We all think we know the Burke and Hare story, but author, Mairi Kidd, has reimagined their story through the women who loved them.

The Specimens
By Mairi Kidd
Published by Black & White

The next day, William seemed still possessed of the nervous energy that had beset him in the night. He went out to fetch breakfast, returning with bannocks and curds and whey, but he had barely sat down to eat before he was on his feet again, saying he should be out and about his business. Helen wanted to ask him about the money in his pocket, but she knew better than to try while he was in this humour, he’d only deny it and then he’d grow angry, and while she knew he wouldn’t raise a hand to her, he could cut her well enough with words alone. So she kept her counsel and got out her work, dumping the tangled threads he had swept onto the floor on the table to sort out. 

William paused at the door and turned back to her. ‘I’m sorry, Nelly,’ he said. ‘I’ve an odd humour on me. It was the bad night that did it. You have a good morning now. I’ll come back with a bite for you later on.’ 

Helen nodded and bent her head to her work. She only hoped Margaret Hare would stay clear for just one day. The woman had been like a constant shadow at the corner of Helen’s eye since they moved in, seemingly always at their door to ask for a hand reading a letter about a babby, or a loan of some sewing thread, or William to come and help Hare with some task or other. Helen had grown used to it now, for all it deaved her, but at first she had jumped near out her skin any time she opened the door and found Margaret lurking there in wait. 

Thankfully it seemed Helen was in luck, for there was no sign of Margaret that day, and when she ventured outside for a breath of air, she heard the sound of voices as she passed the Hares’ bedchamber. There had been some drinking last night, judging by the moaning and groaning and grousing. Margaret only had the one bairnie with her these days, and Hare was complaining sorely about its whining and complaining. No doubt there’d be a dose of something down its throat before too long. 

Helen passed a pleasant enough time outside, buying a few new hanks of thread from a peddler woman, and she got on fine with the sewing after she got home, managing to finish a pair of breeks for a wee laddie and a man’s waistcoat she had cut from a woman’s skirt ruined on one side by an ember from a fire, and putting them by in the lower part of the dresser. William didn’t come back before evening, but she hadn’t expected him to, and anyway she could wait for food, there were a few morsels left over from the night before. 

When he did come back, William was clearly the worse for drink and there was no sign of the bite he’d promised. He seemed listless and distracted, and when Helen asked if he’d gone to a prayer meeting, he said no, he’d been with his brother Constantine. Helen rolled her eyes at that, but she told him to sit and she went out herself with a covered dish to fetch a meal. There was a sausage seller by the mouth of the close and she thought the smell of fried onions and potato might cheer William up on this cold night, so she bought two portions and took herself home. When she arrived, though, there was no sign of William. Helen tiptoed along the corridor and stopped outside the kitchen, listening. William was there with both the Hares, and by the sound of it, spirits were high and the drinking had begun in earnest. Helen turned tail and took her sausages back to the room to eat in peace. William could have his cold tomorrow. 

In the middle of the night, Helen woke to the sound of muttering in the dark room. She fumbled for matches and lit a candle. William was sitting at the table, with his hand on his Bible, praying. He was very drunk indeed. 

‘It’s the middle of the night, William,’ Helen said. ‘Will you no come to bed?’ 

‘I can’t,’ William said. ‘I can’t sleep.’ 

‘Too much drink,’ Helen said.  

‘Aye,’ William said. ‘And I’ve done a thing that weighs heavy on me, Helen.’ 

Here it was then, Helen thought, at last he had come to it. ‘You can tell me,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is.’ 

William put his hand in his pocket and took out three notes and a scatter of coins. 

‘An old lad died in the room upstairs,’ he said. ‘Donald, his name was. He’d been a soldier.’ 

‘Aye,’ said Helen. ‘I know. Well, I never heard what his name was but I knew an auld man had died. It was just before we flitted here. I saw them take the coffin out. Is that money his, William? Did you take it? Is that it?’ 

‘No, no,’ William said. ‘Not that. You see . . .’ He seemed to lose his nerve then, but he took a deep breath and started again. ‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘when Logue died and Margaret joked she should have sold him to the anatomists?’ 

‘No,’ Helen said. ‘But I can’t think she meant it. What a thing to say about her own man!’ Even as she spoke, though, Helen realised that she could quite imagine Margaret making a jest like that. And perhaps it wasn’t a jest – the besom was probably capable of selling her own husband’s corpse if she thought there would be a profit in it. 

‘Well . . .’ William said, and stopped, looking at Helen like he expected her to understand something.  

‘Well what?’ Helen asked. ‘Logue’s dead and buried, and the auld man too. What of it?’ 

‘We took his body out the coffin,’ William said, all in a rush. ‘Myself and Hare. We put it under the bed. Then we filled the coffin with bark from the tanners’ and nailed it shut again so no one would know. After the parish men had taken the coffin away, we stowed him in a tea chest and we took him to Surgeon’s Square. Hare said the fellow we needed was called Monro, but when we asked for directions to find him, a young lad sent us a different place. Two men there looked at the body and then the Doctor came and offered us the money.’ 

‘Oh, William,’ Helen said, appalled. ‘What a thing to do. The poor auld man. He wouldn’t like to be cut up. Nobody would.’ 

‘He won’t know anything about it, Nelly,’ William said. ‘He’s dead. And he owed Hare money. Four pounds, nearly.’  

‘But won’t he need his body . . . after?’ Helen had never managed to learn her scripture very well, but she had a notion folk needed their bodies whole at Judgement Day, or they would . . . well, in truth she wasn’t sure what would happen to them, she had always had enough to do keeping body and soul together in this life, to worry over much about the next one. She knew it was a bad thing, though, to cut up a dead body and do them out of a right burial. 

‘I don’t know, Nelly,’ Burke said. ‘I’ve been looking in my Bible and I can’t see where it says anything about anatomists. The Doctor said we need the bodies to help doctors learn to heal the sick, and there’s plenty about helping folk in the Bible, Nelly. Knox, his name was, the Doctor.’ 

‘How much did he give you?’ Helen asked. She still felt queasy, but it made sense, what William said, doctors did need to learn on someone, and maybe better on the dead than on the living. 

‘He gave us seven pounds and ten shillings,’ William said. ‘Hare took the greater share, because of all that Donald owed. I got three pounds and five shillings. I’ve got two pounds and twelve shillings left.’ 

‘And the rest down your throat in drink,’ said Helen. William coloured at that, and she felt her heart soften. She cuffed him gently round the ear. ‘And a fine meal you stood me, too,’ she said. ‘But, William . . . Let this be the last time you do such a thing. Do you promise me?’ 

‘I do,’ said William. He looked much happier now he had relieved himself of his burden. He allowed Helen to take him by the hand and lead him to bed, bringing his Bible with him and placing it in a drawer. 

‘Take care around Margaret and William Hare, though, William,’ Helen said, once they were in bed. ‘I don’t trust them. Even if it’s not in the Bible, it’s against the law to sell a body, it must be. You could be taken up, and there where would your Nelly be? Do you hear me? William?’ 

But William was fast asleep. 

The next day, Helen woke to find William gone. There was a small parcel on the pillow. She sat up and unwrapped it to find a brooch made of gold metal framing a piece of stone with bands and lines of brown in crystal the colour of tea. 

Helen had never had any jewellery of her own, not even a wedding ring. She held the brooch up to the light. It glistened like ice on a peaty loch. Carefully, she opened the drawer in the dresser where William kept his Bible and slipped the brooch inside. Then she said a brief word of prayer for the old soldier called Donald, and got up to face the cold December day. 

The Specimens by Mairi Kidd is published by Black & White, priced £16.99.