by Andy Conway
Two murders in two nights. Both since he’d arrived, and in the same area. She’d only arrived yesterday, following Tom on the train, but Bury had gone up a day ahead. To survey the battleground, he’d said. Has to be planned, he’d said. Need to know the area, so you’re one step ahead, he’d said.
She clutched her throat.
He wouldn’t have done that, surely? He was English. But she’d seen his flashes of violence. She’d seen the knife he carried in his trouser pocket. The razor he sharpened with a strange reverence. And he’d crept out of the room late on. She’d heard him go. He’d come back some time during the night but she had no idea when, having fallen into a slumber.
She dug into the inner pocket of his jacket again and took out the two rings, placing them right next to the candle’s flame, peering at the inner band, hoping to see an inscription. But there was nothing written in either. One of the rings was covered in dirt. Not exactly grime that had accumulated over time. Something recent, something that had splashed it and stuck. Dark and... was it red?
She gagged. Dropped them.
She had to run. How soon would he come back?
If she ran now, he would know she suspected him of killing those women. He would come after her. She had to make him think it was something else.
The ticket. Let him think that.
She picked the rings up again and shoved them into the tiny hip pocket of her jacket. Even though it was a cheap room above a beer house, the owner had put on enough airs and graces to dress the room up and provide paper and a pot of ink. She snatched up a sheet of paper.
She dipped the pen and wrote:
I know that you have lost the ticket. I went through your pockets. It has all gone wrong. You let me down. You are no use to any woman. Nor man for that matter. I am back to London. Don’t think to look for me. There is no more between us. If I see you coming I shall tell all.
No. He might think she meant the murders. She added:
— about the pawn ticket, like I warned you I would and signed it Catch me when you can.
She took the handful of coins he’d left on the dresser. She had her return ticket. She needed nothing else. Everything she had she was standing in.
She left the room, crept down the stairs, keeping to the shadows, slowly, in case he was returning. Through the throng of men and women drinking, none of whom noticed her, and out the door into the night.
He wasn’t in the street. He had gone. She turned north. She could see the tower of Christ Church on the horizon, even the great glass roof of New Street Station. She set off walking down the dark road.
He would come to Whitechapel, of course, and if he wandered the streets long enough he would find her. But she reckoned she could avoid him for a month or two, by which time she had a ruse that would throw him off the scent.
John had talked about going hop picking in Kent. There was money to be made this harvest. We’ll get out of London, Katie, and breathe fresh air and work in the sun and make some money, he’d said to her again and again. Well she’d go right back and say John, darling, you’re right about Kent. Let’s go. Let’s go as soon as the harvest starts, my love. And while they were in Kent picking hops, Bury would be scouring Whitechapel for her. Another month of that, without finding a trace of her, and by the time she came back from Kent he’d have long given up.
Besides, she could do what Tom had done. Change her name. It was easy enough to give a false name in a doss house. She’d take John’s name, Kelly. Bury wouldn’t be looking for no Katie Kelly.
She laughed at an evil thought. She could use John’s ex-wife’s name. If anyone asked her who she was, like the police or anyone, she’d say she was Mary Ann Kelly.
Her laughter echoed off the houses of the narrow, dimly lit street, and the sound of it spooked her. She quickened her pace, desperate to put as much space between her and Bury as she could. She had enough in her pocket to get a bed for the night and she thought wildly of taking a room in one of the temperance hotels in Birmingham. There were a few. She always noticed them on account of Tom. The last place in the whole of Birmingham that Bury would think to look for her would be a temperance hotel. She could kip there easily for the night and slip out on the first train back to London in the morning.
No. Best get out of this place tonight.
She choked back a sob of frustration and fear. All was lost. Her grand plan to get the money had crashed on the rocks of William Bury. All for the sake of a lost pawn ticket. She tried to cheer herself up. There would be other ways of making money. Hop picking was a start. Things would work out in the end, surely? It couldn’t be this endless round of drink and sleeping rough and no money. She had a couple of shillings to her name and could pawn the rings, but surely there was a brighter day ahead?
She sang a sweet old tune to cheer herself as she walked, passing the Freemasons’ Arms on Mary Street and headed for the glowering town in the distance.
32
AND THEN HE WAS IN the cell again. Or half in it. He saw it in flashes of consciousness, as if he were drifting in and out, constantly being snatched back into the depths of darkness.
He was screaming in the interrogation room, shaking violently, unable to control his body, and yet a strange sense of calm as if observing himself — a crazed lunatic shouting in horror at his paintings laid around the room.
Macpherson loomed over him, fist clenched, but he wasn’t punching him anymore, he was staring down in horror and fear. He was scared of whatever it was that Daniel was vomiting out of his mouth. A stream of screams. Nothing he could understand, even though he was the one doing the screaming.
Then he was staring over the shoulder of the killer in the dark square. It was Mitre Square. He knew it somehow. As if he had always known it. He was staring over the shoulder of the man who was cutting up Catherine Eddowes. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew that if he could, he would be looking at his own face.
They were carrying him down a dark corridor. Macpherson and Beadle and the constables. One on each limb. And he was still screaming. And he could hear Arthur yelling from one of the cells.
“What are you doing to him? Let him go at once!”
And as he stared over the shoulder of the man who was cutting up Catherine Eddowes’ body, he remembered the face of the other killer. The one with the beard. What had this to do with him? Why was he seeing him? He recognized him as a famous killer. Perhaps Daniel was the one who’d inspired him? For it was beyond doubt now that he was himself a famous killer.
He was on the bench in his cell and their faces clustered over him. A man with pince-nez and a stethoscope was listening to his beating heart. I have no heart, he thought. That’s the funny thing. There is nothing inside me. I am empty. I am the hollow man. And while he thought these things he was still raging. His other self. The other part of him that was screaming at the walls. Perhaps it was that other self who was the killer. Perhaps it was that other man inside him who had killed Lily Moore and Louisa Gill and would kill Catherine Eddowes in a place called Mitre Square. He knew no Mitre Square and yet it had the familiarity of an old tale — something he’d seen before, or read about — something he already knew, even though it hadn’t happened.
“I killed them!” he shouted. “I killed them all!”
And he knew it was that other man inside him who was shouting this, not he. But it was true. It must be true. That other man would know as well as anyone.
And Arthur was out now, standing just outside the cell, in the corridor, arguing with Inspector Beadle.
“I am his doctor and I have a right to examine him!”
And that woman was shouting again from the other end of the station. “Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling! I’m a fire engine!”
She must be crazy too.
They must have let Arthur go. Perhaps it was because it was obvious to everyone now that Daniel was the killer. He was confessing to it as they argued. Confessing to the murders in screams and shouts, spittle frothing a
t his mouth.
His visions. His paintings. His acute amnesia. All of it pointed to one thing: he was a murderous psychopath.
The man cutting up Catherine Eddowes fled across the square, into the black hole of the arched alley leaving Daniel to take in the full horror he had left behind.
She lay on her back, her head turned toward her left shoulder. Black bonnet at the back of her head. Red neckerchief. Her arms at her side, both palms up with fingers slightly bent, as if surrendering to the moon. A thimble lying off a finger on her right side. Her dresses were bunched above her abdomen. Naked thighs. He tried to look away but saw her intestines drawn out of the huge fissure splitting her body, and placed over her right shoulder. More intestines placed between her left arm and body.
He was gagging, puking into a bucket in the cell, a hand holding his head, choking retching on the vile fumes of his own vomit.
Arthur was close to his ear, whispering to him.
“I know it’s not you, old chap. I refuse to believe it. I’m going to get you out of here, don’t worry.”
And the woman answered, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling! Do you hear me, Jack? I’m a fire engine!”
He retched out the last of it, heaving bitter bile.
“Daniel. Listen to me very carefully. You are suffering delusions. You are having a fit. Totally understandable with regard to the enormous stress under which you have been placed this day.”
And there was something about the way Arthur said this that made it clear he was addressing the other men in the room rather than Daniel.
“Do you hear me, Jack?”
He fell to the floor and lay on his side, the cold stone floor cool against the side of his face, from where he watched their boots file out of the cell, even Arthur’s.
Daniel listened to their feet walk out of the cell, down the corridor, to the reception area. He could hear them talking out there, as if he had left his body and floated down the corridor with them, to hover above them, unseen. He could do this. Of course he could. No prison cell could hold him.
“Do you hear me, Jack?”
Yes, that was it. It all made sense now. The killer that ripped open Catherine Eddowes. He was Jack. And he was Daniel. Jack was inside Daniel. And sometimes Jack came out and ripped those women open. And Daniel would paint what Jack had done. Daniel would paint the monster that was inside him. And the name came to him now, like a memory, like the most obvious fact anyone could know. He was the most famous killer in the world. Everyone knew him. Only it was a name no one knew.
He was Jack the Ripper.
Arthur was out there arguing with the police doctor.
“I am his doctor and I say he’s having a fit. Nothing more.”
“And I say he is criminally insane and needs to be committed to the Birmingham Pauper Lunatic Asylum right this minute.”
“He is not a pauper and he is not a lunatic, you insufferable quack!”
Yes, the asylum. It was in Winson Green, beside the prison. Either one would suit. But in a prison he could float through the bars and escape. Jack could carry on his work, just like he had tonight. In an asylum they would strap him up and put him in a room with bars too, but they would force feed him drugs, maybe even cut out a part of his brain, the part where Jack lived, to stultify him, to reduce him to a drooling, harmless fool. Look at the harmless fool, they’d say. But you’ll never guess what he did.
He pushed himself to his feet and staggered over to the bars, his chest banging against them.
“Yes!” he cried. “Send me there! To the asylum! It’s the only way.”
Their voices out there fell silent at this, but Arthur called out in despair, “Daniel, I can’t allow you to agree to this!”
“I give my consent!” he shouted. “Lock me away! I’m Jack the Ripper!”
33
BURY STALKED THROUGH the door of the beer house and pushed through the baying crowd of drunks, ignoring the temptation to douse his fury with beer.
No one noticed him as he pushed through and ran up the stairs to the room above. He stopped at the landing and caught his breath. His heart was thumping in his mouth. He’d walked for what felt like hours and had lost his way in the ramble of dark back streets, going round and round in circles like a rat in a maze, till he’d eventually seen a street corner he remembered and flipped over the map in his mind. It was as if his brain had been turned inside out and he’d been looking at everything in a mirror.
Drink couldn’t soothe him. A mental rage of fury broiled inside his guts and he wanted to kill someone. He wanted to take out the knife he’d stolen at lunch time and bury it in someone’s heart. If he didn’t do it he’d turn it on himself.
He caught his breath and pushed through the door to the room. Only the faintest hint of moonlight lit the edges of the bed and he thought he saw Catherine’s round form lying there. His fingers gripped the hilt of his knife and he thought for a delicious moment of driving it right into her. No one would hear her scream, there was so much noise downstairs.
But it was only his jacket lying in a heap on the bed.
Had he seen her in the beer room downstairs? He’d pushed through the crowd with his eyes on the sawdust floor. She might be down there, getting pie-eyed still.
He took a long match from the tea box dresser and struck it on the rough surface, lighting the candle. Something was wrong. He sensed it before he knew it. His razor was there. But the money — a couple of coins he’d left on the table — she’d taken them. Obviously to buy more drink.
He snatched up his jacket and checked the pockets. The rings. They were gone. And he knew now with certainty that she wasn’t downstairs getting sozzled. She was gone. She’d stolen the rings and was going to pawn them in the morning. Which meant she was gone for the night. She was gone for good.
The piece of paper lying folded on the tea chest.
He opened it and read it, slowly, taking it in, the rage in him boiling over so that when he read her final taunt his hands were shaking. Catch me when you can.
All was lost. She’d taken the money. He had a few coins in his pocket. And his knife. She’d left his razor. But she’d taken his money, and the rings.
He screwed up the letter into a ball as tight and hard as the one sitting in his throat.
It was her who’d taken the pawn ticket. It was her all along. He hadn’t lost it. She’d double crossed him, like the cheating harpy she was. Weren’t all women like that, though. Deceiving she-devils. She had undone him. She had taken away what was rightfully his.
She and that writer beau of hers. They were in on it together. She’d fallen back in love with him. She had always been in love with him. He knew she’d truly wanted to get him back over some slight or other, he could see that real hate in her. But wasn’t it like that with Mary all the time? Every time he lamped her one she’d act all hurt and make to leave him, but she’d always come crawling back. That was what women did. Eddowes was no different with Conway. She’d wanted to hurt him, but as soon as she’d seen him, the anger had died inside her and she’d wanted him back. To hurt him again and repeat the cycle.
So she’d stolen the pawn ticket from his pocket and she’d run back to her scribbler.
He writhed into his jacket and snatched up his razor. He could head for Birmingham right now and if he caught her up he’d cut her to pieces right in the street, just for jollies.
Rage burned his face as he fought his way through the drunken crowd downstairs and stalked down the dark street. He’d been foiled twice tonight by stupid women. He would have his revenge somehow. He’d get them back. He’d get them all back.
34
ARTHUR PACED THE STATION’S reception area, crestfallen, desperate to do something, anything, that might save his friend, but completely at a loss for a solution.
Inspector Beadle sat at a desk behind Desk Sergeant Wake, where he wrote his report out, smiling smugly. Somewhere in the back, they were preparing Daniel for transfer to the asylum.
“It’s preposterous!” Arthur called out, just loud enough for Beadle to hear him, not loud enough to be causing a disturbance. “You know it’s preposterous. Who on earth is Jack the Ripper? A silly name no one has ever heard of. He’s Daniel Pearce. It proves he’s delusional.”
“Doesn’t it prove he’s insane?” said Beadle.
“You cannot commit a man to an insane asylum on the basis of a ridiculous confession like this. In a half hour he will be totally compos mentis.”
“In a half hour he’ll be in a padded cell, sir.”
Arthur collapsed on the bench. It was true. There was nothing he could do to avert this catastrophe. For a half hour he’d been asking himself What would Sherlock do? The annoying thing about it was that the answer would come to him in a few days, while he was out walking, or playing golf. But what use was that? It was only useful for a wretched story, not for saving his friend. He was no Sherlock, he knew. He was a bumbling Dr Watson, in desperate need of a genius sleuth.
A procession of drunks had been carted into the place and processed, and he could only think that dealing with them was causing the delay with Daniel being carted off to the asylum.
He was going to sit here and watch it happen, too, he knew. Sit here knowing that every logical, rational avenue had failed.
A police constable rushed in, breathless. This was only unusual in that, unlike every other constable who’d marched in, he wasn’t dragging a foul-mouthed drunk. He muttered something to Desk Sergeant Wake, who nodded him through to have a private word with Beadle. The inspector continued scribbling as the constable talked. But then he stopped, looked up, alarm writ clearly on his face. He stood up. The constable was nodding furiously, stammering, red-faced, but Arthur couldn’t make out what he was saying other than the odd sir and a sure as I’m standing here, Inspector. Whatever it was he’d said, it had transformed Beadle, wiping the smug smile right off his face. He punched the half-written report lying before him and Desk Sergeant Wake flinched but didn’t turn around. Beadle then kicked a waste paper basket over and the constable’s face reddened some more.