BooksBarbecue
Back The Art of Dying Save as PDF
Chapters (90)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. 1849
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. EDINBURGH
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. FIFTY-FIVE
  59. FIFTY-SIX
  60. FIFTY-SEVEN
  61. FIFTY-EIGHT
  62. FIFTY-NINE
  63. SIXTY
  64. SIXTY-ONE
  65. SIXTY-TWO
  66. SIXTY-THREE
  67. SIXTY-FOUR
  68. SIXTY-FIVE
  69. SIXTY-SIX
  70. SIXTY-SEVEN
  71. SIXTY-EIGHT
  72. SIXTY-NINE
  73. SEVENTY
  74. SEVENTY-ONE
  75. SEVENTY-TWO
  76. SEVENTY-THREE
  77. SEVENTY-FOUR
  78. SEVENTY-FIVE
  79. SEVENTY-SIX
  80. SEVENTY-SEVEN
  81. SEVENTY-EIGHT
  82. SEVENTY-NINE
  83. EIGHTY
  84. EIGHTY-ONE
  85. EPILOGUE
  86. HISTORICAL NOTE
  87. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  88. Extract from A Corruption of Blood
  89. 1850
  90. ONE

As Sarah marched up the High Street, she passed the Scotsman newspaper office and the sight triggered another memory, something that Archie had said on the very day Raven had returned to Queen Street. He was reading an article about four members of the same family who had died within two weeks of each other.

I wonder who’s to inherit … I’d be checking their pockets for arsenic.

Archie had said it in jest but might have spoken more truth than he realised.

FIFTY-TWO

logo missingt is sometimes a source of anger and sometimes of amusement that for much of my adult life I have been surrounded by doctors who considered themselves above me. They had no notion of how far I was always above them.

Doctors flatter themselves when they talk of holding the power of life and death over a patient. By their rationale, any child at the table holds the power of life and death if she so much as lifts the knife from her plate. The knife, the scalpel, and indeed the medicine, is merely an instrument. Power lies not in the object itself, nor even in the hand that holds it. Power resides in the will to use it: not in the knowledge that one has the means of taking a life, but the knowledge that one has the fortitude to do so.

Nobody truly holds the power of life and death if they have only exercised it in the service of the former.

I must stress that I bore Mr Robertson, the dock-labourer, no ill-will. Indeed, I bore no ill-will to many of the patients who died at my hand: in certain instances, I wished only to provide for them an easeful death, sparing them an agonising end or what I could see would be a squalid future. Others were casualties of my experimentation, a means to an end. In many instances I had no feelings towards them one way or the other, much as I felt towards the dog I poisoned with arsenic. It was merely the means by which I sought to hurt Mrs Dempster.

I most certainly felt ill-will towards her, an enmity that did not diminish in accordance with my seeing less of her.

I recall how, in a moment of forgetting myself, I spoke to a patient from Glasgow in my own voice, rather than the one she had beaten into me. I was initially alarmed to realise that I had done so in front of a doctor, and expected some form of rebuke, but none was forthcoming. It became clear that nobody was judging me for it. It had simply been another exercise in Mrs Dempster bending me to her will.