23 December, eleven years earlier
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HE DOCTOR IS SURROUNDED BY PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN. On her desk, on the shelves behind her, even on the window ledge. Some of them, the doctor's own children, the girl assumes, were taken decades ago â she can tell by the clothes worn and the graininess of the print. Others, more recent, must be grandchildren.
It's disgustingly tactless, the girl thinks, this excessive display of the doctor's own fertility, given that she's just told Cathy she will never be able to carry and bear a child.
âThe infection attacked the lining of your uterus,' the doctor is explaining. If we'd caught it earlier, we might have got it under control. As it is, even without the damage to the fallopian tubes and the ovaries, I'm afraid the uterus simply won't be capable of sustaining a full-term pregnancy. I'm sorry.'
She isn't sorry, the girl holding Cathy's hand can tell. She's saying all the right things, the words that are expected of her, but her eyes are too steady, her stare too intense. At best, she doesn't care one way or the other. At worst, because she's mean and she takes pleasure in other people's misery, she's secretly rather gratified this has happened to them.
âI can't have children,' says Cathy, for the third time. âI'll never be a mother.'
Cathy, who has been a mother since she was three years old, caring for her dolls as if they were alive, cannot take in the news that she, of all
females, won't make the natural progression from looking after dolls to loving real live babies.
âWell, you know, my dear,' says the doctor, âthere are more ways than one to be a mother.'
âWhat the fuck is that supposed to mean?' says the girl.
The doctor narrows her eyes and pulls back her shoulders. âThere's no call for language of that description, young lady,' she says. âPerhaps I'd better speak to your sister alone. '
The girl stands up. Is there anything else you need to ask, Cathy?' she says.
Cathy's eyes seem to have lost the ability to focus. She shakes her head and her sister takes her arm and pulls her gently to her feet. They move away from the chairs, towards the door. Then the girl stops, turns and steps back to the desk.
âPut that down,' says the doctor. âPut that down now, or I'll call Security. '
âThere is no Security in this building, you old fool,' says the girl, as she walks over to the open window. In her right hand, she has a gold-framed photograph of the much younger doctor holding a toddler in her arms. The girl reaches the window, glances out and drops the picture. She hears the clang it makes on the roof of a red car as she steers Cathy out of the room.
Elizabeth
âFor this time two victims have been required in a single night to slake what appears to be an absolutely demoniacal thirst for blood.'
Evening Standard
, 1 October 1888
Monday 10 September
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WO WOMEN WERE KILLED IN THE EARLY MORNING OF 30 September 1888,' I said. I pressed a button on the laptop and the photograph of a woman appeared on the large screen at the front of the room. Taken in the mortuary, it showed an oval face and clean, regular features. Her hair was dark, with a slight curl, and had been pinned up on the crown of her head. Her mouth was wide and generous, she might at one time have had a nice smile.
âThe first victim was Elizabeth Stride, a Swedish-born woman who moved to London about twenty years before her death,' I said. âShe was forty-five, separated from her husband and homeless. The murder took place in Dutfield's Yard, a sort of courtyard that led off Berner Street in Whitechapel.'
The incident room was full, but more than one pair of eyes was drifting towards the open windows. I had a sense of people listening out of politeness. We knew who we were after now. And when we found Samuel Cooper, we could prove he was the killer. The case was all but over.
âAt twelve forty-five in the morning, she was seen arguing with a man in the gateway to Dutfield's Yard,' I went on. âThat's the last we see of her alive.'
I carried on talking but my mind was wandering. I had leave due and it was too long since I'd taken a holiday. Tiredness, and shock,
had been playing some very strange tricks with my head the last couple of weeks. Then the door opened and Mark Joesbury walked in. He was in a business suit, dark grey with the faintest of pinstripes. His shirt was white and his tie was dark-red silk and I'd lost my thread.
It took me a moment to find it again. âDutfield's Yard was overlooked by a Jewish Socialist Club,' I said, after a few seconds glancing through my notes. âIt was full on the night in question. Would have been noisy. At one a.m., fifteen minutes after Elizabeth was last seen, the steward of the social club arrived home and saw a woman lying on the ground with her throat cut. He later described the wound as a great gash, over two inches wide.'
Joesbury took a seat next to Tulloch. He'd shaved.
âHe went inside to get help and the police were called,' I said, as Joesbury whispered something in Tulloch's ear.
âIn the Elizabeth Stride case, three aspects are of interest. The first is the mystery of how the killer managed to incapacitate her in the way he did.'
âHe strangled his victims first, didn't he?' chipped in a man at the back.
âIt's believed so,' I agreed, glad of someone else to concentrate on. âBut there were no signs that Elizabeth was strangled. No bruising around the throat or face. Yet the surgeon was convinced her throat had been cut from left to right, while she was prostrate on the ground.'
âShe thought she was about to have sex,' said Anderson. âWomen do that on their backs, in my experience.'
Titters from various men in the room.
âIt had been raining heavily,' I replied. âThe yard was covered in mud, and maybe you need to be a bit more adventurous, Sarge,'
More titters, rather more feminine in tone this time.
âShe wouldn't have lain down voluntarily,' I said. âThere were lots of people near by, but no one heard any sound of a struggle. And she kept hold of a small packet of sweets while she was forced to the ground. He got her down quickly and without a fuss.'
âThese women all drank, didn't they?' said Joesbury. âWas she intoxicated?'
âThe pathologist said not,' I replied, keeping my eyes on my
notes. âHe checked her stomach contents and found no evidence of alcohol abuse or narcotics. The police at the time were completely mystified as to how he got her on the ground.'
A car horn sounded outside. Several heads turned to the window.
âAnother reason Elizabeth Stride stands out is that she wasn't mutilated in any way,' I went on, anxious to get to the end now. âThe wound on her throat was the only mark on her body. No other part of her was touched.'
âHe was interrupted,' said Stenning.
âIn the drama I watched,' said Gayle Mizon, popping a cashew nut into her mouth, âonly one murder took place on 30 September. Elizabeth Stride was discounted as being one of the Ripper victims.'
âThat's the third thing I was going to mention,' I said, giving Mizon a quick smile. âNot every expert believes the Ripper killed Stride. Some people argue that because there was no sign of strangulation and because she wasn't mutilated, her killer was a different man.'
âThe opposing argument being that because he was interrupted, the Ripper had to abort plan A and then took out his frustration on his next victim,' said Tulloch.
âYes, that's another possibility,' I said. âThe fourth canonical victim of the Ripper was Catharine Eddowes.' I pressed the keyboard again and the post-mortem photograph appeared on the screen. It was taken of Catharine's naked body and showed a massive scar running down the length of her torso. Her facial injuries were appalling.
âAt one forty-five in the morning,' I said, âPC Watkins of the City Police found Catharine's body in Mitre Square.'
âHang on, we're talking less than an hour after Stride was murdered in Whitechapel,' said Barrett.
âThat's right,' I said. âCatharine's throat had been cut, almost back to the spine. The police doctor referred to death being due to blood loss from the left common carotid artery. Her abdomen was ripped open from her breast down to her pubic bone. Several of her internal organs were damaged. Others, including the uterus and the left kidney, were removed. Some of her organs were left strewn around her body, almost as though he was looking for something.'
The mood in the room had changed. People were listening again.
âFor the first time with Eddowes, the Ripper attacked his victim's face,' I said. âHe used his knife to make incisions on her cheeks and eyelids. The lobe of one ear was cut off and also the tip of her nose.'
My colleagues seemed transfixed by the picture of Eddowes's face. Horrible scars showed where her facial wounds had been stitched during the post-mortem examination. Beneath the damage, though, it was still possible to see that at one time she would have been a pretty woman. She'd had a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones and a smooth, clear brow, and I couldn't help but wonder if it had just been coincidence that the loveliest of the Ripper's victims had inspired his greatest violence.
F
OR THE NEXT FEW DAYS I WAS THE POSTER GIRL FOR THE caring face of the Met, or as Stenning and one or two of the others insisted on calling me, Ripper-bait. I spent less than an hour a day in the station. The rest of the time I was out, visiting schools, youth clubs and community centres around south London. I linked up with the Sapphire Units and helped them give talks to groups of girls about keeping themselves safe and the importance of reporting incidents. I met Rona and her sister, Tia, over a burger lunch and was hugely relieved to find that nothing had happened yet, and that both girls were being very careful.
Other times, I was out on the streets, buying endless cartons of soup, directing people to hostels, advice centres, sometimes just talking. The days can get very dull when you have nothing to do and nowhere to go.
At lunchtime I went swimming. In the evenings, I sat in pubs and cafés, pretending to read a newspaper. I stayed out as late as I could bear, just waiting for the phone call, for the tall, thin figure of Samuel Cooper to appear in the distance. I even went to Camden on the second night, mainly to wind up Joesbury, and discovered there was a limit to how much I wanted to rile him. I went home alone.
Actually, I was never truly alone. Joesbury had got clearance for two of his colleagues from SO10 to take turns shadowing me. âYour guys stand out like sore knobs,' he'd told Tulloch when she said she'd
prefer her own people to do it. âAny villain worth his salt will clock 'em a mile off.'
Whoever Joesbury's people were, they were good. Even I hadn't spotted them yet. Occasionally, at a distance, I'd see someone I knew from Lewisham. Tulloch was taking no chances.
Tulloch phoned me often, Stenning almost as much. I heard that the latest press conference had been painful and that it had been plain that Tulloch's superiors were distancing themselves. If the killer wasn't caught soon, she'd carry the can.
There had been no talk around the station about her leaving the inquiry.
Thanks to Stenning, I got a full report of the post-mortem carried out on the woman we found in Victoria Park. Death had been the result of massive blood loss following extensive damage to the victim's abdominal cavity and organs. She'd been tortured prior to death by the infliction of fourteen shallow cuts around her breasts. The broken-off piece of wooden fencing had been rammed into her vagina while she was still alive. The internal damage had been extensive, but the presence of semen caught in her pubic hair suggested she'd been raped.
The semen, I learned, showed traces of a common spermicide. He'd used a condom. Frustratingly, Samuel Cooper's prior arrests had been before the taking of DNA samples from suspects had become routine, so we would need to catch him before we could prove categorically that it was him. But we would catch him. His photograph was everywhere. I saw it several times a day, on television and in the national papers.
Then, at the end of the fourth day, we identified our victim.
Friday 14 September
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D
ARYL WESTON OF STOCKBRIDGE IN HAMPSHIRE ARRIVED home from a ten-day business trip to the Philippines to find his house strangely deserted. His wife, Amanda, was nowhere to be seen, his cat was half starved and his answer-machine completely full. Some of the calls were from his two children, the son who lived in Bristol, the thirteen-year-old daughter at a boarding school in Gloucestershire. Most of the rest were from Amanda's friends, who'd seen sketches of a murder victim on the news that bore a remarkable resemblance to her and who had just wanted to check she was still with us. Ha ha.
After he'd listened to the fourth such message, Daryl Weston was struggling to see the joke. He phoned his wife's parents in Sussex and her closest friends. Then he phoned us.
Forty-six-year-old Amanda Weston had been married for four years. Daryl was her second husband, her two children were from her first marriage. She had no enemies, according to her husband. She worked part-time as a nurse in a local hospice for terminally ill cancer patients.
Daryl Weston had loved his wife. He wept like a child when he saw her body. He was still crying when he arrived at Lewisham to give a statement. Tulloch and Anderson took him into the interview room, a room we keep for talking to people who aren't suspects in
any sort of crime. They may be victims, family of victims or important and vulnerable witnesses. The room is furnished comfortably and there's a discreet video camera in one corner. As Tulloch and Anderson talked to Weston, the rest of us gathered round a screen in the incident room to watch the conversation.
âMr Weston, I know you want to be getting back to your children,' said Dana, when she'd taken him through the basics, âbut I do need to ask you a few more questions. Is that OK?'
Weston nodded, without raising his eyes from the hands clasped on his lap.
âCan you think of any reason why your wife might have been in London last Saturday?'
Weston shook his head. âShe never comes to London,' he said. âShe hates it.'
âWhen did you last speak to her?'
He thought for a second. âTuesday night,' he said. âI asked her what time it was in England and she said just after eight.'
âHow did she sound?'
He shook his head. âNormal. Tired. She'd been at work but she didn't have to go in again until Saturday. She was looking forward to the rest.'
âDid she have any plans?' asked Tulloch.
âSort the garden out for the winter. Help Daniel pack his things up. He's supposed to move into a new flat next week. Jesus â¦' He put his head in his hands.
âDaniel is twenty-five, is that right?'
There were too many people crowded round the screen. It was starting to feel uncomfortably hot. I edged back a little and looked at my watch. I'd arranged to meet the local Sapphire Unit at a nearby school in twenty minutes.
âMr Weston, we have reason to believe that whoever killed your wife may have killed another woman, just over a week ago. Did you hear about that case?'
Weston looked up and shook his head. âI've been out of the country.'
âOf course, you did say. The other woman was a similar age to your wife. Her name was Geraldine Jones. Does that name mean anything?'
He shook his head again.
I really had to go now. I took another step back and came up against Joesbury. I hadn't even known he was in the room. Keeping my eyes on the screen, I edged my way around him and left.
Â
For several days I carried on going through the motions, trying to lure Samuel Cooper out into the open. People like Stenning and Mizon filled me in on anything important.
Like the fact that Geraldine Jones and Amanda Weston could have known each other. So far no member of either family remembered the two women being friends, but when she'd been married to her previous husband, Amanda and her children had lived in London. They and Geraldine's kids had attended the same private school in Chiswick. Shortly after that, we learned that Cooper's mother, Stacey, had worked at the school as a cook and that Cooper himself had been known to visit it. It was looking as though the killings weren't random. There was a purpose behind them.
In the meantime, Cooper continued to elude us. And the cranks had really come out of the woodwork. Every day we were deluged with telephone calls and Ripper letters; every day, we took a hammering in the press. POLICE CLUELESS. MET'S INCOMPETENCE. COUNTDOWN TO NEXT KILLING. The headlines got more and more judgemental. We started hiding them from Tulloch.
Then, on the eighth day after the discovery of Amanda Weston's body, we found him.