Sitting in a hospital room with no one to talk to as your loved one wanders around between dream and reality you start to think. I had already started this short story intending to use it on a project Dave had at first spoken of. It then occurred to me that it would be interesting to write a short story comprising of four sections containing 500 words each.

Killing Time


1

Time was moving its strange currents. A shimmer of light blessed Wapping Old Stairs. From the sudden come, sudden gone iridescence a shape fell forward, a figure with clawed fingers and bloodied throat. The obscene gurgle of life passing in blood red droplets escaped the woman’s sliced neck. The woman held her throat with her left hand as if by holding the wound she could prevent her life blood flooding out. Her eyes blinked as she staggered while her mouth moved soundlessly. Whatever it was she was trying to say the syllables remained unheard. She fell forward into a heap of blood soaked garments that gave her the look, on first glances, of a misshapen bundle of rags.

The night passed without incident with no one finding the corpse that slowly grew cold. As dawn broke over the Thames, PC Owen Stanhope from the Wapping Marine Police station passed the Old Stairs as he did every morning on his way to work. It was five in the morning and although he was a stout fellow, born and bred in London, he was surprised, then shocked by the discovery of a murdered woman lying bone cold on his manor. Even more remarkable was that the corpse lay right next door to the local nick. It wasn’t just the state of the woman’s brutal demise that shocked him, with her neck so savagely slit that her head remained in place only by a slither of skin, but the way she was dressed. Her clothes appeared to be early Victorian or perhaps even Georgian.

Stanhope alerted his colleagues then called for an ambulance. The latter was just a formality. Within minutes the C.I.D arrived along with a Crime Scene Examiners team led by a tubby forensic doctor who, having pulled on his protective clothing, examined the body. The corpse was then removed to the nearest laboratory, one of the four ‘links’ that operates in London’s thirty two boroughs where an autopsy was performed. Later, after forensics had performed their gruesome ritual it was established that Esther Gilbert, of Narrow Street, Limehouse had been born in 1789 in Bow. A form of identity was found contained in her purse. It was a letter of sorts, crudely hand written in blue black ink, from a lover or boyfriend dated November 1st 1811. The letter was signed by George Taylor. It was also discovered from the address on the note that Esther had lived in New Gravel Lane near the Ratcliff Highway. Traces of blood were found under her fingernails that was thought to have come from where Esther had scratched the face of her attacker

Not only had she had her throat cut but prior to that had been beaten about the head and body with a blunt instrument. There was no such device found at the scene of the crime. The one major problem that the Metropolitan Police had was finding the murderer of a woman from 1811 who had been slaughtered in 1994.



2

Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Murphy sat puzzling over the muddle of facts that lay scattered in sheets across his desk. Esther Gilbert had been born in 1791 in a Stepney poor house. There had been no official birth certificate or any other record of birth but the home she grew up in had drawn their own conclusions from the time she spent with them as infant then child.

George Taylor had died in 1812 following a knife fight in the Kings Arms. It was not an uncommon occurrence as in those days mortality rates in London’s East End were high. Esther had disappeared in November 1811 and her disappearance had been reported. When neither a living body nor dead corpse was found it had been assumed she had run away, as many did back then, with a sailor bound for the New World. Apparently her disappearance had an adverse effect on the young George who turned to drink. Shortly after this rather mundane event the infamous Ratcliff Murders took place. Eventually a man was captured who was thought to be responsible for the heinous crime and imprisoned. It was whilst in hospital that he, John Williams, committed suicide. Many thought in later years to have been innocent.

This scant evidence was all Murphy had to go on. None of it made much sense especially when you tried to tie the murders of 1811 to the barbaric slaughter of the young woman found in Wapping Old Stairs. The thought had occurred that the corpse had been presented dressed in Georgian garb with a facsimile note placed within her purse but the more he thought along those lines the more fanciful and unlikely it seemed. It equally seemed impossible for someone from 183 years ago to arrive in modern day Wapping with their throat sliced open.

Another series of forensic tests were carried out including examination of the cadaver’s teeth. The incisors, canine and premolars, surprisingly for a supposedly young woman of the late Georgian era, were in a pretty good state. However, several molars had been removed with shards of bone remaining in the gum indicating a form of dated dentistry not used in this century. Also the fabric of the dress was authenticated as being circa 1790 to 1820. The ‘love letter’ was also examined specifically the ink which was found to be composed of copperas and tannic acid, a pinch of gum arabic, with what might have been rain or distilled water, confirmation that the letter was also genuine and seemingly of the late 18th to early 19th century.

However, the wounds revealed that a long knife, similar to the ones used by the military, had inflicted the fatal cut. Murphy looked again at the supplied photograph of the Black Commando Knife finding the strange, dislocated evidence, hard to assimilate. How was it possible for an individual living in another time to be killed and found 183 years after the event and by a weapon from the twentieth century?



3

The Thames was bleeding. Streaks of red lapped against the shingle. The discoloured water licked the head of the disfigured body that lay belly up. The body had been mutilated with little evidence of a face. The nose had been sliced off as had the lips. The ears also had been cut off. The breasts had been removed and all internal organs taken from inside the body and placed at strategic points around the corpse.

A team of Crime Scene Examiners led again by the tubby forensic doctor were gathering evidence. The plump medic, an individual used to seeing man’s inherent cruelty to his fellows, was visibly shaken by the inhuman act of barbarism. Detective Chief Superintendent Murphy hovered close by. He too repulsed by what he saw. He spoke quietly to the doctor.

“How long has she been dead?” his words sounded factual in a world suddenly surreal.

“Twelve hours at a guess, maybe a little more but no more than fifteen.”

Above the forensic team along with police officers gathered on the harsh shores of Wapping. The sky, grim and overcast, swept sullen clouds scudding across its pewter horizon. A light rain fell.

Murphy asked a question knowing the answer would be difficult “Any idea of how old she was?”

Doctor Lusk rose painfully on creaking knees, his arthritis feeling the pinch of the cold shingle.

“Somewhere between twenty and thirty, I would hazard twenty seven. The victim has had her throat cut then she has been filleted with her organs laid out symmetrically. Whoever did this has a good working knowledge of anatomy. If I were to suggest that this looks remarkably like the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 then I suspect you or your superiors would think me insane but there is an uncanny resemblance between this murder and that of Mary Jane Kelly.”

A chill wind made Colin Murphy wrap his coat collar around his neck. The rain continued to fall. Murphy took in the doctor’s words but chose to ignore the implications answering instead with another question.

“What about the clothes the victim is wearing, they look authentic.”

“I think they are. I will need to make further analysis though. Again I am guessing but the dress, what’s left of it, appears to be late Victorian or early Edwardian. I will run a fabric test when I get back.”

The doctor stood up groaning as he did. He spoke without a hint of irony.

“I am getting too old for this job; my bones are begging me to retire.”

Again Murphy ignored Lusk’s conversational tones. The policeman looked up at the sky. Little drops of rain coated his face. His hair was soaked and his raincoat covered in tiny dots that were beginning to join together.

“What makes someone do this? What insane thoughts must drive them to commit such an atrocity?”

The doctor picked up his medical bag.

“Not them but us; all mankind are capable of such violent acts, always remember that”



4.

Outside the rain had ceased. The drizzle had pooled into puddles that reflected a gleeful sun which only moments ago had slid behind dark, secretive clouds. The streets were still slick with water. The narrow passage between the Town of Ramsgate and the building next to it glimmered with a ghostly light. The light grew in strength and brightness. It was as though an incendiary device had been set to explode but as it did so time had slowed. The glow from the blast increased in luminosity until it reached an incandescent climax then it guttered out.

The swarthy man gazed out onto the street and smiled. A couple in the distance on their way to St. Katherine’s Dock were holding hands. He watched them walk on then stepped out of the alley. He crossed the street to where the cast iron railings corralled an old wharf. Looking left to right he stepped on heading toward Wapping Lane.

A young woman struggled by with her shopping bags. The man gazed at her taking in her shapely calves and the curve of her buttocks beneath her tight black skirt. She passed Cinnamon Street then turned the corner onto the High Street. A black cab scuttled along like a beetle. Inside the driver, an Asian man, was taking his passenger to Liverpool Street station. The driver looked at the swarthy man who stared back. The can then drove by going down Wapping Lane toward The Highway

The swarthy man followed the route taken by the cab passing the parade of shops as he went. The shops clung to the road presenting a dogged, retrospective outlook. Their windows seemed to be smeared with the dirt of history. They reminded him of his mother and of pork chops, of ‘Call my Bluff’ and of Eamonn Andrews. The butcher shop was regaled with sausages, minced beef and a lamb joint. The meat looked waxy. He walked on. A flock of seagulls swarmed over head. They screeched as they flew. Their voices sounded like a baby crying or like a woman screaming in pain.

He passed Tobacco Dock feeling the silent industry of another age whisper its sorrow at the fading of days. The water lapped at the quayside as a couple of ducks sat idle on the tamed waters. Pennington Street presented itself but he sloped across it as he made his way toward the Highway. He could see St. Georges in the East rise wounded but repaired. He stood at the kerbside as traffic roared by. The noise was immense and at odds with the newfound quiet of Wapping He pulled a package from his pocket, a soiled manila envelope from which he took out a passport, a driver’s license and a crumpled letter. He stepped off of the edge of the kerb leafing through his passport. He didn’t see the bus but heard its tyres squeal and felt its solid mass smash into him. His passport fell open revealing his name– Jack Cleaver.


This is a draft. Not sure if it is too clever by half. I tried to pair it back so that it asks more questions than it does provide answers. I wanted to suggest rather than inform that Jack the Ripper was in fact a man from 1994 who travelled through a time portal located in Wapping to the past, specifically at the time of the Ratcliff Murders but also the famed Whitechapel horror. Not sure it works but I am happy with the 500 wors per section idea.
.
all words and art are copyright © of Russell 'C.J' Duffy. For another side of CJ go here: sOMeThiNg For tHE wEeKeND, SiR?