by some way, unless the whole complicated castle was accounted a single structure. It contained within it a broad quadrangle, surrounded by balustraded terraces. The four sides of the huge rectangular edifice that enclosed that quadrangle held, amongst many other riches, the university’s Medical School.
It was to there that Burke’s body was conveyed; specifically, to the largest of its lecture theatres. In that great bowl of an arena, the lid of the coffin was prised up and Burke’s corpse removed. His clothes were taken from him and he was laid out upon the slab at the heart of the amphitheatre. Shortly after noon, Professor Alexander Monro, the incumbent of the university’s Chair of Anatomy, applied a saw to the late William Burke’s cranium, cutting in a neat ring around the whole circumference of the head. With a little difficulty, he then removed the entire top of his skull, and in a great gush of thick and foul blood exposed his brain to the huge crowd of students and other curious spectators assembled in the theatre.
It took close to two hours for Monro to complete his dissection of William Burke, for the edification of those who had succeeded in obtaining a ticket for the much-anticipated event. Those who had been unsuccessful rioted in the quadrangle of the college, so aggrieved were they at their exclusion from the drama. They broke windows and tore up paving stones, and fought off the gang of baton-wielding police that was dispatched from Old Stamp Office Close.
The disorder did not end until Professor Christison brokered an agreement with the ringleaders of the mob whereby Burke’s corpse, returned to something approaching its natural state, would be put on public display for two days.
So the people of Edinburgh, in their thousands, filed past the corpse of the wretch whose vile deeds had fouled their city and comforted themselves with the knowledge that, upon this one man at least, the most perfect justice had been done.
And with the execution of that justice, the need to hold William Hare a prisoner in Calton Jail came to an end.
XXXII
Two Sergeants
In the dull twilight, a small carriage turned in to the entrance of Calton Jail, and rumbled under the arch of the gatehouse. Lamps burned on either side of the driver’s seat. It drew up on the yard, in the shadow of the great prison, where a small group of men awaited it. The governor, Captain Maclellan of the guards, a handful of his officers. And William Hare, in a heavy, high-collared coat that hid much of his face.
The police sergeant who drove the cart dropped down on to the yard’s cobblestones. Maclellan came forward to meet him.
“Jack Rutherford,” Maclellan said. “It’s a miserable duty you’ve got yourself tonight. Someone at the police house got a grudge against you?”
“Volunteered,” Sergeant Rutherford said, and when he saw Maclellan’s surprise, he shrugged. “Somebody’s got to do it. The man’s under the Crown’s protection, after all. Got to see him safe out of the city. Let them lynch him somewhere else if they like, just so long as it’s outside the city bounds.”
Maclellan shook his head in amazement.
“Still. A devil like him, it’s a damn shame.”
“I don’t mind. Nobody else wanted to do it, and like I say, it needs doing.”
The governor murmured a few words to Hare, but the Irishman—no longer a prisoner, no longer under any obligation to feign civility or gratitude—paid him no heed, and climbed into the carriage with a sour grin upon his face.
It was done with no more ceremony than that. The worst killer any of the men present had ever encountered—none of them were in any doubt of that—walked free of Calton Jail. Rutherford jumped back up on to the driver’s seat, clicked his tongue at the horse, and gave it a touch of the switch to bring it around, and the carriage rolled slowly out through the gatehouse and into Regent Road.
The men drifted off, back to their duties, none happy with the one they had just discharged. Maclellan lingered, though, a moment or two longer than the rest, staring after the disappeared carriage. He came to a decision, and called one of his men back to his side.
“Get me one of the lads can run a message down to the Canongate, would you?” Maclellan said. “Quick as you like.”
The carriage made its way slowly down towards Princes Street. It did not travel far, though, for outside the grand theatre on the corner of North Bridge it came to a halt, close in to the pavement so that it should not obstruct the other coaches and hackneys moving along behind it.
Isabel Ruthven walked smartly forward from where she had been waiting beside a street lamp. She reached up and pressed a banknote into Rutherford’s hand. He said nothing, but tucked it quickly away into a pocket. Isabel climbed into the carriage and settled in beside Hare. Who leered at her, baring his teeth.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” he said, “but I’ll be damned if you’re not a sweet sight for a man’s been in a jail cell longer than he needed.”
“A charming compliment, Mr. Hare.” Isabel smiled.
The carriage lurched into motion once more. As it eased away from the kerb, the doors of the theatre opened, and the departing audience began to flow out on to the pavement, all abuzz at the splendour of the opera they had witnessed.
“Mr. Blegg wanted me to convey his appreciation for your silence on the matter of his dealings with you,” Isabel said, looking out at those gorgeous, glittering opera-goers crowding out.
Hare grunted.
“Never much of a worry. The lawyers gave me immunity for everything I done with Burke. Nothing else. They’d have hung me alongside him if the other stuff came out.”
He looked sharply at Isabel.
“Still, you said I’d be paid for it, the time you came to see me. Twenty pounds, you said.”
“Indeed. We’ll get you your money this very night, shall we? But here, I brought you something to toast your freedom with.”
She produced a hip flask, bound in worked leather, and offered it to him. Hare sniffed it, and grinned at the smell.
“Whisky,” Isabel confirmed. “A very fine variety, I’m told, though I’m no drinker of it myself.”
Hare took a long drink from the flask, tipping his head back. The carriage jolted over cobbles, and he spilled a little of the amber fluid across his lips. It ran over his chin as he reached out a hand and laid it on Isabel’s knee.
“I could do with some other kind of celebrating,” he rasped at her.
She guided his hand away, not roughly, but firmly.
“No, Mr. Hare. Not tonight. Not if you want that twenty pounds.”
The carriage rolled on, up to the High Street, and there it turned west. Hare leaned across in front of Isabel to peer out into the street.
“I’m supposed to go to the southern mail. Get out of this damned city.”
He was slurring his words. They came sluggishly off his clumsy tongue.
“Don’t you worry,” Isabel said, pushing him back into his seat.
By the time the carriage was rattling down West Bow, and slowing to a halt at the foot of it, Hare was quite asleep. Rutherford dismounted and looked in.
“You’ll have to help me with him,” Isabel said casually. “Just to get him inside, then you can wait with the carriage. Hold on to this for me, would you?” She handed him the whisky flask that she had lifted from Hare’s limp hand. “Don’t drink from it, though. We’ll be needing you awake.”
