by kindels
"The reason for the drugs was simple. I wanted to see what would happen if you were allowed to remain conscious, but in a controlled state. I thought that you'd be pliable, easily controlled and I gave Michael instructions as to the exact dose to administer to you, after which he was to observe what you did and report back to me.
"Unfortunately, he failed to stop you from killing the first prostitute. He foolishly thought that my orders to observe also meant that he shouldn't interfere in anything you did while under the influence of the drug. In point of fact, it served to prove that the power of the journal far outweighed the power of the drug. Can you believe it, Jack? The words contained in those pages hold a stronger power than the narcotic that flowed in your bloodstream. Words more powerful than science, just incredible!"
"I don't believe a word of it. You're lying. I didn't kill anyone!"
"Oh, but you did. Do you remember waking one morning to find that Michael appeared to have undressed you and put you to bed? That was the night of the first killing. He'd taken you home after watching what you did to that poor girl, undressed you and washed every trace of blood from your clothes, placed them in the dryer and then put them on the back of the chair. He was amazed to learn from you the next morning that you'd no idea at all what you'd done the previous night. When he told me, I was surprised and delighted. Although I'd originally intended to try and control your murderous urges I now decided to see just what you'd do if allowed to continue. As a controlling part of the experiment I made sure that Michael continued to administer the drug. Sure enough, you did it again, with no recollection at all of the killing and mutilation you'd carried out in the night. You did have some residual thoughts the second time and you reported strange nightmares, remember? You also found some bloodstains on your hands. Michael had of course cleaned and dried your clothes once again, but he told you he'd fallen and cut himself on the way home from the pub late the previous night and that you'd helped clean him up. You accepted his explanation as you were too mind-befuddled to think otherwise. You were already suffering from short term memory lapses and your mind was becoming easy to control, at least some of the time."
Jack still found the man's words impossible to believe. He couldn't possibly believe that, even allowing for the influence of the journal, he could possibly kill two women without retaining a single memory of either event.
"Listen to me," said Jack. "You have Michael bring me here, tell me I'm a murderer possessed by the soul of Jack the Ripper or something like that and yet you won't even show me your face. Tell me who you are, or offer me any proof of these things I'm supposed to have done. You must think I'm stupid."
"Oh no, not stupid, Jack. Disturbed of mind perhaps, but never stupid. You ask for proof? I made sure Michael kept a record of whatever happened while you were under the influence of the Rohypnol. Please feel under your seat and you'll find an envelope. Take it out and examine the contents in the beam of the lamp. I think you'll find it contains all the proof you require."
Jack fumbled around under his chair for a second until he felt the envelope. He quickly grabbed it and opened the flap, finding two photographs within. In the glare of the high intensity lamp, he stared with disbelief at the pictures.
The first showed him on his knees beside the bloodied body of Laura Kane, the second a similar representation of him, knife in hand beside the unfortunate Marla Hayes. His face was clearly visible, peering in the direction of the photographer, who he assumed must have been Michael.
"Little Laura Kane and Marla Hayes were both clients of Michael's. You must have known that, Jack, which made it easy for you to target and murder them. The police announced that they have a photograph of Laura with a man. Was it you, Jack? Did you wine and dine her, romance her first? Or did you just lure her with false promises and then take her to that place where you gutted the little whore?"
Jack Reid slumped in the chair as belief and grief in equal measure washed over him in a tidal wave of fear and confusion, the shaft of light from behind the man burning a path into his soul, and within seconds, his mind and his world crumbled to dust around him.
Chapter 24
More Facts, No Clues
"Come on, Carl," said Holland to his sergeant. "We need to re-create the next Ripper killing on paper. If we can do that we may be able to figure out how our own killer's mind is working. We need an 'edge,' something that can give us an insight into his mind. If he's going to be on the prowl for his next victim tomorrow night, I want to have at least an even money chance of bringing the bastard to heel."
Carl Wright nodded and rose from his chair on the opposite side of Holland's desk. He quickly picked up the chair and carried it around to Holland's side of the desk, where he placed it down on the floor and sat next to the inspector. Together, they began painstakingly going through everything they had on the murder in 1888 of Jack the Ripper's victim, Annie Chapman.
Annie, born Eliza Anne Smith, had been born not too far from the scene of her eventual demise, in Paddington, London, in 1841. She had married a domestic coachman, John Chapman in 1869 and later gave birth to two daughters and a son, the family living at first in Bayswater and later for some time in Windsor where Chapman worked again as a coachman. Surely, of all the victims she had the greatest opportunity to enjoy a normal happy married life? Unfortunately, for reasons we are unaware of Annie abandoned her family and returned to London in 1882, shortly before the death of her daughter Emily. It is easy to assume that she'd acquired a drinking habit and that this unfortunate circumstance led to the breakdown of her marriage to the man who to all intents and purposes appeared to be as respectable a choice of husband as she could have made. Allegations of her infidelity have also been put forward as reasons for the marriage split, but no true evidence of this has been produced to date.
Certainly, it is known that John Chapman continued to support his wife until his own death from cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy in 1886, after which she appeared to have scraped a living by selling her own crochet work, selling matches or flowers and eventually, when unable to obtain money from a number of men friends who occasionally provided for her, Annie descended into prostituting herself on the streets of Whitechapel.
Her lifeless, mutilated corpse was discovered at around six a.m. on the morning of September 8th in the back yard of number twenty nine Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. Her dress had been pulled up around her waist and as could be clearly seen by John Davis, the man who made the grisly find, her intestines had been draped across her left shoulder. Police surgeon Dr. George Bagster Phillips who carried out the post-mortem examination of her remains reported that the woman had been "terribly mutilated." As in the previous killings, the throat had been cut and in this case a number of the abdominal organs had been removed. The uterus, the upper portion of the vagina and part of the bladder were missing and no trace of these organs was ever found. This was, to date, by far the worst example of the Ripper's mutilations and it would have been little comfort to the relatives of the deceased to be told that she probably had little time left to live in any case due to the presence of lung disease and lesions on the brain.
Unusually in the case of a Ripper murder it was ascertained that Annie Chapman had been relieved of two brass rings which she'd been known to be wearing on the evening prior to her death. Jack the Ripper had taken trophies, so it was assumed. The rings, like her murderer were never traced. She was buried in the cemetery at Manor Park in London on Friday 14th September, her funeral being attended by members of her family.
Unfortunately, as far as Holland and Wright were concerned, the facts of the case ended there. Apart from an in-depth post-mortem report and details of the police force's failed attempts to secure the apprehension of the killer, a few witness reports which detailed the known movements of Annie Chapman in the hours leading up to her death, no further helpful information was available to the latter day detectives. Holland and Wright simultaneously leaned back in their seats, stretched almost in un
ison and looked at each other.
"It doesn't help us a lot, does it?" Holland volunteered to his sergeant.
"Not really, sir, no. It's typical of the whole scenario surrounding Jack the Ripper. Apart from the names of the victims and the people who were involved with them prior to their deaths and those who found the bodies, it's the same in every case. No-one saw anything, heard anything or remembered anything that might have given the police a real clue to the killer's identity. Jack the Ripper was like a phantom, a wraith who appeared out of nowhere in the dead of night and returned whence he came without leaving an evidence of his presence."
"But we know that he wasn't a bloody phantom, was he? He was a man, a blood and guts evil son of a bitch who was simply too clever for the forces of law and order as they existed at the time. I'll lay odds on the fact that someone back then did know who he was and either kept quiet out of fear or because they actually wanted to protect the bastard."
"Who the hell would have wanted to protect someone like that?"
"Who, indeed? A wife, a lover, a doting indulgent father? Who knows? But someone would have known him, Wright. They had to have done. As the police conjectured at the time, he must have been covered in blood after carrying out his mutilations. If he had a family one of his relatives must have seen the state of him after the murders, surely."
"But if he was single, sir?"
"Even then, he must have had friends, parents or siblings perhaps. There had to have been one person at least in 1888 that had a bloody good idea who the Ripper was and who, for their own reasons, kept silent about it. Either way, it doesn't help us much at all in tracking down the evil sod that's ready to go out and kill again tomorrow night, presumably in honour of the original Ripper."
"You think that's what this all about, sir? Some sort of twisted hero worship?"
"I don't really know what to think," Holland replied. "So far, our killer is proving as elusive as the original Whitechapel version. The fact that he's trying to recreate the crimes down to the exact dates is a bit of a giveaway though, don't you think, sergeant?"
"Maybe, sir, though there could be something in his motives that we haven't caught on to yet."
"You're right of course, but we have so little to go on. I suppose we're clutching at straws and they're all damn well slipping through our fingers before we can get a grip. We've got one day left before we expect him to strike again and we have no idea what he looks like, why he's really doing it, or who he's likely to target apart from the reasonable certainty that it will be another prostitute."
"You know, sir, it's often been assumed that Jack the Ripper had an in-built hatred of prostitutes, perhaps because he'd caught a venereal disease from one of them at some time. Do you think it's possible that our current Ripper is also infected with something he's picked up from one of the local girls and is carrying out some sort of revenge attacks using Jack the Ripper as his model?"
"By God, sergeant, you just might have something there. If we're dealing with some prat who's picked up a dose of V.D. from a local prossie then we might just have a chance of nailing the bastard."
"But how, sir? The clinics at the local hospitals treat everyone confidentially. They won't tell us a bloody thing about the patients they've treated and even if they did there'd probably be too many for us to check out in the space of twenty four hours."
Holland, who a moment ago had actually believed his sergeant had hit on a possible theory to explain the reasons behind the killings had to agree with Wright. Even if it were true that the Brighton Ripper was killing prostitutes out of a perceived need for revenge against women of the street in general, there was no way he could force the medical profession to divulge confidential patient records to him on the basis of a hunch or a theory.
"You're right of course," said Holland to his sergeant. "But I do think you may have hit on a potential motive for our killer. I want you to speak to the boys in vice. Try and see if they have a list of all known users of the local girls, those who've maybe been picked up for kerb-crawling in the last year, say. If they've picked up one or more men on a number of occasions and we can compile a list of regular frequenters of the red-light district we just might find our man lurking somewhere on it. It's along shot I know and we don't have much time, but we have to try something."
Carl Wright wasted no time in leaving Holland's office and making his way to the office of the vice Squad where he was soon involved in deep conversation with Sergeant Mary Kelleher, a seasoned detective who'd spent the last two years working in vice and who knew the local scene as well as anyone in the local force. Irish by birth, Kelleher wore her hair long, the fiery red, wavy locks speaking of her ancestry as if her soft lilting brogue wasn't enough of a giveaway.
"So, there you have it," she said as her computer printer spewed out a two page list of known users of the local red-light district. "Page one is a list of the men who've not only been caught picking up girls, but who've actually been prosecuted and fined or bound over by the magistrates. The second page lists those who've been let off with a police warning. In all cases on the second page they were first offenders. I doubt you'll find your man there."
"Hey, come on, Mary. You know as well as I do that it only takes once with an infected girl in order to pick up a case of something nasty."
"That's true," Kelleher replied, "but I'm thinking that the man you're looking for is more likely to be a seasoned user of these girls. From what I've heard about your case he seems to be a man on a mission and there haven't been any signs of trauma on the bodies to indicate that he physically forced them to go with him to wherever he killed them, am I right?"
"Yes, but I fail to see the significance of that."
"Listen, Carl, trust me," said the pretty vice cop. "A beginner, someone with little knowledge of the scene down there would probably be nervous. He'd in all probability approach the girls from his car, drive to a secluded spot where he'd think they couldn't be seen and then screw the girl in the front or back seat before dropping her off back on the streets. I think the man you're looking for is more confident than that. He probably picks the girls up on foot, walks with them for a while, talks to them, leads them on a bit and before the poor girl knows what's happening he directs them to wherever he wants to do the deed and then kills them in his own time. No, if your man is a user of prostitutes then I'd stake my life on the fact that he's a serial user. Concentrate on page one if you want to stand a hope of finding him, assuming you and your boss have hit on a workable theory."
A short while later, after saying his thanks and offering to meet with Mary Kelleher for a drink one evening after work in order to keep her up to date on the case Carl Wright made his way back to Holland's office. Knocking and entering, he was surprised to see that the D.I. had a visitor, one who bore a face that Wright knew very well indeed.
Chapter 25
Prisoner
A pall of oppression weighed heavily on Jack Reid's shoulders. The stygian gloom of the room in which he sat combined with the awful and terrifying evidence he held in his hands served to add to the terrible sense of guilt that now gripped the young man's heart. The camera never lies, so they say and Jack couldn't fail to be convinced by the sight of his own image captured as it was at the scenes of the two murders, the blood of the young victims on his hands, the knife clearly held by no-one else but he. The beam of light from the floodlight positioned behind his tormentor served only to accentuate the darkness around him and despite its highly intense beam it failed to add illumination to the feeling of terror that held him glued to his seat. Jack couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to.
"I see you've changed your attitude considerably, Jack. Not quite so arrogant now, are you?"
The voice of the man behind the desk broke into Jack's thoughts, pushing aside the mind-numbing reality of the photographs as his words struck home.
"You mean that I&"
"The proof is there, in your own hands. Not only have you killed twice, but le
ft unchecked, you will most certainly kill again, and soon."
"What d'you mean by soon?"
"By soon, Jack, I refer to the date of the killing of the next historical Ripper victim and that date is tomorrow."
"No!" Jack cried out in anger and frustration. "I won't kill again. I won't. You can't make me and if I stay indoors, locked in a room perhaps, you could do that couldn't you, then there's no way I could leave and go out and do it again? You have to stop me. Please."
"Now, now Jack, calm yourself, dear boy. You're rambling. Pull yourself together and listen to me. I've already told you that in the first instance, my knowledge caused me to want to see if I could hold back the urges that the journal had kindled in your mind. When I realised that wasn't to be, I instead decided to monitor and document your actions whilst under the influence of whatever power the pages have instilled within your mind. I have no intention of stopping you, Jack. You have a legacy to fulfil, and it will be my mission to note and to photograph every aspect of your transition into the being that lies within your soul."
Jack could hardly believe what he was hearing. This man who appeared to know everything there was to know about him was cold-bloodedly prepared to allow him to carry on what appeared to be his own re-enactment of the crimes of Jack the Ripper for whatever perverted reasons might lurk within his own, obviously twisted mind. Jack knew that he must have murdered the first two girls, but every fibre of his being screamed to him that he must do all he could to break the cycle of terror, to prevent himself from killing for a third time. Whatever the man behind the desk might say, Jack felt he had to find a way to stop his own murderous urges from getting the better of him. He had to try everything at his disposal, even it meant turning himself in to the police. Before Jack could speak again and appearing to be capable of reading the young man's thoughts, the man spoke, his deep voice resonating through the darkness of the room.
