They carried the tools of their trade—sweepers, mops, buckets—for removing the dust and debris inside—the waste of human lives.
He crossed the street, his gait slower than it had once been, each step an effort as he joined them, melting in with the steady stream of men and women whose lives were bound to the Old Bailey, as his had been.
The inside of the Old Bailey was as he remembered it, plain and stark, adjoining Newgate prison, a cold reminder of his time there, a stone abomination of courts and judges’ chambers.
There were four courtrooms as well as prisoners’ cells and the dreaded ‘Dead Man’s Walk,’ that stark passage that led to Newgate and the gallows.
He heard that it was all to be torn down, the prison along with it, and replaced by a new Court of Justice with far more courtrooms to handle cases.
A phalanx of constables watched as the cleaners gathered. They paid him no mind. He was simply one of many, there to do his work. Only his work was not to be found at the end of a sweeper, or mop and bucket.
He waited now as others departed in groups, an army of nameless souls sent off to their assigned areas as he had once been nameless to those who watched.
There were four courtrooms on the main floor beyond the entrance hall, which included the judges’ chambers and the private chamber for Judge E. L. Cameron, his name on the placard stand beside the door.
He had been there days before to make certain of it and also to make certain the judge still held court there. With a signature the judge had meted out his sentence, forever altering his life.
He had discovered that Judge Cameron often worked late—mustn’t let the paperwork for a man’s sentence linger. Cameron then departed well after workers and those who guarded the halls had left, with only a handful of constables who remained.
Judge Cameron was still there even now as he followed a handful of cleaning people. Head down with his cap pulled low,he glanced to those who watched and chatted, their attention distracted.
He abruptly left the group and turned down the adjacent hallway where those courtrooms were located, still and darkened, with the judges’ rooms across, memory sharp as a blade.
It was perfect that it would be done here, where justice was handed out. Where he now handed out justice.
He listened at the door, then opened it, and stepped inside.
Judge Cameron sat at a desk across the room, features cast in shadows from the desk lamp as he studied papers before him, then a quick signature that no doubt sealed another man’s fate.
The day’s work obviously done, the judge set aside his pen, gathered the paperwork, and set it aside as well.
He had changed little in the years since, white hair perhaps thinner. Yet the firm set of the jaw, that he remembered so well, was still there. Resolute, determined.
The judge wore a black robe, that costume of ‘justice.’ He rose, removed it, then went to the small closet behind the desk.
This was the moment the man who moved through the shadows had waited for.
The judge struggled, fought, and tried to protect himself as he was slammed against the closet door then viciously turned about.
His fist closed around the front of the judge’s shirt as he brought his other hand up, the knife gleaming in the light from the judge's desk.
“Twelve years…” his attacker hissed. “Day in and day out, the filth and disease, prisoners who kill over a crust of bread, and the sound of their screams as they’re led to the gallows. I have waited.
“Now, I want you to feel what it is to know you are about to lose everything!” he told the judge as he drew the blade slowly across his throat, just enough to nick the vein there.
Judge Cameron, esteemed member of the courts for over thirty years, master of the pen that had condemned him, stared back incredulously as blood seeped from the wound and soaked the front of his coat.
“Who are you…?” The question suddenly died as he was lowered to the floor of his chambers.
“You!” he gasped, recognition dawning at last as he stared up at the man who stood over him. And then a last gurgling breath.
His murderer stepped back from the body. Labored breathing gave way to that painful cough.
It came more often now, and there was blood with it. It wouldn’t be long now, but it would be long enough.
There was one more, and then it would be done…
Ten
