‘Still, it’s all finished now,’ he said with authority, slapping huge hands on his fat knees. We did not look at each other. ‘There are so many coppers around here you can’t fart these days without at least three of them turning up. Carter the Farter, eh?’ Our little party had greatly increased as others contributed their thoughts and reactions and we all laughed.
The hour was considerably advanced when we eventually got up to go. He was a decent man, was George Carter. His wife prodded him and he said, ‘Now then, you ladies. Are you all right to get home? If not, there’s Jabez here, or my son Albert, or Jonas Allbright; they’re all good lads. They all work for me and you can trust them to see you home safe and sound. I know we’ve had no more of it these last few weeks, but I have girls of my own and I don’t let them walk the streets these days. Just say the word.’
‘It’s very kind of you, Mr Carter, said Kal, ‘but we’re not far away. Round the corner, just past …’ she cast round for a name, ‘Castle Alley.’
‘Well, if you’re sure of it, we’ll say goodnight to you.’ With loud cries of goodnight and promises to meet again, we got away. Setting off at a brisk walk, we hardly weaved at all.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Kal, leaning against a wall and fanning herself. ‘What was in that gin?’
‘Lots more gin?’ I said, helpfully. It had tasted like the landlord had made it in the bath and while he was still sitting in it, too.
‘You didn’t drink much, did you? You know what you’re like.’
‘Just a few sips. I stopped when my lips went numb.’
‘Right,’ she said, straightening up. ‘Let’s get –’ and something came silently out of the fog, moving quickly, indistinguishable. I got a split-second impression of a long white face and black clothing. There was a nasty smell, but that was nothing unusual in this time and place. And then it was gone.
We looked at each other.
‘Do you think …?’ I said. ‘What’s the time?’
‘It’s well after two. It could have been him, I suppose. I certainly didn’t like the look of him, did you?’
‘No,’ I said slowly, staring into the swirling fog. ‘No, I did not.’
‘Come on, then.’
And we were off.
Except we weren’t. You can’t run on wet, slippery cobbles when you can’t see your hand in front of your face, but we made the best speed we could down the rubbish-strewn street, peering down alleyways and into doorways. Looking for Jack the Ripper.
And then we found him. Or rather, he found us.
We ran. My God, how we ran.
We ran until I thought my lungs would explode. We ran down dark, narrow, noisome alleyways, slipping and sliding on God knows what. We ran down deserted cobbled streets, their surfaces greasy with rain and heavy traffic. My stupid skirts kept wrapping themselves around my legs. My bonnet was falling off. And the bloody corset and bustle we’d had to wear for that authentic S-shaped silhouette were both likely to be the death of me.
Gas lighting had come to Whitechapel, but the lamps were few and far between, and we couldn’t see clearly, each glow being just a faint nimbus in all this heavy fog. We blundered into piles of lumber, rubbish heaps, crates, and each other. We fell down unexpected steps. We fled, headlong, down empty streets that should, according to the newspapers of 1888, have been packed with policemen from H Division, but were not. My own frantic heartbeats pounded in my ears. It wasn’t blind panic because we’re historians, and therefore we don’t do blind panic. But it wasn’t far off.
It was our own fault. We’d brought this on ourselves. This was Kal’s last jump. Her lifelong ambition – to see Jack the Ripper. Full of overwhelming confidence and conceit, and certain no 19th century monster could take on two modern historians armed with attitude, curiosity, and an overdeveloped sense of immortality – we’d gone looking for him.
And we’d found him. A figure rearing up suddenly out of the fog; right up close and more than personal; an ill-defined shape smelling of blood and decay and reaching out – for us. Suddenly, the chase was on and we were running. Running, although we didn’t know it at the time, for more than our lives.
When we stopped being the hunters and became the hunted.
We flew through the maze of Whitechapel streets and alleyways, up and down steps, confident we would soon lose him in the choking, throat-rasping pea souper. But we didn’t. It seemed that wherever we went, he was there first. A shape in the fog from which we would wheel away and try another way out. We thought we had only to get back to our pod to be safe.
But we weren’t anything like as clever as we thought we were. Because, in all that running, all that falling, all that headlong dash to get back to safety, it never occurred to us at all. We just thought we were running for our lives.
When actually, we were being – herded.