the end might cause problems, but Devereaux shook his head. ‘He’ll forget about it in the morning. The dissectionists have few qualms about how they get their cadavers.’ Holt had picked up the bottle to pour himself another.
‘Anyway,’ Devereaux said, ‘if he does cause a fuss, Sibthorpe will have a word.’ He leaned towards me. ‘There’s a fellow in here who could tell you all about the surgeons.’ He indicated a man at the corner of the bar. ‘That’s Malachi Phelan. A resurrectionist.’
I looked to where he pointed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’s a grave-robber. The surgeons are his best customers.’
The unassuming man had black receding hair and bulbous eyes, which gave the unsettling impression that he could see in the dark.
‘Malachi can mine a grave in a couple of hours. Then leave it neat and pristine, looking for all the world as if it’s untouched. Some people are still visiting gravesides today containing nothing but earth-filled coffins, thanks to Malachi.’
‘Why doesn’t the Castle stop him?’
He shrugged. ‘The surgeons have to master their profession somehow. Better than practising on the living.’
It had been a year since I’d visited my mother’s grave. I went with Cecilia just before she was married. To think the earth might have subsided as we put down the flowers – caved in on the void. I poured myself another drink. ‘How does he get them?’
A simple shaft sunk to meet one end of the coffin. A hole cut in the lid and the body exhumed by hooks in the scalp or feet, depending on how it lay. The earth returned, and a fresh sod placed on top to conceal the disturbance.
Devereaux said it used to be a thriving trade. Every surgeon at work today had to deal with the body-snatchers when they were students, as the college would only allow them to work on cadavers they obtained themselves. He had heard of young educated men dressed in mourning clothes, walking into morgues, trying to dupe staff that they had come to retrieve a beloved family member. Or two students hailing a hansom cab to transport a cadaver from the house of a resurrectionist to the college, propped upright between them on the seat. On the way, the cabman halted outside a police station and said the fare had increased from two shillings to two guineas, and if they felt that was unfair, they could get out immediately. Or the student in the dissecting room who pulled back the sheet to reveal a favourite niece he had helped bury the previous week.
Helen’s father had been a surgical student in Mercer’s Hospital. I said, ‘But now they get them from the poorhouses?’
‘Well, that’s the idea. But there’s never enough to meet demand. And the college still has to shop around if it wants a body of a particular age or condition. They love pregnant women, for instance. They’ll always pay extra.’
Holt was on his third glass. He recalled a woman died in Pill Lane a few years previous, who was six months gone with twins. Her funeral had been in St Michan’s Church. ‘Some of the mourners had brought their shovels.’
Devereaux chuckled in his glass, but then his smile faded. He said there was no doubt it was Malachi who took her in the end.
I looked again at the man by the counter. He held his glass on the bar in both hands, and looked over it into the middle distance. Perhaps he was forever haunted by images of his quarry. ‘Were the twins dissected?’
Devereaux frowned. ‘How would I know?’
I imagined the woman on the anatomist’s table. The mother taken from the earth, and the innocents taken from the womb, their birth perfectly still. Maybe the tiny siblings still clung to each other, suspended in a jar of spirits, buried in a jumble of shelves. Surrounded in darkness on every side by the pickled organs of murderers and paupers.
‘It’s a bad business.’
‘True, but it has its uses.’
‘Like what?’
‘Yours is not the first body we’ve deposited with the
‘Anyway,’ Devereaux said, ‘if he does cause a fuss, Sibthorpe will have a word.’ He leaned towards me. ‘There’s a fellow in here who could tell you all about the surgeons.’ He indicated a man at the corner of the bar. ‘That’s Malachi Phelan. A resurrectionist.’
I looked to where he pointed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’s a grave-robber. The surgeons are his best customers.’
The unassuming man had black receding hair and bulbous eyes, which gave the unsettling impression that he could see in the dark.
‘Malachi can mine a grave in a couple of hours. Then leave it neat and pristine, looking for all the world as if it’s untouched. Some people are still visiting gravesides today containing nothing but earth-filled coffins, thanks to Malachi.’
‘Why doesn’t the Castle stop him?’
He shrugged. ‘The surgeons have to master their profession somehow. Better than practising on the living.’
It had been a year since I’d visited my mother’s grave. I went with Cecilia just before she was married. To think the earth might have subsided as we put down the flowers – caved in on the void. I poured myself another drink. ‘How does he get them?’
A simple shaft sunk to meet one end of the coffin. A hole cut in the lid and the body exhumed by hooks in the scalp or feet, depending on how it lay. The earth returned, and a fresh sod placed on top to conceal the disturbance.
Devereaux said it used to be a thriving trade. Every surgeon at work today had to deal with the body-snatchers when they were students, as the college would only allow them to work on cadavers they obtained themselves. He had heard of young educated men dressed in mourning clothes, walking into morgues, trying to dupe staff that they had come to retrieve a beloved family member. Or two students hailing a hansom cab to transport a cadaver from the house of a resurrectionist to the college, propped upright between them on the seat. On the way, the cabman halted outside a police station and said the fare had increased from two shillings to two guineas, and if they felt that was unfair, they could get out immediately. Or the student in the dissecting room who pulled back the sheet to reveal a favourite niece he had helped bury the previous week.
Helen’s father had been a surgical student in Mercer’s Hospital. I said, ‘But now they get them from the poorhouses?’
‘Well, that’s the idea. But there’s never enough to meet demand. And the college still has to shop around if it wants a body of a particular age or condition. They love pregnant women, for instance. They’ll always pay extra.’
Holt was on his third glass. He recalled a woman died in Pill Lane a few years previous, who was six months gone with twins. Her funeral had been in St Michan’s Church. ‘Some of the mourners had brought their shovels.’
Devereaux chuckled in his glass, but then his smile faded. He said there was no doubt it was Malachi who took her in the end.
I looked again at the man by the counter. He held his glass on the bar in both hands, and looked over it into the middle distance. Perhaps he was forever haunted by images of his quarry. ‘Were the twins dissected?’
Devereaux frowned. ‘How would I know?’
I imagined the woman on the anatomist’s table. The mother taken from the earth, and the innocents taken from the womb, their birth perfectly still. Maybe the tiny siblings still clung to each other, suspended in a jar of spirits, buried in a jumble of shelves. Surrounded in darkness on every side by the pickled organs of murderers and paupers.
‘It’s a bad business.’
‘True, but it has its uses.’
‘Like what?’
‘Yours is not the first body we’ve deposited with the
Similar Books
