The Ripper's Wife(62)
I told her the story of the mad monk, Brother Martin. Driven insane by lust, he had murdered a nun upon the altar of the church that used to overlook the square during the reign of Henry VIII.
Katie laughed. “Lord love ya, no! I ’aven’t a cowardly bone in me ’ole body! There’s not a ghostie or a beastie o’ the two- or four-legged sort that frightens me! An’ if me word’s not good enough to prove it, I’ll tell ya somethin’ more. . . .” She glanced swiftly from side to side to make sure no one was near enough to hear us, but we were quite alone; I had already made certain of that. “I’ve come back to London early, to earn the reward for capturin’ Jack the Ripper. I think I know ’im!”
“You do?” I arched my brows and leaned forward eagerly. “Truly, I am agog with curiosity! Won’t you tell me who he is?”
But she laughed and playfully jabbed me in the ribs. “Get on witcha now; I ain’t tellin’! Lose me reward, I should think not!”
“Oh my dear.” I drew her close and kissed her brow. “As if I could ever deprive you . . .”
Oh, Katie . . . if you only knew what I had in store for you. . . .
I smiled and followed this ragged coquette into the darkened square.
I swiftly scanned the dark, empty windows of the warehouses that surrounded it as I maneuvered her into a corner and turned her to face the wall. I nuzzled her from behind, but she was wearing so many layers I doubted she could even feel my cock.
“Oooh . . .” she purred. “Fancy it from behind, d’ya?” With a gay little laugh she leaned forward and flipped up her flounces like a French dancer and swished her bare bottom at me.
I reached for the handkerchief around her neck and gave it a jerk and a savage twist. I pulled her back and watched her eyes bulge out as her nails clawed frantically at the red silk, trying to loosen it. “Breath and voice gone forever,” I whispered in her ear. “Who did you think he was? Surely not me? Well, it doesn’t matter now; you were wrong, and you won’t live to tell!”
She went limp and I lowered her to the ground. I eased off my overcoat and stood staring down at her as I stripped off my gloves. The life had gone out of her eyes. I closed them. Her arms lay limp and loose at her sides, palms up, like a desperate woman begging for mercy or alms. I searched the blind eyes of the windows again and then took a deep breath.... I had much to do and so little time....
I fell upon her in a frenzy. I flung her skirts up, over her head, and slashed and jabbed like mad. There were so many layers that sometimes they fell down and got in my way. I didn’t stop; I cut them too. I ripped her from breast to cunt. I cut so deep I feared I would lose myself in her. I tore and flung her innards out. My hand closed around a kidney. I severed it. Maybe it would make a nice supper? Surely it couldn’t be worse than that womb.
Breathless, I sat back on my heels and spent in my trousers. Her face bothered me. It seemed so peaceful, as though she had gone to a better place, a safer place, and was now mocking me with the tranquility of the shattered husk she had left behind her. My fist tightened around my knife and I slashed off her nose, then each of her earlobes. I meant to take them away with me, to send to the police, but I forgot. I remembered Long Liz’s fine cheekbones and laid Katie’s open to the bone. Beneath each eye I carved an inverted V. If you ignored the space between, where her nose had been, and put them together ^^ it formed the letter M—M for Maybrick. But the police are such fools they’ll never see it for what it is—a clue!
I cut a corner from her apron to wipe the blood from my knife. Before I put it away, my trusty friend, my steel prick, I kissed it.
With silent mirth I swiftly pulled on my gloves as I stood and stared down at her. There was a brooch at her breast, nearly lost amidst all the ruffles, a little pink flower under glass now stained with blood. Was this cheap trinket another gift from her precious man? I pocketed it—another souvenir for my collection.
Shaking with silent laughter, I tipped my hat to Katie, lying dead at my feet with her bent legs splayed wide so that the bobbies when they came bumbling onto the scene would see another cheap pink flower, only this one sprinkled with drops of blood instead of dew.
As I was leaving the square, I passed a young bobby on the street and nodded politely to him and wished him good night. “Same to you, sir,” he said. I do hope he was the one who discovered what I had done to Katie! Would he remember me afterward and always wonder if he had said good night to Jack the Ripper? I hope the thought will haunt him all the rest of his life.
I knew they were looking for me, the hunter had once again become the hunted, but I also knew they wouldn’t catch me. I strode confidently, swift and sure, through the dark, mean streets, every twist and turn leaving them farther behind me, lost like blind rats in a maze.
In Goulston Street I paused to catch my breath. I leaned against a wall, tore off a glove, and shakily sprinkled arsenic onto my bloody palm. As I lapped up its power, I remembered the chalk. I had put a piece in my pocket, in case a clever little rhyme and the opportunity to write it came to me. I had hoped inspiration would strike while I was standing over a whore with a convenient wall behind, but you never know when the Muse will call; she’s fickle like any other bitch.
Upon the black dado wall of a darkened tenement, I scrawled in stark, startling white against the dead black: