Mayhem

by Sarah Pinborough

  4. In all cases there appears to be no evidence of struggling and the attacks were probably so sudden and made in such a position that the women could neither resist nor cry out. In the Dorset St. case the corner of the sheet to the right of the woman’s head was much cut and saturated with blood, indicating that the face may have been covered with the sheet at the time of the attack.

  5. In the first four cases the murderer must have attacked from the right side of the victim. In the Dorset Street case, he must have attacked from the left, as there would be no room for him between the wall and the part of the bed on which the woman was lying. Again the blood had flowed down on the right side of the woman and spurted onto the wall.

  6. The murderer would not necessarily be splashed or deluged with blood, but his hands and arms must have been covered and parts of his clothing must certainly have been smeared with blood.

  7. The mutilations in each case excepting the Berners Street one were all of the same character and showed clearly that in all the murders the object was mutilation.

  8. In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.

  9. The instrument must have been a strong knife at least six inches long, very sharp, pointed at the top and about an inch in width. It may have been a clasp knife, a butcher’s knife or a surgeon’s knife, I think it was no doubt a straight knife.

  10. The murderer must have been a man of physical strength and of great coolness and daring. There is no evidence that he had an accomplice. He must in my opinion be a man subject to periodical attacks of Homicidal and erotic mania. The character of the mutilations, indicate that the man may be in a condition sexually, that may be called Satyriasis. It is of course possible that the Homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease but I do not think either hypothesis is likely. The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet inoffensive looking man probably middle-aged and neatly and respectably dressed. I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly have escaped notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible.

  11. Assuming the murderer to be such a person as I have just described, he would be solitary and eccentric in his habits, also he is most likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension. He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits and who may have grounds for suspicion that he isn’t quite right in the mind at times. Such persons would probably be unwilling to communicate suspicions to the police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if there were prospect of reward it might overcome their scruples.

  Dr. Thomas Bond

  18

  MURDER.—PARDON.—Whereas on November 8 or 9, in Miller’s Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields, Mary Janet [sic] Kelly was murdered by some person or persons unknown: the Secretary of State will advise the grant of Her Majesty’s gracious pardon to any accomplice, not being a person who contrived or actually committed the murder, who shall give such information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the person or persons who committed the murder.

  CHARLES WARREN, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis

  Metropolitan Police Office, 4 Whitehall Place, S.W., Nov 10, 1888

  * * *

  From Queen Victoria to the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews:

  The Queen fears that the detective department is not so efficient as it might be.

  No doubt the recent murders in Whitechapel were committed in circumstances which made detection very difficult; still, the Queen thinks that, in the small area where these horrible crimes have been perpetrated a great number of detectives might be employed and that every possible suggestion might be carefully examined, and, if practicable, followed.

  Have the cattle boats and passenger boats been examined?

  Has any investigation been made as to the number of single men occupying rooms to themselves?

  The murderer’s clothes must be saturated with blood and kept somewhere.

  Is there sufficient surveillance at night?

  These are some of the questions that occur to the Queen on reading the accounts of these horrible crimes.

  19

  London. November, 1888

  Inspector Moore

  Inspector Moore pulled on his overcoat and joined Inspector Andrews in the busy throng outside his office. Another day over, and still no end in sight.

  ‘Let’s get out of here before some bastard pulls us back in,’ he said. ‘I’ve already been here an hour longer than I should have and I do not see tomorrow being any less chaotic.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Andrews said, carving a path for them through the corridor towards the main entrance. ‘Abberline’s got orders to question anyone who appeared at all suspicious during the house-to-house last month.’

  ‘Suspicious? In Whitechapel?’ Moore snorted. ‘We’ll be here till hell freezes over.’

  ‘O’Brien’s already back out. He should have gone home.’

  ‘What about the man he brought in?’ Moore asked, standing aside to allow past a beleaguered constable dragging a scruffy man with several teeth missing behind him; the man was loudly protesting his lispy innocence. ‘Did they get him to hospital?’

  ‘Yes – he was lucky though. That mob would have beaten him to death in another few minutes.’

  ‘They were all lucky they were so close to the station.’ Moore nodded goodnight to the officer manning the entrance desk, but he was too focused on his paperwork to notice. They were all too busy for polite formalities this week. ‘Mobs don’t think straight.’

  He pulled open the door and they stepped out into the street. Night had fallen heavily and the air was bitter, but the street was still busy. Wives, mothers and sisters were waiting for their menfolk to be released, and several constables had been charged with keeping the entrance to the building clear so the inspectors could get in and out freely without being further assaulted, either verbally or physically. Sometimes Moore felt as if the public thought the police knew who Jack was, and were wilfully not sharing the information, just to terrify the people of Whitechapel some more.

  ‘What kind of fool claims to be Jack in the middle of a crowd? It’s beyond comprehension.’

  ‘A fool or a madman.’ Moore lit his pipe. ‘Or both.’ He looked across at Andrews. ‘You can’t fathom those minds, so don’t try. For my own part, I’m too tired to remember my own name, let alone all those I’ve questioned today. I’ll sleep like the dead tonight.’

  ‘Ah, there he is.’ Andrews gestured at a man climbing down from a hansom cab.

  ‘Dr Bond?’ Moore frowned. ‘Don’t tell me there’s been another.’

  ‘No, I’m dining with him. If there’s any man who can fathom those minds, I believe it’s the good doctor.’

  ‘You may well be right. His report made for interesting reading.’ He raised his hand in a hello as the doctor made his way towards them. ‘Apart from that shit about the killer having no medical skills – but we can forgive him that defence of his profession, I think.’

  ‘He works hard,’ Andrews said, ‘as hard as we do. I think it’s taking it’s toll.’

  Moore studied the doctor as he joined them. Andrews was right: Thomas Bond looked thinner and older than he had at the beginning of the year – but then, no doubt they all did. It had been one of those years. No, he corrected himself, not one of those years. There hadn’t been a year like this before, not during his time with the Force, he was sure of that. This year was something altogether different.

  ‘I’ve kept the cab waiting,’ Bond said. ‘It’s too miserable a night to walk and I fear I’d like to be out of this area with some speed. It feels too much like
work, if you understand me.’

  ‘Oh, we do,’ Moore said. ‘Enjoy your dinner, gentlemen. I shall see you tomorrow, Andrews – maybe at some point we’ll be able to do some work on our own case.’

  He was about to head down the steps when the doors flew open behind them and a scruffy, wide-eyed man was thrown out into the street.

  ‘Go home!’ a constable – Brown, Moore thought his name was – growled. ‘We’ve done with you for the day. What’s the matter with you?’

  The young man was thin, and although not overly poorly dressed, he was unwashed, even by the standards of this dire area of London, and odours both stale and fresh carried from him to the clutch of men, who’d stepped backwards automatically.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ the man said. His accent was thick, Polish, perhaps, as so many in the poorer parts of the city were. ‘It won’t be the man you need to see, it will be what’s behind him – it’s hiding behind him! In his shadow! Don’t you understand? I’ve seen – in my dreams. The water. The Upir.’ He said the last word softly and shuddered slightly, scratching at himself as if trying to wipe something away.

  A madman, Moore concluded. The streets were filled with them. The Pole stumbled off, still muttering to himself. No one went near him, and Moore didn’t blame them.

  ‘Everything all right, constable?’ he asked.

  The man in the doorway nodded. ‘Lunatic. And he stinks.’

  ‘Who was that man?’ Bond asked. Moore wasn’t sure if it was simply the effect of the light pouring from the open doorway, but the doctor appeared to have paled.

  ‘No one for you to worry about, sir,’ the constable said.

  ‘But what was his name? Do you know his name?’

  ‘Of course: he’s just been interviewed. A waste of time, given that drivel he was spouting. Kosminski, Aaron. A hairdresser – or was, when he last worked, which hasn’t been in a fair while. Lives with his sister, poor woman.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Andrews asked.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Bond murmured. ‘He just looked familiar, that’s all.’

  ‘Have you treated him at some time, perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe that’s it – where does he live?’

  The constable pulled a small notebook from his pocket and scanned the page. ‘Greenfield Street, sir.’

  ‘You know him?’ Moore said. He was tired, but if this was something that might lead them somewhere he’d be back in the station like a shot.

  ‘No,’ Bond said, after a moment. ‘No, I must have been mistaken.’

  ‘There can’t be too many around like that,’ Andrews said.

  ‘You’d be surprised. From my experience in the Westminster I can guarantee you that destitution, illness and madness are three who are very happy in each other’s company.’ He smiled, a flash of expression beneath his moustaches. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Andrews answered.

  ‘Goodnight, Inspector Moore, and I hope you sleep better than I have been of late.’

  ‘Oh, I will, Doctor. A brandy or two will see to that.’

  He watched the two men climbing back into the cab. The doctor was tired and slightly on edge – it didn’t take a detective to see that. Moore hoped it would pass. They needed Dr Bond – if he was going to have some kind of nervous collapse, then he needed to wait until all this was over.

  PART TWO

  20

  Venice. Christmas Day, 1884

  James Harrington’s Diary

  It must be said that I have rarely seen so much beauty in one place as I have in Venice. Even in the crisp cold, which I’m told is rare for this part of Italy, there is something magical about the watery city. Although Edward Kane, my new friend and drinking companion, might say that my excitement was more to do with the wine and good food we’ve enjoyed rather than anything the sinking city has to offer. Perhaps he would be partly right; he does, after all, have a very different way of looking at the world.

  Tonight, after all the other guests had drifted away to their beds, we lay on the couches in the library and talked until we were almost sober. Once more, I have to say how glad I am to have met Edward. Like the other Americans, he is so full of energy. He also has that enviable confidence that comes from being exceptionally wealthy – new money, of course, like my father’s own, but earned in far greater sums from the railroads of America.

  ‘You won’t find me in an office, though, Jim, when you come to visit, which you will and I won’t hear an argument against it,’ he said, his feet up over the antique arm of the chaise. ‘I’ll be in an artist’s studio, painting the finest female forms New York can provide. Naked.’

  I laughed along with him, my head still buzzing pleasantly. He fitted so well with the group of artists and poets who had gathered for the festivities in the Palazzo Barbaro. They fascinated me, but I still felt stiff around them – too English. They laughed freely. They were warm. There was no over-politeness to be observed. If I was honest, they reminded me of her. I had been so absorbed in my travels so far that as much as I had vowed not to have her out of my mind for a single second, that had proved not to be the case. My parents had been right: the world was vast, and there were many distractions in it. The further I had travelled into Europe the more she faded, even as I had been determined to cling to her, but now I was here, in this strange enclave of wealth and libertarianism, she was back in my thoughts.

  ‘It was a girl, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘It was a girl with me – several of them.’

  I laughed again at that. My natural reserve eased around Edward; though I still felt middle-aged around him and his set, I was slowly relaxing with them.

  ‘Come on, it’s always a girl – or some kind of trouble. The “grand tour” is no longer the done thing. It’s too easy.’

  ‘It was a girl,’ I admitted.

  ‘In trouble, was she?’ He sat up and poured us more wine.

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ My face flushed. I imagined that Edward had left many girls in trouble in his wake. ‘But I loved her.’ And I had, truly. However much my travels had gripped my imagination, and made London seem so far away, I knew that what I had felt – what I am sure I probably still felt – was real.

  ‘Love, eh?’ He frowned, and then smiled in triumph. ‘Ah, the wrong sort of girl!’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘No wonder your parents sent you away,’ he snorted from behind his wine glass. ‘Love is a dangerous emotion in the young. They want it beaten out of us so we can be as cold and dead as they are.’

  For the first time I saw something other than good humour in his eyes and I wondered at his upbringing. Had it been particularly hard for him? Was that why he was so wild now?

  ‘I do believe that my parents love each other,’ I said, ‘in their own way. They just want … well, I suppose they just want the best for me. My studies were going badly, and then they found out about …’ Now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. ‘They thought this would be a good idea for me. I was ready to start in the family business and they said no, they wanted me to see more of the world before I limited myself to one aspect of it.’ As I listened to my own words, I felt quite ashamed at some of the darker thoughts I had had towards them in the early days of their discovery of my secret, and as I had set off for Calais. They were good people. They were kind. They probably would fit much better into this artistic Venetian palace than I did.

  ‘Then I apologise,’ Edward said, and raised his glass. ‘To your family. To kind hearts.’

  We sat in silence for a while, both tired, him drunk and me definitely merry, and both lost in our own thoughts, no doubt of people far away. I thought of my bed a few floors up, but could not muster the energy to find it. It was the end of Christmas day, and it had been a fine one. Despite my thoughts of home, my heart was content.

  ‘Of course,’ Edward said, laying back once more on the chaise, and staring up the painted ceiling far above us, ‘you have seen nothing thus far on
your trip, nothing of any real import.’

  I sat up, my tiredness forgotten, and immediately began to protest. I had seen Rome for one thing, and the remains of Pompeii – how could he—?

  ‘Enough, my friend!’ He held one hand up to silence my protest as he smiled. ‘Yes, of course you’ve seen beautiful things – the famous arts, the work of the Renaissance. Culture, buildings, all built by dead men – all just relics. What of life, Jim? What of that?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, taking a long sip of my own wine. My head spun slightly, but I didn’t mind. I was glad of it. I wanted to be more like Edward. He had adventures. He had confidence. I wanted both of these things. I wanted his courage. ‘I’m here with you and all these glorious people. Surely that is life?’

  ‘We are like the arts, though. We are wealthy; our lives are easy. They are what we want them to be. I talk of painting beautiful women, and maybe I shall, but in my heart I know I’ll end up with a stiff collar, a sensible wife and working with my father in the railway business.’ He smiled. ‘Oh, I shall be comforted by my fortune, and I shall holiday in the finest places and live in a beautiful home, but will I live? Will I know the struggles of day-to-day existence? I doubt it, and that haunts me. That’s what I came to see. And that’s what you must see too.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Where were you planning to go next?’ he asked.