Beloved Poison

by E. S. Thomson

  ‘And we’ve not reached the bottom of this one yet,’ said Will gloomily. ‘The ground is clay. It’s not sufficiently aerated to permit rapid decomposition, though now that everything is exposed to the air – not to mention the flies and the rain – what the clay had arrested is now taking place with horrible swiftness.’

  ‘But there must have been quite a number of empty coffins,’ I said. ‘The resurrectionists will have been unable to resist the allure of so many fresh corpses so close to the anatomy rooms. St Saviour’s was well known amongst the medical students for its ready supply of bodies.’

  ‘Pity they didn’t take a few more. It would have saved me from doing it. And not only that, but your medical students seem to have dumped back into the graveyard those body parts they had no use for. We found an entire collection of random legs and arms and skulls, all bearing the unmistakable imprint of knives.’ He shuddered. ‘Like the remains of a giant’s banquet.’

  ‘Fe, fi, fo, fum,’ I said.

  He did not laugh. ‘And skulls with holes punched in them.’

  ‘Trepanning,’ I said.

  ‘Over and over again in the same head?’

  ‘Practice makes perfect,’ I replied. ‘Dr Magorian’s anatomy school is famous. His students are the best for a reason.’

  ‘Some of the men have left,’ said Will. ‘They refused to work amongst the dead.’

  ‘Three more of ’em ’ave gone now, sir,’ said the foreman. ‘Since we found this.’

  ‘Found what?’

  ‘Down ’ere.’

  We followed the foreman down the ladder to the foot of the pit. Boards had been laid across the bottom, so that those working in the depths were not wading through a soup of mud and corpses. As the pit deepened, so the boards were moved down. The mouldering coffins and their occupants were dug from the earth, loaded into tarpaulins, and hauled up to the surface by ropes. It was crude but effective, and progress had been brisk despite the number of men who had left.

  The pit itself stank. Even I, so used to the stench of the city and the infirmary, was obliged to put my handkerchief over my mouth. Above us, the excavated remains rose against the thunderous sky in a great slag heap. On either side of the pit, dressed in oilskins glistening with water, the workmen had gathered. Covered in clay from head to foot, their faces invisible within the dark cowls of their hoods, they looked down at us like some silent brotherhood of muddy friars.

  At the bottom of the pit, an oilskin lay on the ground beside a cache of spades, ropes and tarpaulin slings. The foreman pulled it aside.

  Joe’s face was white against the dark earth.

  ‘Who found him?’ I said.

  ‘Me,’ said the foreman.

  ‘Here? Has he been moved? Was he lying like this?’

  The foreman nodded. ‘No one saw him at first. We were pegging out the next section, loading the carts . . . other things. No one likes coming down here. But then I came for a tarp, and I saw him.’

  ‘Was he covered, like this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Was it concealment, or respect that had prompted the use of the tarpaulin as a shroud? But Joe was an urchin, a thief and a child of the slums; what respect would a murderer have for one such as that?

  The area about the body was a mass of footprints and churned mud. It looked as though every workman on the site had filed past to take a look and no distinguishing marks were visible. I bent down. Joe’s face was turned towards the sky, the rain falling upon it like tears. How young he looked. He had told me he was twelve years old, or so he reckoned, but he looked to me to be no more than ten.

  ‘P’raps he fell,’ said the foreman.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. It seemed unlikely. The boy’s limbs were positioned neatly at his sides, and the tarpaulin had been drawn over him. Had the murderer climbed down into the pit with Joe’s body over his shoulder? A man might perform such an undertaking. A woman might have to throw him down, and then climb down after him to arrange and conceal the corpse. I would have to examine him to be sure. Joe Silks might be small, but I’d bet anything he’d put up a fight. And he was fast too, and wary as a fox. The peelers had been after him more than once, and Joe could give all but the most determined of assailants the slip. How was it that he had been caught in the first place? Unless he had known or trusted his attacker.

  There was little to be gained from leaving Joe where he was. I bent down and wrapped him in the oilskin that had formed his shroud. His body was limp, the flesh of his cheek cold as marble against my fingers, the muscles only just growing rigid. Had Will and I led the murderer to him, that day in Prior’s Rents? I could not escape a terrible sense of culpability. And yet, weeping over him would not help us find his killer. I could not afford the luxury of guilt and remorse; I had to be calm, to think rationally and clearly.

  ‘I would guess he’s been dead six, perhaps eight hours,’ I said. ‘But it could quite easily be longer.’

  ‘That would be between twelve o’clock and two o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Who on earth would be up in the graveyard at that time?’ I muttered. ‘What are the chances that anyone saw or heard anything?’

  Will said, ‘I can think of someone. Dick Wrigley. The sexton. The churchyard is his kingdom. Nothing happens here without him knowing about it. He watches the excavations every day. Poor old fellow can’t understand what’s going on – he’s about a hundred years old and must have been here since the place was surrounded by fields. He talks about the past and the present as though they were both the same thing. It’s a bit peculiar, but once one gets used to it it’s not so bad.’

  I knew Dick Wrigley, and I did not hold out much hope for a coherent discussion. I had not spoken to him for years. Occasionally, when I was weeding my mother’s grave he had skulked into view amongst the gravestones. I had nodded, and uttered a word – ‘morning’, ‘afternoon’, ‘evening’ as the occasion warranted. The sexton always replied with silence, a creeping sort of bow, and a knuckle to the forehead. I could not remember ever having held a proper conversation with him. Would the man be able to help us? I was doubtful, but Will seemed positive.

  ‘Dick’s fascinated by the whole excavation,’ Will went on. ‘I went to see him before we started. I thought he might be upset at the desecration, but he seemed oddly excited. He appeared with his own shovel, in fact, though I can’t think when he last had the strength to use it. Asked to help. I said surely he was more used to seeing bodies going into the ground than watching men take them out again. He said I’d be surprised what he’d seen in that churchyard over the years.’

  ‘Let’s hope for the best,’ I said. ‘Though it’s quite likely the old fellow has lost whatever wits he once had.’

  ‘Give him a chance,’ said Will. ‘Besides, who else do we have?’

  The sexton lived in a tiny cottage that looked as though it had risen up from the putrid ground like some giant fungus. Built in a corner of the churchyard, its walls were green with moss, the windows covered by rotten boards, the thatched roof slick with a slimy layer of wet soot. A crooked chimney pointed heavenwards, oozing thick black smoke. I knocked. The door felt soft beneath my knuckles.

  ‘Dick!’ shouted Will. ‘Dick!’

  The door opened.

  Dick Wrigley had a face like a dried fig. He peered up at us from beneath a gigantic tricorn hat, his wrinkled throat wrapped in a grey ragged kerchief. He appeared to be shirtless, but wore an old blue military-looking coat, stiff with dirt and grease and evidently made for a much larger man. It was fastened up to the neck with bits of string and a motley collection of random buttons. His boots were hardly visible beneath the hem of his coat, though from what I could see of them they were held together with strips of cloth and tar.

  Will greeted the old man cordially. They shook hands, Dick’s face aglow with pleasure. I wondered when anyone but Will had touched his hand, or shown any interest in him at all, and I felt wretched. It would not have taken much to visit t
he old chap now and then, and yet I had never bothered to do so. I shook his hand too. The ancient bandages that bound his palms were damp and sticky. I tried not to shudder.

  As soon as the door to Dick’s hovel closed behind us, I wished we had stayed outside. The place was repulsive – filthy and low ceilinged, rank with mildew and smoke and the stench of burnt food. The table was fit only for firewood, and the chair (upon which Will sat as guest of honour) leaned drunkenly. The hearth was a blackened pit set into the wall of the cottage, the coals mean and brown and discharging a trickle of acrid smoke. I felt instantly unclean.

  ‘Been here for ever,’ Dick was saying in answer to something Will had asked. ‘Born here too.’ He jabbed a tortoiseshell fingernail at me. ‘I know you. You’re Jeremiah Flockhart’s lass.’

  ‘Lad,’ I said.

  ‘That what you tell ’em, is it?’

  I slid Will a glance, but he was looking in disgust at something slimy on the table top that he had leaned in, and he didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Were you out in the graveyard last night, Mr Wrigley?’ I said.

  ‘Who’s Mr Wrigley?’ cried Dick, suddenly looking fearful.

  ‘You are, sir,’ said Will. ‘Your name is in the parish register.’

  ‘But I’m Ol’ Dick.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Will smiling at my exasperation. ‘Well, Old Dick,’ I said. ‘Were you out in the graveyard last night?’

  ‘I’m always out there.’ He spoke as though my question was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

  ‘At night?’

  ‘Course at night!’

  ‘Did you see anyone last night?’

  He grinned, revealing empty gums. ‘I always sees ’em when they come,’ he said. ‘It’s them young doctors. They come to dig ’em up. The ones I just put in the ground.’

  ‘That was years ago, Dick,’ I said. ‘There are no resurrection men now. I’m talking about last night.’

  ‘Frighten ’em with me lantern, I do,’ said Dick. ‘And me dog.’

  ‘You don’t have a dog,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t I?’ Dick frowned. ‘But I always ’ave a dog.’

  I glanced at Will. ‘He’s never had a dog,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m eighty!’ cried Dick. ‘Ninety! One hunner! I’ve had plenty o’ dogs!’

  I sighed. ‘Thank you, Dick.’ This was useless; the old fellow was talking gibberish. I made as if to leave. But Dick was speaking again. His tiny eyes shifted from my face to Will’s, his right eye dead and misted with cataracts, his left blinking in the candlelight, as bright as an apple pip.

  ‘Used to watch ’em,’ he said. ‘Them what came from the ’ospital. Dug up anyone they could. Paid me not to see, but I always saw. Sometimes I took their money, sometimes I didn’t. Up to me, ain’t it? Took a stick to ’em once, chased ’em out the place. ’Ad my dog then.’ He chuckled, and shook his head. ‘In and out the ground they go. In and out and in again. No peace for ’em even here. Even now.’

  ‘In again?’ said Will.

  Dick nodded sagely. ‘Puttin’ ’em in. They did that too. That’s my job, ain’t it, and I can’t say as they did it right. But I left ’em to it. No one asks Ol’ Dick nuffink any more, so why should I tell ’em how to do the job like it should be done? Why should I tell ’em where they should be diggin’?’

  ‘I’m asking you,’ said Will. ‘You know this graveyard better than anyone, Dick. Did you see them last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dick.

  ‘Who?’ I cried.

  ‘Medicals,’ said Dick. ‘Always the same ones.’

  I sat forward. ‘Did you see who they were? Their faces? Can you describe them? How many did you see?’

  ‘Nah!’ said Dick, recoiling. He scowled at me. ‘Didn’t see nuffink!’

  ‘Come along, man,’ I cried. ‘You said you saw someone, so who did you see?’

  Will put a hand on my arm. He stood up, and coaxed Dick to sit on the chair, then crouched down at the old man’s side. ‘Now, Dick, just you tell us what you saw. You remember last night, don’t you? Out there in the dark. Who did you see? Could you tell who it was?’

  ‘Yessir,’ Dick nodded, peering down at Will fondly. ‘It’s one to watch and two to dig, when they’re takin’ ’em out. Take it in turns, that’s the way. But not when they put ’em in. When they put ’em in there’s two of ’em – man and boy. Should o’ taken my dog an’ chased ’em.’ He stroked his chin and looked perplexed. ‘Didn’t atcherly see ’em dig though. Not this time. Didn’t hear ’em dig neither. Usually do. Must be me deafness.’ He frowned. ‘Used to be dark when they came. Dark as pitch, and the lantern movin’ amongst the gravestones like will-o’-the-wisp. Even that’s changed now. They come in the moonlight now.’ He grinned. ‘One big-small. Nine guineas, when it’s the season for cuttin’ ’em up! But I’ll let you take ’em all if you give me a shillin’.’

  Will smiled, and pressed a coin into the old man’s hand. ‘You drive a hard bargain, sir,’ he said. ‘But I will take them all.’

  ‘Two of them,’ I said, as we walked back to the excavations. ‘He said he saw two of them. A man and a boy. A boy! D’you think one of Joe’s gang is a party to his murder?’

  ‘Unless he was referring to Joe himself. Perhaps he meant Joe and his attacker.’

  ‘Perhaps. And he said there was no digging. “Didn’t see ’em dig, didn’t hear ’em dig neither.” That’s because there was no digging, not last night.’

  ‘What did he mean by “One big-small”?’ said Will.

  ‘It’s resurrection men’s talk for a large child,’ I said. I had not heard the term for years. ‘Nine guineas was the top price some anatomy schools paid. And Dick was surprised to see them putting the body into the ground rather than taking it out. “That’s my job,” he said. Pity he didn’t see their faces,’ I added.

  We fell silent as we walked back towards the mound of bones. The rain drummed on the hoods of our oilskins and trickled down our faces. The men laboured in the pit, and around the bone pile, but they did so in silence, their faces turned to their grim work. From each hood a pipe projected, down-turned to keep the cinder alight, the clouds of smoke that billowed from between their teeth masking the stink of the earth. I had decided to take Joe to the dissecting room, and I gathered him up in my arms, still wrapped in his tarpaulin shroud. The men stopped in their work and parted to allow us through, their heads bowed.

  As I carried Joe’s body towards the gate, a curious feeling crept over me. It was an uncanny sensation, a contracting of the flesh, as though a raindrop had penetrated my oilskin and was oozing down my spine. I looked up, my gaze drawn to the windows of the infirmary – black, gaping rectangles in the great grey edifice of that ugly square-shouldered building. For a moment I could make out nothing but the rain pouring down from inky skies, rising up again in a miasma of dampness. It rendered the air opaque, as if we viewed the world through a curtain of dirty muslin. And then a breeze blew; the drizzle billowed and shifted. A face looked down at us, the ribbons of her bonnet blowing about her face like the heads of the hydra.

  We took Joe to the anatomy room. The morning was dark, even for the time of year, but the glass panes in the roof turned the place into a luminous theatre; the rounded bellies of glass vessels catching the light in glinting rows of watchful eyes. Dr Graves kept the place gleaming, and my face – red and white, like blood and bandages – was reflected back at me from the mirrored surfaces of bottles and knives. I laid Joe on the dissecting table.

  ‘You’re not going to cut him up, are you?’ said Will.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But we must examine him, to see what we can discover.’ I pushed Joe’s hair back from his face. He seemed to be watching me from beneath half-closed lids, wary, even in death. One big-small, I thought. Nine guineas. The lad would have been worth more dead than alive.

  The tarpaulin had kept much of the rain off, so he was dry, more or less. This, I knew, was to our advantage.
We removed his clothes, and went through the pockets. Apart from a ha’penny, they were empty. I examined him as gently as I could: his face, head and neck, his torso and limbs. I looked at his nails with the magnifying glass, and lingered over his palms, and the tips of his fingers.

  ‘Well?’ said Will. He was standing against the wall, his gaze fixed upon his boots, as if he was afraid to look up. I knew the place unsettled him; the jars of preserved tumours and organs made him uneasy. As for the hiss of a scalpel against flesh, the grating of the bone-saw, or the squelching of fingers amongst viscera, those things, I knew, he would not be able to countenance at all. But I had no need of such drastic measures: my senses would serve us well enough.

  ‘There is a gash to the back of Joe’s head,’ I said, my fingers probing gently. ‘The skull is crushed. I can feel that the wound is rounded at the edges, as if caused by something heavy and blunt.’

  ‘Dr Catchpole has a weighted stick,’ said Will. ‘And Dr Magorian.’

  ‘All gentlemen have them,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think this has been caused by a blow from a walking stick. I think it’s been made by Joe’s head striking the edge of one of the tools at the foot of the pit. There was blood on the shaft of an axe which lay beneath him, did you notice? The axe was wedged under a block and tackle, so it could not have been used as a weapon per se.’

  ‘So he was flung down into the pit, hit his head, and that’s what killed him?’

  ‘It would be easy to claim he fell, easy to say that his death was nothing more than misadventure.’

  ‘And yet he was covered by a tarpaulin. Concealed.’

  ‘Yes. Though it would be possible to argue that he pulled it as he fell. More telling are the bruises on his wrists. The imprint of fingers is clear.’

  ‘So he was held tightly, or dragged, by the wrist?’

  ‘I think so. Joe’s a slum child. His whole body is covered with bruises and weals, but I’m sure these marks are fresh. They’re red, not yellow or blue like the other bruises on him, so you may well be right. Still,’ I sighed. ‘It doesn’t prove anything. Not when there are so many other, older marks of violence upon him.’