Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  ‘You little shit,’ she hissed.

  Tom was stunned.

  ‘Sorry, Boss?’ said Tom.

  Chapter 22

  Gina leaned in close, gripping Tom’s arm with fingers that dug like claws.

  ‘I said, you’re a little shit. Don’t you ever fuck with me like that again. Or I’ll fry your little boy’s testicles and eat them with my savaloy and fucking chips. Got me?’

  ‘Easy, Boss,’ said Tom, confused.

  ‘Who told you? Who told you before me?’ Gina shouted, in her fog horn voice.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Tom weakly. ‘What did I do wrong?’

  Gina recovered her temper, with an evident effort. She did some thinking. ‘Has he been upstairs?’ she said to Taff.

  ‘No idea, Boss,’ Taff admitted.

  ‘No I haven’t,’ said Tom.

  ‘And even if he had, they’ve only just found the damn thing,’ Gina mused. ‘And it’s your first fucking day, so why would you be palling up with Dougie? Who doesn’t like wet behind the ears arsefluff DCs any more than I do,’ Gina said, talking aloud in a manner that suggested she did it a lot. ‘If he WAS going to take the piss, it would be this bastard’ (a head shake to indicate Taff) ‘or this bastard’ (ditto Malone) ‘who’d be jerking my chain, not a rookie like you. Makes no sense.’ Gina shook her head back and forth vigorously, as if trying to persuade the crazy ideas in her brain to fall out of her ear.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Tom, ‘what you’re saying, ma’am. Sorry, “Boss”. But I have to say, I don’t like the way –’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Gina. And strode off.

  Tom followed her, out of the garden, and into the kitchen.

  ‘Actually,’ he said abruptly, ‘do you mind waiting?’

  He’d remembered he had promised to make a cup of tea for the copper outside. So he strolled over to the sink, and reboiled the kettle and put a teabag in a mug.

  ‘Now means now!’ Gina shouted.

  Tom poured the water from the kettle, and stirred the tea bag. He liked to leave it two minutes exactly and he started to count the seconds in his head.

  ‘Arsefluff, get your arse over here, stop making the fucking tea, or I’ll -’

  Tom ignored her.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  He reached one hundred and twenty, flicked the teabag out and into the bin and headed to the fridge for milk.

  ‘You’re in a world of your fucking own!’ said Gina. She came up close and grabbed his arm. Her grip was phenomenally strong. But Tom stayed calm, exuding an air of ‘I’m a weak and helpless rookie, and if you bully me, you’ll look like a wanker in front of everyone.’

  It was one of the best body language lies in his repertoire.

  ‘Well? Are you fucking coming?’ Her voice was higher in pitch now, making her sound weak and anxious.

  ‘In a moment. I did ask you to wait, Boss,’ said Tom nicely. Then he gently brushed her hand off his arm, and stepped around her, and went through the hall to the front door. Once he had his back to Gina he allowed himself a half-smile. Status games: they mattered.

  He strolled through the front door and handed the tea to the copper on duty.

  ‘Any chance of a biscuit?’ the blond copper asked.

  ‘I may be pushing my luck actually,’ said Tom, smiling. He returned along the hall and found Gina trying out her calm yet scary look.

  ‘I’m ready now,’ said Tom cheerfully, and Gina exhaled.

  ‘You are,’ said Gina, ‘not fucking real.’

  She shoved past him and he trailed after her up the stairs. Gina snaked her way past several spacemen on the crowded staircase, occasionally brushing against them and grinning at the ribald responses. Tom followed.

  He ascended to the first floor landing, which was decorated with more of that ghastly orange wallpaper with its embossed psychedelic circles. And he followed Gina as she walked briskly into one of the house’s two bedrooms, past a hand-written Post It that said: GUVNOR WITHIN. KEEP THE FUCK OUT.

  The room inside had been gutted. The floorboards were up, and plasterers had ripped off layer after layer of wallpaper. The remnants had all been placed in evidence bags each the size of a rolled-up carpet. The mortar and lathe original wall was now exposed.

  On one bare wall, Tom observed, was a map of East London. Hand-drawn, neat, with the names of the streets carefully written in. And five sites were marked on it: Bucks Row, Hanbury Street, Berner Street, Mitre Square, Miller’s Court. Furthermore five names were carefully written in a neat list at the bottom right hand side of the wall, in faded red ink – or was it blood?

  Mary Anne Nicholls

  Ella Chapman

  Long Liz Stride

  Catherine Eddowes

  Mary Jane Kelly.

  Above the names, daubed in thick black paint, was a pentagram inside a circle: the symbol known to occultists as a pentacle.

  And on the next wall was a message. It was painted not chalked, like the original, but even so it was instantly recognisable to Tom. The message on the wall read: THE JUWES ARE THE MEN THAT WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING ha ha ha

  A tall man with big hands and a huge nose and eager eyes turned to look at Tom.

  ‘Who the hell is this?’ the big-nosed man snarled. ‘Somebody’s fucking nipper on work experience?’

  ‘DC Tom Derry, guv,’ Tom said to his guvnor, Dougie Randall. ‘We met –’

  ‘I know who you are,’ snapped Dougie. ‘What the fuck’s he doing here?’ he said, looking at Gina now. ‘Never mind. You recognise this?’

  ‘Um, no,’ said Gina. ‘But you said –’

  ‘Goulston Street, 1888,’ said Tom instantly. ‘Graffiti, or rather graffito, upon the wall. A major if inexplicable clue in the Jack the Ripper killings. This version is accurate apart from the “ha ha ha” at the end. The general feeling is that the misspelling of “Jew” was deliberate, an attempt by the dauber of the, ah, graffito to masquerade as an unlettered peasant. Although some argue that – um. Sorry.’

  Tom forced himself to halt; he knew of old his tendency to run on too long.

  ‘Good lad,’ said Dougie, surprised. ‘And the names?’

  Tom stared at him in astonishment. ‘What do you mean? Don’t you know?’

  Dougie was untypically hesitant; it was clearly a long time since anyone had spoken to him in such a scornful tone.

  ‘Well I do now,’ Dougie hedged. ‘After I looked it up. But I was just testing you to see if -’

  ‘These are the canonical five,’ said Tom, awed that someone could not know such a basic fact. ‘The five victims of Jack the Ripper. And the street names are where they were killed.’

  ‘So I have discovered,’ admitted Dougie, ‘thanks to my old friend and associate Inspector Google.’

  ‘And this finding does tally with my earlier hypothesis,’ Tom suggested, ‘about similarities with the Miller’s Court slaying.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dougie was interested now.

  Gina nodded: taking the credit for bringing Tom in with this insight which, minutes before, she had utterly derided.

  ‘The skeleton IS2 had her hand in her stomach, like this,’ said Tom, demonstrating.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Illustrated Police News,’ said Gina. ‘It was the MO of the Mary Whatever killing. What was that other thing you said? The numerology?’

  ‘Distances of the murder scenes show evident patterns,’ said Tom. ‘Indicative that the killer was a numerologist, or occultist.’

  ‘What patterns?’ said Dougie.

  ‘Well,’ said Tom, remembering what he had learned over the years. It took him a moment to access the data in his forebrain, then he was rolling. ‘The first victim of Jack the Ripper was Mary Anne Nicholls, she died in Buck’s Row. The second victim died in Hanbury Street; which is 930 yards from Buck’s Row. The third death was in Berner Street, 930 yards from Hanbury Street. Murder Four was Mitre Square which was 950 yards from Hanbury
Street. And the final murder, Mary Anne Reilly, happened in Miller’s Court off Dorset Street, 950 yards from Berner Street. A pattern that couldn’t be caused by chance: it’s numerology at work. 930, 950; both mystic numbers you see, when translated into cubits.’

  ‘And where are we in that pattern?’ Dougie said. ‘This house I mean?’

  ‘No significant distance from any of the murder scenes. But this house is exactly 950 yards from the Whitechapel Hospital where Ripper suspect Roslyn D’Onston was confined for dipsomania during the entire period of the Ripper rampage. Coincidence? I think not.’

  ‘The Ripper was a numerologist, is that what you’re saying?’

  Tom smiled, covertly. He realised he had their attention. The power balance had shifted in his favour. As it always did, sooner or later.

  People underestimated little Tommy Derry at their peril.

  ‘Of course,’ Tom said, in his reedy falsetto. ‘I thought everyone – no matter! Rosyln, you see, is perhaps the most plausible of the possible Ripper suspects. For he was a student of the occult, and there are without a doubt occult patterns to be found in the Ripper case. They form, well, it’s complicated. The murder locations form occult sigils, you see, and this house is part of one such sigil. And so -’ Tom trailed off, putting it together.

  ‘Well fuck me,’ said Dougie. ‘We just solved the Jack the Ripper murders.’

  ‘Well, technically, I did,’ observed Tom.

  Dougie smiled. Thinly.

  ‘So what the hell,’ said Gina, ‘has this got to do with Gogarty?’

  Dougie nodded and went into mental overdrive mode. His brow furrowed. His fingers ticked off numbers he wasn’t in fact counting:

  ‘Fact,’ said Dougie, ‘these names on the wall behind me all belong to victims of the serial killer we know as Jack the Ripper.’

  Tom nodded, as if giving his approval; he enjoyed seeing the legendary Dougie Randall deductive mind at work.

  ‘Fact: The mortar and lathe wall dates to approximately the right period for the aforesaid Ripper murders.

  ‘Fact: We are very much in the bailiwick of these historical killings. Surmise: this house,’ said Dougie, ‘used to belong to the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘We already know all that,’ said Tom, chidingly.

  ‘Fact: I do not like to be interrupted.’

  ‘Apologies.’

  ‘You’ll learn.’

  Dougie continued:

  ‘Surmise.’ He glared at Tom; daring an interruption; it did not come. ‘Surmise: the ageing Ripper, in his dotage, amuses himself by sitting in his suburban lair, painting a map on the wall with his murders marked. And a pentagram, because he likes pentagrams.’

  ‘Actually –’ said Tom.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Dougie said. ‘And furthermore, as well as these glaring clues, there’s a version of the message he sent to taunt the police of the time, enlivened by a sarcastic “ha ha ha”, and reproducing its supposedly deliberate misspelling of Jews.’

  ‘Unless it’s in French,’ Tom inserted.

  ‘French?’

  ‘It might be Juives. Which is French for Jews. That might be an “i” after the “u”,’ Tom suggested.

  Dougie looked. He nodded. There might be.

  He continued: ‘Surmise,’

  ‘The Ripper was still killing people,’ suggested Tom. ‘Even as an old man. Then burying them in the garden.’

  Dougie nodded, taking this final interruption graciously.

  ‘Surmise: Everyone needs a hobby,’ Dougie said.

  ‘Fact: Four bodies are buried in the garden,’ said Tom.

  ‘Far fewer than we were expecting,’ said Dougie angrily. ‘And not current, not Gogarty murders.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Tom conceded. ‘And what’s more –’

  ‘With all due respect,’ said Gina, in terms of utter disrespect. ‘None of this Ripper shit is credible. It’s the stupidest coincidence I’ve ever come across.’

  Dougie looked at her: her ball.

  ‘I mean, think about it,’ Gina said. ‘Gogarty, one of the most prolific serial killers of the century, just happens to live in the house where Jack the Ripper lived?’

  ‘I agree, it’s bullshit: but it appears to be true,’ countered Dougie.

  ‘And in any case, we don’t know for certain this was the Ripper’s house,’ Gina insisted. ‘Maybe it’s all a scam. Gogarty’s idea of a gag.’

  ‘Hell of a gag,’ spat Dougie.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Gina replied.

  ‘But hardly likely. How did the bodies get there? Ten feet down, under a century’s worth of soil and debris?’ said Dougie.

  ‘True,’ Gina conceded.

  ‘And the wallpaper. We took off five layers of wallpaper in this room to get down to the original nineteenth century wall. Hell of a thing to fake.’

  ‘But possible.’

  ‘You’re reaching, Gina,’ said Dougie.

  ‘I’m clutching,’ said Gina, ‘at straws.’

  ‘Look at it this way,’ Dougie continued, ‘either Jack the Ripper lived here, or another serial killer from the same era lived here, pretending to be Jack the Ripper. I mean, how likely is that?’

  ‘Fair point,’ Gina admitted.

  Tom was keeping out of this exchange; his mind was racing with possibilities.

  ‘Additional fact: we took up the floorboards,’ Dougie said. He gestured; they took the hint.

  They followed him out of the bedroom. Along the landing. Into the third door on the left, a small study. The floorboards there had been taken up in four places, leaving yawning gaps. A trestle table for exhibits had been set up straddling the remaining boards.

  ‘The sniffer dogs found traces of blood on the boards here. So we took them up and found these,’ said Dougie.

  Gina and Tom inspected the artefacts on the table:

  A hunting knife; dark with dried blood.

  A Glock automatic pistol.

  An old bloodstained apron.

  A coil of rope.

  An old book.

  A very old coin, with five points.

  An object wrapped in burlap.

  ‘Gogarty’s fingerprints are on the knife,’ said Dougie. ‘That’s how cocky he is. The book is old, it’s a journal. The butcher’s apron has stains which are probably blood. And then there’s this –’

  Dougie unwrapped the burlap. Inside was a thick white object.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Candle,’ said Tom, feeling a sense of horror descend upon him. ‘A Eucharist candle.’

  ‘Who does the journal belong to?’ Gina asked.

  ‘The Ripper,’ said Tom. ‘It must be.’ He put on his latex gloves, and picked up the journal, gingerly. And he flicked through the pages.

  ‘It’s not signed.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But look at this,’ said Tom, after riffling through the pages. ‘An account of African magic. Signed Tau-Tria-Delta. Here, this is the sign. I’ve certainly seen that before. This is an early draft of an article Roslyn D’Onston wrote in the 1880s.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ said Gina, puzzled. ‘Did you just Google it?’

  ‘No. I – remember things.’

  Dougie absorbed that; Gina looked sceptical.

  ‘Who’s this Rosyln D’onwhatever?’ said Gina.

  ‘Ripper suspect.’

  ‘Keep up, Gina.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And what’s the Tau-Tria-Delta?’ Dougie said.

  ‘A symbol D’Onston used,’ said Tom. ‘One of his affectations. He was quite a good writer, in fact. He wrote about the occult. He wrote one piece confessing to his murder of a witch doctor in Africa, which everyone thought was fantastical embellishment but may well have been true. He wrote an article about Jack the Ripper too, offering ideas about the psychology of the killer. And we know for certain he was in Whitechapel for the entire period of the murders, suffering from Chloralism. That’s an addiction to Chloral Hydrate,
it’s a drug alcoholics used to take to sober up. It helps them stave off delirium tremens. D’Onston was a monumental drinker you see but still able to function. He –’

  ‘Save it for the briefing,’ Dougie said.

  Tom clammed: ‘Yes, guv.’

  Dougie picked up the diary. He flicked through it carefully, without bothering to glove up. ‘Jack the Ripper,’ he said. ‘What a fucking scrote.’

  The epitaph lingered in the air.

  ‘So how did Gogarty come to buy this house?’ Gina insisted, trying to find some sanity in this madness.

  ‘Through a process of deduction and investigation, I would assume,’ said Tom. ‘Think about it. Gogarty’s a serial killer, he’s a clever man, so he makes it his hobby to solve old crimes. Look at his Kindle: it’s full of true crime books. Check how many of them are Ripper books; the answer will be lots, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I’ll get it Actioned,’ said Gina, typing on her e-berry.

  ‘And so he found out that Jack was Roslyn D’Onston. Part time journalist. Student of voodoo. Dabbler in Theosophy. Dipsomaniac. And he tracked Rosyln down to this, his last known address. And bought the house, because he’s a sick fuck and it amused him.’

  ‘Plausible,’ conceded Dougie.

  ‘So where does this get us?’ said Gina.

  ‘Surmise,’ said Tom, smiling shyly.

  Dougie paused. He nodded: he’d indulge it.

  ‘It’s a trick. Gogarty’s tricked you all,’ said Tom. And there was a long and very ugly silence.

  ‘No,’ said Dougie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom.

  ‘What?’ said Gina, baffled.

  ‘Fact: Julia Penhall left a clue for us,’ said Dougie, with a voice like a cartridge slipping into a barrel. ‘She marked it on her body. The heroic fucking - What the fuck are you –’

  But Tom couldn’t be stopped.

  ‘No listen, suppose, surmise, look I’m just flying blind here: let’s say, just as we suggested, Gogarty did his research, solved the Ripper case, knew this house belonged to the Ripper. Bought it. Hardly lived here. But hugged himself with delight every time he was here. Guessing of course there would be clues somewhere, that a thorough police search would most assuredly find. The kind of clues only a murder squad excavation would, literally and metaphorically, unearth. A scalpel. Old papers. Something in the garden; bodies would be his dream. Unexploded historical bombs. Much smugness ensuing! Knowing that one day, showdown day, victory and mockery would be his. Victory against Dougie Randall, greatest detective and interrogator in the Met, um,’ said Tom; losing it, as so often, in the final few yards.