Only the Thunder Knows_East End Girls (8 page)

William
said the only thing he could.

“Yes
sir.”

Chapter

12

 “Soap and
water, my arse!” William said, his teeth clenched in anger.

It
was the following night, and although both Burke and Hare were still exhausted
from the previous day’s strenuous work helping build the statue (not to mention
several hours of drunken foolery in the pub after) the men were back in Calton
Cemetery trying to keep both of their mutually impatient employers happy. It
was cold and rainy tonight, the fog so thick the grave robbers could almost reach
out and comb through layers of it with their bare hands.
The ground
they were digging in was much harder than usual, not frozen but not far off it
either. It didn’t snow too often here in Edinburgh, what with the city’s proximity
to the water, but it wouldn’t have surprised William or Billy in the least to
see some of the white flakes flying soon. Making things worse, the wind howled
in from the North Sea and cut straight through their clothes, chilling them to
their bones even though they’d each worn an extra sweater.  It was a terrible
night to be outside even for a moment, much less standing exposed to the
elements out in these open fields.

It
was no wonder Hare was in such a foul mood.

“No
way could soap shine up those stones like that. I’m telling you, Billy, he’s
lying to us. I mean, did you smell that bucket for God’s sake? Smelled worse
than your sweaty socks after no’ changing them for a fortnight.”

“For
the tenth time…I hear you,” Billy said, pausing his digging for a moment to
blow in his hands to try and warm them. “I just don’t know why you keep going
on and on about it? Why do you care?”

“’Cause
I don’t like being bloody lied to, that’s why. I’ve about had enough. Who in
blazes does the old git think he is?”

“Careful,
mate…” Billy said, his eyes looking skyward. “That horrible beast of his might
be listening. I told you I saw it following me earlier today. It was—”

“I
don’t care about the blasted owl. I’m getting sick and tired of letting these
people order us around. Bollocks to Black and double bollocks to that bitch down
at the theatre. Neither of them will give us a straight answer and they expect
us to freeze our cocks off digging though ground as hard as bloody rock. I’ve a
good mind to–”

“Shhh…quiet!”
Billy said, tugging on William’s arm to try and get him to duck down out of
sight. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear
what? I didn’t hear—”

“Shhh…there
it is again. I think someone’s coming!”

Now
that Hare focused he could hear it too. Footsteps – heavy ones too, not someone
who was trying to stay quiet – were approaching from the south. With the fog
and the rain, it was impossible to tell who it might be or if perhaps it was
more than one person headed their way. The visit the other night from Magenta
Da Vine’s goons was still fresh in Hare’s mind, so he grabbed the spare shovel
and whispered in Burke’s ear, “Keep low and out of sight. I’m gonna circle
‘round behind the buggers.”

Before
he could argue, William disappeared into the miserable night, leaving Billy
standing there all alone inside a half dug grave. Billy crawled out of the hole
and crouched down behind a small blackthorn bush. The ground was semi-frozen
but was still saturated enough to soak through his pants. He was already drenched
to the skin anyway, so what did it matter? Hopefully whoever was in the
cemetery with them would go away and leave them alone. The sooner they could
get out of here tonight, the better.

A
dim glow shattered the gloom, and a short, stocky older man with a grey beard
pushed his way through the fog and headed straight for the grave Billy had been
digging.

“Hey
you!” the man said, easily spotting Billy’s muddy boots sticking out from
behind the bush. “What’s your game then, mate?”

There
was no reason for Billy to stay in hiding anymore so he climbed to his feet, (just
now noticing the new arrival had a pistol aimed his way) and tried to come up
with a believable excuse for why he’d be here digging on a dismal night such as
this.

“Hello
pops. I work for the cemetery, you see, so relax. Been way behind lately so I
just thought I’d try and get caught up on—”

“Don’t
you
‘ello pops
me. I know exactly what you’re up to, mister, so
shut
it. I told Mr. Farris I’d catch the rotter stealing a’ the bodies and now I’ve
gone and done it. You’ll rot in prison for this, you will. Just wait and see.”

“Easy
now, old-timer,” Billy said, stalling for time. “This isn’t what it looks
like…I can promise you that.”

“Save
yer lies for the police. Now drop that shovel and slowly put—”

CLANG!

William’s
shovel rang off the cemetery guard’s skull, forcibly driving the old man head
first into the frozen ground and shutting him up in a hurry. The potentially dangerous
confrontation was over as easily as that.

“Take
your time, why don’t ya?” Billy said, rushing over to toss away the fallen
man’s handgun and make sure he didn’t try to get back up. “The old bugger could
have shot me dead!”

“Aye,
and done the world a favor. Stop your whining and let’s tie him up.”

“Umm…don’t
think that’s gonna be needed. I think he’s snuffed it!”

“What?”

“He’s
dead. Check ‘im yourself if you don’t believe me.”

William
did just that, but sure enough the old guard was no longer breathing. Whether
it had been the vicious blow to the back of his head that had killed him, or
the way he’d been pile-driven face first into the hard earth, it really didn’t
matter. The long and short of it was that Burke and Hare were suddenly in a
heap of trouble. Getting caught and brought to justice for grave robbing was
bad enough, but getting charged with murder was a whole lot worse.

As
in swinging from the gallows worse!

“What
did you wallop him so hard for?” Billy said, a touch of panic in his voice.
“What are we supposed to do now?”

William
was way ahead of his less imaginative friend, already calculating the odds of their
next move in his head. “We’ve got two choices, Billy. Either we finish digging
that hole and bury the old bugger alongside whoever we find there or…we go pay
Dr. Knox a visit and turn this little setback into a win-win for everyone.”

“What?
You mean sell him? We can’t do that?”

“Why
not? Knox likes his bodies fresh, right? You don’t get much fresher than this.
We’ll smear a little dirt on his face and clothes and the doc will think we
just dug him up, same as always. Who’s to ever know?”

Burke
thought hard about that for a few seconds but then a big smile spread across
his face. “I like the way you think, mate. Makes me wonder why we’ve been
busting our hump for a’ those other bodies though? Why bother going to a’ that
trouble, right? Especially this time of the year. I mean, I know we still have
to dig the old graves for Black and Da Vine, but why do we need to keep
freezing our arses off and risking getting caught digging up the fresh ones?”

Hare
was smiling now too, patting his friend on the back.

“It’s
a good question, Billy. A good question indeed!”

Chapter

13

The transition
from clueless bodysnatching to ruthless cold-blooded murder was seamless and relatively
easy for the two Irish freeloaders. Killing a man or woman in an alleyway or
dark doorway was much quicker and cleaner than dragging a stiff corpse out of
some smelly hole in the ground. It required a whole lot less effort too. They
needed to refine their methods of course; bashing someone in the head with a
shovel inflicted considerable damage to the body and left incriminating
evidence behind that a heinous crime had been committed.

To
remedy that problem, the fledgling killers soon learned to suffocate their targets
so it would appear to anyone who might examine the bodies that they’d somehow
died of natural causes. Hare would hold his hand over the victim's nose and
mouth while Burke put the full weight of his body across the chest of the
victim, not allowing them to breathe. They still worried about the dire
consequences of being caught by the police but as the calendar turned over into
the month of December, and as the body count (as well as their stash of money) started
to build, so too did their cockiness and blatant disregard for the law. As far
as Burke and Hare were concerned, they could do anything they damn well
pleased.

Unfortunately,
they still had to put on a convincing show of trying to please both Ambrosious
Black and the equally intimidating Magenta Da Vine. Although Burke and Hare had
no real need for their mysterious benefactors’ paltry stipends anymore, earning
a far better payday for their secret deliveries to Dr. Knox, they were
determined not to unnecessarily anger the sculptor or the actress if they could
avoid it. Quite simply, and perhaps shockingly, the hard-nosed serial killers
were still afraid of them both – even though they’d be hard pressed to give a reason
as to why. It was just a gut feeling they had; a strong sense of hidden menace
that even dangerous men such as they could not ignore. Therefore it was easier
to risk the occasional foray into the guarded graveyards than it was to face
the consequences of not doing so.

And
so the rainy days and cold fog-shrouded nights slowly passed…

*  
*   *

“Come
on Billy…put your back into it, man!” William said, tired from another
pointless night of digging in the older section of the Calton burial grounds.
“You work like an old woman.”

“Oh
piss off, why don’t ya? My fingers are freezing off and I’m digging as fast as
I can. We shouldn’t even be out here and you bloody well know it.”

“You
worry too much, mate. We’re pretty safe way back here. The guards and the
coppers are only watching the fresh holes out by the road. They’re only
interested in nabbing grave robbers, no’ honest blokes like us.”

“What
are we doing here, if it’s no’ called grave robbing?”

“Well…wasting
our drinking time for one thing!”

“Right
you are there, William. Truest thing you’ve said a’ night. Let’s get out of
here, then. I’ve had my fill of shoveling.”

“Me
too, but look…you’re practically standing on the lid. Let’s just finish this
one and be done with it.”

“I’m
too tired. You want to see another box of old crumblin’ bones, ‘ave at it then.”
Billy climbed out of the waist-deep hole in the ground and handed the shovel
over to William. “I’m done!”

“See,
you even
complain
like an old woman,” William said with a smile on his
dirty face, not really angry with his friend. It was his turn to dig anyway.
“At least keep an eye out for anyone headed our way, right?”

“Aye,
I’m watching. Just hurry it up.”

William
began to dig and sure enough, within twenty shovelfuls he’d scraped the top of
the wooden box buried below his feet. Five minutes later he had the entire lid
uncovered and was surprised to see it didn’t look as old and rotted as all the
other cheaply made coffins normally looked. In fact, it still looked quite
solid.

“Well,
well, well…what do we ‘ave here?”

Billy,
despite what he’d promised only a few minutes ago, was stretched out on the
grass with his eyes closed and was nearly fast asleep. “Huh?”

“Come
look at this, mate. Something’s
different
about this one.”

“Different
how?” Billy said crawling over to look down in the hole.

“The
wood and the construction’s old but look how good of shape it’s in. Almost
looks new but that’s no’ possible way out here. Is it?”

“How
should I know? Open the blasted thing and let’s have a look.”

William
nodded his head and went back to work. Most of the old boxes were crumbling to
bits under their feet, but with this one he had to use the edge of the shovel
to pry up the corners of the lid. There were twice as many nails holding this
lid in place than in any other coffin they’d opened, and even though they
didn’t think it possible, William and Billy found themselves getting excited
about what they might be about to find. Billy jumped into the hole too, and by
getting both their hands in under the lid, they were able to finally loosen the
wooden top enough to heave it up and out of the hole.

What
they saw within the coffin nearly took their breath away.

The
dead man lying inside the box was huge, a hulking muscular man wearing a
soldier’s wool tunic and leather boots, whose broad shoulders barely squeezed
inside the confines of the wooden walls. His size was impressive, but what
shocked the body snatchers most was that his skin and hair were still intact.
Every other body they’d checked in this part of the cemetery had been nothing
but dust and bones, but this man, this unknown warrior, was almost perfectly
preserved. From his clothing and the location where they were digging in the
ancient burial grounds, he surely had to have been buried in this hole hundreds
of years ago, but he looked as if he’d breathed his last breath only a week or
two ago. Impossible, but nonetheless true.

“He’s
a Templar,” William said, still in awe at what he was seeing.

“Huh?”

“A
Templar Knight, Billy. See the red cross on his tunic?”

“Aye.
He’s wearing a sword too. Look!”

“I
see it.”

“Something’s
no’ right though, William. No’
natural
. I mean, Templar or no’…why
hasn’t the big bugger rotted away like a’ the rest?”

“No
idea…but didn’t Mr. Black say something about the Knights when he was yammerin’
in his sleep the other night?”

“Aye,
he did. Think this is the bloke he was talking about?”

“Could
be. One of them at least.”

“He
also mentioned something about gold, right?”

“That
he did, Billy. That he most
certainly
did. Let’s have a look…”

 William
knelt down and began to search around the soldier’s legs and along his sides.
All traces of weariness or worry about being caught by the police were gone
now, the excitement building by the second as he felt around for the possible
treasure.

“Maybe
Black is after the sword?” Billy said. “Something like that’s gotta be worth a
pretty penny, right?”

“Probably
is, yeah, but my gut’s telling me he’s after something…” William started to say
but the breath was sucked from his lungs at what he’d caught a glimpse of. The
soldier’s arms were bent and his gloved hands were clasped above the center of
his chest. When William had nudged the dead man’s left arm it had moved his
hand enough that a glimmer of something shiny was revealed beneath. With a
trembling hand, William reached over and pried open the Knight’s gloved hands.

“Sweet
Mary, mother of God!” he whispered. “Look at
that
, Billy!”

There
was a golden chalice hidden under the man’s gloves, resting above the Templar’s
burly chest. The cup wasn’t fancy or adorned with jewels; it didn’t even have any
carvings or written engravings on its smooth curved sides but it was impressive
nonetheless. It practically glowed in the meager moonlight filtering through
the fog, a magical golden heart hidden in this place of death.

“We’ve
found it!” William said.

“What
is it?”

“Don’t
know, mate, but I’ve got a good guess. Do you remember what else Black was
muttering about that night by the fire…the part about blood and the death of
the carpenter? Something about a traitor too, right?”

“Something
like that, yeah. It was just a dream.”

“Don’t
be so sure. I didn’t think so that night and I’m even more sure of it now.
Think about it: The death of a carpenter, the Knights Templar, and a golden
chalice. Even a brainless lump like you can put those things together.”

“You
don’t mean the Grail, I hope? The
Holy bloody Grail
! Have you lost your
marbles, William? That’s just make-believe, a children’s bedtime story.”

“You
sure? Maybe that’s why this bloke in the hole hasn’t rotted to bones. He’s
protecting the carpenter’s cup…or maybe its protecting him.”

“So
it’s magic now, is it? Come off it, mate. Do you hear yourself?”

“I’m
no’ saying that I believe in the Grail, Billy, but I’ll bet you Black and Da
Vine do. Guaranteed. This is what they’ve both been looking for.”

“What
do we do now, then?”

“We
take it, obviously. Are you simple?”

“That’s
no’ what I mean, William. ‘Course we take it. I mean, who do we give it to? The
sculptor or the actress?”

Now
that was a good question.

William
briefly considered keeping it for themselves but again, his fear of Ambrosious
Black and Magenta Da Vine ruled that option out in a hurry. He was a simple man
with simple needs and the chance that he might be in possession of the
priceless cornerstone of countless myths and legends – hell, the very
foundation of a worldwide religion – never really entered his mind. In this one
instant, William decided honesty was probably the best policy. As soon as this
chalice (fabled or not) was delivered, Billy and he could stop all this blasted
digging and concentrate on more important matters for Dr. Knox. Just having the
sculptor and the actress out of their lives for good was treasure enough, as
far as William was concerned. Not that this made their choice any easier.

Who
would get the prize?

“We’re
going to have to think on this for a few days, Billy. I never thought we’d actually
find the bloody thing, right?”

“We
don’t tell
either
of them, then? We keep it a secret?”

“Aye…for
now. Just until I can figure out who’ll pay us more. No one’s getting this cup
for free, that’s for sure!”

“Now
you’re talkin’, mate. Can I keep the sword too?”

“Don’t
think that’s a good idea, Billy. Best not. Fewer ties we have to this grave the
better, hear
?
We’ve got to
fill in this hole like we were never here. Can’t have anyone finding out about
our big friend…or his sword. Come on, grab your shovel.”