Ripped (45 page)

Chapter Fifty-three

No Words Profane say the Bells near Mark Lane

A
s
wath of foamy muck
ran parallel for some thirty feet along the muddy shoreline to the truncated wharf.

Katie and Dora staggered forward, skirts hiked high, as they threaded their way around construction rubble to the bottom of the pier. The wooden pilings, Katie could see, were studded with clumps of barnacles.

All around them, seaweed clung to the wet pier. Above their heads, wind pummeled the planks of the pier like fists of rage.

A feeling of dread swept through Katie as an image of Catherine Eddowes's eviscerated body flashed into her mind. The prickle of fear tingled along Katie's scalp, down her arms, and right into the tips of her gloved fingers. She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to stay calm, even as the sense of something terribly wrong—or something about to go terribly wrong—invaded her thoughts.

Dora began to shiver as if she felt a sudden foreboding as well. She shot Katie an anxious glance. As if with one thought, they craned their necks to stare up at the double set of piers, with risers holding up a timbered construction platform high above the water and looking as insurmountable as Mount Everest.

Taking another deep breath, Katie strode under the pier toward a slimy set of stone stairs.

“Not that way, Katie. 'Tisn't safe. Too slippery by far. Me dad's an oarsman for the river ferry. I've been down here afore. Likely as not, them rails over
there
are a better way to climb up.” Dora pointed to a pebble-strewn area beneath the pier that gave way to an iron ladder, bolted between a set of pontoons, which cut right up through the middle of the jetty. The ladder reminded Katie of the kind that ran up the sides of giant water tanks.

“Onward and upward,” Katie muttered, leading the way. She remembered her grandmother repeating a similar sentiment when faced with an obstacle in her path. But this wasn't just any ordinary obstacle, this was a perpendicular iron ladder rearing straight up the inside of a slimy, barnacle-crusted jetty!

Katie bunched up her skirts again and stuffed them into the waistband of her bodice, and moved in the direction of the iron ladder.

Hoisting herself up the first few rungs, Katie took a deep breath and continued to climb until the ladder stopped at the top ridge of a metal platform that opened onto a sort of wooden catwalk. Katie turned and helped Dora up onto the platform, and they both scurried down the catwalk toward a second platform that led to another set of risers. When they reached the top structure, they were a full three stories over the water. They could hear the sound of waves slapping against the pilings far below—a rhythmic, repetitive, whooshing sound like a dishwasher.

Dora cupped her mouth with both hands in order to be heard above the roar of the wind and said, “Now, remember. When we gets to the end of this platform, mind your step. If you fall into the river and the current doesn't drag you down and kill you, the foul sewage will, as sure as if you had the pox. No one falls in what lives to tell the tale. So mind your step.”

“Gotcha,” Katie said under her breath as she squinted downward, listening to the waves below. The odor of creosote wafted off the tar-smeared pilings, and the stench of dead fish was overwhelming. Ahead of them loomed rough-hewn planks extending farther out over the water.

Katie's insides went queasy. She took several deep breaths, but the rancid odor assailing her nostrils made her feel as if she were seasick.

“Let's keep going,” she shouted as they moved toward the second open platform farther along the catwalk. Another bolted ladder reared straight up the side of the jetty. To access this next ladder, they had to maneuver along a slippery set of cross-planks. Metal rings had been woven into the rope-handled banister on either side of the catwalk. Katie held tight to these stirrup-shaped handles, which gave off a sharp rattle and clash when she let go of one set to grab onto the next.

“Gawd's truth
,
Katie!” Dora wailed behind Katie's shoulder. “I can't take another step!”

With water crashing against the pilings far below, and the wind whistling in a harmonica chorus above their heads, Katie's bravado — as well as her heart—began to sink. Toby and Collin could be anywhere on this crazy structure. What if she and Dora were headed in the wrong direction?

“Can you swim?” Katie asked, more to distract Dora than anything else. Katie knew that swimming was not an option. They were much too high up.

“I ain't no bleedin' porpoise!” Dora cried incredulously. She was panting from exertion and trying hard, like Katie, not to slip on the wet, cross-hatch slabs beneath their feet. “What sort o' girl do you take me for? And where would I swim, if'n I could? Not in the bloody Thames! Swallow one drop of that bilge water, and me own birds would be peckin' the skin from me gangrenous bones!”

Approaching the next ladder, Dora folded her arms over her chest. “I ain't movin' another step. I can't swim, nor climb like a monkey neither. I ain't movin' another step, not for nothink.” She plunked herself down on an upside-down wheelbarrow, anchored with chains to the catwalk. Having sunk down on top of the inverted barrow, Dora refused to budge.

“I'm staying right here till you gets back.”

Katie tried to reason with Dora, but it was no use. Dora pointed to a lantern light glimmering on the upper platform. Katie promised to return as quickly as she could and began to climb the ladder, determined to head in the direction of the flickering light. She hated to leave Dora alone, but forged ahead, hoping to find Collin and Toby.

Minutes later, Katie had climbed twenty-five feet straight up the ladder when she heard movement coming from below. She clung tightly to the wet rungs of the ladder and listened.

Nothing.

Had Dora had a change of heart? But the sound was too far away. And what was that clunking, dragging noise?

With a fresh surge of adrenaline, Katie hoisted herself up the last rungs until she came to a crosspiece with a steel hook shaped like a U, which, when she skirted around it, gave way to a ramp that opened onto another catwalk. But this one was made of iron mesh, not wood.

Movement ahead!

A gas torch flickered in the distance, faint yet distinct.
That
'
s got to be Toby and Collin!
Katie thought, relief surging through her. She inched cautiously forward toward the lantern. As she approached the flickering, firefly light, she saw a flash of red. The wooden handrail to her right, braided with nautical rope, was wrapped in red flannel. The damp flannel was easier to grasp, less slippery. As she clung to it and pulled herself along, Katie could hear voices. Collin's voice? Her spirits soared. She was close! But when she stopped in her tracks, the figure behind and below her stopped as well.

She took several quick steps forward and stopped, several more steps and stopped again. The repeated echo of footfalls stopping and starting beneath her on the lower catwalk sent a shiver up Katie's spine.

Someone, with a much heavier footfall than Dora's, was following her. Katie could just make out the outline of a cape as it flapped like a dark sail around the silhouette of the person below who was . . . stalking her?

With the wind buffeting her body, Katie felt shaky and unsteady, but she pushed steadily forward.

The footsteps behind her started again.

If the person in the cape was a strong climber he'd be on her level in just a few minutes. Katie squinted over the railing into the gloom below. The figure beneath showed the upsurge of a tall man clothed all in black, like an undertaker. The gleam of his brass-headed cane rose up as if lifted to strike. Then the cane swung up and down like a baton leader's in a marching band.

“
You there!
You up there. Halt. Halt, I say!”

It was Reverend Pinker's voice. Katie could almost see his gulping Adam's apple. And for a brief moment, relief flooded her. But she quickly regained her senses. Some warning mechanism made her hasten forward toward the firefly lantern light.

Then the sound of a thud . . . someone falling beneath her in the gloom. A startled cry floating upward.

A vision of Dora sprawled on the catwalk below flashed into Katie's mind. Had she left Dora alone and utterly exposed to danger? Was Reverend Pinker Jack the Ripper
?
The image of Pinker sliding a knife across Dora's exposed throat made Katie stumble. She gripped the flannel handrail just in time. Righting herself, she bolted toward the lantern light that danced and flickered like a beacon of hope at the end of the construction platform that jutted out above the water. With her boots crackling and crunching on the grooved surface of the catwalk, Katie raced headlong toward the light of the lantern.

Chapter Fifty-four

Tin Soldiers and Tea say the Bells of Chelsea

A
s
she got closer
, the light pooled downward, guiding her steps along the catwalk toward a platform with a sheer drop-off.

This far out over the water, Katie could feel the change in the wind. No longer buffered by steel risers or a shoreline below, it blew straight up, whipping Katie's skirts and making a tangled mess of her hair. Strands of curls that had been piled atop her head whipped against her face, stinging her cheeks and eyes.

With each step she took, the wind gained momentum, whirling around the precipice at the end of the construction pier as if around a giant cliff-edge. Blinking and squinting, Katie slowly pressed forward. The lantern ahead was just dim enough to turn dark shapes into flickering illusions. The closer she got, the more the firefly glimmer danced, distorting the distance to the edge of the platform.

And what was all that movement up ahead?

The blustery wind seemed to loom with newfound ferocity, only to lash down on her, impeding her progress. Katie braced each time she sensed it whirling upward for the inevitable crashing down, like the ocean waves that used to frighten her as a child.

Pausing to catch her breath, Katie glanced over her shoulder, squinting into the gloom, fearful that she would see Reverent Pinker closing in.

She saw nothing, nor did she hear the clatter of his footsteps.

She gave a shudder of relief and continued headlong into the wind toward the light . . . but if the sound of Pinker's heavy footfalls had sent a shiver up her spine, the noises up ahead made her breath catch painfully in her throat.

Katie could hear fists hammering, blow for blow. The landing of punches coming one after the other. Silhouetted by the dancing firefly flames, Katie saw two figures exchanging vicious blows.

Hunching her shoulders into the wind, she inched closer toward the end of the platform.

More dancing light.

On either side of the drop-off, set down upon upended barrels, were fish-oil bowls with floating wicks. The light dancing off the wicks combined with the lantern's to make the end of the walkway look like a dimly lit, narrow stage—dull, flickering footlights for the death scene in
Macbeth
.

Katie shook herself. Lightheaded, she had a sense of déjà vu. She'd been on this very pier before, looking out toward the cliff-edge drop to the crashing waves below.

“This isn't real,” Katie told herself, scrunching her eyes so tightly she felt the wince of pain from the heartbeat pulse thrumming behind her lids.
I
'
m dreaming
.
This is all a dream. I
'
m in my own bed in the twenty-first century. I
'
m dreaming bad things are happening. This is all a spoof in my mind
'
s eye because I watched a
Pirates of the Caribbean
movie last week. My brain
'
s playing tricks on me.

Katie began to laugh. She threw back her head in the whipping wind, and in an overloud, raucous voice, she howled with laughter like a crazy person. Perhaps she was a lunatic locked up in some insane asylum—where each jab of the needle, each stab of electric shock treatment, sent currents of laughter rippling from her mouth.
That
'
s it!
Katie thought.
I
'
m on some kind of hallucinogenic drug.

The effect of her outburst brought the two fighters ahead of her to a halt.

“God's eyeballs! What are you doing here, Katie?” Collin sputtered, fists clenched and held high on either side of his nose. “Go back! Go back!” he cried, and for a moment, with only the fish-oil lamps lighting his face, he looked as crumpled and withered as an old man. With nostrils flaring, he called out again,
“
Turn back, Katie
!”

Major Brown, recovering from the split-second shock of seeing Katie, let fly a fierce left hook that landed against Collin's chin.

Behind them, Katie could see Toby lying unconscious on the ground near one of the barrels, blood oozing from a deep gash at his temple. Katie's first instinct was to run to him—he could be dead or dying and not just unconscious—but instead she stood frozen, watching in horror as Major Brown let loose a vicious punch that connected with Collin's cheek, splitting it open.

Collin roared with rage, but instead of conceding or stepping back, he flew at Major Brown. In a burst of fury, Collin began pummeling angry blow after angry blow, landing a cracking right-handed fist to Major Brown's nose, drawing a gush of blood, like red rain.

With a chill that shuddered up her spine, Katie realized that this was no gentleman's fisticuffs with rules of conduct. Collin was swinging punches in a mad rage, left and right. The vehement wrath emanating from both men was as palpable as the crashing waves below. And it was clear from the look on their faces that they meant to kill each other.

Murder was in the air.

With the frenzied howl of a wolf braying at the moon, Collin lunged and swung out at Major Brown with such force that when his fist missed the mark, his entire body collided with Brown's, knocking him to the ground.

In one fluid movement, Major Brown reached into the calf of his boot and drew out a dagger. Collin kicked at it, and it clattered to the ground. With a heaving grunt, Major Brown attempted to haul himself up, but not before Collin snatched the blade and held it aloft. As Brown staggered and rose to his full height, Collin took aim.

The only thing that saved Major Brown from being stabbed in the throat was his instinctive sidestepping to the left, so that the knife ripped through the collar of his military jacket. The lantern's gleam flashed on the blade as Collin lifted the dagger once again. But Major Brown had reared up like a bear. In sheer height and bulk, he had the advantage. Just as Collin lunged, Brown kicked him ferociously in the groin.

And it was over.

In a fit of heaving agony, Collin dropped to his knees, clutching his midsection. Then he fell sideways to the ground in a fetal position.

Except for the wind, all was quiet. Deathly quiet. The only thing competing with the whoosh of the blustery air was the sputtering, choking sound of Collin mewling in pain, like a baby animal caught in a steel trap.

Katie blinked at Toby lying unconscious on the ground next to one of the barrels and then at Collin softly weeping and doubled over, near the end of the platform. Katie's feet felt like lead.
She couldn
'
t move
. If she stayed still long enough maybe Major Brown wouldn't notice, giving her enough time to formulate a plan. But what plan? All three of them — Toby, Collin, and Katie—were up here alone and at the mercy of Jack the Ripper.

It was then that Major Brown, slowly and with great deliberation, reached for the dagger and moved haltingly toward Katie. For a brief, terrifying moment, Katie could see her own slashed and eviscerated body being hoisted over the edge of the pier and dropped into the rushing, dark waves below.

But when Major Brown took another step in her direction, Collin surprised her. He made a diverting, howling noise, drawing Brown's attention. With great gasping effort and a strange semblance of dignity, Collin staggered to his feet and stared calmly, almost happily, at Major Brown. But the voice that choked off Katie's cries of protest was anything but calm. “Stay out of this, Katie!” he screamed. “Major Fathead's quarrel is with me, not you.”

Major Brown clamped his eyes on Collin, and before he could even clench his fists, Collin charged at him with his own fists at the ready.

Watching what transpired next made Katie feel as if her head would explode. She gasped, struggled for breath, and felt a searing, aching, physical pain in the pit of her stomach as if Major Brown had landed a blow to her own stomach, instead of Collin's.

Paralyzed with fear, Katie was certain that Collin would keep fighting until Major Brown finished him off.

I have to do something! But what?

Frantically, Katie looked around. She was powerless against Major Brown's brute strength, his anger, his flying fists . . .
and
the knife that would surely slice her open.

She reached into her pocket and felt the jagged edge of Mrs. Tray's rock. She yanked it out of her pocket, then watched in horror as Major Brown cocked his fist back like a pistol hammer and put all his strength into a right cross to Collin's chin. Had it landed, it would have broken Collin's jaw, so powerful was the arc of the swing. But Collin's head, like Jell-O on a stick, wobbled and bobbed as his legs swayed and staggered beneath him, and the punch didn't land on his chin. It landed with a sickening crunch in the soft flesh just under his left ear. Collin, his brain dazed, his limbs loose and floppy, reeled backward like a rag doll and fell into a heap at the very edge of the wooden pier.

Major Brown moved menacingly toward him.

By rights Collin should have been paralyzed . . . or dead. But instead, he began thrashing about, trying once again to rise up. Any minute now he'd pitch himself over the edge by accident—or design, in order to thwart Major Brown's
coup de grace
.

There were no ropes or guard rails cordoning off the sheer drop at the end of the pier. The only thing standing between Collin and the precipice was an upturned wheelbarrow—beyond which Katie could see the vast, dark abyss of the Thames and could just make out the masts of schooners bobbing in the distance.

Stay still, Collin! Stay still!
Katie silently prayed as, hunched over and clutching his stomach, Collin wobbled unsteadily to his feet and began to lurch this way and that.

With Major Brown's back toward her, Katie inched closer. She could see the sheer drop at the end of the pier, and it gave her vertigo just thinking about plunging over the side—which Collin would surely do if he didn't hold still. One wrong step . . .

Tall and menacing, Major Brown loomed in front of Katie like a gladiator as he slowly moved in for the kill.

Collin, swaying on his feet, his face and neck smeared with blood so bright and glistening it made the red of his hair look mud-brown, stared at Major Brown with fatalistic determination.

No!
Katie silently screamed. She could see it in Collin's eyes. He meant to go after Major Brown again. It would be his last act on earth.

The slippery boards beneath her feet began to shake, the handrail to tremble. Katie realized with a jolt that it wasn't the pier that was shaking, but her whole body shuddering convulsively.

Do something! Do something! Do something!
her mind screamed.

Clutching the jagged rock tightly in one hand, Katie scooped up the lantern from its pole with the other and swung it wide. The firefly flame jumped and jiggled, making both Collin and Major Brown pause for a split second. It was all the time she needed. She swung the lantern so the beam of light settled full into Major Brown's bloodshot eyes. She gave one last quick glance at Collin, sluggish blood oozing from his cheekbone.

Then Katie did the unthinkable. She closed her eyes.

Unthinkable by her father's standards, who had taught Katie to throw a baseball—and throw it hard.

“
Never close your eyes, Katie! It
'
s fatal
!
” Her father's words ricocheted in her head.

It had taken an entire summer to rid Katie of the habit of screwing up her eyes after taking aim. But that was exactly what she did now. She wound her arm back, took aim . . . and squeezed her eyes shut, letting the rock sail through the air.

The stone made thudding contact at the same instant that Katie willed her eyes to flick open—in time to see the rock smash dead center into Major Brown's forehead. Stunned and reeling, Major Brown blinked like a dazed Goliath and began batting his hand in front of his eyes. Collin saw his opportunity and flung himself straight at Brown. The force of it sent them both tumbling over the upturned wheelbarrow.

Collin rolled to the side and kicked out.

Major Brown tried to scramble up just as a foghorn blared in the distance. Collin kicked out again, smashing his boot into the man's kneecap. Major Brown buckled and fell to the ground.

The dagger was in Collin's hand.

Grabbing a fistful of Major Brown's hair, Collin yanked the man's head back. He was about to draw the blade across Brown's exposed throat when a thin, clear voice called out from the darkness behind.

“
Don
'
t do it, Collin
.”

It was Toby's voice.

“But he deserves it!” Collin screamed at the heavens.

“Don't,” Toby repeated, limping toward them.