The Sixth Victim

by Tessa Harris

  Laughter erupts nearby. But it has been four weeks since the last murder—or so everyone believes. Four weeks since the fiend had his way with two women on the same night, and the investigation has made precious little progress since. The killer, it seems, has gone to ground. Perhaps he has left the country. Perhaps he has killed himself. Jack’s been locked away in a dark room and the key has been turned. Everyone in Whitechapel wants to get on with their brutish little lives that are hard enough as it is without knowing there is a murderer in their midst. What’s more, the Vigilance Committee is winding down and Mr. Bartleby has reassured Mrs. Piper that “Jack won’t be coming back. Not now.” Even the press is losing interest in the atrocities. Where once their entire column inches might be devoted to gruesome details and wild speculation about the fiend’s exploits, now even politics and public health are given space in their publications.

  In among the waiting crowd stand Constance and Florence Piper, together with their mother and Mr. Bartleby. They are all in their Sunday best, even though I know Constance wishes she had worn her more serviceable woolen shawl and stout boots. I do not let her know I am watching her.

  Flo, resplendent in a new hat, stands next to her. Her fiancé was apparently unable to have time off work, but that does not seem to trouble her. She’s humming to herself while eyeing up a handsome young sailor standing a few feet away. Her attention is reciprocated. Mrs. Piper is finding that the cold wind does not agree with her chest and coughs incessantly, while Mr. Bartleby dreams of sitting in the cozy, snug room of the Britannia, cradling a warming dram of whisky.

  But we must focus our attention on the procession itself. The new Lord Mayor, Sir James Whitehead, is returning in a magnificent coach after being presented to Her Majesty the Queen and to the judges of the High Court in the Strand. Emerging along Ludgate Hill, the long and colorful cortege is headed by guards in blue-and-gold livery. Near the front comes the pompous figure of the city chamberlain, bedecked in ceremonial attire; a cocked hat on his head and epaulets on his shoulders. Dressed in a scarlet uniform, he sits astride a fine white charger. Yet, the crowd on either side of him does not cheer and wave as he progresses. Rather they shout and jeer at him. He is a figure of fun. “String ’im from a lamppost!” yells one bystander. The sentiment is applauded. The populace of London is hard to impress when there’s a murderer on the loose. The new Lord Mayor, cocooned in his coach, fares a little better. As soon as the waiting horde catches sight of the procession, a cheer starts to ripple down the line. Flags and banners are raised.

  “Here he comes!” exclaims Mr. Bartleby. Even Florence takes her eyes off her sailor to look at the spectacle. Constance manages a smile and starts to wave the flag that a passerby has given her. The crowd surges forward, but is kept back by the mounted police.

  “Watch it!” Florence shouts as she’s elbowed in the ribs. Constance feels bodies press about her as she’s carried forward. She does not like the sense of helplessness. Switching to her left, she sees her mother gasping for air like a fish out of water.

  Somehow, amid all this mayhem, two young boys manage to break through the cordon. Ducking and diving between legs and skirts, they head toward the front of the crowd. They’re scruffy and impish and around their necks hang placards. Much to everyone’s astonishment, they scamper out in front of the procession and begin to dance and lark about in front of the city chamberlain’s steed.

  “What the hell are they playing at?” Florence cries.

  “They need a damn good hiding,” replies an indignant Mr. Bartleby.

  Just then, the horse takes fright at the boys’ antics. The crowd is alarmed. The last thing they want is for the animal to run amok. The creature clatters backward, a wild look in its eye, but, thankfully, after an anxious moment or two, the chamberlain manages to rein in his mount. There’s a collective sigh of relief from all those who were aware of what was afoot. Suddenly, though, the mob’s attention is drawn to something else. In a moment, the waving flags are lowered; the cheering ceases; the band master’s baton freezes in midair as he turns round to see what has happened behind him.

  Flo, a full two inches taller than her sister, frowns and nudges Constance.

  “What do them boards say?” she asks.

  A hush is falling on the crowd as those nearest the front read what is written on the boys’ placards. Constance cranes her neck to see as the last of the trumpet notes fade. She squints against the rain now slanting in her eyes. The raindrops blur her vision momentarily. She blinks them away and looks again. “Oh, my God!” she mouths as the gaiety, which had only a minute ago enveloped her, is replaced by an eerie silence.

  “What is it?” urges Flo. “What do they say?”

  Constance turns to her with terror in her eyes. There is no other way to break the news. “They say, ‘Another Whitechapel Murder.’”

  * * *

  Of course, I know it to be true. I’d seen the carnage with my own eyes just before dawn that morning. I’d found myself once more in Whitechapel, in the dingy courtyard, just off Dorset Street. Why I was there, I could not be sure. I never can. I do not choose where I go, but I sense that something terrible has happened. For a moment, I stand outside the miserable lodging in the freezing cold. Of course, I cannot feel the fingers of frost caress where my skin once lay; yet I can still shiver, not through cold but through apprehension. I knew I ought to go inside; yet there was this inexplicable feeling of fear that was worming its way into my psyche. And then I noticed a faint glow coming from inside. Is Mary Kelly awake? Is she alone? I’d asked myself.

  Through the broken pane, I’d peered inside—my eyes no longer needed time to adjust, for I can see in any light—and in an instant, it hit me. I could not believe what I saw before me. I was glimpsing into the mouth of hell. In my state, I am supposed to be immune from such horror, but how can I be when a woman’s body has been so mutilated and degraded with such ferocious barbarity, as if executed by the very Devil himself? Blood on the walls, blood on the ceiling, blood soaking the bed, pooling on the floor; it was an orgy of blood—and body parts. And her face—her lovely face—slashed beyond any recognition. I will not say more.

  The paperboys are parading now, in front of the stunned crowd, proudly displaying their placards as if they were hunters’ trophies. No doubt the newspapers will report this most gruesome murder in lurid detail. They will delight in the severed breasts, one laid so meticulously under her head, the other on the table; the throat slashed from ear to ear; the flayed flesh and, of course, the missing uterus. All these gut-wrenching details will be pored over in minute detail. They are the stuff of the most ghoulish nightmares and fodder for the sickest of minds.

  What their legions of readers will never know, however, is that Mary Kelly’s womb was harboring an unborn child. And her attacker cut it out. Just where the fetus has gone, I cannot say. All I knew, as I stood aghast in that blood-drenched room, was that I could take no more. I left. It was the fate of an unfortunate rent collector by the name of John Bowyer to discover the sickening scene. Mary Kelly was behind with her rent and Bowyer was dispatched to obtain it. In the event, he found so much more than he’d bargained for. The sight will haunt him for the rest of his days.

  CHAPTER 38

  Tuesday, November 20, 1888

  CONSTANCE

  We’re at the East London Cemetery in Plaistow, not too far from Whitechapel, but far enough. So many die in the East End nowadays that we’re not allowed to bury our dead close to home. The churchyards are overflowing with corpses.

  The fog curls around the headstones and licks at the mausoleums. I must confess that even I, someone who’s in touch with those who’ve passed, find it an eerie place in this sulphurous light, even though it’s near noon. I never liked churchyards when I was a youngster. They always gave me the creeps; then after Pa died, they gave me comfort. I’d sit for a while by his grave and just talk, grouse about this and that, moan about Flo and Danny, tell him about Ma, but never about
Mr. Bartleby, of course. But then, perhaps he already knew. I used to tell him all the things that Miss Tindall taught me, too, about the pyramids in Egypt or the palaces of India or the wild beasts of Africa. Sometimes I’d recite poetry as well: Wordsworth or Shelley or Blake. Miss Tindall used to tell me I needed to escape from—what was it?—“mind-forged manacles”—that’s what Mr. Blake called them, anyway. She said “ignorance is a prison” and that everyone should try and break free. The trouble is that now I’ve tasted freedom I no longer know who I am: a simple flower girl from the East End just trying to survive, or an educated lady who cares about all the poverty and injustice that surrounds me.

  I stand within sight, but as far away as I can, from the memorial stone that has been laid in memory of Miss Tindall. Her parents are spectral figures, black ghosts in a blurred landscape, as they pay their respects. I thought they’d want to bury their daughter in their own parish churchyard in Sussex, but they told Miss Beaufroy that she always wrote to them with a passion about her work in the East End and would have wanted to be buried here among the people she cared for so deeply. She didn’t tell me where she wanted to be buried. Perhaps it doesn’t matter to her, just as long as she is laid to rest in a fitting and proper manner.

  I’ve had no dealings with Miss Tindall’s family. Miss Beaufroy thought it best that way, and so do I. She’s taken care of all the necessary arrangements and sorted affairs with Mr. and Mrs. Tindall. I’m not sorry. For all my newfound knowledge and my manners, I’m still a simple soul at heart, not versed in the ways of registers and forms and all the etiquette that higher-class people observe when they’re in mourning. They seem to like to make a great show. They wear their black weeds for months, sometimes sitting for hours on end in darkened rooms. They are not allowed to listen to or play music, not allowed to dance or sing. But I won’t do that. I won’t mourn Miss Tindall in that way, even though I’m feeling so alone. I’ll remember her with love and respect. Every time I look at a beautiful sculpture, or pick up a book or visit a museum, I’ll think of her and the riches she has given me. But still I’m so afraid she may have gone—that I’ve lost her for good.

  She hasn’t spoken to me since Mary Kelly’s murder, you see. There’s been not a word or a sign from her. Sometimes I think I’ve dreamed it all; she never really appeared to me in a vision and that all my premonitions, my strange sensations, were simply figments of my vivid imagination. The truth is, I feel incredibly alone. Miss Beaufroy has been thoughtful, so kind and understanding, but she will go back to her big house in the country tomorrow. I will go back to my hovel and still we’ll have to beg, steal and borrow to pay our rent. While Miss Beaufroy takes tea with clergymen and politicians in her genteel drawing room, I’ll be helping Flo pilfer, and will be scraping together pennies just to buy food. She can’t understand me. How can she? We are worlds apart, whereas Miss Tindall was part of my world and now she’s gone to another.

  EMILY

  There she stands, my Constance. A woman, yet still a child. She has come a long way since those first days when I returned to seek her out, but she still has much to learn. Of course, I owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Without her, my rotting torso would still lie anonymously in the mortuary. At least now my earthly body will enjoy the comforts of a proper grave. Yet, despite my ephemeral state, there is much I have failed to do. As I have told you before, I can only guide. I do not dictate how people behave. Man’s free will does that, so despite my best intentions, evil still holds sway. It has dominion over so many, and, in particular, in Whitechapel.

  * * *

  I could not foresee what Geraldine Cutler did to poor Mary Kelly. God only knows how I wish I could have prevented her from wielding that knife. But the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” is so true. Her rage and her jealousy blotted out all her reason and replaced it with a savagery that shocked the civilized world. She never confessed to her heinous crime, even though her husband found her bloodstained clothes and guessed. Instead, he saw to it that she was shut away quietly in the asylum in Hampstead, where she died three years later.

  * * *

  Robert Sampson was true to his word. He saw to it that Libby Lonergan was returned to her family, and a substantial amount of money was handed over to pay for their silence. The other missing girls, however, were not so lucky. Despite the illegality of it, like hundreds of English children, they remained in brothels for the rest of their wretched lives.

  * * *

  And as for Jack the Ripper? No one has been held to account, yet. Rumors are breeding like cockroaches, not just in Whitechapel and not just in London. All over the world, news of the killings has spread and so does the speculation. Jack is royalty; Jack is an American; Jack is a Jew; Jack is a physician; Jack is a Freemason. The mystery remains unsolved thus far, consigned to legend and endless debate. I fear several more women will be murdered in the East End in the two years following Mary Kelly’s murder. No one knows how many will die at the Ripper’s hands, but, for now, most pray that poor Mary is his last victim. Yet I know differently. You may not have heard of Catherine Mylett, or Alice McKenzie, or Frances Coles, but they, too, will all meet their fate in gruesome circumstances, not to mention another headless torso that will be discarded under a railway arch in Pinchin Street.

  The truth is Jack the Ripper will always stalk the streets of London—and Paris and New York and every city in the world. He looms large at every ill-lit corner and in every narrow walkway. He sits next to you in a railway carriage and mingles in hotel lobbies. There isn’t just one, single killer, but several, each determined to exercise the power that man has had over women since time immemorial; each one bent on satiating their perverted lusts, or wreaking revenge in order to ultimately, simply gain control.

  * * *

  Like any young woman, Constance will not be immune to such dangers, but if I can guide her safely through the maze of her existence, give her the confidence to right individual wrongs, fight injustices that seem small in the scheme of things, but are great to those affected, then perhaps my time on earth will not have been wasted.

  Such is the nature of humanity; it is cruel and calculating and vicious, but in among the harshness and the dark iniquity of it all, a seed of hope must flourish. Granted, my own life was cut short before I could accomplish what I set out to do for the people of Whitechapel. However, as long as I can work through Constance, then this new life of mine, this second chance, will be as busy in the future as it was in the past, and, I pray, it will be as fulfilling in this new world as it was in the last.

  Now that I have returned to this earth, to this part of London, in my altered state, I will see to it that, with Constance’s help, I shall do just that. Together we will shine a little light into the darkest corners of existence and tend that seed. God willing, it will take root and bloom. It will not be easy. Many challenges will have to be overcome. Many obstacles will lie in our path. But I know that in our own small way, we can achieve great victories on behalf of the voiceless and the oppressed.

  * * *

  As Constance stands there, casting a forlorn look across at my headstone, her cheeks wet with tears, thinking she is all alone once more, I see her sadness and I hear her voice. I shall offer her my hand. Not now, but soon, and, if she accepts it, if she lets me into her life once more, then together we shall go on another journey. Let it be so.

  AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For introducing me to the extraordinary world of the spiritualist medium in late Victorian England, I must thank my longtime friend and expert on the paranormal, Lynn Picknett. Her study of Florence Cook, a fifteen-year-old girl who morphed into the materialized “spirit” Katie King at many a well-attended séance in England, piqued my interest.

  I do not pretend to be a Ripperologist and, while every effort has been made to be factually correct, there are many facts that are still disputed among scholars. My thanks in this field must go to Ripper expert David Bullock, whose book The Man W
ho Would Be Jack I highly recommend. Of course, dozens of books have been written on the subject of Jack the Ripper. Ones that I particularly commend to you are Russell Edward’s Naming Jack the Ripper, The Complete and Essential Jack the Ripper by Paul Begg and John Bennett, and Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman by John Morris. By far, the best online resource is www.casebook.org, the world’s largest public repository of Ripper-related information. Here you’ll find—among hundreds of fascinating tidbits—newspaper and postmortem reports, articles and essays relating to the Whitechapel murders, as well as a photographic archive.

  As ever, I am indebted to my editor at Kensington Publishing, John Scognamiglio, and to my agent, Melissa Jeglinski.

  For spending many hours with me as I trawled around Whitechapel, I would like to thank my long-suffering husband, Simon. My thanks also go to my daughter, Sophie, and my son, Charlie, for their understanding when I forgot to buy any food or burned the dinner because I was so engrossed in the writing of this novel. Once again, my friend and fellow writer, Katharine Johnson, has lent her support, as have Carolyn and Barry Cowing. And finally I’d like to mention our little dog, Indy, who was always my constant writing companion and sometime (welcome) distraction, before he, too, “passed over” earlier this year.