The Oeuvre Page 20

  “Who is it? Who d’you think dunnit?”

  “Jack, I reckon. I reckon Jack’s back.”

  “Head taken clean off, I heard ‘em say. Bled her like a stuck pig.”

  “Bleedin’ whores. Get’s what they deserves, if you ask me.”

  They made him wonder why he kept at this job. Maygrave had been with H Division at the Metropolitan Police for fifteen years and it had aged him, taken so much sleep and hope from him. There was precious little peace left in his soul because of the things he’d seen; drowned babies, wog servant girls beaten to death by their mistresses for answering back, wealthy sodomites doing as they pleased, war veterans starving to death in the gutters. They came back to haunt him every night, shapes shambling about in the mist of his dreams.

  Maygrave still got up in the morning though, went to work, he knew that he always would do. But, these days, it was more because there was nothing better for him to do. Gertrude had left him, taking the children with her. On his own for five years now, sold the house, moved into draughty digs by a gin palace. Room for one there, no more. Maygrave had no plans on getting married again. Put another woman through what Gertie had suffered? Father more children to watch him struggle on? No, he wasn’t that much of bastard.

  All of that he’d gone through in the name of making the world a better place. Just so the ghouls at the entrance to the yard before him could live and breathe that little bit easier, he had suffered plenty, maybe too much.

  He shouldered his way through them. A few cursed him. He ignored them.

  Maygrave addressed one of the constables, a tall, broad man with a ginger walrus moustache. “Keep that ugly mob back, can’t you, Constable? We’ve got a dead woman lying here. This is a murder scene not the fucking circus. That lot should be showing some proper respect.”

  “You know what the mob’s like once they get wind of something, sir. We’re doing our best.”

  “Well, do better. I don’t need those fuckers looking over my shoulder. This is sick enough as it is. What’s your name, Constable?”

  “Simpson, sir.”

  “What’ve we got, Simpson?”

  “Name is Edina Moore. A well-known old soak. I’ve put her in the cells to dry out a fair few times meself. Bottled one of her own johns the other week. Tore his face to bits. Whoever done her probably found her sleeping off her latest skinful here in the gutter. She was all class was Eddie. Died as she lived.”

  “Don’t speak too ill of her, Constable. Living on the street’s no fun, makes you hate yourself, do shitty things. Especially if you’ve got to sell yourself to make ends meet. Spare her a thought in your prayers tonight, eh?”

  With those words, Maygrave approached the body. It was covered with a grubby sheet. Dr Cargill from the London Hospital had already examined her, he could tell by the wan cast of the man’s face. This was the third time Cargill had been called on in the last month and the doctor showed no sign of getting used to it.

  “You know what we’ve got here, Maygrave. It’s as we feared.”

  Maygrave peeled back the sheet from the corpse, looking down at what he had expected to see.

  “Tell me, all the same, doctor. Humour me, pretend I don’t know the history of this spot. Make believe I’m an innocent abroad who’s never heard of Whitechapel and its worst nightmare.”

  “The victim’s throat was cut from left to right. Windpipe and left carotid artery completely severed. The latter leading to a fatal haemorrhage. There are also signs of bruising about the neck and shoulders.” Cargill stopped, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.

  “Thank you, Dr Cargill.”

  “My pleasure,” he lied.

  “What do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t like to say.”

  “No, you would. But like me, you don’t want to.”

  “Well, the corpse bears wounds similar to those inflicted on the third victim of the Whitechapel murderer in 1888, Elizabeth Stride. The detail is there. Even the location, the same yard off Berner Street.”

  “Yes, same as the others.”

  The first was found in Buck’s Row. The same place that Marie Ann Nichols had been done in, only difference was, this time, it was a little girl, Penny Brownlow, who died. Her guts cut open, stomach and genitals torn up, a right mess to have to look on just after having breakfast. That was why Maygrave never ate before twelve. The mother topped herself a few weeks later, so he was told.

  The second victim had been found a week later in the backyard of Hanbury Street, same place and wounds as Annie Chapman. Her head everything but severed, intestines taken clean out from her abdomen and then placed over her shoulder as a bizarre slaughterhouse decoration. Her guts and privates cut all to hell. Pieces of the womb, vagina and bladder were missing, big pieces.

  All the hallmarks of a copycat killer were there, almost.

  As much as there were similarities, there was a difference. A knife had not been used on these women. The edges of the wounds suggested something else, something far worse.

  Teeth.

  That was why the Met were sitting on the full details of the deaths, keeping it quiet. In some ways, they were lucky this was wartime. The papers were more co-operative than they might have been in peacetime, they were too enamoured of the battlefield massacres overseas to worry about a few murders in the open air morgue of Whitechapel. Maygrave had the first and last word where these deaths were concerned. He was furious the mob had gotten wind of this one before he arranged the cover story. The word was out now. People around here would put two and two together.

  Jack was back.

  Cargill wiped a handkerchief across his brow in rough sweeps. Sweat was streaming from him. This was his guest’s doing, these three women. He wouldn’t have minded, they were only whores, but why so damn close to the hospital? Why not go somewhere further afield? Why mirror the handiwork of Jack?

  It was insane behaviour.

  His guest would be found, he would talk, Cargill would be hanged as an accomplice to the murders. So much was at risk. His guest had promised him a life of love and fortune yet here he was putting all of that in jeopardy. Cargill did not understand it one bit but he had to play along, he could not turn from the path he was on, into his mind came an old Italian phrase from Dante Alighieri.

  Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

  Abandon all hope, ye who enter in.

  Oh, how true it was.

  Maygrave eyed Cargill.

  There was something up with the doctor. He had noticed it before, a disquiet, a squeamishness that was out of place for a surgeon in this day and age. The London hospital was full to the brim with soldiers injured in horrific ways. Why then, was Cargill so jittery and uncomfortable around the mutilated bodies of the three women?

  Not wanting to look at them for long, touching them with light, halting movements when making his examinations, excusing himself from the scene as soon as he could. He knows something, thought Maygrave, he may not be the killer but he’s got some idea about what’s going on. Cargill was closing up his Gladstone bag, readying to leave.

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  Maygrave beckoned him, leading the doctor into the far corner of the yard, away from curious eyes and ears.

  “You okay, doctor?”

  “Me, Inspector? Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Got anything you’d like to share with me?”

  “I don’t follow you, Inspector. I’ve told you how the woman died. Made my examination. I can do a full post mortem at Old Montague Street, if you wish. There might be something we can glean from the poor woman’s remains under the proper conditions.”

  “That’s not what I mean, doctor. You know what’s wrong about this as much as I do. You’ve seen all three. You’ve seen what killed them. Teeth.”

  “Really, Inspector, I think you are letting your imagination get the better of you.”

  Maygrave shook his head. “No, I’m not. I want your prof
essional opinion. What could have done this?”

  “I can’t say. An ape, perhaps? Escaped from the zoo. There was such a case once in Paris, I believe.”

  “Don’t take the piss, doctor. I’m a serious man with a serious case to solve. We can only keep this under our hats for so long. Don’t make me come after you for withholding evidence.”

  “You think you can do so? I rank very highly in London society, Inspector. You are welcome to threaten me, sir. But, if you persist, I will ensure that doors, which may once have been open to you, remain locked forever. Do I make myself clear?”

  The scowl on Maygrave’s face was his answer.

  Dr Cargill left the scene of the crime.

  *

  “You hear the news, Liz?”

  Liz had stopped off at The Ten Bells for a pint and a pie with Bronny, an old friend and an old pro, she was having a break between johns. Like Liz, her skin was clear of jaundice. Prostitution being one line of work that kept you out of the factories and their deathly atmosphere.

  “What’s happened, Bron?”

  “Eddie got herself perished.”

  “Huh, I’m not surprised, the way she used to put booze away. She was bad enough with it to make me blush and I’m no prude.”

  “Not the booze, Liz. She was done in.”

  “Murdered? You’re jokin’,” Liz’s stomach tightened.

  The pie on the unwashed plate before her didn’t look as appetising all of a sudden. Its strings of ratty meat and thin gravy seeping out in slops from the pale broken crust. Dark blood from a wound.

  “No, I’m not. You know where she was done?”

  “Go on.”

  “The yard off Berner Street. You know the one I’m talking about.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, one of the coppers there’s a reg’lar of mine. Nice bloke. Simpson. Got a cock on him like an elephant’s nose.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That there’s been more. One on Buck’s Row, little girl, poor thing. One down in Hanbury Street. Just like before. It’s happening again, Liz.”

  “You mean?”

  “Yep, they reckon Jack’s back.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cargill sat at his desk, fidgeting. The remnants of a cigarette were scattered across the papers and files there, in pieces, tobacco torn apart by his agitated fingers. His eyes flicking nervously about the room, not letting the corners go unseen for more than a few seconds at a time. He was alone, not a trace of his guest to be seen. Maygrave was suspicious, he had seen it in the Inspector’s eyes. He was not one to cross, threats aside.

  “What have I done, Charles?”

  The room remained silent in response.

  “Are you there? In the shadows, as before? Speak to me. Tell me why, what to do, I beg of you, please?”

  More silence, more stillness, nothing stirred.

  Had his guest ever been real? Had he been the product of a brain strained by having to endure endless nights? The sights and sounds of the wounded in the wards could have inspired his subconscious, mixed in with his sojourns at The Club, creating a grotesque vision, a septicaemic dream so potent he had taken it for reality. His brain jabbered this assertion hysterically, over and over. The seeds of doubt were sown. Cargill went to check Merrick’s apartment.

  It was dusty and stale in there. Undisturbed since the death of the Elephant Man. There was no sign of his guest having ever been there, all of the windows were stiff in their frames, not having been opened in years. He checked the mahogany table on which he had laid out the guest many times when he was redressing those awful degenerative wounds. There was not a scratch, nor a scorch, upon it, no trace of habitation was in the rooms.

  Most strange.

  Back in his study, he thought it over. Everything pointed to the guest being an inhabitant of his imagination alone. A nocturnal fancy conjured up by his soiled subconscious.

  Then, he saw it, something on his desk.

  Cargill looked down at it, his lips curling in disgust. It had come out of hiding in the time he was away, to attest to his guest’s reality, fallen from one of its wounds, a fleshy living tear.

  Cargill picked up a glass tumbler and smashed the maggot into pulp, grinding it firmly into the wood. Perhaps, if he visited Liz he would feel better. Getting to his feet, he picked up a decanter from his drinks cabinet, sloshing its contents about. No, a wee nip of sherry to soothe my nerves, he decided, that’s all I need.

  Ten minutes later, Cargill had poured himself several large sherries, knocking each of them back in one. He bunched his trembling hands into fists. Deciding finally to pay Liz a visit after all; maybe a writhing about the place with her would ease his nerves. He looked over to his left, into the shadowed corner that was there. He heard it breathe, saw a movement of substance, a silverfish rippling. Then he heard the voice of the guest.

  “We be the echo.”

  Closing his eyes, fumbling with his fingers, he opened the door and staggered out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jerry could smell the soft mould of autumn, hear the snicker-snap of bark and branches in Black Wood. It was warm, and delicate insects went buzzing by, dead leaf mulch clung to him, he could hear something underneath it all. A whispering, a murmuring, old men in chorus, wheezing, dried throats whistling a song. An unctuous iridescence shone in the undergrowth, a dismal grey light, not of this world but buried deep within its flesh.

  The leaves hanging from the tree branches were strangely touched by the greyness. Some of them were blistering with sores whilst others bore the mottled, crawling signs of rigor mortis. Cracks in the boles were heavy with a sap that was slow and menstrual.

  There were faces in the rotten bark, shades of the dying and the long lost twisting under the stresses of deformation, punctured by ugly knots and whorls. Their eyes burst open by twigs and burrowed holes. These trees were the forgotten, the mouthless dead, creaking, tall, all around him. Their bows and brambles knitting into a black briar web, a dense and barbed cage through which no light would shine.

  The buried iridescence continued to glow its sickly and diseased hue, seeming to compose itself into familiar colours then lose itself in them altogether. Fluctuating as a failing heart might. Tuberous fingers snatched at him, tangling themselves into his hair.

  The decomposing ground, it had him.

  Jerry was sinking, being fed to the trees, sacrificed to the land. His skin was itching, fierce with fever. Looking at his hands, he saw fungal lines growing thick under the skin. He scratched away growing patches of moss from his face and throat, drawing blood as he did, but more came through, moist, sprouting out. The mire was up to his waist now. There was no escape. The trees of Black Wood were hungry and he could feel them beginning their feed, gnawing on him, sucking at his blood, grinding down his bones.

  It hurt. So much.

  He screamed their name.

  Jerry awoke, torn free from sleep, he gasped, snatching in breath. He sat up, unrested and sore. He tried to retrieve the dream, but it was gone already, dissipating into the morning ether. Idly, he scratched at his skin, slipping his legs out from under the bed sheets, setting his soles firmly on the floor, flexing his toes, feeling the woozy vertigo of dreaming die away.

  He was safe, he was on solid ground. He let out a sigh, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. His sinuses were clogged. He breathed wheezily through his open mouth. Darkness and blood, the black trees, his throat open, screaming something.

  What was it he screamed?

  A single word haunting the folds of his brain.

  Vetala.

  Ancient, foreign-sounding, leaving a dismal dustiness in its wake. He wondered if he was going insane, staying in was driving him nuts but the Redcaps would still be out there looking for him.

  For weeks now, maybe a month, he had been doing this. Hiding, suffering through nightmare after nightmare, awakening to feel a steady stirring in his guts, something growing, waiting to break through, wa
iting for something, for things to come to a head. Somehow. He didn’t know how.

  He slumped back onto the bed, sighing. The ceiling was fascinating, rivers of cracks ran across it, thinning out into spidery tributaries and barely discernible hairlines. Tired, his restless eyes tried to map the seaming chaos and then hold it in his mind. Found that he couldn’t. That was the way with memories and dreams, they were never stable things, untrustworthy, as keepsakes they were wholly artificial. Once made, given nascent form and shape, they mutated rapidly, the ongoing flux of existence warping them until they were the very worst kind of fiction. The entropic patterns running across the ceiling were ongoing, never-ending, feeding back into themselves. Life, a tangled muse of confusion and senseless black headaches. Cracked rivers. Grey fogs. Shapes and mist.

  *

  The Hansom cab thundered over the cobbles, carrying Cargill towards Whitechapel. People were scurrying out from night shelters; church crypts, the Underground train stations, school cellars and public halls. So many people, their faces were all haunted masks, seeming to hang disembodied, floating and drifting about in the sooty smog. Their worn clothes making bedraggled mysteries of their bodies and limbs. Pale ghosts and grimly thin puppets, their minds dulled into abeyance by the sleepless nights. Looking around to see if bombs had fallen, what damage had been done.

  Logistically, there was little.

  Cargill had friends in Parliament, they informed him of how few bombs a zeppelin could actually carry. Also, the clumsy things were so damned difficult to manoeuvre, most of their payload fell harmlessly off-target into the sea. However, the screams and cries of the city at night told a different story, the psychological damage was colossal. The mere sight of a zeppelin was enough to drive people into a panic as it came down through the clouds.

  The Hansom cab clattered to a halt. Cargill stepped down onto the unclean street where Liz lived, asking the cabby to wait. Ragamuffins and snipes ran past him, uncaged animals disappearing into the coiling air. The fog on the streets seemed heavier than it had been, he thought, colder too, when one breathed it in. The mothers of the children were standing on doorsteps, bustling to and fro, leaving for work in the munitions factories. Their skin yellowing from exposure to trinitrotoluene. The poisoning effects of the chemical compound could send one crazy; triggering fits, bringing on death itself.