People stand back, pushing each other. Another cart comes towards them, larger, seemingly empty. Then Michael sees the man standing inside, propped up against a beam for the crowd to see. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. Bald-headed on top, scraggly grey locks sliding down his collar, face hanging downwards, ashen and broken, there's blood on his clothes and dirt on his hands.
Chapter 24
"Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean."
-David Searls
Press play
A creature. Small. Cellular, feeding, blind, moving in fluid, growing on creatures smaller than himself; a mouth, a digestive system, an asshole and shite. Too small to see, too small to comprehend, too small to know that behind him, above him, around him lies an seemingly infinite universe of light, food, monsters, war, rampant sex and cheerfully amoral death. Back, back, we spin, his size dwindling to a pinprick, the pinprick being consumed by another mouth, that mouth dwindling to a pinprick, to a mouth, being consumed by another, the bigger creature eating the smaller, the bigger being eaten again by another and back, back, back we pull, out and up, our vision breaking the surface of the fluid into an oxygen-based atmosphere, the surface receeds, a puddle coming into view, a man standing at the edge, looking in to the tranquil ocean of creatures before him, back to see a puddle on the side of a road, in a sparsely populated city, back, back, back we go, smaller and smaller he gets, back back, the city dwindling to a blur, smaller and smaller to become part of a land mass, a land mass in a body of water, a body of water on the surface of a squat, squashed floating ball in space, a ball in space orbiting a burning rock, a burning rock on the outer rim of a coral of stars, a coral of stars on the edge of a spiral at the end of a galaxy, a galaxy two thousand light-years wide, reduced to a lightning-coloured smudge on a spinning pinwheel, a pinwheel on the end of larger spiral, spinning in slow-mo glory at a light-year a second, revealing back to a cluster of galaxies, huddling together in the hushed ink of space.
And pause. And reverse. Down, down, down, we go. Spiralling inwards at a light-year a second, we tear through time and space, revolving downwards we go, in and in and in, down and down and down, until the stars stop streaking by, space levels, the clocks return to normal and we arrive, hovering above the shoulder of a young man in black coat, standing by the side of a road looking at a puddle.
A London street. Early morning. The sky still rose-tinted from waking. Dirt-paved, track-marked torn and broken ground. Trees. Grass. A rabbitt appears, stops to look at them. It's nose twitches and instant and it bolts for cover. An abandoned, dry wood cart nearby creaks in the breeze. Houses, simple constructions, poking their shapes through the morning haze - seeping out of the distance like unfinished watercolour drawings in sepia. Reality renders itself around them. Nearby, a large prison looms out of the mist, a pointed tower angling above the main structure, staring down at them as they stand. A silence covers all. Three figures stand, heads turning, a slight bewilderment clouding all three. One looks to the other two.
'This' he says, stretching his arms above his head and grimmacing, 'might be a good time to get some sleep'
'Damn straight' agrees the other man. Irish accent. Nervous eyes. He looks up from the dank puddle he has been gazing into, his reflection glaring at him accusingly. He yawns.
'Agreed' say the woman, walking up a shallow hillbank. The other two follow her, over the lip of the road and down into the ditch.
'That oughta do' says the first man, pointing at a barn some thirty meters away.
Taking their time, they make their way across the scrubby field expanse. Checking there's no-one around, they quietly sneak inside and settle down.
And sleep.
Noise. Bedlam noise. Michael wakes up with a jolt.
'Wassa?' he yelps. He sees Gabriel, sitting up also, looking at his pocketwatch and cursing.
'Trying to find out' he says.
Michael looks around him, his head clearing. He goes to move and finds something holding his hand. Victoria, still asleep, lying beside him, her mouth open, hair drooping across her eyes. She mumbles slightly, her chest moving up and down. Black coat draped over her.
Michael leans over, closer to her. 'Wakey wakey' he says, looking at Gabriel's back.
She snarls, releasing his hand. Turns over, groaning. Her hand reaching out for a water bottle she has inside her coat. The noise filters through to her, making her raise her head up.
'What is that?' she asks.
'I'll go look' Michael says.
Gabriel grunts. 'Be careful'
Michael walks down some steps and towards the barn door. Carefully, making sure not to give his position away, he looks through a cracked section of one of the wooden walls and outside.
Across the field and up the bank he looks. A crowd. Massive, a heaving swarming throng. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Swirling like a puddle it shifts and gloops.
'Fuck this' Michael says, opening the door and stepping out. He walks across the field again, towards the road above the rise. The other two follow him. They stop some feet from the roadside. No-one seems to notice them.
Scroungers, whores, thieves, drunks, lawmen, peace officers, constables and javelin men, packs of dogs sniffing at scraps in the dirt, huddles of children, their faces filthy with grime, running in circles, weaving and bobbing. A woman holding aloft a sheaf of papers, screaming aloud that this is the last true confession and speech of the dying. A droop-eyed prostitute eyeing passers-by, a pimp hovering some feet behind her - a look on his face you can't quite describe but which instantly incites the desire to commit violence on his person. A smugness that seems to leech from every pore in his body.
'What the hell is going on?' Michael asked.
'I may be wrong' Gabriel said, slapping the side of his pocket-watch violently, 'but I think this is the Tyburn fair'
Michael sighed. 'And that is?' he asked looking over his shoulder.
Victoria bit into an apple she had managed to get from somewhere. She sat down on the side of a seemingly abandoned cart, as laid back and as carefree as though she was in her own back garden, soaking up some rays. 'Execution' she said through a mouth full of apple.
'Execution?'
Gabriel spoke up. 'Monday. Execution day. The Tyburn fair. Prisoners brought from Newgate prison, paraded through the streets, boozed-up and then, well, dispatched with. At Tyburn.'
'Nice' Michael muttered, looking at the surrounding scrum. 'And that's in London I assume?'
'Yep. You know where Marble Arch is?'
Michael nodded.
'Well, that's more or less where Tyburn was. I'm guessing that that is Newgate prison' he says, pointing at the looming edifice.
Gabriel, his eyes fixed on the pocketwatch, sits himself down beside Victoria and makes him self comfortable, his gaze still fixed on the screen of the pocketwatch.
'I'm, ehm... I'm...' Michael begins.
'You're what?' Victoria asks, her mouth chomping on apple.
'I think I'm, you know, sensing a link...'
Gabriel looks up at him. Victoria stops chewing. 'Think you could be clearer than that?' Gabriel asks.
'Ehm, no. Sorry. Can't help much just now. Just a sense of something...' he trails off, taking a few steps up the bank, his head craning to see over the throng. Suddenly the noise grows louder - something is causing the crowd to split open, to shift aside. A cart is trundling it's way through the mob. Big wheels grind the dirt, rattling and shuddering it comes. Eyes, in faces, peering over the edge. Terror and bravado in equal measures. Faces pass by, some comprehending, some dazed. Pink, tear-streaked eyes stare through a gap in the cart's sideboards, fixing Michael on the spot. A second cart trundles by, the crowd baying and crowing. Some throw objects - rotten heaps of vegetables, clods of earth, a pile of shit. A second cart bangs past - more faces, more fear. A woman weeps. A man curses at the throng. A third cart, a smiling face of a clearly uncomprehending man grinning inanely at the crowd as he rolls by. Some laugh. Some cheer.
Then, a moment of almost silence as a gap opens up in the procession. People stand back, pushing each other. Another cart comes towards them, larger, seemingly empty. Then Michael sees the man standing inside, propped up against a beam for the crowd to see. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. Bald-headed on top, scraggly grey locks sliding down his collar, face hanging downwards, ashen and broken, there's blood on his clothes and dirt on his hands.
A woman steps foward from the mass, slipping alongside the cart. No-one speaks. Her face puffs up in a mask of fury and red-cheeked ire.
'You fucking Catholic cunt!' she screams, launching a stone at his head. it hits him with a crack, his head slumping for a moment. His neck snaps back into line, his head coming up. Screams explode from every angle, every manner of insult known to man thrown in his direction. The hangman, driving the cart, cracks the whip for the donkey to move on faster. The man looks from side to side, his eyes momentarily catching those of Michael's. For an instant, the two men regard each other, their gazes locked, time slowing to a metronome heartbeat, the dust motes in the air hanging in stasis. There is no sound. No motion. Nothing. Only the two men locked in staring at each other. Michael's breath catches in his chest. Click.
With a snap, the cart lurches onwards, turning to the left. Lawmen appear, hitting the members of the crowd who are getting too close. Michael turns and walks back down to Gabriel and Victoria.
Gabriel looks up at him as he approaches. 'So, let's assume that your and Claudia's little theory is correct'
'Ha?' Michael asks.
'Let's assume that this is all a game and that we have to play our way out. So, last we knew we were on Pentonville Road right?'
'Right' Victoria says with a nod.
'And that' says Michael, pointing a finger over his right shoulder, 'is a prison'.
They look over his shoulder at the silhouette of Newgate prison. They look back to him, their expressions suggesting that they are none the wiser.
'Jail' Michael says. 'Just visiting'
'Ahhhh...' come the two voices at him.
'And now? What's next on the boa..'
'Well whatever about that, I have a feeling that I know what we have to do next.'
'Which is?'
'Follow that guy on the last cart. I'm quite sure he has something to do with all of this'
'You getting that spidey-sense thing again?' Gabriel says with a barely supressed smirk.
'Something like that' Michael replies.
'Michael?' Victoria interrupts, 'what was that? What happened there? You sensed something on that last cart. With him.'
Michael looks at her. 'I think I know who that guy is. And if I'm correct, he's about to have a very bad day'
They both look at him.
'I'm fairly sure that that was Oliver Plunkett'.
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