by James McGee
The wealthy could inter their dead in deeper graves, in family mausoleums and private chapels or beneath heavy, immovable headstones, encasing the remains in substantial coffins, either lead-lined or made entirely of metal. The poor could not afford such luxuries. They did their best, mixing sticks and straw with the grave soil for example, in the vain hope that the resulting fibres would choke the stealers’ wooden shovels. Paupers’ graves were easy targets.
“Can I ask you a question, Officer Hawkwood?” The verger looked pensive. “When I enquired earlier why anyone would do such a terrible thing – murder a man, then cut out his tongue – you said it was obvious. I don’t understand.”
Hawkwood nodded. “Same reason they didn’t take this body away with the other one. It was left here for a purpose.”
“Purpose?”
Hawkwood returned the verger’s gaze.
“It’s meant as a warning.”
“You think that’s why they left the body? As a warning?”
James Read asked the question with his back to the room. He was gazing out of the window, looking down into Bow Street. It was early. The Public Office on the ground floor was not due to open for over an hour. Outside, however, the roads were already busy with morning traffic. The click-clack of hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels could be heard, along with the cries of street vendors as they made their way to and from Covent Garden, barely a stone’s throw away round the corner at the end of Russell Street.
The fire, still crackling in the grate, had raised the room’s temperature considerably since Hawkwood’s last visit. James Read did not like the cold so he was studying the oppressive late November sky with no small degree of despair. He suspected that the weather was about to take a turn for the worse. There was a sullen quality in the air that hinted of yet more precipitation, possibly sleet, and that probably meant the early arrival of winter snow. He sighed, shivered in resigned acceptance, and turned towards the fire’s warming embrace.
“That was my first thought,” Hawkwood said.
Knowing James Read’s propensity for an open fire, Hawkwood had wisely left his coat in the ante-room under the eye of Ezra Twigg. He was glad he had done so. He would be roasting otherwise.
“You base that on the manner of death and the removal of the dead man’s tongue, I presume?”
Hawkwood nodded. “The gravediggers and the verger got a good look. It’ll be all round the parish by midday. If it isn’t already.”
“I would have thought the crucifixion would have sufficed,” James Read said. “The tongue seems rather excessive. Not to mention the teeth. You have thoughts on the teeth?”
“Waste not, want not,” Hawkwood said dispassionately. “The body and the tongue were left as a warning. The teeth were taken for profit.”
A fine profit, too, if one had the stomach for it. Most body stealers had. It was a lucrative sideline. Many resurrection men removed the teeth from corpses before delivering their merchandise to the anatomists. A good set could fetch five guineas if you knew your market.
“As I said: excessive.”
“Not if you really want to put the fear of God into your rivals,” Hawkwood said.
The Chief Magistrate frowned. “Which would indicate a serious escalation in violence.”
“They’re making their mark,” Hawkwood said. “Staking their territory. The Borough Boys will be looking to their laurels.”
The Borough Boys had long been the capital’s most notorious team of resurrectionists. They plied their trade mostly around Bermondsey but supplemented their incomes by regular forays north of the river. Up until now they had ruled the roost, but a rivalry had begun to develop. There were rumours of a new gang based along the Ratcliffe Highway, whose members had a mind to deter all the other body stealers from entering their domain by whatever means necessary. Fear and intimidation were their watchwords. Unbeknownst to the majority of respectable citizens, deep in the city’s shadows and the gutters a vicious war was being waged.
“What about the deceased?” Read asked. “Do we know his identity?”
“There’s a possibility his name is Edward Doyle.”
The Chief Magistrate raised an eyebrow.
“Hicks, one of the gravediggers told me. He denied knowledge at first, but then had a change of heart after he’d taken a closer look at the face second time around, so he said.”
James Read kept his eyebrow raised.
“I wasn’t satisfied with his first answer. I pressed him on it.”
“I’ve always admired your powers of persuasion, Hawkwood,” Read said drily. “So, you think he was involved?”
Hawkwood shook his head. “In the murder? No, his shock was genuine. In planning the removal of the woman’s body? Maybe. Proving it might be difficult.”
“So your thought is that he tipped off Doyle there was a newly buried body. Doyle turned up to collect it and ran into a rival gang who stole the body, killed Doyle and left his body on display?”
“I’d say so,” Hawkwood agreed.
That James Read expressed no concern at the gravedigger’s alleged involvement came as no surprise to Hawkwood. It was common knowledge that most resurrection men plied their business with the connivance of those connected to the burial trade, be they undertakers or gravediggers. It wasn’t unheard of for those who dug the graves to be personally involved in exhumations. After all, they knew where the bodies were buried, literally. A common ruse was for gravediggers to let slip to interested parties that certain cadavers, by prior arrangement, were not in the coffins that had been recently buried but left instead on top of the casket, hidden under a thin layer of loose earth just below the surface, ready for retrieval.
“What else do we know about Doyle?” Read asked.
“Hicks thinks he may have been a porter, one of the Smithfield lot.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That was all he knew.”
Read sucked in his cheeks. “What does that leave us?”
“Not much,” Hawkwood admitted. “But it’s all I’ve got. If he does work out of Smithfield, the odds are he’ll have had a regular watering hole close by, maybe one of those drinking dens up on Cow Street. And if he was a resurrectionist on the side, it’s even more likely. From what I’ve heard, most of the bastards spend their takings on rotgut.”
The Chief Magistrate bit his lip. “I take it you intend paying the area a visit?”
“I thought I might,” Hawkwood said. “Ask around. See what I can dig up.” Hawkwood kept his face straight.
“Thank you, Hawkwood. Most amusing.” The Chief Magistrate returned to his desk and took his seat. “But, before you do, I’ve another pressing matter that requires immediate attention. I’m afraid to say this is turning out to be a most memorable morning. While you were investigating the incident in Cripplegate, I received word of another murder, a most curious occurrence, not to mention a most intriguing coincidence, given your recent encounter with death and divinity.”
Hawkwood wasn’t sure if this was another example of the Chief Magistrate’s mordant wit, or how he was expected to respond, if at all. He decided to wait and see.
“The conveyor of the information was in a severe state of agitation, understandably. As a result the details are somewhat incomplete. We do know the victim is a Colonel Titus Hyde.”
“Army?” Hawkwood frowned.
The Chief Magistrate nodded. “Indeed, which is why I felt it appropriate that an officer with your background should initiate the investigation. Bizarrely, we were also provided with the murderer’s identity, and his address. The perpetrator would appear to be a man of the cloth; a Reverend Tombs.”
“A parson?” Hawkwood couldn’t mask his surprise.
“I’ve dispatched constables to the parson’s house. It’s doubtful he’ll be there, of course. Most likely he’s gone to ground somewhere, but it’s the logical place to start looking for him. I’d like you to visit the scene of the crime.”
The expression on the Chief Magistrate’s face told Hawkwood there was more to come. “Which was where?”
The Chief Magistrate pursed his lips. “Ah, again, that is another perplexing factor. The killing took place last night, or rather in the early hours of this morning, in Moor Fields. The exact location …” the Chief Magistrate paused “… was Bethlem Hospital.”
And there it was. Hawkwood stared at the Chief Magistrate. Save for the ticking of the clock in the corner and the crackle of burning wood in the grate, the room had gone uncannily silent.
Because not many people called it that.
In the same way the Public Office was known, at least to the personnel who worked there, by a nickname, the Shop, so too was Bethlem Hospital; and not just by its staff, but by the entire city, if not the entire nation. Bethlem had been its founding name, but it had another: a single word synonymous with incarceration, misery and madness.
Bedlam.
2
Hawkwood stared stonily through the railings at the state of the building he was about to enter. Despite having dominated the area for centuries and become ingrained in the public consciousness, the place still held a morbid fascination, even if it was collapsing into ruin.
The original façade had been some five hundred feet in length, modelled, so it was said, on the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In its prime, the building must have been a magnificent sight.
Not any longer. The place had been falling apart for years, subsidence and rot having taken its toll. The east wing had already been demolished, following a damning surveyor’s report. Only half of the original building remained and that was little more than a shell. It was no longer a palace but a slum, as shoddy and as run down as the houses and second-hand furniture shops that occupied the narrow streets around it.
Hawkwood had never visited the hospital, though he’d lost count of the times he’d walked past the place, and he couldn’t recall a single occasion when he hadn’t experienced a dark sense of foreboding. Bethlem had that effect.
He glanced up. Above him, surmounting the posts either side of the entrance gates, were two reclining stone statues. Both were male, naked and badly eroded, victims of more than a century’s exposure to wind and rain and the capital’s filthy air. The wrists of the right-hand figure were linked by a thick chain and heavy manacles. The statue’s head was tilted, the carved mouth was open in a silent scream of despair, as if warning passers-by of the cruel reality concealed behind the gates.
He heard laughter, the happy sound at once at odds with the cheerless surroundings. He looked over his right shoulder. There’d been a time when Moor Fields had been counted among the capital’s greatest visitor attractions, its landscaped lawns and wide walkways framed by neat railings and tall, elegant elm trees inspiring tributes from artists and poets.
Most of that had long since disappeared. What had once been a smooth, green, manicured meadow was now a meagre desert of bare earth and weeds. What remained of the railings were bent and broken. The trees that lined the pathways looked listless and unkempt in the dull morning light. Parts of the encompassing lawn had suffered from chronic subsidence, creating, after stormy nights, rainwater-filled depressions. It was from the edge of one of these shallow ponds that the laughter had originated. Two small boys were playing with a toy galleon, re-enacting some naval engagement, totally immersed in their imaginary battle, oblivious to the incongruity of the moment.
Hawkwood turned away. Climbing the steps, he entered the courtyard and made his way across to the hospital’s main entrance. There were niches either side of the door. In each one there stood a painted wooden alms box. One was in the shape of a male youth. The other was a bare-breasted female figure. Above them was an inscription encouraging the visitor to make a contribution to the hospital funds. Ignoring the carved inducement, Hawkwood pulled on the bell, and waited.
A small hatchway was set in the door. The hatch cover slid back and a pair of hooded eyes appeared in the opening.
“Officer Hawkwood. Bow Street. Here to see Apothecary Locke.”
The face disappeared from view and the hatch slammed shut. There was the sound of a bolt being released and the door swung open.
Inside, the building was pungent with the smell of piss and shit and damp straw. Hawkwood had skirted Smithfield on his way to the hospital and the reek from the piles of horse, cattle and sheep dung left behind from the previous day’s market hung in the air, strong enough to make the eyes water. For a moment he thought he might have tracked something in on the sole of his boot and he lifted his foot to check. Nothing; the fetid odour must be part of the building’s fabric.
The door closed heavily behind him.
A cleaning operation was in full spate. Mops and pails were in liberal use in a bid to restore some semblance of order after the night’s storm. Judging by the amount of dark seepage still trickling down the walls and across the uneven floor, it looked like a losing battle. Despite the activity, the atmosphere appeared subdued. Most of the workers were toiling in silence. Present among the cleaning gang were several unsmiling men in blue coats. Hospital staff, Hawkwood supposed.
The porter who had let him in, a thin man with a long nose and lugubrious expression, stepped away from the door. “Apothecary’s in ’is office. I’ll have someone take you up.” The porter caught the eye of one of the blue-coated men and beckoned. “Mr Leech? Officer Hawkwood. He’s from Bow Street.”
The blue-coated attendant nodded. “Been expectin’ you. Follow me.”
Hawkwood fell in behind his guide as he climbed the stairway to the first-floor landing. Conditions here didn’t look to be any better than those at ground level.
The upstairs gallery ran the full length of the building, divided at intervals by floor-to-ceiling openwork grilles. The left-hand side of the gallery was occupied by cells, so the grey morning light could only enter by the windows along the opposite north wall. It barely supplemented the inadequate candle glow.
The smell was worse than down below and when he passed one of the open cell doors and saw what lay in the cramped room beyond, Hawkwood understood why.
There was a low wooden cot with a straw-filled mattress. Seated upon the mattress was a man, or at least what appeared to be a man. He was desperately thin. His face was as pale and as pointed as a shrew’s. A soiled woollen blanket covered the lower half of his body except for his feet, which protruded from beneath the filthy material like two pale white slugs. It was clear that beneath the covering the patient was naked from the waist down. He was wearing a grey shirt and yellow handkerchief around his neck but it was his headwear that caught Hawkwood’s attention: a red skullcap, beneath which was wrapped a loose, once-white bandage. Hawkwood found himself transfixed, not just by the man’s expression, which was one of abject misery, but by the iron harness fastened around his chest and upper arms and the iron ring around his throat. The ring was attached by a chain to a wooden pole that ran vertically from the corner of the cot to a bracket in the ceiling. As the blanket slipped off one scabby leg Hawkwood saw that there was another strap around the man’s ankle, attached by a second chain secured to the edge of the cot. It was clear from the state of him that the man was sitting in his own waste.
The attendant spotted the revulsion on Hawkwood’s face and followed the Runner’s gaze. A sneer creased his lip. “What you lookin’ at, Norris?”
Hawkwood watched as a single tear trickled slowly down the shackled man’s emaciated cheek.
The attendant seemed not to notice but turned abruptly and continued along the gallery. Hawkwood tore his eyes away from the open door and followed his guide.
Most of the cells they passed were occupied, with the majority housing more than one patient. It was clear that Norris wasn’t the only one who was chained up. Even in the darkened interiors Hawkwood could see that a number of patients, both male and female, were similarly restrained. Several more blue-coated keepers were in attendance, some supervising patients or else engaged in cle
aning duties.
The attendant led Hawkwood along the wing, finally stopping outside a door with a brass plate upon which was etched Apothecary. Leech knocked on the door and awaited the summons from within. When it came, he opened the door, spoke briefly to the occupant then indicated for Hawkwood to enter.
It was an austere room, darkly furnished and, like the rest of the building, it carried an overwhelming air of dampness and decay. There were a great number of books. On the wall immediately behind the desk were tier upon tier of shelves, filled with rolled documents. Patients’ records, Hawkwood assumed.
Apothecary Robert Locke was not the authoritative figure Hawkwood had been expecting. He had envisioned someone middle-aged, with an academic air. Locke, on the other hand, looked to be in his mid thirties, stocky, with a studious countenance and a slight paunch. His youthful face, framed by a pair of small, round spectacles, looked pale and drawn. He turned from the window where he had been standing in thoughtful pose and greeted Hawkwood with a formal, yet hesitant nod.
“Your servant, Officer Hawkwood. Thank you for coming. I’ve asked Mr Leech to remain, by the way, as it was he who admitted the Reverend Tombs into the hospital last night.”
Hawkwood said nothing. He looked from the keeper to the apothecary. Both eyed him expectantly.
“Forgive me,” Hawkwood said. “I was wondering why I was instructed to ask for the apothecary. Why am I not seeing the physician in charge, Dr Monro?”
A look passed between the two men. Apothecary Locke pursed his lips. “I’m afraid Dr Monro is unavailable. His responsibilities cover a rather broad – how shall I put it? – canvas. He has other duties that also demand his attention.”
What might have been a smirk flickered across Attendant Leech’s face.
“And yet he’s in charge of the hospital, and therefore of the patients’ welfare, is he not?”
