No Absolution

by N. M. Bell

  Bending low, he inhaled the intoxicating fumes of blood and wine. Father preached that the wine became blood of the Christ. What better medium to cleanse the organs of sin that the harlots used to exercise their power over the weak men of Whitechapel? Humming softly, he poured water from his pitcher into a small saucepan and set it by the coals to heat. Returning to the table he stirred the burgundy liquid with his forefinger, the suspended flesh bumping gently against the dish. Once these last bits were gone he would need to replenish the supply. What rubbish the stories in the paper were, speculating on why he removed what he did. Perhaps he should let the bleeders in on the truth. The Central News Office had so far followed his instruction and withheld the letter. Tomorrow was the end of the month, a fitting day for more sluts to end their existence and be purified. A bit of a postcard after the fact, but before the first morning edition might be in order. To reward them for their cooperation he might just give them a bit of jolly to share with the reading public. I did promise to clip the ears of the next one and have them delivered to the police, I mustn’t wait too long or they will think I’m codding them. Tomorrow night will do nicely, I should think.

  The hissing of water bubbling out of the saucepan onto the bricks of the hearth drew his attention back to the matter at hand. Crossing to the fire he knelt and speared what was left of Annie Chapman’s uterus and vagina with his knife. He dropped them into the boiling water. The mixture of wine and blood spiralled through the clear water, darkening it quickly. Jake’s gut tightened with excitement along with a trace of remembered fear. Father’s face appeared on the swirling surface of the water nodding grimly with approval. Sweat dropped from his forehead into the pot, banishing the vision. He poked the flesh with his knife and removed the pan from the coals. Carefully, he brought the delicacy to the table, sliding it unto the cracked pottery plate before he settled in his chair. Jake raised his bottle of ginger beer in a silent toast to his brilliance and drank deeply. Finishing his meal, he unwrapped the last of the sausage from the shop and thought of Aggie’s nervous smile as he chewed. He’d have to remember to filch some more at work tomorrow. It was his day off, but he’d go in anyway. The extra bit of flint would be useful, after all. The rationale pleased him. The daughter of the shop had no power over him at all, he just had a taste for sausage. Nothing more.

  * * *

  Friday 29 September promised to be bleak and miserable. Jacob woke in the pre-dawn blackness and lay for a few minutes as the sounds of those heading to work mingled with those of the drunks and whores staggering home. A male’s voice rose in a drunken rage, the scream of a child and the strident cries of a baby preceded the slap of running feet on the cobbles. Jake pulled the pillow over his face and pressed hard. Flashing lights pierced the darkness behind his eyelids as he considered the stinking mess that was his life. Father’s demands from beyond the grave were more and more insistent; how was he ever going to be able to cleanse the souls of the wicked and save them for the Lord? The whole of the East End crawled with vermin and filth, human and otherwise. He needed to live here, to be near the pestilence, so his duty was made clear to him every second of every day. It was like living in the sewers of London.

  The shrill scream of a woman followed by the meaty smack of fists striking flesh tore Jake from his thoughts. With a weary sigh he removed the pillow and threw back the thin blanket that covered him. He glanced out the window as he used the chamber pot and stopped in mid-stream. The flash of red hair snagged his attention as surely as a trout on the hook. Mam? The small boy hidden deep within awoke and filled him with yearning. Ruthlessly, Jake tamped it down. It was only the whore of the other night he had seen in the stairwell. He finished his business while the woman lurched across the narrow street and let herself into one of the places a few doors down the court. He made a mental note to mention her condition to Joe Barnett. A woman coming home soaked at this time of the morning was doubtless returning from a night of ruination and sin. Mam? The tiny voice whimpered before he slammed the door on it again.

  Minutes later Jake was striding toward the docks. He had just enough time to go by and see what cattle transports were embarking in the near future. The solitude of the long trip across the Atlantic would serve to give him some respite from Father’s incessant demands he cleanse more filth from the streets. As he neared the St. Katharine Docks his steps slowed and his fingers clenched. The shouts and the stench that filled the air told him a transport was in dock and would be leaving once it had disgorged its living cargo. Father’s voice filled his head; demanding he fulfil his duty to the Lord and not avoid it like a coward. The crowds of drunks making their way home, and others denizens of the slums on their way to work, jostled him roughly as he stopped altogether with indecision. Aggie’s face swam before his eyes for a moment before he pushed it away.

  Do your duty by the Lord! Ungrateful spawn of my loins, Father thundered in his mind.

  “Oi, Jake. What’s amiss? Yer standing like ye’ve been pole-axed.”

  The woman’s voice broke the spell of his thoughts. Jake scowled at the woman who stood in front of him.

  “What’s it to you, Long Liz?” A snarl crossed his face. If he needed a sign that he should stay and carry out the Lord’s work, here it was. He had sampled Long Liz’s wares himself in a moment of weakness years ago. The memory of the incident still sent flames of shame burning through him.

  “No ‘arm meant, Jako. Just worried ye’d get yerself run down standing there gawking like.” Liz drew her shawl closer about her and hurried off, casting a worried look back over her shoulder.

  Jake shook his head and turned his steps back up Commercial Road in the direction of Fleischer’s shop. The church bells tolled the hour and he quickened his pace. Lateness was a vice of the devil and Jake hated to be even a minute late. Slightly out of breath, he turned into the back alley and let himself into the holding pen where a few bedraggled-looking steers stood huddled. Entering the narrow door of the slaughter room he hung his cap on the peg and began to get ready for the day.

  “Guten morgen.” Old man Fleischer appeared from the dark interior of the butcher shop.

  Jake grunted in reply. The chiselling bastard was always checking to be sure he arrived on time. In the last pay packet he docked Jake a whole hour for being five minutes late. He tipped his head to hide his expression and proceeded to sharpen the knives on the narrow bench. When he was done, he pulled out his own knife safe. After checking to be sure Fleischer was nowhere about he honed his own blades. Father’s blade he saved till last and lovingly caressed it with the whet stone. A shriek of laughter drew his gaze abruptly to the alley. He caught just a glimpse of bright red hair and a bit of tattered skirt as the woman carried on with her business.

  Jake’s fingers stroked the steel beneath them absently. He wondered if it was the Kelly woman he’d seen earlier at Miller’s Court. He shook his head and dismissed her from his mind. Later, he’d find out what Barnett’s dolly was up to. His hand tightened around the handle of Father’s knife.

  “Ah, Jakie, leave off. Throw it away and never touch it again. It’s evil, Jakie, evil. Remember what he did to me with it. Don’t listen to that divil of a man no more.”

  The breath left Jake’s lungs in a whoosh and the knife dropped from his nerveless hand. He spun toward the narrow door and slipped on the wet stones underfoot. The voice was so real he searched the shadows for the speaker. He took a quick breath and picked up the knife, wiping it clean of yesterday’s offal still stuck to the floor. Woman’s trickery, that’s all it was. Mam was dead. Dead. She abandoned him, left him because she was flawed like all females. Father explained it many times to Jake as he grew older. Virtuous women were few and far between and even they were no better than they should be. Jezebels all of them and never to be trusted.

  Jake stowed his special knives away, and after one fleeting glance into the shadowy corners of the room, he set about his work.

  * * *

  Hours later, Jake h
eaved the last side of beef onto his shoulder and took it to Fleischer at the butchering block. He hung it by the big tendon behind the hock on one of the meat hooks behind the older man.

  “There’s the last o’ it for today,” Jake said.

  “Go on through and see Aggie for your packet then, man.” The butcher never raised his head as he spoke. When Jake remained standing there, the man waved a blood stained knife toward the front of the shop. “Be off wi’ ye,” he ordered. “Ye’r blockin’ th’ light.”

  Jake glared at the top of Fleischer’s bald head. Ignorant sod, I niver get the respect a man deserves. Wonder how he’d feel if he knew his daughter was flirting with that inspector fella? He grunted and made his way to the front counter where Aggie was wrapping some kidneys in waxed paper. His gaze followed the twitch of her hips under the long skirts and apron, his penis hitched in response before he brutally brought it under control. Instead, he imagined her lying on the bloody floor, her legs bent outward and his knife poised above her bare belly. He took a step closer and she turned with a sharp gasp.

  “Mein Gott, Jacob! Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she scolded him with a hand at her throat. Her bright smile took the sting out of her words and for a moment he was caught in the spell of her kind blue eyes.

  “Need me pay packet.” Jake was more brusque than he meant to be. The woman unnerved him, and while she fascinated him, she also terrified him.

  She turned back to the counter and took a grimy envelope from the drawer. “Here ye be. Don’t drink it all in one place,” she teased.

  He stuck out a hand and she placed the packet on the outstretched palm. Her fingers lingered a little longer than was necessary and she managed to give his hand a small squeeze before she withdrew. A pink flush suffused her face but she didn’t drop her gaze. The blue of her eyes seemed to draw him in and his feet refused to move. Jake sucked in a shallow breath and the knife safe nudged his ribs. The flash of his father’s face moved across his inner eye breaking the spell. He snatched the packet and shoved it in a pocket under his blood stained canvas apron. Turning on his heel he marched through the shop, scarcely pausing to grab his hat from the peg before he let himself out the gate at the back alley. He jammed the cap on his head and hunched his shoulders against the evening chill. September was on its way out and the nights were drawing in. Jake hated the shortening daylight hours, while another part of him welcomed them. Darkness hid the drab desolation of the East End and the longer hours without sunlight offered him more time to stalk his marks. More time to carry out Father’s mission.

  Aggie’s blue eyes came unbidden to his mind and a surge of sudden rage roared through him. Focus, he warned himself. She is nothing, a weakness, a distraction. I am stronger than the evil lure of flesh sent by Satan to tempt me.

  He snarled and kicked an ‘appy dosser who was sprawled in the street as he passed. The drunken sod didn’t even have the few half pence it would have cost of a doss house.

  The persistent drizzle found its way under his cap and down his neck. The miasma of stench rising from the rain-soaked street barely registered as he splashed through the stream of gutter sludge. A yellow smudge of light in the murk marked the grimy window of the Queen’s Head public house and Jake stepped into the stuffy warmth of the main room. The cloying smell of wet wool and unwashed bodies struck him with an unwelcome familiarity.

  Some of the custom pulled back as he pushed his way to the bar, uncaring if the slaughter man’s apron he still wore smeared more filth on those he passed.

  “Nurse’n bottle,” he growled at the bar keep.

  With the glass of gin and soda firmly in hand he turned and leaned on the bar while he surveyed the occupants. He raised his glass in a salute to some blokes he knew at a far table, but remained at the bar. Downing the drink with a quick tip of his head, Jake ordered another. A commotion near the door caught his attention and he squinted through the smoke-clouded air. Long Liz called a raucous farewell to her mates and stumbled out the door. He narrowed his gaze and frowned at the sight of her joining a man outside. He could see quite clearly, even through the grimy pane. His gut tightened and he shifted in sudden rage at the sight of coin changing hands. Filthy whore! He would have to do something about it when he had the chance. Perhaps it was time to take care of the dolly.

  Jake turned back to the bar and ordered another gin. He wended his way across the room and joined his mates at their table. Sometime later, Jake left the Queen’s Head and headed off into the downpour. Murky pools of light from the gaslights did nothing to push back the green tinged fog. His steps took him down Settles Street and he ducked into the Bricklayer’s Arms to get out of the rain. He settled himself in a corner table with his back to the wall, a pint cradled in his hands. Sooner or later he would have to go back out into the wet and make his way back to the damp cold room in Miller’s Court. Presently, he went out into the alley to relieve himself. The canvas apron was wet and unwieldy. In a fit of frustration Jake ripped it off and pitched it into a nearby midden heap. He’d just tell the old man that he left it in the slaughter room and some urchin must have pinched it. Finished with his business, he returned to the overbearing heat of the tap room. He was preparing to leave when Long Liz, who tonight was apparently calling herself Mary Ann, entered the public house. He changed direction and caught her by the arm as she weaved past him.

  “Lizzy, or is it Mary Ann, tonight?” Jake greeted her.

  “Aye, what? Oh, it’s you Jake.” She slurred the words and peered up at him from half-closed eyes.

  The knife safe poked Jake in the ribs and Father’s voice whispered in his ear. “Fate has put this damaged creature in your path this evening. You know what must be done. It is destiny, surely you must see that?” Jake found himself nodding in agreement as he steered Liz toward a table and fetched a drink for her. The whore being pissed made his job so much easier, and at any rate, people would think it odd if they weren’t both drinking. The woman was half-corned already and having trouble keeping her head from bobbing up and down. She peered at him through bleary eyes under the fringe of hair that escaped her hat.

  “Aye, you’re a good lad, Jake,” she told him and raised her glass.

  It was just past eleven o’clock when Jake led Long Liz out of the Bricklayer’s Arms. She clutched his arm for balance and rubbed her breasts against him. His groin sprang to life even as he squashed the urge before it had a chance to raise its head. They wandered the streets for a while before he turned up Berner Street with her. She stopped to lean on the wall for a moment.

  “J’sus Lor’, why’d ye let me drink so much?” she muttered.

  Jake snorted. “Woman like you would say anything other than your prayers,” he taunted her. How dare a thing of filth like her utter the Lord’s name? “Don’t take the Lord’s holy name in vain, I’m warnin’ ye, woman.” His face contorted into a snarl.

  Liz pushed away from the wall and spat at him through the gap of her missing upper teeth. She moved to walk away, which infuriated him further. Jake shoved the woman to the ground and stood over her. She cringed and tried to scream, but the sound came out stifled and slurred. He jerked his head up and glared across the gloomy street at the man who appeared out of the rain and mist. Another man in the act of lighting a clay pipe stepped out a doorway and yelled at the passerby. The first man started and his pale face swam in the murk. Without a word he pelted down the street without looking back. The man with the pipe looked after him and then went back inside. Jake turned his back on them and pulled a protesting Liz to her feet.

  He dragged her across the cobbles to the other side of the lane, and paused at the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard where the gate stood open. Jake shoved a small packet of cachous pills into her hand. The stench of her breath turned his stomach and his work was still undone. Liz looked down at the packet and back at him.

  “Yer breath would drop a steer,” he snarled at her.

  The church bells rang the half hour after midnight
. Water spilled from Jake’s cap as he involuntarily raised his head and looked toward the sound. It was impossible to actually see anything through the heavy downpour and the sulphurous fog. It was clearly a signal from the Lord that he was charged with carrying out his duty. Turning his attention back to the task at hand, he pulled Liz through the gates into the passageway of the yard. He kicked the gate almost all the way closed behind them. She tilted her head back and gazed up at him stupidly.

  “Ye want a toss, Jakey?” she asked. She took a few steps away from him when he remained silent. “What’s wrong wi’ ye, man? It’s only a thruppenny, like always.”

  Moving swiftly, Jake spun her around and pushed her up against the wall, furious at her for reminding him of the times he had weakened and given in to her vile temptations. A small smile escaped him at the thought of the time he had shoved the coppers up her twat while she was still bent over leaning on the wall.

  His fingers gripped her shoulder hard while his other hand clamped over her mouth and twisted her head to the side. Her hands scrabbled at her skirts in an attempt to bare her buttocks and give him what she thought he was after. Frantic fingers brushed against his groin and the fury of his rage almost rendered him blind. Streaks of red and black flared across his vision and he cursed under his breath.

  He released his hold with one hand and drew Father’s knife from its concealment. Liz attempted to turn around and Jake shoved her face hard into the wall.

  “Oi, Jake! That hurt, ye bloody bastard.”

  “Shut yer pie hole, woman,” he whispered in her ear. Both hands gripped her shoulders, the fingers biting into the flesh. The whore squirmed in his grasp and Jake was forced to transfer the knife to his teeth before he could subdue her. She ceased her struggles and Jake took the opportunity to wrench her head back and to the side. With one swift stroke he cut deep into her throat, cursing silently when the silk kerchief knotted there caught at the blade. Her lips worked soundlessly and blood fluttered from the wound as she struggled for breath. It reminded him of the cattle he slaughtered who continued to cry soundlessly as they lay bleeding to death. At least the cattle had some use, the thought flitted through his mind.