A Buried Past

by Alexandria Clarke

  “Tea?” Deepali offered, lifting the kettle off the burner. “I find tea soothes all. Please sit.”

  We muttered our thanks and took a seat at the small kitchen table. A ginger kitten lifted itself from a nearby cushion, stretched, and hopped into my lap. It purred happily as it kneaded my thighs.

  “That’s Honey Pot,” Deepali said. “He strolled up the river path a few days ago and decided to live here. I had no say in the matter.”

  Honey Pot meowed as if in reply. Deepali set a cup of tea in front of me. She’d made her own bags and filled them with fresh herbs and spices.

  “Let it steep for a few minutes.” She sat across from me and blew steam away from her own mug. “Shall we wade through this awkwardness together?” When I was unable to reply, she said, “I’ll start, then. When I saw you at my house that night, I was as shocked as you. I have not seen you since you were four years old.” She took a deep breath and blew it toward the ceiling. “Your mother decided to keep you away from us, a decision I wish she’d never come to.”

  Confusion made it possible for me to speak. “I thought it was your decision. Mum always said you disagreed with the way our family lived.”

  “I did,” she admitted. “And I told her so. My husband was adamant that she marry someone who lived closer. We believed your father was not dedicated enough to her.”

  “He loved her,” I said fiercely. “Regardless of where he chose to live.”

  “I know that now,” Deepali replied. “But I wish I had been able to understand it then. I made a mistake, one I regret every day of my life. I cannot get back the time I lost with my daughter and granddaughter. Especially now that she’s gone.”

  I could finally meet Deepali’s eyes. There, I saw the remnants of the family I had lost. She and I had the same long angled nose, thick eyebrows, and full lips.

  “Have I been here before?” I asked. “At this house?”

  “A few times when you were an infant,” she answered. “I doubt you remember, but I did babysit you once or twice.”

  “We lived right up the street,” I said, unable to keep the note of blame out of my voice. “You could have come to visit whenever you wanted. You could have at least made an attempt to rectify the situation.”

  Deepali calmly sipped her tea. “Your mother inherited her pride from me. We were at a stalemate, neither one of us willing to wave a white flag. I see you have this trait as well.”

  “I didn’t come here on purpose,” I snapped. “I had no idea this was your house.”

  Evelyn rested her hand on mine, and I checked my temper. I had not come here to restart old wars. I wanted answers.

  “It wasn’t my intention to barge in here and accost you for what happened in the past,” I said. “I have questions about my mother’s death.”

  “As do I.”

  My eyebrows scrunched together. “Like what?”

  “By the time you were eighteen, your parents had completely cut us out of their lives,” Deepali said. “Your father didn’t tell me your mother died. I found out about it in the paper.” Her collected manner cracked, and she looked into her mug to avoid eye contact. “I was not privy to the details of her death, as your father never bothered to share them with me. I know as much as you do.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That she was murdered along the river path whilst walking home at night,” she replied. “That her attacker was known as the Box Cutter Killer and had struck multiple times before. That you were not there with her, safe at school instead. For that one detail, I was eternally grateful.” She blotted her eyes with a napkin. “It was too late to make amends with my daughter, but people reached out regardless. Nadine, for instance, has been like a second child of mine for the past several years. I believe she has suffered as much as I have in Priya’s absence.”

  “The killer was never found?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “Your father prevented the police from keeping me in the loop. After a year, he refused to hear the updates himself. If I remember correctly, you were going through a difficult spell, and he thought the news would upset you further.”

  I flashed back to the years following my mother’s death. During that time, I had given up all hope on my future. Without my mother to guide me, I was lost. I spent eighty percent of my time restlessly sleeping and the other twenty percent buried in serial killer lore. I could hardly eat, and I dropped to a dangerous weight. The skin around my face grew tight against my bones. The pictures from that time period lay buried at the bottom of a drawer in my San Diego apartment. It was no wonder my father wanted to separate me from the official investigation.

  “I need to know who the Box Cutter Killer is,” I told Deepali. “I have nightmares about Mum’s death, and they won’t stop unless the man who did those things to her faces the consequences of his actions.”

  Deepali used the table to push herself up from her chair. “I don’t have much for you to go on, save for this.” She opened a kitchen drawer and took out a leather travel journal. “I’m not proud of it, but I stole it from your father shortly after your mother’s funeral. I wanted something of hers to keep. I hope you won’t resent me for it.”

  She rested the journal in my palms. It was worn with use. The leather was soft and supple from the amount of times my mother had folded it back. It was the kind of journal you could add more pages to once you’d filled the first ones, so some of them were wrinkled with age and others stiff with newness. The journal even smelled like my mother, a scent like fresh snow. Her looping cursive handwriting filled the pages.

  “That’s from right before she died,” Deepali said. “I never read it out of respect for her personal privacy. Perhaps there’s some clue as to why she was out so late that night.”

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning it genuinely. “I didn’t know she kept journals.”

  Deepali hesitated. “I only ask one thing in return, but if it’s impossible for you to give, I’ll understand.”

  “What is it?”

  “Visit me,” she said. “Whenever you have the time. I should like to get to know my granddaughter.”

  13

  For the next several days, I lost myself in my mother’s writing. I quickly discovered she wrote without a plan. The subjects jumped from one to the next without warning. Nevertheless, a cohesive voice held it all together. Mostly, she wrote about her time at Oxford. She talked of older and wiser professors, professors who spoke as if with a stick up their arses, stupendous students, students with the potential to be stupendous if only they applied themselves, and her star pupil, Nadine, who at the time had just graduated and begun her career as a professor under my mother’s wing.

  Every few pages, my own name jumped out at me. I never got used to it. Seeing things like Jacqueline called me today and I’m so proud of Jackie hit me like a jolt of lightning each time. My mother and I had always been close, but while I was at school in London, she was two hours away in Oxford. We were both too busy to schedule visits with each other. The only times we could meet were on holidays, where we came together at the house in Windsor to enjoy being a family.

  Evelyn and I had come to an understanding. If I promised to work on my underlying trauma regarding my mother’s death, she would promise to put all her effort into rehabilitating her shoulder. As the week passed, the mood at the flat shifted from hopeless to reasonably cheery. The more I read of my mother’s journal, the less I dreamt of her death. As Evelyn threw herself into physical therapy, her shoulder and her attitude began to make minor improvements again.

  One thing weighed heavily on my mind: the approaching date of the Double Event. I strongly suspected our modern-day Ripper had not given up his gig, instead lying low until the appropriate time. The rest of London grew restless too. As September 30th approached, the Rippermania started up again. The police warned everyone to stay indoors. According to the news, they would watch over Henriques Street and Mitre Square all night. Like Evelyn, they b
elieved the killer would show up in both places to conquer his next victim.

  “It depends on what story the Ripper’s following,” I said to Evelyn the day before the Double Event was supposed to happen. “Some people think the third murder wasn’t the Ripper’s work. The police are expecting the killer at Henriques Street first, but what if he heads straight to Mitre Square? They still won’t catch him.”

  Evelyn, in the middle of a home exercise Alba had prescribed her using a resistance band, let out a puff of air. “Why don’t you tip off the police?”

  “I tried,” I said. “They won’t take my calls anymore.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said. “They’ll have police on every corner of both locations. There’s no way the Ripper is stupid enough to kill someone right under their noses.”

  “I’m afraid of the opposite: that he’s smart enough to pull it off.”

  “Are you going to go?”

  I glanced at her, surprised. “You still think it’s a good idea?”

  “No, it’s a terrible idea.” The veins in her neck popped as she forced the resistance band away from her again. That band was the thinnest in the set, but she still couldn’t finish the exercise. With a huff, she let the band relax and wiped the sweat from her face with a towel. A week ago, she would have cried over the same result. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you anywhere near those places. But if you’re determined to go, I’ll help you stake out safely.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed before answering. “Yes. If you agree to follow my lead. Between the two of us, I’m the only one with experience in matters like these.”

  “I knew you were a spy.”

  The logistics of staking out two locations where the police had already taken up stations were a bit complicated. Luckily, Evelyn had a good idea of how the London police liked to barricade an area.

  “There’s always one way in and out,” she explained. “So the officers can change shifts. Naturally, it’s heavily guarded, but I think I found a way we can pull this off.” She rotated her laptop to show me a series of maps. “We’re working off your hunch that our modern-day Ripper believes the same facts you do: the original Ripper did not complete murder number three, so there’s no point in infiltrating the barricade at Henriques Street. However, I think we should start there just in case.” She pointed at a corner on the map. “We’ll park here, just outside the barricade. The police won’t bother us, but we’ll have eyes and ears on Henriques. Any hint of trouble, and you’ll be able to see exactly what’s going on. If you’re right about the Ripper, nothing will happen, and we’ll be in the perfect position to zip on over to Mitre Square in time for the second attack. We’ll park here, right outside this alleyway. It’s the back way out.”

  With Evelyn on my side, anything seemed possible. As we waited for night to fall, my blood simmered in my body. The thrill of potentially catching the Ripper hummed through me like a constant adrenaline drip. I kept an eye on the clock, unable to sit still. I packed a bag of snacks and drinks to keep us going throughout the night, filled the car with petrol, and made sure Evelyn had everything she needed to keep her shoulder comfortable.

  Around ten o’clock, we loaded everything in the car, including binoculars, a long lens camera, and the files of William Lewis and Rosie Brigham. I intended to study the details of the previous attacks while we waited for the Ripper tonight. We also brought along the baton Evelyn had taught me to use in case of an emergency. That last item had stipulations attached, though.

  “Do not get out of the car,” Evelyn warned me. “I don’t care where we are or what’s happening around us. If you see the killer, you cannot get out of the car. We’re taking the baton in case we get dragged out. Different scenario.”

  “I won’t get out of the car,” I said briskly. “Get in. We need to make it to our position soon.”

  As I turned the key in the ignition, Evelyn wrestled to arrange her seatbelt over the shoulder brace. I reached across her and did it for her. Her skin shimmered under the streetlight, pale and moist. Her lips had lost their color too.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “You don’t look good.”

  She scoffed. “Thanks a lot.”

  “I meant you don’t look well. How’s your shoulder?”

  “Shoulder’s fine,” she grunted. I wasn’t convinced, but she banged the dashboard with her good hand. “Get a move on. We need to find our position.”

  As planned, we drove around the entire block to see exactly how the police had arranged themselves. Then we proceeded to our stakeout point.

  The street corner Evelyn had decided on was the perfect vantage point. It was at the top of a slight slope, so we could see everything happening on Henriques Street. Since the location of the original murder had been demolished years earlier, no one could predict exactly where the Ripper would strike next. The police had stationed themselves outside the primary school that now stood where Dutfield’s Yard—the exact place where Elizabeth Stride’s body had been discovered—once was. Big police vehicles blocked off a wide square around the area. The flashing blue lights, radio chatter, and pacing officers were enough to scare off any sane criminal, but I doubted the Ripper was sane.

  The rest of Henriques Street was relatively quiet. Most of the locals had taken the police’s advice to steer clear of the potential crime scenes. A few teenagers milled about, drinking beer and taking dares to see how close they could get to the police barrier before someone shouted at them.

  “Seems solid,” Evelyn commented. “Though if it were me, I would have blocked off the entire street.”

  “The Ripper wants accuracy,” I reminded her. “If he’s going to complete the third murder, he’ll find a way to do it in the parking lot of that school.”

  “He might have to make do with what’s available,” she replied. “He must have realized the cops would do this.”

  “Or he’s counting on it.”

  Evelyn unfolded one of the maps we’d printed out, took a pen from the glove compartment, and uncapped it with her teeth. As she spoke, she drew arrows on the map to indicate the places she was talking about. “All right, the police are here, outside the school, and here, on the corner of Henriques and Fairclough Street. No one was positioned on Back Church Lane, unless they’re in unmarked cars, which they probably are. The killer won’t know that, so if he turns up at the school to do his business, he’ll most likely enter and exit from the lane.”

  “It’s fenced off, though,” I pointed out.

  “You think the Ripper is going to let a bit of fence stop him?”

  “Good point,” I said. “Here’s the plan, then. If the Ripper shows, we move when the police move. Commercial Street to Back Church Lane. With any luck, we’ll catch the Ripper as he vaults the fence.”

  “Then what?” Evelyn asked dryly. “You’ll arrest him?”

  “I’ll run him over if I have to.”

  Stakeouts, it turned out, were incredibly boring. The minutes trickled by agonizingly slowly. I couldn’t keep from glancing at the clock, only to be disappointed by the time displayed. After memorizing the contents of the case files, I proposed a game of twenty questions with Evelyn, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk or entertain me. She sat hunched over, the binoculars glued to her eyes, as she methodically scanned the street for a sign of the Ripper. I clambered into the back of the car to get the camera to do the same thing, watching through the long lens and taking pictures of the police setup. If there were any holes for the Ripper to sneak through, I would find them.

  Around midnight, my stomach growled so loudly that Evelyn glanced around for the source of the monstrous noise. Part of me was tempted to make a quick trip to my favorite curry place up the road, but I refused to let my hunger get the best of me. I popped open a bag of crisps, startling Evelyn again, and drank a soda as well. My eyelids had already begun to droop. It was past my bedtime.

/>   I tossed a protein bar into Evelyn’s lap. “You should eat that. You’re shaking. It’s probably low blood sugar.”

  She set it aside, her gaze never leaving Henriques Street. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Are you sure? It’s going to be a long—”

  “Jack, I said I’m not hungry.”

  I didn’t like the look of her pasty skin or the trembling hand that held the binoculars to her eyes, but I couldn’t force her to eat. Maybe the shakes were because of fatigue, since she couldn’t lift her other arm up to support the binoculars as well. That was what I told myself, anyway.

  I finished the bag of crisps and washed the salty residue out of my mouth with the soda. It had been a while since I’d eaten junk food. I hadn’t missed the sticky feeling on the back of my teeth that always lingered after chewing processed food. I poured the rest of the soda out the window and opened a water bottle instead.

  Evelyn dropped the binoculars to watch me chug from the bottle. “You better be careful with how much you drink. There’s nowhere to go to the bathroom out here.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I swished the water around in my mouth, hoping to alleviate the stickiness. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Forty-five minutes later, the acidic taste of regret had replaced the sugary leftovers on my tongue. Without much food in my stomach, the water and soda had run right through me. I squirmed in my seat, unable to concentrate on our night watch when my bladder was about to burst. Evelyn ignored me.

  “Uh, Evelyn?” I said at last.

  “Let me guess. You have to pee?”

  “Urgently.”

  “Hold it,” Evelyn ordered. “Remember what I said. You’re not getting out of the car.”

  “It’ll take me two seconds.”

  “To do what? Go in the streets?”

  “Desperate times! You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  As we argued, the minutes ticked by. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning.

  “If you pee outside this car, I’m flagging down one of the cops and getting you arrested for exposing yourself in public,” Evelyn challenged. “Don’t test me.”