TimeRipper

by D E McCluskey

  Carrie Millwood stood and brushed the creases out of her dress. ‘Don’t argue with the gentleman, Rose. If he wants us to take our business elsewhere, then that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘If there was any business to take from you besides the obvious, then maybe I’d care,’ he replied.

  The rest of the pub was silent while they hungrily watched this exchange. The audience included a certain Aaron Kosminski, who was sat in the opposite corner eating a bowl of broth. He hadn’t noticed the two women in the corner, and when he had been served, both Annabelle and Mary had been on a break. He was astonished to see all four of them in the same pub with him. Why does this keep happening to me? He thought. What connection do I have with these witches? He watched as Carrie and Rose walked towards the door with their heads held high and proceeded out onto Commercial Street. He turned back towards the bar just as Mary Kelly and Annabelle Farmer exchanged glances.

  What’s going to happen here? He wondered. Should I stay and watch these two, or follow the other two out there? He lifted his wrist to contact Abberline but stopped. He hurriedly finished his soup, then exited the pub, following Carrie and Rose.

  ~~~

  Kosminski was becoming paranoid regarding the witches. He knew that he wasn’t a good man, not by a long shot. He was a wife beater, and given half the chance, he would have been a murderer. The night he had witnessed the first one arrive from whatever dimension witches came from; he had been there to kill the man he suspected his wife of having an affair with. After that, he had almost killed beaten her to death, and on more than one occasion, had been ready to kill all the witches, one by one, only something had stopped him.

  That something had been the mystery man.

  How had he not seen this man on any nights other than when he did his killings? Was it because he was a ghost? Maybe he kept going backwards and forwards through time, like something Abberline was talking about. Either way, he scared the Hell out of him.

  He was mulling this over as he watched the two women enter their lodgings unmolested. Maybe old Jacky isn’t playing out tonight after all, he thought. He turned away, back towards the Princess Alice pub. As he did, he lifted his wrist and spoke into it. ‘Can you hear me, Inspector?’

  ‘Hold on, just one minute,’ the voice rasped through his communication device. It sounded like a hushed whisper.

  He shrugged and walked on.

  About five minutes later, his device spoke to him. ‘Kosminski, are you there?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ he hissed into the device. This form of communication never ceased to amaze him.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t talk. I’ve had that bastard George Lusk in my office all day, riding me on about the stupid postcard and now the ‘From Hell’ letter, plus the half a kidney. If I find that this was you again, I’ll have you behind bars so fast.’

  ‘I assure you, sir, they weren’t me,’ he lied, stifling a laugh.

  ‘Well, it looks like it’s a pig’s kidney anyways, and the handwriting’s all different. So, what is it you want?’

  ‘I suppose you already know that the four remaining witches—sorry, women—are all holed up together now, and that you know the address?’

  ‘I do, but that’s not going to help. This person isn’t going to make a full-on attack and take on four of the women at once. At least one of them are trained in unarmed combat; it would be far too risky.’

  ‘Well, did you know that two of them are hard at work in the Princess Alice pub? Both doing the afternoon shifts?’

  There was a pause on the other end. ‘No, I didn’t know that. Thank you, Mr Kosminski. I’ll look into it. Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m heading to The Ten Bells, where I’m going to get myself rotten drunk. Care to join me?’

  ‘Hardly,’ was Abberline’s one-word answer before the connection was severed.

  The big man chuckled as he headed in the direction of his favourite drinking establishment.

  62.

  Orbital Platform One. 2288

  VINCENT MADE IT back from twenty-one-eighty-eight without incident, although he now had a newfound liking for real ale. Youssef was happy with the successful communications and that the return journey was executed without a hitch. The Higgs Storm compensators had worked within their expected tolerance on the boy’s return.

  Jacqueline was exceptionally happy to have Vincent back in one piece, and they soon slipped back into their, not-so-secret, relationship. He gave her his grandmother’s wedding ring in lieu of an engagement one. ‘We’ll make it official when I get back from the main mission, I promise,’ he whispered into her ear when they had finished making love on his first night back.

  Kevin was busy making tactical plans. They were still not sure how to track the women in such a heavily populated area.

  The science team were worrying about how the Higgs Compensators would deal with the excessive amounts of Storm that would be produced on Vincent’s return. They wanted to ensure they wouldn’t overload when he brought the women back; to avoid catastrophe if he brought them all back in one trip. It was decided that the return would have to be undertaken in Inverness, where they had the facilities to store the Storm, before it naturally degraded over time.

  Dr Hausen was finding co-ordinating EA work on Earth to be a tougher job than anticipated. The people were becoming more hostile towards the EA. Most of the countries still functioning were starving, while the rest were hoarding. It was a mess of riots and mass upheavals. The EA were struggling to keep peace wherever they could.

  63.

  London. 1888

  ABBERLINE WAS WORRIED. He had picked up a signal sent from a portal somewhere within the Whitechapel area. The signal was masked and encrypted, but there was no mistaking that it had been from the women. He was concerned because since the night it had been sent, the only murders had been the Stride woman, the Eddowes woman, and the Callaghan woman that he did himself. Since then, there had been nothing; over a month and not one more murder.

  He had been fed some interesting information by Kosminski regarding the movements of the women, but nothing of any real importance.

  What could the signal have been? Was it a cry for help? They probably didn’t expect to be found this far back in time. Maybe it was a shout for reinforcements? Send more bodies in order for us to complete the mission?

  As these thoughts ran through his head, he consulted his portal. It only showed the four signals, nothing more. ‘But that’s not real proof that there’s someone else here. Why can’t I see the other damned signal?’ he cursed.

  ~~~~

  Less than a week later, the pubs were back in full swing. Annabelle Farmer had been keeping her distance from the landlord of the Princess Alice, and he had been keeping his distance from her, at least while his wife was around. Tonight however, she was out. She had travelled to Liverpool to visit some of her family who had arrived from Dublin. This left him in charge for a few days, and there was chaos concerning staffing levels for the late shifts. ‘Farmer! Get over here, will yer?’ he shouted to her as she turned up for her shift with Mary. ‘I need someone to work a shift tonight. Since our little arrangement seems to have gone out of the window, it looks like it’s going to have to be you, or your mate.’

  Annabelle’s heart sank. ‘What do you mean? We only ever do the afternoons, you know that.’

  ‘Not tonight, darlin’. Sort it out between yers. I don’t rightly care either way which one of yer it is, but one of yers it will be.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to sort this out?’ she asked, brushing herself into him and giving him a wink.

  He looked down her low-cut top and licked his lips, then he shook his head. ‘No, love, nothing doing. I need cover for tonight, and that’s the end of it. If you want to do the cover and then, when we close up, we can have a, erm, conversation about the future, then that’s fine by me.’

  ‘What if I tell you that you can put it in my mouth?’ she whispered into his ear.
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  His face changed suddenly, and he shoved her into the wall behind her, where she slid down onto the floor. ‘What? Do you think I’m queer or somethin’? If I’m gonna put it into you then it’s gonna be in your stinking quim,’ he shouted, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow.

  She got up off the floor and straightened her dress. The huge man was towering above her with his fists clenched. ‘Get out, slut! Get the fuck out of my pub, and don’t you even think of coming back in here. I won’t have the likes of you thinking that I’m a pufter with all that French shit. Tonight, I’m gonna fuck your mate over there after closing. I’m gonna fuck her raw, and all the time I’ll be thinking of you, you whore. Out the back way, now.’ He picked her up and carried her effortlessly to the back door.

  Still dazed from her crash into the wall, she didn’t have the energy in her to scream and fight her manhandling. He opened the door and tossed her, like a discarded toy, into the back yard. He then slammed the door hard enough to knock some of the cheap plaster off the frame.

  Mary Kelly was busy working the outside of the bar when it had happened and was ignorant of the drama when the landlord stormed over to her. She noticed his face was red and his eyes looked angry and dangerous. Maybe Annie’s been paying our dues again, she thought, sadness tinging her face at the thought of what her friend had to endure to help keep them safe.

  ‘Kelly,’ he roared. ‘Farmer’s gone home sick. You’re working tonight until we close, you got that? If you tell me no, then you can leave right now and never come back.’

  Mary’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach, and her eyes slowly widened at the news. ‘Tonight? Till three?’ she whimpered. It was not like her to whimper anything, but this change of events, put the fear of God into her. ‘I…’

  The landlord cocked his head. ‘What was that? Were you just about to say, can’t?’

  Mary hung her head. She was stuck in a difficult situation. They needed the money, but she didn’t want to have to walk home alone at three in the morning. She hoped that when one of the others found out that Annabelle was sick, they’d come in and walk home with her.

  ‘No, I’m fine. I can do it.’ She smiled before walking away to collect more tankards.

  ~~~~

  Aaron Kosminski woke late in the afternoon. He hadn’t opened his barber shop in over a week; he’d been far too agitated to trust himself to cut hair. Something was about to happen; he could feel it. He didn’t know what, but he knew it was going to be huge. For some reason, the strangest urge to drink in the Princess Alice pub had come over him.

  With his heart beating fast and butterflies fluttering around his stomach, he dressed in his new cape and hat and took off for the drinking establishment. He had a full purse of coins in his pocket, and he was determined to spend it.

  Tonight, may well be something spectacular, he thought.

  ~~~~

  ‘Mary, I want you in the back room after your shift, OK? It’s not a fucking request,’ the landlord grunted as she passed him with a tray full of drinks. The night had been busy indeed, as the fear regarding Jack the Ripper, or Spring Heeled Jack, or even Leather Apron, was dying down around the East End.

  ‘Erm, OK. Can I ask what’s it about?’ she shouted in reply as she passed him.

  ‘Your future,’ he replied with a sneer. ‘Or lack of...’ he mumbled under his breath, thinking she couldn’t hear as he walked off into the bar.

  She watched him push into some unsuspecting punters, spilling their drinks before turning towards them as if goading them into saying something, anything.

  None of them did.

  With her mind anywhere else, other than on the job at hand, she spilled a drink over the table she was serving. One of the men at the table jumped up, trying to wipe the wet, sticky mess from his trousers. With a sneer, he reached out and grabbed at her. Without thinking, acting purely on impulse, she turned and slapped him in the face.

  ~~~~

  Kosminski was surreptitiously hidden in the corner of the room. He’d been there most of the day, keeping a low profile and dodging the attention of the witches as best he could. He’d been drinking heavily, but it was having very little effect on him. In fact, he felt as sober as a judge. He watched as the one known as Rose slipped behind the back door with the landlord. He’d heard some shouting and then noticed that she had not returned all night. ‘So, Mary Kelly. I think it may well be your turn tonight,’ he mumbled as he sipped his warm ale.

  He walked over to the bar, expertly avoiding Kelly. He waited until the landlord caught his glance and shuffled over to serve him. ‘What’s yours, then?’ he grunted.

  ‘I’ll have a grog, please, barman, and maybe a little bit of information.’ He slid a threepenny bit over the bar. The landlord looked at it, put his hand over it, and leaned in, listening to what he had to ask.

  ‘What’s happened to that little bit of quim who works behind here? You know, the small blonde one with the low-cut top?’ He smiled at the landlord, tipping him a knowing wink. ‘You know, she could blow the head off my ale all night long, that one.’

  The big man looked at him as if he had a plague and snatched the threepenny bit off the bar. ‘She’s gone home sick, she has. Dunno if she’ll even be coming back. That little whore has gotten me into a lot of trouble with the missus, if you get my meaning.’

  Kosminski pouted and nodded as if he was pondering something. ‘What about that one?’ he asked, thumbing in the direction of Mary Kelly just as she managed to walk into a punter as he was coming in from the back yard fixing his fly. She narrowly managed to stop the empties she was carrying from falling and breaking everywhere.

  ‘That useless bitch? I’ll tell ya! She won’t make it until tomorrow, that one.’ He then winked at Kosminski and made a show of putting the coin in his pocket. He stood back to regard the gentleman before him, then leaned back in. ‘Unless maybe she spreads them wide enough, that is.’ With that, he rolled his head back and laughed riotously, slapping Kosminski on the shoulder so hard that the big man was pushed away from the bar, narrowly missing barging into the men drinking behind him.

  He offered the landlord a conspiratorial grin before tipping his tankard towards him. The landlord looked at it for a few moments before grunting, grabbing it off him, and filling it full of ale.

  Kosminski got back to his seat, then placed his ale onto the table and stared right at Mary Kelly. She was struggling to pour a drink for a tall, skinny man and avoid his lecherous advances at the same time.

  ‘You definitely won’t be making it ‘til tomorrow,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you tonight, Mary Kelly. You best believe I will.’

  ~~~~

  ‘Carrie, that bastard has sacked me! He’s gotten rid of me, and I think he’s making Mary work the late shift tonight. She’ll be alone with him,’ Annabelle cried as she burst into the lodging room they shared, only there was no one there to greet her.

  Where is everyone? she thought. Tendrils of panic began to sneak into her stomach. Then she remembered Carrie and Rose had gone to sit in The Ten Bells as they had been barred from the Princess Alice. They wanted to stay in the company of others, so they had elected for that pub as it was closer to where they were living. She slammed the door on her way out and ran down the lane towards the busy and bustling Whitechapel.

  Because of the trade passing through Commercial Street and because it was a Thursday night, traditionally a busy drinking night, they had large men working the doors. Primarily, they were there to stop trouble, but most times they managed to start it. As she tried to push her way into the pub the two burly men stood in her way.

  ‘Whoa there beautiful, where do you think you’re going?’ one of them asked as he grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘I’ve got to go in there and see my friends. They might be in trouble,’ she spat, trying to shake off the man’s strong grip.

  ‘And what sort of trouble would that be?’ the other asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘I’m
only askin’ because we don’t want any trouble on our shift, see!’

  ‘They’re not causing trouble, they’re just in trouble,’ Farmer replied, shouting in the men’s faces. This seemed to gear them up.

  ‘Well, hows about you tell me what they look like and I’ll go and get them, bring them out to you, like.’

  ‘Can’t I just go in and see them?’

  ‘Well that would be a little too easy, wouldn’t it? You go in to tell your friends they’re in trouble, then you get involved in a conversation, next thing we know, you’re causing all sorts of havoc in there, and me, and my old mate Pete here, have to go and clean it all up, isn’t that right, Pete?’

  The second man grinned and nodded.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she succumbed to the bigger men’s reasoning. ‘There’re two of them. One is tall with long, straight hair. It’s going a little grey. The other is smaller and younger, with curly blonde hair. Their names are Carrie and Rose.’

  ‘You keep her here, Burt. I’ll go and see if I can see where these two tarts are.’

  ‘They’re not tarts, they’re respectable women,’ Annabelle argued. The moment it came out of her mouth, she regretted it.

  Pete leaned in close to her, she could smell the stale ale on his breath, mixed with fried meat and sweat. One of his eyes was squinting as if it was made of glass. ‘Two women, drinking alone in The Ten Bells pub? Tarts, I calls ‘em,’ he whispered, his eyebrows raised. There was more than a threatening nature to his voice. ‘What about you, Bert?’

  ‘Aye, Pete, tarts, I say.’

  Annie shook her head and shrugged out of Bert’s grip again. ‘OK, tarts then, just please go in and see them for me. Tell them Annabelle is waiting for them.’