The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2016 Edition

by Paula Guran

She nodded and soon he was mirroring her; Stout Aggie’s was a byword for tasty but occasionally dangerous food that most of the local constabulary risked at least once.

  “Sick,” he repeated. “Sick in the guts. That’s okay, then, isn’t it?”

  “That’s okay, Ned. Off you go.”

  She watched him as he moved away, swaying on his feet from weariness and fear. Kit wondered if she should tell Makepeace exactly what state the young PC was in, then decided against it. She’d promised, and besides he’d never live it down if the information ever got to Airedale, which—given the way gossip, rumor and truth moved through the strangely porous walls of the station—it would. Even the other coppers weren’t above tormenting the lad mercilessly, but Airedale . . . Airedale was something else, there was something wrong in him, something malicious and spiteful that liked to come out and play in the light. Kit wouldn’t risk subjecting Ned Watkins to that.

  Inside, Kit greeted the desk sergeant, who gave her a nod. It loosened the tightness in her chest that had taken up residence since she’d let the Ripper slip through her fingers, quite literally; she hadn’t even managed to get the truncheon out of her sleeve, hadn’t struck even the merest of blows on the man who’d killed four women. There would be disappointment amongst her colleagues, she knew, but how much recrimination there might be was yet to be seen. She was so caught up trying to predict the balance, she almost ran into Abberline as she made her way to the briefing room.

  “Watch out, lad.”

  “Sorry, sir.

  Abberline didn’t acknowledge her apology and it made her stomach swirl. The older inspector held her accountable, she was sure of it. She couldn’t say she blamed him; he was the one being torn at by the feuding eagles of Commissioner Warren, Home Secretary Matthews, and Assistant Commissioner Monro, all of whom had their particular opinions about dealing with this case, and were the kind of men who would do nothing but complain about the failure of others without ever offering concrete assistance. She wondered if Abberline’s attitude towards her would trickle down; then she wondered if Makepeace shared his colleague’s opinion. That thought made her feel even worse as she stepped into a room filled with stale male sweat and men in custodian helmets wearing accusing stares.

  “Good of you to join us, Caswell.” Makepeace said coolly, and she couldn’t work out whether he was signaling his displeasure or simply trying to keep things running normally—it was his habit to greet in such a way the last PC to arrive. “Right, listen up. We had two close calls last night, and we’ve now two newly dead women. You can all imagine how we are being represented in the press and perceived by the public—especially with these so-called Ripper letters doing the rounds.”

  The mention of letters made Kit think of the one in her pocket, still unopened. She simply hadn’t had either the time or the privacy since it had been pushed through the mail slot; her mother had stuck close after dinner, questioning her about her work and friends, and then insisted upon sitting beside her bed until she fell asleep—it wasn’t worth it to make a fuss and arouse the woman’s suspicions any further. Kit still suspected it was from Mary Jane, berating her for failing to save Liz and Cathy, for failing to catch their murderer, for failing to come up with a plan for stopping the carnage once and for all.

  “No more decoys, either, after that went so well. We’re being told to concentrate on the clues. The complete lack of them seems to make no nevermind to Commissioner Warren and his ilk.” Makepeace proceeded to give the assembled group their assignments for the shift. Kit noted that she was the only officer not to receive a task. When Watkins was called, she didn’t say anything, merely watched the annoyed look play across Makepeace’s face. She could feel Abberline looking at her and carefully kept her expression blank. She didn’t see either Wright or Airedale, and their names were not called, which suggested they were elsewhere already.

  Makepeace wound up, shooting a glance at Abberline whose swift shake of the head said he had nothing else to add. The older man joined the exiting flow, and Kit stayed behind, waiting for Makepeace to notice her. But he’d turned his back and was surveying the wall which was covered with maps, lists of names and places and dates, and, worst of all, the photos of the women after their deaths.

  These were not gentle post-mortem depictions, but terrible facsimiles that showed in harsh black and white all of the awful things that had been done to them, all the hideous notations that had been engraved upon the victims with a sharp implement.

  “Sir?”

  “What is it?” Makepeace wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “It’s about Ned, sir. Watkins, that is—he’s sick. I saw him on Commercial Street and he’s gone home, sir.”

  “Well, why the hell didn’t you say something before?” he snapped, and she remained silent until he looked at her, caught her expression and saw there that she wouldn’t make her fellow constable appear weak in front of his colleagues. He nodded reluctantly. “Right. Anything else? Anything important?”

  The night of the double event, when he’d found Kit banged up and bloody in Duffield’s Yard, Makepeace had been solicitous. He’d been kind. Now he was distant, annoyed; the change, Kit assumed, was due less to the loss of Liz Stride’s life than to the consequences of Kit’s failure being so stunningly magnified by the death of Cathy Eddowes.

  She bit her lip, uncertain what to say, what to ask. Makepeace fixed her with a look, narrowing his eyes. “Caswell, is there something you wanted?”

  Slowly she shook her head, blinking hard. “No, sir, nothing. Only, I’m sorry. I did try, sir.”

  “Then make yourself useful.” His voice suddenly sounded not so cold, somehow begrudgingly gentle. “Go and talk to Stride and Eddowes’ husbands, or whatever they had that passed for husbands.”

  “Haven’t they already been interviewed, sir?”

  “Yes, but it was Airedale, so you can imagine how well that went. You might shake something loose. Off you go before I change my mind and put you to cleaning the cells.”

  “Yes, sir.” It was busy-work, Kit suspected, but it still wasn’t the worst thing he could have done to her, and it might yet yield something, some kind of connection between the women apart from their profession.

  His voice stopped her. “Caswell?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Said grudgingly, however it was as if he was happy to get it off his chest. “No matter what happens from here on in, what happened last night wasn’t your fault—and quite frankly, we were lucky not to lose you too.”

  Kit didn’t answer. She thought he was lying, but the kindness of it stoppered up her throat. She stared at the wall of evidence, taking in all the faces, the injuries, the loss. There weren’t just the four, those Kelly had known and believed were being hunted for their power, Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes. The others—Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram, Annie Millwood and Ada Wilson—to Kit’s mind they didn’t belong. She thought she saw the glimmer of a way to show Makepeace a path without having to mention the word “witches”; a way to make him take her seriously again. She took a deep breath, leery of breaking their fragile truce.

  “They’re different, sir.”

  Makepeace looked at her, an eyebrow raised. “Different?”

  “The early ones, sir, they’re not the same as the last four. Those first four were robbed and stabbed, not slashed and mutilated. Smith and Millwood survived at least for a little while, and Ada Wilson is still alive, and squarely pointing her finger at the same grenadier who was supposed to have done for Tabram. We just can’t get any proof because his mates keep giving him an alibi.”

  Makepeace nodded for her to go on, and she took heart.

  “But the last four, sir, they’re different. Chapman’s rings were gone, but she had coins in her pocket, which we assumed were from her last client, but maybe it was from pawning the rings. Whoever killed her didn’t take that, so what if he didn’t care about rings or the money because it wasn’t
about those things? We know what he did take from Nicholls, Chapman and Stride, sir, and that’s bits of flesh. What about Eddowes, sir? Ned said she was badly cut up.”

  Makepeace said, “Her face was hacked at, her belly torn open and her left kidney was gone.”

  Kit felt her gorge rise, swallowed it down, then reinforced her point. “They’re inconsistent, sir, crimes committed by discrete men—with the first four you’re looking at maybe two, even three separate killers whose intent was to rob; the women died because they fought back. The second lot, our girls, that’s a single killer, distinct from the others, with a stranger, darker intent.”

  “And what intent’s that, Caswell?”

  “If I knew, sir, we might be further along than we are.”

  Makepeace stared at Kit long and hard, then returned his gaze to the wall. Slowly he moved forward and began the process of shuffling the photos and lists into new alignments, two groups of four. Kit felt her heart lift, just a little, a kind of hope like sunlight.

  “Don’t you have men to interview, Caswell?”

  IX

  Kit strode towards the Christ Church graveyard in the late afternoon. She didn’t go into the church itself, but took the gate she and Kelly had used what seemed a lifetime ago and headed towards the small cluster of figures in a back corner, huddling amongst the headstones, the shoulders of their coats lightly sprinkled with snow.

  The group of seven women spotted Kit and broke apart like a disturbed swarm. Luckily not a one was inclined—or able—to run, so she lengthened her stride and managed to grab hold of the nearest. None of the others stopped to help their compatriot—the sisterhood was thin nowadays, observed Kit.

  The woman, with wiry red hair, no front teeth and a scar that lifted the left side of her mouth, spat and hissed and Kit considered slapping her, then realized she’d been around men too long if she thought that was a solution.

  “Eliza Cooper, pull your head in or you’ll get a night in the cells whether you like it or not,” said Kit, and the other seemed to calm down—although it was so cold the young PC wondered if the tart wouldn’t be averse to a free bed, four walls, and a promise of warm stew. “I’m looking for Mary Kelly—still looking for her.”

  It was the fifth of November, and thirty-six days had passed since the double event, thirty-five since Kelly had left Number 3 Lady’s Mantle Court and seemingly disappeared into thin air. The only comfort was that her body hadn’t turned up anywhere. Kit almost dared hope the prostitute had packed her bags and left London for safer climes; but it seemed unlikely. Kelly, like most folk, was a creature of habit, a habitué of the city’s streets and it would take more than a threat of death and dismemberment to get her to leave the place she knew best.

  While Kit hadn’t yet given up on finding Mary Jane, her options were thinner than workhouse broth. No one was admitting to seeing her and Kit had heard nothing from her. The letter, which still rested in her tunic pocket, made heavier by its content and all its potential consequences, had not been from Kelly.

  “Ain’t seen her—ain’t nobody seen her in weeks,” grumbled Cooper, refusing to meet Kit’s eyes, but wearing a familiar expression. She’d spent so much of her time checking on Whitechapel’s whores that their business was suffering—Kit’s seemingly ever-present vigilance was costing them clients. Whatever gratitude there might initially have been was eaten away by her scaring off their meal tickets. There was something different, though, in Cooper’s tone, an exasperation that Kit thought she might be able to swing to her own advantage.

  “Eliza. Eliza, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, the woman did so. “What?”

  “Eliza, I need to find Mary Jane. I need to know if she’s all right and I need her help.” The woman began to shake her head and Kit hurried on, “Please, Eliza, please. Don’t think the danger’s gone—Jack’s still out there. He’s waiting.”

  Kit could see the woman’s resolve wavering, and she wasn’t above stacking the deck; she pulled a purse from her pocket and jingled its contents. “There’s enough here for a bed and a meal. You won’t need to earn it the hard way. Please, Eliza, I’m not trying to hurt her.”

  At first it seemed her plea had failed, then Cooper made a noise of disgusted surrender and held out her hand. Kit gave her a look to say she wasn’t stupid enough to give over money before she got the information and the woman laughed. “Mary Jane said you were a clever lad. Aw’right, she’s at the lodging house in Flower and Dean Street—number 32, where Lizzie lived.”

  “Who’s paying her bills?” Kit asked, as she counted coins into Eliza Cooper’s grimy palms—she’d been holding something back from the housekeeping for the past weeks, set aside for this very purpose.

  “She’s keeping the landlord ‘happy’ as best she knows how,” laughed the woman and gleefully pocketed the easiest money she’d ever made.

  Kit frowned. “Eliza, don’t spend it on drink, please. Get a room and a good night’s sleep. Be safe and warm.”

  The woman nodded, but Kit suspected she meant the opposite, and shrugged. She’d not inherited her father’s fervor for imposing salvation on those uninterested in being saved. Kit sighed and said, “Off you go, Eliza. Take care of yourself.”

  The woman nodded again, giving Kit a strange look. They were talking, she knew, the Whitechapel whores, about how eccentric young PC Caswell was, how he didn’t want to take advantage of the favors offered him, how he didn’t want to save their souls, how he just tried to help with no thought of reward. Such selflessness made them wary and suspicious.

  Kit moved away quickly, wanting to ensure she got to her destination before Cooper thought better of the deal, and decided to warn Mary Jane that she’d been found.

  The boarding house was like so many of its kind and there were over two hundred packed into Whitechapel alone, people crammed into tiny filthy rooms, barely able to scrape together the money for a night’s sleep. Kit found the landlord’s assistant—a youngish man given his lodging in exchange for looking after the degraded property in the meagrest way possible—and it didn’t take long for her to coax the location of Kelly’s room from him. She knocked quietly, wondering if she’d have to draw the woman out then found, to her astonishment, the door incautiously hauled open. Kelly, dressed in a simple white blouse, black shawl and blue skirt, with no trace of make-up and her hair in modest bun, seemed as surprised as Kit was.

  “You. I thought it was his lordship come to collect the rent. You’d better come in then.” She stood aside and let her guest past.

  The room was small, but surprisingly tidy. Clothes were carefully folded on a single shelf, and the bed was neatly made. A bedside table held a lamp, a bottle of gin and two glasses. In a wicker basket at the foot of the bed was a pile of mending, and Kit could see the needle and various colored skeins Kelly had been using. Kit raised an eyebrow.

  “Practicing for my new career,” said Mary Jane and indicated that Kit should take the sole chair while she herself settled on the bed and took up the sock she’d been darning.

  “How are you, Mary?” asked Kit as she carefully lowered herself onto the seat, somewhat concerned about how it might react to any weight greater than that of a folded blanket. The piece of furniture groaned its protest but held, and after a few moments Kit relaxed.

  “Alive, which, given the circumstances, is the best I can hope for,” Kelly said tartly.

  Kit nodded. “I’ve been looking for you. I was worried.”

  “No need to be. I’m taking care of myself, I’ve a good thing going here. Only one ‘client’ a day and he brings me the mending to do. We’ve an agreement.”

  “You don’t go out,” stated Kit.

  “Well, it’s cold outside.” Kelly tied off a thread and set the sock aside, paired it, then selected a blouse from the pile and found a matching bobbin of thread, and began the business of getting the strand through the eye of the needle. Kit found her own tongue pressing at the inside of her mouth as if to protrud
e in sympathetic concentration.

  “Why did you disappear? Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Someone started following me. Couldn’t see anyone, but I just knew it. So I went to ground. Besides, you weren’t looking like being any help.”

  Kit ignored the barb. “That last night I saw you . . . ”

  “Mmmmm?” Kelly sounded disinterested and kept her eyes on her task.

  Kit pulled the letter from her pocket. “Someone put this through the mail slot after you left. And someone was watching my house, I’m sure of it. Was it you?”

  “No. When I left, I left. And that letter’s not from me either.”

  “I know that. It’s from him.”

  Mary Jane’s hands stilled, the blouse falling and slowly deflating in her lap. Kit opened the envelope, just as she had many times since she’d first cracked the wax seal. The handwriting was nothing like the red scrawl that had been reproduced in the newspapers. This was not the work of the Jack who liked to write, to communicate, to show off and revel in his notoriety. This hand was strong, graceful and in black ink; it was businesslike and focused. It was the handwriting of a proposition, an exchange. It seemed the script of a reasonable man—or at least one who considered his actions reasonable.

  She held it out to the other woman, not daring to ask if she could read. Kelly took it reluctantly, and Kit watched her eyes move across the words, taking them in. Watched as the woman’s thin hands began to shake. Watched as Kelly raised her stare to meet Kit’s with a growing terror.

  “Is that why you’re here?” she asked in a strangled voice.

  Kit shook her head vehemently. “No! Don’t think that of me.”

  “Then why? Why show me this? Why find me when I’m safe?”

  “Because I think I can catch him. I think I know what to do. I don’t know how he knows what he knows about me, about Lucius, but I think we can lure him and catch him, Mary Jane.”

  “Let me get this straight: this man wants to make a deal with you. My life for a marked improvement in your brother’s health? And you don’t want to take him up on that?”