“The bird? You serious. You’re scared of the Albatross?”
“It’s an owl you stupid git. And you’re scared too. You nearly peed your pants last time you saw it.”
Burke’s stomach was still in knots and he was in no mood to argue. “Whatever, William. Just hurry it up, okay. I want to go home to bed.”
“Aye, me too. Just keep your eyes open and your gob shut. I can’t dig and keep watch at the same time.”
“Sure, sure. No problem. Get to it.”
Hare put his back into his work and twenty minutes later he’d uncovered the rotted wooden lid of an old coffin less than three feet below the surface of the grass. A rush of excitement sobered him up even more than the hard labor had done, and he pried open the lid hoping this would be the grave the old sculptor was waiting for.
It wasn’t.
It was dark and hard to see clearly but by the meager light of the barely visible moon and the soft glow of the gaslights on the nearby street, William could see just enough to know there was nothing hidden within the hole he’d just dug other than a broken skull and a few rags of tartan clothing clinging to the rack of dry bones attached below it. Just another old grave; nothing unique or special about it, and certainly nothing hidden among the bones that would interest their white-eyed benefactor.
“Dammit to Hell!” Hare swore under his breath. “Another bloody waste of time.” There was no response from his longtime friend, and William turned to see where he’d gone. “Billy?”
Burke was fast asleep, his head buried in the bush he’d spilled his guts in, snoring peacefully as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Hare laughed at his mate and climbed out of the hole to go wake him up. “Good for nothin’ lump!”
William walked over and was just about to wallop his friend with the business end of his shovel but as he was about to strike, a bright light flared off to his right and the sound of approaching footsteps made his heart race.
The Police! William thought, sure their grave-robbing days were over. He fell to his knees and quickly slithered back into the hole in the ground he’d just climbed out of, far happier to lie with the desiccated corpse than meet whoever it was that wandered around in the cemetery. If he could have reached Billy and pulled him into the hole as well, he would have, but he didn’t want to risk waking him and having him start hollering the way he probably would. It was safer to just let him sleep and hope the strangers would walk on by without knowing they were there.
The footsteps came closer and all William could do was lie down in the old coffin and pray they wouldn’t spot Billy and come investigate. Out of the darkness, the glow of a portable gas lamp illuminated the night, chasing away the shadows as well as any lingering hope William had of them not being caught.
Shite, he thought. We’re buggered now!
William was sure he’d see the familiar dark blue cap of an Edinburgh police constable peek over the rim of his hole but the man who walked into sight turned out to be a huge baldheaded giant. Whoever he was, he looked down at William and smiled with a mouth filled with rotten black teeth.
“Who in blazes are you?” William asked. He knew that wasn’t the smile of a policeman but that thought only made him feel mildly better.
“A friend,” the giant said. “Get out of the hole, if you please.”
William didn’t see what other choice he had. He sat up and climbed out onto solid ground, his mind spinning as he tried to figure out what was going on. “Look here,” he started to say, but from behind him someone stepped in close and clobbered him across the back of the head with something hard. He landed face first beside Billy, who was somehow still sleeping through this and William’s last thought before he blacked out was that he’d kill his incompetent mate with his bare hands if he ever got the chance. It was as comforting a thought as any as he spiraled down into a deep, dark sleep.
* * *
“I’ll wake the bugger up and you can ask ‘im yourself,” someone said in the darkness. There was a smelly burlap bag over William’s head and he couldn’t see who was speaking even if he’d wanted to. His hands were tied tightly behind his back as well. Hare’s head was still ringing from the blow to the back of his skull but he was with it enough to hear the man’s gravelly voice clear as a bell and know that Billy and he were in trouble.
Check that…they were in big trouble.
Then the bag was roughly yanked away and the same fat giant who’d smiled at him at the cemetery slapped him roughly across the face. He’d seen that William was already awake but he’d slapped him anyway, just for the sheer fun of it.
“Wake up, princess,” the big man said. “The lady would like a little chat with you…and you’d do well to mind your manners, hear?”
Lady? William thought.
When the giant stepped out of the way, the last person Hare expected to see standing in the doorway was a beautiful woman. Not just any beautiful woman, either. With her jade-colored eyes, her raven hair, and the plunging neckline of her expensive red dress, William immediately knew this was the highbrow actress Billy and he had met outside of the Ripley several weeks ago. She hadn’t spoken a word yet, but he was sure of it – he’d recognize those eyes and that scrumptious cleavage anywhere.
What was her name again? It was a color, wasn’t it?
He wasn’t the only one with a good memory; the woman smiled as she stepped forward to speak.
“Well, well, well…look at who we have here! Let me think…William wasn’t it. Yes. Both of you were named that. What’s your last name again?”
“Hare, ah…ma’am. And Billy’s name is Burke.”
“That’s right. William Hare and Billy Burke. My big strong Irishmen come back to visit me again. How sweet is that?”
As hard as it was to look away from the woman’s brazen beauty, Hare took a moment to look around the room he was in. It was a warehouse office by the looks of it, with a beat up old desk and a few chairs surrounded by boxes and wooden crates. From the salty smell of the stale air William could tell they were somewhere down by the docks but couldn’t tell exactly where. Standing in the small rectangular room was the woman (whose name he still couldn’t remember – was it Violet?) the big fat man with the terrible smile, and another huge muscular man who’d presumably been the bloke who’d rapped him across the head earlier. Billy was nowhere in sight.
“Do you remember me?” the woman asked.
“Aye, but I can’t remember your name just now. Getting walloped in the nut by your goons might have something to do with that.”
“It might at that, yes. Regardless, my name is Magenta Da Vine and I’m very happy to see you again.”
“Pardon me for no’ being quite as enthused. Where’s my mate? Is he dead?”
This caused the actress to laugh. “Dead? Good heavens no. What sort of lady do you take me for? He’s sleeping in the other room, tied up like you but right as rain. Angus and Big Josh didn’t even need to clout him with the shovel like they did you. Right Angus?”
“Aye, ma’am,” the more muscular of the two big men said. “We just pulled him to his feet and he stumbled along beside us. He threw up in the cab but otherwise gave us no worries.”
Lovely! William thought. That’s Billy all right. My hero!
“So what do you want, huh? There’s easier ways to get a hold of me than bashing my brains out.”
“I’m sure. I didn’t know it was you I was looking for, though. All in all, I’d say you got off lucky. I was expecting whoever the lads brought back to be in a lot worse shape than you are to be honest. Do I need to have them knock you around a wee bit more? It’s up to you, really.”
She smiled at William again, showing her perfect white teeth, but there was no warmth in her face or in the way she loomed above him. Pretty or not, there was a cold menace to this woman that William found threatening despite her petite size and outward demeanor. He knew deep down that this wasn’t the type of person to cross, and at the moment feared for his life m
ore than he ever had in any of the knife fights and all out brawls Billy and he had been in over the years.
“No, ma’am. I’ll help you with whatever you need, if I can ‘course.”
“Good lad. I knew you were a smart one, right from the first second I saw you. Okay, we’ll keep this nice and simple then. What are you doing running around the city cemeteries in the middle of the night?”
Miss Da Vine’s smile was still in place but it was as if the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees. An icy silence descended on the room and William knew he had better not lie to the woman. Trouble was; he was also smart enough to not want her to know the truth either. He’d better be careful here.
“Well…I should think it was obvious. We were digging up graves. Have been for a while now. Why? What’s the problem?”
“What are you looking for?”
That was the big question, wasn’t it? As much as William was afraid of the actress and her goons, he was just as afraid of Ambrosious Black back at home. There was no way he was about to tell Da Vine about their dealings with the sculptor. He had to tell her something though, so chose the lesser of two evils.
“Dead bodies, of course. What else would you find in a bloomin’ cemetery?”
The actress took a step back, hands on her curvaceous hips, contemplating his answer. It didn’t seem to be the one she’d been expecting but William kept his face blank and his mouth shut. Let her make the next move.
“Why would you want to dig up dead bodies? Lots of them, from what I’ve been reading in the papers.”
This was an easy one.
“For the money. Easiest pound note we’ve ever made.” William wasn’t about to tell her they actually made a lot more than that. He wanted to keep this as simple as possible so he wouldn’t trip himself up and be caught in a lie.
“A pound? Wait…someone pays you to do the body snatching? Who?”
The feral look was back on her face, and again William refused to tell her about the deal he had cut with Mr. Black.
“His name’s Knox. He’s a doctor. Well, actually a surgeon who teaches doctors. We dig the graves and take the fresh bodies to him. If it’s an old bag of bones in the hole, we check to see if there’s any jewelry or pocket watches or what have you, but for the most part we make our cash bringing him the ones who don’t stink too badly yet.”
“What does he do with them?”
“I didn’t really know, or care for that matter, but Billy says he runs a school to teach new doctors how to do surgery. Learn where all the body parts are and such. I think he’s quite busy.”
“I still don’t understand. Why would he hire you fools to dig up corpses?”
“Well ma’am, it’s no’ exactly on the up and up, if you catch my meaning. The only legal bodies his school can use are the criminals who end up swinging on the end of a rope and the prison’s no’ pumping enough of those poor buggers out to meet his demands I guess. I don’t know…go ask him yourself. All I know is he pays us a king’s ransom and asks no questions.”
Magenta Da Vine took a step back and started laughing, a genuine happy emotion this time, and the tension that had been in the air evaporated as if it had never been. The actress was back to being her charming, flirtatious self, ready to treat William like a long lost friend rather than someone who’d been beaten and brought here against his will.
“Well that’s a wonderful little arrangement you and Billy have worked out for yourselves. Easy pickings by the sound of it.” To the man she’d referred to as Angus earlier, she turned and said, “See, I told you, I knew he was a smart one, I did. Get him untied and help the gentleman to his feet.”
“Certainly, my lady,” the muscular man said, and quickly came over and cut the knot on the rope that bound William’s hands. Angus pulled him to his feet and dragged him over to sit down in one of the desk chairs.
“Sorry about the confusion, William,” Magenta said, taking one of the other seats across the desk from him. “A bit of a mix-up is all. I was thinking you might be…well, let’s just say I thought you were doing something else in the graveyards. I like the way you and your mate operate though. I like it a lot.”
William said nothing. He couldn’t think of anything that seemed appropriate and wasn’t about to say something stupid to make her mad now that she seemed to be about to let them walk away.
“I’ve got a grand idea,” she said, a touch of that feral animal gaze creeping into her eyes again. “How about from now on you and Billy work for me?”
The way she said it, it didn’t exactly sound like a question.
“Doing what?”
“That’s the easy part. Doing exactly what you’re already doing.”
Now it was William’s turn to look confused.
“You want us to look for dead bodies for you?”
“No, not quite. I want you to look for something else. Something special!”
Chapter
11
“You’re kidding me, right?”
It was 10:00 a.m. the next day and it was Billy speaking. Even though William had already explained the entire chain of events to him twice already, he still couldn’t wrap his simple mind around things. They were back in the common room at the Lodging House, resting by the fire after their long and strange night.
“The strumpet from the theatre wants to hire us to search in the graveyards too, same as old man Black?”
“That’s what she said, yeah. You’d have heard her yourself if you didn’t hold your booze like a wee girlie.”
“But none of this makes sense,” Billy said, ignoring the jab his mate had thrown at him. “She didn’t tell you what we’re supposed to be looking for either?”
“Nope. Same as Black. Just told me she was after something special, whatever the bloomin’ hell that means?”
“Think they’re both after the same thing?”
“Almost for sure, mate. Has to be.”
“And they don’t know we’re being paid twice for the same dig?”
“Neither knows the other person even exists. Black just thinks we’re greedy buggers, which we are…and the woman thinks we’re working for Dr. Knox. ‘Tis a thing of beauty, huh?”
“Sure is, William. Unless of course they find out what we’re up to. That might no’ go so well for us…hear?”
The thought had occurred to Hare already, but it was a risk he was more than willing to take. They’d made more money in the last month than in the entire last year – and there was a lot more to be made where that had come from. Besides, he wasn’t convinced they’d ever find anything other than dust and bones in the old graves so what did it matter?
“That won’t happen as long as you keep your big gob shut from here on out. We also need to stop tossing around money at the pubs, hear? Some folks are already starting to ask questions about where we suddenly struck it rich and if the right people start looking our way we might be—”
A loud banging noise echoed down the hall, cutting off William’s speech midsentence. The noise had come from the sculptor’s room and seconds later they heard the old man’s door swing open and the approach of his footsteps.
In a whisper, William said, “Quiet…he’s coming. Not a word now, hear?”
Billy nodded his head, his lips sealed.
Ambrosious Black entered the common room dressed to the nines in a brand new black suit, wool overcoat, and a matching top hat that made him look incredibly tall. He wore a huge smile on his face and seemed to be in a wonderful mood, especially for this early in the day. He removed his hat and bowed to the men sitting in front of the fire.
“Morning, gents…so glad you both could make it on time. Today’s an important day for us and there’s no time to waste.”
“What’s so bloody important about today?” Burke asked. “Why you dressed up so fancy like?”
“I’m dressed this way, Billy, because today’s the day we unveil my statue to the city council. The Right Honorable Mr. Walter
Brown, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh himself will be there for the reveal.”
“You mean it’s finished?” Hare asked, partly happy to be nearly done dealing with the frightening Mr. Black and his beastly bird but equally sad that one of their deep-pocketed benefactors might soon be leaving.
“Certainly is, William, and I think you boys are going to love it as much as the people of Edinburgh surely will. Come…we have to get moving.”
“Where we going?” Burke asked.
“To the cemetery, of course. We can’t build it here, dolt! The council paid handsomely for a statue of Robert the Bruce to stand guard over Calton Burial Grounds and by sundown tonight they’ll damn well have one. I’ve rented a block and tackle and some scaffolding that should already be there waiting for us but I hope you lads got yourselves a good night’s sleep. You’re in for a long day.”
William was remembering how heavy the stones were when they’d first moved them from the docks to the back room and wasn’t exactly looking forward to that kind of strenuous activity today, not after everything he’d been through last night.
“Well, at least the stones should be lighter than last time, now that you’ve chipped away at them and such.”
“Very true, William. Only some of them will be much more fragile now and I pray to all that’s holy you and Billy Boy understand how important it is to me that you get those stones there without any damage.”
“You mean we won’t get any bonus wages if we break something?” Billy said, only half joking, trying to be funny. Black’s mood instantly went darker than his name, the smile vanishing from his pallid face. He bent down close to the men before speaking in a quiet voice.
“I mean I’ll rip the hearts out of your bone cages if you so much as chip one of the stones. Understand?”
Both burly men gulped down a healthy mouthful of fear.
“Yes sir,” they answered together.
Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls Page 6