Murder

Book 2: Mayhem and Murder

by Sarah Pinborough

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from when Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London - and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow. Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible. Now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames, and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy.

Release date: April 30, 2014

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 336

Sample

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

1 The Singleton Argus Saturday, June 27, 1896

2 London. November, 1896 Dr Bond

3 Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. March, 1891 Aaron Kosminski

4 London. Christmas, 1896 Dr Bond

5 Extract from letter from James Harrington to Edward Kane, dated 1888

6 London. January, 1897 Edward Kane

7 London. January, 1897 Dr Bond

8 Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. 1893 Aaron Kosminski

9 The Times Saturday, February 14, 1897

10 London. February, 1897 Dr Bond

11 London. February, 1897 Edward Kane

12 London. February, 1897 Dr Bond

13 Extract from letter from James Harrington to Edward Kane, dated 1888

14 Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. 1894 Aaron Kosminski

15 London. May, 1897 Dr Bond

16 Lloyds Weekly Newspaper April 10, 1896

17 London. June, 1897 Dr Bond

18 The Times of London Monday, April 20, 1896

19 London. 22nd June, 1887 Dr Bond

20 The Standard Wednesday, October 24, 1894

21 London. June, 1897 Edward Kane

22 London. June, 1897 Dr Bond

23 London. August, 1897 Dr Bond

24 London. September, 1897 Edward Kane

25 Leavesden. August, 1897 Aaron Kosminski

26 London. Spetember, 1897 Dr Bond

27 The Times Thursday, June 11, 1896

28 Extract from letter from James Harrington to Edward Kane, dated 1889

29 London. October, 1897 Dr Bond

30 The Colonist October 14, 1897

31 London. November, 1897 Dr Bond

32 London. Christmas Day, 1897 Edward Kane

33 The Woolwich Herald August 18, 1899

PART TWO

34 Leavesden. January, 1898 Aaron Kosminski

35 London. February, 1898 Henry Moore

36 London. February, 1898 Dr Bond

37 Leavesden. February, 1898 Aaron Kosminski

38 London. February, 1898 Edward Kane

39 London. February, 1898 Dr Bond

40 London. April, 1898 Dr Bond

41 London. May, 1898 Dr Bond

42 London. May, 1898 Edward Kane

43 London. June, 1898 Dr Bond

44 London. Christmas, 1898 Dr Bond

45 Extract from letter from Edward Kane to Walter Andrews, dated April 1889

46 London. August, 1899 Walter Andrews

47 Extract of Florence Jones’ testimony at the Old Bailey, 1899

48 London. 27th August 1899 Henry Moore

49 Leavesden. August, 1899 Aaron Kosminski

50 London. August, 1899 Dr Bond

51 Leavesden. August, 1899 Aaron Kosminski

52 Extract of David Voice’s testimony at the Old Bailey, December, 1899

53 London. December, 1899 Dr Bond

54 The Morning Post Monday, February 19, 1900

55 London. August, 1900 Dr Bond

56 London. November, 1900 Henry Moore

57 New York. January, 1901 Edward Kane

58 London. 29th May, 1901 Dr Bond

59 London. 5th June, 1901 Edward Kane

60 London. 6th June, 1901 Dr Bond

61 The Times of London June 7, 1901

62 London. July, 1901 Henry Moore

63 The South London Press June 14, 1902

64 Leavesden. July, 1902 Aaron Kosminski

Epilogue

Extract from letter from James Harrington to Edward Kane, dated 1887:

… and I have just returned from their funerals. I suppose it is a blessing that they are to lie at rest together and neither one must continue living without the other (as I truly believe, as I told you in Venice, that my parents did love each other) but my heart is heavy with grief, and although I am almost recovered from the poisoning that took them from me, I continue to feel plagued by the black cloud that has hung over me since my return from Poland.

I wish you were here. I have never made friends overly easily, and those few I have tended towards are of a serious sort – there is not a fellow among them I feel I could bare my soul to without judgement. Your lively spirit and positive attitude would be a tonic to me in my present predicament.

In my previous letter I mentioned that I had been ill in Poland but there was much that I omitted – perhaps because I wished to forget most of the experience myself; I blamed the fevers I had suffered for addling my brain somewhat. However, since my return to London I have begun to believe – and God help me in this – that there may be some truth in the madness. Or perhaps it is I who am mad. I have tried several times to write down what really occurred, about what the villagers and my poor dead guide Josep believed had infected me, but each time I have thrown the paper onto the fire. It is enough that I am plagued with doubts without driving you away with tales of monsters and legends that have no place in this modern world.

And yet I am still gripped by terror.

The night my mother and father fell so fatally ill, we had eaten a jar of mushroom preserves I had brought back with me from my travels. I heard myself tell the doctor as much as soon as I was well enough to speak, and there was an empty jar and the remnants of food to evidence this – and yet now I am recovered, I cannot remember ever buying the mushrooms, or eating the dinner, although I must have done both. This is not because of the effects of the poisonous mushrooms; I have been suffering periods where my memories are vague, as if sometimes I am living in a fugue state, where my desires and emotions are not entirely my own. I fought with my father that night – I have a memory of the anger, but not of why we argued. One day I found myself walking through a slum part of London, with no recollection of getting there other than vague dream-like memories that felt at once to be mine and not mine.

I had a similar experience in Paris, but that time, when I regained my senses, I had blood on my clothes. These moments are at their worst when the recurring fever is with me.

I fear, reading this back, that it must appear nonsensical. You probably think that my grief has left me ‘touched’ – and believe me when I say most earnestly that I hope this is indeed the case. The madness I could live with, but I fear the dreams I can’t help but think are real. And there is something almost worse: a constant weight on my back, as if there is something just behind me I cannot quite see.

I can picture your smile of disbelief from here, and in many ways that image is a comfort. Of course I am simply a victim of illness. There can be no more to it than that. I shall throw myself into running my father’s business, as I need a distraction from these dark thoughts, and that will certainly provide a worthy one.

I must hope that you received my first letter as I have had no reply from you – you may well, of course, still be on your travels or at the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, where I last saw you, but as I doubt that your family business commitments would have allowed you to stay in Europe for so long, I must presume my letter was lost rather than that you have forgotten our friendship. I shall continue to write, and I hope that one day you can visit me in London, and that by then these miseries which plague me will be long forgotten.

Your dear friend,

James Harrington.

Carl Feigenbaum, who was executed in the electric chair at New York, has left a confession with his lawyer, from which it seems possible that he may be no other than jack the Ripper. The account of the lawyer, which has been given to the Press, reads:—“l have a statement to make which may throw some light on this case [the murder for which the man was executed]. Now that Feigenbaum is dead and nothing more can be done for him in this world, I want to say as his counsel that I am absolutely certain of his guilt in this case, and I feel morally certain that he is the man who committed many, if not all, of the Whitechapel murders. Here are my reasons; and on this statement I pledge my honor:—When Feigenbaum was in the Tombs awaiting his trial, I saw him several times. The evidence in his case seemed so clear that I cast about for a theory of insanity. Certain actions denoted a decided mental weakness somewhere. When I asked him point blank, ‘Did you kill Mrs Hoffman?’ he made this reply: ‘I have for years suffered from a singular disease, which induces an all-absorbing passion; this passion manifests itself in a desire to kill and mutilate the woman who falls in my way. At such times I am unable to control myself.’ On my next visit to the Tombs I asked him whether he had not been in London at various times during the whole period covered by the Whitechapel murders. ‘Yes, I was,’ he answered. I asked him whether he could not explain some of these cases on the theory which he had suggested to me, and he simply looked to me in reply.” The statement, which is a long one, proves conclusively that Feigenbaum was more or less insane, but the evidence of his identity with the notorious Whitechapel criminal is not satisfactory.

14 October, 1896

Dear Boss,

You will be surprised to find

that this comes from yours

as of old Jack-the Ripper. Ha Ha

If my old friend Mr. Warren is dead

you can read it. you might

remember me if you try and

think a little Ha Ha. The last job

was a bad one and no mistake nearly

buckled, and meant it to

be best of the lot & what curse it,

Ha Ha Im alive yet and you’ll

soon find it out. I mean to go

on again when I get the chance

wont it be nice dear old Boss to

have the good old times once

again. you never caught me

and you never will. Ha Ha

You police are a smart lot, the lot

of you could nt catch one man

Where have I been Dear Boss

you d like to know. abroad, if

you would like to know, and

just come back, ready to go on

with my work and stop when

you catch me. Well good bye

Boss wish me luck. Winters coming

“The Jewes are people that are

blamed for nothing” Ha Ha

have you heard this before

Yours truly

Jack the Ripper



Chief Inspector Henry Moore’s report to Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten.18 Oct 1896

I beg to report having carefully perused all the old ‘Jack the Ripper’ letters and fail to find any similarity of handwriting in any of them, with the exception of the two well remembered communications which were sent to the ‘Central News’ office; one a letter, dated 25th September 1888, and the other a postcard, bearing the postmark 1st October 1888 …

On comparing the handwriting of the present letter with handwriting of that document, I find many similarities in the formation of letters. For instance the y’s, t’s and w’s are very much the same. Then there are several words which appear in both documents; viz:- Dear Boss; ha ha (although in the present letter the capital H is used instead of the small one); and in speaking of the murders he describes them as his ‘work’ or the last ‘job’; and if I get a (or the) chance; then there are the words ‘yours truly’ and -the Ripper (the latter on postcard) that are very much alike. Besides there are the finger smears.

Considering the lapse of time, it would be interesting to know how the present writer was able to use the words ‘The Jewes are people that are blamed for nothing’; as it will be remembered that they are practically the same words that were written in chalk, undoubtably by the murderer, on the wall at Goulston Str., Whitechapel, on the night of 30th September 1888, after the murders of Mrs Stride and Mrs Eddows [Eddowes]; and the word Jews was spelt on that occasion precisely as it is now.

Although these similarities strangely exist between the documents, I am of the opinion that the present writer is not the original correspondent who prepared the letters to the Central News; as if it had been I should have thought he would have again addressed it to the same Press Agency; and not to Commercial Street Police Station.

In conclusion I beg to observe that I do not attach any importance to this communication.

By the time the brandy arrived, I was feeling pleasantly full. The warmth of the restaurant was a far cry from the bitter cold outside, and as Andrews passed the cigars around the room had quietened; it was late in the evening and many of the tables that had been full on our arrival were now being cleared away by brisk waiters.

‘And so the letter was nothing?’ I said. It was not unusual for Andrews and me to dine out together, but tonight Henry Moore had brought the three of us together and I knew it was not just for the pleasure of our company.

‘Just another to add to the hundreds of others,’ he said behind a small haze of smoke. ‘They’re all worthless. Whoever our man was, he’s either dead or fled.’

He looked well. Unlike Andrews, who had retired from the police force a year or so after that bloody summer, Henry Moore had gone from strength to strength, being promoted to the rank of Chief Inspector after taking over the ‘Ripper’ case from Inspector Abberline. He retained his sense of earthy hardiness, and although he must surely feel the same frustration that plagued Andrews that their man had never been caught, he was a pragmatist. He would be disappointed, but he would not suffer as Andrews did.

‘These are fine cigars.’ The smoke was sweet and strong. ‘Are we celebrating something?’

‘Celebration might be too strong a word,’ Moore said, ‘but it’s certainly the end of an era. We are no longer actively investigating the Ripper case. We’ve done all we can. We’re not going to catch the bastard now. It’s time to move on.’

His words came as no real surprise to me, and in my heart I was glad of the news. It was the final door closing on a chapter of history I had done my best to make peace with and forget. Perhaps now that the decision was made, Andrews too would be able to let it go. He had become a close friend since his retirement from the police force. He was thinner than I, and although nearly ten years younger, he looked far older than a man yet in his forties should. He still mused on Jack’s handiwork over our games of chess or backgammon, as if hoping one day to remember some small snippet of information that would lead to an arrest.

‘Perhaps it is,’ Andrews said before sniffing his brandy. ‘But I wish to God we had got him.’

‘It’s a wide world,’ I said. ‘It’s possible that some policeman somewhere caught him.’

‘Then I shall imagine it’s so. For my own peace.’

We sat in comfortable silence for a moment as we sipped our drinks and smoked our cigars and reflected on those deeds that seemed at once a while ago and yesterday, as memories often did.

‘It’s not as if there isn’t enough crime in London to keep me busy,’ Moore said after a moment, his eyes twinkling. ‘There are days I envy you, Walter, in your decision to change professions. Look at you now: the gentleman investigator, Sherlock Holmes himself.’

We all laughed at that. Andrews had indeed moved into private investigations since leaving the Force, but the reality of the job was a far more mundane affair that that presented in fiction, and it involved very little working alongside the police.

‘Who knows,’ Moore continued, smiling, ‘perhaps it will soon be time for me to move on too. I’m starting to feel like the old dog trying to herd eager pups.’

‘Retirement?’ Andrews said. ‘I’m certainly contemplating it – but you don’t strike me as the sort.’

‘You see me dying on the job? Driven to an early grave by paperwork, maybe.’ He let out a gruff laugh. ‘I’ll see a few more years on the Force, I’m sure, but then – who knows? I imagine – and in many ways I hope, because I’m too tired to chase another bloody lunatic like that one – I’ve already worked on the case I shall be defined by. We all have.’

It was unlike Moore to be so reflective, but he had a point. London hadn’t seen six weeks like Jack’s before, and it was unlikely to again. We had played our parts in that, even if the man himself had never been brought to justice.

‘Jack, and the torso man,’ Andrews said. ‘I hope we were wrong and they were one and the same – that way we failed to catch only one man.’

My grip tightened on my brandy glass. We rarely talked of the torso murders. For Andrews they had always been secondary to Jack’s, and I was glad of that. For the first few years after those terrible events my sleep had suffered. I kept the memories locked away in my soul and I weaned myself from the laudanum, but often my days were wrecked with tiredness. I had not seen either the priest or Aaron Kosminski since that fateful night in Harrington’s warehouse. I had slowly managed to convince myself that the drugs had induced a kind of madness in us, but still I felt an awful sense of dread when walking the streets of London.

But for the past eighteen months or so that too had lifted and the whole affair had begun to feel like a terrible dream. I had no doubt that Harrington was the killer, and so I felt no overwhelming guilt over his death, but neither did I like any reminder of those events for fear that once again my anxieties and insomnia would return.

‘It’s possible,’ Moore agreed, but I sensed more for Andrews’ benefit than because he truly thought so.

‘We should dwell less on the past,’ I said. ‘If the case is no longer active, then perhaps we too should let it rest. And ourselves as well.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ Moore said and signalled the waiter for more brandy.

*

It was late when I returned home to Westminster, but I had the pleasant buzz of having spent an evening with friends and before bed I went to my study to write a few more notes on my paper on the nature and treatment of hunting injuries. I wanted to push any dregs of thoughts of Jack and the torso killer to one side with practical work and I found it was not too difficult in the comfort of my own home. The sense of being haunted had truly left me, and although I had moments of fear that it would return, with every day that passed I relaxed a little more and allowed myself to feel content in my life. There would be no more opium. There would be no more madness. The priest and Kosminski were merely figures from a dream. They were not tangible, and as such, they could no longer affect me. Justice was done – even if it had been a crude version that I could never share with Andrews and Moore – and I refused to feel guilt for my part in it. It was far kinder for Juliana than any trial would have been, and I had no doubt whatsoever the outcome would have been the same.

Finally, I turned out the lamps and climbed the stairs to the bed I no longer dreaded. Yes, I thought as I slipped into an easy sleep, life was good at last.

I stayed at Juliana’s on Christmas Eve, and after little James had been put to bed I helped her with the last of the present-wrapping and then we filled the stocking that hung from the edge of the mantelpiece before sipping sherry and allowing the enjoyment of the festive season to seep into us.

‘The calm before the storm.’ She smiled, raising her glass to me. ‘Merry Christmas, Thomas.’

‘And a Merry Christmas to you too, Juliana.’

We sat back, enjoying the silence in that particular way that two people who had grown used to each other’s company could do. I was glad to see her looking healthier and more content. Her happiness made me happy, and even with the secret that I kept buried, I still dared to hope that one day she might consider me more than just a friend. Although I was now a man in my fifties and she not quite reached thirty, still I wanted to look after her. Even without my impossible feelings of love for her, I knew I owed her that.

She had stopped wearing widow’s weeds – reluctantly, but with a pragmatism that I was beginning to see was a part of her core – a few years earlier, but her grief still clung to her, almost as corporeal as the monster my madness had convinced me was attached to Harrington’s back. Nothing in that time had been easy for her: her husband’s bloated body had been dragged from the river a few days after his death and she, insisting on seeing him even though both her father and I strongly advised against it, had been heart-broken at the sight. Her pregnancy continued to make her sick, and her labour had been long and difficult – for a while, though we never told her, there were times when we feared we would lose both her and the child. And after that, she never regained the full bloom of health: though her red hair was still beautiful, it had lost its lustre, and her face had thinned. Much as I tried to encourage her back out into the fresh air, even suggesting she join me at the hunt as she had been used to, she always declined, and for the first year or so of little James’ life, she was little more than a ghost of her former self. Once she left her sickbed she moved and talked and walked, but her heart had gone in the river with her dead husband, and I rather felt that if her sickly child were to die too, it would be only a matter of days before she threw herself into the water as well.

But little James did not die, and Juliana slowly came back to us – perhaps not with the joie de vivre that had been so much a part of her before, but she was still a young woman and I hoped that Time, Mother Nature’s healer, would rectify that. The young were resilient, and Juliana was an exceptional woman. I knew I was right in my decision: that it would be better she had to bear only the grief of a husband robbed and murdered rather than the truth of what James Harrington had become: a brutal murderer of women and the killer of his own unborn child.

Juliana remained in the Chelsea house only until both she and the boy had recovered enough from the trauma of his birth, then her parents and I encouraged her to sell the property and move, though I confess it was not difficult – she needed no persuasion from us, for that house held few happy memories for her. Selfishly, I too was happy that I would no longer have to visit that street, for not only had Harrington’s parents died so horribly there, but the ghost of Elizabeth Jackson lingered too, every time my gaze fell on the nearby house where she had been employed.

When Juliana moved into the new house in Barnes, the dark clouds I had carried with me everywhere began to lift. And as Juliana recovered, so did I.

Now, as the fire died down, her pale face was beautiful, lit by the glowing embers. When she had married James Harrington she had been a girl, but now she had grown into a woman and her face bore the marks of her suffering. I found that made her more perfect, if that were even possible.

‘I think I shall go to bed,’ she said at last, rising. ‘Thank you for coming tonight, Thomas. It’s been good to have some time alone before our guests arrive tomorrow.’ She leaned over my chair and kissed me softly on my cheek. ‘You are always so very kind to me. Sometimes I wonder what I would do without you.’

‘You will never have to do without me,’ I answered, ‘that I can promise you.’

She smiled again, a wistful expression that made me hope one day to see her eyes twinkle with good humour as they had before. And although I dared not think it too often, perhaps she would one day start to love me as I loved her …

‘I think I might read for a while,’ I said. ‘Sleep well. And Merry Christmas.’

As I watched her leave the room, her skirts swishing as she walked, I thought I had never known such a woman, and never would again. I didn’t read, but instead lost myself in the remains of the fire until it had burnt down to a pale glow. As the air turned chilly, I too retired to my bedroom, seeking a good night’s sleep before the Christmas festivities. Thankfully, that was no longer an idle wish.

*

The mood in the morning was as fine as in any house in London, and once Charles Hebbert, Juliana’s father, had arrived we left the cook preparing our feast and went to church before strolling back along the riverside to Juliana’s house on The Terrace. It had been a mild month, and for all the slight crispness to t. . .