You Buy Bones Read online

  It takes a mind that is half-catalogue to keep track of such things. Holyrood had thrown himself into the world of macabre acts with his usual enthusiasm and never looked back.

  Lestrade lowered his newspaper (society; barely fit to wrap a fish) and waved as the stiff-jointed man in sombre slate blue stepped unevenly to the table. (He no longer ‘belonged’ to the Force, but dressed like a plainclothes out of camaraderie). Holyrood grinned around a neat hedge of square beard and equally boxy eyebrows, so light they were transparent in the lamps.

  “Good to see you, Lestrade.” Holyrood accepted the offer of smoked smelts. “I never get enough of those,” he confided.

  “I can’t blame you. They’re perfect.” Lestrade neatly separated a small fish from its spine and anointed the tender meat with sauce. When he was alone he chewed bones and all, but that appeared to be a behavioural anomaly among Londoners. “I hope my note made sense to you.”

  Holyrood shrugged. “Your question ain’t so odd. Seems as long as there are objects, someone’ll want’em.”

  “And here I was worried you might think me fanciful.”

  “You? Fanciful? I daren’t.” Holyrood did not laugh at the notion, but Lestrade flushed anyway. “Ah, well, as t’your note, we have to keep a special eye out on any human relic,” Holyrood made a face, clearly distasteful of the topic but not enough to stop his meal. “Standin’ orders from the highest authorities. ‘Twuz made clear that anyone who works in that portion o’ the building has to be ‘alert and forsworn to act if they see too much... interest,’” he coughed lightly behind his hand, “in sech.”

  “Always?”

  “Permanent status.”

  “My word, I hadn’t known.”

  The crippled man tipped forward, his forearms making a decent fulcrum for his spinal level. “We don’t often talk about it,” his voice dropped low. “Not that it bothers us, but it does bother the Them Upstairs a great deal! They’re terrified England’ll see a Lacenaire come upon us.”

  “Lacenaire...” Lestrade repeated without blinking. “That flash faker?” At Holyrood’s warning glance he dropped his own voice. “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “But you’ve shocked me, man! What does the worst criminal in France have to do with England?”

  Holyrood made a low heh-heh of wry amusement. “I take it you’re familiar with the facts of the case?”

  “Who damned well doesn’t?”

  “Truthfully? Quite a lot! And the Home Office would like to keep it that way.”

  Lestrade studied his friend, but the man looked serious and it wouldn’t be his idea of a joke... He has a reason to say this, the little professional reminded himself.

  “Well.” He tapped his fingertips upon the table-plank. “He was executed before I was born. But I remember the old fellows talking about it. He was well-educated, good family, more chances at success than any of us would ever imagine... but meant nothing to him, and he turned to petty crime and the petty crimes turned to a double murder. Honestly, when you look at the particulars, he must have been the least competent criminal on the Continent! It’s clear he had no head at all for law-breaking.” He made a ‘bah!’ gesture with his free hand, the other firmly attached to his drink.

  “And yet for all his stupidity - which appears to be unmatched - he was a first-rate writer on his own behalf. He became a genuine celebrity; an artist.”

  “I remember his portrait was painted as he waited for the guillotine.” Lestrade scowled in distaste. “Shocking, how people revered a killer.”

  “We can’t pretend to know why or how the public became so smitten o’him, Lestrade. But the fact is they did. And under a normal case I’m sure the Home Office would just say, ‘That’s the French for you.’”

  “That wasn’t a normal case!” Lestrade had a bad feeling he knew where his friend was headed. “Englishmen were caught up in him as well. They wrote about him, made up poems and bits in the papers... made a bust of his likeness...”

  “And when he was executed, they sold his blue coat to a grabby-handed collector. They cut off his killing hand, and preserved it like a piece of art, and they took his skull, defleshed it, made engravings of it, and made a phrenology map of his plaster head, trying to find the precise location where the evil slept in his brain.” Holyrood had no explanation for what humans did. “The man is still a celebrity. The first and most eager voices on his behalf were those anxious to study him in death.”

  Lestrade shuddered.

  “So there we are. A pretty problem.”

  “More like a horrid mess.”

  “That too.”

  “Still, human remains...” Lestrade scowled. “I’d say the closest we’ve gotten to sensationalising that sort of horror is... Carney Ambisinister. Which happens to be most of the reason why we’re both here.”

  “Now, that was before my post,” Holyrood confessed. “Just before, actually. I heard plenty about it.”

  “There was plenty to talk about!” This was not a compliment.

  “And you knew him before he was caught.”

  “I hate to say it, but yes.”

  “Is it true how he got his name?”

  “Very. No one knew what made his right hand twist around, but it did give him the impression of having two left hands instead of one.” There had also been a livid white scar along the wrist, moon-shaped and full of its own legends.

  “Did the carnivale really drive him mad?”

  “Who knows? As a part of the show, the man was decent enough... at least until something happened into his mind and he took a knife to half his fellow workers one night as they slept.” Lestrade shrugged helplessly. “No one ever learned the whys, and he went to the noose not telling.” He looked down. “There really was no warning. He was a man who said hello at every chance. He was a good enough fellow... on the outside.”

  “And then his body was stolen right after he was hung.” Holyrood mused.

  “We found most of it a few hours later by the river. Bad day for Mr. Dolan! The twisted hand had been sliced off at the joint, along with a quantity of body fat from his thigh. The Office said it was clear that his twisted hand was going to be made into a Hand of Glory.”

  Holyrood tipped his head from left to right, like a metronome. His frozen neck allowed no other movement. “The one we have left is bad enough.” He mused.

  “Hold a - you’ve got another one in there?”

  “Mmn... it ain’t listed as such - someone rescued it before the cultists could finish making it into a Hand. You wouldn’t know it from any other severed and smoke-dried human hand.”

  “Sev - sm - ?” Lestrade cleared his throat.

  “I don’t let delicate clients view it - I don’t care what they say or how much they offer me in the way of a bribe!”

  “Should be buried; that’s what would be decent.” Lestrade lectured.

  “No approval. Now, we do have approval t’bury Mr. Ambisinister’s missing bits... but the approval came a little... late.”

  Lestrade winced. “Right. I’m going to ask you the big question, my friend.”

  “Have at me.” Holyrood leaned further across the table, fingers withyed into a loose basket by the mustard-pot. Over his thin lenses, rheumy brown eyes twinkled.

  “In dealing with a case... that has at its heart...” Lestrade spoke slowly because damned if he could risk being misunderstood, “body thieves... and... ghouls that are willing to pay for whatever strikes their unclean fancies...” (Holyrood couldn’t help but notice that the un-Catholic Lestrade was letting his fingers scrape a bead-like abstract in the ring of moisture by his drink.) “What are the odds, d’you think, that this... client... might be able to send us on to more ghouls?”

  “Depends.” Holyrood said simply. “Your odds’d be good - that beast earns his bread and chees
e on a diet half informer, half backstabber. The one with the most to lose is the most likely to inform on his peers, who might have less to lose! Horrid system of human-remains-black marketing, where the guiltiest have the merest slap o’the wrists, whilst the lightest of the offenders are the first to see the shadow of the gaol.”

  “How could there possibly be not-as-guilty people involved in a market that sells people?”

  Holyrood harrumphed. “That’d be the criminally naïve, Lestrade. You know they’re out there... Bless ‘em.” He tapped the emblem on his watch-chain for good measure. With a little jump, Lestrade realised it was of a tiny skull on a stack of books. BRUNO was the only lettering he could make out. I’m starting to see bones everywhere, the Inspector thought.

  “Young, earnest students,” Holyrood was going on, “believin’ that a good specimen will be the skeleton key to break into their respected standing in - what?” He caught on to Lestrade’s gape. “Oh.” He grimaced. “Forgive the pun. I ain’t really that clever on purpose. Where were we? Ah. Students. They’ll want a specimen of their own, and they’ll want it badly. A decent draughtsman can elevate his standing by some sharp sketches, or experimental photography... I’m told that in training, nothing substitutes for a real specimen save another real specimen. Sometimes the pressure to collect can be worse when they’re from medical families - they’ll be expected to stand apart... distinguish themselves. Dear old Dad isn’t going to just hand over his own skull when the son graduates; he has to find his own.” He made his imitation of a shrug. “And they feel that we owe em, in a way.”

  “What?”

  “Y’heard me. Part o’ the reason why criminals are sent to the medical tables after they die is their reparation to Society. Ever wonder why you see the same names and faces in a case that brings in dead orphans or the street-crawlers? A few pence or a tot of gin is enough to make payment for any corpse. And y’know how it is when a man thinks he’s owed something.”

  “Bloody hell. Yes, I do. It means that when he doesn’t get what he wants, when he wants it... he goes looking.”

  “Got it in one.”

  “It really means that much to ‘em.” Lestrade had never been able to wrap his head around things that didn’t make sense. Thank God, the Law had never required his understanding - just his obedience.

  “I have it on good authority.” Holyrood’s gift for mimic meant he could drop into another person’s character from one breath to the next. “Though I’ll admit, most purely medical men aren’t interested in ‘relics of superstition.’ Science is their bloodless God. It would take another Dr. Roanoke to keep ‘em all sorted.”

  Lestrade shivered. “Now, he was a lot of help! He told us human fat is worthless within a very short amount of time, and the thieves had to have been planning it ever since his execution was announced.” Back then, Lestrade wouldn’t have been able to eat and talk at the same time.

  “There are markets, and then there are markets,” Holyrood said slowly. “The problem is that you got the medical and scientific worlds pointing fingers at the side that holds to superstition and illiteracy... but in truth the poorer folk have just as much right to point fingers right back.” His light eyes clouded. “The burden is on our betters but we needn’t go there.” He leaned back and took another fish. “I get plenty of inquiries, you know, from people who want a ‘specimen’ in collection. One knows what they’re really asking for so discreetly. They want me to sell them something curious or fantastic.”

  Lestrade harrumphed disapproval. “As if we don’t face the suspicion of corruption every day as it is.” He muttered.

  “Very. At any rate, as soon as I refuse a query, the next thing I do is put the object in higher safeguards. It could be a week from now, or even a year. But those people aren’t going to forget they wanted something. They see it as an investment, you know. What’s months of waiting if they get what they want? There’s a horseshoe that killed two people; flew off the horse twice. I wound up nailing a fake horseshoe into the exhibit-box.” He chuckled under his breath. “Stolen about four times last year.”

  Lestrade’s chuckle faded too soon. Behind the brief smile rested his natural countenance.

  Holyrood cleared his throat meaningfully.

  “Ah.” The little professional looked down at his hands. “What d’you think, then?” He asked. “From one man to another. What are my odds?”

  “What will you get out of this, Lestrade?”

  Lestrade thought of Elspeth Bradstreet first, and his closest friend second. He thought of how he couldn’t express his truest wish without mentioning either. “I want a lead,” he said instead, choosing the next on his list. “I want a lead that will give me the names and faces of men who rob the dead for a living, so that I can make a list of those names, and go down it, one by one and syllable by syllable... until I find someone who can tell me who would have paid to defile Carney Ambisinister’s remains.” Caught up in his confidence, he leaned over his side of the table until the two men were nose to nose.

  “I’ve thought it through, Holyrood. Body-thieves can’t just up and steal a body. They go through a lot of risk for what they do - they aren’t going to add to that risk by keeping their swag hidden until they get an offer. Every day they’ve got it is dangerous - they’ve got to get rid of it fast. They need to have the market set up and waiting for them. S’like those high-mark jewellery thefts. The person who really wants the stone but not the gaol is going to pay someone good to do all of that for ‘im.

  “Someone wants Mr. Ambisinister’s hand, he’s going to tell his rotting contacts what he wants, and how much he’s willing to pay. Whoever stole his hand knew what they’d get from the deal.”

  Holyrood tsk’d. “Now that’s your turn for a nice turn of words.”

  “Eh?”

  “Deal. That’s an old northern name for the Devil, for he does know how to make a bad deal.”

  “Ah. Well... so if we go by this reasoning so far...” Lestrade energetically lifted his hands, caught up in the enthusiasm of his theory. “The buyer isn’t going to just up and ask any Johnny Jump-Up in the market! He’s going to go calling and use his contacts... make discreet inquiries... a friend of a friend. Someone who knows someone!”

  “That’s all very well and good, Lestrade, but a theft for a Hand of Glory... that’s... filthy-dark. If someone’s going to keep their mouth shut, it’s a member of a cult.”

  “I don’t think a cult stole his hand.” Lestrade’s excitement was bubbling like the springs at Bath. Now that he finally had an audience, he was beside himself.

  “Well who else would steal a Hand of Glory? A rival museum?”

  “We have no proof that his hand was a Hand of Glory, Holyrood. We have a missing hand, and a missing portion of fat off the thigh. You’d think that it was for a Hand of Glory, wouldn’t you?” He shook his head, grinning like a Hallowe’en turnip. “But a Hand of Glory is usually made from the left hand - the sinister hand - and the left hand was still on the body.”

  “A Hand of Glory has been known to be cut from the right hand.” Holyrood demonstrated his own knowledge of infernal obscura. “Especially if the right hand was the hand used for murder. Like Lacenaire’s.”

  “But it wasn’t!” Lestrade very quietly hammered his fists on the table. “That hand was worthless - he couldn’t even hold a pencil with those fingers! No, the Inspector on that case completely missed it! If they were going to steal anything, they would have stolen his left hand - because it was left and because it was the hand used for killing all those people.”

  Holyrood’s gossamer eyebrows popped up into his wrinkled brow. “A theft of science masque as a theft for the Black Mass?” He rubbed his chin. “Lestrade, you got a head like a Swede’s turnip, but this is the most stubborn I’ve ever seen you. But. Your notion fits...”

  “It all hinges on
cracking into this network of body-thievers.” Lestrade’s temper had cooled with his outing of thought. He ate a few more smelts, his jaw set. “We never found the thieves, because we were looking in the wrong direction. We should have been looking to the educated men who hire grave-robbers - not the cults.”

  “You’re very certain of yourself.”

  Lestrade had reached a stopping point in his meal. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, which gave him a moment to collect his thoughts (good manners helped keep his head cool when his temper wanted to get the best of his tongue).

  “I’m certain I owe Mr. Holmes an apology, that’s what.” He said at last. He signalled for another cider and waited for it before continuing. “I must have lost weeks out of my life trying to track down Ambisinister’s ghouls outside of the Inspector’s wishes. I went wading in the dregs of mankind, hoping they would give me a lead to the mess... All that time, Holmes - still a newcomer to London - had already known all there was to know about that side of the city. I can see him now, younger and skinner, smoking his pipe and telling me I am just wasting my time, and I didn’t listen to him!”

  “Not even as a consultant?”

  “He wasn’t a consultant. We... er... lucked into each other on different reasons.” A collision might be a better word. Lestrade narrowed his eyes at Holyrood’s skeptical face. “He’s changed a bit since the man you know now, man. Back then he did most of his work out of his rooms. If he went out you hardly saw it. Just your basic armchair-consultant for hire. And for the record, I did ask him if he would be interested in the job.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t work for nuppence.”[39]

  “Holmes said that?” Holyrood hastily wiped up his drink-foam off his face.

  “He was in disguise.” Lestrade explained. “I didn’t know at the time that he stays in character as long as he’s in disguise. And as it turned out, we weren’t allowed to bring in a consultant for the case.”