The Old Bailey, London
“Well, this has taken an utterly bizarre turn,” Crowley muttered, as he followed Rose into the bright echoing hall and high arches of the Old Bailey’s lobby. Light flooded in from skylights in the domed ceiling far above, reflecting off yellow and gold edges, brightly painted frescoes, and shining across the glossy white and black tiles of the floor.
Several people milled around, some clearly tourists and others with the focused intensity of law officials at work.
“Why’s it called the Old Bailey anyway?” Rose asked.
“The street outside is called Old Bailey, the courts are named after that.”
She gave him a withering glare. “I know that. The most famous law courts in the world, probably, so that much is obvious. I mean, why is the street called Old Bailey. It’s a weird name.”
Crowley glanced at her, wondering if she was being facetious, but her face was open and without guile as she scanned the impressive interior. “A bailey is a wall. That street follows exactly the old fortified wall that used to enclose the City of London, and these courts were right outside that.”
She turned a smile to him. “Ha, there you go. You are a history teacher after all.”
“Sometimes, sure. I can tell you more too. The initial location of the courthouse, so close to Newgate Prison, allowed for convenient transfer of prisoners to the courtroom for their trials. Plus, its position between the City and Westminster meant it was a good location for trials involving people from pretty much anywhere in the metropolis. North of the river Thames, at least. Back in the day, crossing from south of the river was a bit more difficult.”
Rose laughed and Crowley felt his cheeks color slightly. “You make a text book passage sound interesting. You have a good voice for teaching.”
“That wasn’t a textbook passage,” he protested. “But I have said that or something very like it dozens of times over the years.”
She squeezed his hand briefly, then let go. “I wasn’t mocking you, I meant it. I think you’re probably an excellent teacher.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But getting teenagers to listen to anything they don’t want to for more than five minutes takes a lot more than knowledge and a good voice.”
“You’re telling me. Seems like I spend half my day trying to entertain school groups.”
A bell rang and the people bustling around seemed to intensify, the crowd thickening.
“That was a piece of luck,” Rose said. “I thought we might have to wait a lot longer before a trial turned out.”
“I still don’t know how likely this is,” Crowley said. He looked around the space, spotted the door Margaret Wilson had told them would be there. Security guards milled everywhere, some at stations, others wandering free, roaming in search of ne’er-do-wells.
Rose stepped closer to Crowley’s shoulder as the milling crowd thronged the open space. Voices echoed in a rising hubbub of noise, laughter sometimes ringing out. “Margaret said the man doesn’t want to be found, so he makes it very difficult.”
Crowley shook his head, still almost certain they were being taken for fools. “But the only access to him is via the basement of the Old Bailey? That’s a little far-fetched for anyone, right?”
“The only access she knows of,” Rose reminded him. “I’m sure this Declan Brown character has many other ways to his...” She petered out, clearly unsure how to describe where they needed to go.
“His secret underground lair?” Crowley finished for her.
They grinned at each other but the weight of the trouble they were in quickly returned.
Rose’s brow creased. “We have no other choice at this stage. Margaret assured us this was the man to speak to if we wanted to learn more about Danny’s occult ideas.”
He returned the squeeze of the hand she had given him moments before, but he didn’t let go. He watched the movement of two guards who walked toward each other then paused for a quick chat.
“Here we go!” he said, and gently pulled her along.
They moved quickly through the bustling crowd, Crowley not taking his eyes off the guards. Another came in through the front doors and started heading in their direction, but his attention was directed elsewhere. Crowley realized they were only going to get one shot at this. Turning his attention to the ornate wooden door in one side of the wide entrance hall, he hoped fervently to find it unlocked. Margaret had assured them it would be, at least during the day when the courts were open. Declan Brown was a man with many suspicions, she had said, and made it so that only the most determined could find him. Margaret had offered to get word to Declan and have the man come to meet them. She seemed fairly confident he would. But Crowley had said there wasn’t time when Margaret had said it would probably take a couple of days.
Now, heading for a door marked Private, in plain sight, in the busiest law courts in the land, lying low and waiting for a couple of days didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. Blood rushing, heartbeat loud in his ears, he reached for the door handle. Rose turned, her fingers tightening painfully around his hand.
“The guard’s turning around!” she hissed.
But the handle turned and the door swung easily inward. Crowley hauled her through behind him and quickly shut it again. They stood in a narrow wood-paneled corridor, leading away under a series of soft yellow lights. The noise and bustle outside was almost entirely silenced by the thick wood, the stillness sudden and eerie. They stood motionless for several seconds, both doing their best to calm nervous breathing. Crowley realized he still held Rose’s hand, firm and warm in his own. He was reluctant to let go, so chose to pretend he hadn’t noticed for the time being. They both watched the door like it was about to come alive any moment, but everything remained inert and quiet.
Crowley took a long, deep breath. “Let’s go, before someone else does come.”
Rose let go of his hand and walked on ahead. Crowley smiled to himself, amused by his disappointment, and followed. Only a few yards along the passage, they came to a door and opened it. No one on the other side, and they hurried on. Another corridor led them to stone steps leading down, all exactly as Margaret had described. She had been brought this way herself, she had told them, by Declan himself. It had been quite the adventure for her, and Crowley could see why. The Wilsons certainly kept strange company.
They found themselves under the Old Bailey, in a tight passageway of white painted brick. Pipes and air-conditioning ducts ran along the ceiling, barely an inch or two above Crowley’s head. Power and Ethernet cables ran along the wall at elbow height, enclosed in a cage-like metal housing. Everything was a strange mix of historical architecture and modern technology.
“How old is this place?” Rose whispered as she hurried along.
“First built in 1673,” Crowley told her. “But it’s been remodeled lots of times. According to Margaret’s description, if we’ve gone the right way, we should find the Roman wall soon.”
“It’s here,” Rose said, pointing to a section of ancient wall constructed of large stone blocks. “Amazing to think how long this has been here.”
Crowley nodded. “The courts are built on the old site of Newgate Prison, which for centuries was the chief holding place for condemned criminals, and not far away is the church of St. Sepulchre.”
They paused to look at the old architecture, then scanned around nearby.
“That much is well-documented history,” Crowley went on, warming to his subject. “The condemned would be led along Dead Man’s Walk up there on street level, between the prison and the court. Quite a few of those, after execution, were buried in the walk itself. But huge crowds would gather, often excited beyond reason, to watch the executions. They would pelt the condemned with rotten fruit and vegetables, or even stones. Sometime in the early eighteen hundreds, I forget when exactly, a massive riot ended in the deaths of twenty-eight people, crushed to death after a pie-seller’s stall was overturned. A strange catalyst for such mayhem!”
Rose stifled a laugh. “Oh, that’s really not funny, but is it true?”
“It is. People went crazy for the public killings back then. No TV, I guess.” They shared a grin. “Anyway, a secret tunnel was subsequently created between the prison and St. Sepulchre’s church, to allow chaplains to minister to the condemned man without having to force their way through the crowds, and to move the condemned back and forth as well. Some suggested the tunnel might be used too for the beginning of the journey to Tyburn gallows, down near Marble Arch. But there’s no proof of that, and no proof of other tunnels leading from the one below Dead Man’s Walk.” Crowley gestured around himself. “Which is where we are now. Carry on and it leads beneath St. Sepulchre’s, but Margaret said there was a secret entrance to more tunnels before we get there. All kinds of stories like that have long been conjectured, but to my knowledge, the tunnels have never been found. It’s all urban legend.”
“But Margaret insists it’s not,” Rose said. She was smiling, a half-cheeky, half-challenging look.
“What?” Crowley asked.
“While you’ve been busy lecturing,” she held up a hand to stave off his outrage, “which was genuinely interesting, don’t worry, I’ve been looking at Margaret’s directions. And I found this.” She pointed at the ground beneath their feet.
Crowley looked down, gazed around, but saw only old, well-worn flagstones. “What?” he asked. “I don’t see anything.”
Rose crouched, brushed her hand over one stone to reveal faint, shallow etched markings. Crowley squatted beside her and squinted in the dim basement lighting. The carving was a crucifix, encircled by a laurel wreath.
“I’ll be damned,” he whispered.
“Just like Margaret said.” Rose traced her finger from the base of the crucifix to the stone block wall, then counted up to the third stone.
Crowley shook his head. “I was convinced this was all a waste of time.”
Rose lifted her eyebrows at him once, then pressed her palm against the stone as Margaret had instructed, and pushed. It grated slightly, but moved easily, pressing into the wall a good couple of inches then slowly sliding back into position. Something in the etched flagstone at their feet clicked.
Crowley allowed himself a soft laugh. “Amazing.” He pushed down on the flagstone and it sank slowly, then tilted on its central axis, opening up like a car’s air-conditioning vent. The gap between the now vertical stone and the next flagstone over was a good couple of feet, plenty of room to slip through, and a metal ladder disappeared down into the gloom. Its rungs were spotted with rust, but it appeared sturdy. Crowley looked up at Rose, met her wide eyes with what he was sure was a matching expression. “Want to go first?” he asked.
She gestured generously with one hand. “I’ll follow you.”