Legion of the Dead (10 page)

‘The morgue’s downstairs,’ he told me as we reached the top of a stairwell on the far side.

There were classical scenes painted on the walls of the stairwell: fluttering winged babies dangling grapes before the mouths of voluptuous maidens; centaurs and satyrs, and groups of men with long robes and thick beards. One individual stood out. Taller than the rest, he had a quill in one hand and an axe in the other and, from the top of his head, a small flame burned at the centre of his halo. Will nodded towards him as we headed down the stairs.

‘St Jude, himself,’ he said.

As we went down the stairs, the sounds from the entrance hall faded. A couple of nurses in crisp white uniforms clutching glowing lanterns passed us, heading in the
opposite direction, followed a little later by a doctor, with what I took to be one of those new-fangled wooden stethoscopes tucked into the brim of his top hat. We continued down into the gloomy depths of the great hospital.

At the bottom of the stairs, Will pushed open a pair of dark varnished doors and we entered a large vaulted chamber with rows of wooden trestles stretching away into the shadows. High above our heads a simple chandelier comprising four white candles – three of them burning – hung down from a chain in the centre of the vault.

‘Can I ’elp you?’ A low cracked voice sounded from behind us.

Turning, I saw a small stooped individual in a grubby apron and black, greased-down hair leering back at us. Tipping me the wink, Will stepped forward and produced a glass vial from his pocket.

‘Actually, I think you can,’ said Will. ‘I’m looking for Dr Fitzroy. I’ve got the medicine
he requested …’ Will began.

‘Medicine?’ the man repeated, surprised. ‘Don’t you know where you are, son? This is the morgue.’ He nodded towards the shroud-covered trestles. ‘Bit late in the day for medicine for this lot,’ he added and croaked with amusement.

‘Oh, dear, how stupid of me,’ said Will, his voice bright and naive. ‘I don’t suppose you could …?’ His words trailed away.

The morgue attendant tutted and shook his head from side to side. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘You tick-tock lads! You’d best come with me, son. I’ll see you right.’

He took Will by the arm and the pair of them disappeared through the doors, leaving me alone in the morgue. I turned and approached the rows of trestle tables. Every one was covered with a white shroud from beneath which pairs of feet protruded, each with a tag carefully tied to the big toe. I glanced at the first one.

Eliza Morris
, I read, the words written in a slanting black copperplate script.
Cause of death: the croup
. And underneath, in bold red capitals:
FOR BURIAL
.

Then at the next,
Thomas Rideout. Cause of death: Heart Failure. FOR BURIAL
.

I continued down the line.
Blow to the head. Apoplexy. Fever
…
FOR BURIAL, FOR BURIAL, FOR BURIAL
… Eight trestles along, I paused, my heart hammering in my chest as I read the tag:

Unknown indigent. Cause of death: Drowning. FOR DISSECTION
.

The body beneath the shroud was considerably larger than the others. At the head of the table, a wisp of hair was just visible which, in the candlelight, seemed to me to have a hint of ginger about it. My hands were shaking as I leaned forwards. I was hot and cold at the same time. I touched the shroud. As I did so, there was a slight, yet unmistakable, movement from beneath
the material. I froze, transfixed.

With a soft thump, an arm slipped off the side of the trestle table and dangled loosely, the fingers of the hand gnarled and twisted. My breath came in sharp gasps. Could this be the graverobbed body of Firejaw O’Rourke?

I had to find out.

Moving up to the top end of the table, I took hold of the material, slowly lifted the white sheet – and let out a cry. It wasn’t the Emperor of Gatling Quays at all, but an unfortunate old man at least twenty years his senior, bloated and mottled by harbour water. A tavern drunk most likely, I thought, who’d stumbled on the shoreside cobbles in the dead of night, and whose body had gone unclaimed. The morgue attendant had probably got an arrangement with the Harbour Constabulary – who fished bodies out of the water – and stood to make a few shillings from the doctors upstairs.

But this wasn’t the work of graverobbers.

By all accounts, graverobbers dealt in fresh bodies, where there was real money to be made … I turned away and checked the rest of the tags. Finding no others for dissection, I headed for the door with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment.

As I pushed open the dark varnished door, I heard a high-pitched scream and found myself face to face with a dazzlingly pretty nurse.

‘You startled me!’ she gasped, before stooping to pick up the bundle of blank mortuary tags she had been carrying and which now lay scattered at her feet. ‘This place always gives me the shivers,’ she continued, blushing daintily as I bent to help her. She looked up at me, and frowned. ‘You’re not Bentham!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m afraid I’m lost,’ I said. ‘Took a wrong turning.’ I shrugged, indicating my sling.

She smiled as she gathered the last of the tags and stepped past me to place them on the mortuary attendant’s desk beside the door.

Turning quickly away, she pointed to my arm.

‘Would you like me to take a look at that arm of yours?’ she asked.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ I said, smiling back. ‘Miss …?’

‘My name’s Lucy,’ she said. ‘Lucy Partleby.’

We climbed the stairs, side by side, her with her lamp raised and me stealing glances. She had auburn hair, tied up and crowned with a starched white cap; milky skin, with freckles at the tops of her cheeks and in a line across the bridge of her nose, and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. She led me down a long tiled corridor to an empty surgery, where she sat me down and began to undo my bandages.

‘I must say, this has been dressed very well,’ she commented.

‘It was my friend who did it,’ I told her proudly. ‘Professor Pinkerton-Barnes.’

‘Quite excellent,’ she said. Her nose
crinkled as the last piece of gauze came away. ‘Though I don’t know about this,’ she said, poking at the green ointment beneath.

‘My name’s Lucy,’ she said. ‘Lucy Partleby.’

‘It’s a sphagnum-moss poultice,’ I told her. ‘The professor swears by it.’

Lucy laughed. ‘Well, I’m not sure what Matron would say, but it certainly seems to be working.’ She frowned, her pretty nose wrinkling. ‘This is a nasty bite, Mr Grimes. How did you come by it?’

‘Please, call me Barnaby,’ I replied. ‘It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?’

‘Quite certain, Mr …’ Lucy Partleby smiled. ‘Barnaby.’

I
t was dark by the time Will and I left the hospital and, as we stepped out onto the street, the lamplighters had already done their rounds. The tall, cast-iron lights were lit and the main roads were bathed in their golden yellow light.

In High Market Street, Martindale’s – a swanky clothes emporium – had recently started a curious trend whereby they placed samples of their produce in the front window of the shop, which they then kept permanently lit. Others had followed suit. Kruger and Syme’s, J.F. Tavistock’s, Elspeth de la Tour’s; all now glowed with light.

A little further on, the bustling Theatre District was similarly well lit, with hissing gas lamps brightening up the ornate frontages of the buildings. Passing by the magnificent Petronelli Playhouse and music halls like the Alhambra and Molly Molloy’s, I paused to take in the advertising placards and posters – and wondered whether Lucy Partleby might like to take in a show with me …

Will had some night drops to do for the apothecary, so I bade him goodnight and we parted on the corner of Laystall Street and Hog Hill. For myself, I planned to get an early night and, since my arm felt so much better, to try my hand at some simple highstacking at dawn the next day.

I was wandering down the considerably less well-lit streets of my neighbourhood towards my rooms in Caged Lark Lane, when I heard the cheery babble of voices coming from the Goose and Gullet, and suddenly felt
ravenously hungry. As I stepped through the door of the tavern, the warm cheerful atmosphere wrapped itself around me like a comforting blanket, and I smelled the delicious aroma of fresh mutton pie.

It was still early in the evening, and the dimly-lit room was barely half full. There were a few tradesmen, young and old, who had stopped by after work, and a trio of flower-women who met up regularly to put the world to rights. Some sat chatting at small round tables in twos and threes, some were standing, while a couple of solitary drinkers propped up the bar.

A short wispy-haired man – a flat Salisbury cap on his head and sleeves rolled up – was playing the battered piano softly in the corner. Head cocked to one side, he was knocking out a familiar music-hall tune, but with soft and delicate flourishes played over the melody, as though he was entertaining himself rather than the other regulars. A black and
white dog lay at his feet, fast asleep.

‘Evening, Barnaby,’ said the landlady, a red-cheeked roly-poly woman who had been head parlourmaid to a duke in her younger days. She was wearing a gaudy red blouse with a high-collar and a spotted apron, and was vigorously polishing a glass with a cloth. ‘Haven’t seen you here in a while.’

‘I’ve been busy, Betsy,’ I said. ‘But I’ve missed your excellent mutton pies …’

‘Coming right up,’ she said, ‘with extra gravy, just how you like it!’

‘You’ll need something to wash it down with, young Grimes,’ came a familiar gruff voice to my right.

I turned, to see Blindside Bailey, the newspaper-seller, seated on a high stool at the end of the bar. He turned and fixed me with his one good eye.

I smiled. ‘A glass of old cider,’ I told Betsy, ‘and a pint of ale for Blindside, here.’

‘That’s very good of you, young Grimes,’ he
said. ‘Please accept the grateful thanks of an old soldier.’ He shifted round on the stool. ‘I see you’ve been in the wars yourself, lad.’

He pointed to my bandaged arm. I smiled.

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a scratch …’

‘Aye, that it is,’ said Blindside. ‘That it is, young Grimes, to be sure. But I’ve seen scratches turn nasty back there in the East. Fester and poison until a leg or an arm is lost …’ He rapped a dirty finger against his wooden leg. ‘And I’ve seen plenty more besides, lying in a stinking bed in a hell-hole that they called a regimental hospital in the Malabar Kush, trying to recover …’

Betsy placed the tankard of ale in front of Blindside. He swigged it enthusiastically, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘Oh, the tales I could tell, young Grimes,’ he said, staring into his half empty tankard. ‘The tales I could tell …’ He lifted the tankard to his lips and drained it in one gulp. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve told you the tale of how I lost a
fortune in jewels picking up a glass of water?’

‘I don’t think you have,’ I said, as Betsy placed a glass of old cider and a slice of mutton pie in front of me. ‘But I’d love to hear it.’