Fergusson finished tying off his apron and joined him. The revenant was on the floor at Knox's feet, trying to raise itself on its elbows to get at him. Having already learned the ease with which the things could free themselves, Knox had taken to neutering their threat when he had the chance. The hands and feet of the creature had been sawn clean off at the joint, and the entire lower jaw been precisely and cleanly removed. With its offcuts removed and burned, it was more a horror now than it had ever been, grovelling on its elbows and knees before them in a weird humping crawl. It still appeared intent on biting, even though it lacked the capacity to do so. Its eyes rolled. "Does it understand what we have done to it?" It existed only to walk and feed, and Knox had clinically removed its ability to do either.
"You are committing the anatomist's greatest sin," said Knox, though if he was chiding then he was doing it as an afterthought. "You are empathising with your subject, treating it as though it is still a person. This one moves, but it is no more human than any other cadaver you have sliced."
"Of course, sir." He helped the doctor manhandle the thing back onto the table, and between them they retied the leather straps around its forearms and lower legs. The skin was losing its elasticity, and their fingers left indentations in the flesh. Fergusson stepped back, watching the bonds for signs of weakness as the creature thrashed. They would hold. Again he was struck by how very fresh the body was. There was no question in his mind that the Irishmen were finding these creatures within hours of their turning.
"You look aghast, boy." Knox had caught him staring. "If you cannot cease imagining the thing as alive, you are of little use to me."
"No sir. I merely thought ... well ... nothing sir. Nothing of consequence."
"With your judgement so impaired I would prefer to reserve that decision for myself. What is on your mind?"
"Our suppliers, sir."
"What of them?"
"They appear to be ... fortunate." He pressed on before his courage failed them. "When they first presented themselves they did not seem to have been long in the business of supplying subjects. Since learning that they could turn a penny or two, they have returned time and again. Always with revenants, which none of our more experienced suppliers can source. Always fresh." He paused, hoping for some response but finding the opposite. "What I mean to say sir, is that we are forever scratching about in the aftermath of the event. However ... recent ... our subjects are, they have already crossed the threshold from life into this." He gestured at the jerking revenant. "Might we not ask our suppliers how they are sourcing the goods? They cannot simply be stumbling across them. Somehow, through some power or knowledge, they know that these revenants are about to be born, and are able to snatch them soon after it has happened. Could we not find ourselves in a position to watch the transformation as it occurs? What might we learn then?"
The doctor was silent for a moment, then he waved Fergusson towards the door. "Outside."
"Sir, I meant no–"
"Outside now, Mr Fergusson. I will join you."
That his mentor was displeased was obvious, but Fergusson could not understand why. He waited in the gloomy lecturing theatre, wishing the night over, braced for what fury or scorn might soon be aimed at him.
When Knox joined him, he had removed his apron. "You are finished this night," he said. "Go home and sleep."
"Sir, I don't understand."
"Whose body is that in there, Mr Fergusson?" Knox asked.
"I ... I do not know, sir."
"Correct. You do not know its name. You do not know where it once lived. You do not how many people grieve its loss. You do not know whether it leaves behind children, a legacy, whether it was a good person or not. You do not know whether you have walked the same streets, shared a favourite eatery, have friends in common. That is how it must be."
"But–"
"We take delivery of medical supplies. That is what they are. That is why we refer to them only as subjects. They are not people. They must never be allowed to be people in your mind." Knox did not look at him while he delivered this. Instead he paced, looking out to the seats, as though giving a lecture.
"I ... perhaps it was their actions as people that have led to ..."
"Were you to understand it as a person, Mr Fergusson, how could you cut? How could you peel away the skin and remove the organs? How could you rummage in the corpse of someone whose name you knew, whose soul would be screaming in your very ear for you to stop if you could but hear it?"
"I–"
"How could you live with yourself?" The doctor whirled on him, spittle flying from his lips and Fergusson took two steps back in fear. He had often seen Knox in high temper, but not like this. This was rage, and he was so certain that he was about to be attacked that he raised his hands to protect his face.
Knox blinked, regaining control of himself. The rage remained, but he was holding the reins tight. "The man who could live with such knowledge, Mr Fergusson, would not be one I would choose to take this journey with. Go home. Take what sleep you feel you need. If you are here tomorrow, we shall speak no more of this. If you are not, then I will consider the matter equally resolved."
Fergusson trooped up the steps, and managed to retain some semblance of composure while he was under his mentor's baleful observations. On the street though, the tears came, and he chose unlit paths to hide his shame as he scurried home.
Chapter 18
William Burke
Wednesday, April 9th, 1828
Bill counted out his pennies three times, and came to three different conclusions about how much money he had left. In the end it didn't matter exactly how many blurred coins there were, or how they swam and danced in his grubby hand as he tried to focus on them. There wasn't much. That was what mattered. There wasn't much at all.
But they were enough.
He fell through the front door, missing the step down to the cobbles and staggering a few feet while he tried to find his balance. The morning was grey and the dirt sodden with the night's rain, but somewhere behind all the clouds the sun was easing up. A bored, flat light crawled through the streets, and it seemed to Bill that he had emerged into a charcoal drawing of Tanner's Close rather than the street itself. Nothing had weight. Perhaps that was because he could not focus on it.
One foot in front of the other. Eyes on the ground. Steady as she goes.
It took him a few steps to find his rhythm, but once he got going he was fine. That was the exact thing that he was. Liam de Burca was fine. Right as a trivet. Whatever life threw his way, he made it fine. Edinburgh was fine. Whisky was fine. The long walks to Surgeon's Square with struggling, biting commodities for sale on his back or in a barrel were fine, fine, fine. Everything was fine.
Or perhaps not. William Hare did not feel fine. Leaning down on another person's chest until the light went from their eyes did not feel fine. Knowing in his heart that it was impossible that everybody they murdered could return a revenant but watching it happen anyway was far from fine.
Did it really happen every time, or was that just the nightmare? His drunken thoughts were a blur of clashing images and memories, and it was difficult to tell the reality from the dreams that had woken him in the wee small hours. He preferred it when he couldn't tell the difference. That was why he had taken to keeping a jar of whisky beside their pallet, to blur the lines between night terrors and waking ones. If he could not tell one from the other then they each mattered less. It would not do to stare them both in the face and acknowledge that the waking world was the more horrifying of the two.
The jar beside his bed was drained, but he had not been able to return to sleep. The lodging house was empty, as was often the case. William Hare, the man who scared him more than anything else on earth, had stumbled upon a more reliable income and had less need of an everyday trade. Those who stepped through the doors these days did not stay for long, one way or another.
Closing his eyes, he let himself sway, trying to find bet
ter memories to be lost in. Older memories. Children and Ireland, and serving with the Donegal Militia. Distant times and faraway places.
He was outside a whisky shop, and didn't know how he had come to be there. Time had passed, and he had used it to drag himself up the street, pennies heavy in his pocket. Stopping, he squinted up and down the road to place himself. His blind wandering had taken him clear of Tommy's shop around the corner from Tanner's Close (the last shreds of dignity perhaps steering him clear of those he called his friends), out of West Port and into the Canongate. At some point the sun had thrashed through the haze, pooling where it could find its way down between the buildings, throwing stark shadows elsewhere. Shops and pubs were opening, wives and servants scurrying on errands, men who were lucky enough to have it trooping off to work. Burke had a job too, but was he a man of independent means or a slave to Hare's new fortune? He did not know.
He blinked, and he was in the shop. He had two jars in his hand and empty pockets. There were women with him, Janet and Mary, and he knew their names because he had been talking to them for some minutes. They each had spent the night in a watch house cell for vagrancy, for they were homeless women who just yesterday had called the Magdalene Asylum their home, and were yet to find a new one. Their pasts were filthy things, but whether they had told him that or whether he was making assumptions of their prior trade based on their time with the Magdalenes was hazy.
The jars in his hand, heavy with whisky and void, had been purchased with the last of his money. There was nothing left. He could not even afford the paltry rent that Maggie charged him for his room. It didn't matter right then, because of the whisky and the blur, but he felt that it might matter very soon. He needed more money. The women laughed at his jokes. New women. Women who had yet to begin on the new lives they sought in the city, as maids perhaps, for the Magdalenes schooled their voluntary charges well in domestic matters.
He needed to make money. Money he could use to set himself up. Money he would not drink away in terror and shame, not again.
He opened the door of the lodging house for the girls, not sure when or how he had got back there, still laughing and joking. There was nobody around. No Nelly. No Maggie or William. That was good. He did not know that he could do this with William grinning, urging him on. Had that happened before? Was that a thing from his recent past, or just another nightmare scene? All the same thing, Bill. All the same thing.
The girls perched on one of the cots and he poured them their whisky breakfast. One did not trust him, was wary despite her courtesy. She had not wanted to go with him, not at first, but he had turned on the charm and offered them their breakfast for free. They had some savings from their laundry work at the asylum, and here was a chance to hold their pennies a little longer. Whores were ever whores. They might make bold claims of the new life they wanted for themselves, but here they were in a strange room with a strange man, and only money to motivate them. The younger one had wider eyes, was more easily swayed. Janet and Mary. Mary and Janet. The hard-faced doubter and the pretty-mouthed fool. He could not remember which woman bore which name, but it wouldn't matter for long.
Laughter and time, and whirling walls. The pretty one--who he thought he might have asked to marry him at one point, he could not be sure--had been too long away from the streets and the grog. She had barely finished a cupful before she was curled up on one of the beds, dozing. Hard Face wanted to go, and tried without success to rouse her friend. She would not leave without her. That suited Bill, whose pockets were empty and needed filling. He topped Hard Face's cup again, trying to win her, but though she would drink with him she stayed aloof.
Nelly was there somehow. She was screaming at him, and his heart broke. Street women in her home, and no efforts of his could make that harmless. He could not remember her walking in, or what had been occurring. She was simply there, and shouting, her words spilling too fast for him to follow. Did she know his intent, or had she misconstrued it for a lesser offence? Did it matter? Hard Face stormed out, Nelly at her heels, but the pretty one still would not rise, and he couldn't remember if he had done anything to her yet but he didn't think so because of Hard Face, so it was just the drink. Nelly was all for dragging her from the bed and dumping her outside.
William was there, and Nelly was gone. His friend's weasel face smirked as he sat on the bed beside the girl and ran a dirty hand through her hair. Burke wanted to object, but did it matter in light of what would happen? Where had Nelly gone? Something to do with William's arrival. There and then not. William always could clear a room. Bill wanted to sleep, but his friend was speaking, thanking him, cajoling him. Work to be done, things to do. He closed his eyes.
A moment later he opened them again, and the girl was lying on her back, and William was straddling her waist. They were each still clothed. William eased her mouth open, and bent forward. Bill murmured something, a harsh noise that made William twitch and smile, but he didn't climb off. He was stroking the woman's face, a finger brushing her pretty lips, and Bill wanted to tell him that it was too much, the wrong sort of evil. They should murder her and be done.
William spat in her mouth. Bill blinked, not sure that was what he had seen. It was not what he had expected. The woman stirred, licked stray spittle off her lips by reflex. Swallowing. Pretty tongue, pretty mouth.
He blinked and he was on top of her, pressing down on her chest as Hare held his own weight on her legs. She struggled for a moment, her ribs pushing back at him, a last grab for freedom and whatever future she had dreamed as she wrestled sheets in the Magdalene laundry. He kept the pressure on, even though he could not keep his head up. He rested it on her own, forehead to forehead. The ones who went before (how many now?) had taught him that he did not need to squeeze a life away all in one go. With enough force applied, the lungs would not recover. He could roll off and let her die on her own. He chose not to. He did not want her to die forgotten, as he and William drank and spoke of other things and waited to see if she would turn. William was on another bed now, sitting back and watching with his fiery weasel eyes, whisky on his lips. Bill focussed on the girl, the Janet or the Mary, and watched her pretty mouth until it was still and cold.
And he was in the stable, roping the body. Knots for the hands. Knots for the feet. Her own shawl torn and stuffed into her mouth with a stick between her teeth in case she twitched and bit. They watched, and watched, and waited. William had acquired a tea chest from somewhere--did he have a supply on hand for these opportunities? He had whisky too, and Bill drank, merry and desperate. A new jar, his own two must have been long gone. William was looking after him, the younger taking care of the needs of the elder, and that made him giggle. His friend was talking, something about dark gods and becoming and fortune, but his broken delivery robbed the words of sense.
And the sun was setting, and he might have dozed but there was grog on hand when he woke so it was hard to tell because that was the same as before. Pretty Mouth writhed, trying to roll across the floor to him, mad hunger in her eyes. Not a woman anymore. Had it ever been a woman or was that a sham, a front to disguise its true nature? With life stripped away, there was nowhere left for it to hide.
They lifted her, taking knocks and kicks as she bucked. He was meat to her. Walking meat, just as she was walking death. When he was a boy people still talked of wolves abroad in Ireland, though nobody would take an oath to have seen one themselves. Always a cousin, or a traveller from over yonder--tales to be told over dinner or strong drink. Just the thought that they might be out there had thrilled him, and he had often cowered next to his brothers on their bed at night, wool blanket tight to his neck, as he imagined them stalking the street outside, sniffing at his door and window. In his mind's eye they were hunger on legs, appetite given muscular form, vast creatures promising death between sharp teeth. That's what the revenants were. His childhood fantasy of wild and hungry predators given human form and set free in civilised places. Her mouth wasn't pretty anymore,
not stuffed with rags and sticks. It was savage. He would call her Savage Mouth now.
Into the crate, twisting her where they had to. He muttered something about keeping the goods unspoiled for the doctor, for the best price. The whisky had washed away his memories, and only when he heard the words coming from his mouth did he feel the absence in his pockets. Precious pennies. Nelly mustn't know where they came from.
Did she know? Had he seen her earlier? He couldn't remember for certain, but there was something. Her face somewhere in the cesspool of the day, or was he confusing her with Hard Face? Where did Hard Face go?
She had been back, William said, looking for her Savage Mouth. He had sent her away, made a story of her waking and leaving. Bill wished he had seen it. William was not a man of vast imagination, and tall tales were usually beyond him.
Pretty Mouth, Savage Mouth, was packed down, and they closed the lid over the tea chest. It rocked on the rotten straw. He stood back, swigging grog and giggling. Hare was gone, off to warn Davey the doorman to open up the dark halls at Surgeon's Square, where bodies vanished and pockets filled. Nelly again, or a dream of Nelly, standing by the crate as it rocked, watching with silent horror.
They were on the streets, picking through back alleys to avoid the Grassmarket. It was not the ordinary folk of Edinburgh they were avoiding, for none would trouble another's business without good cause. It was the night watch. Most would not concern themselves with two men about their business, for rousting vagrants was by far the easier way for them to while away their duties than interfering in complex matters like contraband. Yet it only took one. One good man demanding that they stop, that they show their burden, and he and William were done.
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