A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (16 page)

Though my head ached, and my heart throbbed noisily in my chest, and though every logical part of the man that was me screamed to leave it alone, I knew that I would never desert my strange voyage through the journal until I'd read every last blood-soaked, horror-filled page, until I'd discovered the secret contained somewhere within its pages or in the words of my own ancestor who had begun this curse upon our family by bequeathing the journal to my grandfather, who had, tragically continued the custom, or should I say, the compulsion? The thought entered my mind that perhaps my grandfather and my father had both experienced the same feelings as I was now being subjected to. If they had been, I wondered how they'd coped with whatever knowledge would eventually be revealed to me. I knew that my grandfather had spent the last few years of his life as a virtual recluse, seldom leaving his home, and turning visitors away from his door, except for the closest members of his family. I'd merely thought him a little strange, perhaps a little senile, now perhaps was the time to revise that opinion, though what to replace it with? Even my father had undergone something of a personality change in the later years of his life. His once permanently cheerful countenance had been replaced by one that seemed to me marked by worry lines, a furrowed brow, and a loss of his once almost legendary sense of humour. Maybe it hadn't just been the result of his long battle against cancer, as I'd thought. Maybe something far more malevolent had eaten at his very heart and soul, as it may have done to those who'd gone before him.

This was bad, very bad; I just couldn't shake myself out of this awful feeling of doom and gloom, of gathering depression and oppression. That was the word for it, oppression. The room was filled with a tangible sense of cruelty and tyranny, I felt as if I were no longer in control of events, a pall hung over me, and it wasn't going to go away until I had completed my task, and that meant reaching the last page, the last word in the journal, the last vestige of information from great-grandfather. Was I cracking up? I was beginning to think I was.

I must have fallen into one of those 'waking sleeps' again; you know, when you think you're awake, but you've actually nodded off for a short while, and wake up feeling as though you've been asleep for hours, when it's really only been a few seconds, or perhaps a minute. Anyway, I suddenly came to with a violent jolt, and for a moment unsure where I was. Quickly composing myself, I glanced at the clock. I realised the time had long passed from when I'd promised myself that I'd stop what I was doing and take a break, maybe get some fresh air in my lungs. As much as I wanted and needed to continue my expedition through the journal I knew that I needed to leave the study and collect my thoughts, and give my mind and body the opportunity to refresh themselves, even for a short time. So, with a supreme effort, I rose from my chair, leaving the journal and my notes behind, and walked out of the study without looking back at them. I think that if I had cast a glance back in their direction I'd have probably returned to the chair.

The walk into the centre of the little village where Sarah and I had made our home five years before wasn't a long one, but it was decidedly pleasant. I gulped in several lungfulls of fresh, sweet tasting air as I walked along the street. The birds were singing, a beautiful resonant chant that filled the air around me. Thrushes, sparrows and various finches were all joined in a harmonious concert of unbridled joyous birdsong, all seemingly choreographed and led by the tumultuously melodic voice of a sole blackbird perched majestically on the top of a telegraph pole on the opposite side of the street, his neck stretched upwards, his yellow beak a conductor's baton as he co-ordinated the symphony of song. The sun was warm on my neck as I walked, and the hint of a breeze served to gently rustle the leaves on the trees; elms, rowans, and the single large oak tree that stood guard at the only crossroads in the village. For a few minutes, the horrors of Victorian Whitechapel, the terrible crimes of the Ripper, all thoughts of insanity, dementia and the strange and unholy effects of the journal were left far behind me. My mind, which, for the last twenty four hours had been filled with little else, was suddenly set free, free to enjoy the simple pleasures of my walk.

I crossed the main street and approached the solitary newsagent the village possessed. As I got closer to the little shop the words emblazoned on the news hoarding by the door jumped out at me.
WOMAN BUTCHERED IN VICIOUS KILLING!
My escape from the horrors of the Ripper's crimes hadn't lasted long. All thoughts of birdsong, rustling leaves, and warm sunny days were immediately dispelled by those stark words, written in bold black felt pen, on that virgin white paper background. I was surrounded by death, by the awful truth of reality, that here, in the midst of our so called enlightened modern society, brutality and murder were still just around the corner, waiting like the Ripper in the night, to strike and destroy the lives of the innocent.

I walked into the shop to be greeted by the friendly face of Rashid, the proprietor, who, despite his foreign name and background, had apparently lived in the village longer than the vast majority of its current batch of residents. I tried to respond to his jovial "Good morning, doctor" with a cheerfulness I certainly didn't feel. I quickly purchased a copy of the Daily Mail, and the local paper, whose front page was devoted to the brutal slaying heralded on the hoarding outside the door.

Five minutes later, I was sitting on the small wooden bench overlooking the small village pond, populated by its usual compliment of resident ducks, all innocently paddling contentedly across its gleaming surface, their shadows reflected as rippling upside-down ducks in the clear water. Leaving the Daily Mail on one side, I quickly scanned the lead story of the local paper. A thirty year old woman had been found in an alley in the town of Guildford, not far from my peaceful village. The poor woman had had her throat cut, and her body horribly mutilated. The report concluded,
"In a crime reminiscent of the Jack the Ripper murders in nineteenth century London, the police are urgently seeking the perpetrator of this heinous and barbaric act, which at the moment appears motiveless. With little evidence to go on at present, the officer in charge of the case asks that the public remain vigilant and that women in the area take extra care if going out alone after dark."

My head was spinning, the shaking in my hands had returned, and the newspaper visibly quivered as I attempted to hold onto it, as if it were the last solid object in a rapidly crumbling universe.

"Why now?" I asked aloud, though to no-one in particular, (I was alone after all). Why did this have to happen at this exact moment in time? My heart went out to the poor victim of this horrible and sadistic crime, and to her family of course, but it was almost too much for my mind to cope with, that this should have taken place just as the journal had fallen into my hands, on the very night in fact, that I had begun to explore its sinister, ancient pages. Add to that the newspaper's reference to the Ripper himself, and the coincidence was uncanny, as though the present was reflecting the past in some way.

No, I couldn't accept that. Jack the Ripper died long ago, and no-one knew of the journal's existence, therefore, the murder of this poor unfortunate woman had been nothing more than a grisly coincidence, that's all. I kept repeating that fact to myself as I walked slowly home, my feet and legs leaden, my heart heavy, and my mind in a whirl. The birds were probably still singing, the leaves quietly rustling, and the sun was likely as warm as before, but I never heard or felt a thing, I swear it. I must have been like a zombie as I made my way back into the house, threw the newspapers onto the kitchen table, and sat in Sarah's fireside chair with my head in my hands, as that pall of gloom and depression oozed its way from the study into the kitchen and quickly wrapped itself around me. In truth, I had never felt quite so wretched, so disturbed of mind, and so lacking in confidence. I felt as if my wonderfully crafted and carefully constructed world were being wrenched away from me by some power, some force that as yet I couldn't even recognize. I knew that before long I would return to the study, pick up the journal once more, and delve ever deeper into the mind and world of Jack the Ripper. I was still so disturbed by the strange coincidence of the murder of the poor woman just a few miles from my home on the previous night. As I'd sat reading the words of the Ripper, someone had dragged her into a dark and terrifying alley, slit her throat and committed acts of great cruelty and horror on her body. I remember thinking that though the Ripper may be long dead, something of his cruelty must exist in each and every one of us, buried deep within the subconscious of seemingly rational men and women, but there all the same, waiting to be released by the right catalyst if and when the time comes.

Sensing that I was being drawn by a strange inevitability, and feeling more tense and nervous than I would have believed possible in myself just twenty four hours ago, I rose from my chair. The journal was waiting…

'Dear Boss'

25
^th
September 1888

Confusion reigns within my head, I am troubled by events. They had me there, in that place, that bed, and I was in such pain of forgetfulness. Thank God for Cavendish! He is my rock, my anchor, he at least understands, and did not decry me for my folly. They have kept me, though, from the one thing that helps this pain within my head, my laudanum.

Hours have passed and I am better than before, much better. My head is clear, and once more I may focus my thoughts on what must be done. I was not so clear in the hospital; I cannot in truth remember how I got there, I felt so ill upon the train, and then my senses failed me, though I do remember blabbing to Cavendish. He blamed it on the laudanum, ha. What did I say? Of that I can't be sure. Did I say too much of things that should not be spoken of? I know I told him of the Scottish whore, but little else. His sense of logic, his professional judgement and his loyalty will keep his silence.

Now I have much to do. The streets are fair ripe with whores in need of execution, to be consigned to their rightful end. I shall have some sport this time, for I remain invisible and the plodders of the official force are impotent to catch me.

I fancy I shall write to them, immediately, no, not to them direct, for that would be no sport. The press shall have my words, and let them print the promise I shall make, and the public read those words and tremble, and the police read those words and squirm in their inability to take me. I shall disguise my hand, more to confuse them, and I'll need a name that befits my task, and the ink shall be as red as the blood of the whores I rip. There it is; the name with which I shall tease and taunt the poor fools. For am I not the original Jack so nimble, Jack so quick, do I not rip the whores so swift and slick? Bit long? Perhaps. Then I shall give them 'Jack, the Ripper', the ripper of whores, let them chase shadows, as I spread my paths through the most wondrous grottos of Mr. Bazalgette, who has so kindly provided me with the cloak of invisibility with which I evade the uniforms and the whistles, the plodders and the takers. I must return to the streets, they have slept too long. The voices, they must speak to me once again, and together we shall reap the harvest of blood that is rightfully mine.

I shall begin my letter at once; I shall send it to the boss, not of just one publication but to the biggest agency in town! Let them know me and fear me. I shall give it to them in the colour of the whores' blood; I wish I had the real thing with which to write it, but maybe in the future I shall. My words shall reach deep into the hearts of the filthy whores, and they will tremble, for they will know that I am coming for them, one after the other. Yes, tremble little ladies of the night; hold on to your innards while you can, Jack is coming for you all.

So there it was, before my eyes. I felt as though, in those few words I had witnessed the birth of Jack the Ripper! Yet how mundane, how casual had been his decision to use that name, now synonymous with the deaths of those poor women so long ago. Of course, the name Jack had been almost a Victorian institution. Almost every fiction of the era had a 'Jack' somewhere within it. There was also Jack Tar, for a sailor, and the rhyme the Ripper had alluded to in his writings was, of course, the old 'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the candle-stick'. He'd taken that most innocuous of children's rhymes, and added it to the terrible action of his crimes in order to invent a name that would go down in infamy and take its place in the history of crime.

I felt sick, my head throbbed even more violently than before, and I knew without looking at them that my hands were trembling. He had passed off his stay in the hospital so lightly, being almost unconcerned that he'd confessed his guilt to my great-grandfather. He simply seemed amused and disdainful of my ancestor's failure to believe him. Was it a ploy, I wondered, this stay in the hospital? Had he engineered it deliberately in order to gain some sort of attention. Could he have been brazen enough to know that great-grandfather would come to his bedside, and that he would put his confession down to a hallucination caused by the laudanum he was taking? I didn't know, I doubted that I'd ever know, but I had my suspicions that the Ripper might have been arrogant enough to do just such a thing in the fullest of confidence that he could confess to my great-grandfather and not be believed. He may have been seriously ill, indeed seriously mentally deranged, but he was clever, very clever indeed.

It was also obvious from the tone and content of this latest entry that the Ripper was preparing to strike again. I knew from my notes that he was drawing ever closer to the night of the 30
^th
September, when he would commit the gruesome double murder. That's when it came to me, the thing I'd been trying to remember! The 30
^th
had a significance to me in the light of what I'd already read. I now knew that on the very night he was out upon the streets of Whitechapel slaughtering his latest victims, two hundred miles north of London, a poor Scottish lassie was walking into a police station to report that her friend, Morag Blennie was missing. Flora Niddrie never saw Morag again, nor did anyone else, and I felt such a bleak sadness, an emptiness in my soul such as I can't begin to describe to you in these pages.