The Borough Boys had long been the capital’s most notorious team of resurrectionists. They plied their trade mostly around Bermondsey but supplemented their incomes by regular forays north of the river. Up until now they had ruled the roost, but a rivalry had begun to develop. There were rumours of a new gang based along the Ratcliffe Highway, whose members had a mind to deter all the other body stealers from entering their domain by whatever means necessary. Fear and intimidation were their watchwords. Unbeknownst to the majority of respectable citizens, deep in the city’s shadows and the gutters a vicious war was being waged.
“What about the deceased?” Read asked. “Do we know his identity?”
“There’s a possibility his name is Edward Doyle.”
The Chief Magistrate raised an eyebrow.
“Hicks, one of the gravediggers told me. He denied knowledge at first, but then had a change of heart after he’d taken a closer look at the face second time around, so he said.”
James Read kept his eyebrow raised.
“I wasn’t satisfied with his first answer. I pressed him on it.”
“I’ve always admired your powers of persuasion, Hawkwood,” Read said drily. “So, you think he was involved?”
Hawkwood shook his head. “In the murder? No, his shock was genuine. In planning the removal of the woman’s body? Maybe. Proving it might be difficult.”
“So your thought is that he tipped off Doyle there was a newly buried body. Doyle turned up to collect it and ran into a rival gang who stole the body, killed Doyle and left his body on display?”
“I’d say so,” Hawkwood agreed.
That James Read expressed no concern at the gravedigger’s alleged involvement came as no surprise to Hawkwood. It was common knowledge that most resurrection men plied their business with the connivance of those connected to the burial trade, be they undertakers or gravediggers. It wasn’t unheard of for those who dug the graves to be personally involved in exhumations. After all, they knew where the bodies were buried, literally. A common ruse was for gravediggers to let slip to interested parties that certain cadavers, by prior arrangement, were not in the coffins that had been recently buried but left instead on top of the casket, hidden under a thin layer of loose earth just below the surface, ready for retrieval.
“What else do we know about Doyle?” Read asked.
“Hicks thinks he may have been a porter, one of the Smithfield lot.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That was all he knew.”
Read sucked in his cheeks. “What does that leave us?”
“Not much,” Hawkwood admitted. “But it’s all I’ve got. If he does work out of Smithfield, the odds are he’ll have had a regular watering hole close by, maybe one of those drinking dens up on Cow Street. And if he was a resurrectionist on the side, it’s even more likely. From what I’ve heard, most of the bastards spend their takings on rotgut.”
The Chief Magistrate bit his lip. “I take it you intend paying the area a visit?”
“I thought I might,” Hawkwood said. “Ask around. See what I can dig up.” Hawkwood kept his face straight.
“Thank you, Hawkwood. Most amusing.” The Chief Magistrate returned to his desk and took his seat. “But, before you do, I’ve another pressing matter that requires immediate attention. I’m afraid to say this is turning out to be a most memorable morning. While you were investigating the incident in Cripplegate, I received word of another murder, a most curious occurrence, not to mention a most intriguing coincidence, given your recent encounter with death and divinity.”
Hawkwood wasn’t sure if this was another example of the Chief Magistrate’s mordant wit, or how he was expected to respond, if at all. He decided to wait and see.
“The conveyor of the information was in a severe state of agitation, understandably. As a result the details are somewhat incomplete. We do know the victim is a Colonel Titus Hyde.”
“Army?” Hawkwood frowned.
The Chief Magistrate nodded. “Indeed, which is why I felt it appropriate that an officer with your background should initiate the investigation. Bizarrely, we were also provided with the murderer’s identity, and his address. The perpetrator would appear to be a man of the cloth; a Reverend Tombs.”
“A parson?” Hawkwood couldn’t mask his surprise.
“I’ve dispatched constables to the parson’s house. It’s doubtful he’ll be there, of course. Most likely he’s gone to ground somewhere, but it’s the logical place to start looking for him. I’d like you to visit the scene of the crime.”
The expression on the Chief Magistrate’s face told Hawkwood there was more to come. “Which was where?”
The Chief Magistrate pursed his lips. “Ah, again, that is another perplexing factor. The killing took place last night, or rather in the early hours of this morning, in Moor Fields. The exact location …” the Chief Magistrate paused “… was Bethlem Hospital.”
And there it was. Hawkwood stared at the Chief Magistrate. Save for the ticking of the clock in the corner and the crackle of burning wood in the grate, the room had gone uncannily silent.
Because not many people called it that.
In the same way the Public Office was known, at least to the personnel who worked there, by a nickname, the Shop, so too was Bethlem Hospital; and not just by its staff, but by the entire city, if not the entire nation. Bethlem had been its founding name, but it had another: a single word synonymous with incarceration, misery and madness.
Bedlam.
2
Hawkwood stared stonily through the railings at the state of the building he was about to enter. Despite having dominated the area for centuries and become ingrained in the public consciousness, the place still held a morbid fascination, even if it was collapsing into ruin.
The original façade had been some five hundred feet in length, modelled, so it was said, on the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In its prime, the building must have been a magnificent sight.
Not any longer. The place had been falling apart for years, subsidence and rot having taken its toll. The east wing had already been demolished, following a damning surveyor’s report. Only half of the original building remained and that was little more than a shell. It was no longer a palace but a slum, as shoddy and as run down as the houses and second-hand furniture shops that occupied the narrow streets around it.
Hawkwood had never visited the hospital, though he’d lost count of the times he’d walked past the place, and he couldn’t recall a single occasion when he hadn’t experienced a dark sense of foreboding. Bethlem had that effect.
He glanced up. Above him, surmounting the posts either side of the entrance gates, were two reclining stone statues. Both were male, naked and badly eroded, victims of more than a century’s exposure to wind and rain and the capital’s filthy air. The wrists of the right-hand figure were linked by a thick chain and heavy manacles. The statue’s head was tilted, the carved mouth was open in a silent scream of despair, as if warning passers-by of the cruel reality concealed behind the gates.
He heard laughter, the happy sound at once at odds with the cheerless surroundings. He looked over his right shoulder. There’d been a time when Moor Fields had been counted among the capital’s greatest visitor attractions, its landscaped lawns and wide walkways framed by neat railings and tall, elegant elm trees inspiring tributes from artists and poets.
Most of that had long since disappeared. What had once been a smooth, green, manicured meadow was now a meagre desert of bare earth and weeds. What remained of the railings were bent and broken. The trees that lined the pathways looked listless and unkempt in the dull morning light. Parts of the encompassing lawn had suffered from chronic subsidence, creating, after stormy nights, rainwater-filled depressions. It was from the edge of one of these shallow ponds that the laughter had originated. Two small boys were playing with a toy galleon, re-enacting some naval engagement, totally immersed in their imaginary battle, oblivious to the incongruity of the moment.