Resurrectionist

scalp.

Under the sexton’s gaze, the constable scraped away the last of the soil and waited for orders.

Hawkwood stared into the hole, at the all too familiar jagged crack that ran across the top end of the coffin lid.

“Open it up.”

Hopkins swallowed nervously.

“Don’t worry,” Hawkwood said. “It’s empty.”

The sexton and the constable both turned and stared at him.

Hopkins jammed the blade of the shovel under the lid and bore down on the handle. Then, with a creeping sense of dread, he levered off the broken section of lid and propped it against the side of the grave.

“Well?” Hawkwood said.

Hopkins knelt down and peered into the open coffin, wrinkling his nostrils at the loamy smell that rose to meet him. He looked up. “You were right. There’s nothing there. How did you know?”

Hawkwood ignored the question. “What was he wearing when they buried him, Mr Pegg?”

“’Is Sunday best.”

“You said there’s no body, Constable. Is there anything else? Clothing, maybe? Get down. Have a good look. Feel around.”

The constable did as he was instructed. Feel around? He was going to need a new uniform after this, he thought gloomily. He looked up and shook his head. “There’s nothing.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, sir.” Why was Hawkwood so insistent? he wondered.

“All right, you can come up.” Hawkwood held out a hand. Hopkins grabbed it and hauled himself over the lip. “And I’ve told you before; don’t call me sir.”

The constable reddened.

“The bastards took him.” Pegg spat another mouthful of green phlegm into the earth.

“No,” Hawkwood said. “They didn’t.”

The sexton nodded down at the half-open coffin. “Pissing thing’s empty, ain’t it? Course they got him!”

Hopkins ignored the outburst. “How did you know it would be empty?” he asked again. The armpits of his shirt were stained dark with sweat from the digging. He rubbed his breeches to remove the worst of the mud and reached for his cap and jacket.

“I didn’t; not for certain. It was a guess. I wanted confirmation.”

“It wasn’t the Borough Boys?”

“Evil buggers!” the sexton hissed, to no one in particular.

Hawkwood shook his head. “It wasn’t the resurrection men.”

The sexton’s head swivelled.

“Why do you say that?” Hopkins asked.

“Because whoever dug him up took the whole damned lot,” Hawkwood said.

Hopkins looked back down at the hole. “I don’t understand.”

“A corpse is fair game. Take a body, the law can’t touch you. Steal the clothes, it’s theft. You can be taken down for that. Whether he’d been dressed in a smock or a winding sheet, it’d make no difference. Two weeks in the hulks and a voyage to Botany Bay. But there’s nothing down there except the coffin. Whoever did it took everything. If it had been the sack-’em-up men, they’d have thrown the clothes back.”

“If it wasn’t them, who was it?” Hopkins asked, nonplussed.

Hawkwood did not reply. At the outset he’d outlined what they were going to do, but he had not told Hopkins the reason behind the exhumation; for the moment he was content that the latter should remain ignorant. In any case, Hawkwood had concluded, it was probably best if only he and the Chief Magistrate knew the full extent of his failure and embarrassment if his theory was proved wrong.

He stared at the church, at the tower and the walls that were left standing, and turned to the sexton. “The man who was buried here. How did he die?”

“Crossin’ the street. Got knocked down by a carriage. Driver lost control. The poor bugger was caught underneath the wheels an’ dragged ’alfway down the road before they were able to stop it. Broke ’im up some. It weren’t a pretty sight.”

The male corpse examined by Surgeon Quill had suffered, among other things, a broken leg, a broken arm and a fractured skull. Both the surgeon and Hawkwood had accepted the evidence at face value, consistent with injuries sustained by falling from a great height. They could equally have been caused by a collision with a carriage travelling at speed.

But if Hyde had dug up the body and substituted it for his own, there was still the matter of his escape from the fire. Hawkwood and scores of witnesses had seen him cast his body into the flames. And by that time the place had been engulfed. Hawkwood continued to gaze towards the tower, stark against the cold winter sky.

“Bring the lanterns,” Hawkwood said.

The constable and the sexton looked at each other. Neither said anything, but the unspoken question was there. Then, taking up a lantern each, they followed Hawkwood towards the church.

When they got there, Hawkwood looked up. It was a long way from the tower window to the ground. There had been no hesitation when Hyde had jumped into the flames. One second he was there, the next he was gone, his leap accompanied by the tolling of the bell. No one could have survived the drop, or the fire. There was a bird, Hawkwood knew, the Phoenix, which burned itself every five hundred years, only to rise rejuvenated from its own ashes. But that was a myth and this hadn’t been a bird; it had been a man. Nothing arose from a pile of ashes, except perhaps the smell of them.

Hawkwood turned. The sexton was leaning against a section of wall, breathing hard.

“The church,” Hawkwood said, “when was it built?”

The sexton blinked at this new enquiry.

“This isn’t the original building,” Hawkwood said.

“Course it bloody ain’t.”

“That’s because the one before burnt down as well,” Hawkwood said. “Didn’t it?”

“Everyone knows that. They all went up in smoke, the whole bleedin’ lot, and ’alf the city with ’em.”

One hundred and fifty years ago, it had been, or as near as made no difference, and there were parts of the capital that still hadn’t recovered. It had started, so it was said, in a baker’s, and the close-packed wooden houses had stood no chance against it. The Great Fire had raged across the city destroying all in its path, including all but a handful of parish churches, and the King had commissioned Wren to rebuild them. Over fifty had been completed. St Mary’s had been one of them, built, like so many others, on the foundations of the old; a Phoenix made of brick, glass and stone.

Hawkwood grasped the sexton’s arm. “Is there a crypt?”

The sexton winced. “Course there’s a bloody crypt. It’s a church, ain’t it?”

“Where is it?”

The sexton tugged his arm free and pointed to the tumble of burnt and broken debris that looked as though it was the result of a bombardment from a battery of howitzers. “Where do you think? It’s under that lot.”

“Show me,” Hawkwood said.

The sexton muttered something unintelligible under his breath, as if fed up to the back teeth of being told what to do, but he crooked a finger and stomped off with Hawkwood and the constable following him into the ruined building.

Picking his way through the wreckage, the sexton led them towards what had been the head of the nave. The smell of charcoal hung in the air. The rain had turned the ash into a black sludge. Hawkwood could feel it sticking to the soles of his boots. Looking around, he was struck by the amount of damage the church had suffered. Rafferty had said the fire started suddenly and intensified at a surprisingly quick rate. It was clear the colonel hadn’t just lit a match and hoped for the best.

“The bugger used the lamp oil,” Pegg said. “We’d just ’ad a fresh supply delivered to see us through winter. The barrels were stored in the vestry.”

That’s how it had been done. Hyde had distributed the oil around the inside of the building, emptied it over the pews and the altar and up the stairs in the tower. And the wall hangings and the tapestries and the linen altar