The Flesh Market

by Richard Wright

  He shuddered, then rapped his cane on the roof of the carriage. "Drive on," he called. It was mid-morning, and the likelihood was that none who would threaten him would be abroad in daylight.

  Fergusson had taken the stand against Burke the day before Christmas, and told him there had been those in the crowd outwith the courthouse who had called for Knox to face the gallows alongside the Irishman.

  He rapped again, and only then did the carriage proceed.

  #

  The office had, if anything, grown fouler and more decrepit since last he entered, and Monro had grown more smug. Syme stood behind the professor, in front of the window, and as Knox entered he would not look him in the eye.

  Knox experienced a curious moment of dizziness, and a tight pain in his chest. Although he could not conceal his wince, he recovered swiftly. It would not do to show weakness. He gestured at the office. "Each time I am forced to come here, I expect to find things growing on you, or to see that you have become one with the detritus all around. It depicts so clearly the state of your knowledge and conscience."

  Syme tutted, embarrassed. "Robert, that won't do."

  "Let him have his little jokes," Monro said with a grunt. "It changes nothing." Knox saw the stack of newspaper clippings piled on the left of desk. It was the only neat and ordered thing in the room. Monro followed his gaze, and chuckled. "Oh yes. You have made our northern world of academia every bit as famous as you once hoped. Why, I doubt there is a soul in the world who does not know your name."

  "A conspiracy of nonsense and lies," Knox said. "It is my misfortune to have been caught up in the business of these men, but it could as well have been another." He looked at Syme as he spoke. "The newspapers make every effort to convert my misfortune into positive and intended personal guilt of the most appalling character."

  Syme took the hint. "It is true, Alexander. They continue to go to great lengths to smear him in the most vitriolic manner." He stopped, and looked at Knox. "Yet they raise many questions. It has been a deal worse since your man Paterson testified. The picture he painted was not charitable."

  Knox picked up a paperweight, some pebble liberated from a beach somewhere, and imagined it was Paterson's throat. He squeezed. It was satisfying. "Hardly my man, to speak out so, and he has not returned to his duties. My assistants spoke eloquently under cross-examination."

  Monro flicked through some of his press cuttings, pausing at one lengthy account. "The amount which they did not know and could not speak to is somewhat startling. I was under the impression that these were men trained to observe, yet little of what I read suggests that they have that capability."

  "They are not part of this." He snapped harder than he intended to. Whatever came next, it was his cross to bear, not theirs. "You fault them for a loyalty not only to me, but to our entire discipline. They know as well as each of you that the public mind can never rest comfortably with the acquisition of our supplies, even in the usual course of business. You would better reward them for their vagaries than subject them to castigation."

  Monro pursed his lips, but nodded. "Perhaps. Yet what of you, Robert? You stand accused in the public mind of, at the very least, encouraging murder and resurrection, and at worst of sanctioning it. Your prices. A fortune, to many of those reading. No wonder Burke and Hare wished so fervently to bring you their revenants." He raised his hands as though prepared to ward off an attack. "I am merely giving voice to the accusations, you understand."

  "The bodies were fresh, and in excellent condition."

  "And twitching."

  He nodded. There was no longer any point in denying that part. "If one good thing has come of this affair, it is the clarification of law. It has been accepted that we cannot be said to be offering safe harbour to one of these creatures if in fact we are taking it apart."

  Syme smiled. "It is insanely dangerous, though."

  Knox stared at him hard. "A few modest precautions are all that is required. We have had no incidents or escapes. It is hardly as though I am responsible for the cadaver riots." Syme had the decency to blush.

  Monro wheezed. It took Knox a moment to understand that he was laughing. "No incidents? It is all one enormous incident, you fool!"

  He slammed the pebble back down on the desk, startling both of the other men. "Am I truly the only one who understands that these revenants are not just some adjunct to our science? It is the very core of it! Our understanding of our own bodies, for so long lauded by this institution as a thing of increasing maturity, is demonstrated by these creatures to be that of infants. Does it please you to be an infant, Monro?" The professor placed his hands on the arms of his chair as though to rise. Knox stood over him, giving him nowhere to go. "You wish to hide behind your textbooks and wave the monsters away as some unknowable thing of the supernatural. I say no. That shall not pass. They are things. They may be broken apart and gazed upon. We are at war with them, at the very front line. Would you cower away, when called to service? Hide like a little girl?"

  Monro sat back and looked up at him. He spoke quietly. "You would do well to keep hold of that temper while you are in this room, Doctor Knox."

  He saw himself then, ranting at his fellows like some madman. Stepping back, he pulled out the chair on the other side of the desk and sank into it. "I apologise," he said, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb as though that might relieve some of the pressure in his head. "It has been a trying time. I have just come from my home, and ..." He shook his head.

  Monro and Syme were uncomfortable. "Well yes," said Monro. "Whatever the facts of the matter, you have our ... sympathies with regard to that aspect."

  "That you are a figure of hate cuts to the heart of the matter," Syme said. "Even the feeblest mind looks at the suggestion that an anatomist of your reputation did not identify anything suspicious or recurrent in deaths and resurrection of these victims as absurd. The assumption that you knew and did nothing, did not care enough to make a few simple enquiries, is one that has been applied to us all." His sibilant, obsequious tones were grating.

  "Oh truly, James, you would play at innocence within these walls, in our company? When have you ever speculated on the means by which supplies are presented to you? Half of your bodies are stolen from fresh graves on sanctified ground. You used to dig them up yourself. We all did! How could we continue, if we asked such questions? This affair shines a compelling light on the arguments we have made that supplies be legitimately passed to us in sufficient quantity that we might work."

  "True. I have trained myself not to ask too many questions. Yet even with that in mind ... Robert, they were all revenants. All of them."

  Monro interrupted. "I was asked by a journalist from the Caledonian Mercury today whether it was possible for a revenant to be created on purpose, consciously and with forethought. What think you?"

  Knox sat back. "I think that you are happy enough to castigate my work in public, to make the most systemic and atrocious attacks upon me that I have ever experienced, but that in private you wish to plunder my knowledge to increase your standing and reputation. That is what I think."

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Somebody bustled past the door, still ajar, and Syme crossed to close it properly.

  "The question arose," Monro said, "in light of the reporter's speculation that Burke and Hare are somehow the root cause of revenants in Scotland. It has been suggested, though not yet in print, that they may have been the first cause of the Cadaver Riots. Do I need to point out how inflammatory an accusation that would be? Prejudice against the Irish is deep-rooted already. It would take little to set that tinder aflame. If we were able to furnish an answer to that, at least, then we might buy some small credit with the various city authorities who at the present time wish to place themselves at a very great a distance from us."

  "They are too recently arrived to the city," Syme said. They both looked at him, Monro in surprise and Knox in admonition. The thin man ge
stured at the clippings. "At least, I believe I read that. In the papers."

  Knox nodded. "One was here then. Hare, I believe. It has been said that his home, the lodging house, was attacked by the creatures. The older one, Burke, was elsewhere. Peebles? It will be in your cuttings somewhere. They had yet to meet. I think we can conclude with some authority that the rise of the revenants that occurred that night cannot be placed at their feet." He kept his eyes on Syme as he spoke, enjoying watching the man squirm for a moment. His pleasure was drawn less from his innate dislike of the man than it was the simple relief that he was not the only one navigating dangerous waters.

  "That is well, then. One thing we have uncovered, at least. Have you continued your research on them?"

  It was Knox's turn to laugh. "On the revenants?"

  "There is little that I think your arrogance could not drive you to do, Robert."

  "I have not. Credit me with some sense. Perhaps when some time has passed–"

  "Were you close?"

  He let the question hang, squeezing all his rage and frustration into a tiny ball and burying it. "When some time has passed, I may continue and find out. For now, it is all I can do to keep a supply of regular cadavers on hand with which to teach. Nobody in Edinburgh will bring the dead to my door, twitching or not. I have had to seek supplies from further afield."

  "Imports."

  "As you say." He stood. "As pleasant as it always is to spend time in your company gentlemen, I was called here for a reason. What is my standing with the Royal College?"

  Monro harrumphed, and threw up his hands. "You have supporters yet. Several spoke to both your character and the foolishness of considering for even a moment that you would be complicit in murder. Others were less generous, and suggested that it was inconceivable that you did not share liability in the body count." The old man looked at Syme as he spoke, and the thin man looked away.

  "Really?" Knox was not surprised. A chance to have him buried in legal charges and slander was one that Syme would never pass up, no matter what passed between them in private. "Some are so very quick to make slanderous, damaging statements. I hope never to become one such myself, but who can tell what a man might let slip in a heated moment?" Monro noticed that something had passed between them, but made no further comment.

  "You may continue as a member of the Royal College. We will not as a collective speak in your support, but neither will we condemn you. Individuals are not bound by this, as long as it is clear that their statements are personal and not on behalf of this body."

  "You will place no bar on students complementing their studies with my classes?"

  "There would be a riot if we did. Is it true that they cheer you each day as you enter?" He nodded. It had begun after the trial, when the newspapers began their fevered speculation of his motives, and was a show of support that continued to move him. Monro grunted. "Guileless children, all of them. Do not be surprised if their loyalties waver when the drama dies down. Your name has become noxious, Robert. It stinks in the nostrils of this whole place. There are none here who would weep to see you leave the city, and seek your fortune elsewhere."

  He stood, jaw set. It was a start. He would weather this storm, and emerge strengthened by it. "Small men with little vision."

  "You should make a statement, to the press," said Syme. "Your silence does you no favours."

  Knox smiled at him, but there was nothing pleasant in it. "Nor does it give my enemies grist for their mills. Good day, James. I shall not forget what we have discussed."

  Syme's lips pursed, and he nodded. The message was understood. Where they had been rivals before, now they were at war.

  Knox left, his working eye on the future, and the means by which he might pursue it.

  Chapter 35

  William Burke

  Tuesday, January 27th, 1829

  The gad was an iron bar about the thickness of Bill's forearm. It ran the length of his cell at a height of about six inches above the floor, and was embedded in the walls. A rusty ring of iron looped around it, attached to a few feet of chain that ended at the manacles around his ankles. He had been attached to the gad since Boxing Day, when the crowd had finally dispersed enough that the police could move him from the courthouse. A pallet bed lay within reach of the chain, and he spent most of his days curled up on it, for the January freeze was harsh, and as a convict he was allowed no fire. They fed him coarse bread and water initially, and he had shrunken in on himself. A cancerous sore wept on his side, and a doctor had recommended a little broth each day to keep him healthy enough to be killed in the proper manner.

  Today he stood, wishing for a looking glass or a set of eyes he trusted. His court clothes hung from him, but it was the best he could hope for. A young, eager man sat on a stool against the far wall next to the door, well out of his reach. The man rubbed his hands together, trying to bring them to sufficient life that he might scrawl a few more of the prisoner's words down. There was frost clinging to the stones, and what little light there was came from a high, barred window. "I wish there more time," the man said.

  "So do I, boy."

  "Sorry, Mr Burke. I meant no disrespect. We're grateful--our readers, too--for the candour of your statements."

  Two weeks ago Bill had told the reporter everything he could remember of his time in Edinburgh. From Old Donald's death, right up to Madge Docherty. He held nothing back, including the strange power he believed William Hare to have over the dead. That edition of the Caledonian Mercury had gone to press several times, and been reprinted in London and further afield. Burke and Hare were known the world over. "What of my price? What news of Nelly?" He had intended to lay out his story for reporters as soon as he realised in the courtroom how much hunger there was for the detail of his crimes. The law might not be able to touch William Hare, but that would not save him.

  "There's no word to be had. She was attacked on the street when she was released, and taken back into custody for her own protection. Nobody knows where she is now."

  He clenched his fists. "Falkirk?"

  "We sent a man. We want to speak to her too, of course, to hear her tale in her own words. She wasn't there, and her father denied any knowledge of her whereabouts."

  "She's there," Bill said. "He's protecting her." He bowed his head. "I should have done the same. What of Hare?"

  "Ah, there I do have news. Were you aware that he, too, remains in jail?" Bill jerked his head up, surprised. "I see not. You recall your final but one victim, James Wilson?"

  "Daft Jamie?"

  "Aye. Well, his family are making a private prosecution against Hare for his murder. It's a rare enough thing to do, but legal enough, and their solicitor is working for them gratis."

  "I don't understand. William gave King's Evidence."

  "And George is leaving him alone. The Wilsons made no such agreement with him, and so may not be bound by that promise. He could hang yet."

  "Thank God," Bill said in a whisper. "I had such fears. They sent me a priest, you know? As though anything I say or do now can change what I have to look forward to in death. He told me I should not hate Hare. That I should cleanse my heart of any hatred I might harbour." He snorted. "Idiot. If William should be again let loose upon society he would recommence his murderous spree at the earliest chance. I do not know where the spirits go when he makes their bodies strut and hunger, but I am afeared his new victims might hunt me down in the regions of fire for not having taken measures to get him executed, and preventing their demises."

  "If it consoles you at all, the city is aghast even now. Your death alone will not appease them. And that matter of him raising revenants, perhaps even being the first cause of the cadaver riots? How certain are you of that?"

  "Certain that he turns them. I was not here for the riots."

  "I see. Well, your assertions are part of the public record now, no matter how impossible the anatomists say such a feat would be."

  The door opened, and a guard st
epped in. "Time, Mr Burke."

  The young man stood. "I'd shake your hand sir, but I am afraid it is forbidden."

  "On your way, boy. Print your words." The reporter nodded, and vanished through the door.

  Bill looked at the guard, feeling only emptiness. "Let's be to it then. I hear there might be a crowd. I'm loathe to keep them waiting."

  #

  Burke had attended more than his share of public executions, and had thought himself prepared for the somber crowd that would be waiting for him. It would be larger than those he had himself formed part of, for his notoriety had been impressed upon him, but when the black door of the prison carriage was opened and the vast sea of staring faces greeted him, he realised that he had still underestimated the people of Edinburgh.

  The coach had crawled from Libberton's Wynd to the Grassmarket, a journey that should have taken but a few minutes. It was now apparent why. The form and function of the streets had vanished, buried beneath a living sea of human flesh. Men, women, and children crushed together despite the early hour and the biting cold. From the windows of buildings all around, public and private, more faces peered. Many of those staring down from on high were finely dressed gentlemen and ladies, who had no doubt paid a pretty penny to observe his termination from relative comfort. Lower windows were more unruly, with people leaning full out and clothing the buildings in bodies. Between street and windows, all Edinburgh seemed to be in attendance.

  There were more police officers on hand than he would have believed existed, many holding back the crowd from the narrow path they had made to the raised platform of the gibbet. It was clear the carriage could get no closer. There was silence through the square, and when crime officer John Fisher stepped to the door in a smart dress uniform, his words carried. "William Burke. Come with me please." Bill looked past him, at the pale faces, the tide of hats, shawls and scarfs, and beyond them to the gibbet. He could not move. "Mr Burke. There's some dignity to be had, if you want to take it." The meaning was clear enough. Walk or be dragged.