Legacy of the Ripper (28 page)

"We're both fine thank you, Jack," Wright replied. "This is Miss Alice Nickels. She's come with me to talk to you about something important."

"I remember you," said Jack, looking at the attractive woman who now sat down in one of the room's two armchairs. "You were at the trial, as well. You gave evidence about the connections of the murders to the crimes of Jack the Ripper."

"That's correct, Jack," said Nickels. "I think you might be interested to hear what the sergeant and I have to tell you today."

"I hope so. I rarely get to hear anything interesting in this place," Jack replied, almost lazily, as though he didn't really care one way or the other what his visitors had to say to him.

It took the policeman and the solicitor almost thirty minutes to relate to Jack the same tale they'd told me in my office such a short time ago. Throughout their telling of the story Jack never spoke once, merely sitting with his head leaning slightly to one side as he often did during our sessions together, listening intently.

I didn't interrupt their relating of their theory, being content to observe Jack, my patient, and his reactions to what they'd come to tell him. Those observations led me to believe that Jack was quite pleased with what they had to say for the most part, but once or twice a quizzical look crossed his face as though he would have liked to argue or at least question something they'd said. Only when they both fell silent and Wright asked Jack if he had anything to say, did the young man finally break his own silence.

"I'm pleased you think I may be innocent, Sergeant. I'm not sure myself anymore, you must understand. My head hurts a lot nowadays and I'm not quite certain what to believe any longer. They all said I did it you see. Even the Man said so, and he couldn't have been my Uncle Mark as you seem to think, because Uncle Mark is dead. The Man told me so himself."

I saw the odd look that Wright and Nickels exchanged at Jack's words. It was as though he hadn't really heard what they'd said, as if he couldn't grasp the possibility that the 'Man' as he called him and his Uncle, Mark Cavendish, might be one and the same person. In Jack's mind, such a possibility didn't seem to exist.

"Jack, didn't you hear what I said? Mark Cavendish set you up. I believe he was the mystery man in the house. He disguised his voice, kept his face hidden from you and kept you drugged to keep you from recognising him thus making it easier for him and Michael to place you at the scenes of the crimes so that you'd come to believe you actually committed the murders. Your uncle used you as a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb if you like, and then left you to face trial for his crimes. He used Michael, too, and now Michael's dead, Jack. Do you understand me? He's dead, probably killed by your uncle to keep him from ever identifying him or giving his secret away."

"Michael's dead?"

"Yes, Jack. He had his throat cut and his body was dumped in a river in Poland, in Warsaw to be precise."

"Uncle Mark lived in Malta, and Michael's dead in Poland. See, I told you it couldn't have been him."

The strange quizzical look passed between the two visitors once again. It was quite obvious by now that Jack Reid didn't really comprehend their information with true clarity. I had warned them of course, and now they were seeing for the first time the true nature of the disturbances that existed within the otherwise intelligent young man's mind. Whether this had happened as a result of all that had happened to him in Brighton, or due to the influence of the as yet unsubstantiated journal or was linked directly to his childhood problems was something I was yet to ascertain.

"Jack," I said. "The sergeant is trying to tell you that he believes you're innocent and that your uncle faked his death so that he could come to England and commit the murders in the style of Jack the Ripper without anyone suspecting it was him."

My mentioning Jack the Ripper appeared to trigger something in Jack's mind. In a flash he switched from his rather confused state into one of total lucidity. His voice changed, taking on an air of almost benign superiority in a style I'd only heard from him once before, when I'd first interviewed him and he'd told me his whole story with great conviction. That Jack was back!

"The thing none of you is totally convinced of is the existence of the journal," he said. "It was, is, real. I read it from beginning to end and I can assure you it was the journal of Jack the Ripper himself. My Uncle Robert's great-grandfather who I suppose is my great-great grand uncle or something like that, left a number of notes and letters within the journal and he knew everything there was to know about the Ripper. Uncle Robert also placed a few notes in there, which helped me make sense of certain things within it. That journal is evil. It reeks of evil. It emanates from every page and somehow, it has an effect on those that read it, of that I'm sure. When you touch it the pages feel warm as though they have a life of their own. Sounds stupid doesn't it? But it's true, I tell you. You'd have to see it, feel it, read it to know the power that seeps from those old yellow pages. It sent me crazy, you know. Why d'you think I ended up in here?"

He fell silent as quickly as if someone had turned a switch off. Talking of so intense a subject, one that weighed heavily on his mind had obviously tired and distressed him and he sat looking directly at Carl Wright, as though waiting for a response from the police sergeant.

"You ended up here because we, the police, thought you'd committed three murders," said Wright. "The judge and the jury thought so, too, and it was the intervention of a great many medical minds that saw you sent here instead of to a conventional high security prison."

"But don't you see? I
am
a direct descendant of Jack the Ripper. Uncle Robert's great-grandfather confirms that in his notes, as does Uncle Robert in his own annotations. It's logical that if I carry his genes, then I must have carried out those murders, isn't it? I must have done all those things they say I did."

The lucid Jack was beginning to disappear once more. I stepped in to try and help hold him together long enough to conclude the interview.

"Listen to me, Jack. Heredity is a strange thing. If, and I still think it's a big if, you are a descendant of the Ripper then that heritage may not have manifested itself in you. After all, your Uncle Robert didn't go out killing people, did he? Nor did his father, grandfather or great-grandfather. Perhaps the gene that led to the Ripper's being mentally disturbed, if that was his problem, came from his mother not from Robert's great-grandfather, who you say was his father. Just because asthma or cancer or even mental illness runs in a family doesn't mean that the illness will show itself in every generation. You may not even possess the genes that led to the crimes of the Ripper, even if he was an ancestor of yours."

That seemed to give him a psychological lift and he looked at me with what I took to be a form of gratitude for the reassurances I'd given him, though whether he totally believed what I'd just said was another matter entirely. In truth, I wasn't sure that I believed in what I'd just said; such were the complexities surrounding this sad young man and his family history.

"But you're saying that Uncle Mark did?"

"I'm saying that perhaps he believes he does. If he read the journal, which for the sake of argument I'm accepting exists, he may have found it an expedient excuse to launch his own series of murders. It may have nothing to do with being an alleged descendant of Jack the Ripper. It may simply be that a history of mental illness exists within your family that hasn't been fully recognised in the past. Then again, if you're right, he may indeed be something of a reincarnation of the Ripper. Either way, if it can be proved, it would go along way towards helping to prove your innocence in these crimes."

"But if that's the case, why weren't any of the previous three generations affected?"

This question came from Alice Nickels, who'd been listening intently to my conversation with Jack.

"Maybe they were," I replied. "Mental illness doesn't always affect people to the extent that it easily recognised. For all we know, Jack's grandfather, or Uncle Robert, or any of his male descendants could have suffered from an undiagnosed form of mental instability, something that wouldn't necessarily impair their ability to lead a normal life. From what I've heard, Robert Cavendish was certainly a disturbed man towards the end of his life."

"But he'd lost his father, been involved in a horrendous car crash and suffered from appalling hallucinations while in a coma. Surely that would explain his so-called disturbances?"

"Yes, but those disturbances appeared to have spilled over in to his everyday life causing a degree of paranoia, as I understand it. The events you mention may have been the trigger that caused a chemical imbalance in his brain, thus leading to him suffering from a mild form of dementia."

"Hmm, I see," said Nickels. "So, assuming Jack's story to be true, it's likely that Mark Cavendish is indeed mentally disturbed and perhaps his brother's death became the trigger that unleashed his own mental illness?"

"Precisely," I replied.

Jack suddenly spoke again.

"So, did I kill those women or not?" he asked, a confused and almost pitiful look upon his face. He was obviously finding it difficult to come to terms with what he was hearing. He'd begun to believe totally in his own guilt and now that his possible innocence was being discussed he found it hard to accept. Quite often it's easier for a patient in Jack's situation to accept what they're told and let their mind come to terms with what they then see as reality. Any deviation from that reality then becomes a source of confusion for them. In Jack's case his original plea of innocence had been rejected by the police, the courts and the psychiatric services and under the weight of so many opinions and reports telling of his guilt, his mind had found it comfortable to accept those opinions as his own. Changing them would take some time, if such changes became necessary.

"I don't think you did, Jack," said Alice Nickels.

"Neither do I," added Carl Wright.

"And what about you, Doctor Ruth?" asked Jack, a pained and perplexed look appearing on his face, his head leaning to the side once again.

"Jack, after what the sergeant and Miss Nickels have told me today, I have to say that I have some doubts as to your guilt. I don't want to build up your hopes, but if Inspector Holland finds out what he is attempting to discover in Poland, then yes, it may prove that you're innocent of the crimes you were accused of."

"So, will I be able to go home soon?" he asked, in a child-like, innocent manner, as though this had all been a bad dream and he could simply go back to the way things had once been, which I and my visitors all knew would be a virtual impossibility.

"We'll have to wait and see, Jack," I replied. "Time will tell, and you must let the police carry out their investigation first. If they find out that you are indeed innocent I'm sure something will be done to put things right, am I correct, Sergeant Wright?"

"Of course, Doctor," Wright replied. "As you say, time will tell."

By now of course, Wright and Nickels had seen for themselves that, innocent or not, Jack Reid was indeed a disturbed young man, perhaps unsurprisingly after all he'd gone through. What the future held for him even if proved innocent of the Brighton murders would lead to difficult choices being made by those in authority over his case, myself included.

After concluding the interview with Jack and seeing him back to his room, I bade farewell to Carl Wright and Alice Nickels. The police sergeant had promised to keep me updated with whatever progress Inspector Holland made in Warsaw. I walked with the two of them to the sergeant's car, and felt the warmth of the morning sunshine as we walked down the steps that led from the visitors' entrance to the short path to the car park. Birds sang a cheerful refrain in the trees that lined the border of the car park, the daffodils nodded in our direction as they bent their heads quietly in the gentle breeze, and the sky appeared as an almost clear aerial ocean of blue with scarcely a cloud in sight. All seemed well with the world, and I hoped that the policeman and the ripperologist weren't about to open a can of worms that may have disastrous consequences for the young man who once again sat contemplatively in room 404, waiting to hear what the future held for him. In truth, I feared for Jack Reid, for, should he ever be released from his incarceration, I was fairly certain that his instability would one day lead him to further brushes with the law and the psychiatric services. At the moment, he was safe and secure within the artificial cocoon that Ravenswood offered to its patients, its inmates if you prefer. Remove him from that cocoon and things might appear very different to Jack himself, and to those who would come into contact with him.

For now though, like Jack, I would play the waiting game. I had no choice, and as the car carrying Wright and Nickels disappeared down the gravel driveway and stopped at the main entrance to be searched and then released by the security guards, I felt as though a heavy weight had descended upon my own mind. If Mark Cavendish was out there somewhere and he was the real Brighton Ripper, and the police found him it was possible that Jack would be vindicated. If he was I asked myself, would the world be a safer place? I admit that I had my doubts.

Mike Holland's Polish Odyssey

The 'further information' that Carl Wright had been hoping for as a result of his superior's visit to his Warsaw counterparts arrived much sooner than either he or I expected. A mere three days after Wright and Alice Nickels had paid their visit to Ravenswood I received a telephone call from the inspector himself. Could he, he asked, come down to the hospital to see me in the company of Wright and Miss Nickels?

He assured me that the information he'd gathered in Poland was more than relevant to the Reid case, but he preferred not to discuss it on the phone. I agreed instantly, my own curiosity and the need to know the facts of the case having built up over the previous three days. I arranged with Inspector Holland that he and the others should visit me the very next day, subject to Miss Nickels being able to get away from her own office in order to travel down to Ravenswood. Holland called me back half an hour later to confirm the visit. Alice Nickels appeared to have great leeway with her legal firm. Obtaining time off from her legal practice certainly appeared to present no problems for her.