by kindels
"It strikes me that Laura Kane never had much of a life, sergeant. She may have been 'on the game' but what she made from the clients she managed to pick up wasn't enough to keep her in any sort of luxury, that's for sure."
"Maybe she thought she'd one day make it big and have enough to get away from here, what d'you think?" asked Wright, trying to inject some belated optimism into the scenario surrounding the victim's dismal end.
"Maybe, Carl," Holland replied. "We'll never know, will we? I'll bet almost every penny she earned went on fuelling her drug habit. The coroner said she showed signs of prolonged drug abuse. Now, let's start nosing around and see if we can find anything that the forensic boys might have missed."
Twenty minutes later, Carl Wright called to Holland, who was searching and rummaging under the small kitchen sink in the living area. Holland quickly made his way to the bathroom, where he found Wright on his hands and knees in one corner of the room.
"Found something?" Holland asked.
"Just this, sir," said Wright, triumphantly holding up a small passport sized photograph.
"Where was it?"
"When I lifted the carpet, I thought I could make out a bit of white between two of the floorboards. I went back to the bathroom and took the tweezers out of the girl's toilet bag and came back, got down here, and hey, presto!"
He held the photo out towards Holland's outstretched hand and the inspector took a hold of it and studied it carefully. The black and white photo showed the murdered girl together with a young man, apparently clean and well shaven, with longish hair, probably some years younger than herself. It was a typical photo-booth shot, the two of them smiling and leaning their heads in towards each other happily.
"Well, well," said Holland thoughtfully. Maybe we just got our first clue, eh Sergeant?"
"How on earth did forensics miss it?" asked Wright.
"Remember, this wasn't the murder scene. They'd have gone over that with a fine tooth comb, but this was her home and not directly linked to the mechanics of the crime so they probably wouldn't have been instructed to go as far as lifting carpets and floorboards. They'd have been searching for straightforward evidence that might have linked the girl to her killer, but bearing in mind the desolate picture this place portrays, I doubt they'd have spent too long in going over the place. I'm damn glad you thought to lift the carpet though, sergeant, damn glad indeed."
"Now we need to see if we can identify this young man," Holland went on. "So far we've been working under the assumption that Laura had no friends or close acquaintances. This photo tends to prove the lie to that theory."
"What about everyone we've already questioned about her friends, you know, the neighbours and so on?"
"They'll be as good a place to start as anywhere," Holland agreed. "As we're here, let's go knock on a few doors, and then we can go back to the office, have this blown up and copied, and get the beat boys to check with the crowds in the red-light areas once darkness brings them out."
Unfortunately for Holland and Wright, their inquiries around the flats in Marchland Towers proved as useless as before. Either the residents denied knowing or ever seeing Laura Kane, much less the man in the photograph, or they simply refused to open their doors to the officers. The night shift met with almost identical results when they hit the streets later that night, with no-one showing willingness to identify either of the two people in the photograph. To all intents and purposes, it was as if Laura and her mystery friend had simply never existed.
Carl Wright sent the picture to forces around the country and checked the face against all known police photo-fits and mug shots, with no success. Their mystery man remained just that, a mystery.
In a frustrating conversation with his sergeant two days after the discovery of the photograph, Holland reasoned that it was going to take something quite extraordinary to loosen a few tongues amongst the underclass of predominantly less than wholly law-abiding types who lived in the rabbit-warren like flats and corridors of the Regent Estate. Even those decent law-abiding folks who were forced to endure life in the tower blocks of the estate were either too scared or too far removed from the nefarious goings on around them to be of help to the police.
Unfortunately, within days, as the Laura Kane case dragged on towards what would normally might have proved an unsatisfactory unsolved murder case, Mike Holland's 'quite extraordinary' event proved him tragically correct, and the occurrence that eventually opened one or two of those sealed tongues was every bit as gruesome as the murder of Laura Kane had been.
Chapter 7
A Chance Meeting
As events prepared to escalate and Holland and Wright were about to become embroiled in one of the most baffling and gruesome cases of their respective careers, across the town from their office at police headquarters a young man known only to his associates as Michael was waking from a deep sleep. As his eyes opened fully, he squinted against the glare of the shaft of autumn sunshine that cascaded into the room through the uncurtained window a mere three feet from the end of his bed. The room was small, dirty and unkempt and completely matched the two occupants who shared the meagre accommodation. Michael rubbed his eyes, squinted again and turned his head away from the bright rays that met his waking gaze. Instead, he looked across the room to where a second low framed bed stood. Its occupant still slept soundly and though he didn't present quite as filthy a picture as Michael, the young man who lay snoring in peaceful oblivion in the bed also resembled little more than a bundle of unwashed humanity. The single cheap blanket that served as his cover had slipped to the side revealing socks that had holes where the toes showed through, and the frayed hems of what had once been an expensive pair of jeans.
Michael had met his new flatmate a mere four weeks previously. 'Jacob' had been sleeping rough on one of the benches that lined the Brighton seafront as Michael walked home one night after one of his regular excursions to obtain the drugs that had long-ago become the sole focus of his life. At first, Michael thought the young man might prove an easy target for an opportunist theft. His head rested on a rucksack that Michael considered might contain some items of value that he could possibly sell to one of the many 'fences' who he regularly did business with. A return of less than fifteen percent of the value of his ill-gotten gains wasn't much, and he had to work hard to raise the money to fuel his ever-expanding need for drugs.
Unfortunately for him, as he approached the bench, the sleeping man began to stir so, ever the opportunist, Michael instantly changed tack. He might be a druggie, but he was an intelligent one. His brain, slowly becoming poisoned by the cocaine, still had the ability to think quickly and sum up a situation in a few seconds.
"Hey, man, you can't sleep on the benches round here. The cops will soon pick you up and treat you as a vagrant. At best you'll spend a night in the cells and at worst they'll have you up in front of the magistrate and you could end up with a fine and being run out of town."
The sleepy figure rose slowly to a sitting position as Michael appeared to tower over him.
"And why should you care what happens to me?" he asked of the man who'd disturbed his sleep.
"Look, friend, I don't like to see anyone getting into bother with the cops. That's all. I thought that maybe you're new in town and might need a few pointers. What's wrong with being friendly, eh?"
"What gives you the idea I'm new in town?"
"Hmm&maybe the rucksack is a bit of a giveaway, or the fact that you look like you need a place to stay. When did you last have a shave, man?"
"Look who's talking," the man on the bench replied. "You're not exactly Mister Clean yourself by the looks of you."
"Ah, but my appearance is all a part of my persona," Michael replied. "I look this way because I want to. You look like that because you've got nowhere to stay, am I right?"
"Yes, okay, I need a place. I haven't been here in Brighton for long, just a few days."
"And before that?"
"That's got nothin
g to do with you. I've admitted I need a roof, and that's all you need to know."
"Hey, calm down a bit. Like I said I'm just being friendly. Look, my name's Michael, what's yours?"
There was a slight hesitation from the young man on the bench before he replied.
"You can call me Jacob," he said.
"That's as good as anything I suppose," Michael replied, sceptically.
"It's my name!" said Jacob, defiantly.
"Yeah, sure it is. Like I say, it doesn't matter a fig to me, man, long as I've got something to call you. Now listen, how would like to have a warm bed for the night and a place to stay while you figure out what it is you want to do here in town?"
Jacob appeared suspicious.
"Look, you're not some sort of weirdo are you? Or gay? I'm not into that side of things, or anything like that."
"Listen, it's just a friendly offer of a roof over your head, nothing more, nothing less," Michael lied. He had a plan and Jacob would be just the man he needed to help him put it into effect, if he could convince the young man to throw in his lot with him.
Jacob rose from the bench, pulling himself up to his full height. Michael looked surprised when Jacob appeared to be at least three inches taller than himself. From his position curled up on the bench, the young man had looked smaller somehow. No matter, Michael wasn't intending anything violent. He thought that Jacob might just be the man he needed to help him in a coming venture. For now however, it was necessary to get Jacob back to his home, and try to engender a sense of gratitude in his new friend.
Jacob stretched, looked up and around at the multi-coloured seafront lights suspended between the resort's lamp-posts, and at the dark starlit autumn sky. A breeze was being driven in towards the promenade from the English Channel, and the salt air held the tang of a cool night as it whipped around his face. Wherever Michael lived, it would probably be a more pleasant option than spending another night in the open, and risking arrest for vagrancy by some bored copper with nothing better to do than pick on homeless young people. His mind made up, he agreed to go with Michael and the two young men walked together towards the less salubrious end of town, where Michael's home lay. It was, he explained to Jacob, only temporary. He'd be finding something better soon.
Twenty minutes later, arriving at Michaels flat, Jacob had cause to pause and think that perhaps he might have been better taking his chances on the seafront bench. Michael's flat was squalid to say the least, though Jacob could have added a whole host of less than complimentary terms to that one simple word to describe the place he found himself in. The whole flat smelled of something unclean, though Jacob couldn't put a name to the scent that assaulted his olfactory nerves. Perhaps it was just the fact that he'd spent days living in the fresh air of the seafront, but he almost retched as he was swept into the living area by Michael, who proceeded to flop on the sofa in the middle of the room, gesturing to Jacob to take seat in one of the two tattered armchairs that made up the other components of the three-piece suite that had seen many better days, that was for sure.
"Bet you could do with a hot drink, eh, Jacob?" asked Michael, after allowing his guest the luxury of five minutes relaxation on the sofa.
"Wouldn't mind," Jacob replied, and Michael gestured to follow him into the kitchen.
The kitchen reminded Jacob of something out of a war zone. Pots and pans lay strewn on top of the grease encrusted cooker, the centrepiece of which was a heavily burned and well-used frying pan, that, like everything in Michael's flat appeared to have seen better days. The sink was piled high with used plates and bowls giving the whole area the appearance of a piece of grotesque modern sculpture. The worktops were equally laden with plates that bore the remains of a few take-out meals, well past their sell-by dates by the look of them, and Jacob estimated that anything he ate or drank in this place would probably be guaranteed to give him a dose of salmonella at the very least. He was surprised therefore when Michael opened a cupboard and extracted a couple of clean mugs and a clean spoon produced from a cutlery drawer positioned strategically next to the sink.
"I hate washing up," said Michael, by way of explanation for the culinary and hygienic mayhem that lay before them. "I get around to it about once a week," he went on, though Jacob estimated that once a month might be nearer the mark.
"Is Bovril all right? I ran out of tea and coffee days ago and haven't had chance to do any shopping since then."
Jacob nodded, and Michael quickly had his kettle on the boil.
"You go and clear the coffee table, eh?" he said to Jacob, who dutifully returned to the living room and swept the assorted magazines and old newspapers from the surface of the dirty glass-topped coffee table in the centre of the room. As he did so, Michael took the opportunity to drop two tranquilisers into the hot steaming mug of Bovril that he was about to present to his guest. The hot beef extract drink would easily mask any taste of the tiny tablets, once dissolved, that would give Michael the opportunity to carry out the first part of his plan.
When, twenty minutes later, Jacob at last fell into a deep sleep on the sofa, where Michael had insisted he sit and put his feet up, (after all he needed the rest), Michael at last had his chance. He rummaged through the contents of the rucksack, where he soon found out as much as he needed to know. As he'd thought, 'Jacob' was not really Jacob at all, and it didn't take long for Michael to decide that with a bit of tutoring, his new houseguest could be just the man he was looking for. Before he finally placed the rucksack down and crept off to his own bed for the night, he did, however, find one more item of interest tucked away at the very bottom of the bag, under a small pile of underwear of socks. What he found there quite appalled and intrigued him, and he wondered just how he could put what he'd learned to good use.
It hadn't taken him long to formulate a revised plan. His original idea to use Jacob as a runner and a messenger for some of his less than legal activities were rapidly revised into one where Jacob would provide him with something far more important. He knew someone who just might find Jacob a useful pawn in a little game he was playing.
Now, as he watched the sleeping figure snoring peacefully in the bed opposite his own, Michael smiled to himself. Yes indeed, his chance meeting with Jacob had been a sign from the gods, a message to Michael that things were about to start going his way. All his past cares and troubles were about to evaporate, thanks to Jacob. So what if it wasn't his real name? If the poor sod wanted to be known as Jacob, that would do for Michael. After all, Michael wasn't his real name either.
Any minute now, Jacob would be awake. Michael had plans to make, but for now, he'd play the genial host as ever, and have a good breakfast ready for Jacob when he woke.
Chapter 8
Escalation
Allow me to now trek back in time once more, back to the dark and murky, crime-infested streets of the East End of London, in the year 1888. Such a time slip is necessary in order for me to illustrate the odd connections that began to come together in the beautiful seaside town of Brighton in our own time. Of course, as events began to unfold no-one made any connection between the events in London so long ago and what was taking place in Brighton. At least, not in the beginning.
In the early hours of the morning of 31st August 1888, the body of forty three year old prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, known locally as 'Polly', was discovered by two men, Charles Cross and Robert Paul in a doorway on Buck's Row, Whitechapel. Three police constables were on the scene within five minutes, and one of them, Police Constable Neil, was able to ascertain immediately, with the aid of the light from his lantern, that the woman's throat had been cut. Her skirt had been pulled up, though it wasn't evident at that time that the victim had been subjected to a series of mutilations. The police surgeon, a Doctor Llewellyn, was summoned. He pronounced the victim dead and ordered the body to be taken to the mortuary shed at Old Montague Street Workhouse Infirmary. It was during the stripping of the body at the mortuary that the mutilations to Polly Nichols's b
ody were discovered and Doctor Llewellyn was subsequently summoned to carry out a further examination of the remains.
Though not identified immediately her identity was later confirmed by Mary Ann Monk form the Lambeth Workhouse, where Polly had spent time in the recent past. Mary Ann Nicholls had been married to William Nichols, a printer, and had borne him five children. Following frequent and often violent quarrels, mostly caused by Mary's propensity for drink the couple separated and, as was so often the case amongst the poor of Victorian London, she took to prostitution in an attempt to keep body and soul together. It was an old story and one repeated all too often amongst the decay and squalor that the poorest inhabitants were forced to endure on a daily basis. There were no welfare benefits, no handouts and no pity to be spared for those who made up the sad underclass without whom the vast engine of the British Empire would in all probability have ground to a halt. These were the souls whose sweat and hard labour fuelled the vast factories that had spring up during the industrial revolution, who worked long and hard hours on the docks, in the markets and on the streets of London in order to eke out the barest of livings. The hours were long and the work mostly soul destroying and back-breaking in its physical intensity.
Their homes were for the most part dark and dirty hovels, with often more then one family sharing not a whole house, but a pitiful room, perhaps without furniture, beds, or decent food. Windows were often bare of glass and were stuffed with old newspapers or sacking, anything to keep out the cold of night. Degradation and squalor were the order of the day and nowhere was perhaps as severely affected as the Whitechapel district, where crime, disease and apathy of soul became bywords for those who eventually sought to attempt to improve the lot of those who were forced to endure the privations of life on the fringes of so-called civilised society.
Such was the way of life endured by Polly Nichols and those like her, the poor 'unfortunates' who plied their pitiful trade selling their bodies for a few pence at a time in a pitiful attempt to raise enough money to find a bed for the night in one of the many 'doss' houses that sprang up around the East end to cater for those with no home to call their own. Of course, the handmaiden of the prostitutes of Whitechapel was so often the gin that flowed in the many ale houses and pubs that lined the district's streets, and the temptation was always there to spend whatever meagre earnings they'd obtained in attaining the oblivion of drunkenness in preference to finding that bed for the night. It was certainly the case for Polly Nichols. A woman by the name of Ellen Holland had been the last person to see her alive, reporting her as having been 'drunk and staggering' when she saw her on the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel High Street at around two thirty a.m. Perhaps we may hope that her state of drunkenness protected her from the full horrors of what was about to befall her.
