They were a busy duo, peddling their wares and selling the raw materials of the grave. Always plenty of doctors needing fresh specimens for their teaching and private research. In a city where almost ninety-five percent of the population lived well below the poverty level, Clow and Kierney were living like lords. Night after night was a gluttony of liquor and whores.
But not all of it was good.
People were tiring of the gruesome tales of rifled graves and stolen bodies, and the Churchyard Watch had been strengthened, guarding over graves until the interred were far too corrupt to be of use to anyone. Clow and Kierney ran afoul of them several times, escaping under a volley of rifle balls more than once. But they had special orders and those orders had to be filled. On more than one occasion, they had to “walk” the corpses through busy streets. Using specially designed manacles shackled to their ankles and those of a corpse, they would walk a cadaver between them, holding it up like a drunk, moving its feet as they moved their own. To any who noticed, they were just two men walking a drunk home.
So after a particularly successful week, the bad thing happened.
Up until the time of Leaky Baker’s execution, neither Clow nor Kierney had ever Burked a soul. They dealt with the dead and had no interest in producing corpses. And it was not that either man was above murder, for the times were dark and desperate indeed, but such things were to be avoided at all costs. For them, the graves would supply what was needed; they would not stoop to becoming another Burke and Hare. They were resurrectionists, not killers, and they took a certain pride in the fact. Though, truth be told, people were so very incensed by the activities of corpse-snatching that they saw little difference between Burkers and diggers—all were to be dealt with in the same way: at the end of a rope.
No, up until the time of Leaky Baker’s execution, Burking was not something either man gave serious thought to.
And then came the night at Greyfriars Churchyard.
It wasn’t until well after midnight when they entered the high black iron gates. The Churchyard Watch was about, so they took special pains. They were both armed with navy flintlock pistols and left Clem and the wagon at home, pulling a dog cart behind them, the axles of which had been carefully greased so as to make no sounds. Quietly, then, they moved among the moss-green trees, headstones, and tabletop slabs, some of which had been there for centuries. The air was moist, threatening rain, and a gray mist hung in the air.
They paused for a moment alongside the high brick walls of the Covenanter’s Prison, that ugly drab structure in the High Kirk that had once housed the Covenanters, the seventeenth-century Scottish Presbyterians who were persecuted by Charles II. December 7, 1666, they were hauled out of Haddock’s Hole, as they called the prison, and found guilty to a man. They were all sentenced to be hanged on the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh. As many as ten at a time had their necks stretched on a single scaffold. Afterward, they were dismembered, the individual pieces of their anatomy put on public display in the Covenanters’ own localities as a warning.
Nearby was the high, oval tomb of Sir George Mackenzie, the crown prosecutor against the Covenanters, who called him “Bloody Mackenzie.” Locally, the tomb was known as the Black Mausoleum and was reputed to be haunted, much as the prison itself.
Standing there in the shadows, Clow whispered, “Just wait a moment while I get me bearings. Have a chat with old Bloody George if ye wish.”
“No, I don’t speak with ghosts,” Kierney said. “Especially titled ones, they won’t give me the time of day… not that I blame them.”
“Nor I.”
Kierney pulled his hat off and wiped sweat from his brow. “Them poor Covenanters… me mother was a Presbyterian, I’m thinking.”
“Was she? I thought she was a whore.”
“Aye, she was, and a fine and sassy one at that. Prostitute… Presbyterian… I thought they was the same thing. Me poor education, I guess.”
“Enough with that now,” Clow said. “There were Presbyterians on me father’s side, I believe.”
“And fine ones they were.”
“Certainly. Highwaymen, the lot of ’em. Slitting gobs and stealing purses… God bless them one and all.”
After a moment they were off, following winding lanes and cutting among fifteenth-century fieldstone markers, riven tombs, and lichen-encrusted statuary: winged angels, sleeping lambs, and grinning skeletons wrapped in winding cloths. Tombstones were carved with raised cherubs, skulls-and-crossbones, and death angels gripping human skulls. The moon was thin-edged, the sky black with boiling clouds above.
Clow in the lead, Kierney following with the dog cart, they were in search of a fresh grave that belonged to a middle-aged woman who had passed just yesterday of a heart ailment. She had been very healthy up until then, the undertaker informed Clow for a few pence, and Dr. Gray would pay well, as he was currently researching cardiovascular diseases, especially those of a congenital nature that might, he thought, pass down family lines.
They kept moving, Clow only having the most general idea of where the grave was located. But he would find it, Kierney knew, and would keep casting about until he did so. It was his way. Like a bloodhound, Clow had an especially sensitive nose and he could smell fresh grave earth for a hundred yards.
Kierney looked behind them, always vigilant for the Churchyard Watch and maybe other things, too. He could see the squat and rising mural monuments at the edge of the churchyard flanked by the high flagstone buildings of Candlemaker Row. The tall chimneys and jagged roof peaks scratched against the clouds above. All the multipaned windows reflected bits of moonlight, but were all dark within.
“Quit lazying about,” Clow told him, “and bring that cart along.”
Clow had found the grave now, situated just beyond a wilted hedgerow in the shadow thrown by two crumbling sixteenth-century crypts. All the graves here were quite old, but there had been one plot of earth overlooked and perhaps the family thought their loved one would be unmolested in such a spot. As it was, the shiny new limestone slab stood out among the others, which were leaning and cracked and nearly unreadable with fingers of moss.
It was unguarded, as they had been told.
Down on his hands and knees, Clow expertly felt around the grave for tripwires that might lead to bombs or pistol harnesses or other booby traps. Such protective measures had cost the lives of dozens of unwary diggers. But the grave was clean.
“Quick about it, then,” Clow said.
Kierney drew up the dog cart and arranged what they would need. They unfolded a large tarp painted black and set it over wooden poles atop the grave. This lean-to would shelter them and the light of their lantern. He brought their tools inside and lit the hooded whale-oil lantern. Using prybars also of wood—the noise of iron against stone tended to carry—they edged the slab away from the grave. It was heavy, very heavy, but it was only a matter of leverage, experience had taught them. The only sound was their grunting and the slab grinding against the stone flange it was set on.
But soon it was clear.
The coffin was down only a few feet. Clay and stones had been arranged above to discourage resurrectionists, but they got through it all right, piling the dirt on a canvas sheet. They cleared it away in about ten minutes and broomed away the residue. Using screwdrivers, they unscrewed the lid, taking great pains to pocket each screw so it could be put back in later.
As Kierney was working the screws, a funny feeling began to come over him. It was not the stink of dank earth or buried things but an almost inexplicable sense that they were being watched. He couldn’t seem to shake it.