The Edinburgh Dead

Quire’s Last Day

Dr. Robert Knox paused, his blade poised above the cadaver, and looked up. A whole gallery of attentive faces gazed down upon him from the seats of his teaching theatre. Two hundred or more young men waited for the incision and what it would reveal. The fractious whine of the gas lights was the only sound, as if every breath in the great chamber was held.

Knox slowly set down the scalpel and clasped his hands.

“You are privileged, gentlemen,” he said, taking a pace to interpose himself between the corpse and its audience. “Privileged to have been born into an age of comprehension. A transformative age. By your presence here, you accept an invitation to join a brotherhood of sorts.”

He looked up, and addressed himself to the highest corner, where wall met ceiling. His voice swelled with passion the better to fill the space. And though this was not what his students had expected, they listened with rapt concentration.

“It is a brotherhood that holds reason, and its fearless application, to be the holiest of sacraments. It is a fraternity built upon the achievements of men who laboured long and hard to uncover secrets, and render unto all of humanity the fruits of their labours.

“Yet I was reminded, not so long ago, that there are those who would set obstacles in the path of reason. Those who would forbid us to follow where it leads, because they find our discoveries, or our conclusions, or our methods—particularly our methods—distasteful. They care nothing for the benefits mankind may derive from the rational, clear-headed pursuit of knowledge. They are prisoners of their superstitions, and their fear, and would have us be the same.”

Knox returned to the side of the dissecting slab at his theatre’s heart. He looked down at the naked form lying there: a middle-aged woman. Blotched skin, shorn hair. Nameless and empty.

“A great enterprise is under way,” he called out, so sharply as to set a few of the assembled students jumping on their hard benches. “A noble enterprise, and you are all a part of it, though it was begun before a single man of you was born. It will change our world entirely. It is the substitution, gentlemen, of superstition and mysticism with a spirit of rational enquiry that promises to make possible wonders of every kind.”

He pointed with a thick, long finger at one of the gas jets burning so brightly on the wall.

“It is by the light of just such a wonder that you see me at this moment. There have been boats out upon the Forth this very day driven not by the wind or the strength of men but by engines. We shall, undoubtedly, have the railway in Edinburgh before this decade is out, and then we all shall make our journeys not by stagecoach but by steam carriage. Wonders, gentlemen!”

Knox carefully reached down and took hold of the scalpel once more. It was small in his big hand, but its blade took a gas-fired gleam from the air and sparkled.

“It is our joint responsibility, we members of this rational brotherhood, to stand firm against the assaults of those who would hobble our investigations. We pursue higher ambitions than they conceive, and cannot be bound by the petty concerns of mob, or church, or polite society. It is both our burden and our honour to stand above such considerations.”

He surveyed the attentive faces, as if to determine their worth.

“In one more way are you privileged, gentlemen,” he proclaimed with a dramatic flourish of his scalpel, much as the conductor of an orchestra might wield his baton. “It is this: you have found your way into my charge. I tell you frankly that you are most fortunate, or wise, to have arrived at such a destination.”

A ripple of amusement tumbled down the steeply raked gallery of seating. His students knew the shape of this theme. They had heard it often enough before, and it was one that seldom proved less than entertaining.

“You have escaped, some of you all too briefly, from under the dead hand of the university. These men they call lecturers and professors”—Knox gestured at the wall with his blade, sending their imaginations out beyond the Royal Infirmary, over the tenement roofs, to where the great college of the university lay—“they rest upon laurels earned by those now dead. They rely upon the notes of men who gave the same lectures, word for word, thirty years ago. There is no movement. And thus they allow the torch that they inherited to falter, its flame to dim.”

He lowered his voice at last, surveying his assembled acolytes with one final sweep of his distinguished head.

“Not here, gentlemen. Here we still pursue the mysteries. Here we still stride forward, admitting of no restraint that lesser mortals might seek to set upon our advancement of human knowledge. So. Let us see what discoveries await us this evening, shall we?”

He bent over the dead woman and set his scalpel to her throat. A pause. An expectant hush. Then, with a single firm and unerring movement, he cut her open from neck to stomach.

“I’ve a sworn statement that you were seen in the company of whores, Quire.”

There was a lascivious looseness to the way Acting Superintendent Baird said the words. He savoured their feel in his mouth far too much. Quire stared back at the man, not bothering to conceal his distaste.

Baird occupied like a thief the seat in which James Robinson had so recently sat, Quire thought. A usurper, entirely too enamoured of the authority he had stolen. Delighting too much in its exercise, as men so often did when they were not truly deserving of the power they wielded. The less they had done to earn it, the more it pleased them to display it.

“Who’s done the swearing?” Quire asked.

The dead weight of his voice should have been a warning to anyone alert to such things, but Baird was not one such.

“Not your concern. The truth of it, that’s what you should be pondering.”

“Have I no right to know my accuser, then?”

“This isn’t a court of law,” Baird scoffed. “It’s a matter of discipline. You’ve breached the regulations of your employment, and for that I’m your judge and the Police Board your jury.”

Quire knew then that he was caught. A fish in a net, and all his thrashing would do nothing but wind him more tightly in the mesh. He had sensed trouble, without knowing its shape, as soon he got back to the police house, to be greeted by the message that Baird required his immediate presence.

Until then, the day had been quieter than most of his recent experience. He had woken, still aching and stiff from his exertions at Cold Burn Farm, after sleeping fitfully through the best part of a full day and night. He had half expected to be roused by the sound of men, or hounds, at his door, come to put an end to him. Instead, it had been the cries of a gypsy woman out on the Canongate, proclaiming the luck-giving properties of the sprigs of heather she had for sale.

He spared only a few moments to take the edge from his bleary-eyed, dishevelled state. A splash of cold water across his face; a passing glance in the cracked mirror he used for shaving, revealing the tracery of scratches laid across his cheeks; a comb tugged painfully through his grimy hair.

He had not gone directly to the police house. Instead, he had walked almost the whole length of the city, to Melville Street. He wanted to see if his visit to Cold Burn Farm had brought some change, or commotion, to the place. And, if he was honest, to try to clear his mind of the numb bewilderment that threatened to engulf it. He did not know how to oppose that which Davey Muir had become, nor hounds that knew neither death nor life. But a man, living a life like all his neighbours in the New Town; that he could oppose.

It had been fruitless, though. The mute façade of that grand house had stared back at him, lifeless and impenetrable as the obdurate wall of a castle. He could not, it seemed, reach those sequestered within; could not draw them out to meet them upon his own territory. He would find a way, though. He knew that if he worked away at the mortar hard enough, he could break out the stones in that wall and see what lay beyond.

So he had thought, in any case, until this moment. This ambuscade.

“If there’s been some spy dogging my footsteps, I’d like to know of it,” he said tightly to Baird.

Who snorted in dismissive contempt.

“Never mind your bruised feelings. Do you deny it? That’s the question, Quire. Are you going to tell me you were not in the company of a whore on the High Street, plain as day, on the very morning of Superintendent Robinson’s dismissal?”

That left Quire mute for a moment or two. The denial, if he was to offer it, had to come at once to his lips. He needed to snap it out unhesitatingly, with all the force he could muster. But he did not. The breath he needed to utter it faltered in his throat, snared for that instant in the thought of Catherine, and his sudden reluctance to so casually repudiate her. Not in a cause that he knew was already lost. He would not give Baird the satisfaction.

“No, you don’t.” Baird smiled. “Of course you don’t. No point to it. And it’s not even the first time, is it? The very same woman who so nearly put an end to your career once already. Robinson might’ve saved you from the consequences of your indiscretions before, Quire, but I will not. You can be assured of that.”

“I’d never have doubted it.”

“You know that any man of the city police who consorts with such folk is at risk of dismissal. You know that fine well, and if you thought it an empty threat, you’ll be learning otherwise, I think.”

Quire said nothing. There was an emptiness hollowing itself out in him, the impotent feeling of being atop a cliff, swaying at the very precipice, unable to turn away.

“Too many marks against your name, Quire. I’ve another complaint to hand already. A Dr. Knox. Claims you have harassed him with groundless accusations.”

Quire rolled his eyes.

“Questions, not accusations, and hardly groundless. He seemed content enough when we parted company. Shook my hand.”

“Did he? Must have reconsidered his judgement of the matter once no longer exposed to your charms, then. He’d hardly be the first, would he?

“You’re a fool, to think you can go around laying charges at the door of Ruthven and Knox without consequence. You think you’re some lone wolf, do you, unconstrained by the proprieties, the proper conduct to which the rest of must adhere?”

There was real bitterness in Baird’s voice now. A personal animosity. It called up Quire’s anger, for all his efforts to control himself.

“I’ve never thought myself anything more than a man trying to do what was needful, and right. It’s not something you would understand, given that you’re a piss-poor excuse for a police officer. If you were anything more than that, you’d be wondering why these folk want me gone. You’d be worth telling what it was I saw out on a Pentland farm, and how it was I got these scratches.”

“A Pentland farm,” snapped Baird. “There’s the very thing, isn’t it? What in God’s name are you doing out on a Pentland farm, Quire? You’ve no authority there. Have you taken to trespass as a way of passing the time now, is that it?”

Quire held his tongue. He clamped his hands together, squeezing hard, to keep his anger and frustration locked away within. It was not only that he refused to let Baird see the extent of his dismay; it was that he feared what his hands might do to the man if he let them free.

“It’ll all need to go to the board,” Baird was saying, sinking back in the chair, cuddling his satisfaction about him. “That means you’re relieved of your duties, on half-pay, until the decision’s made. Barred from the police house, barred from speaking with your fellow officers. Do you understand?”

Still, Quire did not respond.

“I’ll need your baton, too,” Baird said.

“I lost it,” Quire told him.

“Lost it?” Baird was incredulous. “What are you talking about, man?”

“I lost it while I was trying to keep myself from getting drowned in a ditch on Ruthven’s farm. Do you want to hear the tale? I’ll tell it if you do. Give you a chance to remember what it is we’re supposed to do here.”

“Ruthven, Ruthven,” muttered Baird. “Have you learned nothing? There’s no evidence against the man, Quire.”

“There’s my testimony. And if you sent a dozen men out to Cold Burn Farm, like as not you’d find something might count as evidence. The dogs that killed Carlyle, and almost killed me. And worse, much worse. If you’d seen the things I have…”

“I can’t charge a dog with murder, attempted or otherwise, Quire,” Baird said wearily. “And henceforth, I think you’ll agree, any court might find your testimony more than a little tainted. Get out. You’ll be told of the outcome of the board’s deliberations, but I’d not be holding your breath if I was you. I’d not be expecting a happy result, either. I’ll be recommending they dismiss you, and making sure they know of your past infringements. I imagine they’ll be only too happy to start cleaning away the mess Robinson left behind him.”

Quire went leaden-footed down the stairs, hearing nothing of the banter and chatter of the police house, seeing nothing. He passed out into the High Street, and the bustle of it caught him up and swept him away down towards the Canongate, helpless flotsam on the current.

Wilson Dunbar sang to his children that night in their little house at Abbey Hill. He sang them songs he had heard in Spain, twenty years ago. Sang them the tunes, at least; he did not remember most of the words, and those he did were not fit for the ears of children, so he made up nonsense ditties to ride along on the melodies. Silly things, childish things, which were to him the sweetest things of all.

Ellen, his wife, sat quietly in the corner with her embroidery, a constant smile upon her face as she passed the needle back and forth through cloth stretched over a round wooden frame. A hundred times this scene had been repeated, since Angus—the older of the boys—had been a mewling babe in his cot. Dunbar sang then because the sound of it soothed and softened the child; he sang now because it was what he did, part of the pact between him and his boys. They expected it of him, and he obliged them gladly. It was as much a part of the fabric of their home as the stones in the wall, the slates in the roof.

And when he was done, and those Spanish tunes were spent, and the boys were asleep, he sat with his wife by the sinking fire. They did not talk much, and did not need to, for they shared in a single, swaddling contentment that required no expression beyond their presence there, together, and the sound of their children, shifting lethargically in their sleep. All was right with the world, within the walls of that house, and in that company.