Chapter 4

ENDLESS NIGHT

Detective Inspector Frederick George Abberline, leading the inquiry into the Whitechapel murders, had not properly slept for weeks. He couldn’t sleep. It was too dangerous. If he slept, the dreams would come. And you wouldn’t want to dream Fred Abberline’s dreams. They were terrifying. They could kill you in your sleep. Stop your heart and freeze your blood.

And he didn’t want to die in his sleep. He wanted to die with his eyes open, face to face with his tormentor.

And since his tormentor was stalking Whitechapel, that’s what Fred planned to do.

Go eye to eye with him—if he could keep his eyes open—and tell him: “No more atrocities.”

No more atrocities.

He began to shake. He opened the drawer of his desk and took out a flask. He drank from it, and the liquid—hot down his throat—jerked him awake. But the shakes continued. He always had the shakes. They were caused by fatigue, drink, and a lack of food.

When was the last time he’d eaten a decent meal?

He looked at his pocket watch. Time to go out again and wander the streets. He would do this every night—stroll the alleys and passageways of Whitechapel and Spitalfields till 5:00 am.

The time drifted. He was usually in a haze. He hallucinated, for sure, because he saw terrible things that he knew were not real. At least, he hoped they weren’t.

When 5:00 am came, he would wander home and collapse on his bed, only to be awakened perhaps minutes later by the delivery of a telegraph summoning him to the Whitechapel station to interrogate yet another suspect.

Another maniac. Another lunatic. Another false dawn. At this rate, his bosses at Scotland Yard grumbled, the killer would never be caught.

Abberline rose from his chair, turning to head for the door.

He stopped dead.

The face looking into his was fog-gray, and red rings circled the eyes.

“Evening, Fred,” said Inspector Walter Andrews. Andrews had been sent from Scotland Yard to help with the investigation into the Whitechapel murders. Hinder was perhaps a better description. Andrews was a short man with red hair. Like Abberline, he appeared to suffer from sleeplessness. His skin and his eyes gave it away.

Abberline greeted his colleague with a nod.

“Off out again?” said Andrews.

Abberline said nothing. He tucked his pipe into his coat pocket. He picked up his briefcase. It was heavy with documents and implements. It jangled as he raised it off the floor. His throat became dry with nerves.

“What’ve you got in there, Fred?” said Andrews. “The Crown Jewels?”

Abberline said, “I have to leave, Walter. If you’ll excuse—”

“We need to sit down and chat, Fred.”

“Chat?”

“You, me, and Moore.”

Henry Moore was the third inspector sent with Abberline and Andrews.

“I’ll think about it,” said Abberline. He was the eldest of the trio, the most senior—promoted to inspector in 1873, when he was thirty. It would’ve made Martha proud. Tears welled at the thought. She had died five years before his elevation, only two months after they were married. It was TB that killed her—a hacking, withering death. Although he’d married again—sweet, dear Emma—his heart still ached for Martha.

“Think about it?” said Andrews, frowning. “What’s to think? We’re no closer to catching this chap. We’ve got suspects coming out of our arseholes. None of them fits the bill. We’ve got panic on the streets. We’ve got the press baying, and even Her Majesty’s fretting, they say. What’s to think, Fred?”

Abberline’s skin goosefleshed, and he shivered. A tingling sensation ran through his fingers. “Come along, Walter,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I must go, now.”

“Where’re you going, Fred? See your whores?”

Anger flared in Abberline’s breast. He said nothing, containing the rage behind pursed lips.

Walter Andrews went on. “They say you give ‘em money, Fred. Is that true? You pay for it?”

“I give them a few shillings so they can have a bed for the night.”

“So you can have a bed, more like.”

He leaned into Andrews, going nose to nose with him. “I spent fifteen years in Whitechapel. I know these people. I know these streets. You should count yourself lucky, Walter. It is only by the grace of God that you were born in pleasant Suffolk, you know. You could have been the wretched offspring of some poor unfortunate. And you know what they do with their offspring, Walter? Leave them on street corners or toss them into the Thames. That’s what they do.”

For a few seconds, they looked each other in the eye, neither giving way.

Then, Andrews laughed and turned away. “There you are, Fred. A right preacher. Ranting on. Off you go, then.”

Abberline stayed where he was. He wasn’t going to allow Andrews to dismiss him. “Well speak tomorrow,” he told the other inspector. “First thing.”

He strode away towards the stairs at the far end of the office.

Behind him Andrews said, “If we don’t catch this chap, we might have another body to discuss.”

We might, thought Abberline. And he quaked with dread.