The Whitechapel Conspiracy (30 page)

“I came ter see yer,” she retorted. “Wot did yer think—I come for a bunch of flowers?” Her voice was sharp. It alarmed him. Now he was certain there was something badly wrong.

“Is Mrs. Pitt all right? Has she heard from him?” That was his first thought. He had barely seen Charlotte since Pitt had left, and that was over a month ago now. Perhaps he should have spoken with her? But it would have been intrusive, even impertinent, and what would he say? She was a lady, the real thing, and she had family.

What she relied on him to do was find out the truth and show that Pitt had been right, so he could be reinstated in Bow Street, where he belonged. And he had signally failed to do that!

A flower cart trundled past them and stopped a dozen yards away.

“What is it?” he said again, more sharply. “Gracie!”

She swallowed hard. He could see her throat jerk. Now he was really afraid. Too much of his life was tied up in Keppel Street. He could not shrug it off and walk away. He would be left incomplete, hinting.

“I followed Remus, like yer said.” She looked at him defiantly.

“I didn’t tell you to follow him! I told you to stay at home and do your job!”

“Yer told me first ter follow ’im,” she pointed out stubbornly.

A couple walked past them, the woman holding newly bought roses up to smell the perfume.

Gracie was frightened. Tellman could see it in her face and in the way she stood, the stiffness inside her. Her whole body was rigid It made him angry, made him want to protect her, and he felt the fear as if it had brushed him too with a breath of ice. He did not want this! He was vulnerable, wide open to being hurt, twisted, even broken.

“Well, you shouldn’t have! You should stay at home where you’re supposed to be, looking after Mrs. Pitt and the house!”

Her eyes were wide and dark, her lips trembling. He was making it worse. He was hurting her and leaving her alone with whatever it was that she had seen, or thought.

“Well, where did he go?” he asked more gently. It sounded grudging, but it was himself he was angry with—for being clumsy, feeling too much and thinking too little. He did not know how to behave with her. She was so young, fourteen years younger than he was, and so brave and proud. Trying to touch her was like trying to pick up a thistle. And there was nothing of her! He’d seen bigger twelve-year-olds. But he had never known anyone of any size with more courage or strength of will. “Well, then?” he prompted.

Her eyes did not waver from his. She ignored the passersby. “I spent all yer money,” she said. “An’ a bit wot I was give as well.”

“You didn’t go out of London! I told you …”

“No, I didn’t,” she said quickly, gulping. “But I don’ ’ave ter do wot yer tells me. ’E went ter Whitechapel, Remus did … ter the back streets, Spitalfields way, Lime’ouse side. ’E asked if anyone seen a big carriage about four years ago, drivin’ around, one as don’t belong. Which were kind o’ daft. Nobody around there’s goin’ ter ’ave a carriage. Shanks’s pony, more like. Omnibus if yer sticks ter the main ’Igh Street.”

He was puzzled. But at least this was not sinister. “Looking for a carriage? Do you know if he found anything?”

For a moment he thought she was going to smile, but it died before it began. There was an underlying terror inside her which snuffed out every shred of lightness. It gripped at him with a kind of pain he could hardly bear.

“Yeah, ’cos ’e never recognized me, so I let ’im ask me,
like ’e asked anyone else,” she answered. “An’ I told ’im I’d seen a big black carriage four years ago. ’E asked me if anyone in it ’ad acted like they was lookin’ fer anyone special. So I told ’im they ’ad.”

“Who?” His voice came roughly, hoarse with tension.

“I said the first name as came ter me ’ead. I were thinking o’ that girl wot wos took from Cleveland Street, so I said ‘Annie.’ ” She shivered violently.

“Annie?” He took a step closer to her. He wanted to touch her, hold her by the shoulders, but she might have pushed him away, so he stood still. “Annie Crook?”

Her face was bleached white. She shook her head very slightly. “No … I didn’t know it till later, hours later, w’en I followed ’im back to Whitechapel again, arter ’e’d bin ter the river police, wrote a letter ter somebody, an’ met up wi’ a gent in ’Yde Park an’ accused ’im o’ summink terrible, an’ ’ad a real quarrel wif ’im, an’ then gorn all the way back ter Whitechapel—” She stopped, breathless, her chest heaving.

“Who?” he demanded urgently. “If it wasn’t Annie Crook, what does it matter?” Unreasonably, he was disappointed. Only the horror in her face held him from looking away.

She gulped again. “It were Dark Annie,” she said in a strangled whisper.

“Dark … Annie …?” Slowly the horror began to dawn on him, cold as the grave.

She nodded. “Annie Chapman … wot Jack cut up!”

“The … Ripper?” He could barely say the word.

“Yeah!” she breathed. “The other places ’e were askin’ about coaches were Buck’s Row, w’ere Polly Mitchell were found, ’Anbury Street w’ere Dark Annie were, an’ ’e finished up in Mitre Square, w’ere they got Kate Eddowes, wot wos the worst o’ them all.”

Horror washed over him as if something nameless, primeval, had come out of the darkness and stood close to them both, death in its heart and its hands.

He could not bring himself to say the name. “If you knew it then, you shouldn’t have followed him the rest of the way
back to the river police and …” he started, hysteria rising in his voice.

“I didn’t!” she protested. “ ’E went ter the police first, askin’ about a coach driver called Nickley tryin’ ter run down a little girl about seven or eight, wot ’e did twice, but never got ’er.” She caught her breath. “An’ after the second time ’e went an’ jumped inter the river, but ’e took ’is boots off first, so ’e din’t really mean ter kill ’isself, ’e jus’ wanted folks ter think ’e did.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” he asked quickly He caught hold of her arm and pulled her to the side of the pavement, out of the way of two men passing by. He did not let go of her.

“I dunno!” she said.

He was struggling to find sense in the story, to see the connections to Annie Crook and what it could have to do with Adinett and Pitt. But deeper, from the core of him, welling up in spite of all he could do to prevent it, he was fighting his fear for Gracie, and his fear for himself because she mattered to him more than he could control or knew how to deal with.

“But ’e knows,” she said, watching him. “Remus knows. ’E’s so lit up yer could see yer way across London by ’im.”

He was still staring at her.

“I saw ’is face in the lamplight in Mitre Square,” she repeated. “That’s w’ere Jack did Kate Eddowes … an ’e knew that! Remus knew! That’s w’y ’e were there.”

Suddenly he realized what she was saying. “You followed him there at night?” He was aghast. “By yourself … into Mitre Square?” He heard his voice ascend up the scale, trembling and out of control. “Haven’t you got the wits you were born with? Think what could have happened to you!” He shut his eyes so tightly it hurt, trying to force away the visions that were inside his head. He could remember the pictures of the bodies four years ago, hideous distortions of the human form, a mockery of the decencies of death.

And Gracie had gone there, at night, following a man who could be anything. “You stupid …” he shouted. “Stupid …” No word came to him that was adequate for his fear for her,
his rage and relief, and the fury at his own vulnerability—because if anything had happened to her he would never have been happy again.

He was oblivious of people stopping to stare at him, even of an elderly gentleman who hesitated by Gracie, concerned for her safety. Then apparently he decided it was domestic, and hurried on.

Tellman did not want to care so much, about Gracie or anyone else, but particularly about her. She was prickly, wrong-headed about almost everything that mattered; she didn’t even like him, let alone love him; and she was determined to stay in service to the Pitts. The very thought of being in service to anyone set his teeth on edge, like the sound of a knife scraping on glass.

“You are stupid!” he shouted at her again, swinging his arm around as if he would smash something on the ground, only he had nothing to throw. “Don’t you ever think what you’re doing?”

Now she was angry too. She had been frightened before, but he had insulted her, and she was not going to stand for that.

“Well, I found out wot Remus were after, an’ that’s more’n you did!” she shouted back. “So if I’m stupid, wot does that make you, eh? An’ if yer in too much of a rage ter see wot I jus’ told yer, an’ use it ter ’elp Mr. Pitt, then I’ll jus’ ’ave ter do it meself! I dunno ’ow, but I’ll do it. I’ll go an’ find Remus again an’ tell ’im I know wot ’e’s doin’, an’ if’e don’t tell me—”

“Oh, no you won’t!” He caught hold of her wrist as she turned to leave, almost cannoning into a large woman in a striped dress.

“Get off o’ me!” Gracie tried to snatch herself away, but Tellman had her tightly, and he was too strong for her. She bent forward and bit him, hard.

He yelled with pain and let go of her. “You little beast!”

The large woman hurried away, muttering to herself.

“Then you keep yer ’ands ter yerself!” Gracie shouted back at Tellman. “An’ don’t yer try tellin’ me wot ter do and wot not ter do! I don’t belong ter nobody, an’ I’ll do wot I like.
Yer can ’elp me an’ Mr. Pitt, or yer can stand there an’ call me names. It don’t make no difference. We’ll find out the truth, an’ we’ll get ’im back—you’ll see!” This time she flounced her skirts around and stormed off.

He started to go after her, then stopped. His hand was thoroughly sore. Unconsciously he put it to his lips. He had no idea what to say to Gracie anyway. He felt crushed. He wanted to help, for Pitt’s sake, and because it was right, and for Gracie’s sake too. She would have to trust him, and he would be more than worthy of it.

But he was terrified for her, and it was a new and dreadful feeling, a fear like no other, cold and knotting him up inside.

She stopped a dozen yards away and swung around to face him again.

“Are you really jus’ gonna stand there like a bleedin’ lamppost?” she demanded.

He strode over to her. “I’m going to find Remus,” he said gravely. “And you’re going home to Keppel Street before Mrs. Pitt throws you out for not doing your job. I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that she’s worried sick where you are—as if she didn’t have enough to be scared about.” He projected his own feelings onto Charlotte. “She’s probably been awake half the night imagining all sorts of terrible things happening to you. She’s lonely, doesn’t know what to say or do for the best, and you should be there helping.”

She looked at him, weighing her words. “Yer going ter find Remus, then?” she challenged.

“You deaf? I just told you I am!”

She sniffed. “Then I reckon as I’ve told you all I found out, I’ll go ’ome an’ get summink fer dinner … maybe make a cake.” She shrugged and started walking away again.

“Gracie!”

“Yeah?”

“You did very well … in fact, brilliantly. And if you ever do it again, I’ll tan your seat till you have to eat off the mantelpiece for a week. Do you hear me?”

She grinned at him, then kept on walking.

He did not want to smile, but he could not help it. Suddenly
there was a joy beside the fear, a fierce, warm ache he never wanted to lose.

Tellman did not even consider remaining by the flower market pursuing the stolen goods. It was still early. If he went straightaway he might find Remus and be able to confront him and discover, either by threat or persuasion, exactly what he knew. For Pitt’s sake he must find out what connection it had with Adinett—for everyone’s, if Remus really knew the identity of the most fearful murderer ever to strike London, or possibly anywhere. All other names of terror paled beside his.

He walked rapidly away, head down, not looking right or left in case he caught the eye of anyone he knew. Where would Remus be at this hour? It was not yet five past nine. Perhaps he was still at his home? He had been out late enough last night.

He caught a hansom, to save time, giving the driver Remus’s address.

If he were not there, then where would he be? Where would he go this morning? What pieces of the puzzle were left to find?

What did he know already? It had something to do with a coach driver called Nickley, who apparently had driven his master’s carriage around Whitechapel searching for those five particular women, and then when he had found them, someone had butchered them in the most horrific manner. Why these women and not others? Why had he stopped with five? They had been ordinary enough, prostitutes of one sort or another. There were tens of thousands like them. Yet, according to Gracie, whoever it was had asked after at least one ofthembyname.

The cab jolted him along the street without interrupting his concentration.

So it was not a maniac simply out to kill. There was purpose. Why had Annie Crook been taken from the tobacconist’s shop in Cleveland Street, and apparently ended up at Guy’s Hospital? And attended by the Queen’s surgeon! Why?
Who paid for it? If she was insane it was hardly a surgical matter.

And who was the young man who had been taken from Cleveland Street at the same time, and also under protest?

He arrived, paid the driver but asked him to wait five minutes while he went and knocked on the door. The landlady told him Remus had gone out ten minutes before, but she had no idea where to.

Tellman thanked her and went back to the cab, directing the driver to the nearest railway station. He would take the underground train to Whitechapel, then walk the quarter mile or so to Cleveland Street.

Through the journey he sat turning the problem over in his mind. If Remus was not there, and he could not find him, he would have to start asking around himself. There did not seem any better place to begin. It all appeared to start with Annie Crook. There were several other pieces that so far had no connection, such as why was it important that Annie Crook had been Catholic?

Presumably the young man was not, and either his family or hers had objected. And her father, William Crook, had ended up dead in the St. Pancras Infirmary.