Imagination. It had to be.
What if it was free?
Davey drew in a breath, trying to steady himself. He had to find out. If he was quick he could open the door, take a look, and have it shut again before the revenant knew he was there. If it was his imagination after all, he could retrieve the key to the locked dissecting room from the store at the end of the corridor, and sate his horrible curiosity.
Pressing his ear to the old, polished wood of the door, he closed his eyes and struggled to pick out any noises that might indicate it was near.
Nothing.
Opening his eyes wide, the pulled back the door in one great sweep.
A foul stench choked him.
Halfway along the corridor, lit faintly by a light coming through the open door of the dissecting room, a human shape stood in the gloom.
Davey shrieked, then choked as a hiccough of rancid vomit burned up the back of his throat. Trying to find breath paralysed him, and he stood for too long in the doorway, swallowing the previous night's indulgence back down while his eyes streamed. Rubbing a sleeve across his face, he looked back at the shape in the corridor.
It was the Doctor, his rubber coated apron tight around him.
Davey wanted to shriek a second time, but his body's indecision over whether it should burst into tears instead left him trapped between two states. He fought the crazy urge to slam the door and run away. A flush of cold ran through him, jabbing his bladder in passing.
The Doctor smiled, a freezing, humourless twitch of the lips. "Mr Paterson. I should have expected as much. More fool me. I assume that your curiosity has dragged you here on this rare day of rest?"
Davey nodded, miserable, his gaze dropping to the stone floor. The gallows would be a kinder fate than this.
"Of course it did." There was a long, considered pause. It was too much, and Davey looked up, preferring to know what was coming. The Doctor had not moved, was still staring, the left side of his body lit and the right in stark shadow. Finally he nodded. "Very well. You may see it, for all the worth it has proven. Come." He stepped into the room.
Davey was unable to believe he had not been dismissed. With the adrenaline fading, leaving his limbs heavy, he walked the corridor with leaden feet. Rot and putrefaction flushed his sinuses, leaving traces of old, stinking death in them.
The Doctor was alone, staring down at the stained dissection table, sneering with a deep-seated emotion Davey did not recognise. "What you came here seeking is in there," he said, and pointed to the far wall of the room.
Davey pushed through his rigor. Forcing himself to step around the end of the table, he saw the crate against the wall. It had lined with straw to soak up some of the filth, and to an extent the tactic had been successful. Matted clumps of vegetation were scattered over the contents of the box. There was decaying flesh in there, and stripped bones, and loops of intestine and muscle. On the top, the head sat at a jaunty angle, resting in the hollow of the slime crusted pelvis, light playing in its gutted eye sockets. Slick, decomposing meat slopped and pooled wherever it could.
Davey stared, feeling absurd and disappointed. It was too late. The Doctor and his assistants had completed their work, and all that was left were scraps.
"It's beaten me," the Doctor whispered. "Me. I'm no closer to understanding what it is, how it is, than when it was presented to us. Were I a poetical man, I would tell you it was made of impossible, with trace elements of magic binding it together." Davey looked back at his dispirited employer, not understanding. The Doctor glanced at him, and shook his head. "You see what you wish to see, Paterson. Look again."
Davey did, stepping towards the macabre off-cuts, and something caught his eye. Movement, followed by a tapping from inside the box. Was there something else in there? A rat? Holding his breath, he leaned over the remains.
One of the corpse's severed hands was pressed against the wood inside the crate. It had been stripped of skin, and what few tendrils of meat still held the fingers together looked almost black with rot.
The fingers twitched. Davey covered his mouth in horror. They twitched again, the index and forefinger, as though they knew he was there, as though, even now, they were reaching for him. As they spasmed, they rapped an irregular beat against the wood.
Davey whined, an animal sound. The decapitated head in the crate, cheeks and eyes missing, rocked against the pelvis, somehow understanding that there was fresh meat nearby. Its jaws snapped together, a powerful, crunching motion, and it was too easy to imagine his own flesh being split and crunched between them.
He tried to wrench his eyes away before he could see more, but it was too late. Already he had taken in the missing cap of the skull, and the emptiness inside. He had seen such sights many times before, for the removal of the brain was among the first things the Doctor showed his students, and Davey had often helped his mother to clean away the remains. Tears filled his eyes, the shattering scope of what he was seeing making his world spin.
"Do not look to me for kind words and reassurance," the Doctor said. "This thing, this abomination, should not be. Observe." He pointed at a jar on a shelf behind him, and the brain it contained.
Davey shook his head, comprehending for the first time what it was the Doctor had hoped to achieve, how important it might be for them all. "It's just the first though, isn't it, sir? Maybe another ..."
"It has been months, Paterson, and this is all we have. One revenant, already putrefying when it was delivered, and nothing learned or understood from it. Had I specimens by the dozen, perhaps I could progress. I do not. This endeavour is without hope."
"But if there were more?"
The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Your point?"
"I can put the word about." Davey heard his voice, and could not stop himself. The image of the thing in the box drove him, the idea of finding such a thing over the corpse of his mother, maw buried in her intestines. This was not a job. This was a cause.
The Doctor stared at him, those eyes burrowing into his soul. "Pretty words, Mr Paterson, but words only. Show me. Show me what you can do."
As the tapping and clacking of teeth behind him picked up a merry tempo, Davey Paterson nodded and was owned.
Chapter 5
Burke & Hare
Friday, November 9th, 1827
Tommy waited until William Hare was pushing through the smoke and bodies to the bar before he spoke up. Though he smiled, he could not quite mask how nervous he was in voicing it. "So tell me Bill, what's he really like?"
Bill leaned back on his bench and grinned, ducking beneath the flailing elbow of a passing drunkard, happy to play devil's advocate. "Who would you be meaning, Tom?"
Flustered, Tom took a swig from his mug, and Bill borrowed the moment, sweeping his gaze across the Friday-packed room. The White Hart had quickly become his favourite watering hole in the city. At the bottom of the Grassmarket and within easy staggering distance of Tanner's Close, rumour proclaimed it among Edinburgh's oldest standing taverns, and Bill took delight in wallowing in his imagined version of the place's history.
One of the serving girls, a notorious and flirtatious filly called Isla, had told him the tale of the building's naming a week before. Some seven hundred years ago, so she claimed, King David the First of Scotland had sworn against the advice of his priest and gone hunting on the Feast Day of the Holy Rood. Coming across a vast white stag, he gave enthusiastic chase but was thrown from his horse. The infuriated hart turned on him, vicious antlers lowered and steam hissing from its gaping nostrils. As it prepared to charge, the penitent monarch had prayed frantically to his Lord, who was apparently in a forgiving mood that day for a fiery cross exploded between those lethal antlers, terrifying the beast and causing it to turn tail and flee. Only the cellars of the current building were thought to date back to the original structure built to commemorate the escape, but the tale appealed to his sense of whimsy.
The modern tavern was a more impressive affair than the crude dr
inking hut he pictured from so long ago. The double doors of the main entrance were flanked by wooden pillars and an awning that gave it a grand, welcoming feel. Once inside, patrons were met by the narrow foot of the L-shaped bar, the long leg of which stretched to the rear wall, shaping the room. Benches and low, plain wooden tables were crammed throughout the room, and as was the case most nights, bodies were crammed onto those benches like worms in a corpse. Pipe smoke choked the air, barely masking the smell of hops and men, but Bill loved every clashing odour, revelled in the cacophonous din of voices. It was life, and why else had he come to Edinburgh if not to taste more of that draught?
Young William had somehow wound his way through the heaving crowd to the bar, and was waiting for a barman to catch his eye. It wouldn't take long. William had a way of making himself noticed, when that was what he sought. At the same time he somehow managed always to be in your blind spot, if he opted not to call attention to his presence. It was spooky.
Bill turned back to Tom. Since moving in at Tanner's Close he had seen the shopkeeper almost daily, but had neglected to make sure they shared a dram. Now, having invited the man to join he and William for a session, Bill had quickly worked out that he was not the evening's main attraction.
Tom rolled his eyes. "His Royal bloated Highness King George, of course. Who do you think I mean?"
Bill laughed, spluttering beer. "To be sure! So tattle about Maggie's baby husband William wouldn't interest you then?"
"Come on now Bill, I'm only curious."
"Killed the cat, someone told me." Looking over his shoulder, Bill checked that William was still busy at the bar. "Suppose I can see why you're asking. Not the most outgoing sort, is he? Keeps himself to himself."
"He comes into the shop of a time, but can I get a word out of him? I know you better, for all the days you've been here."
Bill snorted and took a swig of ale, wiping his lips on a sleeve as he swallowed. It wasn't working for him. Too slow. He would make the next one a whisky. "Listen, I'll tell you this and no more. He's a hard man to know, but not bad company if he chooses to take a liking to you. If he doesn't, well ..." he trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase it delicately. "If he doesn't, you want to keep that one in plain sight."
Tommy gave him a funny look. "That so, Bill? Funny you should say it so. I take it you haven't heard the rumours?"
"I've heard plenty. Which do you mean?"
"About William, Maggie, and ..."
He glanced past Bill, and paled. William emerged from the scrum, tankards in hand. Somehow, despite the chaos, nobody ever bumped into William, even when he stood in the aisle as he did now, taking his time in setting the drinks down. He had an aura everybody sensed, and it was a dangerous one. It triggered primal fight or flight instincts, whether you knew them for what they were or not. In Bill's limited experience, most gave William a wide berth if they could help it, but he couldn't help but wonder. There were always men who would choose to fight, if only to master their unease. William must have met men like that before, but he was still standing, and none the worse for it.
Tommy was eyeing the room frantically for something else to pretend to be talking about, as though William could possibly have overheard their conversation over the clatter around them. Bill scooted along the bench to make some room, and the young man slid in beside him. "Not a moment too soon! Your good health!" He raised his tankard and Tommy was quick to follow, masking his embarrassment with a mouthful of warm ale.
William nodded, taking a pull from his own tankard. "Good health to you, Bill. And you, Tommy. We should have done this before."
Tommy nodded, relaxing a little. "You're not wrong. So, Bill, has your missus turned up yet?"
Bill shook his head. "She's on the way, though. Tomorrow or the day after, I'd guess. Must have taken longer than we thought to wrap things up in Peebles."
"That, or she's found a way to entertain herself in your absence." Tommy chuckled at his own weak jest.
Bill put down his tankard. "What would you be meaning in that, Tommy?"
Still basking in his relief at having caused no offence to William, Tommy missed the hard tone of the question. "When the cat's away, Bill, when the cat's away ..." Bill said nothing, all mirth gone from him, and Tommy caught up. "Just a joke, Bill. No harm in it."
William rested his elbows on the table, and stared at the man. "What happens when the cat's away, Tom?"
"Nothing, lad. Just ... nothing. A joke." Sweat broke out on the man's brow. Bill wanted to smile, or laugh, or break the tension, but couldn't make himself. There were few things he would not make fun of. Nelly was one of them.
William leaned forward. "There's a thing I hear about cats, Tom. Bad things happen to curious ones."
Tommy stood with a jerk, as though William had lunged across the table at him. Bill looked at his young friend. Could he have heard their conversation after all? "I meant nothing by it! A joke!"
William smiled, a ghastly thing to behold. "Lot of jokes around tonight, Tom. You. Me. All fooling. Nothing in it."
Tommy nodded with frantic acquiescence, and if William told the shop keep to strip to his skin and dance in the street outside, he might have done it at that moment. Instead, he put some coins on the table. "Look, boys, I need to be away. Opening early tomorrow, see? Have the next ales on me though, eh?" He paused, unable to look away from William, and only when the young man nodded did he squeeze out from behind the table. If the crowd had been less busy, he would have been running.
Bill looked down at his diminished pint, the last of his aggression vanishing, as though it had been sitting atop his head the whole time and slipped off into his drink with the motion.
"Sorry Bill," William murmured beside him. "I'm not one to claim a man's battles. Usually keep clear."
"Don't worry about it. He meant nothing to be losing sleep over."
A pause, and they both stared at their drinks. Bill waved away a cloud of pipe smoke that blew over them, and realised he would probably have to apologise to Tommy in the morning.
William broke the silence. "Was that wrong, Bill?" There was an awkward, questing lilt to his voice that Bill knew nobody else but he ever heard. That lilt spoke of need, the longing for companionship, and the urge to prove worth. It was a far and desperate cry from the hard eyes and taciturn manner that he wore with everyone else. For some reason William looked up to him.
While there was no call for that, it was something Bill was happy to use. Perhaps, amidst the rowdy babble of conversation and drinks being slopped, this was the time to test it. He placed a hand on his friend's forearm.
"William, you have to give a little sometimes."
There was no subtle retreat, as you might expect of a friend who had doubts about what he had done, William simply vanished. He drew his arm away, his full eyes narrowing to tiny brown nothings. Bill wished he was not looking at those eyes. In that moment he was Tommy, and he saw what those eyes promised, the terrible pains of a dull blade and a little time and attention.
"William!"
As he had seen often in the past days, William came back to himself without any acknowledgement of the bleakness that had just been in him. Bill made himself smile, denying the fear in his heart.
He was terrified of his new friend.
Part of him, that felt life might have been cleaner if he had never left Ireland, wanted to flee the confusing city for clearer pastures. All he had found in Edinburgh were psychopaths and the aftermath stenches of livestock markets. "So William," he said. "It's time you pointed out the local dignitaries. Who else do you sup with in this city?"
"Nobody."
Bill rotated his shoulders. The young man's evasiveness was annoying. For every two steps they progressed in their friendship, he insisted on taking one back. It was exhausting, and he was determined not to let the question be shrugged away. Leaning back and looking around the taproom, his eyes lit on a tall, skeletal man sat at the back corner, sinking whiskies with a two
surly looking companions. He was speaking, the other two nodding along like chickens, hanging on his words. Though the room was crushed with bodies, there was an almost invisible bubble around those three, as though the men nearby were unwilling to get too close for fear of some taint. "Come on now, you're neither deaf nor blind, and you're no daftie whatever you want people to think. Everyone has stories. What about the skinny drink of piss in the corner there? Looks like the Reaper, and everybody's treating him much the same way."
William sighed and peered through a gap in the crowd, giving the stranger a fixed stare. "Stay away from that one, Bill. Trouble on legs, and a marked man with the law."
Bill smiled. Gossip at last. "Looks harmless enough to me. Don't see how he'd give you much trouble if it came down to it. Skin and bone, even if he's twice your size."
William grunted. "Get yourself known for hanging around Merry Andrew, and you can kiss yours goodbye."
Bill almost choked on his beer, and slapped the table as he spluttered and laughed. "Merry Andrew! Ha! Now there's a mismatch, no mistaking. Don't think I've ever seen a less jovial cove."
William smiled and shook his head, as though the irony had not occurred to him before. "Truth, Bill. That's the truth."
"Well, don't hold back on me now. How does the spectre of death come by so loveable a nickname?"
"It's his name, sure enough. Andrew Merrilees. Merry Andrew. Suppose somebody thought it was funny."
"They were right at that!"
"But I wasn't jesting, Bill. It's not a name anybody has much fondness for."
"Go on."
"It's how he makes his pennies. He's a spectre of death in more ways than one. Robs graves, they say."
"He does what now?"
"Digs down in the middle of the night, and plunders graves."
Bill shook his head, hardly believing it. "What would he be after, do you think? Grave clothes and pocket watches?"
William turned to him, surprised. "There's me thinking you a man of the world. It's the corpse itself he's after." For once Bill was speechless. William pressed on, enjoying having him on the back foot. "To be sure. He digs down, loops the corpse in coils of rope, and drags it to the surface."
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