CHAPTER 6
Night shrouded Finchley although, like any modern city, darkness never truly fell there. Even Marie’s bedroom was not dark. As recently as a week previously she had been content to drift off with her lights extinguished and the curtains drawn. Now she could not bear it because nightmares tore her, screaming, from her rest every night. Her distraught father ransacked the loft on the second evening to find the night-light that she had relied on to keep the goblins at bay as a toddler, and restore it to a working condition. There it stood, freshly cleaned and slightly creaky, on top of her portable television set, radiating friendly images of clouds and fluffy horses dancing across the walls and ceiling in an ever changing kaleidoscope of soft pastel colours.
She took little comfort from it, but at least it kept the terrifying darkness out while she lay awake, the darkness that cloaked her soul, the darkness that hid him.
She could not remember when her eyelids drooped and finally met, when she surrendered unwittingly to the irresistible surge of sleep, when the pale images of prancing pink horses and swirling magenta clouds had merged in her mind to a gentle fusion of fog. She lay writhing on the bed, still fully clothed, beads of sweat prickling her brow. Her eyes were closed, but screwed up, for she was not fully asleep. Nor was she fully awake. She wandered a desolate, solitary, desperate road with no beginning and but one end.
A choking mist surrounded her, swallowing up the tall, blackened buildings and blotting out the narrow, cobbled alleyways, filling the auburn swathes of her hair with tiny, sparkling droplets that glistened in the ghostly light of a flickering gas lamp. Gentlemen with tall hats and canes, ladies with bonnets, bustles and parasols, strolled serenely by, watched by shabby beggars and barefoot street urchins in a silent tableau of an age long gone. They floated before her eyes and evaporated into the mist like the vague, indistinct echoes that they were.
Then she was running blindly, fleeing for her life from a black, shapeless horror that pursued her remorselessly. It lurked on the periphery of her senses, clinging to her consciousness, a dark, hungry mass that stalked her to her inevitable doom.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed, stumbling and falling to her knees in the gutter.
“Mary…” The voice came from within her head, almost as a caress.
Her mouth opened wide, straining to scream again, but no sound emerged, her throat choked by terror. She heard a vague banging from far away. Her eyes seared open, the pupils dilated, blank. The dark mass rose over her in triumph, enfolding her in its irresistible crushing embrace. The banging became the pounding of heavy feet.
“No…” her cry had become a whimper. She willed herself to resist, but her body was limp with terror, drained of strength, impotent. The pounding from beyond filled her head.
His voice had the velvety softness of a kiss. “I am coming, Mary.”
The bedroom door smashed open and the main light snapped on, banishing the demon to the shadows. Her father stood in the doorway, white-faced, with his finger on the switch. Her mother was hard behind, her hand on her husband’s shoulder, her own face contorted in their shared agony. Together they came into the room and took their shaking daughter into their arms. Desperately she clung to them both, chest heaving, sobbing her heart out on her mother’s breast.
The report from the doctor was the same. Physically, there was nothing wrong with her apart from being generally run down. More rest was prescribed, together with a firm admonition to start taking those sleeping pills forthwith. A duly chastened Marie nodded meekly and submitted to her mother’s cast iron vow to feed them to her personally.
Joe came as he always did and stayed as he always did, leaving, as he usually did, shortly after nine pm. He had long since forgiven her for her uncharacteristic outburst on that first night.
At last Marie sat alone again in her bedroom, having said goodnight to Joe at the door and returned there to hear her mother calling up the stairs that she would be administering the dose personally within the hour. Sixty minutes in which to try not to brood, sixty minutes in which to avoid coming apart again.
She checked her alarm clock. Nine thirty. She was still too pent up to face work, so she switched her television on instead. The screen filled with a large image of the figure two while the announcer introduced the next programme.
“On Two now, A View from Within, the latest in an occasional series of short programs, made by BBC staff to raise issues that they see as important. We would point out that the views expressed in this programme are those of the programme maker, and not necessarily of the BBC itself. Tonight, Sally Ferguson discusses the recent murders in the East End of London.”
Marie’s attention was immediately engaged. She sat on the edge of her bed, her hands unconsciously gripping the quilt.
The earnest face of the young crime reporter filled the screen. She had tied her hair back and was sitting in a studio instead of being out on a street like she usually was. The camera was fairly tight on her face. Marie noticed, for the first time, that her eyes, far from being cold, as she had always imagined them to be, were gentle and sympathetic. The young woman stared at the camera for a few seconds before she began to speak.
“My name is Sally Ferguson,” she said. “For the past three and a half years, I have worked as a crime reporter for the BBC. In that time, I have covered all manner of horrifying events and witnessed the sheer barbarism that one human being can inflict on another. I have seen the carnage of terrorist bombings, gangland executions, rapes, murders and muggings. My professional life is well and truly drenched in the blood of the innocent. Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought I had seen everything that there was to see in the way of violent, criminal depravity, and had become inured to it. I do not see myself as hard-hearted, and trust that those who know me do not see me that way either. When doing my job, I have to stand back and detach my personal feelings from the horrors around me. If I neglected to do so, not only would I fail in my responsibilities to my employers and to the public, I would go mad.
‘Now, however, I find myself pursuing a story from which I cannot pull back, which draws me into its black heart with a force that I cannot resist. Two weeks ago a young girl, called Mary Anne Nichols, was brutally done to death by somebody with a knife.” The picture changed to show a formal school photograph of a young girl, hair gleaming and tie properly knotted, smiling sweetly at the camera. “She was fifteen years old. How often have we heard something like that? How often have I said as much myself, without pausing to consider the human tragedy that it represents?” The picture reverted to Sally Ferguson. “She was a nice girl. She had nice parents, and a nice younger sister. What state are they in now? She had a nice boyfriend, Richard. How does he feel tonight, I wonder? Does any of us really pause to consider how they are going to face the rest of their lives when Mary Anne’s name has faded from the headlines?”
Marie felt the telltale sting of tears burning at the back of her eyes. She was one who did. Most definitely. Sally had paused for breath. Now she continued.
“A matter of days later a pensioner, named Roberta Anne Henderson, was murdered in a similar fashion.” The picture changed again, this time to a vague, blurry photograph of a little old lady with white hair, also smiling at the camera. “She, too, was a nice person, possibly the sort that Mary Anne Nichols would eventually have become, had she been allowed to grow up, let alone grow old.”
Sally Ferguson's face was on the screen again, the camera now even tighter on it. “In my professional capacity, I have hounded the police with demands to link these murders as they are linked inextricably in the minds of everyone else. In their professional capacity they have resisted my suggestion as only they can. They have neither rejected it, nor have they accepted it. They are 'keeping an open mind'. Well, while their minds are open, the bodies of Mary Anne Nichols and Roberta Anne Henderson lie cold on mortuary slabs. How many more nice girls and women must join them before this evil man is caught?”
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p; Marie became vaguely aware of a slow tear welling in the corner of her right eye and trickling down her cheek. She let it flow.
The image before her continued. “It is my belief that Mary Anne was not killed because of anything that she had done. Her killer had no reason to hate her. She was murdered because of who she was. She was slaughtered for no other reason than that her name was Mary Anne Nichols. On Friday, August 31st, 1888, a serial killer that History has named Jack the Ripper murdered another Mary Anne Nichols in the same manner and on the same spot. Our Mary Anne was abducted on August 31st this year. The Ripper’s second victim, Annie Chapman, was killed on Saturday, September 8th, 1888 in Hanbury Street. Roberta Henderson most probably was killed on the eighth and her body was certainly found in her flat on the same street. How does this tie in when the names are different? I have a question for the investigating officers. Can you confirm that Mrs. Henderson’s maiden name was not Chapman? If you cannot, my theory that there is a copycat Jack the Ripper serial killer at large in the East End of London may be correct.
'The original killer slew five times. The twisted individual, who is trying to copy him, is recreating those murders as accurately as he can. A further three women are under sentence of appalling death from this monster. Their names are Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. If you bear, or ever bore, one of these names, please contact me. Don’t panic, it may not be you. But get in touch. Together, we may be able to force the authorities to face the truth and unmask this creature before he kills again. Please, please do not allow History to repeat itself any more. The number to ring is 01, if outside of London…”
Her mind racing, Marie flung herself across her bed to grab a pen and some paper from her desk and write the number down furiously as the compassionate face on the television repeated it.