Requiem for the Ripper

by kindels

  Forbes seemed to have turned to jelly, his whole body language indicating he was in no state to speak of the matter. He sank into his chair, his eyes, once more darting around the room, looking for whatever it was that appeared to terrify him earlier. As his mouth moved, the only sounds that emerged were incoherent mumblings. It was therefore left to Kate to say what perhaps he would have done if he'd been able.

  "The reason William is able to relate the dream in such detail and with unerring accuracy is because, David, my dear boy, the nightmare he's describing was not exclusive to Jack Reid. If I'm not mistaken, I think we'll find that William, here, has experienced the images and the terror of that dream first-hand. In short, he's relating to us his personal experiences of his own private version of the nightmare; am I correct, William?"

  Kate's words cut through Forbes's terror and he responded almost instantly, as though, by revealing her deduction, she'd relieved him of a great burden.

  "Yes," he sobbed as tears began to stream from his eyes. "How did you know? How on earth did you work it out?"

  "It was quite easy, really, old chap. No one could possibly have related the imagery you just conveyed to us with such intensity, unless they'd gone through the experience personally. There was no way you could have simply heard it from Reid and then told it to us in the way you did. You may not have realised it, William, but as you spoke, your body grew tenser by the second. With each step along that awful street you described, you sunk further into yourself, your eyes shrank and your breathing grew more rapid. You were reliving the experience in your mind and, though you fought hard to keep your voice on an even keel, I could read every nuance in your tone, and it didn't take a genius to put two and two together."

  "Er, excuse me," I butted in. "I'm not exactly a numbskull, Kate, and I certainly didn't work it out."

  "That's because you weren't looking for it, David, my dear boy. You see, not only did I read it in what William was saying, and how he was saying it, almost from the beginning of his telling us the story of the dream, I was actually expecting it."

  "You were?" I asked.

  "Really?" asked an incredulous Forbes. "But, why? How? I don't understand how you could have been expecting that the dream was as much mine as Jack Reid's."

  Now, the reason for me asking Kate Goddard to join me on Skerries Rock would begin to reveal itself. This was why she was here, and why I was definitely glad she'd agreed to help me in the strange case presented by William Forbes. Kate looked deeply into the eyes of the man sitting opposite her, and she spoke quietly and gently as she revealed the first results of her own examination of Forbes.

  "From the first moment I met you, William, I knew that something horribly fearful or painfully dreadful was troubling you. I don't mean that I could see you were a worried man, that kind of thing. Anyone can see such things in their fellow human beings. No, I could sense something malevolent hanging over you, the presence of an aura of evil that wasn't directly a part of you. In fact, I feel there are two auras surrounding you, William, both of which are fighting a battle of wills, perhaps to take control of you, or at least your mind. I do know that you've sensed these things yourself, and that's why you are constantly searching with your eyes for the things that you feel are attempting to assault your psyche. It's an illogical act, of course, because, although you can feel them, you most definitely can't see them. Now, am I on the right lines with my initial hypothesis?"

  Forbes appeared stunned.

  "But, yes, that's exactly what's happening. You're amazing, really. How on earth, I mean, how could you ... ?

  "It's what I do, William, and I suspect that David, here, had a similar idea of these things, but couldn't really work it out for himself, but his subconscious mind knew enough to make him call me in to assist him, and you. The human mind is capable of so much more than people sometimes imagine, William. You, David, almost everyone, have certain abilities that, under normal circumstances, never reveal themselves. They are simply lying dormant but when great danger or trauma takes place, quite often this latent sense, let's call it the 'sixth sense' for want of a name, can click into place and give us the so-called 'premonitions' or 'hyper-sensitivity' that are often evident in such cases. David felt something in you that he instinctively knew he couldn't handle, but that inner sense told him that I could help and, hey presto, here I am."

  "Yes, I see, well, at least I think I do. But, Kate, don't you see? If I've been having the dream, it can only mean one thing!"

  Kate nodded, I merely felt confused. Auras are not something that fall into the everyday remit of a clinical psychologist. Although I'd sensed that William Forbes had problems that might call for Kate's special brand of expertise, her current train of thought had left me a little outside the loop.

  "What William is saying," she explained, "is that if he is experiencing the same dream, or nightmare, whatever you wish to call it, then, somehow, he believes that he must have some connection with Jack the Ripper. So far, it would appear that only members of the Cavendish family have been affected by contact with the journal and, if Reid was to be believed, that particular family, from Burton Cavendish's offspring to the present day, are all loosely descended from the same bloodline as The Ripper. Therefore, and I assume this is the question you've been asking yourself, William: Why should you, a solicitor with no previous connection to the Cavendish or the Reid families and their descendants, find yourself under this kind of psychological assault?"

  William Forbes now appeared totally in awe of Kate as he gasped, "Why, yes, that's it exactly. You're an amazing lady, Kate. You've worked it all out in next to no time. As you say, if I'm dreaming the same things as Jack Reid did, then does it mean I'm also, somehow, a relative of Jack the Ripper? I don't see how I could be, but there doesn't seem to be any other logical explanation, does there?"

  "There are always the possibilities of other explanations, William," Kate replied. "Whether they are valid or not, or whether they will stand up to scrutiny, is another matter, of course."

  "And these auras you mentioned?" I asked, not wanting to lose the thread of the conversation and how it all connected the case together.

  "Ah, yes, the auras," said Kate. "First of all, I believe that William is currently surrounded by two different, but somewhat obviously real auras. Number one, and this is the one that I feel is the most dangerous, is the one that is trying to take control of his mind, and is, without doubt, a strong and malevolent force of evil. The other, not as strong as the first, is by no means an evil force, but one that, if given the opportunity to overpower the first, may just prove to be the route to William's eventual salvation from the curse of the Cavendish family, if that is indeed what we are facing."

  "Then you can actually see these things?"

  "No, David, I can't see them, but I do feel them, sense them if you like, with that other sense I was speaking of earlier. I don't consider myself to be special in any way, but perhaps I've managed to develop that particular sense more than others, and that gives me this innate ability that you and others have found useful in the past."

  "So, do you think you can actually help me?" pleaded Forbes.

  "I hope we can, William," Kate answered positively. "The first thing we will need to do is to investigate the history of your family, if that's okay with you. We must try and discover if there is any possible connection between you, your ancestors, and the Cavendish family."

  A thought hit me.

  "There is another possibility, Kate. One of those 'other' possibilities you were speaking of earlier, perhaps."

  "Go on David."

  "Well, so far we're assuming that all the latent evil, the Jack the Ripper stuff and all that, was passed on in the genes of Burton Cavendish. Certainly, some of his genes must have borne The Ripper's makeup, or it would be inconceivable that it would have affected his family through the generations, however we should also be reminded that The Ripper had a mother too. According to Reid's story, the journal mentioned that
she ended her life while incarcerated in a mental asylum. Isn't it therefore safe to assume that she bore as much responsibility for creating the insanity of The Ripper as did Burton Cavendish? Isn't it possible that William is descended, not from the Cavendish line, but from the family of The Ripper's mother?"

  Kate Goddard smiled a knowing smile as she spoke once again.

  "You know, David. I really do think you are developing a talent for this kind of thing. I had nursed that thought in my mind for the last few minutes, and I wondered if, perhaps, you might pick up on it too."

  "Oh, my God!" Forbes exclaimed, a look of shock permeating every aspect of his face. "You really do think I'm a descendant of that vile, murderous beast, don't you?"

  "As I said, William," said Kate, solemnly, "there are always other possibilities, so, yes, we must consider this one both carefully and diligently if we are to assist in saving you from the fate that has befallen so many members of the Cavendish family through the years."

  "Saving me? You mean you really think The Ripper is trying to get me?"

  "Get you? Well, yes, perhaps, but not in the way you currently believe. I would hazard a guess, William, that if the journal holds the power that the Cavendish family have believed it to possess, over the last hundred years or so, then there is a likely danger that you may be the next one to be pulled into its nightmare world. If you're not considerably careful, and if we fail in the task ahead of us, you may, conceivably, be the next Jack Reid, or the next Mark Cavendish."

  Forbes's mouth fell open, though he uttered no sound at all. His face registered total shock, as I think mine must have done too. At no time, up to that awful moment, had I considered the potentially terrible scenario Kate had just outlined. However, I was forced to confront the possibility that the middle-aged man, now seated in my fireside chair, in my cosy little home on Skerries Rock, might just be destined to be the next incarnation of Jack the Ripper!

  As for the man himself, William Forbes sat hunched, a beaten man to all appearances, as tears began to run down his face and his body began to shake uncontrollably.

  The terrible silence in the room, broken only by the steady ticking of the grandfather clock, ended as Kate brought us back to the present.

  "I think," she said quietly, "we had better start looking into William's background sooner, rather than later, eh, David?"

  I nodded, saying nothing, my mouth dry as old bones, feeling as dumbstruck as the man in the chair, who continued sobbing quietly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Shadow in the Night

  The sound of waves crashing over the rocks, that littered the shoreline of the bay on the Atlantic side of Skerries Rock, mingled with the eerily rushing evening breeze, hurrying in from the open ocean, forming a dissonance of nature's reverberation in our ears as the three of us stood, looking out into the darkness from the cliff top. It had been Kate's idea to drag William Forbes from the sanctuary of the fireside into the open air, in order that he, and we too, might attempt to clear our heads before proceeding further with our strange inquiry. I'd expected Forbes to put up some sort of opposition to the idea of an evening stroll after the shock of Kate's earlier revelation; but, perhaps because she'd earned his trust and admiration so quickly, he'd made no protest at the suggestion and, instead, agreed to Kate's idea with apparent enthusiasm.

  Dressed in warm coats, fishermen's sweaters, thick winter trousers, neck scarves, and wearing sturdy boots, all topped off with a selection of Peruvian Alpaca wool hats I kept at the croft, we would have appeared an odd trio to anyone who might have seen us on that cold, windswept evening. As it was, there was no one to see us. We three were the entire population of my island. Even the sea birds had called it a night, not even a passing gull or kittiwake swirled in the air above us as we stood, each lost in their own thoughts, for over ten windswept minutes. There wasn't much to see, to be truthful. At that time of evening, with the vast backdrop of the Atlantic stretching out, for thousand miles from the coast of my tiny island home, the horizon soon blurred until sea and sky became one and the same, to the naked eye. Only the pale visage of a faraway half-moon, and the occasional twinkling of a distant star in the vast panoply of space, broke the gloom that met our view; as we continued to stand, buffeted by the wind and lost to each other and to the world, as we communed with the powers of nature for a short eternity.

  What the others were thinking about, I couldn't say, but I was caught up by the thought that William Forbes could be in some way related to the infamous Jack the Ripper, and thus, perhaps, to Jack Reid through some distant family connection. If so, could he really be destined to follow in the footsteps of the original killer? Would he, like Mark Cavendish and Jack Reid, find himself wielding the bloody knife that would end the lives of some poor innocent woman, or women, at some hitherto unknown point in the future? I looked at the back of Forbes's head. He was, without doubt, the least Ripper-like creature I could imagine, but then, as no one knows what Jack the Ripper looked like in the first place, I supposed that to be nonsense. Why would The Ripper appear different to any other so-called 'normal' human being? As a professional, I knew that killers came in all shapes and sizes; that the most mild and inoffensive looking person can, in fact, be transformed into the most terrible killing machine, capable of intolerable cruelty and savagery when faced with the right motive and circumstances.

  The others appeared equally lost in their own private world of thoughts and, for those few minutes, a semblance of peace and tranquillity reigned over Skerries Rock, until Kate's voice broke us from our reverie at last.

  "I think we should be getting back."

  "You do?"

  "Yes, David. There is much to do, and pleasant though it is standing here communing with the power of nature, we really should return and begin our efforts to help poor William."

  "Why did we come out here in the first place if there is so much to do, Kate?"

  "Because, dear boy, even my mind needs a break from time to time. Such were the images portrayed by William's story that I was becoming overwhelmed with a sense of great evil and malevolence that had, somehow, managed to permeate the solid walls of your charming home. In short, I needed fresh air, and the chance to think logically about our next step."

  "And what is our next step, Kate?" The question came from Forbes who had moved a few paces closer so he could hear our conversation. I could tell that he felt tense and afraid. The tremble in his voice betrayed any sense of normality he might be struggling to maintain.

  "Why, dinner of course!" Kate still had the power to shock me. Her reference to something as mundane as dinner, when Forbes appeared almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown, certainly took my breath away, with no lesser force than the strong Westerly that buffeted us as it gathered pace with the coming night.

  "Dinner? Now?" Forbes spluttered. "But what about... ?"

  "We can do little more tonight, William," Kate retorted. "If we are to effectively research your family background, there are certain steps we must follow, certain pathways to tread that are not open to us at this time of the night."

  "David has the Internet," he pleaded.

  "Yes, of course, and there is much that may be gleaned from the World Wide Web," she replied. "But we may require far more than can be gathered from a mere Internet search engine. The information we seek is, I think, well hidden in the mists of time, William. If not, you would, I'm sure, be aware of any, what shall we call it ... er, anomaly in the recent history of your family?"

  "I'm not aware of any such anomaly. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are all well documented."

  "Yes, I'm sure they are, but what about their brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, cousins, illegitimate offspring, and so on?"

  "Good Lord, how on earth do you expect to trace all of those?" I asked.

  "Tomorrow morning, gentlemen, I shall place a telephone call to a friend of mine. He is a historian and an expert in the art of genealogy. If anyone can conduct a t
horoughly fast search, and come up with a fairly accurate and concise family tree depicting your ancestry, William, I guarantee it will be Miles Prendergast."

  I'd never heard of Prendergast, and asked Kate about him as we walked back to the croft, a slightly crestfallen Forbes walking a few paces ahead of us. He'd obviously expected more from the night than the prospect of a meal and an early night. I doubted he'd sleep much anyway, after Kate's earlier revelations.

  "Miles Prendergast, David, is a professor of history. He is based at one of the older colleges at Oxford, though he hails originally from Scalby."

  "Ah, another Scarborough boy."

  "Precisely. He and I sort of grew up together, in the village, and have been lifelong friends. He has one of the finest minds I've ever encountered. About twenty years ago he took up genealogy as a mere hobby, yet became so intensely involved in researching various projects that he quickly became an expert in the field. When we've eaten I'll ask William to write out as much information he can about his ancestry, and in the morning I'll contact Miles and ask him to do a high speed genealogical search and create a family tree for Forbes."

  "But, is it possible to do such a thing, a fast search for something like this?"

  "Believe me, David, if anyone can do it, Miles Prendergast can. When I impress the urgency of the matter upon him, I'm certain he'll get back to me incredibly soon, in a day or two perhaps. Then again, the Forbes family background may be extremely easy to trace, in which case he may be able to do the job much sooner than that."

  "I just hope you're right, Kate. Apart from the fact that there is a chance that Forbes might actually go completely off his head if this thing drags on much longer, what the hell do we do if what you suspect turns out to be true and he does become some sort of 'Clone of The Ripper' while he's here on the island?"

  "Ha, I'm glad to hear you haven't lost your sense of humour, dear boy," she laughed.

  "I'm not laughing, Kate. I'm bloody serious" I chided her.