There were a lot of sordid possibilities and it never hurt to be a little superstitious.
Keeping his shovel and other tools on the side, the body snatcher carefully stepped upon the stone grave of the late Reverend. He looked around the dark cemetery to make sure that no one was around to witness his little custom, then hopped on the grave once. The sound of his leather boots striking stone melted hastily in the thick mist hanging in the graveyard. Bernard looked up again, no one had heard him. He hopped once more upon the dead man’s grave, then a third time and fourth.
His ritual was complete, he could now safely take what he had come for, without the fear of divine intervention.
Bernard took up his lantern and tools and scanned the dark cemetery for direction. The night was cloudy, and a thick haze hung upon the rows of ivy-clad tombstones, like smoky wreaths upon dead men. The Kolaso Cemetery was once reserved as the final resting place of rich men - merchants, and bankers who lived in mansions near the Old Harbor. When the New Harbor became operational in the south, half a century ago, the rich men shifted base, leaving the burial ground as a farewell gift to the poor. The cemetery now catered to impoverished clerks, dockworkers, and spice salesmen. People who could not afford to put a nameplate on their dead. They buried their relatives in unmarked graves which could not be differentiated from one another by all but the most trained of eyes. Bernard took pride in the fact that he was amongst the trained ones.
In the midst of the dark tombstones, Bernard soon identified a patch of freshly filled earth. The grave that he had been looking for. With quick excited steps, the body snatcher moved towards his latest grave.
And his last.
This was Bernard’s final excursion to the graveyard. A goodbye souvenir gig which the robber had taken up just because he wanted to retire from the profession with a successful final flourish. He no longer needed to disturb dead men in sleep and then trade their bodies to make a living. He could now afford to spend more nights with Isamelda.
Bernard was about to become a rich man. He had stumbled upon a treasure, one which would allow him to retire in peace.
Bernard regarded his future with a contented sigh. He imagined a beautiful wooden cabin nestling in the verdant hills of Darjeeling. He would buy a tea garden there, and employ a hundred beautiful ladies as leaf pickers, lascivious mountain women with wicker baskets at their backs and round reed hats upon their head, moving dexterously between tea hedges, plucking leaves and singing folk songs. Bernard imagined himself on a horse, waddling between them, his lips spread out in a grin and his hands occasionally caressing the ladies on the back or even lower. He had no idea what such an enterprise would cost, but there was no way it would cost anything more than what he could afford. The treasure in his possession was significant.
But he was getting too ahead of himself, the tea estate was a proposition for the future. For now, he had to dig this dead man up and sell the body. He wanted to do his last job properly and it was important to focus.
Bernard stopped beside the fresh grave, dismounted his professional paraphernalia – a rope, a jute sack, a shovel, and a small trowel, and cast a sly glance towards the gate of the cemetery. Old Johnny, the watchman, was nowhere to be seen. The stars had aligned favorably on his last night at work. Not that the old man would have caused too much trouble. Bernard had been to this graveyard many times before and 2 Cowries usually did the trick. 2 Cowries in the pocket of the old watchman’s worn-out shirt and he could be trusted to sleep through a cyclone. But Bernard preferred to not share his money.
That was one of the reasons he did not particularly miss Bhola.
Bhola was his 12-year-old accomplice who helped him on his grave snatching expeditions. The boy had come knocking on the door of the barbershop where he worked (to most people around Bernard was merely a barber) two years ago looking for a job. Bernard had work for him, but not in the shop. Since his previous companion, Big Felix, had drowned in the Kali River after a particularly intense night at an opium den in the Flea Market, he had been shorn of a supporting hand for his twilight occupation. Bernard had employed the boy as a help and paid him a small portion of each body sold.
But today, Bhola, much like watchman Johnny, was nowhere to be seen. Bernard had told him to be at the cemetery when the church clock tolled 11. But when there was no sign of him half an hour past the agreed time, Bernard had decided to venture out alone. It would be tough to fish out an adult body on his own, but he could manage it. And the prospect of not having to share money with the boy was always motivating.
Bernard put the lantern beside the grave and loosened his shirt buttons. He then took up a shovel in his hands and said a brief prayer.
The first strike was always the most important. Bernard tried to get as much earth in his first strike as possible. It eased his nerves and gave him the courage to go on (for all his rituals, Bernard still remained wary of his job, scared and edgy). He reminded himself that this was his last sojourn. The thought gave him some warmth and he took a deep breath, raised the shovel high, and brought it down upon the ground. When he pulled it up, he had a huge mound of dark brown soil upon its face. Bernard put the dirt aside, cast a look at the gate again, and prepared for the next blow.
Bernard knew the man whose body he was digging now. Not intimately, but he had seen him around. The dead man used to live in the same locality, a couple of streets away. He wasn’t sure, but he believed that he had shaved the man once or twice in his shop. Bernard had a hunch that Craig Manus would make a good cadaver. He was the right age and build for being a physician’s dissection subject and he had also died of a prevalent ailment.
He knew exactly who would pay the right money for him.
Bernard sold the stolen bodies to people of many professions. Wig makers looking for hair, exorcists trying to contact spirits and native quacks who made medicine out of children’s bones. But by far his most generous customers were physicians and doctors who cut the bodies to peek inside them and figure out where the heart ended, and the stomach began. Nasty business, but they paid him well.
Bernard chuckled at the thought. Craig Manus’s dissected body exhibited to the brainy boys at the university. He found it funny that thousands of the brightest men in Cardim would gain knowledge out of dead Craig. He doubted if living Craig had ever ventured near any college. Like his father and perhaps his father before that, Craig worked in a textile mill and his lungs gave way before he turned 30. In all likelihood, he had left an army of illiterate kids who would take his place at the mill. At least doctors could dissect him now and figure out what it took inside a body to make a man as great a failure in life as he was.
Bernard’s shovel hit something soft. One light stroke more and the white shroud of the dead body came into view. Craig Manus’s family was too poor to spend a coffin on him.
Bernard swept the tip of the shovel upon the body to remove a layer of dirt. He then threw the shovel aside and picked dirt from his fingers carefully avoiding Craig’s face. The gravedigger did not think he was prepared to look the dead man into the eye. Hurriedly he pinched dirt from all around the body to loosen it from the grasp of the earth. He then tied a rope onto the feet and clambered out of the hole. Bernard brushed dirt off his dress then cast another look towards the gate, Johnny was still absent. He wound the rope upon his hand preparing to heave the body up.
A sudden rap of leather shoes on concrete disturbed Bernard. He turned around with a start, ready to escape. Lately, Police had increased patrolling near the cemeteries. Grave robbing had been deemed a dangerous crime by the Minister of Order and many Longstaffs had been assigned to raid graveyards at night and arrest men like Bernard. Many of his competitors in the field had already been caught and put in gaols. From what he had heard, they were not having a good time there. Many were being starved and forced to work in hospitals, disposing of unclaimed dead bodies. Bernard had no intention of joining them and he was prepared to make a dash for it. He quickly dropped the
rope, picked up his shovel, the most expensive of his equipment, and stood ready to escape. But the sound had stopped. In the haze of the graveyard, loomed only the dark maleficent tombstones and no other being. He had misheard. Perhaps, the wind was playing a trick.
Bernard wiped his forehead of sweat and turned to finish his job.
But it wasn’t the wind which was playing tricks on him. It was fate.
Bernard’s last job in the graveyard was not to be completed. A tall gaunt man had made a sudden apparition in front of him, blocking the view of the open grave. Before Bernard could make a move, the figure produced a pick Axe from within his robes. The last that the grave robber remembered before air was forced out of his lungs was the pernicious glint of the steel.
***END OF PREVIEW***
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The Anatomist’s Secret - Maya Mystery Book 1
Dr. Betheham is not bothered by dead bodies. But that changes when the corpse on his dissection table turns out to be a man he knows.
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Dr. Jeremy Betheham, a celebrated anatomist, sees more dead men during his day than living. But even his experienced eyes squint in terror when the body of a man who supplied him with cadavers for research turns up at his door one night accompanied by an arcane note “Leave the dead in peace or else…”
Troubled by the mysterious note and too apprehensive to approach the police, Dr. Betheham enlists the help of a (quiet clearly crazy) detective Maya to investigate the case. The mystery deepens when the dead man turns out to be a grave robber wanted by the police. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. As Maya delves deeper into the mystery she uncovers a series of frightening secrets hidden in the dark underbelly of Cardim and buried under an years old tale of love, loss and desperation.
Will Maya be able to dig history away and unravel the mystery or will she fall in the pit of her own creation?
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An year ago I decided to give up writing. I had spent full six burning the midnight oil to write a book which I thought would make a dent in the world and pummel me to the heights of literary nobility, only to realize, quite painfully, that no one was interested in it.
Then something magical happened. A reader, a complete stranger, wrote a review saying that he really enjoyed my book and hoped to read more.
A single sentence, nothing more. I doubt it would have taken that blessed soul more than 20 seconds to write it. And yet, it resurrected my hopes of becoming an author. If you have reached this page and liked the book, it’s down largely to that single line of benevolence.
I hope I have made it clear how much a review can mean to an author. Given that, I would now like to request you to spend just a few moments to leave a review for this book.
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About The Author
Noah Alexander is a TOI Write India winner and a Juggernaut Selects author based out of Delhi. During the day he works as a consultant, helping firms realize their topline aspirations while his nights are spent buried in the same laptop trying to further his own literary ambitions.
To know more about him visit www.noahalexanderauthor.com
You can also write to him at [email protected]
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