James McGee - Resurrectionist

Jago nodded towards Hopkins. “Take the constable up to her and bring her down here. Go now.”

Hopkins looked to Hawkwood for guidance. Hawkwood nodded. “Take my pistols. Give me yours.”

The constable frowned.

“Yours is still loaded,” Hawkwood said.

They swapped firearms and Hopkins and the moll who had spoken left the room.

“A word, Major.”

Lomax walked over.

Hawkwood tucked the pistol into his belt. “Nathaniel and I are leaving. You’re in charge here. How’s the shoulder?”

“I’ll live.”

“When they bring the girl down, see she’s taken to a physician. Nathaniel tells me she’s been sorely treated. There’s another one, name of Sadie, hiding in the larder. Make sure she gets out as well. Get all the girls out. Hopkins can see to it.”

Lomax saw the darkness in Hawkwood’s eyes. “What about them?” he nodded towards the Hanrattys.

“Micah will take care of them.”

Hawkwood looked towards Jago, who was standing next to his lieutenant. Jago gave a small, unobtrusive nod.

“You have a problem with that, Major?” Hawkwood asked.

Lomax held Hawkwood’s gaze for maybe two or three seconds. “No,” he said. “What about this place?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can burn it.”

There was another pause.

“I might enjoy that,” Lomax said.

Hawkwood nodded. He turned to Jago. “Ready?”

“Waitin’ on you, Cap’n.”

“Bring a light,” Hawkwood said.

Jago looked up at the front of the house. “Why here?”

“The address was on that piece of paper I found in Sawney’s waistcoat: number 13 Castle Street. I think it’s the home of Hyde’s old mentor and hero: John Hunter. Apothecary Locke told me Hyde lived here when he was a student. Hunter used to give anatomy lectures here, so Hyde would have had everything he needed for his butchery. Sawney must have delivered Molly Finn here; that’s why he laughed when he called you king of the castle.”

“No lights,” Jago observed. His eyes took in the shuttered windows and the raised drawbridge. “What would he want with Molly Finn?”

“I don’t know,” Hawkwood said. “That’s what worries me.”

Jago took the lock picks from his pocket and gave Hawkwood a wry look. “Murder, arson and burglary. Anyone ever tell you, you’ve a strange way of upholding the law? Here, hold this.”

“Just open the bloody door,” Hawkwood said. He took the lantern from Jago and drew Hopkins’s pistol from his belt.

Molly Finn came awake slowly. Her eyelids felt heavy and unresponsive. She tried to raise her head. That proved almost as difficult and when she tried moving her arms and legs, it was as if a great weight was pressing down upon them. Every movement was a huge effort. She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could manage was a weak swallow, and there was a strange taste at the back of her throat that she could not identify.

The room was candlelit, she saw, but everything was blurred. It was like looking up at the stars through a black lace curtain. She had the feeling that the room was large and her first thought was that she must be in a church or a chapel. She tried to recall how she might have got there, but her mind became a jumble of vague, confusing thoughts. She tried to concentrate, but that only made things worse. The candle flames around her began to dance and shimmer. Suddenly the whole room was spinning. It was much better if she kept her eyes closed, she decided, but when she did that, she could feel herself slipping away. The more she tried to fight the sensation, the more tired she became. In the end, it was easier just to succumb. And in truth, sleep, when it eventually came, was a relief.

“Looks like we got it wrong,” Jago said. There was anger in his voice as he stared around him. Samuel Ragg’s pistol was held loosely in his hand.

They had checked the two doors leading off the entrance hall. The rooms beyond were dark, cold, and empty. The tiny arrows of desultory moonlight slanting down through thin gaps and holes in the window shutters had revealed no signs of recent habitation. The air smelled of dry dust and abandonment.

Hawkwood said nothing. He had been so sure the answer would be here. Yet there was no sense that anyone was present, other than the two of them. He stood at the foot of the stairway and looked up towards the next landing. All he could see was a well of darkness. He held out his hand. “Give me the light.”

They were halfway up the stairs when Jago paused. “Smell that?”

Hawkwood had already noticed it. It was the same odour as had been leaking from the vats and the benches in the cellar of the Black Dog. He suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of dread. It was as though the house was starting to close in around them.

The first floor was also empty. Most of it was taken up by one large room containing rows of empty shelves. There was an ancient wooden packing chest resting against one wall; inside were some paper boxes and a collection of empty glass jars.

The smell grew stronger the higher they climbed. Jago was the first to use his neck cloth to cover his nose. By the time they arrived at the second floor it was reaching in to the back of their throats. They stopped outside a closed door. The smell coming from inside the room was intense.

Hawkwood turned the handle and pushed.

“God in Heaven,” Jago said.

When Molly opened her eyes for the second time, little appeared to have changed. She still felt as if she could fall asleep for a hundred years, and the odd taste at the back of her throat refused to go away.

The mattress was as hard as a board. She was cold, too. She could still make out the glow of candles, scores of them, arranged around the room. Her eyes tried to penetrate the darkness beyond. The walls, she noticed, had a curious, curved shape to them; so much so that they seemed to be spiralling away from her towards the ceiling. It was a most peculiar sensation.

She went to push the sheet away, only to find that she was still unable to move her arms and legs. Her first reaction was to call out, but all she could manage this time was a dry croak. She strained to raise herself up but the harder she tried, the more difficult it became. Her efforts grew progressively weaker. Finally, exhausted, feeling as helpless as a kitten, Molly sank back and closed her eyes.

There was a noise. Molly started. The candles were still burning. She could see them, flickering dimly, and she could smell the tallow. Had she been asleep? she wondered. Perhaps she’d fainted. If so, for how long? It was very cold now, and growing colder by the minute. She shivered and tried to raise her hands to lift the sheet higher, but the simple task eluded her. The walls were behaving very oddly, too, the way they were revolving around her, like a child’s top.

The noise came again, instantly familiar, even in her confused state: footsteps on a wooden floor. As she tried to locate the source of the sound, a dark shape detached itself from the edge of the shadows beyond the reach of the candle glow, and moved slowly towards her.

Hawkwood stared at the skull. It was some kind of monkey. The skull was in a jar on a shelf. The monkey’s eyes looked as if they were on the point of opening, giving the impression that the animal had been sleeping when its head had been removed. The face, although heavily wrinkled, looked strangely young. It was framed by an incongruous cap of wispy reddish hair.

The jar was one of several score that filled the shelves along the right-hand wall. They came in all shapes and sizes, each one labelled. Every single jar was full of cloudy liquid. Suspended in the liquid, like insects trapped in amber, Hawkwood saw a bewildering assortment of objects. There were lizards with two tails and baby crocodiles emerging from eggs. According to the labels, others held brains of deer, of goats and dogs, the eyes of a leopard, the testes of a ram, the foetus of a pig, kittens, mice, snakes, baby sharks, two-headed chickens… All manner of oddities and abnormalities were displayed.