The Flesh Market Read online

  Ignoring the doors to his left and right, he made straight for the building that squared off and sealed the close at the bottom, running his eyes over it and tagging it, for the time being, as 'home.' The grey building showed three windows on the top level, and unless there had been changes since last he was there, these were Maggie's own quarters. They afforded her more space than many in the West Port, where more than one family often huddled in a single room, could afford. Right in the centre of the ground floor façade was the wooden door, a flimsy looking thing flanked by two windows, clumsily contracted of vertical planks held together by horizontal ones at the top, bottom, and across the centre. Before he got there it swung open, and Maggie stepped out.

  She was just as he remembered, a small, doughty woman, too shapeless for his tastes. A mass of coarse black hair piled randomly beneath her bonnet, making her head seem strangely misshapen. While her complexion was rosy, there was only so much charm it could give to her round face. When she saw him, her hazel eyes widened with surprise and she smiled, revealing the missing tooth in her upper jaw. "Bill! Saints, I thought you'd be hours yet--I'm hardly ready for you!"

  He laughed. "I snoozed my way from Peebles in the back of a cart. Hastened the hours without wearying the legs. How are you keeping, Maggie?"

  She stepped down, and gave him a brief hug. Bill didn't like that. Her smile said she was pleased to see him, and he believed it, but her hug said she was nervous. "The house ticks over. Business could be better, but we get by. Come in, see your new place." She led him up the step, and he wondered if he was imagining an uncertainty in her words, as though the deal was not quite yet sealed.

  Stepping into the gloom of the unlit ground floor, Bill counted eight beds, four along each wall, with a fireplace at the far end. All the more reason to find his own accommodation sooner rather than later. It was hard to imagine he and Nelly curled up on the straw-filled bedding in a room full of strangers for too long. Such accommodations might suit the itinerant labourers seeking a bed during the harvest season, but it was no way for a man and woman to live for any period of time. "Lovely," he said.

  Maggie paused. "Sure, it's not bad. A little draughty, but most people find it comfortable enough when they've some spirits in them."

  "How many are in just now?"

  "Two, the last harvest stragglers, but they'll be gone in a day or so. Business goes slack over winter." No wonder then that she had been so happy to cut him a deal.

  "It's fine indeed," he lied, smiling as he eyed the beds to see which might be more comfortable. "And which would you have Nelly and me take residence in?" The back of the room, by the fire, he hoped.

  Maggie looked up in surprise. "Bill, you didn't ... did you think I was putting you in here?" She cackled. "You're as daft as my Jimmy was. No, we've something else set aside for you. Follow me."

  Puzzled, but not displeased, Bill followed her to the right, where rickety wooden steps rose along the wall and twisted into the upstairs quarters. Instead of taking the stairs, she vanished beneath them. The gloom in the unlit main dormitory had distorted his perception of the ground floor, and he had not seen the second doorway in the even darker shadows beneath the staircase. There was a door there, leading into a small box room. The ceiling was slanted inwards to accommodate the stairs rising above, but there was a bed, and light from a small, high window. Maggie held her hand out, offering him the key to the door.

  Bill took it with genuine wonder. So much more than he had expected, and for so small a cost. Proper privacy, a room to themselves. A sign that Edinburgh had been waiting for him all along with open arms. "Maggie ... grief, woman, I had no idea. You're a living saint, and I'll tell everyone I meet of it."

  She blushed, but kept a straight face. "You'll do no such thing. I can't be having a reputation as a keeper of strays. I'll never be paid again."

  Bill shook his head, and would have replied if they had both not become aware, at the same moment, of the shadow in the door behind them. He turned, knowing who it must be, and had to force himself not to show his surprise. The boy was barely twenty, so Maggie had at least a decade on her new husband. An inch or two shorter than Bill, his face was narrow and mean, at ease with suspicion. Bill smiled, noting with concern that the man's brown eyes did not light up in return. Sticking his free hand out, determined to force an interaction before it was too late, he was only briefly pleased when the boy took his grip, because then he squeezed. It was all Bill could do not to whimper as his bones crushed together. Boy he might be, but he was a whippet-thin coil of muscle.

  Stepping into the room, the newcomer flicked his eyes at Maggie, and let go of Bill's hand. "Introduce us then."

  Maggie, who had frozen rabbit-like in place, remembered herself. Instead of stepping forward as Bill had expected, she took an instinctive step back. "Where's my mind, you've never met! This is my husband. I told you about him. William Hare. William, this is my ... friend. Liam de Burca."

  Bill let the strained atmosphere caress him for a moment, then played his trump card, not letting his eyes leave the other man's. "It's good of you to take us in like this William. Hope you'll share a drink with me, as thanks for your kindness." He held out one of the jars of whisky, noting the indecent haste with which it was plucked from his grasp.

  William pulled the stopper free and swigged it back, swallowing once, then twice, then a third time. Finally, he lowered his head and wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve. To Bill's relief, as though it had been hiding in the jar all along, there was a smile on those lips. "I think," said William, "that we're going to get on fine, Liam."

  "Back home it's Liam," Bill said, returning the smile with a blast of good humour, "but not here. In Scotland, I'm William too. William Burke. It's a good thing I go by Bill though, or things would get plenty confusing round here."

  Chapter 4

  David Paterson

  Thursday, November 1st, 1827

  At least the reek of the animals was a tonic for the hangover, Davey thought as his stomach turned over. Either he would recover, and quick about it, or the previous night's consumption was going to make a sharp exit on to the streets. Either way, in the aftermath he would be more his full flesh and blood self, and less the nauseous shade that had woken up in his stead.

  Davey lived in the West Port with his sister and mother. When his Dad had been alive, a decade ago, the Irish were still settling in dribs and drabs. There were many good Scottish families that muttered about the occupation that had since taken place, not least those without jobs or money whose attempt to find employment were undercut by the cheaper immigrants. Davey wasn't among the ranks of the bemoaners. There was a spirit in West Port that had not been there before, and new traditions that had taken root. Being mostly Catholics and mostly drinkers, the newcomers devoted themselves to certain saint days with a fervour that was at first shocking, and then wonderful. As a protestant, Davey had always given restful observation to the feast days of Hallowe'en and All Saints Day. Not so the Irish, whose celebrations began as night fell on the last day of October, and continued until the last man collapsed some time in November.

  While fond of a drink, and grateful that the anatomy school was closed that day in anticipation of few students being in any state to absorb whatever information was to be passed to them in lectures, Davey knew his own stamina. Trying to keep up with some of the fellows the previous night could well have killed him. As it was, he had clearly gone too far. Rubbing his face, trying to make blood flow with greater vigour, he sidled along the edge of the Grassmarket, watching the beasts being corralled into pens and lined up to be poked, prodded and bought. Farmers goaded them with random vowels and strange consonants. Davey wondered if the nonsense sounds meant something to the animals, whether they formed a secret language between beasts and men.

  While visiting the livestock market was a local tradition that pre-dated the en masse arrival of the Irish to the city, he would not normally have done so at such an early hour. It wa
s barely eight in the morning, and he was among only a few gawping stragglers, some up early like him, most not yet gone to bed. The year before he had been down with his mum and sister after a hearty lunch, for the afternoon crowds of onlookers were themselves as much a part of the spectacle as the animals. This early, it felt like half a show.

  Of course, last year the market had been different, the fervent demand for entertainment and diversion almost too raucous, too forced. After the Cadaver Riots, the whole city had been desperate to pretend that nothing had changed, and life and death were still immutably distinct states of being. It had been many more months before the metallic tastes of fear and panic had begun to subside, and even now it lurked below scenes of normalcy like an animal waiting to pounce.

  Moving on from the market, rubbing his hands together against the cold, he entered the Cowgate, a gloomy canyon flanked by towering grey tenements. On an ordinary day it was a forbidding street, cold even at the height of summer, the sun rarely touching the cobbles. Today it was living up to its name, as farmers brought cows into the city from the East in herd after herd, forcing Davey to hug one wall as the big beasts thumped past, steam blowing from their nostrils in hissing puffs. The boys driving the livestock into the Grassmarket ignored him, though one or two gave him brusque nods of acknowledgement and half-apology. After much dodging and panic--for it was one thing watching these big animals corralled into pens, and another to have dozens of them trying to squeeze past--he finally reached a narrow wynd between two buildings and started up its narrow, slippery grey steps, leaving the wheezing beasts far below.

  It was a sharp climb up to South Bridge, where he emerged a stranger in a strange land. The purpose-built commercial street running from the New Town to the University was a world apart from everything below. Climbing up to the bridge from the Cowgate made him feel like he was clambering out of a sewer. The neat lines of the road were so packed with shops that it was easy to forget you were on a vast viaduct bridge at all. Gleaming with wealth, South Bridge was an inspiring sight, though without the farm life packing the streets as it did far below, the morning stillness felt eerie.

  The hush only added to Davey's rising sense of fear at what he was about to do. Even in the early light it felt as though he were wading further into the pages of a penny dreadful written to chill readers to the marrow. Head down, he hurried his pace across the broad road, making a beeline along the bridge until he reached the turn off that took him down Infirmary Street. Beyond the Royal Infirmary, tucked out of sight halfway down the street and before it joined the Cowgate on the other side, was Surgeon's Square.

  Where much of the city felt unnerving on such a deserted morning, Surgeon's Square owned the silence better than elsewhere. Even at the height of lectures, students would follow the sweeping gravel path around the square of schools in a near perfect hush, crushed a little by their proximity to some of the finest medical minds in the world. A colossal weight of academia was represented by the dusty tan buildings. The centrepiece of the square was a circular arrangement of small trees, bushes, and flowers, around which the path curved, giving the appearance that each of the anatomy rooms behind those elegant pale walls were equal.

  Davey knew that was an illusion. For the past two years one address, 10 Surgeon's Square, had become the most prestigious of these cold, graceful buildings, and that was down to Doctor Knox. While old Barclay still lived to run the school, Knox had asked the Royal College of Surgeons to let him set up a Museum of Comparative Anatomy inside the building, convincing them to meet the expenses. Though gossip among the servants at the time was that the Doctor was much mocked for his ambition, the derision soon dried up when, within the space of a year, number 10 contained what he had heard students whisper to be the finest such museum in Great Britain. That alone boosted Barclay's already thriving student intake twofold, for to have access to the specimens of the collection one had to be a student at the private school.

  Knox himself was the second reason for the building's reputation. Rumours spread far about his sometimes shocking lectures, in which he derided other professionals in his field, and gave candid demonstrations to his class. When Davey first heard this, he had sneaked into the back of the lecture hall, but failed to follow what the Doctor was on about. While he could appreciate that he seemed less stuffy, more flamboyant, than some of the others he had observed in the same way, it wasn't enough to make him stay more than a few minutes. Yet the students loved and feared him, and nobody serious about their future would try to sign up at another anatomy school before first trying to squeeze on to the Doctor's lists. Some said he had more students than all of the other teaching anatomists in Edinburgh, and Davey believed it. 10 Surgeon's Square and its increasingly infamous occupant-in-chief had a much deserved reputation.

  Although often curt and dismissive, the Doctor was a fine master, and had even taken Davey's sister and mother into his employ as cleaners to scrub down the dissection tables. Unpleasant work, but with every member of the Paterson household in regular and reputable employ, they were the envy of their neighbours in West Port. Leave it to others to ply the docks at Leith, or graft in factories. Davey was the Doctor's right hand man, and made sure everybody knew it. The notoriety pleased him no end.

  All of which made him increasingly uneasy as he scurried around the path to the school, which faced the entrance to the square across the central garden. Today he was there for his own furtive purpose, slinking in without the consent or knowledge of the Doctor, driven by an insatiable curiosity.

  Davey Paterson wanted to see a dead man walk.

  So many of his friends had tales of terror from the Cadaver Riots, of meeting revenants, evading them, watching them devour the weak and slow, battling them. Yet that night, Davey had seen nothing. While he fled through the streets with everybody else, dragging his mother and sister with him as terror lit his limbs, he had witnessed nothing at all. His mother said they were lucky, but Davey felt cheated. There had been shapes as they fled, and bodies on the ground, but deep down he knew they had not been the dreaded revenants. What he had seen were only panicking refugees, some driven to their knees in the stampede, some meeting their death being trodden into the cobbles by their neighbours.

  In his heart, he knew that many of the stories his friends had told were fabrications and exaggerations, grandiose tales to offset the cowardice they had all felt. It made it difficult to separate fact from fiction. It made him wonder if there had ever been any revenants at all.

  Now, pushing open the gate in the iron railings in front of the school and museum with his mittened hands, he had a chance to find out whether he was right. Doctor Knox was the smartest man Davey knew, and Doctor Knox was convinced he held captive one of the very revenants that had terrorised the city that night. Davey wanted to see it, and know the truth behind the evil that had come upon them all.

  As he crunched around the gravel path to the tradesman's entrance at the side, glancing once more behind him to ensure he was not being watched, he slipped off his mittens and wiped his clammy hands on his trousers. His heart was beating hard, responding both to imaginings of what he hoped to witness, and the furtive, illicit nature of his visit. To risk his employment and the version of celebrity that it brought him in his little world for the sake of curiosity was lunacy. Every hateful day since the thing had been brought in he had resisted the urge, going about his business, trying to forget what was trussed up in the dissecting room. He knew it was still there, for the door remained locked, extra students being squeezed uncomfortably into the three remaining dissecting rooms to accommodate for the loss of the fourth. On several nights he had been dismissed while Knox and his three disciples stayed behind in the school after hours. This was not so unusual, but there was an edge to them on those nights, a combination of frustration and eagerness. After waiting so long to have a revenant to work their skills upon, none of them could wholly contain their urge to slice and discover.

  Unlocking the door, Davey
slid inside, prowling along the corridor to the lecture hall at the far end. He emerged at the back of the raised staging area and crossed behind the lectern and demonstration table to the door leading to the dissecting rooms.

  All was dark and still.

  Scanning the stepped rows of benches where students would cram themselves to absorb the Doctor's expertise, he found himself hunching with guilt and fear, as though a hundred eyes were watching in silence. Yet if there were, what had he to fear? There were many minor duties that could bring him to the hall. He had done nothing wrong yet. It wasn't too late to turn around and go home, put himself to bed, and sleep away the rest of his hangover before returning to work in the morning.

  If he didn't do this, carry on and discover the truth for himself, he would be forever in doubt. Not knowing if the trussed and bagged thing the Graveyard King had brought them was indeed a revenant had all but driven him mad in the last weeks, and he knew he would not be able to resist forever. If not today, he would find himself sneaking in early in a different morning, or hanging back late one night when everyone else went home.

  Reaching out, he grabbed the worn brass handle of the door.

  What if it had escaped from the dissecting room?

  The idea popped into his head from nowhere, presenting itself with grim certainty. As soon as he thought it, he knew it was true. The revenant had chewed free of its bonds, then battered down the dissecting room door through simple, mindless perseverance. Now it was lumbering back and forth in the dark corridor, waiting for someone to come in, to claw at with filthy nails, to chew with broken teeth. Waiting for Davey.

  It was a ridiculous idea. There was no way for it to escape.

  Something thumped beyond the door, and he released the handle as though it were red hot.