by Forbes, Kit
“It can’t?”
“No, it can’t, lad, but I ain’t one to be tellin’ tales, ‘specially to strangers.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “Tell Sarah I’ll be about me work.”
“Sure. Have a good one.”
Harry’s response was a curious look, then a touch to his cap as he left.
Sarah came back to the kitchen all wide-eyed. “There’s a constable here fer ya, lad!” she whispered breathlessly.
Uh oh. Constable equaled cop. “Where is he?”
“At the back entry. The Missus don’t like folks like ‘em comin’ to the front door. People talk.” Sarah hesitated. “I hope you’re not in some kind of trouble?”
“I hope not, too.” In some kind of trouble? I’ve been shot well over a hundred years into the past, have no money, no passport, no explanation of how I got here, no job, and no place to live.
And I know the names of all of Jack the Ripper’s victims, when they died and if anyone ever figures that out, I’m in more than trouble. I’m in some seriously deep shit.
Chapter Seven
Mark
Dr. Trambley returned from the hospital just as I’d been leaving. I called out for the hansom cab he’d come in to wait for me. The doctor stood in the front entryway, blocking my exit while Sarah waited to take his hat, gloves, walking stick, and cloak.
“Will you be wanting supper or breakfast, sir?” Sarah asked. “With you coming in at five o’clock in the morning it just doesn’t seem right for either. Perhaps a nice tea with some cakes?”
“I think I’ll have a brandy for now and shall join Mrs. Trambley and the girls for luncheon.”
“Very good, sir.” Sarah bobbed a curtsey. “I’ve a lovely bit of trout for you,” she added then scurried back towards the kitchen
The doctor turned his attention to me. I’d faced down harsher looks from both parents, assorted local magistrates and a juvenile court judge, but the doctor’s cold, dead-eyed expression made me fidgety. In particular, the disapproval regarding the way I was dressed in preparation to meet “Uncle Ian” in Whitechapel.
Now I understood Sarah’s shock when I told her I didn’t want to wait for my suit to dry and be pressed. I saw no problem in wearing the pants and shirt I’d been given last night, but the doctor’s way of looking me up and down let me know I probably should have waited for the suit to be ready.
“You’re feeling better then, young man?”
“Except for the memory, sir, I feel pretty good. At least I don’t hurt quite so much. But my uncle asked me to meet him and I thought I should get there right away.”
Trambley nodded slowly. “I’ll want another look at you before declaring you fit but we can’t keep the Inspector waiting. Perhaps you could come back later this evening. Sarah will have your clothing ready by then.” He shifted his stance but didn’t step out of my way. “Shall we say seven-thirty then? You join us for dinner. I’m sure we’d all be interested in hearing about your life in America…the parts you can remember, of course.”
I wasn’t liking the scrutiny. I’d seen my dad about to question a suspect and he looked a lot like this. “Sure,” I said again, a sinking sensation of doom filled me. “That would be great. Thank you.” I forced a smile,
“Oh,” the doctor added. “Perhaps you could arrive a bit early and Sarah could draw you a bath. And you could shave.” This time he moved aside.
I held the smile and slid past him. “Awesome. See you then. And thanks for everything.”
I trotted down the front steps to the waiting cab, the horse was stamping its hooves impatiently. Its harness jangled. Dr. Trambley was still in the doorway watching me.
When the door shut behind me I breathed a sigh of relief until I glanced around. I was still in 1888. And I still had major problems.
I stared out the window, watching old London bounce by. Aunt Agatha had dragged me into one of these carriages to the Wax Museum party, but that was different. This one smelled like stale cigar smoke, something chemical or medicinal and, of course, a sharp scent of horse crap added to the mix.
I rested my elbow on the bottom of the open window and covered my mouth and nose with my hand until the worst of what caused the smell was behind us. The streets were awfully dark to me despite the regularly-spaced gas lamps. Shadows in doorways and between buildings took on a creepy appearance. Old London reminded me of scenes from a Tim Burton movie—all bleak and dark except for the yellow-orange of the lights glowing in the fog. I could almost hear dramatic music in the background and waited for a crazed Johnny Depp to pop out at any moment, blood-covered straight razor in hand and a skanky Helena Bonham Carter in tow.
Shoving away the gory Sweeny Todd mental images, I sat back in the cab and tried to get comfortable while I mulled over the message the constable had delivered earlier. My “uncle” Ian had been called away on official business and was unable to come around to pick me up in person. Would I mind meeting him at the Leman Street Police station at my “earliest convenience”? Yeah, I minded all right, but did I have a choice? Not likely seeing as how he’d included a five pound note to pay for the fare with a lot left over. I guessed the cash was like the “poor relation” handouts my mom wrote for some of her characters.
Five bucks (or was it ten here in England?) wasn’t much to me but then back in this time it was probably quite the generous gift. One I imagined I’d have to pay back just the way I had to pay back the parents for allowance advances back when I had that paper route. Before I became the “problem child.”
Wonderful. Was I gonna be chucking papers for a living? Was it illegal to do some street hustling back here? Well, I figured I’d find out soon enough. A frigging horse passing us took a dump and I covered my face again. I wondered what Ian’s official business was this early. Oh, wait. The body.
The first non-official victim had been found, hadn’t she? Minnie, Maria—Martha. Martha Tabram. Had the Ripper done it? Would he be lurking in any crowd of onlookers like the arsonist my real uncle had rounded up? The dumbass liked watching his handy work so he always stood as close to the fire trucks as he could. That’s how they busted him; one of the firemen had transferred stations and recognized the guy from a couple other fires across the city. Would Jack the Ripper be stupid enough to stand at the murder scenes, grabbing himself because killing got him off?
I didn’t know about that, but I knew I had a more immediate problem. Doctor Trambley’s snarky remark about my memory probably meant Ian would be overflowing with questions.
Questions I had damn well better B.S. some believable answers to.
Damn.
I leaned my head back and tried to think. Mom had dug some letters out of the old trunk that had held Ian’s journal. I’d been grounded—again— and part of my punishment was to help clear the attic. Of all the punishments, it had to be the worst because Mom was the easily distracted type when it came to things that tripped her writerly “what if” button. She’d found the journal and read it and the letters aloud, her eyes slowly getting that gleam that said I haz a plot bunny!
I was stuck in that musty, stuffy attic from the time Dad went to work until he came home—after doing four hours of overtime. I’d been bored spitless, but I had to admit I almost identified with dad’s ancestor M.J.
The few letters he’d left behind to his aunt and uncle were filled with old time snark and imaginative descriptions. Stories about the people he’d met and the adventures he’d had after skipping town when his mother died. As Mom pointed out—a crap-ton of times that endless day— M.J. and I both had a talent for making interesting, not always law abiding friends and scheming to make the best of any situation.
By the time Mom ran through it all over again to Dad at dinner I sort of felt I’d have liked to meet this cousin who was so much like me. I just hoped to God he didn’t decide to surface here anytime soon.
He could, though. The last letter we had was dated 1887. M.J. said he’d met some “impor
tant people” in Pittsburgh and that things were going to change for him. Hopefully, that didn’t include any trips to London in August of 1888.
***
A cop at the police station directed me to where Ian was. I’d been right; he was at the murder scene in George Yard the scene of the Tabram killing.
I was proud of myself for finding the alley off Whitechapel High Street without needing to ask directions. The brick yard wasn’t all that bad looking. The buildings showed their age, but not the dangerous deterioration some places further off the main street had in the old pics I’d seen at the conference. It didn’t seem to be the type of place crackheads might live in. Not crackheads obviously. Opiumheads maybe? Same diff? I didn’t know and I guess it didn’t matter because by then I saw Ian headed my way. He was talking to an older guy. That one didn’t look like a cop.
“But you think she was killed here?” Ian asked.
“Oh, likely,” the other guy said. “No sign of a blood trail from her being dragged in. Ample blood in the vicinity to suggest this was the spot where she was murdered.”
“Not a single person saw a thing.” Ian stroked his chin. “Not even the bloody building custodian who lives right off the entry. Everyone was asleep or heard nothing at all.”
The old guy shrugged. “Odd, considering the violence and, one would suppose duration, of the attack.”
“Unless she was killed quickly and mutilated after,” I said.
Ian spun around and came face-to-face me. He was speechless with shock the way Dr. Trambley had been and I wanted to say, Clothes don’t make the man, people. Deal. But that wouldn’t have been smart and the one thing I never was, was a dumbass.
“And just what do you know about this murder?”
“Only what I overheard from a milkman this morning and what your buddy here said just now. The milkman seemed to have a lot of the details right.”
Ian mulled this over for a moment then moved on to the next question. “And what brings you here? I thought I had left instructions for you to meet me at the station.”
“I asked where you were and they told me, so here I am.”
Ian folded his arms and studied me in a textbook, suspicious cop way. “Does the thought of murder not trouble you, young man?”
“Of course it does but, my dad…my father’s brother is a police detective. Aunt Mary and Uncle George never liked my father much and weren’t all that fond of his brother either. You know how it is.”
“Quite.” Ian stared a bit more, glanced to his buddy who seemed to buy my story, then turned back. “What makes you think she may have been killed quickly?”
“It’s just a guess.” Based on repeated reading of that stupid conference program and way too many reruns of every cop show ever on TV, I added silently. I tilted my head toward the sheet-draped body. “Can I take a look?”
Ian considered it for a long time before he lifted the sheet and watched me like a hawk.
Yeah, this was nasty, but no nastier than the three days dead junkie my Uncle Rich made me look at, and the aftermath of the warring drug dealers shootout Dad once showed me. “Scared straight,” Mom called it. I thought of it as the this is where you’re headed, dumbass show and tell. Like I didn’t know. Maybe if they actually paid attention they’d have noticed I never crossed any line I couldn’t jump back over. Yeah, well, that was then and this was now or before or some crap. I cleared my throat and looked at Ian. “Not a pretty sight so early in the morning. Or ever.”
“Indeed.”
I peered around. My dad and uncle would bitch a storm at the contamination of this crime scene. There were dozens of fresh footprints, some of them bloody, around the corpse. With the poor light and the number of sightseers, there’d be little hope of doing a proper crime scene analysis even if such a thing was possible. The body was all these guys had to go on. No wonder Jack never got caught.
I glanced back to the dead woman. She was smaller than my mom, maybe five feet two to five four. Heavier build. Probably fortyish like Mom though. Her clothes looked old and worn, black jacket and little hat tied beneath her chin, dark green skirt with a brownish underskirt or slip whatever. Her outer skirt was lifted high, her legs apart, hands clenched at her sides. She’d been stabbed multiple times. Something was odd though. But what? My attention shifted to her clenched fists and the position of her arms.
I turned to Ian. “She was in pain, but not struggling. And she was already on her back when she died.”
“Is that so?”
“I think so.” Well, actually Fisher on Forensic One thought so in a scene sort of like this. I crouched down and reached out. I did not need to do this, certainly not without latex gloves. But yeah, I had to know if my guess was right. I turned her head. There was a small mat of bloody hair at the back.
“All those stab wounds are the likely causes of death, but I bet she was pulled down from the back and hit her head enough to be out of it but maybe not unconscious. If she could feel herself being stabbed, that would account her clenched fists, but she couldn’t fight back in that condition.”
I stood and stared at Ian, waiting for his thoughts on the matter. Dad really liked Forensic One and said they had their shit together for the most part.
Ian stared vacantly into space, stroking his mustache. “Interesting,” he said. “Motive?”
I shrugged. “There are a lot of stab wounds. If you ask me, this person had mad issues—is probably insane.”
Ian closed his eyes and swore softly. “Puckeridge,”
“So nobody saw or heard anything?” I asked.
“Not a bloody one.”
No surprise to me. This wasn’t all that different than what Dad and Uncle Rich dealt with. “It’s not likely anyone will talk in public even if they did see something.”
“Quite,” Ian said. “I suppose people are similar the world over in situations like these.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” I agreed. Crap. Now I was channeling Aunt Agatha. She should have been the one stuck here. She’d love it.
I scanned the onlookers. Just like with that drug shooting back home, these people weren’t going to say a word. This was the type of place where you learned to keep your mouth shut and cover your ass. Even the honest working people were like that. They didn’t trust cops and preferred to take care of things their own way.
I followed Ian when he moved aside to let the body be taken away. “If you want, I can hang around and see if I can find anything out.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed a moment. “I doubt you’ll have much success, young man,” he said, emphasizing young.
“You never know—”
“This is police business.” Ian stiffened. “I’ll be occupied for some time with this. I’m sure you can find your way to the station to wait for me. Just through the archway there, right on the High Street, across left.”
Dude was harsh, but I wasn’t really surprised. “If I see a bakery, you want me to bring you some donuts?” Ian’s blank stare made me smile, I slid my hands into my pockets and walked away.
Chapter Eight
My sense of smell was working overtime as I walked down Wentworth Street and I wished it wasn’t. The stench of sulfur from coal fires thickened the fog, making it cling to my skin. Next came the smells of horses, their crap, human waste, and rotting garbage.
Sharper were the scents from the shops and stalls I passed—mildew from musty cellars, of tanned leather, varnish, fresh-cut lumber, and even a hint of flowers to relieve the worst of it. They combined into a weird cloud that threatened to choke me.
Despite the unsettling smells, my stomach growled. I had the change left from the money Ian had given me for the carriage ride, but where could I get something to eat around here this early? It was still dark. Man, I wished I had my cell phone to know the exact time. I should have grabbed that old pocket watch Agatha had given me to wear with my costume for the party. Oh well
, yet one more bad choice to add to my endless list.
I paused and watched a couple women who sat by the side of the road, selling small loaves of bread from ratty sacks. The guy who bought some looked thin, emaciated, as if the poor loaf of bread was his whole meal till dinnertime. I figured he must be coming from a night shift somewhere or heading to an early shift on too little sleep. My dad looked that way sometimes. He moved the way these guys moved, in an odd trudging yet hurried way as if routine and the dislike of getting grief from a boss were the only things keeping them going.
A few other guys came and went from a pub across the way, some finishing off sandwiches or what looked like small sausages. My stomach rumbled again and I wondered if they had laws about minors in bars around here. I was almost eighteen and that was legal in the modern London. I doubted anyone would card me.
No one gave me a second glance when I walked in, so I settled myself near a window. My eyes darted around. It seemed sort of familiar and I recognized it as a place on the tour Agatha had dragged me on. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the tour guide then, just the barmaid. A fact about which Agatha had repeatedly bitched.
This Princess Alice didn’t have any of the “quaint” atmosphere of its modern counterpart and it certainly didn’t have the hot barmaids. It was more like my mom had described it: a workingman’s pub, furnished with worn wooden tables and sturdy chairs. A few booths had upholstered benches and there were carved wood partitions and fairly clean brass rails to lend it an air of respectability.
Whatever. It wasn’t a total dive, but I doubted it was on the A-list of places to visit, even in 1888 London.
I jumped at the abrupt appearance of a pudgy gray-haired woman.
“And you?” she demanded.
I considered asking for a menu and for her to wipe down the table while I decided, then thought better of it.
“Breakfast?” I hoped she’d give me a clue as to what they had.
