Chained in Time

by David Waine

CHAPTER 18

  Wednesday, November 9th, 1988

  The dismal grey lightening of a dead sky marked the beginning of yet another dreary day at Bow Road Police Station. Yet more routine comings and goings, yet more heaps of largely useless information to be sifted through in the increasingly vain search to find anything of significance, and still no name on which to pin a charge. Exhaustive door to door enquiries were now concentrated in the Fulham area, where their quarry's lock-up garage had been discovered the previous evening. Time, however, was running out.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Abberline arrived before seven thirty and had assembled his entire team — those not actively engaged in keeping Marie Kelly alive — in front of him before eight. On this occasion, however, he turned up with more than the usual Sergeant Matthews in tow, for he was also accompanied by a small, elderly, balding man, snugly done up in a heavy overcoat, neat gloves and a warm scarf. When he spoke, he revealed the immediately identifiable lilt of a Northern Irish accent, albeit a gentle one, much removed from the rough urban twang that characterised the Falls Road or the Bogside on every news broadcast. This caused one or two of the attending officers to sit up and take notice, as if they didn't have enough to worry about already.

  “I'd like to introduce Mr. Marcus Logan,” began Abberline, indicating the small man. “Officially he is not part of this investigation, nor is he even a policeman, but unofficially he has come up with more than the rest of us put together, which makes him one of the most valued members of our team. It is largely thanks to him that we have as much information on Jack as we have. Mr. Logan is a hypnotherapist. I don't pretend to know how he does what he does, but that does not undermine the value of the information he has been able to provide. Bearing in mind the date, I have invited him here, where his abilities can be put to the greatest use.”

  “Good morning to you all,” smiled Logan.

  Several of the assembled officers looked impressed and some even smiled in welcome. One or two, including one who had recently lost a relative to Irish terrorists, looked on suspiciously. Abberline noticed this, but shrugged it off. The man was engaged only at a minor level and would soon be packed off out to do yet more door to door work anyway.

  “Right then,” he continued, “you don't need me to tell you that it is now November the 9th. We think we found his lock-up last night. Naturally, he registered it under an assumed name and gave a derelict house as his address, so we're not that much further forward yet. He won't be using it again, but it's the only real lead that we have. We are running out of time, but so is he! One way or the other, it ends by midnight. If we are successful, this character will be deprived of his final victim. If not, an innocent girl will die horribly and our man will follow it up by topping himself. We have, at most, sixteen hours to decide the outcome, and, be sure of this, it will be decided on our terms, ladies and gentlemen, not his. The girl is confined to her home, where security on her has already been doubled and will be further increased as the day progresses. Our boy's window of opportunity has almost closed. Fears that he would abduct her early and dump the body on the appropriate day have proved unfounded, presumably because of the security we have placed around her, but let's not get complacent. He must strike today! Fix that thought in your heads, get out on your jobs and work at double speed. I want to know something new by nine-thirty. Liaise with Matthews immediately on anything that you turn up.”

  Summarily dismissed, his team gathered their belongings, grave-faced, and left the command post to continue their investigations. At Abberline's signal, Logan and Matthews joined him in his office.

  “Either he moves today or he jacks it in,” remarked Abberline, shutting the door behind him and taking his preferred place behind the desk. “We can always hope, I suppose.”

  Logan sat himself opposite and shook his head sadly. There were grey shadows under his eyes. “That won’t happen, Chief Superintendent. There can be no doubt that today is the day.”

  “You can never tell, Mister Logan,” countered Matthews from his position by the door. “With all the security we have on her now, we could have put him off.”

  Logan shook his head firmly. There was no question in his mind. “Nothing will put him off. That is not how he sees it. His victim and the date are all that matter to him. He does not worry about being caught.”

  Abberline pressed the switch on his intercom and ordered two coffees to be delivered through to his office. “None for you, I'm afraid, Matthews,” he said. “You'll be out of here in five minutes.”

  “I understand, sir,” replied Matthews, although one look at the disappointed expression on his face suggested otherwise.

  “I’m inclined to agree, Mr. Logan,” went on Abberline. “He’s a devious character and will be dreaming up some way of outwitting us.”

  Logan nodded. “I will certainly accept that point.”

  Matthews left his position by the door and joined them, still standing, by the desk. “That’s just it, sir,” he said. “What about Plan B or C or D? How can we be so sure that he will hit the Kelly girl?”

  Marcus Logan had no doubts. “He will. Or, rather, he will try.”

  The unimaginative, but organised mind of Sergeant Ferret Matthews was at work, however. He had genuine concerns, fuelled largely by his lack of faith in things he could not understand, such as hypnotherapy and Karma. “We are taking a big risk, sir. With so much security centred on her, we could be leaving someone else wide open to attack. How is it going to look if he does another woman under our noses while we have concentrated all our resources on someone who didn't need it?”

  Logan shook his head again, his conviction as resolute as ever. “That would have been the case for any of the other four victims. All he needed from them was an appropriate name. For this one, though, there is no Plan B. It must be her. She is the one possessed by Mary Jane's spirit. And furthermore,” he added, “do not forget that the amount of security that you have placed around her ensures that he knows exactly where she will be when he wants her, which was not the case with the others.”

  “We have received just the one letter with a number five on it,” pointed out Abberline.

  “That ties in precisely with my conclusion,” confirmed Logan as the door opened and a young WPC Arrived, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee and deposited it on the desk. Matthews looked on longingly. He would have to grab his own at the earliest opportunity.

  “Forgive me, sir,” he snapped, his irritation finally getting the better of him, “but that doesn't mean there weren't others, just that they didn't hand them in. Don't you think we're relying a bit too heavily this Karmic Bind stuff?”

  “Matthews!” Abberline's displeasure at the outburst was evident in his voice.

  Logan, however, remained quiet and smiled wistfully. “Yes, Sergeant, exactly that.” Before continuing, he took a small draught of his coffee and then turned to face the Ferret. “I understand your difficulty in accepting what I do. It is in our nature to distrust what is beyond our experience. Many share your views and dismiss my work as contrary to the laws of nature. I would ask you to consider, however, that it is not really so very long since everyone believed the world to be flat and concepts like flight and space travel would have been considered heresy. I contend that we do not yet know all the laws of nature and, should we ever reach that happy state, what I do with apparent mysticism today may be seen as ordinary. Until then, however, many wise and educated people regard my calling as fraudulent.”

  “I didn’t say that, sir,” remarked Matthews grumpily.

  “Nevertheless,” went on Logan, “I assure you that we are on the correct course. There is no other planned last victim. I cannot prove it to you, so I must ask you simply to accept my word. All of his activities so far have been preparations for this final act. The salient feature of both investigations is that there is only one true target. Mary Jane Kelly was his goal throughout in 1888, just as Marie Jeanette Kelly
is today. It may be the similarity of Marie's name to his original victim, in this of all years, that prompted him to use others with similar names and to recreate the crimes on the original locations this time.”

  There was a pause while Matthews digested this. He remained unconvinced, however. “That's all very well,” he objected, “but I still say we could be putting someone else at risk by concentrating so much protection on one girl!”

  Abberline sighed, leaning back in his chair and sipping his coffee. “You may be right, Desmond,” he conceded, “and Mr. Logan and I may be proved tragically wrong by midnight. If we are, I’ll be lucky if I’m even a constable on the beat by morning, but it's a chance we'll have to take because no other letters have come in. Even if there is a Plan B, we have no idea who it is. Therefore we must stick with Plan A and do the best we possibly can.”

  Rising from his desk, taking his mug with him, he crossed to the window and looked out over the familiar view of Whitechapel, even drabber than usual in the bleak November morning light. “The original Mary Jane was murdered in her lodgings in Miller’s Court, where a lorry park now stands,” he mused. “That is a good few miles away from Marie’s home in Finchley. By guarding her round the clock, we have prevented him from getting to her early, which leaves him no option but to act today. His chances of getting her there by midnight are zero.”

  “So he’ll have to change his method,” said Matthews.

  Abberline did not turn round, preferring to stare out at the featureless view for a lengthy moment before affirming his agreement with his back to them. “And that, at least, will be consistent.”

  Matthews straightened up, a fierce look in his eyes. “So he attacks her in her home. Have you considered, sir, that her family is still in the house? Their friends, the Burnetts, have all but moved in with them and Pit Bull Sally is spending all of her spare time round there. We could be looking at a blood bath before the day is out!”

  “Bear with us please, Sergeant,” put in Marcus Logan quietly. “He knows that we have Marie under guard. He knows that we are waiting. To him, this is just a game. If we move the others out of the house and leave Marie alone with Julie and the other officer downstairs…”

  “Dawson,” reminded Matthews.

  “Constable Dawson,” conceded Logan, “if we do that, we change the rules. And if we change the rules, so can he.”

  “What difference would that make?” snapped Matthews angrily.

  “He could do whatever he wants,” replied Abberline sombrely. “It might save Marie tonight, but he could start the whole process again tomorrow with victims we do not yet know. We would be back to square one. Am I right, Mr. Logan?”

  Marcus Logan looked at him long before slowly inclining his head. “I fear that you are, Chief Superintendent, and it would not save Marie permanently, for she would still be his ultimate target.”

  “So we abandon procedure and allow the civilians to stay at their own risk,” wheezed Abberline worriedly. “My head is on the chopping block for this.”

  “Only metaphorically,” retorted Matthews bitterly. “Others are literally.”

  A brief silence descended on the three men as they absorbed these thoughts. It was broken, typically, by Marcus Logan. “If it is any consolation,” he said softly, “my belief is that he only intends to attack Marie.”

  “Doesn't mean that someone else won't be taken out by a stray bullet,” pointed out Matthews.

  “True, Matthews,” announced Abberline in a decisive voice, “but that is a risk we will have to take. I don't know how we managed to persuade the Commissioner to run with it, but he did, so that is our plan of action.”

  Marcus Logan sat back watching him closely. He thought it perhaps wiser not to mention the fact that the Metropolitan Police's Commissioner was an old friend and former client.

  “It must be today,” went on Abberline. “We know where he will attack. The question is how? The original waited six weeks between his double act and killing Mary Jane Kelly.” Turning back, he addressed Matthews directly. “Why do you suppose that was?”

  “The manhunt, I suppose,” replied Matthews promptly.

  “Exactly,” snapped the chief super, returning to the desk but remaining on his feet. “With Whitechapel crawling with police and vigilantes on the lookout for him, it was too risky. Like most serial killers, he was a fly one. That's where my great uncle slipped up. He thought he was hunting a maniac, but we know better. A maniac is out of control, so he leaves a trail so blatant that a blind man could follow it. A psychopath knows exactly what he's doing and he glories in it. He lay low until the excitement died down. Panic doesn't sustain itself, it has to be fed. A few weeks of quiet and they started to believe that it was over. Then he changed his method. The first four were killed in the open and dumped. Mary Jane Kelly took him back to her lodgings, intending to give him a good time, but instead he savaged her, undisturbed, for more than two hours.”

  The colour drained from Marcus Logan's face as the memory of his discourse with the monster came back to him with renewed horror. “Merciful Heaven!” he gasped, his eyes closed in revulsion.

  Abberline turned a baleful look on him. “You have influence in that department that I will never have, Mr. Logan. She was barely recognisable as human by the time he had finished.”

  Recalling the image involuntarily, Marcus Logan turned his head away. His grief for the century-old victim every bit as sharp as that he felt for the impending one. All living things, past and present, were dear to him.

  “The first four were unspeakably brutal murders,” resumed Abberline, “but they pale into nothing compared with the Kelly killing. That supports what you said, Mr. Logan.”

  Logan blinked, momentarily nonplussed. “I beg your pardon?”

  Leaning forward, his coffee forgotten, Abberline spoke softly and grimly. “That he killed himself within hours of murdering her. He always intended Mary Jane to be his finale. To go out in what he would see as a blaze of glory.”

  A brief silence descended on the three of them while they digested this thought.

  “So he’s planning something spectacular for tonight?” asked Matthews at last.

  “I assume so,” replied Abberline, “and he’s been planning it for a long time.”

  “Marie is under the tightest security that could be provided short of putting her in a prison,” observed Logan. “His chances of abducting her are nil. If he is to achieve his goal he must reach her and do the deed before we can stop him, and he will have a window of opportunity that can be measured in seconds. It tears my heart to subject that poor child to such an ordeal, but if this vicious cycle is to be destroyed once and for all, she must stay exactly where she is. Right where he can attack her.”

  Abberline nodded slowly and grimly. “It flies in the face of all I believe in, but I am forced to agree. Even if he succeeds in getting through the cordon, he would have little time, certainly nowhere near enough to do what the original did to Mary Kelly.”

  “He must be persuaded through the light or we will have failed,” pointed out Logan soberly. “If, as it seems, he must destroy her body utterly, and then himself before we can intervene, he has a dilemma. Now, the original threw himself under a train.”

  Abberline shook his head firmly. “Our boy can’t do that. Even if he got in, he wouldn’t get out again. No chance. He would have to do it in front of us.”

  A further silence descended on the trio as they thought this through, all notions of coffee now forgotten.

  “So what could he use to achieve his intention in the limited time and space available? What would destroy them both utterly in a moment?” Logan already knew the answer, but his innate decency prevented him from mentioning it before either of the two policemen.

  “A bomb?” suggested Matthews, clutching the term randomly out of thin air without having applied any thought to it first. To his surprise, Logan gave a barely perceptible nod and his superior
officer seemed to agree.

  “Sounds feasible. Get past us, cut the girl’s throat and then blast the pair of them apart.”

  “That would be his spectacular finale,” nodded Logan gravely, “his crowning glory, as he would see it. And he would have perpetuated the Karmic Bind.”

  Matthews was still unconvinced by the old man. In his mind, mystics were not to be trusted. He dealt with hard facts, things that could be verified, backed up, proved. Solid evidence was incontrovertible. Theories plucked from the subconscious might sound impressive and plausible, but were still theories for all that. “But there is no record of bomb use in any of the original murders — or these,” he pointed out.

  “But he did change his method, and our boy has no choice” countered Abberline.

  Matthews considered it. It was a reasonable argument to him, but still did not constitute solid evidence. “How do we know he knows anything about bomb making?”

  Abberline sat back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together beneath his chin. “We don’t. But we can find out. We all did chemistry at school.”

  Although naturally appalled at the awfulness of what was being discussed, Logan could not help feeling a spark of enthusiasm at what he knew in his heart was progress at long last. “I catch your drift, Chief Superintendent. We all have the basic knowledge. It would just require specific application of that knowledge and a little additional information. It would not need to be a sophisticated device,” he added, “he does not intend to be elsewhere when it goes off. No timing mechanism, no remote control, just a trigger. He intends to blow himself up with it.”

  “There you have it,” concluded Abberline. “It wouldn’t need to be big either. It could be strapped to his body under his coat. If he holds on to her tightly, it would still blow the pair of them apart.”

  Matthews could see the logic in all this, now that it was explained to him, but he was still unconvinced. Yet again, it was just guesswork. “Okay,” he conceded, “but we’re still guessing.”

  Abberline launched himself out of his chair, slapping both hands on the surface of the desk as he did. “Yes, we are,” he cried. “We've been doing that all along, but something in my bones tells me that we might have just made a bit of progress here. We know where the attack will occur: Marie Kelly's house. We know when: today, probably tonight, but we can't be too careful. We think we know how: a bomb. At last we can put together the beginnings of a strategy to bring this bastard down and break his Karmic bloody Bind for good. And not before time,” he added breathlessly. “Matthews, pull your crew off sifting through useless junk and set them on checking bookshops. Better check the libraries as well. I want to know if anyone has bought or borrowed a one-off bunch of chemistry books in the last year.”

  “That will take time, sir,” replied the Sergeant, making for the door.

  “Which is why God and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone!” bellowed Abberline.