A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (28 page)

No more Mary, how contrary, you've lost your whoring heart

Mary's dead, where's her heart? Gone in the knacker man's cart.

That was it; all there was to describe the most gruesome murder perpetrated by the Ripper. He had made no attempt to gloat or elaborate in detail on the mutilations he'd inflicted upon the poor girl's body, Compared with the references he'd made to some of the earlier murders this was quite tame, as though the actual act of murder had ceased to excite him as it may have done in the beginning.

Poor Mary Jane Kelly had been enticed by his charm to take her killer back to her own lodgings, where he'd stripped himself to avoid getting too much blood on his clothes before embarking on the appalling mutilations that were to stun and horrify even the most hardened police officers who visited the scene of her murder upon the discovery of her body. Such was the effect of the crime upon them that, in the belief that a victim's eyes might record the last thing they saw, Sir Charles Warren ordered that the girl's eyes be photographed with a special lens in the hope that the image of her killer may have been recorded there. Of course, there was no such image to be found.

As I sat there at my desk, with the darkness of the day closed in around the house, and the fog swirling ever closer to the window, a sudden, chilling thought struck me. Maybe, just maybe, I had stumbled upon the Ripper's motive for the killings. I had already made reference to the possibility that he was seeking some sort of recognition from Burton Cavendish. What if it were as simple as that? In his sick and twisted mind, having only recently discovered the truth of his heritage, and with his own mother dead and buried after being declared insane, could he actually have believed that he must perform this strange and escalating series of bloody murders in order to gain his father's respect and ensure that he was aware of his illegitimate son's prowess in his chosen 'profession'? In my humble professional opinion, I had to think to myself that it was possible. The whole series of the Jack the Ripper killings could have been nothing more than a cry for attention by an illegitimate child, seeking recognition from his father. In his sick and tormented mind, that could easily have been the case, and his desire to be noticed by his father, to be seen as a person who wielded considerable power and expertise (as my great-grandfather did in his own profession) really could have led him to commit the murders. After all, had he not constantly 'confessed' to my great-grandfather, only to be disbelieved and dismissed as a fantasist, someone trying to attach himself to the Ripper's coattails in a desire for attention? Equally, after every rejection of his confessions, the severity of his crimes, the degree of mutilation of the victims grew and grew until his fury exploded like an erupting volcano with the hideous destruction of the person of Mary Jane Kelly. It made sense to me at that point. If my great-grandfather wouldn't believe him, he would go out and do something even more revolting and repugnant in an attempt to shock, or to make 'Cavendish' take notice of him. Eventually he had written a letter, though I had no idea at that time what it contained, informing my great-grandfather of his intentions. I felt that it was all there, in the last line before the silly rhyme, 'Now Cavendish will believe me'
That
was what he'd wanted all along, his father's recognition!

As for the rhyme, it was true that Kelly's heart was missing when her body was examined. That mystery was now also explained. There had been many theories at the time; The Ripper had eaten it, or, he'd taken it home and kept it as a trophy…the list went on and on. Instead, he'd cut it out, and at some time during the day I suspected, as opposed to on his way home as there wouldn't be any horses and carts in the sewers, he'd simply thrown it into a passing knacker-mans cart, along with the remains of any number of dead horses on their way to be burned no doubt. Yes, to me that made sense, he would see it as a fitting end for the heart of a whore, to be burned, so that her heart and soul would be forever engulfed in the flames of Hell.

I felt a sudden terror and a shiver ran through my body as a thought shot to the forefront of my brain. In those last few seconds, as the realization of his thoughts had come to me I had suddenly felt as though I knew exactly what he'd been thinking when he'd tossed Mary Kelly's heart in that cart; for a few short seconds, I had actually sensed the thoughts that had run through the mind of Jack the Ripper.

That couldn't be true of course, could it? At least, that's what I told myself, I was just being fanciful, I was tired, and more than a little disturbed by the effect the journal had had on me these last couple of days, that was all. After all, no-one could sense or feel the thoughts of a dead man, now could they?

I looked up from the desk, it was now almost dark outside, the fog was like an impenetrable cloud, and I realised I was sitting in almost complete darkness in the study. I got up, turned the lights on, and returned to the desk. I couldn't stop now, I had to go on, I just had to.

An End in Sight

I now felt I was close to the conclusion of the terrible saga to which I'd been suddenly introduced by my own dead father. I kept asking myself the same question. Could it really be possible that Jack the Ripper had been born out of one man's insane desire to gain the recognition of the father he'd never known? The more I pondered on the question the more the answer became clearer. It was eminently possible, and I knew, as a psychiatrist, that the sick and diseased mind of an individual can easily take an idea and twist it until putting it into practice becomes totally logical to him or her.

His lack of detail in describing the murder of Mary Kelly convinced me that the murder itself was almost superfluous to his real motive. The gathering severity of each crime now took on a different perspective, as though only by increasing the scale of brutality and mutilation could he hope to 'impress' his father.

In fact the scene that greeted those who witnessed the aftermath of his 'work' at 13 Millers Court was so horrendous that grown men cried, were physically sick, and many later reported that the sight of her butchered corpse would live forever in their minds. Her clothes had been neatly placed on a chair beside her bed, leaving her naked and exposed. The room itself was like a charnel house, with blood on the walls, the floor, and almost every solid object. Butchery was almost too polite a word for what the Ripper had done to the poor girl's body. As I've described earlier in my report on the post mortem examination, he had literally cut her to pieces. Body parts were strewn around the room, though there was nothing haphazard about their distribution. He had quite carefully placed each piece of dismembered flesh or limb in precise locations, there was certainly no evidence that they'd been thrown in a frenzy or in a random way. Perhaps the thing that caused the most consternation in the minds of the officers attending the scene that morning was the quite appalling mutilation of the girl's face, there was almost nothing left of it, and scarcely enough to positively identify the unfortunate victim, though no-one was in any doubt that it was Mary Jane Kelly. Her upper legs had been almost totally denuded of flesh, and her heart was missing, perhaps the cruellest cut of all.

Why then, did the Ripper choose to mention so little of this in his journal, if not for the fact that it meant so very little to him? I was sure that that was the reason, he just didn't care as such any more, and his voices would probably have told him that he'd done all they'd asked of him in order to justify his self to his father.

Why did I feel as though I knew these things? Once again I felt as though his thoughts had become mine, as if his mind had somehow entered into a parallel existence with my own, allowing me, at a distance of over one hundred years, to see with perfect clarity the thoughts and machinations of his sick and deluded mind. Could a mere blood connection between us have caused such a thing to happen? The answer of course was no! I was becoming irrational and anxious myself, of that I was sure, though there seemed little I could do to stop myself from thinking and feeling those terrible thoughts.

I needed to reach the end of the final page and discover whatever dark secrets might still be waiting for me in the words of the Ripper and of my great-grandfather.

Weariness was creeping into every muscle, every sinew, and as much as I wanted to complete my strange expedition into the past sooner rather than later, I knew I needed a break. I left the study and instead of heading for the kitchen, I headed down the hall and opened the front door, intending to refresh myself in the cool night air. Night had by then fallen completely, the darkness compounded by the fog that hung around my house like a shroud. The sound-dampening effect of the fog gave an eerie feel to the night, and as I stood looking out from the threshold of the house, I could have sworn I could see strange ethereal shapes twisting and moving in the midst of that dark, grey-white cloud. There was a swish in the darkness, as though something had flown silently through the bank of fog, then I realised it was just the sound-deadened drone of an expensive and quiet car engine as a vehicle passed the entrance to the drive. The fog had brought an intense cold to the night, and I stood there shivering for a good five minutes as I attempted to gather my thoughts before returning to the study.

I shut the door, and leaned against the oak panels, not moving until I began to feel a modicum of warmth returning to my body.

I told myself that food would be a good idea, and actually entered the kitchen with that intention before deciding I was past the point of needing food, for this night anyway. I poured myself a large whisky, and carried the bottle and my glass with me on my return to my chair in the study, my window upon the world of the Ripper. Not wishing to starve myself completely, I also tucked under my arm a large packet of cheese biscuits, just in case the need to eat returned at some point in the night. So it was that I made myself comfortable once more and looked forward with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation to my third night in the company of Jack the Ripper. Would it provide me with satisfactory answers to the questions in my mind? Only time would tell, and time was a commodity beginning to run in short supply. After tonight, I had less than twenty four hours before Sarah returned.

I admit I wasn't quite sure why, what effect it would have on her if she knew the truth about the journal, or even of its existence, but I did know that
under no circumstances
must Sarah ever see or know of the journal. It would place her at terrible risk, and again, I had no idea why,
I just knew.
What would I do with the journal when I'd finished it? Should I destroy it? Should I reseal it and lock it away in a safe, or lodge it with a solicitor as my father had done? Sarah and I had no children, so who would I leave it to if I decided to maintain the family secret and tradition? As soon as I asked myself the question I knew the answer, and as much as it saddened me to burden a future generation with the thing that lay on my desk in front of me, I knew exactly what I had to do.

Deciding that to hesitate any longer would be futile, I made up my mind to plough on and try to disseminate the last few pages of the journal as quickly as I could. I poured another whisky; its amber liquid quickly warmed me as it slipped easily down my throat. I stretched my arms out as far as they would go, and flexed my feet to try to maintain a decent level of blood circulation. I intended to stay in my chair until I'd completed the task I'd set myself.

The sad and monstrous tale of the life of Jack the Ripper had been forced upon me by the hand of my dead father. I could do nothing other than sit and read the self-confessions of the long dead progeny of my great-grandfather. If the soul of Jack the Ripper were indeed somehow locked within the pages of his infamous and ghastly journal, imprinted by the words written with his own murderous hand, then I was determined to be the one who finally put an end to the journal's influence over my family. A new determination rose within me, a sense of boldness and bravado that I could outwit the evil soul of my illegitimate ancestor, and ensure that his influence over our family was forever buried along with his own black heart, wherever that might be. Had I been able to see what was written on the concluding pages of the journal I might not have been so sure of myself, but such of course, is the folly of mere mortal man.

My hands reached out once more to lift the infernal journal of Jack the Ripper, and as I felt the strange and unearthly warmth of its pages once again, without warning, every light in the room went out and I was plunged into the ultimate psychological horror of total darkness!

A Single Voice, Crying in the Night

The sudden descent into darkness played havoc with my increasingly fragile state of mind. I felt a surge of panic and twisted in my seat, fully expecting to see some glowing spectral figure hovering in the doorway, ready to whisk me off to the spirit world, or worse. I was like a child who wakes in the night, filled with dread from a nightmare, imaging monsters to be hiding under the bed, or snakes creeping from out of the walls, but of course, Dr Robert Cavendish didn't believe in monsters,
now did I
?

I sat rooted to the spot, unable to raise myself from the chair for at least a minute, until the trembling in my frame began to subside, and rationality took over my mind. Logic dictated that one of two things had happened. Either a power cut had occurred, or a fuse had blown, taking the lights with it. I fumbled around in the dark until I managed to open the bottom drawer of my desk where I kept a small penlight torch, as I was always losing things behind the desk, and especially behind the computer hard-drive. The little torch had proved its worth many times in the past. At last my groping fingers made contact with its familiar shape amongst the drawer's contents.

With a sense of relief it burst into life at the flick of the 'on' switch, and at least I had a sliver of light by which to negotiate my way to the fuse box under the stairs. Still slightly apprehensive, I set off, half-expecting to be waylaid by that spectral figure that lingered in the back of my mind, but I made it safely to the door under the stairs and spotted the cause of the problem. Something, a short circuit perhaps, had caused the main fuse to blow, and the circuit breaker had tripped and sent me plummeting into that surprisingly frightening darkness. As I pushed the switch on the circuit breaker back to its rightful position I was rewarded with a flood of light and relief washed over me like a tidal wave.