‘Their knives are rarely seen outside museums today. Only two private collectors in Europe have Laundy blades that we’re aware of.’
‘Could we have their details?’
‘Of course. I’ll get the printout before you leave.’
Almost as an afterthought, he went to another case and produced a silk-lined green leather box.
‘They come as a set.’ He ran his finger along the empty indentation reserved for a much smaller blade. ‘Any collection that has a case as well as both knives would be worth a fortune.’
‘You said Laundy stopped making these in 1819?’
‘That’s right.’
I looked at Callum. ‘That’s almost seventy years before Jack the Ripper’s killings.’
The curator’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Jack the Ripper? Is he what this is about?’ He chuckled. ‘Won’t the trail have gone cold by now?’
Callum shot me a look and I could have bitten my tongue off. Still, it was out now.
‘Could Jack the Ripper have used a knife like this, even though they stopped making them seventy years before?’
The curator pushed his glasses further up his nose. ‘Yes, these blades would still have been around then. Surgeons in those days could get very attached to an instrument. Often had their own collections, much like any other craftsman.’
He took the knife from Callum and replaced it in its box.
‘Once Laundy stopped making them, Maw and Sons took over as suppliers to most of the prestigious surgeons in London. They sharpened and serviced instruments and took on a lot of Laundy’s old stock. So, yes, Jack probably could have used a knife like this.’ He grinned. ‘Who knows, maybe even this very one!’
As we left, I couldn’t quite shake the images of what might have gone on in that Victorian operating theatre.
‘Did you see the space in that box for the sister blade?’ I asked.
Callum nodded. ‘A smaller knife. Like the one used to inflict the other wounds on Martha.’
‘What do you think?’
‘We’ll check the private collectors and see if any Laundy blades are missing. Also check that no museum pieces have gone walkabout. After that, I’m not sure. Like the curator said, who knows what turns up in people’s attics? Maybe our man just got lucky?’
Somehow I didn’t think so.
‘No. Nothing he does is by chance. Especially not something as important as the blade. I bet it’ll turn out to be an original.’
‘If it’s an original that’s been catalogued somewhere, then we’ll have a lead. Let’s see what turns up.’
30 August
Frustratingly but predictably, nothing did turn up. I sat in the incident room for a team briefing.
‘The Laundy blades are all accounted for,’ Callum was saying. ‘So no joy there.’ He paced the front of the room and looked across the sea of faces. ‘Ian?’
Ian stretched forward from his perch on the edge of a desk, squinting at the notes in his hand. ‘Lister checks out, boss. So nothing there. We checked hospital phone records, though. When Martha was in the day room, she took a phone call. It came in through the main switchboard and they put him through. He said he was her boyfriend. The call lasted less than two minutes. Telephony say it came from a burner phone.’
‘So we can assume that’s when he arranged with Martha to get her out,’ Callum said. ‘Anything on the actual pick up, Tony?’
‘Been checking CCTV, boss. We’ve got a partial from a bad camera angle near the front of the hospital, less than a minute from the time Martha did her Houdini.’
A grainy image flickered to life and he paused the frame. Everyone shuffled around to get a better look.
‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Overgrown trees block most of the frame, but in the right-hand edge you can just make out a bike going down the drive.’
‘You won’t get a BAFTA for that one!’ Some wit joked from the back row.
‘Hold on, fat lad,’ he countered. ‘We enlarged the image and captured this bit.’
Everyone strained to see the grainy grey image and tried to make sense of it.
‘What the hell is it then, Spielberg?’ Ian joked.
Tony took his pen and traced the outline of a shape. ‘It’s a close-up of the back end of the bike. They think it’s a Yamaha YZF-R1, from the partial bit of clip we got. Beth tried for a match on CCTV around the area at the time.’
Beth snorted indignantly. ‘I stayed up for two bloody nights looking at CCTV and ANPR from all over Fordley.’
‘And?’ Callum asked.
‘Can’t get a number plate, but we’re running it through DVLA for owners of the make and model.’
‘So the boyfriend picked Martha up from Westwood Park on the night she died, and he was the last person to see her alive. So he’s our number one priority.’ He scanned a file on the desk. ‘Techies are working on the digitised voice. Nothing so far. But if the caller and the boyfriend are one and the same, it begs the question, why bother to digitise his voice?’
‘Maybe he knows we’ll be bugging the phone by now and his voice is known to us?’ Shah offered.
‘Or maybe,’ Callum said, ‘he has an accomplice, so he digitises one voice to hide that fact?’ He turned to look at me.
I had considered it, but it did pose problems.
‘What you’re describing is a folie à deux, or a shared psychotic disorder. Two people share the same delusional system and support each other. In this case, to commit murder.’
‘It’s happened,’ Beth said. ‘Look at Hindley and Brady, or Fred and Rose West.’
‘But it’s rare and it’s risky. It’s a bond forged in depravity and the levels of trust have to be enormous. The pair have an unusually close relationship, so it’s often seen in siblings, or as in the cases you’ve mentioned, sexual partners. Husband and wife.’
‘What are the criteria?’ Callum asked.
‘There’s usually a dominant partner and a more passive secondary. In most cases, females have been the passive subject of an older, more dominant male partner, though it’s not unknown for males to act in concert. The dominating player has the original psychosis and they groom their partner. Also, their levels of intelligence are higher than the secondary, so they find it easy to manipulate them. The bond can be familial, sexual or financial.’
‘You said it was risky?’ Ian said.
‘A bond is only as strong as its weakest link. So the secondary might not be able to handle the stress. Especially if they are separated, which is when their confidence drops and their insecurities surface. It’s then that they break under questioning or give themselves away during police enquiries. It’s hard work for the primary to keep them sustained all the time. They need a lot of supervision – hand-holding. Their psychosis needs constant feeding, whereas the primary subject is naturally compelled to commit the crimes.’
‘Do you think we could be dealing with a pair?’ Callum asked.
‘Maybe,’ I hedged. ‘But if he’s got an accomplice, it’s just for support. I stand by my original premise that he lives alone. I don’t think he’ll have a wife or long-term sexual partner. I think he’s digitising his voice to hide the fact that Jack and John are the same person. He wants to create a phantom-like image – the ghost of Jack the Ripper, inhabiting Martha’s body and set free during my session. If it’s just her boyfriend, then he loses that. When it comes to the actual killing, I’m convinced it’s a single hand. Our man and no one else is present at the kill site.’
‘That’s consistent with forensics,’ Callum said. ‘One pair of boot prints, one set of fibres, one sample of DNA. But we’ll stay open to it and look for possible connections.’ He turned back to the team. ‘Anything on Jo’s past yearbooks?’
Heslopp shook his bald head. ‘Everyone accounted for. Either banged up or dead.’
‘None released?’
Heslopp’s smile was humourless.
‘Most of her customers never get out, boss. Either
still serving, topped themselves or died inside. Most are on whole-life tariffs.’
Callum cast me a quick glance.
‘Nice company you keep, Jo, but at least that keeps things simple.’ He ran his hand over his eyes. ‘You don’t need a reminder that tomorrow’s the thirty-first. That’s when Jack potentially will kill again.’
He glanced at the board with its gallery of Martha’s torn body. He looked at me.
‘Tell us about the next possible, Jo?’
I pulled forward a flip chart with the table of facts I’d written up.
‘If our boy’s true to form, he’ll mimic these details as accurately as possible,’ I said, quietly, trying not to slip from academic theory into the horror of what that meant.
‘“Polly” Nichols was found in the early hours of the thirty-first of August 1888. So her killer actually began stalking her on the thirtieth.’ I shot a glance to my audience.
‘Which is tonight.’
‘Thank God for that,’ muttered Heslopp. ‘I thought for a minute there we were on a tight deadline!’
‘Her body was discovered at 3.40am,’ I continued, ‘in Buck’s Row. You’ve all got a copy of the post-mortem report from the time.’ There was a shuffling of papers. ‘It’s with this murder that Jack developed his MO. This is the first one where he opened up the abdomen. Many experts think Martha was a practice run. The wounds to her were all on the upper part of the body. With Polly, he shifted his attention to her abdomen. This was what gave him his name – the start of the “Ripper phenomenon” – and with each subsequent murder, his ripping and slashing became more violent.’
Callum turned back to the team.
‘If our man is true to form, he’ll try to match the victimology and location. What’ve we got?’
‘Vice don’t know of any girls who go by the name Polly or Nichols. Word has gone out to all the girls to be on their guard or not to go out at all. We’ve looked at the geography and there’s nowhere in Fordley that matches Buck’s Row,’ Tony said.
‘So he could strike anywhere and his victim could be anyone,’ Callum said.
‘What about the media?’ I asked, almost as an afterthought.
It had occurred to me that they wouldn’t stay quiet much longer. In fact, I thought the police had done well to keep it quiet this long.
Callum turned to me, and for the first time I could see the strain showing on his face.
‘They’ll keep a lid on things for now, but if we get another one…’
His voice trailed off and he turned to look out of the window.
If we got another one, there would be no stopping the media feeding frenzy and all hell would be let loose.
31 August
A pulsating haze of blue light from the assembled police vehicles jostled with the purple sunrise to illuminate the lay-by along a quiet country lane on the outskirts of Fordley.
Callum stood with me, watching the CSI team flitting in and out of the small white tent like worker bees around a hive. Beside the tent, a mobile catering van stood with its front hatch open, ready to serve any passing motorist on their way out of town.
I stared at the wooden sign in the shape of a huge teapot above the serving hatch: Polly’s Transport Café.
‘Polly put the kettle on…’ I said, almost under my breath. ‘The bastard told me!’
I turned to look at Callum. ‘He sang it to us for Christ’s sake!’
‘I know.’
He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. We walked together to stand beside the open serving hatch. It was just after 5am.
A man sat on a plastic garden chair. A mug of tea untouched on the table at his elbow. His eyes were glazed as he stared straight ahead, his face hollowed out by shock. We walked over to him as Ian stood up to introduce us.
‘This is Jim Carter. He found the body when he drove in first thing this morning.’
I nodded a greeting, but the poor man carried on staring at a vacant spot. Probably replaying the horror I knew he’d see for the rest of his life.
Callum steered me passed him towards an articulated lorry parked at the edge of the lay-by.
‘Carter drives for a firm on the industrial estate. Passes here every day around 3.30am on his way into the depot. He loads the truck, then heads back down here and stops for a brew and a bacon butty. Gets here about 4.15am. He’s her first customer every morning. So he was the one to find her, poor bastard.’
I glanced at the white tent. ‘Who is she?’
‘Patsy Channing.’ He leaned against the side of the lorry and looked up into the lightening sky. His breath plumed in the early morning chill.
‘She owns the van.’ He nodded towards the teapot sign. ‘But because of the name, the regulars just know her as Polly. She’s been running it for a couple of years apparently. Opens early to catch the truckers coming into the industrial estate. Closes up about two in the afternoon.’
I glanced back at the driver. ‘Did he see anything?’
‘Said he saw her opening up as usual. Gave her a wave. Everything seemed normal. Then at 4.15, he came back. She’s normally behind the counter and they chat while she makes his butty. This morning, the brew’s there but no sign of her. So he walked round the side of the van and found her.’
‘Injuries?’
Callum’s eyes met mine in silent confirmation. I knew they’d be the same as Polly Nichols’.
‘Bastard slashed her open and almost decapitated her.’ His face was drawn, his eyes weary. ‘We’ll learn more after the post-mortem, but we both know what it’ll be.’
I nodded. We did know and the knowledge was terrifying.
1 September
The initial post-mortem findings showed injuries consistent with Polly Nichols’s murder in 1888, right down to almost decapitating Patsy. The pathologist also found bruising on her jaw and neck, and his initial assessment was that she’d been strangled before being mutilated. Time of death somewhere between 3.30am and 4.15am. The murder weapon was the same as the one used to kill Martha.
I dropped the notes onto Callum’s desk. He was silently watching me when I looked up, his expression unreadable. He stood up to pour coffee.
‘According to Jack’s chronology, the next one’s in seven days.’
I took the offered cup. Sipping slowly, watching him over the rim.
‘I want you at the team briefing.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘They’re all familiar with Annie Chapman’s murder in 1888, but it’d be useful if you could give us a profile of our copycat?’
‘The term “copycat killer” was coined in Victorian London after people mimicked Jack’s murders,’ I recollected.
Callum paused with the cup halfway to his lips.
‘Every day’s a school day.’ He took a sip. ‘Think our man knows that?’
I shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if the irony’s not lost on him. Any developments on victims or location?’
‘We’ve got a match on location. There’s a Hanbury Street in Fordley. Right in the middle of the red light district.’
‘That’s too good for him to ignore. He’s got to go for that.’ I felt certain. ‘Annie Chapman was a prostitute who worked the red light district around Whitechapel. Her body was found in the yard of number twenty-nine Hanbury Street.’
‘Well number twenty-nine isn’t a house, it’s an Indian takeaway in a row of shops. We’ve set up surveillance in a flat above the shop opposite. So it’s covered like the rest of the area.’
‘But…?’ I sensed his reticence.
‘If we put all our resources there and he strikes somewhere else, we’ll be caught with our pants down.’
‘But what else have you got?’ I asked, trying not to push in any particular direction. Not with accusations of flawed profiles still swirling around. ‘He’s replicating 1888 as closely as he can and you’ve got a Hanbury Street in the red light district!’
He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes,
then focused on a spot over my shoulder, almost talking to himself.
‘I know. That’s why we’ve got the community teams and vice warning all the working girls to stay off the streets on the eighth. All the agencies in that area are giving out the same warnings.’
I knew he was referring to the sexual healthcare nurses, needle exchanges and charities that worked to keep the girls safe.
‘But that puts the news out there.’
He nodded. ‘The media have already got wind of it. They’ve been contacting the press office but they haven’t made the connection to Martha or linked her with Patsy yet.’
But they will, I thought. Soon. And we both knew it.
‘Surveillance are already in the area, setting up observation points. High windows. Buildings overlooking the streets where the girls work. In case he comes in on foot.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘And we’ve set up mobile CCTV with live feed to ANPR, so we can track any vehicle coming in or out of the area in real time if he drives in. We’ll have spotters in the area on the night to pick up and follow any suspects we identify as suspicious.’ He ran a hand wearily through his hair. ‘Best coverage possible.’
‘Isn’t Hanbury Street near the university?’
He nodded. ‘A rabbit warren. That’s why the girls like it. Plenty of dark alleys and side streets to take clients, and plenty of passing trade.’
It was also the centre of student nightlife. Curry houses and pubs that stayed open till the small hours. It rarely slept, even on week nights.
‘Not easy, but I think we’ve got it pretty much covered.’ He stood up and shrugged on his jacket. ‘Let’s just hope he doesn’t pick somewhere else for his next outing.’
I picked up my notes and followed him to the team briefing.
‘So, let’s look at our Jack.’ I wished I had more to give them. ‘He falls into the category of a highly organised killer as demonstrated by his knowledge of the original 1888 murders. Also, organised killers don’t choose their victims randomly or impulsively, and they bring the murder weapon and anything else they need to commit the crime, with them. Victorian Jack chose prostitutes because they were readily available and vulnerable. He didn’t have to initiate contact with them as they probably approached him. For our Jack, it’s different. With Martha, we know he had a relationship with her. He “groomed” her into the correct victimology. Persuading her to adopt a false name, etcetera.’
The Murder Mile Page 15