Ripped (21 page)

Not the faintest rustle of a skirt, nor flapping of a fan, nor nervous clearing of a throat could be heard as Coroner Baxter stepped forward, and in a no-nonsense voice called the first witness.

Police Constable Neil
.

Constable Neil, the first police officer to arrive at the murder scene, lumbered up to the stand, helmet in hand, his face sorrowful and jowly like a bulldog's. After taking his oath to queen and country, he told the coroner that the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered in Buck's Row, Whitechapel. He indicated the location by tapping his large forefinger on a fold-out street map.

“And this is the precise location, Police Constable Neil, where the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered?” Coroner Baxter asked in a deceptively mild tone.

“Tha's right, sir. The body was lyin' in the gutter—”

“In the gutter, Constable Neil?” The coroner asked, looking down at the notes on his desk. “Let me see. Here it is. I think I understood that the body was found face up near the curb on the sidewalk.
Not in the gutter
.”

“It be the gutter, sir. Sure enough. Not more'n fifty feet from Spits Alley, right in front of Mrs. Green's lodging house.”

There arose a quick discussion as to the exact location, and whether or not the body of Mary Ann Nichols lay in the gutter or on the walkway next to the curb. “A distinction of some importance to be sure, wouldn't you agree, Constable Neil?” demanded Coroner Baxter.

“A distinction without much difference,” Collin whispered testily. “At this rate we'll be here all day.” Collin rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Baxter's just giving the people a show for their money,” Toby whispered back. “He courts the limelight more than most, but he's a shrewd coroner, make no mistake.”

“Now tell us as precisely as you can, Constable Neil, what happened
after
you arrived at Buck's Row and found the body of Mary Ann Nichols.”

“Well, sir. I didn't find the body on me own. I was led to the spot by Georgie Cross, the market porter boy. It was him what directed me to the dead girl. Georgie thought the girl done fainted. But after I inspected her and saw that 'er throat was cut, I knew she be dead. I thought she committed suicide.”

“I take it, then, this is the reason you did
not
investigate the surrounding area or perimeter near the gutter?”

“Not at first, sir, no. Like I said—”

“
Constable Neil
!
” The coroner boomed so loudly the rafters seemed to shake. “Had you directed your attention to the surrounding area, mighn't the consequence have been the apprehension of the dead girl's assailant? By not investigating the periphery you gave this man—
who may have been lurking in the shadows
—ample time to slip away undetected, did you not?”

“Could 'ave slipped away undetected long afore I arrived. Like I said in my official report, I did not know she was murdered until the police surgeon arrived, but I did my duty by clearing the area.” Constable Neil went on to explain that after he determined that the girl was dead, two night watchmen at the slaughterhouse in Buck's Row stood with him watching over the body as did a crowd of butcher lads from The Cut until the surgeon arrived.

“So you spoke to no one? Interviewed no one except two night watchmen and several butcher boys?” the coroner asked, his voice oozing contempt.

Constable Neil swallowed hard. “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”

“What is it, man? Yes or no? Speak up!”

“I done knocked on the door of the boarding house cross the street from the gutter where the body was lying and spoke to Mrs. Emma Green who said she did not hear anyone cry out, or sounds of a scuffle, which again made me think the girl done herself in.”

Scowling over silver-rimmed eyeglasses that sat low on his long, crooked nose, Coroner Baxter stared first at Constable Neil, then down at his leather ledger. “And you took this scanty information to indicate that the girl had taken her own life? 'Tis a pity and a folly you did not search the area, Constable.”

Police Constable Neil was sweating. He took out a large handkerchief and mopped his bulldog brow.

“Describe for us, Constable Neil, the condition of the body and the approximate time whence you came upon it.”

Constable Neil did so and then grumbled about it being hard to see the dead girl as there were no street lamps in the vicinity, nor stars out, nor moonlight.

“We understand it was a dark and foggy night, Constable Neil. But it would please this court to understand more thoroughly why you came to the conclusion of suicide when clearly—”

“Well, sir,” Neil interrupted. “ 'Tis a hard lot these girls 'ave, right enough. And I 'aven't never in all my years of being a police bobby —
and a right good
'
un at that
—come across a girl wiff 'er throat cut afore. So I says to myself, Albert. The poor girl's done chived 'erself!”

A titter of laughter went through the packed room. Even several members of the jury smiled.

The coroner gave Constable Neil a sharp look from over his silver spectacles. After a mild rumbling as if to clear his throat and a bout of coughing into his fist, Constable Neil continued, only less dramatically this time, as he chronicled what steps he had taken when he came upon the dead girl.

“Tell me, Constable Neil. Was there any blood on Georgie Cross's clothing?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you search his pockets for a knife or sharp instrument?”

“No, sir.”

“Why is that, Constable Neil?”

“Why is what, sir?”

“Why on earth, man, didn't you ascertain whether or not the person who
claimed
to have stumbled upon the girl was, in fact, her killer? Surely you've gleaned some measure of deductive intuition in your
many
years of being a police constable?”

“But Georgie Cross didn'a kill 'er! He found 'er! He came running to get me! Why would he do that if he done killed her? Not likely, sir. And Georgie Cross is not one to chive a girl, not him. I knows Georgie since he was a wee nipper. Be madness to fink it be Georgie.”

“Yes, yes, Constable. Everyone in the East End of London, to be sure, is related to someone else's Great Aunt Fanny, twice removed. But that does
not
, by any stretch of the imagination, presuppose that Georgie Cross, or anyone else of your acquaintance, is
not
a cold, hard-hearted, vicious criminal.”

When Constable Neil, his face pasty grey, his beefy hands shaking as if with violent tremors, finally stepped down from the witness box, a stirring of excitement ran through the room as the next witness was called to the stand.

Georgie Cross.

But Georgie didn't come forward. He wasn't among the witnesses standing ill at ease behind the roped-off area on the other side of the coroner's platform.

Coroner Baxter raised grey caterpillar eyebrows above his silver spectacles and bellowed at his clerk demanding to know what had become of the crown's most important witness. “
Find him
!
” Baxter shouted. “Find him at once. I don't care if he's attending his own mother's funeral, bring him here this instant!” Several officers scurried from the room.

Minutes later, a butcher boy by the name of Tommy Bunting stumbled forward looking unnerved and miserable. He was wearing the rough-cut sackcloth and apron of his trade, and when he answered the coroner's questions, his knuckles showed white as they gripped the railing in front of him.

“If you please, Thomas Bunting, would you tell the jury how you came to discover the body of Mary Ann Nichols in Buck's Row?”

Not much older than sixteen, the boy explained that it was Georgie Cross, not he, Tommy Bunting, who discovered the body. “I comes runnin' to the spot where the dead girl lays after I hears Georgie hollering fer help. I dinna ken she be dead, leastways not right away. I thought she might 'ave fainted.”

“So, Master Bunting? You did not notice the girl's throat was cut or that she had other injuries?”

“No, sir.”

“Was there no one with Georgie Cross when he first came upon the girl lying in the gutter? No butcher boys perchance?”

“No, sir. None of us lads were wiff Georgie. We come a' running to see what the commotion was after Georgie started shouting for help.”

“If no one saw Georgie Cross stumble upon the dead girl, isn't it possible that Georgie Cross might have been the perpetrator?”

“The what, sir?”

“The person responsible for killing Mary Ann Nichols.”

“The one 'oo chived her? Not Georgie, sir! Not 'im. He couldn' squash a spider, not Georgie. Don't got it in him. Can't stomach the sight of blood.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Cuz he holds 'is breath when 'e comes round to the slaughterhouse. Most folks can't stomach butcher blood, the smell of it, the squealing noise them animals make when we slaughts 'em. But Georgie can't abide it a'tall. Goes green 'round the gills, does Georgie. T'aint likely you can chiv a girl when you can't stomach blood, now can you?”

“Can't you?”

“Don't reckon so, no, sir.”

“But a butcher lad would have no compunction, is that what you're saying?”

“ 'Ave no what, sir?”

“By your own admission, a butcher lad would have no difficulty slitting the throat of girl as easily as . . . a calf, or a sheep, or a pig.”

“Didn't say that, sir. What I said was—”

“Answer my question, Master Bunting. In terms of sheer strength, technical know-how, and the ability to ‘stomach' the sight of blood, a butcher lad, or anyone else associated with the slaughterhouse trade, would not be squeamish about, nor have difficulty, slicing the throat of a young girl.”

“Don't reckon no one I know would go around chiving a girl's throat. Not like a dumb animal what's for eating. Not the same, now, is it?”

“Did any of the butcher boys who came running when Georgie Cross
allegedly
stumbled upon the body, have blood on them?”

“Blood, sir?”

“You heard me, Master Bunting.”

“Well o' course we did.”

“We?”

“We all had our leather aprons on. We're butcher lads, now, ain't we? Butcher lads wear butcher aprons. Aprons 'ave blood sure as the sky is blue. T'wouldn't be no butcher lad wiffout a bloody apron.”

Several other butcher boys answered in a similar manner. Then Mrs. Emma Green was called to the stand. Mrs. Green was a woman of sixty-odd with a doughy face, a red-veined nose, and the hint of a dark line above her top lip. She was clutching a tartan shawl round her shoulders and was nervously weaving the fringe between her fingers.

“I was awake at the time,” Mrs. Green began, her voice high pitched and anxious. “I couldn't sleep. And like I told the officer gentleman who spoke afore the butcher lads just now,” she pointed a tangled-with-fringe finger at Constable Neil, who smiled weakly back at her. “If that poor girl had screamed, I would have heard her. It was a warm night, and my windows were open—”

“But it was dark and foggy, isn't that correct, Mrs. Green?”

“Yes, sir. Dark and foggy, but ever so warm. Warm and misty-like. My bedroom window faces the street. When I can't sleep, I sit by the front window and knit a bit. I was sitting there most of the evening, and I didn't hear nothing.”

“And you are quite positive you did not doze off, or leave to brew a cup of tea, perhaps?”

“No, sir. I did not, sir. If that poor girl had cried out for help, I would have heard her.”

“Indicating, perhaps, that Mary Ann Nichols knew her assailant and was not in mortal fear at the time of her death. You've been most helpful, Mrs. Green.”

An eager stir of excitement whirled around the courtroom as Mrs. Green stepped down from the witness box and the saucy-looking girl with shiny auburn hair was conducted to the stand.

This girl has a keen sense of drama,
Katie thought, watching her sashay forward. The previous witnesses had all looked ill at ease, especially Constable Neil, who had left the witness box with the pained look of a hunted animal. But this girl seemed positively cheerful as she stepped jauntily into the witness box, the gleam of anticipation unmistakable in her dark, expressive eyes.

“Dora Fowler,” the clerk announced.

Omigod!
Katie gasped and involuntarily gripped Toby's knee, then quickly let go.
Dora Fowler was going to be the Ripper
'
s seventh victim!

Toby shot her a look.

Although Dora couldn't know it, she would soon take center stage in a murder case that would rock the whole of London, and in no time at all, the entire world. Dora, settling herself into the witness box with a great flourish, seemed to sense, with the keen instinct of a terrier sniffing the air, that more blood was in the air.
She just doesn
'
t know it
'
s her own!

From the witness box, Dora Fowler smiled coquettishly at her captive audience and, after repeating the solemn words of the oath, began her testimony. Gaining confidence as she went along, Dora proceeded to describe, at length and with many gestures, the last time she had seen Mary Ann Nichols alive.

The coroner was very kind and very gentle when questioning Dora, but even so, the people in the packed courtroom seemed to collectively lean forward, anticipating something juicy. They were not to be disappointed.

Several minutes into Dora's recitation—which Katie felt sure was well rehearsed—Dora sputtered, “I think I may have saw him! Him what done it!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I shall never forget my last conversation wiff my dearest friend in all the world—no, not till my dying day!” Dora glanced around, pleased with the ripple of intense interest running through the room.