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In the spring of this year a pair of beggars appeared at the gates to the Infirmary. The pavement outside that building has always attracted those of a curious or hideous physical aspect, and these particular beggars were sisters known as Thrawn-leggit Mary and Clenchie Kate (that is to say, Crookedlegged Mary and Club-footed Kate). The legs of both Anderson women were painfully bent and knotted with rickets, their spines curved into a serpentine ‘S’ by an extreme form of scoliosis. They had recently removed from the Shore area of the Port of Leith to the medical quarter of the town, and now lived at the foot of Robertson’s Close on the Cowgate, not two hundred yards from the Infirmary. They were remarkable not only for their deformities, but also for the fact that at odds with their twisted bodies they both possessed the most beautiful faces, and, in contrast to their bawdy repartee, were each blessed with a melodious singing voice.

It was widely recognised that the younger of these women, Thrawnleggit Mary, bore a close resemblance to my recently deceased sister, the wife of Dr Crowe. Mrs Crowe had been a great beauty, a kind and gentle woman of wit and intelligence beloved by all who knew her. Her death by smallpox was a terrible blow to Dr Crowe, who had married young, and, so it seemed to me, for love.

At almost midday on the morning of the 18th December I was walking towards Surgeons’ Square when I saw Kate Anderson ahead of me. There were a number of students gathered outside Dr Crowe’s anatomy school. The door was open, and within I could see Dr Cruikshank the anatomy demonstrator. He was talking to Gloag the hunchbacked porter, Mr Franklyn one of our most promising students, and Dr Wragg the curator of the anatomy museum at Surgeons’ Hall. Dr Crowe was to instruct the students in dissection that afternoon, a class that usually took place over the course of some three hours. He liked to have everything in order before he began – the bodies brought up, the knives laid out, and all the receptacles and fluids at the ready – and it was Dr Cruikshank, with the help of Mr Franklyn, who saw to it that everything was just so. It was usual for Dr Crowe to appear as the Tron Kirk on the High Street chimed the hour and not a moment before, and I knew that if he came at his customary time he was sure to meet with Clenchie Kate. Dr Cruikshank knew it too, for I saw him catch sight of the woman through the open door and steal a glance at his pocket watch. We all knew what aggrieved Kate, and why she had come up to Surgeons’ Square, for it was the same reason she came up every day now. Her sister, Thrawn-leggit Mary, was pregnant, a condition which, given the extreme curvature of her spine and the angle of her hips, could lead only to the grave. The women claimed the child was Dr Crowe’s, and, as her pregnant sister now found it difficult to make the journey up from the Cowgate, for some weeks it had become a daily occurrence for Clenchie Kate to appear on her own with the sole purpose of screaming abuse at Dr Crowe as he entered the School for his midday class. Dr Crowe’s fellow anatomists, and some of the more robust students, took turns in deflecting the woman, usually with the aid of a few shillings, for she would not go away without payment.

That morning, Mr Franklyn stepped out. He was hoping to be appointed demonstrator, and was anxious to show himself to be worthy of the position.

‘Go back to your sister, madam,’ I heard him say as he tossed her a few coins. ‘Or, better still, bring her to us when her time comes, and we will do all we can.’

Clenchie Kate jabbed her crutch at him, and made the sign of the evil eye, for Mr Franklyn was known to have visited the sisters on many occasions. It was said that he had already made an arrangement with Rabbie Mcdade, the skeleton maker at High School Yards, for the stringing up of Mary Anderson’s bones.

‘You will cut her to bits,’ she cried. ‘You will cut her to bits and boil her bones. Has she not had enough of men wanting her body for their own purposes that you must murder her and butcher her too?’ n

Elaine Thomson was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire. She has a PHD in the history of medicine and works as a university lecturer in Edinburgh, where she lives with her two sons. She has been shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award. Surgeons’ Hall is published by Constable, price £16.99.