He laughed then and finally I saw something of the terrible madness that lurked beneath that mundane facade. ‘Well, this is unexpected,’ he said, coming so close now that I could smell the rotten stink of his breath. ‘I have to say that it takes the shine off things a little to have you offer yourself up to me so willingly. I much prefer it when my ladies struggle a little - it makes it so much more fun.’
I made myself shrug even though I was almost fainting with fear inside. ‘What other choice do I have?’ I said. ‘What other choice have you left me?’ I could hear Cora’s footsteps behind me as I closed my eyes and waited for the blow to fall, for the chill of his knife against my throat. Every sense I had seemed heightened, every feeling was magnified in that moment, as if my body knew that it was breathing its last and was determined to make the most of whatever was left to it - just when I was wishing with all my might that I could faint and not know what was happening. ‘Get away from here, Cora,’ I called over my shoulder. ‘Run and keep running. Don’t let him catch you.’
She laughed then, an eerie, high pitched sound that owed more to fear than mirth. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said and I heard her take a faltering step forward and one single shuddering breath before there was a loud bang somewhere behind my left ear.
The man dropped to the ground, clawing at his chest as blood spilled between his thin fingers and for a split second his eyes rolled up and met my own with an expression of mingled rage and disbelief before he gave a great sigh and died. I stared down at him for a long moment then gave him a cautious prod with my foot before pulling it back and kicking him hard in the face. ‘That’s for Marie, you bastard,’ I hissed before kicking him again and again and again and again and again, harder and harder each time until his face was a mess of blood. ‘And this is for Polly, Martha, Annie, Cathy and Beatrice.’ I pulled back my foot to kick him again then felt Cora’s hand on my arm.
‘Stop now,’ she whispered, throwing the gun in her hand to the ground and pulling me to her, holding me tightly against her chest as I struggled and cried out. ‘It’s done, it’s finished. He’s dead.’
I wept then and wrapped my arms around her, feeling the fear and worry and tension of the last few months slide away, leaving me feeling curiously empty and exhausted. ‘Where did you get a bloody gun anyway?’ I said at last, gulping and wiping my wet face with the back of my sleeve. ‘You didn’t steal it from your Pa, did you?’
She grinned and shook her head. ‘I found it on the ground in that alley when I was being sick,’ she said. ‘God knows how it got there but I’m glad that it did.’
I smiled. ‘It’s like a miracle,’ I said. ‘Who knew that such a thing could happen on Dorset Street? It’s almost as if there is a God after all.’ I looked down at the mangled body at our feet. ‘What should we do with him?’ I asked. ‘We’re almost at the docks and it’s not quite daylight so I reckon we could carry him between us if you’re able to stomach it.’
Cora gave a shrug. ‘I have the stomach for it,’ she said, rolling up her sleeves. ‘Let’s just get rid of the bastard, shall we?’ She knelt over the body and quickly went through his pockets first though. ‘There’s nothing here,’ she said at last, straightening up and pressing her hands against the small of her back. ‘No papers, no money, no name, no nothing.’
‘Then he most likely won’t be missed by anyone then, will he?’ I said.
We rolled his body into the dark, fetid water of the Thames that lapped against the wharfs and short piers of Wapping. It was still dark and dawn was still only a faint lilac glimmer in the distance as we stood together for a moment in silent reflection while the man’s body sank from sight, aided in its descent by a sack of flour which I’d roughly lashed to his waist.
‘So that’s it then,’ Cora said when there was nothing more of him to be seen.
I nodded. ‘That’s it,’ I agreed with some satisfaction before looking at her. ‘You aren’t sorry that we didn’t leave him to be found by one of your Pa’s lot, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She stared down into the murky water. ‘Let him rot. I think it’s better this way, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
There was another long silence as we both looked across the water to where the docks across the way were slowly beginning to come to life with men beginning to load and unload boats. ‘I suppose we’d best be on our way then,’ she said reluctantly. ‘There’s plenty of boats over there now. We could get on one and be out of here within a few hours.’
I sighed then turned to her. ‘Do you still want to go, Cora?’ I asked. ‘Tell me honestly.’
She looked surprised. ‘I thought we were definitely going,’ she said. ‘You said so.’
‘Yes, but that was when things weren’t right,’ I pointed out with a smile. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of now, is there? We can stay in London and get on with our lives without having to always be looking back over our shoulders.’ I slid my arm around her slender waist and rested my head on her shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t have to leave your Pa, Cat and the boys then. You wouldn’t have to leave anything.’
I felt her shake her head. ‘It can never be the same though, can it?’ she said. ‘After the things we’ve done and seen…’ She pulled away and ran her hands through her long red hair, which had come all undone and hung untidily about her shoulders. ‘I killed a man, Em,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t ever be the same again after that. I feel all undone. I feel different.’
I stared at her then slowly nodded. ‘No, you can’t ever be the same after that,’ I said gently, not really knowing what I could say that would make it all better. ‘You’re just going to have to make your own peace with what happened though, my love, and learn how best to live with it.’ I squeezed her hand, forcing her to look up at me. ‘I reckon it’ll be easier to do that here, surrounded by the people you love though, than alone with me in a strange place full of strange faces.’
She looked at me for a long moment as if searching for an answer in my face then gave a nod. ‘This is my best chance, isn’t it?’ she said simply. ‘My best chance not to hate myself and go mad with the memory of it.’
‘It is.’ I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. ‘We’ll get there though, I promise.’
She smiled then. ‘You’re not going either then?’ she asked.
I hesitated then gave a nod. ‘No,’ I said, picking up her blasted bag and slinging it across my shoulder. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
We walked slowly back to Commercial Street as dawn rose above the city and those well trodden and not altogether beloved streets slowly began to come to life again after a long, dark night. I don’t think that I had ever before felt quite so alive and I couldn’t stop grinning at everyone who passed us and pausing every now and again to pet one of the mangy stray cats and dogs that hung about the streets on a perpetual hunt for scraps of food and comfort. Every now and again though I would remember what lay waiting to be found in Miller’s Court and the smile would fade from my lips as I thought of poor foolish ignorant Marie.
We went to the police station first, slipping silently in through the back yard then saying an awkward goodbye on the doorstep. ‘They won’t be up yet,’ Cora whispered to me, casting an anxious look up at the windows. ‘I don’t think anyone will have missed me and even if Cat does, she won’t say anything so long as I come home again.’
I nodded then kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll be seeing you soon,’ I said, blinking away my sudden rush of tears. ‘You know where to find me and, Cora, give that Mr Mercier a chance, won’t you? I know you’re scared of what might happen but you’ve faced up to worse things this night.’
She smiled then. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ she whispered before giving me one last nod and vanishing inside, letting the door close behind her.
I turned and wearily made my way back towards the Britannia, which was already open for business, with a steady stream of market porters and grey faced women wandering in and out. I
paused for a moment on the pavement outside and looked up at the pub windows and then down Dorset Street, bracing myself for the first cries of distress coming from the direction of Miller’s Court. It couldn’t be long now before they found her.
‘Em.’ I turned and there he was, just as I had always known he would be one day.
I stared at him. ‘Albert,’ I said, thinking how nice it would be to let myself fall into his arms. ‘I thought you were with that girl.’
He shook his head. ‘Not like that,’ he said. ‘It was never really going to last and especially not after I’d seen you again.’
I sighed, not letting myself believe that this was happening, not yet anyway. ‘You should go back to her,’ I said wearily. ‘I’m no good, Albert. I’m no good at all.’ I took a step towards him then paused, not trusting myself should I go further. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’
He smiled then, lighting up his face so that I remembered why I had loved him so much. ‘Let me find out,’ he said.
I shook my head. It had been a long night and promised to be an even longer day once Miller’s Court gave up its terrible secret. He looked nervously down the street and jangled his hands in his pockets. ‘I heard that there was a woman almost had her face cut off on the night that I last saw you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I was worried that she might be you.’
I gave a harsh laugh. ‘I was worried about that too,’ I said before shaking my head again as he looked at me in confusion. How could I ever explain what had happened over the past few months or what had happened that very night? ‘Why are you here?’ I asked at last, still not moving towards him, not daring to hope.
‘To take you home,’ he said simply, closing the space between us and taking me in his arms so firmly and sweetly that I gave up being brave and sobbed against his chest. ‘I’m here to take you home.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’ve been a Ripperologist, taking a decidedly feminist slant on the murders in that I focus on the victims and not the culprit, since I was fourteen and got caught up with the utterly bizarre fuss that surrounded the centenary of the Whitechapel Murders in 1988. Although I was born in the Scottish Highlands, my mother’s family came from the East End of London and so I’d always felt a special connection to the Whitechapel area and indeed have for a long time considered myself to be a ‘cultural Cockney’ albeit one in exile.
This book was probably always inevitably going to happen, considering my deep interest in the case, but came into full and proper being after I discovered a few years ago that my great-great-great grandfather was a Sergeant in Whitechapel’s H Division in 1888 and was very likely involved in some way with the case - certainly he was based at the Commercial Street station and would have known Abberline and Reid among others. When I found out that he lived with his family in the police quarters behind the station I inevitably found myself wondering what life must have been like for his adolescent daughters to be living at the very heart of the Whitechapel Murders and those rather morbid ponderings eventually took flight and became the basis of this book, whose heroine Cora is based on one of my own ancestral aunts, Clara Lee, who was born in Poplar on the 15th of December 1865 and lived to the grand old age of ninety before dying in April 1956 in Whipps Cross Hospital.
I had great fun writing this book, despite the grimness of the subject matter. It was never my intention to write a whodunnit type thriller but instead focus upon the effects that the murders had upon the women living and working in the Whitechapel area.
Many thanks as always to my husband Dave and our boys for all their love and support while I was writing this book. I couldn’t have done it without you, although it may well have taken much less time!
I’d also like to thank my chums in the Whitechapel Society and also on the Casebook and JTR Forums (especially Neil Bell, Neil Storey and Mark Ripper) for all their brilliant chat, theorising and help over the last few years and also the inimitable Cobb brothers and Adam Wood for inviting me to speak on the subject of Mary Jane Kelly at last year’s Jack the Ripper Conference. It was an amazing and very special experience that I will never forget. Many many thanks should also go to the Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life (for being utterly lovely and keeping me inspired), my friends (especially the ones who kindly let me borrow their names for this book but most particularly Suzy Nightingale, Rachael Lucas, Zara Drei, Simon Trafford, Miranda Brennan, Delilah des Anges and Alix Penn!), my blog readers, the people on Twitter who cheerleadered me along, Hendrick’s gin, the bar staff in the Ten Bells, all those Ripper Street fans who made a fuss until they brought it back again for series three, Tom Hardy for just existing, Saga Norén for making me feel normal and everyone who has bought and enjoyed (or not!) one of my books. You’re all fabulous.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melanie Clegg is a blue haired art history graduate, casual historian, GIN taster, lapsed goth, failed Parisienne, Versailles obsessive, proud Ripperologist, Georgette Heyer fanatic and Victorian Prostitute re-enactor who lives in deepest darkest Bristol with her family.
Melanie is now working on the sequels to Minette and From Whitechapel and a novel about the German WWII heroine Sophie Scholl.
You can find out more by visiting Melanie's popular art, history and writing blog at www.madameguillotine.org.uk.
From Whitechapel Page 35
