The prosecution eventually cast the first two charges aside in order to pursue Docherty's murder alone. Moncreiff had told him this was likely. They had more evidence for Docherty, and would not risk losing the whole case over weaknesses in their arguments regarding the other two. Moncreiff was, Bill understood from the papers he had read, a man of some renown in legal circles, drawn to take the case as an excuse to highlight procedural weaknesses in the judicial system. Moncreiff had been clear with him at the start that they had no hope of Bill being found not guilty, but he hoped to show enough weakness in the evidence leading to indictment that the case could be found 'not proven.' Bill did not share the man's optimism. If the size of the crowd outside were any indication, the city wanted him to hang.
Bill shuddered, and glanced around the room. He was not alone in feeling the cold. People had wrapped all manner of drapery about their heads, from gowns to handkerchiefs, making themselves a grim and grisly gathering of monks. He took Nelly's hand, meaning to make a joke of it, but she didn't acknowledge him at all. Ann Gray's testimony, a clear account that pleased the prosecution and made Moncreiff glower, must have been hard for her to hear.
Had she even heard it? All that mattered to him was that Nelly go free at the end of this, and Moncreiff had suggested that it was possible. She would get better, out there. She would be herself again. Two months in a cell had caused this strange catatonia. Jail was no place for a woman so good and kind as his Nel.
The room shuffled as a door opened at the back of the room, and the sway and jerk of tightly wrapped heads made Bill a little dizzy. He turned.
William Hare was taking the stand. He too was smartly dressed, though Bill knew that he and Maggie were also still in custody. While it may have been some weeks back that they agreed to turn King's Evidence in return for immunity, they were confined to cells until their testimonies were a matter of public record. As he murmured his oath on the stand, William had his head high and looked around him with a steady gaze. Clean-shaven and well turned out, he appeared to be a self-possessed young man, barely recognisable for the monster Bill knew him to be. Another shudder passed through him. Of all the many ways this could have turned out, that he and Nel were in the dock while the monster shambled free was not how he thought it would go. All that bluster during interrogation had been of value after all. At no point had he incriminated William. When Nelly walked free, William had no cause to hunt her down.
The prosecution opened by asking him to describe the events surrounding Docherty's day, and as spoke he delivered the well-rehearsed story directly to Bill. "We were out drinking, it being Halloween. Bill said he had an old wife at the house who'd make a pretty shot for the doctor and we went back. We quarrelled with the drink in us, and she ran out twice, but Nelly caught up with her and brought her back in both times."
"Is Bill also known as William Burke, and Nelly also by Helen M'Dougal?"
"Yes."
"Are they here in this room today?"
William smiled, and pointed at them. Bill smiled back, cold. "They fed her drink. All night. When she was done and on the bed, Bill got on the old woman with his breast on her head, and kept in her breath until she were dead." There was a rumble of muttering through the court, and William was asked to wait while a woman a few rows back was led from the room by two gentlemen who helped her fan her face. The rest of the testimony was as short and brutish. William had taken no part in the murder, he claimed, although he helped to subdue the revenant when it rose, and delivered it to Doctor Knox. The prosecutor, Sir Rae, stood back when William had finished, shaking his head sadly at the jury as though affected by the sorry tale. Inside, Bill thought he might be jumping with delight. The reaction to William's confession had been powerful. People believed.
Moncreiff leaned back to them. "This is it. Their whole case rests on the Hares, and they are very vulnerable indeed. Have heart." He rose and stepped forward, nodding to the jury and the six assembled justices in acknowledgement. "Mr Hare, my name is James Moncreiff, and I speak for the defence." He paused, as though considering, then straightened up. "Have you ever been connected in supplying the doctors with subjects upon other occasions that you have not spoken to?"
Rae reacted immediately, a little panic in his eyes as he strode towards the bench. The witnesses were asked to leave the room as Moncreiff also approached him. Everybody present strained to hear what was said. Only Moncreiff spoke loudly enough to be heard, playing to the crowd. "Has Hare ever been concerned in murder before these alleged events? I am ready to admit that he is not bound to answer, but I am entitled to ask the question. Let him reply or not as he pleases. It will be for the jury to judge the credit due him, after seeing how he treats it." More murmuring, and then, "He is immune from prosecution, not enquiry. I do not see that I am prevented from asking on the matter."
This time William looked more himself when he was led back to the stand. He was unsure. Furtive. Somebody on the prosecution team had warned him that he was in treacherous waters, and it was dawning on him that he could no longer rely on his rehearsed statements.
"Mr Hare, welcome back. I am going to put a very few questions to you, and it has been agreed that I warn you that you need not answer them unless you please."
Hare nodded, knowing there was a trap but unable to back away from it.
"How often have you seen your associates carrying subjects to the doctor's?" William said nothing, and Moncreiff gave a baffled look to the jury. "I see. Thank you. Was there murder committed in your house in October, perhaps of a large gentleman?" William glared, but kept his silence as a rapid succession of questions followed. "When Burke told you he had a shot for the doctors, did you understand that he meant to commit murder? If you did, then how did you draw such a conclusion? Was this a code you had used before? How often? Mr Hare, is it the case that you do not wish to assist us on these matters? Very well. I will leave the room to infer what they may and return to the matter of Madge Docherty, and the events that you have laid out so concisely for us. These are now matters to which the oath you have taken today apply, and you are therefore bound to answer. You received money from Doctor Knox for the revenant, correct?"
"It was Bill gave it to me."
"But he got it from Doctor Knox?"
"Yes."
"You were in the room at the time of the murder, and saw it with your own eyes?"
"Yes."
"And did you sit on a chair?"
"Yes."
"While William Burke was murdering Madge Docherty?"
"Yes."
"You sat in the chair for ... five minutes? Ten? And raised not one hand to help her?"
William gritted his teeth, and snarled his reply. "Yes."
"You did not cover your head?"
"No."
"You sat and watched it with your own eyes?"
"Yes."
"You did not call murder or the police?"
"No."
"You did not run when it arose as a revenant, but instead helped to pack the dangerous creature into a box?"
"Yes."
"You took it to Surgeon's Square, knowing it for a murder victim and a revenant?"
"Yes."
"And the next day you denied all knowledge of these matters?"
"I ... yes."
"Thank you, Mr Hare. Thank you very much indeed."
He returned to join Bill and Nel with a look of grim satisfaction about him. Despite knowing what odds there were against his future freedom, Bill nevertheless allowed himself a moment of hope.
#
Sir Rae's closing remarks had been blunt and to the point. William Burke was a murderer, and had then harboured a revenant before selling it to Doctor Knox to conceal his crime. Nelly had been his accomplice, going so far as to offer an absurd fee of ten pounds per week to keep the Grays quiet. He managed to imply without saying so that to make those payments, William Burke would have to kill and sell at least one person a week for the end of his days. He made as l
ittle reference to William Hare's testimony as possible, saying only that one did not have to warm to a witness to accept his testimony.
Moncreiff rose for the defence, remaining where he was at the table, forcing the jury to see them. He began with Nelly, and returned forcibly to the matter of her bribe. "I do not contest that the defendant has lied and gone to extreme lengths on behalf of her husband, but ask only what you might do in her position. I remind you of the words Ann Gray recalled for you, offered in desperation as she and her husband fled the building after being woken by that clawing dead thing. I cannot help it. In a moral sense, Helen M'Dougal was as completely under Burke's influence as any wife could be to any husband. Great allowance must therefore be made in judging her conduct, with deference given in the interest she might naturally and most properly have had in concealing her husband's crimes."
There was a gasp from the room, and Bill understood why. It sounded as though Moncreiff was preparing to throw him to the wolves in order that Nelly walk free. He braced himself, prepared to pay that price. He only wished the counsel had told him that it might come down to such a trade.
"Although my learned colleagues have not troubled themselves to illuminate the matter further, it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the truth that Mr Burke is a professional resurrectionist."
Bill turned in his seat to look up at Moncreiff, but found himself ignored. It had been suggested by the newspapers that this was his occupation, but there was no truth to it.
"His trade consists of supplying anatomical teachers with subjects, and when conducted properly is not only entirely lawful but absolutely necessary. The remains of mortality form the materials that science, by which the sufferings of that mortality are alleviated, may function. Yet it is a trade which is shocking in itself, and I need not tell you that it is an occupation sometimes conducted in violation of our laws and with a harsh disregard for our the most sacred and reverential feelings. Helen M'Dougal is the wife of a person who has a professional connection to those same dead bodies which have led to advances and training that further all our purposes. Yet she will as like have seen many things that are better imagined than told. A thousand circumstances may transpire in the life of such a woman, even where she is perfectly innocent, that might be fatal to the idea of innocence in an ordinary sense. That she offered a bribe to Mr and Mrs Gray is beyond doubt, yet the prosecution have not asked the most important of questions. What did M'Dougal think she was buying? It stands as proof of a guilty conscience, but does not make her an accessory to murder."
Bill looked across at the jurors. They were intent, rolling the explanation around in their minds.
"And did she lie to the police? Yes, of course, and here I must remind you that even the prosecution's own witnesses did so that day. They have no credible excuse for their actions, but M'Dougall? She behaved in exactly the way we might expect, given the guilty trade her husband was engaged in. It has been her misfortune to live in a situation where, even when there was no idea of anything like murder, she was habitually forced to make false statements to account for the possession of dead bodies or to avoid the suspicion of having them. Nothing the prosecution has presented would allow you in the broader view to accept that this woman knew about or assisted in a murder."
Bill's turn came soon enough, and he looked down at his hands clasped on the desk so that any surprise at his counsel's closing words would not be visible to the jurors. Much of the argument followed a similar line, asserting him to be a respectable purveyor of medical supplies brought before the court solely on the lies of a bitter sometime-partner and rival. The picture he painted of William Hare as a 'monster, whose testimony paints him as a man who will turn a blind eye to the direst crimes save when it is in his interest to speak,' was damning to the point that even Bill wondered whether he was at the right trial. Was it he or William in the dock? He didn't know anymore. "To say that Hare's story has been corroborated by his wife Margaret is a vanity. You each heard her testify. I never saw a face on which the lines of profligacy were more distinctly marked. She stood there with her babe in arms and spared it not one ray of maternal softness. Indeed, I cannot be alone in suspecting that she used the infant merely as an instrument for delaying or evading whatever question it was inconvenient for her to answer. One may corroborate a doubtful testimony. However, the very idea of confirming the lies of one miscreant through the lies of another is absurd."
When he eventually sat, Bill wanted to applaud, but he instead watched the back of his hands and listened as the jurors received their instructions and filed out.
#
The jury was in no hurry to reach a conclusion. Hours passed. Christmas came with a chiming of bells through the city, but nobody in the courtroom left. Bill leaned forward in the gloom and whispered in Nelly's ear. "Merry Christmas, love." She smiled, but not in a way that reassured him. Somebody brought them each a plate of soup and a hunk of bread. He wolfed his down, but she did not touch hers. He wanted to make her, to feed spoonfuls into her mouth and force her to swallow. In the end it was taken away cold, and his heart broke as he watched it being carried from the room.
The jury returned, grim-faced, in the small hours, and just a glance at them told him that they were both destined to hang. "Mr Moncreiff ..."
"Shhh. We're almost there."
With everybody seated, the lord justice clerk listed Nelly's offences. Aiding and abetting in a murder. Giving safe harbour to a revenant. When he turned to the jury, Bill reached across and took her hand. "Look at me, Nel. Be calm. Be calm and look at me." He had feared hysteria, but was met only with that same blank smile she had given all day.
"Not proven on both counts," came a voice.
Bill squeezed her hand in shock, so hard as to pierce her lassitude and cause her to wince. "Nelly, you are out of the scrape!" In the shocked hush of the courtroom his voice carried, but he no longer cared. He squeezed again, trying to push his love into her flesh. She looked confused, and did not acknowledge it when the lord justice clerk addressed her directly. "The jury has found the libel against you not proven. They have not pronounced you not guilty of the indictment. You know whether you have been in the commission of this atrocious crime. I leave it to your conscience to draw the proper conclusion. I hope and trust that you will betake yourself to a new line of life, diametrically opposite from that which you have led for a number of years." It was a harsh addendum to the verdict, making clear to all that the speaker considered the decision to be in error.
His own crimes were read out. Murder. Harbouring a revenant.
"On the latter count, not proven," Bill held his breath. "On the former, guilty as charged."
He released a great sigh, slumping back in his seat. It was done.
"For your part in a murder more atrocious in point of cool-headed deliberation and systematic arrangement, and where the motives are so comparatively base than any we, or any court of law, have ever seen, the sentence is execution with no hope of pardon due to the necessity of repressing further offences of this extraordinary and alarming description from among the community. You will be taken to the common place of execution, the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, and there be hanged by the neck upon a gibbet until you are dead. In light of the repellant nature of your motivations, your body will be delivered to Dr Alexander Monro, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, to be by him publicly dissected and anatomised."
Bill could scarcely hear him over the sudden roar of voices from the crowd. With the legal business done the members of the press screamed questions at the court, at him, at Nelly, at whoever was nearest who might pass some comment on the matter of the day. They were ferocious, a howling mob with an insatiable appetite for information, and as the room thundered around him he wondered if he might not have one more bit of business he could close.
Chapter 34
Robert Knox
Thursday, 15th January, 1829
Knox sat in the carriage, too scared to step outside,
and watched the snow fall over the ruins of his home. The ground floor windows had all been put in, and he dared not think on the damage the weather alone might have done his furniture and possessions. The staff had been moved out, and the only injuries were to the drunken rioters who had participated in the destruction. For the most part those injuries had been inflicted by the police. It was Davey Paterson's testimony at Burke's trial that had turned the mutterings against him into a murderous howl, and he found himself thankful for Fisher's insistence that he temporarily relocate himself and his family out of reach of Old Edinburgh Town. Knox had scoffed, but the man had read the ugly mood of the people well. Their last meeting had been at Surgeon's Square, where Fisher informed him that the murderers had not named him a willing instigator in their crimes, and that no action would be taken regarding the revenants being held at the school. "When word gets out of the things that have been done here though," he had added, "there are going to be them as want a reckoning against you. Don't be here when it occurs to them that the city's not going to do it."
As he pulled his cloak about his shoulders, Knox conceded that he lived in a ludicrous world. There was a stuffed mannequin in a top hat, with a patch where one eye might approximately sit on a real person, bound to the lamp post on the street. Somebody had daubed Burking For The Butcher across its chest in paint, and there were scorch marks along the arm where somebody had tried to light it in spite of the weather. The police had apparently taken several of these down, but each time they did another appeared overnight. The people who had done this had not known he would be staying outside of town. They had arrived with bricks and fire, in the full expectation that his wife and children would be there with him. He choked, raising a handkerchief to his dry lips.
His neighbours had also suffered, and their were boards across their ground floor windows where once there had been glass. He had received a bill for damages from one, delivered to the school in Surgeon's Square. He had torn it up, infuriated at the presumption. It was not he who drove the mobs. If they wanted somebody to pay for their windows they could ask the hooting scum who returned each night.
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