Legacy of the Ripper

by kindels

  A 'not guilty by reason of insanity' plea was rejected by the judge, who directed the jury to disregard any such option when arriving at their verdict. Jack Reid, although apparently having no knowledge of his actions at the time he'd committed the slayings, was sufficiently aware of his crimes that he did all he could to cover up the murders after committing each of the killings. He said, and the psychiatrists who examined him believed him sufficiently to accept this, that he'd woken as if from a dream at each of the death scenes, and, knowing that he must be the one responsible for the scenes of mayhem he encountered, and not wanting to be caught and punished he therefore did his best to evade the due process of law. At other times he contradicted this story, saying that he didn't kill the girls, that someone else was responsible, which is where the most elaborate and unbelievable part of his story came in, and which we will focus on quite soon. This illogical and a times pitiful changing from one story to another probably helped the judge to decide there was enough evidence regarding the accused mental state that a conviction could be made on the grounds stated by the prosecution counsel, and the jury agreed.

  How could a man commit such crimes and yet have no knowledge of them, while at the same time take all reasonable steps to avoid apprehension and prosecution? Something about the case of Jack Reid caused sufficient consternation for him to be committed to Ravenswood, the most secure and technologically modern hospital of its kind in the United Kingdom. It was hoped the medical staff here would be able to get to the bottom of this strange and chilling case, and that of course is where I entered the picture.

  The Director of Medical Services at Ravenswood, Doctor Andrew Pike, solicited my services with a well-timed approach some weeks before my first meeting with Jack. I'd grown tired of my post at a leading London teaching hospital and was ready for a new challenge. When a friend of mine who'd been privy to one of my long and boring lectures over lunch on the need for a change of career direction met Pike at a psychiatric conference a few days after I'd shot my mouth off, and Pike had told him of the impending retirement of his senior consultant, Paul suggested that Pike speak to me about the vacancy. After a telephone call from the Director, and an interview that was little more than a social meeting between the two of us, Pike offered me the position and I, flattered by the confidence he apparently had in my abilities, graciously accepted my new role. I really felt that I could make a difference, and perhaps bring a new dimension to the treatment of what at one time would have been described as the 'criminally insane' although such phrases are frowned upon in these enlightened times.

  It took me only a couple of weeks to make the necessary arrangements for my move to Ravenswood, and to find a beautiful country cottage to rent a mere five miles from the facility. I left my flat in London in the hands of an agent to handle the task of renting it out for me, ensuring that the property would at least be occupied, and the sum of money I received each month would more than cover the rent on my picturesque cottage in the beautiful village of Langley Mead. My employers at the hospital were reluctant to accept my resignation, but there was nothing they could do to prevent me taking up my new post, and thus I found myself within the walls of Ravenswood far sooner than I I'd thought possible.

  It was April, and the tulips and daffodils were in full bloom in the flower bed positioned just outside the large picture window of my office on the ground floor of Pavlov wing, named in honour of Ivan Pavlov, to whom we owe much by way of our knowledge of modern-day behavioural psychology. A veritable plethora of colours, vibrant reds and yellows, tinged with a few pastel shades of pink and off-white gave the little flower bed the appearance of being awash with far more blooms than were actually planted within it. The illusion created by nature wasn't lost on my logical mind. If the very plants that spring from the earth can cause us to doubt the reality of a situation, then how much cleverer are those whose minds have developed the most warped and misleading codes of ethics, and who would do all in their power to mislead and misdirect those of us who seek to understand them? The irony of the situation was that, although the flowers were free to bend in the breeze and to soak up the life-giving rays of the sun that gave them sustenance, my new patients were, like me, locked securely within the structures that comprise the hospital, away from the sunlight, in safe and secure isolation. Even the window to my office was fitted with bars in the inside, and alarmed to prevent unauthorised opening of the narrow ventilator slits at the top. Even on a hot and stifling day, the window itself didn't open. Those of us incarcerated with our patients within those walls had to count on the air conditioning to maintain a comfortable environment. It is with those strictures in mind that it is, I suppose, possible to be envious of a tulip.

  My new secretary Tess Barnes entered my office, smiled a good morning greeting and placed a large pile of patient folders in my in-tray. She paused for a moment before leaving me and as I looked up I could see he was eager to speak.

  "Yes, Tess, what is it? If you have something to say please get used to the fact that I'm not an ogre of any sort of description. Feel free to talk to me any time you like."

  "I'm sorry, Doctor Truman," she replied. "I wasn't sure how busy you are. It's just that Doctor Roper asked me to ensure that you looked at the file on the top of that pile. He thinks, with respect, that you might want to take personal charge of that particular patient."

  "Okay, Tess, that's no problem. I'll look at it straight away if he thinks it so important."

  "Thank you, Doctor," she said, and with that she turned on her heel and left my office, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Alone once more, I reached out to the in-tray and picked up the file designated as of special interest to me by Doctor Roper, who I remembered meeting a couple of times in the previous two days. He seemed a pleasant and affable man, and gave off an air of confidence and calm reassurance, the perfect demeanour for a psychiatrist. Wondering what he thought was so important about the file that he'd asked my secretary to specifically direct me to it, I placed the beige folder on my desk and looked at the name on the cover of the patient file before me. There, in a neat and ordered handwriting were written just three words.

  The file was that of Jack Thomas Reid!

  Chapter 2

  In the Beginning

  Reading the file that had been left so invitingly upon my desk, I soon found myself drawn into the life of the young man whose future treatment, and to some extent, his life from now on had effectively been placed in my hands

  Jack Reid had been born to doting parents in the year nineteen ninety six. Tom and Jennifer Reid were what could perhaps be termed an 'average' middle-class couple, with the husband being a respected if a little eccentrically minded computer engineer. Tom Reid worked for a company that specialised in the production of state-of-the-art military hardware for the British Armed Forces.

  Young Jack had lived a relatively happy and conventional childhood, though by the age of ten he had developed a marked and quite disturbing preoccupation with the sight of blood. His parents, understandably disturbed by their son's rather macabre interest, took him to a number of different child psychologists and psychiatrists. Tom's own cousin Robert, the boy's official second-cousin, but always referred to as 'uncle', had been a psychiatrist until his death from the effects of a brain tumour in nineteen ninety eight, and though Jack had been too young to know his uncle at the time of his death, Tom had always held hopes that his son might follow either in the footsteps of himself or his late brother. The manifestations of his young son's mind seemed to preclude the second possibility however, as Tom realised that something far from normal was taking place within the cognitive sections of his son's brain. Far from ever becoming a psychiatrist, it looked as if Jack could well find himself permanently under the care of one.

  That being said, both Tom and Jennifer Reid loved their son dearly and no expense was spared in their choice of the physicians they selected to try and elicit the best care and potential cure for Jack's odd predi
lections. Though initially they'd relied on the resources of their own G.P. and the local NHS hospital to care for their son, it soon became clear to them that the overstretched resources of the National Health Service would never provide either short or long term relief for their son's condition, nor would the ministrations of a general practitioner with limited knowledge of psychiatric disorders. They made the expensive decision to seek private care for Jack.

  Thankfully, Tom's job with Beaumont Industries provided them with a more than adequate income, and though the family's finances were at times stretched to breaking point, Jack was soon under the care of both a child psychologist, a Doctor Simon Guest, and a psychiatrist, Doctor Faye Roebuck. Between them the two noble members of my profession did their best for the young boy. Both concluded that Jack suffered from a personality disorder, but one which, with treatment, could be controlled and eventually eradicated. Their methods differed, of course, as befitted their different fields of medicine. As a psychiatrist, Doctor Roebuck had tried to work her way into the mind of young Jack, and attempted to control his urges by placing him a regime of medications that she hoped would temper his unusual desires and feelings. Doctor Guest, on the other hand, tried simply to identify anything in the boy's background or home life and upbringing that might have led him to his unusual fixations. He spent hours talking to Jack and his parents and despite finding little to suggest that anything in his environment had caused Jack's aberrant behaviour, tried to instil a new and regimented system of life upon the young man in the hope that continuity and stability in his daily life could be used as a tool to regulate and control Jack's feelings, to clarify things in his young mind, and slowly bring about a change in his mental attitudes resulting in a healthier and more rational outlook by the boy.

  Years of treatment followed, and appeared to have been successful when at the age of fourteen Jack was considered well enough to leave the special school to which he'd been allocated after the incident at his junior school, once more to enter the world of regular education, this time at the local Comprehensive school where he settled in nicely and with no further incidents of violence. Jack seemed happy and well-adjusted, and his doctors, and more especially his parents, breathed a sigh of relief.

  The teenaged Jack was a popular boy, and his circle of friends thought highly of him. He was academically bright and excelled on the sports field, being a capable footballer and an excellent wicket-keeper and batsman on the cricket pitch. Indeed, so adept was he at the game of cricket that he was selected for the local county schools association team, playing in competitions with other county associations. Jack eventually left school with a clutch of GCSE examination passes to his name, and moved onto the local college, where he began a course in graphic design, hoping to qualify and become a book illustrator. Halfway through his first year at college however his focus changed and without warning he gave up his studies and found himself a job as a trainee nurse at his local hospital.

  His parents were at first horrified at the thought that his close proximity to the sick and infirm, and more especially to his being exposed to almost daily exposure to those suffering from open, bleeding wounds, might bring about a recurrence of his earlier problems. Jack was able to mollify them, however, when he explained that one of his friends from college, a young woman no less, had also begun the self-same nursing course. As Jack put it to his parents, he had already received enough treatment from the health services and, as a qualified nurse, he would be able to give something back to the system that had helped cure him of his earlier childhood affliction.

  His mother was quite delighted to think that her son had become so responsible and mature in his outlook on life, but his father proved a little more sceptical about the whole affair and decided to reserve judgement on his son's sudden change of career path. Hindsight would apparently prove his reservations to be well-founded.

  Initially, though, all appeared well and Jack was a diligent student, attentive to his teachers and scrupulous in his studies. All of his written work was handed in on time and his 'hands-on' practical work under supervision on the wards was reported as being exemplary. In his first six months, Jack Reid earned a reputation as a model student, and his nurse tutors reported in writing that he would, in time, become an excellent and valued member of the nursing profession.

  As his eighteenth birthday approached Jack presented himself for his first official assessment of his training. After receiving a glowing report from all of his tutors he returned home that evening to inform his parents that he was considered to be one of the top two students on his course. His mother and father were elated at the news and agreed that at last they could feel a real sense of pride in their son's achievements. Even his previously sceptical father felt sufficiently pleased to crack open a bottle of his very best Chablis, which the small family of three consumed with delight over dinner that evening.

  Over dinner his mother tried to draw him to speak on the subject of the girl who'd enticed him to join her in the nursing fraternity. Jennifer thought that if perhaps a relationship was developing between Jack and the girl, she might consider inviting her son's new friend, his first girlfriend as she put it, to dinner one evening. Jack, however, had totally rebuffed any questions from his mother on the subject. Apart from telling his parents that the girl's name was Anna, that she was nowhere near as clever as he was and not worth investing any more of his time in her, she became a closed subject. Jennifer Reid was disappointed, believing that if her son could achieve some sort of normal relationship with a member of the opposite sex, it would be another step towards his total rehabilitation from his earlier, juvenile problems. Perhaps, in the light of events that were soon to follow, Jack's failure to cement any sort of relationship with Anna, who would later testify at his trial, was a blessing in disguise.

  Two weeks after that first assessment Jack reached his eighteenth birthday. His parents had asked if he would like to invite any of his friends or fellow students to a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant, but Jack declined the offer. A meal with his parents would be enough, so he informed them. Sadly, his parents, tutors, and fellow students had failed to recognise the gradually expanding bubble of isolation in which Jack was cocooning himself. Something had occurred within his mind that saw him withdraw more and more into himself, and though his studies hadn't become affected, the once gregarious and popular student began to shut himself off from those around him.

  Later, statements from his parents would confirm that the evening of Jack's eighteenth birthday was perhaps the last really happy occasion they enjoyed together as a family. Though not particularly talkative, Jack had been in a fairly bright and happy frame of mind and grateful to his parents for the gold watch they'd bought for him to celebrate his birthday. The back of the watch had been engraved with the words, To Jack T Reid with much love on your eighteenth birthday, Mum and Dad. Jack loved it, and the evening of his birthday meal passed off amicably and with much good humour in the Reid household. No-one could have foreseen what lay ahead, just beyond time's immediate horizon.

  For now though all was well, at least on the surface, and it wasn't until the Reids received notification through Tom's late cousin's solicitor that a package was being held in trust for their son, to be given to him after he'd reached his eighteenth birthday, that events escalated towards the calamity that awaited the family.

  From the day the family visited the solicitor and the package was placed in the hands of their son, no-one's lives would ever be the same again. A seed had been planted that was about to bear fruit, and for Jack Thomas Reid, the ripening of that seed would prove to be the harbinger of his own downfall, and the precursor to murder. The storm was about to be unleashed!

  Chapter 3

  A Link to the Past?

  I should perhaps point out at this juncture of my tale that Jack's parents were not with him when their son read the contents of the package bequeathed to him by his late uncle. Whatever was contained within the file of pa
pers handed over to him remained in his possession. His father testified at Jack's trial that he had no idea what his brother had left in trust for Jack, denying any knowledge of what Jack claimed in his defence it contained, therefore having no reason to give that could have caused such a sudden change in his demeanour and behaviour.

  Tom Reid went on to describe how, on the night he received his legacy, Jack retired to his room at about nine p.m. and Tom and Jennifer weren't to see him again until he arrived in the kitchen for breakfast at about nine the following morning. He was scheduled to work on one of the hospital wards from two p.m. that day, but told his parents he was feeling unwell, and phoned in sick. His 'sickness' continued for another two days, after which the Reids noticed a dramatic change in their son's character. Almost overnight, Jack had become a morose and sorrowful character, and he appeared as though he was carrying the weight of the world, or at least some great burden on his shoulders. When pressed by his parents to talk about the reasons for his melancholic state of mind he refused to discuss the matter. Presuming it may have some connection to the papers left to Jack by his Uncle Robert, Tom and Jennifer did their best to find out from their son what had been contained in the package he'd received. All that Jack Reid said in reply to their inquiries was "It was something and nothing."

  Tom Reid even went so far as to telephone Sarah Cavendish, Robert's widow, to try to ascertain what had been contained in the bundle of papers. Sarah told Tom that she knew of the package and its existence, but Robert had kept it securely locked in his safe and she'd never seen the contents. She did say that she suspected it contained something which had disturbed and upset him at one time, but thought that whatever it was could hardly be a contributing factor in young Jack's current morose and sullen mood. She went on to say that shortly before his death Robert had lodged the package with his solicitor and that was about all she knew. She hadn't even known that he'd left it to young Jack, and reiterated her belief that a few pages of paper couldn't possibly be the cause of such a change in the young man. Tom and Jennifer thought otherwise, but failed to press home their doubts to Sarah. As later events overtook the family, even Robert Cavendish's solicitor would be forced to admit that he had no idea of the contents of the package.