Corpse Thief

by Michael Arnold

  “Down there,” Corissa ordered, reaching past him to point to a black-mouthed channel between two buildings. She walked close to his back, her pistol pressed firmly into his spine.

  Hawke turned hard left, as bidden. “Came to London,” he said. “Found work at the hospital. Found gin too.”

  “And laudanum,” she remarked sardonically.

  “And laudanum.”

  They travelled another twenty-or-so paces, the tenements on either side leaning so severely that the upper floors almost touched. Corissa ordered him to stop. “Here’ll do. Now talk.”

  Hawke duly halted, feeling the hard push of the muzzle. “To fund the habit I took extra work with Mister Szekely.”

  “And,” she growled, “with the fucking Runners.”

  “Aye,” he said. “I am not proud of it, Corissa, believe me.” He raised his hands again so that she would not think he attempted escape, and made a slow, deliberate turn, coming about to face her in the dark. “I hate Ruthven, despise him.”

  “Ruthven?” she echoed, voice incredulous. “The Ruthven? That was him I saw?” When confirmation came by way of a nod, she seemed genuinely pleased to have laid eyes on a bona-fide celebrity. “He of Cato Street and all that?”

  “The same. And the man who has me bent double over a barrel. If I do not feed him information, he will expose my duplicity to Szekely and...”

  “You will be skinned alive,” she said in the haunted voice of one who had witnessed such deeds first hand. “What kind of information?”

  Hawke shrugged. “The comings and goings of the underworld. The world he spends every waking moment attempting to infiltrate, but in which he cannot ever walk. Thieves and fences and murderers.” He stepped a little closer, his voice hushed. “Our world. He does not work to destroy Szekely, Corissa. In truth, he is hardly interested at all. Ruthven is an ambitious man. A pickpocket here, a resurrectionist there. Not his concern. The hero of Cato Street seeks only more repute. More fortune.” He paused, trying to read her expression in the gloom. “I report on the things I hear, but not in order to destroy Szekely. Rather so that Ruthven can be prepared for the next Cato Street. I am an informant, Corissa. I take money from Bow Street. But I am no traitor.”

  Her chuckle was contemptuous, but she seemed to take his point. He heard her swallow. “What were you doing at Red Lion Square?”

  Hawke searched their new surroundings as a matter of instinct, but he saw that Corissa’s choice had been sound. The alleyway was bisected here by another, and the junction they formed was a wider, more open patch of muddy ground, not overlooked by doors and windows. “I was supposed to report on an investigation in which I am involved, for my sins. The murder of Betsy Milne.”

  “Boris Milne’s girl?” she asked, surprised. “It’s all over the crime broadsides. The butcher blames us, the resurrectionists. Colan says we might even have to get rid of him.”

  “I do not believe he killed our men. I told Mister Szekely so.”

  “I remember. But the butcher makes nuisance of himself, nevertheless.”

  “He is grieving,” Hawke said. “Angry. But he has taken the case to Bow Street, which suggests he is willing to give the Runners a chance to bring the murderer to justice. Besides, the injuries to our men were too ragged to be caused by a cleaver’s chop.”

  “Where do you come in?” she asked.

  “Solving such a crime would be a large feather in Ruthven’s cap, but he can hardly question Szekely or the Giltspurs. Not in any meaningful way.”

  “So he asks you,” Corissa said.

  “Commands me,” Hawke corrected.

  “And what have you found?”

  “She was not killed by resurrection men.”

  “How can you be sure?” The gun twitched in her grip as she shuddered. “She was anatomised. Says so in the papers.”

  “She was stabbed and cut,” Hawke conceded, “but it was ferociously done. Not the work of an anatomist.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  Hawke shook his head. “But I know what occurred, and I’ve seen enough anatomised corpses to know the difference.”

  Her eyes gleamed and she swallowed again. “Then?”

  “Then we have a murderer at large,” Hawke rasped. He tapped his temple with a fingertip. “One with some sickness of the mind. Depraved.”

  Corissa held his gaze for a second, then drew breath, blinking, as if shaking off the effects of a spell. “You telling me this so I’ll give you sympathy?” She reset her stance, straightened the arm bearing her weapon. “Let you carry on stabbing us in the back?”

  “I’m telling you because you asked,” Hawke said, making a show of putting up his hands again. But this time he could see that she was not going to kill him. Not tonight, at least. The spectre of a crazed child-killer loomed in her mind. He could see it in the tightening of her face. She might despise Hawke, but she understood that greater threats than an opium-addled double-dealer stalked the city.

  “Did you kill Lucas?” she asked now. “Harlowe? Is that what happened? Found you out, did they?”

  “No,” Hawke said. “I swear it.”

  “Colan ordered you to discover who did.”

  “I am investigating.”

  “Investigating,” she mimicked. Then she sighed heavily. “Busy boy, ain’t you?”

  “Am I? If you shoot me now, neither killer may face justice.”

  She stared at him, weighing the night’s possible conclusions, all of them in her gift. “If he ever finds out...”

  “We’ll both be dead.”

  “Dead I can cope with,” Corissa said darkly, and lowered the gun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MONDAY

  The morning rang with the rhythmic chime of hammer on anvil, the aggressive hiss of evaporating water, and the coarse bark of a blacksmith berating his apprentices. The sun had not long risen to preside over a brooding purple sky, but Joshua Hawke, with the help of his precious tincture, had managed to drag himself from Black Horse Yard to Fleet Street in order to keep the appointment. Now he hunched within his big collar as he peered into the bustling smithy, revelling in the blast of heat that bathed his face each time the stout furnace of grey stone and red brick flared bright at the workshop’s heart. Other folk, he noticed, threadbare and gaunt as ghosts, were already close by, huddled at the flanks of the long frontage, desperate to bask in the warmth without drawing the attention of those wielding the hammers.

  “There you are!” a familiar voice made Hawke look round. Ansell Brommett, carrying a bulging leather satchel and wrapped in an ankle-length coat, doffed his top hat as he bowed. “Mrs Brommett sends her regards, naturally, and,” he added archly, “hopes that you are taking the appropriate care.”

  Instinctively Hawke’s thumb brushed the glass vessel that nestled safely against his ribs. “I am, thank you.” Embarrassed, he cast his gaze beyond Brommett’s shoulder and was relieved to see another familiar face. “This is Miss Corissa Lott,” he said quickly, keen to steer matters away from opium. “She is assisting me. You may speak frankly in her presence.”

  The apothecary turned to see Corissa, still ten yards off, who cut a well-heeled figure in a dark green, fur-trimmed pelisse, with braiding and frog fastenings in the military style. Brommett regarded her carefully, the intrigue clear upon his lean face. “You have an assistant, now?”

  “Is that such a surprise?”

  Brommett gave a wry smile. “Everything about you is surprising, Mister Hawke.”

  Corissa drew up. “Ain’t that the truth?”

  Brommett had asked Hawke to meet him here, and Hawke, in turn, had asked Corissa, because, at her own insistence, she was now involved. She skirted Brommett, placing a hand on Hawke’s shoulder as she whispered in his ear. He felt heat come into his face at the physical contact, and at the gentle aroma of lavender that accompanied her movement. He thought of Szekely, of how so brutal, so cruel a creature came to possess this woman, and a surge of jealousy blazed l
ike the smith’s forge.

  “Charmed, Mistress Lott, I am sure,” Brommett was saying. “Ansell Brommett, apothecary, at your service.”

  Corissa acknowledged his greeting with a brief bob of the knees. “You aid Mister Hawke’s investigation. He told me so.” She seemed abrupt, even nervous. She addressed Hawke, “Well? I’m here, as instructed.”

  Hawke, trying in vain to collect his thoughts, indicated the apothecary. “And I was instructed by Mister Brommett, so we await his explanation.”

  Brommett, clearly sensing the tension, looked warily from one to the other. “We had need to convene, regardless of the location, for I have the information, as promised. But I freely admit that your coming here has done me something of a favour, for I had prior business with the smith.” He moved, at the perpetual mercy of his lurching gait, into the entrance of the premises, the huge double doors thrown wide and pinned back on massive iron hooks. Here, just over the threshold, had been placed two small baskets of soot-blackened wicker. Brommett gestured at someone within the building, who appeared to give a positive response, for he delved into the first basket, bringing up a handful of slender lengths of metal. He twirled one deftly in his fingers. “Messrs Babcock and Bull make the very best London has to offer.”

  Hawke moved into the doorway. The intensity of the heat was quite profound, for he felt sweat prickle at his forehead immediately. “What are they?”

  Corissa, at Hawke’s left side, said, “Pins.”

  “You have it!” Brommett chirped happily. “For the articulation of artificial limbs.” Seeing the look on Corissa’s face, he said, “A particular hobby of mine, Mistress Lott. To provide new limbs for those poor souls who find themselves sadly lacking in that department.” He let the pins tumble from his palm, fetching instead one of the curved objects in the second basket. He tossed it to Hawke. “Not only arms and legs, mind. Try it on. Indulge me, do.”

  Hawke stared down at the piece, made entirely of metal and polished to a high sheen. It was hollow, roughly the size and shape of a man’s nose, and so, as bidden, he placed it over his own. It smelled surprisingly fragrant.

  “My latest endeavour,” Brommett said with a broad grin. “Many a musket ball did deprive a man of his nose. I aim to rectify matters, in my own small way. Of course, it lacks the detail of nostrils or septum, which Mrs Brommett and I will add with our own fair hands, but the smiths, here, do me a grand service in the initial production.”

  Corissa gaped, her taciturn mask slipping just a tad as she regarded Hawke and his fake nose. “They make these for you?”

  Brommett nodded proudly. “And the pins, as you saw, and various other accoutrements. There is a great need for such things in our war-ravaged society, Mistress Lott.” He snorted with laughter suddenly, mumbling through a smothering hand, “Fetching, wouldn’t you say?”

  Hawke, who had tossed the nose back into its basket, felt increasingly uneasy, because Corissa was smiling too. He frowned at them, looked over his shoulder to see some previously hidden amusement, but noticed nothing. “Tell me.”

  “When you’re dancing with your honey,” Brommett broke into song, in an exaggerated Scots accent, “and her nose is rather runny, you may think that it is funny; but it’s snot!”

  Hawke put fingers to his nose, his real nose, and felt the beeswax polish that had evidently been present on the inner surface of the prosthesis. It was smeared now across his upper lip, slime amongst his stubble. “Christ, man,” he snarled, wiping the wax away with his sleeve, though it was through a grudging smile, “but I have earned my information.”

  “That you have, Mister Hawke,” Brommett said, still chortling, and beckoned them further into the workshop, “so let us speak away from the road.”

  They threaded a route beneath high beams, black as tar, that were adorned with a variety of horse shoes. They skirted workbenches of differing heights and functions, bushels of coal, vats of water, and deep counters cluttered with hooks and tongs and hammers, vices with gaping jaws and wickedly sharp chisels. There were eight or nine men and young lads working furiously at the forge and associated stations, all broad-shouldered and clothed in long, filthy aprons. It was searingly hot now that they were deep inside the smithy. Sparks flew continuously and the great pair of double bellows heaved alternately at the furnace.

  Brommett found a corner away from prying eyes, ensconced amongst stacked trays of punches, swages and pliers. He appeared to exchange a brief gesture with one of the senior blacksmiths, a short, burly man with silver hair, howitzer forearms and a glass eye, then said to Hawke, “To business.”

  Hawke felt Corissa’s hand on his elbow. He knew it was a warning, and said to Brommett, “Folk will eavesdrop, whether you trust them or not.”

  Brommett raised his forefinger, as if waiting for direction from heaven. Sure enough, the stocky smith brayed an order, and an apprentice swung the largest sledgehammer Hawke had ever seen. It careened over the lad’s head in a massive arc to smash down upon a length of glowing iron that Hawke saw was positioned, in the grip of large tongs, upon an anvil. The noise was deafening. Brommett said, “The smith, Babcock, owes me a debt.” He touched a slender finger to his cheek. “For his false eyeball was one of my best pieces. He and his striker will be fashioning that iron for as long as we wish.” He waited for the striker to resume the din, then said, “The button.” He fished in a pocket and held out the item in question. “I have pondered its provenance, and consulted what records I could access in so short a time.”

  Corissa leaned in to look. The glow from the forge gave her skin a dark amber hue. “Taken from the tosher-man’s body?”

  “Aye,” Hawke said. He had regaled her the previous evening with everything he knew of the case, before inviting her to meet him here, as per Brommett’s request.

  She turned her head to the side, examining the embossed numbers. “Army?”

  Hawke nodded. “But not ours.”

  “How to tell such a thing?” she said. “Is there not a British regiment of the name?”

  “The Leicestershires,” Brommett confirmed. “Serving in India, at present.” He held up the button so that they could observe more closely. “See here. The colour. French brass has a greater proportion of copper in the alloy. You note this reddish tint?” He turned the button over. “And the bigger shank, here, is more robust than its British counterpart. Ergo, the coat to which this button belonged was once issued to the 17th Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne.” He looked at Corissa. “I served in the Peninsula. The French 17th was a renowned unit at one time. Served all over. Right through Europe and back to Waterloo. Though by then it was a shadow of its former glory. They were part of the La Grande Armée that invaded Russia. Needless to say, the venture did not go well for the French. Were it not for that ill-considered campaign, Lord Wellington may never have had his final triumph. Russia destroyed La Grande Armée. Those proud battalions disintegrated in the snow.”

  “What has this to do with Italy?” Hawke asked, more baffled than ever. “Or Ireland? Or with goddamned witchcraft?”

  “Nothing,” Brommett said bluntly. He handed the button to Hawke and put a fist out to lean on a trough full of pig-iron ingots. “I will look further. Discover more. But a French military button is not commonplace in London. It is a thread to tug, do you not think?”

  Corissa made a scornful grunt. “Commonplace? You don’t know where to look, Mister Brommett. There’s a multitude o’ the buggers. Started coming when I was small. Priests, mostly. Running from Madame Guillotine. Plenty more since.”

  “This is from the coat of a common soldier,” Brommett said, eyeing the pocket into which Hawke had dropped the button. “It was the gentlemen came to London. Vestiges of the Ancien Régime.”

  “Why would a commoner,” Hawke agreed, “an old French plodder, come here?”

  “Work,” Corissa said. “Their soldiers are destitute as ours, I’d bet.”

  Brommett shook his head. “A peculiarity of the war is
that England, as victor, finds herself in dire financial straits, while France prospers.”

  “Prospers?” Corissa echoed incredulously. “All them dead young fellas, and they prosper? So speaks a gent, an’ no mistake.”

  “I do not deny their hardships, Mistress Lott,” Brommett answered testily, “only the assumption that in France there is no work for the common man. Firstly,” he counted his point off by raising a thumb, “the revolution bankrupted our old adversary, causing them to entirely wipe clear the national debt. Secondly, the war Bonaparte waged, as I may testify with my own eyes, was one of pillage. They plundered every yard conquered, stole and raped, extracted and exported, like Pharaoh’s plague of locusts. They made the war pay, Mistress Lott, and it made France rich. Thirdly,” he raised another finger, “one would suppose that our dear leaders at Westminster squeezed le coq gaulois until it crowed. In truth, for matters of political expediency, they barely tickled its feathers. Thus we are the proverbial cripple, along with those who bore the brunt of Bonaparte’s legions, while France finds herself in relative comfort.”

  “With a deal fewer men returning to their old employment,” Hawke added.

  “Plenty of work and no folk to take it up,” Brommett said. “It is we who should be crossing the Channel, not them.”

  “Then if a French infantryman had occasion to seek work in England,” Hawke surmised, “it would be of a particular variety.”

  Brommett nodded. “He is not in London to beg on the streets. He has a purpose. Something to offer. Perhaps he is skilled.”

  “Muscle,” Corissa said. “He’d be on the ships, or at the wharves, or guarding some rich bastard’s house.”

  Hawke swore in exasperation. “There might be hundreds by that token.”

  “Former soldiers?” said Brommett. “Who served on the ill-fated Russian campaign? There cannot be many of those in this city.”