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?’
‘Trust me.’
‘Look, I ain’t gonna fuck yer for nuffin’, if that’s whatcha after?’
He shook his head. ‘I just want this to be easy for you.’
He reached into the leather bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a small white candle. Then a box of matches. He struck one and carefully lit the candle.
‘Very romantic.’ She smiled. Intrigued. ‘Whatcha up to, love?’
Argyll hesitated with his hand in his pocket, resting on the knife’s handle.
It has to be done, said Babbitt. You want Mary to live, don’t you?
Argyll nodded.
Then let me do what needs to be done. Look away, if you must.
He smiled sadly at Marge as he pulled out the knife. A long, thin fishmonger’s filleting knife, almost like the one he used to have and lost. Perfect for the job. ‘I think it’s time for you to rest, Marge.’
She shuffled back across the bed, backing away from him.
‘You’re tired. I can see that in you. Tired of the struggle every day.’
‘P-please, mister . . . I don’t know . . .’
He cocked his head, curious. ‘Why is it? Why do you girls all seem to struggle so much?’
At the mention of ‘girls’, Marge whimpered. ‘Oh god . . . oh g-god ’elp me . . .’
‘This,’ he said, gesturing at the room they were sitting in, ‘this isn’t a life, Marge. It’s an eternal prison sentence. It’s purgatory.’
‘God! Y-you’re that . . . R-Rip . . . Rip . . .’ Her mouth trembled so much, she struggled to say the word.
‘The Ripper?’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Mr Leather Apron?’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘I’m a way out, Marge, that’s all. A way out for you.’ Her eyes were focused on the glinting metal in his hand.
He rested a hand gently on her knee. ‘You know, it’s best if you don’t look at it. Just close your eyes.’
She edged back across the far s
ide of the bed, a slippered foot feeling over the edge for the floor.
‘It’s an easy way to go, I promise you.’ He reached out and grasped her hand before she could pull it away from him. Gently, he stroked the back of it with his thumb. ‘A moment, just for a moment, it stings. No worse than a splinter in your foot, hmmm? Then it’s just like falling asleep. I promise.’
She was crying. ‘I . . . don’t w-wanna die—’
‘Marge.’ He shook his head sympathetically. ‘You’re already dead, my dear. All of you . . . you’re lost souls, ghosts. Don’t you feel that? Don’t you wake up sometimes and wonder why every day seems like the last?’ He shuffled across the bed to sit beside her. Springs creaked beneath them. From another room somewhere in the house, a faint muffled male voice shouted cruelly.
The hand holding his knife slid along the back of her narrow shoulders; instinctively, she tried to pull away from him. He held her tight, feeling the frizz of her hair tickle his cheek.
‘Do you remember the last time you woke up and thought about leaving all of this behind? Leaving London?’
He could feel her trembling, shuddering uncontrollably. But her head managed a small nod.
‘Perhaps you were much younger the last time you dreamed of better?’ He rubbed his cheek against her hair, ignoring the rank odour of lacquer, the smell of stale tobacco. ‘There was an energy to that idea, wasn’t there? A spark? As if the idea itself felt like it was alive?’ Her head was bowed. He could feel a steady rhythm of warm tears tapping the back of his hand as it rested in her lap, gently caressing her own hand. ‘And then the idea died. It just vanished, didn’t it? Went away and never came back?’
She nodded as she whimpered.
‘That was the day you really died, Marge; not this morning. Every day since that you’ve woken up wanting nothing more than to stew your head with alcohol and opium; every night that you let one dirty bastard after another enter you and leave their mess running down your legs; every grey dawn you’ve watched creep across your ceiling – all those days, my dear, were the very same one.’
He pushed the tip of the blade into the soft skin beneath her ear, quickly but not roughly, sliding it in as easily as a well-greased door bolt. With a firm flick of his wrist, he pulled it forward and the blade opened her throat. She lurched in his arms, her legs scissoring on the bed.
‘Shhhh. That was the sting; now the rest is easy. Relax.’
He let go of her hand and grasped her shoulders as they flexed and heaved. He pushed her back until she was lying on the bed. ‘There . . . that’s it. Just falling asleep now, just falling asleep.’
Her eyes rolled to look at him, her mouth trying to gurgle something.
‘Shhh . . . Best to lie still. Don’t fight it, my dear.’
A hand flailed and flapped up at him, and finally found his hand, the one that had been caressing hers. It grasped his tightly, like lifelong friends embracing. He squeezed back.
‘When you wake up, Marge, I promise you, it’s all going to be so different.’
Her red-rimmed eyes seemed to find something to focus on, something beyond the low, cracked, damp-stained ceiling. Something beyond the lodging house itself, beyond the low pall of smog over the dark necropolis.
‘That’s it,’ he whispered. ‘Off you go.’
He sensed her leave. And when her last breath had finished bubbling through the ragged gash beneath her chin, he reached across and pinched the burning wick with his fingers until smoke coiled above it, danced momentarily and then vanished.
He heard heavy footsteps scuff along the hallway just outside, the clatter of the front door slamming shut a moment later. Someone on their way to work.
The bed frame creaked again as he stood up to inspect her body splayed across the thin mattress. There was a butcher’s work to be done. He was going to leave her like the others, to be sure they understood it was his handiwork; but more than that, to be sure he could convince them he’d done what they wanted. There was a face to ruin – and a totem to extract.
CHAPTER 61
9th November 1888 (12.00 pm), Blackfriars, London
Argyll watched Warrington staring down at the wet organ nestling at the bottom of the satchel; he could see revulsion stretch across his curling mouth before he managed to wrest control of his face once more.
‘This is . . . this is Mary Kelly’s?’
‘Yes.’
He looked down at it again. ‘It looks . . . fresh . . . Did you kill her this morning?’
‘I brought her back down with me. You’ll find her in her old room in Millers Court.’
‘Orman!’ Warrington called out.
‘Sir?’ a voice replied from a dark corner of the warehouse.
‘Kelly’s body is to be found at her lodging room. Go and check on that.’
‘Aye.’
He looked again at the organ. ‘She’s dead?’ A stupid question, and apparently Warrington realised that as soon as he’d asked. ‘We didn’t say for you to kill her. That was unnecessary. We just wanted to talk to her. Find out how much she knows.’
‘Just talk to her? Like those two other tarts?’
Warrington flinched at their mention.
‘I presume they must have overheard you mention Prince Albert? How careless of you.’
‘They knew that anyway, from the confessional you decided to leave in your hotel room. They were dead the moment they clapped eyes on that.’ Warrington tried a smile that ended up looking like a wince. ‘So their blood is on your hands, actually.’
‘I have no problem with having blood on my hands, George. It’s what I do.’ He sighed softly. ‘But I suspect you have troubled nights, hmmm? I read some details in the newspapers. How the second one was gutted like a fish. A difficult thing to do first time round. It leaves troublesome images in your mind, right?’
Warrington couldn’t stop himself nodding. ‘It wasn’t pleasant, no.’
He offered Warrington an encouraging smile. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, George, it gets easier, this kind of business. Particularly when you begin to realise that in most cases, you’re doing them a favour, doing the rest of the world a favour. Once you understand that, it becomes easy, actually . . . almost satisfying.’
Warrington’s eyes narrowed. ‘What we did had to be done. That foolish—’ He stopped himself and chose words from a more tactful palette. ‘The prince made a mistake that could have cost this nation everything. Everything. Anarchy, riots, a complete collapse of order, many more deaths. I – we – did what was needed and no more. It certainly wasn’t for sport.’
‘I . . . we?’ Argyll’s lips spread apart in a sneer. ‘You sound so unsure, George. Or perhaps that’s how you’re dealing with the blood on your fingers – sharing it out with your colleagues? “We” killed them, not “I”?’
‘It really is none of your business, Mr Babbitt.’
Argyll noticed Warrington flexing a hand buried deep in a coat pocket. He could guess what was there.
‘Babbitt, I presume, is an alias. Not your real name?’
Argyll shrugged. ‘One of a long line of aliases, if you really want to know. But, truth be told, this name has grown on me a touch.’ He smiled. ‘I rather like this one.’
‘Perhaps you’d tell me your real name? Just your first name? You know mine, after all.’
Argyll pursed his lips with deliberation. ‘Hmmm, do you know, George, I honestly can’t recall it anymore. I’ve used so many names over the years. Been so many different people.’
Warrington huffed humourlessly. ‘One of those women said you’d lost your memory, after the last time we met?’
‘After you attempted to double-cross me, you mean?’
Warrington ignored that. ‘Is it true? Did you forget who you were?’
‘Yes, it’s true. I was, I suppose you could say, lost for a while. But it all came back to me eventually.’
They stared at each other in silence, long enough for them both to realise ther
e was little more to be said.
Warrington eased the gun out of his pocket. ‘You know, we really can’t let you go, Mr Babbitt. With this particular job, there was always too much at stake for us to actually let our hired man just walk away from the job.’
‘I suspected as much.’
Warrington shook his head, confused. ‘Then why the hell did you arrange this meeting?’
‘To finish our business, of course, George. To give you the Kelly girl. I am a hopeless completist.’ He laughed softly. ‘I do so hate leaving things unfinished.’
‘You could have tried to escape us. Why not? Why didn’t you try to?’
He took a deep breath, but gave no answer.
‘You could have tried another port. We could only manage to muster a few dozen men to watch the ships.’ Warrington seemed eager for an answer. ‘We even thought you might already have gone, you know? You could so easily have escaped! You’re a puzzle to me, Mr Babbitt. Why the hell are you here? I mean . . . really?’
Warrington was studying him intently, as if trying to read the answer in the expression written on his face.
‘Perhaps, George, it’s not you I wanted to escape.’
Argyll’s head was suddenly filled with the sound of restlessness; the scraping and scratching of sharp-edged hooves. The hiss of an enraged voice as brittle and unpleasant as a fingernail dragged down a blackboard. It wanted control of him again. It wanted escape. In his own coat pocket, his fingers flexed around the handle of his knife. A knife that could be drawn out and slashed across the throat of this bumbling, nervous gentleman in less time than it would take him to raise his aim, cock the hammer and squeeze the trigger.
DO IT!!
Argyll winced at the piercing volume in his mind. He wished he had the strength of will to dig a blade deep into his own head and scoop the vicious bastard out. To see it squirming on the floor, to actually see it outside his head, like some kind of aborted, horned foetus, curling, gurgling. To be able to crush its misshapen head beneath his booted heel and see its poison splatter across the floor in visceral comma marks of gore.
It – Babbitt, the pig – raged inside his head, stamping and snorting like an enraged bull, now fully awake to the treachery Argyll had been quietly intending. It snarled orders, orders that his fingers instinctively seemed to want to obey, tightening their grasp on the knife handle.