George thought Patrick was screaming but he couldn’t be sure.
Lying, just inside the doorway to the dark vault, was the headless, limbless torso of a naked woman.
~~~~
‘Sir, everyone’s talking about the latest body being the work of Jack the Ripper. A group of vigilantes calling themselves the Whitechapel Vigilant Committee are patrolling the streets. They’re taking the law into their own hands, sir. Mostly they’re taking this opportunity to settle personal grudges, all in the name of capturing this killer. What’s your take on it?’ Bellis was asking as he brought in Abberline’s paperwork for the day.
The inspector sighed as he looked over the files. ‘I’m just off to the scene, officer. I’ll publish my findings after that and not one moment sooner,’ he snapped at the nosey officer.
‘Do you need a squad with you, Inspector?’ Bellis asked, not taking any notice of the irritation in Abberline’s voice.
Abberline sighed again. ‘Yes, I expect so, Bellis,’ he replied, his voice softening. No reason to take this feeling out on Bellis, he wouldn’t understand the sarcasm anyway. ‘Would you do me the favour of picking five of the most trustworthy officers you can for me?’
‘At once, sir,’ he replied, snapping a salute before making his way out of the office.
~~~~
An hour and a half later, Abberline was once again at the New Scotland Yard vaults. This time under different circumstances. A small crowd, all trying to gawp past the cordon of officers to get a good look at the grisly scene, had gathered. Whitechapel Vigilant Committee, my arse, he thought looking at them with contempt. ‘Officer, I need three men to assist me in the vault. They must have strong stomachs, though. I believe this may be a bad scene,’ he shouted towards Bellis. He smiled as he watched the officer pick three men out and send them down to assist him, noting that he never included himself in this detail. ‘OK, I need to assess this corpse in-situ. Do not let anyone pass here. Do you understand?’
All three of them nodded their acknowledgement.
Abberline made his way into the vault where, three nights ago, he dumped Emily Callaghan’s torso after amputating her limbs and head. The thought of going in here again was abhorrent, but he knew it was required. He removed a small, concentrated packet of powdered lye from his pocket and sprinkled it over the husk of the corpse. The concentration of the powder caused the body to begin decomposing immediately. He waited a few moments for the right conditions, holding his nose against the stink of the rotting flesh. He turned back to the three officers who had accompanied him. ‘I’ve examined the scene and found no clues as to who this woman could be. The body is ready to be removed now,’ he shouted up to the officers, one of whom called over the men who would take the body to the morgue to attempt to find the cause, and the time, of death. Abberline guessed that when they got her there, it would look like she had been dead for at least three weeks, therefore taking all the onus off the two recent murders. He would then, at least, have himself an alibi for his whereabouts on the night of the thirtieth of September.
As the body was hauled up and taken away in a large black carriage, the Whitechapel Vigilant Committee were straining to get a glimpse of what, or who, it was. Abberline walked past them with an air of disgust. Due to his aloofness, he never noticed Aaron Kosminski standing among the crowd of onlookers. There was a small, slightly unsettled, smile on his face.
59.
Cardiff. 2188
VINCENT CLARENCE SPENT his week in Cardiff living in a small barn on the outskirts of the town. The farm had been chosen prior to him leaving, as research had shown the farmer, and all his aides, would be away in London, attending a farmer’s market for two full weeks. There would be no one around in all that time.
His time there was uneventful. He was allowed to send one message a day back to twenty-two-eighty-eight, just a brief five-minute dialogue. He was to leave the channel open for any emergencies that may arise on either side of the time rift.
He was to interact as much as he could with the natives of this time but not to make any spectacle of himself and not to draw any unwarranted attention either. He needed to be as inconspicuous as possible.
He had been there for two days, and already was bored to tears.
He decided to take a walk into the small, but affluent town of Pant-y-Ffynnon. While there, he made polite conversation with eight people before wandering into The Red Griffin pub. Once inside, he noticed that it was an authentic old pub and not one that had been decorated to make it look that way. He made it to the bar and looked to see what ales they might be brewing in this time. ‘Are these all real ales?’ he asked the older man behind the bar.
The bartender looked up at him from wiping down some of the glasses. ‘Do I detect a London accent, boyo?’ he asked with a smile.
Vincent smiled back. ‘You do, sir. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, it’s just we don’t get many visitors around here, mostly on account of the rain,’ he laughed.
‘Ah, well, I’m camping in a field not far from here, so I thought I’d spend some time with the locals.’
‘Ah, yes. The great unwashed outside of our main cities, you mean?’
Vincent laughed. ‘You got me there, sir. So, getting back to your real ales, what selection do you have?’
‘Are you sure you’re wanting a real ale, boyo? They’re strong, you know.’
Vincent tipped the bartender a wink. ‘I’m a big lad, you know. I think I can handle a few brews.’
The older man laughed again as he began to pour a pint of something called Sheep Dip. ‘How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Twenty-five, sir. I’m just out of the EA academy. I wanted to stretch my legs a little before joining up completely.’
‘Right then, Mr EA, this one’s on the house, but you’re paying for the rest of them. If you make it past five, I’ll give you another free,’ he winked.
‘Deal,’ Vincent agreed shaking the bartender’s hand.
~~~~
Two hours later, Vincent staggered out of the Red Griffin pub after having made it to six pints of Sheep Dip. The bartender was helping him.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a lift? Do you remember where you left your tent?’ he shouted as he watched the youngster stagger off towards a field.
Vincent waved him away while concentrating on trying to see the road ahead of him and trying to not succumb to the tilting cobbles of the road. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he shouted back towards the locals who were all looking out of the door.
In reality, he shouted ‘Aillsbe foon.’
60.
London. 1888
ABBERLINE HAD BEEN a regular visitor to the morgue since the bodies of Stride and Eddowes had been brought in. However, there hadn’t been an opportunity, that he could take advantage of, to retrieve the slug he knew was still residing within Stride. Even though it was inactive, he still wanted it out of her.
Today he had a chance of doing what needed to be done. Ever since the trunk of Callaghan’s body had come in three days ago, there had been non-stop interest on whether or not it had been the work of Jack the Ripper. Most of the doctors, surgeons, and analysts were too busy trying to find out who this mystery woman was to be bothered with the body of a woman who had been dead for a few days.
Abberline was able to access the disposal room. The stink from inside was horrendous. There were no number of lilies, or bottles of perfume, in the whole of London that would be able to mask the smell.
Stride was tagged and wrapped in a muslin cloth. She was marked to be buried the next day in a sparse ceremony paid for by the parish of Plaistow. He had a window of about ten minutes to get in, locate the device, and extract it. The plus this time would be that the inactive slug would offer no resistance.
He removed her muslin and retched at the week old, untreated corpse. He could feel hot bile rising in his throat, but he had a job to do, and he couldn’t allow any level of repugnance to hin
der it. He set up his spherical locater and instantly her decomposing body was bathed in a green light. There was one dark area located just above her left breast. He quickly used the retriever to cut the body open. The gas that escaped from the wound was atrocious; and this time he did gag. He leaned over the small sink next to the body and retched up everything he had eaten today. This is worse than killing that other poor woman, he thought.
The extractor latched onto the device and pulled it out of the grey, putrefying flesh, easily. He snatched it out of the air and put it in his pocket just as Bob Droog, the chief mortician, walked into the room.
‘Inspector Abberline, can I help you with anything?’ he asked, with a look of suspicion on his face.
‘Dr Droog! I was just doing a last-minute inspection of the body, sir. I heard she’s to be buried tomorrow. Today would prove to be my last opportunity.’
The fat surgeon shook his head, his jowls jabbering as he did. ‘I don’t think you are going to get any more information from this one, Inspector. She’s a ripe old bird now, sir, look…’ he pointed towards the muslin cloth and the brown stain that had only just appeared. ‘She’s rotten! Any evidence she may have on her will be long gone now.’
Abberline smiled and wiped at his moist lips. ‘No harm in trying, eh, Doctor? Is there any news regarding the other body yet?’
‘Nothing yet, I’m afraid. The poor woman had been quite torn apart. We’re thinking, because of the advanced decomposition, that she’s been dead for at least six weeks. We’re no longer entertaining the notion that this poor unfortunate is a victim of this Jack the Ripper character, but we still don’t know who she is.’
‘Well, we do know that if she’s been dead for six weeks then she must have been moved. Those builders swear there was no body there last week when they dug out the vault. So, it looks like we still have a Whitechapel mystery on our hands, Doctor.’
‘All I can say is good luck with that, sir. I must get back to it, she isn’t going to identify herself, you know,’ the doctor muttered, attempting to dismiss the inspector.
‘Have you thought anything about that girl who’s been reported missing? Gallagher, or something like that. The case fell on my desk a while back, but I had far too much on to take it. I gave it over to Inspector Peckham, Whitechapel.’
‘Hmm, never even gave that a thought. Until her head and limbs turn up, I don’t believe we’ll ever know, eh?’
With that, the fat mortician slapped him on the back heartily and walked out of the room.
Abberline, with the reassuring weight of the quantum slug in his trouser pocket, followed him.
61.
THE WHOLE OF London was rife with talk of the killings. Even though the police and press had officially put out the word that the headless and limbless corpse was not involved in the Jack the Ripper investigation, the people did not believe it. Six murders were the talk in the taverns, six savage murders. The assailant there one minute, gone the next. Some people were saying he was a ghost, some were saying he was a demon from Hell. Others were saying he was an Angel from Heaven sent down to smite sinners, or that Spring Heeled Jack was back and was wreaking revenge on the people of London. Some people were likening him to the barber murders in Fleet Street all those years ago. But whatever he was, there were mixed feeling about him among the pub owners and breweries. During the day, their trade had risen by nearly one hundred percent, with gangs of people huddled around their booths and tables, passing drunken gossip about who he might be, what his motives were, and why what he was doing was being covered up by the police. However, as soon as it went dark, which it did early in late October, all the pubs and taverns in, and around, Whitechapel emptied quickly. Only the few die-hard drinkers, mostly the men, stayed on late.
This early trade was good news for Annabelle Farmer. She was no longer required to do evening shifts in the Princess Alice pub, and because of the influx of patronage during the day, the landlord had grudgingly agreed to allow her friend, Mary Kelly, to do a few shifts too. Annabelle had struck a deal with him to allow them to work the same hours so they could walk home together. Against her better judgement, and against her higher morals, she had reluctantly agreed to perform certain acts upon the landlord for this favour, although she stipulated that they would stop if any of his bodily fluids went anywhere near her.
‘I don’t care what the fuck happens to it,’ the landlord growled with a dirty sneer. ‘But I still want to be able to touch yer.’
She had no other choice than to allow this. It made her sick, but if it kept the four of them alive, then her reward, when they returned to twenty-two-eighty-eight, would be worth it.
So, each day, Annabelle and Mary would work behind the bar of the Princess Alice. The landlord would get a little something for the honour of him allowing them to work together, and Carrie and Rose could sit in the corner and drink a little. The extra money coming in from Mary’s work, and from the ‘extra’ that the landlord would sometimes give Annabelle for his pleasure (although not all the time), allowed them to pay up on their rents for their individual lodgings and all move in to share a one room lodge that would benefit a small family on Millers Court, daubed the worst street in London.
This was how it went on for almost three weeks.
Tonight however, the landlord was in no mood for levity. His wife had voiced her suspicions earlier that he’d been dabbling with at least one of the girls in their employ and had taken it out on him the night before. All day he’d been stomping around the pub sporting a black eye and a thick lip. He was also in no mood for troublemakers either.
His wife was a large woman with big flabby arms. She always looked dirty and had a strange smell about her, like ingrained dirt that had been masked with inexpensive perfume. The landlord was no slouch either; he stood about six foot four, which made him huge in this time. He wore his hair long, curly, and dirty, and he sported a thick bushy moustache that was always filled with bits of food. No-one ever talked back to him as he’d been known to physically throw men out of his pub, either singlehandedly, or with the help of his large wife.
Today he was aware that there was not going to be any ‘special favours’ from Annabelle, therefore, there was not going to be any trouble-causers in his pub.
It was a simple equation.
He was out in the bar area collecting tankards when he heard a commotion from one of the booths in the corner. This heightened his spirits a little; he was in the mood for hurting someone. What he saw heightened his mood even further. Three drunken soldiers were slouching over the booth harassing two women.
He thought he recognised the women, but he couldn’t be sure. Either way, it didn’t matter to him, he was about to have some fun.
‘Is everything all right here, ladies?’ he asked, leaning his large frame into the booth.
One of the soldiers turned and looked at him as if he was dirt that had been brought in on someone’s shoes. ‘No, it’s not, old man,’ the soldier replied. ‘Be a sir and kindly fill our tankards with your shit ale, will you? We’re busy with these whores.’ He then dropped his pewter tankard on the floor, where it broke into five pieces.
The landlord exploded in a rage. He was not so bothered about how he had been spoken to, but he was bothered about the tankards—they cost him money.
He grabbed the soldier by his hair and yanked his head back so hard that he was pulled away from the booth. He then held onto the soldier, dangling him in the air. His face was turning bright red as his feet struggled to gain purchase on the slippery floor.
The other two jumped from their seats and stood ready to fight. The landlord smiled and grabbed one of them in his meaty arm and put him in a headlock. The third one hesitated in his attack. He held his fists out towards the landlord, but his eyes kept switching between his friend in a headlock and his friend dangling by his hair.
‘Don’t just stand there, Smithers, hit the bastard,’ shouted the first soldier as he dangled, trying to grab the landl
ord’s arm. The second one was struggling too, but as his face was buried deep into the landlord’s stinking arm pit, no one could understand what he was trying to say.
Smithers’s defensive stance was wilting. He looked around the bar as if searching for someone, anyone who could help him. No one was stepping up to that mantle. The landlord nudged his head in the direction of the exit. Smithers took this as his cue to leave, and swiftly left.
Still in a rage, he dragged the other two soldiers through the pub and threw them both out into the street to the cheer and applause of his drunken patrons.
Outside, the three soldiers dusted themselves off, shouted some obscenities back through the door, and left the vicinity, scarpering off along Commercial Road.
As he turned back into the pub, all the patrons who had been cheering and whistling, abruptly stopped as he glared at them. He then stomped back over to the two grateful looking women in the booth.
Rose Mylett stood up and offered her hand out to him. ‘Thank you, sir, those soldiers were taking liberties. Frankly they were scaring—’
‘Get out! The pair of you,’ he grunted. ‘We run a clean pub, and we don’t want whores like you coming in here, stinking the place out.’
‘I can assure you sir, we were not—’ Rose began.
‘Well, what are you drinking then?’ he gestured down to the table. There were two vessels half filled with ale. ‘I can only see two tankards here, and one smashed one. I know the soldiers were drinking ‘cause I served ‘em, so what are you ladies drinking then?’
Rose looked at the empty table before glancing over to the bar. Mary Kelly, watching the proceedings, caught her eye and then began to pour two tankards of ale. ‘I got their drinks right here, sir,’ she shouted over.
He didn’t even bother looking in her direction. ‘Don’t bother, these ladies are leaving,’ he growled.
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