Requiem for the Ripper

by kindels

  "Music? Outside, on a night like this? What kind of music was it, David?"

  "Well, that's just it, Kate. You remember what Forbes said about the dream, about the music he'd heard when the figure appeared at the end of that terrible street?"

  Kate's face was solemn as I said, "It was a piano, playing Victorian music, Kate, just a few bars, but most definitely the kind of stuff that was played in Victorian public houses and music halls!"

  Chapter Eighteen

  Discordant Melody

  There was nothing outside, naturally. Kate had made no effort to ridicule or dismiss my sudden outburst, but instead had taken me by the hand and led me to the door. Forbes continued to sleep, peacefully, in the chair, and the two of us made a careful exit from the front door and stood surveying the immediate environs of my home.

  "I told you I'd probably imagined it," I said, as we stood in the darkness, listening to the wind as it drummed up a small symphony of its own, as it whipped around the outbuildings and across the yard outside the croft.

  "Probably is never good enough for me, David," Kate replied, leading me further from the door, away from the comparative safety of the warmth and the light, further into the darkness. A shiver ran through my body as I recalled the all too fleeting sounds I'd heard.

  "You really heard something, didn't you?"

  "I thought I did, but, perhaps it was just the wind."

  "And would the wind be capable of producing a sound that would bring to mind a Victorian piano melody?"

  "No, of course not, but with all that's going on around us at the moment, perhaps my imagination decided to play a trick on me."

  "Listen, David, I dismiss nothing, and at the moment I'm neither believing nor disbelieving what you may have heard. Tell me, is there any way you might be able to recall the melody of the sounds you think you heard?"

  "No way, Kate. I'm sorry. Even if it really was the sound of music, it was too short and indistinct for me to even attempt to recall it, or hum it, or try to identify it. Why, do you think it's important, somehow pertinent to the case?"

  "Look, if you heard something, and it was a Victorian melody, I'd say for sure it has something to do with the case. However, if it was a fleeting trick of your imagination, then we have nothing to worry about, do we?"

  "But just supposing it was music I heard. Then what?"

  "Well, my old chap, then we have to ask where on earth such music could have originated, as the entire population of this island of yours consists of you, me and the sleeping man back there in your sitting room. Not only that, but how the hell could anyone re-create the sound of a piano out here?"

  Just then, the sounds of melodic tinkling brought the two of us up with a start. Kate took hold of my arm as I almost jumped out of my skin, until a sudden realisation hit me and I began to laugh, hesitatingly at first, then with gusto as I led Kate along the narrow path that led to the back of my home.

  "What the ... ? Where are we going?" she demanded, as I almost dragged the poor woman along in my wake.

  "There, look!" I shouted against the wind as I pointed towards a small shed that stood a few yards from the rear of the croft, where I kept my tools.

  Kate's eyes followed the direction of my outstretched arm until they came to rest upon the reason for my agitated run around the croft. There, hanging from the overhanging eaves of the shed, was a rather large, steadily swaying and tinkling wind chime, its bars blowing and colliding in the wind, creating its own musical rendition of a random and unknown melody.

  "See, I told you it must have been my imagination, but maybe my ears also picked up the sound of the wind chime, which, from the living room in the front of the house, would have sounded as though in the distance, and my mind simply magnified it into the Victorian melody I thought I heard. It had probably been subconsciously suggested, by Forbes's story and the mention of the music when he encountered the dream apparition."

  "Maybe," Kate shouted above the developing gale, and she began to drag me back around the house towards the warmth of the living room. "We'll talk about it indoors, shall we?"

  It all sounded pretty conceivable to me, and I nodded and allowed her to lead the way back to the house. For some reason, despite the plausibility of my theory and the concrete evidence of the swinging wind chime, I had the distinct feeling that Kate wasn't totally convinced. As we entered my living room once more, and I set eyes on the sleeping figure of William Forbes and the source of everything taking place around us, I admit that neither was I.

  "You don't think it was the wind chime, do you, Kate?" I asked as soon as we'd made sure Forbes was still deeply asleep, and unable to overhear us.

  "I don't know quite what to think yet."

  "But if it wasn't, then where the hell could the music be coming from?"

  "Where the hell, exactly," said Kate with a grim, solemn look on her face.

  "What? You mean you think it might actually have come from beyond the grave? Oh, come on Kate. You can't really mean that, surely?"

  "I've told you, David. I'm dismissing nothing, and accepting nothing for the moment. Best to keep an open mind on the whole situation until things begin to clarify themselves. I really could do with having another word with our sleeping friend over there."

  "So, let's wake him."

  "Yes, I think we should. I need to ask him something and, in light of what you may or may not have just heard, his answer could prove extremely important indeed."

  It took me a good minute to wake Forbes. He was in such a deep sleep that rousing him from his slumber required calling his name, shaking him, and even pulling the footstool away from under his feet, until his eyes opened and he looked up, at Kate and me, with a bleary-eyed stare that told me he wasn't sure where he was for a moment or two.

  "Ah, back in the land of the living, am I?" he asked, as he at last focussed his vision, and smiled at me as he stretched and ran a hand through his wispy hair.

  "I take it you slept well? No bad dreams or nightmares this time, eh?"

  "Quite so, David. I haven't slept so well in ages. How long have I been out?"

  "A little more than an hour, that's all,"

  "Yes, sorry we had to wake you," said Kate, "but there's something we need to ask, and it is important or we wouldn't have disturbed your much needed sleep."

  "Please, it's perfectly okay. What can I tell you?"

  "Well, William, you mentioned to us that, in your dream, you recalled hearing music in the background when you first saw the figure that you assumed to be The Ripper. Have you any idea what that tune might have been?"

  Forbes's face paled as he allowed his mind to focus, once again, on his memories of that awful nightmare scenario he'd described to us in such terrifying detail.

  "Well, obviously, at first, I had no idea what the music was. Jack Reid had described hearing the same thing, of course, but, in his psychologically disturbed state, there'd been no way he'd made any effort to identify the tune. When the dream returned to me for a second, and then a third time, I found that the tune remained within my memory during my waking hours, you know, like one of those irritating TV commercial jingles you can't shake from your mind. I'd never heard the tune before, but I decided to try and find out what it was. I'm not the most tuneful of people, so the best I could do was hum the damn thing. My colleagues, at the firm, must have thought I was crazy as I walked into various people's offices, asking them if they'd ever heard of this particular tune. Of course, none of them had. The few outside acquaintances I had also looked askance at me when I began humming the tune to them, and they were equally at a loss to name the tune. I tried visiting my local music shops, but again drew a blank. I've tried and tried; but, despite my best efforts, I've never been able to identify it. It's always the same whenever the nightmare hits me, but I'm beginning to think I'll never know what it is and what significance, if any, it has to ... wait a minute! Why are you asking me about the music all of a sudden? It must be important if you've woken me ju
st to ask me about it."

  "Well, just before we woke you, David could have sworn he heard the sound of music coming from outside the house. We both went out, but, of course, there was nothing and no one in sight. The wind was getting stronger out there, and then we stumbled across the wind chime hanging from David's tool shed and we thought that, maybe, the wind and the chime might be playing tricks with David's mind, particularly as you'd already mentioned the music. We thought maybe his mind had simply heard the chime and associated the sound with the tune from the dream."

  "Hum it for me, William," I said, wanting to hear the tune in full and see if I could recall the few bars I thought I'd heard earlier.

  Forbes took a deep breath, and appeared to disappear in to the deepest recesses of his own mind for a few seconds, and then he began to hum, softly, at first, and then with greater intensity as the tune progressed. It was a strange, haunting melody, quite obviously Victorian or even earlier in origin. They don't write music like that anymore. Although I'd earlier only heard a few distant bars of what I'd identified as music, it took only a short time for me to raise my hand in a signal to Forbes to stop his rendition. He fell silent and looked at me, waiting for my response. Beside me, Kate stood rigidly, waiting for my response. I think she knew in advance what I was going to say.

  "That last bit, there's no doubt in my mind. It wasn't my imagination, Kate. Don't ask me how, or why, but that's exactly what I heard coming from outside. Now, for god's sake, tell me how the wind could play a trick like that. In fact, I'm begging you to tell me that the wind could play a trick like that!"

  William Forbes stared up at me from his position in the armchair. Kate took hold of my arm, gently, and looked up into my eyes with a look I'd never seen on her face before. I began to feel, for the first time, that perhaps even Kate Goddard had been touched by a frisson of fear as she answered my plea.

  "David, you know as well as I do that the wind couldn't have done that. Gentlemen, it is my firm belief that it has become imperative for us to identify that song. It is, I believe, of great importance somehow. As yet I don't know how or why, but the fact that it repeats itself every time you experience the dream, William, and that you too have heard it, though why I didn't also hear it I don't know, must mean it is of great significance with regard to William's situation."

  It was at that moment that the lights went out, the room was plunged into a subdued, fire lit darkness, and William Forbes let loose a piercing, penetrating scream that made me imagine that every banshee in Hell had descended upon him!

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Journal

  "Damn it!" I shouted, as Kate did her best to calm the screaming figure of William Forbes. "Must be the bloody generator again. It happened yesterday. I thought I'd fixed it."

  "Obviously not," Kate called to me over the sound of Forbes's wailings. "William! For God's sake man, calm down," she cried, as she gripped him by the shoulders and shook him, attempting to break through the fear and panic that had overtaken him with the failing of the lights. He continued to scream, oblivious to her pleadings.

  It wasn't even pitch dark in the room. The glow from the log fire provided sufficient light for us to be able see relatively well, but the sudden plunge from electric light to firelight had done the trick and plunged Forbes back into his twilight world. He quite obviously connected the power loss with the things that were happening to him.

  "He's coming, I know he is!" he suddenly shouted, his face a mask of terror.

  "Who is? Who's coming?" Kate asked the question as calmly as she could, trying to alleviate the panic that clearly flowed through Forbes's entire being. At least he'd stopped that awful screaming.

  "The Ripper. He's going to kill me. I know he is."

  "Why would he want to kill you?"

  "I don't know. But, if he doesn't, why is he doing these things to me?"

  "What things, William? What exactly is he doing to you that you haven't told us about?"

  "What? I don't know. It's just that it all went dark and the shadows moved and ... and I can feel him."

  "What do you mean, feel him? Feel him where, William? Is he here, already, in this room?"

  I marvelled at Kate's tactics. Gradually, she was teasing small snippets of information from the terror-stricken man. A few seconds earlier, Forbes had said The Ripper 'was coming'. Now, 'was coming'; had become 'he's here'. A subtle change, but one that Kate had picked up on immediately. With each answer, Forbes provided her with more of the data she needed to work with in order to solve the mystery into which we'd been plunged. For a few seconds, however, he fell silent until Kate began to urge him onwards.

  "Come on, William, please, tell me, is he here in the room? Is that why you're so afraid?"

  "No, of course he's not in the room, you fool." Forbes was becoming hysterical. Kate remained calm and passive as she slowly coaxed the conversation along.

  "So, where is he? You say he's here, so tell me, exactly, where is he?"

  "He's here," shouted Forbes again, this time manically hitting himself on the chest with the palms of his hands. "Don't you understand? He's right here, inside me!"

  At last! Kate had managed to force it from him. William Forbes, in his hysterical state, obviously believed that Jack the Ripper had somehow taken over his body, or at least had become a part of him. How? I don't know, but it was plain that Forbes believed it. Kate turned to me.

  "David, go and do what you have to do, but please leave us and go and get that damnable generator of yours working. We need the lights on, and fast."

  "But what about ... ?"

  "I'll be fine, really. Now go!"

  Pulling on my weatherproof parka from the coat stand by the door, I hurriedly exited the house and made my way to the generator room outside. Loathe as I was to leave Kate alone with the trembling figure of William Forbes, she remained adamant that I go and get the lights working. She'd assured me she was safe with Forbes, though I wasn't too sure about that. Even so, something about Kate Goddard made people do as she asked, me being no exception.

  Repairing the generator took me all of five minutes. The problem, which I identified almost immediately, turned out to be nothing more than a blown fuse. I kept spares in the tool shed, and soon returned with a replacement, popped it in its place in the fuse box and peered through the darkness to the croft, where I could see the lights come on as power was restored. I wasted no more time in the generator room and hastened back to the house as quickly as my legs would carry me.

  I swept through the door fully expecting Forbes to still be shaking and exhibiting the signs of his earlier terror, yet, in the few minutes that it'd taken me to change the fuse in the generator room, Kate appeared to have succeeded in calming the man down completely. He now sat calmly, as did Kate, who'd seated herself in the armchair directly opposite Forbes's position.

  "Is everything ... ?"

  "Everything's fine, David," she assured me, cutting me off in mid-sentence. "What was the problem?"

  "Just a blown fuse, nothing more serious than that. It happens sometimes with these old type fuse boxes. Maybe one day I'll get a modern fuse board fitted with circuit breakers; but, for now, the system is still pretty much in the dark ages. It was the best the local electricians in the village could supply when I had the electricity laid on. How are things in here?"

  "The second the lights came back on, William calmed down immensely."

  "Yes, I'm so sorry for my outburst," said Forbes to me, looking highly contrite. "I must have sounded like a crazy man."

  "That's okay, William." I smiled at him, feeling a large degree of sympathy for the obviously disturbed individual who'd sought my help, and now seemed to be going through a rapid mental deterioration. "So you don't think Jack the Ripper is inside you after all?"

  "Actually, David, I do," he said in all seriousness. "It's just that Kate here has managed to convince me that I may be in error. We're just talking it through now."

  "Oh, in tha
t case I'm sorry to have interrupted the flow of your conversation."

  "It's not a problem, David," said Kate. "William, as you know, kept screaming at us that Jack the Ripper was going to 'get' him, then, of course, he thought that The Ripper was inside him. Now, as I've just explained to him, if Jack the Ripper was really trying to get him or harm him, he would hardly be doing it from inside the body of the person he wanted to hurt, now would he?"

  There was a kind of logic to Kate's words, but I'm not sure if even she felt convinced by what she'd just said. I could see that Kate was trying hard to mollify Forbes, but her argument fell apart if one considered that the spirit of The Ripper, if it really existed, might be trying to gain control of Forbes and the only way to do that, at least to my way of thinking, would be for that spirit to enter, or possess Forbes's body and mind. I think she knew what I was thinking because she then said, "Of course, David, there are other possibilities, as I've said from the start, but we mustn't let William here fall prey to fear of the dark and things that go bump in the night, must we?"

  "Yes, Kate was just about to explain those other things before you came in," Forbes added, with a degree of composure he'd lacked a few minutes previously.

  "Ah, then you must continue, Kate," I said, wondering how she could get through the next few minutes without telling Forbes that he might, in reality, be possessed by The Ripper, if one believed in such things, of course.

  Kate gave me one of those 'Leave it to me' looks, before continuing.

  "As I was saying," she went on, "I don't believe you are in any physical danger, William. Whether this is or is not a manifestation of Jack the Ripper that is affecting you and, remember, you haven't told us the whole story of your visits to Jack Reid yet, I can see no reason why it should wish to harm you. You have done no harm to it, or him, or whatever, and most spirits, if they are indeed spirits, have no power to harm human beings. I believe whatever is happening to you is taking place on a psychological level and, as such, you are safe from physical harm. On the other hand, I can logically understand that, if you are indeed a descendant of Jack the Ripper, then a connection of sorts may exist between you."