City of Darkness

Chapter FORTY-THREE

8:12 PM



She has come early to the alley. She turns toward him slowly, and he thinks, somewhat irrelevantly, that her bulk actually gives her a sort of strange elegance, since it makes it impossible for her to do anything quickly. Her face registers surprise that he is alone and then anger, most probably at an anger at herself for ever believing that he was bringing her a client, ever thinking he would wish to erase his debt with the promise of fresh business.

This is what happens when you strike a bargain with the man who calls himself Jack the Ripper. He stands before you in a dark alley with a gun. A cheap gun, purchased just this morning from an ironmonger, clumsy and unsteady in his hand.

But at this range, it will do.





8:12 PM



The woman’s voice had come from a room in the back of a boarding house. Tom looked both directions, hoping against hope to see one of the bobbies Trevor had promised would be patrolling the area, but once again there was no one in sight, nor were there lights in any of the other windows of the house. Tom stood in the alleyway and debated what to do next. Stillness had settled, making him wonder if his nerves were getting the better of him and he’d imagined the whole thing. Then a fresh scream pierced the silence and, without thought, Tom was back in motion, ducking around the corner of the house and straining on tiptoe to see inside.

One look was enough to tell the story. John’s back was to Tom, but it was unmistakably him, bending over a woman, wrenching apart her bare legs while she struggled and screamed. Tom flung himself against the wooden door of the hovel, and fairly bounced off, landing back in the yard with a thud and a scream of his own. He rolled over in the grass, bent double in pain and frustration and then the door jerked open, revealing the tall angry form of John Harrowman, shouting “What the hell is going on here?”

It occurred to Tom that he should have done a better job of thinking things out. John was upright and armed, he was flat and defenseless. He made a sound which was intended as a roar of outrage but came out more like the beginning of a sob.

John peered into the dark yard and frowned. “Is it Tom Bainbridge? Why on earth are you here?” He didn’t sound like a maniac, merely confused, and then the woman Tom had seen him with earlier appeared at the door, fully dressed and apparently fine except for the worry that creased her brow.

“Doctor?” she said. “I think she’s fainted.”

“Probably for the best,” John said, turning back into the room. He shot one final glance at Tom. “You say you want to be a doctor, do you? Very well, I could use a hand. Have you ever seen a breech birth?”





8:16 PM



As they got nearer the lights of the waterfront, Leanna’s spirits lifted a bit. Emma had slowed to the point where she was virtually dragging her, but at least they appeared to have lost the figure in the lamplight. “We have to keep moving, Emma,” she said. “We can rest when we get home to Mayfair. And let’s cross to the others side of the street for a while.”

“I’m exhausted. I need to stop and get something to eat.”

“Something to eat? Are you mad? We aren’t returning from the theatre with Trevor. Come on, see the lights? We have to be close to the waterfront and we’ll find a cab there.”

“We passed a pub just back,” Emma said. “I must rest, just for a moment.”

“We can’t,” Leanna said, turning back to give the girl a tug. It was at that moment that she saw the man.

The man or was it simply a man? Was it the same one who had followed them earlier? This one seemed taller, thinner than the first, with a long-loped gait. No, not the same man. The first one had been heavier and he had stayed on the opposite side of the street, but this man was right behind them, and growing closer with each step.

“Emma,” Leanna said, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. “I think we’re being followed.”

“Followed? What?” Emma stopped in her tracks and turned around. “I see no one.”

“Come,” said Leanna, yanking her sharply

But Emma stood stubbornly, facing back. She was about to tell Leanna she was the one who was mad when she saw him. He was nearly a full block behind them, just passing under a street lamp, his shadow moving like a blade of darkness through the circle of the light. There was a moment when she might have seen his face, but then he stepped out of the bright circle, and ceased to exist.

There was no other movement, just darkness as smooth and vast as an ocean and Emma stared at the next streetlight along the block, waiting for someone to cross beneath it. No one did.

“Is he there?” Leanna asked desperately.

Emma shook her head. “I’m not sure.”



8:17 PM



Going down one of the main throughfares would have assured that he passed more bobbies along the way and perhaps even, depending upon how steadily they were moving, overtaken the girls. But the back streets were faster and, debating even as he ran, Trevor decided to take the most direct route to the water. His anxiety increased with each block. How could he, not to mention half of Scotland Yard, have missed them? Was he utterly wrong about the reason Emma and Leanna had been lured to Whitechapel? Tom’s blurted confession that his sister was an heiress had stunned Trevor, made him realize that he could have once again misread the situation, that Leanna might indeed the intended target.

He screamed her name. Then Emma’s. No answer, although there were other noises coming from the alleys. Moans, grunts, giggles, the raw sounds of sex and of life’s neverending needs. The Ripper comes and goes, but London continues.

The street he’d chosen was considerate enough to slope downhill but it lacked streetlights and Trevor stumbled over the irregular cobblestones, his feet sliding in the ruts and muck. The wind roared through these narrow venues, as loud as water in a river, and once he thought he heard a woman cry out. A sound that could indicate pleasure or pain and how similar the cries are, he thought, how indistinguishable in the dark. “Are you there?” he shouted, waving his light torch, but he saw no one. “Leanna?” he screamed, trying to push down fear and keep his voice low enough to carry. “Emma? Can you hear me?”

The dim glow of the waterfront drew him onward. The downhill slope, the river, the place where all the threads would be drawn together. And just then he heard the last thing he expected. The sound of a pistol.





8:17 PM





Death by gunshot would not ordinarily be his first choice. It is eruptive, imprecise, and noisy but perhaps, upon reflection, the creature before him deserves no better. She has threatened him and tried – what’s the English phrase? Yes, she has tried to turn the tables, and a price must be paid for such impunity.

He looks at the heap of clothing before him and reflects that it hardly looks human. No one will ever connect this one to him. A different sort of method, a different type of victim. The death of a woman no one liked. They will all say she deserved it, and they will give her not a moment’s thought.

Nonetheless, he uses his scarf to wipe the gun. He remembers what Trevor said, that the French had means of reading the patterns that swirled about the ends of a man’s fingertips. There might be a chance, however slight, that someone could connect this gun to him, so he cleans it carefully before tossing it on the body of Maud Milford.

He pulls his knife from his pocket, almost by habit. But he feels not the slightest urge to approach her body, no curiosity about what lies beneath her clothes or beneath her skin. His heart rate is normal. His breath is regular and there is no film of sweat upon his brow. His mind is already somewhere else.





On the Sunday morning he fled Warsaw he had the clothes on his back and the knife in his pocket, the same knife he is holding now. It had taken him three weeks to get to London. He had huddled in cattle cars, earned his passage across the channel by scrubbing decks. Luckily, he had studied some English at the University and he worked hard to eradicate his accent.

His first job had been for an undertaker, a position he accepted because it included a room in the back where he could sleep. He found the dead bodies to be soothing company in the evenings after everyone else had left. He spoke to them sometimes, first in Polish and then in English, until he was afraid he was going mad. In time he found his way to the Pony Pub and it was there that he overheard a copper saying the Yard needed coroners. He had not recognized the word in English so he had asked the barmaid what it means. She’d turned to him, all giggles and smiles, and said “But it’s a doctor for dead people, isn’t it?”

Phillips, with his shaky hands, had been amazed at how fast he could drain a body. Was amazed at how neatly he could suture a wound, how unperturbed the young man was by the endless gore of the Scotland Yard mortuary. And so he became a doctor of the dead.

He hadn’t been meant to overhear that bit about the fingerprints, but nor did they bother to keep secrets from him. Over the last few months, he had learned many things and filed them away in his mind, information to be used at some future point. They considered themselves men of science and thus without prejudice, but the first time he’d been introduced to Trevor Welles the man stumbled over his last name, as all the English seemed to do. Despite the round of hearty handshakes that followed, it was clear he’d been discounted in their eyes. Had been put in a certain category, lumped with the Michas and Lucys, the ones who could not understand, who never would.

Trevor had mispronounced his name, had shaken his hand, and from that point on had behaved as if Severin Klosowski were deaf.