The Way of All Flesh Read online

  Lighting fell within the responsibility of the police office, as did keeping the gutters clear. Their main priority, however, was the investigation and recovery of stolen property. If they observed that as well as their other duties, Raven thought, then every thief in the Lothians could sleep easy.

  As he approached Bakehouse Close he stepped on something soft and his left shoe began to fill with water; at least he hoped it was water. He hopped for a couple of yards, trying to shake off whatever was clinging to his sole. Then he became aware that a figure had emerged from a doorway and was loitering in front of him. He wondered what the fellow was waiting for, and why he would be lingering with the rain becoming heavier. Then Raven drew close enough to see his face, which in the gathering darkness was also close enough to smell the rancid decay from his carious teeth.

  Raven did not know his name, but he had seen him before: one of Flint’s men. Raven had christened him the Weasel, after his furtive manner and rodent-like features. The Weasel did not strike him as the type to chance confronting Raven alone, which meant he was bound to have an accomplice nearby. Probably that slow-witted fellow he was with the last time: Peg, Raven had named him, for the sole tooth standing amid his ruin of a mouth. Raven had probably passed him without realising a few moments ago. He would be hiding in another doorway ready to cut him off if he ran.

  This encounter was not mere happenstance, he realised. He remembered the man who had been staring at him and then departed so purposefully from the tavern.

  ‘Mr Raven, you’re not trying to avoid me, are you?’

  ‘As I can think of nothing that would commend your company, then my general intention would be to avoid you, but I was not aware I was being sought.’

  ‘Anyone who owes Mr Flint will always be sought. But you can guarantee my absence just as soon as you make good on your debt.’

  ‘Make good on it? I have barely owed it a fortnight. So how about you sub me an advance on that absence and get out of my way.’

  Raven brushed past him and resumed walking. The Weasel did not seek to apprehend him, and nor did he immediately follow. He would be waiting for his accomplice to catch up. He and Peg were used to breaking the bones of already broken men, and some craven instinct perhaps detected that Raven had a greater stomach for the fight. The ale might have doused what burned in him before, but the sight of this sphincter-blossom was reigniting it.

  Raven walked slowly, aware of the footsteps behind him. He was searching in the gloom for a weapon. Anything could be turned to such a purpose: you simply needed to know how best to use it. His foot happened upon something wooden and he bent to lift it. It was a splintered length, but solid enough.

  Raven turned around and rose in one movement, the stick drawn back in his right hand, then something exploded inside his head. There was light everywhere and a whiplash movement, as though his inert body was being hauled like a dead weight by the momentum of his head. He hit the wet cobbles with a rattle of bones, too fast to make any attempt to cushion his fall.

  He opened his dazed eyes and looked up. The blow had rendered him insensible, he reasoned, for he was having visions. There was a monster above him. A giant.

  Raven was dragged from the street into the dark of an alley by a creature that had to be seven feet tall. His head alone was twice the size of any man’s, his forehead impossibly overgrown like an outcrop of rocks at a cliff-edge. Raven was paralysed by pain and shock, unable to react as he saw this Gargantua rear up before him and bring down a heel. The sound of his own cry echoed off the walls as pain erupted inside him. He flailed in response, curling his limbs tight about him, then felt another post-holer of a blow drive down through the huge trunk of his assailant’s leg.

  Gargantua crouched to sit astride him, pinning his arms to the floor with the sheer weight of his thighs. Everything about this brute seemed stretched and disproportionate, as though certain parts of him had just kept growing and left the rest behind. When he opened his mouth, there were even gaps between his teeth indicating that his gums had kept spreading out around them.

  The pain was indescribable, worsened by the knowledge that Gargantua’s fists were free to rain down more damage. No amount of alcohol would have been sufficient to dull his senses through this, else the operating theatres would be going through more whisky than Aitken’s.

  His mind was a storm, coherent thought nigh impossible amidst such agony and confusion, but one thing seemed clear: there was no prospect of putting up any kind of fight. If this monster wished to kill him, then he was going to die here in this alley.

  Gargantua’s face was a compellingly grotesque vision, more fierce and distorted than any gargoyle clinging to the walls of a church, but it was his thick, sausage-like fingers that drew Raven’s gaze in the gloom. With his own hands helplessly restrained, he was entirely at the mercy of whatever these outsize pommels might wreak.

  Raven felt relief when they were directed to rifling through his pockets, but this was short-lived as he remembered that there was little to be found there. Gargantua held what few coins Raven had left in the palm of his hand, which was when the Weasel emerged from the shadows, pocketing the money and crouching down alongside the monster.

  ‘Aye, not so free with your mouth now, are you, Mr Raven?’

  The Weasel produced a knife from his pocket and held it up in what little light was to be found in the alley, making sure Raven could see it. It was about four inches long, the blade thin, a bloodstained rag wrapped around the wooden handle for a surer grip.

  Raven silently prayed for a quick end to his ordeal. Perhaps a stab upwards under his ribs. His pericardium would fill with blood, his heart would stop beating and it would all be over.

  ‘So now that I have your attention, let us properly address the issue of your debt to Mr Flint.’

  Raven could barely find the breath to speak, with the weight of the monster crushing him and the pain still gripping his trunk. The Weasel seemed to notice and ordered the hulk to raise himself just enough for Raven to be able to issue a whisper.

  ‘See, it seems you were keeping your light under a bushel. Since lending you the sum, we have learned that you are the son of a well-to-do lawyer in St Andrews. So having re-evaluated your status, Mr Flint has brought forward the expected date of redemption.’

  Raven felt a new weight upon him, though Gargantua had eased himself off. It was the burden of a lie returned to its teller, in accordance with the law of unforeseen consequences.

  ‘My father is long dead,’ he wheezed out. ‘Do you think if I could have borrowed from him, I would be seeking out cut-throat usurers?’

  ‘That’s as may be, but the son of a lawyer must have other connections, in time of need.’

  ‘I don’t. But as I told Flint when he lent me, I have prospects. When I begin to earn, I will be able to pay, with interest.’

  The Weasel leaned closer, the stink from his mouth worse than anything in the gutter.

  ‘Oh, there will be interest. But for an educated man, you don’t seem to understand this very well. Mr Flint doesn’t wait for prospects. When you owe him money, you find a way to get it.’

  The Weasel pressed the knife against Raven’s left cheek.

  ‘And just so you know, us usurers don’t only cut throats.’

  He drew the blade across, slow and deep, all the time looking Raven in the eye.

  ‘A wee something to remind you of your new priorities,’ he said.

  The Weasel slapped Gargantua on the shoulder by way of telling him they were done. He climbed to his feet, freeing Raven to put a hand to his face. Blood was welling through his fingers as they tenderly probed the wound.

  The Weasel then pivoted on a heel and kicked Raven in the stomach where he lay.

  ‘You find the money,’ he said. ‘Or next time it’s an eye.’

  Three

  Raven lay in the dark for a while and concentrated solely on breathing. With his assailants gone, he felt relief flood through him, an un
containable elation that he was not dead. Unfortunately this manifested itself in an unexpected urge to laugh, which proved far more containable under protest from his ribs. Were they broken, he wondered. How much damage had been done? Were any of his organs contused? He could imagine blood dribbling between the layers of the pleura, putting pressure on his bruised lung, constricting its expansion even now that the brute had removed himself.

  He put the image from his mind. All that mattered was that he was still breathing, for now, and while that remained true, his prospects were good.

  He put his hand to his cheek again. It was wet with blood and mushy, like a bruised peach. The wound was deep and wide. There was no option to return to Mrs Cherry’s without this being seen to.

  Raven dragged himself to Infirmary Street, where he decided it would be best to avoid the porter’s lodge and the stern questions his appearance would surely prompt. Instead he made his way along the wall to the section most favoured by the house surgeons for climbing over. Henry and his peers used this means of ingress when they did not wish to draw attention to late-night excursions, as such behaviour might see them called in front of the hospital board. It took several attempts in his enfeebled state, but Raven eventually hauled himself over the wall before climbing in through a low window that was always left unlatched for this specific purpose.

  He shambled along the corridor, leaning against the wall when his breathing became too laboured and painful. He crept past the surgical ward without incident, hearing loud snoring emanating from just behind the door. The noise was likely coming from the night nurses, who frequently imbibed the wines and spirits supplied for the benefit of the patients in order to ensure for themselves a good night’s sleep.

  Raven made it to Henry’s door and knocked repeatedly on it, every second it remained unanswered adding to the fear that his friend was in a post-tavern stupor. Eventually, the door swung inward and Henry’s bleary and tousled visage appeared around it. His initial response was one of horror at what creature had visited him in the night, then came recognition.

  ‘Gods, Raven. What the bloody hell has happened to you?’

  ‘Someone took exception to the fact that I had nothing worth stealing.’

  ‘We’d better get you downstairs. That’s going to need stitching.’

  ‘I diagnosed that much myself,’ Raven said. ‘Do you know a competent surgeon?’

  Henry fixed him with a look. ‘Don’t test me.’

  Raven lay back on the bed and attempted to relax, but this was not easy given that Henry was approaching his lacerated face with a large suture needle. He was trying to recount just how many times Henry’s tankard had been refilled, calculating the implications for how neatly he would be capable of stitching. Drunk or sober, no quality of needlework was going to spare him a scar, which would be the first thing anyone noticed about him in the future. This was likely to have ramifications for his career, but he could not afford to think about that right then. Most immediately his priority was to remain still, but the pains racking him and the prospect of Henry’s needle were militating against that.

  ‘I realise that it’s difficult, but I must ask you to refrain from writhing, and when I commence, from flinching. Part of the wound is close to your eye and if I get the stitching wrong it will droop.’

  ‘Then I will have to be rechristened Isaiah,’ he replied.

  ‘Why?’ Henry asked; then it came to him. ‘Mother of God, Raven.’

  Henry’s expression was funnier than the joke, but any relief it gave Raven came at a sharp cost to his ribs.

  Raven lay still and attempted to transport himself from the here and now, so that he was less conscious of the procedure. Unfortunately, his first destination, quite involuntarily, was Evie’s room, the sight of her twisted body appearing in his mind just as Henry’s needle first penetrated his cheek. He felt it push through the skin and into the soft layer below, could not but picture the curve of it bridging the sides of the wound before re-emerging, which was when he felt the tug of the cat-gut through his already ravaged face. It hurt far more than the Weasel’s knife, that being over in a couple of seconds.

  He put up a hand as Henry was about to commence the second stitch.

  ‘Have you any ether?’ he asked.

  Henry looked at him disapprovingly. ‘No. You’ll just need to tolerate it. It’s not as though you’re having a leg off.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. Have you ever had your face stitched?’

  ‘No, and that good fortune might be related to the fact that nor do I have an inclination to bark at the moon and pick fights with Old Town ne’er-do-wells.’

  ‘I did not pick any— ow!’

  ‘Stop talking,’ Henry warned, having recommenced. ‘I can’t do this if your cheek is not still.’

  Raven fixed him with an ungrateful glare.

  ‘The ether doesn’t always seem to work anyway,’ Henry told him, tugging the cat-gut tight on the second loop. ‘Syme has just about given up on it, and with someone dying of the stuff recently, I think that will nail down the lid.’

  ‘Someone died of it?’

  ‘Yes. Down in England somewhere. Coroner said it was a direct result of the ether but Simpson continues to champion it.’ Henry paused in what he was doing. ‘You can ask the man about it yourself when you start your apprenticeship with him in the morning.’

  Henry continued with his needlework, his head bent low over Raven’s face. He was close enough that Raven could smell the beer on his breath. Nonetheless, his hand was steady, and Raven got used to a rhythm of penetration and tug. No stitch was any less painful than its predecessor, but nor were any of them more painful than the ache in his ribs.

  Henry stepped back to examine his handiwork. ‘Not bad,’ he declared. ‘Maybe I should conduct all my surgery after a bellyful at Aitken’s.’

  Henry soaked a piece of lint in cold water and applied it to the wound. The coolness of the material was surprisingly soothing, the only pleasant sensation Raven had felt since his last swallow of ale.

  ‘I can’t send you back into the arms of Mrs Cherry looking like that,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll give you a dose of laudanum and put you in my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor for what’s left of the night.’

  ‘I’m indebted, Henry, truly. But please don’t allude to Mrs Cherry’s arms again. In my current state, the image is liable to make me spew.’

  Henry fixed him with one of his scrutinising stares, but there was mischief in his tone.

  ‘You know she provides extra services for a small additional fee, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I gather many of her young lodgers have sought comfort in those arms. She’s a widow and needs the money. There’s no shame in it. I mean, between the scar and the droopy eye, you may have to begin revising your standards.’

  Henry led Raven to his bed, where he lay down delicately. He hurt in more places simultaneously than he had ever hurt in individually. His face was full of cat-gut and, joking aside, he really might have to alter his expectations with regard to his marriage prospects. But it could all have been so much worse. He was still alive, and tomorrow was a new beginning.

  ‘Right,’ said Henry, ‘let’s get you that laudanum. And if you are going to be sick, please remember that I’m on the floor beside you and aim for my feet rather than my head.’

  Four

  Sarah was tarrying in the professor’s study when the bell rang, an unwelcome but inevitable interruption to a moment of tranquillity. She was taking time and care about her duties as she loved being in this room. It was a sanctuary of calm insulated from the chaos in the rest of the house, but her opportunities for asylum were infrequent and usually short-lived.

  She had taken some trouble over the laying of the fire, ensuring that there was a plentiful mound of coal piled in the grate. The fire was lit winter and summer to ensure the comfort of the patients the doctor saw here, but it was a particularly cold day and it was taking some time for the air in the room to thaw. A s
mall amount of ice had formed on the inside of the window beside the doctor’s desk, a delicate pattern of fern-like fronds that disappeared when she breathed on it. She wiped the resulting moisture away with a cloth and took a moment to admire the view. On a clear day such as this you could see all the way to Fife. At least that is what she had been told. She had never ventured much beyond the outskirts of Edinburgh herself.

  The desk beside the window was piled high with books and manuscripts that Sarah had to clean around without disturbing. She had over time perfected her technique, a skill acquired through painful trial and error and the rescuing of errant scraps of paper from the fireplace.

  The room had not always seemed so welcoming. When she first came into Dr Simpson’s service, she had been quite terrified by what confronted her in here. Against one wall stood a tall cabinet upon several shelves of which sat jars of anatomical specimens: all manner of human organs immersed in yellowing fluid. More troubling still was that many of them were damaged, diseased or malformed, as though their very presence was not unsettling enough.

  In time she had come to be fascinated by all of it, even the jar that contained two tiny babes, face-to-face, joined together along the length of the breastbone. When she had first seen it, Sarah had been gripped by questions regarding where such a thing had come from and how it had been procured. She also wondered about the propriety of keeping such a specimen, preserving what was quite clearly human remains instead of burying them. Was it right that such a thing be displayed? Was it somehow wrong to look at it?

  Beneath the shelves was a cupboard housing the doctor’s teaching materials for his midwifery class. Sarah was unsure whether exploration of the cupboard’s contents was permitted, but as it had not been specifically prohibited she had indulged her curiosity on the few occasions when time allowed. It contained an odd collection of pelvic bones and obstetric instruments, the use of which she could only guess at. There were forceps, of course, with which Sarah was familiar, but there were other more mysterious implements, labelled as cephalotribes, cranioclasts and perforators. Their names alone suggested something brutal and Sarah could not imagine what place they had in the delivery of a child.