Resurrectionist

by James McGee

  “Who was the other signatory?”

  “James McGrigor.”

  There was a pause. For one awful moment Hawkwood thought Carslow was referring to the coroner’s irascible surgeon. Then he realized, from the Christian name and the subtle difference in pronunciation, that it was someone else entirely, and yet a person with whom he was familiar.

  “The Surgeon-General?”

  Carslow nodded. “He knew Titus. They’d met when they were out in the West Indies. He worked with him again after the evacuation of Corunna. And it was McGrigor who commandeered makeshift hospitals in Portsmouth for the returning troops. He supported a number of Titus’s ideas, such as better transport for the wounded and training for the surgeon’s mates. He knew when Titus was brought home the army had lost one of its most experienced surgeons. He was as saddened as I was.”

  “Did you ever visit Colonel Hyde in Bethlem?”

  “To my shame, I did not.”

  “Why was that?”

  “The pressure of my work here had much to do with it. Also – and this might sound selfish – I wanted to remember Titus as he used to be. Fortunately, I am not unknown to the hospital governors. So, although I was not able to see him, the governors were kind enough to keep me apprised of his progress.”

  “You didn’t call on your oldest friend?” Hawkwood said.

  The surgeon stiffened. It was the first time Carslow had looked annoyed. “Allow me to describe my day, Officer Hawkwood, then perhaps you will understand. I rise at five, sometimes at four. I conduct experiments in my dissection room until breakfast, after which I give free consultations until lunchtime. I then come here, where I attend rounds, present lectures and perform operations. Afterwards I visit my private patients, who sometimes require operations which I carry out in their homes. I return to my house for a brief supper, usually around seven, after which I’m out visiting more patients or lecturing. I’m rarely in my bed before midnight. Now, does that answer your question?”

  James Read would probably have called that a recalcitrant moment, Hawkwood thought to himself. But Carslow’s reaction had been interesting.

  The surgeon definitely looked more than a little uncomfortable. Hawkwood wondered whether Carslow had also stayed away from Bethlem because of the stigma that was attached to madhouse residents. The surgeon was a man with a reputation to maintain. It was possible that he wouldn’t want his association with a lunatic to become public knowledge, fearing that it would drive away his more prestigious patients.

  “When I arrived, you said you’d wondered whether someone might come. Why was that?”

  A flash of irritation showed in Carslow’s eyes. “When the governors informed me of Titus’s death and the violence involved, I thought it possible that my connection with him would prompt a visit from the authorities. I understand, however, that his murderer was chased down and that he took his own life? Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” How easily the lie came.

  “And that he was a priest? That cannot be true, surely?”

  “I understand the colonel had a child, a daughter?” Hawkwood said, sidestepping the question.

  The surgeon hesitated and frowned. “Yes, that is so.”

  “The child died?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “And his wife?”

  The surgeon’s eyes darkened. “He did not marry. There was a brief … liaison. It was a long time ago. I’m not in possession of the full details, though I know the lady was … well … there was another man … and Titus’s regiment was sent to the West Indies. He did not know she had been with child until some years later.”

  Carslow dropped his gaze and then stood up, smoothing his coat. “You must forgive me, Officer Hawkwood, but I’m beginning to find this quite distressing. You’ve awakened memories that I would rather have left dormant. If you have no objection, I would like to continue my rounds.” The surgeon took out his watch. “My students will be growing restless. If there’s nothing further …?”

  Hawkwood rose to his feet. “Not at this time. Though I may need to talk with you again.”

  The surgeon slipped the watch back into his pocket. “Tell me, Officer Hawkwood, if the murderer is dead, why are you here, raking over the ashes?”

  Hawkwood raised an eyebrow. “Now there’s an interesting choice of words.”

  “What?” The surgeon seemed taken aback by Hawkwood’s brusqueness. Then a faint blush rose in his face. “Ah, yes, dashed poor taste. A slip of the tongue. I meant nothing by it.”

  “And I just wanted to get my measure of the man, Mr Carslow. That’s all.”

  The surgeon held Hawkwood’s gaze for several seconds before giving a faint nod. “Then I trust I have been some help to you. I’ll summon one of my dressers to see you out. The hospital can be a maze to those who do not know their way around.”

  “Thank you. I’ll make my own way.”

  “As you wish.” The surgeon hesitated. “Titus Hyde was an exceptional surgeon, Officer Hawkwood. He was not afraid to try new procedures. One could say he was ahead of his time. From what I understand, he was highly thought of by his patients and the men under his command. There were many who hoped that his distraction might only be temporary and that he would be able to resume his duties. Sadly, that was not to be. He died a deeply troubled man, Officer Hawkwood, in terrible circumstances. Those of us who cared for him and who valued his friendship pray that the peace of mind he searched for in life will at least be visited upon him in death. He deserves that much.”

  “Don’t we all,” Hawkwood said.

  * * *

  Deep down, Sawney knew it could only be his imagination, but there was a feel to the house that made him distinctly uneasy. And that, Sawney had to admit, was strange, for he was not a man who was often discomforted. In his line of work, discomfort was a punishment he usually visited upon others.

  The place had a dark, brooding presence, as if it was lying in wait for someone. There were other anatomy schools that he did business with during twilight hours – the ones on Great Windmill Street and Webb Street to name but a couple – but even allowing for the grim aspect of his trade, none of them seemed to exude the same degree of menace as this particular location, especially with the shutters closed.

  Sawney didn’t consider himself a religious man, so he felt a little self-conscious reaching into his pocket for the silver cross. He turned it over in his hand. You couldn’t help but admire the beauty of it. Sawney recognized good craftsmanship when he saw it. He’d been intending to sell it on at the earliest opportunity, but somehow he hadn’t yet got round to it. Curious that. What was also strange, though Sawney wouldn’t have confessed to it in a month of Sundays, was that holding it between his fingers with the night all around him felt oddly comforting.

  Suddenly aware of what he was doing, Sawney swore softly and returned the cross to his waistcoat. I’ll be singing hymns in the bloody chapel next, he thought. Good thing Maggett and the Ragg boys hadn’t witnessed his moment of piety.

  Sawney rang the bell, waited for admittance, and winced.

  He’d been suffering minor toothache for a couple of days, ever since he’d bitten down hard on a mutton shank. He’d tried to ignore it, and in the general run of things had gotten used to the dull throb, but every now and then the nerve would send a reminder that relief was purely transitory.

  And it was bloody freezing; a sure sign that more snow was on the way. Not that he should be complaining. Winter was a good time for the schools and the stealers. The cold preserved bodies longer, keeping decay and putrefaction at bay. Huddled in the lee of the drawbridge, Sawney decided it was about time he got himself a decent bloody coat. Not that he intended shelling out good money for one. Stealing one would give him far more satisfaction.

  The rattle of a turning key sounded behind him and the front door swung open. It would be the first time Sawney had been admitted to the house. The other times, he’d only got as far as the underground stable.
/>
  As before, Dodd stood half concealed behind the door, his face in shadow, as if wary of being seen by passers-by. Sawney stepped inside.

  Dodd closed the door. “Your lieutenant has the night off?”

  He meant Maggett. Sawney nodded. “He ’ad other business.”

  Maggett was back in his slaughter yard, sharpening knives and hooks and doing whatever else he had to do to prepare for tomorrow morning’s meat market. It was probably just as well. Things had been a bit tense after their narrow escape from the law. When they’d got back to the Dog, words had been exchanged. Maggett had told Sawney they should have dumped the bodies at the first opportunity instead of lugging them halfway across the bloody city. All they’d ended up with were stiff backs and sore feet. Maggett had also skinned a knee slipping on a patch of snow at the corner of Long Lane. He’d limped off in a mood, leaving Sawney to reflect in solitude upon the night’s fiasco. They hadn’t even had the chance to remove the teeth, Sawney reflected glumly. They’d lost out on all counts.

  Dodd nodded. “Good. We can discuss our business in private.”

  Sawney followed Dodd down the hallway, past two closed doors, into a small, square vestibule from where a flight of stairs climbed steeply towards the upper floors.

  Taking a furtive look around, Sawney could see that there was a fine layer of dust on every flat surface. It looked as though the house hadn’t been lived in for a while, which seemed odd. He wondered how many students attended Dodd’s anatomy classes. Maybe the doctor hadn’t started taking in pupils yet, which would explain why the rooms looked unused. But then why would he have wanted Sawney to retrieve bodies, if not for lessons? Dodd was probably still in the process of assembling the specimens he would be using in his lectures, Sawney decided. He sensed eyes upon him. When he looked up, Dodd was studying him intently.

  “This way,” Dodd said. The doctor led Sawney behind the stairs into a cramped room containing a table and chairs.

  There wasn’t so much dust here, Sawney noticed. There were several newspapers on the table, along with a plate that held the remnants of a meal along with a half-full bottle of Madeira and an empty glass. Sawney’s gaze moved over the news-sheets, taking in some of the headlines. A newly formed regiment was heading for Spain, a church had burnt down near the river, and the Prince Regent was to attend a pageant at Drury Lane. Dodd stepped forward and turned the pages over.

  Sawney eyed the bottle. He was still feeling the cold. A snifter would help to warm him up. But he suspected Dodd was not about to offer him a glass.

  The doctor was wearing his apron again. It seemed to have gathered a few more stains since Sawney’s previous visit. The front was black and shiny. It looked as if it had been daubed with paint. A piece of cloth was tucked in the apron’s waistband. Dodd lifted it out and began to wipe his forearms and hands, working it in between his fingers.

  “You told me I was to come back,” Sawney said, “see if you wanted any more … things.” As he spoke, he bit down inadvertently on his injured tooth and let out a grunt.

  Dodd’s eyes narrowed. “Are you well, Sawney? You sound as though you’re in pain.”

  Sawney shook his head quickly. “It ain’t nothing. Just a bleedin’ tooth giving me gyp is all.”

  Dodd stepped forward, tucking the cloth behind his apron strings. “Let me see.”

  Sawney took an involuntary step back. The pain was bad enough as it was. He didn’t want some bloody quack doctor rooting around there as well. God only knew what manner of hurt would ensue. The only thing was, in his haste, he hadn’t realized one of the chairs was directly behind him. Before he knew what was happening, Sawney was sitting down and the doctor was bending over him holding the candle up to his face.

  Sawney made to get up but found that Dodd was standing too close to the chair, trapping his legs. The doctor put a hand on Sawney’s shoulder and pressed him down in his seat.

  “I told you,” Sawney said, trying to get up again, “it’s nothin’.” The doctor’s grip was surprisingly strong. Sawney tried to disguise a rising sense of panic.

  “Open your mouth,” Dodd said softly.

  The last thing on earth Sawney wanted to do at that moment was open his mouth, especially having been invited to do so in the dead of night by a man holding his upper arm in one hand, a candle in the other, and wearing a blood-smeared apron. At least, Sawney assumed it was blood. He wondered what else it could be and, more to the point, what Dodd might have been trying to remove from his hands with the cloth. The doctor’s long fingers didn’t look any cleaner than they had before he’d wiped them. His fingernails looked as though they were encrusted with shit. And the meaty smell coming off the apron wasn’t anything to write home about, either. It looked like the type of thing Maggett might wear in his slaughter yard while quartering a carcass.

  Dodd moved the candle closer to Sawney’s face.

  Sawney shrank back.

  Dodd’s face was eight inches away from his own. “If you don’t let me look, I won’t be able to help you. I can help you, Sawney.”

  Sawney realized that Dodd’s hand was stroking his shoulder. The movement was gentle, almost a caress.

  “Tell me where the pain is,” Dodd said.

  Instinctively, Sawney moved his tongue to the injured tooth.

  Dodd nodded. “On the left? Place your head back.”

  Sawney blinked. Then he realized that Dodd had traced the location by the slight bulge of his tongue against the side of his jaw.

  “Open,” Dodd said. It came out more like an order than a request.

  Sawney hesitated.

  “I can take away your pain, Sawney. You’d like me to do that, wouldn’t you?”

  Sawney stared at him, his jaw pulsing. He nodded wordlessly.

  “Well, then,” Dodd said.

  Against his better judgement, Sawney eased his mouth open. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Dodd leaned forward and peered into the open maw. There was a pause. Sawney, fists clenched in anticipation of further twinges, held his breath and wondered what was taking so long. He had rarely felt so vulnerable.

  Then Dodd said calmly, “You’ve lost part of a molar. The tooth will need to be extracted.”

  Sawney felt the sweat spurt from the underside of his arms and down the crease of his back. He clamped his teeth shut, jarring the nerve in the process.

  “But not at this moment,” Dodd said, straightening. “However, I will give you a salve for the pain.”

  Turning away from the look of relief that flooded across Sawney’s face, Dodd moved to a wooden chest on the floor behind him. On it rested a black bag. Dodd rummaged in the bag and brought out a small glass phial. From another pocket inside the bag he took a thin glass pipette. He brought them to the table. Removing the phial’s stopper, he dipped the pipette into the phial and placed his finger over the opposite end to create a vacuum. His movements were unhurried. Removing his finger, he drew a small amount of the phial’s contents into the slender pipe. Resealing the end of the pipette with his fingertip, he instructed Sawney to open his mouth once more.

  Apprehensively, Sawney did as he was told.

  Dodd inserted the end of the pipette inside Sawney’s mouth and released the contents on to the broken tooth and the exposed nerve.

  The effect was almost instantaneous. Sawney couldn’t help but let out a low moan of relief as the pain melted away. Tentatively, he lifted a hand to his jaw.

  “Oil of cloves,” Dodd said. “Some say it’s as valuable as gold.” He smiled thinly. “Tell me, Private Sawney, did you ever consider, while you were removing the teeth from the bodies of your fallen comrades, that you might one day require some of them for yourself?”

  Sawney froze.

  Dodd placed the stopper back in the phial and put it back in the bag along with the pipette. “Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sawney stared at Dodd. His tooth no longer ached, but now the back of his throat felt strange, as if he’d just swal
lowed several large cobwebs. Deep in his stomach, the spiders responsible for spinning the webs began to stir.

  “You look surprised,” Dodd said. “What? Did you think I knew nothing about you, about your service in Spain, as a driver with the Royal Wagon Train? Very convenient for your extracurricular activities.”

  Sawney regarded Dodd with awe.

  Dodd said nothing. He merely returned the stare.

  Suddenly, Sawney’s eyes widened. “Jesus!” he said.

  “Ah,” Dodd said. “I wondered how long it might take you. Not that we ever met face to face, of course.”

  Sawney’s face continued to mirror his shock.

  “Normally, I’d suggest a libation to steady your nerves,” Dodd said. “But that might not be such a good idea. We wouldn’t want that tooth to flare up again.”

  “You were the surgeon Butler worked for in the hospitals.”

  “Well done, Sawney. Butler thought you would catch on eventually. That was one of the reasons he recommended you; because of our previous association, indirect though it was. If you cannot trust your former comrades-in-arms, who else is there? After all, that’s why you and Butler went into partnership together, was it not?”

  “You ain’t in uniform now,” Sawney said.

  “No. Those days are long past.”

  “Don’t recall Butler mentionin’ any surgeon called Dodd neither.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” Titus Hyde said.

  “It ain’t your name. Why’d you change it?”

  “Oh, reasons. The nature of our work, both yours and mine, dictates that we must conduct our business beyond the view of prying eyes. People are afraid of that which they do not understand. There are many who look upon our work as sorcery, branding us as heretics. They’d burn us at the stake if they could, even if they still cling to the old ways, the superstition and the spells. Butler vouched for your integrity, but I had to be certain for myself.”

  Sawney said nothing.

  “You can see that, can’t you?”

  There was a silence. “S’pose so,” Sawney admitted grudgingly.

  “I still require your assistance, Sawney.”