by David Waine
CHAPTER 19
If the mood was beginning to lighten in Bow Road, the reverse was happening at Marie's home in Finchley. Her already poor sleep pattern had deteriorated even further as the dreaded date approached, and her eyelids had barely met at all the previous night. Rutter was also tired because Marie's constant tossing and turning kept her awake. She kept that to herself, however. She had a professional job to do and was absolutely focused on doing it properly. The arrival of the grey, featureless dawn had not brought with it the usual comforting of spirit that signalled the end of darkness. Rather that same darkness had settled in Marie's mind and frozen her soul. The knowledge that the day she had been dreading for months had finally arrived, and her nemesis was still at large, dismantled the bulk of her remaining resistance.
Joe now spent most of his time with her, having gained compassionate leave from school several days previously. He would arrive after breakfast each morning and absolutely refuse to leave before midnight. The strain was taking its toll on him as well, but he fought resolutely to keep from showing it to her. His devotion comforted her. By doing what he did, he was placing himself in as much danger as she was, but he remained unshakable, a fact that Marie noticed with deep gratitude, mingled with grave concern. His own parents called in several times a day to help keep her spirits up, and those of her mother and father, but as each day passed with no significant developments and, more importantly, no arrests, her resistance wilted ever further. She sank deeper and deeper into a black depression from which none could lift her. Even the redoubtable, and supposedly unemotional, Rutter was moved close to tears on several occasions and once even gave her a sisterly hug when she was at the depths of her despair.
Marie's parents fared almost as badly as she did. They strove to remain cheerful for her sake and reminded her constantly of the level of protection that was being provided for her. Each time, however, the mask wore a little thinner and a little weaker. Now that the critical day had dawned, they found their eyes straying to their watches every few minutes and listening acutely for the soft chimes of the stately grandmother clock in the hallway announcing each half hour and hour in turn. It was still morning, but Mrs. Kelly could not prevent her hand from trembling and a certain forced quality had lodged itself, seemingly permanently, in Mr. Kelly's voice.
The immediate security on the girl had been doubled. Rutter never left her side. They sat together, ate together, slept together, although never simultaneously, even bathed together, albeit one at a time with the other averting her gaze demurely. A call of nature was the only thing that separated them, and then only marginally. The door had to remain unlocked while they communicated verbally through it constantly to ensure that there was no interruption.
Downstairs, the second police officer was now permanently in attendance. PC Gerry Dawson was the burly, jovial forty-five year old who had accompanied Marie and Rutter on their walks and trip to the cinema. He had also passed his firearms training the previous year and had moved in several days previously with his weapon as discreetly concealed as Rutter's, installing himself in the living room where he made a point of befriending the family and winning their trust. He was an outgoing, cheery sort, quite different from the efficient, but taciturn, Rutter, every bit as effective in his way, but easier on the whole to get along with. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly took to him immediately and made him welcome in their home.
Marie also welcomed him as best she could, but she clung to Rutter as her saviour because she was a fellow female as much as anything else. It was as if they had been joined at the hip for weeks and they had developed a certain bond. She admired her dedication and her determination to thwart this monster if it was the last thing she did — as well it might be, she reflected in her darker moments. Her parents also admired her professionalism, but secretly suspected that her true loyalty was to her career, rather than to Marie, because of her reserved nature. This was a little unfair of them, and she knew what they were thinking. God knew, she might well have occasion to prove her loyalty before the day was out, and she just prayed that she was up to the task.
Marie saw through Rutter's remoteness with a clarity that was denied to her forebears. Sure, if her parents saw her in the future, they would be cordial, but no more. The reason, she told herself, was that the detective had bonded with her, rather than them, and she could not see herself as part of any sort of relationship after this night. Before morning all earthly things would have ceased to have any meaning for her; she may even have ceased to have any meaning herself, other than as a roomful of girlish possessions, snapshots of happier days and memories treasured in grieving hearts. The police effort was doomed. There was nothing that the Rutters and Dawsons, the Abberlines and the Logans of this world could do about that. The photograph of Mary Jane Kelly's slashed and mangled corpse on her bed in Miller's Court haunted her mind constantly. Where the original Ripper had left no identifiable face on the victim, she mentally substituted her own. Her only remaining hope was that he would finish her quickly before tearing her apart.
The morning crawled past. Occasional police cars were seen to drive past slowly, some of them stopping around the corner to quietly disgorge dark-clad officers with large peaked caps and carrying long, slender objects in sealed black bags. Neither Marie nor Joe ever saw where they went after that.
An unnatural stillness fell on the district. Several more neighbours had moved out to relatives' homes or hotels for their own safety, citing meaningless excuses about it being a long-standing arrangement or 'we always go at this time of year,' when the whole Kelly family knew perfectly well that they didn’t.
“You find out who your real friends are in a crisis,” fumed Mr. Kelly more than once. “Well, Sid can buy his own lawn mower now. He's borrowed mine for the last time!”
His rant about something as trivial as a lawn mower reduced his wife to a fit of hysterical laughter and it took several minutes for him and Dawson to restore her to some sort of normality. When she stopped laughing, she promptly burst into tears and sank onto a dining room chair with her head in her hands.
“I'm sorry, Ben,” she wept, “I can't help it. You know I can't.”
Mr. Kelly hugged her and held her to him as firmly as he had ever done even since they were first courting more than twenty years previously. “It's all right, love,” he murmured in her ear, “I know. It'll soon be over and everything will be all right. You'll see.”
She looked up at him wildly. “Will it, Ben? Will it?” Her eyes were wide with fear. “How do you know?”
Dawson was a family man with two teenage daughters of his own, so he was well used to female hysterics, although he had never witnessed them in a mature woman before. Deftly he took charge of the situation by leaving the house to have a quiet word with one of the two officers who stood guard at the garden gate. She understood at once and returned to the house with him.
“Mrs. Kelly,” she said with a warm smile, her dark ponytail just visible beneath the rear rim of her hat, seating herself beside the stricken woman, “Dawson tells me you mentioned that you had your eye on a pair of boots for Marie for some time now and were going to get her them for Christmas.”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Kelly nervously, looking at her through a thin film of tears.
“Well, why don't we go and get them now and let her have them early. I'll come with you, if you like.”
“Leave Marie?” Mrs. Kelly was wide-eyed.
“She'll be all right,” the WPC assured her. “There are more officers here than you can see, believe me, a lot more. We can go on a little shopping trip together quite safely. Where was the shop?”
“Ballards Lane.” Mrs. Kelly's voice was faltering.
The woman's smile deepened. It was quite genuine. “Well, that's not far,” she said. “We can be there and back in minutes.”
Mrs. Kelly knew that the woman was humouring her just to get her out of the house for a while in case her panic spread to Marie, ensconced in ominous silence i
n her bedroom with Joe and Rutter, but she was grateful all the same.
“I'll get my coat,” she murmured, “and I'd better wash my face too.”
As she went, the policewoman and Dawson exchanged meaningful looks while she contacted Bow Road on her two-way radio to inform them that she was taking the girl's mother out on a short shopping trip to calm her down a bit.
“Good idea,” Abberline's crackling voice came over the air. “Where's Dawson?”
“Right here, sir.” Dawson spoke smartly into his own handset.
As the WPC shepherded a coated Mrs. Kelly through the door, Abberline updated Dawson on the discussion that he had held with Matthews and Logan earlier that morning.
“Are you sure, sir? A bomb?” Dawson spoke the words softly lest he was overheard.
“As sure as I can be, which is another way of saying no, but it's the best that we have and a couple of vague leads have come in already in its wake. Update Rutter quietly. Don't let the girl know.”
“Very good, sir.”
A man watched Mrs. Kelly and the policewoman leave from the depths of the main bedroom next door. All was as prepared as it could be. It had taken him two days to reach this position, two days of stealthy movement under cover of darkness, slipping from empty house to empty house under the very noses of the plods. He did suffer a moment's pause when he discovered that one of the houses on his approach route was thoroughly alarmed, but he was able to pass on to the next unobserved, thanks to some very dense shrubbery and an ill-maintained fence.
Now he was in position, the landing window of the neighbour's house having surrendered to his skills without a fight. He had not eaten in two days, had even forced a purgative on himself and allowed it to take full effect before leaving his home. That phone call to work about having been brought low by an upset stomach had been the simple truth. He would never eat again. Now his bowel was empty and, although it complained a little from time to time, such sounds would not be heard outside. He carried a bottle of water, for he could not allow himself to become dehydrated, but he drank sparingly. On the very rare occasion that he needed to pass urine, he did so without flushing it away or washing his hands afterwards. The same applied to washing generally or cleaning his teeth. He could not risk the sound of water trickling into the drain of an empty house to alert the police to his presence. He knew perfectly well when they checked each one, and he knew equally well how to be out of sight when they did. Now he sat with his back against the dividing wall between the two houses. He knew exactly where the doll was, only a matter of feet away on the other side, right where he wanted her.
Dawson was as good as his word. He spoke to Rutter in a whisper through the open door of the bedroom. She nodded grimly, whereupon he returned to Marie's father in the living room.
“What was that about?” asked a wan Marie. By now she was a good fifteen pounds below her normal weight. The shadows under her eyes were nearly black and only a vague, shrivelled echo of the happy, confident girl that she had once been remained. Rutter feared secretly that her deterioration might be irreversible, but consciously reminded herself of a young person's powers of recovery. She prayed with every fibre of her body that she would be able to see those powers put to the test. She was too reserved and too professional to ever admit it openly, but she had come to like and care for the girl in a sisterly sort of way. She may have responded professionally when appointed to the investigation and she had felt a little grudging when sent out to be Marie's minder. Once it became clear that she was guarding the intended final victim, however, her view had changed radically. Now it was personal, she was fully engaged and there was no way that the creature would get his paws on Marie without a fight.
“Just updating me,” she answered with a quick smile. “It seems they've opened up some promising new leads. They think they've found the lock-up where he kept Mrs. Turner. Things are moving fast now.”
“You mean they think they know who it is?” asked Joe.
“Well, hopefully,” she admitted with fingers crossed behind her back. The Fulham lock-up had contained a camp bed, on which somebody had been restrained. There were marks on the frame to show where a body had been tied down. Furthermore, they had found bags of individually innocent materials, mainly sourced from garden centres, which could have been used to construct a simple bomb. She did not tell Marie that. “Anyone fancy a stroll in the garden?”
“No,” said Marie at once sullenly.
“Oh, come on, Marie,” urged Joe encouragingly, “you could do with a bit of fresh air and a change from these four walls.”
She looked at him weakly. “You think so?”
“Yes, course I do,” he answered with a cheeriness he did not feel and a 'help me, please,' look at Rutter.
“Will it be safe?” the girl asked the detective.
Rutter nodded with another brief smile. “Perfectly safe. Come into the garden and I'll show you how safe.”
Minutes later, warmly wrapped in anoraks, the three of them descended the stairs and went through towards the back door.
“Where's Mum?” asked Marie as she passed the living room and saw her father there, engaged in a game of dominoes with PC Dawson.
“Gone shopping,” replied her father with a smile. “Thought it best to get her out for a moment. She'll be all right. A policewoman went with her. Are you off out?”
“Just to the back garden,” replied Marie softly. “Detective Rutter made me.”
“Detective Rutter asked you, actually,” put in Rutter with another professional smile. “Don't worry, Mr. Kelly, she'll be fine.”
The cold breeze of early November did not yet carry the biting edge of winter, but it still came as a shock to Marie, who had hardly moved from her centrally heated room in days. She pulled her anorak tightly about her body, shivering already.
“Yes, it is a bit cold,” conceded Rutter. Joe put his arm around the girl to reassure her as much as to keep her warm. There was a broad, spreading tree at the bottom of the garden with a makeshift bench at its foot, where the family had enjoyed sitting on warm summer afternoons in happier times. Their back garden was a real sun trap in the summer.
“Aren't we a bit exposed here?” he asked nervously.
Rutter shook her head. “No, as long as we stay in the house and gardens, we should be all right. Dawson is holding downstairs and I am with you wherever you are. There's an armed response team in the house opposite, overlooking the front, and another one in the house behind overlooking the back garden. You can't see them, but they are there. Take my word for it. Further afield there are discreetly patrolling panda cars, ready to form a roadblock at a moment's notice. We've got him covered, Marie, no matter what he does.”
Joe looked at the tree worriedly. Its trunk was a good two feet wide and would offer cover from the squad in the house over the back if the Ripper managed to get Marie in front of it. At the same time, the house itself would cut off the view from the front team. Then it would all be down to Rutter and Dawson — and him, he resolved.
Similar thoughts were going through the mind of the man secretly ensconced next door. If he could get the doll into the back garden, he would be effectively shielded from both squads of gun-toting plods, and that would give him all the time he needed. A cold smile twisting his plain features, he watched the little party make its excursion onto the lawn from the gloomy depths of next door's back bedroom. He saw the doll look up, straight at him, and fought down the automatic sense of alarm rising in his throat, for he knew perfectly well that she could not see him. She had been a comely little thing, and no mistake, although she looked much worse for wear now. Stupid little cow really ought to smarten herself up a bit for her grand exit tonight, he thought. Had he been a different category of man, he mused, he might have enjoyed that body before disposing of it, but there would be none of that. He had never known the touch of female flesh in that way, and now he never would. It was no matter. What he planned was
a greater consummation than could ever be achieved in so base a manner.
“What if he doesn't want to get away?” asked Marie faintly, “what if he intends to die with me?”
A slightly pained look crossed Rutter's face. She already knew that this was the Ripper's true intention, but she could not afford to let Marie know that. Finally she simply said, “We will stop him, Marie. Trust me.”
Her mother came back shortly after, armed with the new boots, specially gift-wrapped for her by the shop assistant. Marie made a huge effort to be delighted with them, trying them on — they fitted perfectly — and parading about like a catwalk model to resounding applause from everyone else, even Rutter. For a brief moment she even managed to put the thought of her imminent grisly death to the back of her mind.
“Thanks, Mum,” she smiled, hugging her mother, “but you shouldn't have. It's not Christmas yet.”
“We'll get you something else,” replied her mother through a film of tears, defying the thought that flashed through her brain that her treasured daughter may not have another Christmas.
Altogether it was a very successful ploy and Marie's mood had lightened a little as they returned to her bedroom, she still wearing her new boots and Joe pretending to be enthralled by them.
They heard the front door shut and Rutter checked outside.
“It's your dad,” she said, returning. “He's talking to the male officer on the gate. The female one's back on duty now. They're going off together.”
“Dad and the male officer?” asked Marie.
“Yep,” nodded Rutter. “Looks like you might have another treat coming.”