The Candle Man (43 page)

It was his choice. He needed to do this. He needed to see the man dead.

The nights were becoming something of a problem. The sleeplessness. He realised it had very much been a mistake. Not the actual killing of those two tarts. No, obviously they had both needed to
be hushed. But it was how it had happened. It was unprofessional, it was foolish, it was reckless, and he’d been angry, enraged, that Babbitt had slipped out of his fingers like that.
Rawlinson was right: both women could easily have been throttled and dumped in some coal shed, or just bundled over a low brick wall into the Thames. But he . . . well, Warrington had no idea what
he’d been thinking. ‘Shred them like the Ripper’s work,’ he’d told Orman. And good god, the man had done just that. Warrington had nearly vomited as he and Orman had
emerged from that narrow passage to Mitre Square, covered in the second woman’s blood.

It had been dark enough that most of what he’d done to her had been little more than a wet glint here and there. But it was the sounds he’d not been spared. Her dying noises. It was
the sense of bath-like warmth from the dots of blood on his cheeks. The glimpse of the catastrophic wound, the pulled out loops and coils of her still-tepid offal, draped across her chest and
shoulder. Just like the Candle Man had done with the last woman. Warrington wanted to mimic that, to ensure Babbitt was seen as guilty for the deaths of those two. That’s what his thinking
had been. And doing what they were doing – if only for the few quick minutes he’d been down that passageway – he felt like he had
become
him. Because – Warrington was
absolutely certain of this – he couldn’t have ordered such horrendous butchery to be done while he was himself. Not as George Warrington, a good Christian family man with many charity
projects and good public deeds to his name.

No. For a minute or two, he suspected some dark force must have entered him; whatever evil it was inside this chap had somehow found its way inside him.

That’s why he needed this. That’s why he wanted to pull the trigger. He was going to kneel over Babbitt’s dying body and look into his eyes so that he could know for sure that
whatever had got inside him, and fleetingly turned him into a monster, was back inside Babbitt and dying with him.

They say that the last image caught on a dying man’s retina is an open window to his soul. Maybe, just maybe, in Babbitt’s eyes, he’d catch the faint glow of dying red embers,
and that whiff of sulphur and evil inside the man.

Then, perhaps, his nightmares would stop.

A voice called out. It was Robson. ‘Someone enterin’ the delivery yard!’

No point trying to fool the Candle Man that he was alone. They’d tried that last time, with night on their side, and it hadn’t fooled him. Hadn’t turned out too well for either
Warren or Smith.

‘All right!’ he called back, his voice echoing interminably across the empty building. It finally faded enough that he could hear the pigeons again, the tap of dripping water . . .
and yes, faintly, the slow, deliberate
crunch
of boot heels across loose gravel, then a steady
clack
onto concrete floor.

Framed in a doorway, he saw the man’s tall figure silhouetted.

‘You’re exactly on time by my watch!’ Warrington nervously called out.

The Candle Man slowly crossed the vacant floor of the warehouse until finally, a few yards short of Warrington, he stopped. ‘Only an amateur would turn up late, George.’

‘I . . . I should warn you that . . . I’m not alone.’

Babbitt chuckled. ‘Really?’

Warrington needed to get this done. Get this over with. First order of business was that girl who’d run off to Liverpool with him.

‘Where’s Mary Kelly? You understand there’s no way we can conclude this business between us until we know where she is.’

He nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘I don’t know how much she knows, how much you’ve told her about all this; it really doesn’t matter. She represents too much of a risk to—’

‘I shan’t lie to you, George. She knows
everything
about me. Who I am, what I do.’ He cocked his head slightly. ‘
What
I am.’ He shrugged. ‘I can
quite understand why you want her dead. She is such a
chatty
little soul.’

What I am?
Those words struck home. Warrington realised that, for a while now, he hadn’t actually been thinking of this man as a
him
or a
he
. The Candle Man had become
an
it
. A phenomenon, a principle. Almost a force of bloody nature.

He remembered Rawlinson’s reassuring words.
Don’t mythologise him
.

Easier said than done when you weren’t looking into these sunken, glinting eyes.

‘So then . . .’ Warrington steadied his voice as a finger caressed the smooth, warm metal in his coat pocket. ‘Where can we find her?’

Warrington watched as the Candle Man fumbled for something beneath the fold of his coat and, for a desperate moment, thought he was struggling clumsily to pull out a gun of his own. Instead he
saw a flicker of movement and heard the slap of something heavy on the floor between them.

Please not another head
. He didn’t think he could cope with that again, particularly the head of some young woman. He flinched involuntarily before he realised he was staring down
at a worn leather satchel.

‘Why don’t you take a look inside?’

Warrington looked down at it. The bulge inside the bag was too small. He felt a small tickle of relief.

The Candle Man smiled; his straight thin lips were little more than the puckered edges of a wound. ‘Go on, George, why don’t you take a look?’

Warrington found himself obediently stooping down and carefully, with one finger, flicking the flap of the satchel back. The leather, worn rough inside the flap, was wet and dark. Avoiding the
wet, which was almost certainly blood, he lifted the mouth of the bag open and peered inside . . .

Jesus.

I
t was quiet this morning. Argyll had paid the cabby at the top of Whitechapel Road, ten minutes’ walk away from the address he had. The cab
driver seemed quite bemused as to why a gentleman would want to be dropped in a place as grim as Whitechapel at six in the morning. The morning had yet to wake itself up, the sky still a half-dark,
low, heavy and grey, and promising another day of spirit-sapping drizzle.

He’d passed dozens of men bundled up and huddled against the spit in the air as they shuffled through the half-light to work. Argyll made to appear likewise: just another worker in a thick
coat striding towards a place he’d rather not be.

As he turned off Dorset Street and entered Millers Court, he picked out the house numbers, finally locating the one he was after. He took the three steps up off the narrow pavement and saw it
was a door that had a corroding lock. He tried it, and yes, as Mary had told him, it wasn’t locked. The door swung gently inwards, creaking and wobbling flimsily. A front door thick with rot
and held together only by layers of paint and rusting metal brackets nailed on the inside.

The hallway was oppressively dark, but by the wan light of the grey dawn, he could make out the doors on his left. The second . . .

Mary’s old room.

For a moment, he felt his heart pull painfully.

She lived in there . . . once upon a time.
He shook his head and banished that. Now he needed a clear mind and an unclouded conscience.

The second door on the right was the one he was after. He stepped quietly over to the side of the passage, avoiding the middle, where old floorboards tended to bow and creak. Standing in front
of the door, he saw the fading name scrawled untidily on a scrap of paper and tacked to the door.

He pulled out a knife and eased the tip of the blade into the gap between door and frame. It found the bevelled tongue of the lock and with a practised flip of his wrist, he teased it open with
a soft
clack
.

Inside the small room, he found Marge fast asleep on her bed, snoring as she lay on her back. He knelt down beside her, inspecting her by the light seeping in through a gap in the closed linen
drapes. He guessed she was in her early thirties, which was perhaps a touch too old, but she was short and slight, her hair a similar dirty strawberry-blonde.

‘You’ll do,’ he said softly.

She stirred, her eyes blinking. Full of sleep one moment, wide awake the next.

‘Shhhh.’ His hand clamped over her mouth. He pressed the tip of the blade into the puffy flesh below her eye. She whimpered.

‘You and I need to take a quick stroll. And not a sound from you, please, is that understood?’

She didn’t nod, for fear of the blade jabbing her eye, but her grunt beneath his hand was clearly an affirmative.

‘If you’re a good girl and answer some questions for me, I have a very nice parcel of opium in my pocket for you.’

He led her out into the hall, across to Mary’s old door. He jimmied the locked door like he had Marge’s, only this time the tongue refused to yield. Argyll cursed softly.

‘I got a master key,’ said Marge. She pulled a key chain out from the folds of her nightgown. Several keys jangled as she picked out the right one. She pushed it into the lock,
pulling the door towards her as she turned the key. ‘Stiff bloody lock,’ she explained.

It clicked.

She looked at him. ‘This about Kelly?’

Argyll put up a finger to hush her. She had too loud a voice. He nodded.

They stepped inside the room and he gently closed the door after them.

‘What’s the silly cow gone an’ done now?’

Argyll motioned for her to sit down on the bed. The room looked spare. It looked like a place that had simply been forgotten. ‘Sorry about the knife,’ he said, tucking it away.
‘I just needed you to be very quiet.’ He looked around the room. ‘This room – have you rented it out since she left?’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t find tenants wanting to stay round here these days, what with ’em murders goin’ on.’ Marge eyed him suspiciously. ‘Who are yer? You
ain’t no copper.’

Argyll forced a guilty shrug. ‘No, indeed I’m not.’

He pulled the room’s one wooden chair up beside the narrow bed and sat down, facing her. ‘I’m working for a gentleman client.’

‘Gentleman, eh?’ Marge frowned. ‘I ’eard the girls sayin’ summin’ ’bout ’er shackin’ up with a rich gent an’ all. She really go
an’ do that?’

Argyll raised his finger. Her voice was getting too loud. He nodded.

Marge cursed and shook her head. ‘Lucky little bitch,’ she whispered.

‘You didn’t like her?’

‘Not really. She thought she was better ’an us; better than me an’ the other girls. Told me once she wanted better.’ Marge shrugged. ‘I told ’er “who
the ’ell do yer think yer are? You’re a tart, like us. Once yer done it a first time, that makes yer a tart for always.” She done it with gents for money, but she kept
sayin’ she wasn’t no whore.’

Argyll nodded sympathetically. ‘Didn’t know her place, eh?’

Marge nodded. ‘Ain’t got time for a stuck-up bitch like that—’ She stopped herself. ‘Hoy! ’Ang on!’ She grinned knowingly. ‘Are yer . . .’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are yer the gent she’s gone an’ shacked up with?’

Argyll pursed his lips and offered her a small, confessional nod. ‘Yes . . . yes, I am.’

Her eyes widened. She giggled excitedly. ‘Well, aren’t yer a daft bugger then! What? She done a runner on yer? Eh? Nicked yer wallet an’ done a runner?’

Her voice was getting loud again. He could hear someone stirring in the room above. Heavy workman’s boots scraping on a bare floor. He needed to finish his business here.

‘I could’ve told yer for nuffin’ she’s no good. If you’d asked me I could of told yer all about the little selfish cunt. She always thought she was better an’
us.’

Argyll offered her a knowing nod. ‘Yes, she can come across like that.’

‘Yeah. I slapped that smug look off ’er mug coupla times. Bitch was askin’ for it.’

Argyll leant forward until his face was close to hers. Looking intently into her fidgeting eyes for a long while. Finally, Marge, uncomfortable, shrugged. ‘So? You said yer got
summin’ nice for me in yer pocket?’

‘Just one more question, Marge. Then you can have it.’

‘All right.’

‘If you could escape this . . .’ he said, gesturing at the room, ‘would you?’

‘What d’ya mean?’ She frowned at the oddness of his question.

He shrugged. ‘This place . . . London . . . this life you’ve chosen.’

She pouted a lip. ‘I do all right ’ere, I ‘s’pose.’ She cocked an eyebrow, leant a little further forward, offering him a glimpse down the front of her loosely
buttoned nightgown. ‘Why? Yer gonna whisk
me
away instead, love?’

He smiled genuinely and not unkindly. ‘I’m sorry . . . no.’

‘Aww, well.’ A finger reached out and teasingly stroked his knee. ‘Now, what ’bout me treat? I been a good, ’elpful girl for yer, ’aven’t I?’

‘Close your eyes.’

She laughed a little nervously. ‘I ain’t doin’ that. What you up to?’