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Back The Hanging Club
Chapters (49)
  1. About the Book
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by Tony Parsons
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Prologue
  8. Part One
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. Part Two
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. Part Three
  36. 26
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. Author’s Note
  49. Copyright

‘It feels like a long shot because I don’t see how they can do it without getting collared. They must know we’ll be waiting for them. But at the same time, I don’t see how the crazy bastards can resist it.’

I told Edie to go home.

My old colleagues at SO15 would be out there all night. They would be the homeless man sleeping in Hyde Park, and they would be the courting couple snogging in the doorway of a closed department store, and they would be the late-night dog walker and they would be the dark figures sitting unnoticed in parked cars.

And they would be waiting.

I turned off the lights and was about to go to bed when I saw my MacBook Air on the kitchen table, exactly where I had left it. But the laptop was closed now and I was sure I had left it open. Stan stirred in his basket as I powered up.

I went on Safari and hit Show History.

And it wasn’t my history.

Last visited today

The Hanging Club – Google search

@AlbertPierrepointUK – Twitter

Mahmud Irani – YouTube

Hector Welles – YouTube

Tyburn – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hanging Club – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Albert Pierrepoint – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bringing Back the Death Penalty – Daily Mail Online

‘Let ’em dangle!’ – Sun Online

Public executions are back – Guardian

@albertpierrepoint – Twitter

Darren Donovan – YouTube

Darren Donovan – YouTube

Darren Donovan – YouTube

Darren Donovan – YouTube

Darren Donovan – YouTube

Vigilantes Hang Third Man – Daily Telegraph – Sunday Telegraph – Telegraph Online

There was more. Much more. Reams of the stuff. I glanced towards the big windows where the lights of Smithfield shone. I had told my old friend that he could use my laptop whenever he needed it. It looked as though he had spent all day on it, reading about just one thing.

I closed the laptop and went to bed. But when sleep came it seemed to abruptly jerk just out of reach, jolting me awake, and I spent hours trying to get comfortable, trying to empty my mind, trying too hard to fall asleep. I must have dropped off at some point because in the light period of sleep, the last part of sleep, when dreams come in the shallows, I found myself waking from a dream of Marble Arch in the darkness and slipping from my bed and walking to the window.

It was still early, before five, but the rising sun was turning the great dome of St Paul’s as white as bone. And at the meat market, the night shift was over and Jackson was coming home.

I watched him cross Charterhouse Street, grinning at something one of his workmates had said, and the light of the new sun was so dazzling on the front of his white porter’s coat that at first you could not tell that it was smeared with fresh blood.