Hands of the Ripper (20 page)

They pulled down their woolly hat, stretching the material across their face. Nice. Breath heating up inside the wool. Hot. World turned vague, shapes lit up through the haze of stretched wool.

‘Run,’ they said, showing the bloody knife, ‘before I stab you in your slutty mouth.’

They opened their own mouth and huffed hot air, a black ‘O’ spreading condensation and spittle on the inside of the wool.

‘You what?’ Sacha screwed up her face. ‘You having
a
laugh? I never know what’s next with you lot. You’re all bloody mental!’

‘Shush,’ they said, and stabbed the knife exactly where they had threatened, blade chipping against teeth, gouging tongue and splitting lips.

Sacha, realising too late that this was no joke, raised her hands to her bleeding mouth and backed away.

‘Don’t!’ she begged, the word turned indistinct by a mouth full of blood and a tongue that threatened to flap itself loose.

‘Will,’ they replied stabbing again and again and again.

The blade broke before their fury did.

Probert pulled the car into Aida Golding’s street, his anger still burning hot in his belly. He’d hurl the hateful creature out of the door if he could. He imagined her, flailing out into thin air as he sped past. What a lovely, lovely thought.

‘Slow down,’ she snapped, ‘or you’ll go right past it.’

Trevor Court was tired. His arm and jaw ached terribly, almost so much that he couldn’t bear to move them. Still, he could hardly sit here all night. If he didn’t move soon he’d probably never be able to peel himself from the back seat.

‘Lucky, lucky, lucky,’ he said again, dropping the screwdriver back into the bag.

He felt blissfully light-headed. His work tonight had been just what he needed. He’d stayed away for too long. The world of the dead had received no gifts now
for
years. He wouldn’t leave it so long next time; a man shouldn’t fight against his strengths.

He was blissfully unaware of the real world as he eased himself up from the sticky plastic and stepped out of the car. His head was filled with songs of pain, his eyes filled with blood. He was a man outside of his own body, lost in the dirty cave of his own fucked-up skull.

Right up until Probert ran him over.

The brakes had done nothing on the wet road, the wheels locking and skidding straight forward.

The man who had just blindly stepped out of the back seat of the parked car was crushed against the door for a fraction of a second before the hinges went and both door and man went spinning backwards.

‘Oh Jesus!’ Probert couldn’t believe it. His life was getting worse and worse by the moment. How unlucky could one man be?

When the car came to a halt he jumped out and ran back down the street to where the man’s body was lying crumpled on the tarmac.

Golding stepped out after him, briefly wondering about running back to her home before anyone spotted she’d been in the car with him. But curtains were already twitching and faces were pressing themselves up against the glass.

‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘what have you done?’

Probert bent over Trevor Court’s broken body. The man was panting, fighting to draw breath into crushed lungs.

‘Call an ambulance,’ Probert shouted, ‘quickly!’

The man was saying something but Probert had to bend down closer to be able to hear it.

‘Lucky, lucky, lucky,’ the man repeated over and over again.

‘Hardly,’ Probert replied, glancing over to the parked car and the open back door. He could see a naked foot peering out.

‘There’s someone else,’ he told Aida, ‘in the back seat.’

He stood up and took a look, turning away in disgust as he drew closer. The streetlights didn’t allow much detail, thankfully, but the little they did show had him running to the gutter to throw up.

Anna woke up in John’s front garden. She was upright, her arms hanging straight down by her sides.

‘What happened?’ she asked, but there was nothing out here to tell her.

She looked down at the strange clothes she was wearing, the long raincoat, the tracksuit. She tugged the woolly hat off her head and dropped it on the floor. It landed on the ground with a slapping noise. She must have taken them from the wardrobe in her room. John’s wife’s old clothes. Clothes of the dead. If only she could remember doing it.

‘You didn’t do it,’ said a voice, and now it became clearer. If Bad Father had something to say then things were not good. ‘I did.’

She had thought she was rid of Bad Father. For years she had not heard his voice. Then the other
night
, in the darkness with the priest, he’d come again.

She’d asked him to, that was the ridiculous thing, she’d actually asked.

‘We need something to shake them up,’ Golding had told her, ‘and it’s about time we had Douglas at our table!’

Golding called him Douglas Reece. As had the priest. Others called him the East End Ripper. Anna had never known him as anything but Bad Father.

‘Which just goes to show what a bad girl you are,’ he said. Now she could see him in the furthest corner of the garden, partially obscured by plants. ‘What a horrid, evil little girl.’

‘I’m not.’ She knew better than to try to stand up for herself, Bad Father did not like arguments. He proved as much now by the snarl on his face. She could only see his mouth, the rest of his head obscured by jutting foliage on a fuchsia bush. The buds hung like blood drops bouncing in the rain, beneath them his teeth were bared and grinding together. She could almost hear the sound of them grating against themselves. They were the teeth of an animal not a man.

‘A horrid, horrid girl,’ he repeated and somehow his teeth stayed pressed together, a locked gate that should not have allowed his words through. ‘No matter how many times I try and teach you a lesson you will not learn, will you? When will you ever behave?’

In the distance, a group of young men laughed and shouted amongst themselves. There was the blare of a car horn that forced another roar of approval from them.
Then
slowly the night was quiet again, just the sound of the rain drumming against the leaves.

‘Night Music,’ said Bad Father, ‘I always did love the Night Music.’

Water was cascading off his chin, a thick silver rope glistening like drool as it tumbled past his chest.

‘You shouldn’t be here any more,’ said Anna. ‘You were gone and it was much better. I could get on with my life, be my own person. Why did you have to come back?’

‘You needed me,’ he replied, ‘that’s what I think. Spending your life playing your silly games in the dark. Lining the pocket of that old crook. You hadn’t the gumption to leave. You hadn’t the strength. You just sat there and did as you were told. I think you wanted me to come back. I think you want me to take you away from all this.’

‘I don’t need you. I have John. John will make things better.’

‘The old man who wants you to dress up like his dead wife? Yes. I’m sure he will.’

‘You don’t know him! He’s a nice man, a kind man!’

‘That’s what you think after spending five minutes in his company. So pathetic … always trying to find a daddy.’

‘Maybe if I’d had a better one in the first place.’

‘Don’t you say that! Don’t you badmouth me. I was the father you needed. The husband your mother needed. It’s not my fault they took me away.’

‘They didn’t take you away! It was your choice!’

‘Don’t argue.’ Don’t.’ But his voice was a little weaker now and she saw that second smile appear beneath his clenched teeth. That last smile he had given her when the police had kicked down their door. The small knife that he had drawn across his own throat, the hot blood that had poured down into the cot, thickening in her hair as it cooled. The police sergeant desperately trying to wipe it off with his handkerchief. The shouting of the other officers as they held Bad Father down while he kicked and thrashed his way to death.

‘You left me,’ she said, ‘and I wish you’d just stay away.’

‘I’m here,’ he said, his voice now little more than a whisper. ‘I’m always here.’

The blood continued to flow from his throat and she thought of the priest. Coughing as his life bled out. The slow hiss of air from the severed oesophagus like a puncture in a bicycle tire. Was she always to be shown that final smile? Did she somehow crave it?

Thinking of how the carving knife had felt in her hand as she had sat there in the dark, the voice of Bad Father lingering like the scent of a snuffed-out candle, she thought perhaps she did.

‘What are you doing?’

She turned around to see John stood in the doorway of his house. ‘I heard your voice,’ he explained. ‘You were shouting.’

‘Sorry.’ She looked towards the corner of the garden where Bad Father had stood. He had gone.

‘There was someone else out here.’

‘No.’ She ran towards the door, desperate to get in, wanting to rub away the rainwater and the memory of her conversation.

‘I heard them,’ John insisted, ‘a man’s voice.’

‘There’s nobody here but me,’ she said and on some level, deep down, knew it to be true.

Twelve

The Fruit

‘WHAT WERE YOU
doing out there?’ John couldn’t fail to ask. ‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’

Anna shivered in the hallway, her clothes so drenched she could only be drier without them. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, ‘I sometimes get … blanks. I’m so cold.’

John sighed. ‘Get in the shower. I’ll fetch you a drink of something.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, her head drooping down like that of a child who knows she’s been bad.

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he said, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen. ‘But you do have to discuss it. Get yourself warm first.’

She nodded and ran upstairs.

Going through to the kitchen John dug around in one of the cupboards for a bottle of brandy he knew he had gathering dust.

Even with the surprise of finding Anna outside, he clung to the positive mood of a few hours ago. It could hardly be a surprise that Anna had issues. If those issues resorted in her being in his front garden when she had
thought
herself in bed then, yes, they needed addressing. He could – and would – help her do that. Maybe even recommend someone for her to discuss it with. If she was as serious about wanting to make a fresh start as she seemed to be, then he was only too happy to give her the support she needed to do it.

He took the bottle of brandy, poured a little into a glass and tested it. Rough around the edges but it would knock some of the chill off. He poured a decent measure into another glass and leaned back against the worktop, listening to the sound of the shower upstairs.

He should tell Anna that she could stay as long as she needed. It would offer her a bit of security. Of all the things that must be preying on her, he could at least remove that concern.

He took another mouthful of the brandy. Was he being too soft again? The girl had been here twenty-four hours, he barely knew her and yet he was willing to keep her for as long as she needed. He thought about what Laura had said earlier, about him being a nice man. Maybe it was true, or maybe he was just naive. Or maybe he hoped for more from Anna, was that it? Was he lusting after a woman half his age? He’d hardly be the first man to do so. And she certainly did remind him of Jane when she had been young. Yes, Anna was attractive. Still, he thought his feelings were more complex than lust. He wanted to save her, that was the truth of it. The look in her eyes when he had stood up to her foster mother, to her he was a hero. That had been a feeling he hadn’t experienced for years. He was so used to being a quiet man, a background character in his own
life
, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be powerful, to have someone look up to you.

‘Oh, you silly old fart,’ he said out loud, ‘you’ll fall flat on your face one of these days.’

Except, he didn’t actually believe it. He thought he might finally be stepping out from the shadow of Jane’s death and the relief was so profound, the potential so exciting, he could hardly believe he had lived such an empty life for so long.

Upstairs the shower switched off.

He topped up his own glass and made his way upstairs.

‘I’ve got you a brandy,’ he shouted. ‘Is there anything else you want?’

There was a long moment of silence and John wondered if she’d heard him. Then the bathroom door opened and Anna stepped out.

‘Yes,’ she replied, forcing him up against the wall and kissing him on the mouth.

After running upstairs, Anna had gone straight into the bathroom, tugging at her wet clothes as if they were attacking her.

The thought of Bad Father still lingered and she half expected to see his face staring back at her when she looked in the mirror above the sink. But it was just her, hair limp, skin cold and pale. What a ruinous thing she was, not something you could ever love.

‘Oh, hush now,’ said Soft Mother and Anna was relieved to hear a friendly voice. At the same time she panicked that Soft Mother was speaking loud enough
for
John to hear. She didn’t want John to know about the voices, that’s why she hadn’t told him about the real tricks she used to play for Aida Golding. If he knew she had been the voices in the dark, the voices of the dead … Well, she was sure he would never forgive her.

‘Oh now,’ said Soft Mother and Anna quickly turned on the shower to help cover the noise, ‘he would understand, I’m sure. Besides, he likes it when you pretend to be Jane doesn’t he? Didn’t he ask you to dress up in her clothes?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Anna insisted. ‘He just wanted me to have something to wear.’

‘Shush, my love,’ Soft Mother replied. ‘A girl knows. What about the look on his face when you came downstairs in that brown dress, eh? He fell in love with you on the spot!’

Anna laughed, embarrassed, and climbed into the shower cubicle.

‘He doesn’t love me, silly,’ she said. ‘He barely even knows me. He’s been very kind that’s all. He’s a kind man.’

‘Bless you, but you don’t know men like I do, my girl. None of them are just kind, they want that fruit between your legs!’