thick, exactly as I had imagined. His eyes displayed no emotion, although I suppose he has had to school himself not to do so. His assistant – a runty-looking youth – stood nearby.
The hangman – I dislike referring to him in such terms, but I never heard his name, and in fact would rather not know it – held a white canvas hood, rather like a large sugar bag. As he stepped forward I saw that immediately behind him was the outline of the trapdoor in the floor, with a massive lever rising up from it. I have always prided myself on my phlegmatic nature, but my heart began to beat uncomfortably fast, and when I glanced at Mr Porringer I saw he was the colour of a tallow candle.
A white line was painted on the trapdoor, and the warders carried Esther across and positioned her exactly on it. She was still barely able to stand, and someone murmured something about a chair. But as the hangman pulled the hood over her head, she seemed to straighten up, as if accepting what was to come, and squaring her shoulders to meet it. Moving quickly and smoothly, the hangman slid the thick rope over her head and adjusted it around her neck, paying particular attention to the placing of the massive knot.
The first chime of nine o’clock sounded, and Mr Glaister, standing next to me, said, very softly, ‘It will be over by the last chime of nine.’
But it was not.
As the hangman threw the massive lever, the screech of the mechanism tore through that small room like the rasp of a nail on slate, and even from where I stood I felt the floor shiver.
The trapdoor moved slightly, as if something immensely heavy had jumped on to it. But it did not open. That is the thought that etched itself on my mind, and those are the words that have stayed with me. It did not open.
The woman on the trap raised her head slightly, as if trying to understand, or as if trying to see through the thick hood. The hangman shook his head as if angry or bewildered or both, dragged the lever back to its original place, and pressed hard, this time using both hands.
Again there was the shiver of movement, and a faint creak of old wood. But again the trapdoor remained closed.
Mr Glaister and the doctor both stepped forward then – there was some kind of hasty murmured discussion, which I could not hear. Behind me, Mr Porringer swayed slightly and pressed a hand to his lips, and I remember feeling a spurt of anger towards him, because it was scarcely the moment to display weakness. In a low, furious whisper, I said, ‘If you are about to be ill, you had best go outside.’
He gulped and nodded, and I stepped back to open the door for him. He rushed out, his handkerchief to his mouth.
When I returned to the room, they had moved Esther off the trapdoor, and the men seemed to be conducting some kind of test. A thick plank had been lain across the trap, and the assistant was crawling around the edges, examining the hinges, tapping at the thick oak. The wood resonated slightly, with a dull hollow sound. The hangman himself was poring over what looked like a chart with weights and calculations on it. And all the while, the woman waiting to die stood between two warders, still blinded by the dreadful hood, but turning her head from side to side like an uncomprehending animal being led to
the slaughterhouse. I am not an emotional woman, but I felt a deep pity for Esther Breadspear.
Then the executioner stepped back and nodded, and said something about ‘Deeply regret’ or ‘Deeply distressed’ and added, ‘All is now in order.’
Mr Glaister, that good, kind gentleman, reached out to pat Esther’s shoulder, and said, ‘Soon you will be beyond all this, my dear.’
But she was not.
When they made the third attempt, something even more terrible happened. The trapdoor opened, and there was a dreadful cracking sound – the kind of crack that makes you wince and feel as if something deep and agonizing has wrenched at the base of your neck. Esther Breadspear gave a moan of pain, and it was then that I saw only half of the trap had opened. It had jerked the doomed woman into an ugly, uneven position, so that part of her was dangling over the execution pit, but the left side of her body was resting on the half of the door – the half that had not moved. She struggled and writhed frantically.
The hangman dragged at the lever again, but the remaining door refused to open. Even from where I stood I saw sweat break out on his brow, then the assistant ran over to him, and they put their combined weight behind the task. Still the half of the door did not move, and still Esther Breadspear writhed and moaned.
The hangman turned to the watchers, and put up his hands in a gesture of panic, as if saying, ‘Help me – I don’t know what to do.’ He was visibly shaken, and his hands – those dreadful gloved hands – were trembling. The assistant looked as if he was about to faint.
Mr Glaister took over. He rapped out an order to the two warders, who at once dropped a thick plank over the gaping pit. By dint of standing on that and stretching out their arms, they could reach Esther.
‘Cut her down,’ said Mr Glaister very sharply. ‘Quickly now.’
The hangman said, uncertainly, ‘Perhaps if she’s left long enough …’
‘She isn’t strangling,’ put in the doctor. ‘But she’s badly injured. Glaister is right. You must get her down.’ He produced some sort of surgical implement from his bag, and the warders seized it and sawed through the thick rope. As the strands parted, Esther fell prone, but even lying all anyhow on the floor we could all see that her neck had been impossibly twisted by the lopsided fall, and that one of her shoulders had been wrenched askew, giving her body a warped, hunched shape.
Under the doctor’s guidance, the warders carried her out, and Mr Glaister looked towards me and said, ‘Please to go with her, if you would be so kind.’
And so we sat, Esther Breadspear and I, in that dreadful cell, the pinions and the hood removed, and we waited to be told what would happen next. Esther did not speak, and I could think of nothing to say. The doctor spent a long time examining her, and when he finally stepped back from the bed, he told me that her spine had been severely twisted.
‘Fatally?’ asked the chaplain, who had followed us in, and had tried to say a few ineffectual words about trusting in the Lord’s mercy until I glared at him and he relapsed into silence.
‘No, not fatally, but I do not think it can be put right,’ said the doctor, frowning. He bent over the figure on the bed again, then shook his head. ‘It is beyond my medical knowledge to pronounce exactly. As for her mind …’ A shrug. ‘I do not think she has a mind any longer.’
He scarcely needed to say this. Esther was staring ahead of her with empty eyes, rinsed of all emotion and comprehension.
I have no idea how long it was before Mr Glaister came to us, because time no longer had any meaning in that room. When he appeared, the official gentleman was with him, and also Mr Augustus Breadspear, Esther’s husband. To see Mr Breadspear was a shock, for it was said he had had nothing to do with his wife since the tragedy. I looked at Esther for a reaction, but there was only that dreadful blank stare.
Mr Glaister said, in a very gentle voice, ‘We are faced with an extraordinarily difficult situation. This is something that happens so rarely, the law is not entirely clear as to the procedure we have to follow. And in light of the prisoner’s severe injuries …’ He frowned, then appeared to collect himself. ‘This gentleman is from the Home Office,’ he said. ‘He is helping us to make a decision.’
The Home Office gentleman said, ‘There is not exactly provision in the law for this kind of unfortunate eventuality, but there is something referred to as an Act of God. That is regarded as being the case when there have been three unsuccessful attempts at execution. It seems to me that this may apply here, although I should have to consult my superiors, of course.’
‘If what has just happened is not an Act of God, I do not know what is,’ put in the chaplain.
‘And the prisoner is now clearly mad,’ said the doctor.
‘Mad people have been hanged before now,’ said the Home Office gentleman. ‘But …’
He looked at the doctor who, as if responding to a signal, said, ‘She has certain injuries to the spine and neck.’ He went on to use terms I had never heard, and although there was something about the vertebrae (I believe this to mean the spine) and something about damage – a fracture or dislocation – I am not recording any of what he said, since I may not have understood correctly.
What I do understand, however, is what the doctor said next.
‘You may seek other opinions,’ he said. ‘Indeed, I think you should do so. But I believe any authorities you consult will agree with my findings.’ He paused, and then said, ‘It is my opinion that in view of the injuries caused during the bungled execution, it will no longer be physically possible to hang Esther Breadspear.’
TWENTY-ONE
Michael paused again. This was an appalling story to read in any situation or setting. Reading it in the semi-darkness, in this eerie old house, it was terrifying.
Maria’s description of Esther, after the bungled hanging, having that warped, hunched shape fitted eerily with the image of the figure he had glimpsed on his first visit. But there could not be any connection between Esther and Deadlight Hall – or could there? What about the secret that Augustus Breadspear had laid on Maria Porringer?
He looked back at the doctor’s statement. Had Maria got that right? Could a key vertebra have been so severely dislocated or fractured or misaligned that it really had made hanging impossible?
Darkness was creeping out from the corners of the hall, and the narrow windows on each side of the door showed hardly any light. Decisively, Michael jammed the small book into his pocket and set off on an exploration of the ground floor. He was not yet seriously considering breaking a window to get out, but he would at least see if there were any breakable windows – or even another door where he might snap the lock. Paying for the replacement of a window was beginning to look infinitely preferable to remaining here for a night.
The ground-floor windows could all be ruled out as escape routes. Even if Michael smashed one, the thin lead strips of lattice on all of them would make climbing out virtually impossible. What about the rear of the house though? Where were the sculleries, the larders? How did you get to the back of the house, for heaven’s sake?
He had just made out a door at the far end, partly hidden by the curve of the stairs, when another sound disturbed the uneasy silence. Tapping – almost thudding. Michael froze, listening intently, trying to identify the source. The sounds were certainly coming from overhead – quite far overhead, he thought, because they were muffled and distant. He remembered that Jack Hurst had referred to something he had called water hammer – a large airlock in the pipes that made them judder. But would pipes judder unless someone had turned on a tap or flushed a cistern? Wild images of the resident ghosts reminding each other to nip along to the loo before setting out on their nightly haunting went through his mind – ‘Because it’s a cold night, and a long stretch of spooking ahead of us.’ But for all he knew pipes might have a life of their own, and not require any human intervention to start banging and juddering by themselves.
But water hammer or not, he would see about
getting out of here without any more delay, and the best place to start was the door at the back of the hall, which could lead to servants’ quarters or sculleries. Michael tried the handle, and although it screeched like a tortured soul, the door swung inwards.
There was a tiny stone landing immediately beyond, and then a flight of worn stone steps leading down. Michael went down the first two steps, but the darkness was so thick he could not see anything, and there was no handrail of any kind. Even if he could get to the foot of these steps without breaking his ankle or worse, he certainly would not be able to find his way around down there. He swore, and came back into the hall and the window seat, and he was just thinking he would try Nell again when his phone rang. He had been hoping to hear it, but it was startlingly loud in the quiet house, and Michael jumped.
It was Nell.
‘Thank God to hear your voice,’ said Michael.
‘What on earth’s happened? I was collecting Beth from an after-school music lesson, so I’ve only just got your message. It was a bit fuzzy – something about being stuck at Deadlight Hall.’
‘I am stuck,’ said Michael. ‘I’m bloody locked in. I’ll explain properly later, but Nell, can you possibly track down Jack Hurst and get a key to let me out? I’ve tried his number, and it’s on voicemail until Monday.’
‘I think I’ve got a home number for him,’ said Nell. ‘Godfrey gave it to me for the work on the shop. Hold on—’ There was a rustle of papers and Michael visualized her sitting at her desk in Quire Court, rifling her notes.
‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘It’s a landline – is that the one you tried?’
‘No, a mobile.’
‘OK, ring off and I’ll try to get him on this number now. No point in wasting your phone battery. I’ll call straight back.’
She rang off and Michael sat in the hall. The bouts of thudding were coming in batches now – a run of them, then a break. But nothing else seemed to be happening. He began to work out how long it would take for Nell to reach Jack Hurst, and for Hurst to drive out here with the keys. Supposing Hurst was not at home? Supposing the keys had to be collected from somewhere on the other side of the county? Supposing …
