Chapter 45

JUST LIKE RACHEL

Charlie Faultless stared up at the Jesus over Roy Hanbury’s mantelpiece and delved into what he’d found out by searching the internet.

1888, Druitt, a Jack-the-Ripper suspect, dies.

1996, four women murdered in Ripper fashion.

2011, five dead in two days, three of them mutilated the Jack way.

2011, Tash and Jasmine Hanbury dream about a lake of fire and floating on it was the Ripper suspects briefcase.

2011, the Ripper suspects briefcase is found where the four boys were killed the previous morning.

He turned away from the crucifixion and faced Roy Hanbury, Tash, and Jasmine. They’d been talking. He’d been aware of their voices, but he hadn’t really caught what they were saying. He was delving too deeply.

He said, “We have to find Spencer. He was mates with this Jay-T fella. Roy, you say he’d nicked a games console off the Sharpleys.”

“What about our dreams?” said Tash.

Faultless looked at her and then at Jasmine.

The mum looked back at him. The girl watched a DVD.

He didn’t know what to say. Dreams didn’t count to him. They weren’t concrete. He wanted to say what Tash had experienced meant nothing. But seeing the fire in her eyes, it was clear it meant something to her.

He said, “I don’t know.”

“Me and Jasmine dreamt this briefcase.”

It sat on a towel on Hanbury’s floor.

“And then,” she said, “Hallam finds it where those boys got killed. You don’t think that means something?”

Faultless said nothing.

Tash reddened. “You think what we dreamt is crap, don’t you? You think it’s just . . . just stupid.”

“Tash, I’m—”

“You think we’re mad.”

“No, I don’t, I—”

“What are you saying?”

She was fiery. Just like Rachel, he thought, not for the first time.

He remembered something. Rachel and him in a dodgy pub down in Stepney. Late in the evening, last orders called. The clientele drifting away.

Faultless, eighteen and a distress beacon for trouble, determined to finish the dregs in his pint.

Rachel saying, “Let’s go.”

Faultless saying, “I’ve got booze left.”

A voice behind him saying, “Listen to your mummy, son.”

Faultless turning.

Seven hard-cases—scars, tattoos, noses out of joint, number-one scalps, teeth missing, and muscles ballooned on steroids.

Faultless picking up his pint.

Faultless drinking it dry.

Faultless smashing the glass on the bar.

Faultless wielding it, a jagged weapon.

Face twisted, saying, “Come on, then . . . all of you . . . all of you . . . you cunts . . . ”

The hard-cases cracking knuckles and flexing muscles, moving in on him.

Rachel blocking their way, saying, “You come on then, but first one to take a step loses his eyes.” She clawed her hands, showing her long, red fingernails. “And I don’t give a shit what the rest of you do. But who’s first? Who’s going to need a guide dog?”

For ten seconds, a stand-off.

Then a hard-case laughs and says, “Lucky she’s here to look after you, son; we would’ve cut your balls off. Now kindly fuck off back to Barrowmore, Faultless.”

The men had known him. He was Hanbury’s acolyte. He was Hanbury’s pit-bull pup. And they were going to neuter him before he got too dangerous.

Just like Rachel, he thought again, looking at Tash.

She said, “I dreamt this, Charlie. Jasmine dreamt it.” She looked scared, this knowledge terrifying her. “It’s real. Just because it’s beyond your understanding doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Dad, tell him.”

Hanbury was feeding dead mice to his snake.

Tash said, “Dad . . . ”

Hanbury turned. He had worry-lines all over his face.

“Don’t worry about it, darlin’,” he told his daughter.

“Don’t ‘darlin’’’ me, Dad.”

She looked at her father and her eyes narrowed. “You know something.”

“Tash, I’m telling you—”

“Dad, you know something. Something about our dreams.”

Now Jasmine was looking up from her movie.

Faultless caught her eye.

The girl said, “I’m scared, Grandad.”

Hanbury went to her and hugged her, Jasmine tiny in his huge embrace. “Don’t you fret, little angel, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She wriggled out of his grasp. “I’m scared of my dreams.”

“It’s just a dream,” said Faultless.

Tash said, “Not to Jasmine, not to me.”

Faultless said, “There’s a lot of tension around the place, and that can contribute to—”

“Tash is right,” said Hanbury.

Faultless gawped. Hanbury starting to believe crazy things was the last thing he needed.

He tried to think of a rational explanation. Coincidence was the only one he could come up with, but he’d offered that before.

“Dad,” said Tash, desperation in her voice. “Dad, tell me what’s going on.”

Hanbury sighed. “You’ve got to go see old Bet, Tash. You’ve got to talk to her. Or try to. She’s the one who knows. Shell know about all this . . . this dream stuff.”

“I don’t want to go see that old cow,” said Jasmine. “Last time I went, she spat at me.”