The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [140]
‘How did you find her?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Swift said, sounding panicky. ‘I don’t know. Edmonton must have told me.’
Pyke took his knife and cut through Swift’s hand bonds. He gouged his thumb into the wound on Swift’s chin. Swift gurgled and momentarily passed out. Pyke cut the bonds around his ankles and shunted Swift’s prostrate body across towards the open hatch. Beneath him, the carpet of rats seemed to move as one.
He waited until Swift came round. His hands were gripping Swift’s ankles. The rest of his body was dangling upside down inside the cage. The rats could almost touch his scalp. He was screaming now, screaming and pleading with Pyke for pity and for mercy. Pyke held him there for as long as he was able to. Finally, however, his grip weakened; he let go of Swift’s ankles and watched as he fell into the mass of rats, at least six or seven deep, watched as Swift’s body - first his legs and then his arms, torso and, finally, his neck and mouth - seemed to disappear as the rats swarmed over him. He watched - fascinated and sickened - as a body of wet, black fur and long, twitching tails engulfed Swift’s disintegrating form, and he listened as the almost unbearable carnivorous screeches finally drowned out the stomach-churning gurgles emerging from Swift’s body. Eventually, the only sound in the cellar was the unmistakable noise of ten thousand teeth tearing into bloodied flesh. Pyke would remember that terrible sound for as long as he lived.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘My God, you look terrible, m’boy. Come in.’ Godfrey looked up and down the street outside his apartment. It seemed quiet enough. Certainly there was no sign of the men who had been stationed there but it was late, after two in the morning. Still, Pyke had taken great care to slip into the building unnoticed.
He had not been able to face the prospect of another long, cold night in the church and had walked the three miles from Holborn to his uncle’s apartment in Camden Town.
In the front room, Godfrey poured him a large brandy and threw some more coal on to the fire. The room was as untidy as Pyke remembered it: piles of books, pamphlets and papers covered every inch of floor space. It had been a while since he was last there, perhaps as much as a year. Pyke felt himself begin to relax. This had been as much a home for him as he had ever known: even the vaguely musty smell was reassuringly familiar.
‘So you gave Emily my address, then?’ Godfrey was wearing his silk dressing gown.
‘How did you know?’
‘I know because she’s here. She turned up on my door-step a few hours ago in quite a state. Told me she’d tried to find you in the church but you weren’t there. Thought you might have been arrested. Or worse.’
Pyke found Emily, half-asleep, curled up in his old bed. For a few moments, she stared at him, as though she did not know where she was, but her anxiety soon gave way to relief; she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she said, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I really thought you were dead.’
As he rubbed the tears from her cheeks, he wondered whether she could smell the pungent vermin odour on him.
‘I can’t do it any more,’ Emily said, once the relief at seeing him had worn off.
‘Can’t do what any more?’
‘It’s such a mess.’ Emily sighed. ‘The man my father expects me to marry . . .’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Emily stared at him, bewildered.
‘James Sloan, otherwise known as Jimmy Swift, is dead.’
Briefly, a look of relief registered on her face. Emily had identified Sloan as Swift from Pyke’s earlier description. This was the reason she had fled from his home.
‘Dead how?’ she mouthed.
‘He’s dead,’ Pyke said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
‘When?’
Pyke stood up and looked around his old bedroom, expecting more of a reaction, but he felt neither validated nor unsettled by the feelings and memories that surfaced.
‘I presume it’s a naive question, but did