by David Waine
*
As night began to fall, Sally turned up. She popped in every day now either on her way to work or on her way back. On her days off she stayed for hours and she was never there for less than an hour even on working days. She and the Kelly family had become very close over the past couple of months. It was a relationship that would endure far longer than the Ripper's reign of terror.
“Work finished for the day,” she announced with an artificial lightness in her tone on entering Marie's bedroom. The fading of the sunlight served to remind the girl that the day was drawing to an end and that her ultimate test could now only be hours away at most. During the lighter periods when the novelty of the new boots was still fresh, she had thought that the monster was unlikely to attack during daylight because he could be seen more easily. Now that it was getting dark, however, it seemed altogether too easy for him to hide in the shadows. She turned pale again and began to shiver. At once Joe put his arm around her shoulders and steadied her.
“Hold on, Marie,” affirmed Rutter, pressing the girl's hand lightly.
When the sky was light the day had crawled by. Now that darkness had fallen, it seemed to be hurtling towards midnight at breakneck speed and the tension in her soul increased with every passing minute. Every time Marie looked at the clock an hour had passed. Eventually she could not stand it any longer and refused to allow her eyes to drift in that direction. Even so, she had to know.
“What time, Joe?”
Joe ignored her clock and checked his watch instead. “Twenty past nine.”
Sally crossed from her position by the window and sat on Marie's other side. Her smile was forced, for her insides were churning, but her TV presenter's training kept it from showing outwardly.
Marie looked at her with limpid eyes. A surreal calm seemed to have settled over her now that night had arrived, bringing a certain fatalism with it. “Two and a half hours,” she said softly, as if she no longer possessed the strength to utter more than a whisper. “It sounds nothing when you say it quickly. A big film at the pictures, a play, a tennis match.” Turning to Rutter, she asked, “Julie, does he have a regular time for doing what he does?”
Rutter thought a moment, casting her organised mind back through the events of the previous three months. Then she shook her head. “No. Mary Anne Nichols was abducted late at night; Roberta Henderson, mid evening; Edward Stride was reported missing in the morning and Cathy Kelly the following day, although they would have been abducted some time before anyone realised that they were missing.”
Marie gulped. “So it could happen at any time.”
Rutter's face was utterly serious. “It won't happen, Marie. There’s a cordon of armed police all around the building and two more inside it.”
A new thought struck the girl. Slowly, she turned and faced Sally. “Is there a film crew beyond them to record me being carried out in a bag if the police get it wrong?”
Sally looked shamefaced. The accusing look in Marie's eyes had unnerved her. She shrugged and spoke simply. “That’s not fair, Marie.”
“Isn’t it?” Marie rounded on her, her veneer of calmness evaporating in an instant. “You’ll get your story either way. I’ll be broadcast news and you’ll get the credit. It won’t do your career any harm at all, will it? It’s not you he’s coming for, it’s me! Your life won’t end in the next two and a half hours.”
“Neither will yours!” The speaker was Rutter. She had grabbed Marie's face in both of her hands and forced her to face her. The girl's eyes were wide and dilated again in her terror. “No one else in this whole land is better protected than you are at this moment, and that includes the queen and the prime minister. I am here with you and I will not leave your side.”
Tears sparkled in Marie's eyes. Her courage, briefly fortified by her final shreds of determination and the arrival of the boots, was beginning to disintegrate again. “The thought sends shudders down my spine,” she wept as Rutter released her grip. Eyes downcast and shamefaced, Marie sobbed, “I never thought of it before. Young people don't, I suppose. For the first time in my life I know how it must have felt on that last night in the condemned cell, counting the hours and waiting for the sound of the hangman’s approaching footsteps. Listening to the clock tick out the final seconds before the trap opens.”
Joe's grip tightened. “Marie!”
Sally gripped her free hand and stared her hard in the face, tears beginning to form at the backs of her own eyes. “You’re right, Marie. You’re right. Part of me is ashamed to put you through this. It sounds lame to say, ‘It’s my job’, even though it is. They would be there anyway, even if I wasn’t involved, but that’s just as lame. Nobody else knows it yet, but you will be the number one news item tomorrow morning and I am going to do my damnedest to get you there, unharmed and very much alive! We all are. Whatever happens, don’t give up hope. Don’t give this monster his victory.”
“Listen, Marie,” added Joe earnestly. “If it wasn’t for Sally, you wouldn’t have the protection you have now.” His initial jealousy of the television presenter and the policewoman had long since evaporated as he realised that they had done far more to protect her than he ever could, not that that would prevent him from trying. “It was because of her that Mister Logan became involved, so now you’re guarded tighter than Fort Knox. If he does get past the cordon, he also has to get past us: Julie with her gun, Sally, me, your mum and dad, and mine, downstairs with another armed policeman.”
Tears streamed down Marie's cheeks. A faint whisper of an apologetic smile fluttered across her face. “I know. I can’t think straight any more. This is too much for me. I don’t know how I can go on. I’m sorry, Sally.”
Sally moved a little closer, relieved, and put her arms around her. “Don’t mention it. If any of us has a right to speak out, you do.”
“I have a weight on me that I can’t bear” Marie murmured. With an apologetic smile, she released herself from Sally's embrace and offered her arms to Joe, her closest friend. “Hold me, Joe. It doesn’t matter how many coppers there are with guns out there, I just know in my bones that he will get through somehow and I will have to face him.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Rutter's voice was sympathetic, but firm.
There was no accusation in Marie's voice. She was simply stating facts as she saw them. “Mr. Logan said I would, didn’t he? He’s got away from you so far and he can do it again. He’s worked it all out. He must have to do what he has without getting caught.”
The detective had taken up a station by the window overlooking the back garden. The bedroom windows of the house opposite were in darkness, but she knew that armed police officers lay in wait within that room, ready to open fire in an instant. “His type does,” she said frankly. “He’s clever and he’s devious and he thinks he has the upper hand. But he's just one man. He can’t cover everything. Believe me, he won’t get to you. He’ll try, have no doubt about that, but he won’t succeed. There is no way in or out of this house without our say-so.”
This seemed to reassure the girl a little and she relaxed slightly in Joe's grip. “There’s something I never realised before,” she said. “At my age, you don’t think about death much. You know it’s going to happen, but it’s a long way off and you can worry about it when you’re old. Now it’s like I really am old. Now I know something I didn’t know before. When you’re faced with it and you know it could happen at any moment, you realise something. When you die, no matter how many people there are around you, you die alone.”