Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls

by Gord Rollo, Rena Mason

  Not yet anyway.

  “So did our boss tell us what we’re supposed to be looking for?” Burke asked. “Or is it still some bloody big secret?”

  “He said we’d know when we see it…whatever that means? I’m of a mind to march right back in there and tell him to stuff his job up his holier-than-thou arse! I mean who does he think he is?”

  “Don’t know, mate, but his coins are all that matter. I don’t give a fiddler’s fart about him as long as he keeps paying us.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And speaking of pay…what happened to the seven pounds we got from Doctor what’s his face?”

  “We spent it already. Well, actually you spent it already.”

  “What? That’s impossible. How could I go through that much money in one bloody night?”

  “You couldn’t, but the five whores you were sniffin’ around sure could. Pissed away all our stash without even getting in their britches. Nice work!”

  Burke only had vague memories of the night before but enough snippets to know his friend was probably right. He’d been buying everyone in sight a pint and a dram for a while there. “Well, good thing we know how to make more, right?”

  “Right you are, Billy Boy. Right you are.”

  Chapter

  7

  True to their word, Burke and Hare knew how to make more money and although neither of their unfortunate women would agree, they were more than capable of doing hard manual labor if they wanted to. Over the next four weeks they really put their backs into their new job, digging up enough old graves to keep Mr. Black happy while he sculpted his statue, as well as keeping Dr. Knox well stocked in fresh cadavers for his anatomical dissection course. No, their biggest problem wasn’t working hard.

  It was having restraint.

  Ambrosious Black had warned William that digging too many fresh graves would attract unwanted attention but they hadn’t listened. The pound notes offered by the surgeon were far more tempting than the sculptor’s coins. But whereas no one really cared who rooted around in the ancient cemetery grounds, everyone in Edinburgh wanted to know the identity of the ghouls who were unearthing the recent dead. Within days, Burke and Hare had angered some of the local residents, furious their dearly departed had gone missing from their holes, and from there the cemetery authorities had taken a keen interest in their nocturnal visits as well. By the time mid-November rolled around, the powers that be had started to set up on-duty guards to prowl the property at night and had also gone to the police for help.

  In due time, many other enterprising men and women would eventually take to grave robbing to earn their unsavory livings, and it would become so much of a problem the cemeteries of this fine city (and many others) would have to have walls and fences built around them to protect the newly interred. Medical research and surgical training schools would eventually become thriving businesses in Scotland and England, and the underground purchasing of fresh cadavers would become such an issue history would soon remember this strange period as the “Resurrectionist” time. For now though, there was only Burke and Hare, two crude uneducated men slightly ahead of the other lawbreakers of their day.

  Fate, more so than the police, was catching up to them though.

  William and Billy were oblivious to all of these behind‐the‐scenes security happenings, of course, caught up in the joy and freedom their newfound wealth offered them. Never in their entire pitiful lives had they drank and whored and feasted and partied and lived everything to excess the way they were doing, and the sad part was that neither one of the men thought the gravy train would ever end. They were wrong, but the police and cemetery guards weren’t the only people they needed to worry about.

  There were far more dangerous individuals starting to pay attention to their dastardly deeds.

  Chapter

  8

  Stuart Tattersall felt like his heart might burst out of his frilly shirt with unabashed joy as he watched the stunning raven-haired beauty rehearse on his stage. The tall, skeletal-thin director at the newly reopened Ripley Theatre was, like everyone else who saw Magenta Da Vine perform, instantly in love with his leading lady. Simply put, Da Vine was Lady Macbeth – no other woman could possibly do justice to the role. Simultaneously graceful, sophisticated, and charming, delivering her lines in a powerful yet passionately feminine way that would have stirred Stuart’s masculine side if he’d had one. Instead he just stood offstage in awe and giggled like a schoolgirl as Magenta finished practicing an important scene from Act 3.

  “Nought's had, all's spent,

  where our desire is got without content;

  'Tis safer to be that which we destroy,

  than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, and then Stuart hollered, “Wonderful!”

  The small gathering of cast and crew broke into cheers and everyone rushed onstage to congratulate Magenta. They were all bit players and castoffs from other, more successful theatre groups in Britain and they all knew that Miss Da Vine was their best (and maybe only) chance at ever playing to a full house night after night. If all went as expected, it could be the start of something big for a lot of them so a little well deserved ass-kissing went a long way.

  Magenta happily accepted their adoration, never once showing her utter distain for the lot of them, or letting on that she had no plans whatsoever to help any of them with their pitiful careers and lives. It wasn’t her fault they were terrible actors and sadly inadequate human beings. They had themselves to blame for that. No, she was only here in Edinburgh to help one person and one person only – herself. The rest of these vermin could do the world a favor and go drown themselves in the North Sea as far as she was concerned. But she played her part in this little charade perfectly; smiling and joking with the other cast members friendly as could be, until she looked to the rear of the house and noticed Angus and Big Josh enter the theatre.

  Finally, she thought, pointing to the new arrivals and gesturing them toward her dressing room with her perfectly manicured nails.

  “Stuart, my dear,” Magenta said, taking a few steps toward the ghastly man who’d been chosen to mold this untalented riff-raff into shape before opening night. “Let’s take a little break, okay? I need to have a word with these good men. Won’t take but a moment…I promise.”

  “Anything you say, Magenta my love. Take your time.” To the other cast members, Stuart shouted in a much harsher tone of voice, “Take ten people. Use them to try and learn your bloody lines!”

  Magenta made her way offstage, still smiling and encouraging her co-workers until she reached the side curtain and left them all behind. She left the sweet smile and happy demeanor onstage as well, scowling through the backstage passage that led to her change room and her two associates who had better have some good news for her. She’d met Angus Brooks her first night here in the city and it had been him who’d introduced her to Big Josh McDaniel. Both were common variety thugs, ignorant and uneducated, a step or two out of the gutter. But Magenta knew she’d need a little muscle in the weeks to come and Angus had been the biggest bloke in the pub at the time. Turned out, his mate Josh was even bigger – but whereas Angus was broad shouldered and muscular, Josh was tall, baldheaded, and fat as a cow. Neither man was good for much to be honest, but they were eager to please and for the time being they’d have to do.

  Angus and Josh were waiting inside the dressing room, the nervous looks on their dirty faces telling Magenta everything she needed to know before they even opened their big mouths. The fools had failed again.

  “So what’s your excuse this time?” she asked, the venom in her voice making the much larger men cringe in her presence.

  Neither man would ever admit to being afraid of the sexy actress, but neither were they bold enough to look her in the eye. There was something intimidating about her, something powerful and savage that simmered below the surface, hidden deep within her flawless beauty that both men
somehow sensed and understood on a more primitive level. They kidded themselves into thinking they were only here for the money, but the truth was they were both mesmerized by the voluptuous Miss Da Vine and would have done her bidding for naught if she’d commanded it.

  “Sorry ma’am,” Angus said, “but it’s no’ for a lack of trying. We just don’t know what we’re looking for. We’ve been digging out the graves like you said but there’s nothing in the bloomin’ boxes but skin and bones.”

  “Aye,” Big Josh said. “And the bodies be stinking to high heavens too.”

  “Stinking? They shouldn’t have any smell left to them by now. What cemetery are you digging in?”

  “Highland Park, last night,” Angus said. It’s a big one over by the castle.”

  “Idiots!” Magenta screamed. “I told you to dig in the Calton Burial Grounds. It’s the oldest cemetery in Edinburgh.”

  “Well, Highland is pretty old too, I think, and it was a lot closer to where—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s arse how far away Calton is. Do what you’re told or I’ll find someone who will. Understand?”

  “Umm…perfectly ma’am,” Josh stammered, “but you see, that’s part of the problem. Someone else digging, I mean. There was a guard posted outside two of the places we walked by last night. Angus thought one might even ‘ave been a policeman.”

  “Policeman? At the cemeteries? Whatever are you on about? Why would they post guards at a graveyard?”

  “Have you no’ read the papers lately? Their calling them Resurrectionists. Sneaky buggers too.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “Let’s just say Angus and me are no’ the only blokes out creeping around where the dead sleep. That’s why we didn’t dig at Calton Cemetery yet…it’s awful close to the police station. A wee bit too close for comfort, if you know what I mean?”

  “Are you telling me that someone else is digging in the same cemeteries we are?”

  “Aye. And whoever they are, they’ve been at it longer than we ‘ave. Been starting to stir up a whole heap of trouble, they ‘ave.”

  Magenta was stunned by the news; shocked into silence for a moment as her mind raced to figure out exactly what this all meant, and more importantly, what she could do about it. Who are these people? What do they want? Could they possibly be looking for the same thing that I am? Impossible. Or is it? What if…

  “Oh shite,” she said, almost under her breath but loud enough that both her burly guests heard her.

  “There a problem, ma’am?” Angus asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out, though.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Change of plans, boys. Forget the digging for a few nights. I want you to go on a hunting trip for me instead.”

  “Hunting?” Big Josh asked, his flabby jowls flapping as he looked in confusion back and forth between Angus and their mysterious boss. “I don’t understand, my lady. Hunting what?”

  “Not what, you dolt. Who! These Resurrectionists, of course. I want you to find the people we’re in direct competition with. Find them and bring them here to me. Rough them up if you please but I want them relatively undamaged when they get here. Think you can do that without screwing it up?”

  “Yes ma’am. Won’t be a problem.”

  “Good. Get it done then, gentleman, or don’t bother coming back.”

  Chapter

  9

  The fire blazed in the hearth, covering the room in a comfortable blanket of heat. Ambrosious Black was taking a break from his stone work and enjoying the quiet of the lodging house’s common room for a moment. Burke and Hare were out doing his bidding in the graveyard (or they certainly had better be), Maggie was in the kitchen washing up the mess from supper, and Wee Donnie was in his usual spot over in the corner, lost in his chessboard and not bothering a soul. It was the first real moment of peace Black had enjoyed in days, what with his precious statue nearing completion and requiring his total concentration and effort lately. It felt wonderful to just clear his troubled mind and sit back and relax for a few minutes. Too wonderful, as it turned out; within a few minutes the exhausted sculptor was fast asleep.

  He didn’t wake up fifteen minutes later when Maggie came back into the room to stoke the fire, or even in thirty minutes when Wee Donnie finally put away his board and hobbled off to bed for the night. So profound was Black’s weariness tonight, that he even slept through the noisy arrival of Burke and Hare, making a pit stop home before heading back to the pubs. Billy and William were drunk already of course, and wouldn’t have thought twice about waking up the old man in a normal situation but just as they walked into the common room to warm themselves by the fire, Black spoke one word in his sleep. He said, “…gold.”

  It was only the first of many things the sculptor would say this night. You see, when Ambrosious Black fell into a deep, bone-weary sleep, he wasn’t a snorer like a lot of people. No, but he did talk in his sleep. By day he was rigidly in control of his every action and word, everything carefully calculated and thought out, but when he drifted off into the Land of Nod some guarded part of his subconscious mind sometimes broke free of its chains and found an outlet in his willing tongue.

  “…too many men have died for the gold…too much blood spilled,” he said to whoever he was speaking to in his dreams. In reality, he was speaking to Burke and Hare, who had suddenly taken a great interest in what the old man had to say. They sat down at the table and waited to hear more.

  And more they did.

  Much of what Black muttered was beyond their understanding, but certainly not all. Black spoke in fractured sentences, with William and Billy piecing things together, holding in their laughter as their intimidating boss told them bewildering stories of mythical beasts and magic swords, armored horses and skies darkened by flying arrows, and something about a man Black referred to as the Forever King dying on a bed of emerald green grass. Twice he clearly said the words, “Knights Templar” and shivered in his slumber, saying, “Death of the carpenter… Blood of the traitor.”

  A door slammed shut somewhere upstairs in the house, making both William and Billy jump. When they looked back at their mysterious storyteller, Black’s eyes were open, his haunted white eyes gazing at them in silent accusation.

  “What are you fools looking at?” Black said. “When did you get home? You’re supposed to be out earning your keep.”

  “We’re just on our way back to the graveyard,” Burke said, the lie easily slipping from his mouth. “We just stopped by for a cuppa to warm us up and we heard you in here talking. Figured you were speaking to—”

  “Talking about what?” All signs of exhaustion gone from the sculptor now; Black leaping to his feet and demanding an answer.

  “Nothin’,” Hare quickly jumped into the conversation, not trusting his dimwitted mate to keep his mouth shut. “We just heard you muttering gibberish. Something about horses and kings and such. Children’s stories. You were asleep but woke up before we could slip out and leave you in peace. Sorry we woke you.”

  Black wanted to say more but stopped himself short, realizing he’d probably said far too much already. He desperately wanted to know what he might have accidentally said in front of these oafs, but exhaustion had loosened his tongue too much already and anything he said now would only be making it worse.

  “I’ve got work to do…and so do you. Good night.”

  With that, Black stormed out and back to his room at the rear of the house.

  “What in blazes was a’ that about?” Burke asked.

  “I have no idea, mate, but I’m startin’ to have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Why? Because of a bad dream? You should hear some of the rubbish you say in your sleep. He’s just an old man who’s gone off his nut!”

  “Aye…maybe. That or he has demons in his head. There’s something no’ quite right about that man, Billy.”

  “Forget the bugger, William. Let’s go g
et us a pint or two.”

  “Fine, but after that I think we should go dig a bit more. If Black is a loony, I wanna be sure to keep on his good side. At least for now, hear?”

  From the back room, the steady din of Black pounding violently on his chisel again could be heard. In many ways, the loud ringing noise was preferable to the silence in the house. William made the sign of the cross on his chest and headed for the front door. Billy just smiled and fell into step behind him.

  “You worry too much, William. I mean…what could possibly go wrong?”

  Chapter

  10

  The Gown and Gavel was packed to bursting tonight, filled with drunken rowdy men and a wide assortment of lewd and lascivious women. Some of the ladies were young, some were old, some were thin, and some were fat; some girls were blondes, some were brunettes, a few were beautiful and most were ugly as sin but each and every last one of them had something in common – they were all perfectly willing to help Burke and Hare spend their secret stash of money. Despite William’s best intentions, Billy and he never made it out of the pub and over to the Calton burial grounds until they’d drank enough beer and whiskey to kill a horse.

  “Can’t we just go home?” Burke said, his head buried in a bush from where he’d just emptied his stomach. “It’s too late for shovelin’. And too cold. I hate this time of the bloody year.”

  “Quit your sniveling, Billy. I’m no’ asking you to help. Just stand guard while I dig up one real quick. He’s watching us…I know he is.”

  “Who? Black?”

  “No. His beast.” Hare’s eyes scanned the sky above but there was nothing in sight, not that he could see much in the foggy gloom. “He’s up there somewhere. I can feel his muckle big eyes on me back.”