by Sarah Rayne
No, they were not trapped, because behind them – no more than six paces – was Linklighters. Daisy backed towards it, pulling Joe with her. In an urgent whisper, she said, ‘The key – unlock the door!’
But Joe already had the key out of his pocket, although as he fumbled to slot it into the lock, his hands were shaking so badly that Daisy was terrified he would drop it. Please God, let him unlock the door, and please let us get back inside …
The key turned, and they tumbled into the familiar warm scents of Linklighters – but it might be too late, because he had already crossed the square, and if he reached out both hands … There was no time to lock the door behind them – they half fell down the stairs, the faint light from the court filtering in so that they could just about see their way. But even as they reached the foot, they heard him push the upstairs door wider, and step inside. He was here – the man some called Leather Apron, and some called the Whitechapel Murderer, but almost everyone now referred to as Jack the Ripper. He was inside Linklighters. The door was shut and there was no other means of getting out.
They were shut in with him.
FOURTEEN
Through the searing panic, Daisy was aware of Joe pulling her towards a small door at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Down here,’ he said. ‘There’s a cellar – good hiding place. Come on.’
He dragged the door open and pushed her through.
‘Twelve steps,’ he said, in a whisper. ‘Don’t fall.’
The twelve steps were dark and steep and very uneven. It would be easy to slip and plunge all the way down to the bottom, but it would be better to die of a broken neck than at the hands of the madman who was coming after them. There was hardly any light, but Daisy tried to think that if she and Joe could not see, then neither could he. But even as the thought came, there was a faint scraping sound from above, and a thin flicker of light sprang up. Daisy realized with horror that he had a tinderbox or a pack of matches and that he had lit one. When she turned involuntarily to look back up, he was standing at the top of the stairs, his head and shoulders silhouetted blackly in the tiny flame.
The match burned out almost at once, and although the darkness closed down like a curtain, that brief flare of light would have been enough for him to see the steps and to see the two of them at the bottom. She gasped, and clung to Joe’s hand, because she had no idea where they were, and she had not even known this place existed. Linklighters was a cellar itself – it was several cellars that ran under most of the Harlequin Court shops above, and that somebody, at some time, had knocked into one huge space. But this was a deeper level – an older cellar. However far down it was, it smelled dreadful.
Joe was pulling her across the floor.
‘There’s a bit of wall that juts out,’ he said. ‘But you can squeeze behind it, and you can get through to a tunnel – where an old ditch was. But it’s a very narrow squeeze, and he’ll never get through. Only I need to find the bit of wall with the gap and I can’t see …’
Daisy kept tight hold of his hand, then realized that with the other hand he was feeling all over the wall’s surface.
The scrape of the tinder came again, and even though it was madness in the extreme to look round, Daisy did look. He was there in the cellar with them. His face, lit from below by the small, brief flame, was smiling, but it was a dreadful smile. As the light wavered, he lunged forwards, but in the split-second before the light went out, Joe said, ‘Found it!’ and pushed her forward. For a wild moment it felt as if he was simply pushing her into the blank wall, then Daisy realized that there were two walls, and that the edges of both of them overlapped but did not join. There was a small space where it was just possible to get through. She managed to cram into the narrow opening, and there was the faint brush of colder air.
From behind came a soft whisper.
‘You shan’t escape me, Daisy …’
It hissed eerily around the cellar, and new horror flooded over Daisy because he knew her name. Then suddenly she was through the gap, and Joe was with her, and they were standing in a kind of tunnel with a low, arched roof. There was a faint greenish light from somewhere, and the sound of water dripping. The smell was far worse than it had been in the outer cellar.
Immediately in front of them – so close that if she took two strides forward she could reach out to touch it with her fingertips – was a massive door. It towered over them – easily three if not four times their height, and ten or twelve feet wide. Its surface was scarred and pitted and black with age, and iron spikes jutted up from the top. Black chains, each link as thick as a man’s forearm, hung from the spikes, like monstrous snakes. Stretching above and on each side of the door were stone walls, shiny with damp, and set into the wall on the right-hand side was a huge wheel, glistening faintly in the dripping dampness, with an immense rusting lever jutting out.
‘It’s an old sluice gate,’ said Joe. The fear was still in his voice, but he was already reaching for the lever. ‘You turn the wheel and that pulls those chains, and they lift the gate.’
Daisy looked back at the wall behind them. He was still there – she could hear him. But surely a full-grown man could not get through that narrow gap between the walls.
‘I’m still here, my dears … And I will reach you … Both of you … And then shan’t I do my work on you, oh, shan’t I just … Because you can’t be allowed to tell what you saw me do …’
The words were picked up in the enclosed space; they spun and echoed around Daisy’s head, and her heart skittered with fear. But Joe was pulling at the lever with all his might, and there was a shiver of movement, and a dull, deep sound, as if something was being dragged unwillingly from the bowels of the earth. Daisy darted across to help him, seizing the lever, hating the cold sliminess of it, but pulling it with all her strength.
‘Joe – what’s on the other side?’ she gasped, although she did not really care what was on the other side, if it meant they would escape.
‘Old ditch.’ Joe’s voice was as breathless as Daisy’s, but he said, ‘Mr Thaddeus in the bookshop showed me a map. Only it’s all dried out now … But when I saw it, I thought that – if ever we had to hide from him …’
Daisy’s arms felt as if they were being wrenched from their sockets, and sweat was pouring down her face, stinging her eyes, but they dared not give up, because they could hear the sounds of their attacker trying to get through the narrow gap between the two bits of the wall.
‘It’s starting to move,’ cried Joe, and with the words there was a faint menacing rumble from within the darkness. Above them the chains began to uncoil, and inch by tortuous inch, the sluice gate began to lift. A narrow rim appeared at the bottom, and a breath of old, sour air gusted into their faces. As the gap widened they could see a wide tunnel beyond.
‘It’s stopped,’ said Daisy, suddenly. ‘I think it’s stuck.’ A fresh wave of terror swept over her, and she looked back at the wall.
‘Might be as high as it goes. It’s far enough up, though – we can get under it. Come on.’
They had to bend almost double, but once beyond the gate they saw that the old ditch was not only wider, it was much deeper than either of them had expected.
Daisy had been expecting a narrow trench, maybe with a trickle of water in it, like you sometimes saw in places like Hackney Marshes, but this was far wider. It had to be at least twelve feet across.
‘And it isn’t dried out after all,’ said Joe, standing on the rim and peering cautiously over. ‘There’s mud and stuff down there.’
Through the thick shadows, they could see that at the very bottom of the channel was black, brackish water and oozing mud. It might be only a couple of feet deep. You could wade through a couple of feet of muddy water if you had to. But if it turned out to be deeper than that, you could drown in it. It would blind you, you would choke, struggle helplessly …
‘Joe, we can’t get down there. It’s far too deep.’ Daisy’s voice sounded unnaturally
loud, and the echoes snatched the words greedily, bouncing them back.
‘Don’t need to. We can walk along this edge,’ said Joe. ‘It’s a bit narrow, but if we’re careful … The map said the ditch comes out somewhere in St Martin’s Lane.’
‘Can we close the gate so’s he can’t follow us?’
‘Don’t know.’ Joe turned to look, then said, ‘Don’t think it closes from this side. There’s no handle – no wheel. We got to go along the tunnel, Daise.’
Daisy shut out a sudden nightmare image of the two of them becoming lost down here, and said, ‘All right. But it’s nothing more than a bit of stone shelf. Keep tight hold of my hand, so’s we don’t fall in.’
As they began cautiously to walk along the narrow rim of the ditch, the faint light began to fade. But although Daisy could barely see Joe, she could sense that his earlier confidence had gone. He said, suddenly, ‘It’s going to be all right, ain’t it? He can’t get to us now, can he?’ His voice was so pleading that Daisy could hardly bear it.
She said, ‘We’re safe. I’ll make you safe, Joe.’
‘You’ll make me safe,’ he said, half to himself, and nodded. His trusting tone tore at Daisy’s heart.
The tunnel was only slightly wider than the ditch itself, but the stone shelf was wide enough for them to walk if they went singly. Above them the roof was curved, and every few feet were brick archways that looked as if they might be holding up the roof. Daisy and Joe had to bend over so as not to bang their heads at those points. Every few yards were square iron grids, which they had to step over. An even worse stench rose up from beneath the grids, and Daisy prayed not to be sick.
There was hardly any light now, but several times tiny pinpoints of red showed near the ground. Rats’ eyes, thought Daisy, in horror. Dozens of them. She felt Joe’s hand tighten around hers, and she said, ‘They won’t come near us, Joe. They’ll be more frightened of us than we are of them.’
Several times they heard the rats scuttling quite close to them, and their steps and their frightened breathing echoed loudly. The world shrank to this dreadful place. Daisy no longer had any idea of how long they had been creeping through the darkness, but they had to go on. Somewhere in St Martin’s Lane, Joe had said. That might be anywhere, but it was where they would get out and reach safety. And he could not get through that narrow bit of wall, but if he did – if he got into this tunnel – he would be on them before they had time to do anything. Would he have his knives and his saws with him? He could take his time with them down here in this secret place – he could do what he wanted to them. And then what? Would he leave their bodies down here where no one would ever find them, or know what had happened to them? And leave them for the rats …? No, he would not do that. He liked people to know what he had done – he liked everyone to be shocked and horrified. He would make sure their bodies were found.
Then Joe said, ‘Oh! Light – see it? Up there.’
But Daisy had already seen it, and she thought she had never seen a more beautiful sight. Light was coming in from over their heads, and it was not the smeary greenish light of the tunnel, but the clean good dark blue of a London night street – light that lay on the old stones in a criss-cross pattern, because it was coming through a street grid.
And, just under the grid, coming all the way down to where they stood, was an iron-rung ladder.
They went eagerly forward, and they were within a couple of feet of the ladder, when the light was blotted out, and there was the ringing sound of footsteps on iron.
Someone was coming down the iron ladder.
‘I told you that you wouldn’t escape me, Daisy … I know all the dark places of this City, you see … I know about Linklighters and the ghost river beneath it … And it’s easy to get across a city when you know the short-cuts – when there’re cab drivers glad to earn an extra shilling …’
And then, incredibly, he began to sing, very softly, the sounds echoing in the enclosed space.
‘Listen for the killer for he’s here, just out of sight.
Listen for the footsteps ’cos it’s very late at night …’
Cold horror swept over Daisy, and she fumbled for Joe’s hand. ‘Run back,’ she cried. ‘Go on. Back to the cellar. As fast as you can.’ He does know the song, she thought, and again came the eerie awareness of her thought.
‘Of course I know it, Daisy. I was there – on those nights when it was sung. I heard it – I learned it …’
The singing came again, closer this time.
‘Now I hear the midnight prowl,
Now I see the saw and knife.
Next will come the victim’s howl.
So save yourself from him, and run …
… run hard to save your life.’
Fingers like steel traps reached out and closed around Daisy’s arm. It was like a hand reaching out of a churning nightmare, pulling her into its black core. She struggled, and she thought she shouted to Joe again to run back to the cellar, but the man’s arms were around her by now, and he was pressing into her. And, oh God, there it was, that older nightmare, the nightmare with Pa at the core of it – the feel of that hard thrusting stick of flesh between his thighs. Threatening. Ready to inflict that deep secret hurt that no one must ever know about …
Terror tore through Daisy’s mind. She had finally managed to deal with Pa all that time ago, but this one was different – no one could deal with this one. Even so, the knowledge that she must protect Joe gave her courage. She kicked out and her foot smacked against flesh and bone. But the blow seemed only to excite him more. A throaty laugh bubbled in his throat and he pulled her against him again, pressing into her. Dreadful. Daisy struggled, and tried to kick him again, but he was holding her too tightly. Then Joe’s small hands came out of the dimness, pushing at the man for all he was worth.
It took the killer off guard, and Daisy thought, with vicious triumph, that he had not expected an attack from that quarter. The steel-like hands loosened, and Joe pushed him again, sending him falling back against the iron ladder. There was the sickening crunch of bone against iron, and a grunting cry of pain and anger.
Daisy had no idea if the fall had knocked him out, but she did not think they could risk trying to climb over him on to the ladder. Then he turned his head in a confused way, and in the light from overhead she saw his eyes open, and stare straight at her. There was such blazing hatred in them that she recoiled, and, grabbing Joe’s hand, began to half scramble, half run, back along the tunnel. After a few feet, she turned to look back, and saw that the man was pulling himself slowly to his feet. He was holding on to the ladder, and clutching his head. Why couldn’t the fall have knocked him out altogether? Or why couldn’t she have managed to push him into the yawning channel, to break his legs or his neck?
But there was nothing to do but grope their way back to the sluice gate. As they went, they both heard him start to come after them.
‘Faster,’ hissed Daisy. ‘Go on. He’s stunned from the fall. We can outrun him.’
They went forward as fast as they dared, but with every step Daisy expected one of them to trip and go down into the dark, evil-smelling trench at their side. And the murderer was coming after them now – they could hear him – but he was moving much more slowly. Because of the darkness? Or because he was still dazed from being half knocked out? It did not matter.
Then Joe said, eagerly, ‘There’s the gate,’ and there it was, just as they had left it, raised by about three feet, so that again they had to bend down and crawl through. As they did so, the footsteps behind them quickened.
‘Close the gate! Don’t let him get through!’ shouted Joe, but Daisy was already at the wheel, and Joe was with her, both of them dragging at it.
But the murderer was almost here. Daisy was about to say they would have to leave it, and get out of the cellar and into Linklighters and escape that way, when the deep clanking sounded, and the gate began slowly to descend. But as it did so, he appeared. He gave a cry
of fury, and lunged forward, throwing himself flat on the ground, trying to claw through the slowly closing gap. His head was thrown back, and mad eyes glared out.
Daisy and Joe backed away, shaking violently, their arms around one another.
‘The gate’s still coming down,’ said Joe, and he darted back to the wheel and seized it. But even in the dimness Daisy could see that the mechanism was grinding its own way downwards, as if once cranked into life it must complete its journey.
‘Daisy, help me. I can’t stop it,’ said Joe, in a voice of horror.
Daisy darted to his side, and together they dragged at the wheel. It was no use. The gate was descending – doing so with a dreadful slow relentlessness – and the man beneath it was still clawing at the ground, squirming to get through the narrowing space.
Daisy suddenly shouted, ‘Go back! You’ll be chopped in two!’ And then thought this had to be the maddest thing to say, because this was the man who had almost chopped several women in two – who had been set to do the same to herself and Joe.
He was almost flat to the ground now, and in another moment the edges of the gate would be touching his shoulders. His hands came forward, as if to reach out for help, and Daisy shuddered, and felt Joe pull her back.
There was a screech from the old mechanism – or was it a screech from the lungs of the man beneath the gate? Then he suddenly twisted away, back into the darkness, and the gate clanged all the way down. Screams rang out – dreadful piercing screams that sounded as if they were tearing the screamer’s throat into bloodied tatters. And then they cut off, as if a door had been slammed on them.
FIFTEEN
‘Did we kill him?’ gasped Joe, as they squeezed back through the narrow wall opening into the old cellar, and shakily went up the stairs. ‘Will he die down there?’
‘I don’t know. But I don’t care.’ Daisy knew it was wicked and monstrous and evil to want somebody – anybody – to die, but she did wish it.