A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (20 page)

The double murder had of course resulted in uproar, and feelings of resentment toward the police were such that many noisy and rebellious gatherings took place on the streets of London that day, and in Whitechapel in particular. Extra officers were drafted in to keep the peace under fear of general public disorder, and this in itself merely served to hamper the efforts of the police in their primary need to bring the Ripper to justice. The streets of the city were a ferment of fear, agitation, frustration and anxiety, and strangely, I could feel those sentiments being echoed within my own mind as I realised that once again, I felt as though I could see the demonstrations in the streets, hear the calls for action by the police, and most of all, I could hear the shouts of the news-sellers calling out
"Murder, 'orrible murder."

More than anything, I knew that the time had come to escape from the study for a while. For the first time in over twenty four hours, I ventured into the lounge, my legs shaking, and absent-mindedly switched on the television and sagged wearily into the corner of the sofa. At least the TV would provide a welcome distraction for a while. I could return to the journal soon, but I desperately needed a brief respite from its intensity, its power, from the strange hold that it seemed to be asserting over my mind.

I had chosen that moment to tune into the news, and it wasn't long before I was plunged into yet more mental turmoil. Following reports of various international crises and a hurricane in the Caribbean, the newsreader switched to more local issues.

There'd been not one, but two murders in Guildford the previous night! The second victim had been found less than a mile from the first, another woman, also a barmaid, and she, too, had had her throat cut. She had been subjected to what the newsreader referred to as 'a series of wanton and appalling mutilations'. Her body hadn't been found until close to noon, having been dumped in a rubbish skip behind a restaurant temporarily closed for refurbishment. Two workers had discovered the body when they'd arrived with their truck to remove the skip for emptying at a local refuse site. So frenzied had been the attack upon her that her body was virtually bloodless when discovered, the contents of the skip stained deep red by the outpouring from her numerous and viciously inflicted wounds. Identified as Angela Turner, a 32 year old mother of two young children, her family was reported as being 'distraught', an understatement if ever I'd heard one. The police had no suspects at this time!

I was incredulous! Two murders in one night, the news of the second killing coming just as I'd read the Ripper's account of his own double killing. My head throbbed; I could barely take it in. This was stretching coincidence too far, surely, and yet the reality was there, staring me in the face, being reported in the cold, matter-of-fact words of a newscaster who had probably reported on hundreds of similar killings in the course of his career. Somewhere in the vicinity of my home, a few miles away at most, someone was slaying innocent women with all the hallmarks of the Ripper himself clearly in evidence. Who, in this day and age, would be so callous as to commit such acts? Sadly, there are all too many disturbed individuals in the world capable of such wanton and terrible murder. Whatever the motivation for these latest killings, the result was shattered families, motherless children, and untold grief and loss. I turned the TV off, I could watch no more. My entire body felt as though it were shaking, not visibly perhaps, but certainly deep within. I could barely comprehend what was happening to me. Was the Ripper somehow reaching out across the years, his soul embedded in the psyche of some poor, sad individual of the modern age, driven by his impulses to commit these horrific crimes? Impossible, at least that's what I told myself. I tried to force myself to be rational about the latest killings. They could have no connection to what had occurred back in 1888. I concluded that reading the Ripper's journal had set my perception towards such events. Such news had sadly become a common occurrence, not in my village of course, but rather on the national news. It was all a ghastly, gruesome coincidence, and yet, at the back of my mind, a fear and a nagging terror that there was something other-worldly about the whole situation in which I found myself just wouldn't go away. I had to ask myself if I was attempting to rationalize where there was no rhyme or reason but only a cold hand reaching out from the murky mists of centuries past. I had no real answers.

You may think me crazy, but I just couldn't shake that feeling, and as a cold, grave-like stillness filled the room, and me with it, I felt a physical sensation of all pervading helplessness and terror take hold of me. I felt as though I was sliding ever downwards, like an out of control aircraft as it dives headlong toward the earth before smashing itself into a thousand pieces from the destructive impact as it finally collides with solid ground.

Nothing in my own training as a psychiatrist could have prepared me for this situation, primarily because no-one had ever experienced such a thing, except perhaps my own father, and his before him, and I had no idea how they would have dealt with it; or had they been immune to the effects of the journal? Was it just me, was I so susceptible to the Ripper's words that I had allowed myself to fall under his long-dead spell? All I knew was that I was alone, afraid and becoming more and more disturbed by the hour, as the events of a century ago and those of the present day appeared to be merging into one long, waking nightmare!

I could take no more, not that night, and leaving all the downstairs lights on and the documents in the study lying exactly where they were, I surmounted the stairs, stopping long enough in the bathroom to take two rather strong sleeping tablets that had been prescribed for Sarah some time ago. My mind in a state of almost complete mental exhaustion, I slipped into bed, and, perhaps because of the poor night I'd suffered the night before, I slept long and hard, without dreaming.

If I'd thought that sleep would cure what ailed me, that the morning would bring a bright and refreshing light to my newly disturbed world, I was to be severely disappointed, but for a few hours at least, my mind and body were at rest.

The Morning after the Night Before

I don't know how long I slept that night, I'd made no reference to the time before my head hit the pillow and the sleeping tablets took over, sending me into that long, dreamless sleep. I know that I looked at the clock when I woke, and it was seven a.m. give or take a minute. My first sensation on waking was that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, which itself felt as dry as the Sahara desert. My head ached, and I felt a degree of disorientation akin to that accompanying a severe hangover, though I swear not a drop of alcohol had touched my lips the previous night. It was the sleeping tablets of course.

It seemed to take an age to hoist myself out of bed, into the bathroom, and dress, finally managing to make my way to the kitchen, where I drank copious cups of coffee, and four slices of toast. I wasn't particularly hungry, but I thought the food might help to counteract the after-effects of the sleeping tablets.

I switched the radio on as I ate, and waited to hear the eight o'clock news. When it came, the report on the local murders stated the police had made an arrest! 'Acting on information received', a twenty-five year old man had been arrested at his home late the previous night, probably while I'd slept. I was glad that at least the streets of Guildford and the surrounding villages, mine included, were safe for the time being, presuming of course that the police had nabbed the right man. Perhaps my own disturbing emotions might now subside; no more murders in my town would surely mean no more grisly coincidences.

As the news came to an end I was disturbed by a loud knocking at the front door. Still feeling quite groggy, I walked slowly from the kitchen to the door, and peered through the security porthole. Standing outside were a uniformed police constable and another man dressed in a blue suit. Wondering what on earth the police were doing at my house, I unlocked and opened the door.

"Doctor Cavendish?

"Yes?" I replied, questioningly.

"I'm Inspector Bell; this is Constable Tenant, Surrey police. Could we come in for a few minutes please?"

"What's this about, Inspector?" I asked.

"I'd rather discuss that inside if we may, doctor."

"Right, well, you'd better come in then, hadn't you?" I replied rather ungraciously. My head still throbbed, and my tongue had barely resumed its normal functions within my ultra-dry mouth. The last thing I needed was an unexpected visit from the local constabulary.

I led the two officers into the kitchen, and bade them sit down.

"Now, inspector, what's this all about?"

"Well doctor, you may have heard about the two murders that took place in town two nights ago?"

The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood to attention.

"Yes, of course, but what has that to do with me?"

"Well, sir, you may also have heard that we picked a suspect up late last night. It just so happens that he claims to be one of your patients."

At that, my heart almost missed a beat, and I could swear to this day that my pulse rate virtually doubled. Certainly the thumping in my head increased, I thought the policemen must surely be able to see the pulse in my temple visibly throbbing, though they obviously couldn't.

"Go on, inspector," I gulped.

"His name is John Terence Ross, his own mother called us when she saw blood on his shoes and on his trouser hems after he'd gone to bed last night. Seems he's had a history of psychiatric disorder for some time, and as I said he and his mother claim you're his psychiatrist."

"It's true I've seen him a few times, his mother paid for him to see me when the doctors at the Farnham Road hospital seemed unable to make much progress with him."

"What can you tell us about his illness doctor?"

"Come now, inspector," I replied, "you know I can't breach doctor/patient confidentiality."

"I know that, of course, but I thought that maybe you could come down to the station on Margaret Road, maybe talk to him, see if you can get him to talk to us, he's been virtually silent so far."

"Has he told you anything?" I asked.

"Only that he did it, and that they deserved to die. If he needs psychiatric help, we need to know exactly what we're dealing with."

"All right, inspector," I sighed. "Give me an hour and I'll drive into town to see him."

"That will be fine, sir; I'll be there at the station to meet you. Just ask for me at the desk."

This couldn't be happening! Yet it was. After the police officers left the house I sat in the fireside chair in the kitchen, my mind racing, my head throbbing, and my hands, my whole body in fact, shaking like a leaf. The mirror image with my great-grandfather's situation stared at me with grim reality. How could such a series of events have conspired to happen at just such a time? Like great-grandfather, here I was being summoned to examine a man I knew, who could well be the murderer of two innocent women. Unlike my ancestor however, this time the man was in custody, though that did little to alleviate the feeling of impossible coincidence. John Ross was indeed a disturbed individual, though I wouldn't have thought him capable of such a heinous double crime. His medication should have served to keep him psychologically stable, if he'd taken it as prescribed, which perhaps he hadn't!

Not only that, but a strange and unsettling thought suddenly leaped into my brain, striking home like a lightening bolt. His name, well, not so much his name as his initials. They'd never meant anything to me before, why should they? All of a sudden however, John Trevor Ross became JTR, easily translated into 'Jack the Ripper'.

The drive to the police station took me about half an hour, but it felt like hours as I drove in a state of fugue, barely aware of who I was or what I was doing. I certainly had no idea what I would achieve by talking to John Ross, other than to further confuse and disturb my own increasingly fragile grip on reality. I couldn't tell the police that, could I?

I parked in the visitors section, entered the station, and reported to the reception desk. I identified myself and asked for Inspector Bell, who arrived a minute later and led me through a door, down a corridor and into an interview room where I came face to face with John Trevor Ross.

"Welcome Home, Robert"

John Ross looked quite a pitiful creature sitting at the table in the interview room. His solicitor, Miles Burrows, sat beside him, with Inspector Bell beckoning me to sit next to himself on the opposite side of the table. A police sergeant was also present in the room to operate the tape recorder which was used to record the interview and was now a part of standard police procedure.

Ross's clothes had been taken away for forensic examination. He was dressed in a simple one-piece boiler-suit type garment provided by the police. He was the smallest man in the room, though his size belied a sinewy strength gained from many hours spent working out at his local gymnasium. I had held four consultations with him in recent months, and diagnosed him as suffering from a mild schizophrenia, with a latent tendency towards violent behaviour. The medication I had prescribed for him, and which his mother had promised to ensure he took regularly, should have regulated his behaviour and enabled him to live a reasonably normal life. Obviously, things hadn't gone according to plan, and Ross's illness was far more serious than I had perhaps perceived. Unfortunately, schizophrenics can be highly adept at hiding their symptoms from their doctor, and it seemed John Ross was no exception.

Though I wouldn't reveal any of my patient's medical details to the police at this stage, I did my best to encourage Ross to talk to the inspector, to try to explain to him why he'd done what he'd done. I was no more successful then the police themselves had been. Despite assuring him that I, and the police, wanted to help him, he refused to co-operate with his questioners. I knew when his case came to court he would probably face a life sentence, to be served in a secure institution, yet I could have felt a little sympathy for him if he'd only opened up to someone. Even an illogical, insane explanation for his actions would have been preferable to his sullen silence.