Murder

by Sarah Pinborough

  He sipped his brandy and smiled and nodded in the pauses in the conversation, but his mind was elsewhere. In their old friendship, Andrews would have been able to ask Bond directly, and he would have got a direct answer. In fact, in past years Bond would probably have come to Andrews to discuss anything that might concern him.

  But sadly, those days were gone.

  He watched his two companions as they laughed and he wondered if maybe he should just let sleeping dogs lie. How terrible could whatever Bond had discovered be? The past was a different country, and perhaps now that he was retired he should not seek to revisit it. There could be very little good in trying to unpick another’s secrets.

  But no. Perhaps if it had been just another person’s secrets he would have been able to let it go, but it was not, it could be part of his own unfinished story. Moore might not have nightmares any more, but Andrews still did. They had discovered the priest, and he was quite sure he was guilty of the Torso murders, but try as he might, Andrews could not convince himself that the priest was also Jack.

  He looked at Bond again. What had he said when he had asked for the Members’ Ledgers? That the dates were a coincidence?

  Andrews did not believe in coincidence. Coincidences were something people with less of an eye for detail saw.

  *

  Three nights later and he had his answer, or at least the shocking glimmer of one. It had been easy enough to get the club’s records again, and this time it was his turn to study them. It did not take him long to realise what Bond had been checking, and as soon as he had returned the ledgers he called a hansom to take him straight to the doctor’s house. There was no answer – even though he was not shy with his use of the door-knocker – and he hesitated impatiently on the door step. His heart was racing with what he had found and he needed to speak to Bond tonight or he would not sleep a moment. He would wait – surely the doctor could not have gone far? Perhaps he was out for dinner. Maybe his back was giving him some respite and he was making the best of it.

  It was still faintly light and the summer night was warm, so he strolled up and down the street while he waited. Slowly the night gathered in, the sky darkening, and his legs started aching. Perhaps he should go home and come back the next day – it wasn’t as if Hebbert was in the country and could be confronted. There was nothing that could not wait until the morning to be answered, but that didn’t stop his nerves tingling with anticipation and excitement. The Ripper case had destroyed his love of policing and their inability to catch the killer haunted him still. If there was even a glimmer of hope that an answer could be found then he would at last be able to relax. His head was still spinning at the thought that Charles Hebbert could be involved in any way, even though all of their findings had pointed to a medical man, despite both Bond and Hebbert denying it, on behalf of their profession. Had the evidence pointed to a policeman, he had no doubt he would have done the same.

  A hansom pulled up further along the street and he was about to flag it down when he saw it was depositing Thomas Bond. He almost called out to his friend but something stopped him, even before he saw the woman climb down after him. That questioning mind that had served him so well as a policeman made him pause. Why had the hansom pulled up half a street away from Bond’s house? The place was quiet; it made no sense – unless of course he did not want the driver to know where he lived.

  Andrews stepped back into the shadows as the woman stumbled and leaned into Bond, laughing. She was clearly drunk, and her cheap, revealing clothing made it clear that she was not the sort of woman he would ever have expected to see in Bond’s company. The hansom left them behind, passing Andrews, and he watched as the couple weaved their way closer to Bond’s house. So there was the reason for the driver stopping further along: Bond did not wish him to see he was bringing a woman of ill-repute back to his home. She was not attractive – her face was hard and her mouth thin with misery and a hint of meanness. What on earth was his old friend doing with a woman like this? Was this his way of forgetting Juliana? There could be no two women more different in appearance although this prostitute – for that must be what she was – did have brassy red hair. Was that what had appealed to him?

  Finally they reached Bond’s front door and disappeared inside the house. Andrews stared at it, filled with pity for his friend, who had come to this. Why bring the woman to his house? To try and make his actions feel more respectable? He was not a poor man; he could certainly afford a better class of prostitute, and there were up-market bordellos to cater to the needs of gentlemen like Bond. So why drag a woman from the back alleys to his own home for his pleasure? He could not imagine she would be able to provide much in the way of pleasure, not given her obviously drunk condition. Was this perhaps the reason he dismissed his housekeeper? So he could indulge in a new hobby?

  Perhaps it should not have surprised him. Men were men, and there were plenty who enjoyed the more carnal pleasures that were often lacking in their marriages. And Thomas Bond had been on his own for a long time. He must be terribly lonely – not to mention having a fair amount of self-loathing – to want to take his pleasure in such a sorry way. He could not knock on the door now – he would not wish to embarrass his friend – but now that he knew he was home, neither did he want to wait until morning. The woman would not be there all night, he was sure. Bond would not want any of his neighbours to see such a woman leaving his house. He doubted she would be longer than an hour, if that. He had his coat and, anyway, the night was not cold, and he was used to such times from his years as a private investigator.

  He would wait longer.

  *

  But she did not come out, not before dawn and not after, nor when the rest of the houses around him slowly lurched into light and life. His eyes were gritty with tiredness but his curiosity had now doubled. He waited until after eight, a respectable time, and then went and knocked at the door. There was no answer and his concern for Bond rose. If he had allowed that woman to sleep in the house, then God only knew what she might have stolen or damaged while Thomas was sleeping. He knocked again, and when there was still no response he stepped away and continued to wait, even though his limbs were screaming at him to go home to a hot bath and rest.

  At half-nine the door opened. He expected to see the woman scurrying away, but he was wrong: it wasn’t her, but Bond himself. He was fully dressed and looked alert, if a little preoccupied. He walked briskly towards the main road, with no sign of any back trouble. Andrews frowned. Now his need to talk to Bond about Charles Hebbert was being overwhelmed by his need to know where the woman had gone. He could not have left her inside, surely? He waited until Bond had gone and stared at the house. He knocked at the door again, but there was only silence. He gritted his teeth. He had come here expecting answers and now all he had were more questions. Tonight, he decided. He’d come back tonight.

  Once home, he bathed and then ate before crawling into bed, exhausted, but determined to sleep for only a few hours. But his body betrayed him and by the time he woke it was already night. He rushed to dress and return to Dr Bond’s, shaking away the vivid dreams of murders from years gone by as he did so. He took a hansom to Westminster and when he turned onto Bond’s street, he saw a cab was already waiting outside the doctor’s house. Did he already have a visitor? Or was the woman finally leaving? He made his own driver pull over to the curb a safe distance away and watched as the door opened to reveal not the woman but Bond himself, clearly visible in the pool of light from the gas lamp above. He was carrying two valises. He walked quickly down the stairs and loaded them into the carriage; they looked heavy but he was moving with ease, no sign of the back ache he had been complaining about. Was he leaving London? Why at this time of night? Could this have anything to do with Andrews’ mention of the letters Harrington had sent?

  He had too many questions, and there was only one way to get the answers. He would follow his old friend and find out just what was going on.

  With his own
hansom keeping a distance they moved through the city, from the quieter, cleaner streets towards the seething East End, where life was lived loud in the darkness. Even with no Ripper at large, death came easily and unnoticed here. Andrews waited for Bond to stop, but the wheels kept turning, until they arrived at the river and followed its course out to the quiet banks past the wharves, where no light shone and the Thames was a wide streak of endless black that slithered alongside them like a monstrous slick serpent. He shivered in the warm night, and for a moment felt such a rush of dread that he wondered whether to turn back. What was he to learn about his esteemed colleague tonight? Wherever Bond was going, this was not normal behaviour. Perhaps he should just go home, sip brandy, forget his suspicions of Hebbert and leave Bond to whatever seedy madness he chose to fill his time with.

  The choice was taken from him as Bond’s hansom finally stopped a hundred yards or so ahead of them. Andrews quietly climbed down from his own and paid the driver well, telling him quietly to wait a few minutes before leaving, and then he crept along the dark street until he was close to where Bond and his valises had alighted. The summer air was filled with the sweet, stagnant stench of the river and Andrews breathed shallowly as he paused at the wall and watched Bond disappearing down a flight of stone steps that led to the wet shingle and sand below. He peered cautiously over the edge to see a small light shining and a gruff voice muttered a greeting.

  A second man’s words drifted up through the quiet night: ‘Two cases for two nights. Whoever you’re getting your dogs from now, they’re getting you bigger bastards than George did.’

  ‘No questions, Jimmy, or you’ll be going in the river too. He’s paying the piper, that’s all that matters.’

  Bond said something, too quietly for Andrews to catch, and then the group fell silent as they pushed a rowing boat onto the water, lifted in the heavy valises and climbed on board.

  Andrews kept his crouched position, fully aware that even in this poor light he might be visible from the water. He stared in horror as the lamp was dampened and the boat pulled out and was swallowed up by the darkness. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this. What could be in those cases that Bond needed to go to such lengths to dispose of? Who were these villains – he obviously knew them? Why had the man laughed about dogs? Had Bond been experimenting on animals in some awful way? But surely no man would come out here in the middle of night simply to dispose of a dog carcass. He crept back across the street and once immersed back in the shadows he shakily lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. His whole body trembled with the knowledge that he was trying to avoid a thousand other questions that led to no helpful conclusion.

  The woman: she had gone into Bond’s house, but he had not seen her emerge. Bond had left, but she had not – and now he was here, depositing something into the river. It was true that she might have left during the hours he had gone home and slept – but would a man like Thomas Bond really leave a woman of that sort unsupervised in his own home? Not if she were still alive, surely …

  His stomach churned and he could not help but think back to Elizabeth Jackson and the other poor women whose body parts had been pulled from this very river a decade before. He thought of Charles Hebbert, and the days he had not dined at the club. Perhaps his suspicions of Hebbert had been wrong and it was Bond who was responsible? His mind blazed in the darkness, a whirling mass of accusations that sat badly with his personal knowledge of these two men. What the hell had happened? What dreadful secrets were they hiding? He thought of the dead priest and the note he had left, addressed to Bond. Could they have been in collusion?

  It was all too terrible to contemplate: the thought that his rational and highly respected friend could be in any way involved in such atrocious murders beggared belief – and yet he could not stop the details forming into a solid suspicion, one that he could not ignore. He felt sick, weak – but he knew he had to confront Bond. He could wait no longer.

  The small boat returned eventually and Andrews stayed hidden in the shadows as he watched Bond hand over a small purse of what had to be coins. Then he waited until his rough companions had disappeared into night.

  As Bond picked up both valises and turned to walk away, Andrews stepped out into the street.

  ‘Thomas?’ He did not need to shout; his soft word carried easily on the stinking river breeze. Bond froze, and then turned slowly to face him.

  ‘Walter,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’ He spoke casually, as if they were meeting simply in passing on a busy thoroughfare at midday. ‘Were you following me?’

  ‘I had some questions,’ Andrews said. His heart was in his throat: fear, but not for his own safety, more for the imminent shattering of his illusions of all he had thought respectable, the expected revelation of terrible secrets. ‘About Hebbert. About the records you asked me to get for you.’

  ‘Ah, those,’ Bond said. ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘But now I have some questions for you. The woman who came to your house … ?’

  Bond raised a hand and sighed.

  That was not the reaction Andrews had been expecting and he paused. He had anticipated anger perhaps, and probably for Bond to run – but this calm resignation? Perhaps he had read this awful situation completely wrong.

  ‘Shall we go to your house?’ Bond asked. ‘We can talk there, and I will explain everything.’ He looked around him, as if trying to place the location. ‘I think perhaps it is closer than mine.’

  Andrews watched him warily for any sign of aggression, but could sense none: this was just his old friend, Thomas Bond, now nearly sixty, standing in front of him … in the middle of the night.

  ‘I have something I want you to see, and I think perhaps there is best.’

  Andrews moved closer to him and asked urgently, ‘Were you Jack, Thomas?’ He desperately needed this answer. ‘Before we go any further, I must know that.’

  Bond’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Walter! How could you think that of me?’ Then he paused before saying quietly, ‘No, I believe Charles Hebbert was Jack. I am no murderer.’ He sighed again and admitted, ‘It is somewhat more complicated than that. It will do me good to share it. But I think I need a glass of brandy first.’

  ‘You want to come to my home?’ Andrews said. ‘You will tell me there? Everything? Regardless of the consequences?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bond said, ‘yes, I shall. I promise you that.’ He turned and began to stride back into the heart of the city, an empty valise in each hand.

  Andrews followed silently.

  47

  Extract of Florence Jones’ testimony at the Old Bailey, 1899

  I live at 16, Spicer Road, Finch Road, Battersea—in December, 1897, I was living with my father and mother at Woolwich—I am single, but on December 17th, 1897, I was confined in a Home at Clapham of a female child—it was named Selina Ellen Jones—the lady in charge of that house recommended a Mrs. Muller to me, and the child was put into her charge till March, 1898, when it was taken from her and put into the charge of Mrs. Wetherall, of Gee Street, St. Luke’s, and I paid her 5s. a week from March to July, 1898, for the care of the child—I went there and visited it, and, as far as I saw, it had good health and flourished under Mrs. Wetherall—in July the father ceased to contribute, and I then paid only half-a-crown a week for it—I saw this advertisement in the Woolwich Herald on August 18th, 1899: “Adoption.—A young married couple would adopt healthy baby; every care and comfort; good references given; very small premium. Write first to Mrs. Hewetson, 4, Bradmore Lane, Hammersmith”—I wrote to the address, saying that I had a child, and asking how much she wanted to adopt it—I got an answer, saying that they wanted it for their own, and wanted £5 down—I answered that, and said that I could pay £3, and sent this photograph (Produced) of the child—it was sent back to me in a subsequent letter—it was taken in 1898, when the child was about nine months old—I asked for an interview, and an appointment was made to meet at Woolwich Station about Thursday, Augus
t 24th, a week before the child was handed over—I met the female prisoner at Woolwich, and went with her to my mother’s house—mother said we wanted her to take care of it for a certain time, and then have it back again—I made arrangements to see the child once a fortnight, and mother said she would come up and see it presently—the prisoner said that her husband was a clerk in Hammersmith, and I understood her to say that she lived at 4, Bradmore Lane; that was the address in the advertisement—no arrangement was made about the money on that occasion—I said that I should always like to provide it with clothes—I told her I would tell Mrs. Wetherall that I was going to take the child away, and I wrote to the prisoner that she could have it on Tuesday—I made an appointment for the next Thursday after the interview at my mother’s, to meet at Charing Cross Station—I then got this letter from the female prisoner; it is the only letter I got—(This stated that they had taken a new house in Hammersmith, and all the neighbours would think the child was their own, and inquiring at what part of Charing Cross Station they were to meet.)—Some days before August 3lst I bought some child’s clothes—I took those clothes to Mrs. Wetherall on Thursday, and she handed me over the child that day, and all the clothes which it had been wearing—I took the child to Charing Cross Station, main line, and the clothes—I saw Mrs. Hewetson, as I knew her, at Charing Cross South-Eastern Station, and went with her to Hammersmith by bus—we went to the Grove, and stopped at a house there, and she said that that was the house she had taken—it was not occupied, but there were some workmen in it—I then went with her to 2, Southerton Road, Hammersmith—she said that the house belonged to a friend of hers, and told me to say nothing about the child not being hers, but gave me no reason for that—when we got to Southerton Road I was introduced to the friend, Mrs. Woolmer, as her sister-in-law—I had some tea in the house, and paid the prisoner £3, and gave her the bundle of clothes—I had definitely arranged to pay her £5—after tea the child and I and the prisoner came out, and went to Hammersmith Station—I then went home, leaving the child behind with the prisoner—I was to pay the other £2 on the next Sunday—she said that she would write me a letter, and let me know where—she was going to send her husband with the child to meet me at the station—I got no such letter, and did not know what station to go to—notwithstanding that, I came up to Hammersmith on Sunday …