“No, wait, you’re making a mistake. I told you before, I’m not—”
“Quiet,” he hissed. Irritated, he reached into the bag and pulled out a ball gag. A stupid sex toy but one, the description had assured him, that would keep a person submissive and silent. He’d hoped not to use it, but Stanton had neighbors and, clearly, no desire to go quietly. In seconds, the red ball had filled her mouth, the strap tight across the back of her head. He waved the gun at the silk hood. “Put it over your head,” he said. “Do it.”
Her eyes widened further, filled with fear, and without looking away from Walton she reached for the hood, her fingers recoiling at the touch of it.
“I said put it on, unless you want me to shoot you.” He half rose and aimed the gun at her, watching as her trembling fingers reached again to touch the slippery material. Her nostrils flared as she breathed hard and fast, her eyes closing as the bag slid over her forehead, then down over her nose and mouth. Walton smiled to see the cloth puffing in and out, little breaths of fear that were long overdue.
He went to work with the rope, threading one end into the eyelet that he’d already secured to the other end, pulling it through to form a noose. With practiced fingers he hitched the free end to the baluster, pulling back on it with all his weight to make sure it wouldn’t give. It didn’t. All was ready.
Stanton flinched when he reached the step she was on, pulled away when he forced her to stand, and sobbed when she felt the hard steel of the gun pressing into her stomach. Walton knew he had more time to take care of Stanton than he did Ferro, not much but enough, and he felt a stirring down below, a rush of warmth and a sudden shortness of breath that he’d not felt in several years. He stood beside her for a moment, his eyes running down her body, lingering on her breasts that heaved and shook as she sobbed, noticing the flatness of her stomach that he’d felt under the gun. He wanted to touch her, to have her.
But he wasn’t here for that. He was here to do what should have been done decades ago. He took a deep breath and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her away from him, holding her as she gasped and staggered, losing her balance for a fleeting second, righting her so she wouldn’t fall. Yet. He put the gun between her shoulder blades.
“Put your hands behind your back.” He was surprised to hear a thickness in his voice, annoyed at himself for noticing her as a woman, for thinking that she’d been without that kind of companionship for even longer than he had. Her body and his power were aphrodisiacs, yes, but ones he needed to ignore.
Stanton complied, arms quivering, fingers flicking at each other as if for comfort, and he silently bent and placed the gun on the stair, swapping it for a zip tie that he’d already made into a loop, a miniature plastic noose. He gripped her wrists and held them together, slipping the loop over her hands and letting his fingers linger on her skin, letting them brush against the tightness of her jeans, provoking that rush again. She shuddered and he remembered why he was there, why she was there, and that flash of excitement angered him this time. He tugged the zip tie downward, hard, the plastic cutting into her skin as she moaned in pain.
That’s OK, it won’t hurt for long.
Her moans turned into whimpers and she began to mumble into the gag, indecipherable words caught by the cloth that now showed three patches of damp from her breath and her tears, gray blurs marring the perfection of the white silk, making Walton glad he didn’t have to reuse it. But he didn’t like the way she sounded, he worried she might be about to hyperventilate or, worse, collapse.
He couldn’t have her unconscious before the sentence was carried out.
He took hold of her arms just below her shoulders, half pulling and half steering her down four steps to where the noose waited. He positioned her carefully, with her back to the banister, her feet tight together on one step.
She shuddered as the noose slid over her head and fell onto her shoulders, and a low whine escaped the hood as he knelt in front of her. A prayer ran across his lips and he put his arms around her body.
When he held her tighter, she gave another whine, starting low in her throat and rising in pitch, one final exhortation for mercy that ended when Harry Walton, son of Britain’s last executioner, scooped up the trembling figure of his victim and rolled her over the banister. He watched her fall the five feet three inches of her body length, and the extra two feet recommended by the Home Office’s Official Table of Drops, 1913 edition.
Walton stood quietly for a moment, as if to let her spirit depart in peace. He took a deep breath and repacked his bag. As he moved down the stairs, he heard a thumping sound from below. He looked down and to his left, noticing movement in the rope. His blood froze when he heard a moaning sound. He moved quickly to the ground floor, swearing at the realization that something had gone wrong. The weight estimation? he wondered. My drop calculations?
He rounded the end of the staircase and saw Stanton kicking for a floor she was never going to reach, her feet scrabbling at the only possible purchase, the smooth wall behind her. Walton calmed himself, then put his arms around the bucking woman’s legs and hugged them tightly. His mind blocked out the choking noises coming from the silk bag, and he closed his eyes as he took her weight, straining to lift her up six inches, then six more. When he’d lifted her as high as he could, he fell to his knees, using his weight and hers to complete the job. Her last, muffled scream ended with the soft click of her spinal cord as it snapped, and they stayed like that for a moment in the silence of her house, locked together, one sinner dead and another on his knees.
Walton did not believe in God, not much, not anymore, but the Bible that Stanton had kicked onto the floor, and the side table it lay under, needed righting. It was, as much as anything, an aesthetic correction. Maybe even an evidentiary one. When the police arrived they should see one thing, focus on one thing, not be distracted by a mess and wonder if there’d been a struggle. Because there hadn’t been one. In fact, now that he thought about it, she’d not even realized what was happing until the end. But then again, the end, done that way, wasn’t just for her.
He picked up the table first, squared it away against the wall, then put the Bible on it. As his fingers stroked its cardboard cover, he wondered if he ought to turn to a specific page, find a passage or a verse with meaning. Highlight or underline it, even. But this wasn’t about biblical vengeance either, and hadn’t he just told himself he didn’t want to leave behind distractions, irrelevancies?
This desire was new to him, a growing urge that he’d not felt before today to leave more behind than was his original intent. A need born, perhaps, from what was to come next, but most certainly an urge he had to fight if he was to remain on course.
And “on course” meant a long walk to Hendon tube station, right after dealing with the police car and the man lying in its trunk. Walton smiled sadly. A shame to end the life of someone outside the intended circle, but it wasn’t the first time. He was pretty sure the American had taken lives, too, and justified doing so in much the same way: For justice. To end evil. Whatever. How lucky, though, to find two convenient ponds, just when he needed them.
He turned suddenly as he heard a key scratch the lock of the front door. Instinctively, his hand dipped into his coat pocket but the gun wasn’t there, it was in the bag at his feet.
He stood there, stock-still, eyes on the door, his insides burning with fear. Not the fear of being caught but of facing the disintegration of his plans, and with only his old, weak hands to fight back.