Whitechapel
Page 1
Whitechapel
A Period Thriller
Surrounding the Infamous
‘Jack the Ripper’ Murders
BRYAN LIGHTBODY
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 1-800-839-8640
AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.
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Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: 08001974150
© 2007 Bryan Lightbody. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by AuthorHouse 3/1/2007
ISBN: 978-1-4259-6181-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4670-1501-1 (ebk)
Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY
BRYAN LIGHTBODY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Whitechapel is a historical novel. It is a work of fiction based on true events. For that reason it includes mostly factual characters that interplay with a small number of fictional creations. To that end I must stress that although the descriptions of crime scenes, the geography of the East End of London and the resultant injuries to the victims are generally accurate, and the roles of the various factual characters are correct, their actions and conversations are in the main speculative and hypothetical. These actions and interactions are an invention of the author for the purposes of creating the novel and if they bear relationship to previously unreported events that is pure co-incidence. Whitechapel is written to allow the reader to enter the world of Victorian London, learn of the events of the autumn of 1888 and to link together some of the enigmas of the case to perhaps provide a tangible answer to the enduring mystery of ‘Jack the Ripper.’ Its overall purpose is to entertain.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people. It would be ideal to explain their part in the completion of this book but unfortunately that is impractical, needless to say they have all provided invaluable input.
Christine Lightbody, Stuart & Cathy Lightbody, Mark and Sandy Lightbody, Daniel & Susanna Shadrake, Paul Tracey (your constant interest helped get the job done), Sasha Lee at Authorhouse, Steve Scruton and BBC Essex, all those who have endured walks around Whitechapel and Spitalfields (you know who you are, Mark Goodenough being the first). Cathy at Hannay’s in Braintree, Kurt, Gary, Paul, Justin, Tony, Scott and Dave from One Team at Maltby Street, and all of those that I have worked with at some point who have quizzed me and cajoled me to get it done.
CHAPTER ONE
Bank holiday Monday 6th August 1888, 2.a.m. Martha Tabrum a forty-one year old haggard Whitechapel prostitute, or ‘unfortunate’ to coin a commonly used phrase, staggered out of the White Swan public house in Whitechapel High Street. She was in the company of another prostitute Mary Ann ‘Pearly Poll’ Connolly, fifty years old, broad with a drink reddened face, reeking of alcohol and body odour, mildly disguised by a cheap perfume. They were in the company of two men in military uniforms; the party of four split two ways, with Pearly Poll walking off into Angel Alley for a quick knee trembler of a screw which would give her doss money for the night. Her would-be lover was tall, lean, well groomed in his uniform with a neatly trimmed moustache obviously out for a cheap gutter thrill.
He pushed her against the wall and as he did so she lifted her bustling skirt and then proceeded to unbutton the fly on his trousers. He spat saliva onto his palm as a makeshift lubricant and entered her with little thought of comfort for her, but the pain this caused her was very much dulled by the alcohol. They rocked rhythmically against the wall breathing stale alcohol drenched breath over each other. Within a matter of a couple of minutes the whole wretched act was over, him withdrawing and wiping himself on the edge of her skirt as he did so, her then slumping to the cold cobbles dropping down the wall as she fought to gain control of her spinning drunken mind. She had the money from her client already; he had paid her in the White Swan and eventually dragged herself to her feet to head off to her lodgings at Crossingham’s Doss House. Her military client then waited on the main road near the junction with Wentworth Street for his friend.
Martha had taken her client off to George Yard, again just off of Whitechapel High Street, to indulge him in her carnal wares little knowing it would be the last time she offered them. He was an older man with a much fancier uniform than his friend and a big handlebar moustache. She walked away from him as they entered the yard and tried to be seductive in beckoning him with her finger up to the wall which she now had her back to. She began hitching up the layers of her bustle skirt whilst he approached her undoing his trouser fly. He spoke to her in a strange accent before they began.
“Say, angel, will you kiss me there before we start?” He was pointing to below his waist. She had thought that he had paid her generously for a street ‘shag’ when they were still in the pub, so with this in mind and knowing having plied her trade over many years that with him moistened it would not hurt as much, so she obliged for several minutes. He then stood up and she directed him with her hand and felt his penetration. As a result of her initial work and the use of her finger in his anal passage to put pressure on his prostate gland to bring about a swift climax, hence the name ‘prostitutes’, intercourse lasted a matter of about a minute.
He withdrew and put himself away and avoided the common practice she had found with many clients of wiping themselves on her skirt. Again she found this quite considerate. Not as heavily drunk as Pearly Poll, she straightened her skirt out and looked up to see her client still stood in front of her staring directly at her. He had his right hand now behind his back.
“What’s the matter wiv you then?” she said in a typical cockney accent. He said nothing, just continuing to stare.
“Say somefink, you bloody freak.”
“Do you know Mary Kelly?
“Who” she replied quizzically.
“Ginger, Mary Kelly, Fair Emma?”
“I dunno what you’re bleedin’ on about. Thought I was good enough……….”
Her words tailed off. He lunged at her with a large pocket knife and in so doing clasped his left hand over her mouth to destroy any hope she had of alerting anyone to her plight.
He plunged the knife repeatedly into her torso in a totally random fashion striking her chest, her stomach and her sides with blood now seeping heavily through her clothes and beginning to soil his. He just kept stabbing with an unabated
ferocity for a couple of minutes. For some time she had still tried to scream and it had been hard for him to control this reflex in her. She fell to the floor silent and limp, his right hand now aching from its fervent work. He looked around frantically following the violent struggle between them but fortunately there was still no one in sight. He had a second knife which he pulled from a scabbard on his belt that was in fact a military bayonet; he thought it would help remove things from her better. His right arm was really in pain now from the attack as the adrenaline that had coursed around his body was wearing off so he would have to go to work with his left hand to finish the job.
He sat down on the floor next to the warm lifeless body just looking at his handiwork contemplating his next move. It seemed like an eternity he was in thought as he considered what he had done; it was the first time he had killed someone. He sat by the body lost in his thoughts for nearly an hour and his friend waiting in Wentworth Street had long since gone. Just as he was about to get to his feet and begin his grisly work, he saw a cab pull up in the main road at the far end of the yard. Furious at his delay he delivered a massive final blow with his left arm brandishing the bayonet. He plunged it into her sternum and made off in the opposite direction simply melting into the night.
***
Robert Ford woke from his deep slumber to a mild August morning, a Tuesday, the 28th in fact, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and rolling back the covers from the soft bed in his lodgings. His feet made contact with the rough and bare wooden floorboards and were naked except for a few blisters from his new work boots. He looked across at the tin mechanical alarm clock that had brought consciousness to his tired body and weary mind and saw the time. Twenty minutes to six in the morning. Could that be right? Twenty minutes before he had to be at work? He had forgotten to set the alarm correctly; placing his blistered feet in his tough new boots they would have to carry him swiftly to Commercial Street Police Station from his lodgings in Bakers Row.
Robert Ford, a Metropolitan Police Constable with four years service. One of the new lads still at ‘The Street,’ the name by which Commercial Street Police Station was known by those who worked there and an officer troubled by the murder earlier in the month of prostitute Martha Tabram. He had known her in passing as he did most of the women who frequent the streets for work as indeed he did himself as a beat constable. An inoffensive woman, why had she been so brutally murdered?
Robert, being only twenty-five years old and fit by the standards of the day as a result of not drinking heavily or smoking and trying to eat regularly around shifts, pulled on his uniform, his unforgiving boots and took hold of his beat duty helmet and made for the door of his room. Tripping over Boson the brindle coloured English Bull Terrier belonging to Mrs Williams, his landlady, and receiving a growl and an attempted nip too close for comfort to his left ankle, he entered the street and ran north along Bakers Row towards Bethnal Green Road.
There were still many cabs around with their tired and forlorn looking horses, a few drunks and the market traders were now out in force along Bethnal Green Road. Many of them knew young Robert as a local police constable or ‘copper’ and shouted typical East End encouragement to him along his route.
“Afternoon, Bobby boy, late shift today?” or “What do coppers say about being up early and not getting caught out?”
The air carried the curious 19th century East End stench, a mixture of fresh and rotten vegetables, flowers and meat all of which blended with the smell of the less than sanitary local streets.
His heart now pumping hard after over a half a mile of running he was at the junction with Wheler Street, just a left turn and a two hundred yard dash to the front door of the ‘nick’. Born and bred around the streets which he now patrolled, he knew them like the back of his hands from the days when he was a noted teenage pugilist. As a profession he knew that it would either kill him or leave him a punch drunk destitute and so he had ‘thrown in the towel’ early to make a proper lawful life for himself. The blisters were rubbing red raw inside of his boots and beads of perspiration were now rolling down his face on this warm August morning. Just as he got to the junction with Commercial Street he fell, heavily, winding himself and grazing his hands. His helmet rolled dangerously close to the wheels of a ‘hansom’ or cab and he could hear female laughter to his right. Looking over he saw two of the local girls now giggling at his predicament. It was Mary ‘Polly’ Nichols and the unusually attractive Mary Kelly. Nichols was a typical haggard looking forty-three year old prostitute whilst Kelly, relatively new to the area by comparison, was an attractive auburn haired Irish girl of about twenty-five who Robert knew well in passing and always seemed to greet him with a lovely smile and wink. In her beautifully rounded Limerick accent she spoke to Robert.
“Mind your step, constable, are you in a rush or falling for me?” Robert looked up at her red faced and smiled. If only she knew. Despite the fact she was a prostitute Robert admired her from afar. She was the same age as him and had been to France with an artist and seemed so much more sophisticated than her profession belied. She charmed, fascinated and bewitched him. He had spent many evenings chatting with Mary outside of The Britannia or The Ten Bells pubs in Spitalfields about life and ambitions, and was on the verge of plucking up the courage to ask her for a drink together one evening, away from either of their professional capacities. Too early in the day for him to think of a witty reply he grabbed his helmet and lunged for the doors of the nick.
With a few minutes at least to spare before parade he went into the constables toilets to check his appearance. He brushed the dirt by hand from his helmet, did up his tunic and straightened his whistle chain. Checking his pockets he had his note book, truncheon, china graph pencil and of course his whistle. Finally looking in the mirror, damn it! He hadn’t shaved. Sergeant Kerby the duty sergeant taking parade would go mad. He would have to pull the peak of his helmet down low and keep his head down.
The shout came up “Get on parade!” and a sea of constables washed through the corridors bumping and jostling each other, exchanging both good humoured and miserable banter as they burst into the parade room and stood to in front of the afore mentioned Sergeant Kerby and Inspector Spratling. Before reading through the standing orders, the collator’s notices and the Police Gazette, the men were inspected by Spratling, not Kerby. Robert almost physically breathed a sigh of relief as he knew that Spratling was generally very cursory with his examination of the assembled officers’ appearances.
As the inspector passed along the rank of twelve men, Robert could see Kerby glance across at him, but not at his shave shadow but at his legs. Looking down Robert then noticed he had a torn knee on his left trouser leg, obviously from his earlier fall. Spratling then confronted him looking him up and down.
“New style summer trousers, son? Allow a bit of a breeze in do they?” sneered Spratling.
“No, sir. Had a fall outside. Sorry.”
“Get them sorted before you represent the Queen out on the street.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kerby then addressed the constables with the relevant information for the day. This took the form of highlighting areas of recent crime increase for attention, local wanted thieves to look for and apprehend any changes in practices in policing matters and new high profile criminal personalities seen on the ‘ground’.
“So, a murder this month of one of the ladies of the night. One Martha Tabrum, thirty-nine years old of George Street, Spitalfields. No apparent reasoning, she was found slain in George Yard in the early hours of the 7th August having last been seen with a Grenadier Guardsman. She was found with numerous stab wounds, possibly from a bayonet. I want you all to pay attention to any squaddies in the area.
“Next item, Willy Brannigan has been seen on the ground and he is well known as a burglar. Special attention to areas with high value property, and yes, I know they are few and far between here, as he is wanted in connection with a string of West End crimes.”
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br /> Kerby rambled on in Robert’s mind with some more Police Gazette bulletins whilst he drifted off thinking about the murder of Martha Tabrum. He hoped that the detective branch cracked the case soon to keep the local people placated. The East End was an area of massive social deprivation with most of the people there believing that the powers that be cared nothing for it as a region of London, and felt it was perceived as a human dumping ground. He then paid attention to Kerby once more as he continued.
“The Polish-Jew confidence trickster and thief Michael Ostrog is back in town along with Aaron Kosminski another of the same persuasion. Both of ‘em are known for violence on occasions and bizarre public behaviour, so look out. Ostrog is also wanted to failing to answer to bail, so if you see him, swift him. He’s easy to spot, he normally wear’s a cleric’s type suit and be careful he often carries a knife, thinks he’s a surgeon apparently used to practice with the Russian army ‘til he allegedly killed some Russian in a duel. Now Kosminski, on the other hand, is as bloody mad as you like hairdresser who’s not adverse to eating food out of the gutter, is by all accounts a self abuser, or to you lot a ‘wanker’ which has apparently fuelled a hatred of women.” There was a unanimous bought of laughter following Kerby’s translation of ‘self abuser’ amongst the constables.
“All right, settle down,” said Spratling, “Carry on please, Sergeant.”
“A Dr M J Druitt has been seen by the river down at Wapping Steps recently staring blankly at the water. He’s been moved on a couple of times by some of the lads and seems very reasonable but distant, lets see if any further types of behaviour develop. Outside of that he’s seen knocking about with a military type on our ground here. In relation to the Tabrum murder, no description of a suspect but just to emphasise that her last client she was seen with was maybe a guardsman. Is there a uniform connection?” With typical police sarcasm and cynicism Kerby added, “Narrows it down to about 7000 suspects,” bringing another laugh and a smile to the sombre early morning proceedings. “Time for a cup of tea, lads, before you go out then,” were Kerby’s parting words.