Legacy of the Ripper

by kindels

  "And don't even think of going to the police, Jack. Do you think they'd believe your story? I think not. You'd go along to them with this preposterous idea that you're a descendant of Jack the Ripper, that a man in the house on the hill paid a drop-out small-time drug peddler to drug you and then took photos of you carrying out the murders. Let's see what they'd do, shall we? They'd ask you to produce the journal. I've made sure that Michael has removed the journal from your possessions, Jack. It's now in a safe place where only I can access it. By the time the police arrived here, I'd be long gone, I can assure you of that and so would Michael. There'd be no trace of us and no trace of the incriminating photographs, which I have no intention of allowing to leave this room. In fact, I think it would be highly advisable if you stayed right here until tomorrow. I don't think it would be safe for you to be allowed to wander the streets with all of that terrible knowledge in your head, do you?"

  "Safe for whom? You or me?" asked Jack, his voice breaking as tears welled in his eyes.

  "Let's say, safer for both of us," said the man.

  "So you're going to keep me a prisoner here, is that it?"

  "Not a prisoner, let's say more of a guest."

  "A guest? Hm, that's rich. What sort of guest isn't allowed to leave a room, or a house? And how do you intend to keep me here against my will?"

  The man fell silent, making no attempt to respond to Jack's last remark.

  Suddenly, Jack sensed rather than heard a movement behind him. So intent had he been on the terror of his situation and the words of the older man that he'd failed to notice the almost silent re-entry into the room of Michael, who now hovered above him, a syringe strategically held in his right hand.

  So stunned was Jack by the appearance of the other man that he had little or no time to react as Michael's hand moved quickly towards him and he felt the sudden stinging prick as the point of the hypodermic needle penetrated the skin of his neck.

  As a warm blackness began to engulf his conscience mind, Jack saw only the gradually dwindling beam of light from the floodlight as darkness overwhelmed him and all sense of who he was, where he was and what was happening to him receded in time with the dimming of the light. All sense and memory of reality diminished entirely and then there was nothing but blackness.

  "I think the cellar will do nicely," said the man as Michael slowly hoisted the inert body of the unconscious young man over his shoulder and turned to leave the room.

  "And make sure the padlock's secure."

  Chapter 26

  Alice Geraldine Nickels

  "Alice!" exclaimed Carl Wright as he entered Holland's office. "Good to see you, but what on earth brings you all the way down to Brighton?"

  The thirty-something year old woman who sat in the visitor's chair smiled back at Wright and rose to greet him, wrapping her arms around him in an affectionate, old-friend style hug. She was dressed in a smart black business skirt suit, with a white blouse, and a black and white polka dotted neck scarf tied at her neck. Her dark brown hair was neat, shoulder length, obviously expensively styled. Her attire was such as would identify her to most professional people as a solicitor, or perhaps a doctor. Stepping back from the sergeant she replied to his question, still smiling.

  "Your case, Carl, is what brings me to Brighton. I had a feeling that your boss here might be in need of some help and he's been gracious enough to see me and to hear me out. You see, I've been watching the news about these killings and I have a theory."

  Carl Wright was amazed to see Alice Nickels in his inspector's office. She was in point of fact a highly respected member of the legal profession, a solicitor with the firm of Macklin, Bennet and Cross in the city of London. Outside of her work however, Alice held as senior position within an organisation known as The Whitechapel Society 1888, an organisation set up to study not only the murders committed by Jack the Ripper but also life in Victorian and Edwardian London in general. Wright had met her on at least five occasions when he'd made trips to London to attend meetings of the society at their headquarters in Whitechapel itself. He knew only too well that the lady now standing warmly holding his hand in friendship was one of the leading authorities on the Whitechapel murders of 1888. There was little she was ignorant of, either in terms of the facts and the myths that surround the case of Jack the Ripper. For her to have taken the time to ditch her usually busy schedule to come in person to speak with Holland must mean that she had a good idea that she could be of assistance, a fact confirmed in Holland's words as he spoke.

  "Miss Nickels has been most informative, sergeant," he said, as Wright released his grip on the hand of their visitor. "According to her, it appears that you and I have been almost spot-on in most of our deductions so far, few though they are, but we appear to have missed one point that may be of vital importance in laying our hands on the murderer."

  Alice Nickels sat down once again as Wright seated himself in the only other chair in the office, a typist's chair that stood before the computer to the side of Holland's desk.

  "It must be a very important point for you to have come in person, Alice," said Wright. "A phone call would normally have sufficed."

  "Ah, Carl, my dear boy, a phone call would have been next to useless. You see, in order to show you and the inspector what I believe to be happening here, I really do need to be here in person so that I can physically show you what I think is happening. If I'm correct in my reasoning I believe I can show you pretty much exactly where your killer will strike again if you haven't apprehended him by tomorrow night."

  "But, how?"

  "Ah, sergeant," sighed Holland. "You and I have been a little narrow in our thinking, according to Miss Nickels."

  "Please, Inspector, call me Alice."

  "Very well, Alice it is." Turning back to the sergeant, Holland went on. "So, as I was saying, according to Alice, we have been correct in our assumption that our killer is a copycat, someone who is re-creating and copying the murders of Jack the Ripper in as great a detail as he can. The one thing we haven't taken into consideration in our case though is the locations of the killings."

  A small chink of light began to burn in Wright's brain at those words. He had an idea where the conversation was about to lead, and he was soon proved to be correct as Holland beckoned him over to his desk, Alice Nickels stood at Wright's side and for the first time he saw the documents that lay spread out across the top of Holland's desk.

  "Perhaps you'd like to explain, Alice," said Holland. "It's your theory after all."

  Alice leaned forward and gestured towards the maps that Wright had seen as he approached the desk. She'd obviously been busy, or at least she'd had her secretary hard at work in preparing the papers that lay before the three of them. Carl Wright caught a hint of expensive perfume as he moved closer to Nickels in order to get a better view of the desk top.

  "As you can see," she began, "there are actually two maps here. The first one is a map of Brighton as it is today, with the murder sites of both Laura Kane and Marla Hayes marked clearly by the red crosses I've placed there. The second map is of Whitechapel as it was in 1888, with all the sites of the Ripper's verified killings and some of the possibles later attributed to him also marked. The definites are marked with black crosses, the others in green. I've had the Whitechapel map transposed onto this transparency so that we can overlay it and still view the Brighton map underneath. Now, watch what happens when I place the Whitechapel map on top of the Brighton one."

  Very methodically, she placed the transparency on top of the Brighton map and began to line them up slowly and accurately until she was satisfied with the positioning of the two documents. As the labyrinth of Victorian streets began to superimpose themselves on those of contemporary Brighton, Wright and Holland at last began to see the reasoning behind the woman's theory. The red cross that marked the site where Laura Kane's body had been discovered on the Regent Estate was covered exactly by the black cross that marked the site where Martha Tabram's body had
been found in the George Yard Buildings. Perhaps even more telling was the realisation that the cross that showed the location of Marla Hayes's body was equally obliterated by the black cross depicting the location on Bucks Row, where Mary Ann Nicholls had been found back in 1888.

  "Bloody hell!" said Wright.

  "Exactly," Holland added.

  "You see," said Alice Nickels. "He's not only re-creating the murders, but he's also committing them, or at least leaving the bodies, in places that match the locations of the discoveries of the bodies of the original Ripper's victims. You'll see that the cross that marks the location of Annie Chapman's body, found on 8th September in Hanbury Street lies directly over a place here called Hastings Close, and that gentlemen is where I firmly believe your killer will strike, or at least deposit the body of his next victim, tomorrow night."

  "It's so bloody simple, it's actually brilliant, Alice," Holland exclaimed excitedly. "Why the hell didn't we think of it?"

  "My fault, sir," said Wright dejectedly. "I'm supposed to be the one with the inside track on the Ripper crimes, and I should have thought of it."

  "No, sergeant. I won't have you taking responsibility for missing something that I would never have thought of. Let's face it, you were the one who latched on to the Jack the Ripper connection in the first place. If you hadn't been so fast in doing that, I might still be totally in the dark about our oddball killer and his motives."

  "He's right, Carl," said Alice Nickels, reinforcing the inspector's view.

  "I only thought of it when I decided to try and think outside the box a little. It was plain to me that you were dealing with a copycat of some description and I wondered just how far he'd gone to create a total re-enactment of the original crimes. It was only then that I got a hold of a map of Brighton and checked my idea, and I was fortunate to see that my theory did in fact bear close scrutiny. Now, we also know that poor Annie Chapman was found just prior to six in the morning, having been supposedly witnessed talking to a man at around five-thirty outside a house in Hanbury Street. If your killer sticks to the original Ripper's timetable and the witness sighting from 1888 was correct then you can assume that, if he's a stickler for detail your next victim will meet her end at some time between five-thirty and six a.m. in the morning."

  "Which means we've got a little more time than I thought," said Holland. "When everyone was talking about tomorrow night I assumed we were talking about the early part of the night, perhaps up to midnight. It might not be much, but at least this gives us a few more hours to put our plan into place, to try to catch this bastard before he finds that next victim."

  "I think Alice's theory has saved us a lot of needless time wasting and manpower sir," Wright added. "This way, we can concentrate our forces in the area surrounding Hastings close, and if our man shows his face, then&wham! We've got him."

  "Oh, please, Carl, don't hold me to all of this. It is just a theory after all. I could be entirely wrong. I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for pulling officers away from potential murder sites if you and the inspector here have made arrangements already."

  Seeing the worried look on Alice Nickels's face, Mike Holland moved swiftly

  "No, it's okay Alice, really. We don't have enough manpower as it is to cover the whole of the town, or even the whole red-light district. This way, thanks to you we have a fighting chance to nab the killer and we can utilise our forces to the best advantage, from our point of view. We had to decide on a centre of operations, a focus for our efforts and I have an idea your theory is absolutely correct. We will indeed be concentrating our effort on Hastings Close and the streets immediately surrounding it. With luck and little bit of patience tomorrow night, we might just have our man in custody by daylight."

  "There's something else, sir," Wright interjected, a worried look on his face.

  "Go on, Carl," said Holland.

  "Well, if we've been clever enough, with Alice's help, to work out where and when the killer is likely to strike again then isn't it safe to assume that he just might know that we've worked out his agenda for the killings? He might assume we're on his track by now and decide to choose a totally different location, even if it conflicts with the original topography of the Ripper crimes."

  "You're right, of course," Holland agreed, "but we also have to assume that, like so many murderers before him, our killer is arrogant enough to believe he can't be caught. From what I've learned about the Ripper case, mostly from the two of you I might add, Jack the Ripper also killed with seeming impunity, barely yards from the windows of homes where people were living at the time and yet no-one saw or heard anything, and he was never seen leaving the scene of his crimes even in the case of Liz Stride where, it appears, he must have been almost on the spot when the man who discovered the body came along into the yard where she lay, still warm and bleeding. No, if I'm correct and I pray to God that I am, this bastard feels almost invincible, holds the police in very low esteem and he thinks that he can literally get away with murder. He's going to do it, of that I'm sure, and somehow we have to be there, waiting in the wings in the hope we can stop him before he carries out his next fiendish re-creation."

  The two policemen stopped abruptly as Alice Nickels rose from her seat.

  "Well, I think you gentlemen have everything in hand," she spoke softly. "I suppose I ought to leave you to plan your course of action."

  "Wait, Alice, please," said Holland. "I'd be really grateful if you could manage to stay here in town at least until tomorrow night is over."

  "Really?" she replied, smiling at the inspector in a knowing fashion.

  "Yes, of course. Who's to say that your help and input in other aspects of the case might not prove invaluable to us over the next twenty four hours or so? Don't you agree, sergeant?"

  "What? Oh, yes, of course, sir. We'd appreciate your help, Alice, we really would."

  Obviously pleased to be asked, and perhaps as though she'd expected the request from Holland, Alice Nickels took her mobile phone from her handbag, and speed-dialled her office. As she waited for an answer to her call, she turned again to Holland.

  "It won't take me a minute to confirm my stay here. My desk is relatively clear and my secretary will be capable of handling any inquiries for the next day or so. I can get a room at the Atlantic down the road. It's a rather nice hotel and I've stayed there a couple of times in the past when I've been down here on business, or for conferences and so on."

  Realising that he'd probably been brilliantly 'played' into accepting the presence and the unofficial assistance of the smart, elegant woman who stood at centre stage in his office, Holland could do no more than smile back at her, look at his sergeant who was grinning at him in the style of a proverbial Cheshire cat and exclaim,

  "Right, well, that's that then, eh? Settled!"

  Chapter 27

  A Plan

  Holland, Wright and Alice Nickels enjoyed a working lunch of sandwiches and coffee, which Wright procured from the local delicatessen, a few yards down the road from the station. Holland felt more optimistic than he had for days, a feeling that communicated itself to his sergeant. The inspector had sent for a detailed plan of the area of town where Hastings Close was situated and the three of them now closely studied the area where they believed the next intended killing would take place.

  "It's a fairly new development, less than ten years old," said Wright. "The homes are all three or four bedroomed detached houses with, for the most part, open plan gardens to the front. There certainly isn't a lot of cover for our murderer anywhere along the length of the street. That's going to make his job harder."

  "Ours, too," said Holland. "There won't be too many places for us to secrete our men without them being highly visible to all and sundry."

  "What about the back gardens?" asked Alice Nickels.

  "Yes, they all have gardens to the rear," Wright replied. "But again, looking at the plans, they're all either walled or fenced in. The walls and fences all appear to
be about five feet high, obviously for privacy and security so moving from one to the other wouldn't be an easy task, especially if he has an unwilling young woman in tow."

  "Or a body," Holland added, chillingly.

  "But, couldn't you hide your men in the rear gardens? Surely if you explained the situation to the householders, they'd be only too willing to cooperate?"

  "Alice," Holland sighed. "If we go along and tell the locals what's likely to happen in their street, there'd be a leak the size of the River Thames before you could say Jack the Ripper. News would get out in no time at all and our man would probably go underground or most certainly at the very least, commit the murder elsewhere."

  "Even though his plan calls for him to do it in Hastings Close? I thought you said that he'd go ahead no matter what because of his contempt for the police and his belief that he can't be caught?"

  "Yes, that's what I said and I still believe it to be true. However, he isn't stupid, as evidenced by the lack of clues and forensic trace at the scenes of his other killings. He won't deliberately put himself in danger of being caught if the word on the street tells him that half the local police force will be lying in wait for him to put in an appearance."

  "Then, isn't it safe to assume that he already has a contingency plan in place, just in case his chosen site is unavailable for some reason?"

  "Yes, Alice, he probably does, but where that is and what would entice him to use it is anyone's guess. We certainly don't want him to switch his efforts to his secondary site because, let's be honest, we don't have a bloody clue where that might be. We're going along with your theory of Hastings Close because it makes sense, but we still might be way off the mark if we're really unlucky."