Mr Blunt had spent a fruitless week in Whitechapel. Grace was known to most in the district by her first name only, being a secretive soul, and he had had no luck so far. He was a changed man–indeed, a different colour altogether, the country bloom fading in his cheeks. He had been tempted down several dark alleys and enjoyed the local female company, which soothed his temper in short bursts. At night he stalked the district, a great looming shadow, glowering and muttering to himself. He growled at people on street corners; women felt afraid and crossed the road. Grace heard talk of this sinister fellow; she didn’t pay it much attention. She felt glad she hadn’t come across him.
Blunt does not know that on Saturday he walked past Jake playing marbles in Brushfield Street, and on Thursday he would have come face to face with the entire family at the market, if he had kept on down Wentworth Street instead of ducking into the Princess for a quick one. He had missed Grace again just that morning outside the butcher’s.
All the week, as he pursued his task, Mr Byron Stanley–who could spot a scoundrel through the back of his head –traced his every move, from under his green felt hat. More than once he was almost discovered.
‘So! How’s Lily?’ said Grace over Sunday dinner, in the way that mothers do, which makes you want not to tell them anything. Charlie cringed. A blush started but didn’t bother past his ears. ‘She’s keen on you! I saw her by the pawn shop and she asked after you. Told me to give you this.’ She presented him with a red rosebud from Lily–clearly a wicked sort, given to teasing.
‘She’s not my girl!’ he protested.
‘Do you think she’s pretty?’ This, of course, from Daisy who was fascinated by the strange adult world of courting and secrets, having recently become aware that sometimes things were going on to which she was not party. She knew how to flirt as all little girls do, and loved handsome men, but knew that there was some other mystery attached just for grown-ups. She wondered what it was that made them laugh that way, and knew she was not in on the joke. However, this is the way of things for small children and, equipped with cast-iron perseverance to deal with their daily ridicule, they are hardened to it. So, instead of feeling left out, she pursued her enquiries.
‘Did you kiss her?’
Everyone laughed and she wondered why it was quite that funny. Charlie thought he had dodged the question when Jake dived in.
‘Well, did ya?’
‘Not Lily!’
‘Elsie, then!’
‘Which one’s Elsie?’
‘I might ’ave.’
Daisy wondered how he didn’t know.
‘He did. He did! He kissed her!’
‘Leave him alone!’ said Grace–a fine thing for her to say since it was she who had started it. The brothers jeered on for a moment or two. Daisy watched intently, with her serious button face.
‘All right, it was Elsie and I did kiss her.’
Further riotous enjoyment was had from this admission, only Daisy fully retaining her composure. Incisively she cut straight to the next relevant point. ‘Can we see her?’
‘No!’
‘Why? Is she ugly?’
‘No!’
‘Where does she live?’
‘New Street. St Philip.’
‘Oh.’
Daisy had not reckoned on getting an answer to any of her questions and had no idea where New Street was anyway so she was flummoxed into silence. For a moment.
‘Which house?’
The whole room laughed again; someone touched her hair; she waited patiently for them to calm down. She was formulating her next line of enquiry when there was a sharp knock at the door.
They opened it to find Nelly Holland, red-faced and breathless with news. ‘Grace they’ve found another one this morning! In Hanbury Street. With her heart torn clean out of her chest!’
Jake was already halfway out of the door. She grabbed him by the scruff. ‘And where are you off to, young man?’
‘I want to have a look.’
‘I’m sure you do, but you’d only be satisfying your nasty curiosity.’
‘Oh, Ma!’
As she turned away from him, to catch Daisy jumping off the table, he slipped out through the door, just too quick to catch.
‘JAKE!’
‘Don’t worry, Ma, I won’t be long!’
‘Oh, Charlie, sweetheart, will you go after him?’
Miss Annie Chapman had lost her two front teeth courtesy of a customer in a dark alley. Now she was hanging by a hook on the mortuary wall having her photograph taken, for it was she who had perished in the back yard of twenty-nine Hanbury Street, discovered by poor John Davis, who was still reeling from the shock. When the boys reached the scene of the crime they found the landlady selling tickets by the passage door to enter and see the bloodstains. They didn’t go in, though Jake was ready to lift the sixpence.
‘I’ve seen him lurking about by St Mary’s lately. You want to watch out for him. He’s that smart type who likes to slum it–coat tails, stick, all that. Most of the girls have shied well off and so should you. He’s a nasty fucker. Mary Kelly entertained him last week. God knows, she’ll consort with any piece of scum for a shiny coin. Though she barely remembers a thing after eleven o’clock any day, she said she wouldn’t have him the next time–she couldn’t say why. Just that he was cruel. I asked her what he’d done and she said nothing in particular, just that he’d made a very strange proposal, something she didn’t want to repeat. Well, what that could be if Miss Kelly doesn’t want to repeat it you can’t imagine, can you? He comes from Belgravia, she says. I’d stay well away from him, and so should you.’
Nelly Holland leaned back against the wall and sighed, wondering if any of this was going into Sally Ann Dunn’s stupid head. The gentleman to whom she referred had been seen about a few times of late and had given one or two of the girls quite a turn. He had grabbed Busy Liz from behind in George Yard, stepping out from the shadows. As she struggled free and fled, he laughed her down the street–a sickening laugh by all accounts, varying from brutish to inhuman with the storyteller. Though Grace had managed to escape the finer details, she had heard he’d asked Mary if he might wrap his hands round her throat and squeeze just a little while he was about his business. As many of the gentlemen slummers made unusual requests this wouldn’t normally be worth a mention, but in the current chill wind it cloaked him in suspicion, along with every second man in the street.
Sally Ann Dunn cared nothing for what was round the corner but her next drink. She wasn’t one to fret about troubles ahead or hope for better luck next time–it never came. This much she could count on. She had never had a present or a surprise that she could remember and didn’t want to start now. The hollow girls who haunt the alleys, clutch at straws, lost each in their own world kept her company: making desperate alliances, loud threats, and sleeping where they dropped, fights breaking out round their blissful heads.
That evening she was conscious still, it being barely seven o’clock. She had done well that day, having earned two shillings and drunk but half of it. Now Nelly was intent on telling her about poor Polly Nichols and this monster on the loose and she didn’t want to think of it. She was careful enough anyhow, she reckoned; you could tell a strange fellow by the look in his eye. She stood up to get another drink, the blood rushing to her feet, the tiles spinning round her.
Ivor Squall had managed to give Mr Blunt the slip that afternoon, or so he thought, which made him feel rather clever. In truth, his usefulness had been exhausted now that Mr Blunt could find his own way around Whitechapel and he had not tried particularly hard to locate him for the last couple of days, or even drop by his office to torment him further. Ivor had been asked so many times if he was quite sure it was Grace he had seen that now he was not. That evening he had anticipated a visit and left the office early, and was at that moment on his way home to enjoy a nice piece of boiled beef he had left over from yesterday. He prefers his food simple and holds no truck with fancy seasoning, though he likes a bit of mustard. He twisted his wiry mouth into as much of a smile as it would go at the satisfaction of being alone for dinner, and rubbed his rat hands together, again.
Mr Blunt, too, was dining alone in the Britannia, on steak and kidney pudding, which was sufficiently delicious to have distracted him from all else. Lucky for Grace, though she knew nothing of it, except for a shiver that ran through her–as if someone was digging her grave. As Mr Blunt was lost in his gravy she passed right outside the window: if he could have reached through the glass he might have touched her head–though it was up in the clouds, thinking about Jack Tallis: who else? Grace had met him that day and had a drink or two, and more besides to remember him by; she found an idiotic grin on her face, as she had at intervals all afternoon. She’d been keeping Jack away from the house: Charlie had given him a frosty reception at his last visit and wouldn’t say why. Grace wondered idly what he knew but she was sure she didn’t want to ask. She drifted down Commercial Street, in a wistful bubble. As she neared the corner she felt someone skulking behind her. He hung back, measuring his steps, and quickened his pace as she did.
She turned left deliberately, away from home, and crossed the road heading for the Ten Bells. Sally Ann was inside the door, leering at a dusty bricklayer. He turned away from her broken grin back towards the bar, leaving her hazily forlorn. She spotted Grace coming in and latched on.
‘Evening, Miss Sally,’ said Grace, glancing behind her. Sally Ann started on the story of her latest misfortune. She’s getting tiresome, thought Grace. She’d better not ask me for money today. Grace’s shadow came in behind her and she met him with a hard stare. He was tall and well dressed, with greying hair and a groomed moustache, and looked not the slightest bit brutish or sinister but, rather, returned her look with startled embarrassment and averted his eyes. She watched him all the way to the bar and slipped out as he ordered a pint of ale. As she looked back through the door, Sally Ann was lurching after him, spilling someone’s drink.
Red Lion Court was pitch black and quiet, save for the bestial grunting of two or three brides and their clients. Trying not to hear she made her way through, glancing behind her as she reached the bend. No one was following; just the dark shapes of the couples moved slowly behind. Grace Hammer had not carved out a decent life for herself among the flotsam of East London by waiting for someone to bite her first. Her safety after dark was secured by the clear head she kept on her shoulders and the razor that lived in her pocket.
Sally Ann took all of a minute to discourage the mystery gentleman from staying or buying her a drink, with her missing teeth and her Hell’s breath. Outside the door he looked this way and that, wondering where Grace had gone.
Grace came out into Hanbury Street and kept to the shadows all the way down to Brick Lane where she turned right, then right again at the church, heading for home. She was halfway down White’s Row when she heard footsteps and looked behind to see a tall figure marching briskly towards her in the gloom.
‘Excuse me, Miss,’ he said, in a smart accent, not six feet away now. As he closed in, she swung round and smacked him in the face with a furious fist and before he could catch his breath she followed it with the other, bloodying his nose all the way down his starched shirt-front. Then she took off down the alley, grasping the razor in case he gave chase, which he did not.
In fact, he was a gentleman of unusual tastes, who was rather shy and had been hanging around the district hoping for satisfaction. He had seen Grace earlier in the day and mistaken her for a lady who might help him, choosing her largely on account of her kind, direct face. This seemed ironic to him as he knelt in the street, blood dripping from his nose. He was sure he would find it amusing one day.
At home, Daisy and Jake were wide awake though they were not supposed to be, in the back room, whispering. Billy had fallen asleep in front of the fire and Charlie was out. Jake was showing Daisy new games–magic tricks: how to fan the mark, brush against them to find the wallet; how to sandwich, distraction, sleight of hand.
Mr Blunt finished his dinner and shoved aside his plate, belching soundly.
Across town Ivor Squall finished his also, and washed his plate and cutlery fastidiously in his tiny sink. After tidying his desk, he sat down to enjoy the peace and quiet.
In the Britannia Mr Blunt stared into his beer, fuming silently at Squall’s disappearance, plotting to catch him the next day. Such an air of simmering rage surrounded him that no one sat near. Into the pub fell Miss Lucy Fear. She had been thrown out of the Ten Bells after baring her tits for the customers’ delectation. Staggering by the door she surveyed the bar, which was swimming before her, and made a beeline for the stranger by the window.
‘Hello, love, buy a girl a drink?’ she slurred.
Blunt glowered at her from under his eyebrows. Without a word he rose and struck her hard across the face, one way, then the other, and left her on the floor of the pub, the landlord gaping after him like a drowning fish.