by kindels
Legacy of the Ripper
The Sequel to A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper
Brian L. Porter
Legacy of the Ripper
Copyright © 2009 Brian L. Porter
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in Canada by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of Double Dragon Publishing Inc. of Markham Ontario, Canada.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from Double Dragon Publishing Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Cover art by Deron Douglas
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ISBN-10: 1-55404-689-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-689-8
First Edition June 25, 2009
Also Available as a Large Type Paperback
Also from Brian L Porter and Double Dragon Publishing
A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (Winner of The Preditors and Editors Best Thriller Novel of 2008 Award, and coming soon in Motion Picture from Thunderball Films LLC)
Dedication
'Legacy of the Ripper' is dedicated to the memory of Enid Ann Porter, (1914 - 2004). Her belief in me and my work never wavered even though she never lived to see the first book in publication, and to Juliet, who provides the help and support without which none of my books would ever be completed.
Acknowledgements
This sequel to 'A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper' owes much to a number of people whose invaluable help and support went into creation the final manuscript. My thanks are due to Frogg Moody and the members of the committee of The Whitechapel Society 1888. Not only have I learned much from my membership of this august organisation, but the committee generously gave their permission for me to use the name of the society within the book, when I could just as easily have used a fictitious organisation with which to link the character of Alice Nickels. Their generosity has helped lend a greater realism to 'Legacy of the Ripper' than I could have hoped for.
To my friends and fellow Ripperologists at www.jtrforums.com, I
also add my thanks, in particular to Howard Brown and Mike Covell. As a source of information and support to anyone with an interest in the Whitechapel murders, their pages are a goldmine of information. Special thanks go to Howard and Mike, for their continued support and encouragement.
I owe a great deal of thanks to Deron at Double Dragon Publishing for his confidence in my work and for his wonderfully innovative cover design, and to Lea Schizas, my editor, who does a superb job of 'tightening up' and I'm sure, improving my manuscripts.
Mario Domina of Thunderball Films LLC, producer of the movie version of 'A Study in Red' was a wonderful source of encouragement as the novel drew to a close, as I found it hard going to complete the final chapters, as was my great friend Graeme S Houston.
A word of thank goes to Brian Gallagher for his occasional and priceless insights in the field of criminal psychology, and for providing me with reams of reading material on the subject.
Thanks to Lea Schizas for her editing skills and to Deron Douglas at Double Dragon Publishing for his faith in the work.
My gratitude also goes to all those readers who purchased 'A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper' and made it the success story it has become.
Finally, it would be impossible for me to say thank you without including my wife in these acknowledgments. Over the course of my creating 'A Study in Red' and 'Legacy of the Ripper' she has now 'lived' with Jack the Ripper and his crimes for over four years. Her patience and her fortitude in reading every at times harrowing chapter as they've been created is worthy of praise I can never rightly bestow. Her help, opinions and advice have been invaluable.
In the Beginning
In the year 1888, in what became known as 'The Autumn of Terror' a series of killings took place in the East End of London, which shook not only the people of the capital of the greatest empire the modern world has known, but reached into the lives of the population of the whole country as the murderer prowled at will through the dark, crime-ridden streets of Whitechapel, where he murdered and mutilated his victims, seemingly at will. The police appeared helpless in their search for this brazen and sadistic killer who history has recorded forever under the name by which he soon became known, Jack the Ripper!
As the body count grew, more and more police officers were assigned to the case and the largest manhunt England had ever seen was launched in a bid to bring the murderer to justice. Despite such action, and the questioning of dozens of potential suspects, no arrests were made in the case, and the speculation as to the identity of the Ripper began, and has continued to this day. Was he a single man, a loner, or could he have been a married man with a family of his own. Did he have children? Could his genes have been passed down by the heredity of birth through the years, thus allowing his descendants to walk among us, unknown and unknowing of their own ghastly and murderous heritage?
Many theories have been propounded over the years. Was he a doctor, a lunatic, a woman-hating member of the Jewish community, or was 'Jack the Ripper' a convenient cover name for a group of two or more killers operating as part of some great Masonic plot, or, perhaps the most outlandish theory of all, a member of the Royal family?
It's likely that the identity of the world's first officially recognised serial killer will remain a hidden secret, never to be revealed, and the only thing we can say for certain is that Jack the Ripper died a very long time ago, and thus his reign of terror ended with his passing&or did it?
My Name is Jack, A Statement by the Patient.
When did it start? That's what they all want to know. Doctor Ruth is always asking me:
"When did it start? What are your earliest recollections of these feelings?"
I keep telling her the same as I'm telling you all now. It's hard to put a time or a place on when it began, though I was young, very young, maybe four or five years old when I first realised I was 'different' to other children of my age. Even then I knew that my life was mapped out ahead of me, that I had a destiny to fulfil. At such a tender age, of course, it was impossible for me to comprehend what that destiny was. Only much later did I realise that I was being guided by a hand far more powerful than mine, one whose intelligence and guile was such that I had no doubts, when the time came, of the course of action I must take.
I was different you see, different from all of those children who made my life a misery, the ones who called me names because I didn't want to join in their silly games, or take part in stupid group activities after school. When I was very young, I didn't know that I held the power and the means within me to put an end to their taunting and name calling. Only when I reached the age of nine did I suddenly make a stand against those silly, laughing, taunting voices. That was the day when a group of children cornered me in the school playground, out of sight of the watchful teachers and playground assistants. Somehow, they'd heard about my regular visits to the child psychologist. My going in itself wasn't a secret of course. They all knew that I had to attend regular doctor's appointments, but, as happens from time to time, word spread around the school a
bout the real reason for my appointments.
"Bloodsucker, Dracula, do you eat your meat raw, Jack Reid?" they shouted in a cacophony of screeching, childish screams.
"He's a vampire, he sucks the blood from living cats, that's what I've heard," screeched Andrew Denning, one of the ringleaders of the haranguing group.
"You're a weirdo, Reid, that's what you are," Camilla Hunt shouted in my face.
I'd had enough. As Denning came closer to scream in my face once again, I waited until he was within touching distance, and, quick as a flash, I grabbed my tormentor with both hands, one either side of his face, and pulled him close to me. He struggled as I bent my head to the side and the others screamed in panic, but no-one came to his aid as my teeth sunk deeply into his flesh, biting hard on the tender mass of sinews and muscle that made up his ear. That was when the loudest scream of all erupted, this time from Andrew Denning himself, as I pulled my head back from his to reveal a large chunk of his ear still stuck between my teeth. Blood pumped from the side of the boy's head and the other children stood screaming, rooted to the spot in their fear and fascination. In seconds the sound of an adult voice could be heard shouting,
"What's all this commotion? If you boys have been fighting I'll&.Oh my God! Jack! What have you done?"
Miss Plummer almost fainted on the spot, but, to her credit, she maintained her equilibrium enough to send two of the other children running for help. How she did it I can't remember, but she made me open my mouth long enough for her to retrieve the bitten remains of Andrew Denning's ear, which she quickly wrapped in a handkerchief she pulled from a pocket in the side of her skirt. The others were quickly dismissed and Miss Plummer stayed with me and Andrew, who continued to scream until another teacher arrived and escorted him away. Soon afterwards a car disappeared through the school gates carrying the injured boy to the hospital. I learned afterwards that the doctors had sewn what they could of his ear back together, but in truth it would never look right again, and Andrew Denning I'm sure will never forget our encounter. I say that because I only heard these things second-hand. After that incident the headmaster summoned my parents to the school and I was removed from that particular place of education and sent to what is laughingly called a 'special school', where children with 'special needs' are taught. I thought it odd at the time, that no-one really seemed to appreciate what my own peculiar 'special needs' were.
It wasn't until much later that I would begin to realise just where my life was heading, and what I was destined to fulfil, just after my eighteenth birthday in fact, my 'coming of age' as they call it. That was when things really began to fall into place in my mind, and that is why you and all those who follow you, and Doctor Ruth especially, will never, ever forget me. I'm sorry, I've been remiss. Perhaps I should introduce myself before going any further. My name is Jack, Jack Thomas Reid, and this is the letter that began everything that transpired after that fateful day when I received my legacy from Uncle Robert.
To my dearest nephew, Jack,
This testament, the journal, and all the papers that accompany it are yours upon my death, as they became mine upon my father's death. Your Aunt Sarah and I were never fortunate enough to have children of our own, so it is with a heavy heart that I write this note to accompany these pages. Had I any alternative, I would spare you the curse of our family's deepest secret, or perhaps I should say, secrets! Having read what you are about to read, I had neither the courage to destroy it, nor to reveal the secrets contained within these pages. I beg you, as my father begged me, to read the journal and the notes that go with it, and be guided by your conscience and your intelligence in deciding what course of action to take when you have done so. Whatever you decide to do, dear nephew, I beg you, do not judge those who have gone before you too harshly, for the curse of the journal you are about to read is as real as these words I now write to you.
Be safe, Jack, but be warned.
Your loving uncle,
Robert
As for the rest, I suggest you go and talk to Doctor Ruth. She's the expert after all.
Chapter 1
A Career Move
Does violent death have a name? Can evil truly be born into the world, evil so deep that it is bred into the genetic make-up of an individual? Until I came to this place, and met the man who made me begin to suspect that such an evil could exist, I'd have been as dismissive as most of my profession at the prospect of such a possibility.
My name is Ruth Truman, and this, I suppose is my confession, my testament to the failure of all I've tried to do, of all I've stood for since the day I took the Hippocratic oath on becoming a physician, a healer, one who makes people better when they're ill, who cures disease and puts a healthy smile back on the face of those who are beset by illness.
My career was always a fast track to the specialisation I'd chosen while at Medical School in London, and so, today, I'm a psychiatrist, and as such am charged with administering treatment to patients who suffer from some of the most dreadful and least understood diseases that afflict us as human beings, diseases of the mind. My career, until recently, has been one of unqualified success, as I rose through the ranks of my profession with almost indecent haste, becoming a senior consultant psychiatrist in one of our country's largest teaching hospitals at the age of just forty one. My work with the most difficult of patients, and with those suffering from some of the lesser known but perhaps most interesting of psychiatric illnesses, in particular bipolar disease, more commonly known as manic depression and some of the more obscure dissociative disorders, led eventually to me being offered the post of Senior Consultant at one of the largest secure psychiatric hospital facilities in the United Kingdom. In this enlightened age of course, we now refer to such places as 'Special Hospitals' rather than the old institutional type of description which would once have been applied to such a facility.
No, in our politically-correct, pre-packaged, health and safety orientated nation of today, the word 'asylum' no longer has a place, and perhaps rightly so. Those who are incarcerated, or should I say treated in the hospital are no longer referred to as 'inmates' but are now simply 'patients'. These patients, of course, by nature of the acts they committed that led to their confinement at Ravenswood, are some of the most dangerous individuals our society can produce. As such they must be treated with the utmost respect in terms of ensuring the safety of those who have to work in close proximity to the assorted rapists, murderers, arsonists and serial criminals of every variety whom the courts have chosen to label as being of unsound mind. Quite often, those patients can, of course, be a danger not only to those who must care for them, but also to their fellow inmates, er, sorry, patients, and occasionally to themselves. The number of incidences of attempted self-harm in a hospital such as Ravenswood are far higher than might be supposed by those on the outside. With the greatest of care and supervision that we can provide, a determined individual will always find a way to inflict grievous harm upon themselves, occasionally with fatal consequences. Such events are, thankfully, a rarity, as most patients are found and treated before they are able to complete the act of suicide.
This then, is the powder keg environment into which are cast a selection of the most damaged members of our society, mentally speaking. As doctors and nurses, the staff must be constantly vigilant and on their guard when dealing with such individuals, and while some achieve their goal of an eventual release from their incarceration in the hospital, others, not so lucky, may find themselves living out the long years of their natural lives within the confines of Ravenswood and other facilities of its kind. We have a number of other staff, not medically qualified, but who in any other similar environment might just be referred to as guards. These men and women are members of the prison service and assigned to take care of the additional security necessary for the calm and efficient running of such a high risk establishment. Without their presence, the 'patients' might just end up inflicting terrible harm on both staff and fellow inmates of the
hospital, and pandemonium would reign.
***
The man whose tale I wish to relate, the man who has driven me to doubt the profession and the ethics that I have given my life to, shows no outward sign of being the proverbial monster, the thing of evil, the beast that I henceforth profess him to be. In truth, Jack Reid is one of the most handsome young men I have ever met. He has the good looks of youth, a cheerful and, at times, most charming disposition, and his fair hair and blue eyes, combined with his warm and gentle smile are such that the man is capable of 'charming the birds from the trees' to quote a much used colloquialism. At a little under six feet tall, he has the advantage of height over me, being a mere five feet two, but I have to admit that the towering young man has never used his size to try to intimidate me in any of our meetings. Jack Reid is politeness itself.
When I first arrived here, Jack had been a patient within these walls for just over a month. Not one of the three doctors who'd attempted to 'connect' with the sad and unhappy young man he was at that time had managed even a modicum of success. Jack Reid had been found guilty by reason of insanity of a series of three murders of innocent young women in and around the Brighton area. His barrister had successfully pleaded at the trial that, as Jack had no recollection of having committed the murders, which had been borne out by intensive pre-trail psychiatric examinations by a series of respected psychiatric consultants, then it would be impossible to convict him of 'wilful' murder. It was put forward by the prosecution that Jack had committed the murders whilst on a form of 'fugue state', almost a trance, or while undergoing a personality change wrought by a deep psychotic disorder, a severe schizoid episode. Jack's story, however, was very different and regarded as being so improbable that no-one, least of all the police and the prosecution, gave much credence to it at the time. That story, incredible though it may appear at times, forms the basis of much that I wish to record here.
