Margo hugged him tight and gave him a swift kiss on one lean, weathered cheek. "Promise."
Kit's eyes were just a hint too bright, despite the now-familiar scowl. "Off with you, then. I'll be waiting to test you on everything you've learned when you get back."
"Oh, God..." But she was laughing as she took her leave and found Douglas Tanglewood and their charges. When the Britannia Gate finally rumbled open and Margo started up the long flight of metal stairs, her computerized scout's log and ATLS slung over her shoulder in a carpet bag, Margo's heart was pounding as fast as the butterflies swooping and circling through her stomach. Three and a half months of Ripper Watch Tour wasn't exactly scouting... but solving the most famous serial murder of all time was just about the next best thing. She was going to make Kit proud of her, if it was the last thing she ever did. Frankly, she could hardly wait to get started!
Chapter Six
Polly Nichols needed a drink.
It'd been nearly seven hours since her last glass of gin and she was beginning to shake, she needed another so badly. There was no money in her pockets, either, to buy more. Worse, trade had been miserably slow all day, everywhere from the Tower north to Spitalfields Market and east to the Isle of Dogs. Not one lousy whoreson during the whole long day had been willing to pay for the price of a single glass of gin to calm her shaking nerves. She hadn't much left to sell, either, or pawn, for that matter.
Polly wore cheap, spring-sided men's boots with steel-tipped heels, which might've been worth something to a pawn broker, had she not cut back the uppers to fit her small legs and feet. Worse, without boots, she could not continue to ply her trade. With rain falling nearly every day and an unnatural chill turning the season cold and miserable, she'd catch her death in no time without proper boots to keep her feet warm and dry.
But, God, how she needed a drink...
Maybe she could sell her little broken mirror. Any mirror was a valuable commodity in a doss house—which made Polly reluctant to give it up. For a woman in her business, a mirror was an important professional tool. She frowned. What else might she be able to sell? Her pockets were all but empty as she felt through them. The mirror... her comb... and a crackle of paper. The letters! Her fingers trembled slightly as she withdrew the carefully folded sheets of foolscap. That miserable little puff, Morgan, had lied to her about these letters. There was no name on the paper, other than a signature. She suspected she could figure out who the letter-writer was if she could only get the letters translated from Welsh into English. A translation would make Polly a rich woman. But that wouldn't get her a drink right now.
Well, she could always sell some of the letters, couldn't she? With the agreement that as soon as they found out the identity of the author, they would share the spoils between them. Or, if Polly found out quickly enough, she might simply buy them back by saying she'd had them translated and Morgan had lied to her and the letters were worthless. Yes, that was what she would do. Sell three of the four now, to get her gin money, then get them back with a lie and figure out who to blackmail with the whole set of four. But who to convince to buy them in the first place?
It must be someone as desperate for money as herself, to buy into the scheme. But it couldn't be anyone like an ordinary pawn broker. No, it had to be someone she could trust, someone who would trust her. That left one of a few friends she had made on the streets. Which meant she wouldn't be able to get much up front. But then, Polly didn't need much right now, just enough to buy herself a few glasses of gin and a bed for a night or two. She could always get the letters back the moment she had money from her next paying customer, if it came to that.
The decision as to which of her friends to approach was made for her when Polly saw Annie Chapman walking down Whitechapel Road. Polly broke into a broad smile. Annie Chapman was a prostitute, same as herself, and certainly needed money. Dark Annie ought to buy into a blackmail scheme, all right. Annie was seriously ill, although to look at her, a body wouldn't guess it. But she was dying slowly of a lung and brain ailment which had put her into workhouse infirmaries occasionally and siphoned much of what she earned on the streets for medicines.
Yes, Annie ought to be quite interested in making a great deal of money quickly.
"Well, if it isn't Annie Chapman!" she said with a bright smile.
The other woman was very small, barely five feet tall, but stoutly built, with pallid skin and wide blue eyes and beautiful teeth that Polly, herself, would have given much to be able to flash at a customer when she smiled. Annie's dark brown hair was wavy and had probably been lustrous before her illness had struck. Her nose was too thick for beauty and at forty-five she was past her best years, but she was a steady little individual, meeting life quietly and trying to hold on in the face of overwhelming poverty, too little to eat, and an illness that sapped her strength and left her moving slowly when she was able to walk at all.
Annie Chapman smiled, genuinely pleased by the greeting. "Polly, how are you?"
"Oh, I'm good, Annie, I'm good. I'd be better if I ‘ad a gin or two, eh?"
The two women chuckled for a moment. Annie was not the drinker Polly was, but the other woman enjoyed her rum, when there was enough money to be spared for it, same as most other women walking these dismal streets.
"Say, Annie, ‘ow's your ‘ealth been these past few weeks?"
The other woman's eyes darkened. "Not good," she said quietly, with a hoarse rasp in her voice. "It's this rain and cold. Makes my lungs ache, so it's hard to breathe." She sounded like it hurt her to breathe.
"I'd imagine a good bit more money would ‘elp, eh? Maybe even enough to take you someplace warm and dry, right out o' London?"
"Daft, are you, love?" Annie laughed, not unkindly. "Now, just tell me Polly, how would I get that sort of money?"
Polly winked and leaned close. "Well, as it ‘appens I just might be set to come into a small fortune, y'see. And I might be willin' to share it." She showed Annie the letters in her pocket and explained her scheme—and let on like she knew who the author was and was only willing to share the money because she was totally broke, herself, and needed a bed for the night. When she finished her proposition, Annie glared at her. "But Polly! That's blackmail!" The anger in the other woman's eyes and rasping voice astonished Polly.
She drew herself up defensively. "An' if it is? Bloke should ‘ave thought of that before ‘e went about dippin' ‘is Hampton into a bloke's arse'ole! Besides, Annie, this ‘ere bastard's rich as sin. And what've you got, eh? A dead ‘usband and a sickness eatin' away at you, ‘til you can't ‘ardly stand up. If we went to a magistrate, this ‘ere bloke would go t'prison. I'm not talkin' about ‘urting a decent sort of chap, I'm talkin' about makin' a right depraved bastard pay for ‘is crimes against God an' nature. An' ‘ow better should ‘e pay, than to ‘elp a sick woman? I ask you that, Annie Chapman, ‘ow better to pay for ‘is sins than to ‘elp a woman ‘oo needs it most? Think of it, Annie. Enough money t'go someplace where it don't rain ‘alf the year an' the fogs don't make it near impossible to breathe of a night. Someplace warm, even in winter. A decent ‘ouse wiv a roof over and enough to eat, so's you aren't weak all the time, wot lets the sickness gets a better grip than ever. Annie, think of it, enough money to pay a real doctor an' get the sort of medicines rich folk ‘ave..."
Annie's expression had crumpled. Tears filled her eyes. "You're right," she whispered. "Isn't my fault I'm sick. Not my fault this nasty chap went out and seduced a half-grown boy, either. God, to have enough money for real medicine. A warm place to live..." She coughed, swaying weakly. Misery and longing ploughed deep gullies into her face.
Polly patted her shoulder. "That's right, Annie. I'll share wiv you. There's four letters. You take three of ‘em. All I need's enough money to pay me doss ‘ouse for a few nights. Can you spare that much, Annie? A few pence for now... and a lifetime of medicine and rest in warm beds, after?"
Annie was searching through her pockets. "I've got to have
enough for my own doss house tonight," she muttered, digging out a few coins. "I've had some luck today, though. Made enough money to pay for almost a week's lodging. Here." She gave Polly a shilling. "That's fourpence a letter. Is it enough?" she asked anxiously.
Polly Nichols had to work hard not to snatch the shilling out of Annie's hand. She was looking at enough money to buy four brimming glassfuls of gin. "Oh, Annie, that's a gracious plenty." She accepted the shilling and handed over three of her precious letters. "An' ‘ere you are, luv, three tickets to the life you deserve."
Annie actually hugged her.
Polly flushed and muttered, "I'll not forget this, Annie. An' we'll send the letter to this nasty Mr. Eddy together, eh? Tomorrow, Annie. Meet me at the Britannia pub tomorrow an' we'll compose a lovely letter to Mr. Eddy an' send it off. You got a better education than I ‘ave, you can write it out all posh, like, eh?"
By tomorrow she would have found someone to translate her remaining letter for her and be able to keep that promise. And she just might let Annie keep one of the letters, after all, rather than buying them all back.
Annie smiled at her, eyes swimming with gratitude. "You're a grand friend, Polly Nichols. God bless you."
They said their goodbyes, Annie tucking three of the letters into her pockets while Polly pocketed the remaining letter and her precious shilling. As they went their separate ways, Polly smiled widely. Then she headed for the nearest public house as fast as her steel-capped boots would carry her there. She needed a drink, all right.
To celebrate!
* * *
Skeeter wasn't certain what, exactly, he was looking for as he worked the Britannia Gate's baggage line. But the Britannia was the first gate to cycle since Ianira's disappearance. If Skeeter had kidnapped someone as world-famous as Ianira Cassondra, intending something more subtle than simply killing her and dumping the body somewhere, he'd have tried to smuggle her out through the first open gate available.
For one thing, it would be far easier to torture a victim down a gate. Fewer people to hear—or at least care about—the screams. And if her abductor really was the person who'd shoved her out of the way of an assassin's bullet, if he actually was interested in keeping her alive, then getting her off the station would be imperative. Too many people had far too many opportunities to strike at Ianira on station, even if her rescuer tried to keep her hidden. In a gossip-riddled place like La-La Land, nothing stayed secret for long. Certainly not an abduction of someone as beloved and strikingly recognizable as Ianira.
So Skeeter had abandoned his search of the station, donned a shapeless working man's shirt and the creaseless trousers of the Victorian era—the costume worn by all Time Tours baggage handlers working the Britannia—and reported for work, as planned. As Ianira had planned... He couldn't think about that now, couldn't dwell on the fear and the dull, aching anger, not if he hoped to catch what might be a very fleeting, subtle clue betraying a smuggler.
How someone might successfully sneak someone through a gate occupied Skeeter's thoughts as hotel bellhops arrived in steady streams from hotels up and down Commons, bringing cartloads of luggage tagged for London. Tourists generally carried no more on their person than an average passenger was permitted to carry aboard a jetliner, which meant—and Skeeter stared in dismay at the flood of baggage carts on direct approach to the Britannia's lounge—that bellhops and baggage handlers had to transport every last trunk, carpet bag, portmanteau, and ladies' toiletry case from hotel room door to down-time destination, through a gate which opened only so wide and stayed open only so long.
Sloppy handling, broken contents, and lost luggage had resulted in the firing of many a baggage handler, not to mention four baggage managers in just the past few months. And Celosia Enyo, the latest in that dismal line of unhappy managers, was not the kind of woman to tolerate mistakes by anyone, not on this gate's cycle, anyway. After all, this wasn't just any gate opening. This was a Shangri-La Event: Ripper Season's official kickoff. And true to ‘eighty-sixer predictions, the social gala on the other side of the departures-lounge barricades had roared to boisterous, ghoulish life.
"I don't care what those experts say," a severely dressed woman was saying as she passed through the check-in procedures, "I think it was that barber-surgeon, the bigamist. George Chapman."
Her companion, an equally severe woman with upswept, greying hair, said, "Chapman? His real name was Severin Klosowski, wasn't it? I don't think he was a very likely suspect."
"Well, Inspector Abberline named him as a leading candidate! Klosowski killed lots of women. Wives, mistresses, girlfriends—"
"Yes, but he didn't use a knife, my dear, he poisoned them. The Ripper wasn't that devious. Klosowski killed his women when they got too inconvenient. Or too expensive to keep. Jack the Ripper killed for the pleasure of it."
And behind those two, a professorial-looking little man in a seedy suit was holding forth at length to a drab little woman with a dumpy build and a rabbitty, frightened look in her eyes: "A serial killer needs to punish the woman or women he hated in his own life. He acts out the violence he wished he'd had the nerve to commit against the women who injured him. Jack the Ripper simply transferred that violence to the prostitutes of London's East End. That's why it can't be Klosowski," he added, nodding at the two severely dressed women in line ahead of him. "Personally, I favor the Mysterious Lodger, that Canadian chap, G. Wentworth Bell Smith. He went about in rubberized boots, changing clothes at all hours, railing against loose women. I'd stake my reputation on it, Bell Smith's the man..."
The nearest of the ladies championing Chapman rounded on the Bell-Smith supporter. "A killer proven is a killer proven!" she insisted, refusing to be swayed in her convictions by any amount of evidence or reason. "Mark my words, Claudia," she turned back to her friend, "Chapman or Klosowski, whichever name you prefer, he'll turn out to be the Ripper! I'm sure of it..."
While overhead, on the immense SLUR television screen, the scholarly debate raged on. "—a very common pattern," Scotland Yard Inspector Conroy Melvyn was saying in a taped interview with fellow Ripper Watch Team member Pavel Kostenka, "for a male serial killer to attack and kill prostitutes. Bloke sees ‘em as a substitute for the powerful woman in ‘is life, the one ‘e feels powerless to strike at, instead."
"Indeed," Dr. Koskenka was nodding. "Not only this, but a prostitute represents a morally fallen woman. And prostitutes," Dr. Kostenka added heavily, "were and still are the most easily available women to such killers. Add to that the historical tendency of police to dismiss a prostitute's murder as less important than the murder of a ‘respectable' woman and streetwalkers surge into prominence as victims of mass murderers—"
Skeeter tuned out the debate as best he could and grunted under the weight of massive steamer trunks, portmanteaus, carpet bags, leather cases, smaller trunks and satchels until his back ached. The arriving luggage was transferred case by case to a growing pile at the base of a newly installed, massive conveyor system which Time Tours' new baggage manager had finally had the good sense to install. Skeeter glanced up to the gate platform, five stories overhead. Thank God for the conveyer. Some of those steamer trunks weighed more than Skeeter did. Considerably more. He eyed the gridwork stairs he'd be climbing soon and blessed that conveyer system fervently.
Geographically speaking, the Britannia was the highest of Shangri-La's active tour gates. When it opened, tourists climbed up to an immense metal gridwork platform which hovered near the steel beams and girders of the ceiling. Until the advent of that conveyer, sweating baggage handlers and porters had climbed that same ramp, gasping and hurrying to make it through before the gate disappeared into thin air once more.
"Sheesh," Skeeter muttered, grabbing another trunk by its leather handles and hauling it over to the conveyer, "what's in some of these monsters? Uranium bricks?" One of the other baggage handlers, a down-timer who worked most gate openings as a porter, grunted sympathetically as Skeeter groused, "They're onl
y staying in London eight days, for Chrissake. And they'll be bringing back more than they left with!"
They would, too. Right down to the last yammering, whining kid in line. Parents had to pay a hefty amount of extra cash demanded by Time Tours, Inc. for children's tickets, a policy put into place after a couple of kids had managed to get themselves fatally separated from tours out of other stations. Children on a time tour were like gasoline on an open campfire. But parents still brought their brats with them in droves, and a surprising number paid the extra fees for kids' tickets. Others simply dropped the kids off at the station school to "have fun" in the zany world of the station while Mommy and Daddy went time hopping.
Skeeter dragged over another portmanteau. Why anybody would take a child into something like the Ripper terror... He could see it now. My summer vacation: how a serial killer cut up women who make their living sleeping with strangers for money. And kids had grown up fast in his day.
"C'mon, Jackson," an angry voice snapped practically in his ear, "enough goofing off! Put your back into it! Those baggage carts are piling up fast. And more are coming in from the hotels every minute!"
Skeeter found the baggage manager right behind him, glaring at him through narrowed, suspicious eyes. He resisted the urge to flip her a bird and said, "Yes, ma'am!" Just exactly how he was supposed to work faster than top speed, Skeeter wasn't quite sure, but he made a valiant effort. He cleared the cart in front of him and shoved it out of the way so another could take its place. Celosia Enyo watched him sharply for the next couple of minutes, then stalked further down the line, browbeating some other unfortunate. At least she was impartially horrible to everyone. Of course, after the miserable track record her four immediate predecessors had compiled between them, Enyo doubtless sweat bullets every time a gate opened, hoping she'd still have a job when it closed again. Skeeter could sympathize. Not much, maybe—anybody that universally rude deserved a dose of unpleasantness right back, again. But he could sympathize some.
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