‘And I’m tellin’ ya, that he did give it to me, so let that be the end of it.’
Tom struggled, but Billy’s powerful hand kept him in the chair.
Now the Grays at the other side of the table were aware that something was wrong. ‘What ails the boy?’ asked Mr Gray. He sounded genuinely concerned.
‘He’s drunk,’ said Will. ‘Boy can’t handle the hard stuff. Should have stuck to ale.’ He was looking daggers at Billy now, as though warning him to handle the situation.
Billy threw a powerful arm around Tom’s shoulders. ‘It’s just a wee misunderstanding,’ he explained to the others. He used his other hand to prise the copper spoon from Tom’s fingers and returned it and the snuffbox to his waistcoat pocket. ‘I think I might take the lad outside for a bit of fresh air.’
‘Good idea,’ said Will.
‘No,’ hissed Tom. ‘I don’t need air. I . . .’
Billy leaned in close to whisper in his ear. ‘Shut your noise,’ he said, ‘or by God, I’ll break your neck right here and now.’ He half-pulled, half-lifted Tom out of his chair.
‘Just a moment,’ said Mr Gray, getting up out of his own seat.
Billy turned back warily . ‘Yes?’ he murmured.
Mr Gray raised his tankard of ale. ‘Before you go, I’d like to propose a toast. To our genial hosts,’ he said, looking first to Billy and then to Will. ‘To Mr Burke and Mr Hare.’
Tom felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. The breath went out of him and he stood there in Billy’s clutches, gasping. Suddenly, it all became clear, how naïve, how trusting, how stupid he’d been. He didn’t know very much about the activities of Burke and Hare, but he was aware of their names. He knew enough to realise that they were murderers and he had blundered into their clutches. And then his head filled with an image, the dream he’d had about Jamie. He saw his friend’s terrified face, yelling two words at him as if trying to send a warning. He hadn’t been saying ‘bird’ and ‘hay.’ Not even close.
Terror flooded Tom now and he made a last attempt to pull free of Billy’s clutches, but the powerful man had him in a deadly embrace.
‘We’ll go then,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ll go over to my place.’ He pulled Tom away from the table and through the crowd. Tom found himself surrounded by laughing, jeering faces. Drinks were held aloft as people made toasts to this most evil of nights. The awful music kept up its incessant caterwauling, hands clapped along, feet stamped out a rhythm on the floorboards and not one person seemed to notice that Tom was Billy’s prisoner.
‘Help me!’ he yelled, looking desperately around. ‘Please, this man is a . . .’
Billy’s forehead came down hard against his own and the world seemed to shudder and shimmer as fireworks exploded in front of him, fireworks mingled with a succession of frantic images – the plague doctor flapping after him along an Edinburgh street, Jamie spooning snuff into his nose and grinning maniacally, Cat smiling at him as she squeezed his hand and then the coffins . . . the tiny wooden coffins, marching away ahead of him in silent single file. It was the last thing he saw before he fell down into darkness . . .
Nineteen
He came slowly, painfully back to consciousness and found he was sitting upright, propped against what felt like a wall. His head hammered with pain and he had to blink several times to bring his vision back into focus. He was in a small, cheerless room, empty aside from a double bed, a wardrobe and a rickety chest of drawers with a framed wooden mirror standing on it. He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. It took him a few moments to understand that his hands were tied behind his back and that they had been secured to something he couldn’t see.
Any hopes he might have nurtured that he’d somehow moved on to another place and time evaporated in an instant. He was pretty sure that this was Billy and Nell’s bedroom in the new lodgings, the place they had taken Mary Docherty to. He looked frantically around. If that was the case, where was she? He noticed something sticking out from beneath the foot of the bed. A pair of stockinged feet. The woman was so drunk, she had somehow managed to wind up under the bed instead of in it . . .
‘Mary!’ he said, urgently. ‘Mary Docherty, wake up. You’ve got to untie me!’ There was no reaction so he stretched his legs out as far as he could and jabbed one of her feet with the toe of his shoe. ‘Mary, the men that run this place, they’re . . .’ His voice trailed away as he realised with a dull stab of shock that Mary wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. Her body was too still for someone who might be alive.
Fear jolted through his veins like adrenalin. He started pulling frantically against the ropes that tied him, desperate to escape, but they wouldn’t yield an inch. He was trapped, and at any moment Billy Burke and Will Hare might be back to finish him off.
He froze as he heard the sharp metallic click of a key turning in the latch. The door opened and somebody stepped inside. He let out a sigh of relief when he realised it was Nell. He’d never been so glad to see anyone in his entire life.
‘Nell!’ he gasped. ‘You’ve got to help me, I . . .’
‘Shut up!’ she hissed, sounding quite unlike herself, her voice as hard and as cold as a fall of January snow. She reached into her dress and pulled out a knife. Her face grim, she came slowly towards him.
‘Nell, please, no,’ he said. ‘You can’t . . .’
‘Quiet, I said!’ Now she was kneeling beside him. She reached around to saw through the rope that bound him. He gave a gasp of relief as his hands came free and looking back, he saw that they’d been tied to a stout metal stanchion set deep into the wall.
‘Nell,’ he said. ‘Billy and Will, they’re murderers.’
‘I know,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve known for the best part of a year.’
‘You . . . you knew about it?’ He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Then why . . .?’
‘There’s no time to discuss it. You need to get out of here,’ she advised him. ‘Before they come back.’
‘But Nell!’ Tom was trying to understand. ‘Jamie. They killed Jamie. How could you let them?’
‘So, the mother hen’s come to look after the chick,’ said a familiar voice and Tom looked up in dismay, to see that Billy and Will had entered the room. Billy was carrying a heavy blanket and Tom remembered the time he had woken in the stable to find Billy pushing a blanket into his face. ‘Sure, Nell, I had a feeling you might do something stupid.’
‘Billy,’ said Nell. ‘You can’t do this. Please!’ She got to her feet and approached him. ‘He’s just a wee boy. He can’t do us any harm.’
Billy was smiling as warmly as ever. ‘Ah, if only that were so. But he knows too much, Nell. And sure, he won’t be the first youngster we’ve had to deal with.’
Will was closing the door now, turning the key in the lock to ensure they wouldn’t be overheard.
Nell was shaking her head. ‘I’ve helped you this far,’ she said. ‘And God knows, I haven’t ridden easy over some of the things we’ve done. But I won’t be a party to this.’
‘Then get out,’ said Billy, coldly. ‘And leave it to us.’ He came closer, the blanket held ready.
‘You’re not touching him,’ said Nell. ‘I won’t allow it.’
‘Will you not?’ Billy looked genuinely regretful. ‘In that case, my love, you leave me no alternative. Let’s forget the whole thing.’ He made as if to turn away, but at the last moment he swung back round and hit her hard with the flat of his hand, knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing against the metal foot of the bed. She groaned, rolled away and lay still.
‘You coward!’ snarled Tom, and he scrambled to his feet. ‘Hitting a woman.’
Billy shrugged. ‘I didn’t like doin’ it. But some things are necessary, Tom.’ He shook his head. ‘Ah, why did you have to go asking so many questions?’ he lamented with what sounded like genuine regret. ‘I really liked you, lad. Which makes what I have to do now all the harder.’
‘Get on with it,�
�� snapped Hare. ‘Finish the little snitch and let’s be done.’
Tom squared desperately up to Billy, his fists raised. ‘You come any closer and I’ll . . . smash your face in.’
‘Oh, planning to make a fight of it are we?’ said Billy, amused. ‘Let’s hope you don’t put up the kind of resistance that Jamie did. He was a tough ould nut to crack, so he was. He wouldn’t drink enough whisky, see.’
Tom remembered the bruises and cuts he’d seen on Billy’s face that day on Tanner’s Close. ‘You . . . you scumbag!’ he snarled. ‘You filthy, horrible . . . I’m glad he fought you. I wish he’d punched your teeth out. What did Jamie ever do to you? Huh? Tell me that.’
‘He found out things,’ said Billy. ‘And he started shooting off that big mouth of his. I warned him about blathering, time and time again, but he paid me no heed.’ Billy was holding out the blanket now, looking for an opening. ‘Tom, you understand this is nothing personal. It’s business.’
‘Finish him!’ snarled Hare. ‘We’re missing good drinking time here.’
‘Hold your horses,’ said Burke. ‘I’ll do this at my own pace. You go on down if it bothers you. You never were much use at this side of it, were you?’
‘I’ve done my share,’ said Will. ‘Now for pity’s sake, man, get to it.’
‘Wait!’ said Tom, panicking. ‘Listen to me, both of you. You don’t have to do this. You really don’t. See, I’m from the future. Any minute now, I’ll be going back there and . . . I’ll never be able to tell anyone what you did.’
‘What are you babbling about?’ sneered Billy. ‘Maybe the boy is drunk.’
‘I’m not drunk. I’m just trying to tell you−’
He broke off as Billy made a quick feint to his left. Tom reacted instinctively, but Billy went the other way and ran forward, the blanket raised to cover Tom’s face.
And that’s when the door of the room exploded inward, smashed by a prodigious force, enough to shatter the lock and send it flying into the room. Billy and Will swung around in shocked surprise as a cloaked, masked figure strode into the room, iron-shod boots clumping on the bare floorboards.
‘Who in the name of Lucifer are you?’ gasped Billy.
‘Step away from the boy,’ growled McSweeny, his voice muffled beneath the mask. ‘He’s mine.’
‘I think you’ll find he’s ours,’ argued Billy, completely misunderstanding. ‘You’re not taking him anywhere.’ He and Hare squared up to the masked figure and the three of them circled each other warily, looking for an opening. Suddenly, as if commanded, they closed on each other in a flailing, punching frenzy. Tom cowered beside the window, telling himself that whoever won the fight, he was doomed anyway.
In the midst of the frenzy there was movement at the doorway. ‘Excuse me, I think I left my stockings . . .’
The voice trailed off in amazement. Tom saw Mrs Gray standing there, open-mouthed in amazement. Her gaze swept around the room, taking in the three wrestling figures and Nell sprawled unconscious on the floor. Her eyes widened as she noticed the stockinged feet jutting out from the foot of the bed. She said something that Tom didn’t quite catch and then turned and ran along the corridor beyond, shrieking the word ‘Murder!’
The three fighting men were insensible to what had just happened and Tom had no time to wait around to see if Mrs Gray’s cries summoned any help. His three adversaries were in the middle of the room, blocking the doorway, and there was only one possible avenue of escape. Tom ran to the room’s only window and tried to open it, but the metal catch was rusted shut. He cursed, turned back to the sideboard and snatched up the heavy wooden mirror. He spun around and threw it with all his strength at the window. There was a sudden shattering of glass and a rush of chill air into the room. Tom used his elbow to knock out any remaining chunks of glass around the frame and looked out. Only now did he realise that he was up on the first floor, but he began to climb out anyway. He was halfway through the opening when a hand grabbed at his shoulder and he turned to see Billy, still grinning maniacally, as he attempted to pull Tom back into the room.
‘Leaving so soon?’ he sneered. Just then a gloved hand closed around Billy’s throat, pulling him back, and Tom was free again. He scrambled through the window, looking frantically around for a handhold, knowing that a fall from this height would almost certainly result in broken bones. He caught a glimpse of a cast iron drainpipe to his left and grabbing it with both hands, swung his body around and gripped it with his knees. He began to slide down the pipe and in the same instant a masked face appeared at the broken window above him and a muffled voice bellowed his name. Behind McSweeny a volley of shouts and curses told Tom that Billy and Will were still very much alive.
Galvanised, Tom let go of the drainpipe and dropped the remaining distance to the ground. He landed on his feet and crouched to absorb the impact, but as he straightened up he was horribly aware of McSweeny’s huge frame pushing through the window and leaping the full distance to the ground. Tom didn’t wait around to see him land. He turned and ran for his life, up the narrow alley and onto Tanner’s Close. He turned left and carried on running, looking desperately around for somebody who might help him, but the street was deserted and the sound of heavy, metal-shod boots behind him told him that McSweeny was closing on him fast. To his right he saw a set of wooden double doors and caught sight of a crudely-made sign with ‘Tannery’ scrawled on it. A length of chain dangled from the latch as though someone had forgotten to lock up for the night. Tom shouldered the door open and ran inside, not knowing what he might find within, only seeking somewhere to hide.
The stench in the place was overpowering, a hideous mingling of urine, dung and acidic chemicals. In the dim moonlight, filtering in through a skylight, he could see scores of what looked like animal hides, hanging on lines of rope, and the wall to his right was decorated with the heads of horned cattle, staring sullenly down at him with blank glass eyes. To his left, a rickety wooden staircase beckoned and he pounded up it, aware as he did so that McSweeny was already pushing his way through the doorway.
‘Still running, Tom?’ he yelled. ‘You can’t run forever.’
Tom reached a narrow wooden gantry that extended over a series of huge vats in which unknown chemicals bubbled and seethed. The concentrated stench made it difficult to breathe up there. Chest-high wooden handrails flanked the gantry to prevent accidents. Tom started walking forward in the uncertain light and saw to his horror that ahead of him the walkway was attached to a solid brick wall. He had reached a dead end. He stood there, looking desperately this way and that, all too aware of the sounds of footsteps thudding up the wooden stairs behind him and for a moment he was lost, frozen, shaking in submissive terror. Maybe, he thought, it was best to bow to the inevitable, allow McSweeny to finish him off and put an end to all this endless chasing around through space and time. All at once he noticed a wooden implement hanging from a hook on one side of the gantry; a stout wooden club, the length of a baseball bat, and fresh hope sprang up in him. He grabbed the club and turned back to face the staircase, the weapon clutched behind his back.
McSweeny crested the stairs and stepped onto the gantry. He reached up a gloved hand and lifted the leather mask from his face to reveal his sweating features. He grinned his mirthless grin as he advanced slowly along the walkway, throwing the mask aside.
‘So, Tom,’ he croaked. ‘Finally, there’s nowhere left to run. There’s just you and me, as it was always meant to be.’
Tom stayed very still, looking defiantly back at McSweeny. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, and he was surprised to find that his voice was clear and steady. ‘I’m sick of running. We need to finish this.’
McSweeny chuckled. ‘I’m glad you feel like that,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of chasing you too, if you want to know the truth. You’ve eluded me twice now, but you won’t be so lucky this time.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Tom.
McSweeny kept walking and as he did, he reached into the s
ecret place in his cloak. His gloved hand withdrew a steel blade. Tom felt terror stirring within him, like a snake coiling in its lair, but he refused to give in to it. His grip tightened on the handle of the club.
‘What have you got behind your back, Tom?’ murmured McSweeny. ‘Let me have a look.’
Tom flinched, realising he’d lost the element of surprise. Defiantly he brought the club around to where McSweeny could see it.
He laughed derisively. ‘What do you think you’re going to do with that wee toy?’ he mocked.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ asked Tom, and he grinned right back. ‘I’m going to smash your stupid head in.’ And with that he started walking forward.
McSweeny’s smile faltered. Suddenly, he didn’t seem quite so sure of himself. ‘You . . . you think you can beat me?’ he roared.
‘I know I can,’ said Tom. ‘Because you’re a stinking coward who preys on the weak. I’m Tom Afflick and I’m worth twenty of you.’
McSweeny had stopped in his tracks. He brandished the knife. ‘You insolent little puppy,’ he said. ‘I’ll cut you to pieces.’
‘Come on then,’ suggested Tom. ‘What are you waiting for?’
McSweeny’s eyes blazed with anger. He gave a yell and ran forward, the knife held ready to strike, but Tom stayed stock still, waiting, waiting for the right moment. As the blade swung down at him, he leaned back on his heels and the tip of the knife scythed past, inches from his face. He swung the club out to his right then brought it back in a deadly arc, putting all his strength behind the blow, aiming for the side of McSweeny’s head. At the last instant, McSweeny dodged aside and the club missed him completely. It swung downwards, the momentum unbalancing Tom, and thudded against ithe handrail where McSweeny had been standing, splintering the ancient wood with a loud crack.
McSweeny gave a triumphant yell and swung the knife back again. Tom ducked and the blade skimmed above his head, throwing McSweeny off kilter. He grasped at the wooden rail to steady himself. And that was when Tom leapt into the air and drove a foot hard into McSweeny’s chest, knocking him backwards against the rail. He rested there a moment, a look of indignation on his face, the breath punched out of him. Then there was a sharp, splintering noise as the shattered wood behind him began to surrender to his weight. McSweeny’s eyes widened as he realised what was about to happen. The knife dropped from his grasp and he made a desperate attempt to steady himself, waving his arms like a madman, but he had already lost his fight with gravity.
Seventeen Coffins Page 15
