From: Tom Chivers
Sent: 09 August 2008 01:59
To: John Smith
Subject: FW: Questions on Tyburn
John,
Your triple escape from the triple tree has been bound in a Folio Society Edition. Hardback. Slight soiling. Slip-case. The smell of cut tobacco, of course. I thought you would like to know. That fatal tree looks well on sufferers as you (malefactor, son of a farmer) and you (packer’s apprentice, journeyman, merchant, sailor) and you (guardsman, house-breaker). Providence, John, is not as remarkable as it sounds. When you described your spirits violently pressing upwards, oh! how we gasped. Whiff of snuff, John. Scuffle towards Newgate, John. Cut-price apples spill from the tumbrel. Did you bribe the hangman? The Chinese say a person with a bad name is already half-hanged. I want to ask you how it felt; I mean, bled to life on the dissectionist’s workbench, John, how did it feel to be back? Did you think of Vigo or the Golden Age of Body Snatching?
Tom
Tom Chivers 