Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls (5 page)

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 get 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?”