Mayhem (3 page)

*

‘Thank you, good man,’ I said, aware that however I roughened my voice, it was still educated, and at odds
with my clothing. The cabbie who dropped me in the heart of Whitechapel either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he took my money, and that suited me perfectly well.

I took in a deep breath of night air, and then let my feet take me through the main thoroughfares to the back alleys of the human warren that made up this rough and dangerous part of the city that now had all eyes turned on it. The hour was not overly late, but an eerie quiet hung like smog over the deserted streets, an unnatural stillness. My heels clicked against the cobbles as I sank into the sordid atmosphere of the slum.

Under the pale light of a flickering streetlamp I caught sight of a solitary female face. Her cheeks were bloated from the drink, and although she smiled slightly, just in case I might be a gent looking for a moment of relief, her eyes, glazed as they were, were wary. I didn’t blame her for it. There was no point in warning her to stay away from these wretched alleyways; her very appearance dictated that her need for liquor would make her risk the dangers. And here, as everywhere, people would always believe that the fate of poor Catherine Eddowes and the others would happen to
others
, and not themselves.

Stairwells and doorways yawned in the darkness around me and in one or two I could make out the shapes of men, lounging and smoking as they talked quietly. They fell into a wary silence as I passed and
it was with a mild relief that I soon found myself on the main highway, with its lively gin-palaces and noisy shows, where little groups of people gathered under the gas lights to listen to some enthusiastic soul expounding on the mysteries of the universe or the miraculous benefits of some such pill or another.

Watching the life around me, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about this city, that its residents felt the urge to harm each other so? Ever since sleep and I had parted company so many weeks before, I had sensed a shift in the mood on the streets and behind the closed doors of homes of both the well-to-do and the slum-dwellers. There was a wickedness in the air. I might laugh it off in broad sunlight, but now, in the grip of night, it was almost palpable. It wasn’t the frequency of death that disturbed me – murder had always been a part of London’s personality. It was the
nature
of the killings: the
intent
. Poisonings, strangulations, and now
Jack
.

My feet led me steadily towards the river. This meander around Whitechapel had been merely a distraction, perhaps a way to fool myself into believing I would not be seeking out the opium this evening; that I would simply walk myself into tiredness. It was a lie, of course, and that I had only half-heartedly believed. By getting the hansom cab to drop me at Whitechapel I had avoided the embarrassment of going directly to Bluegate Fields and the various establishments that served my needs in that vilest of areas. None of the
dens were salubrious, but there were slightly less venal places than Bluegate. My choice of location would be clear for analysis, should anyone discover my new pastime and wish to pass comment upon it: if I was going to be low, then I might as well be low with the lowest. It would not take a scholar to reach that conclusion. My shame, I hoped, was my ally: it would prevent these still not entirely frequent visits from becoming a noticeable habit.

There were many in my position who would think nothing of self-medicating, of course. Laudanum would certainly be a more private way of relaxing my exhausted mind, but I feared that my will might not be as strong as I might wish it if I were to go down that path. I knew several medical men for whom that liquid was a daily necessity, and I had no wish to count myself among their number. This would do for me. As the Chinaman opened up the door and the warmth and heady scent from within embraced him, all I truly cared about was a few hours of blissful release.

Unlike the descriptions of the Chinese opium houses that filled the pages of the Penny Dreadfuls, this den, for want of a better word, was well-swept and clean. The clientele – mainly sailors who had learned to prefer the smoke to alcohol on their travels, but also various other Orientals, the occasional shopman or steward, and here or there a beggar or thief come into a few pennies – did not normally arrive until half-past ten or eleven at night, as I had done, and so the old
Chinaman (known to me only as ‘Chi-Chi’, the same name I used for many of the old man’s counterparts in other establishments) had several hours to clean or change whatever rags and coverings required it.

I found the dens to be calm and peaceful places, with none of the restless aggression of the bawdy public houses where men and women drank too much and talked too loudly and then found any excuse to be cruel to one another, or to seek a moment’s feigned affection in the arms of another stinking unfortunate. The Chinamen’s opium houses had a serene quality, a hush that hung in every full room as if noise and irritation were captured and trapped by the pall of blue smoke that curled up from the pipes and hung there indefinitely. Even those small groups who talked quietly amongst themselves did not linger on the topics of politics or war or even the terrible fates that were befalling the women of Whitechapel, but let their conversation go this way and that as the smoke dictated, until, for several minutes at a time, they would stop speaking completely, and then, after a stretch of silence, one or another would eventually pick up a new thread.

Faces and bodies blurred under the glow of the oil lamps dotted here and there, and in the pipe-bowls, glowing embers twinkled like stars in the gloom. Time drifted in the thrall of the pipe, and as I lay back on the small cot, my immediate surroundings faded as my conscious floated away to pleasanter times – to
fields of vivid green beneath sparkling blue skies, and the sticky heat of the den became a glorious summer sun. Somewhere Emily, so long ago lost, was laughing. I smiled as my eyes half-shut and the familiar warm rush flooded through my veins. This night, however, it was hard to hold on to such pleasant thoughts; instead, dark flashes of Whitechapel’s streets plagued my mind: slashed throats, terrified eyes, brutalised bodies torn open with so much rage, the images all enhanced by the power of the smoke.

I turned slightly on my cot, no doubt muttering nonsense, as I heard the slice of the blade and the clamour of talk in public houses across the East End, almost as if I were flying across it all, my spirit free of this body and swooping down here and there to see so many strangers’ faces, flushed with both excitement and too much gin, recounting the details of one grisly death after another. Those five women had been ripped apart by Jack, and now they were being torn apart some more by gossip, delivered by those with shining eyes, even more alive for their loss. This was a cruel London.

I wanted some peace, but the smoke was wrestling with me this evening, enhancing the black thoughts that plagued me, taking me deeper into my fears and forcing me to face them. Maggots crawled behind my eyes and suddenly I was back in the vault of the new police building, this time alone in the dark with only a match burning between my fingers for light. I could
feel the rough ground beneath my feet and my breath rushed loudly in my ears. I turned this way and that, taking hesitant paces forward and back in order to seek out the stairs.
I must get out. I must get back to the light
. Something shuffled in the darkness and I spun around, the light flickering in its death throes as the match burned close to my fingers. I let out a yelp of fear and disgust, finding myself suddenly facing the rotting torso, the corpse held high above the ground.
Held
. There was something there, behind the corpse … a vast shadow … it was leaning forward. The match went out.

I sat bolt upright, woken from my terrors by my own scream, which thankfully manifested in the real world as a tight-chested yelp, as shrieks in dreams have a tendency to do. Chi-Chi appeared beside my cot with a damp cloth, and I took it gratefully from him and wiped my sweating face. My head swum with the opiate high and my heart thumped with relief that the hallucination was done. After a few deep breaths I muttered some thanks to the old man, whose dark eyes peered out like raisins from a thin, cadaverous face half-hidden by his long beard. There was no judgement in his expression, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many such terrors he had witnessed during the long nights of supervising so many lost souls?

I drew deeply on the pipe and let the heady smoke eradicate the remaining stains of darkness. I felt cleaner now that the vision was done, as if I had
needed to purge the day’s work from my imagination. I leaned back once more and this time, thankfully, the opium was gentle with me. I drifted for an hour or more, perhaps even came close to sleep, when the heavy tread of boots moving past me disturbed my reverie.

I had been so far lost in my own head that it took a moment to recognise my surroundings, and by the time I did, the figure had moved further away. I frowned as I stared at the small alleyways the Chinamen used to scurry here and there, replenishing a bowl or gently evicting a customer who had run out of time and pennies.

The tall man, dressed in a long black waxy overcoat and hat, moved between the cots, his feet thumping on the wooden floor, pausing here and there to study the occupants before progressing to the next. As he turned sideways to peer down at one sleeping sailor, I could see a withered arm and crooked hand that he kept bent at his waist, the disproportionately tiny fingers curled in like talons.

Despite the heaviness of my limbs and the haze that coated my vision I dragged myself slightly upright, so that I was lying on my side, propped up on one elbow. The den had been only half-full when I had arrived, but in the time I had spent in my private haze, the cots and divans had filled, and a low cloud of smoke hid the ceiling from view. The stranger moved through the dreamers, apparently in no hurry, studying those
lost to the opium, just as I had seen him do in several such establishments over recent weeks. I had come to find myself slightly intrigued by him and his strange examination of the poppy-smokers. Had he been standing over my cot only moments before? What was he looking for? Did he even exist, or was he merely an opium dream himself?

Chi-Chi had returned to replenish my pipe, and as he did so, I pointed at the figure almost lost in the gloom.

‘Who is that man?’ I asked. ‘I have seen him here before, I think, and in other such places.’

‘He come. He go.’ Chi-Chi shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘He look.’

‘Who is he looking for?’

‘He don’t tell Chi-Chi.’

‘Does he smoke?’ My words were thick, struggling to form against the lethargy that gripped me.

‘Yes: smoke first, look after.’

The strange man was almost at the far end of the room, where stairs led down to the small lower level where Chinamen came to gamble. Extra beds, for busy nights, lined the area.

‘Have you noticed, Chi-Chi,’ I muttered, ‘that he looks at them strangely? I don’t believe he’s looking at their faces – around them, perhaps, but not at their faces. Why might that be, do you think? What is he hoping to see?’

Chi-Chi said nothing more but shuffled away as if
he had not heard the questions, and as the stranger disappeared downstairs, I turned again to the pipe. I had perhaps two hours more until five o’clock, when I would have to head home to wash and change for the post mortem examination. I did not want to waste them. As I lay back down on the couch and looked up at the cloud I had created with my night’s indulgence, I wondered about the man. I had seen him before – before these strange visits to the opium dens. I was sure of it. But where, and when?

4

The Pale. March, 1881

Aaron Kosminski

‘Fire!’

Sweat burst from Aaron Kosminski’s forehead as he sat suddenly upright in the bed, crying out. By the time his mother and Matilda came in, Betsy was forcing her feet into her boots and wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. Baby Bertha was held tight in Matilda’s arms. ‘Hush!’ she said. ‘If you wake Morris again, he won’t be happy.’

‘He’s doing it again,’ Betsy grumbled. ‘It’s been four nights now. He sweats like a pig and then the bed is freezing.’

Fifteen-year-old Aaron was vaguely aware of his family’s presence, just as he was vaguely aware of the bed and the room, and that somewhere in the real world – the world that was a haze between him and the visions – his skin was freezing cold, not burning hot.

‘Run, run, run, run,’ he cried. ‘They’re coming!’ His breath came in short bursts. ‘They’re coming here – all of them.’

Screams – people screaming. Burning wood, cold air, and so much anger. So much hate – black hate. Matilda terrified – the babies, somewhere he can’t see – screaming as hands grab her. So much confusion. Morris: Morris’ head is smashed red against the white of the snow. His lungs burn as he runs, he and Betsy, running and not looking back. Mother and Matilda aren’t behind them – they
were
behind them, for a little while, but now they’re gone. He’s too afraid to stop and look; he must keep running. So much hatred. So much darkness
.

‘Shh, my son.’ His mother hushed him softly and wiped his brow, but he was lost in the vision, unable to respond to her touch. In the vision she was no longer there – she was dead, or something worse. ‘You’re here with us. It’s just a bad dream.’

‘The same bad dream for four nights.’ Matilda snorted. ‘No wonder I’m so tired.’

Outside, snow fell softly. Winter hadn’t quite let go just yet, but its grip was loosening. For the best part of six months the shtetl had been smothered by a foothigh blanket of freezing white, but the blasts of wind that had driven the icy weather their way had fallen, anger spent, and most days there was some thaw, leaving the paths between the cramped houses and around the market place muddy slush. It was difficult for anyone to stay clean or dry as they wandered to and fro to work, or seeking work. Everything was dirty, and would stay that way until the ground dried. Sometimes it felt as if they lived in grubby blackness.