Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls (16 page)

Epilogue

William Hare died a slow and
horrible death inside the deeply buried coffin, clutching the Carpenter’s Cup
to his chest, his fingers still protectively wrapped around his golden treasure
in the dark. And like the body of the Templar Knight who’d lain buried in
Calton Cemetery in Edinburgh, his flesh would decay, though slowly, preserved
by the Grail’s magic. Years later, the dark power of the chalice would merge
with his corrupt soul and although his body was trapped within the grave, some
essence of his evil rage would escape the cold earth and linger in the dingy
streets of Whitechapel, searching for a new vessel to taint. The darkness would
enter the malleable flesh of a newborn babe, only a few streets from where Hare
was buried alive.

After the pain
and the midwife’s happy sobs, seeing her healthy boy was almost too much for
the young mother. She held him close, whispering his name, the name that best
suited him. After all, a baby boy needed a good strong name. “Jack.”

And Jack would
grow up to be quite famous in his own right…

Author’s Note

For those who don’t already
know, the core story of William Burke and William Hare is sadly all too true.
They really were two lazy Irish friends who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland in the
late 1820s. An old man’s death in the Log’s Lodging House set them on the path
to infamy, leading them to the vile acts of grave robbing, bodysnatching, and
ultimately becoming the first documented serial killers in British history.
When they were eventually captured, neither man could honestly remember the
number of people they’d killed, but the generally agreed upon body count was sixteen
or seventeen.

I’ve obviously
taken a great many liberties with my version of their story so I wanted to take
a moment to address some of them. First and foremost, the real murders and
grave robbing took place over a much longer period of time – at least a full
year and a half. I condensed that down to several short months so it would fit
in with the time it took for Ambrosious Black to carve his statue for the city
council. I couldn’t squeeze in all the murders and facts in that shortened
timeframe, but I also didn’t feel I needed to. I think you got the gist.

Another point some
might take issue with is that I’ve set things up having William Hare as the
smarter, savvier leader of the two killers. That could easily be argued,
especially since the Edinburgh Crown Attorney judged Burke to be the mastermind
behind the murders, which is why he allowed Hare to go free if he cooperated
and presented King’s evidence against his friend. My research indicated there
was a chance the Crown had been duped though, with Hare only pretending to be a
simpleton following Burke’s brutal commands. We’ll never know for sure, but the
story worked best for me having Hare as the leader, so I went with it. In the
end, both men were equally guilty, and in a perfect world both should have
faced the gallows together.

Along with
Burke and Hare, both of their wives were questioned in connection with the
crimes. I really only introduced Hare’s wife Maggie. I made her more of a
sympathetic character, totally innocent of her husband’s evil deeds, but in
reality there is a lot of evidence that ties the wives into the murders as
well. Perhaps not in the dirty deeds themselves, but there was a lot of money
coming into the two households and the women surely must have known far more
than they claimed at the eventual trial. Both wives were questioned but ultimately
released, and both lived out their lives in hiding, forced to flee the city and
move in with sympathetic relatives.

Dr. Robert
Knox, the man who was buying the cadavers for his dissection school, obviously
knew what was going on as well. He claimed total innocence, of course, and was
released a free man – but the evidence shows that the only reason he wasn’t
implicated in the murders was because of his affluent place in society and some
well-placed “donations” he may or may not have made to certain city officials
at the time. Regardless, just being associated with Burke and Hare destroyed
his reputation and he was forced to close his surgical school and move to
England to escape the shame and the wrath of the Scottish people.

William Burke
died as I mentioned in the story, swinging from the gallows on January 28, 1829,
paying the price for everyone involved. There is some conflicting data as to
whether he was officially convicted of three murders, or if after the judge
declared him guilty of killing Mary Docherty, the other charges against him
were deemed unimportant and dropped. He’d hang the same for one murder and they
could only kill him once, so why bother proceeding to the other charges? After
Burke had been declared dead, his body was immediately donated to the surgeons
for dissection and his skeleton was cleaned and hung in a glass case at the
University of Edinburgh. You can still go there today and see his bones for
yourself. There’s even a medical book on display there, bound in Burke’s skin.

Of William
Hare’s fate, no one really knows. When he was released from the Jail a full
week after Burke’s execution, he needed to be snuck out a side entrance to
avoid the angry crowds that were waiting to get their hands on him. History
tells us that somehow Hare made it out of the city and then disappeared into
the sands of time. No one knows if he lived a long happy life or if he was
perhaps captured by the mob and secretly killed. There are several stories of
him making his way back to Ireland, or even as far as London, England, where I
decided he should go. Although we will never really know, I like to think that
wherever he went he was haunted by a great Snowy Owl in his dreams. And if by
chance William Hare did somehow fool the lawyers and the judges during his
murder trial, perhaps my ending is some small measure of fictional karmic
payback.  Hey, you never know.

Anyway, thank
you for taking the time to read my story. It was a lot of fun for me to write
and I hope you enjoyed it. I urge any of you who might be interested to go
online and do a little research on good ol’ Burke and Hare. Their escalating
series of crimes is a fascinating story that is well worth reading.

Gord Rollo

February 9
^th
,
2013

Great White
North

GORD ROLLO was born in St. Andrews,
Scotland, but now lives in Fonthill, Ontario, Canada, with his wife and three
children. His short stories and novella-length works have appeared in many
professional publications throughout the genre and he is currently at the end
of a four-book novel contract with Dorchester Publishing in New York City. His
novels include:
The Jigsaw Man
,
Crimson
,
Strange Magic
, and
Valley Of
The Scarecrow
, all of which are being rereleased in brand new e-book and
trade paperback versions through Enemy One Press. Besides novels, Gord
edited the acclaimed evolutionary horror anthology,
Unnatural
Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares
. He also co-edited
Dreaming of Angels
, a horror/fantasy anthology
created to increase awareness of Down’s Syndrome. He recently completed his
newest book, a horror/dark fantasy novel entitled
The Translators
and
can be reached through his website at
www.gordrollo.com
or
www.enemyone.com
or through his agent Lauren Abramo at
[email protected]
.

East End

Girls

By

Rena Mason

JournalStone

San Francisco

Copyright
© 2013 by Rena Mason

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping
or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission
of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations,
and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.

JournalStone
books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

JournalStone                                                                                                                            

www.journalstone.com

www.journal-store.com

The
views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any
responsibility for them.

ISBN:
    978-1-936564-82-8            (sc)

ISBN:     978-1-940161-16-7            (hc
– limited edition)

ISBN:     978-1-936564-79-8            (ebook)

Library
of Congress Control Number: 2013935628

Printed
in the United States of America

JournalStone
rev. date:  June 7, 2013

Cover
Design:       Denis Daniel

Cover
Art:             Alan M. Clark

Edited
By:             Norman Rubenstein

Dedication

for Rob,
Gehret, and Parker

—the West End
Boys

Endorsements

“Historical fiction is difficult to
write, because the writer must carefully attend to period language, culture,
events, and avoid anachronisms—all this while telling a compelling story.
In
East End Girls
, author Rena Mason accomplishes all this with ease. In
addition, her story is woven into the time and events of the most intriguing of
serial killers—Jack the Ripper. Believe me:  This is an exciting read by a
young star on the rise. 
East End Girls
has my strongest
recommendation.”—
Gene O'Neill
,
Dance Of The Blue Lady And Other
Stories
(coming June of 2013, Bad Moon Books)

“East End Girls
takes the
story of Jack the Ripper and turns it upside down and inside out with the
precision of a surgeon. It is a marvelous read from beginning to end, with
delightfully bloody twists and turns that are as dark and dangerous as an East
End alley. With this book, Rena Mason proves she is a rising new voice in
horror.”—
JG Faherty
, author of
The Burning Time, Cemetery Club,
Carnival of Fear,
and the Bram Stoker Award® nominated
Ghosts of
Coronado Bay
.

“I hadn’t read any work by Rena Mason
before but I’ll certainly be following her now.
East End Girls
shows she’s a very
talented newcomer with a very inventive story about Jack the Ripper. I loved
everything about this book and was just sorry to see it end. It’s very
evocative and entertaining, and I can’t wait to see Mason’s next book.” –
John R. Little