Sawbones (6 page)

That was him, Mr Charles Finch. Ezra nodded. The hair was a giveaway, darker red than the girl’s but thick and curly; the nose long and straight and the chin sharp, just as she had described. But there was no way in hell he could tell whether the cove had suffered violence in any way, not down here in this dim light, with this stench.

“How’s that? I thought he was retrieved from the hospital? The old ‘dead sister’ trick,” Ezra said, and regretted speaking, for the smell was so tangible and solid, it was as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of the foul air.

“Would we do a thing like that?” The man smiled. “No, this poor lamb was left in the graveyard of St Sepulchre’s by the meat market, thrown over the wall.” He shrugged.

Ezra thought that very odd – but then, he told himself, resurrectionists were not known for their truth-telling.

“Could you get Mr Allen to deliver him to Great Windmill Street?” he asked, before remembering the stink.

“I told you, this’un’s Mr Lashley’s, and the man keeps us sweet and regular on a retainer,” the man said. “Of course if you were to offer a tidy sum and find me a suitable replacement double quick…”

Ezra’s heart sank. How would he square it with the master, paying double for a very ordinary cadaver? And where did the man expect him to find another body at such short notice? He had to find another way.

“When’s it going?” Ezra tried not to open his mouth too much.

“I ain’t telling you any more without an ounce in my hand, young sir.”

“Five shillings!” Ezra choked out. “I’ll give you two – it’s all I have.”

He handed over the coins and the man grinned. “It’s going tonight. Lecture’s in the morning, I expect.”

Ezra backed up the stairs two at a time. “And thank you for your time,” he called down after him. Then he dashed out into the street and gulped down the fresh air as if it were Mrs Boscaven’s finest lemon cordial. He ran all the way back to High Holborn and home, glad, even running through the dark, to be out of that place.

He would have to get himself into Lashley’s demonstration in the morning, he thought to himself as he ran. Before he sought out Miss Finch at her address in Bloomsbury. He’d need to see the body up close. He’d have to talk to Josiah – Lashley’s apprentice and, unlike his master, a decent sort – and see what he could do.

Poor Loveday. He resolved not to tell her. Even the dead deserved a better end than Lashley.

It was past nine when he reached Great Windmill Street, but Ezra thought he would wait up for Mr McAdam. If he was in a merry mood after the surgeon’s dinner there would be no better time to apologize for his outburst this morning. Mrs Boscaven made him ginger tea and Ezra took it into the anatomy room to wait for Mr Allen. He sat down on one of the student’s benches and as he sipped his tea his mind went to the fate of the two people now stowed in sacks – one on the table, the other, the smaller, on the trolley.

There were so many ways a human child could die. In fact, he thought, it was more of a miracle that anyone made it to adulthood.

As for the other one… Mr Finch’s death might be a puzzle, but this body surely posed the greater riddle. Ezra put down his teacup and went over to the sack. He untied it and looked one more time at the tattoo on the man’s inner forearm. He took out his notebook and pencil from his apron pocket and tried to copy the mark, but even in the last glimmerings of candlelight it was not easy. Allen would be here before it was done. On an impulse, Ezra put down his notebook, took a knife and cut an oblong of skin away around the mark. He put the skin flat between the last pages of his notebook. After all, it might mean something.

No member of Mr McAdam’s household ventured into the anatomy room if they could help it, so after Mr Allen had been and picked up the bodies, Ezra yawned and stretched out on one of the benches, looking up at the stars through the glass roof. It had been a long day. What was Anna doing, he wondered – preparing to leave? Or perhaps she was looking at the stars too, and thinking of him. Perhaps he would find time to see her tomorrow…

Ezra didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until the full moon shining down through the glass roof woke him up. That and the sound of cats fighting in the yard. He sat up – his shoulder hurt from sleeping on the hard bench. He rubbed at it, swung his arm round trying to loosen up the joint. He was cold, too. He looked up at the house, all was dark. He must have missed the master arriving home and going up to bed.

That was when he heard another sound. Someone was trying to get in through the yard door, turning the handle, twisting it – softly at first, a light click, then, as it failed to give, rattling it harder. Ezra hadn’t yet drawn the bolts. If they picked the lock they’d be through in an instant.

He felt his heart racing, then he heard a voice outside the door. Someone cursed and dropped something metal, he heard it go bouncing over the stone cobbles of the yard. If it was just one man he could take him down, couldn’t he? But the master’s tools, the knives and the saws, were locked in the cupboard under the table. Ezra cursed silently; the key was on a hook in the master’s laboratory. All he had was the broom, propped up against the door leading into the house. He could use that. Ezra prayed that the cove outside trying his damnedest to break in didn’t have a blade. Or a pistol.

Slowly, Ezra slid off the bench and across the floor. Every sound seemed ten times louder. He could hear the leather in his shoes creak, and the silver moonlight lit his every move brighter than a hundred candles.

Another voice. Ezra froze, strained his ears to listen.

“Hurry it up, man.” The voice was clear. Whoever spoke did not sound like Ezra’s idea of a regular cracksman. Foreign, perhaps. “It’s not the dead that can hurt you! Come on, before the place wakes up.”

Ezra heard a grunted reply. There were at least two of them, then. He took another step towards the broom, slipped on a stray branch of bay and fell heavily to the floor, taking the empty trolley over with him. His fall made a crack and a thump loud enough, he thought, to shatter every pane of glass in the roof.

There was more cursing from the yard, and then footsteps – they were off. One of them had nails in his boots – Ezra heard them tattooing a rhythm out of the yard, into Great Windmill Street and away down to the Haymarket.

Ezra lay there for a while, gritting his teeth against the pain he’d incurred falling awkwardly on his knee, grateful they’d gone. He got up, turned the trolley over and, cautiously, even though he was sure they had gone, opened the door to the yard. The cold hit the back of his throat and made the bare skin on his arms prickle. His breath formed clouds as he looked around. The yard was empty. Even Mrs Perino’s chickens were safe in their coop. He went back inside and drew all the bolts.

The house hadn’t stirred. Mrs Boscaven, Ellen and the master had slept through it all. He hadn’t imagined it, had he? He took a candle into Mr McAdam’s office at the front of the house and opened the shutters a crack but the street was empty.

Ezra made his way up the stairs, through the museum and into his room, hoping the house crackers weren’t about to return before the morning.

As he lay in bed there were so many thoughts flying round his head it took a full hour before he dropped back to sleep. The Finch girl and her father, the scene in the cellar at the Fortune of War, Anna away to Holland within a week, Mr Lashley’s offer, the tongueless cadaver and those two cracksmen trying to break in. Ezra turned over, tried to get comfortable in his bed, to think of nothing.

Those men could just be ken crackers or sky-larkers, filled up with one too many jars of ale, looking for an easy earner – or better still, simple bluey hunters looking to take the lead off the glazed roof. But if they were, they’d have had a ladder. And then they wouldn’t have known there might be bodies. They were here for a reason. Perhaps the Negro killed by gunshot
was
important? But if that was so, wouldn’t the fact be all over the papers? Whatever the cause Ezra knew he must talk with the master. First thing.

The fire was lit in the grate when he woke up. Ellen had been and gone and he had slept through it all. Ezra jumped out of bed. He couldn’t see the clock on St Anne’s from his bedroom, but there was one in the museum – he had to hurry, ask the master for leave to attend Mr Lashley’s lecture. He pulled on his clothes and dashed through into the museum. It was eight thirty; he could still get to St Bartholomew’s in time.

He knocked on Mr McAdam’s door and pushed it open. He could only see the man’s back and hear the sound of his pen scratching away. Another paper for the Company of Surgeons, Ezra supposed, or details of the unusual cadavers they’d dealt with yesterday. His master was a great one for records.

“Excuse me, sir…”

“Don’t disturb me now, Ezra!” Mr McAdam didn’t even turn around. “I have a busy day and must finish these notes before breakfast. And if you were wondering if I need you today, the answer is no. As long as the museum is in order and your work is too.”

“Yes, sir, but…”

“You are dismissed, then.”

Ezra shut the door. He would tell Mrs Boscaven about the attempted break-in and perhaps she could get Toms to check the locks and fit some new ones. Although getting Toms to do anything was as easy as teaching cats to call in Latin. Ezra fetched his heavy worsted jacket. The clouds promised snow and plenty of it.

By the time Ezra pushed his way into the crowded lecture theatre, the cadaver that had been Mr Charles Finch was flat on the table. There was a four-inch cut across his belly, but Mr Lashley was now slicing the right arm. The skin had been pulled back and the tendons and main arteries were displayed in a sort of asymmetrical fan; the bones of his forearm and hand, free of flesh, shone white.

But Ezra could see Lashley had cut crudely, flesh and tendon were mixed in with the sawdust on the floor. A few of the keener students hung on Mr Lashley’s every word, and Ezra felt a little sorry for those of them who had never experienced Mr McAdam’s superior knifework.

Mr Lashley had got his position, Ezra had heard, because his own father had been surgeon general at St Thomas’s on the south side of the river. Unfortunately, although Mr Lashley had followed in his brilliant father’s footsteps, it was clear he did not have the same talent or skill.

Ezra craned forward as far as he could in order to study the veins and arteries; they had a healthy colour, no obvious sign of poison or anything else unnatural. But there were so many people in the crush of the lecture room, he wondered how he would get to have a really good look.

He waited until the lecture was over and the students had departed. Ezra watched Mr Lashley take off his apron and nod towards Josiah.

“Ezra McAdam, twice in as many days!” Mr Lashley said, putting on a very fine embroidered coat. “Another letter, perhaps, from your master?”

“No, sir. I just heard you would be concentrating on the brachial and the
profunda brachii
arteries.” Ezra coughed. “A special interest of mine, sir.”

“Indeed! I hope I filled any gaps in your knowledge left by Mr McAdam.”

“Thank you, sir. And if you don’t mind, could I speak with Josiah for a minute?”

“Of course – but no plotting, boys, no plotting.” Lashley smiled at his own joke. “And Josiah, clear this one away and then see me after luncheon in my office. You have a good deal of work you haven’t finished since Friday!”

Josiah nodded. Mr Lashley swept out in his new coat.

“I would give all the gold in Spain for that old sawbones to swap places with this here cadaver,” Josiah grumbled. “Old man Lashley would find fault with a fat goose.” He looked up from his work. “If I could, I would join the army, take the king’s shilling, like that.” He clicked his fingers. “Your old man hasn’t got a position going, has he? You’ve no plans to sail into the sunset?”

“Oh, I am most definitely staying put,” Ezra said, smiling. He didn’t mention that yesterday he’d been foolish enough to consider leaving. Seeing Josiah here, he realized how lucky he was.

“I could help you clean up if you like,” Ezra offered. He could see the gobbets of flesh and fat in the sawdust, and the dirty instruments. Josiah looked relieved.

“So, what are you up to, Ez? Not that I couldn’t do with a hand or two to clean this lot up.” Josiah grinned and waved Mr Finch’s almost-severed hand.

“Jos! Leave it out!” Ezra objected and Josiah put the hand down with a shrug. “If I help you,” Ezra went on, picking up the broom, “you can let me have a good look at your specimen.”

“Friend of yours, is he?”

“Never met the man. But I saw him escape from several pairs of knuckle dabs at Vauxhall Gardens last summer.”

“A conjuror, then? A good one?”

Ezra nodded.

Jos smiled. “Didn’t escape death, though, did he.”

“If he could do that he’d have earnt a lot more.” Ezra swept the sawdust up into a heap. “Tell me, Jos – you’ve had a good look at this one. Anything odd strike you? Anything rum about it?”

Josiah shrugged. “It’s like any other – fresh, clean. One thing, though: some cove had opened the stomach cavity up already. Could be a professional from the cleanness of the cut, although, given as I’m used to old Lashley, it might not have been. See? Taken the stomach and most of the intestine, they have.”

Ezra put the broom down and had a look. He thought it must have happened after death and before the body had been abandoned in the graveyard. “There’s a rum turn-up and no mistake.”

Josiah nodded and flapped open the stomach. “My thoughts exactly. See, empty as a pauper’s pocket.”

Ezra furrowed his brow. If it were poison, where was his proof now? Perhaps that’s why it had been taken, but who would care? Lashley wouldn’t. “Who would take a stomach?” Ezra said it aloud.

“Search me,” Jos said. “First one I’ve ever seen cut out like that, and you and me, we’ve seen it all. Remember the man they cut open at St Thomas’s with the thing inside him, teeth an’ all? I had nightmares for a week after that.”

“But this is no growth, Jos. Somebody took it out on purpose. Whoever did this was trying to hide something.”