Chapter 20
Helen M'Dougal
Tuesday, May 13th, 1828
As soon as she stepped into the church grounds Nelly felt closer to peace, as though somebody had smothered the hateful city with a vast blanket. She could hear the street behind her well enough, but it was further away somehow. She had stepped into a haven.
Greyfriars Kirk was not her usual place of worship, but that was why she had sought it out. She did not want to ask her questions of a familiar face. That would be the ruin of her. She walked slowly up the short path, stories of the ghosts that haunted the graveyard around the kirk echoing back to her. Yet the May morning was bright enough, with sunlight making the deep cream of the building's facade rich and warm. With the previous night's rainfall still on the air, even the somber graveyard was fresh and beautiful. What ghosts it might contain would not trouble her on such a day, she was certain. She picked her way past mortcages. Jails in the ground, for horrors that should not be. She shuddered.
The doors were open, and she slipped inside. She did not burst into flames. Angels did not manifest among the gloomy pews to point accusations at her. The Priest was on his knees before a worn statue of Christ, and smiled at her over his shoulder as he heard her shoes scrape on the floorboards. He was an old man, but age had not yet bent him or made him frail. White wisps of hair clung to his scalp, and when he stood to greet her he did so in a single loose motion that suggested he clung to good health even in his later years.
"You can stand there gawping at Christ and I all you like lass, but I doubt it's why you came to visit."
She blushed. "Father, I ..."
"Come close, child. And enough of Father. I'm Campbell." She crept along the outer side of the pews, her shame and doubt blooming as she approached the crucifix and statue at the front. He noticed her reluctance. "Don't mind him, lass. He's a forgiving one, if that's what you need of him."
She burst into tears, shocking herself. She had not realised she was going to, or that tears could even burst so explosively from her face. She leaned against the wall, shoulders heaving, gasping for breath between sobs that echoed around the church. Campbell came to her in a rush, leading her to sit on a hard bench. He said nothing as she wailed, and so she did not try to stop herself. It was something she could not permit herself to do in that house, with Bill drunk with despair in the bed beside her and the Hares upstairs listening to every sob. There was so much to release, and she allowed the pain in her ribs, accepted the flush of her skin that made her tears feel icy as they ran down her face.
The old man held her hand with gentle fingers as she cried, wise enough to know the futility of trying to stop the tide. Instead, he waited for it to wash out of her. The sun shone on the stained glass, making saints and angels shine and throwing watery bands of colour across the pews.
"I don't know what to do," she told him, this stranger in robes, when she could speak. "I am falling. I don't know how to stop."
"I will help if I can, lass. Why are you so troubled?"
"Can you tell me about revenants?"
He paused, taken aback, then drew in a breath as he gazed absently around the church. "Unholy things, lass. Hell-spawned. They pervert God's laws, spit at His rule."
She nodded. "But people, once."
"Aye, that they were."
"Good people?"
"Lass," he was gentle, but firm. "How can you even ask such a thing? Of course they weren't good people."
She stiffened, and then relaxed. Her tears started over, and he patted her hands. "Ah, I see what this is. A loved one turned, was it? A person you thought blameless, perhaps? Someone undeserving?" She nodded, and he firmed. For the first time since she had entered the church there was something of the preacher beneath his words, and she knew that this was a sermon he had made often. "The worst of men do not wear their sins on their faces, lass. They are dissemblers, servants whether they know it or not of the Prince of Deceit. It is their nature to bury their sins where they cannot be seen, to play at piety in the light and wait for the darkness before they commit their misdeeds. Were you here for the Cadaver Riots?"
She shook her head. "I have not been here so long, but I've seen them. The revenants. And I've seen people who would become them. Later. They died and came back."
"In their truer form. Devourers. They have such fear of Judgement that they refuse to line up for it, and return instead to carry out the work of their true master."
"But they seemed so ..."
"Ordinary. Yes, they would have to. Few of us have such insight into our fellows as to peel back the skin they show the world and identify what might lie beneath." His voice was calming, a strong whisper in the hush of the church. "You must not feel foolish for having been deceived, lass. It is their great skill. So many showed their true faces during the riots. We were all appalled. We doubted. Ourselves. Our God. He forgives us that, so long as we can triumph over the doubt in short order."
Nelly looked up at his kind old eyes. "I think I know a man. A man who finds them before they die and come back. A man who knows what they are. He is a good man, and he stops them."
The Minister frowned, examining her closely. "Stops them ... how, exactly?"
"He ..." she looked away, into the shadows. "I think he kills them, Father."
A long pause. "And what then?"
She turned back to him, frantic, her heart racing. "They come back! They always come back! Every one! He is right every time, and it is tearing him apart. Father, it is destroying us that he can do this!"
"There, lass. Calm." He sucked in a breath between crooked front teeth. "What you describe ... it is a horror. A terrible thing." Her heart sank to hear it. There would be no redemption for Bill. "A terrible gift. To see through them. To know what they are as you pass them on the street. Lass, can you begin to see the horror of it?"
"But ..." She was frozen, not understanding.
"They turn each time, you say? Every death turns to vile unlife?"
"Aye, but ..."
"Then I would not change places with that man for all the world. To be able to do God's work so is a privilege that would overwhelm my weak heart. And to see evil no matter how it hides? How could a man live with such a burden?" He rose. "You have brought hope here today lass, and I thank you for that. I confess I doubted. For such evils to rise among us, so blatantly ... I feared we were abandoned, that we had slipped so far in our worth that we had been left to the predations of Hell. Yet it is not so. We are armoured. There is hope." There were tears in his eyes. "This man. This person who sees and acts for us all. Is he yours?"
She nodded, stunned at what she had heard.
"Then your duty is clear. Protect this man. Protect him from himself and the world. Protect him from doubt, and know great, fierce pride that he is yours."
He shuffled away, no longer bowed, and when he resumed his devotions at the cross there was a fierce, iron pride in his pose that made her heart leap.
#
From Castle Esplanade, the sloping area before the castle itself where the troops would march for the crowds as occasion demanded, she could choose to look north over the New Town, or south over the Old. At first she was drawn to the New. Seen from such a height, it did not seem like a real place. The noon sun caught the pale sandstone of the buildings, lined up so neatly and in such good order that they seemed somehow military themselves, and turned them to a pallid gold.
She had slipped across the bridge not long ago, entering those streets like a timid mouse, as though somebody would spot her for an intruder and demand that she return from whence she came. Even at street level the New Town was palatial. The streets were broad, conveying an otherworldly sense of space and freedom. There had been many people about, well-dressed gents and ladies walking arm in arm, content-looking servants going about their errands, chatting on corners when they met an acquaintance. Horses had clopped back and forth, some pulling carriages. Even though it had been busy, it was not crowded. Those huge
streets were near impossible to congest, and Nelly had fantasised that, when she returned home, the structure and freedom would somehow have spilled across the bridges, washing through the Old Town in a vast tide of order that would sweep away the chaos and leave her room to breathe.
She crossed the Esplanade under the watchful eye of the soldiers at the castle gate. She had heard that those gates opened when the revenants swept through Edinburgh, that ordinary people had been taken in and protected. Strong walls and strong men, doing what they must to keep the people safe. For just a moment she wished she had been there. That memory of safety, of absolute security, would be something she could draw on, cling to. It would be a moment against which others could be held up and compared when she felt scared or threatened.
Since the riots, the city had been forced to look after itself. The soldiers and the watch could not be everywhere, despite the stern chatter of the common folk in the aftermath of any new revenant being found. They responded where they could, but when the creatures burst from their dark places it was the mob that took action, leaving only scraps and gore to be swept away by officials. Ordinary people, taking extraordinary action to keep each other safe. She smiled.
Reaching the other side of the Esplanade, she gazed down at the twist and cramp of West Port. Where the New Town spread out like a distant paradise, Old Town clumped like a mass of filthy twisted hair. If she stepped onto the low wall and threw herself forward, she would plummet into hell. Somewhere down there the revenants had first burst into the world. Although she could not be entirely certain, there had been no gossip to hint that they had been encountered on the gleaming streets to the North. They were a penance for the poor, and so long as they did not trouble the city's wealthy or erupt in huge numbers again, there would be no hunt or purge. Just as the New Town was a strange world to her, a foreign land with its own rules and customs, so too did the privileged classes look at the Old Town. It was neither for them or about them. It could be avoided, and served a useful purpose in sucking up and containing the city's detritus. For their new streets to remain calm and clean there needed to be somewhere for the filth to go.
From where she stood there was no view of where she had been attacked, for there were tenements in the way. She could place the spot though, even through the grey stone. She rubbed her arm, which still bore pink scars, and shuddered. Death had fallen upon her that day, and there had been no soldiers to offer steel and shot in her defence.
Almost as soon as it had happened, Bill had begun his strange, blinkered quest. He took the dead to task, that they would not harm her or any other.
A cool breeze blew through her, carrying her name on it. She turned, tightening her shawl, and there he was. That his perpetual hunt was taking its toll would be obvious even to those who had not known him the year before. His shoulders were stooped, and his steps weary. There was red around and through his eyes. He looked small and scared as he trooped across to her, his eyes flicking to the soldiers at the castle gate as though they might surge across and seize him if he was noticed.
"Nelly, love," he trailed off as he reached her, like an uncertain child. She smiled, and the twitch of her lips drew his eyes to her face for the first time. He frowned, confused.
"Maggie gave the message then? I wasn't certain she would."
He nodded. "She's a funny one, sure enough. Never know which way she'll blow." He swallowed, then turned to look out over West Port. The wind tousled his hair. "Said you had to see me urgent." He swallowed. "I took from her mood that it might not be news I wanted to hear. She said you were ... fraught."
"I'm sure she was more blunt than that Bill. I was ... it doesn't matter. I couldn't see. I didn't understand." She rubbed her arm again, and he noticed.
"That still trouble you?" She nodded. "Ah, Nel. I didn't mean any of this. I didn't want it."
She took his hand and he silenced, biting his lip. "You don't have to explain. You're a good soul, Bill." He looked down, as though those words hurt him. "You are. The things you do, the things you have to ... they're hard on a man. They must be." There were tears in his eyes, and confusion. "I've been no help to you." She was crying too, but the words were easier than she thought. "I've been a poor excuse for a wife. I've kept my silence. I've kept my distance. I doubted you when I should have held you up. Bill, I ..." She squeezed his hand as tears rolled down her cheek for the second time that day. "I'm sorry."
If anything, he looked more scared than before, as though her words were stabbing at him. Did he not believe her? Was it too late? "I don't know what you're saying," he said, his eyes wide. "What do you think you have to be sorry about?"
"Even this, Bill. This meeting. I was going to say goodbye, go home, hope you'd follow. I wanted you to run away with me. It was so selfish, but I didn't understand. The night things you do ... the revenants ... I was so scared. I didn't trust. You. The Lord. I was so close to betraying you both."
"But ... not now? I ... Nelly, love ..." He gave a humourless laugh. "Forgive me, but of all the conversations I thought we were going to have, this wasn't it."
She laughed too, her relief at having made her confession bursting out in a giggle. "After what I've put you through, Bill ... I don't doubt. It's over. I promise. Do the things you have to do. I can't help you with them, Bill–"
"For Jesus, how could you think I'd want you to?"
"Shush. I can't help, but I can accept. I love you, Liam de Burca. Find those things. Destroy them before they can hurt anyone else. Keep me safe." He reached to her on impulse, stroking her cheek. "Keep us all safe."
She saw the look in his eyes, the confusion, but then he pulled her to him and he was sweeping into her shoulder. "I don't ... Nel, I don't know what's in your mind half the time, but this I'll take. I'll take it Nel, whatever it is."
They held each other for a long moment, ignorant of the staring troops who had noticed their private little drama and were watching to see what might happen next. The breeze played with them all, flapping their clothes before it plunged down into West Port.
They broke apart, wiping their cheeks and smiling like teenagers. She kept his hand in hers, and led him off the Esplanade to the Lang Stair that would drop them down the rock into the Grassmarket. "Take me home, Bill Burke. We'll have a drink if you want one, but give me today. That's all I want. Let me hold you up. Just sometimes."
Bill smiled, and that made her smile too. It had been so long since they had anything to share, but now there was the truth. Her man was chosen for a special purpose, to hunt and destroy evil. She would do whatever it took to help him along his path.
Chapter 21
William Burke
Friday, June 20th, 1828
Bill had run out of whisky. The old woman had taken the last of it, the bottom of the bottle poured out by Hare, but it had been enough. After travelling two days from Glasgow, the frail, spindly old thing was exhausted. Grateful to find a lodging house so cheap--Hare had made up a rock bottom price on the spot--she had been ready to bed down almost as soon as she was through the door. Bill didn't see the need to soften this one up with spirits, for she was hardly capable of putting up much fight. William insisted, though. It was his ritual, that the doomed take the grog, and he would not be turned from it. As Bill escorted the old woman to his own room, pretending that it was hers for the night, William had passed him the glass. "Night cap," he said, and there was no arguing with him. "Guests ought to have a nightcap, Bill."
So he had let her drink, talked until she dozed, and squeezed the life from her on his own. Now she was trussed and buried beneath the straw bedding. There was no doubt that she would turn. They always did, after Hare's nightcaps. He understood that now.
He left her, walking through the dark of the main lodging house, hurting for a dram. It was early yet, and he could have gone to the shop while Hare packed the body in a chest (for they no longer waited to see them rise, so certain were they that it would happen). There was business yet to be taken care
of. He wished Nelly were there. She could have gone to the shop for him, but she had left as soon as she caught wind of what they intended. It no longer troubled her that he killed, but she did not wish to be present when it happened. Something had happened in her head. She thought he was on a mission from God. Each time he worked a victim, she took herself away. To church, he thought. To pray. For his success.
He leaned his weight on the door to the kitchen, and squeezed his eyes shut. She was broken. Somewhere in her head, something had snapped. He had snapped her. That his life passed easier for her delusion, that he played to her fantasy instead of challenging it, burned him to think on. It was not right that she knew and accepted what he did. It was not his Nelly.
He stopped thinking about it, and stepped into the kitchen. It was the worst moment for his doubts to weaken him. William was leaning against the back door, trying to block it without seeming to do so, his arms crossed against his chest. He was uncomfortable. The man who murdered with such surety, whose nightcaps wrought such horrendous wonders, straightened with relief to see him.
The young boy, whose presence made William so uncomfortable, sat by the fire with an empty glass in his hand, staring at the flames. That Bill would squeeze the life from their victims was another of William's little rituals, and he had even taken to calling the process 'burking.' It might have been a joke at first (Bill could rarely tell when his friend was making one), but it had stuck. Usually William joined him, pinned the victims' legs in case they struggled. This evening, somebody had to watch the boy. If Bill was burking, Hare had to play babysitter.
"Bill," he said, setting his features so that the little human moment of relief slid off in an instant. "You done?"
Bill nodded, staring at the boy. He didn't know why they were being careful with their words. The skinny thing, twelve years old at most, had not said a word since he arrived. Only the flickering fire held his interest. There was something wrong in his head, too. Did he somehow know what had happened to his grandmother? Was this shock? He didn't think so. "Lad's quiet."
The Flesh Market Page 18