Chained in Time

by David Waine

CHAPTER 9

  There was an undeniable air of relief in Bow Road Police Station that night as the news spread that an arrest had been made and every officer not engaged on something else at the time, even those off duty, turned up to watch the suspect being brought in for questioning. Long before the column of eight Rovers, one with a flapping, buckled bonnet hurriedly taped down, pulled up outside the building, a crowd of onlookers had gathered and grew until spare bobbies had to go out and clear a route for the arriving cars.

  They came with their roof lights flashing and their sirens howling, to pull up outside the main door. Immediately the crowd, which had swelled to several hundred, and included reporters from all branches of the media, pressed forward eagerly, but were held back by a cordon of police officers with linked arms.

  Grim faced officers emerged from the second car and opened the rear door for their manacled passenger to emerge. He was hidden under a plain grey blanket and shuffled in a stooped fashion between two burly officers as they made the short journey inside.

  “Bastard!” yelled a voice from the crowd as an egg came sailing through the air to land on the blanketed man’s stooped head. He jerked, momentarily imagining that he had been struck by something much harder. Then he was through the door and beyond the clutches of the mob.

  Unfortunately for the egg thrower, a nearby constable had seen the act and he found himself under arrest, handcuffed and marched inside within seconds.

  Chief Superintendent Abberline’s Rover was the same V8 SD1 model as the pursuing squad cars, but, unlike them, this was his own vehicle and black. He pulled in as the column moved off to resume their patrols. Alighting from the vehicle, he was immediately surrounded by jabbering reporters with their flashguns. True to form, microphone held under his nose, Pit Bull Sally was right at the front.

  “Superintendent Abberline,” she rasped, missing the ‘Chief’ off yet again, “do you have any comment on the reports of an arrest?”

  Abberline held his hand up in a gesture of restraint. “One moment, please,” he said as he conferred quietly with one of his officers. Matthews and Rutter also emerged from Abberline’s car and flanked him dutifully.

  Turning to Sally, he continued, “I can confirm that a body was found earlier this evening and that an arrest has been made.” Quelling the immediate torrent of questions that ripped from the reporters’ throats, he continued, “However, it has not yet been positively established whether tonight’s incident was linked with the murders of Mary Anne Nichols and Roberta Henderson. Furthermore, the individual currently in detention has not even been charged at this stage. This person is simply helping us with our enquiries.”

  A further eruption of questioning broke out, but he quelled it with a polite smile and raised hand. “I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing more that I can add at present. A full statement will be released in the morning. Thank you.”

  He turned to go, but his despised Pit Bull Sally was having none of it. “Will tomorrow’s statement contain the name of the person arrested tonight?”

  Fixing her with a baleful look, he added, “I cannot confirm that at this stage.” So saying, he turned smartly on his heel, flanked by Matthews and Rutter, and strode into the building without another word.

  “There you have it,” said Sally to her cameraman’s lens as this was special news announcement, going out live. “Another body has been found and an arrest has been made. As yet, there is no confirmation this is the third Ripper body, who would be called Elizabeth Stride, if it is, nor whether the arrested person is even male or female. Chief Superintendent Abberline has confirmed that a full statement will be released in the morning. This is Sally Ferguson at Bow Road Police Station.”

  She held her solemn stare straight at the lens until the little red light atop the hand held camera went out and cameraman indicated that they were off air. Only then did she give vent to her feelings. “The miserable bastard wouldn’t even tell us if it was a man or a woman! Of course it’s a bloody man! What else could it be?”

  “A bloody woman,” answered the cameraman with a wry grin. “You never heard of the Jill the Ripper theory?”

  “Yes, I have,” she answered tartly, “and I have never heard such a load of bunkum in all my born days.”

  “Course you perfect girls would never do anything like that, would you?” he asked, stowing his equipment in the back of the radio car.

  “As a general rule we wouldn’t,” she retorted with a withering stare. “If you examine the annals of violent crime, you will find it very largely a male preserve.”

  “Perhaps we had better let Myra Hindley out of jail, then.”

  “Shut up!” she hissed, slipping into the passenger seat beside him, “I didn’t say it was exclusively male.”

  As the BBC’s radio car left the area, heading back to Television Centre in Borehamwood, Detective Chief Superintendent Ronald Abberline removed his suit jacket, handed it to a subordinate, loosened his tie and entered Number One Interview Room. He was accompanied by Rutter, Matthews having been detailed to keep a weather ear open for developments in Mitre Square.

  A burly police constable stood, feet splayed, hands behind his back, impassively against the far wall. His eyes were fixed on the miserable, hunched figure at the table. A young man, not more than thirty years of age, fair hair dishevelled and lank, his wet suit jacket over the back of the chair beside him. His shirt was equally wet and clinging to his body. His tie, loosened so that he could unbutton his collar, hung limply at chest level.

  He looked up fearfully as they entered. His face was white, his eyes wide and his lip trembled.

  Abberline, noticing the state that the prisoner was in, checked the sheet that the desk sergeant had handed him on entry before speaking. “Mr. Turner, I understand?”

  The man could not return his stare. He dropped his eyes to the table. “That is my name.” His voice was hoarse.

  Without removing his eyes from the suspect, Abberline pulled out a chair and sat on it, Rutter mirroring his action beside him. Abberline checked his watch, waited a few moments and then reached over to the waiting tape recorder and pressed the record button. “Recording commencing at 01.15 hours Monday, October 3rd, 1988. Detective Chief Superintendent Abberline interviewing, assisted by Women’s Detective Constable Rutter. Subject is Paul Turner of 5 Montague Court, Islington. Is that correct, Mr. Turner?”

  Still the man could not meet his gaze. He nodded his head and murmured, “Yes.”

  “And you work at Callows Merchant Bank in the City?”

  The man nodded again. “Yes,” he said, barely audibly.

  “Which would, presumably, put you on a healthy salary. You will be relieved to hear that we have checked the number of the car and verified that it does belong to you, so we won’t be charging you with car theft.”

  The man hung his head mutely.

  “Before we proceed to anything else, Mr. Turner,” went on Abberline smoothly, “I must caution you that you are not obliged to say anything, but anything that you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?” The stricken suspect nodded. “Subject affirms by nodding,” said Abberline to the recorder. “Now, suppose we begin with you telling us why you were driving your BMW along Whitechapel Road at eighty miles an hour earlier tonight?”

  Paul Turner looked him in the eye for the first time. His gaunt face betrayed pure panic. “Please,” he stammered, “please, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Abberline leaned forward, his eyes boring into the other man. Rutter sat back, silent, but watching him equally hard.

  “I trust you are aware that there is a thirty mile an hour limit on most London streets, Mr. Turner,” he said softly but nonetheless firmly, “and certainly on that one. It’s there for reasons of public safety. And that is before we consider how you dumped a murdered body from your car on Henriques Street. I don’t mean to sound flippant, Mr. Turner, but I am going to take a bit o
f convincing that you have done nothing wrong.”

  Turner’s eyes, suspiciously bright with coming tears, raked the ceiling in impotent frustration. “That’s not what I meant,” he wailed. “I had no choice! You’ve got to help me.”

  Recognising signals of imminent surrender, Abberline sat back, easing the tension between them. “Indeed we will. That is our function, Mr. Turner.” Now he sat forward again, his eyes boring into Turner’s. “But you must be more specific. Can you help us to help you?”

  The man was pleading. “No. You don’t understand.”

  Rutter remained silent, but doubts were clouding her thoughts. Either this man was an excellent actor or he was not the man they were looking for.

  “Enlighten me,” said Abberline, without sounding as if he were about to believe a word of it.

  “It’s not me you want,” babbled the man with hands outspread in supplication.

  Abberline tilted his head slightly and considered this for a moment. “It is your BMW that raced through Whitechapel tonight, and from which a dead body was dumped?”

  The man shook his head, but not in denial. “Yes, but…”

  Abberline pressed closer. “And you were driving the car?”

  “Yes.”

  And closer. “And you did dump the body?”

  The first tears began to trickle. He sounded as if he was being strangled. “Yes, but…”

  He got no further. Abberline sat back, fixing him with a look that would have reduced the most hardened of criminals to jelly. “Then do you have something else to tell us?”

  “HE HAS MY WIFE!” Turner yelled, tearing at his hair, anguish open on his face.

  Abberline and Rutter sat up in unison. “What?”

  Finally able to summon more than a couple of words, the outburst having dispelled a little of his panic, Turner calmed down slightly and found himself able to meet their gaze. “He’s got her,” he whimpered. “He threatened to kill her if I didn’t dump the body for him.”

  There was a lengthy pause during which Abberline’s demeanour changed. No longer were his eyes accusatory. “You are telling me that someone kidnapped your wife and forced you to dump a body for him?” he asked.

  Turner nodded. “Yes.”

  Abberline exchanged a look with Rutter before returning to the man. “Go on.”

  Turner sighed and shuddered at the memory. Rutter took in the body language, increasingly convinced that the man was genuine.

  “I arrived home from work, to find the phone ringing” explained Turner, calmer now. “It was him. He told me exactly what he wanted, and he said that he would slit her throat from ear to ear if I didn’t do it.”

  “Did you speak to your wife?” Rutter spoke for the first time. Her tone was deliberately more gentle and sympathetic than Abberline’s had been. The ploy was successful, for he opened up to her immediately.

  “Yes. She was in tears…” he dissolved into tears himself.

  Abberline gave the man a moment to compose himself. He had reached same conclusion as Rutter and now spoke in a more conciliatory tone. “All right, Mr. Turner. Take your time.”

  As Turner pulled himself together, he addressed the sympathetic-looking woman detective, rather than the intimidating man. “He told me to look out of the window. There he was, on the far side of the court, with a knife to her throat.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Not clearly. Montague Court is a dark mews, really, and we are the only residents.”

  Abberline took over the questioning. “So there was nobody else around?”

  Turner shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Could you describe him?”

  Turner thought deeply before answering. 'He’s trying,' thought Rutter.

  “Middling height. Slim, but bigger than her. She's quite small really. Dressed in dark casual clothes,” answered Turner at last.

  “His face?”

  The look of despair was back. “He wore a ski mask.”

  “What did you do then, Mr. Turner?” asked Rutter gently.

  The man turned his head towards her, the horror of the experience coming back to him with greater intensity. “I rushed down into the court, naturally, to save my wife.”

  “And when you got there?” Abberline.

  “He’d gone, taking her with him. I heard a car driving away.”

  “Did you see the car?”

  Turner shook his head miserably. “No.”

  Abberline leaned forward again, but this time there was nothing aggressive in his demeanour “From the engine noise, did it sound like a regular family car or something more powerful?”

  Turner thought for a moment. “It sounded like a fast car.”

  “Like yours?”

  Turner shook his head. “No. Big Bee-Ems have six cylinder engines. This was definitely a four. A souped-up regular car, maybe.”

  “Go on, Mr. Turner,” Rutter encouraged him gently.

  “I was beside my car,” he croaked. “The body was already in the passenger seat.” His face screwed up in silent horror. “I’m sure I locked it when I parked it there, but he had got in anyway. He must have used her keys.” Rutter nodded, her eyes sympathetic. “There was an A to Z on the central console, taped open at Whitechapel. It’s still there. Check it if you want. There was a big red arrow pointing to Henriques Street. That’s where I was to dump it.”

  “Interview interrupted at 01.24 hrs.” Abberline pressed the pause button on the tape recorder and rose from his seat. Rutter rose with him. “Excuse us one moment, Mr. Turner.”

  Leaving the hapless man to stew in the interview room, the pair of them withdrew beyond the door.

  “Do you believe him, sir?” Rutter, speaking softly, certainly looked as if she did. “He could be making all that up.”

  Playing devil’s advocate was a skill that she had never really mastered and Abberline knew it. He smiled for the first time that night. “He could be, but I don’t think he is. Either he’s a consummate actor or he’s a nervous wreck and my money’s on the latter. The arresting officers mentioned the A to Z. Doesn't mean he didn't plant it himself, of course. If he’s telling us the truth, it shows how organised our boy is. He doesn’t just target the victims, but makes sure the witnesses see only what he wants them to see, and that there are none he doesn’t know about. Quiet mews, them the only residents and he knew exactly when to strike. We’ll have the doc check him over, specifically his heart rate. If he’s telling the truth, his blood pressure must be at bursting point. Anyway, his story corroborates the Ripper’s re-enactment.”

  Rutter nodded, understanding. A man had been seen assaulting Elizabeth Stride minutes before her body was discovered and a carriage was heard driving away at speed. “So he staged it all for our benefit?”

  Abberline nodded thoughtfully. “Partly, and partly to get rid of the body without getting caught.”

  They were distracted by the sudden appearance of Sergeant Matthews. “Sir?”

  “What is it, Matthews?” asked Abberline.

  “They’ve found a body in Mitre Square, sir. In the basement of an empty building. Female, white, age about thirty. Expensive looking clothes. Purse full of money. Carried a credit card in the name of Catherine Kelly. Mutilations consistent with the Eddowes killing. He even chalked the message on the wall.”

  “Including the odd spelling of ‘Jews’?” asked Abberline.

  Matthews nodded. “Sir.”

  “And it was in Goulston Street? Not the square itself?” added Rutter.

  Matthews nodded again.

  Abberline scowled. “He’s getting very confident. Handwriting?”

  Matthews shook his head. “I wouldn’t bank on it, sir. It looks like he used his wrong hand deliberately.”

  Abberline turned away in disgust. “No doubt he’ll be sending us half her kidney through the post.” Turning back, he addressed Matthews directly. “Run a check on the cred
it card and then come back here.” As Matthews ran off to order the check, Abberline addressed Rutter. “At least we can find out if it’s Mr. Turner’s wife they have found.”

  “Wouldn’t the name on the card be ‘Catherine Turner’ if it was, sir?”

  Abberline shrugged. “Probably, but she wouldn’t be the first married woman to retain her maiden name. I understand it’s getting quite common now along with not promising to love, honour and obey.”

  “I think it's only 'obey' that they baulk at these days, sir. I suppose we can now discount any theory of this being an unrelated gay community murder?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” he confirmed, “which brings us down to one victim remaining, and we both know who that is most likely to be.”

  “The girl Pit Bull Sally brought in,” nodded Rutter. One look at Marie had convinced the pair of them that this could be no hoax, even less hysteria.

  “Correct,” confirmed Abberline, thinking carefully. “I think I may have a change of duty for you.”

  Rutter’s eyes widened as a momentary thought of being taken off the case for being inadequate, or female, or both flashed through her mind.

  Abberline recognised the look on her face and set her mind at rest immediately. “No, not that,” he smiled grimly. “I fear we need your skills to be put to use more specifically. How long have you held your firearms licence?”

  “Four months, sir.”

  “Have you had occasion to use it?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet, sir.”

  “But you have kept up your training?”

  She nodded. “Every week.”

  “Good,” he replied, his mind made up finally. “Well, you have occasion now. Get over there and go armed. I want you looking after her from now on. Tell the desk to fill out an authorisation and bring it to me to sign. Put whoever we allocated originally back on regular duty. Explain to her quietly that we need an armed officer minding this one.”

  “Sir,” she responded, smartly turning on her heel and passing Matthews as he returned from his own trip to the desk. “In here, Matthews,” said Abberline breezily, “you can ride shotgun from now on.”

  They returned to the interview room to find the constable standing as impassively as ever and Paul Turner slumped in his chair in despair. Releasing pause on the recorder, Abberline resumed the interview. “Recording recommencing at 01.27 hours, Detective Sergeant Matthews now assisting Detective Chief Superintendent Abberline in place of Women’s Detective Constable Rutter.” Turning pointedly to Paul Turner, he asked, “How old is your wife, Mr. Turner?”

  Turner blinked uncomprehendingly. “Twenty-nine.”

  Abberline leaned forward and spoke softly. “What was her maiden name?”

  A look of disbelief, coupled with rising anger crossed the man’s face. His wife was at the mercy of this monster and they were debating her maiden name! “How can this help?”

  “Please answer the question, Mr. Turner.”

  Both of Turner’s fists hit the table in sheer frustration. The constable at the wall started in to restrain him, but Abberline stayed him with a raised hand.

  “He has my wife!” cried Turner in despair.

  “Maybe he has,” responded Abberline ruthlessly, leaning even further forward. “Maybe he’s already disposed of her. Maybe you are telling us the complete truth, and maybe you are not. We will find out, with or without your help, but you could speed matters up significantly by answering our questions.” There could be no mistaking the implicit threat.

  “Chan!” He almost spat the word out.

  Abberline and Matthews both did a double take. “Chan?”

  Now it was Paul Turner’s opportunity to lean forward and glare at his interrogator. “Kawai Chan. My wife is Chinese. We met at University. It’s that Ripper monster isn’t it?”

  At that moment the door opened and Rutter’s head reappeared. “Sir?”

  Abberline snapped, “Excuse me, Mr. Turner. Recording interrupted at,” he checked his watch, “01.28 hours,” and pressed pause.

  Joining Rutter outside, he seemed annoyed. “I thought I sent you to look after the Kelly girl.”

  She looked apologetic. “I’m on my way, sir, but this just came in. I thought you’d better see it.” She passed him a sheet of paper, explaining as he scanned the sketchy printed lines. “Message through from Northumbria CID. A Newcastle call girl, name of Cathy Kelly, aged thirty-one and known to have wealthy London clients, reported missing yesterday by her flat mate, another call girl. They wondered if we might be interested.”

  Abberline pursed his lips. “That might be her,” he mused, then, looking at her sharply, “What is it?”

  She looked back at him in surprise at having let her feelings appear on her face, and then shook herself. “Oh, it's nothing, sir. The Duty Sergeant keeps calling me, 'Lassie'. I'm trying to think up a suitable riposte.”

  The following morning, having spent all night either inspecting bodies at crime scenes, or interviewing the quailing Turner, a desperately tired Chief Superintendent Abberline presented himself at the city morgue, accompanied by his redoubtable, but flagging, bag man, Sergeant Matthews, to view the latest delivery of corpses. Neither had seen his bed in more than thirty hours and both were suffering cruelly for it.

  The large, sanitised room had a cold, unwelcoming air, courtesy of the presence of the many refrigerator units, required to keep the inmates from decaying before the pathologist could have a good look at them, and the pervading hospital smell of disinfectant. The most recent arrivals, Edward Stride and Cathy Kelly, lay prone beneath white sheets on the aluminium slabs lately occupied by Mary Anne Nichols and Roberta Henderson, both of whom had since been released to their relatives for burial. Abberline had attended both funerals, as protocol demanded, standing well back so as not to intrude on the grieving relatives, many of whom looked accusingly at him, as if he were responsible for their loss.

  The pathologist, whom he respected professionally and despised personally for the soulless dog that he was, stood by the larger of the two corpses with a proprietary air. This was his domain, the only place on the planet where he felt truly at home. Abberline both admired and hated the way that he could detach himself from the horrific sights that met his eyes day by day and examine them minutely without pausing even to consider that this had, so recently been a living, breathing, warm human being.

  “Morning, Abberline,” he said with an insincere smile, “under the weather a little, are we? Late night?”

  “Spare me your concern, Rupert,” growled the policeman. He could never trade repartee with a man who felt at ease in a vault stacked with dead bodies. “Is that the man?”

  “It is,” replied Rupert, whipping the sheet back to reveal the victim’s face and shoulders. Cleaned of make-up and mud, and with his wig removed, he looked ordinary enough, but the double gash in his neck was so deep that he had almost been decapitated. Abberline forced himself to look.

  “Initial examination confirmed,” went on Rupert, “no other injuries. The odd scratch, perhaps, but sustained prior to the attack. Everyday bumps and bruises. Estimated time of death early Saturday morning. Shortly after midnight, I would say.”

  “That, at least, is consistent,” confirmed Abberline. “Elizabeth Stride was the only one of the five victims not to have been disembowelled.”

  “His personal effects are in a bag over there,” went on Rupert, in a matter of fact voice, indicating a large, stuffed plastic bag on a bench by the far wall. “Nothing of significance that I could see. All freshly laundered before being put on, but partially covered in mud from where he was found. Drenched in blood, of course, but I would imagine that it will all be his. You’ll want them for forensics, I assume?”

  “You assume correctly,” grunted Abberline. “And the other one?”

  “Aha!” replied Rupert, whipping the second sheet back with a flourish. This time he uncovered the entire body and b
oth Abberline and Matthews involuntarily looked away before disciplining themselves rigidly to take in the sight.

  Cathy Kelly, or what was left of her, lay blue and naked before them. Her mutilations were far worse than any of the others.

  “Missing a kidney, by the way,” announced Rupert. “Whoever did this to her took it. Awkward to get at, kidneys. They’re at the back and surrounded by a thick layer of fat, but this fellow went in through the front. Took the uterus as well, which is consistent with the first two killings, although he left the skin behind this time. Dug behind it. Belly still looks flat enough. You have to press it before you realise there's nothing beneath.” He dug his fingers into her abdomen to prove his point. Both policemen winced. “His skills are improving.” Abberline scowled at the man's cold-bloodedness. “Would have been quite a looker before he came along. Pity.”

  “Do you know what Bright's Disease is?” asked Abberline.

  “Old term for Chronic Nephritis,” replied the pathologist immediately, “kidney disease to you. Why?”

  “The original 1888 victim had it,” explained Abberline.

  “Well, this one didn't,” answered Rupert. “Nothing wrong with the remaining kidney. If she did have it, though, it wouldn’t have been the worst of her problems.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Matthews.

  The pathologist smiled his most nauseating grimace. “She had cancer. Beginnings of a brain tumour, very small at the moment, but growing.” He made to remove the top of her skull, the line where he had sawn through it hidden by her hair, but Abberline stopped him with a curt request simply to tell them. “Development at a very early stage, so she probably hadn't noticed anything beyond the occasional headache yet. Even so, her sell by date would have been a lot earlier than she would have expected had it proved malignant, which, I suspect, it was. Nasty things, brain tumours. Looked at from her point of view, your man might have done her something of a favour”

  Abberline was disgusted. The body on the slab before him had been all but torn apart. “You call that a favour?” The man nauseated him. “She was a Newcastle call girl who was regularly hired by London businessmen. She was quite a successful businesswoman in her own right, doing what she did.”

  “Long way to come for a paid shag,” observed the pathologist with a shrug, replacing the sheet. “Dead before the other one, by the way. Friday afternoon, about three. On the subject of shags, she had one no more than a couple of hours before she was killed, quickie on the train perhaps. Traces of semen around her mouth, and the spermicide from the rubber johnny was still evident around her vulva.”

  “I get the picture!” interrupted Abberline with raised hand.

  “From Newcastle?” Rupert asked brightly. “Couldn’t they find a closer call girl?”

  “Ask her, not me,” growled Abberline, indicating the prone form on the slab. “You’re the one who communes with the dead.”

  “Someone who sells herself to blokes who buy and sell money must be a bit odd by definition, I suppose.”

  “That, coming from a man who spends his time crawling over dead bodies, is rich,” observed Abberline testily, getting a little of his own back at last. “Anything else that you want us to admire?”

  A slow, triumphant smile spread over Rupert’s smug face. He had been saving this. He pointed to an area of slab close to Cathy Kelly’s head, where a small mound of pale flesh stood isolated from the body. “There, beside the tip of her nose.” There was a small, clear plastic bag containing something pale and flat.

  “Can I pick it up?”

  The pathologist nodded. “That’s why I bagged it. Pick it up, take it away and give it to your forensics bods.”

  Abberline picked the bag up carefully and held it up against the light. “What is it?”

  “It’s a small piece of thin rubber, a fragment of surgical glove. Looks like our Miss Kelly put up a bit of a fight before he finished her. I found it crushed under her fingernail. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s a print on that.”