Sinistrari
Page 26
‘Yes sir, thank you. Will that be all?’
BACK IN HIS OFFICE AT SCOTLAND YARD, Collingwood tried to recall what Warren had actually said, but his mind was a total blank, as though his memory of the occasion was no more substantial than the chalked message on the walls of Goulston Street and washed away as easily, leaving no trace behind. He felt as though encapsulated in gelatine and that he had to fight his way through the sticky morass to breathe even. Perhaps he was close to a nervous breakdown, then something else of what the Commissioner had said oozed back into his mind; perhaps he had been more affected by his ordeal in the tomb beneath Blackwater House and by the horrific death of Gimlet, his only true friend, than he had realised?
Was he being too pedantic in his assumption that Sinistrari was not the Whitechapel killer – was not Jack the Ripper? Was he as narrow minded as Warren?. Too rigid in his approach? He did not know, but he did know that of late he felt as though he was utterly insubstantial, no more enduring than the plume of blue-black smoke that emitted from his pipe. He leaned back into his chair and let the weariness wash over him like a warm bath.
Flanagan watched his boss in some concern, Collingwood seemed to be so distant, and there was a faraway glaze to his eyes, as if he were seeing things way beyond the horizon that only he could see.
More scraps of his meeting with Warren resurfaced. Resignation and retirement the Commissioner had said. Neither prospect worried Collingwood, in truth he was too weary to worry. Weary beyond return. Exhausted by the constant cycle of death that surrounded him. Weary of the strings of killings that hounded his every step. Collingwood could think of nothing better than to retire to a country retreat, to take up fly-fishing again, a pursuit he had followed with enthusiasm as a young man. Standing by a quiet riverbank with the sun dappling through the trees as he leisurely cast his line out into the shadowed depths where the big trout lay waiting for a fly to settle on the mirrored surface above. He could take up fly tying as well, his Uncle Samuel had tried to teach him as a boy but his fingers had been too big and clumsy for that delicate work – probably still are he smiled to himself ruefully; unaware of Flanagan’s close attention to him. So deeply entrenched in his reverie he did not even see or hear Flanagan get up from his desk and leave the office.
Neither did he see him return.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the perfect cast; fly rod and hands and arm working in elegant unison to cast the artificial lure of feather and silk far into the overhang on the opposite bank, darkened by shade where the big fish lurked. Moreover, Lucy would be safe if he retired; to move away from the hateful confines of London and the ever present dangers of Sinistrari’s baleful threat.
Collingwood was not a wealthy man, but the house in St John’s Wood was clear of mortgage having been left to him by his father many years ago and he had a small income from an endowment bequeathed by an aunt on his mother’s side. With this money, savings and his police pension, he and Lucy would survive in reasonable comfort until she found a husband and set up her own home with him. He could even sell the house and buy a small unpretentious house in Hampshire or Dorset, where the fishing was good.
He breathed deeply, his reverie complete.
‘Sir? ‘Sir? Sir?’ Flanagan’s voice finally intruded into his trance like state.
‘Sorry, Sergeant, I was miles away.’
‘Sorry, to intrude, sir, you looked so peaceful there for a moment.’
‘I was peaceful, Flanagan, so very peaceful. The first time I have felt at peace in what seems a very long time.’
‘As I say, sir, I am sorry to intrude but the post mortem report on Catherine Eddowes has just arrived and I was sure you would want to study it as soon as possible,’ said Flanagan passing over a heavy buff foolscap envelope.
‘You know Flanagan,’ Collingwood said, ignoring the envelope, ‘The Commissioner has given us five weeks to track down Sinistrari or else resign and retire. Or rather for me to resign and retire; I’m sure that you would be retained and transferred, possibly back to the Irish Special Branch but without doubt it will mean resignation for me.’
‘It would mean resignation for me also, sir. I have seen how you have almost driven yourself into the ground to try and resolve this issue without receiving a scrap of backing or assistance from the Commissioner or anyone else. If it comes to the point, I shall also resign in protest at your treatment.’
‘But my dear chap, what would you do? You have a wife and young family to support; I could not possibly let you do such a thing on my behalf.’
‘Noleen and I have already talked this over, sir, as soon as this present assignment is completed, whether or not we catch Sinistrari, we intend to emigrate to America – to Boston. My uncle Sean is a captain in the Boston police force and he has written to say there will be a place for me whenever I want at an equivalent to my present rank. But sir, we are going to catch this man Sinistrari. We will not let him be the beating of us this way. We will not go slinking away with our tails between our legs. Catch him we will. Let us not doubt ourselves on that.’
‘By God, Flanagan, you are right. We will catch this man,’ Collingwood enthused, suddenly caught up in his young colleague’s fervour. ‘Sinistrari has made mistakes, by all that is just and holy he has committed mistakes and errors of judgement, the only thing is that we have not yet discovered them. We need to take a fresh approach. Perhaps we should step away from the assertion that the Whitechapel killer could lead us to Sinistrari and open our minds again. We are as certain as we can be that Sinistrari is not the Jack the Ripper killer but we have, or rather I have, been too narrowly focussed on the Whitechapel killings; convinced that they could lead us to Sinistrari’
Collingwood picked his pipe up from out of the ashtray and pointed it at the ranks of files, the piles of reports, the entire mountain of paperwork relative to the Sinistrari murders that occupied several tiers of bookshelf and a considerable portion of the floor space. ‘The answer lies in there! Something we have missed. Perhaps there is something so glaringly obvious that we simply do not see it. Or perhaps some minor detail that seemed irrelevant that is the key to the whole puzzle. Sinistrari has made mistakes, without doubt, and somewhere, in there, in the midst of PC Miggs meticulous records, wherever, lays the solution. We must be so close. What have we missed, Flanagan? What have we missed?’
‘If we knew that sir, we wouldn’t have missed it,’ the Irishman answered, a sardonic grin creasing his black-bearded face.
Collingwood appeared not to hear the droll reply, or possibly chose to take no notice. ‘What we need to do is carry out a comprehensive review,’ he enthused, shaking his pipe so excitedly that black shards of tobacco and ash spilled out across the papers on his desk. ‘Set out all the facts, re-examine all the relevant details, see what reference interlinks with another, look at the obvious again and then look beyond the obvious. Look at the facts with fresh eyes. The answer lies within, of that I am certain.’ Collingwood stared intently at the files, as though expecting the answer to come floating out from the close packed ledgers like a benign ghost.
Then he turned away with a sigh. ‘We cannot, however, entirely forgo the matter of the Whitechapel murders,’ he said with a grimace, brushing away tobacco and ash before using a paper knife to open up the envelope containing the post mortem report on Catherine Eddowes, murdered and mutilated in Mitre Square.
The report by Doctor Frederick Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon, did not make pleasant reading.
Catherine Eddowes’ throat had been cut from side to side causing her immediate death. Once on the ground, she was had been severely mutilated. Her abdomen was laid open from breast bone to pubes including cuts to her genital labia, her intestines had been strewn across her body, body parts were missing including her left kidney, most of her womb and attached ligaments and her face had also been cut and much mutilated. The tip of her nose had been cut off, her eyelids had been cut through, there were cuts through her mout
h onto her gums and teeth and both her cheeks had been cut to the bone and laid open. The mutilations were the most extensive to date of any of the Jack the Ripper victims.
Greatly depressed by this catalogue of horror and death, Collingwood laid the report aside and closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose to try and expunge the images of blood and mutilation that seemed to haunt his waking (and sleeping) moments.
A flurry of rain battered against the window of his office, startling him awake again and he realised he must have nodded off into a shallow sleep. Ponderously he got to his feet, feeling every one of his fifty-one years and bade Flanagan goodnight.
He could take no more.
Chapter 27
THE NIGHTMARE WAS THE WORST HE HAD EVER HAD.
He awoke sweating and panting, the bed-sheets a tangled Gordian knot about his feet. He shivered in the sudden chill of night and pulled the sweat-soaked sheets and blankets up to his throat again, feeling the rank dampness of his nightgown swathed about him like a gravedamp shroud. The nightmare, the dread hallucination of sleep, had been so real.
He was trapped again beneath the scum-foul waters of the river – drowning, drowning – unable to draw breath, the cruel spikes of the wrought iron grille driving like the nails of crucifixion into his back and thighs, scraping, scraping away the flesh that floated past his eyes in bloody slivers. He spiralled down deeper into the icechill water. Blackness. Pain. Blood was everywhere. Now he was drowning in blood, choking in gore, his hands smashed and broken by heavy brass candlesticks that pounded and mangled his bones and flesh as iron nails pinned him to the floor of the tunnel. Rats ate his living flesh. Voracious fish with gaping maws of needle-teeth swam by, attracted by the smell of blood, attacking him through the bars of the grille, devouring him piece by piece. He could not breathe. Choking. Drowning. Blood everywhere. The tortured bodies of Sinistrari’s victims floated down the tunnel, blank eyes staring, bloody mouths screaming in silent accusation, crucified hands, nail wounds bloody and weeping, reached for his eyes to pluck them from their sockets: ‘blind him so he can see, blind him so he can see,’ they seemed to chant.
‘Papa, Papa. Papa,’ Lucy cried, ‘you are so cold, so cold, so cold, So cold.’
‘Next, next, next,’ gloated the mocking voice of Sinistrari.
‘So cold, so cold. Papa, I’m so cold. SO COLD,’ Lucy cried, her voice fading away like a distant echo.
‘LUCY!’ he cried but she could not hear. Would never hear. LUCY …
NEXT NEXT.
NEXT NEXT NEXT.
NEXT NEXT NEXT.
LUCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
He had awoken then in such terror, chest heaving, his heart pounding so violently in his ribcage he was sure it must burst. His hands still shook and so vivid was his dream that he took hold of each hand in turn, convinced that they had been smashed into a bloody pulp of mangled flesh and splintered bone.
Tremblingly, Collingwood got to his feet and wrapped his blankets about him, cold eating into him like a cancer. His hands and feet felt as frozen as the day he had crawled out from the icy depths of the Thames. It was only a nightmare he told himself. Only a nightmare but his fears for Lucy would not abate. He had to check that she was all right; he could not rid himself of the fear that Sinistrari had abducted her whilst he slept. Even though it was the middle of the night, he had to check on her.
The house was silent and dark. He lit the gas globe on the landing, the puttering blue and yellow flame offered a small beacon of reassurance and light to the night-dark passage. Wrapping the blankets more tightly about himself, he hobbled down to his daughter’s bedroom door and tapped lightly on it. ‘Lucy,’ he called urgently. ‘Lucy!’ He tapped again, louder this time, the wooden rap echoing along the still corridor like firecrackers.
‘LUCY!’ he hissed again, hammering on the door with an increasing anxiety that threatened to seize his heart solid.
The door open a crack and Lucy peered out; blinking in consternation at her father’s dishevelled state, her night cap askew, tangles of soft yellow hair cascading to her shoulders.
‘Papa? What is it?’ she asked
‘Are you all right, Lucy? I was so worried about you.’
‘Of course I am Papa; now go back to bed before you waken the whole household.’
‘Are you sure, my dear? Nothing has disturbed you?’
‘No Papa. Go back to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.’ She patted his hand as though talking to a small child. ‘Go back to sleep; everything is fine.’
‘You know where I am if … anything happens. If you need me?.’
‘Goodnight, Papa, goodnight,’ Lucy answered firmly, closing the door on him.
FLANAGAN HAD SET UP TWO LARGE BLACKBOARDS ON EASELS, SIDE BY SIDE. On the boards he had summarised every known fact and particular about Sinistrari and his known victims. A third board, on the other side of the now very crowded office, listed all the facts of the Whitechapel killings.
G W Bacon’s Large Scale Map of London and Suburbs was pinned to the wall alongside the easels with the locus of each atrocity marked by a large pin, a paper flag attached to the pin giving details of the victim, name and date of their murder.
Even the most superficial analysis of the evidence clearly indicated the differences between the murders and highlighted the improbability of one man perpetrating the murders. Killers simply do not change their murderous habits so drastically.
Collingwood stood before the Sinistrari boards, pipe in mouth, intently scrutinising Flanagan’s neat synopsis.
‘This is good work, Flanagan,’ he said, ‘Very good work.’ The names of the victims were precisely printed out as headings– Mary Margaret Hopwell, known as Black Eyed Mary, aged about fifteen years. Alice Newton, seventeen years, Susan Siddons twenty years old and Katherine Pellew – Katie Cornfields – was twenty-four when she died. And Teresa Reilly.
Teresa Reilly was the victim discovered by Collingwood and Gimlet in the tomb of Blackwater House – the day that Gimlet died. Her body had been recovered and identified as a fifteen-year-old runaway from St. Mary Magdalene, a Catholic Home for Waifs and Orphans in Wandsworth. In pursuit of their enquiries, Collingwood and Flanagan had visited the home, only to be appalled and outraged at the conditions.
The orphanage was housed in an old four-storey factory building with forbidding blackened brick walls, iron bars to each high narrow slit of window, heavy locked doors and a soulless outer yard surrounded by a high brick wall topped with glinting splinters of broken glass.
The orphans, all girls, were housed in cold damp cells; silence was observed at all times, sour faced nuns patrolled the home armed with long canes or leather belts which they used with great frequency on the backs and shoulders of any who displeased them; which seemed to be just about every single one of the unfortunates incarcerated there.
Dressed in a thin grey rag of a dress, all the girls were thin, ricketsy and pinch-faced, the result of inadequate feeding, poor diet and a lack of sunshine. They spent the entire day labouring at the heaviest of laundry work; foul sheets from the hospitals, blood stained overalls covered in offal from the slaughterhouse: the dirtiest filthiest clothing and bedding that no other laundry would touch came to the orphanage to be washed in eye-smarting lye, pounded by heavy possers in deep wooden tubs, dragged out steaming from the boiling water, to be rinsed three times and whitened with blue, to be mangled dry and ironed and folded and stored; back breaking work which would have tasked the energies of well-nourished adults, let alone half-starved children.
Even children as young as five or six were at work, carrying buckets of lye and soap and bleach from vat to tub or sorting fouled clothing into separate heaps by colour and use. In other rooms young girls worked as seamstresses, cowering like beaten curs under the stern forbidding glare of the supervising nun as they repaired and patched torn clothing and bedding, straining their eyes to sew in the dim light, hands twisted from cramp or bloodied from needle pricks.
‘No wonder Teresa Reilly absconded,’ he said in grim anger to Flanagan as they walked out through the gates of the dismal, cheerless establishment, ‘I would have done the same. It’s worse than Newgate or Pentonville!’
‘Now you know why I left the Church,’ was Flanagan’s comment, his anger burning brightly through him like a magnesium flare.
‘What can we do about it? Good God, we can’t just leave it like that!’
‘There nothing we can do, sir, believe me. Any complaint about this place, and dozens like it, will only get stifled at the highest level. From the Mother Superior to the local priest to the Bishop to the Cardinal to Archbishop, all the way to the Pope in Rome and back and words will be whispered in the right ears and nothing will been done at all.’
‘There must be something?’
‘No sir, the abuse will go on for as long as there are orphans so unfortunate to fall into their clutches. And the worst of it sir, is that they are not all orphans, far from it. Many a family finds themselves with an unwanted child and will pay places like that to take them off their hands.’
‘But … but these are nuns. How can they behave in such an unchristian manner?
‘They do not see it that way, they believe, sincerely believe that they are carrying out God’s work. I hate every one of them, so I do. Every last one of them.’
Collingwood thought that Teresa Reilly had been doomed to a miserable fate whether she absconded or not.