by Giles Ekins
‘Blimey Polly,’ Ellen exclaimed as she saw the state that Polly was in, barely able to walk upright. ‘You ain’t fit for nuffink in that state. I’m just heading back, best you come ‘long with me and get yersel’ into bed.’
‘Nah, can’t. Got no money, see. Gotta find m’sel a punter, anybody, lawd, anybody, everybody, I’ll fuck a leper if I has to.’
‘Billy’ll let you in, course ’e will, and you can pay him tomorrer, no bother, I does it all the time.’
‘Nah, tried that, tight arse fucker wun’t even give me a drop of piss off the end of his knob.’
‘Well, suit yersel’, Poll, I’m off back, me feet’re plumb worn numb ’anging round ’ere, gawd knows what time it is.’
As she spoke the clock at Whitechapel Church began to chime. ‘Lawd, listen to it, 2.30 in the bleedin’ morning. I’m off. Sure you don’t want to come along.’
‘Wish I could, Ellie, wish to fuck I could, but nah, I’ll carry along the ‘Chapel Road a bit, always a bit o’ trade there, bound to find somefing, I’ll be along right enough in no time.’
Ellen turned away, setting off up Osborne Road towards her lodgings as Polly Nicholls staggered up along the Whitechapel Road. At the corner of Osborne Road and Wentworth Road, Ellen Holland passed the spot where Emma Smith had been brutally attacked earlier in the year, set upon and beaten to death, a blunt instrument rammed deep into her vagina, causing massive bleeding. Ellen shuddered at the thought of it, involuntarily clutching at herself through her thick skirt and petticoats.
She glanced apprehensively about her, the streets were deserted and the thin light from the gas streetlights served only to harden the heavy black shadows of dark night.
And, Ellen recalled, only three weeks ago another working girl who she knew, Martha Tabram, had been stabbed to death not more than a hundred yards away in George Yard. Stabbed thirty-nine times, they said, in the body, in the neck, in her privates – slashed and mutilated.
Casting anxious glances behind her, she hurried on; nobody had ever been caught for the murder of Martha Tabram, or for the murder of Emma Smith and no one felt safe out on the streets of Whitechapel.
HE QUIETLY SLIPPED OUT FROM HIS LODGINGS at No 22 Batty Street crossed over the southern portion of Commercial Road and hurried along the narrow lanes of Thomas Street and Nottingham Street, keeping to the deepest shadows, to the darkest side of the road and alleys. He turned right onto Charlotte Street, crossed over the busier thoroughfare of New Road before again heading north along Turner Street, and swiftly crossed over onto the northern side of Whitechapel Road, hiding himself in the shadows by the narrow alley of Thomas Street.
Waiting.
He would not have to wait long.
He saw Polly Nicholls staggering up the road towards, obviously well taken with the drink. Glancing up and down the road, he saw no one else about. Perfect.
He waited until she was closer before stepping out from the shadows. Head hanging low from drink and weariness, Polly did not see him until she was almost upon him.
‘Hello ducks,’ she croaked at him, ‘ you looking for a bit o’fun, cos if’n you is, I got what you want.’
‘Well now, Miss, I might just have such a thing in mind.’ His accent sounded funny to Polly, ’E’s not from rarnd ’ere, she thought, ‘not even from sarf Lunnon,’ not that she cared where he came from as long as he had a shilling or two; he could have dropped out of the sky from the other side of the moon for all she bothered. She sidled up to him and took his arm, pressing her saggy bosom into his arm. ‘How’s bout we goes somewhere a bit quieter, eh, ducks.’
‘Ma’am,that surely sounds a most excellent idea.’
‘It’ll be a bob and a half, that OK?’ Polly wheedled, asking more double her usual rate but desperate for a gin and then her bed. ‘But I’m worf every penny, ’onest mate, a fuck like you never ’ad afore.’
‘I’m sure it will be. And one shilling and six pence seems more than OK to me, and who knows, maybes a little bit extra on top. Maybes a half crown. How does that sound.’
‘I don’t do nuffink weird,’ Polly answered. ‘Just the straight stuff. But wurf ev’ry penny, you just see and I’ll give you a suck an’ all, you want.’
Her customer smiled thinly as he led her, somewhat unsteadily, deeper into the shadows. At the end of Thomas Street they turned down Bucks Row, past the board school and then over the London Railway line. To the right was a row of thin faced houses. Adjacent to No 2 Bucks Row there was a timber gate leading in to a stable yard. Opposite were Essex Wharf and the walls of Brown & Eagle’s factory. Polly stopped at the gate, the street was deserted and in dark shadow.
‘Ere do nicely,’ Polly whispered. She bent over and pulled up her skirts above her waist. ‘There you go, ducks,’ she said, spreading her legs, leaning back against the gate, which creaked, under her weight.
‘Just beautiful,’ he said, stepping up close as if to touch her. Then suddenly, he seized her by the throat with both hands; thumbs gouging deeply into her windpipe as he savagely strangled her. With her hands tangled up within the folds of her skirts and petticoats she could not bring up her arms to fight him off , her heels briefly drummed against the timber of the gate, but almost as though she welcomed her death, Polly very quickly died. Slowly, his hands still deeply clenched about her throat; he lowered the dead Polly Nichols to the ground. Polly’s skirts had dropped down, but her killer swiftly raised them again, bunching them up about her waist once more.
Reaching into the deep folds of his coat, he drew out a rolled up leather housewife, about twelve inches long and two or three inches in circumference that he carried in a specially tailored pocket. He undid the strings and unrolled the pouch, rolling it along the pavement beside Polly Nichols body. His fingers quickly danced across the half dozen knives of varying lengths and sizes whilst he made his choice. Humming gently to himself, he slipped out one of the larger knives and then set to work.
‘Just beautiful,’ he murmured as he made the first cuts and the blackly shining blood began to flow, ‘Just bee-yoo-tee-ful.’
POLICE INSPECTOR JOHN SPRATLING, from J Division, had been the most senior officer on the scene of Polly Nicholls murder and Collingwood read through his report once again as he sucked heavily on his thickly smoking pipe. Across the room, Sergeant Flanagan coughed discreetly into his handkerchief, the pungent smoke rasping at his throat, wondering for not the first time how Collingwood could bear to smoke such noxious tobacco. His wife Noleen remarked on it almost every night when he got home, wrinkling her pretty nose up at the tainted smell of Collingwood’s tobacco which permeated into the very fibres of his clothing.
Collingwood, oblivious to his sergeant’s discomfort read on, deeply absorbed in Spratling’s report and the recorded observations of the mortuary examination of Polly’s mutilated corpse … her throat had been cut from left to right, two distinct cuts on the left side. The windpipe, gullet and spinal cord having been cut through, a bruise apparently of a thumb being on the right lower jaw, also one on the left cheek. The abdomen had been cut open from the centre of bottom of ribs on the right side, under the pelvis to left of stomach: there the wound was jagged. The omentum or coating of the stomach was also cut in several places, and two small stabs to private parts appeared done with a strong bladed knife…
She had died between 3.15 and 3.40 when her body had been found.
He laid down the report and leaned back in his chair, hooking his fingers behind his head as he stretched to ease the knots in his spine from sitting to long. His pipe, now resting in the brass ashtray, smoked sullenly on for a minute or two before expiring.
Collingwood’s thoughts raced. He had telegraphed all London police stations asking them to advise immediately of any unusual killings, especially any that had aspects of mutilation. Spratling had advised Collingwood of Polly Nicholls’ murder and then sent his report over to Scotland Yard as soon as it was completed. It was immediately apparent to Collingwood that th
e killing of Polly Nicholls was not the work of Sinistrari, he was certain of that. The methods of killing were completely different – the slow ritualised killing of Black Eyed Mary, Alice Newton, Susan Siddons and Katie Cornfields compared to the almost frenzied attack on Polly Nicholls – and to a lesser extent on Martha Tabram, murdered some weeks previously.
Not that Collingwood was at all convinced that the killer of Martha Tabram was the same as Polly Nicholls, even though the newspapers evidently thought the killings were connected. ‘Horrible Murder of a Woman – Another Whitechapel Mystery’ ran the headline of the East Anglian Daily Times, only one of many such lurid stories.
No, Sinistrari had not killed Nicholls, Collingwood was as sure of that as he could be, but despite that he could not quite shake loose the nagging itch in his copper’s brain that told him that somehow Sinistrari was involved.
The scratching of Flanagan’s steel pen nib on paper distracted him for a moment, Flanagan was a copious taker of notes, jotting down in his notebooks relevant details and summaries of just about every document put before him. Suddenly irritated by the insistent scratching Collingwood got to his feet, ‘Can’t you stop that infernal racket for even one minute,’ he snapped at Flanagan and then marched out of the office with a heavy scowl across his face, much to the astonished stare of Flanagan who had no idea what had got into his superior. Shaking his head at the unpredictability of rank, Flanagan once again dipped his nib into the inkwell and carried on writing his notes; hoping to find that one small clue, that tiny spark that had been overlooked or not considered important at the time but might be so now.
There was a suspect for the killing of Polly Nicholls, Jack Pizer – better known as Leather Apron – who had been seen threatening prostitutes in the Whitehall area. He had an alibi for the night of the killing, vouched for by his stepmother and brother and he was released.
Collingwood conferred extensively with Inspector Abbeline from Central Office, the officer in charge of the Nicholls murder. But he still found no evidence to convince him that Sinistrari actually carried out the killing, but the suspicion that Sinistrari’s evil hand was behind the killing – orchestrating murder to discredit the police and divert attention away from his own re-arrest – lurked deep in Collingwood’s psyche.
Chapter 22
29 HANBURY STREET, SPITALFIELDS, LONDON
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8th, 1888
BY THE TIME COLLINGWOOD AND FLANAGAN reached the scene, a large and angry crowd had already gathered, held back by a line of hard-pressed policeman.
Collingwood and Flanagan had to run a gauntlet of abuse from the angry onlookers. ‘What’cha doin’ to proteck’ us?’ shouted one red faced man whose breath reeked heavily of stale beer and gin as he thrust himself at Collingwood, to be pushed aside by a sweating bobby.
‘Fucking nothing, as per usual,’ answered a voice in the crowd.
The two police officers ducked under the arms of the line of police and down the passage into the rear yard of No 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. Inside the yard, they joined Inspector Chandler who had been on duty in Commercial Road, just around the corner from Hanbury Street where the body had been found. A few minutes later, the police surgeon, Doctor George Bagster Philips, joined them.
‘He’s made a mess of this one,’ Chandler observed, trying to make light of how nauseous he felt.
‘Aye, he’s getting to like his work,’ answered Collingwood.
‘You think it to be the same perpetrator as Polly Nicholls, it’s not far from here; Hanbury Street practically runs into Buck’s Row?’
‘We can’t be sure at this stage, but yes, I feel certain it’s the same man.’
Doctor Phillips looked up from his examination of the body. ‘Her throat has been severed by a deep jagged laceration. She has severe mutilations to her belly and genitals. As you can see here, a flap from the wall of the belly and the whole of the small intestine and attachments have been draped over her right shoulder.’
Chandler tried not to look as Phillips pointed out the dread injuries but could not prevent himself as the surgeon went on to explain that other portions of the belly wall and pubes had been placed over the left shoulder. There was a mass of drying and crusted blood below her shoulders. ‘Parts of the body are missing; the belly wall including the navel, the womb, uterus, the upper part of the vagina and the greater part of the bladder.’
‘Doctor, would you say that whoever carried out this … this outrage possessed anatomical knowledge?’ asked Collingwood. ‘The mutilations appear to have been very specific.’
‘In my opinion yes; I believe he most definitely has such knowledge. See here, he removed the uterus intact, dividing the vagina low enough not to damage the uteri cervix. The killer clearly recognises the organs he was after and knows how to extract them. Considering the speed and frenzy with which he performed this work … and the fact that it was possibly dark and he could be disturbed at any moment; he skill and knowledge are … impressive, if impressive be the appropriate word to describe such barbarity.’ As the surgeon spoke, Flanagan was once again taking notes but the sharp rasp of pencil on paper was somehow soothing to the nerves in this place of death rather than the irritant it had been the day before.
‘Doctor, what can you tell us about the time of death?’
‘I would say at least two hours, probably longer.’ Phillips stood up, stretched and pressed his hands into his lower back to ease the aches from crouching over the mutilated corpse. ‘You can take her now, take her to Whitechapel Mortuary and I’ll carry out Post Mortem later on this morning.’
‘What about the instrument? The knife?’
‘The type of knife used reinforces my opinion that the killer has anatomical knowledge and experience. The knife is no ordinary one but rather a small amputating knife … or possibly a well-honed slaughterman’s knife but I incline more to the notion that it is an amputating knife…skilfully used. The knife is long and thin with a blade that I estimate to be six to eight inches in length.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Scuse me Inspector,’ a young constable said loudly as he came into the yard and then blanched as he saw the mutilated gore soaked corpse. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty on His Cross,’ he swore and clasped a not too clean handkerchief to his mouth and nose.
‘Do not blaspheme, Mathers,’ Chandler admonished. ‘What is it?’
‘Sorry, sir, just to say the ambulance has arrived. To take … it … it away.’ He nodded, white-faced, at the corpse.
‘It, Mathers, it?’ Her Mathers! To take her away. She is a poor unfortunate woman who has come to the vilest of ends. Be so kind as to show respect,’ Collingwood interjected, grim faced and dour.
‘Yes sir, sorry sir, it’s just that seeing ’er like that. Never seen nothink like and don’t want to ever again.’
‘Neither do any of us, constable.’
‘On your way now, Mathers,’ ordered Chandler. ‘And say nothing about what you have just seen to anyone.’
‘Yes, sir, I mean no sir,’ and the pale faced copper walked out of the yard as hurriedly as he could whilst hanging on his dignity – and probably his breakfast.
After the body had been removed, Collingwood, Flanagan, Doctor Philips and Inspector Chandler carried out a detailed search of the small back yard where the poor unfortunate had come to her blood soaked end.
The search revealed little of any value in determining who might have carried out the killing. A portion of an envelope with two pills inside; the envelope bore a blue seal of the Sussex Regiment. On the front of the grubby envelope there was the letter M, written by hand, the number two and lower down the letters Sp; as if an address had been written there but the remainder of the envelope was torn away and nowhere to be found.
‘S p?’ queried Collingwood.
‘Spitalfields?’ offered Chandler, ‘The district’s right. This is Spitalfields.’
The part of the envelope where the postage stamp had been affixed was miss
ing, but the red postmark was visible and read ‘London August 23, 1888’, therefore posted more than two weeks previously. Nearby lay an empty nail box and a flat piece of metal. A saturated leather apron lay close to a dripping tap set in the wall.
‘Leather Apron!’ exclaimed Chandler, ‘Jack Pizer. It has to be him.’
Collingwood was certain that the apron had nothing to do with the murder or murderer but said nothing, there were no obvious signs of blood on the leather garment and it seemed evident to him that the apron had been laid there for some time; for far longer than the hours since the killing.
Finding nothing else of significance Collingwood and Flanagan left – the murder – brutal as it was – took them no closer to finding Sinistrari. And Lucy was still at risk, that dread thought never leaving his mind.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING THE DEAD WOMAN was identified as Annie Chapman, forty-five years of age, short, dark and unattractive, known as Dark Annie. She was a heavy drinker – had once been married but the marriage did not last and Annie resorted to selling herself on the mean streets of Spitalfields and Whitechapel. On the night of her murder, she had attended the outpatients department at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, within short walking distance of her lodgings at Crossingmam’s Lodging House on Dorset Street. She had been drinking – and like Polly Nicholls before her – had no money to pay for her lodging. The Deputy, Timothy Donovan threw her out – no money in advance – no bed, those were the rules and he strictly enforced them, despite that fact that Dark Annie was obviously unwell and undernourished. But she always found money for drink. It was about 2am when she began looking for custom, anybody with a few coppers to spare and willing to take her up a dark alley for the doubtful pleasure of her sexual favours.
At 6am, John Davis, an elderly resident of 29 Hanbury Street came down into the yard, found her body, and ran out into the street to seek help. Inspector Chandler was on duty in Commercial Road and was on the scene within minutes of the discovery. After ascertaining that the woman was dead, he sent to the Police Station for more men to secure the murder site. He also sent for Doctor Phillips, the Police Surgeon – and as per the Standing Orders that any unusual or brutal killings be reported to Chief Inspector Collingwood – a telegram was sent to the Central Office at Scotland Yard. By chance, both Collingwood and Flanagan were in their office early that morning and quickly took a cab to the scene of the killings.