Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls (6 page)

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.”

“The
bird? You serious. You’re scared of the Albatross?”

“It’s
an
owl
you stupid git. And you’re scared too. You nearly peed your pants
last time you saw it.”

Burke’s
stomach was still in knots and he was in no mood to argue. “Whatever, William.
Just hurry it up, okay. I want to go home to bed.”

“Aye,
me too. Just keep your eyes open and your gob shut. I can’t dig and keep watch
at the same time.”

“Sure,
sure. No problem. Get to it.”

Hare
put his back into his work and twenty minutes later he’d uncovered the rotted
wooden lid of an old coffin less than three feet below the surface of the
grass. A rush of excitement sobered him up even more than the hard labor had
done, and he pried open the lid hoping this would be the grave the old sculptor
was waiting for.

It
wasn’t.

It
was dark and hard to see clearly but by the meager light of the barely visible
moon and the soft glow of the gaslights on the nearby street, William could see
just enough to know there was nothing hidden within the hole he’d just dug
other than a broken skull and a few rags of tartan clothing clinging to the
rack of dry bones attached below it. Just another old grave; nothing unique or
special about it, and certainly nothing hidden among the bones that would
interest their white-eyed benefactor.

“Dammit
to Hell!” Hare swore under his breath. “Another bloody waste of time.” There
was no response from his longtime friend, and William turned to see where he’d
gone. “Billy?”

Burke
was fast asleep, his head buried in the bush he’d spilled his guts in, snoring
peacefully as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Hare laughed at his mate and
climbed out of the hole to go wake him up. “Good for nothin’ lump!”

William
walked over and was just about to wallop his friend with the business end of
his shovel but as he was about to strike, a bright light flared off to his
right and the sound of approaching footsteps made his heart race.

The
Police!
William thought, sure their grave-robbing days were over. He fell to his knees
and quickly slithered back into the hole in the ground he’d just climbed out
of, far happier to lie with the desiccated corpse than meet whoever it was that
wandered around in the cemetery. If he could have reached Billy and pulled him
into the hole as well, he would have, but he didn’t want to risk waking him and
having him start hollering the way he probably would. It was safer to just let
him sleep and hope the strangers would walk on by without knowing they were
there.

The
footsteps came closer and all William could do was lie down in the old coffin
and pray they wouldn’t spot Billy and come investigate. Out of the darkness,
the glow of a portable gas lamp illuminated the night, chasing away the shadows
as well as any lingering hope William had of them not being caught.

Shite,
he
thought.
We’re buggered now!

William
was sure he’d see the familiar dark blue cap of an Edinburgh police constable
peek over the rim of his hole but the man who walked into sight turned out to
be a huge baldheaded giant. Whoever he was, he looked down at William and
smiled with a mouth filled with rotten black teeth.

“Who
in blazes are you?” William asked. He knew that wasn’t the smile of a policeman
but that thought only made him feel mildly better.

“A
friend,” the giant said. “Get out of the hole, if you please.”

William
didn’t see what other choice he had. He sat up and climbed out onto solid
ground, his mind spinning as he tried to figure out what was going on. “Look
here,” he started to say, but from behind him someone stepped in close and
clobbered him across the back of the head with something hard. He landed face
first beside Billy, who was somehow still sleeping through this and William’s
last thought before he blacked out was that he’d kill his incompetent mate with
his bare hands if he ever got the chance. It was as comforting a thought as any
as he spiraled down into a deep, dark sleep.

*  
*   *

“I’ll
wake the bugger up and you can ask ‘im yourself,” someone said in the darkness.
There was a smelly burlap bag over William’s head and he couldn’t see who was
speaking even if he’d wanted to. His hands were tied tightly behind his back as
well. Hare’s head was still ringing from the blow to the back of his skull but
he was with it enough to hear the man’s gravelly voice clear as a bell and know
that Billy and he were in trouble.

Check
that…they were in
big
trouble.

Then
the bag was roughly yanked away and the same fat giant who’d smiled at him at
the cemetery slapped him roughly across the face. He’d seen that William was
already awake but he’d slapped him anyway, just for the sheer fun of it.

“Wake
up, princess,” the big man said. “The lady would like a little chat with
you…and you’d do well to mind your manners, hear?”

Lady?
William
thought.

When
the giant stepped out of the way, the last person Hare expected to see standing
in the doorway was a beautiful woman. Not just any beautiful woman, either.
With her jade-colored eyes, her raven hair, and the plunging neckline of her expensive
red dress, William immediately knew this was the highbrow actress Billy and he
had met outside of the Ripley several weeks ago. She hadn’t spoken a word yet,
but he was sure of it – he’d recognize those eyes and that scrumptious cleavage
anywhere.

What
was her name again? It was a color, wasn’t it?

He
wasn’t the only one with a good memory; the woman smiled as she stepped forward
to speak.

“Well,
well, well…look at who we have here! Let me think…William wasn’t it. Yes. Both
of you were named that. What’s your last name again?”

“Hare,
ah…ma’am. And Billy’s name is Burke.”

“That’s
right. William Hare and Billy Burke. My big strong Irishmen come back to visit
me again. How sweet is that?”

As
hard as it was to look away from the woman’s brazen beauty, Hare took a moment
to look around the room he was in. It was a warehouse office by the looks of
it, with a beat up old desk and a few chairs surrounded by boxes and wooden
crates. From the salty smell of the stale air William could tell they were
somewhere down by the docks but couldn’t tell exactly where. Standing in the
small rectangular room was the woman (whose name he still couldn’t remember –
was
it
Violet?
) the big fat man with the terrible smile, and another
huge muscular man who’d presumably been the bloke who’d rapped him across the
head earlier. Billy was nowhere in sight.

“Do
you remember me?” the woman asked.

“Aye,
but I can’t remember your name just now. Getting walloped in the nut by your
goons might have something to do with that.”

“It
might at that, yes. Regardless, my name is Magenta Da Vine and I’m very happy
to see you again.”

“Pardon
me for no’ being quite as enthused. Where’s my mate? Is he dead?”

This
caused the actress to laugh. “Dead? Good heavens no. What sort of lady do you
take me for? He’s sleeping in the other room, tied up like you but right as
rain. Angus and Big Josh didn’t even need to clout him with the shovel like
they did you. Right Angus?”

“Aye,
ma’am,” the more muscular of the two big men said. “We just pulled him to his
feet and he stumbled along beside us. He threw up in the cab but otherwise gave
us no worries.”

Lovely!
William
thought.
That’s Billy all right.
My hero!

“So
what do you want, huh? There’s easier ways to get a hold of me than bashing my
brains out.”

“I’m
sure. I didn’t know it was you I was looking for, though. All in all, I’d say
you got off lucky. I was expecting whoever the lads brought back to be in a lot
worse shape than you are to be honest. Do I need to have them knock you around
a wee bit more? It’s up to you, really.”

She
smiled at William again, showing her perfect white teeth, but there was no
warmth in her face or in the way she loomed above him. Pretty or not, there was
a cold menace to this woman that William found threatening despite her petite
size and outward demeanor. He knew deep down that this wasn’t the type of
person to cross, and at the moment feared for his life more than he ever had in
any of the knife fights and all out brawls Billy and he had been in over the
years.

“No,
ma’am. I’ll help you with whatever you need, if I can ‘course.”

“Good
lad. I knew you were a smart one, right from the first second I saw you. Okay,
we’ll keep this nice and simple then. What are you doing running around the city
cemeteries in the middle of the night?”

Miss
Da Vine’s smile was still in place but it was as if the temperature in the room
had dropped ten degrees. An icy silence descended on the room and William knew
he had better not lie to the woman. Trouble was; he was also smart enough to
not want her to know the truth either. He’d better be careful here.

“Well…I
should think it was obvious. We were digging up graves. Have been for a while
now. Why? What’s the problem?”

“What
are you looking for?”

That
was the big question, wasn’t it? As much as William was afraid of the actress
and her goons, he was just as afraid of Ambrosious Black back at home. There
was no way he was about to tell Da Vine about their dealings with the sculptor.
He had to tell her something though, so chose the lesser of two evils.

“Dead
bodies, of course. What else would you find in a bloomin’ cemetery?”

The
actress took a step back, hands on her curvaceous hips, contemplating his
answer. It didn’t seem to be the one she’d been expecting but William kept his
face blank and his mouth shut. Let her make the next move.

“Why
would you want to dig up dead bodies? Lots of them, from what I’ve been reading
in the papers.”

This
was an easy one.

“For
the money. Easiest pound note we’ve ever made.” William wasn’t about to tell
her they actually made a lot more than that. He wanted to keep this as simple
as possible so he wouldn’t trip himself up and be caught in a lie.

“A
pound? Wait…someone pays you to do the body snatching? Who?”

The
feral look was back on her face, and again William refused to tell her about
the deal he had cut with Mr. Black.

“His
name’s Knox. He’s a doctor. Well, actually a surgeon who teaches doctors. We
dig the graves and take the fresh bodies to him. If it’s an old bag of bones in
the hole, we check to see if there’s any jewelry or pocket watches or what have
you, but for the most part we make our cash bringing him the ones who don’t
stink too badly yet.”

“What
does he do with them?”

“I
didn’t really know, or care for that matter, but Billy says he runs a school to
teach new doctors how to do surgery. Learn where all the body parts are and
such. I think he’s quite busy.”

“I
still don’t understand. Why would he
hire
you fools to dig up corpses?”

“Well
ma’am, it’s no’ exactly on the up and up, if you catch my meaning. The only
legal bodies his school can use are the criminals who end up swinging on the
end of a rope and the prison’s no’ pumping enough of those poor buggers out to
meet his demands I guess. I don’t know…go ask him yourself. All I know is he
pays us a king’s ransom and asks no questions.”

Magenta
Da Vine took a step back and started laughing, a genuine happy emotion this
time, and the tension that had been in the air evaporated as if it had never
been. The actress was back to being her charming, flirtatious self, ready to
treat William like a long lost friend rather than someone who’d been beaten and
brought here against his will.