Mayhem

by Sarah Pinborough

  Suddenly I felt a chill in the pit of my stomach. Harrington flinched, and his eyes drifted, looking confused for a moment. Then his spine stiffened as something shifted behind him – and then he refocused.

  He frowned, picking up his knife and fork and cut angrily into the remains of his beef before thrusting a large chunk into his mouth. A greasy trickle of pink liquid ran down to his chin as he chewed hungrily, but he ignored it. As his lips smacked together, it clung to the contours of his skin and slid down to his neck.

  My eyes followed it, my attention focused on the blood so that I did not have to look at the darkness that was creeping up over Harrington’s shoulder. My heart raced and I swallowed hard as a black tongue smelling of something rotten darted around Harrington’s neck and squeezed like a garrote for a moment before pulling back, licking up the blood as it did so.

  I was assaulted by the thick, sickly stench of stagnant water, which coated the back of my nose and throat, making me want to gag. My collar felt tight, and I could not catch my breath. What was that thing, that awful dark shape that was too dense behind him? The bulbous growth was just out of sight, but my eyes hurt just trying to look at it, the sharp pains stabbing behind my eyeballs forcing me to blink rapidly.

  Harrington continued to eat, refilling his plate from the bowl of buttered potatoes in front of him and cramming them into his mouth two and three at a time. I had seen him eat like this before, and had thought there was something unnatural about it then. Now I knew why.

  My ears buzzed with the noise of Juliana and Mary’s chatter, but I could not make out their words. I felt distant from them, a world apart, as if I were lost under the Thames and they were still on the surface.

  The Upir was showing itself. It clung to Harrington’s shoulder, dark talons gripping him as it peered around the back of his neck, an awful parody of a baby carried in a sling behind its mother, that style so often seen amongst the Orientals.

  It did not emerge fully, and only one side of its face was visible. That eye came to rest on me and I could feel my heart pounding rapidly. I tried to stay focused on Harrington; unlike the red orb that glared angrily at me from the apex of his neck and shoulder, the man’s eyes were blue, and wholly human. I concentrated on them, rather than the awful wickedness in the corner of my vision, for I could not bear to look directly – even if I had had that desire, I could not, for it was death; it was madness; it was everything that was wrong with the world, all wrapped up into a dense black shape. The whole world’s shadow had been sucked into this awful clinging gargoyle. The head bobbed up slightly and the black tongue flicked out again, catching an invisible fly in the air, and then it hissed, and I felt a fine spray of poisonous spittle land on my skin. As the rotten stench of corruption assaulted me, bile rose up my throat and I fought not to be violently ill.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, forcing the words out, ‘I thought it must be a mistake too. Servants can have such vivid imaginations at times like this – they get carried away with the excitement of it all.’

  I suddenly hated having to open my mouth to speak. The thought that any of that awful spray might get inside me was too much to bear, and I suddenly gagged slightly.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I muttered, reaching for my wine glass. My hand trembled, and I quickly put it back down again. For a brief moment my eyes landed on the Upir and I wanted to sob at the sight, for it was staring right at me.

  But my words must have appeased it slightly, for after a long moment, it crept back down in a series of jerky movements until it had disappeared behind Harrington. The terrible stench abated, but I still found it hard to breathe. My whole body was cold and my face felt clammy. Black spots darted in the corner of my vision and for an awful moment I thought I might pass out.

  ‘Are you all right, Doctor?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I breathed as I dabbed at my face with my napkin that came away damp with sweat, ‘I am so sorry – I think I might have a slight fever after all.’

  ‘You certainly look pale.’

  ‘Have some water.’ Juliana touched James’ arm. ‘Pour him some water, darling.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Harrington got to his feet and brought the water jug round to where I sat. As he leaned over my shoulder to pour it I could not stop a slight shudder at his proximity.

  ‘Thank you,’ I muttered, and he turned away and walked back to his side of the table. I could not help but stare at his back as my heart beat fast in my chest, but there was nothing there; no dark, misshapen creature clung to his spine. I picked up my glass and drank, but though the water was clear and clean, I hated having it in my mouth – not after seeing that thing which had lived for so long at the bottom of some river somewhere. Had Harrington stopped for a drink somewhere? Or maybe it been a hot day and he had bathed in a private stretch somewhere on his travels? I pitied him and feared him in equal measure.

  I steeled myself to ignore my terror and instead steered the conversation back to the subject of Mary’s holiday for the remainder of the meal. I no longer wanted Harrington to know I suspected him; I wanted to run as far away from him as I could. Was this what had happened to poor Elizabeth Jackson? Did she see something crawl over her beau’s shoulder – and did she realise that it would come for her?

  The colours and shapes still danced around mother and daughter’s heads, but I knew they were as much as part of me as anything to do with them. What I had seen with James was different: it might have vanished now, but this time it was reality that I no longer trusted, for I had seen the Upir. I had felt its existence in my poor soul and I did not believe that it was just a figment of my drug-addled brain, a vision thrown up by auto-suggestion. I knew my own mind was too rational to have created something like that. I did not have that level of monstrosity lurking at my core. This had been real and old and full of menace. My throat tightened once more.

  *

  It was just before midnight when I finally said my goodbyes, politely refusing the offer of a bed for the night if I was still feeling out of sorts. The fresh air would do me good, I declared; I would walk a while before finding a hansom cab. My smile had felt like a rictus grin. Nothing on this good earth could have persuaded me to spend the night there, not then – not so soon after seeing what shared the house with them.

  I walked until I was out of sight from the windows, and then, shuddering uncontrollably, I leaned against a wall. My teeth chattered in my head and my eyes watered. I had felt fear before in my life – on the Prussian battlefields mortal fear was a daily occurrence – but this was something different: this was base and primal. This was like standing at the doorway to Hell and gazing inside at every conceivable horror as they shifted in the endless dark and knowing you were to become one of them. This terror was rooted in the death of my own humanity.

  ‘You saw it.’

  I almost shrieked as the words cut through the night, and then my shoulders slumped with relief at the sight of the priest. He had followed me – of course he had. All my animosity towards him had vanished with the first glimpse of that rotten tongue licking the blood from Harrington’s neck and now I almost sobbed with relief. The priest was strong – he knew what to do. He would destroy it, for that was his calling.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and it was truly awful.’

  With his good hand, he pulled a box from somewhere within his heavy coat and then lit a cigarette and handed it to me. I breathed the smoke in, eager to wipe all trace of that awful stench from my mouth and nose. We smoked in silence for a few moments, both staring back down the street at the Hebberts’ house, until I had regained my composure. When my cigarette was finished he handed me a small bottle of liquid and I drank from it, dulling the effects of the opium that was still in my veins. I felt almost like normal: the terror had not left me but had settled into a quieter place inside for now, and I could breathe properly once again.

  ‘We shall have to watch him,’ I said. ‘The three of us must know where he is at all times. W
e will have to be ready for when he next tries to take a woman—’

  ‘Or we could take him now.’ The priest’s voice was cold.

  ‘You may have destroyed your soul, Father,’ I said quietly, for the first time acknowledging his status in the Church, ‘but I still have mine. I must see Harrington and the Upir at work together – I must see that he is in some way complicit.’

  ‘Very well.’ I had expected an argument but the priest knew me well enough now to understand my need for the rational in all of this. Even now – especially now – it was vitally important. If I believed Harrington to be innocent of the Upir’s guilt, then I could not be part of taking his life without damning my own soul. We stood there a while longer, both lost in our thoughts, before a second shudder ran through me.

  ‘Do you think it saw me?’ I asked. ‘The Upir?’

  ‘Perhaps – probably.’ The priest shrugged. ‘But that should not be your concern. It is not whether it saw you that matters; let us just hope that it does not realise you saw it.’

  I did not sleep that night.

  38

  The Times of London July 17, 1889

  MURDER IN THE EAST-END

  Shortly before 1 o’clock this morning a constable on his beat, while passing through Castle-alley, in Whitechapel, noticed the form of a woman lying in the shadow of a doorway. He at first thought it was one of the wanderers so numerous in the neighbourhood, especially at this season, and was about to rouse the woman, when he was horrified to discover that she was dead, blood flowing from a wound in the throat. The body was in a pool of blood, which flowed from a gash in the stomach, evidently inflicted with a sharp knife or razor. The officer at once gave the alarm and within a few minutes several other constables were on the spot.

  * * *

  The New York Times London, July 18

  “The Whitechapel Victim”

  London, July 18 – At the inquest held on the body of the woman found murdered in the Whitechapel district yesterday morning the fact was developed that in addition to two large gashes there were fourteen other wounds on the body. The greater number of the wounds, however, were only skin deep.

  * * *

  The Marion Daily Star – Ohio, USA 17 July, 1889

  “Another murder added to the Long List in Whitechapel”

  One more murder has been added to the long list credited to Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel. The body of a woman, evidently one of the disreputable frequenters of the district, was found in Castle-alley last night, only a short distance from where the other murders were committed. The body was horribly mutilated and bears undoubted evidence of the mark of the fiend, whose atrocities in Whitechapel have terrorized the whole district repeatedly.

  39

  London. July 18, 1889

  Dr Bond

  The rain of the previous days had done nothing to abate the muggy atmosphere and as I closed up my bag, I was glad to be getting out of the sweaty wooden shed that was being used as a mortuary. Despite Bagster Philips’ best efforts, the mutilated corpse of Alice McKenzie laid out on the table had begun to decompose, and the air was filled with a sickly-sweet tang. She had not been a pretty woman, and death was never kind to a face, but I took one long last look at her. I had begun to lose my professional distance with the dead before all this madness started, but now each dead woman added to the burden of my exhaustion, keeping me awake. At least I could be certain that this murder had not been committed by Harrington: it had been midnight before I had left the family, and then the priest and I had stood in the street for the best part of half an hour afterwards. It was during this time that this woman was losing her life in a different part of London. Harrington and the creature attached to him were an abomination, but they were not Jack the Ripper.

  The door opened as I headed towards it and Moore stepped inside. He cast a look towards the corpse, his nose crinkling slightly with revulsion, and left the door ajar.

  ‘Where’s Philips?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Stepped outside. We have had something of a professional disagreement.’

  ‘To do with her?’ Moore looked surprised, and I did not blame him. It was hard to argue with Bagster – he was jovial and well-respected, and in the main I trusted his judgement – but not this time, however.

  ‘He thinks her killer was left-handed.’

  I let that sink in. Jack, we had all agreed, was right-handed, and that meant Bagster was eliminating her as a Ripper victim. ‘He thinks the bruises on her chest and the left side of her abdomen, above the mutilations, were from where he held her down while he attacked her.’ I stepped back alongside the corpse and demonstrated. ‘Like this.’ He watched me. ‘However,’ I continued, ‘I am not convinced. The bruises could be the result of the way she fell, or any number of other things. Also, we must take into account the sudden frenzied nature of the attack, the area where she died, and of course the nature of these injuries. This is Jack again. I can guarantee you that.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ Moore snorted. ‘Commissioner Monro thinks so too. You’ll be putting that in your report?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Philips says that the killer is an anatomical expert – his words. Some kind of doctor, maybe?’

  ‘You know my views on that,’ I said. ‘I doubt it. These kind of injuries could be caused by anyone with a half-decent idea of the human innards.’ I thought of Harrington: his business was import and export; he had no experience with knives or saws as far as I could tell, and yet he had become more than capable at dismembering bodies. I wondered if the Upir guided him in that too? How many other victims had there been that we had not found? Or maybe he had just availed himself of some of Charles’ anatomy books, stealing them out of the house under his coat and studying them under the blanket of night as his young wife slept, oblivious to the creature at his back. I shivered again, despite the heat. Suddenly I was finding comfort in this poor dead woman’s demise: at least hers was a simple murder. She died at the hand of a madman, perhaps, but a human one; there was no unnatural monster involved here.

  ‘If you say so.’ Moore sniffed again, a thick snort, like a summer cold. We agreed on most things, but on this issue of medical training I would say he took Bagster’s side, and of course he was entitled to his opinion, as was my colleague, even if I was sure they were both wrong.

  ‘I presume you will be at the next inquest?’ he said. ‘Not that we have anything to add to it yet – we have an extra forty or so constables drafted onto Whitechapel’s streets but we still can’t catch the bastard. I was hoping he had died.’ He almost smiled. ‘Him and the other one. What makes killers so hardy, Doctor? Are they born with a stronger constitution than the rest of us?’

  ‘You do not seem to be doing too badly, Inspector.’ I may have faded over the past year, but Inspector Moore remained a solid man. He might get overworked and tired occasionally but he retained his earthy sensibilities.

  ‘Well, I certainly do not have the energy for that kind of activity after work.’ He glanced once again at the dead woman. She did not look back – she would never look at anyone again, but I still felt her disapproval as we talked about her so casually. She had had a rotten life and a rotten death and now she was simply rotten; there was much of this she probably did not deserve.

  ‘I cannot muster that kind of rage these days,’ Moore added. His face had grown serious. ‘Not even for whoever did this. Mainly I am just weary.’

  ‘That I can understand.’

  He looked at me, suddenly distracted by a thought. ‘Andrews said you missed a dinner with him last night?’

  ‘Oh good God,’ I said, ‘I did – how utterly rude of me. I have been rather unwell of late, and it completely slipped my mind. I shall apologise straight away.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on when I get back to the station. As long as you’re all right. I think he enjoys your dinners. You have similar minds, I think, and an eye for detail.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’ Of course I had forgo
tten: yesterday had passed in a blur of exhausted fear. After returning from dinner I had spent the night sitting in my study armchair and staring out of the window, sure I would see Harrington and the Upir coming for me at any minute. But they did not, and as dawn rolled round and I was once again brave enough to step outside, I had gone to meet the priest and Kosminski to discuss how we could watch Harrington. News of the new Ripper death was all over Whitechapel, the gossip flowing like blood in the gutters, running from street to street, and as well as injecting more fear into my troubled soul – the Ripper was another reminder of the mayhem the Upir brought with him – I knew that my days would once again become filled with post mortem examinations and inquests and writing reports. Much would fall on little Kosminski, who would no doubt be called back in for more questioning now that there was a fresh victim for the hunt. Kosminski was still plagued horribly by visions; he had been as eager as the priest for us to take action now, but I would not allow it. We had to catch him. We had to act like policemen, not vigilantes; that was the only chance we had of retaining our sanity.

  By the time I had got home all thoughts of dinner with Andrews had been forgotten. Those plans existed in a different life, one before I had seen the truth.

  ‘I shall have to find some time to rearrange it,’ I said, adding, ‘but I imagine that you are all very busy after this new development.’

  Development. Death was what I meant: this woman had died in terror while fighting for her very existence. That was not a development. I wondered if perhaps I had lost my humanity already. Were any of us capable of feeling anything much at all any more? I thought of the Upir. I might no longer be shocked by murder in its various forms, and my senses might often be dulled by laudanum, but I had plenty of fear left. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that thing attached to Juliana’s husband, and when I did snatch moments of sleep, my dreams were terrible. The Upir might have cursed Harrington, but it was also haunting me now.