Chapter 107: Suddenly [1]
“Collect the bodies…?”
“Let’s do that. At least twenty people will be coming. What else can we do?”
Dr. Liston pointed toward the dissection lab. There never seemed to be a shortage of cadavers, but now, seeing it through a different lens, preparing for twenty surgeons to each practice at least once, it definitely did not seem like enough.
And considering that we lived in an era without Formalin, the usable window for dissection was painfully short, even if a body was acquired. Coming from twenty-first-century Korea, where a single cadaver was used for a semester or even a full year of training, this felt absurdly inefficient.
“So, we need to collect more.”
“Uh… Where exactly?”
“That’s the problem.”
Oddly enough, finding bodies in London at this time was not all that difficult. Just look at me.
Thud.
Another one came in today. Maybe not every day, but one or two arrived each week. It was only possible because no one asked for consent. A terrible practice, sure. Undeniably immoral, but also undeniably common.
“It would’ve been a lot easier if those lunatics hadn’t gotten caught in Edinburgh…”
What was surprising was that even this messy situation was an improvement. The incident Liston had just grumbled about, Edinburgh, the birthplace of Adam Smith and David Hume, the so-called “Athens of the North,” was infamous for one thing in medical circles.
William Burke and William Hare.
Two seemingly ordinary men who committed heinous crimes. They were not alone. Robert Knox, a respected anatomist, was also involved. He even had books in circulation here at London University.
So what did these famous figures do?
Not petty crimes. Serial murder. The term had not been coined yet, since it would not appear until the late twentieth century, but by modern standards, those two were textbook serial killers.
“They say you two killed sixteen people?”
“Yeah? Ah, yes. That’s the official number.”
“Could’ve been more. Actually, it probably was.”
“Right…”
As Liston said, the known victims numbered sixteen. But there may have been others. The purpose? To sell bodies for dissection. Dr. Knox knowingly purchased fresh corpses from them. They were literally producing cadavers.
“No… But people are dying all the time anyway. Was Edinburgh that different?”
“Well, he wanted young, healthy bodies.”
“Insane. No matter how much you want to study anatomy, murdering people?”
Knox never admitted wrongdoing. Even at trial, he insisted on his innocence. The man had the gall to stand proud despite being complicit in something so indefensible.
“Actually, he’s still alive. I heard he lectures from time to time. But if he crosses my path… he’s dead.”
“Right…”
Even now, I suspected something similar was happening. Some cadavers at our university had dubious origins. I avoided asking questions, afraid I would stumble across something I could not ignore. After the scandal broke, there had been some enforcement, crackdowns, and fewer available bodies. Some schools even banned dissections altogether.
Liston… is that what’s really got you upset?
I heard that up until just two years ago, there had been too many cadavers, more than there was money to pay for them. That this number had dropped was a good sign. It meant fewer people were being murdered for the sake of anatomy.
“So I should go ask around, like you suggested?”
I did not have the nerve to say this to Liston directly. Instead, I tried to steer the conversation.
William Burke. Saying that name out loud in a dissection lab was a terrible idea. But Liston had brought him up anyway. At his trial, Burke had practically boasted, even while admitting to a crime so grotesque it defied any purpose.
“Yes. We have to wrap this up this week or next if we want to get him moved to another hospital.”
Liston was a man who stuck to his goals. Changing the topic was easy, but now he was looking at me and the other students while making that point.
“Uh…”
“Yes?”
Joseph and Alfred looked helpless.
“I’ll get the bodies!”
It was Colin who declared it, his eyes gleaming unnervingly. Once Liston made up his mind, resistance was pointless, but Colin’s enthusiasm for cadaver hunting was worrying. His zeal hinted at something darker. Maybe even psychopathy. Still, I had already submitted myself to this world. I could not reject him outright.
“Fine. Go get one.”
“Huh? Bro, you’re sending me out? Didn’t you just mention Burke and Hare?”
“I’m not asking you to kill anyone. Just get the body legally.”
But coming from him, even that sounded ominous, as if murder were just one tool in the box.
“Should we start at the cemetery? There are tons of fresh bodies there every day.”
“No, not there. They’re already rotting. We need…”
I sensed the rest of that sentence would be worse, words like “the street” or “someone’s house.” I could not bear to hear it.
“Hey, how about the police station?”
“The police… station?”
“If there’s been a murder, we can follow along and offer to do the autopsy!”
“Oh! That’s a good idea!”
“No, wait. Autopsy…?”
“They’d appreciate it. We’ll be doing them a favor.”
Would they? I was not so sure. Modern forensic science did not even exist yet. I had only taken a basic course in autopsy as a medical student, but even that was more than what they had.
“All right, then. Let’s head out.”
“Wait, really? We’re actually going to the police?”
“You were the one who suggested it. Why are you backing out now?”
These guys. They hated the dissection lab so much that they looked thrilled at the chance to leave. I could not blame them. The smell alone could knock you out, and that was with Formalin. Here, it was so foul I nearly vomited from one accidental breath.
“Let’s go!”
We left the lab, boarded a carriage, and headed to the police station. Incidentally, the quality of the carriage had improved, thanks to Dr. Liston amputating so many limbs. We still had a long way to go before reducing amputations through improved surgical technique, but for now, business was booming.
“Howdy.”
“Call for support!”
“I’m Dr. Liston.”
“Liston! Most wanted. No, Professor!”
A small commotion broke out as we entered. Fortunately, Liston was now well known to the local police thanks to previous incidents. That meant we were shown into a private office, not a holding cell.
“So… what brings you in today?”
They probably remembered how Liston treated Killian for syphilis, only to learn he had also been stealing from people. The guy was cured and went straight to jail. Whether it was because Liston saved face, or simply because of his reputation, we were treated well.
“Any recent murders?” Liston asked casually.
Of all the things to lead with at a police station…
“You’re not turning yourself in, are you?”
“What? No! He’s an honorable doctor.”
“Then what’s this about a murder?”
“We’d just like a body…”
No. That was even worse. A lunatic walking in and asking for a corpse after a murder?
“Excuse me, officer.”
I had to step in. As an Asian, talking directly to the police here was stressful. But I did not want to end up in jail just for tagging along.
“Uh… Yes?”
He looked at my face with barely veiled disdain. Typical. Fortunately, Liston was standing right next to me. Alone, I might already have been in a cell. This was nineteenth-century England, after all.
“We’re hoping to perform an autopsy.”
“An autopsy? We don’t have a budget for that…”
Of course not. Unless the victim was someone rich or powerful, no money was allocated for autopsies. And yet people in London were dying constantly. Crime, disease, accidents, it never stopped.
“It’s fine. We’ll do it for free.”
“Hmm…”
That magic word, free, made the officer immediately suspicious. In London, “free” usually meant fraud. But then Liston stepped in.
“If you don’t want to call in the minister, you can leave the body with us. We’ll dissect it.”
That seemed to work. The officer’s face relaxed slightly. This was not about money. It was about convenience. And this was not the twenty-first century. This was the nineteenth, where even murder was handled with a shrug.
“I see.”
“Good.”
“Yes, that works. As it happens, we just got a report. Let’s go.”
“Oh, oh.”
And so, with that verbal agreement, we headed off to the crime scene. I was a doctor. I was supposed to save lives. But somehow, this was where I ended up.
Footnotes
Translator’s Notes
Edinburgh — Capital city of Scotland. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was a major center of Enlightenment thought, medicine, and anatomy.
Athens of the North — Nickname for Edinburgh, referring to its reputation as a center of learning, philosophy, and classical architecture.
William Burke and William Hare — Irish immigrants in Edinburgh who murdered people in 1828 and sold the bodies for anatomical dissection.
Robert Knox — Scottish anatomist associated with the Burke and Hare murders because he purchased the bodies they supplied for dissection.
Adam Smith — Scottish economist and philosopher, born in 1723, best known for The Wealth of Nations.
David Hume — Scottish philosopher and historian, born in 1711, known for his empiricism and skepticism.