'My dear Sandler,' he replied with characteristic enthusiasm, 'that really is a very easy matter to resolve.'
'What do you mean exactly?' I replied, leading him on.
'Are you tired?'
'No.'
'Well then, why waste a moment? Come with me.'
We were walking along Broad Street but he turned us both round by gripping my shoulder and spinning on his heel. 'Our lab is not far, just past Wadham on Parks Road. There's always someone working late.'
And so I saw my second dead body. As a third-year student, Merryfield had his own key to the laboratory. He was right, there were two other students working there still. The place was freezing. It was a cold November night, but I surmised the place was kept cool by some clever artificial means.
The cadaver Merryfield showed me was that of an old man. He was kept packed in ice in a steel cabinet. Merryfield opened the door to the unit and slid the body out on a narrow tray. I glanced down at the forlorn figure on its metal bier. His skin was yellow and as wrinkled as a dried prune. 'He was seventy-seven when he died,' Merryfield commented.
'But how do you obtain your specimens?' I asked. 'Is there still a trade in grave-robbing?'
Merryfield looked greatly offended. 'No, there is not, Sandler!' he snapped. 'We are morally minded students, just like you. The dead bodies we use are all officially accounted for and their passage from the workhouse, the prisons and the hospitals is documented in triplicate.'
'I'm sorry, I…'
'Burke and Hare went out of business a long time ago,' he added.
I held my hands up and made a very fine show of trying to pacify my 'friend'. The fact was, of course, that I was greatly amused by his reaction, though I could not let him know that. 'So how on earth do you preserve the corpses?' I said, quickly putting Merryfield back into a position where he could do his best to impress.
'Well, that's actually a very good question,' he said, his ill temper evaporating. 'It's not at all easy. Have you heard of refrigeration?'
'Yes.'
'That's what we do here. We have a gas generator at the back of the building which keeps the room cool. You must have noticed?'
'Yes, I did,' I retorted with a shiver.
'The body is embalmed with a special chemical called glutaraldehyde and packed in ice in the box there.' He pointed to the dead man's steel tomb. 'The glutaraldehyde has turned Franklin's skin yellow.'
'Franklin?'
'That was his name. A murderer, apparently. Killed two small children.'
I stared down at the sinewy naked form and could not visualise it as ever having been a living thing, let alone a person possessing the passion to kill.
Later Merryfield and I walked back to Broad Street together. After arranging a date and time for my first extra-curricular anatomy lesson with him, we parted on good terms. He wandered off to his room in Lincoln College and I walked slowly along Turl Street towards Exeter. But I knew even then that I would not sleep until I had spent some more time with Franklin.
I waited for three hours, watching the clock on my mantelpiece until the hands reached one. We were all supposed to be tucked up in our rooms by ten at night, and the curfew was strictly enforced. But, as you will have gleaned, I've never been an entirely conventional fellow. Within twenty-four hours of arriving at Exeter I had found at least three different ways to avoid the Bulldogs. It was a simple matter to slip unnoticed past the head porter, Mr Cooper, as he read the Oxford Times and sipped tea in the porters' lodge. I could move with great stealth and almost completely silently. As a precaution, I had put on black clothes, smeared my face with paint and pulled a hat tight down over my head.
Another useful skill I had acquired years earlier was the ability to pick locks. To this day there is still not a lock that has defeated me… and, believe me, good lady, I have picked a few.
I have a near-perfect memory and could recall every detail of the inside of the lab. Another useful skill of mine. You have to admit, I am a rather clever chap. The room was black, but there was a gas lamp close to the door. I pictured the layout of the room: the wooden and metal benches, the chairs, the sinks and the metal 'tombs'. I made my way in the dark straight to the part of the room where Merryfield and I had been talking the previous evening. I lit the gas mantle, turning the tap to produce the palest, most sallow light.
The memory of it all is as clear as crystal in my mind today. Most people would probably have felt uncomfortable in that place. The cold was biting, my cheeks felt numb and my fingers were freezing. I could see my own breath in the air. But aside from these discomforts, I felt remarkably relaxed. The dead have never scared me, and in this dark, frigid room, I felt absolutely at home. And so I set to work.
I shall not describe precisely what I did. Let us just say I was searching for something. I always had been. This was in the days when I believed there was still something to find inside the human body. A time before I realised there was nothing there. Before I gleaned the real truth.
I haven't really explained this so far, have I? Perhaps I should. My parents' religious zeal repelled me, this much is undeniable. I had no time for myths and legends, and I certainly did not believe in a benevolent God. But at the same time, I could not come to terms with the idea that this meagre existence on Earth was the end of the story. I realise now that it was just my ego making me think this. After all, it is human ego that drives all religious faith, and like most people I needed to believe in the existence of the soul. As far back as the days when I'd vivisected rats and frogs, I was searching for a physical manifestation of it. I knew it had to be in there somewhere. That is what I was doing that night in Merryfield's lab. I was hunting for tell-tale signs that the dead murderer's body had once hosted a soul, that traces of it somehow remained. I realise the futility of it now, dear lady. But I was young once.
Anyway, I digress. I half-expected something concerning my nocturnal adventure to appear in the local paper, but, disappointingly, nothing was ever reported. It seemed the University hushed up everything. No blame was ever placed upon Merryfield because he shared the cadaver with at least a dozen other students. He told me there had been a discreet enquiry into the episode and that he had been questioned at length. I put on a wonderful show of shock and disgust when, after swearing me to secrecy, he told me what had happened. None of the medical students or teaching staff could quite understand why a hard-to-come-by corpse, employed for serious research, had been so comprehensively and systematically eviscerated, each organ ransacked, every inch of flesh diced and pulverised.
For my part, I'm just as mystified as to why Merryfield never showed the slightest suspicion that the destruction of Franklin's dead body had been in any way linked with our visit the previous night, or that it was anything to do with me. Either he was a very naive chap or I am an even better actor than I give myself credit for.
Chapter 15
Stepney, Friday 23 January, 8.30 a.m. The morning sun was trying to break through heavy dark cloud as Pendragon and Turner drove through grey morning streets. Pendragon was sipping coffee, the sergeant at the wheel.
'Did you learn anything from Chester Gerachi?'
'Nah, just confirmed what that bird Selina said.'
'About Arcade?'
'Yeah, and Berrick leaving with Hedridge.'
'Where did Gerachi go after the private view?'
'Got a cab home. He lives in Bermondsey. I checked with the cab company. They dropped him there just after one-thirty.'
Pendragon nodded and took another sip of coffee. 'Which doesn't entirely rule him out. He could have made it back to Stepney in time to bump off Berrick.'