by Tessa Harris
Dawn is a way off. It’s dark in the room. There’s a candle stump on the nearby chest of drawers. I reach for it and strike a lucifer. The candle flares into life and I ease myself out of bed. Flo groans. She’ll have a sore head this morning and won’t be in any hurry to be roused. I am afraid, but I know what I must do. I force myself to shuffle sideways. I pad toward the looking glass that hangs on the wall near the window.
I haven’t gazed at a mirror since that night at the Cutlers’ house when I stared into one and saw not my own face, but Miss Tindall’s. The memory of it chills me and comforts me at the same time. I move closer to the frame. I have to do this. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and position myself in front of the glass. With my eyes still shut, I whisper her name. “Miss Tindall, are you there?” I ask, keeping my voice low. My heart’s thumping in my chest and a cold shiver creeps down my spine.
Slowly I open my eyes and stare. And there, staring back at me, real steady, is the reflection of myself. I look how I imagined I might. My brown hair is twisted in a rope over my left shoulder. My body is slight, and if I squint hard, I can see my lips are chapped and cracked. I am what I am: an East End flower girl.
“Who you talking to?” comes a voice from the bed. Flo’s head has bobbed up, but flops down again in an instant. “Bloody hell!” she groans, clutching her temples.
“Don’t worry yourself,” I tell her. She rolls over and falls silently to sleep once more. I only wish I could.
EMILY
The blood on the hall floor at Woodstock Terrace has been mopped away. Some smeared the walls, too. That has not been so easy to clean. For a flesh wound, there really was rather a lot of blood.
That’s not to say that the man who was on the wrong end of Catherine Mylett’s knife is not suffering. His left hand is throbbing. He’s staunched the flow as best he can, but the wound will have to wait to be properly dressed. He does not wish to wake his mother-in-law, a trained nurse. The cut was only an inch away from the artery in his wrist. He’ll live, but more than anything, his pride is injured. It hurt having to hand over all that money to a whore.
CHAPTER 4
CONSTANCE
We’re on our way to the flower market when I find myself stopped outside Mr. Greenland’s shop. Under the cover of a red-and-white–striped awning, dozens of plucked turkeys and geese are strung up by their scrawny legs. The poor creatures have kept their heads, but they’ve lost their feathers, so their bodies are all pink and pimply. Through the window, I see the old poulterer, Mr. Greenland himself, looking dapper in his straw hat and striped apron. He’s busy about his bloody work. Chitterlings bubble and spill over the slabs; the offal jigs in front of my gaze. And there’s the music; the swish–swish from the sharpening steel as it caresses the blade of the old man’s knife. I’m mesmerized by the sound and the sight of the meat and the guts, even though the scene fills me with horror and disgust. It makes my own innards roil and yet I can’t take my eyes off the bright red flesh. It makes me think on how Miss Tindall met her end. She told me herself how her killers cut her up and threw her body parts away, and as I watch the cleaver chop off a turkey’s head, I hear a scream escape from my own lips, only it’s like it’s coming from someone else.
“What the . . . ?” Flo spots me with my face pressed up to the window and grabs me by the arm. I thought she’d be feeling the worse for wear after last night’s little escapade, but she’s back to her usual self. She drags me away. “What you think you’re doing, Con?” She gives me a right dressing-down. “What’s got into you?”
The truth is I don’t know. Last month with Mary Kelly’s murder, last night with my worries over Cath, and today—it’s like there’s a stone in my chest that I’m dragging round with me. All I’m sure of is, I’m not the girl I was a few weeks ago.
“Cat got your tongue?” Flo wants an answer.
“Let’s go back to Poplar,” I say suddenly.
“Back to Poplar?” Flo repeats before her full lips curl at one edge. But it’s not a smile she shows me, more of a sneer. “You’re not worried about Cath, are ya? Aaah, bless.” She pulls at my cheek like I’m a baby.
For a moment, I feel ashamed; then I straighten up. “Is that so wrong?” I hear myself say. I sound a bit cocky, but I’ve said what I needed to.
Hands on hips, she smirks. “Surely, if Cath was lying dead somewhere, you’d know?” She’s talking to me like I’m a five-year-old, but then she puts her face close to mine. “What with your special powers an’ all!”
I don’t like the way she teases me, and when I shoot back a glare, she backs off. “Tomorrow, maybe,” she says. There’s as much bend in her as the bristles on a hearth brush. She knows it’s dark before five o’clock and no woman with any sense ventures out alone after that. I don’t reply. I’m not brave enough to go all the way to Poplar by myself in the dark. She’s won.
CHAPTER 5
Friday, December 21, 1888
EMILY
I stand at the shoulder of yet another police surgeon. In the early hours, when Catherine’s body was discovered, a Dr. George James Harris was called to attend. He was not a happy man, for who would be, dragged out of a warm, comfortable bed before dawn? The assistant divisional police surgeon’s examination at the scene was cursory, to say the least. At the time I willed him to look more closely at Catherine’s neck, but the light was poor, the night cold, and he was eager to return home. So, seeing no signs of foul play, the doctor pronounced life extinct. He then gave orders for the body to be removed to the mortuary as quickly as possible. I accompanied it, but remained hopeful that the truth would out.
A few hours later, I was gratified to see the mortuary keeper and assistant coroner seemed much more able. The latter, a solid, humble man by the name of Chivers, is accustomed to dealing with Poplar’s poor. It was he who first discovered the mark around Catherine’s neck and the scratches above it. And now it is time for the postmortem proper. Dr. Matthew Brownfield stands poised by the corpse, like some hierophant about to perform an ancient ritual. But he does not cut first. He examines and inspects, and the neck is of particular interest.
“Ah, I see, Chivers,” he says to the assistant coroner, musing over the marks on Catherine’s throat. He produces a ruler, then takes measurements. Next comes out the magnifying glass. He peers and he prods. “Evidently caused by a cord being drawn tightly,” he announces.
“My thoughts too, sir,” replies Chivers.
“Help here.” Brownfield glances up to the porter and together they turn Catherine over onto her front. The surgeon takes a handful of her tousled hair and lays it to one side to expose the back of her neck. “As I suspected.”
“Sir?”
Brownfield beckons the assistant and points to the telltale signs. “A cord, four-threaded, I’d say, drawn tightly from the spine to the left ear.” His finger hovers over the line, then traces it. “And these here, thumb and finger marks.”
“Yes, sir.” Chivers nods in agreement. “Strangulation?”
“No doubt of it.” The surgeon stands back and skirts round the table to the other side. “She couldn’t have done this herself.” Bending over, he turns Catherine’s head to the left and beckons Chivers to look closer. “Whoever did this must’ve stood to her left and”—he holds up both hands—“holding the cord like so, he must’ve thrown it round her throat, crossed his hands, and thus strangled her.” He crosses his own hands and pulls an imaginary rope with a theatrical flourish, then nods emphatically.
“Murder, pure and simple,” he says.
CONSTANCE
It’s another day that thinks it’s almost night in Whitechapel. We ain’t—sorry, we haven’t—seen the sun for weeks now, or so it seems. It’s hard for it to shine through the thick layer of coal smoke that hangs above us all.
“Chin up, my gal. You’ll be sorry if we come home empty-handed,” Flo chides, tugging at my sleeve. She’s stern, but I know inside she’s all quivery, like a jelly. We’re out and a
bout again, but we’re all still on our mettle. We all know he’s out there, somewhere, sharpening his knives, just like Mr. Greenland. And Old Bill is as useless as a bucket with a hole in it.
I’m still feeling sick with dread, but I paste a smile on my face as, armed with a basket of mistletoe—it always sells well this time of year—I stand on Farringdon Street junction. I thrust bunches of green, waxy leaves under the noses of passersby, and bawl over the din of the traffic, “Mistletoe. Mistletoe for your sweetheart. Ha’penny a bunch!”
Flo loiters by me, ready to relieve an unsuspecting punter of a penny or six. It’s a routine we’ve performed over the past few years, ever since our dear old pa died, in fact. I don’t like doing it, but Flo says it helps keep a roof over our heads. So that’s how the day passes; me putting mistletoe into hands and Flo taking money out of pockets. Swings and roundabouts, as they say.
Toward four o’clock, when the cold has crept into my boots and I can’t feel my poor feet no more, Flo decides to call it a day and we begin to head back toward Whitechapel. As we walk along Ludgate Hill, there’s a little street rat trilling away. He’s got no shoes on his dirty feet. “‘Christmas is a-coming and the goose is getting fat,’” he sings, thrusting a ragged old cap in front of us. “ ‘Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.’”
Flo looks at him, all put out. “You’ll be lucky,” she sneers as we pass. “Geese don’t get fat in Whitechapel. None of us does.”
You can’t blame the poor nipper for trying to earn a few pennies to keep the wolf from the door. It’s what we all do here. We get by as best we can. Miss Tindall used to tell me that poetry is food for the soul, that’s as maybe, but it don’t stop your empty stomach aching.
We’ve just reached Liverpool Street Station when a newsboy catches my eye, or rather my ear.
“Dead body of a woman found in Poplar!” he shouts.
I feel the muscles in my chest clench, and Flo and me look at each other. Without a word, we dash up to the boy. Flo hands over one of the coins she’s just lifted from a cull. “Give us one,” she orders.
We stand under the gleam of a streetlamp not two yards away. With shaking hands, I read the front-page report.
“What’s it say?” jabs Flo, all jittery.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth at first. I can barely speak, and when I do, the words come out all dry and raspy like sawdust. “They found a body in Clarke’s Yard, in Poplar High Street,” I tell her.
Even though her face is part in shadow, I see her go pale. “Who?” she murmurs. “Does it say who?”
I shake my head and scan the words that start to blur in front of me, but somehow I manage to focus and read on. “The landlady of the East India Arms says she heard her dog barking very loudly around three o’clock, but couldn’t see nothing,” I tell her, adding: “There’s to be a postmortem.”
Suddenly Flo snatches the newspaper from my hands. I don’t know why. She can’t read. It’s like she’s got to do something, so she hits out at me. I snatch the crumpled pages back and carry on. “It says there was ‘great discoloration of the face, neck, and arms, but no marks on the body.’” But the worst bit is yet to come. I look up at Flo and frown.
“What is it?”
The words come clattering out of my mouth. “It says, ‘Her age was stated to be twenty, but she looked older.’ You don’t think . . . ?”
“Oh, Christ!” murmurs Flo.
EMILY
At Commercial Street Police Station, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police’s H Division, news of the death of yet another unfortunate is taken as a matter of course. The force is used to dealing with at least three such unexplained deaths each month; although behind closed doors, every policeman will tell you that these whores bring it on themselves. Addled by both gin and the pox, it’s hardly surprising they’re often found dead in the gutter. The new recruits are told to expect to encounter them on their beats, especially in the early morning. It’s an occupational hazard in these parts. Besides, the officers of H Division have bigger fish to fry. They are on the trail of none other than the man whose name is on everyone’s lips.
The Criminal Investigation Department team is a close one, more like a small battalion than a whole regiment. Up until last year, being stationed in Whitechapel was seen as an unenviable posting. Now any ambitious young detective would give his eyeteeth to have a crack at hunting down England’s most notorious murderer. Such ambition does, however, breed rivalry among those who are assigned to the investigation.
A large room has been set aside to accommodate the eight detective sergeants and eight detective constables assigned to this, one of the four stations in H Division. While the headquarters are in Leman Street, Commercial Street is, to date, closest to where the Ripper has struck. Each detective has his specific role. One, for example, is liaising with Scotland Yard; another two are sifting through the dozens of letters that arrive each week, purporting to be from Jack himself. (The vast majority are, of course, hoaxes, but need to be investigated, nevertheless.) The others have each been assigned to follow up on the various leads members of the public give them. Not entirely unsurprisingly, a handful of the same names emerge several times over. One such is that of Montague John Druitt, a former barrister-turned-schoolmaster who is living in Blackheath, although just why this particular character should be of such interest defeats the detective sergeant who has been delegated to investigate him. Superintendent Arnold is, however, adamant, and Detective Sergeant Thaddeus Hawkins must follow his orders.
Thaddeus Hawkins was formerly stationed at K Division in Whitehall. It was he who, as a relatively new member of the Criminal Investigation Department, played a central role in the identification of my own remains in the case that is now known as the Whitehall Mystery. His subsequent rise was in no small part thanks to his willingness to believe Constance’s remonstrations. So impressed with his work were his superiors that he was given a promotion and posted to Whitechapel but three weeks ago. He has been dropped in at the deep end with strict instructions to leave no stone unturned when it comes to this Druitt fellow. Unlike his other colleagues, who seem incapable of organizing their various notes and files into some semblance of order so as to facilitate their travails, Sergeant Hawkins likes to work neatly and methodically. Whereas loose sheets of paper seem to proliferate on the other detectives’ desks, he files them away in alphabetical order. He has a system that serves him well, one taught to him by his father, who was a librarian at a boys’ school. (And who also had more than a passing interest in Greek mythology, hence his son’s nomenclature.) Names, places, dates, et cetera, are written on a standard-sized piece of card and arranged in a long box in alphabetical order. Such a system of data organization is expandable, can be rearranged easily, and added to if necessary. These innovative methods have, of course, caused much ribaldry among Hawkins’s colleagues, some of whom—especially the older men—regard him as nothing but an upstart grammar-school boy, who knows nothing about the realities of life in one of the vilest and most notorious districts of London.
“Wouldn’t know a bedbug if it bit him on the arse,” he’d heard another detective mock when he didn’t see he was nearby. Of course, he did. His mother had died when he was ten, and his father lost his job soon after. Father and son had been forced to move to an area where the rents were lower and the chances of being robbed in the street much higher. The mocking didn’t bother him. The name Thaddeus means “courageous of heart,” and his father always reminded him that he needed to live up to it.
There are times, however, when he wonders what his efforts are all for. His pursuit of Mr. Druitt has produced several cards and he has cross-referenced these with the witness accounts of all of the Whitechapel murders to date. As yet, however, his system has not produced any conclusive leads, and he knows that if he doesn’t find some meaningful evidence shortly, his boss, Detective Inspector Angus McCullen, will soon be breathing down his neck. So, when he sees him stridin
g over to his desk this morning, he naturally tries to avoid eye contact. Too late.
“You. Hawkins. In my office now, laddie!” orders McCullen in his guttural Scottish accent. He’s a small, stocky man, built rather like a bulldog, with a bite to match. No doubt a redhead in his youth, the copper tinge to his hair, both cranial and facial, has long since faded, although anyone who knows him would testify that his accompanying temper has not.
Glennister and Leach, two of the senior detective sergeants, swap smirks as Hawkins rises hurriedly and enters the lion’s den.
“Shut the door,” growls McCullen. He’s just about to divest himself of his topcoat and tartan scarf, when he suddenly remarks, much to his annoyance, there is no fire in the grate. He decides to remain wearing his outer garments. “This whore in Poplar,” he begins.
Hawkins was afraid he would be the one to be singled out over this latest death. “Yes, sir. As yet unidentified.”
“The very same. Have you heard anything?” McCullen slumps down behind his desk, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
“A prostitute, so they say, sir. Died of natural causes, according to the officers who found her.” Hawkins stops himself. “Although. . .”
“Although what?” McCullen blows on his fingers.
“A reporter from the Evening Standard was apparently asking . . .”
“Och! Flies on shit!” The inspector slams the desk with both palms. “Brownfield’s writing his report as we speak and I don’t think it’s going to make good bedtime reading.”
Hawkins arches a brow. “He thinks it was murder?”
“Aye, laddie. I’m afraid he does, which is nonsense, of course.” McCullen shakes his unremarkable gray head and leans over his desk. “You’re a bright lad,” he tells Hawkins candidly. ”I don’t need to tell you that if word gets out another East End whore’s been slain, the finger will point at Jack again and then all hell will break loose. So, until the inquest, it’s your job to keep a lid on it. Understand?”
