Chapter 184

The Tyburn Convent was an unremarkable-looking building, slightly inset between the properties either side and with a very strange little abode adjoining on the left that – according to Fenton – was London's smallest house, built to stop grave-robbers from scuttling down the alley to plunder St George's cemetery of all the riches amongst the corpses and coffins. I wasn't sure what I had expected. A beam of light from the Heavens maybe, alighting the roof of the convent like some celestial stadium floodlight. Or maybe I had expected to stand in front of it and feel a sense of peace, as if the building emitted a kind of heavenly calm encapsulating all those who passed by, offering them brief sanctuary from the chaos of the city before they went on their way. I certainly didn't feel calm or peaceful as I stood in front of the stone steps. I felt anxious and jittery out here in the open, practically a stone's throw away from Oxford Street where I used to shop with Brandon. The air seemed w