Ripper (17 page)

As I ran, I realized that I had no idea how to protect Liz or myself. I had no plan except to fight. I didn't even have a weapon. My stomach sank in fear.

After I had run a stretch of Whitechapel Road, I came to Commercial Street. Along the way, I passed cottages, warehouses, pubs. Few East Enders were out. Once I passed the last pub on Commercial, the streets were mostly abandoned, and I heard the increasingly close rattle of a train. I had no idea where they were and hoped that I was close to their location.

The vision swirled in my mind again—a street sign, first blurry and then clear:
Berner Street.
They were one block away—very close.

Silently, taking care not to make noise, I eased quickly through a connecting street—more of an alley in its darkness and smallness—and paused against the side of an abandoned sweatshop. The entire time, I tried to remain in the shadows.

I stepped carefully onto the next street. It was Berner.

The hair stood up on my neck when I saw Liz and the Ripper. They were directly across the street from me, about fifty yards away in a darkened courtyard. The vision had stopped now that they were in front of me. I remained in the shadows of the sweatshop and squinted, trying to see their faces. But I could see very little.

It was then that I heard Liz bid the stranger goodbye and turn away from him. She had not quite reached the streetlamp when he lunged from behind, pulling her back into the shadows.

No!
I tried to scream, but only a croak escaped from my lips.

He must have cut her windpipe before she could cry out. I heard the knife slashing through fabric and then skin.

My stomach wretched and before I could stop it, a soft splash of my vomit hit the concrete at my feet.

The ripping noises stopped.

The shadow across the street looked up, directly at me. The rest of his figure was too shrouded for me to see anything else.

He straightened up.

I g
asped and backed into the shadows of the sweatshop.

When I looked in the Ripper's direction again, he was gone. This frightened me almost more than seeing him across the street.

He might be anywhere.

Noise broke out from somewhere in the depths of the courtyard where the body lay. It was the creaking of a cart, perhaps a railway worker's cart, bringing supplies to an early morning shift.

I was torn. Part of me felt as if I should run to Liz; I hated leaving her on the street. But I knew she could not have survived that attack, and in the back of my mind I thought I should run back to the hospital.

The person pushing the cart stopped as his cart hit the body. It made a soft thud.

“Dammit, you drunken … ” The cart-pusher must have seen blood, because within seconds he shouted,
“
God!
”
and then “Police! Police!”

As I cowered near the building, I felt a bit of relief at the whistles of constables. The man with the cart shouted to them.

“Body here!
There's a body here
!”

But I seemed too far away from the comforting noise of police whistles and shouts. The Ripper had seen me, and I felt as if I was still in danger. I stood near my puddle of vomit, afraid to scream. I had just witnessed the speed at which he could murder and escape. If he was anywhere near me, no constables, even if only yards away, could reach me in time to save me.

Several policemen had already arrived on the scene.

“She's still warm!” someone shouted. “He can't be far.”

Then I heard Abberline's voice. “Search all the surrounding buildings!”

Someone grabbed me from behind, pulling me back into the shadows, and then thrust my back against a closed door at the side of the sweatshop.

I tried to scream, but a hand clamped tightly over
my mouth.

I saw William's face, inches from my own.

“Don't speak,” he mouthed, though no sound came out. “He's here.”

Rainwater dripped from the broken guttering above us into a nearby puddle. I tried to see beyond William, to see
anything
.
My eyes ached with the strain.

I heard footsteps—steady, sharp.

He had to know we were there.
He
must
know.

My vomit lay only a few feet away. It was then that I heard splashing sounds, very light ones, in the puddle of rainwater.

Then I saw him.

The Ripper stood in front of a doorway, not facing us, but wiping his hands on what looked like a handkerchief. Though he was so close we could hear him breathe, I could not see his face; he was only a darker outline against the already dark night.

William smashed me flatter against the door. My chest was pressed so hard against his body that I could barely breathe.

I held my breath when the Ripper paused, still in the doorway, his back toward us. At that point, he tilted his head slightly, very slightly, toward us.

He knew we were there.

William tensed.

Then he turned and walked away from us. I heard his steps proceed, unhurriedly, away from Berner Street.

After several minutes, William relaxed. He released me and I reeled.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“He murdered Liz. Liz Stride.” I was breathless, trying to push away the image of her murder.

“Liz?” William said. And then, suddenly, “My
God
.”

Lights were quickly going on in the windows of the houses behind the courtyard. And I heard shouts and orders coming from the street. They were searching the homes and buildings. Abberline's force thought the killer might still be there. They had no idea that he had already eluded them.

“Come on. We have to tell them which direction he went,” I said.

“It won't do any good. The police cannot and will not catch him.”

I looked at William, not knowing what he meant. But it did not matter. I had to talk to the police myself. I hated involving myself in the investigation; I had sworn since my meeting with Abberline to keep uninvolved with Scotland Yard. But this time, I had
witnessed
a murder, of a patient
I
had cared for. I owed it to Liz to try to do whatever I could to help in the investigation. The least I could do was tell them what I had seen and that the Ripper was no longer anywhere near Berner Street.

I pushed past William, but then stopped in my tracks. The puddle of rainwater was clouded with blood.

My voice came out hoarse. “He washed his hands, or possibly the knife, in this puddle.”

“Abbie,
why
were
you out here?”

I had no logical answer.
Should I tell him about the visions?

Suddenly another image rushed over my mind, so quickly and with such force that I doubled over. I thought I might wretch again.

“He's not
done
.
He is not done!”

“Abbie? What's going on? Are you sick? What do you mean … ” William seemed more fearful now than he had when the Ripper was standing near us.

To my horror, I saw Cate Eddows in my mind, a smile on her face as she greeted someone. The shadowed figure placed a small bag, identical to the one offered to Liz, in her hand.

“We
have
to find her. He's going to kill her!” I yelled.

William looked at me as if I were out of my mind. I ignored him and tried to focus on the vision, which had left me as quickly as it came.

“We need to get you back to the hospital. You're not thinking clearly. You might be in shock.”

A square—an open square—appeared in my head. Flagstones. Mitre Square!

I began to bolt in the direction the Ripper had gone.

“Abbie,
no
!”
William held my arm in a vice grip and blinked at my rage. “Let's stop this nonsense and go back to Whitechapel Hospital. I cannot leave you alone on the streets now.”

I saw that he was not going to let me go.

He should have known better.

“I'm sorry William.”

I disengaged his grip with a sharp kick to the groin, followed by a single kick at his chest. I heard a small crack and winced, knowing that I might have broken, or at least cracked, a rib.

He doubled over in pain. But I knew that he would be fine. Eventually. I bolted in the direction toward Mitre Square.

As I ran, the vision returned.

Cate still had no idea that she was in danger. Underneath her mold-stained black bonnet, she smiled. I noticed, as I had when I'd brought her medicine in the hospital one time, that she had a prominent scar on her lower jaw. I saw the back of the caped figure, who, maddeningly, never clearly revealed his face to me in these visions. And I saw what she did not—a knife in his hand, gleaming.

I sucked in my breath in horror as I saw the Ripper snatch her into the shadows before she could make a sound.

I had reached Church Passage, which opened out into Mitre Square. I stopped halfway down the road, knowing that I no longer needed the vision when the crime unfolded in my immediate vicinity. And this time, the Ripper was doing his bloody work even closer to me. I dared not step out into the court. I heard him breathing. I heard the ripping of skin, the wet tearing of organs. I clamped my hand over my mouth, fighting the overwhelming feeling of fear, of nausea. Of loss. He gutted his victims as if they were animals in the slaughterhouse.

I tried to back away, silently, back up into Church Passage. I held my breath when my heel accidently kicked a bottle, sending it loudly against a brick wall. This time, the Ripper did not stop at the sound. I felt horrified when I heard him emit a chuckle. I was certain, at that point, that the Ripper knew I was near him.

It seemed as if the visions were nothing less than invitations. I shuddered.

After what must have been only five minutes but seemed like an eternity, he stopped. The sounds ceased completely. I heard him leave, this time not with steely steps but with swifter, silent movements. I heard the air catch under his cape, and he was gone.

Everything remained quiet as I crouched against a building. As before, I hesitated, having no idea which direction I should run.

Other footsteps, not the Ripper's, entered the square; the footsteps of a night watchman. I heard the rattle of a whistle and more footsteps, panicked now. A shout: “For God's sake, mate, come to my assistance! It's another murder.”

Then someone grabbed my shoulder, throwing me face-first against the wet, dirty side of the building. I smelled the tangy, yeasty odor of blood and heard the chuckle I had heard only minutes earlier.

He was behind me now.

I felt oddly giddy, caught off-guard like this. It would be very difficult to fight. I wondered how Grandmother, amidst her real sorrow at my death, would handle the despair and humiliation of me being murdered in a little dirty passage by the Ripper. Killed in the same manner as the common prostitutes.

I thought about all of this with bitter humor as I felt the knife stab into me.

Then all became blackness.

Seventeen

H
eaven was pretty much as I always thought it might be, if it existed at all.

I found myself lying on my back at the bottom of a pond of cool, clear water. The shock of the cold water was a pleasant sensation; my skin, indeed every part of my body, felt—
sensed
—
more acutely than ever before. Looking up through the wavy surface of the water at a late afternoon sky, I watched kingfishers cut through my view, slicing through the air just above the water with unbelievable force. Everything seemed colorful, alive—not the slightest bit dreamlike. I began swimming upwards.

Up.

Up.

As I broke the surface, the sharp ammonia smells of Whitechapel Hospital assaulted my nose. I now lay not on my back in the pond, but on my stomach, face down. I could not move or even speak. My muscles seemed dead.

It was then that I felt searing pain in the back of my right thigh, just below my buttocks. I realized I was lying under a light blanket on the third floor operating table. In my peripheral vision, I saw a small amount of early morning, pumpkin-tinted sunlight seeping through a window.

The Ripper.
The pain reminded me of what had knocked me unconscious. The last thing I remembered was the smell of the wet brick wall, the blood odor of the Ripper, the thrust of the knife. I began to hear my heartbeat pound in my ears.
Was he nearby?
I panicked, trying to move, but remained paralyzed.

I felt better when William's voice broke forth from the other side of the room. “
Dammit,
Simon. Do you think you might wrap me up without breaking another rib?”

“She kicked you quite hard,” I heard Simon say, more than a hint of amusement in his voice. “This left vertebral rib is broken nearly clear through.”

“How is she?” William asked.

“She will be all right. The stab wound did cause quite a bit of tissue damage. She will not be able to work for several weeks.”

Dear God!
I wondered, in my paralyzed state, if I was blushing. Though I felt the blanket covering me, I could not tell if I was even dressed. I felt rising embarrassment that the wound Simon had stitched was so high on my leg. This worry was compounded by Simon's verdict that I would need some recovery time from the wound.

It was then that I noticed my finger, against the bedsheet, could wiggle a little. I was about to try to speak, but decided to remain silent. I felt certain that neither Simon nor William would tell me all I wanted to know about what had happened last night, or why I was still alive.

“I am angry at myself for letting her go off like that,” William said.

“Drink some cool water. You've looked like a ghost since you got back.”

I heard the soft rush of water pouring into a glass.

“Thank you. She ran so fast. With this broken rib, I could not catch up. I ran around for thirty minutes, calling her name like a madman. You have no idea my relief when you told me she was alive. Before she ran away, she was talking incoherently—somehow she
knew
he was going to murder again.”

“She
knew
?”
Simon's voice sounded sharper than I had ever heard it.

“She did.”

I hoped that I did not suck in my breath when I heard William's water glass shatter against the wall. “She might have been killed.”

“William.” Simon voice came out gentle.

“Don't try to be my
priest
now. I should have locked her up, stuck her in a bloody kennel. But instead I let her get away from me. She might have been killed.”

Silence.

“In fact, she
should
be dead now. It does not make sense why he left her alive. Why he left me alive. I told you—he was right behind us near Berner.”

I heard the dry slicing of scissors through cloth bandages before Simon spoke, his tone even. “Keep your voice down, William. I gave her an extra dose of chloroform, but she should be waking soon. Besides, we do not want anyone
else
to overhear us.”

I felt their eyes on me.

“What happened, exactly?” William asked. “You still have not told me how you found her.”

There was a long pause. I strained to hear Simon.

“She was dropped off at the front doors in a pauper's coffin, a pinewood box. It is identical to the ones the morgue uses to bury unclaimed corpses, the standard kind we have sent here by Dr. Phillips for many of our deceased patients.”

I had been dropped off in a coffin!

Simon was quiet for a minute before he continued, softly. “After you both ran out of here, I was attending to the first floor but was so distracted by the thought that she was out there, I had trouble pulling myself too far away from the front doors. I was at the doors instantly when I heard the box thump against them—that was shortly after two o'clock.”

“So
you
found her?”

“Yes.” Another pause. This one longer than the last. “You should heal in a few weeks. Don't strain your chest too much. And please, put your shirt on. Anyway, the lid fell aside when I opened the front door. My first thought was that she was dead. She lay face up. Her face was so white, she looked almost bloodless. Her clothes were bloodstained. But when I checked her pulse, I felt that she was still alive.”

“My God.”

“I carried her discreetly up here. It was then that I saw that the wound was not fatal, though it bled profusely I had Mary begin cleaning the wound so that I might stitch it. While she was occupied in that task, I disposed of the coffin.”

“Was she … ?” William's voice trailed off.

I heard the sound of surgical tools clinking on a tray.

“No. There were no other injuries.” The clinking stopped. “I told Mary that Abbie had been stabbed by a deranged vagrant when she stepped outside to dump out a pail of water.”

“So, are you certain that it was
him
?”

“The wound is perfectly consistent with those of the victims. It was most certainly the same knife, a surgical, thin six-inch blade. Branwell was at the morgue this morning and saw the bodies. These murders are very similar to the other two. Both patients left, voluntary discharged, yesterday. Both were disemboweled. The Ripper spent more time with Cate. Took out all of her intestines, laid them neatly beside her shoulder, removed the left kidney, mutilated her face. He cut off her nose.”

“Disgusting. This is
maddening,
Simon. We've talked of some of my theories. I know you have difficulty thinking ill of anyone, except perhaps the rich.”

Simon cleared his throat a little before continuing, “You know that I am shocked by the unfolding of these events as much as you are, William. I see enough sense in what you have told me lately to agree to keep this conversation between ourselves—to agree not to go to the police with what happened to Abbie. But I know your tendency to be impetuous and hotheaded. I do not want you to make any premature enemies for us.”

“Agreed.”

I wondered what they had discussed that would make them such sudden and unlikely allies.

“So, you are leaving for France tomorrow?” Simon asked.

“Avignon, specifically. The safe is there.”

The safe?

Someone, either Simon or William, began sweeping up the pieces of the water glass.

I had heard enough. Clutching the blanket around me, I said with my best attempt at a groggy voice, “Might I have some clothes?”

Simon was with me in Grandmother's parlor to tell her that I had been mugged in Whitechapel the night before, stabbed as I left the hospital.

When Simon and I had left Whitechapel early that morning, the police and the press had begun descending upon the hospital in swarms. Like flies. But I was home now, facing Grandmother and away from the crowd.

She was disturbed as she sat across from me, her eyes glassy with tears. Otherwise, her entire demeanor seemed perfectly put together, her dress crisply ironed, her hair smooth. Oddly, in that moment, I knew that she loved me.

“She
will
be all right?” Grandmother asked shakily.

“Just a flesh wound. The police apprehended the
mugger immediately.”

Grandmother's face tightened, frightening me.

“I am
fine
,”
I said, reassuring her. “I will be able to return to the hospital in a few weeks.”

Her face hardened; I had said the wrong thing.

Simon cast me a look. “It will be at least
four
weeks before she should return to work at Whitechapel Hospital.”

Grandmother seemed to accept this. Particularly since it would give her a month to attempt to persuade me (or manipulate me) to not return at all.

My wound throbbed so much I could barely walk. Still, I
would
get better. I needed to get better. Apart from my desire to heal and return to work, my experience with the Ripper—and what I had seen him do to Liz Stride and Cate Eddows—had sparked a flame within me to stop him.