by James McGee
Hawkwood turned round, and found that Locke was staring at him.
“What?”
“Hunter …”
“What about him?”
“How much do you know about John Hunter, Officer Hawkwood?”
“Other than his connection with Hyde and the fact that he’s held in high regard, not a damned thing. Why?”
The apothecary hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to continue. Then he said, “There was a story, many years ago. It appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine. It concerned a forger who was imprisoned in Newgate and sentenced to the noose. Despite a petition to the King requesting a pardon, he was taken to Tyburn and hanged. It was said that, following the hanging, the forger’s body was carried by hearse to an undertaker’s parlour in Goodge Street. There, it was delivered into the hands of several members of the Royal Society, Hunter among them. The story goes that, under Hunter’s guidance, they rubbed the flesh and placed the body close to the fire to warm it, and used bellows to try and inflate his lungs. When that didn’t work, they employed electric shocks from Leyden jars to activate the heart muscle and restore the forger to life.”
Locke fell silent.
Hawkwood said nothing. In a moment of dark recall, he felt the familiar tightening round his own throat, heard again the scrabbling of heels on planking, and the echo of coarse laughter.
“Officer Hawkwood?”
Hawkwood looked up. The memories retreated back into their lair.
The apothecary pushed himself away from his desk. “I know what you’re thinking, Officer Hawkwood. I told you a short time ago that I was not a foolish man and yet, here I am, telling you what sounds like a fairy story. Well, I have another tale for you. Eight years ago, a convicted murderer was hanged at Newgate. His name was George Forster. After one hour, his corpse was taken down and delivered to a professor of physics. The professor then performed a demonstration. He connected the corpse to a battery. When he activated the battery – or, as James Matthews would put it, he closed the circuit – Forster’s eye opened. As the electrical current continued to flow, Forster raised a fist into the air. His back arched and his legs began to kick. The witnesses to the demonstration were convinced that, for a brief period, George Forster was brought back to life. The professor’s name was Giovanni Aldini. He was visiting this country from Italy. He was Luigi Galvani’s nephew.”
It’s me who’s going mad, Hawkwood thought.
But Locke hadn’t finished. “Have you heard of the Humane Society? It was founded by an apothecary, William Hawes, and a physician, Thomas Cogan; for the sole purpose of rescuing victims of drowning. The Society offered rewards of up to four guineas to anyone who succeeded in restoring life to any person taken out of the water for dead, within thirty miles of London. As you can imagine, quack medics for miles around came up with suggestions for how resuscitation could be achieved. Everything from bloodletting and purging to enemas and the ingesting of tobacco vapours. Eventually Hawes approached Hunter for advice. Hunter suggested using electricity. He said it was probably the only method there was for stimulating the heart.”
“Are you telling me it has actually worked?” Hawkwood couldn’t believe he was even asking the question.
“I’ve not seen it done, but there have been reports of successful recoveries, yes.”
“The criminal, Forster?”
“No, Forster was not resuscitated. Aldini’s demonstration proved to be an interesting experiment, no more than that.”
“What about the other one? The forger?”
“There were differing stories. Some say that Hunter failed and the forger was buried. Others say that he survived. One newspaper claimed that he was living in Glasgow, while another reported that he had dined with an Irishman in Dunkirk. I was trying to recall the fellow’s name. It has just come to me. It was Dodd – Reverend William Dodd.”
Jesus, Hawkwood thought. Not another bloody parson.
He turned and looked out of the window. Most of the snow had melted away, though across Moor Fields a few small patches of slush were clinging doggedly to the edges of the ponds and between the exposed roots around the bases of the trees. From a distance they looked like smears of grey marzipan.
“It was seeing the drawings and remembering my conversations with the colonel that reminded me of Hunter’s experiments,” Locke said behind him. “You remember when I told you that I found some of Colonel Hyde’s ideas innovative? It sounded fantastical, but now, hearing the true reason for the colonel’s admittance to the hospital and your belief that he’s responsible for the mutilation of the two corpses found at St Bart’s makes me fearful of the colonel’s intentions. Even thinking about it, I cannot bring myself to believe that anyone would contemplate such a thing.”
Hawkwood turned back.
“I know how this must sound, but you said it yourself: everything Colonel Hyde has done, he’s done for a reason. You remember I likened a distracted patient’s mind to a maelstrom, and that sometimes out of that swirling mass a single thought can arise, a moment of epiphany, which sets events in motion and influences every subsequent decision the patient makes? Those decisions form the framework for the patient’s existence, his reason for being. Perhaps it was seeing the Galvani drawing that planted the first seed. Colonel Hyde was a student of John Hunter. It’s likely that Hunter would have talked about his experiments on electrical resuscitation with his students, certainly the more able ones. Hyde’s conversations with James Matthews – who, despite his obsessions is possessed of genuine technical knowledge – could have acted as a catalyst, perhaps the final trigger that launched him on his grand design.”
“Grand design?”
The two men looked at each other. Hawkwood’s brain was spinning. It couldn’t be true. The idea was absurd, preposterous, the stuff of nightmares. He closed his eyes. “It’s madness!”
“Yes.” Locke nodded. “I agree. That’s precisely what it is. Tell me, Officer Hawkwood, do you know your Shakespeare?”
“It’s been a while since I attended the theatre, Doctor.”
“There’s a quotation, from Hamlet: ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your Philosophy.’”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, anything is possible.”
Both men fell silent. Neither wanted to be the one to voice what both of them were thinking.
Hawkwood broke first. “McGrigor thought the colonel might be taking the body parts in order to carry out some kind of surgical procedure. You think he’s going to try and raise the dead. I think you’re both right. That’s his grand design. That’s why he’s been obtaining corpses and removing internal organs. That’s why he got Matthews to design his electrical machine. He’s going to use the spare parts to repair a dead body, then he’s going to try and bring it back to life.”
“That’s not possible,” Locke whispered.
Hawkwood looked at him. “A moment ago, you told me anything is possible.”
“Not that,” Locke said.
“The colonel seems to think it is. My question is, who’s he planning to resurrect?”
He saw that the apothecary was staring at him, a stricken look on his face.
“Doctor?”
“I think I know,” Locke said softly.
“Who is it?”
“His daughter.”
16
Nathaniel Jago rose from the bed and padded naked to the window. He ran a hand across his close-cropped grey hair and looked out at the early-afternoon scene below. He did so without a trace of conceit or self-consciousness, totally at ease with himself. He was not a young man. His face was square and hard edged and carried the lines of someone who’d experienced the harsher side of life and all the adventures it had to offer, and met them head on. His stocky frame and broad shoulders gave him the look of a wrestler or a pugilist. Indeed, his body carried more than its fair share of wear and tear, but a keen-sighted and knowledgeable observer would have
recognized the majority of his scars as having been made not by fist or elbow but by blade and bullet.
Jago was not a Londoner by birth. His childhood had been spent on the Kent marshes, a world away from the hustle and bustle that filled the city street below. He stared down at the clogged thoroughfare, at the horse-drawn carriages clattering over the cobbles, the hunched shoulders and bowed heads of the pedestrians, and wondered, not for the first time, why he felt so at home here. It was strange how things turned out.
“Penny for them,” a husky voice said behind him.
Jago turned. The crow’s feet at the corners of his dark eyes crinkled. “Just admirin’ the view.”
“Me, too,” the voice said. The comment was followed by a throaty chuckle.
“You’re a brazen hussy, Connie Fletcher,” Jago laughed. “Have you no shame?”
The woman in the bed was laid on her side. She, too, was naked. Her head was propped on her right hand. A pair of warm blue eyes, framed by a tousled mane of blonde hair, regarded Jago with a mixture of humour and affection.
“Shame? You’re a fine one to talk, standing by the window with your arse hangin’ out.” Her eyes dropped. “Mind you, it’s quite a nice arse. Not too saggy. In fact, not bad for an old ’un.”
“Watch who you’re callin’ old,” Jago said, feigning insult. “I’ll ’ave you know, I’ve been told I’ve got the body of a twenty-year-old.”
“That so? Well, it’s high time you gave it him back, then. Now why don’t you come here and give Connie a squeeze?”
“You could always start without me,” Jago said, lifting a suggestive eyebrow.
“True, but it’s not half as much fun.”
Jago looked up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. “The things I do for England.”
Connie Fletcher pulled back the corners of the quilt and grinned. “God save the King!”
Jago returned to the bed and Connie moved over, taking the edge of the bedcovers with her.
“You in?”
“I’m in,” Jago said.
Connie drew the quilt over them both. Resting her head against his chest, she nestled in close. “Snug as two bugs,” she said.
They lay in easy silence. Connie’s breath was soft against his skin. After a minute or two, though, he felt her stir. She lifted her head.
“I didn’t mean it about you being old,” she said. “You’re not.”
“I ain’t exactly in my first flush,” Jago said.
“Who is?” Connie raised herself up. “I’ve stockings older than some of the girls I’ve got working here.”
Jago looked down at her. “You’re a fine-looking woman, Connie Fletcher. And don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Connie patted his stomach. “And you’re a smooth-talking flatterer, Nathaniel Jago,” she said. “But I thank you for it, all the same.”
“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think it was so. And you’ve got the brains, and there’s not many I’d say that to, neither.”
“Well, it’s nice to know I’m appreciated for a bit more than these –” Connie dropped her gaze and cupped her left breast. “Not that they haven’t given me a good living, mind.”
With Connie’s head against his chest and her leg across his thigh, Jago felt satisfyingly at ease. Which wasn’t to say that his guard was totally relaxed. It was another legacy of his days in the army: the ability to rest and conserve energy while still keeping one eye open, just in case.
A peal of girlish laughter sounded beyond the room.
“That’ll be Esther,” Connie chuckled. “She’s got his lordship with her. Don’t know how he manages it at his age. He’s a game old devil, I’ll give him that. Esther says he likes to chase her round the bed. He reckons it’s the only exercise he gets now that he’s given up hunting. Will you chase me round the bed when you’re old and grey?”
“I’m already old and grey,” Jago said. “You want to run round the bed, be my guest.”
“And they say romance is dead,” Connie murmured.
The laughter along the landing faded away.
The room fell silent. The sound of the street could be heard faintly beyond the window.
“I need a favour, Nathaniel,” Connie said hesitantly.
“Wondered how long it would take.”
She turned her head and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been fidgeting for the last five minutes. Come on, out with it.”
Connie sat up. Her breasts swayed enticingly. “It’s Chloe. A friend of hers has gone missing.”
Chloe was one of Connie’s girls, a petite redhead with alabaster skin.
“Why the interest?”
“Because Chloe’s worried and she came to me for advice.”
It was a good enough reason, Jago acknowledged. Connie was like a mother hen with her girls. She recruited them, taught them how to dress and how to conduct themselves in proper company. She looked after their welfare, too, arranging medical examinations with a local doctor who made regular visits to the house. To Connie, a clean house was an orderly house and an orderly house brought in the business. And with business came profit.
“This friend, she’s a working girl, too?”
Connie nodded.
“Independent, I’m assumin’?”
Connie nodded again. “Works the Garden and the Haymarket. Met her once. Chloe and I ran into her outside Drury Lane. Bonny-looking girl; just the sort to fit in here, with the right training. In fact, I had thought of getting Chloe to ask her if she’d be interested. Sadie told me the other morning she’s expecting a proposal from young Freddie Hamilton, Lord Brockmere’s son. He’s been visiting her for the past six months. They say he has an income of five thousand a year. If he does ask, she’ll be off, which would leave me with an opening.”
Jago refrained from comment, though several were on the tip of his tongue. The list of aristocratic offspring who’d become infatuated with working girls and actresses over the years would have stretched the length of the Strand and back. It wasn’t unknown for regular dalliances to lead to a proposal of marriage, though usually the girl would be paid to break off the liaison by a senior member of whichever family the smitten youth happened to belong to. Jago was willing to lay odds that, if Sadie did take up with the Hamilton boy, it would all be over in a matter of months and she’d be knocking on Connie’s door, asking to be taken back into the fold.
“How long’s she been missin’?”
Connie hesitated. “Since early morning.”
“God love us, you’re not serious? Is that all?”
“I know,” Connie said. “But Chloe’s worried. They’ve been friends a long time; almost like sisters, Chloe says. They used to look out for each other when Chloe worked the streets. Chloe’s always insisted they meet up regular as clockwork. It’s Chloe’s time off. She’s been out. Molly hasn’t turned up at any of their usual places.”
Jago looked sceptical.
“It’s true.”
“Ain’t sayin’ it’s not. Maybe this time, the girl doesn’t want to be found.”
Connie shook her head. “Chloe tells me that’s not likely.”
Jago shook his head and sighed. “I take it there’s no man around?”
“There was. He was a private in an infantry regiment. Got killed in Portugal. She couldn’t make ends meet, so she went on the game.”
It wasn’t anything Jago hadn’t heard a hundred times before. There wasn’t a town in the land that wasn’t home to an ever-increasing number of war widows left to fend for themselves while the bodies of their menfolk lay bleaching under some foreign sun. For those with a child or children to support it was even worse, particularly for the widows of rank-and-file soldiers. Scores of women had been forced to take to the streets in search of crumbs and coin.
“So, you want me to put the word out?” Jago asked doubtfully.
“You know people,” Connie said.
“You insinuatin’ that I’m
acquainted with people of a nefarious disposition?”
“Well, probably not all of them,” Connie said. “Maybe a few. But I’ve a better chance asking you for help than the constables. We both know what their response would be if I told them I was worried about a missing moll. They’d laugh themselves silly.”
“Aye, you’re not wrong there. All right, as it’s you who’s askin’, I’ll see what I can do. But you’d best tell Chloe not to get her hopes up. It ain’t likely I’ll turn up anything and, if I do, it might take a while. Girls like that, with nothing to their name … Hell, you know what it’s like. You’ve been there. It’s why the law wouldn’t give you the time of day.” Jago looked towards the window, and the shadowy shape of the city’s rooftops. “It ain’t no land of milk and honey, that’s for sure. What’s the girl’s name?”
“Molly, Molly Finn.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Me, if you knock off twenty years.”
Connie’s request suddenly began to make a kind of sense. Jago looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “That another reason why you wanted the favour?”
“Maybe. Though maybe it’s because it’s not the only thing the two of us have in common.”
“Meaning?”
Connie smiled sadly and lowered her head on to his chest. “We both fell for a soldier.”
Sawney, hemmed in by darkness, descended the stairway. He knew he should have brought a light with him, but for some reason the requirement had slipped his mind. He was navigating by touch alone; feeling his way down the cold stone wall with all the caution of a blind man in a mine shaft.
As if the lack of illumination wasn’t bad enough, he’d become increasingly aware of the curious smell. He wasn’t sure what it was. Can’t have been damp – the walls were quite dry – but whatever it was, it hung in the air, an odd metallic kind of smell, so pungent that it seemed to catch at the back of his throat. Sawney generated saliva and swallowed in an attempt to erase the coppery taste, but the ruse had little effect. If anything, it only made it worse.