Watcher (30 page)

Fancy some more chills and thrills?
Then take a trip into the bloody history of
Scotland’s
creepy capital city …

1. Burke and Hare

Graverobbers-cum-serial killers Burke and Hare brought terror to the streets of 19th-century Edinburgh. It became apparent in the 1800s that the allocation of one executed criminal per year to each anatomy school was insufficient for the growing amount of students. Out of this need was born the sinister trade of the ‘bodysnatchers’ (also known as ‘resurrectionists’) who would make money by digging up fresh corpses from graves and selling them on for medical research. William Burke and William Hare were Irish immigrants from Ulster who came to Edinburgh to work as labourers on the then New Union Canal – but at night they took up their more sinister and profitable trade of grave-robbing, which developed into serial murder. Their victims were the waifs and strays on the streets of Edinburgh’s Old Town, people no one would necessarily miss. It is believed that Burke and Hare were responsible for the death of between thirteen and thirty people; however, only Burke was ever prosecuted. In an ironic end to the story, Burke’s body was donated to a medical school for what they called ‘useful dissection’.

2. Mary King’s Close

Mary King’s Close remained shrouded in mystery for many years, with myths of plague victims being walled up to die adding to the eerie quality of the location. This maze of narrow streets – running through tenement buildings stretching seven stories high – became home to many impoverished people in the 17th century. But when the plague hit Edinburgh, one particularly virulent strain affected the residents of Mary King’s Close to such an extent that the city administrators took the decision to wall up this whole section of the city – and it remained shut off from the world until recent times. The Close is named after Mary King who lived at the top of one of the narrow roads off the Royal Mile until her death in 1644. Mary and the other deceased occupants of the area are said to haunt the streets of Mary King’s Close to this day.

3. The real life
Jekyll
and Hyde

It is believed that one of Edinburgh’s most beloved literary sons, Robert Louis Stevenson, got the inspiration for one of his most famous works,
The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll
and Mr Hyde
from the case of Thomas Weir. Weir was a 17th century preacher, a deeply religious Presbyterian and wholly upstanding member of the community. Shockwaves ran through the city when he confessed at the age of 70 to a number of depraved acts, including bestiality, a long-running incestuous relationship with his sister Jean and an interest in the occult. Sentenced to death in 1670 by burning at the stake, Weir was the last man to be executed for witchcraft in Scotland and reputedly uttered the words “I have lived as a beast, and I must die as a beast,” before his death. Theories abound that Stevenson’s nanny told him about Weir’s exploits as a disturbing bedtime story, and the idea of Weir’s duplicitous nature planted the seed for Stevenson’s novella of a man fighting to control the dark side of his personality.

4. The strange legend of Greyfriars Bobby

Perhaps one of the most endearing stories of Edinburgh’s ghostly past is the tale of Greyfriars Bobby whose barks are still said to haunt Greyfriars cemetery. After the death of his master, John Grey, in 1858, Bobby kept a constant watch by the unmarked grave for 14 years – until his own death in 1872. He was buried close to his master’s grave inside the gate of Greyfriars cemetery.

A statue commemorating Greyfriars Bobby can be found on the corner of Candlemaker Row and George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.

From Maria:

Once again I find myself indebted to so many people. Principally I would like to thank my girlfriends who encouraged me – Debbie, Helen and Marissa. Jenny Brown you are a star agent and not forgetting the superb team at Avon, Maxine Hitchcock, Keshini Naidoo and Sammia Rafique. Thank you for making this book possible.

From Linda:

Many thanks as always to everyone who has helped so much with this book in so many different ways – Maxine, Keshini and Sammia as always, as well as anyone at Avon who I don’t even know but who actually manages to get this on the shelves at the end of the day (if they do want to let me know who they are, I will put them on my Xmas card list, promise). Jenny Brown of Jenny Brown Associates has gone beyond the call of duty, and I get the feeling that a thankful nod in the direction of Stan and Lucy there wouldn’t go amiss either! Thanks to all the people whose books I’ve been ghostwriting as this book has gone along as they’ve been thrown into a process that they didn’t expect – Donna and Jeff have given me huge amounts of support in a tables-turned-sort-of-way. To my Auntie Frances for the lovely words (you don’t know how much they meant to me) and to three people who have been particularly amazing for this one – Iain, Norman and Fiona; gold stars all round!

THE WATCHER

Grace Monroe is the pseudonym of Maria Thomson and Linda Watson-Brown. Maria graduated with a law degree in her 20s and soon met her future husband. The couple now have four children. Since finishing her law career she has worked as a hypnotherapist, stage hypnotist and fertility counsellor amongst others. She is now working on the first of a new psychic thriller series under her own name. After 10 years as a Politics lecturer, Linda began her journalistic career as a columnist at
The Scotsman
. She went on to write regularly for the
Daily Mail, Sunday
Herald
and
Independent
and also started ghostwriting. In 2006, her first ghost-written book,
The Step Child
, was a
Sunday Times
bestseller. She has followed that up since with a number of other top 20 titles and is currently working on a new crime fiction series under her own name.

For more information on Grace Monroe go to www.gracemonroe.net and visit www.Author Tracker.co.uk for exclusive updates.

Dark Angels
Blood Lines

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