Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event (32 page)

Katie spent the evening in the Hoop and Grapes Pub, drinking
all sorts
and singing poorly with other drunkards and prostitutes. Desperation had introduced her to the drink several years ago, for it was often the only thing she could afford. Before the night she’d tried it, she’d been disgusted watching it being assembled over the course of an evening, with the barmaids rounding up all the drinks left on tables and the barman dumping them into a firkin and stirring it. After surviving the drink the first time, she’d allowed her imagination to work on the idea. Now, it was her way of having a bit of everything. If she concentrated, she could taste the beer, the wine, the whiskey, and even, occasionally, a little brandy. She enjoyed one after the next and was able to ignore the small thickenings of mucous, and the bits of tobacco, ash and other debris that sometimes floated up to the top.

With Mr. Phillip’s money, she could afford much better, but there was no way to know what would be needed tomorrow.

Katie sang and drank and smoked with strangers. She smiled and laughed and cavorted with the women and flirted with the men, all to suggest she was having a good time—to convince herself—and forget what happened that day with her daughter. She drank until she was so drunk it was doubtful she’d make it back to Cooney’s common lodging.

The clock over the bar said it was already too late as she was leaving the pub; the doors at Cooney’s would be locked by the time she got there. Thrusting a hand into her pocket for the protection of her thimble, she turned and headed for the Mile End Casual Ward. After a few paces, Catherine fell in beside her.

Her mother’s presence had a sobering effect. Memory of Katie’s recent experience with Annie returned, along with self-pity and loathing. If that was what spending time with her mother was going to be like, she could do without her company.

She almost said as much, but then she was sitting with Catherine by the fire pit in the hops garden again. Her mother pointed the stick toward the jumble of orange embers. But as Katie’s steps continued to sound on the pavement at her feet, it was clear she was merely remembering something from several nights ago, a part of their conversation she’d blocked because it was too horrible.

A log settled in the pit. Among the shifting embers, Katie could see an orange view of Annie sitting in a chair, being questioned in something like a courtroom.

“You know how she feels,” Catherine said.

And indeed Katie did; after all, Annie was her second chance to live. She’d always been able to see the world through her daughter’s eyes.

Annie had been called to identify Katie’s body at the mortuary adjoining the Coroner’s Court and later to answer questions at the Coroner’s Inquest. The belief was that Katie had died at the hands of the Whitechapel Murderer.

She was mesmerized by the sight of her own corpse as seen through Annie’s memory. Annie was in pain over the loss of her mother, and she was relieved. But it wasn’t a selfish relief. Annie was glad for Katie to be released from the prison her emotional torment had made of her flesh.

“I
am
a burden to her,” Katie said. The chill air pushed the warmth of the fire pit back, and she shivered from the cold as well as the terrible vision in the fire.

As Katie became aware she was walking along the Whitechapel streets again, she turned to her mother. “Will this truly happen?” she asked timidly, tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” Catherine said.

“I’m afraid.” Her throat tightened and the words were difficult. “The mutilation…the terror.”

“Look to her memories of the inquest.”

When the doctor who examined Katie’s body was deposed, he stated, “The cause of death was hemorrhage from the throat. Death must have been immediate.”

“Annie will go on to have a good life,” her mother said. “She will have a little girl named Catherine. She will call her Katie.”

“When?”

“When you’re willing.”

Shaken and quaking in the chill night air, Katie found herself at the entrance to the casual ward. Catherine was no longer beside her. Breathing shallowly, she struggled to compose herself. Finally, she entered, signed in, found an empty stall within one of the cells and lay in the straw bedding unable to sleep for some time.

Such as I am, I’m miserable.
My life is not worth anything; not to me, nor anyone, save perhaps Jon Kelly. But he doesn’t need me. He’d get along.
If I were not afraid, I would willingly give up my life.

But what am I afraid of?
Is it Hell?

Living in abject poverty had left her unable to believe in that.

No, not Hell, but perhaps the idea of my being emptied into darkness as if by some grim dustman. Becoming
nothing
.
It’s only the idea, here and now, that is frightening—if I become
nothing
, I will not be aware of it...nor the darkness.

Was it fear that she’d miss out on some good that would eventually come to her?

No, I have no worth to anyone. No one considers me deserving now. I am
already
nothing
.

With that, resentment rose in Katie, along with thoughts that she tried not to give full voice in her head. Still, they persisted, vague and doubtful at first, but with a definite theme: If she were the White Chapel Murderer’s next victim, there would be sympathy. As with the first victims, the story would be everywhere in the city overnight. Her name would be on everyone’s lips.

Yes, I am like those poor women who were murdered. There are many of us. As Mum would say, poor women are like the soot that falls on the city, unnoticed until it piles up and becomes a nuisance. Yes, hardly noticed...
until
you get a cinder in your eye!

If I were the next victim, the whole of London would be thinking about me and Conway would know it. I would be the
burning
cinder in
Conway’s
eye. 

And Annie and Mr. Phillips....

No, she would not entertain resentments toward her daughter.

Such petty, unworthy thoughts. All of it. There must be more.

Have I done no good?

Yes, I helped Annie to have a good life. She knows. It took sacrificing my own desires to do it....

And there was the idea…the justification, a decision pending. She touched the idea lightly, turning it to look for flaws, wanting to reject it, but knowing she would not.

I have one more sacrifice to make for Annie.

With that came a welcomed sense of relief and she slept.

~~~

The next morning, September 29, she was awakened before it was light by a disturbance in one of the other cells. Incoherent shouting resolved itself into someone clearly shouting, “
Fire!”

Katie fled the casual ward and made her way to Cooney’s to help in the kitchen. Sometimes Carole would give her a little something to drink for her hangovers in lieu of the food she normally earned for her help.

at the kitchen door as the sun lightened the sky in the East. Carole answered it and let her in. Katie was given a pint of stale beer, and then she donned an apron and helped Carole prepare for the morning’s breakfast.

Mr. Kelly showed up early. He helped Mr. Wilkinson with a load of coal and then the two men came into the kitchen and sat down with cups of tea. While Mr. Wilkinson was distracted speaking to his wife, Katie gave Mr. Kelly the money she still had, holding back only enough for one more evening of roaring drunkenness.

“Where...” he began, his brow furrowed. 

“Annie and Mr. Phillips,” she whispered.

“But this is yours then,” he said, offering it back to her.

If nothing else, he is an honest man. I could have treated him better.

Unexpected tears welled up in her eyes. She pulled out her handkerchief, turned away and pretended to sneeze to provide an excuse to be wiping her face. Turning back to him, it was clear he hadn’t noticed her reaction. He still held the coins out to her. She smiled and touched his cheek gently. “You save it for me.”

He grinned and nodded, put it in his pocket and left the room.

Mr. Wilkinson raised his cup of tea to her and asked. “How are you this morning, Mrs. Kelly?”

“I am doing quite well,” she said brightly. “Today I’ll find the Whitechapel Killer and turn him in for the reward. I know who he is.” Fully aware of what she meant, she said it joyfully. Catherine was right: she must find him or allow him to find her.

Mr. Wilkinson brow rose in surprise.

Well, at least part of what I said is true
. Katie winked at him.

An uncertain smile touched his lips as he sipped his tea.

Katie spent the evening of September 29 much the way she had the night before, but did her carousing in several different pubs. By chance, she met up with Carole Wilkinson. “I was looking for a partner,” Carole said. “I mean to explore the lusheries of Petticoat Lane.”

“Well, I’m game,” Katie said.

Carole’s features took on a curious expression, and she began to laugh as she pointed to the apron around Katie’s waist. “You’re still wearing the flag you put on this morning!”

Katie looked down. “So I am,” she said with a chuckle. She had been drinking beer throughout the day and simply not noticed the apron. With all the layers of clothing she was wearing, it hardly mattered. She lifted the edge of it and curtsied. 

Carole laughed, and ordered more whiskey for them both.

“I heard what you said this morning about knowing who the White Chapel Murderer is,” she said.

“It’s true.” Katie grinned.

“Who is it, then?” Carole was wide-eyed.

“If I told you, you’d turn him in and I would lose out on the reward.”

They both laughed. Carole thought it such a funny story, she helped Katie tell it to people in all the pubs they visited. Time passed in a blur of drunkenness as they danced with each other, rollicked with the women and flirted with the men, laughing and joking with everyone they met.

Because the pubs had younger, prettier women, most of the men weren’t interested in Katie, but that was okay. She was interested in just one man in particular. Would she recognize him when she saw him? Knowing who he was didn’t matter.

By eight o’clock, they had managed to get themselves kicked out of The Hoop and Grapes Pub by being a nuisance asking men to buy them drinks. Saying she felt ill, Carole fled home to Cooney’s, while Katie remained out front, mocking the customers coming and going from the establishment. People weren’t paying much attention to her, and that was fine most of the time, but not tonight.

A steam-powered fire engine with bells and a whistle would get their attention.  She’d seen one come screaming up the lane to put out the fire she accidentally started at Palmar’s common lodging a couple years ago.

Katie ran back and forth, up and down the street, making chugging, huffing and puffing sounds, shouting “Clang, clang, clang,” and blowing a shrill whistle between two fingers. Soon a crowd had gathered to watch. Some laughed and clapped. Some shouted “Faster, louder before the house burns down.” One fellow called out, “Quick, spray water on the fire.” She must be doing a good job if they knew what she was imitating. She tried spitting, but it wasn’t ladylike. That was laughable.

Employees and management had come out of the pub and stood with arms crossed, watching with angry eyes.

Finally, winded and dizzy, Katie’s energy had run out. She slumped to the paving stones in the middle of the road. The section of pavement was smooth and fairly comfortable. She lay back and rested, closing her eyes as the crowd began to disperse.

That was all she remembered until she awoke in the Bishopsgate Police Station.

Katie sat in a chair in an office before a desk. A blurry figure sat at the desk while another stood by a window, perhaps reading something. Cells occupied the area to her right. The foul odor of old fish and the flatulent smell of stewed cabbage on the air—perhaps the remains of someone’s dinner—might have turned Katie’s stomach if she weren’t hungry, but she hadn’t eaten anything but a crust of bread scrounged from the floor of one of the pubs.

She stirred in her seat, almost falling out of it, and that attracted the attention of the one by the window. As the figure approached, it became a uniformed constable. “What is your name?” he asked.

A moment passed before she understood his words, but then Katie didn’t want to answer.

“What is your name?” he asked again.

“Nothing!” she slurred.

“She’s
good
for nothing in this state.” He turned to the figure behind the desk. “Sir, would you help me get her into a cell?”

The man behind the desk got up and approached. He was a police sergeant. The two men helped her to stand and guided her into a cell and placed her on a wooden bench. Then they left the cell and closed the door. She curled up, using the pocket in which she carried her rags as a pillow, and fell asleep.

~~~

Katie awoke coughing and sat up. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep.

The sounds of a conversation came from beyond the bars of her cell. Her vision had improved and the station’s front office could be seen clearly. A different constable, a young one with a weathered face and a short beard, stood by the desk, listening to the police sergeant who sat behind it.

“At least the killings have brought more attention to conditions in the East End,” the Sergeant said. “It breaks my heart to see women like this one.” He gestured with his thumb in the direction of Katie’s cell.

“A nuisance is what she is,” the constable said dismissively.

The Sergeant cocked his head to one side as if trying to get a different view of the younger man. “She’s probably somebody’s mother.”

“Not like
my
mother,” the constable huffed.

“Maybe not so different.” The Sergeant said it slowly, giving it an ominous tone. “Lost her husband, perhaps. Now, down and out…nobody will hire her…got nothing, no future.”

The response came too quickly, with a youthful authority that fell flat. “These people don’t want a future, don’t want to work.”

“So high and mighty….” 

“My mother—”

“Has had a
good
life!” the sergeant said, cutting him off.

“You don’t
know
.”

“Nor do
you
!”

Emotions were rising, but it wasn’t Katie’s business. She’d heard it all before. Still, they should know she could hear them.

“So a few beggar women turn up dead. It’s not unusual. They won’t be missed.”

“Ah, but these murders are different.”

Katie began to sing softly “The Awful Execution of Charles Colin Robinson.”

The policemen paused in their conversation.

The ballad was a sad song, a song of death, but somehow it filled Katie with joy. Death was not to be feared—it would be her release. She would join her mother. Perhaps she would see Charles again.

“Listen to her,” the Sergeant said. “You call that a nuisance?”

“Common as soot,” the young man said, dramatically brushing at the shoulders of his uniform with his hands. “
All
beggar women sing.”

“Not like that, they don’t,” the Sergeant said.

The two men became silent for a time as she continued her song. The constable’s expression softened as he became more relaxed. “It
is
a fine voice,” he conceded.

A long silence descended on the station when she was finished, then the sergeant said, “Opinions are changing. All of London is looking in our direction. People don’t like what they’re seeing. When they get irritated enough, there’ll be big changes. You wait and see. With your views, take care you’re not one of those changes.”

The young constable huffed. “I have my beat.” He lit the lantern at his belt, took up a billy club and headed for the door.

“Careful out there,” the sergeant said, and the younger man went out and shut the door behind him.

As the officer leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, Katie realized she was sobering quickly.
I have to get out of here. I am willing, but I don’t want to be sober.

“Sergeant,” she called, “when will I be released?”

He turned toward her as if surprised. “When you’re able to take care of yourself,” he said.

“I
can
take care of myself.”

He got up and moved toward her cell door and unlocked it. He stood looking at her for a time, then asked, “What is your name?”

“Mary Ann Kelly,” she replied.

“Where do you live?”

“Cooney’s, in Flower and Dean Street.”

“All right, then.” He stood aside and Katie emerged from the cell.

“Will you tell me what time it is?”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning, the thirtieth of September,” he said, then smiled grimly. “Too late for you to get another drink.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get a good hiding when I get home.” The word “home” sounded strange. In the past, having a home had been important, but that time was long gone.

“And it’ll serve you right,” he said. “You have no right to get drunk like that at your age.” He sounded stern, but there was something warm in his voice.

Katie smiled and nodded her head in agreement as he showed her the door. “Good night old cock,” she said, passing through the doorway and turning left.

“Flower and Dean is the other way,” she heard him say behind her, but she kept walking. Cooney’s was locked up for the night.

~~~

At random, she turned left on Houndsditch. To the left at street crossings, still close to the horizon, the one-third crescent of the moon rose between the buildings in the distance. Shrouded in foul air, it was a baleful orange.

The streets were deserted and gloomy. She would walk for a while longer and, if nothing was found, if nothing happened, she would call it a night and go to the casual ward. Her
being willing
might not produce immediate results, and it would be better to have more drink in her anyway.

Katie turned right on Aldgate, then right again. As she headed up Mitre Street, an orange ember emerged from the shadows. Quickly it became the glowing end of a cigarette or cigar, and then the silhouette of a man appeared behind it, beyond the entrance to one of the buildings. Katie turned in his direction, entering Mitre Square.

He was bundled against the night air, with a scarf around his neck and lower mouth, his broad collar turned up to keep the wind off his ears and his hat pulled down low over his face.

He was
the one
. Katie wanted to flee, but instead slid her right hand into her pocket and slipped the thimble on her finger. Reaching for her mother for comfort and courage by touching the silver inside, she continued to put one foot in front of the other. When quite close, she was startled as he cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry to alarm you,” he said. The voice sounded somewhat familiar.

“Not a-at all,” Katie stammered, moving closer.

She coughed and took out her handkerchief to cover her mouth.

“You might think anyone out this late must be up to no good,” he said, “but I just needed to step out for a smoke and collect my thoughts.”

“I understand. A chi-chill, dark night has a way of clearing away much of the day’s troubles.” Again the stammer. If she wasn’t careful, she’d give herself away. But what was she trying to get away with, and why should he care?

The only light was within a swirl of mist above and behind him, making it impossible to distinguish his features.

Katie coughed again, and when she pulled the handkerchief away from her mouth, there was a spot of blood on it, almost black in the dim light.

It doesn’t matter now.
She put the handkerchief away.

“I take it you have an appreciation for the dark as well,” he said.

“It can be welcoming…when you’re troubled.” Katie struggled with the fearful hitch in her voice. “A long sleep…can do wonders…to unburden the soul.”

If he knew she was afraid, he might attack her—or he might
not
attack her.  Suddenly she didn’t know which she wanted.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said, approaching. 

Katie panicked. She reached for the table knife she’d carried for so many years. In its bed ticking pocket under her top skirt, it was difficult to get to and hung in a fold. Her hand came free from her skirt and the thimble slipped off and fell to the pavement.

Her sudden movements set him off. He moved quickly, with a flash of bright metal.

Katie stumbled back feeling only a slight pressure and then a cool breeze on her neck. Reaching for it, her hand came away with wetness.

She was lightheaded and her legs went out from under her.

Then she was lying on the pavement, her thimble just beyond her reach. She hadn’t felt any of it. She
was
being let down easily and gently to join Catherine in peace. Annie would embrace her memory. Conway would rediscover her worth.

It’s just as Mum said it would be
.

Her blood pooled beside her.  A thread of silver spilled into it in graceful loops. Was it reflected moonlight? No, the moon was orange and too low in the sky.

A bit of silver inside after all.

Katie was long gone before the murderer began to play.