A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (8 page)

Then again, another question surfaced in my mind. It may very well be the writer of the journal was an impostor, a poor disturbed soul anxious to achieve some sort of infamy and notoriety by constructing an elaborate and convincing account of events that had already occurred. It still remained within the bounds of possibility that the journal was written after the fact, but then, I realized that my great-grandfather still had a part to play in this story, that I would read his own version of events in good time, when I reached the end of the journey. I felt that the answers, however painful, would be forthcoming if I remained patient, and saw the journal through to its conclusion. Perhaps at some point a clue would be exhibited which would place the journal firmly into the realm of actuality, the writer would reveal some information, no matter how small, which would prove his involvement both before, during, and after the fact. There'd been so many hoaxes in the past.

I turned to the next page, and the rage was back! The handwriting was once more that of the original character in this terrifying melodrama. Once again I was pitched into the darkest side of the character of the man I was beginning to believe truly was Jack the Ripper, though not quite the Ripper of legend, this was a human, seriously flawed, perhaps, but still a human character, filled with angst and anger, riddled with uncontrollable psychoses, and seriously in need of the help which he so obviously would never receive in the world in which he lived. There was another significant difference. Whereas the previous pages had been written in what must have been a fairly standard black ink, the page before me was written in red, the colour of the blood which so clouded his life and his thinking!

7
^th
September 1888

They think they're safe, they all think they're safe, but oh no, I'll show them. They laugh and posture in their effete and lurid decadence. Yes, they're decadent; decadent and immoral, damned whores! They offer their putrid selves for a shilling a time, bending over in dark alleys, pigs in a trough. They spread themselves and their diseases for the price of a doss for the night, filthy, rancid, damnable whores! The chancre of the streets, a festering sore, the defilement of all things woman. The voices are calling, louder and louder, they're with me every minute, and we know what we must do. They make my head hurt, but the laudanum is my friend, and takes the pain away. Need more, shall have more, must hone my blades, sharpen my thoughts, let the voices speak clearly, together we'll make them listen, all of them. Blood, blood, and more blood, only blood will rid the streets of the pestilence.

I'll slash you and rip you,

and you'll die where you lie.

I've sharpened my blades,

so you'll die 'fore you cry.

Look out little whores, I know where you are, and I'm coming, oh yes, I'm coming.

This entry, dated the 7
^th
September was particularly chilling, no less for the use of perverse and terrifying little verse. It was like a clarion call, a battle cry, announcing, to himself and his journal at least, that the Ripper was about to stalk the streets once again.

A glance at my reference notes confirmed the fact that on the night of the 7
^th
/8
^th
September 1888, the Ripper struck again. I couldn't escape the feeling that I was actually there, I was so wrapped up in the words of the journal. I was aware of the strangest feeling, as though I myself was being touched by the terror that stalked the streets of Whitechapel. I wished I could cry out, warn someone, put a stop to all this, but of course, such thoughts were stupid and illogical, I was removed from the scene by an insurmountable chasm, over a century of time, and yet, I could almost taste the chill of that night, feel the dampness of the early morning dew forming on the cobbles of Hanbury Street. As I placed the pages of the journal down on the desk in front of me, I shook with an involuntary shiver, for I knew, with the grim and unchangeable certainty of history, that time was rapidly running out for Annie Chapman!

Leather Apron

The evil that was Jack the Ripper brought fresh terror to the streets of London with the murder of Annie Chapman., the brutality and savagery of her murder far exceeding that of before. Her body was discovered by an elderly man, John Davis, shortly before 6 a.m. on the 8
^th
of September in the backyard of number 29 Hanbury Street. Her dress had been pulled up over her knees, and her intestines were clearly visible, draped across her left shoulder. He summoned James Green and James Kent, two acquaintances from nearby, and sent them for the police.

The police surgeon, Dr. George Bagster Phillips, arrived at 6.30 a.m. and on inspection he found evidence of the most serious mutilations so far in the series of killings which were now beginning to appear as the work of one crazed individual.

Chapman's throat had been cut, again the wound so deep as to almost sever the head from the body, the abdomen had been sliced cleanly open, and, most horrifically, certain internal organs normally present within the abdomen were missing. The killer had removed them! Her face was swollen and her tongue slightly protruding. Could the killer have suffocated her prior to inflicting the fatal wound to the poor victim's neck?

A witness had placed Chapman at the entrance to 29 Hanbury Street at approximately 5.30 a.m. If she was to be believed, it meant the Ripper had met, murdered and butchered Annie Chapman in less than thirty minutes, indicating either an attack of great frenzy, or an act of consummate skill. Close to the standpipe which served the backyard of the building the police discovered their first clue in the case, a neatly folded, but waterlogged leather apron. At last, they had something to go on!

No-one had seen the killer; he'd disappeared like a wraith into the night.

Those were the bare facts of the case as far as I could ascertain from my printed notes. Would the journal confirm any of the facts? There was only way to find out. I turned to the next page.

8
^th
September 1888

Another whore in Hell. Blood's still under my nails. Wash, wash, wash, it'll clean away soon. Vile, filthy, whore blood! My, but she bled a lot, fat, dumpy little whore. This one tried to scream, not a sleepy whore like last one. Had to silence the bitch first, took her breath away, haha. She sliced up well, bit too much fat though, or her head would have come right off. Now that would have been a sight! Oh yes, the blood would have really run then. Took some of the bitch's entrails and fed them to the street dogs near home, a feast, haha. Left something behind, the apron, not to worry, plenty more, and they'll never know it's mine, it's new though, such a shame, a waste, but had to go, there were people nearby, just made the sewer, my invisible shield. Didn't realize the blood would stick to the leather like that. They can scour the streets for ever more, they'll never find me, never take me. Wish I hadn't had to go without it, they cost good money. Good money better than whores. Won't be long until the next one, the voices are pleased, they want more. More headaches, more laudanum.

So, he was celebrating the death of another poor woman while at the same time bemoaning the loss of an apron that had cost him 'good money'. The callous reference to 'good money better than whores' reduced poor Annie Chapman's life to less than the value of a cheap leather apron. As to the apron itself, this was the beginning of the police and public's fixation with 'Leather Apron', the name now given by the popular press and the people at large to the killer. The name Jack the Ripper wouldn't be given to the murderer until some weeks from now. How sad that the police of the day had no forensic scientists available to them. The apron, left behind in Hanbury Street would surely have yielded fingerprints, DNA evidence, and perhaps more clues to enable an identification to be made, if not immediately, then at some point in the future. The lack of scientific technology at the time of the Ripper murders was in itself one of the killer's greatest assets. As for the journal, well, I felt as I read the entry that the writer was becoming more and more disassociated with reality. He saw the act of killing as little more than a ritual required by his 'voices' in order to satisfy their need for blood. He was enjoying the 'slicing', and took some amusement from the fact the poor woman's head was almost severed from her body by his blade. True to his plans, he'd used the sewers as his escape route, taking some of the victim's internal organs with him, before feeding them to the ravenous dogs that roamed the streets of London by night. What an awful and terrible confession! It seemed so logical to me that he'd used those dank underground passageways to evade the police, and any potential witnesses; I couldn't think why the police themselves hadn't immediately thought of the sewers as the killer's possible escape route.

There was the reference to his headaches again as well. Then even more laudanum. He was without a doubt hooked on the drug. It would probably have helped to anaesthetize him even further against the horrors of the deeds he was perpetrating.

I placed the journal on the desk once more, and rose from my chair. I was getting stiff again, and needed to stretch and relax my limbs. For the first time in what seemed ages ago, I checked the time. It was only eight o'clock. It certainly felt much later, it was pitch black outside the window, the wind had managed to blow itself up into a wicked storm, and rain had begun to lash the panes. If ever a night was fit for the revelations of one of the most evil killers ever to evade British justice, I felt that this was it. The moon had been obliterated by cloud, and there was little or no natural light visible through the window. I felt cut off from reality, from the world of 'normal' society, much as the writer of the journal must have felt during that awful, terrifying autumn so long ago. I was on my own, with no-one to talk to, just my own thoughts and fears for company. To tell the truth, reading the journal had a profound effect upon me, far greater than I would ever have thought possible. I'd never been a fanciful person, not given to thoughts of the supernatural, and certainly not easily spooked by things I didn't understand, but I was more than a little unsettled as I paced around my study, trying to increase the circulation in my stiff and aching joints. Every sound in the room, from the ticking of the clock to the rain against the window panes was being amplified inside my head, the tension of the written words, and the loneliness of my situation only serving to add to the overall feeling of detachment. There was a similarity in our situations that wouldn't easily leave me, which I simply couldn't dismiss.

How many nights, I wondered, had he sat in his room alone, as I was at that moment, surrounded by the sounds of the night, with just his twisted thoughts for company? He may have welcomed the voices in his head, they were his solace, his companions, and he felt less alone when they were there with him. Thank God, I had Sarah, our parting was only temporary, I had never been alone in my life, and I dreaded to think of how lonely a life could be if one were so isolated from society, from friends and family, that one could possibly begin to retreat into a fantasy world, where imagined voices in the head could take on the reality of an individual's only confidantes, a person's only 'friends'.

He'd stated towards the end of this latest entry it wouldn't be long until he struck again. A glance at my notes told me that it would, in fact, be a day over three weeks before the next Ripper murder, so assuming him to be telling the truth as he saw it at the time, something must have happened to delay his next foray into the dark streets of Whitechapel. Only the journal could tell me, and yet, I was becoming so tired, my eyes were heavy. There were too many pages in the journal still to go. I'd never stay awake long enough to absorb them all, not accurately. I needed sleep, perhaps after a few hours in bed, I'd be able to start refreshed, be less affected by the things I was reading, and approach the horrors of the Ripper murders with more logic and detachment than I was feeling at the moment.

I promised myself that I'd read just one more page, just one, then I'd retire to the bedroom and grab a few hours of much-needed sleep. As I turned the page and looked at the date, I noticed he'd missed a day.

10
^th
September 1888

Almost slept the clock round. Been working much too hard. My, but the streets are alive with people. Walked amongst the throng in Whitechapel, poor lame fools. They think they can catch 'Leather Apron' just by walking the streets and shouting for justice! Never mind, haha, I cried for justice too. Berated some poor fool constable for not catching the awful fiend, "Why officer, can you not catch this evil malodorous person in our midst? Have you police no clue?"

"Move along, sir, move along, now you just let us do our work, and you see to your own, we'll catch the killer, never you fear."

I could have laughed aloud , there in his face. But he told me to go on with my work, so I'll never fear as he says, and I'll get about my work, for it's crying out to be done. So many whores, so much pestilence upon the streets. I wonder what they're thinking now, trembling in their dirty shoes, waiting for the knife, waiting for me, waiting, waiting. Next time, I'll not just let the whore blood flow, I'll taste its warmth upon my lips, just a taste, a morsel no more, I promise I shall.

The bare effrontery of the man! To walk amidst the crowds of concerned citizens, joining in with their calls for justice and police action, he was as brazen as they come. Not only that, but I could just imagine the poor constable being harried by this man, seeking some way to move him on whilst trying to do his job without upsetting an 'anxious and worried citizen'. The fact that the writer had gone so far as to quote the short conversation with the hapless constable showed his complete disdain for the officer of the law, his total contempt for the forces of law and order, and his absolute belief that he was untouchable by them. He so obviously felt himself immune from capture. I suspected he would even have believed absolutely that the officer's words to 'get about his work' had given him free licence to carry on his killing spree with official sanction from the officer himself, if not indeed from the whole police force of London. He had obtained the approval he sought.