‘As he led me to you?’ I asked.
‘But he will need a belonging of the man’s, I think, to be able to follow. You will have to find something for him to use.’ He got to his feet. ‘I will meet you both at nine, outside Harrington’s offices. Until then you must stay together.’
‘Stay together?’ I was appalled at that thought, and could not keep it out of my voice. ‘But I cannot take him to my house. He is a police suspect, for one thing, and then there is—’ How could I politely comment on Kosminski’s physical presence? I compromised by saying, ‘Well, people will think it strange that he is in my company.’
‘You must stay together,’ the priest repeated. He pulled off his outer robes and then his rough shirt and fell to his knees in front of the fire. He reached for the birch by the fireplace and my arguments faded as I stared at the mess that was his back. It was so lacerated with cuts there was barely an inch of undamaged skin. Welts rose high, still bleeding, and several were infected. How many hours a day had he spent doing this – and why? Because we might have to kill Harrington? Because the woman might die? If so, surely we should all three be on our knees and whipping ourselves, for we were in this awful pact together.
I could not stay and watch. As the priest raised the wood up over his shoulder, I grabbed my coat and jacket, then took hold of Kosminski’s arm and pulled him out of the room.
The evening air was thick and hot, but I insisted Kosminski wear my coat, in an effort to give him some semblance of normality, though I knew that it meant I could never wear it again myself. As it was, it hung too heavy on his thin frame, making him look like a child wearing his father’s clothes and thus likely to draw more attention to us rather than less. I bundled him into a hansom as quickly as I could.
Once home, I opened the front door cautiously. Seeing the hallway empty, I pushed Kosminski towards the stairs, shooing him to make him hurry.
‘I thought I had better wait and make sure that you were feeling better.’ Mrs Parks appeared from the sitting room just as Kosminski made it to the landing. ‘I’ve left some supper out for you – cold pork, some potatoes.’
‘That is most kind of you – I am afraid today has been rather busy.’ Disapproval – and a slight hint of mistrust – had become Mrs Parks’ normal expression on seeing me now, and I found myself looking forward to getting back into a normal routine with her. I found myself looking forward to regaining all kinds of normalcy, especially no more laudanum, no more opium – and proper sleep. Perhaps by the next day all these things would be mine once more.
I could have wept at the very thought – but tonight, I had other cares.
‘Thank you,’ I repeated, and then added, ‘but please, get home to your family now.’
‘Well, good night, then, Doctor Bond,’ she said curtly. ‘I shall see you tomorrow.’
I waited until she had disappeared back into the bowels of the house – she invariably left by the kitchen door – and then I ran up the stairs. Kosminski was standing in the middle of the study. He had taken my coat off and had laid it carefully over the back of a chair. He looked decidedly uncomfortable – my house was not grand, but I had seen the rooms Kosminski and his family shared, and it was a world away from Westminster.
‘Please, sit down,’ I said.
He glanced around, but stayed standing. I looked at the clock. It was nearly seven. There was no more time for politeness. I ordered him to sit down and prepared the pipe.
Within fifteen minutes we had both smoked heavily, and my mind was singing and sharp. I examined the vivid contrasting colours around Kosminski’s head that spoke so loudly of a troubled soul, and as I stared at him, I concentrated until the colours faded: I clearly did not deem them real in the way that the sight of the Upir had been. My brain was creating them – and then dismissing them. I was glad. That would make the next step of our plan easier.
‘You will have to stay here,’ I said. ‘I think that is the best option. I will be as quick as I can.’
Kosminski, calmer under the influence of the drug, nodded, and dropped to the floor where he sat cross-legged. He did not speak further, and so I left him there. I locked the study door behind me and pocketed the key. Kosminski was a good man, I was sure of it, but he was not predictable.
*
‘Thomas! What a lovely surprise.’ Mary was in the drawing room. ‘Isn’t this weather just stifling? I can barely breathe. It kept me awake all night. Charles is not back from the hospital yet, and Juliana is sleeping, I think. The poor thing is having a terrible time carrying this child. And of course James is always out, trying to find some resolution to the awful strike …’
‘It’s not a social call, I’m afraid.’ I tried not to sound snappy, but I had neither the time nor the inclination for polite chatter. My heart was racing, my tongue tasted of metal and the world had flattened slightly with the drug, though each shape was sharp-edged and vivid. There was too much clarity and truth in everything. I was completely outside of Mary Hebbert and her polite company, and suddenly I wanted to get back to Kosminski and the priest – the only people, at least until all this was over, who understood me.
I pulled myself together and said politely, ‘I think I might have left a pocket watch here when I was staying. Could I go and look?’
‘Of course, of course – would you like me to—?’
‘No, no,’ I said with a smile, ‘this heat demands no movement unless absolutely necessary.’
‘True – I wish we were still at Whitby. The sea air is so refreshing there. You should try it, Thomas. It will do you the world of good.’
I smiled in response, but had already turned away. Upstairs the house was gloomy. I hurried along the corridor, glad Juliana was sleeping, for I could not bring myself to speak to her, not knowing what lay ahead. I would feel like a serpent in her midst, even though the true serpent was the man she had married. At least tonight we would have proof, one way or another, for I would not act without evidence. If young James Harrington truly was the killer, there would be evidence in the warehouse.
I crept into Harrington’s room just as the first roll of thunder shook the sky outside: the weather was about to break. With my heart in my mouth I moved towards the dresser, sure that every footfall was betraying me. What should I take? The clothes in the wardrobe were all clean and pressed – would that work? I looked at the bed and was about to search for night-clothes when I spotted a crumpled handkerchief on the table by the bed. I held it against my nose for a second – it was rank with stale sweat and illness. Were those smells really there, or was that just the opium at work? Either way, this would surely do.
Mary was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment I was sure she could see right into my soul; I almost expected her to hold her hand out for the item I had stuffed into my pocket.
‘Did you find it?’ she asked instead.
‘Sadly no – it must be at the hospital. Or perhaps I lost it at the inquest today.’
‘Why don’t you stay for dinner? Charles will be home shortly, I’m sure, though poor James won’t be – he is getting ill again, have you noticed? I do so worry that he will work himself into an early grave.’
I shivered slightly at her last words and tightened my grip on the banister. ‘I am sure he will be fine,’ I said soothingly. ‘He is young, after all.’ The words tasted like gritty mud in my mouth. Outside, lightning flashed, sending shards of white light splintering across the hall tiles as it landed.
‘Unfortunately, I already have plans.’ I looked towards the door. ‘My hansom is waiting,’ I said, hoping I sounded regretful enough. ‘I really should go.’
We said our farewells and as I hurried out, large drops of rain splattered around me, the first spits from the mouth of the coming storm. My skin tingled. All the pieces were coming together. One way or the other, it would all end tonight.
44
London. 7 September, 1889
Emily had lost all sense of time. How
many days had she been here – a week? More? It had to be more. At first, once her terror had settled into something manageable and she had realised he was not going to kill her just yet, she had tried to measure the passing of time by his visits and the sounds outside, but it was always so quiet, with not even the sounds of men working to give her any indication of the hour, and he had painted the windows black so no daylight crept in. There was only the sound of the river for company and after a while, she had lost track.
She was tied to a pipe running against the wall and she ached, not only from the lack of movement, but also from the slight fever she was running. The damp that came through the bricks had permeated her shivering bones and there were moments when her panic rose, not from the thought of his return, but from the thought that if her cold got worse she would no longer be able to breathe through her nose, and then she would suffocate behind the stinking gag. Often she cried. Sometimes she just stared into the darkness and wondered if she might already be dead. Then a rat would scurry by, or her bladder would cramp, and she would know that her ordeal was very far from over.
Why had she got into the carriage with him? She had been impressed by his offer to show her around his business, and – she must be honest with herself, that was all she had left – she had hoped for a new dress, a little excitement, a gentleman to look after her for a week or so, just until his interest waned. Times had been so hard, and she was tired of hard. Warm liquid leaked out between her legs – her bleeding had started earlier. Her face burned with shame – she was surprised she had any shame left; the bucket in the corner had put paid to most of that.
She cried a little again, mourning herself before she was even dead. Even when her fevered mind came up with reasons for her capture that did not culminate in her demise – perhaps he was going to sell her into slavery abroad, perhaps he would just keep her here for ever, like a pet – she did not truly believe them. He was mad. He would kill her. Those were the hard facts. But they still felt like fiction in her head. Someone would look for her, surely?
She cried again after that, for she knew no one was looking for her. She had moved around too much and had no real friends, none that were not transitory themselves. Her family were in York, and she had not seen them in a long while.
This was the truth: she was going to die, and no one would even notice.
He talked to her sometimes. He would turn the lamp on and look at her, his face unhappy. He would pace up and down and cry, tell her he did not know what to do with her. He had not meant to take her – it had forced him. At first he had fallen down beside her and pleaded with her, that if he let her go, she would not tell anyone, and she remembered the explosion of relief in her heart, the frantic nodding, the tears. In that moment, she had wanted to hug him, to kiss him, even—
—but he did not let her go, of course, because he knew that whatever she promised, in the end, of course she would tell. That was when she knew she was never getting out of here. Sometimes, when he brought her food and let her use the bucket, he would twist suddenly, as if catching sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He would look frantic then, and swipe at his own back, as if to shake something off. Once he cried, and she had tried to run for the door, but he had hissed and grabbed her and she had seen the evil behind those blue eyes, the cold anger.
She was never getting out.
The past few times he had come, he had looked sick in the lamp-light, pale and sweating, with great blotches on his face, and this had filled her with a new kind of fear. What if he were taken ill and confined to bed? Who would bring her food and water – would she die of thirst, here in the dark?
A key slid into the lock and her whole body tensed. Her sobs died in her throat. He had been once today already – why was he back now? Her ears throbbed and her face burned with terror.
The door creaked as it opened and she caught a glimpse of the night outside before he closed and locked it behind him, tucking the key back into his pockets. She could hear him shuffling over to the table where the lamp was and she squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of the match striking. The yellow glow of the lamp seeped behind her lids and she opened them slowly, unaccustomed to even this small amount of brightness.
‘Blood,’ he muttered, and turned to face her. ‘It can smell your blood. It must have your blood.’
His face was calm and his body still. There was none of the usual anxiety in his manner, just a quiet resolution. Even from a few feet away she could see his eyes were tinged with pink and the blotches on his face now looked like day-old bruises, angry and purple.
‘You understand that, do you not?’ His expression was dead. ‘It has to feed.’
He crouched and opened the trunk, and although she struggled against her bonds, he did not glance her way as he picked out his tools and placed them on the table. A saw. A knife. A hammer. They glinted in the meagre light and she thought she could see dried blood on the handles. Her vision smeared with fresh tears, blurring him, and she no longer cared about her unseemly bleeding that smeared her legs and stained her dress.
He turned and smiled at her. ‘I won’t be long,’ he said, kindly. ‘I just need to prepare.’
She sobbed again – and then she froze, for there was something—
There was something peering up from his back, and it was dark and awful and evil.
And to think she had been afraid of Jack the Ripper.
45
London. 7 September, 1889
Dr Bond
We were all three of us soaked to the skin, but I felt alive and alert. On my return, I had found Kosminski sitting exactly where I had left him, and we smoked more of the drug and drank a glass of brandy each before heading out to whatever the night held for us.
And here we all were, outside the small single-storey warehouse, the metal walkways looking down on us from above, and the cobbles beneath our feet slippery from the rain. The storm had persuaded the last of the dockworkers picketing the wharf to give up for the night and as they trickled away home, I followed Kosminksi and the priest through the darkness. We were alone, the only sounds the heavy patter of rain, the occasional growl of thunder and the sound of our own breath. The rest of the world existed on a different plane. For all my belief in the rational, here I was, ready to fight a demon. Perhaps only then would I be able to resume my place in society, as I so badly craved.
Through the gaps by the hinges I could see a pale yellow light: Harrington must be inside. The solid wooden door was no doubt locked, but that was not how we intended to enter. The priest had already moved to stand in front of one of the blacked-out windows and now he pulled off his coat and shirt, leaving himself naked from the waist up. He abandoned the shirt to the floor, but wrapped the waxed coat around his arm. Even here, where sight was reduced to shapes in shades of grey and black, I could see the awful injuries on his back. The rain pounding on his back must have been agony where it hit his lacerated skin.
As we huddled together, my mouth dried. I trembled as we raised the bricks we carried. This was it; there was no time for hesitation. The priest gestured grimly and with all my might and a silent prayer to a God who would no doubt abandon me for my actions this night, I threw the brick.
The peace of the night shattered with the glass. I flinched away, covering my face, but the priest had moved immediately, using his coat-wrapped arm to knock out the remaining shards, before throwing himself into the room with no concern for what might be on the other side.
I took a deep breath, held one arm over my face and followed him, hitting the floor hard, my breath punching out of me – but a mixture of adrenalin and the drug had me on my feet in seconds, a large shard of broken glass in my gloved hand. I moved out of the way to make space for Kosminski, who followed hot on my heels.
*
For a moment we stood there frozen, staring at the sight that greeted us.
Before I had leapt, I had, just for a moment, worried that perhaps all this was truly madness; tha
t I would smash my way into Harrington’s warehouse only to find him unpacking tea or engaged in some other perfectly normal activity, leaving me horribly embarrassed and having to find some way to explain myself to the innocent husband of my dear friend. That worry evaporated instantly as my eyes met his.
He stood a few feet away, between an open trunk and a table covered with bloodstained instruments, his hands wrapped round a woman’s throat. Her eyes were wide and desperate and terrified, and I knew why.
The Upir was stretched over Harrington’s shoulder and its tongue, like Harrington’s hands, was wrapped tightly around her neck. Between them they were squeezing the life from her. The head turned, red eyes blazing, and it stretched its tongue further and hissed angrily, displaying long, sharp teeth.
The priest pulled a silver knife from the waistband of his trousers and held it high as he chanted an incantation in what sounded like Latin. When the blade flashed in the light I could see gold crosses inlaid into the blade. The Upir squealed at the sight of it and Harrington turned, throwing the woman to one side. As she dropped heavily to the floor, forgotten, the priest was on him.
I could not stop myself from crying out – I thought he was simply going for Harrington – but instead, he attacked the furious, shrieking creature, and I could see he was using the knife to try to cut the beast free of the man. Kosminski dived past me and ran to the far end of the warehouse, then began yanking at the bolts fastening the door that led out to the river.
I followed my own instincts and ran to the woman lying next to the trunk. As I crouched beside her I could see her neck was black and blue and her tongue and eyes were both swollen and protruding, but she was fighting for breath. Her eyes met mine.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, although it most certainly was not all right; it would never be all right. ‘I am here – I am a doctor.’ I squeezed her hand and she gripped mine back, for just the briefest of moments – and then she was gone. I felt the shift in her weight; all I held now was limp flesh. Her face was frozen in a mask of terror and as I leaned over her and pressed my mouth against hers, trying to breath life back into her, I was sure I could see the reflection of the Upir in her eyes.
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