Seacliff

Chapter twenty-seven: Ghost stories

2019

"Have you ever wondered," Aidan called out loud enough to overpower the low chatter in the pub, "who your dead body belongs to?"

Now all heads turned to the man in kilt and T-shirt standing in the improvised stage area at the front of the barroom. He usually preferred to do this bit in a graveyard at dusk, ahead of the pub crawl, but keeping his patrons warm and dry made them tip more. And there was a hell of a storm blazing outside.

"Your body is yours," he continued, his tone made ominous by the rolling thunder, "but you're dead, so you no longer have any use for it, obviously." Disparate chuckles in the crowd. "So, if it were to be stolen... would it even be a crime?"

He paused and surveyed the faces staring back at him in the dim light. Beyond them, in the shadows, Fiona was grinning behind the bar. He smiled – for her, but it fit the story, too.

"Medicine was becoming more science, less witchcraft as Enlightenment advanced in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Edinburgh got its first medical school in 1726 as a result, the oldest in the UK, and subsequently became a hotspot for the study of anatomy.

"Did you know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle obtained his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh? That's right, it was here that one of his professors inspired the great sleuth Sherlock Holmes. And Edinburgh could have used a real-life Holmes in 1828."

A beat to sip his beer. A distant echo of thunder.

"Now, the study of anatomy, as you might know, requires cadavers to dissect. Supply was very limited in the 1820s, as anatomists only received the bodies of executed criminals to work on. But demand was very high, and growing. That's what you call an opportunity."

More vigorous chuckles now.

"Resurrectionists – so called because they would dig up buried corpses – made a pretty penny selling dead bodies to universities. The fresher the corpse, the bigger the bounty, so they would stalk funerals and sneak into cemeteries at night.

"Those of you who were on my tour this morning might remember the mortsafe I pointed out at Greyfriars Kirkyard – mortsafes were these ridiculous iron contraptions, like coffin cages, designed to prevent grave robbers from stealing corpses before maggots had eaten enough of the dead, rotting flesh to render the body useless."

A few groans of disgust among his audience.

"But body snatching is such a difficult trade, you know? Digging up graves, stripping dead bodies naked, pulling out their gold teeth and ripping wedding rings off their putrid, swollen fingers – because any valuables on the body belonged to the family of the deceased and that would be theft. A criminal offence."

He let that sink in for a second and wet his tongue with more beer.

"So, in 1828, a couple of young, industrious Irishmen decided to snatch the bodies before they were buried. William Burke and William Hare began to stalk travellers, instead of cemeteries. That's right, tourists like yourselves, strangers from out of town who would not be easily missed. The resurrectionists... became murderers."

Thunder struck as if on cue and a distinct wave of dread surged through the tipsy crowd.

"They killed about sixteen people over the course of one year, selling the bodies to renowned surgeon Robert Knox. One of the victims was a beggar living on the streets of Edinburgh, known as Daft Jamie. Some of Knox's students recognised him, but the professor dismissed their claims. Daft Jamie was the second-to-last victim of Burke and Hare.

"Their final victim was discovered before they had a chance to cash her in and they rushed the job. Burke and Hare got found out and taken in for questioning. Ultimately, Hare was persuaded by the police to give up his mate, Burke, who was sentenced to death, dissected, and had his skeleton displayed at the Anatomical Museum. Where you can still find him to this day."

An anonymous solitary clap snowballed into raucous applause and Aidan took a bow, careful not to spill his pint.

"What happened to Hare?" a voice piped up from the back once the cheering had receded.

"We don't know, really," Aidan answered. "The police helped him leave the city, witness protection style, but he was lost to history after an angry mob almost lynched him in Dumfries."

He finished his beer and left the empty pint on the nearest table. Straightening out his kilt, he assumed an upright position with his shoulders rolled back and his hands clasped, as if he was about to recite a very solemn hymn.

"Now we have just enough time for a lovely little song, called The Ballad of Sawney Beane. It portrays Scottish resilience, creativity, and inventive efficiency at its finest. Here we go..."

He cleared his throat and started to intone the verses, as slowly as the rhyme allowed and as clearly as possible without losing the Scottish accent. His audience relaxed into their pints, taking in the performance.

As it eased into a tale of cannibalistic spouses, however, who hunted travellers to feed off their flesh, the tension suddenly spiked. The billowing thunder added to the atmosphere and the horror became palpable once Sawney Beane was revealed to have fathered children by his own daughters.

The extended Beane family carried on robbing and killing unsuspecting wayfarers, taking them back to their cave, to butcher and pickle their bodies. The large number of people going missing in the area soon couldn't be overlooked anymore and authorities raided the cave.

In the end, the Beanes were all summarily executed in Edinburgh, which allowed Aidan's audience some relief.

"Is any of it true?" someone enquired.

"Well, we don't know for sure. The whole thing was documented in a tabloid a couple of centuries after the whole debacle took place – Sawney Beane was supposed to have lived in the sixteenth century. He's just one of Scotland's many cannibals, perhaps an amalgamation of several. And on that note, I'll leave you to your, uh, dinners. Bon appetit."

More laughter and more applause. Aidan curtseyed and took his leave.