Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

'They're bog bodies,' Gerald told him. 'This whole area was peat bog once, before it was drained and converted into farmland. And then the church and the cemetery were built here. But these people were buried before that… and without coffins. I haven't had time to clean them properly yet; it's delicate work. Bogs can preserve corpses from decay for millennia; that's why they look the way they do.'

'Why are they flattened like that?' Nate asked.

'It's from the weight of the ground as it settled and built up around them,' Gerald told him. 'And the shifting over the centuries distorts their shapes too. Even so, I've never heard of a single body as well preserved as these – and to find four of them! We're looking at a piece of history here, Nate.'

'How do you know so much about these things?'

'I read,' Gerald replied.

He took out his cigarette case, drew one out and lit it up. His face was solemn as he regarded the leathery corpses. Nathaniel knew that this was the kind of intellectual challenge that his cousin thrived upon, and he was keen to interrupt Gerald's obsessive curiosity before it really took hold.

'I want to get drunk,' he declared.

'So get drunk.'

'No, I mean completely and utterly, unhealthily out-of-my-face drunk,' Nate explained. 'Let's go into town – we could go on the tear in Monto.'

Gerald looked reluctant to give up his work. He eyed the bog bodies with a longing that Nate found a little disturbing. Pulling his watch from his waistcoat pocket, he checked the time. It was after five.

'You'll turn into a prig if you spend all your time in the lab,' Nate persisted. 'Come on, let's get buckled. It's how Marcus would have wanted it. And we can take Flash into town and show it off to the girls.'

Gerald raised an eyebrow.

'Will you let me ride it?'

'I don't think it'd have you,' Nate retorted. 'Besides, I'm not that desperate for your company. I'll let you tell everyone the story of how we caught it, though – you can embellish your part in it if you wish. Look, we haven't hit the town together in over a year and a half; I need to know if you can still cut the mustard. Now are we getting drunk or what?'

'Well, since you asked so nicely' – Gerald slapped his thigh in mock jollity – 'I suppose I could do with an evening of dolly-mops, booze and belly-timber. Besides, these old codgers won't be getting any deader tonight. Let's hit that town then!'

Monto was a sprawling neighbourhood of ill repute in north Dublin, centred on Montgomery Street. Ireland had long been the most irritating thorn in the backside of the British Empire and it was reflected in the large numbers of troops stationed in the country's capital. There was good money to be had for supplying the kind of bawdy entertainment that all these soldiers demanded, and much of that money was made in the streets of Monto after sundown.

The pubs, clubs and opium dens that nestled in this pit of sin also offered noble young gentlemen – even some who were still in their teenage years – the chance to experience the seedier side of life with relative anonymity… if they were discreet about it. Nathaniel and Gerald were not. As they rode down the centre of Montgomery Street on velocycles, their engines roaring with machismo, the two young gentlemen quickly became the centre of attention. Their wealth had always given them a certain celebrity status, and velocycles were not unheard of among the rich and famous, but one look at Flash told the spectators they were seeing something special. Whispers drifted about that this was none other than the Beast of Glenmalure. The savage velocycle growled at the people on either side as it rolled down the street, overtaking hansom cabs and horse-drawn trams. The crowds made it nervous.

After riding up and down the street a few times to flaunt their machines to curious women and envious men, the two riders turned down a lane and pulled up at the door of a gentleman's club. A small crowd of admirers followed them at a safe distance. Whipping off their insect-flecked goggles, they carefully chained their mounts to a lamppost – both to stop them wandering and to prevent them from being stolen. Taking off his leather riding cap, each man opened a box on the back of his saddle and took out a fashionable top hat.

'Right,' said Nathaniel, ignoring the people behind them. 'A bottle of wine and a slap-up meal and then we go looking for some ladies to impress.'

He took off his coat, which was spattered with mud.

'There'll be no ladies in these parts,' Gerald told him.

'Then we'll just have to make do with whatever fillies we can find,' Nate replied. 'Come on, let's get buckled.'

A racy waltz was being played inside the club and they could hear the sound of dancing feet on a wooden floor. They were welcomed in by the doorman, who was trained to recognize important faces and treat them accordingly. The social columns in the local papers had already announced Nathaniel's return. The doormen of Monto could earn some extra income by informing the gossipmongers which teenage playboys were out on the town, and what kind of mischief they created in the process.

But another set of eyes was watching Nathaniel and his cousin with a burning resentment. Shay Noonan peered out from a shadowed doorway as the two gentlemen entered the club. He had been about to walk out of the offices of a moneylender, having just paid off his debts, when he saw them arrive. Shay still had plenty of money left over and was intending to put some of it on a cock-fight in town. When he saw the velocycles, he decided to change his plans.

He had not slept for two nights and there were dark bags under his eyes. It was a close evening, and his collar and the band of his cap were damp with sweat. The word in town was that Slattery, the bailiff, and his men had been asking questions. Jimmy and the other lads involved in the disastrous heist were dead and they had already been reported missing. Anybody who knew Jimmy would be aware that he worked with Shay. The moneylender who had taken the engimal lamp off his hands for a tidy sum would keep his mouth shut, but sooner or later somebody would talk. Shay needed to get out of town. Everybody thought the explosion had been the work of the rebels. If Slattery's lads got hold of him, he was a dead man – if he was lucky.

But Shay couldn't stop thinking about his friends. All they'd wanted was to score some loot; to take some money from a family that had more than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes. Instead, his mates had been blown to pieces. The memory of it was like a physical pain to him.

This was the Wildensterns' doing – them and the whole system that had driven him into a life of crime. Watching these young lords cavort with careless ignorance of the poverty and misery around them made him sick to his stomach. He'd get out of town all right; but not before he'd pulled off one final job. Something that would hurt and humiliate the swells he despised so much.

Waiting for the group of spectators to depart, he checked that the doorman had gone back inside and crept up to the velocycles, looking them over. Their front legs were chained to the lamppost, but the lock would be easy for him to pick. Having seen the gentlemen riding them, he figured they were tame enough. The smaller of the two was obviously a little afraid of its companion. It was careful to keep the post between them. The big one was a beauty; easily worth ten times what the moneylender had paid for the bright-eye. It shone its eyes at him and growled quietly as he came closer, but he wasn't impressed. He admired its sweeping lines and powerful bulk.

'Right you are, then,' Shay said softly. 'You'll do nicely'

Stroking its head, he leaned over to take hold of the lock.

The engimal roared and pivoted to the side, slamming him up against the lamppost. Shay cried out as he felt something crack in his chest. He staggered back but was caught as the machine bounced off its back wheel and hit him again, knocking him to the ground. In a moment he was back on his feet, stumbling away. The velocycle struck out once more with its rear wheel, spinning it at high speed as it kicked Shay up the backside. The racing wheel added to the force of the kick, and he was hurled across the laneway and spilled face-first into the mud.