by Sarah Rayne
Daisy’s nervousness shot all the way up into outright terror. It was not inquisitive children who stood there; it was the man she and Joe had seen that night – the man that Joe had seen looking up from his grisly work. He was exactly as she remembered. The face was the face that had stared at the two of them through the swirling fog. He was looking straight at Daisy now. He was recognizing her. Panic twisted at her stomach so viciously that she gasped and half bent over. When she looked again, there was no one there, only a bit of curtain moving at the window, because somebody had opened a narrow window to let in air. There was no dark figure with deep dark eyes. Had there ever been? Had it just been Daisy’s own stupidity, turning a fluttering curtain into the outline of a menacing figure?
She dared to get up and walk the few steps to the door. Everyone’s attention was on the stage, and she reached the door without anyone looking round. There was no one there; there was only the landing, a bit dusty, and the flapping curtain, and the stairs going down to the main bar. It sounded a bit rowdy down there, but it was a comforting sound, because it meant plenty of people were around. Daisy drew in a slightly shaky breath of relief, closed the door softly, and went back to her corner seat.
‘Now then,’ Madame was saying, ‘this is the music, and we don’t want any whistling or jeering for the next five minutes – nor any dancing around tables. Just listen.’
Listen for the killer … Liszten …
She nodded to Bowler Bill and Shaky, and the music began.
The music and the strange words had always had an effect on people; Daisy had noticed that at the Cock & Sparrow and the Princess Alice. But tonight was somehow different. Tonight it was as if something had crept into the room, and as if that something was listening and whispering a warning. I’m here, my dears … I’m among you … And I’m watching you … Daisy, her heart pounding with fear, looked back at the door. It was still firmly shut, but he might be on the other side of it. Listening. Watching.
After Madame had finished singing, people called out with questions, and then several of them came up to talk to Madame, wanting to know about the music and its composer. Madame said what she always said when people asked this: that the composer was dead, but that he had been very gifted and his music had been given to her.
Around ten o’clock, just as they were getting ready to leave, a huge tray of meat pies and newly fried sausages was brought in, and Madame said quietly to Daisy that they could not go yet, not after somebody had gone to all that trouble. So they stayed and ate a pie apiece, and Daisy was able to have a word with Ma and Peg the Rags.
Then Madame got into what looked like a very close conversation with Rhun the Rhymer. Daisy tried to think they would be talking about the song – perhaps they were going to alter the words or even write another verse. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves, although as the big clock over the bar ticked its way towards eleven, she started to feel uneasy. What if he was still out there? Or waiting down in the street? They had always been very careful not to return home too late – the later you left it, the more difficult it was to find a cab, especially in Whitechapel, where there were never many cabs anyway. And the longer you were likely to be walking through the dark streets with no one around, the more you were in danger.
It was almost a quarter past eleven when Madame eventually came over to Daisy, and Daisy saw that of course she and Rhun had not been discussing ‘Listen’, because Madame was wearing the expression she normally wore when she was about to embark on a new assignation. There were probably going to be a few nights when Daisy would have to be careful to keep to her own room in the Maida Vale apartment. It might be a bit embarrassing to encounter Rhun coming out of Madame’s bedroom – not that you could imagine Rhun being embarrassed about anything. But at least he wasn’t likely to go boasting about how he’d slept with the famous Scaramel. He liked to be thought of as a gentleman.
It was after half-past eleven when Daisy and Madame eventually reached the Commercial Road. They walked along, looking out for a hansom. Daisy was becoming used to waving them down. ‘To the manner born,’ Vi had said proudly when they all came out of the Princess Alice the other night, and Daisy hailed a cab for them. But Daisy knew she didn’t do it to the manner born, because she had not been born to it, and she still felt guilty about bowling along London streets in a horse-drawn contraption. Sometimes the cabs smelt disgusting when you got in, and you had to look where you sat and where you trod, because people were sometimes sick, or worse, over the seats.
It was starting to rain, and Madame was wearing her extravagant velvet cloak – velvet in the East End, for pity’s sake! But at least the cloak had a hood which she could pull up over her head against the rain. Daisy was going to have a hard job getting it all dry and back into shape tomorrow. A drop of rain never hurt anyone, though, even if it did send up a bit of a mist. She turned down the brim of her bonnet to stop the rain going down her neck.
Generally hansoms rattled along this bit of road quite often, but because it was so late, and because of the rain, there were none at the moment. Madame said they would keep walking and one would come along. They were going in the right direction for Maida Vale anyway, although it was to be hoped they did not have to walk all the way.
One or two groups of people walked past them, and some called out a cheerful ‘goodnight’. But then they turned off on to a narrower section, and suddenly there were no cheerful late-night drinkers going home, or friendly pubs. The houses were set back behind railings; they were narrow, mean-looking buildings, with not a single light showing at any of the windows. There were narrow alleyways at intervals, a bit like the ones at Rogues Well Yard.
The rain was getting worse; it dripped off the railings, and came slooshing down from overhanging rooftops and streetlights to run along the gutters and glug down to the sewers and the old underground rivers. It was remarkable how loud that sound was. There was almost a rhythm to it as well – or was it just that ‘Listen’ was still beating in Daisy’s mind?
‘Listen for the killer for he’s here, just out of sight …’
She clutched her cloak more firmly around her shoulders, and was aware that Madame was starting to walk faster, as if the rhythmic rain spatters were making her nervous as well, and as if she wanted to get away from them. Her heels rang out sharply on the cobbles – she was wearing a pair of glacé slippers, which were just about the most impractical shoes you could imagine for a night like this.
They were coming up to where the road divided itself into three, and Daisy was about to say they should make for the left-hand one, when Madame suddenly grabbed Daisy’s arm, and said, ‘There’s someone following us.’
Daisy’s heart seemed to come right up into her throat, but she tried to think that the footsteps would be just someone walking along the same street, walking at the same pace … She risked looking over her shoulder, and a blurry shape dodged into the shelter of one of the buildings. It moved too fast to see any real details, but the impression of a dark-clad man had already printed itself on Daisy’s vision. Terror flooded over her. It was him. He really had been there at the Ten Bells – he had looked into the room and he had seen her; he had recognized her. And he had stolen down the stairs and waited for them to come out.
Madame said, very softly, ‘Keep walking as fast as you can, Daisy.’
‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘It’s more likely to be a drunk going home. I can’t hear the footsteps now, anyway.’
They were walking alongside shops and small warehouses – all of them deserted at this hour, of course, and although there were a couple of streetlights, the flares were blurred from the rain.
As they turned a corner, the footsteps came again, and Daisy glanced back. He was there. He was not bothering to step out of sight, now. She started to say that someone would appear at any minute, or a cab would come rumbling along, when Madame slipped on the wet cobbles, turning her ankle because of the ridiculous shoes. She half fel
l, and Daisy grabbed her, but Madame had already tumbled headlong, the velvet slopping in the puddles, her face twisted with the pain of her foot.
The footsteps quickened, and he was there, within yards of them. He stood very still, looking at them, his head tilted to one side. Daisy tried frantically to drag Madame to her feet, and then tried to find enough breath to scream for help. Or would screaming mean he would leap on them that much faster? She looked wildly about her for help. Nothing. No one within earshot.
There was a sudden movement within the dark coat and something glinted for a second in the street lamp. A knife?
Now I see the saw and knife.
Next will come the victim’s howl.
So save yourself from him, and run …
The words came at them softly and mockingly, and Daisy was just drawing breath to scream anyway, when out of the dark rainy shadows came the sound of clopping hoofs and the rattle of wheels. The faint glimmer of a hansom cab’s light appeared, and now Daisy did yell out. She ran towards the cab, waving her arms for all she was worth, because it must not be allowed to drive past, and she did not care if the horse reared up in fright, and she did not care if the Queen herself was riding inside.
Blessedly – oh thank you, Lord! – the hansom pulled to a halt, the horse snorting, its breath cloudy in the rain. Daisy managed to haul Madame to her feet and towards the cab.
‘Bit of trouble, luv?’ It was the familiar gravelly hansom-driver voice, bronchial from constant exposure to rain and fog, immensely reassuring in its normality.
Daisy gasped out an explanation about a twisted ankle.
‘And we thought someone was following us—’
‘Odd folk about at the moment,’ said the driver, poking his head out of the woollen scarf wound around his neck. ‘You’re all right now, though. Get in by yourselves, can you? Can’t let go of the horse in this. Where we going?’
Daisy said, without thinking, ‘Maida Vale.’
‘Where? Sorry, bit hard of hearing. Damp in me chubes.’
‘Maida Vale,’ said Daisy, leaning nearer to him.
‘Shoulda guessed it’d be that or ’ampstead.’ He sent a leery grin towards Madame’s velvet cloak. ‘Right you are, darlin’. Maida Vale it is.’
They clambered thankfully into it, Madame half laughing with relief, half sobbing with the pain of her twisted ankle.
The driver clicked to the horse, and the cab jolted forward, its rumbling wheels echoing loudly in the empty streets.
Back in the house, once Daisy had locked the doors and closed the curtains and lit the gas, she felt better. She soaked a couple of handkerchiefs in cold water and bound up Madame’s ankle. Madame would most likely make the most of it tomorrow, lying gracefully on a couch, languidly receiving any visitors who might call. She would not keep up the languid air for long, though, because it was not in her nature.
Daisy took Madame a cup of hot milk, laced with brandy, then thought she had better try to brush the mud from the velvet cloak before it dried in. She was just doing so, when there was the sudden rat-a-tat of the doorknocker. It echoed loudly and shockingly on the landing beyond the flat, and Daisy almost jumped out of her skin. It was after midnight, for pity’s sake – who knocked on people’s doors at midnight?
But then came Madame’s voice calling out that it was all right, Daisy, nothing to worry about, only a friend who had promised to come along after tonight’s show for a late drink.
It was Rhun the Rhymer. Of course it was. He had walked here, he explained – yes, all the way. Well, yes, it was raining, but rain was beautiful, and he had had his thoughts of a lovely lady waiting for him at the end of the storm. It had spurred him on through the tempest.
This was all entirely in accordance with what Daisy knew of Rhun. She hung his coat in the scullery to dry out, told him to take off his boots, because they did not want mud and rain trodden into the carpets, and poured him whisky from the decanter. But when she offered him a towel to mop his wet face and hands, he waved it aside and said he would allow his lady to dry his face with her unbound hair.
Whatever he was allowed or hoping to be allowed to do, it was clear that Daisy’s presence was no longer wanted, and at least Rhun had taken off his muddy boots.
But the next day, and through the days – and the nights – that followed, Daisy no longer felt that the big old house overlooking the park was safe. At first she thought the feeling would get better – that the horror would fade – but it did not. As the days went by, the fear clawed more and more deeply into her mind. She began to wonder, as well, whether Madame’s idea of the song, which had seemed so good and which people had welcomed so enthusiastically, was actually going to be of any use. Would it help Daisy herself if the Ripper really was lying in wait for her?
At least Joe seemed all right. He was still drawing everything he saw, and he had become part of Linklighters’ traditions. People sometimes even called him ‘Links’, which Daisy encouraged, because it seemed to her that it was a different identity behind which Joe could hide.
There were nights, though, when she lay awake, listening to the street sounds from below, and hearing the chimes from the church on the other side of the park. Hearing footsteps go along the road, or a hansom cab rumble along. She was used to the sounds of all the steps by now. There were some quite grand houses in this road, and you often saw and heard gentlemen and ladies in evening clothes coming and going, late at night.
But a night came when there was a different set of footsteps. They were solitary and slow. The old church chimed midnight, and Daisy began to feel uneasy. The footsteps stopped – did that mean someone had stopped outside the house? Perhaps she would take a quick look, to reassure herself that there was no one down there in the street.
She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, went into the big room at the front, and knelt on the window seat to draw back the curtain slightly. Because this was a posh area, the lamplighters always lighted all the lamps outside at dusk. There was a lamp immediately outside this house; its light fell on the railings and the thick bushes fringing the park. Daisy leaned forward as far as she could to see better, and something cold closed around her heart.
He was there. He was leaning against the railings, his cloak wrapped around him, and he was looking up at the windows of this flat. Daisy gasped, and felt the room tilt in a sick blur. It could not be him. It would be a drunk or someone looking to see if any of the houses were worth breaking into. It might even be one of the gentlemen who admired Madame and who lingered at stage doors in the hope of speaking to her. She knew it was none of those things, though. She knew she would never fail to recognize him. There was the remembered tilt of his head, the line of his jaw was clear in the lamplight, and all of it exactly as it had been that night near Rogues Well Yard and then again after the performance at the Ten Bells. In her mind, Daisy felt Joe’s terrified hand clutching her that night in the fog, and as the memory unrolled a little more, she saw again the door of that upstairs room being pushed stealthily open. He had stared straight at her, and he had known who she was, just as she had known who he was. The one who saw me that night: that was what he had been thinking.
And he knew she was here.
She recoiled into the room, and huddled, terrified and shivering in a corner. She did not know, afterwards, how long she had crouched there, but eventually she managed to return to the window, and peer out.
He was walking away, almost jauntily. As he drew level with the park gates, he stopped and looked back; Daisy thought he looked up at the window again. Then he went on again. This time Daisy managed to make her way back to her bed.
It could not have been him down there in the street tonight, it simply could not. How could he know where she lived? But even as the question formed, memory showed her with Madame, both of them half running along the dark street after they left the Ten Bells, knowing they were being followed. Madame had tripped, but then the cab had come along and they had clambered thankfully into
it.
And Daisy had called out the address to the cabbie – in fact she had had to repeat it, a bit louder, because the man had not heard it the first time. Could he have heard that? Had he been near enough? She had only said Maida Vale, but he could have found another cab very quickly and followed them all the way to this house.
However it had come about, Jack the Ripper knew where she lived.
NINE
Because renovating Linklighters occupied all of Loretta’s time, the packing up at Dulwich was left to Roland. He did not mind this in the least. The house sale was going through, and the place had to be cleared. Most of the furniture would be stored for when they had a bigger place of their own; clothes and shoes could be taken to a charity shop, and he had a garden bonfire of all the old papers that had accumulated over the years.
‘Have you been burning all your guilty secrets?’ asked Loretta, who had borrowed a colleague’s car so that they could make the trip to the charity shop with the clothes and books and some boxes of CDs.
‘Every last one,’ said Roland, smiling as they loaded up the car, and thinking how happy life had become.
But two days later, the happiness vanished.
He had gone back to the house for one final check, wanting to make sure that nothing had been left behind, and that everywhere was locked up. He paused at the foot of the second stair leading to Mother’s old room; he had only been up there once since her death, to help remove the furniture. Still, he had better make sure everything was all right.
And, of course, once he opened the door, the room was simply an empty room, the walls faintly marked with the outlines of where pictures and photographs had hung, or where furniture had stood. But Roland hesitated, because although there were no ghosts, the room did hold one particular memory – and it was a very bad memory indeed.
It was the memory of how he had sat on the button-back chair on that last night, and had told Mother that he and Loretta were going to get married. A spring wedding, they thought, he said. That would allow plenty of time to get everything arranged. They intended to find a flat – a small house if they could manage it – here in Dulwich. That would mean he could still come to have lunch here most days, and he might even be able to call in after the office on some evenings, as well. Loretta was frequently on duty at the hotel until late, so it would all fit in. They could arrange for someone to come in each day – Loretta had even suggested a live-in housekeeper/carer, if they could find exactly the right person. She knew of a couple of small companies that specialized in finding such people.