Corpse Thief

by Michael Arnold

  “Betsy Milne?”

  Corissa nodded. “And I feel bound to find the animal that would do that to her.” She thumped a fist at her own chest. “I’m a girl of these streets, just like Betsy. Lot of bad apples, everywhere you look. Twisted scum on every corner. Rob you, fuck you and stab you, given half the chance.” She screwed up her mouth in a look of deep distaste. “Or wrap you up in strange twigs, ‘cause that’s what gets their member hard. London’s full of madmen. Violent men. Ones who’ll slice you up soon as look at you.”

  “Like Szekely,” Hawke said, knowing jealousy pushed him perilously close to the edge.

  To his relief, she did not become angry. “Colan looked after me. I know what you’re thinking. There’s a multitude of thieves and killers in this city and he’s no better than any other.” Her look seemed almost apologetic. “But he’s the only reason I made it this far. Life ain’t easy if you look like me.”

  Beautiful? Hawke’s inner voice chimed. Radiant? “It isn’t easy for most of us.”

  “Most of us,” she echoed his words with an affected - and quite ridiculous - northern accent, “aren’t the half-caste daughter of a lascar sailor.”

  “Lascar? From India?”

  She nodded. “My grandfur. Came back on HMS Resolution in ‘80.”

  “The Resolution?” Hawke repeated incredulously. “Cook’s ship?”

  She wrinkled her snub nose dismissively. “He was dead by then. Along with most of his crew. That’s why they had to take on more hands for the homeward journey.” She shrugged. “Lascars are cheap and reliable.”

  “So he came to England?”

  “Promptly had a tryst with a white woman and was murdered for it. But not before he’d put my mother in her belly.” She shrugged. “That’s what mammy told me.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Grandmother died pushing mammy out. Mammy went whoring over at Deptford, servicing the crews. They liked her dark skin, so she used to say.” She gave an almost imperceptible shiver. “Liked mine too. One morning she was found under a jetty, ill used and battered to bits.” She blinked rapidly, her long eyelashes fluttering like coal-black butterflies. “I came to the city. Colan found me.”

  Hawke’s mouth was parched. He swallowed, falteringly, and braced himself. “Do you love him?”

  Her eyes found his. “I do, in a way.” A look of resignation ghosted across her face. “He keeps me safe.”

  Hawke watched Corissa in the gathering gloom, trying to gauge her. She was a hard woman, raised by the streets and wise to them in a way he could never be, and yet sometimes, just sometimes, he saw a flash of vulnerability that made him want simply to protect her. It was a wasted sentiment, he told himself, for she was Szekely’s possession. Besides, between himself and Corissa, he was not certain that she was the vulnerable one. “But you fear him,” he said eventually.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Corissa went back to the wall, with Hawke in tow. There was no need to scale it, now that the congregation had gone, and they followed its crumbling brick face towards an empty arch that had once held an iron gate. She slowed. “Without Colan, where would I be?” Her voice was stronger now, more defiant. “Getting ploughed by poxed old pervs down in Southwark, or caged in some workhouse.”

  Words bubbled up from deep within Hawke. Chivalric words, declaring devotion, pledging loyalty and protection. Challenging her to flee London with him. Board ship to lands exotic and a new life. Those words were stillborn on his lips. “Not necessarily,” he managed to say, hating himself for a craven wastrel.

  She made to reply, but footsteps crunched on the cinder path, shockingly close. They both turned to see a figure pacing through the graveyard, perhaps twenty yards off. A man, certainly, though his features could not be discerned in the weak light, he held a large pistol in one hand, the barrel resting on his shoulder. One of the men employed by the farrier to watch over his wife’s grave.

  Hawke acted without thinking. He took Corissa by the wrist, hauling her away, and she yelped at the sudden roughness, but knew better than to demur. He dragged her beneath the arch, leaning back against the rusted hinge that once held the gate, and pulled her towards him so that their bodies pressed together. He held her there, close as they had ever been. Closer than he had ever dared. He could feel the swell of her breasts against his ribs. Her gin-laced breath felt warm on his face. Her scent, the hint of lavender he knew so well, drifted off her honeyed skin. He wanted so desperately to kiss her, for this would be the perfect excuse, but his courage failed him at the last.

  The footsteps on the path faltered. The pistol-toting man had seen them, was observing them. Hawke’s pulse roared in his ears. He held his breath.

  Then the guard turned away. They did not watch him, could not take the risk, but the sound of his steps gradually diminished until there was only silence. Hawke let out the air that burned like fire in his chest. He released her. She stepped back, adjusting her bonnet and coat, smoothing them down as though she had suffered some violation. Suddenly uncomfortable, Hawke stammered, “I apologise, Miss Lott.”

  She shook her head. “No need, Mister Hawke. None at all. I should go.”

  Θ

  Hawke fastened his greatcoat all the way up, the rough wool of his collar catching at the stubble of his chin. He hunched, tilting his topper forward like a plough against the biting air. It was less than a twenty minute walk to Covent Garden, so Hawke had decided to make for the wide, flat piazza, there to clear his head after the encounter with Corissa. He wanted to believe something had occurred between them. Some mutual understanding. Appreciation, even. But he could not allow himself the luxury. It was delusion, he knew. Dangerous at that. So he walked, and he let his mind wander, and, above all, he sought diversion. Covent Garden was the place.

  The huge portico of the local parish church glowed in the encroaching gloom, its columns and piers, bathed in lamplight, looked to Hawke like the maw of some fantastical beast, sent to devour the sinful souls that would be drawn to this place as night fell. And what a place it was. In sunlight, six days a week, the rectangular space, hemmed by low railings, was home to the purveyors of fruits and vegetables. Pens, tables and sheds clustered at the edges, the cries of the sellers battling with one another above the chatter of customers from all strata of London society. But after dark, the theatres awoke, attracting a different kind of crowd that would be seeking a very different kind of entertainment.

  Hawke crossed the piazza, dodging a club-footed peddler selling ribbon and breaking stride long enough to take a drop of Brommett’s potent tincture on the tip of his tongue. Carts rumbled at the edges of the marketplace, drivers and horses bellowing alike, while a group of children ran and laughed and bickered in the wake of a ball that ricocheted haphazardly off walls and splashed in water-filled cart ruts. A haggardly street vendor, swaddled in a filthy shawl, sat on a stool beside a steaming pot of spiced salop that she stirred with a long wooden ladle. The smell made his stomach grumble, and the woman must have noticed, for she beckoned to him, but he waved her calls away. He had only one venue in mind.

  Up ahead, close by the church, there was a small, muggy establishment he often frequented called the Swan and Cygnet. It was as he began to relax, salivating a little at the prospect of what lay beneath the tavern’s crudely painted sign, that the shiver traced its way down his neck. A response, unsolicited, but keen as a razor-edge, to something he had glimpsed at the very periphery of his vision, half obscured by the brim of his hat and confused by the gloom of a narrow alley. It was a feeling from the old days, he knew. A sensation that instilled fear within his guts but had saved his life more than once.

  A brewer’s dray, packed with barrels bound for the Swan and Cygnet’s cellar, rumbled slowly past. Hawke let it cross between himself and the alley, then kept pace with the vehicle, using it as a screen as he stared through a chink between the huge kegs. There they were, loitering at the mouth of the passage. Half a dozen men, hats angled to hide
faces, some chatting and smoking, others keeping steady eyes on the piazza. One of them, the foremost, was a ruddy-faced fellow with a flattened nose, and he seemed to be overtly studying folk as they passed, as if searching for someone. Just behind him, chatting over billowing briar pipes, were a tall man with a bandaged neck and a broad fellow who was missing his left hand, a vicious-looking hook protruding from the sleeve in its stead.

  Hawke kept moving, ducking lower until the dray had completed its ponderous journey, drawing up at the front of the tavern as the horses lifted tails to shit on the cobbles. He ran, then. Dived, almost, through the Swan and Cygnet’s doorway as if his life depended on it. Indeed, it probably did, for he had recognised the men in the alley’s mouth and a reunion was to be avoided like the flux.

  The wave of heat immediately stung Hawke’s eyes as he slipped between bodies into the tavern’s heart, breathing deeply of the tobacco fug that swirled in bilious clouds, floor to ceiling. He liked it here, for the smoke gave concealment, and the drink was cheap, and there was a particular pot-girl that, baffling to Hawke though it was, had apparently taken something of a shine to him. He went to the very rear of the establishment, where it was darkest, and settled into a bench, slumping with a deep groan as he let relief wash over him. The Giltspurs had not followed him in, which was a mercy, but they had been watching. If not for Hawke in particular, then for someone. Perhaps, he thought, they were searching for Szekely’s people. Any of his people. Which again raised the question of their involvement in the murders of Lucas and Harlowe.

  He gave a short, high-pitched whistle to hail a young lad. The fellow - skinny, spotty, and with a peculiar droop to the side of his face - scurried off and returned in a matter of seconds, bringing with him a mug of frothing ale that he exchanged for Hawke’s coin. He clutched the mug, waiting for his breathing and pulse to calm. Maybe the Giltspurs were simply at work, he told himself. Waiting to meet a contact for some clandestine job. And yet, there was something in the eyes of the red-faced lookout that had disturbed him, rang bells in his mind, though he could not fathom why.

  Hawke supped thirstily. It was rich and punchy stuff, and he felt himself sink into it, the tension beginning to ease. He wanted gin. Strong, harsh spirits were the only blanket that would smother the deeper pain that dwelt in his heart and guts. Yet he knew he must keep his wits at least moderately sharp for the work that would come later, lest he wanted his own corpse to be the one gracing Doctor Vine’s anatomy table. He drank more, picturing again the gang out on the fringe of the piazza, and thanking Joseph Nadin, a man generally reviled by common folk, for instilling within him a sense for danger that had preserved his life more than once. He bade the pot-boy linger a moment, drained the brew and demanded another with a slice of the day’s pie.

  When the lad disappeared, Hawke closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself how he had once been. Headstrong and vital. Handsome, even. The young Joshua Hawke had gleefully shed his obligations to the family trade as though it were a lice-infested cloak, embracing Nadin’s way of life as if the man were the messiah, rather than Deputy-Constable of Manchester. Hawke had revelled in the danger that went hand-in-glove with the business of thief-taking. Bathed in the glory a successful snare would bring. Indulged in the material rewards that had been placed before him. And Nadin had taught him to trust instinct before anything else. He hated the man for what his influence had done, but he owed him a debt too.

  When the fresh mug and warm food arrived he set to it ravenously, devouring all but a few pastry flakes and quaffing half the ale. Sated, he sat back, belching, and stared into the drink’s dark remains, swilling them as if answers might be found in the seething swirls and ripples. He considered French soldiers and Irish republicans. Italian witches flying above fields ripe with fennel and sorghum, cackling madly at his failures. He thought of Ruthven’s slab-like face, leering down at him, and of Szekely’s wiry stealth. And always he thought of Corissa Lott. Tried to re-imagine how her skin had felt as she had put her hand to his. He closed his eyes and saw her more vividly. Saw her bright gaze and her raven hair. Her fierceness behind the barrel of her pistol. Recalled the way she had licked crumbs from her lips. Imagined that lambent tongue licking other things.

  When he opened his eyes he noticed the serving girl, with whom he had previously dallied, collecting pots from one of the tables. She had none of Corissa’s beauty, nor her anger or wit, but he went to her anyway, and she smiled. He took her arm and led her, unspeaking, outside to the nearest alley. She murmured something that he did not catch, and her breath smelt of tobacco and apples, but there was a hint of lavender too, Corissa’s scent. Hawke felt himself stiffen.

  The girl gathered up her skirts as he swept the hem of his coat aside and fumbled at the buttons that fastened his fall front. Eventually it dropped away and he sprung free. She kissed his neck as he pressed against her, pushing between her thighs and clasping his fingers into her cold rump. He kept his eyes clamped tight, seeing Corissa only, lifting her up as though she weighed nothing, staggering forwards until she yelped as her back met the wall.

  The girl evidently sensed when it was almost done, for she pushed back at his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. “Not inside,” she hissed, pleading. “Please, sir, not inside.”

  Hawke lifted her down as he shuddered, thumping his forehead against the rough brick, knees buckling. He could hear her through it all, thanking him for the consideration, and muttering something about a friend who had been afflicted with a disease that was rotting her from the inside. He nodded absently as he buttoned his breeches.

  “Don’t want to be poked and prodded by no quack, like them other girls,” she was saying. Then she scuttled away like a hound-harried vixen, melting into the shadows.

  Hawke leaned back against the wall, wreathed in the vapour from his own mouth, and swore aloud. Because she had given him an idea.

  Θ

  The job began around midnight. It was particularly dark, dense banks of cloud snuffing out the stars. Thankfully it did not look like it would rain. The men bearing shovels crept single-file through the arch, careful not to snag clothes or clang metal against the empty hinges where once a gate had swung. They stayed low, followed the dim light of a shuttered lamp, ears pricked to danger. There were five of them to begin with, but one, tall and broad, with fair hair and mutton-chop side whiskers, split off from the group, tracing the line of the cinder path that looked like an inky brook in the darkness. He cradled a blunderbuss in the crook of his arm, and his role was to ensure that the cemetery guards, ensconced in their hut, thought better than to brave the cold.

  Joshua Hawke watched the man’s large frame dissolve into the night. “He’s done this work before?”

  “Berg?” It was Blackbird who answered, his bulk reduced to a silhouette as he came to stand before the grave of the farrier’s wife, a huge sack draped flaccidly over his shoulder. “Since you was sucking your mammy’s tit, Solly-yom.”

  The last word was said with its usual contempt. Hawke, on digging duty, shouldered the shovel as though it were a rifle. He considered spitting a foul retort at the gang leader, but quickly reconsidered, remembering well the splash as their previous chief had plummeted, trussed and weighted with chains, into the Thames. Instead he bit his lip and squinted into the dark, trying to make out what was happening in the soft light of the guard hut. “How long do we give?”

  Blackbird was studying the hut too. Berg was his man, an old associate from his naval days, and it had been on his word that Szekely had brought the imposing Norwegian into the group, compelled by recent losses. If things went awry, it would be Blackbird’s head to roll. “Give him time. He knows what he’s about.”

  Hawke glanced at the second newcomer. A diminutive Irishman with a rampant tick, whose head reached no higher than a typical man’s sternum. “And you?”

  “Must o’ lifted a hundred bodies, lad.” The little man flashed a wolfish grin in the tremulous light. “Like the devil’
s midwife, so I am.”

  Blackbird sniffed wetly and spat. “Big Bill used to be with McGowan’s men, till Szekely ousted them.”

  Ousted, Hawke reflected as he watched the hut, was a delicate term for what had been a markedly indelicate exercise. The glow was suddenly extinguished. His first thought was of trouble, but then he realised the huge Scandinavian had simply stepped across the doorway, evidently taking the matter in hand. Hawke could well imagine Berg clad in armour and toting a spear at a Viking ship’s dragon prow.

  “On,” Blackbird growled.

  Hawke stepped up to the rectangle of freshly disturbed soil, hoping he did not stink too strongly of alcohol, and rammed the shovel’s sharp edge into the frozen earth. It only went in an inch, and he scraped it back, then repeated the action, taking off another shallow layer. His wrists and lower back ached already, and he was glad of the meat pie and ale that warmed his belly. At his chest was the laudanum tincture, knocking a rib as if in deliberate reminder. He looked forward to revisiting it, but only when the work was done. It was not worth risking Blackbird’s fearsome ire by using it now, despite the bitter cold.

  He hit the coffin’s wooden lid in a matter of moments. Goaty, Gilroy and Big Bill moved closer, kneeling over the hole as they took smaller trowels to the task of clearing the last vestiges of loose dirt. Blackbird placed his lamp at ground level so that they could see. It was a tense job. The assignments set by Szekely were never jovial affairs, made grim by their macabre nature and inherent risk, but now the resurrectionists acted under an impermeable cloud of suspicion, the strange deaths of two of their number eroding what little trust had hitherto bound them. Now they worked with one eye on the prize, the other on their colleagues, never quite certain that a hidden hatchet would not find its way between the shoulder blades.