Sawbones (16 page)

Loveday led him aside. “Please, I know it sounds outlandish, even to me, but I do believe him. Do you think I would countenance digging up the body of my own father if I did not?”

Ezra could not argue with that. “Keep a good watch, then – if anyone sees, we are in trouble.”

“I thought you said taking a corpse was not a crime,” Loveday said.

“Yes, but opening up a grave is.” Ezra started digging anyway. “One other thing, Miss Finch,” he said, “this will not be an easy thing… Your father has been dead for some time, and—”

“I am a grown woman, Mr McAdam. I know what we are about. Do not baby me.”

The digging was not hard, as the grave had only been filled the previous day. Ezra struck the coffin before long, and called for the boy – prince or not – to jump down with him and help clear the dirt off the top.

The coffin was sealed. Ezra took out his pocket knife, which was sharp enough to break the seal but not thick enough to lever the coffin open. Instead he used the edge of the spade, once, twice. The third time he heard the wood splinter.

The smell was the usual reek of damp earth and rotting meat. Mahmoud jumped up as there wasn’t room in the grave for both of them and the coffin lid. Miss Finch stepped away.

“Is he there? Is it him?” she whispered.

“We need the lamp,” Ezra called up.

Loveday passed it down, and Ezra set it on a ledge of clay and began to undo the winding sheet from the top, just as far as the neck.

Mr Finch, thanks to the cold weather, didn’t look too bad save for the flesh beginning to draw back from the mouth and the eyes beginning to sink – where the balls had softened slightly, Ezra reckoned.

“So where am I looking?” he asked.

“Behind the right ear,” the boy answered.

Ezra turned the head – he felt the give of the flesh in the neck, and pulled it away. Under his fingers the skin felt clay-cold, putty-soft. He moved the ear, hoping it wouldn’t come away in his hand – the skin had begun to slip from the cadaver. He felt behind it.

“Have you found anything?” Loveday called.

“There!” A lump, two, underneath his fingertips. He took his pocket knife and sliced the skin. There was no blood. Three flat, slippery, disc-shaped stones slid into his open hand. “I have them!”

Suddenly there was the sound of slow hooves on the ground and the wheels of a large heavy cart somewhere out on the road. Loveday squealed and threw herself and the boy into the grave with Ezra.

“Are you
mad
?” Ezra hissed.

“Someone is coming, I know it!”

Ezra snuffed out the lamp and the three of them froze, as still as Mr Finch, lying beside them in the dark.

The cart seemed to move agonizingly slowly. Ezra was intensely conscious of the face of the cadaver only inches from his own, and his own breathing sounded so loud he was certain it must somehow be heard from the road. He held his breath, his heart pounding in his chest, and after an age the hoofbeats receded into the night.

“I smell of death,” Loveday said as she scrambled out, shaking her skirts to loosen the mud. Ezra shut the coffin lid as best he could and clambered out after her, slipping and sliding on the mud.

“You found them?” the boy demanded.

“I found something. Look.” Ezra unclenched his fist and the stones, no bigger than marbles, glistened in his palm, even in the dim moonlight.

“Oi! Who’s there?” A call from beyond the churchyard wall – a man, the watch, with a lantern raised.

Ezra felt his heart skip. He looked at Loveday Finch and Mahmoud. But in an instant the boy had snatched up the stones from his hand and run – vanished, as quick as a phantom, into the dark.

Miss Finch grabbed Ezra’s hand and pulled him into the shadow of the church.

“Is someone there? Oi!” the watch called again. He blew his whistle in alarm – there was the distant sound of boots on cobbles; the man wasn’t alone.

“We’ve had it!” Ezra whispered.

“Come on! Over the wall and into the fields!” Loveday Finch began to run.

“What about the boy?”

“This way!” They got as far as the wall but it seemed to be higher here. Ezra thought he might be able to scramble up, but Miss Finch in her skirts would be trapped.

Behind them they could hear footsteps and a dog barking, coming closer all the while.

Loveday turned to him and grinned. “Come here!” she said, and pulled Ezra into a clinch.

“What?” The word came out distinctly muffled as she launched herself at him, and Ezra found Loveday Finch’s lips pressed to his. It was, he thought, infinitely more shocking than disinterring a corpse ever could be.

The watchman swung his lantern towards them and stopped. The light was strong and yellow and they broke apart, blinking.

“It’s only a pair of young ’uns!” the watchman called over his shoulder. “You seen anything? Grave over there’s been disturbed.” The man swung his lantern around, and Ezra was glad that Loveday had left the spade.

“No, sir. Sorry, sir,” Ezra said, hoping the mud that clung to their shoes would not give them away.

“Get on with you,” the man said. “Go on. Quick, before I change my mind and lock you up for something I haven’t thought of yet.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Ezra took Loveday’s hand in his and they ran towards the gate and out into the fields, keeping the pace up until they saw the lights of the houses at Clerkenwell Green in the distance.

“I am never doing that again!” Ezra panted, stamping his feet as soon as they reached the modern stone paving to dislodge the grave mud from his boots. Every bone ached from digging, his fingers were greasy with corpse residue and his lips felt as if they had been assaulted.

“The watch let us alone, didn’t they?” Loveday said, almost giggling with relief.

“Thank heavens! But where did the boy go?”

“Mahmoud? I think he got away. I hope so. Perhaps he will come to the house tomorrow.”

“Why?” Ezra asked. “He has what he wants – you and I taken for mugs and doing his dirty work. That is royalty through and through.”

“But don’t you see?” said Loveday. “This is the answer to everything! Someone knew Pa was carrying those rubies but whoever killed him couldn’t find them.” She looked at Ezra. “Those things must have been worth a fortune – that’s why they took his body! And when they still found nothing they went after Mr Falcon…”

“Why would your father do that? Carry those things under his skin?” Ezra made a face.

“We do not all have a trade, Ezra McAdam. Money comes and goes. Pa would have accepted the fee.” Loveday paused. “What I still don’t see, though, is why they came after your master.”

Ezra frowned. “It was the tongueless man they sought. When I first met Mahmoud he thought the Negro might have had a letter on him – perhaps it would have been important?”

“I don’t think Mahmoud should be in this country at all.” Loveday was getting carried away, leaping from one thought to the next without provocation; it was as if Ezra hadn’t said anything at all. “That’s what he told me. His grandmother, the valide sultan, sent him here in secret, to go to school, to escape the fate of all those princes locked away in the harem. To escape madness.”

Ezra shook his head. “Perhaps those princes do not have it all their own way,” he acknowledged.

“They are only let out into the world once they become sultan. It’s to prevent intrigue. One party favouring one prince would poison all the others…” She trailed off. “Someone in the embassy,” she went on, “Ahmat, perhaps, must have found out that Mahmoud was here and not safely locked up in Constantinople.”

“But why would the Ottomans want to kill one of their own?” Ezra asked.

“This is intrigue of the highest order, don’t you see? The Russian Empire has been chipping away at its Ottoman neighbours for years. Turkey grows weak. The Russians, Pa told me, want the Black Sea, want the Bosphorus. They would do anything to have their man, a puppet sultan, on the Ottoman throne. Definitely not Mahmoud, a boy who has seen the world, grown up outside the Cage; who refused to be told what to do by another country.”

Ezra smiled to himself at the idea of the imperious Mahmoud being told what to do by anyone. Then another thought occurred to him. “So that’s why Oleg is working with Mr Ahmat – a Russian and a Turk!”

“Yes! If they kill Mahmoud here in London, no one will be any the wiser – after all, he should be at home in the Topkapi Palace surrounded by servants and flunkies. And Ahmat would have the rubies.”

“So he hides on the streets…”

They reached the doorstep of Mrs Gurney’s house. Ezra could see a light burning in the horrible yellow drawing room.

“I would invite you in,” Loveday said, “but Mrs Gurney rather took against you. If I hear from Mahmoud I will send word. I have no doubt he will be in touch.” Ezra made a face. Loveday shrugged. “He is a prince.”

“He is in hiding!” Ezra hissed.

“He needs us. What can a street boy do with a handful of rubies?” She shivered. “I must go in and change. We can talk tomorrow if you like.”

Ezra was exhausted, and the thought of going back to Great Windmill Street and all the uncertainty that awaited him there made him feel heavy.

“I cannot say, Miss Finch. I do not know where or what I will be doing tomorrow,” he began, but Loveday had already turned the lock in the door and pushed it open.

“Good night,” she said, and was gone.

Ezra realized quite suddenly how cold he felt. The master dead. Anna gone. Was there any point to anything? He stood still on Miss Finch’s doorstep, listening to her call to Mrs Gurney that she was home then pull the bolt on the other side of the door. The church at St James’s on the green struck eleven. If he hurried, perhaps Mrs Boscaven or Ellen would still be up and able to let him in by the area door.

The next morning, the jaunt in the graveyard seemed like part of a very strange dream, but there was still the remnant of the yellow London clay on Ezra’s shoes to prove otherwise. For a few seconds he had seen those rubies; felt them in his hand. He smiled. Anna would never believe the tale in a thousand years.

When he sat up he realized Ellen hadn’t laid or lit the fire, which was strange, and when he opened the curtain he could tell by the height of the sun behind the cloud that it must be late. He listened for other sounds in the house but could hear nothing. He washed and dressed quickly, and went downstairs.

In the kitchen there was no sign of anybody at all – the stillness was almost unsettling. It wasn’t until Ezra went into the hall that he found Dr James with Ellen and Mrs Boscaven and their bags, packed, ready to leave. Ellen was teary and clung to Mrs B, who patted her shoulder consolingly and looked at Ezra with regret.

Dr James took out his pocket watch, eyebrows arched. “What time do you call this?”

Ezra opened his mouth – what on earth was happening? – but Dr James shushed him. “I leave for Edinburgh in a while, and the house is to be shut up. Fetch your bag and come with me.”

“What?” Ezra said. “Am I to go to Scotland?”

“Don’t be an idiot, boy. I do not want you. You have a place with Mr Lashley. Though I doubt with all my heart that you deserve it.”

Ezra knew his heart was still beating, but he felt frozen. Already?

“Well, get about your business! I haven’t got all day, and if you think I am leaving you in the house to close up and to take still more liberties with the McAdam family, you are utterly and completely mistaken.”

Surgeon’s Operating Theatre
St Bartholomew’s Hospital
Smithfield
London
November 1792

T
he subject was a girl, not twenty, her face white as clean linen and her knee a mangled mess of bone and sinew. Ezra had asked the porter about her; he said she was a girl who cried apples and pears in the street who’d got caught under the wheels of a runaway timber wagon coming down Fish Street Hill.

From the hallway outside the operating theatre Ezra could hear the cry of a baby. The porter said it had been strapped to the young woman’s back when it happened, and was lucky not to have been injured.

Ezra had tied the tourniquet tightly around the girl’s thigh, and there was not so much bleeding. She had been strapped down to the table, and – poor thing, Ezra thought – was still completely conscious, even though she stank to high heaven of gin. She was mumbling prayers under her breath, and when Ezra came close she grabbed his wrist.

“I have never seen so many gentlemen all in one place,” she whispered. “Perhaps there is one who’ll want to wed a one-legged maid?” Ezra looked at her properly. She was passing fair: dark hair, brown eyes – like Anna, he thought.

“Perhaps,” he said, and looked away.

“Sir, young sir!” she called him back. “Tell me, will I live?” Ezra could hear the desperation and fear cracking her voice.

“Of course,” he said with as much warmth as he could muster in the cold room. He gave her a reassuring smile.

He was lying. He could not know for certain; this was his first operation as Mr Lashley’s assistant. He had never seen the man’s knives go to work on living flesh, but having seen him ruin a cadaver the thought was chilling. Ezra hoped he had hidden those thoughts from her. He offered her some laudanum but she wanted only more gin. He sent a porter out for a quart and hoped it would come quickly. He wished that Josiah, Lashley’s old apprentice, was here, but Ezra had heard that he’d run off to join the army before Lashley could get rid of him.

The operating theatre was filled to bursting. The noise of the gentlemen’s chatter and the smoke from their pipes rose up and gathered against the ceiling. Ezra laid out the surgeon’s instruments: flesh knives, bone saw, artery hook. Of course, they weren’t Lashley’s – they were the master’s, and consequently old friends. He had spent the morning sharpening and cleaning them, and they gleamed. Ezra checked and tightened the girl’s straps and laid out the padding and bandages for afterwards.

The doors swung open and Mr Lashley entered, hat off, grinning. Ezra helped him on with his apron. He wasn’t certain, but he thought that Mr Lashley smelt of spirits too. The crowd fell into silence.