The Life of a Teenage Body-snatcher

by Doug MacLeod

  ‘He had seen nothing beyond it, until you arrived.’

  The old man at the counter finishes his glass of red wine.

  ‘Didn’t you see the look in Lucifer’s eyes?’

  I shudder as I recall it. ‘There was a sort of mania.’

  ‘Didn’t it unsettle you?’

  ‘It was my first night as a body-snatcher. Everything unsettled me.’

  ‘And yet you remained calm, alert and utterly perfect.’

  ‘You embarrass me, but I will accept the compliment.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much money the anatomists would pay for a magnificent fresh body like yours? Thomas, you are priceless.’

  ‘Nothing is priceless. What would I fetch?’

  ‘Freshly dead? One hundred pounds at least.’

  I gasp. Plenitude ceases to grip my hands so tightly.

  ‘Do not tell a soul what I have just told you. If word spreads about what some anatomists pay for perfection, then London’s finest young people would be murdered overnight. Lucifer recognised exactly what you were. You were one hundred pounds. You were the chance of a new life. I saw the hunger in Lucifer. He was trying to control it, good Catholic that he was, but it was too strong. When you turned your back to remove your grandfather from the cart, Lucifer produced a dagger. Sadly, both my weapons were in your possession. But I’d hidden a cosh in the cart. I hadn’t foreseen how swiftly and violently Lucifer would succumb. As he attempted to plunge the blade into you, I tried to smash him with the cosh. Sadly, I missed, though I knocked Lucifer in the shoulder, which meant his dagger didn’t find its target. My deflected blow fell on you. Had its force not been broken by its contact with Lucifer, I might have damaged you. As it happens, you received nothing but a mildly painful knock. Lucifer tried to stab you once again. I couldn’t reason with him, not even his God could stay his hand. In the heat of the moment I raised the cosh high and pounded it into his cranium – once only, perfectly aimed. I was in a panic, you understand. I’d underestimated my own strength. Lucifer died the moment it began to storm. I suppose I was lucky. The storm kept people indoors and I had time to conceal the corpse as best I could. I deposited your dear grandfather at the back doorstep. It was the best I could do. They would have found him at dawn and put him to use. I then lifted you onto the cart. That was tricky. I’m afraid I dropped you into the mud once or twice. You must be at least six feet and three inches tall.’

  ‘Six feet four. Tolerance told me that you also coshed him on his first night in Lucifer’s Yard. He said you didn’t want him to know how much you received for the corpse you delivered.’

  ‘Tolerance could be fanciful at times, though he is half-right. I did indeed cosh him. Very gently.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He kept calling Lucifer “Lucy”. I could see it was annoying Lucifer more than my novice realised. If I hadn’t coshed Tolerance and he had continued to use the epithet, Lucifer would almost certainly have stabbed him. Not mortally, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant. Much worse than a bump on the head, at any rate.’

  Plenitude releases my hands.

  ‘Please drink your whisky now. Otherwise I will, and I would despise myself.’

  I drink the whisky and do not enjoy it. But I make sure to leave nothing in the glass.

  ‘I didn’t want to kill Lucifer,’ says Plenitude.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You might have noticed my teeth.’

  ‘They are exquisite.’

  ‘They are also false.’

  ‘I gathered.’

  ‘They used to belong to a society lady, now deceased.’

  ‘I thought you never took things from the coffin.’

  ‘I did not even know she had them until I took off her head. Both sets of dentures fell to the floor. It seemed a crime not to make use of such beautiful teeth mounted on gold.’

  ‘I hadn’t seen the gold in your mouth.’

  Plenitude reaches into his mouth and is about to take out his teeth. I hold up a preventing hand and, mercifully, he restrains.

  ‘They fitted me perfectly. It was ecstasy to have such dentures, after the second-rate ones I had been forced to endure. At first I thought the teeth were porcelain. Then I looked closer and saw they were human. Only a young adult has such beautiful teeth. They are even better than yours.’

  ‘I attend to mine daily with tooth powder.’

  ‘They will still fall out. It is the way of things. But the teeth in my head make me wonder who the monster really is. Am I the monster for taking a lady’s dentures that are no longer required by her? Or is the lady the monster for having the teeth made?’

  ‘How can she be the monster?’

  ‘She would have known the teeth are human and from a person not yet eighteen. Such dentures are much prized among the aristocracy and attract huge sums. Is the dentist the monster to make them for his client? How did he get the teeth? Was someone murdered for thirty-two bright pearls? It’s very likely. Who is the biggest monster of all, I ask you, Thomas?’

  ‘I cannot answer,’ I say. ‘I may be a monster myself. I didn’t act purely out of a desire to advance science when I resurrected Atkins. There was some vengeance involved.’

  ‘The horseman is following us. I cannot help but ponder the direction in which my soul will go.’

  ‘I feel the same. But the rain has stopped. Sultan and the cart are waiting without, and we must resume our journey.’

  The man at the counter has his eyes closed and his hands firmly pressed together in prayer.

  ‘Perhaps we should pray, too,’ I say.

  ‘It is what the man wants us to do,’ says Plenitude ‘The moment we close our eyes he will pick our pockets. It’s an old ruse.’

  ‘Then we should pray with our eyes open.’

  ‘That is a very good idea.’

  On reaching Wishall, we return to the ship works. Plenitude wants to gather his blowpipe machine and move it to a building with a lock. It is valuable and he would prefer not to lose it. Anyone could walk into the ship works. We discover this the moment we try to shift the machine. We have company.

  Two figures emerge from the rusting bones of ships. One is a great deal larger than the other and wears a sack mask. Both point guns at us. I know that Plenitude has a pistol and a dagger. But to reach for them now would be death.

  Clemency is the first to speak.

  ‘Treacherous Plenitude,’ he utters, making a show of the shiny gold and silver rings on his right hand. ‘What am I to do with you?’

  ‘I did not inform on you,’ Plenitude replies. ‘And if you’re foolish enough to go around wearing the booty you steal from graves, you deserve to be caught.’

  ‘Do you like my jewellery?’ Clemency asks me.

  ‘It suits you well,’ I say. ‘And I do not like it.’

  Clemency frowns. ‘Raise your hands high.’

  ‘Don’t speak such drivel, Clemency,’ says Plenitude. ‘You are resurrectionists, not highwaymen. You cannot mean to rob us. Besides, every penny I own would not buy one of those gaudy rings you flaunt. You are clearly in better financial straits than I am.’

  ‘We will not shoot you, disloyal Plenitude, if you raise your hands and permit us to use your machine.’

  ‘For what purpose?’ asks Plenitude, his voice steady.

  ‘That is not your concern.’

  ‘I think it is. What is your intention? Will you start another fire with it? Thomas here was almost burned to death thanks to you.’

  ‘Raise your hands.’

  We do as Clemency asks.

  ‘Why can’t we live together in peace and harmony?’ asks Plenitude. ‘Certainly we are competitors, but healthy competition is a good thing.’

  Clemency and the masked man move closer. We see that the guns they hold look very lethal indeed.

  ‘We need your machine to cut into something,’ says Clemency.

  ‘Well, you certainly have the right machine for that, but it’s cumbersome to ope
rate,’ says Plenitude. ‘Have you used one before?’

  ‘We will manage.’

  ‘Does your large friend have a name?’

  The giant in the mask speaks.

  ‘Girth,’ he says.

  Plenitude seems nonplussed. ‘Did you choose that yourself?’

  ‘Someone else did. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It’s all right, I suppose. It’s just that it sounds rather … girlie. Don’t you think it sounds girlie, Thomas?’

  ‘It does a bit.’

  The giant huffs. ‘How is it girlie? Girth is big and manly.’

  ‘You make it sound like Gert,’ says Plenitude.

  ‘I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it’s because of your speech impediment,’ I add. While I babble, my mind is racing to find a way out of our current dilemma.

  Girth is aggrieved but addresses his next comment to Clemency. ‘I told you the name was no good.’

  ‘It’s better than Prudence,’ hisses Clemency.

  Plenitude bursts out laughing. ‘Were you really going to call yourself Prudence?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Clemency yells.

  ‘Sorry, it’s just such a funny name. Come, let me put my hands down and show you how to operate the bellows. There is a trick to it. I am unarmed. I offer no threat.’

  Without our captors’ permission, Plenitude lowers his hands and reaches for the bellows. He continues to shake his head and chuckle about the name Prudence. He looks and sounds perfectly harmless. Then I see him try to reach for his pistol. Clemency immediately shoots him in the arm. Hastily, Clemency reaches into Plenitude’s pocket and snatches out the pistol.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask Plenitude.

  ‘No harm done.’

  But I know Plenitude must be in considerable pain. ‘That was foolish,’ says Clemency, handing the pistol to Girth. ‘Keep your hands up.’

  ‘You bounder,’ says Plenitude. ‘You said you wouldn’t shoot me.’

  ‘And you said you were unarmed.’

  ‘I suppose that makes us even. What is it that you want to cut?’

  ‘I told you. It matters not.’

  ‘It matters a great deal,’ Plenitude says. ‘If you wish to cut lead, you may turn down the torch and save fuel. There’s a tap to regulate the flow. If you wish to cut iron –’

  ‘I know how the machine works, Plenitude. And we do not wish to cut iron.’

  New figures emerge from the ship-shadows. There are six men, all in black, all carrying weapons. The men are as tall as I am. I smell alcohol and blood.

  ‘Meet my boys,’ says Clemency. ‘I found them in Ireland, so beware. They’re brutal.’

  Plenitude maintains the illusion of being in good spirits.

  ‘I feel I must warn you about your employer,’ Plenitude tells the men. ‘He’s not a gentleman.’

  ‘Hold them down,’ says Clemency.

  The men move swiftly. I am bashed in the head by one then pushed to the ground by a second. Two gigantic men pin me, and I am almost completely restrained, but for my right leg. If I bring up my knee quickly I may be able to affect some damage to my captors and escape. I move my leg and I hear another gunshot. There is a burning pain in my calf. Clemency has wounded me.

  ‘Don’t try anything like that again,’ says Clemency, looming over me.

  ‘I apologise.’

  ‘What’s that, Thomas?’ Plenitude has been slammed to the floor by another two members of Clemency’s brigade. ‘Did you get shot in the leg, my friend?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I reply. ‘A mere pinprick.’

  The two remaining men in black commence pumping the bellows of the machine. Clemency is indeed familiar with the equipment. He turns the spigot and picks up the torch. He lights it. As he does so, Girth approaches.

  ‘Don’t look at the flame for too long,’ Plenitude warns Girth, amiably. ‘It might harm your eyes. I would hate for anyone to be hurt.’

  Girth removes his mask. I see at last the wound I gave him. His eyes are both there, but he has a hole in the middle of his face. The sharp end of the stake gouged into a nostril and ripped off his nose.

  ‘Do you see?’ Girth whispers to me. ‘Do you see what you did?’

  ‘It really wasn’t my intention to deprive you of your nose.’

  ‘This wreck of a face …’ Girth cannot complete the sentence; he merely shakes his head.

  Clemency hands the torch to Girth.

  ‘When I’m finished with your nose,’ says Girth, ‘we shall look like twin brothers.’

  He holds out the torch.

  CHAPTER 24

  I hear the devil’s screech. I do not know what has happened to Girth, only that he has dropped the torch. Then he collapses on me, a dead weight. I twist my head to the side and see the torch, lying on the floor, burning the material of someone’s clothing. Why doesn’t the person move? What has happened? Though I am pressed down by Girth’s body, I realise that I am no longer pinioned by Clemency’s acolytes.

  I struggle out from under Girth. I stand and try to make sense of the scene. The torch has set fire to Clemency, and the flames are rapidly moving up his legs and back. Only now does he have the presence of mind to drop to the floor and roll, in an effort to extinguish the flame. What caused him to hesitate? The men in black are wailing and cringing like frightened children. I look down and see a meat cleaver buried deep into Girth’s back, blood welling around it.

  ‘And the devil will consume you all!’

  It is the demented gypsy, screeching her prophecy. She must have thrown the meat cleaver. She has dropped her cape to reveal her devil-adorned flesh, in the yellow light of the abandoned torch. The face of Satan winks and mocks as she writhes about. I am momentarily transfixed, then Plenitude appears at my side.

  ‘Take it,’ he says, handing me a pistol. ‘I have plenty more.’ Plenitude has gathered up quite an armoury from the terrified men. ‘And close your mouth. You look silly.’

  I look at the gun in my hand. ‘Whom do I shoot?’

  ‘No one, unless absolutely necessary. I thought I once told you that.’

  Plenitude extinguishes the blowpipe torch, though the ship works is still lit by flame. It comes from Clemency, who is crying out as the fire engulfs him.

  ‘We’ll throw a blanket over him,’ says Plenitude.

  ‘Where do we find a blanket?’

  ‘Help me take the cover from the cart.’

  ‘Do you really think we should save Clemency’s life?’

  Plenitude obviously doesn’t think the question warrants an answer. We pull the cover from the cart. Just as we are about to throw it over Clemency, I notice something.

  ‘Wait,’ I say.

  Even as Clemency squirms alight, I see the pistol in his pocket. It would be annoying to save his life, only to have him shoot us. I reach out.

  ‘Leave it,’ cries Plenitude. ‘It’s liable to explode.’

  But I snatch the pistol. It’s hot, of course, and I am burned. I throw the pistol into the darkness where I am confident it won’t be found.

  ‘Now,’ I say, ‘we cover him.’

  When we throw the canvas onto Clemency, I spy the ugly wound on Plenitude’s arm and the blood that flows. My own leg bleeds but I no longer feel the pain. I don’t know if this is good or bad.

  The gypsy continues her fiery incantation. ‘And whom shall the devil consume first?’

  Four men flee in their panic. The other two faint.

  ‘Can they really be so afraid?’ I say.

  ‘They are Catholics, Thomas. If you’re going to assemble a gang of murderous thugs, always choose Church of England. They charge more and they are not as violent but they don’t go to water as soon as they see a thing with horns. Now, come with me.’

  We step over Girth’s massive corpse. I follow Plenitude as he approaches the gypsy. She snarls at him but he doesn’t back away.

  His voice is soothing. ‘Carolyn,’ he says.

  Another hellish scr
eech.

  ‘Carolyn, it’s me.’

  The woman moves her head from side to side like a bird, wondering what to make of Plenitude.

  ‘You remember me. Of course you do. Put on your cape.’

  The woman looks wary but does as Plenitude tells her.

  ‘I thought I asked you to buy clothes with your laurel coin. What do you have in your bag, there? You don’t have anything that will hurt us?’

  The woman returns to the words she knows.

  ‘Sprig of heather, sir? It will bring you luck. You look like you could use some luck.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take the bag, just in case?’ asks Plenitude.

  ‘Tell your fortune, sir? I have made many predictions in my time and all have proved to be true.’

  ‘Then you have a rare gift,’ says Plenitude, picking up the bag and looking into it. He seems satisfied. ‘Come here, Thomas. Don’t be afraid. There are no more meat cleavers. Just some dead mice and a very interesting package.’

  ‘I know what you were …’ The gypsy has forgotten her lines and looks like a worried child.

  ‘I prefer not to go so close,’ I say.

  ‘You’re quite safe. Come.’

  The ship works is now silent. Clemency doesn’t make a sound under his canvas sheet. I do not know if he has even survived. It will be an ugly life for him if he has.

  Plenitude sits alongside the devil woman and pats her hair, as if trying to make some order out of the tangled mess. She closes her eyes and hums a tune that sounds like a nursery rhyme. I am embarrassed by my cowardice and plant myself next to Plenitude.

  ‘What did you call her?’

  ‘Carolyn.’

  ‘How do you know her name?’

  Carolyn looks frail as she rocks to and fro, humming to herself.

  ‘We go back a long way.’

  ‘Was she always like this?’

  ‘Not at all. She was once demure.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Plenitude shrugs. ‘Believe what you want. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Does she really think she is the devil?’

  ‘Maybe she does from time to time. Her mind is so mazed.’

  ‘She must certainly think a great deal of the horned one, to adorn her body in such a way.’

  ‘She didn’t want the tattoos.’