Chapter 27
‘They say John Neil could hardly blow his whistle.’ The middle-aged sergeant laughed with the phlegmatic, cynical cackle of an old hand who’d seen it all before. ‘Poor sod, his mouth went all dry and horrible with the shock of it.’
The inspector didn’t particularly like working with uniformed officers, but the sergeant – despite his over-familiar ways – was known to be a good man, if only he would show a little more respect for his superior.
‘I see from the notes,’ the inspector said, looking up quizzically from his desk, ‘that you thought there might be a link with another case.’
‘Seems to me as how it has similarities to that killing done at Easter-time,’ said the sergeant, then added as an afterthought: ‘sir.’
‘Easter-time?’ He frowned. ‘And which case would that be, sergeant?’
The sergeant didn’t conceal his contempt for the inspector: here he was, coming into the station and asking all sorts of time-wasting questions. If he was half the copper he should be, he’d have known all about that case, and any other relevant information, for that matter. ‘Easter Monday, it was.’
The inspector leaned back in the hard wooden chair, tipping it against the wall. ‘Emma Smith, you mean?’ he said, with a barely discernible raising of his eyebrow.
‘That’s the one,’ the sergeant said. Now it was his turn to frown. Perhaps he should show the inspector a bit more attention. ‘Emma Smith. Another brass.’
The inspector nodded. ‘What do you remember about it, sergeant? Anything special?’
‘I remember plenty about that one all right. Face all covered in gore, it was. Ear nearly ripped off her head. And…’ He looked down at his boots. The sergeant had seen a lot during his time in the force, but there were still certain things that even he found difficult to say, especially in front of young whipper-snappers like the inspector. ‘She’d had something shoved up… Well, you know where, sir.’
‘Dead when they found her?’
The sergeant was still studying his boots as though he was about to sit an examination in footwear. ‘No. Not dead. She died in the hospital next day. From the, er, wounds like.’
‘What were the ideas around at the time?’
‘As far as I recall it, sir,’ the sergeant ran his finger round the itchy wool of his uniform collar; he was feeling uncomfortably hot, ‘it was reckoned as how she probably got worked over by one of the bully gangs – for not bringing home enough at the end of her working day. If yer see what I mean.’
The inspector nodded again and picked up a pile of papers. As he did so, the sergeant flashed him a crafty look – he seemed to know a lot more than the sergeant had given him credit for.
‘Well, that’s what we all thought, sir. At the time like.’
The sergeant nibbled his lip surprisingly nervously and leaned forward. He went to rest his hands on the inspector’s desk, then thought better of it. He straightened up and stared at the wall as he said, ‘And there was, what’s her name, wasn’t there. Taylor? Taber?’ The sergeant paused, searching his memory for the name. ‘Tabram. That’s it, Tabram.’
‘Martha Tabram?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s right. Martha Tabram.’
Now the sergeant and the inspector had each other’s full attention.
‘Another bride, if I recall, sergeant. Murdered at the beginning of August. Correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Multiple puncture wounds.’
‘Yes.’ The sergeant looked the inspector full in the face. ‘And you think there might be a connection with her too?’
The inspector nodded at the older man.
‘Christ,’ said the sergeant. ‘What are we dealing with here?
Chapter 28
Bartholomew Tressing instructed the coachman to wait for him outside his club.
As he entered the smoking room he was greeted cheerily by a ruddy-faced man drinking his third after-dinner brandy. ‘How’s the work going, old man?’ he called, raising the big, almost empty balloon glass in salutation.
‘Progressing as ever, of course, Garner,’ said Tressing arrogantly. ‘My techniques are as near as damnit perfected.’
The inebriated Garner raised his glass yet again, and then rang the small handbell to summon one of the stewards. ‘You’ll be having all those rich ladies that you and Derringer are so fond of arguing over queuing for your services on the operating table, Tressing,’ he giggled drunkenly. Trying to save their addled bodies for their rich husbands.’
‘Never mind them,’ Tressing said edgily, bending forward and lowering his voice. ‘I hear rumours that someone in the club – you perhaps – has been bragging about the availability of certain young girls.’ He straightened up and looked down his nose. ‘Or has the brandy been making you fantasise again?’
Garner looked at Tressing as though he were off his head, but before he could answer to that effect, they were interrupted by the attendant answering the bell. Anticipating Garner’s orders for more drinks, the elderly servant set down a full decanter of brandy on the side-table, nodded his head in a little bow, and left the room. Tressing opened his mouth to speak, but he was immediately disturbed again, this time by another club member coming into the smoking room.
‘Tressing,’ he called, the picture of bonhomie, striding across the room with a great, lumbering stride. ‘Just the fellow. Need you for dinner. Wife wants a single chap to make up numbers.’
The rosy-faced interloper completely misinterpreted Bartholomew’s expression of anger for one of unwillingness to attend a tedious social engagement.
‘Bore, I know,’ he said, grinning like a fool. ‘But the ladies do like to have these little dinners. And one has to keep the wife happy, eh?’
As much as he wanted to shut the man’s stupid mouth with his fist, Tressing didn’t want to alarm Garner by bringing attention to himself. So Tressing braced himself to be polite.
‘So sorry, Jameson,’ he said briskly. ‘Can’t oblige, old man. I’m going away for a while. Down to the country. On my way there now, as a matter of fact.’
‘On the run, eh?’ Jameson guffawed. It turned his stomach to do so, but Tressing joined in ingratiatingly.
‘What’s that?’ Garner muttered. He’d finished his fourth brandy and was hurriedly pouring another. ‘Who’s on the run?
‘Where’ve you been, old chap? Everyone’s talking about it,’ said Jameson. ‘The murder. On Tressing’s patch, actually, near the London Hospital.’ He grinned amiably. ‘Expect that’s why Lillian wanted you to come to dinner. To give us all the latest gossip.’ He shook his head at the thought of displeasing his wife. ‘It’ll be a pity to disappoint her.’ Jameson watched Garner with admiration as he emptied yet another glassful, and then returned his attention to Tressing as he tried to get him at least talking about the murder. ‘No mortuary at the London, so I understand.’ He stated it as a fact, but he had only heard about it as part of the many rumours circulating about the events in Whitechapel: if he couldn’t get Tressing himself to the dinner, at least he’d have to make sure he had plenty of first-hand information for Lillian to show off to her guests. He hated upsetting her, the repercussions were always so very long-lasting. ‘So where do you actually put the er… the, you know, the corpses then?’
Bartholomew loathed the prissy manners of the non-medical man, but he remained civil in order to impress Garner with his self-control.
‘We manage,’ he said airily. ‘There are sufficient facilities adjoining the workhouse for our purposes.’
Jameson was clearly intrigued and eager for further tidbits with which to tantalise the potentially belligerent Lillian. ‘Rum do, this murder,’ he said. ‘Dissected, in some way, so they say. Could have been a surgeon, so the gossips have it. Fellow like you, perhaps, eh Tressing?’ Jameson laughed at his own joke.
Tressing gulped hard, doing his best to keep up the pretence, though his temper was bubbling very close to the surface.
&n
bsp; ‘Confounded fuss over a few whores, if you ask me,’ he muttered, flashing Jameson a broad and meaningless smile.
Chapter 29
‘I’ve got it all worked out. I’m going to stay calm, go down there and tell her. She’s got to let me move her. She can’t stay there, not since that business with poor Polly yesterday. Whitechapel’s not safe any more. And that’s all there is to it.’
‘And if she won’t move?’ Jacob was propped on one elbow, looking down at Ettie lying next to him, the white lace bedspread just covering her nakedness. Gently, he lifted her thick dark hair away from her face, and spread it out around her on the pillow. ‘You said she wouldn’t leave – Whitechapel or her lodger.’
‘Lodger!’ Ettie spat the word contemptuously. ‘I’ll find a way of making her let me get that bastard out of there if it’s the last thing I do.’ She rolled on to her back and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I mean it this time. I’m not scared any more. It’s too late for that. I’m determined to get her out.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
She twisted round till she was facing him. ‘You’ve changed your tune. You said you’d never go back there after all that business at New Year’s. You couldn’t wait to get away.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I appreciate it. Thanks. But I’d rather you didn’t. And anyway, you being there might make things awkward: you have to be from round there to understand the rules. There’s ways of doing things.’
‘Whatever you prefer,’ Jacob said neutrally.
‘I’ve decided to go there today,’ she said, and waited for his reaction. When he didn’t answer, Ettie lifted her head and kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back in time to perform for Miss Tressing.’ She held her arms up and let out a ghostly wail. ‘See? Perfect.’
Jacob dropped back on to the pillow and stretched out his arm for Ettie to rest her head on his chest. She nuzzled into him with an appreciative murmur. He was upset that she didn’t want him to go with her, but he didn’t question her, didn’t even mention it. He didn’t want to spoil their new-found closeness. He seemed to be staring up at the ceiling, but although his eyes were fixed on the ornate plaster cornice, he saw nothing. He’d begun to believe that Ettie was growing away from the East End at last – that’s what he’d thought and he’d been glad. But now he couldn’t help wondering if she planned to go and see Billy Bury, to ask him for the help that she thought he alone could give her. And Jacob knew that Maisie’s brother would help her only too gladly. Any man would – and that was another thing which concerned him. He wondered whether he should follow her at a distance, without her knowing, just to keep an eye on her and make sure that no one bothered her – particularly Billy Bury.
* * *
‘Please, Mum, I’m begging you. Let me get you a better place to live.’ Ettie could hardly breathe, the summer heat had made the stench in the cramped and filthy room almost unbearable. ‘You haven’t even got a proper bed any more. Look at you.’
‘I’m all right, darling.’ Sarah peered up through red-rimmed eyes at her daughter. She was stretched out under a pile of rags on the floor of the hovel that had once been Ettie’s home. ‘The bed got busted up one night, that’s all. When me lodger was a bit upset. We’d had a bit of a row and he got himself into a right two-and-eight.’ She licked at her parched lips. ‘I know yer mean well, but where would I belong but here with all me old mates?’
Even in the gloom, Ettie could see her mother’s condition had deteriorated. She looked even worse than Ettie had dared imagine. Her mother’s skin was parchment thin, stretched taut over her cheekbones, yet the rest of her once-strong body was now bloated and sagging.
‘Yer musn’t worry about yer old mum. There are some good girls round here. They’ll see me all right.’
‘But you never go out to see no one, Mum. I’ve asked Flo and Milly – and Ada – to look out for you, but they never see you. And you know they won’t come up here, because of him.’
‘Don’t start on that again. He ain’t going.’
‘Mum…’
‘Nothing’ll change me mind, Ett.’ Sarah groaned as she shifted under the pile of rags. ‘Listen to me – yer’ve stuck by yer old mum, even if I ain’t always treated yer right. I’ll never forget that.’ She took in a shallow, rasping breath. ‘I never meant none of them blokes to hurt yer, yer know. It’s how life is, that’s all. Yer had to learn about it sooner or later. And look at yer, it ain’t done yer no harm, has it?’ She made a sound that was halfway between a wheeze and a croaking laugh.
Ettie ignored what she knew was her mother’s plea for forgiveness – she would do what she could for her mother, but she didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive what she had allowed those men to do to her. She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. ‘That’s all in the past. Now, let’s get ourselves sorted out. I’m going to get someone round, some blokes, to get shot of that lodger or whatever he calls himself.’
‘No, Ett.’ Sarah’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘Don’t do that. Promise me. I don’t care what else yer do, but don’t do that, girl.’
‘Mum, look at me. If you’re scared, I can pay to have him got rid of for good, you know. I can get the money.’
‘Ettie. I said yer’ve got to promise me yer’ll leave it. Yer don’t know what yer messing with with that one. It’d take more than a couple of blokes to get rid of him, and then what’ll happen, eh? If he even knew yer was thinking about it, there’d be hell to pay.’
‘But, Mum.’
This time it was Sarah who ignored her daughter’s pleas. ‘It does me right proud to see how lovely yer’ve turned out. My little girl. Who’d have credited it how yer’d turn out, eh? Just look at yer. Yer like a proper picture.’
‘Look at you, you mean, Mum. You’re still lovely. And you always will be.’ Ettie was ashamed at the repulsion she felt as she took her mother’s hand. ‘Let me do something for you.’
‘Yer can take me down the Frying Pan for a few, if yer like. That old cow came for the rent yesterday morning, and I ain’t had a drop since. I ain’t got a brass farthing to me name. Not a pot. I ain’t even been able to get nothing off the bleed’n lodger – he’s been missing for the last couple of days, yer’ll be glad to hear. Never been gone this long before.’
Relieved at that piece of news at least, Ettie brightened up. ‘Come on then,’ she said, and carefully helped her mother to her feet. ‘Let’s go and have a few.’
As mother and daughter stepped out of the gloomy passage into the court, Sarah shaded her eyes and squinted in the bright sunshine.
‘Sod me, I hadn’t expected this. I ain’t been out for days.’
Ettie looked around the weed-strewn, dusty court and fondly squeezed her mother’s bony arm. ‘Weather like this reminds me of when I was little, remember, Mum? When you took me out on a picnic that time.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Sarah, sounding as though she was surprised by the recollection. ‘Up the Thames on a boat we went. Blimey, I ain’t thought about that for donkey’s years.’ She turned and looked at her daughter. ‘Yeah, some lovely times we had, when you was a nipper. Lovely.’ She cackled throatily. I wasn’t such a bad old mum, was I darling?’
Ettie didn’t answer, she was too busy trying to make out who was standing in the shadows of the archway at the far end of the court.
‘What’s the matter with you? Yer look like yer’ve been struck,’ gasped Sarah, trying to catch her breath after her fit of laughing.
‘Nothing, Mum. I thought it was someone I knew, that’s all.’ Ettie turned back to her mother and took her arm. She was shocked to see that, in daylight, her mother looked even more haggard than she’d realised. The rough linsey cloth covering her mother’s waif-like arm felt harsh against Ettie’s now softened skin. ‘If you won’t let me move you, you’ll have to let me get some new gear for you, Mum. A frock and some drawers and that. How’d you like that?’
‘Handsome,’ said Sarah, her face brightenin
g. ‘But there’s no need to go to no bother. Give us the sponduliks and I’ll get something off the barrow meself.’
‘I’m not daft, Mum. The only thing you’d buy yourself if I gave you the money is too much gin.’
Sarah chuckled. ‘Yer old mum can’t fool you, can she, sweetheart?’
‘God love us and save us, if it’s not Sarah Wilkins.’ The landlord of the Frying Pan stood with his hands on his hips and goggled as though he’d seen a ghost. ‘I thought you were dead, girl.’
‘As yer can see, Patrick, I ain’t,’ Sarah called over her shoulder, and flicked feebly at her skirts, executing a sad parody of her old saucy walk as she crossed to her once regular table in the corner of the pub.
Ettie responded to the landlord’s amazed look with a roll of her eyes and a helpless shrug. ‘Two gins, Patrick. Drop of water in mine. I intend getting home tonight.’
‘All right, my darling, coming up.’
‘Maisie not in yet, Pat?’ asked Ettie, nodding and smiling across to the regulars at the bar.
‘Not seen her this afternoon.’
‘Tell her I was asking after her and Billy,’ Ettie said, and took the drinks from him.
The sight of her well-to-do daughter in attendance quickly attracted a group of women, who huddled round Sarah’s table, hoping that they might share in her good fortune and get themselves treated to a few. Ettie was pleased to oblige, and bought them several rounds, glad that in that way at least she could make her mother happy.
All the talk was of Polly Nichols and whether the killer had been the same one who had done for two other brides in the area. The women were alternately scared and full of bravado, their theories about the killer’s identity growing wilder as the gin glasses were refilled yet again.
The Whitechapel Girl Page 31