‘The other thing,’ Wozniak repeated. ‘The Hanging Club.’

‘We’ll find them,’ I said. ‘You can’t go around helping yourself to revenge.’

He chuckled. ‘But it’s not revenge, is it? It’s a signal. It’s saying, “This is still our country. You can’t do what you like here. We’re not going to let you.”’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

And then I saw it. The dull gleam of a single casing.

I picked it up and looked at it.

Spent brass, I thought.

This was the place.

I held it in my hand, and I turned to smile at Wozniak.

And then I saw something that his beard could not quite hide.

The teeth marks that I had left on his face.

32

There was a door on the far side of that square room with the rotting tiles and I already knew what was beyond it.

No, not a door – a black slit in the wall, just big enough for a man to pass through. Taking my time, not looking at the big man, I walked across to it and saw the corridor.

It had not been a dream.

It was the corridor where the walls came in and the ceiling came down.

‘Dead Man’s Walk,’ Wozniak said. ‘It narrows to stop a man – or woman – going insane at the sight of the scaffold. Can you imagine what it felt like? Hearing the crowd outside. Knowing the agonies that were waiting for you. Dead Man’s Walk was behind the prison. Originally it connected the gaol to the sessions house next door. It became the most practical way of transporting some wretch to the scaffold. But it’s just one of a labyrinth of tunnels. Hardly anyone knows that so much of Newgate is still down here.’

‘I’ve seen enough,’ I said.

‘Maybe too much,’ he said, and quietly closed the door.

A green light still seeped into the room and for the first time I noticed the air vent high up in one wall. But it was like breathing the air of dead men.

And now I looked at him.

‘Newgate was a nice touch,’ I said. ‘A shame that nobody recognised it. But who knew that so much of it was still left down here.’

He did not move. I took a step towards him, staying just beyond arm’s length.

Timing and distance, I thought. Remember your boxing at Smithfield ABC. Remember all those hard hours. Remember the lessons of Fred.

‘Mind you,’ I said, ‘bringing back Newgate does make you and your friends look bat-shit crazy.’

He laughed bitterly.