Whitechapel (45 page)

Mary took off her outer clothes and left them in a heap in one corner of the damp room and got onto the bed pulling a rough and dirty blanket over her and huddled underneath it. There was no fire lit, she hadn’t been there for a couple of days and no food or drink in the room either as a result. She had only been laying there for a few minutes when suddenly even in her drunken state she realised she had lost her favoured winter shawl somewhere between the pub and home, or had perhaps left it in The Ten Bells. She quickly got dressed and left her room and made her way slowly and unsteadily back towards Commercial Street. She scanned the floor as she went with blurred and uncertain drunken vision looking for the crochet garment she had lost and finally finding herself back in the pub. She entered and went over to the table where she had been sat and found the shawl draped over her chair. The bar keeper called across to her having seen her enter so unsteadily.

“You ain’t having any more, Mary. Look at you; you can’t even remember to dress.”

“Oh, fuck off and leave me alone!” She slurred beginning to feel a little nauseous.

She left the pub back into the cold night air and sat herself on an empty barrel outside to try to regain some composure. She began taking deep breaths to attempt to over come the feeling of wanting to vomit. All of this was being acutely watched by Klosowski who was somewhat perturbed that she had got up again and the time now was getting well passed midnight. She seemed to sit on this barrel head in hands for an eternity; there was no choice he would have to try and take some inconspicuous action to get her off the street. As he decided to leave the pub bar and approach her she got up and began wandering south towards Thrawl Street appearing a little disorientated and heading away from Millers Court. She continued south then meeting a man coming in the opposite direction to whom she spoke, she seemed to know him.

“Here, Hutchinson, lend me sixpence to get a cab home.”

“You only live over there, besides, I’ve spent all me money going to Romford,” the man called Hutchinson replied. Klosowski kept himself next to building line as he watched. She turned and walked north again so he decided to meet her head on and try to ‘charm’ her off the streets offering to get her home safely. She was staggering towards him with her head down as he tapped her on the shoulder and spoke very simply to her.

“Are you all right, my lady?” She paused and had to think before replying.

“My lady?” she said quizzically and then burst out laughing, to which he responded by laughing to put her ease.

“Do you want me to get you home then?” He asked her putting his arm around her shoulders. She was too drunk to remember the current danger on the streets of Whitechapel and having worked them so long was unmoved by his physical contact with her. She mumbled a just about intelligible reply.

“Mmm, all right.”

“You’ll be all right, as I have told you,” replied Klosowski and walked her off in the direction of Millers Court. All of this had been seen and heard by George Hutchison who knowing Mary’s normal status within Whitechapel thought little of it and assumed she had agreed to safely make her normal type of wage. They came past him with Klosowski dipping his head using the brim of his hat to avoid being seen, but Hutchison bent down to look at him. Klosowski stared with hate and aggression back at him looking with his head still down and eyes looking up and just for a moment Hutchison thought he looked a bit like the barber from Cable Street but clean shaven.

He watched them cross over to Dorset Street and loiter speaking for a few minutes, he couldn’t quite pick up on all of the conversation but saw her give him a small kiss in apparent gratitude on the cheek and they exchanged handkerchiefs. He then saw them both enter Millers Court and not come back out. He stood around for nearly three quarters of an hour before giving up and walking off.

Klosowski saw her to her door and noted she had left it unlocked.

“That was very kind,” said Mary as she opened the door.

“Not at all. You just sleep well; maybe you can buy me a drink sometime.” She smiled and went in and closed the door. He waited outside but decided to return to The Ten Bells to allow her to settle, knowing he could get in easily once she was asleep. Mary undressed stripping down to her light chemise piling her clothes carefully at the foot of the bed. She settled down to a restful sleep and very quickly began to drift off with pleasant thoughts of visiting Robert the next day knowing he would be discharged soon.

In The Ten Bells they were still serving after hours as was quite normal on occasions. With little else to do but smoke and drink, Klosowski listened into an inane conversation between the landlord and one of his regulars.

“Here, I thought you was going to change the name of this place?” said the drunken customer slouching across the bar.

“No, you didn’t hear me right. I said it used to be called something else years ago before it became The Ten Bells.”

“Oh, right. What was that then?”

“The Henry the Eighth. Thing is everyone regular now knows it as the Bells, so what’s the point in upsetting them all.”

Every time the door to the pub opened Klosowski had a good look to make sure that neither of the women had come back and three times during that next hour there were visits from the police looking around at all who were present in there. The authorities accepted that the more people were out and about perhaps the less chance the Ripper had to strike for fear of being seen. Little did he know that over in The Britannia the police had a plain clothes presence all night based on Robert Lees information; Lees wasn’t infalable. When the tedious hour was up he walked back outside and before disappearing along the passage for Millers Court he had a good look up and down Commercial Street. Good, there was no one around to see him. He went straight to number 13 to find the broken glass had been padded out with some old rags, to stop the draughts he guessed, so he carefully removed them and looked in. He could see Kelly asleep in her bed with one arm draped over her body and her face turned away from him. Klosowski slowly and carefully reached in and unlocked the door; he walked around the corner opening the door slowly and quietly and went in, closing it carefully behind him and locking it again. He stuffed the rags back into the window to ensure that no one had the view he just had without specific action to gain it. He walked up to the bed and looked down over the sleeping pretty Irish girl. She was particularly lovely so maybe he might be able to have his way with her before demanding the money and killing her to buy her silence. He emptied the box of his implements and the gag he stuffed it into a lump in his right hand ready to use it, despite being drunk she would still be able to make a lot of noise. The knife he placed in a pocket. It was now between three and four in the morning. He grabbed her throat so hard she was unable to make a noise and as she woke opening her mouth to try to scream he stuffed it with the rolled up gag. She struggled wildly in absolute fear of her life and almost started to get herself off of the bed so he threw himself on stop of her pinning her down with his own body weight. She started trying to kick but without success as she felt his hot tobacco and ale scented breath on her. Was this Jack the Ripper or just a rapist? She would know but only for a few harrowing minutes, if that.

With the hand that had held the gag he pinned both of her arms above her head and with the hand that previously held her throat she could feel him reaching down and hitching her petticoat chemise up to get access to her for the purpose of rape. Having promised herself to Robert she was never going to let another man defile her and with a supreme effort she yanked her arms free of his grasp and punched and scratched him in the face. He yelled in pain and with his body arching slightly she managed to also strike him with one of knees in his groin which forced him off the bed landing heavily on the floor. She got up to get to the door pulling the gag from her mouth and made a loud scream of ‘murder, help, murder!’ But, her assailant was fast too. He was up from the floor and pinned her against the door with a hand over her mouth before she could open it and drew the glistening bladed knife on her. As he went to swing it towards her face she flayed out with her hands which took a massive amount of knife injury. Her palms and undersides of her fingers and forearms received terrible deep wounds as she tried to defend herself knowing this was the face of death. The incredible pain this created very quickly became numb but it had caused her to drop her guard which was when she felt a cold deep sensation across the front of her neck. Within a split second she discovered she couldn’t breathe and felt a warm fluid gushing over her torso; she also felt it draining into her severed windpipe filling her lungs already desperate for air; she felt herself suddenly becoming very faint.

Still conscious he grabbed her by the arms, Mary now without any strength to resist, and dragged her over to the bed where he flung her down before striking again. She looked into his face; she had scarred it heavily with her nails and could see the gashes were deep which must have driven this evil mans vengeance. That was the last thing she saw. Mercifully she lost consciousness and died from the massive blood loss of the throat wound just before he savagely attacked her face and entire body in revenge for her retaliation. He struck at her once beautiful face repeatedly with the knife with slashing and stabbing motions until within seconds there was no face; he cut off her ears and nose. He moved down to her lower body and stabbed deep into her sternum and ripped down with the knife opening up her entire chest and abdominal cavity; he furiously stabbed and slashed at the internals of these areas tearing out her heart and entrails, placing the latter on the bedside table. He cut off her breasts and discarded them at either end of the bed. The more he attacked the greater his fury became as he slashed and stabbed into her thighs eventually skinning them down to the bone and leaving piles of flesh around her lifeless and unrecognisable body. After several minutes of prolonged attack he had inflicted a massive and hideous amount of damage to most of her body, face and limbs. He stood back from the bed breathless and covered in blood to observe his handiwork; as a former mortuary attendant he was pleased with the speed of his work and looked at the blood soaked knife.

The deep red blood dripped heavily off of it and glistened in the faint candle light that lit the room. It looked quite black, almost like some sort of molasses; it fascinated him and he slowly lifted the knife to his face and smelt the blood. Human blood had a quality to it he could not quite discern from other types and finally, after all the years he had indulged in it he was driven to taste it. He licked the blade slowly and with a sense of wonderment at the taste of so much of another human’s blood. It drove him on further.

Forgetting the original financial motivation of the crime he turned to the fire place. There was a kettle hanging over the lifeless fire grate which still held some water, into this he placed Mary’s heart and a portion of the flesh he had cut from her thigh. He swung it back over the grate and lit a fire from a pile of wood and kindling that sat to one side of the fireplace. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at what had been the face of Mary Kelly. Her forehead was mostly unscarred and he gently stroked the auburn hair from her face area back over her forehead and onto her scalp, and then just caressed her forehead and scalp gently while the kettle boiled over the fire that had taken a good hold in the grate.

He felt an odd connection to this latest victim of his infrequent blood lusts. Previously there had seemed no chance of failure or being caught because the resistance of his victims had not really been that great. This one had fought back fiercely and almost rendered the chance of her escaping and him being caught a reality; it was a rush that had driven him on and on in the attack and now she gave him the chance to taste human flesh. None of this had happened to him before, and despite the fact he would kill again it would never be with the same sense of excitement. He piled the warm flesh and organs he had removed in a bizarrely ordered fashion.

The cooking human flesh and tissue made a particular smell as the water began to reach boiling point and the lid of the kettle began to vibrate a little. He swung the kettle out from the fire and lifted the lid and looked inside at the red discoloured water. The items weren’t quite visible so he reached in with his knife and fished out the piece of her thigh. In the strange fire lit room he couldn’t make out its true colour; as he examined it, turning the knife in his hand before he bit into it. He chewed it as he would any conventional meat but couldn’t liken the taste to anything he had ever eaten previously. He paused before trying to find her heart in the kettle now unsure of what he was doing. He had gone over the edge of what even he described as humanity or normal human behaviour and did not know how much further he dare to venture. Staring for sometime into the boiling pot he became transfixed by the bubbling water. Eventually he plunged the knife into the kettle and fished the steaming dripping heart out and bit into it quickly and savagely. He enjoyed the taste. He ravenously finished it and fled the room and the unrecognisable corpse of Mary Kelly slamming the door behind him running to the Crispin Street end of Millers Court. In a dark alley he forced himself to vomit heavily emptying the evil unnatural contents of his stomach and stripped off his outer blood soiled coat and discarded it. He ran as fast as he could to Cable Street to the safety of his shop.

Once there he tore off the rest of his clothes and burnt them; he got several buckets of cold water and scrubbed his entire body and poured the icy water over himself almost in a form a penance in his enclosed yard before wrapping himself in a heavy blanket and downing half a bottle of some rough port that he had on a shelf. The alcohol helped dim the obvious sins chasing around in his mind and was a vain attempt to remove the unforgettable taste of human flesh.