The Resurrectionist by James Bradley Page B

drunk, in front of the house I draw out my key, push the door as quietly as I can. Inside it is dark, the events of the day lingering in the stillness. Tomorrow Lucan will come, we know. He will offer terms we have no choice but to accept along with the knowledge of our defeat at his hands.
    Beneath my feet the boards creak, the sound loud in the space of the hall, and then I feel it – a presence in the air.
    ‘Robert?’ I ask, swaying slightly. ‘Mrs Gunn?’
    Something, barely more than a rustle.
    ‘Hello?’ I call, pressing open the door which leads to the dissection room at the house’s rear. A suggestion of light falls from the glass roof. Otherwise darkness. Taking a step inwards I peer into the silent space. In my chest my breath is stopped, my blood moving in the silence. Then behind me I hear the hastening creak of the door as it shuts, the rising light of a lamp filling the room, and turning I see Mr Tyne.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
    He does not reply, just takes a step towards me.
    ‘Have you some need of me?’
    In the light of the lamp his eyes seem without white, small and hard as those of the shark that sleeps in a tank next door. The way he moves frightens me, and without thinking I step back and aside as he approaches. Only when he is almost on me does he speak.
    ‘I know what you are, boy,’ he says, his voice low.
    Turning slowly I follow him with my eyes as he moves past me into the room, unwilling to let him out of my sight or to let him come too close. It is not me he reaches for though, but the dissection table, its surface hidden by the sheet which covers Caley’s last body, delivered the night before last. Mr Tyne pauses beside it, watching me, one hand extended to grip the sheet.
    ‘What is it?’ I ask again, but Mr Tyne only laughs, one hand drawing the sheet down, and away, so it slides and falls to the floor below, exposing a woman’s body. I look at her numbly for a moment, and then Mr Tyne lets the hand which drew the sheet aside stray to her face, moving as he does about the table’s end, so he stands at her head. There is something unpleasantly intimate in the touch of his hand, the way it lies upon her naked skin.
    ‘She is for dissection tomorrow,’ I say. He nods, his eyes moving up and down her naked form. I am ashamed for her suddenly, lying exposed before this man. I am uncomfortable with him even this close to me too, and gingerly I take another step back, but as I do his hand slips into his jacket, and emerges with a knife. With one fluid movement he steps forward, the tip of it coming to rest against my neck.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I ask, willing my voice not to tremble. In my chest I can feel my heart now tapping a quick, shivering beat. This close I see the powder on his face, smellthe gin that lingers in his breath. Then with a slow movement he lets the knife slide over my collar and down my chest. As it drops he moves closer still, until we are almost face against face, the blade coming to rest beneath my ribs, the point pressed into my skin.
    ‘You have the airs of a gentleman, yet your father died a beggar.’
    ‘Have I offended you somehow?’ I ask, my voice trembling. Mr Tyne’s eyes narrow.
    ‘You want for manners, boy,’ he says. The knife slips away from my belly, and almost convulsively my breath escapes. Mr Tyne takes a step back, the knife hanging in his hand almost casually. It is a short, ugly thing, its sharpened sides tapering to a point. A knife for killing, nothing else.
    ‘I am sorry you think that.’
    ‘Perhaps it is time you had a lesson,’ he says. For a few seconds more he watches me, then he turns to the corpse again, lifting her head, and pressing the knife against her cheek. The skin gives, but does not break.
    ‘You must not mark her,’ I say, willing my voice to sound authoritative.
    ‘No?’ he asks. ‘What would you do if I did?’
    ‘I should be forced to tell our master.’
    ‘And if I were to deny it,