by Dacre Stoker
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“My God!”
The red fog attacked him. The last thing Jonathan heard was his own scream. His last thought was of Mina.
One hundred and eighty miles away, in Exeter, Mina Harker awoke screaming.
CHAPTER XVII.
Inspector Cotford toiled away at his paperwork at the Red Lion. His favorite seat was recessed in the darkest corner of the public house. No one ever sat there, since it was the farthest removed from the action at the bar. Cotford imagined that if this pub were more well-to-do, this secluded seat would be the perfect place for young lovers to whisper sweet nothings to each other in privacy. But this was a man’s bar. A drinker’s bar. A policeman’s bar. It was not the type of establishment frequented by young ladies. The only bonding that happened here involved stiff whiskies, back-slapping, and off-color jokes.
Since the pub was the closest to the House of Commons, New Scotland Yard, and the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, the Red Lion was infested with politicians, policemen, and civil servants. All the lucky men who had families had returned home by this time of night. Only the solitary ones who had no other lives remained, drinking their loneliness away. Cotford fitted right in. He liked the grim, dark wood-paneled surroundings. The long shadows around his corner created a barrier between him and the rest of the pub-goers. He wanted his privacy, to be alone with the only thing that he had left in his life—his work.
He signaled to the barmaid to pour another beer as he compared the handwritten notes with the typed transcripts that were to be sent to the director of public prosecutions. Cotford’s eyes were blurry with the reports of a recent bicycle-snatching ring. Cotford supposed there was some nobility in finding justice for the impoverished, hardworking men who had lost their only mode of transportation, but still he found it degrading. Working in that dead-end office year in and year out was not helping Cotford tip the scales.
The barmaid replaced Cotford’s empty glass with a pint of stout. Cotford had been coming to this public house for thirty years and knew the barmaid well. Sadly, in all these years, he had formed no rapport with her. No words were ever exchanged.
Cotford was aware of his infamous celebrity. He wondered if the barmaid had purposely ignored him all these years to show her dissatisfaction for his part in not bringing justice to the Ripper. Then again, perhaps it was nothing more than Cotford’s lack of an outgoing personality. With that unpleasant thought circling in his head, he glanced at the other regulars’ stern faces frowning from the painted portraits on the wall. Scotland Yard’s best and brightest. Crime was an ongoing, unwinnable war, but the more crimes one solved, the more a policemen felt his life was worth. These great men on the wall had done so much to tip the scales in justice’s favor. There was the retired Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. There was Superintendent Thomas Arnold, who had resigned to fight in the Crimean War, then returned the moment that conflict had ended. Most prominent was Cotford’s old mentor, Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline. Cotford chuckled as he looked at the portrait of his old friend. Bollocks, he always did look more like a bank manager than a policeman. Cotford raised his glass to these distinguished men.
When Cotford had been an idealistic young detective constable doing a job he loved, he always wondered why such a respected man as Abberline carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was only now, in his advanced years, that Cotford finally understood. Abberline felt it was his duty to bring justice to the victims of violent crimes. There was no nobler calling. After the debacle of the Ripper case, the public outcry over their failure to capture the killer had been so great that Abberline was forced to retire, twenty-five years ago. Yet Abberline had solved so many crimes over his long, glorious career that his failure to bring justice for the five murdered prostitutes did nothing to sully his reputation among his peers.
This was not the same for Cotford. After Abberline’s forced retirement, he was reassigned to his present post, effectively ending his career in the investigation of murders, and all hopes of advancement. He guessed they expected him to do the honorable thing and resign. But he was far too stubborn for that. Those five dead whores dragged behind Cotford. Until he in some way made up for his failures, he could not walk away with a clean conscience. He prayed that the revelations in Dr. Seward’s journal would at last bring peace to his guilt.
The pub’s door slammed open. Every drunken, bloodshot eye turned to the constable running inside. The eager young man’s face was flushed and sweaty. He stood in the center of the room and called out, “Is there an Inspector Cotford here?”
The silence was broken as the patrons whispered among one another.
“I’m the one you’re looking for,” Cotford rumbled from the shadows.
With a salute, the out-of-breath constable handed him a folded note.
“Inspector Cotford? I was ordered by Sergeant Lee to bring this to your immediate attention! I assume this is pertaining to an important case.”
Cotford liked this lad. He reminded him of his younger, idealistic self. He unfolded the note, read it. And reread it, his mind reeling. Cotford had already propelled himself to the door when the young constable called out to him, “Inspector Cotford? I’m off duty, I can help if you need me.”
Cotford considered the lad’s offer. Why not encourage this fine young recruit? He said: “My notes are on the table back there. See them delivered immediately to the Crown Prosecution Service. Don’t fail me, young man. The prosecution of malevolent criminals depends on your swiftness.”
“Yes, sir! You can depend on me, sir!”
With his good deed done for the day, Cotford was on his way to what he hoped would be a dark destiny, the first step on a new path that would lead to a confrontation with evil he had spent twenty-five years searching for.
Sergeant Lee was blinded by a brilliant flash of light. Blue dots danced in front of his eyes. His vision returned by degrees, his eyes readjusting to the macabre crime scene. The police photographer reloaded the camera’s flash powder and snapped another picture. This time, Lee turned away. He yearned for the days when crime scenes were sketched instead of photographed.
Since joining Scotland Yard, Lee had wondered what it would have been like to work on the Ripper case. In fact, it was his fascination with the ghastly murders that had caused him to seek out and befriend Cotford when he joined the force. The old inspector was the last man still on active duty who had worked on the case. Lee had been only a small boy when the murders occurred, but he remembered them well. In fact, the famous murder case was also the reason he had left military service after the Second Boer War in 1902 to join the Metropolitan Police. Now, ten years later, Sergeant Lee stood in an alley, looking down at a young woman’s mutilated corpse. He had seen many bloody and torn bodies during the war, but they had all been men. The sight of a butchered woman was, for him, much worse. A torn leg thrown here, an arm thrown there, the head severed, and the heart carved out, left in a pool of blood on the cobbles. The torso had been disemboweled and the organs and intestines left on display in the open air.
Lee’s steely gray eyes tracked Inspector Huntley, the man assigned to this case. Hands clasped behind his back, Huntley supervised the two constables gathering and cataloguing evidence.
A hacking cough echoed off the alley’s brick walls. Lee, Huntley, and the constables turned to the Temple Bar alleyway entrance. A portly drunk appeared out of the fog. Huntley aimed his torchlight at the slouching figure. Sergeant Lee immediately recognized Cotford. He’d hoped that Cotford would have shown more discretion than to show up at a crime scene four sheets to the wind. He had sent Price to the Red Lion public house to fetch Cotford without authorization. If Cotford made a fool of himself in front of Inspector Huntley, he would also be making a fool of Lee. Huntley never missed a chance to flex his authoritative muscle and would surely have Lee reprimanded. With his mentor staggering into view, Lee prayed that he had not made a terrible m
istake.
Huntley made no effort to remove the beam of light from Cotford’s sweaty, red-nosed face. Cotford stared directly into the light as if challenging Huntley.
“Inspector Cotford?” Huntley asked. “I think you have lost your way. The pubs are farther up Fleet Street.”
The constables chuckled. Knowing his mentor, Lee wondered if he’d soon have to break up a fight. Luckily, Cotford merely sidestepped Inspector Huntley and lurched toward the victim’s body. Huntley and his colleagues traded looks. Was Cotford seriously planning to investigate the crime? Their chuckles became outright laughter. Cotford seemed oblivious, but Lee was embarrassed for him.
“You’re just in time, Inspector Cotford,” Huntley said. “I am about to give my summation of the case thus far. You’re welcome to stay if you’d like. Perhaps you’ll learn something.”
Lee wanted to punch Huntley’s arrogant face, but Cotford took it in stride, his attention fixed on the bloodied remains as he circled the crime scene.
Huntley said, “You can tell by the hand-stitched beads on our victim’s dress that she was no Whitechapel whore. She was either dragged into the alley by our assailant or was due to meet him here by choice. Since there were people out and about on Temple Bar, if she had been grabbed, passersby would have surely heard her screams. Therefore, one must assume she was here to meet her lover. Something went wrong. Perhaps she refused his advances. They argued. Her lover tried to take what was not offered. They struggled, smashing into those crates at the back side of the alley. She must have tried to escape. Her lover drew his knife.”
Lee could not help but be impressed by such astute interpretation of the crime scene evidence.
Huntley was surprised to find Cotford still ignoring him. Cotford held aloft the severed head of the Woman in White. The dead woman’s face was frozen in horror, but he remained unaffected, turning the head upside down, poking his finger into the raw, bloodied flesh, picking at the edges of torn skin. Cotford flipped the head into the air, caught it, and stared into the dead woman’s open eyes.
Lee no longer feared a reprimand. He feared for his job.
Huntley watched in amazement as Cotford replaced the severed head on the cobbles and staggered toward the smashed crates.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he loudly continued his summation. “Our assailant, in a rage of passion, fell upon our hapless victim. He brutally murdered and mutilated her. I am convinced, based upon the fine quality of his paramour’s dress, that our suspect was a gentleman. The haphazard butchery was done to throw us off his scent, hoping that a dolt of an inspector would blame the bloody crime on a man of the street. Temple Bar is known for men of high quality, solicitors and bankers. It is within their gentlemanly ranks that we must hunt for our killer.”
There was a crash at the back of the alley. Once again, all eyes turned to Cotford. It appeared that he had fallen into the crates. Lee realized with dread that this situation was even worse than he feared. Cotford picked himself up from the unbroken crates, took a few steps back and ran forward, launching his girth into the air. He fell against the unbroken crate again. As Cotford struggled to pull himself back up, he at last noticed all eyes were on him.
“I beg your pardon, Inspector. Don’t mind me.”
One of the constables offered, “Inspector Huntley, you’re forgetting the bloody footprint we found on a splintered crate.”
“I most certainly am not! Our assailant, after completing his ghastly deed, found himself covered in blood. He staggered back as he regained his senses. Realizing what he had done, our assailant ran toward Temple Bar. We know this because, as he ran, he stepped on that piece of wood, and the print points toward the Temple Bar exit.”
“Well done, old man,” Cotford said.
Huntley turned to graciously accept his accolade but was left speechless when he saw Cotford on his knees, spinning a piece of wood on the cobbles as if he were a child spinning a top.
Lee felt an urgency to jump to Cotford’s rescue. “Inspector Huntley! The police surgeon has arrived.”
Huntley beamed. “Ah, the sawbones is here, lads. Our work is done. First round at the Red Lion is on me.”
Huntley led his little gang from the alleyway, laughing. The police surgeon came forward, trying to hold down his dinner as he stared at the victim’s remains.
As a third-generation military man, Lee had been brought up by his father to strictly follow protocol and respect the chain of command. He’d gone against those instincts by summoning Cotford, and now Lee would have to deal with the man who had become a drunken embarrassment. He took a deep breath and turned. Cotford was nowhere to be seen. Where the devil could he have gotten to?
Lee walked farther into the alleyway, toward the Fleet Street exit. He found Cotford on his hands and knees hovering over a dark, oozing pile on the cobblestones. Cotford picked up a sample of the pile, brought it to his nose, and sniffed. Lee realized Cotford was holding a piece of manure.
With great compassion, Lee knelt beside his friend and placed his hand on Cotford’s back. “Inspector, why don’t you let me take you home?”
Cotford dropped the manure, wiped his hands on his trouser leg, and looked up at Lee. He was stone-cold sober. His were the eyes of a detective.
Cotford stood as he spoke. “Huntley may be a bloviating blowhole, but he’s a damned fine detective. He just needs a little seasoning. Those crates were reinforced oak. They were built to carry a heavy load. As you may have noticed, I have the figure of a sperm whale. I ran full speed, throwing my weight against the crates. Despite my best effort, they didn’t break.”
“What are you implying, Inspector?”
“The man and woman did meet here for a passionate tryst as Huntley had surmised. Though I believe they were attacked by a third assailant.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Mind where you’re standing. See those bloodied palm prints on the ground? Those are from a man’s hands.”
Lee looked down at the prints on the cobbles. Huntley had missed them.
“Notice the thumbs,” Cotford said. “Whoever was here instinctively fell backward, trying to break his fall, causing the thumbs to face outward. This person was in retreat.”
“Retreat from what?”
“See the manure. There were horses here. Probably attached to a carriage. They blocked his path. He was running from someone to the safety of Fleet Street, and he was already covered in blood.”
Lee felt sorry that he had ever doubted Cotford. “He was running from your third person.”
“Exactly! He must have been a very strong man, because he threw our unknown second victim with great force against those crates. Those were not knife wounds that cut that woman’s head from her body. The jagged flesh on her neck can indicate only one thing. Her head was torn from her body by a pair of very powerful hands.”
Lee was shocked. “Come now, Inspector. You stated a moment ago that the crates could not be smashed by the force of a human body against them. As for tearing off a head, what man could perform such an act?”
“Evidence does not lie. What we cannot readily explain, we dare not dismiss. In my experience, Sergeant Lee, an enraged madman can have the strength of ten men. I once chased such a lunatic.”
Cotford turned and walked down another alleyway toward the embankment. Lee followed. Cotford stopped and picked up a small, shiny object. He tossed it to Lee. It was a brass button, with the engraved monogram: W&S.
“Wallingham and Sons,” Lee said.
“Aye, one of the finest tailors in London.”
There was fresh blood on the button.
“Our second victim was a man of means,” Cotford said.
Lee stared at the button. “How did you know to look down this part of the alley?”
“You saw me spinning the wood on the ground earlier. A running man stepping on that wood would cause it to spin like a top on the uneven cobbles. The bloody footprint led Huntley to surmise that his s
uspect headed toward Temple Bar. Huntley was misled. The footprint is pointing in the wrong direction—and it belongs to our second victim. He was not running from his crime. He was running from the third person in the alley, and the chase ended here.”
Cotford knelt down again, dipped his finger into one of the many small droplets of blood on the cobbles, and displayed it for Lee. “I need you to do me another favor, Sergeant. I need you to report to me exactly what is written in the police surgeon’s report.”
Lee hesitated, another breach of protocol. But he knew the old bloodhound had found the true scent. “Whatever you need, sir.”
Cotford nodded and headed back toward the fog.
Lee said, “There is not a great deal of blood here, Inspector. We might have a living witness.”
“Highly unlikely,” Cotford said. “There are no other bloody footprints past this point. Our second victim did not walk out of this alley.” He bowed his head. “I fear, Sergeant, come morning light, you will be calling Inspector Huntley to a new murder scene. God help us all.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
Kate Reed loathed mornings in London. The streets were a chaotic mass of pedestrians hurrying to work. The idea of being stuffed like a sardine in a can into the Underground tube train was repulsive. She was uncomfortable with the thought of all those strange people pressing against her body. Kate woke up before her husband and roused her children while darkness still filled the sky. She was desperate to finish her errands and be home before the suffocating rush-hour started.
Dragging a perambulator and with her young son, Matthew, in tow, Kate struggled up the steps at Piccadilly tube station. A few people were out and about, but not one offered to assist her with the heavy pram. Chivalry was dead. Coming to Piccadilly Circus depressed her; in recent years, it had fallen from grace. Two years previously, a beer company had installed a large advertisement, illuminated by dozens of incandescent lightbulbs. The advertising marred the beautiful architecture of the buildings around it. Now that Kate had young, impressionable children, she had become something of an activist, one of thousands who had lobbied to have it removed. Many argued that a single sign was harmless, but Kate knew if one company was permitted to peddle its wares here, others would follow. This sign illuminated the street at night, attracting a depraved crowd. Piccadilly had originally been designed to resemble an elegant Parisian boulevard, but it was soon to become too closely associated with the theatre district. The vulgar side of town. The beer sign was just further proof of its slide.