SHORT STORY COMPETITION WINNER
The Muse and The Murderer
by Kerriann Speers
Historical fiction 1st place £200
Kerriann Speers
is a writer and poet, previously published in Writing Magazine and Bangor Literary Journal. In 2020, Kerriann was shortlisted for the TU Dublin short story competition and published poems in anthologies, North Star and We Are Not Shadows. A member of Flowerfield Writers Group, Portstewart and Women Aloud NI, Kerriann lives on the the north coast of Ireland and
can be found on all the usual social media outlets as
@kerriannwrites.
The hangman wore his Sunday best – a black as sin frock coat. His pocket watch caught the glint of the morning sun as a nearby clock chimed eight. Upon first sighting of the damned man, the front of the crowd jeered. The rest joined in so a wave of shouts washed over the horde. As latecomers pressed themselves into the enclosure, Lizzie’s father lifted her onto his broad shoulders.
Mr Greenacre was how she remembered him. Lizzie thought he would be thinner, perhaps even skeletal with the guilt which should have eaten him up from the inside. He was not. Although pale, at his fate or his reception from the crowd, Greenacre had lost none of his swagger. He strode on to the platform as confident as the first day Lizzie spoke to him on the Old Kent Road.
Standing on the kerb, Lizzie looked at her shoes – small, brown and shining. Carriages rolled past at a speed through a gully of blood and waste which ran down from the tannery. Southwark had never been the type of place anyone would want to wear a new pair of shoes. ‘Can I help you, young Siddall?’ A warm, deep voice said. ‘Elizabeth, isn’t it? You know me, don’t you?’