The Map of Time. Felix J. Palma

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СКАЧАТЬ it dawned on him that unless he wanted to be linked to the murder he must get out before someone saw him. It was even possible the murderer was still lurking outside, admiring his macabre handiwork from some dark corner, and would have no hesitation in adding another corpse to his collection. He gave Marie Kelly a farewell glance, unable to bring himself to touch her, and with a supreme effort of will forced himself to withdraw from the little room, leaving her there.

      As though in a trance, he closed the door behind him, leaving everything as he had found it. He walked towards the exit to the flats, but was seized by intense nausea and only just made it to the stone archway. There, half kneeling, he vomited, retching violently. After he had brought up everything, which was little more than the alcohol he had drunk that night, he leaned back against the wall, his body limp, cold and weak. From where he was, he could see the little room, number thirteen, the paradise where he had been so happy, now hiding his beloved’s dismembered corpse from the night. He took a few steps and, confident that his dizzy spell had eased sufficiently for him to walk, staggered out into Dorset Street.

      Too distressed to get his bearings, he wandered aimlessly, letting out cries and sobs. He did not even attempt to find the carriage: now that he knew he was no longer welcome in his family home there was nowhere for him to tell Harold to go. He trudged along street after street, guided only by the forward movement of his feet. When he calculated he was no longer in Whitechapel, he looked for a lonely alley and collapsed, exhausted and trembling, in the midst of a pile of discarded boxes. There, curled up, he waited for night to pass.

      As I predicted above, when the shock began to subside, his pain increased. His sorrow intensified until it became physical torment. Suddenly it was agony to be in his body, as if he lay in a sarcophagus lined with nails. He wanted to flee, unshackle himself from the excruciating substance he was made of, but he was trapped inside that martyred flesh. Terrified, he wondered if he would have to live with the pain for ever. He had read somewhere that the last image people see before they die is engraved on their eyes. Had the Ripper’s savage leer been etched on Marie Kelly’s pupils? He could not say, but he knew that if the rule were true he would be the exception: whatever else he might see before he died, his eyes would always reflect Marie Kelly’s mutilated face.

      Without the desire or strength to do anything, Andrew let the hours slip by. Occasionally, he raised his head from his hands and let out a howl of rage to show the world his bitterness about all that had happened, which he was now powerless to change. He hurled random insults at the Ripper, who had conceivably followed him and was waiting, knife in hand, at the entrance to the alley. Then he laughed at his fear. For the most part, though, he wailed pitifully, oblivious to his surroundings, hopelessly alone with his own horror.

      The arrival of dawn, leisurely sweeping away the darkness, restored his sanity somewhat. Sounds of life reached him from the entrance to the alley. He stood up with difficulty, shivering in his servant’s threadbare jacket, and walked out into the street, which was surprisingly lively.

      Noticing the flags hanging from the fronts of the buildings, Andrew realised it was Lord Mayor’s Day. Walking as upright as he could, he joined the crowd. His grubby attire drew no more attention than that of any ordinary tramp. He had no notion of where he was, but that did not matter, since he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. The first tavern he came to seemed as good a destination as any. It was better than being swept along on the human tide making its way to the Law Courts to watch the arrival of the new mayor, James Whitehead. The alcohol would warm his insides, and at the same time blur his thoughts until they were no longer a danger to him.

      The seedy public house was half empty. A strong smell of sausages and bacon coming from the kitchen made his stomach churn and he secluded himself in the corner furthest from the stoves and ordered a bottle of wine. He was forced to place a handful of coins on the table in order to persuade the man to serve him. While he waited, he glanced at the other customers, reduced to a couple of regular patrons, drinking in silence, oblivious to the clamour in the streets outside. One of them stared back at him, and Andrew felt a flash of sheer terror. Could he be the Ripper? Had he followed him there? He calmed down when he realised the man was too small to be a threat to anyone, but his hand was still shaking when he reached for the wine bottle. He knew now what man was capable of, any man, even the little fellow peacefully sipping his ale. He probably did not have the talent to paint the Sistine Chapel, but what Andrew could not be sure of was whether he was capable of ripping a person’s guts out and arranging their entrails around their body.

      He gazed out of the window. People were coming and going, carrying on their lives without the slightest token of respect. Why did they not notice that the world had changed, that it was no longer habitable? Andrew gave a deep sigh. The world had changed only for him. He leaned back in his seat and applied himself to getting drunk. After that he would see. He glanced at the pile of money. He calculated he had enough to purchase every last drop of alcohol in the place, and so, for the time being, any other plan could wait. Sprawled over the bench, trying hard to prevent his mind from elaborating the simplest thought, Andrew let the day go by, his numbness increasing as he drew closer to the edge of oblivion.

      But he was not too dazed to respond to the cry of a newspaper vendor. ‘Read all about it in the Star] Special edition: Jack the Ripper caught!’

      Andrew leaped to his feet. The Ripper caught? He could hardly believe his ears. He leaned out of the window and, screwing up his eyes, scoured the street until he glimpsed a boy selling newspapers on a corner. He beckoned him over and bought a copy from him through the window. With trembling hands, he cleared away several bottles and spread the newspaper on the table. He had not misheard. ‘Jack the Ripper Caught!’ the headline declared. Reading the article proved slow and frustrating, due to his drunken state, but with patience and much blinking, he managed to decipher what was written.

      The article began by declaring that Jack the Ripper had committed his last ever crime the previous night. His victim was a prostitute of Welsh origin called Marie Jeanette Kelly, discovered in the room she rented in Miller’s Court, at number twenty-six Dorset Street. Andrew skipped the following paragraph, which listed in gory detail the gruesome mutilations the murderer had perpetrated on her, and went straight to the description of his capture.

      The newspaper stated that less than an hour after he had committed the heinous crime, the murderer who had terrorised the East End for four months had been caught by George Lusk and his men. Apparently, a witness who preferred to remain anonymous had heard Marie Kelly’s screams and alerted the Vigilance Committee. Unhappily, they reached Miller’s Court too late, but had managed to corner the Ripper as he fled down Middlesex Street. At first, the murderer tried to deny his guilt, but soon gave up after he was searched and the still warm heart of his victim was found in one of his pockets. The man’s name was Bryan Reese, and he worked as a cook on a merchant vessel, the Slip, which had docked at the Port of London from Barbados the previous July and would be setting sail for the Caribbean the following week.

      During his interrogation by Frederick Abberline, the detective in charge of the investigation, Reese had confessed to the five murders of which he was accused, and had even shown his satisfaction at having been able to execute his final bloody act in the privacy of a room with a nice warm fire. He was tired of always having to kill in the street. ‘I knew I was going to follow that whore the moment I saw her,’ the murderer had gloated, before going on to claim he had murdered his own mother, a prostitute like his victims, as soon as he was old enough to wield a knife. This detail, which might have explained his behaviour, had yet to be confirmed.

      Accompanying the article was a photogravure of the murderer so that Andrew could finally see the face of the man he had bumped into in the gloom of Hanbury Street. His appearance was disappointing. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, rather heavily built, with curly sideburns and a bushy moustache that drooped over his top Up. Despite his rather sinister smirk, which probably owed more to the conditions in which he had been photographed than anything else, Andrew had to admit he might СКАЧАТЬ