There didn’t seem to be much to say after that so we sat in silence, lost in our own thoughts as we finished our beers then, still quiet and thoughtful, went our separate ways.
Chapter Nineteen
It was winter when we first moved into the police station. Ma had been dead and under the ground for three months by that point and I remember missing her desperately as we dumped our makeshift bundles of clothes and bedding on to the floor and stared around us at the plain whitewashed walls, the dusty shelves and the grease streaked windows that overlooked Commercial Street. Aunt May, brisk and efficient as always, clicked her tongue against her teeth as she looked around then quickly set to work, first directing us to put our things into our rooms then calling us back to help her clean and tidy up. ‘This will make you all a cosy home once it’s all spick and span,’ she said to me, hugging me close as I began to cry again. ‘You’ll be happy here, Cora, just wait and see.’
I hadn’t believed her at the time - it was still, after all and when all was said and done, a police station and not precisely the pretty cottage with roses around the door that I had always dreamed of. Even as we scrubbed the table and windows then swept the floors, we could hear the policemen downstairs marching about in their heavy boots and calling to each other, their voices gruff and manly, their laughter harsh and a little frightening.
‘I don’t really like the idea of you girls living close to so many men,’ Aunt May said in a quiet voice, looking dubiously first at Cat and then, more lingeringly, myself. ‘Although I am sure that your father knows what he’s about in bringing you here.’ Again there was that dubious look. ‘You will be careful, won’t you, my dears? You’ll do as your Pa tells you and stay away from the other policemen?’
I hung back and said nothing, mainly because at that time I didn’t really understand what she meant or what I was supposed to be careful about but Cat, who knew better as always, grinned and gave our aunt a quick, fierce hug. ‘Of course, Aunt May,’ she said. ‘And I’ll keep an eye on our Cora too so don’t worry about her either.’
I thought about all of this now as I walked up Commercial Street to the police station. As Aunt May had predicted, it had indeed become a happy home to us all to the extent that now, after all these years, I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere else and it even felt a little peculiar to me that other people lived in places that didn’t have dozens of policemen shouting, marching and laughing underfoot. It would probably have been too noisy a home for many folk but I took a strange comfort from the sounds that drifted up from the police station below, particularly late at night when I lay sleepless in the bed that I shared with my sister and listened with my eyes sleepily half closed to the singing, shouts, slammed doors and murmurs that came from down below.
The sun had gone in and there was a drizzle of light rain that had come on with the usual suddenness of that time of year, so that I was slightly damp by the time that I had reached the blue painted main doors of the police station. Usually I would walk further along the street then skirt sideways into the back yard but on this day I lifted my chin and marched boldly in through the front door.
‘Alright, Cora?’ one of the mutton chopped Sergeants called from behind the desk as I strode in, his lined face showing no great surprise to see me. It was the job of the older Sergeants like my Pa to man the main desk and deal with any enquiries that came in while it was the lot of the younger men to walk the beats around the district. ‘Your Pa is around here somewhere if you want to see him?’
I smiled and shook my head, pulling up my apron to dry my hair and then my face. ‘Not if he’s busy,’ I said. Everyone seemed to be busy in the station that day, from the officers bustling about, their brows creased with worry as they whispered together about the recent spate of murders and that morning’s inquest to the usual huddle of drably dressed, sickly looking men and women slumped miserably on the bottom of the cells.
The Sergeant sighed. ‘We’re up against it and no mistake,’ he said miserably. ‘I’ve never known anything like it.’ I knew that he meant - Whitechapel was as lawless and brutal a place as they come but murder, and particularly when committed with such savagery, was still very much out of the ordinary here, not because of any hallowed respect for the sanctity of life or anything like that, but because it was considered pointless in a place where no one had anything worth stealing and no one blinked an eyelash if a couple wanted to part ways so there was no need to kill an unwanted spouse if you wanted to shack up with someone else. Such murder as we saw here was of the petty and sad variety - mothers killing their unwanted children, men beating each other about the head in a bar room brawl, drunken beggars turning on each other in their gin fuelled madness. Certainly not anything like the horrors that we had seen in the last few months.
‘You’ll catch whoever is doing it,’ I said consolingly, even though I didn’t really quite believe it. ‘He’ll make a mistake soon enough. He has to, really. It’s only down to sheer luck that he hasn’t been caught so far, isn’t it? I mean someone as mad as he clearly is can’t be all that cunning, can they?’
I looked to him for reassurance but he just sighed again, more heavily this time. ‘I hope so.’ His face brightened then as another, more cheerful, thought struck him. ‘Mind you, there’s plenty of folk saying that he’s gone up north to Gateshead. There’s a girl been murdered up there too, throat cut from ear to ear and left out on the street for all to see. Maybe he isn’t even here any more so we’re all worrying about nothing.’ He sounded hopeful, which I suppose was tough cheese for the girls of Gateshead.
The glass panelled door behind him opened and I instinctively drew back as Inspector Abberline appeared, a deep frown between his fine dark eyebrows. ‘Sergeant,’ he nodded politely to the officer behind the desk before turning to me. ‘It’s Sergeant Lee’s girl, isn’t it?’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘Cora?’
I bobbed a small uncertain curtsey. ‘That’s right, sir,’ I said so quietly that he had to lean forward to be able to hear me. ‘I live upstairs.’
Abberline nodded. ‘You were at the inquest today,’ he said.
I nodded shamefacedly, expecting to be reprimanded but instead he surprised me by smiling and beckoning me forward. ‘Come with me,’ he said, lifting up the hinged section of the desk counter so that I could pass through to the other side. ‘I would like to talk to you if I may, Cora Lee.’
Shivering with nerves, I followed him through the door to the inner sanctum of the station, a confusing warren of whitewashed corridors, cells and briefing rooms, all of which swarmed with uniformed police officers who nodded deferentially to Abberline and peered curiously at me as I wandered, pale, terrified and convinced that I was about to be arrested, in his wake.
Eventually we arrived at his office, a makeshift affair next to door to that of Detective Inspector Reid, that had clearly been hastily cleared up for his use just before his arrival a few weeks beforehand. He held the door open for me as I entered then closed it firmly behind us before gesturing that I should sit down on the falling apart leather chair that had been pulled close to the shabby, paper and book littered desk. ‘Please be seated, Miss Lee,’ he said gently. ‘There is no need to be afraid of me. I wished only to make your acquaintance.’
I gave a little nod then quickly sat down, carefully folding my hands together in my lap and, with some effort for I was still very frightened, turning my gaze on to him as he perched, somewhat uneasily on the edge of the desk, pushing some papers out of the way as he did so. ‘This office is a mess,’ he said with a nervous laugh gesturing around him at the piles of books on the floor, the unmade cot bed in the corner, the dog eared notes, sketches and photographs carelessly pinned to the board behind him. I took one look at these then had to look quickly away - a gesture that he noted with an almost imperceptible nod. ‘There’s supposed to be a woman who comes in to tidy but she has yet to materialise. I’m beginning to suspect that she might be a figment of my imagination.’
I found my voice then. ‘That would be Mrs Walsh,’ I said quietly. ‘She is married to one of the Sergeants and is supposed to come in and clean. She acts as matron to the lady prisoners too if they require it and takes charge of any children that come in.’
‘A most necessary woman then,’ Abberline said with a smile. ‘I should be pleased to make her acquaintance.’ Again he looked sadly around his office.
‘She’s ill at present,’ I said. ‘It’s just a cough my sister Cat says but Mrs Walsh, well, she worries and says that it is either influenza or consumption or worse.’
Abberline laughed then. ‘Oh, she’s like that, is she?’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘I have an aunt who likes to always imagine herself more ill than she actually is. I expect that she will outlive us all one day. Their type always do despite all their pills and potions and fretting.’
I smiled politely but my eyes returned again to the three grainy photographs pinned to the wall just behind his head. ‘What did you want to see me about?’ I said, this time unable to drag my gaze away. There was Martha Tabram again, her face flabby and pale in death and her mouth hanging half open just as it had done when I had seen her in the mortuary. Next to her was the thin, careworn face of Poll Nichols, her eyes slightly open and pale hair drawn away from her forehead. Emma had told me that in life, Poll had been a lively little birdlike woman, fond of cracking jokes, a little vain about her relatively youthful looks and always happy to join in a singalong around the piano, get a round in if she had the money or offer a comfortable shoulder to cry on. Like Martha, she was a thief but such an inept and rather pathetic one that no one ever really got angry with her about it.
Annie Chapman, however had been a whole different kettle of fish according to Emma and I looked at her face with interest, shuddering a little as I noticed the piece of white card that had been placed over her neck to hide the terrible wounds that had been inflicted upon her throat. There was no way to disguise the awkward way that her head lolled to side though or the bruised puffiness of her cheeks and eyes. ’She’d been through the wars had Annie,’ Emma had said to me earlier. ‘Had a hard life and didn’t care who knew it. You should have seen her. Proper hatchet faced she was with an expression like a bulldog chewing on a nest of wasps.’ Clearly, she didn’t look much better in death than she had alive.
‘I see that you are interested in the photographs,’ Abberline said quietly. ‘But of course, you have seen Martha Tabram before, haven’t you?’
I gasped and looked quickly away. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, my hands trembling and fluttering in my lap. ‘I’ve never seen any of those women before in my life.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Dr Killeen says that he caught you looking at her body in the mortuary,’ he said, still in that gentle voice.
I shook my head but really there was no point denying it. ‘You won’t tell my father?’ I whispered, feeling my cheeks go hot and red with shame as I imagined Pa’s reaction should he ever hear about what I had done. It was bad enough that Cat should know, even though I knew that she would never tell.
Abberline hesitated for a moment then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I won’t tell him.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you.’ I looked up at him then and met his kind hazel eyes. Most of my father’s fellow sergeants thought that Abberline was too soft, too yielding and preferred the more brusque and forthright manner of the head of H Division’s CID, Inspector Reid, a no nonsense sort of man with bristling dark whiskers who was rumoured to be a committed atheist and whose unlikely hobbies included visiting stone circles and going up in hot air balloons then putting on a parachute and jumping out of them. No one knew yet what Abberline’s hobbies were but I hazarded a guess that they would be rather less exciting than those of Inspector Reid. ‘I don’t know why I did it,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘I expect you wanted to see for yourself,’ he said with a small shrug. ‘I would have done much the same thing at your age. It’s only natural to be curious about death, especially when it is so violent and on your own doorstep as it were.’
I gave a small, flickering smile. ‘Dr Killeen made me feel very unladylike,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t think he thinks that girls are supposed to be interested in such things.’
Abberline laughed. ‘You should try telling my wife that,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘She and all her friends are desperate to hear all the latest gory details of these murders, especially now that it is all over the newspapers and I suspect that it is mostly ladies who read that infernal rag The Illustrated Police News as well.’ He sighed. ‘And you saw the front rows of the inquest, rammed full of local women all lapping up every horrible detail. Poor old Dr Phillips was no match for them, I fear.’ He reached across the desk and picked up a plain tin cigarette case. ‘You didn’t stay to hear all of it though, did you?’ He took out a cigarette and lit it with a match which he then shook and flicked into an overflowing bin by the side of the desk.
’No.’ I shook my head, feeling suddenly uneasy again. ‘I didn’t like to hear about what was done to her.’
He sighed and took a drag on his cigarette. ‘And your friend?’ he said, screwing up his eyes as some smoke blew towards him. ‘The girl with fair hair? I’ve seen her around Whitechapel before. Isn’t her name Emma or something like that? Emily perhaps?’
I shook my head, suddenly on my guard. ‘She isn’t my friend,’ I said stiffly.
‘Isn’t she?’ He sighed and exhaled a plume of blue grey smoke. ‘Ah well.’
I stood up then, pushing my chair back so that it squeaked on the tiled brown floor. ‘I really should get back,’ I said. ‘My sister will be wondering where I am and as for my Pa…’ Someone was bound to have told him by now that Abberline had asked me into his office and he’d be wondering why and probably thinking that I’d been caught in some wrong doing.
Abberline smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, you should go,’ he said vaguely, turning away to hunt for something among his mess of papers and books. ‘I have probably kept you here long enough.’
I nodded then scarpered as quickly as I could before he changed his mind and called me back again. The back rooms of the station, which smelt as always of male sweat, boiled tea, sour milk, tobacco smoke and pease pudding were quiet now as I made my way back to the front lobby - there were just a few younger officers lounging about and whispering together furtively in one of the briefing rooms while in the distance there was the low rumble of Inspector Reid bellowing orders at some poor cowering sap.
‘It’s when the girls like that start to get murdered that we’ve got to worry,’ I heard one of the young policemen say as he jerked his pointed chin, which was covered with the merest dusting of stubble, in my direction. ‘Let’s face it, no one really cares what happens to the sloppy old tarts, do they?’
I almost stopped and told him that he was wrong, that people did care, that I cared what happened to them but to my shame I didn’t. Instead, I just felt my ears go very hot and red and carried on walking, feeling glad that my Pa didn’t feel the same way as him for after all, as he’d said to Cat and I after the Chapman woman was found dead in that backyard not too far away, ‘They’re all someone’s daughters and some of them are wives, sisters and mothers too. It’s a cruel world, so it is, that has brought them to this.’
‘Are you alright, Cora?’ I would have recognised Mr Mercier’s voice anywhere and instantly turned to look at him, feeling half shy, half tremulous with excitement as always. If I was a dog, I’d be wagging my tail at him, I thought, rather disgusted with myself. Why can’t I be more like that Miss Redmayne he’s so keen on? She never looks pleased to see him, quite the reverse in fact.
‘I’m fine and dandy, Mr Mercier,’ I said, trying to look as uninterested as Miss Redmayne always did but without her beauty and poise to assist me, I no doubt ended up looking completely idiotic instead. ‘I was just looking for my Pa.’
He sighed and took a step forward from where
he had been leaning against a doorframe. ‘I thought I saw you at this morning’s inquest,’ he said. ‘I must confess that I was surprised to see you there.’
My heart stopped but I managed a careless shrug. ‘I didn’t see you there, Mr Mercier,’ I said, knowing that I sounded incredibly defensive but unable to stop myself. ‘I was just curious, that’s all. My Pa talks about the murders all the time so I wanted to hear about it for myself.’
He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes considering but not unkind then nodded. ‘I suppose it is only natural to be interested,’ he said at last. ‘After all, women are being killed in the most brutal manner imaginable in your own area so of course you want to know everything you can about it.’ He moved closer to me with a look of concern, while I stared helplessly up at him, putting all the love that I felt into my eyes and wishing that he’d look the same way at me. ‘You aren’t scared though, are you?’
I shook my head. ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘My Pa doesn’t like me to go out at night anyway and besides… well…’ I stumbled over my words but my meaning was clear and he gave another nod.
‘The killer isn’t murdering girls like you, is he?’ he said. ‘But what if he did?’ We walked together along the corridor that led back to the front lobby of the station. ‘Do you think that would change things, Cora?’
I looked up at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ I said although I thought that perhaps I did. What had the young policeman said just now? ‘It’s when the girls like that start to get murdered that we’ve got to worry.’
Mr Mercier gave a lopsided grin. ‘Oh, I was just wondering aloud, Cora,’ he said, holding the swing door into the lobby open for me to pass through. ‘I was just wondering if perhaps people would pay more attention, take greater action if a,’ and here he paused for a moment as he clearly tried to think of the right and kindest words, ‘different sort of female was being targeted.’
From Whitechapel Page 21
