Chapter 2

SWEET VIOLETS

WHITECHAPEL, LONDON–12:59 AM, NOVEMBER 9, 1888

“Sweet violets . . . ”

She sang to keep the fear at bay.

“ . . . sweeter than the roses . . . ”

It made her feel better, but only a little.

“ . . . covered all over from head to toe . . . ”

It wasn’t going to heal things. It wasn’t going to wash away the dread.

“ . . . covered all over with sweet violets.”

But it was a nice tune, one her father used to sing to her when she was a kid.

She cried, thinking about her dad. It had been years since she’d seen him. He was working at an iron foundry in North Wales, the last she’d heard. He wasn’t happy with what she was doing, being a whore in the East End of London.

But she wasn’t either. What kind of life was it? But what choice did she have? She had to eat. She had to survive.

Despite having had terrible experiences with men, Mary still dreamed of the perfect one coming along and rescuing her. A prince to whisk her away. A farmer, maybe, like the one in Sweet Violets. Although he wasn’t that nice, taking a girl into a barn. But any man would do. Any decent man.

But Mary was getting on a bit. Most twenty-four year olds she knew were married and had kids. Not her. She was an old maid. But not for long. Soon, her misery would be over. Soon, Mary would be dead.

She sat on her bed, humming and looking around the room. This was the sum of her life, what her twenty-four years amounted to—this grubby hole with a table and two chairs, a bed, and two small windows.

The room cost four shillings a week. It was in a three-story house off Dorset Street, a narrow, 400-foot-long thoroughfare off Commercial Street. It was a rough part of Whitechapel, and that was saying something. Some said it was the worst street in England.

Common lodging-houses crammed the avenue. Slum landlords ran things and controlled most of the activities, much of them illegal. Whores roamed and thugs prowled. Drunkenness and violence were rife. Illegal prize-fighting left blood and body parts in the dirt. Stolen goods were fenced. Anyone stupid enough to get lost down here was beaten and robbed.

There was grease and there was grime. There was piss and shit. There were rats, there were dogs, and there were humans, all packed together. The air carried a putrid smell. It was the odor of thousands of unfortunates who’d lived and died there over the years.

Mary’s skin would layer the ground before morning. Her bones would powder the walls. Her blood would fill the drains.

They would rip her like they’d ripped the others. Tear her open and plough around inside her for the treasure, the thing that gave him strength.

Him.

The ghost that stalked Whitechapel. The most terrifying killer in history. The one they called Jack.

And he was hunting her. She shivered. There was not much she could do. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. She knew he was coming, because she could see him. She had gifts. She had foresight. She could see the future.

And her future was death.

“Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses . . . ”

Such a funny song. Jokey and naughty.

Mary tried to smile while thinking about the lyrics. But it was a struggle to make her mouth curve up into a grin. Her lips quivered. Her eyes welled. Tears were easier. Her fear was strong.

Outside, someone screamed. A woman. Mary didn’t flinch. It was normal. Silence, not noise, made you alert in Dorset Street.

A man cursed, saying, “Fucking tart.”

The woman screamed again, begging to be left alone.

Another man said, “Cut her fucking nose off, Charlie.”

Mary shut her eyes and laced her fingers together. Would a prayer do any good? It hadn’t helped the others. Not Mary Ann, who’d been butchered in Bucks’ Row on August 31. Throat cut, guts opened. A policeman had found her lying in a pool of blood. She’d put up a fight. Her teeth had been knocked out, punched after she’d punched first, probably.

That was Mary Ann—five-foot-two and hard as nails.

But being tough hadn’t saved her.

Two days later, the man came from Austria. He came to look for Mary and found her in the Ten Bells, drinking. He said, “You have to come with me,” and he gathered them all at an Inn—Mary, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, Elizabeth Stride. They’d never met. But they were all prostitutes in Whitechapel. And according to the man, they all had a special gift.

A gift that would make their lives even more dangerous than they already were. A gift that could kill them.

He told them everything, and not all of them believed. Mary wasn’t sure. Hearing what he said made her feel special. She’d always wanted to be special. But not so special that she might die.

Annie had refused to accept what the man had said, and she left in a huff.

But a week after Mary Ann’s death, she was dead too, just like the man had warned.

Mary looked out of the small window. It was dark. But it was always dark there. Very little light found its way down Dorset Street. It was as if the day kept its distance. The night owned this part of the East End. The night and the darkness.

And a short walk from where Mary sat now, it had swallowed up Annie.

She had left her common-lodging house at 35 Dorset Street at 2:00 am on September 8. She’d been drunk and needed money for a bed. Annie was happy to fuck for it. “Means nothing to me,” she’d say. “And means nothing to them, after it’s done.”

She’d walked up Little Paternoster Row, and was heading towards Christ Church, Spitalfields.

But they got her in the darkness. They got her and cut her throat. They got her and ripped her open, taking her womb and parts of her cunny and bladder. They got her and stole her soul, just like the man had said.

Two down.

“Another three must be ripped.”

Ever since Annie’s death, that had been the whisper wending its way through the streets.

“Another three must be ripped.”

Mary heard it wherever she went. She’d wheel round in a panic, expecting to see his terrible face.

But he was never there. Only his voice.

“Another three must be ripped.”

And Mary knew one of those three would be her. She knew it the moment the man had met her at the Ten Bells and told her who she really was, told her she had a gift—a gift for hunting evil.

There was a fight going on outside. Shouts and curses filled the night. Mary heard a struggle. Men kicked and punched. Flesh and bone being smashed. Mary winced with every blow. But it comforted her. A fight attracting a crowd meant her killers would not be able to skulk to her door unseen.

Glass smashed. A crowd bellowed. Voices said, “Smash him, Bill,” and, “Glass him, cut him up.”

Women screamed.

“Break his face!”

“Cut his balls off!”

“Fucking Jew!”

“Christ killer!”

Jew, thought Mary. The East End was full of them, Spitalfields especially. But they stayed away from Dorset Street. But plenty of Irish. Plenty of Frenchies and Italians. Scots and Welsh, too. The place was a melting pot.

Outside, the noise grew. Insults were hurled. More Jew abuse.

They didn’t usually come round here. They rarely caused trouble. But every race had its thugs. And maybe a few young Jew bulls had swaggered down here to booze at the Ringers pub on the corner of Dorset Street, where Mary sometimes drank.

She listened now. The fight went on. But now there was more than one tussle. She could make out a few. Gangs going at each other. Blades and bottles drawn.

A whistle pierced the cacophony.

Mary jerked, sitting up.

The whistle came again.

“Coppers,” someone shouted.

Another whistle speared through the noise.

The fighters and the spectators scarpered. Mary heard their feet pound the pavement, their dark shapes shooting past her window.

And then came silence.

Cold, deadly silence.

The silence you should fear on Dorset Street.

She froze, her skin crawling.

A dark shape moved past her door. She saw it in the gap at the bottom—the two-inch space where the cold and the rain and the fog came in, and through which evil could seep.

Dread turned her heart to stone.

And it cracked into a thousand pieces when a pale, white hand slipped under the door, the fingers scuttling like spiders’ legs.