Resurrectionist

by James McGee

  “O Lord, let my cry come unto thee!”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, suddenly broken by a lone male voice, slurred with drink. “It ain’t Sunday, Vicar! Bit early for the sermon, ain’t it?”

  “Shut it, Marley, you ignorant sod!” The sharp warning was accompanied by a muffled grunt of pain and the sound of a bottle shattering on the cobbles.

  Ignoring the altercation below, the figure at the window, face still raised, opened his arms in supplication.

  “I stand before you, Lord, a miserable sinner!”

  As the words rang out, a stick-thin figure, seated at the foot of a nearby gravestone, slowly raised its head.

  Hawkwood was suddenly conscious of movement to his right as a small body thrust itself to the front of the onlookers.

  “You murdering bastard!”

  Heads swivelled to stare at the accuser.

  “You killed my Annie!” The sexton, his face contorted with rage, jabbed an accusing finger towards the smoke-framed silhouette.

  Hearing the outburst, a murmur began to spread through the crowd. All eyes turned heavenwards once more.

  “Mother of God,” Rafferty said hoarsely.

  The onlookers, Hawkwood realized, were not close enough to see that the robed man was not the person they took him to be. All the crowd could make out with any certainty was the black attire. They saw only what they were meant to see. Colonel Hyde was continuing with his deception and distance was lending credibility to his ruse. His appearance had even fooled the sexton.

  The black-clad figure called out once more. It was the anguished, beseeching wail of a soul in torment.

  “I heard Satan call my name! In my foolishness I answered! And by the Devil’s tongue I was corrupted into darkness!”

  “That’s the spirit, Vicar!” The drunken heckler was back and in fuller voice. “You bloody tell ’em!”

  “Chris’sakes, Marley, will you bleedin’ shut your mouth, or so help me –”

  The strident voice rose once more to the heavens. “I beheld that pale horse, Lord, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell did follow with him!”

  “Horse?” Rafferty said, brow puckering. “What bleedin’ horse? What in the name of all that’s holy is the beggar on about?”

  There was a nervous cough from behind. “Er … I know,” Hopkins said. A blush had formed across the young constable’s earnest face. Whether it was from the heat coming off the burning building, or from embarrassment at suddenly being the focus of attention, it was difficult to tell. “It’s from the scriptures.”

  Hawkwood turned and stared at him.

  “Book of Revelation; chapter six, verse eight …” Hopkins hesitated, and then added, somewhat sheepishly, “My pa’s a vicar.”

  The young constable’s gaze suddenly shifted and his eyes widened. Hawkwood turned. Above him, the figure in the tower, hands clasped together in prayer, was sinking to his knees, head bowed. The voice boomed out once more.

  “But in the guiding light of thy glory, o Lord, I have seen the error of my ways and I do earnestly repent my sins!”

  “Uh, oh,” Rafferty murmured. “He’s off again.”

  Hawkwood stared up at the tower. Smoke was continuing to vent from the opening. It was as if the priestly figure was kneeling at the entrance to the pit of Hell. Bathed now in the glow of the flames, the black robe shimmered like velvet.

  Abruptly the figure lifted its head.

  “I hear you, Lord! Blessed are they who have seen the way of righteousness! I deliver my soul to your bosom in the knowledge that I may be cleansed of all my transgressions!”

  Above them, the dark silhouette rose unsteadily to its feet, bowed its head and slowly lowered its arms, palms outwards. Then, as if reciting a benediction, it spoke. The words rang out loud and clear.

  “All that are with me, salute thee! Greet them that love us in the faith! Grace be with you all …”

  Raising his right hand to shoulder height, the figure made the sign of the cross.

  “Amen.”

  Then, in a move that was as swift as it was shocking, the robed figure turned, spread its arms wide and pitched forward into the rising flames.

  Shrieks of horror erupted from the women in the crowd. There were loud gasps and exclamations of astonishment from the men.

  As the body disappeared from view, a single mournful clang echoed around the churchyard. Several people jumped. The body must have hit or become entangled with the bell rope on the way down, Hawkwood guessed. Either that or some unearthly force had used the bell as a means to summon the dead man’s soul into the afterlife.

  Beside him, Hawkwood heard a groan of dismay. He turned. The constable’s face was ashen. “Why?” Hopkins whispered, staring at the church tower, now wreathed in smoke. “Why did he do it?”

  “He was mad,” Hawkwood said bluntly.

  The constable removed his hat. His lips began to move in silent prayer. Hawkwood could see that others in the crowd were similarly engaged. A number of the more devout had fallen to their knees. Hawkwood didn’t think it was the time or place to tell them that their prayers for Reverend Tombs were both misplaced and many hours too late.

  Hawkwood’s eyes were locked on the tower and the empty window. The frames and shutters had caught alight and were burning fiercely. At the foot of the building, the fire fighters had been forced to admit defeat. Along with everyone else, they were standing in a state of disbelief, watching the church’s disintegration. Bathed in the glare, their faces glowed bright crimson. The heat was intense.

  “What?” Hawkwood said absently, vaguely aware that the constable had spoken.

  Hopkins blinked. “The Reverend’s last words. They were what my pa used to say.”

  “Is that so?” Hawkwood said, not particularly interested.

  Hopkins nodded, mistaking Hawkwood’s response for polite enquiry.

  “Know them off by heart. Drummed into me, they were. It was the blessing my dad used to give at the end of every Sunday service. St Paul’s Epist—”

  A crash from inside the burning tower drowned out the rest of the constable’s words, all except one. Upon hearing it, Hawkwood felt as if the rest of the world had suddenly stopped moving. He turned slowly. “What did you say?”

  Hopkins looked embarrassed, intimidated by Hawkwood’s tone. “I was saying that I knew the reverend’s last words too.”

  “I heard that part,” Hawkwood snapped. “What did you say after that?”

  The constable hesitated, awed by the look on Hawkwood’s face.

  “Um … that it was the last verse?”

  “No,” Hawkwood said softly. “You said a name.”

  The constable swallowed nervously. He realized his mouth had gone completely dry, as if his tongue had been dipped in ash.

  As a child, Constable George Hopkins, like many young boys of an enquiring mind, had been an avid collector of butterflies and beetles, impaling their tiny thoraxes with pins and preserving them for posterity in small glass cases for the amusement of family and friends. When he felt those blue-grey eyes upon him, the constable had the distinct impression that this was how the beetles must have felt. He took a deep breath, found his voice.

  “It’s from St Paul’s Epistle, the Book of …”

  The constable paused, intimidated by the look on Hawkwood’s face.

  “… Titus.”

  Over the constable’s shoulder the church of St Mary continued to burn as brightly as a wrecker’s torch.

  Apothecary Robert Locke stood at his window and stared out across the city’s rooftops. The clouds were the colour of gunmetal and it was difficult to see where the slates ended and the sky began.

  Locke’s mind took him back to the horror that had been the colonel’s cell. He closed his eyes. A vision of the Reverend Tombs’s corpse swam into view. He saw again the shabby undergarments, the pale limbs protruding from them, and the bloody atrocity that had once been the parson’s face. He shuddered.
It was a vision, he suspected, that would haunt his dreams for some time to come.

  His thoughts turned to his recent visitor. Not your usual law officer. Well dressed – Locke knew good tailoring when he saw it – though the long dark hair tied at the back with a ribbon had been an interesting affectation, and there had been an arrogance and perceptiveness that Locke had found vaguely unsettling. Indeed, there had been times when Locke had found it hard to meet the man’s penetrating gaze. Brains as well as brawn. But then he had been a fighting man, an officer in the Rifle Brigade, no less; one of the most respected regiments in the British Army. Locke congratulated himself on his intuition at picking up on that aspect of Hawkwood’s background and wondered what had turned such a man from soldier to police officer.

  Soldier. His thoughts drifted again.

  From the violence of the American, Norris, to James Tilly Matthews’s bizarre conspiracy theories, Locke had seen many forms of madness. Now he was witness to another.

  Colonel Titus Hyde: soldier, surgeon, priest killer.

  His eyes dropped to his desk and Matthews’s representation of his Air Loom. Gazing at the illustration, Locke’s thoughts returned to the anatomical drawings in the colonel’s quarters. That the colonel should have such items on display was not unusual, given his medical background. Similar charts and diagrams could be found in any physician’s consulting room or any one of the city’s dozen or so anatomy schools. For centuries drawings of this nature had been the standard reference for physicians and surgeons. What Locke had found unusual – although it wasn’t an observation that he had thought to share with Hawkwood – was the one salient feature all Hyde’s selection of illustrations had in common. It had both intrigued and disturbed the apothecary, though he didn’t quite know why.

  All the figures gracing the cell’s walls had been female.

  6

  In a corner of the smoke-filled taproom two customers were competing for the favours of a whore. Though she was well past her prime, overweight and heavily rouged, the duo engaged in the tussle for her ample charms were drunk on gin and, viewed through an alcoholic haze in the muted candle glow, her imperfections were less apparent than they might have been in the cold light of day.

  The woman leaned across the beer-stained table. A pair of enormous milk-white breasts strained provocatively against her low-cut bodice. Placing her mouth against the ear of one of her companions, the whore dropped her hand on to the leg of the other and began stroking his inner thigh.

  The drunk into whose ear she had been whispering lewd enticements grinned expectantly. Sliding a hand inside her gaping blouse, he began a vigorous kneading of her right breast. The whore pulled away, shrieked playfully and slapped the hand down, deflecting his crude advances with an admonishing finger, at the same time throwing his companion a knowing wink.

  Interpreting the wink as a gesture of encouragement, the second man lifted his mug to her lips, encouraging her to take a sip. She did so, tipping her head back. Draining the mug, she wiped her chin with the back of her hand and licked her lips with relish.

  The whore, whose name was Lizzie Tyler, had been playing the drunkards against each other for a good ten minutes. It was a game at which she had become an expert. She’d certainly had enough practice over the years.

  It was an unfortunate fact that accommodation, no matter how squalid, did not come free, and with the long winter nights drawing in, Lizzie had no intention of walking the cold, dark streets any longer than she had to.

  There had in the past been times when, finding herself a copper or two short of the rent, Lizzie had been obliged to pay in kind for the roof over her head. But her landlord, an odious individual by the name of Miggs, whose rat-infested dosshouse nestled on a corner of Field Lane, had chosen to interpret this arrangement as his personal conjugal right. And that was an option Lizzie had no wish to pursue. A lady had her dignity and a right to a man’s respect, after all, even if she was a whore.

  So, Lizzie had taken to plying her trade among the public houses and grog shops around Smithfield and Newgate, enduring humiliation, insults and beatings in a continuing struggle to keep the cold and Landlord Miggs at bay and her lice-ridden head above water.

  The advantage of catering for gin-guzzlers was that, more often than not, once they got you into the alley, rammed up against the wall, they were too far gone to do the business. If she was particularly inventive, a girl could wrap the tops of her thighs round a man’s cock and, by dint of a little panting and moaning, fool him into thinking that he had outperformed Casanova himself. And in that particular sphere of deception, Lizzie Tyler was as adept as a conjurer’s assistant. Whether the customer could rise to the occasion or not, money still had to change hands. But so far all Lizzie had managed out of this pair was a leery smirk and two swallows of rotgut. So, even as she submitted herself to their unco-ordinated fumbling, Lizzie was on the lookout for an alternative source of remuneration, just in case.

  One customer had caught her attention. She’d seen him enter the tavern a while earlier. Tall and dark-haired, he was wearing a long black coat over a shabby grey jacket and what looked like a pair of old military breeches. The yellow seam down each leg was faded and worn. His boots, she noticed, also looked old but appeared to be of good quality, which struck Lizzie as odd, given the run-down appearance of the rest of his attire. In her time as a moll, she had seen a variety of men and a bewildering array of footwear from, it had to be said, just about every conceivable angle; it was Lizzie’s avowed opinion that you could tell a lot about a man by the boots he wore. And this one intrigued her, seated alone in a booth on the opposite side of the room, his back to the wall, his face now cast in semi-shadow. She’d seen the way he carried himself and the scar below his eye, which, along with the remnants of uniform, suggested he was most likely a wounded veteran, down on his luck, who’d come to the pub looking for employment. Given that the Black Dog doubled as a house of call, it seemed the most obvious explanation.

  If you required the services of a professional, a lawyer or an actuary, you paid a visit to Lincoln’s Inn or Bartholomew Lane. If you had need of someone at the tradesman’s end of the job market – a tailor, shoemaker, or perhaps a weaver – you went to the Green Dragon. If you wanted someone more menial – a chimney sweep, rag picker or suchlike, there was the Three Boys. But if you were seeking someone for the really dirty jobs – a gravedigger or a shit shifter on one of the night-soil barges – then chances were you’d find him in the Dog.

  Lizzie eyed the tall man and wondered what sort of work he was after. Already two or three of the other girls had sidled up to his table, jiggled their titties and trailed a hand across his shoulders, in a less than subtle attempt to engage his interest. All of them had received the same response. A brief dialogue had ensued, followed by a shake of the head and an intimidating look that said, All right, you’ve tried me once, now don’t bother me again. And so they hadn’t.

  A sharp tweak of her right nipple jerked Lizzie out of her reverie. The drunk at her elbow was trying to cadge another free feel. Lizzie decided she’d had enough. The charade was over.

  “That’s it, darlin’,” she snapped, slapping the hand away. “You want Lizzie to take you to paradise, you gotta pay the fare.” She turned to the second man. “You, too, sweet’eart. What’s it to be? Lizzie ain’t got all bleedin’ night.”

  Both men blinked myopically. Lizzie sighed and looked across the room. The dark-haired man was still seated by himself, nursing a mug. Lizzie considered her options, which were not numerous. Well, she thought idly, it might be worth a try …

  Hawkwood sensed he was being watched. He raised the mug to his lips as if to take a sip and quartered the room. It was the plump moll in the corner. He watched as she slapped away the roving hands of her table companions and registered the speculation in her gaze as her eyes met his.

  Ignoring her come-on, he lowered the mug and looked around. Similar scenes were being enacted around the room. The m
olls were out in force. They had good reason to be. It was Saturday evening and it was payday.

  In a partially curtained-off alcove, beyond a low archway to the left of the counter, a small knot of poorly dressed men was lining up before a bald, unsmiling, bullet-headed man seated at the pay-table. In front of him sat a ledger and a sack of coin. Behind him stood two younger men, well built, in waistcoats, with the sleeves of their shirts rolled up to display an impressive expanse of well-toned muscle. Each was armed with a thick wooden cudgel.

  Hawkwood watched as one by one the waiting men stepped up to the table to sign or make their mark, in exchange for coin. Having collected their earnings, they made straight for the counter and the gin, their faces etched with a combination of resignation and despair. Hawkwood had seen the same haunted look in the eyes of French prisoners of war. It was the look of defeated men with uncertain futures.

  The bullet-headed paymaster was called Hanratty and it was his alehouse. The men guarding his back were his sons. Hanratty had been landlord of the Dog for longer than anyone could remember, and the Dog had been an employment agency for a good deal longer than that.

  Although the Dog catered for a variety of low-ranking occupations, its primary source of labour derived from its geography. The pub was less than a stone’s throw from Smithfield. It was inevitable, therefore, that it also catered for the meat market. Hanratty had been a butcher before he became a publican and he still had contacts in the trade, so if you had need of porters, butcher’s boys, tripe-dressers, and the like, the Dog was your first port of call.

  Acting as middleman between masters and workers, Hanratty ran his labour exchange with a rod of iron. It was an effective and – for the canny publican, at least – a very lucrative arrangement.

  For the men seeking employment, there was a price to pay. If you wanted work, you had to sign on. If there was no work to be had, Hanratty would give you credit to buy food and victuals – but only at the Dog. When he found you work, Hanratty would pay the wages on the employer’s behalf – first deducting any money he was owed. Too bad if the debt exceeded the wage, which it usually did. Whichever way a man turned, Hanratty had him by the balls. The pale, drawn faces coming away from the pay-table said it all.