The Angel Makers

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by Tessa Harris




  Books by Tessa Harris

  Dr. Thomas Silkstone Mysteries

  THE ANATOMIST’S APPRENTICE

  THE DEAD SHALL NOT REST

  THE DEVIL’S BREATH

  THE LAZARUS CURSE

  SHADOW OF THE RAVEN

  SECRETS IN THE STONES

  Constance Piper Mysteries

  THE SIXTH VICTIM

  THE ANGEL MAKERS

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  THE ANGEL MAKERS

  TESSA HARRIS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Tessa Harris

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2017955300

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0657-7

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: June 2018

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0659-1

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0659-5

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2018

  To Lucy, the bravest young writer I know

  There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

  —Nelson Mandela

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without the help, support and inspiration of so many people. These include the writer and paranormal expert Lynn Picknett and David Bullock, author of The Man Who Would Be Jack. Also recommended for anyone wishing to research further into these murders is Amelia Dyer: Angel Maker by Alison Rattle and Allison Vale. For an overview of life in a Victorian slum, I recommend The Blackest Streets by Sarah Wise. Paul Begg and John Bennett’s Jack the Ripper: The Forgotten Victims concentrates on murders contemporary with the canonical five attributed to the Ripper. There were many gruesome unsolved murders around the world at this time, some “Ripper-style” copycat cases, and these form the focus of this intriguing book.

  Angela Buckley’s walking tour of Amelia Dyer’s old haunts in Reading brought the whole dark episode to life for me, and her book Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders is highly recommended. Thames Valley Police Museum at Sulhamstead, near Reading, also has exhibits pertaining to Amelia Dyer.

  By far the best online resource for all things Ripper-related is www.casebook.org, the world’s largest public repository of information on the subject. Here you’ll find hundreds of fascinating tidbits, newspaper reports, postmortem reports, and articles and essays relating to the Whitechapel murders, as well as a photographic archive.

  Finally I’d like to thank my editor at Kensington Publishing, John Scognamiglio, and my agent, Melissa Jeglinski, my friend and fellow writer Katharine Johnson, and my husband, Simon, and children Charlie and Sophie for their support.

  CHAPTER 1

  London, Saturday, January 12, 1889

  CONSTANCE

  Two blasts. Two blasts from a copper’s whistle is all it takes. I shudder to a halt, my breath burning my throat. Behind me is my ma’s beau, Mr. Bartleby. I hear his heavy footsteps pull up sharp. I turn to see his anxious eyes clamped onto the back of my head; his mouth lost under the thatch of his big moustache. We both know what the whistles mean. They’ve found something. My stomach catapults up into my chest. Two more blasts cut through the fog like cheese wire, then it all kicks off. The air’s filled with the shouts and sounds of men running: a dozen pairs of boots trampling over wet stones.

  “Flo!” I call softly at first, then louder. “Flo!” Then again, until I’m screaming her name over the mayhem that’s breaking out all around me. More whistle blasts. More footsteps. More shouts, too.

  “Clarke’s Yard!” I hear someone yell.

  Clarke’s Yard? I’m knocked off balance. Could she be there? She’s not supposed to be there. Clarke’s Yard is where they found poor Cath Mylett just before Christmas.

  We’re out of Whitechapel, in Poplar, up toward East India Docks, but this is still Jack’s patch. There’s some who think it was him who strangled poor Cath just a hundred yards up ahead. I’m not so sure. Knew her, we did. She was Flo’s good friend and we was with her the night she was strangled. But what’s Flo doing up here now?

  Mr. B’s caught up and we swap looks. Neither of us says a word before we both break out into a run. The high street looms through the patchy smog. Buildings are blurred and smudged, but we can see a couple of coppers making a dash. They’re heading for the builder’s yard. There’s boarded up shops lining the road, but in between an ironmonger’s and a tobacconist’s I know there’s a narrow alley that leads to workshops and stables at the back. Daytime it’s safe—as safe as anywhere can be in this part of London. Come the night, it’s a different story. It’s where men pay to have their way. That’s where they found poor Cath.

  I’m hot and cold at the same time and my heart’s barreling in my chest. The air’s so thick with grit and grime, you could spread it on your bread. I throw a glance back at Mr. Bartleby as I run. He’s no spring chicken and he’s gulping down the dirty murk like it’s going out of fashion.

  “Over there!” I pant. I pause for a moment as, narrowing my eyes, I make out people pouring onto the street. The women stand on their doorsteps, arms round their little gals, while the men and boys rush over toward the yard, setting the dogs barking.

  I start to drag myself as fast as I can toward the din and the gathering crowd. Mr. B’s doubled over, his palms clamped on his thighs. I can’t wait for him. My dread mounts and I start to pray.

  “Please, no. Please let her be all right. Please, Miss Tindall,” I mutter. She was my teacher. She won’t let any harm come to Flo. If it’s in her power to save her, I know she will. Jack shan’t touch a hair on my big sister’s head. Emily Tindall won’t let him. I swear she won’t let him.

  I’m almost there, level with the lamppost that casts a grubby yellow glow on the opposite side of the street. I reach the edge of the
crowd. The lads with the flaming torches who’ve come over with us from Whitechapel are already there.

  I’m glad to see one of them is Gilbert Johns. It was him who cared for me when I fell into a faint in the street a few weeks back. A full head taller than most of them, he is, with forearms like Christmas hams.

  “Gilbert! Gilbert!” I cry.

  He whips round and latches onto my face. Plowing through the gathering crowd like a big shire horse, he edges toward me.

  “Miss Constance.” He’s looming over me, and for a moment I feel safe, but then there’s more shouting and we both see the coppers won’t let no one into the yard. There’s two of them at the mouth, barring the way.

  “Keep back!” one of them cries. The other rozzer gets out his truncheon and starts waving it in the air, but it’s too late. One of the Whitechapel lads—one with a torch—makes a break for it and bolts down the alley. The murmurings start to swell and the coppers can’t hold their line. The crowd surges forward, funneling down the passage. Gilbert and me are among them. His arm’s around me. Beside us, a little nipper takes a tumble, but no one stops to pick him up. We push on, like rats along a gutter, but a second later everyone’s stopped in their tracks, not by the rozzers, but by the shout that bellows from one of the lads up ahead. It’s a sound that makes all of us stand stock-still and catch our breaths; it’s a sound that causes time to stop still and all around us fall away. It’s the cry I’ll never forget. It’s the cry of “Murder! Murder!”

  EMILY

  You may wish to look away. There is blood. Much blood. It is Florence’s, but I am with her, watching over her. I was here to see the flares from the young man’s torch illuminate the sodden earth and show a steady trickle of syrupy liquid. Blood-soaked stockings are visible where the muddy hem of her skirt has ridden up to her knees. She is slumped against a wall, her head lolled to one side, her legs splayed.

  What most of the crowd who’ve clustered in the yard do not yet know, however, is that as well as a stricken young woman, a few yards away there also lies a brutally slain body. Jack is here, indeed, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on his next helpless victim. This is, indeed, his domain. Five he’s killed already. Five he’s cut and gutted. That is why Constance is so desperate to find Florence before he does. But what she is yet to discover is that, this time, the murder victim is not a hapless prostitute, nor, thank God, is it her sister. It is a man. His body has been discovered not fifty paces from where Florence lies, in a blacksmith’s forge. Yet despite his sex, there is a similarity in the manner of killing with the fiend’s alleged female victims. Just like Mary Jane Kelly’s, not two months before, his face has been mutilated beyond recognition.

  More constables, never far away in these dark days when terror is stalking the streets, are speeding to the scene. When news of this killing seeps out into the gutter press, there will be another frenzy in the East End, in London, in England, in the world. More lurid headlines will be plastered across newspapers; more accusations of incompetence leveled at the Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard, and Constance will have to suffer yet more pain and anxiety. For the moment, there is no way out of this quagmire. For the moment, everyone is sucked in. For tonight, you see, they will think the very worst. Tonight they will fear that Jack the Ripper has struck again.

  CHAPTER 2

  Four weeks earlier, Wednesday, December 19, 1888

  CONSTANCE

  “Cheer up, my gal. ’Tis the season and all that!” Flo winks as she pats our friend Cath’s arm, then slugs back her second large port and lemon of the night. Or is it her third? Either way, it’s coming up to Christmas and my big sister’s full of spirit, strong as well as festive, if you take my meaning. So, if a good-looker shows her a sprig of mistletoe, those lips of hers’ll be on him like a limpet. ’Course we know it’s all a show. She’s just putting on a brave face, like the rest of us. It’s six weeks now since Mary Kelly felt his knife, but we know he’s still about.

  “Deck them halls, that’s what I say!” Flo slams down her empty glass and nudges me. “Whose round?”

  Cath and me stay quiet. She’s no money, and me, I don’t take drinks off strangers. We’re in the George Tavern, on Commercial Road in Poplar, not far from the docks. The pub is full of sailors and dockers, and there’s a lech in the corner who’s barely taken his eyes off us girls. On his hand, he’s got a big tattoo of a naked woman. From the look she gave him earlier, I think he might be one of Cath’s regulars. He catches me eyeing his tattoo and suddenly his leathery lips part and he slides his tongue in between them. He rolls it up at the edges and thrusts it in and out of his mouth. I snatch away my gaze and hear him laugh out loud at my fluster.

  It’s coming up to ten o’clock and we ain’t seen a friendly face all evening. It’s not Flo’s usual spit-and-sawdust, but she was stood up by her intended, Daniel Dawson. He’s been called to work late at the Egyptian Hall, with it being the festive season and all that. I’m not sure I believe him. Slippery as an eel, Danny is. If I know his sort, he’ll be out with a girl from the chorus. But Flo’s managed to twist my arm as usual. She’s acted all down in the dumps and persuaded me to come and see what her old pal Cath Mylett is up to.

  Cath is what the French might call “petite.” Round here, we’d say she was a sparrow. She’s been working in Poplar this last month. A good few years older than Flo, she is, but they always seemed to have a laugh together. Even named her first daughter after her, she did, but all that was before he came a-calling earlier on this year. It’s like there’s this great shadow cast over London Town and its name is Jack the Ripper. Cath is a working girl, see. In Whitechapel, she’s known as Drunken Lizzie Davis, on account of her being partial to a tipple, or Rose—that’s her favorite, but here in Poplar, she’s changed her working name again, for a fresh start. Fair Alice Downey, they call her. She reckoned she’d be out of Jack’s patch if she went nearer the docks.

  Flo thinks Cath’s got a man round these parts, too, but he’s married, so she sees him on the sly. But new man or no, she still has to earn her keep out on the streets.

  “Like it over here then, do you?” I ask Cath. She’s not one for the gab, not like our Flo, so I try and make small talk. She shrugs and turns to the direction of the lech.

  “Whitechapel or Poplar, one man’s prick is the same anywhere,” she says in a loud voice, so as he can hear. She talks like she’s got dirt in her mouth. “Leastways Jack’s less like to get me ’ere,” she adds.

  There’s an odd look in her eye, and when I shoot her a questioning glance, she bends low and points to the side of her boot. I catch sight of the wooden handle of a short knife. I’ve heard a lot of working women are arming themselves with hatpins and the like. And who can blame them? A girl’s got to do all she can to protect herself these days. What’s more, from the look on her face, I know she’d use it, too.

  So we’re sitting in the corner, minding our own business, when I see Cath tense. I follow her gaze and who should I see but Mick Donovan, Gilbert Johns’s friend. He’s the Paddy with the funny walk, who worked at Mrs. Hardiman’s Cat Meat Shop. There’s sprigs of sandy hair sprouting under his nose, but it’ll take more than a ’tache to make a man of him. He’s having a word with a bloke at the bar, but as soon as he sees us three gals, he’s over in a flash.

  “’Evening, ladies,” says he, like we’re the best of mates. But Cath is in no mood for boys like him, even if he could pay for his pleasure. She gives him the cold shoulder, so his roving eye soon settles on our Flo. Punching above his weight, if you ask me. Nonetheless, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, he’s offering to buy her a drink.

  “Had a win with a filly at Kempton, so I did,” he tells us. He’s a gambler, all right, but I’ve no interest in helping him spend his winnings in case he wants something in return, if you get my drift. Flo, on the other hand, never refuses a free bevy and accepts his offer.

  While she’s making chitchat with Mick, Cath and me are left to our
own devices. Seems she’s not up for a night on the tiles. She’s edgy and upset about something and keeps looking over to the bloke at the bar, the one with his back to us. The drink’s not working on her like it usually does. Her skin’s all pale and papery and it’s creased between her eyes by a ceaseless frown. This time last year, she lost a baby girl. Hazard of the job, you might say. Sometimes not all the douching in the world will stop one of those blighters hitting the mark, if you’ll pardon my being so frank. But I know she loved this little one—Evie, she called her—just as much as she loved Florence, her first, the one she named after our Flo. But just like with Florence, she had to give her away. Somehow she managed to scrape together a fiver and put the poor mite up for adoption. The minder told her there was a good home for the little soul, but Cath was pining so much that the next day she decided she wanted her back. So she called in, only to find Evie had become an angel overnight. Whooping cough, they told her, even though she seemed healthy enough when she left her the day before. Buried, too, before Cath could say farewell.

  Sometimes Cath dosses in Spitalfields, sometimes in Poplar. If I was a betting person, I’d wager she’s not got her doss money for tonight, neither. She’ll need to work before she lays down her head. My eyes dart to the lech with the tattoo again. He’d have her in an alley as soon as look at her. The thought sickens me.

  I turn back to Cath and see she’s suddenly all teary again. She’s watching a young mum feed her babe in the corner and it’s like she’s picked a scab. She dabs her eyes with a torn hankie. She’s still raw and I clasp her hand tight. You see, I know the pain of loss, too. It’s less than two months since I found out about Miss Tindall’s cruel fate. She was my old Sunday school teacher. Only she’d become so much more than just that. Miss Emily Tindall was my friend, my mentor, no, my guardian angel. Murdered, she was, but no one can be brought to justice and my own wounds aren’t even beginning to heal.

 

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