by David Waine
*
Exactly a century later, his great nephew, Detective Chief Superintendent Ronald Abberline, also of the Metropolitan Force, faced another press conference. Unlike his ancestor, DCS Abberline was a large, bluff man whose hair was greying rapidly as his fiftieth birthday approached. This time the press conference was at the newer Bow Road Police Station, Commercial Street having closed its doors decades before. Instead of a mass of hats and feverishly scribbling hands, he was confronted with a forest of microphones and a breed of news hound altogether more assured of its power and not cowed by the police.
“We can now confirm that the body of a young woman discovered in Durward Street yesterday was that of the missing schoolgirl, Mary Anne Nichols,” he began in a serious professional tone. “Her father made a formal identification at eleven fifteen last night.”
“How was he?”
The voice was young, self-assured, female and ominously familiar. Casting around, Abberline quickly found her and groaned inwardly. That dusky face with the accusing eyes was there again, framed against wavy jet hair, severely tied back. If ever there was a harpy close to the public ear who could put a spanner in honest police work, Sally Ferguson was it. Pit Bull Sally. He supposed it was her unerring ability to make the Force look like bumbling, inept plods without actually saying so that fuelled his disaffection.
“He is extremely distressed, naturally, as is the whole family. Relatives and friends are caring for them and counsellors are also in attendance at their home. It is the wish of the family that they be left alone otherwise to come to terms with their tragic loss in their own way. We would ask the Media to respect that when reporting this matter.”
A few heads nodded as the assembled reporters took this in.
The next question was entirely predictable. “How did she die?”
It wasn’t what the man asked so much as the manner in which he asked it that identified him as a hack from one of the more salacious tabloids.
“This is a murder investigation,” confirmed Abberline solemnly. “She was the victim of a savage, and apparently unprovoked, attack by a person wielding a sharp implement, possibly a knife.”
Pit Bull Sally was not to be put off. “She disappeared on August 31st,” she snapped. “Had she been held prisoner?”
Abberline considered this before responding. He needed to be careful in what he said. The killer was certain to read the papers and watch the news broadcasts to pick up every scrap of information that he could. That was the sort of thing that these bastards did. They revelled in their carnage, glorying in their notoriety without a thought for their victims or their grieving families. “I am unable to confirm that at present. A post mortem will be performed in the morning and we should know more after that.”
“Superintendent Abberline!” She deliberately missed the ‘Chief’ off his rank to needle him. Slowly he turned to face her again. “Bearing in mind the victim’s name,” she snapped, “the date of her abduction and the horrifying manner in which she was killed, have the police considered the possibility that there is a copycat Jack the Ripper serial killer on the loose in the East End of London?”
He was half-turned away when she spoke, but he could sense the tension increase in the room as she mentioned that name. ‘Oh no,’ he thought to himself, ‘not already.’
Turning back to her, he responded in as even a tone as he could summon, “There are a number of similarities between this murder and that of another Mary Anne Nichols by the Whitechapel Murderer, commonly known as Jack the Ripper, in 1888. Both were the victims of savage attacks and Durward Street stands on the site of Buck’s Row, where the original murder was committed. There are, however, significant discrepancies. The girl we found last night had been abducted and killed some time later, whereas the Ripper’s victim was killed and dumped immediately. The original was forty-two years old and a prostitute. Our victim was a perfectly respectable fifteen year-old schoolgirl. The similarities are striking, but it is still too early to make a definitive judgement.”
He noted the easing in the set of her shoulders and relaxed a little himself. Her next question was more conciliatory. “Do you have any advice for the public?”
He addressed his answer directly to her. “We would advise all women to be on their guard and parents to be particularly vigilant of their teenage daughters, whom we would strongly recommend not to venture out alone at night.”
“You expect this man to strike again?”
Abberline nodded. “Such is the nature of the attack that we believe it is only a matter of time before he does.”
Those words brought a leering smile to the face of a man who lived alone in a quiet street in Fulham as he listened the news highlights in his immaculate kitchen late that night. He ceased toying with his knife and pondered whether he ought to run it through his sharpener yet again before retiring to bed. In spite of the temptation to grind just a touch more edge into the blade, he reasoned that it might be wiser to hone it afresh immediately before its next adventure, when it would form an essential element of his preparations and make the completion all the more meaningful. Better to leave it to recover its strength.
Carefully, lovingly, he restored it to its place in the kitchen drawer, where it occupied a compartment to itself, lined with red velvet. Going through to his bedroom, he turned his attention to a detailed map of London on the wall adjacent to the window, where it could not be seen from outside. Twenty-seven pins were stuck in the map at specific locations around the capital. One more was affixed to a photograph of a northern city situated above. Each carried a small paper flag, neatly trimmed, and each flag bore a number. Five of the six number ones now lay in a tray on his computer desk in the corner. The sixth had been removed from its original location on Mary Anne Nichols’s home — now marked with a red cross — coated uniformly in red ink and placed on Durward Street.