Corpse Thief

by Michael Arnold

  He dragged his gaze up to meet hers. “What do you know of that day?”

  “A great throng, broken apart most heinously by soldiers in their cups.”

  The final words were vicious and bitter, but Hawke knew she had him cornered. He could no longer hide. “Cavalry,” he corrected her. “The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry broke the crowd, ably supported by the 15th Hussars. There were foot soldiers too, in reserve.” He laughed, grimly and without a trace of mirth. “And artillery. Artillery! All to quell a peaceful protest.” In an instant he was no longer in London, but St Peter’s Square, Manchester. He could hear the crowd’s chants, smell horseflesh and sweat, feel his own fear. “Near a score killed. Women and children too. Cut to pieces by sabres, trampled by hooves. More than seven hundred grievous hurt.” He knew moisture was beginning to prick his eyes, but he could do nothing to stop it. “All they wanted was freedom from poverty.”

  Corissa looked at him pityingly. Her hand was still on his knee. “You were there, weren’t you?”

  “To my shame.”

  “Shame?” she echoed in disbelief. “Surely there can be nothing more honourable than defiance in the face of the law, when that law oppresses the people. I know folk died, but folk die all the time. Think of our own rookery. It stinks of death. But you...” she cast her gaze away, searching for the right superlatives, “you faced down the bastards’ swords. The blood shed that day meant something.”

  The hackney came to a halt, the driver calling their destination down to them. Through a gap in the curtain, Hawke could see that they were outside the fresh new Doric portico that welcomed theatregoers at the Brydges Street entrance. Immediately beside the coach were a pair of huge doors, studded with rivets the size of fists, beneath arches filled with stained glass as elaborate as to be found in any high church chancel or nave. He realised in that moment that he could step out of the vehicle right now. Could evade further questioning. Could let her believe what she chose to believe.

  And yet. “I saw that terrible day, Corissa,” he heard himself say. The deed was done. No turning back. “Saw it from the saddle.”

  “From...” she began, hesitating as the truth dawned. She simply stared, dumbfounded. Emotion rippled across her face. For a moment she looked as though she might vomit, then it seemed likely she would strike him, then only horror, only revulsion showed where once empathy - admiration, even - had been.

  Hawke wanted to take her by the shoulders and make her see what he had seen. He wanted to tell her of the crowd. What a host it had been. Tens of thousands, gathered with one mind and voice. He wanted to describe the music that accompanied them that day, joyful and uplifting. The flags that fluttered across St Peter’s Square, their colours and slogans proclaiming liberty for all. Such a thing he had never beheld. Never even imagined. Then Henry Hunt, that famed orator for whom they had all come, stepped onto the stage, bowing briefly as he took off his white hat and addressed the people with booming voice.

  Hawke did not take Corissa by the shoulders. He slumped back, staring again at the floor. “I was there as a member of the Yeomanry, under command of Joseph Nadin, my employer. I was one of his thief-takers by day.” He swallowed, the motion thick and cloying. “Someone, an officer, snapped. Panicked. The fateful order was given.”

  And that was about the size of it. Hawke remembered how the horsemen surged forth, aiming to apprehend Hunt, but it was a fool’s errand. Perhaps the officers had expected the mass of bodies to part like the Red Sea before Moses, but none moved. They could not move, such was the density of the crowd, and then the cavalry were upon them, sabres drawn, and madness took hold. He tried to meet Corissa’s gaze, but she turned away. He opened his mouth, but the words were stillborn on his tongue. How could he possibly describe the horror of defenceless heads shielded from slashing swords by bare arms? How could he make her understand just how much blood flowed onto St Peter’s Square, making the ground slick and treacherous? How could he begin to describe the screams?

  Hawke had screamed too. At first to cow the people in the hope that they would move, but his screams had turned to pleas, hoarse and desperate, as the first limbs had been cleaved open. He had wheeled his mount about, blocking the blades of his comrades with that of his own, spitting forlorn orders for the men to relent. To withdraw. To see sense. But they were full of rage, the Yeomanry and Hussars. Many were full of ale too. In that, at least, Corissa had been right. And all of them were assailed by fear at such a vast gathering. In the whites of the peoples’ eyes they saw not terror, but insurrection. Revolution.

  Could he tell Corissa how the whole thing lasted just a few minutes, and that all that was left was a field of caps and hats, bonnets, ragged flags, bits of dresses and coats, bloody shawls and lost shoes? The hustings stood there empty, banners slashed, bearing silent witness to the carnage. And the bodies, of course. Crushed, mangled, mutilated. Many moaning as they bled. Young ones calling for mothers. Women wailing for their children. Men searching for wives amongst the dead and dying.

  He wanted to say all that and so much more. That Joseph Nadin, hearing of his actions, had stripped him of his rank and threatened him with imprisonment or worse. That he had lost everything at Peterloo, and that he had vowed never to pass a day sober again, so overwhelmed by shame was he.

  He had forgotten the Theatre Royal. Forgotten the musicians of Monsieur Blanc’s ensemble. “I will never forgive myself.”

  Corissa pushed open the coach door. “Don’t tell me. You were only following orders.” She stepped out onto the street. Looking back at him, her face a mask of disdain, she said, “The boots. You told me you were a deserter.”

  “I am,” Hawke said meekly. “From the Yeomanry. Corissa, I...”

  “I’ll go to Bow Street and fetch your man,” she snapped, leaving him to gape at the open door.

  Θ

  “My men have searched the premises thoroughly, as you requested, though it vexed me to do so,” Principal Patrol Officer George Ruthven said to Hawke after conferring with a skinny subordinate who looked barely out of his teens. Hawke had waited outside the theatre, under the grand columns of the portico, for the sneering porters had not granted him entry until the large, red-cheeked man in blue coat and yellow waistcoat had stalked imperiously down from Bow Street. On seeing Ruthven, and the tipstaff he twirled expertly in one meaty paw, they had immediately exchanged arrogance for mewling deference, and allowed Hawke, Ruthven and three other Runners inside. Now, though, standing in the Theatre Royal’s spacious, and ostentatious, entrance hall, Ruthven glowered at Hawke with a look of pure thunder on his broad face. “The musicians have gone. Am I permitted to return to my real work, or is there a troop of unruly fairies you’d like me to hunt down?”

  Hawke ignored both the jibe and the junior Runner’s half-suppressed snigger. “Gone?” He stared past them, beyond the second and third officers who loitered by cold gas lamps and ornamental palm trees, and through the big doors that opened onto the playhouse itself. The interior was sumptuously decorated in gold, green and crimson. He could glimpse a portion of the wide stage, flanked by the galleries and private boxes. He imagined the place filling with society’s cream. All there to unwittingly bask in the musical skill of a secret child-killer. “King Lear is scheduled for tonight.”

  “The players continue,” Ruthven responded, irritation turning his voice to a growl. “The musicians do not. Monsieur Blanc has taken his parcel of minstrels to the coast, so they tell me. Portsmouth and a ship bound for the grandest stages the north has to offer.” He adjusted his black cravat, shouldered the tipstaff, and looked past Hawke to the exit. “Our business is concluded, sirrah.”

  “Will you not pursue them?” spluttered Hawke, aghast.

  Ruthven rounded on him. “Pursue? This coat buttons over a great many other duties, Mister Hawke. None of which constitute trekking across country on a wild goose chase.”

  “Sir, this is no wild goose chase.” Hawke started forwards, wanting to gras
p the lawman by his lapels, but tremors of pain stirred in his hip and side. “It is...”

  The tipstaff’s gleaming top, like the heavy head of a medieval mace, jabbed hard into Hawke’s sternum. “Your mulatto punk gave me chapter and verse, and, I confess, I was intrigued enough for a stroll of a few hundred yards. But now that I see you. Now that I speak to the proprietors of this venerable establishment, and consider what you are actually attempting to suggest.” He shook his head, clearly rueful that he had indulged such a flight of fancy. “It is a figment of your opium-addled imagination.” His voice grew louder by the word. “Brooches and witchcraft and French soldiers? The matter has been dealt with by my officers. This,” he waved the staff at the hall’s high, ornate ceiling, “this foolery, is a waste of my time. The people are content that justice has been done, and you, sirrah, might be best served by a stay in Bedlam.”

  “Justice?” Hawke repeated in astonishment. “You knock down a few doors in Clerkenwell and drag out any Italian man you find?”

  Ruthven’s eyes darkened. His red face turned a deeper hue, contrasting starkly with his sandy hair. “Careful there.” The tipstaff returned to Hawke’s chest. “It’s been a while since this thing cracked a skull, but it is not beneath me.”

  Hawke tensed, acutely aware that Ruthven was as capable of swift violence as he was immune from its consequences. Yet he had come this far. To retreat now would be to abandon all hope of snaring the real killer. “It is the Ember Week,” he said imploringly. “The time when the murderer may strike. Please, I beg of you, listen to me, Mister Ruthven.”

  “He will not strike,” Ruthven retorted angrily, “because he cannot strike. He is in jail. We have a score of Italians under lock and key, and the murderer of Betsy Milne will be rooted out from among their number.”

  “Let me follow Blanc’s group, Mister Ruthven,” Hawke persevered. “Do not spare your officers; send me. I’ll go to Portsmouth willingly.”

  Ruthven laughed. It was a grating, mirthless, mocking sound. “And who will fund this expedition? You? Colan Szekely, perhaps? Will you not be busy pillaging the caskets of decent Londoners?” He pulled back his shoulders, drawing himself up to his full, imposing height. “Fly away, Hawke,” he commanded imperiously. “I will send word if and when your dubious services become required. Should you drink yourself into an early grave beforehand, be cheered that you have value to someone.” He winked. “The anatomy schools will pay handsomely for a corpse with a shrivelled liver to inspect.”

  “Sir!” a shrill, breathless cry came from the entranceway, interrupting them both. “Mister Ruthven, sir!”

  Hawke and Ruthven parted, turning to regard the big doors, through which a grubby-cheeked boy with an elfin face and moth-eaten clothes scampered, the porters snapping like bulldogs at his heels. Ruthven ordered the men to relent, then addressed the boy. “What is it?”

  “Cor’ner’s asked you to attend him, forthwith, Mister Ruthven.”

  “Oh?”

  The boy shifted uneasily from one flap-soled shoe to the other, grime-caked toes on display like so many new potatoes. “There’s been another one.”

  Time seemed to stand still for Joshua Hawke. His stomach convulsed as his heart palpitated wildly. The skin at his neck fluttered as though a hundred butterflies simultaneously alighted from the nape, and the pain in his side vanished. He wanted to quiz the messenger, to confirm that he had been right all along, and yet that confirmation was what he feared most. In the end, he said nothing, because Ruthven cleared his gravelly throat.

  “Another one?”

  The boy nodded. “By Temple Church, sir. A lad, younger than me.” A look of raw fear caused his gaunt features to quiver. “Tied up with plants, sir.”

  George Ruthven nodded once, dismissed the messenger with a brusque wave, and looked down at Hawke. “Are you fit to travel?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Then it is settled. You’ll accompany my men to Portsmouth and apprehend this fiend.” George Ruthven set his jaw. “Do not return until this dog has been brought to heel.”

  Hawke wanted to slap Ruthven. To tell him to shove his command where the sun did not shine. To crow that he, Hawke, had been right when the hero of Cato Street had blundered blindly from one false accusation to the next. But he could do none of that. Because the murderer of Betsy Milne, of Varney Tapp, and of this latest poor wretch was still at large. In the end, he simply nodded. “I’ll run the bastard to ground, Mister Ruthven. You have my word.”

  Huge thanks to all who put up with me while I produced this book. You know who you are.

  Thanks in advance to you kind folk who’ve given Corpse Thief a run. I really hope it was a decent read.

  Look out for Part Two in due course!

  A bit about the ‘real’ history used as the backdrop for Corpse Thief...

  Body Snatchers

  Hawke is a resurrectionist. Also known as a body snatcher, grave robber or sack-’em-up man. As morbid an occupation as it may seem, it was a real and thriving (illegal) business by the early 19th Century, and a terrible fear for the loved ones of the recently deceased.

  Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, the only legal supply of corpses for anatomical purposes in the UK were those condemned to death and dissection by the courts. This was all well and good during the previous century’s era of the Bloody Code, when hundreds were executed for relatively trivial crimes, but by the time of Joshua Hawke’s arrival in London, the numbers had diminished sharply, which meant that there were nowhere near enough corpses to meet the demand from medical schools and private anatomical schools.

  With this clear shortfall in supply, the criminal fraternity quickly arrived upon the (very lucrative) solution. Not least because cemeteries were often overcrowded, meaning fresh graves were shallow and easily accessible. Moreover, interfering with a grave was not, at this time, regarded as a felony. The corresponding punishments were well worth the risk.

  Peterloo

  The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, in the summer of 1819.

  As mentioned in the book, the end of the Napoleonic Wars had seen Britain struggle with chronic unemployment and periods of famine. By 1819, the economy was in such a mess that people were beginning to look to more radical politics for a change in their fortunes. One of the groups that responded most vigorously to this desire for parliamentary reform was the Manchester Patriotic Union, who organised a demonstration to be addressed by the well-known radical orator, Henry Hunt. Thus, on 16th August, a huge crowd - somewhere between sixty and eighty thousand - gathered to demand (amongst others things) the reform of parliamentary representation.

  Shortly after the meeting began, local authorities summoned the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry to arrest Hunt and several of the rally’s key figures. As Hawke tells Corissa, things went badly wrong, and the Yeomanry charged the crowd, arresting Hunt, but injuring a woman and killing a child in the process. With chaos ensuing, the 15th Hussars were sent to disperse the multitude. They also went in at the charge, killing 15 people and injuring hundreds more.

  The massacre was dubbed ‘Peterloo’ by the horrified press, in an ironic comparison to the Battle of Waterloo. Eyewitnesses did, however, report seeing one cavalryman turn against the tide, trying in vain to stop the carnage. That man was never identified.

  Joshua Hawke will return...