by David Waine
*
Every light blazed at Bow Road, as ever. The nation’s currently most famous police office never slept. Crime didn’t so they couldn’t. The corridors within were busy with the usual bustle of activity as every conceivable wrongdoing was followed up ruthlessly by the constantly rotating teams of officers.
Detective Chief Superintendent Ronald Abberline’s office, however, was an uncharacteristic haven of quiet. The room was empty, save for the man himself, who sat at his desk drumming his fingers idly, deep in thought. He could hear the comings and goings of his team beyond the door, but he paid them little heed. An auspicious date had passed: the centenary of the original Ripper’s notorious double act, when he had killed two victims on the same night a mile apart and within an hour and a half of each other. Abberline was waiting for the phone to ring. Squads had been stationed at both locations for days, but a creeping dread in his heart told him that the effort would be useless. Tomorrow’s headlines would splash the ghastly news across the nation’s breakfast tables. This monster was playing with him, playing and laughing, just as his predecessor had done with his great uncle.
There was a soft knock at the door and Rutter’s head appeared.
“Come in, Rutter,” smiled Abberline wearily, “come in and sit down. We are all condemned to wait, so you may as well do some of it here.” The young woman complied and perched herself on a chair opposite. “As you and the ever redoubtable Sergeant Matthews already know,” he continued, “it will soon be October the second. Jack the Ripper carried out his double act on September the thirtieth 1888: Elizabeth Stride on Berner Street, since renamed Henriques Street, and Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. So it doesn’t need the brain of a genius to work out that somewhere there are the dead bodies of an Elizabeth Stride and a Catherine Eddowes, or something like that, waiting to be disposed of.”
“We have no records of any women with either of those names being abducted on the thirtieth, sir,” answered Rutter with a surprising freshness, considering that she had been on duty continuously for eleven hours. The fortitude of youth, thought Abberline.
“Maiden names and aliases?”
“Ditto sir.” She handed over a sheet of paper from the small sheaf that she was carrying. “Here’s a list of all the reported disappearances in London on that day. As you can see, they are nearly all men, and none of the women has a name anything like what we are looking for.”
“I see a Stride.”
A confused Rutter rose from her seat and came round to check the list from over his shoulder. “He’s a man, sir. Edward Stride.”
Abberline put the sheet of paper down on his desk slowly, a grim frown clouding his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Rutter?”
A look of horrified comprehension crossed hers. “I hope not, sir.”
Abberline’s fist slammed the desktop as he rose suddenly to his full height. “Whatever! One body will be dumped in Henriques Street and the other in Mitre Square. We have squads in both locations. If he even breathes out of place, we’ll have him.”
There was a further knock at the door and another detective’s head appeared.
“Sergeant Matthews on the line, sir.”
The rain streamed down in a steady deluge on Henriques Street, a nondescript road built a number of years previously to partially replace the site of the original Ripper’s third murder. Sergeant Matthews had hurriedly ensconced himself in a squad car, shaking clinging droplets from his hair and hurriedly wiping his hands on his coat before reaching for the handset. Through a windscreen, utterly distorted by running water, he could see soaking uniformed officers, swathed in bright yellow waterproofs, erecting a cordon of crime scene tapes around the discovery. He, in his traditional CID suit, had no such protection and even his hurriedly donned raincoat had proved less than adequate in the cloudburst.
“Abberline.” The voice on the other end was crisp and metallic-sounding, but instantly recognisable.
In his heightened state of nerves, Matthews fairly barked the message down the line. “It’s Matthews, sir. A body’s been dumped. Thrown out of a dark blue BMW that came through here like the devil on fire.”
Back at Bow Road, Abberline had already switched the call to the loudspeaker so that Rutter could hear it as well. “You gave chase?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the sergeant, “that’s proceeding. Got the number. Hold it, sir.” A uniformed officer had just handed him a scrap of information scrawled on a sodden sheet of paper. “They’ve cornered him on Whitechapel Road. Strike that, sir,” another sopping sheet was pressed into his hand. “He got through the roadblock. Pursuit continuing.”
Abberline’s face was grim as he exchanged concerned looks with Rutter and rapped out his instructions. “Run the number through the computer. What about the body?”
Back in Henriques Street, Matthews didn’t quite know what to say. There was a momentary silence before Abberline cut in again. “Well?”
“That’s just it, sir,” answered a bemused Desmond Matthews after a further moment’s silence. “It’s a man.”
Rutter’s eyes rolled up towards the ceiling and Abberline heard her barely murmured, “Oh, no.”
“A man!” he barked.
“Yes, sir,” replied his sergeant unsteadily, “and sir, he’s wearing a dress.”
Abberline looked sharply at his assistant detective constable. She looked straight back at him, an air of resignation on her face. Turning back to the receiver, he said in more measured tones, “Have you got a barrier up?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Matthews, on surer ground now. “The area’s sealed off. Fairly quiet at the moment, but people were alerted by the car and more are gathering.”
“Right,” said Abberline decisively. “Keep them back. Rutter and I are on our way. Let nobody through, apart from the pathologist, until we get there!” He pressed the button on the handset to conclude the call and then barked instructions for Control to put him through to Detective Sergeant Armstrong in the passenger seat of the pursuit vehicle.
“Armstrong,” came the crackly voice from the other end.
“Abberline,” confirmed the Chief Super. “Any more news on the chase?”
“Ongoing, sir,” replied Armstrong in a burst of static, punctuated by the wail of his siren. “It’s a dark-coloured BMW 5 Series, with a single occupant, probably a man. Currently doing about seventy-five up Whitechapel Road, heading east. Whooah!” The sound of screeching tyres came through the loudspeaker on Abberline’s desk.
“What’s happened?” he barked.
“Nothing, sir,” replied an evidently relieved Armstrong. “Conway just nearly killed a drunk. Reeled out in front of us, but we missed him.”
“Are you still on his tail?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Armstrong. “We’re closing and there are four cars ahead to cut him off, and another four in reserve in case he doubles back. We’ll have him in a minute.”
“See you do,” barked Abberline, “and drive more carefully!”
Clicking the button and putting the receiver down, Abberline rushed to his door and shouted through it to the bank of officers at terminals there, “Any news from Mitre Square?” His request was greeted by blank faces and slowly shaking heads.
Closing the door behind him, he turned to Rutter. “Nothing moving in Mitre Square.”
Her face was grave. “And Armstrong said the car was heading east along Whitechapel Road. That’s the opposite direction. It doesn’t make sense, sir.”
Abberline’s face was equally grave. “No, it doesn’t. He’s going fast, though. He could try to give us the slip and then double back. If the original Ripper could do that with a horse and cab, he can do it in a BMW. Come on.”
“Mitre Square or Henriques Street, sir?” asked Rutter, donning her coat.
“Henriques Street,” replied Abberline over his shoulder as he left the room. “We’ll deal with what we do have first and let Armstrong
run him to ground.”
By the time that Abberline’s black Rover pulled in at the crime scene on Henriques Street, a small crowd had gathered in the rain and was swelling rapidly. He noted with approval that the detective sergeant had done his job well. Not only was the corpse taped off, but a tent had been erected over it, obliterating any view whatsoever, as well as keeping the elements off. In any case a cordon of yellow waterproof-jacketed police constables kept the rubberneckers so far away that they could barely see the roof of the tent, let alone its contents.
“Ghouls,” muttered Abberline as he slammed his car door shut and pulled the collar of his coat tight about his neck. “Rather get pneumonia looking at a tent in the rain than wait for the next news broadcast. Serve them right if they are all ill in the morning.”
Rutter smothered a small smile as she followed her senior officer through the police cordon. The pathologist emerged from the tent just before they reached it.
“Oh, there you are, Abberline,” he remarked drily, “took your time, didn’t you? I’ve been here five minutes.”
“Well, whoopee for you,” replied Abberline irritably. “The fact that you live virtually round the corner had nothing to do with that, I suppose?”
“It may have had some slight effect,” acknowledged the medical man with a mischievous smile. “Not all of us can afford to skulk away in Scotland Yard, waiting for something to happen.”
“I work out of Bow Road,” replied Abberline with ill-concealed irritation, “and, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m here.”
Recognising the look on the policeman’s face, the pathologist gave up all attempts at cheery banter and made his initial report. “Cause of death: cut throat, double slash. No other injuries that I could determine without a full post mortem.”
Abberline pulled a grimace. Murder victims were never a pleasant sight, but knife murder tended to be the most grisly of all. “How long?”
“Oh, some time. A couple of days at least, I should think,” said the surgeon, checking his bag. “Quite cold and rigor's been and gone. Be able to give you a more precise estimate after I’ve carved him up. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Have fun!” and off he stumped to his waiting car.
“Oh yes,” responded Abberline to himself as much as anybody else. “Let’s have some fun.”
Stepping into the tent, they found Matthews inside, surveying the body. It lay on its back, skewed at a most unnatural angle. The face was definitely male, aged roughly twenty-five, shorter and more slightly built than average. His make-up, applied rather heavily, presumably in a bid to soften his essentially masculine features, was smudged in several places. The long, flowing blonde wig looked expensive, as did the silk stockings, sling back shoes and dress slit to the thigh. Having been killed earlier and dumped, the scene was nothing like as bloody as it would have been otherwise.
“Any ID?” rasped Abberline to Matthews.
“ No, sir, no identification, nothing. The pathologist’s had a preliminary look at him. Diagnosed death by throat cutting.”
Abberline rolled his eyes. “Well, that was clever of him, wasn’t it? I could never have worked that out for myself. No other mutilations, he says. That, at least, is consistent.”
Matthews, unsurprisingly, was confused. “Sir?”
Rutter, overcoming her natural revulsion at the jagged slash through the victim's neck with professional detachment, crouched down next to the body and examined it visually. “The original third victim had her throat cut only, possibly indicating that the Ripper was disturbed before he could do his worst.”
Matthews’ confusion was deepening. He gesticulated with his hands, as if his exclamation was insufficient to oppress his point. Feeling incapable of addressing his concern to a subordinate female officer who was clearly brighter than he was, he turned to his chief. “But sir, this is a man.”
“Who is wearing a dress,” replied Abberline with exaggerated patience. “If I am not mistaken, that’s a long wig beside his head, and that certainly looks like make-up on his face? Those shoes aren’t exactly butch either.”
Matthews still did not get the point. “Yes, sir, but…”
“It seems to me, Matthews,” barked Abberline, squatting beside Rutter and looking up at his detective sergeant, “that he had gone to a lot of trouble to make himself look like a woman. So what do we have? A transvestite, obviously, which probably makes him gay as well.”
“You can’t be absolutely certain of that, sir,” pointed out Rutter.
“I know,” responded Abberline, “but it’s a good enough theory to be working on for the moment. Didn’t you say he was reported missing by his mother?”
Rutter nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Hmm.” Abberline thought quietly to himself for a moment. “What’s the betting he lived with her, and she called him ‘Teddy’?”
“That leaves you open to accusations of prejudice, sir,” said Rutter without expression.
“It certainly does,” responded Abberline, rising uncomfortably to his feet again. At his age, his knees did not take kindly to squatting. “But what’s the betting I’m right?”
“I’d put money on it, sir,” answered Rutter with a small smile.
Matthews, totally confused now, shrugged and turned away, knowing better than to question his superior officer too closely. “I’ll circulate his picture.”
“Prepare it,” said Abberline with a yawn, “but I don’t think it’ll be needed. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this man was called Edward Stride.”
Rutter rose to her feet, much more easily than her senior officer, and handed over the sheet of paper that she still clutched in her hand. “Reported missing yesterday by his mother. Here’s the address.”
Matthews took the sheet and scanned down it, stopping when he reached the name in question.
“What’s also the betting that, when dressing in drag, he called himself Liz?” added Abberline in an exasperated tone.
“There is the possibility that this is a coincidence,” pointed out Rutter, “a falling out in the gay community.”
“There is,” agreed Abberline, “but the injuries are consistent and he’s in the right place. I don’t think this is a coincidence. If a body turns up in Mitre Square, we’ll know for sure.”
“So now a victim doesn’t even have to be female, just to appear female,” agreed Rutter.
“That adds another category to our ‘at risk’ list,” confirmed Abberline. “Cross dressers.” Turning his back on the body, he stepped outside again, followed by Rutter and Matthews. “He’s getting more daring, is Jack. He knows we know what he’s doing. He knows that we know where he is going to dump the bodies, which is why he hangs onto them. To stretch us. This was reckless, though. We could easily have caught him.”
“There was heavy traffic, sir,” pointed out Matthews. “Pubs calling time and such.”
Abberline scowled. “But that was as likely to hamper him as us.” Rutter nodded in agreement. “Any word from Mitre Square?”
“Not lately, sir,” replied Matthews, making for the nearest car. “I’ll check.” Reaching through the open window, he took the handset and spoke rapidly into it. He listened carefully to the crackling response before calling over, “No, sir. All quiet.”
Abberline retraced his steps to his own car, settling himself in the front seat out of the rain. Hands on the wheel, he checked his watch and mused grimly, “Nearly midnight. Catherine Eddowes’ body was discovered within an hour of Elizabeth Stride’s. He’ll want that bit right. This is his double act. He takes a massive risk to divert attention here, while nothing happens in Mitre…” suddenly realisation dawned and he slapped the palm of his hand on his forehead. “She’s already there!”
Rutter swung into the passenger seat beside him. “Catherine Eddowes?”
Abberline shrugged. “Or Kate Kelly, if you prefer.” He laughed grimly. “Or Fred Smith, for that matter.”
Rutter no l
onger possessed the list of missing persons, having handed it to Matthews, but she had memorised it anyway. “There’s no report of a Catherine Eddowes or Kate Kelly going missing in London on the thirtieth.”
Abberline slotted the key in the ignition and turned it, simultaneously giving the throttle a dab with his right foot while depressing the clutch with his left. “Correction,” he said through gritted teeth. “There’s no report of a woman, called Catherine Eddowes or Kate Kelly going missing in London on the thirtieth. Nobody said anything about a man. Search warrants for every building in Mitre Square. Organise it.”
The dark blue BMW 535i had found the right combination of roads to reverse its general direction and was, by now, tearing westwards along the North Circular, pursued by four howling police cars. All five were powerful vehicles, although the police Rovers were no match in a straight race for the track-tuned German car. Their drivers’ superior driving skills, however, kept them in the hunt as the BMW frequently skidded round bends with an almighty screech of tyres, scrubbing off speed each time, and shot through lying water with a cloud of spray that drenched neighbouring buildings up to first floor level. The police managed to glide around the same bends more delicately, without sacrificing momentum, and they avoided the deeper puddles, which acted as a sudden brutal brake on the BMW.
“He’s going to kill himself at this rate,” muttered the pursuing Sergeant Armstrong to himself, “and he won’t be the only one either,” as the driver, Conway, braked heavily and then jammed his right foot on the throttle to swing the tail out and hurl his Rover round a right-angled corner. He could see the BMW’s tail lights veering left and right as its massive tyres fought for grip on the greasy road.
The fleeing driver gritted his teeth and gripped the leather-bound wheel ever more tightly. Beads of perspiration were breaking out on his brow and rivulets of sweat ran into his eyes, obscuring his vision. He could see the slit-like headlamps of the pursuing Rovers in his rear view mirror, as well as the flashing blue lamps on their roofs. His ears were ringing from the cacophony of their sirens. He had to get away, but they dogged him relentlessly.
More corners. More puddles. More clouds of spray with their accompanying sudden violent drag. Still they were on his tail, hanging on like terriers, refusing to let him escape. He could feel the panic rising in his throat. He was close to tears.
Jamming his foot hard on the brake, then transferring it equally hard to the accelerator, he shot round a corner on to a long straight stretch. Suddenly he recognised the buildings on either side. He knew this area and its back roads. Hope soared within him as a desperate last opportunity beckoned. If he could put sufficient distance between himself and them, there was still a chance he could slip away through the dark alleys. Gunning the engine with everything he had, he roared away from the Rovers at over one hundred miles an hour. With a mounting sense of relief he saw their lights diminishing in his mirror as they fell back and, for one brief, blinding second, he thought he had done it.
Then he really was blinded. Eight headlamps lit up on high beams in a line right across the road in front of him. Four squad cars stood side by side, blocking the way completely.
His heart in his mouth, he jammed the brakes on, grabbed the handbrake and swerved, all in the same movement. The car span a full one hundred and eighty degrees, tyres screaming on the wet road and throwing up a tidal wave of spray before skidding backwards into the bonnet of the nearest police car with a deafening crump. His own boot lid sprang open and the forward-hinged bonnet of the police Rover buckled up to meet it. The door opened and a man wearing a bedraggled suit heaved himself out of the BMW, collapsing in a puddle. He tried to rise but was immediately surrounded by waiting police officers, who handcuffed him as the pursuing four Rovers pulled to a halt, leaving him trapped and manacled in a circle of blazing headlamps.