Legacy of the Ripper (3 page)

Young Jack had lived a relatively happy and conventional childhood, though by the age of ten he had developed a marked and quite disturbing preoccupation with the sight of blood. His parents, understandably disturbed by their son's rather macabre interest, took him to a number of different child psychologists and psychiatrists. Tom's own cousin Robert, the boy's official second-cousin, but always referred to as 'uncle', had been a psychiatrist until his death from the effects of a brain tumour in nineteen ninety eight, and though Jack had been too young to know his uncle at the time of his death, Tom had always held hopes that his son might follow either in the footsteps of himself or his late brother. The manifestations of his young son's mind seemed to preclude the second possibility however, as Tom realised that something far from normal was taking place within the cognitive sections of his son's brain. Far from ever becoming a psychiatrist, it looked as if Jack could well find himself permanently under the care of one.

That being said, both Tom and Jennifer Reid loved their son dearly and no expense was spared in their choice of the physicians they selected to try and elicit the best care and potential cure for Jack's odd predilections. Though initially they'd relied on the resources of their own G.P. and the local NHS hospital to care for their son, it soon became clear to them that the overstretched resources of the National Health Service would never provide either short or long term relief for their son's condition, nor would the ministrations of a general practitioner with limited knowledge of psychiatric disorders. They made the expensive decision to seek private care for Jack.

Thankfully, Tom's job with Beaumont Industries provided them with a more than adequate income, and though the family's finances were at times stretched to breaking point, Jack was soon under the care of both a child psychologist, a Doctor Simon Guest, and a psychiatrist, Doctor Faye Roebuck. Between them the two noble members of my profession did their best for the young boy. Both concluded that Jack suffered from a personality disorder, but one which, with treatment, could be controlled and eventually eradicated. Their methods differed, of course, as befitted their different fields of medicine. As a psychiatrist, Doctor Roebuck had tried to work her way into the mind of young Jack, and attempted to control his urges by placing him a regime of medications that she hoped would temper his unusual desires and feelings. Doctor Guest, on the other hand, tried simply to identify anything in the boy's background or home life and upbringing that might have led him to his unusual fixations. He spent hours talking to Jack and his parents and despite finding little to suggest that anything in his environment had caused Jack's aberrant behaviour, tried to instil a new and regimented system of life upon the young man in the hope that continuity and stability in his daily life could be used as a tool to regulate and control Jack's feelings, to clarify things in his young mind, and slowly bring about a change in his mental attitudes resulting in a healthier and more rational outlook by the boy.

Years of treatment followed, and appeared to have been successful when at the age of fourteen Jack was considered well enough to leave the special school to which he'd been allocated after the incident at his junior school, once more to enter the world of regular education, this time at the local Comprehensive school where he settled in nicely and with no further incidents of violence. Jack seemed happy and well-adjusted, and his doctors, and more especially his parents, breathed a sigh of relief.

The teenaged Jack was a popular boy, and his circle of friends thought highly of him. He was academically bright and excelled on the sports field, being a capable footballer and an excellent wicket-keeper and batsman on the cricket pitch. Indeed, so adept was he at the game of cricket that he was selected for the local county schools association team, playing in competitions with other county associations. Jack eventually left school with a clutch of GCSE examination passes to his name, and moved onto the local college, where he began a course in graphic design, hoping to qualify and become a book illustrator. Halfway through his first year at college however his focus changed and without warning he gave up his studies and found himself a job as a trainee nurse at his local hospital.

His parents were at first horrified at the thought that his close proximity to the sick and infirm, and more especially to his being exposed to almost daily exposure to those suffering from open, bleeding wounds, might bring about a recurrence of his earlier problems. Jack was able to mollify them, however, when he explained that one of his friends from college, a young woman no less, had also begun the self-same nursing course. As Jack put it to his parents, he had already received enough treatment from the health services and, as a qualified nurse, he would be able to give something back to the system that had helped cure him of his earlier childhood affliction.

His mother was quite delighted to think that her son had become so responsible and mature in his outlook on life, but his father proved a little more sceptical about the whole affair and decided to reserve judgement on his son's sudden change of career path. Hindsight would apparently prove his reservations to be well-founded.

Initially, though, all appeared well and Jack was a diligent student, attentive to his teachers and scrupulous in his studies. All of his written work was handed in on time and his 'hands-on' practical work under supervision on the wards was reported as being exemplary. In his first six months, Jack Reid earned a reputation as a model student, and his nurse tutors reported in writing that he would, in time, become an excellent and valued member of the nursing profession.

As his eighteenth birthday approached Jack presented himself for his first official assessment of his training. After receiving a glowing report from all of his tutors he returned home that evening to inform his parents that he was considered to be one of the top two students on his course. His mother and father were elated at the news and agreed that at last they could feel a real sense of pride in their son's achievements. Even his previously sceptical father felt sufficiently pleased to crack open a bottle of his very best Chablis, which the small family of three consumed with delight over dinner that evening.

Over dinner his mother tried to draw him to speak on the subject of the girl who'd enticed him to join her in the nursing fraternity. Jennifer thought that if perhaps a relationship was developing between Jack and the girl, she might consider inviting her son's new friend, his first girlfriend as she put it, to dinner one evening. Jack, however, had totally rebuffed any questions from his mother on the subject. Apart from telling his parents that the girl's name was Anna, that she was nowhere near as clever as he was and not worth investing any more of his time in her, she became a closed subject. Jennifer Reid was disappointed, believing that if her son could achieve some sort of normal relationship with a member of the opposite sex, it would be another step towards his total rehabilitation from his earlier, juvenile problems. Perhaps, in the light of events that were soon to follow, Jack's failure to cement any sort of relationship with Anna, who would later testify at his trial, was a blessing in disguise.

Two weeks after that first assessment Jack reached his eighteenth birthday. His parents had asked if he would like to invite any of his friends or fellow students to a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant, but Jack declined the offer. A meal with his parents would be enough, so he informed them. Sadly, his parents, tutors, and fellow students had failed to recognise the gradually expanding bubble of isolation in which Jack was cocooning himself. Something had occurred within his mind that saw him withdraw more and more into himself, and though his studies hadn't become affected, the once gregarious and popular student began to shut himself off from those around him.

Later, statements from his parents would confirm that the evening of Jack's eighteenth birthday was perhaps the last really happy occasion they enjoyed together as a family. Though not particularly talkative, Jack had been in a fairly bright and happy frame of mind and grateful to his parents for the gold watch they'd bought for him to celebrate his birthday. The back of the watch had been engraved with the words,
To Jack T Reid with much love on your eighteenth birthday, Mum and Dad.
Jack loved it, and the evening of his birthday meal passed off amicably and with much good humour in the Reid household. No-one could have foreseen what lay ahead, just beyond time's immediate horizon.

For now though all was well, at least on the surface, and it wasn't until the Reids received notification through Tom's late cousin's solicitor that a package was being held in trust for their son, to be given to him after he'd reached his eighteenth birthday, that events escalated towards the calamity that awaited the family.

From the day the family visited the solicitor and the package was placed in the hands of their son, no-one's lives would ever be the same again. A seed had been planted that was about to bear fruit, and for Jack Thomas Reid, the ripening of that seed would prove to be the harbinger of his own downfall, and the precursor to murder. The storm was about to be unleashed!

A Link to the Past?

I should perhaps point out at this juncture of my tale that Jack's parents were not with him when their son read the contents of the package bequeathed to him by his late uncle. Whatever was contained within the file of papers handed over to him remained in his possession. His father testified at Jack's trial that he had no idea what his brother had left in trust for Jack, denying any knowledge of what Jack claimed in his defence it contained, therefore having no reason to give that could have caused such a sudden change in his demeanour and behaviour.

Tom Reid went on to describe how, on the night he received his legacy, Jack retired to his room at about nine p.m. and Tom and Jennifer weren't to see him again until he arrived in the kitchen for breakfast at about nine the following morning. He was scheduled to work on one of the hospital wards from two p.m. that day, but told his parents he was feeling unwell, and phoned in sick. His 'sickness' continued for another two days, after which the Reids noticed a dramatic change in their son's character. Almost overnight, Jack had become a morose and sorrowful character, and he appeared as though he was carrying the weight of the world, or at least some great burden on his shoulders. When pressed by his parents to talk about the reasons for his melancholic state of mind he refused to discuss the matter. Presuming it may have some connection to the papers left to Jack by his Uncle Robert, Tom and Jennifer did their best to find out from their son what had been contained in the package he'd received. All that Jack Reid said in reply to their inquiries was "It was something and nothing."

Tom Reid even went so far as to telephone Sarah Cavendish, Robert's widow, to try to ascertain what had been contained in the bundle of papers. Sarah told Tom that she knew of the package and its existence, but Robert had kept it securely locked in his safe and she'd never seen the contents. She did say that she suspected it contained something which had disturbed and upset him at one time, but thought that whatever it was could hardly be a contributing factor in young Jack's current morose and sullen mood. She went on to say that shortly before his death Robert had lodged the package with his solicitor and that was about all she knew. She hadn't even known that he'd left it to young Jack, and reiterated her belief that a few pages of paper couldn't possibly be the cause of such a change in the young man. Tom and Jennifer thought otherwise, but failed to press home their doubts to Sarah. As later events overtook the family, even Robert Cavendish's solicitor would be forced to admit that he had no idea of the contents of the package.

Within days of the receipt of his legacy, Jack's whole demeanour and personality appeared to his parents to have undergone a radical transformation. The happy young man they'd watched develop with such pleasure after the childhood psychological problems seemed to be slipping away from them. He returned to his studies at the teaching hospital but there was no longer a smile on his face either at the beginning or the end of the day. His conversation grew stilted, almost monosyllabic. His mother in particular worried that perhaps his close proximity to the original source of his childhood fixations, blood, teamed with whatever disturbing news he may have read in the papers bequeathed to him by his uncle had in some way brought about this alteration in her son's personality. His father, though he didn't mention it to Jennifer, went so far as to call on Jack's senior tutor at the hospital who was reluctant at first to divulge much in the way of information about one of his students, but who was persuaded to open up to the father in the end. The one-time golden boy of the course had let his standards slip. Jack's work on the wards, once regarded as exemplary, had become shoddy and constantly in need of correction. His written work and other aspects of his study course had fallen below par and Tom was warned that such a rapid deterioration in standards could only lead to eventual failure if not corrected sooner rather than later.

Despite being taken to task by his father on his alleged shortcomings in relation to his studies, over a period of weeks Jack Reid's demeanour and attention to his work underwent an almost total transformation for the worse. In short, the life of the young man, who up until recently had appeared to have a glittering career in the nursing profession ahead of him, simply imploded. Tom and Jennifer pleaded with their son to go and see his own doctor, to talk about the things happening to him, but as far as Jack was concerned everything was as it should be. He saw no need to consult a doctor over what he deemed "his personal business".

Finally, unable to withstand the constant barrage of criticism and questions from his disbelieving and apparently disapproving parents, Jack left home. There was no discussion on the matter with his parents and no forewarning of his intentions. One morning, he quite arbitrarily walked out of the door with a suitcase in his hand and never returned to his parents' home again. Attempts to contact Jack on his mobile phone over the following days proved useless; the phone either being switched off or diverted to voicemail. His father found himself having to comfort his wife, Jack's mother, more and more as the sense of loss cut deeply into her heart and mind. Forced to choose between searching for Jack and looking after the psychological well-being of the woman he loved, Tom Reid chose the latter course of action. He would use whatever time he could afford to try to locate Jack's whereabouts, but his first priority would be his wife, the woman he loved and adored above all others.