Tales of Jack the Ripper

by Laird Barron

  2:08 A.M.

  She’ll be coming soon.

  Your Martha.

  A Martha Tabram for the post-millennials.

  The street is empty. Empty of eyes that care. The Rule of Law is as blind as Justice here. Both are impotent. The Metro only sees aftermath. Reports it. Catalogues it.

  The unseasonable heat is the breath of an angry God; an Old Testament God; a God of the desert.

  Your sweat doesn’t cool, it just saturates your shirt. Slides down your temples, down your neck, into your collar, beads on the fabric (but finally takes, wet on wet). The knife is on your belt, hid in its black leather sheath, handle wrapped in electrical tape. Slung round your neck by its cord is the gender-neutral plastic mask you formed yourself in your kitchen. It’s translucent. Almost pearlescent—something bad in the mix—but it’s plenty serviceable. Across the mask’s forehead you have written CRIME in Sharpie, mimicking Tenniel’s famous cartoon, The Nemesis of Neglect (There floats a phantom on the slum’s foul air).

  She’s coming. She’s here.

  Martha.

  Her name’s not Martha, of course. Which is unfortunate. But everything else…she’s so close. The similarities between this woman leaving The Visage, today, and the Victorian “unfortunate” who left The White Swan on the arm of Walter Sickert (dressed as a Grenadier; Saucy Jack did so dearly love his costume) in the August chill more than a century ago, are astounding. Delightfully perfect. As if she has been offered up by the Universe to be your victim, your sacrifice. You can feel the cosmic strings, knotted in your balls, flying up through your body, your arms, out into the Ether to this woman, and from her…to Beyond.

  Her real name (Pauline Nizza) is not important. Not yet. It won’t matter to anyone till you kill her. Death is the price of her immortality; however ironic, it’s the best offer she’s going to get out of this life.

  You put the mask on. Snug on your face; like it’s your own; it’s better than your own. You draw the knife…

  (oh, that cutting whisper of steel)

  …your knife.

  The steel in your hand is the unfeeling steel inside you.

  THE WILL TO KILL.

  You pace her. Watch the rhythmic turn of her ass in its tight vinyl skirt. Legs perfect pistons of flesh in the lift of her heels. Meat. Meat and holes. She’s perfect. Perfect whore.

  The heat in your chest, in your pants (worthless), it disgusts…

  (do it, do it, rip her, honor Walter Sickert, be Jack, rip, shed the Boss in you)

  …and thrills you like nothing else.

  Your oxblood gloves tighten, creak, on the knife hilt.

  You’re almost there: George Yard Buildings.

  She senses you. Senses those cosmic strings that connect you to her. Senses the oncoming rush of immortality.

  “Martha…” you say.

  You grab her. She tries to scream. You cover her mouth. She bites down, perforating flesh even through your glove. You don’t feel it because you’re all-over heat. A fire. A living, breathing, walking, killing, consuming fire. The struggle. (Horripilation.) Muscles battling muscles. (Ecstasy.) The animal fear. Yours. Hers. Mingling. Sharp. You can smell it. Feel it like an electric current. She claws at the mask. Scratches your throat. You feel the skin peel away. Know it’s under her nails. Hyper-aware. Even through everything else. Evidence. You file it. The knife. You stab. Resistance. The muscle, so hard. Hard as you. Then it gives way. The blade slides into the softness of organ. Soft as her softness. (Orgasm.) The hilt of the knife, blade buried in her like some lethal divining rod, telegraphs every movement; within, without. Telegraphs the beat of heart, the rush of blood through vein and artery. Trembling. You’re both trembling. You pull it out. You stab. Pull it out. Stab. You choke back a cry of rage, release, relief. Stab. You stab. (Divine.) You stab over and over and over and over and over…

  It must have taken unparalleled devotion, you think. For Sickert. How many papers and clippings did he collect? Scrutinize? He must have tried to collect every detail; he must have tried so vainly.

  The sense of power, you know now, is undeniable. You know what no one else knows. In this, in these acts, you are God. The only one with perfect knowledge. But this is the Information Age, isn’t it? The world is a Global Village. Home to the interminable, digital galleries of the Library of Babel. Knowledge is instant. Power without sacrifice. The Internet makes your work almost…mundane.

  It’s been nearly a month since you ripped her. Your Martha (poor stuck Pauline Nizza).

  The police are apathetic. Disinterested. Murder is murder. In Whitechapel a knifed-up whore is just as much news as it was in Sickert’s day. Which is to say, it isn’t news at all. Just another brutal killing. Ho. Hum. Ha. Ha.

  You maximize The Independent article on your laptop.

  Victim identified in George Yard Stabbing

  By Kevin Stevens

  Thursday 21 August 2013

  The young woman found brutally stabbed to death at George Yard Buildings in East London on Wednesday, August 6th, has now been identified by police as Pauline Nizza, 40, a resident of Pimlico Heights.

  Dinesh Ongezni, 25, discovered Pauline’s body on the 1st floor landing of George Yard Building at approximately 4:30 A.M. after returning from a stay with family in South London.

  A student at The University College London, Dinesh told the Independent, “There was a lot of blood. You wouldn’t think the body could hold so much blood, you know? My cousin (Dinesh’s flat mate) rang the ambulance. I don’t know why. She was already dead. Whoever did it, they carved something in her forehead…”

  Martha, you think. I carved the name “Martha” in the whore’s pretty skin.

  “…but I couldn’t make it out.”

  Metropolitan Police sent officers to the scene at 4:50 A.M. that Wednesday. A murder inquiry was opened and forensic tents were erected in the building. No arrests were made and police continue to appeal for witnesses. No other information has been released to the public.

  You laugh at the computer. Turn to the easel at your back. You’re still painting the acrylic base the oils will be laid over. Your Martha, in repose on a couch with a man you assume is her estranged husband, a little girl on her lap that you know is her daughter. The work is little more than an Impressionistic blur of colors, the shape of things to come still rude in composition. The photo you took from her flat before you “met” her on High Street is taped to the upper right corner of the canvas. You have admired it these past weeks, but you admire the faceless blurs of paint you have created more.

  Whores don’t deserve husbands.

  Whores don’t deserve children.

  Whores don’t deserve faces.

  You pick up the remote to your stereo.

  PLAY.

  Morrissey blares, mid-tune, filling the flat with bleak, lover’s tones.

  You paint.

  The detail of the oils over the acrylic is exquisite.

  The oval of untouched canvas that is (and will remain) Pauline Nizza’s face is like the clean hole you have left in the world.

  This is your Mary Ann Nichols. Canonical victim #1. Dear, sweet Polly, as she was known on the streets Sickert prowled.

  HUFFINGTON POST UNITED KINGDOM

  Community “not surprised” over new stabbing death

  By Roxanne Zulkowski

  1 September 2013

  The body of Patty Williams, 37, was discovered on Durward Street in Whitechapel at approximately 4:00 A.M. this morning by sanitation workers.

  We mustn’t forget to put out the trash, you think. Ha. Ha.

  According to Muham Choudbury, one of the men who discovered the body, “POLLY” was scrawled on a wall behind her in chalk. “Her throat was cut up. Somebody had taken her pants off and her shirt was lifted up. Her…her guts were hanging out of her. What is wrong with people? It’s these kids. These gangs. You hear about that attack in the Heights? No. Not the woman that was killed. The one where those boys knifed that gir
l when she got off the bus. Stuck her like she was nothing better ’an a pig. Right sick, innit?”

  Detective Chief Inspector Edgar Lyons described the victim as a known and convicted drug user, and related that she had been detained recently in the investigation of a prostitution ring. “Frankly, I’m not at all surprised to have found her killed,” Lyons said.

  The Metropolitan Police are appealing to the public to come forward with any information that might be relevant to the investigations.

  This is your Annie Chapman. Dark Annie. Canonical victim #2; what do they know?

  HUFFINGTON POST UNITED KINGDOM

  Third woman found stabbed to death in Whitechapel

  Press Association

  8 September 2013

  Metropolitan Police and London Ambulance Service were called to Hanbury Car Park at 5:50 AM, where the body of an unidentified woman was subsequently pronounced dead.

  A postmortem will take place later today at Greenwich mortuary.

  Detective Chief Inspector Edgar Lyons, leading the investigation, said: “Another senseless killing. We’re working now to identify her. There was nothing found on her person but an odd assortment of items. I urge anyone with information about this incident to come forward. If they prefer to remain anonymous, I ask that they contact Crimestoppers.

  I know people locally are going to speculate about the fact that this murder took place in the same location Shawn Chambers was killed in September, but I would like to make it clear that we do not believe there is a link between the two incidents aside from the location.”

  They give no name? No mention of the clues you left? Are they beginning to understand?

  THE GUARDIAN

  Victim named in Hanbury Car Park stabbing

  Press Association

  11 September 2013

  A woman found stabbed to death and mutilated in Whitechapel has been named by police.

  Nancy Brace, aged 51, was found on the morning of September 8 by a security officer in the Hanbury Car Park. At the time of her death, police were unable to identify Brace.

  She is survived by her husband and two sons.

  The security officer who found Brace said: “Her throat had been cut and she was…. I’m sorry. Give me a moment. She was disemboweled. Her intestines had been arranged over each of her shoulders. Whoever did it, they scratched ‘Dark Annie’ in the hood of the car I found her by. There was all this junk around her, too. All laid out just so. Some pills. A comb. Half an envelope. There’s a serial killer on the loose. That’s what I think. This wasn’t about gangs, or drugs. This was like some kind of sacrifice.”

  Yes. Dark Annie. They do understand. Their eyes are open.

  Listen, Boss. Two words: Double Event.

  THE TELEGRAPH

  Two women stabbed to death in Whitechapel:

  Metro Police fear serial killer

  By Hattie Anne-James

  3 October 2013

  The double murder of “Long Liz” and the victim Metropolitan Police have dubbed “Catherine” has sparked speculation of a serial killer stalking the streets of Whitechapel.

  Scarlett Thomas with Scotland Yard was quoted as saying: “There appears to be evidence—what I believe to be undeniable evidence—many of the recent murders in East London are related to the quasquicentennial anniversary of the Jack the Ripper slayings. Items recovered from the scene at Hanbury Car Park where Nancy Brace was found stabbed to death on 8 September have been identified as symbolic with the 8 September 1888 slaying of Annie Chapman.”

  On 30 September, an unidentified victim was recovered from Henriques Street in Whitechapel at approximately 1:00 AM. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene by Metro police. Less than an hour later a second body was discovered by City police at the corner of Mitre Square. A distance of less than a quarter mile from the crime scene on Henriques Street.

  Both victims were found with ritualistically displayed items with possible symbolic links to the Ripper killings of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, killed exactly 125 years ago.

  Scarlett Thomas, a Chief Investigator for Scotland Yard, has taken over investigation of the five, possibly six, interrelated killings that began in Whitechapel as early as August this year.

  You have transcended accepted “morality”; transcended the social human animal; transcended humanity itself. Woven a chrysalis of action, of determination, of retribution. You have chosen THE WILL TO POWER. Emerged from your cocoon Saved. Saved from the Bosses of the world.

  There is but one more act of consecration.

  You are not so foolish as to believe you will find immortality in Jack’s footsteps, not in this modern world, but you have allowed yourself the hope of bolstering Sickert’s. This is just the way of things, you know. The closest you might come to immortality is a TV miniseries.

  But for that you must complete Sickert’s (Jack’s) most sacrosanct act. And you must get away with it.

  It is time to make Black Mary.

  She is special, your Mary. Oh so special! You bought her in Myanmar. In the Hill Country on the border to Thailand. She was not expensive.

  You go down the stairs to the first-floor hall—Flat 6—reach through the broken window and unbolt the door.

  The room is tiny. It was always tiny. Twelve-by-twelve whole. Now, with the false wall, the room you enter is a pie-slice four feet wide at its largest dimension. The false wall greets you. Plywood. Painted dark gray. Solid oak door at its center. Padlocked. Chained. In over a year, no one’s noticed. No one has reached through the broken window, peeled away the curtain and seen this strange configuration. And if they have… not a one has reported it. Why would they? This is Whitechapel. The intersection of a hellish far right and the scum of the earth. No one cares, here. But they will remember this. For a little while.

  Just inside the door is a halogen lantern. You pick it up, turn it on; its clear, blue-white light is like starlight in the darkness.

  You key and unbolt the padlock. The chains crinkle, steel on steel on steel, to the floor. The door creaks. Shouldn’t it? The hinges haven’t moved in months.

  She’s there. Of course she’s there. Bound to herself. Bound in starlight and shadow.

  She sees you but doesn’t respond. Doesn’t shy, or shrink. Doesn’t blink. You watch the pupils in her eyes diminish in the lamplight.

  “Mary,” you say.

  Her head lifts on its slight, perfect frame. Like a dog’s head will lift when you call its name.

  “Hello, Mary.”

  Cow-round eyes, blank as tinted windows stare up at you.

  You hold the lamp up and smile at her. Your most rakish smile. Women have always loved that smile; it is both sensual and disarming. You know. You have spent years studying it, practicing it, in mirrors.

  You turn away from Mary. Turn a circle on your heel. An almost perfect pirouette. You have reconstructed the original crime scene as closely, as accurately, as necessary. The floor is the same oak it was a hundred or so years ago. Cut-in with shoddy patches, some of them pressboard. The walls are covered in soundproofing. But there are tables. Three of them. Small, wooden tables. A chair that’s never been sat in. The bed in the far back corner. And the fireplace.

  “Are you cold, Mary?” you ask cheerily.

  “Ye… ye… yesss.”

  “Let’s have a fire then, shall we?”

  The fire is for light. Mary will be a cold, bloodless assortment of meat in a few hours. You wouldn’t waste warmth on her even if that wasn’t so.

  In the fireplace there are two cured logs and an old copper kettle. You take a yellow bottle of Ronsonol lighter fluid out of your coat pocket. A box of matches. Shrug out of your coat. Throw it on top of the logs and the kettle. Soak it with the bottle of Ronsonol. Throw the empty bottle in. Strike the match on the brick hearth.

  Flick.

  The room ignites.

  Mary screams.

  For one brief moment, you and Mary are standing on the sun. Consumed.
The smell of the coat, the lighter fluid, the burning plastic… it’s sharp, nauseating.

  You laugh.

  Mary screams. And screams and screams.

  You have her on the bed, one hand crimped over her face so hard you can feel her teeth through the skin of her lips. The other hand is on your knife.

  The blade.

  The blade has become all.

  The focal point. Not just of your life, her life, but all life.

  You draw the edge of the blade across her throat. It’s not a slow movement. Not quick. There’s pressure. Even. Precision. The smile of death must be perfect.

  The struggle has become sex. Penetration, penetration. The last shudder of life, orgasm.

  The blood comes. Hot. In spurts. In floods that fill all the fleshy hollows. Thick liquid emptying in every possible way. Life. Leaving. Emptying. Emptying. Emptying.

  You lean down on her. Put your face to hers. Shadows and firelight cavort, caper, dance to the irregular music of her suffering. You want to see it. The blankness of abuse in her eyes becomes the dullness, the stillness, the nothingness of a passage that is transpiring. It’s hard to see by the light of the fire, but it doesn’t deter you. You must watch. The emptying, emptying, emptying.

  Right now, two miles away in Pimlico Heights, a gang of teens are chasing a fourteen-year-old Bangladeshi boy down with wide kitchen knives. Legs pumping. Lungs burning. Hate fueling. Fear swelling: a thunderhead of dying hope. The boy trips. The gang falls on him. Blades go in. One. Two. Six. Stab. Stab. Feet kick. A small voice says, “Stop.” Begs, “Don’t do it!” Steel slips between bone. Into organs. It’s all hot breath and animal sounds. An orgy of destruction for the sake of destruction. And then it’s over and the boy is left to bleed, to die, alone on a dirty pavement that smells of oil and rubber. The gang members tuck bloody knives into socks, then into sleeves. They walk away, breath easing, hearts slowing. What’s it about? What was the boy’s life payment for? Does it even matter? Do we really care?