Hands of the Ripper (27 page)

‘Only way to find out,’ said Jane, standing just behind him.

‘True,’ he agreed, paying the driver and making his steady way around the building. ‘Do you think the police are here?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ she smiled, ‘it’s not like you’re going to be up for much of a fight, are you?’

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘I think it’ll be all I can do to bleed on her forcefully.’

‘They’ll be in the dome, the Whispering Gallery.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Laura’s blind, darling, think about it. It’s what made her want to visit in the first place.’

‘Oh, yes …’

‘Do you remember when we went?’

‘Yes, years and years and years ago.’

‘When God himself was young. I know. Do you remember what you whispered to me?’

He did. ‘I said I’d be with you for ever.’

‘You got that right. There, the ticket office, see it?’

‘It’s closed. Last admission was at half past eleven.’

John looked at his watch and then had to put out his hand against the wall to stop himself falling over.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

He looked up to see a small, ginger-haired man walking towards him. ‘Derek Porter’ was the name on his official name badge, ‘Sightseeing Supervisor’.

‘Could you tell me if two girls went up to the Whispering Gallery recently?’

‘Not unless they were here before half past, sir,’ Porter replied. ‘We close early today.’

‘Can we check?’ A stab of pain forced him to cry out and Porter’s face fell. This is not a sympathetic man, thought John. He’s worried I’m going to make his life difficult, that’s all.

‘Can I get you some medical assistance perhaps sir?’ Porter asked.

‘I’m fine,’ John insisted, rather idiotically as everyone could see he was far from it. There was a trickle of people heading towards the main body of the cathedral and a number of them were turning to look at him.

‘Please,’ he said, ‘a girl’s in danger, you have to help me.’

Porter remained dubious. ‘What girl?’

‘The police should be here already,’ said John looking around.

‘We have security if that would help?’ suggested Porter, only too happy to pass John on to someone else.

‘Aaah!’ John cried out, the stabbing sensation from his gut more than he could stand. He reached for the zip of his jacket and tugged it open.

Porter, a suspicious and fearful man registered one thing only: this weirdo had been hiding something under his coat, something strapped to his front. ‘Security!’ he shouted, ‘this man’s got a bomb!’

Bad Father heard shouting coming from below. Looking over the edge of the balustrade he saw people running
across
the cathedral floor towards the main entrance.

‘Run little mice,’ he said, ‘run before God stamps on you and cracks open your tiny skulls.’

He sat down opposite Laura and tilted his head towards the wall.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, using Anna’s voice again.

‘Yes!’ came the excited reply.

‘I’m not who you think I am,’ he whispered and allowed his voice to change back to his own. ‘There are so many of us in here! He said. We are legion!’

‘Stop messing about!’ Laura replied, ‘it’ll take more than a creepy voice to scare me.’

‘How about a little history then? On the twenty-third of August 1983 I followed Dinah Stapleton home from where she worked at the Three Hounds. I forced her around the back of the shared house she lived in and killed her with a Stanley knife. I opened her up and defecated in the hole. Because that’s all she was worth, Laura, that’s all she was.’

‘That’s horrible … Anna!’

‘Not Anna. No. Douglas. On the fourteenth of October 1983 I killed Katie Brasslow. I did it in her own room because that way I could take my time. She thought she was going to get fucked for cash, the dirty whore. You should have seen her, off her head on pills, fawning over me and telling me what I could have for my money. I tied her up using her own handcuffs and then gave her what she wanted, I filled her stinking hole for her, filled it with a broken bottle.’

‘Stop it!’

Laura stood up and began to run for the door.

‘Yes!’ he shouted, jumping to his feet, ‘run if you can!’

‘Ridiculous!’ John shouted, as two security officers grabbed him from behind and forced him to the floor. He screamed in agony as his stomach hit the ground. His vision blurred and he felt himself beginning to pass out. If that had been explosive, you bloody idiots, he thought, we’d all be dead by now. As it is, maybe it’s only going to be me … his eyes closed.

‘John!’ his wife shouted. ‘Stay with me, John! You can’t stop now!’ He tilted his head and looked right into Jane’s face as she lay on the floor next to him.

‘Everybody back!’ One of the officers was shouting. ‘Keep clear.’

‘I don’t think it was a bomb actually,’ said Porter, ‘maybe you’d better check?’

‘She needs you John,’ said Jane and he was stuck dumb by how beautiful she was. She was the wife he had shared the very best of his life with, the woman who had given him worth, who had made every experience better simply by being there with him. ‘You’ve got to find the strength,’ she said, ‘somehow …’

The security officers turned him over and one of them let go of his arm and stepped back. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said, ‘look at the state of him.’

‘Do you mind,’ said Porter, ‘do try to remember you’re in a church.’

‘On your feet, my love,’ said Jane, ‘one last push …’

*

Bad Father reached Laura just before she could get to the exit, grabbing her by her hair and yanking her towards him.

‘On the twenty-ninth of November 2011,’ he said, ‘I took a blind girl in the house of God and made her beg for her life.’

‘Anna!’

‘Not Anna. Never Anna. I took a blind girl and I squeezed the life out of her,’ he grabbed her by the throat, ‘squeezed the life out of her slowly … so she could see again, looking into the face of God.’

‘Please Anna!’

‘Not Anna. Not Anna.’ But his voice was changing, becoming softer, more feminine.

‘You leave her alone,’ said Soft Mother, ‘you’ve had your day, just leave them all alone.’

‘I killed you once, woman,’ Bad Father replied. ‘Wait your turn and I’ll gladly do it again.’

‘In a church!’ shouted Father Legion, ‘how could you do such a thing in a church? Have you no shame?’

‘Your God is not the same as my God,’ insisted Bad Father, ‘mine loves what I do.’

‘If you squeeze like that,’ warned Nurse Sleepnow, ‘you’ll irreparably damage her windpipe.’

‘Precisely the point!’ Bad Father shouted. ‘Now will all of you leave me alone?’

But they wouldn’t. He fell back against the wall, the whispers swooping in from both sides. Every voice he had ever shared a head with, swooping around the cool plaster like nesting swallows.

LEAVE HER ALONE! KILL HER! KILL YOURSELF!
SHUSH
NOW! MAD FOOL! BAD BOY! CRAZY BITCH! DIE NOW!

‘Shut up!’ he screamed.

GOD’S DEAD! YOU’RE DEAD! MUMMY’S DEAD! ALL DEAD! WE ARE THE DEAD! WE ARE THE DEAD! COME AND JOIN US! WE ARE THE DEAD!

He was drowning in a sea of ghosts.

Laura began to move, climbing to her feet meaning to run past him. But he swung his foot into her shins and she fell back against the balustrade.

‘Don’t kill her!’ Anna screamed. ‘Please! I can’t bear it! Don’t kill her!’

But Bad Father was stronger and he reached forward, eager to topple the blind girl over the edge where she could crack open on the tiled floor beneath, spilling out like the filthy bag of offal they all were.

Then John Pritchard shouted.

He was on his feet, one of the security guards actually helping him now they could see he was no threat.

‘Now, John!’ Jane shouted, ‘everything you’ve got! Now! Now! Now!’

He roared in pain as he pushed the security guard aside and ran into the main body of the cathedral.

‘Anna!’ he shouted, ‘Anna!’

Above, Bad Father looked down and, as John looked up, their eyes found each other’s.

‘Not Anna,’ Bad Father whispered. ‘Not Anna.’ He took hold of Laura’s shoulders and squeezed, pushing her back against the railing. She screamed.

‘Anna!’ John shouted again. ‘Please listen to me! It’s
me
, it’s John, and I need you. Can you hear me?’

He fell to his knees, no more strength left in his legs. ‘Oh God,’ he toppled to the floor, aware of people running towards him. He looked up at the dome way above him. ‘I’m dying.’

‘Yes, darling, said Jane, lying down next to him and taking his hand. ‘Now tell her that.’

‘I’m dying, Anna,’ he shouted, ‘but that’s OK. Sometimes there are worse things aren’t there?’ He convulsed in pain, unable to speak for a moment. Jane squeezed his hand until he got his breath back.

‘Keep talking,’ she said, ‘you can do this my love.’

‘I used to be scared all the time, Anna’ he continued. ‘I saw death in everything. And I ran from it, terrified.’

‘John?’ Anna’s voice. Finally, Anna’s voice, calling down from above. ‘I get scared too.’

‘I know you do,’ he replied. ‘I know.’

Out of the corner of his eye he became aware of the security guards pushing back the crowd and barking into their radios. They’ve seen her, he thought. See, Porter, I wasn’t so mad after all, was I?

‘I know you get scared, Anna,’ he said. ‘But you don’t have to be. Not any more. Not now I’m here.’

Anna sobbed and the noise bounced around the dome like a trapped bird. ‘I just want to be free,’ she said. ‘I want to be empty.’

‘I know, love,’ he said, holding out both of his hands to her. His vision growing darker and darker.

‘Nearly there, baby,’ said Jane, resting her head on his shoulder, ‘we’ll look after you.’

‘Come here, Anna,’ he said, his hands shaking as they
reached
out towards her. ‘Come here and let me make it all right.’

He saw her let go of Laura, climb up on the railing and hold out her hands. ‘Thank you, John,’ she said. ‘You’re a nice man.’

‘You are at that,’ said Jane and blew him a kiss.

Anna jumped and he prepared to take her in his arms.

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Published by Arrow Books in association with Hammer 2012

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Copyright © Guy Adams 2012

Guy Adams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Based on the classic Hammer film,
Hands of the Ripper
, directed by Peter Sasdy and released in 1971

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Arrow Books in association with Hammer
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099553854