Authors: Bryan Lightbody
Whitechapel
Whitechapel
A Period Thriller
Surrounding the Infamous
‘Jack the Ripper’ Murders
Bryan Lightbody
AuthorHouse™ 1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200 Bloomington, IN 47403 Phone: 1-800-839-8640 | AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd. 500 Avebury Boulevard Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE Phone: 08001974150 |
© 2007 Bryan Lightbody. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by AuthorHouse 3/1/2007
ISBN: 978-1-4259-6181-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4670-1501-1 (ebk)
Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana
Contents
Whitechapel
is a historical novel. It is a work of fiction based on true events. For that reason it includes mostly factual characters that interplay with a small number of fictional creations. To that end I must stress that although the descriptions of crime scenes, the geography of the East End of London and the resultant injuries to the victims are generally accurate, and the roles of the various factual characters are correct, their actions and conversations are in the main speculative and hypothetical. These actions and interactions are an invention of the author for the purposes of creating the novel and if they bear relationship to previously unreported events that is pure co-incidence.
Whitechapel
is written to allow the reader to enter the world of Victorian London, learn of the events of the autumn of 1888 and to link together some of the enigmas of the case to perhaps provide a tangible answer to the enduring mystery of ‘Jack the Ripper.’ Its overall purpose is to entertain.
I would like to thank the following people. It would be ideal to explain their part in the completion of this book but unfortunately that is impractical, needless to say they have all provided invaluable input.
Christine Lightbody, Stuart & Cathy Lightbody, Mark and Sandy Lightbody, Daniel & Susanna Shadrake, Paul Tracey (your constant interest helped get the job done), Sasha Lee at Authorhouse, Steve Scruton and BBC Essex, all those who have endured walks around Whitechapel and Spitalfields (you know who you are, Mark Goodenough being the first). Cathy at Hannay’s in Braintree, Kurt, Gary, Paul, Justin, Tony, Scott and Dave from One Team at Maltby Street, and all of those that I have worked with at some point who have quizzed me and cajoled me to get it done.
Bank holiday Monday 6th August 1888, 2.a.m. Martha Tabrum a forty-one year old haggard Whitechapel prostitute, or ‘unfortunate’ to coin a commonly used phrase, staggered out of the White Swan public house in Whitechapel High Street. She was in the company of another prostitute Mary Ann ‘Pearly Poll’ Connolly, fifty years old, broad with a drink reddened face, reeking of alcohol and body odour, mildly disguised by a cheap perfume. They were in the company of two men in military uniforms; the party of four split two ways, with Pearly Poll walking off into Angel Alley for a quick knee trembler of a screw which would give her doss money for the night. Her would-be lover was tall, lean, well groomed in his uniform with a neatly trimmed moustache obviously out for a cheap gutter thrill.
He pushed her against the wall and as he did so she lifted her bustling skirt and then proceeded to unbutton the fly on his trousers. He spat saliva onto his palm as a makeshift lubricant and entered her with little thought of comfort for her, but the pain this caused her was very much dulled by the alcohol. They rocked rhythmically against the wall breathing stale alcohol drenched breath over each other. Within a matter of a couple of minutes the whole wretched act was over, him withdrawing and wiping himself on the edge of her skirt as he did so, her then slumping to the cold cobbles dropping down the wall as she fought to gain control of her spinning drunken mind. She had the money from her client already; he had paid her in the White Swan and eventually dragged herself to her feet to head off to her lodgings at Crossingham’s Doss House. Her military client then waited on the main road near the junction with Wentworth Street for his friend.
Martha had taken her client off to George Yard, again just off of Whitechapel High Street, to indulge him in her carnal wares little knowing it would be the last time she offered them. He was an older man with a much fancier uniform than his friend and a big handlebar moustache. She walked away from him as they entered the yard and tried to be seductive in beckoning him with her finger up to the wall which she now had her back to. She began hitching up the layers of her bustle skirt whilst he approached her undoing his trouser fly. He spoke to her in a strange accent before they began.
“Say, angel, will you kiss me there before we start?” He was pointing to below his waist. She had thought that he had paid her generously for a street ‘shag’ when they were still in the pub, so with this in mind and knowing having plied her trade over many years that with him moistened it would not hurt as much, so she obliged for several minutes. He then stood up and she directed him with her hand and felt his penetration. As a result of her initial work and the use of her finger in his anal passage to put pressure on his prostate gland to bring about a swift climax, hence the name ‘prostitutes’, intercourse lasted a matter of about a minute.
He withdrew and put himself away and avoided the common practice she had found with many clients of wiping themselves on her skirt. Again she found this quite considerate. Not as heavily drunk as Pearly Poll, she straightened her skirt out and looked up to see her client still stood in front of her staring directly at her. He had his right hand now behind his back.
“What’s the matter wiv you then?” she said in a typical cockney accent. He said nothing, just continuing to stare.
“Say somefink, you bloody freak.”
“Do you know Mary Kelly?
“Who” she replied quizzically.
“Ginger, Mary Kelly, Fair Emma?”
“I dunno what you’re bleedin’ on about. Thought I was good enough……….”
Her words tailed off. He lunged at her with a large pocket knife and in so doing clasped his left hand over her mouth to destroy any hope she had of alerting anyone to her plight.
He plunged the knife repeatedly into her torso in a totally random fashion striking her chest, her stomach and her sides with blood now seeping heavily through her clothes and beginning to soil his. He just kept stabbing with an unabated ferocity for a couple of minutes. For some time she had still tried to scream and it had been hard for him to control this reflex in her. She fell to the floor silent and limp, his right hand now aching from its fervent work. He looked around frantically following the violent struggle between them but fortunately there was still no one in sight. He had a second knife which he pulled from a scabbard on his belt that was in fact a military bayonet; he thought it would help remove things from her better. His right arm was really in pain now from the attack as the adrenaline that had coursed around his body was wearing off so he would have to go to work with his left hand to finish the job.
He sat down on the floor next to the warm lifeless body just looking at his handiwork contemplating his next move. It seemed like an eternity he was in thought as he considered what he had done; it was the first time he had killed someone. He sat by the body lost in his thoughts for nearly an hour and his friend waiting in Wentworth Street had long since gone. Just as he was about to get to his feet and begin his grisly work, he saw a cab pull up in the main road at the far end of the yard. Furious at his delay he delivered a massive final blow with his left arm brandishing the bayonet. He plunged it into her sternum and made off in the opposite direction simply melting into the night.
***
Robert Ford woke from his deep slumber to a mild August morning, a Tuesday, the 28th in fact, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and rolling back the covers from the soft bed in his lodgings. His feet made contact with the rough and bare wooden floorboards and were naked except for a few blisters from his new work boots. He looked across at the tin mechanical alarm clock that had brought consciousness to his tired body and weary mind and saw the time. Twenty minutes to six in the morning. Could that be right? Twenty minutes before he had to be at work? He had forgotten to set the alarm correctly; placing his blistered feet in his tough new boots they would have to carry him swiftly to Commercial Street Police Station from his lodgings in Bakers Row.