Whitechapel

"Wait." He all but threw his body in front of the door. Rose held her breath and counted to five, but when she was done the urge to slap the nose off his face hadn't gone away. If anything it was stronger. "Women are dying," he said. "You don't trust me and you don't think I deserve a second chance; fine. But is it worth throwing your life away? Can you really look me in the eye and tell me that the next time you're out in a dark alley, not sure if the killer is looking over your shoulder, that you won't wish this conversation had gone differently?"

Rose chose her words very carefully. "If you really care about me, then tell me you'll call off the debt without making me agree to anything first. If you do that, I promise I will never step foot outdoors after dark until they put a noose around the killer's neck."

They looked each other eye-to-eye. The clock ticked off ten seconds. Rees blinked first, then sagged. Rose pushed by him. "Good day, Mr. Rees."

She expected to be venomously angry when she left, but instead she felt a kind of dull, dreadful calm. She slipped into the crowd on the street and let it carry her off. Crowds in this neighborhood always felt like swimming in a river of tar. Rees thought of himself as a class apart now that he had money and a house elsewhere, but his business was still here, and the East End was a mark you couldn't wash off that easily. It was the same for everybody: the butchers, the builders, the sewing girls. Whitechapel Road was in their skin and blood, Rose's most of all. The killer, too, whoever he was. Maybe he lived somewhere else, but he kept coming back to this place because he belonged here. They all belonged...

Suddenly the crowd all changed direction, turning and going at once, like a flock of birds. Someone was calling out, and then everybody was calling out. Rose tried to go the opposite way but the wave of humanity threatened to crush her. Out of necessity more than desire she ran with them. All at once they had ceased, she realized, to be a crowd and become a mob. She'd lived here long enough to taste the difference in the air, although what everyone was worked up about she didn't know until they approached the corner of Flower and Dean Street and she saw that they were chasing a group of policemen. No, she corrected herself: the police were chasing someone and the mob (herself included now) were on his tail as well. A voice shouted: "It's the killer! They're on him, they're on him!"

Rose's heart leapt into her throat.

That was how they all ended up surrounding the old house on Flower Street while the constables lurked in the doorway, apparently torn between their desire to go in and capture their quarry and keeping the mob at bay. Every third voice was a shout of "Bring him out!" and "Get a rope, a rope!" Tools were wielded as clubs. Those without any found stones or sticks. A few people even brandished their own shoes. The policemen shrank further back into the doorway, trying to get the frame between themselves and the mob. Pulse racing, Rose looked at the woman standing nearest her, an old thing with a grey bun of hair, and said, "Is it really the killer?"

The woman set her jaw and nodded. "Saw 'im myself. Took one look at those police and scarpered. It's him, all right." And then, with an arm thinned by age but not much weakened, she raised a stone and let it fly. It bounced off the side of the house. Soon the air was filled with clanging, clashing, battering missiles, pelting the walls like the volley of a siege. Then came the rope, tied into a hasty hangman's knot and passed from person to person like a holy relic, until it reached the front line and the tallest man in the crowd raised it up to chants of, "Bring him out, bring him out!"

Rose was surprised to find her voice joining in. The words built up in her gradually, like a long piss she could hold only so long before the guttural cry pushed its way up and out of her and into the morning air: "Bring him out! Bring him out!" Her hands found a stone. Its weight reassured her. The crowd surged forward and the police fell back, and somewhere in that house the killer was waiting--frightened? Defiant? They'd soon find out.

Except they wouldn't. New policemen arrived, more than Rose had ever seen in one place, and, with pushing and prodding and shouts and threats, they forged a path. It looked like the Red Sea parting, and even then the warnings of the constables weren't enough to stop most people from letting whatever weapons they had let fly in a clattering rain when the suspect was finally, finally brought out and whisked away. Rose saw him as they paraded him by: shaking, wide-eyed, pale. He looked like an animal in the bottom of a pit, waiting for the hunter to come. He was close enough that she could have cracked his skull with the rock in her hand. Her fingers clinched, but she stopped herself from taking the shot.

Barely.

***

He wasn't the killer, of course. The arrested man just a neighborhood drunk, wanted on charges of (accidentally) hitting a child with a brick during a brawl. He'd finally poked his head out of hiding and when the police recognized him and gave chase the sight of a fleeing criminal whipped the neighborhood into a frenzy. Or maybe the frenzy had been there all along.

Common opinion around Whitechapel Road was now that no Englishman could be the killer. Probably the murders were being committed by an immigrant--maybe one of the Polish Jews. Rose overheard two morning men discussing it: "Put them all on a ship back, I say. Never should have let them in in the first place." His partner, though, objected. "Jews have an absolute horror of blood. They soak their butcher's meat in water before they will prepare it. I've seen a Jew shrink from anything with as much blood in it as a beef steak. It couldn't be one of them." But the other didn't seem convinced, and neither did the neighborhood.

There was other talk. There were even arrests, but none that came to anything: A bricklayer confessed to the murders, but he shortly proved a liar and the police threw him out. Then they brought in a barber who had once been a surgeon's assistant, a madman with a habit of brandishing knives in the middle of arguments. No one doubted he was a menace, but the police were eventually forced to admit he wasn't the killer. There was a butcher too, and a Jewish shoemaker (the neighborhood's favorite suspect) who was always in the habit of carrying his leather-cutting knife and who sometimes harassed the girls at night. They were all arrested with much fanfare and all released a day or two later, quietly.

Some of the girls took to carrying knives themselves. Rose was one of them. She knew that the killer would most likely take her from behind with her skirts raised, leaving her no opportunity to defend herself, but she still liked having it. Times like these called for knives. The day she bought it she ended up out on Brick Lane again, shivering and waiting in vain for anyone to buy. She'd made no money and in a few more hours the last beds at the lodging house would all be rented. She'd be on this corner until sunrise...

Two women passed--or what appeared at first to be two women. They looked unusually strapping girls, with wide shoulders and strong chins. Rose bit her hand to keep from laughing. It was almost worth the cold and the danger to see two policemen on a beat in dresses and ladies' hats. They might not catch the killer, but they'd catch more than their share of double-takes.

The opposite way came two men, walking almost abreast, one a young man in a cap, the other an older fellow in striped trousers and a long coat and beard. She thought at first they were together but soon realized they were simply walking the same direction. Taking a breath, Rose stepped out and smiled at them. It was so dark and fog-cursed that they didn't see her until they were only a few feet away. The older man slowed and lingered, the younger passing but then stopping too when he saw that he'd lost his de facto company. Rose smiled wider and was about to say something when the bearded man beat her to it, asking "Did I frighten you, Miss?"

It was an odd question--frighten her how? With what? She opened her mouth to deny it but her voice caught. There had been an eagerness to the man's words, and now that he was close she saw that his eyes were very wide, the whites reflecting the yellow lamplight. His lips parted, showing the edges of glittering teeth. He was all twisted up, like a man caught in an orgasm...or perhaps a thrill of a more sadistic kind. He took a step closer and seemed to be reaching for something...

"Hey you!" It was the young man in the cap. Rose heard his footfalls and felt a presence at her back, and now it was the bearded man who froze. After a second of dithering he turned and half-sprinted into the fog. The impression of his black silhouette didn't fade for some time. Rose stood like a woman in a dream until the young man snapped his fingers to get her attention and she started to breathe again. "Are you all right, Miss?"

"I'm fine. What was that all about?"

"He had a knife." Rose started. The young man nodded. "He was hiding it in his sleeve. I thought...well, anyway, he's gone now."

"Yes," Rose said, with a hint of doubt. "Do you think he was...?"

The young man shook his head. "Nah. If he really was, he'd never have done it with me standing here. There's all sorts of rampers about who think it's funny to scare the women now. My mate took to waiting on corners like this and jumping at the girls as they came around. Last week one of them did down on him with her bag. She was keeping a brick in it."

"Even so, you were very brave to help me like that," Rose said, remembering herself. She touched his arm. "Would you like to go somewhere?"

His eyes got very wide. "I'm not...that is to say, I've no money, Miss. I'm out of work. I'd gone to meet a man tonight who said he had a job for me, but it wasn't true. I've nothing in the world to pay you with." He looked at his feet and crushed his cap in his hand. She made him look up again and, not quite realizing what she was saying, told him:

"That's all right. We'll just call it a thank you."

"Huh?" he said, but she didn't answer. If she thought about it long enough to say anything she'd change her mind and she didn't want to change her mind. She took him by the hand and dragged him along, stunned look and all.

She took him to where someone had left an empty cart in their hurry to evacuate the neighborhood before sundown. It was dry and provided a little cover, and the fog even more. The boy (and he was a boy, 18 years old, he said) looked by turns startled, disbelieving, terrified, and clumsily eager. He was a freckled thing with unruly hair and trousers that had been mended too many times, the sort of East End boy you could find on streets like this since the days the first brick was laid on the road. She went to pull her skirts up and get straight to business like usual, but then changed her mind. Instead she kissed him--and when was the last time she had kissed anyone? He the tasted like strawberries, and the bare whisper of a light beard tickled her. She teased him by taking his cap off and holding it away, telling him he wasn't going to get it back until she said so. Then she pushed a hand into his trousers. He squirmed.

"Don't be shy," she said. "I've seen all kinds."

"It's not that. It's just...that is, I never--"

"Ah. Never you worry. I'll be gentle."

When she discovered his half-swollen cock ("a lobcock" the neighborhood girls called it when it was like that) she stroked it with her finger and thumb in a circle, from the base all the way down to the end, and with each stroke it grew, like a stage performer's trick. Soon she had quite a steed on her hands, and she tested it by squeezing just below the head. It was swollen up so much that anymore would hurt, and the boy let out a kind of pained mewling. Taking her cue, she raised her skirts and drew the boy down with her, tangling him up in her arms and whispering: "Enjoy yourself, but be quick. There might be people about."

It was like a little light went on in some part of his brain that had never been used before. She pictured a factory machine churning to life, slow at first but picking up speed until it was finally humming along. The cart was not entirely stable and threatened to tip over and deposit them both onto the street, but Rose held on as tight as she could without risking splinters, letting the boy hammer away until he was worked right up into a frenzy. She nudged him along by throwing her arms around his shoulders and making cooing noises in his ear. He was awkward but ardent. She liked it. Her nipples turned up and her loins clenched tight and wonderful wet sensation spread below. She soon had her legs up (in such a way that no one who happened by could have any misconception about what was going on) with her heels clicking together every time he went in again. She kissed him and licked his neck, tasting the hot sweat cooled by the autumn fog. He was a hot young morsel and she felt likely he would burn her.

When it was done he went off with what felt like the pop of a champagne cork inside her. A feeling like a giddy hiccup fluttered up, as if she were drunk. In the panting aftermath he looked unsure what to do, so she unspooled herself from him, kissed him underneath the ear and, after a few seconds to catch her own panting breath, said: "Put your pants on. Run home. And look after yourself."

When he was gone Rose straightened herself up. She did not know why she'd done that, except that at the time she'd wanted to. It was not because he'd "saved" her from anything, although there was a certain charm to his stammering heroism. She had just felt the desire--fleeting but pronounced--and acted on it. It left her bemused now, but she reminded herself that it was a natural thing. And anyway, it's not as if she was going to do any real business tonight. In the end, she felt pleased. The man with the beard had not been the killer. It had been weeks since the body in Hanbury Street and, though the neighborhood had been a roiling cauldron ever since, nothing had really happened. The sun would come up soon and Rose was still alive. Maybe it was time to--

And then she heard it: A hysterical voice crying in the dark. It said: "Murder! Murder! Murder!"

***

Two in one night this time. The first had her throat slit on Berner Street. The second was cut apart in Mitre Square, and again the killer had apparently taken some pieces with him. Every square foot of the East End had been crawling with policemen, but as usual no one had seen a thing. A ghost might as well have been doing the murders.

The buzz around the neighborhood became a rumble. People grabbed up newspapers so fast they almost took the newsman's arm off. The killer--or someone claiming to be the killer--was writing the news agencies letters now, even little poetry that every man and woman and child soon knew by heart. Sales in locks, knives, and clubs went through the roof. Men of the neighborhood, as angry with the police as the killer, took to wandering in semi-organized mobs, armed and prepared to set on anyone who looked halfway like someone they thought was behind it all. Sometimes they found someone. Sometimes more than one in a night.

The vigilance committees offered a reward of 1,200 pounds (Rose's jaw dropped when she heard the sum) for any information leading to an arrest. The police offered a full pardon for any accomplice willing to turn the killer in. No one came forward. Things got worse. A butcher's apprentice in the neighborhood cut his own throat, explaining in a letter that he was afraid the police or the mobs were "after him for the murders." A housewife only a few blocks away hanged herself in despair. Her griefstricken husband said that she'd been able think about nothing but the murders since news got around, and these latest were too much for her. Some were quick off the mark: A man who owned a waxwork nearby took a bucket of red paint to a few of his figures and passed them off as reproductions of the crime scenes. People complained, but they still paid to see it.

When they held a funeral for one of the new victims, the footways were crowded five deep to see her elmwood coffin (a gift from the funeral home) make its trip to London Cemetery. Some of the women carried infants in one arm and strewed flowers on the grave with the other. Even the roughest looking men doffed their caps as she rode by. Weeks passed without another murder, but no one relaxed. This wasn't the end yet. It couldn't be.

This was about the time Rose came to stay with Mary. Mary lived in a room on Miller's Court, a place with just two windows (one of them broken), a table, a bed, and a fireplace. It wasn't much, but warmer than a corner. And, more importantly, it had a door that locked. Mary's young man had walked out because of her drinking and her going out to work, so she took Rose in. "I feel safer with someone else here," she explained. "And you're not like the other girls who work." Which meant that Rose did not drink, unlike Mary. Two drinkers should not live together, but one was fine if the other person allowed for it, which Rose did. It would be winter soon, after all.

There was another reason too: The rent was four sterling a week, and Rose could work for it. Customers came knocking (Mary didn't go out at nights anymore--no one did if there was anything else they could do--but her men knew they could come find her) more often if there was more than one girl to choose from and they wouldn't have to wait until the last fellow was done. Most of the men came for Mary, of course, as she was the young one and the pretty one, but there was enough for both. More than Rose had seen even before the killings, truth be known. And here, behind four walls and a door, they felt safe. The killer always did his work out on the street.

Tonight's final customer had a particular request. Rose was unsure about it but Mary was game, and anyway he was paying extra. He sat in a chair by the fire (which was burning low despite the cold night) while the two women sat on the bed half-dressed and, tentatively at first, kissed. Rose wasn't sure what she'd expected it to be like, but in the end it was little different from kissing a man. Mary's body (shortly pressed against her own, drawing an approving hum from the customer) was soft and lithe, true, but Rose had been with men whose bodies felt little different in that regard. Hard ones, soft ones, fat ones, short or tall, young and old ones: she knew it all.

What was different were the curves. Whenever she put her hands someplace expecting to feel one thing she instead felt something a little bit different. It was strange, but not unpleasant. She'd thought at first that she would simply close her eyes and imagine she was kissing a man, but that turned out to be harder than it sounded (particularly since, when the time came, she could think of no man she wanted to kiss). Instead she let herself think about Mary. Mary, who was the prettiest girl on Whitechapel Road anyway, and whose hair was always full of curl and whose smile charmed men right in off the streets. There were plenty of men who would relish the thought of being in Mary's bed. Rose could enjoy it too, for whatever it was worth.

She glanced over and saw their paying customer stroking himself with furious motions. This was meant to be a little show to get him going before one (or both) of them would help him finish, but it didn't look like he was going to make it that far. Intrigued, Rose tried an experiment: She put a hand on the spot where Mary's cleavage gathered and squeezed. This produced a not-unpleasant thrill for her and an almost spasmodic performance from the man in the chair. When Mary did the same thing to her he looked like he might faint. The two women continued to fondle each other this way, and Rose leaned in to kiss Mary underneath the chin and along the neck. The younger woman let out a perfumed sigh and reclined a bit, offering easier access to her body. Rose bit her lip. How far were they willing to take this, she wondered?