Property of a Lady

I had worried about this part of the proceedings quite a lot. My plan had been to remain inside the prison all night and find my way out when the morning contingent of warders came on duty. But this new twist would solve it very well for me. I briefly considered how far I could trust this man – it would be easy for him to leave me in the prison all night and deny all knowledge next morning.

But these things work both ways, and I said, very coldly, ‘If you cheat me in any way, I shall see to it that you lose your position here and are prosecuted. I am a man of some standing, and I think my word will be believed over yours. I hope that’s clear?’

‘I won’t cheat you,’ he said, and I thought there was a ring of sincerity in his tone, so I nodded and handed over the sovereign.

‘Good,’ he said, tucking it in an inner pocket. ‘You got until seven o’clock tonight when the night guard goes round. That do you?’

It was ten minutes to five and already dark. I said, ‘That will do very well.’

‘I’m off duty at seven. I’ll come back just before the hour and we’ll go out together. You’ll appear to be a visitor I’m seeing out. Simple as can be. From there on it’s your business how you get back to wherever you live.’

Any burial ground is a grim place, but that piece of land on the side of Shrewsbury Prison is the eeriest place I have ever encountered.

It was not very large, and although sparse grass grew here and there it had a sick look, as if there was some disease in the soil beneath. It was very dark, but a thin, cold moonlight oozed through the clouds so that I could see the outline of the newly-dug grave near one wall. It’s extraordinary how that shape strikes such terror into the heart; seeing it brought every superstition and every grisly legend ever read or dreamed or remembered into my mind. Because one should not disturb the resting place of any man, even that of a murderer, perhaps especially that of a murderer.

The words of the Ingoldsby rhyme ran maddeningly in and out of my head as I approached the grave.

On the lone bleak moor, at the midnight hour,

Beneath the Gallows Tree . . .

The Moon that night, with a grey cold light,

Each baleful object tips . . .

It took considerable resolve to approach the open grave and look down into it and, when I did so, I think I came closer than at any other time to abandoning the whole plan. He lay, imperfectly covered in a winding sheet, his head lolling to one side at an ugly, ungainly angle, his thick, farm-worker’s neck swollen and bruised from the hangman’s rope. His skin was the colour and consistency of tallow.

I looked round. How likely was it that I could be seen? The burial ground was enclosed on three sides by a high wall, and there were no windows and only one door, which led to the main part of the prison. No one would see me.

And yet I had the feeling that someone did see me – that eyes watched from the shadows and marked what I did. Nerves, nothing more.

The grave was narrower than I had expected and also deeper – I had assumed the gravediggers would be cursory in their work, and I thought it would be possible to reach down and do what I had to do from ground level. But it was not. Even kneeling at the rim and stretching my hands down as far as possible, I could not reach what lay there. So be it: I would go down into the grave itself. The prospect made my flesh creep, but I was too close to what I wanted to give up now. Down the centuries there have been mad, wild things done in the name of love, but I wonder if there has been anything wilder or madder than what I did that night for love for Elizabeth Lee.

I felt in my pocket to make sure I still had the knives and chisel wrapped in cotton waste, then I sat on the edge of the open grave and slid down into its depths. Showers of dry soil broke away like scabs from a wound, and I landed squarely on the body itself.