by Giles Ekins
Through the mists of pain and anguish, Lucy felt Sinistrari’s iron grip on her arm, leading her away and the last of her resistance drained away as surely as Maitland’s lifeblood. The last thing she saw was the swarm of … things exiting his mouth. And then the hideous black mists descended before her eyes.
MARY PARSONS, THE COLLINGWOOD’S OTHER MAID, had been out to the butchers to buy a crown of lamb for that evening’s meal. Mrs Cope the cook, who normally did her own shopping, had been ill with a high fever and confined to her bed and Mary had been sent in her place.
Mary had enjoyed her outing, it was not often she had the chance to get out and walking to the shops had been a pleasant change from her usual round of cleaning and polishing and dusting and carrying of trays and helping cook to prepare vegetables and washing and wiping the dirty dishes after. Other households may have more staff to do help with those jobs, Mary knew that, but she was happy at the Collingwood’s. Miss Lucy was kind and sweet and treated her well, more like a sister sometimes than as a maid. And then there was the master, Mister Collingwood, he was so tired these days, which made him occasionally gruff and irritable but Mary bore it no mind. They were a nice family, ‘her’ family as she thought of them and Mary was more than content with her lot.
Mary had a ‘young man’. Well not so young in fact, Martin Wrightson, the under-butler at the James Sorley residence in Portland Place was a good twenty years older but he suited her just fine. They were not yet betrothed, but Mary had hopes that soon he would ask for her hand – although she suspected that he might need a little help in that direction. Quite where they would live once wed, she had not yet decided but she would ask Mister Collingwood to find a place for her husband, she was sure he would agree, he was such a fine gentleman, not like a policeman at all.
The late October morning was crisp, with sharp bright sunlight hanging low over the rooftops.
The first thing Mary noticed was that Albert Mullins, one of the policemen assigned to guard Miss Lucy was not at his post. Unusual, she thought, Mullins was always very reliable and even if he had to attend to a call of nature, he would ask Maitland to stand in for him whilst he did his business. Perhaps Maitland was out on an errand, she thought, not really giving the matter any further mind.
She skipped down the steps into the small basement court that led to the tradesman’s entrance and the passage which led to the kitchen and other below stairs areas: the scullery, laundry, pantry, store rooms, cellar, boot room and the all-important butler’s pantry – thankfully no longer occupied by the loathsome Jenkins. Jenkins used to make her flesh crawl with the way he looked at her; Mary was a big girl with a fine proud bosom, but she hated that his eyes were always staring at her there.
Although the door was not locked, Mary could not open it; the door appeared to be blocked by something heavy behind. Mary pushed at it with all her strength but could only manage to open the door an inch or so. She tried again, another inch, harder, the gap was now six inches, she looked through the opening and stifled a scream. She could see a hand and arm, a body wedged tight with its back against the door. She could see the navy blue cuffs of a uniform, the polished buttons and knew that it must be Mullins lying there. She shouted through the gap, shouted for Maitland, for Tillie, Miss Lucy, for Mrs Cope, although she doubted the cook would be able to hear, her room was at the very top of the house, to the rear and Mrs Cope had been getting hard of hearing of late but refused to acknowledge the fact.
‘Miss Lucy,’ she shouted. ‘Maitland. Tillie.’ But the house was quiet, strangely scarily quiet. She hammered on the doors and windows to no avail.
She dropped her brown paper package of meat, ran back up the stairs to street level, and then up the half flight of stairs that led up to the front door. She pulled the chain for the doorbell, hearing the chimes echo hollowly along the hallway and then hammered with her fists onto the door. Passers-by gave her curious stares and then hurriedly walked on, Mary’s hair had become loose under her bonnet, she was wild eyed and dishevelled and unbeknown to her, blood had leaked from the butcher’s package onto her hands. She looked like a mad woman on a rampage.
Cautiously she took hold of the doorknob, heavy brass in the shape of a lion’s head, and slowly turned it and then gently pushed open the door. She had never used this door before; always she had come in and gone out by the door downstairs.
‘Maitland?’ she called nervously. ‘Maitland,’ and stepped into the hallway. She took two steps forward and began to scream.
COLLINGWOOD WAS DISTRAUGHT BEYOND IMAGINING. He knew that Sinistrari had taken Lucy. Knew what fate awaited her. To be nailed upside down to a bloody cross, her pale young body carved and mutilated, to slowly bleed out her last as foul homage to Satan.
He should have been more careful, have taken more precautions, sent Lucy to her Aunt Harriet in Scarborough despite her objections. He had become so wrapped up in the hunt for Sinistrari, so involved in the Jack the Ripper killings that he had lost sight of the danger on his own doorstep – he had become too complacent, unmindful that as he hunted Sinistrari, Sinistrari in his turn was stalking Lucy.
And the worst of it was that Sinistrari had told Collingwood that he intended to crucify Lucy as his next victim, had given him adequate warnings as to his intentions towards Lucy and he had ignored them; had told himself that she would be safe. He had forgotten or overlooked that the 31st of October was All Hallows Eve, when the foul and blasphemous walked the earth, when sacrilegious sacrifice was made to the Dark Lords of Hell. Last year’s victim had been Susan Siddons, this year’s victim would be Lucy!
He had known of her danger and he had ignored it for his own selfish reasons, too wrapped up in his own problems to take the threat of her danger seriously.
He wept for Lucy, castigating himself over and over for his failures to protect her. Flanagan tried to console him. ‘We’ll find her, sir, we have to find her sir, he can’t have taken her far and we will find him. You have my promise on that.’ But both he and Collingwood knew these to be hollow words.
James Monro offered his help but there was little he could do either except offer the same empty platitudes.
Maitland’s ravaged body had been removed from the hallway and the blood mopped but a dark black-red stain in the parquet floor where his throat had been ripped open would remain forever more.
Tillie was in a state of catatonic shock, her mind as ravaged as Maitland’s body. She quivered with fear, her eyes glazed and vacant seeing only things that she could see. She could not speak, appeared not to hear, and was doubly incontinent. Her hands shook so violently that she could hold neither cup nor spoon and could only eat when fed by hand. Poor Tillie drooled continuously; Mary, strong as she was, recovered quickly from the shock of discovering the carnage at 22A Fletcher Crescent and took it upon herself to look after her fellow maid but all the while she wept inside for the abducted Miss Lucy. Mary thought her mistress had been kidnapped for ransom, blissfully ignorant of the true nature of Lucy’s probable fate.
PC Albert Mullins’ neck been broken, ‘wrung like an Easter chicken’ was how Doctor Hamilton Dewar described it, attacked with such violent strength that his head had been turned through almost one hundred and eighty degrees, snapping his neck as easily as a dry twig. Precisely how he came to be behind the kitchen door, wedged up against it could not be readily established, Mullins’ post was outside, guarding the front door and escorting Lucy should she go out, He must have been killed inside the house and his body placed against the door, but then how had Sinistrari got out into the street again?
Not that Collingwood had any more than a passing interest in the matter, his only concern was his daughter and how to find her.
He did not sleep that night.
Chapter 30
OCTOBER 29th, 1888
‘AS MUCH AS I SYMPATHISE WITH YOU, COLLINGWOOD, the most I can do is issue a general instruction for all forces to look out for your daughter. We will take statements of cour
se from the neighbourhood and put out a flyer with her description, but the one thing I cannot and will not do is raise any mention of the fact that it might; might be Sinistrari who has abducted her. In fact we do not know it was Sinistrari who has taken … er … Lucy’
Collingwood was in the office of Sir Charles Warren, seeking his support by allocating additional officers to hunt for Sinistrari.
‘But Commissioner, who else could it have been?’ He seethed with impatience and desperation, Warren was being of no assistance whatsoever, quite the contrary.
‘It could quite easily have been an opportunistic burglar who broke into your house, was disturbed by the footman, killed him and then abducted your daughter. I have warned you before Collingwood about keeping an open mind.’
‘Sir, it has to have been Sinistrari who took Lucy. And the only way to find her before he kills her is to widen the search.’
‘Collingwood, as I told you when first I mistakenly gave you this assignment, the general populace must never ever be made aware that Sinistrari escaped the gallows and is free. The surest way for that to happen is if large numbers of police are brought in to look for him. Although he is most certainly responsible for the Whitechapel killings, it cannot be generally broadcast that he was not duly executed and is at large. Such information would cause an outcry, create panic and bring anarchy to the streets. When he is apprehended, doubtless sometime after your retirement, Sinistrari will be executed without further notice and the Whitechapel killer will be named as some lunatic then incarcerated or else some suicide who has cast himself in to the Thames in remorse. No mention will ever be made of Sinistrari ever again.
‘But sir, Lucy! He has her in his clutches. He will kill her on…soon.’ Collingwood was just about to say that Sinistrari would kill Lucy on Hallowe’en Night but realised just in time that any mention of sacrifice or Satanic festivals would destroy what scant concern Warren might have. And have him taken off the case.
‘I’m sorry, but the greater good must take precedence. I cannot authorise additional manpower to search for Sinistrari. The local station in St John’s Wood can make enquires in respect of your daughter and a flyer will be circulated seeking information about the disappearance of Lucy, but no reference, no mention whatsoever, must be made of Sinistrari. Or any search instigated to find him other than the continuation of your duty as already assigned. If there is nothing else, Collingwood, you may return to your duties.’
‘Yes sir.’ Collingwood seethed, wondering quite how he did not drag the pompous ass across his desk and beat him to a pulp. Bristling with anger, he turned on his heels and stomped out.
‘Er, good luck in finding your daughter, Collingwood, I’m sure she will be just fine,’ Warren called after him, the insincerity dripping from his words only added fuel to the fires of Collingwood’s anger. The door shook on its hinges as he slammed it behind him.
RAZOR GEORGE WAS WARY. Something was wrong; he could feel it in his waters. His feral instinct for survival had been keenly honed over many years of living on the brink; surviving in the netherworld jungle of crime and violence and intimidation, whetted as keen as the blade of Jenny-No -Nose and tonight that gut feeling was sharply tuned, strumming in his senses like the winds of an oncoming storm. It was in the air, danger and betrayal, he could smell it – taste it on his tongue – but he did not know from where the menace threatened.
Razor George walked cautiously into the darkening alley; the piss stinking, rubbish-strewn alley off Drury Lane that led to the hovel where he housed his string of girls. The tension was palpable, thick in the air like the smell of singeing dog-pelts.
Behind him, his faithful minders Sealskin and Boiler were equally alert. Boiler had his heavy billy club to hand, swinging it back and forth as he walked.
‘I don’t mogging well like this, boys, summat ain’t quite right. Half the gas lamps is bust. Else turned off and I don’t fuckin’ like it. Don’t fuckin’ like it one bit.’
‘Nah, nothin’ to fret you over, boss, these bleedin’ lights is always on the out,’ Boiler said.
‘It’s more than the fuckin’ lights, Boiler. It just don’t feel kosher.’ George’s hand slid across his waistcoat and plucked Jenny -No-Nose out of his pocket, flicking open the cut-throat razor with the practised ease of a conjuror; the blade flashing a deadly steely glint even in the turgid gloom. ‘Sealskin, you go on ahead, Boiler you watch the back.’
Halfway down its length the alley narrowed, the overhanging walls seeming to press down ever closer, blocking out the thin band of blue-black night above. Rats stirred and scurried in the wide-strewn filth and garbage, the stink of sewage and rot and refuse cloying in a heavy miasma.
George felt ever more manic, swishing Jenny- No-Nose back and forth in agitation. He could feel it now – close by – the threat was here – lurking in the deep shadows, waiting. His heart beat faster in anticipation, let it come –he was Razor George, the King of Covent Garden and no cunting bastard was ever going to take that from him. Ever!
Ahead a figure stepped out of the shadows, his face hidden beneath the brim of a wide brimmed Homburg hat.
‘Evening George.’ the figure said.
‘Who is that? Come into the fucking light you bastard, come close by so’s I can see the colour of your tripes when I slices ’em.’ His razor flashed back and forth but the man ahead did not move. Boiler came up close behind and suddenly Razor George felt it, treachery, felt the change, knew that he had been betrayed. He quickly spun around, ready to strike but he was too late, Boiler’s billy club, weighted with lead at the cudgel end, smashed onto his lower arm, fracturing his radius and ulna bones as easily as snapping twigs. The crack of splintering bones echoed briefly around the rain damp walls, to be drowned by the high pitched scream of George’s agony. Jenny-No-Nose dropped to the ground with a metallic rattle.
Sealskin followed up, swinging his club into Razor George’s right knee, smashing him to the ground where he howled and squealed in agony like a stuck pig, thrashing like a landed fish, tears of pain coursing down his face as he clutched at his smashed patella with his one good arm.
The figure up ahead walked slowly down the alley and then bent down to pick up Razor George’s feared Jenny-No-Nose. He then squatted down beside the writhing George as Sealskin and Boiler took up station behind him; the changing of the guard.
‘Mackie Blue!’ George gasped, barely able to speak for his anguish. Mackie Blue, raised in the slums of Glasgow, fled to London after a gangland street battle that left four dead and seventeen injured. He was a long-time rival of George’s for the control of the girls working Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Strand and Charing Cross Road, but George had never thought that Mackie Blue would dare to confront him face to face.
‘Aye, that’s me, the very same. You went down the path of murder, Georgio, and that path leads to the gallows and your boys here, Sealskin and Boiler, they’re no too particular to feel the hempen collar and so they decided on a wee parting of the ways and came to me.’
‘You fuckin’ traitors; moggin’ Judas bastards.’
‘You shun’t a croaked Long Liz.’ Boiler grunted. ‘I ain’t gonna swing for you.’
‘A change of allegiances, Georgio, that’s all, a full merry go round of diplomatic transfers, as you might say.’
‘Don’t you mugging well call me Georgio, I’m Razor fuckin’ George and I am gonna carve your gizzards Mackie Blue, you just see if’n I don’t.’
‘Nah, you’re finished Georgio Vaz. Yesterday’s shit and piss out the window. I’ve taken over your boys and I’m taking over your hairies, every last drab and whoor.’
He flashed Jenny-No-Nose back and forth in front of George’s face, the whites of George’s eyes flickering as he followed the blade, as had those of so many of his victims when he had taunted them with the razor. Then Mackie took hold of George’s nose, pulled it and then sliced off the tip, leaving him gargling and gasping as the blood streamed down his nasal passages in
to his throat. Calmly as though he was slicing off a piece of cheese Mackie Blue then laid open both of George’s cheeks to the bone, three stripes to each cheek. He then he sliced off an ear. Tossing the ear aside, Mackie got to his feet and stamped on Razor George’s broken right arm, bringing forth another echoing scream of agony.
‘You’se a dead man I ever see you around here again.’
‘He nodded to Sealskin and Boiler. ‘Give him wee taster boys.’
When they had finished kicking and stomping him, Razor George lay unconscious in a pool of his own spreading blood, his face a mask of bloody ruined flesh and gristle, his broken arm never to be straight again.
A rat scurried through the pools of blood, a severed ear in its mouth.
THE WORLD WAS ALL DARKNESS AND COLD. Lucy Collingwood sobbed quietly into her hands, the fear and the chill from the dank walls of her cell eating into her bones. She had no idea where she was or what fate awaited her but she guessed that the danger her father so feared for her had now come to pass. She felt so very alone and small, wishing she had listened to him when he had wanted her to go to stay with Aunt Harriet in Scarborough but she had dismissed his fears and now knew that she was in the gravest of perils.
