Whitechapel

Mary answered by pulling her dress half off, exposing her breasts. Crooking a finger, she beckoned Rose in. They were strangely cool against her lips, to match their milky complexion. Mary ran her fingers through Rose's hair and cooed a little. Rose paused, uncertain quite what to do; after all, they only had to make it look good for the customer. No need to buy the whole bag. Still, why not? She licked one nipple and Mary feigned surprise. "Oh, you naughty thing," she said, but then reclined, pushing them forward. Rose closed her mouth completely over one and nibbled before sucking. She had never quite understood men's fixation on breasts and was actually relieved that street customers were interested in only one thing and didn't bother with the rest, but she admitted now that there was something base and appealing about it. The wet sound her lips made, the theatrical gasp that Mary supplied, and the flush that spread over her white Irish skin were tawdry but gratifying.

Mary put her hands on Rose, ALL over Rose, ending by cupping her bum in both hands and squeezing. At first she was confused as to how to react, but then she noticed the looks Mary was giving the customer. Rose saw the man was rapt, to the point that he'd even almost stopped masturbating himself. Taking her cue, Rose winked at him and even blew him a small kiss. He almost looked embarrassed. Rose felt a small rush. She'd thought since she wasn't as pretty as Mary that she couldn't do things like that and get what she wanted, but it worked. I'm in charge of this, she realized. I thought he was because he's paying the money, but really it's me--it's us. She turned her attention back to Mary, hiking up her skirts so that the customer could see Mary's fingers splayed across her backside. Rose pulled her own dress down and drew Mary's face in. Mary pretended to resist and Rose pushed her harder. The other woman's lips on her naked skin felt odd and ticklish, but her blood was racing and she felt giddy with power.

She dragged the remainder of her clothes down her body, wanting to feel as much of Mary's naked skin against hers as she could. Every touch and kiss and nibble Mary did made Rose gasp and squeal and flirt more, which made the customer more and more vulnerable. It seemed like a small miracle, how a tiny thing done over here could incite such a profound reaction over there. Rose didn't know it, but she felt the way a born musician does the first time she picks up an instrument. She had Mary pressed against the headboard, squeezing the Irish girl's naked breasts with one hand and putting two fingers of the other into Mary's mouth. Mary's wet pink tongue tickled her. Rose felt wetness blossoming between her legs and, distinctly, smelled the same between Mary's. She bit her own lip as her eyes strayed down there. Should she? Did she dare? What would happen if..."

The question was rendered moot when the man in the chair finished himself off. He breath caught in his throat and held until he released with a painful sounding grunt. He dribbled all over himself (and, Rose noted with annoyance, a little on the floor) and immediately looked embarrassed. He ended up paying even more than promised, seemingly for the privilege of getting himself out of the room, leaving only with a gasped "Thank you!" and half of a good night. Mary locked the door. Both women looked at each other, unsure what to do--and then they broke into almost hysterical laughter.

Rose flopped down on the bed and laughed herself silly. It took even longer for Mary to quiet down. A cozy feeling permeated the little room. They ought to have been embarrassed to look at each other but as they dressed again they were all smiles--not lusting looks, but one redolent with the smug satisfaction of having gotten away with something and that only they two would ever know about. The comfort of it was almost enough to lull Rose to sleep, but Mary roused her back to the world of the waking with an unexpected question:

"Do you ever think about leaving London?"

Rose had several answers, first that she couldn't leave when Thomas needed her (even if he didn't want her help, even if he refused to take her visits), second that women like them talked about leaving but never did, third that there was nowhere else in the world she could think to go and that she imagined life outside the East End the way a fish imagines dry land. But she knew better than to say any of that.

"Did I ever tell you about France?" Mary went on. "I was there when I was 21. This man fell so in love with me he paid to bring me along. Like he could just pack up a mistress in his valise for a trip. This is when I worked out in the west, in a proper house instead of on the street like we do now."

Rose cocked her head. "No, you never did tell me." Most of the time she'd have assumed such a story was a lie, but Mary was one of the most stupidly honest people Rose had ever met. The Irish girl started brushing out her hair. "I came back after two weeks, though."

"Why?"

"The man. But I wanted to go back, once I had the money. What would you say to the two of us going together? I always imagined I'd run off there with another man, someone I really loved, but..." She paused. "A man makes things harder. I think the two of us would have it better. There are enough men in Paris for us anyway. Rich and handsome men."

"Frenchmen wouldn't be interested in the likes of me."

"You don't do so bad for yourself. And I'd be there to help you. It really is as beautiful there as everyone tells you. And it's away from all this. We could both start over."

Rose had never imagined such a thing. Places like that might as well be fairy tales for as real as they were to someone like her. Even Knightsbridge was too far and too unreal for her to believe in unless she was looking right at it. But for Mary places like that could be real. Mary, for as hard as Rose knew her life was, had always seemed charmed. Of course Mary could go to work in a West End brothel and end up spirited away to France by a rich man when she was 21--and of course she could walk away from all of it like it was nothing. That was exactly the sort of thing that happened to a woman like her. Those things could never happen to Rose or any other normal person. ...but maybe it would be different if someone like Mary was with her? Rose bit her lip. "Where would we ever get that kind of money anyway?"

In reply Mary put down her brush, went to the fireplace and, as Rose looked in wonder, pulled out a stone. Behind it was a lockbox (though the lock was broken), and inside that was a wad of banknotes so thick Rose would have had trouble getting her fingers around it. She gaped. "Oh my God...where did...you can't keep that kind of money just lying around. People steal."

"That's why I hid it. I've saved for years. I should have more, but you know how I get. Still, it's a lot. Not enough for a trip for two yet, but maybe soon, if we both work and I don't slip up too much...in the spring. We could go in the spring. How about it?"

"I...need air." Seeing Mary's furrowed brow, Rose said, "I'm all right, really. I just had no idea. I've never left London. I barely every leave Whitechapel Road. I need to think."

Marry nodded and touched her arm. "Of course. I'm sorry to surprise you. Go for a walk. But don't be gone so long it gets dark, all right?"

But Rose was gone until dark, and long after. She actually went back and rented a bed from Mother Morris, something she hadn't done in weeks. She didn't dare go back to the room on Miller's Court, not with the thoughts she was thinking. In the creaky old bed in the drafty lodging house, Rose stayed awake and fretted. She thought about all that money in the old box behind the fireplace. Money that no one knew was there...

She could go with Mary. They could work through the winter and leave in the spring and never have to come back to the East End, with its cold nights and coal dust and dead women cut up in alleys. Rose could hold onto the hem of Mary's dress as she flew both of them off into some wild fairy tale life where they'd become a different people entirely. That was something she could do.

Or she could just take it. There was enough money there to get Thomas out of jail with enough left over for Rose to go somewhere else and get a new start. Not as far as Paris, God knew, but she didn't need Paris. Just somewhere safe. Rees would interrogate her about where the money came from, but he wouldn't say no to it. Nobody would ever know. Except for Mary, who in all odds would never forgive Rose...but what would it matter? What good was all that money to a silly drunk? She'd fritter it away eventually. Probably she had more than once already. To Mary money was a toy, but to Rose it was two people's lives. It would be the right thing to do in the end, wouldn't it?

She rolled over, cross with guilt. Could she really do something like that to a woman who might well have saved her life? A friend who even right now was probably sick to death with worry that Rose was out on the street or dead in a courtyard with her throat cut. What kind of person was she? Mary would be beside herself. She might even--

Rose sat up in bed. She might even come looking for her. Mary was big-hearted and not always the smartest. She just might go out, alone, at night, onto the East End streets where the killer was still waiting, for Rose's sake. On any other night Rose would have stayed in anyway (no sense both of them being in danger), but now, with the serpent of guilt crawling through her gut...

She got dressed. It was another rainy night, and before she'd walked half a block she was longing for the fireplace in the Miller's Court room. Indeed, the warm orange glow was visible on the windowpanes even as she crossed the square. Rose's heart lifted; Mary was in. From the looks of things, she was awake. Rose hurried the last few steps and, finding the door locked, knocked a little too fast and a little too loud. There was no answer, and none the second time either. Rose peered through the window but couldn't see anything except a blaze so intense that all of their fuel at once probably couldn't have produced it. Frowning, she reached through the broken window and, with some effort, unlocked the door. It creaked open. A pungent sizzling smell wafted out, making Rose's eyes water. It was a moment before her vision cleared...and she saw what was on the bed.

In the hellish glow of the fireplace the blood looked black. It was so much blood that it must have soaked the thin mattress completely through. The bed's very frame would be stained. The shape that lay on the mattress only just looked like a human body. It was somehow...less. It made Rose think of a sand castle half-eaten away by the tide. There were indistinguishable shapes strewn over the sheets and the bedside table, but still perhaps not enough to account for the mass missing from the body's frame. Half-delirious already, rose wondered where the rest could possibly have gone. Then Rose recognized the sickly smell coming off the firepit:

Burning meat.

Rose expected to scream. She expected to faint. She even expected to die on the spot. That she did none of these things was disappointing. Instead she just...left. Her mind floated right out of her body and left her on her own. She stared dumbly at the scene in front of her and let the continuous drip-drip-drip noise of still-warm blood lull her even further. It was a while before the panicky voice of self-preservation reminded her that she was in danger too: The killer might not have gone far. It was possible, even, that he was still concealed in this room, small though it was. The first thing Rose had to do was get far away.

After that, should she find a policeman? No; if she did she would have to come back here, and then spend time telling them what happened. She wouldn't tell anyone. People could find out on their own about this. She would just run away. It was the best plan her exhausted mind could manage. She took a stumbling step back toward the door, reaching out to steady herself on it and then--

She looked at the fireplace. The one stone was still a little loose, although not so much that you would notice if you didn't already know it was there. She thought again of that battered tin and what its contents could mean. But getting to it would mean walking by the bed...

Rose swallowed and closed her eyes, then opened them again immediately, afraid of running into something--or someone. Her body wanted to do this slowly but she knew that she would have to hurry. Rose did not know the word "mantra," but she composed one during her expedition to the fireplace, consisting only of: "Don't look, don't look, don't look." Under no circumstances would she look at the thing on the bed. The thing on the bed did not exist. She fumbled with the hiding stone (sweat broke on her face; the room was ungodly hot) before setting it on the floorboards. For a moment she feared it might somehow be empty, but when she opened the top the notes were all there.

She stuffed them down her dress in handfuls. Never mind counting it or even securing it. Time enough for that later. Now there was time only to run. To run and run and never come back, and to never, ever think about what had happened here while she was gone, or what might have happened if she had stayed, or--

Rose had not yet turned around when she heard it. Even over the crackle of flames and the galloping of rain on the roof, the noise just behind her it was still distinct enough to send a spiky thrill up her spine, even as her stomach dropped like a stone in cold, deep water:

A man cleared his throat.

***

The inspector looked too young for a man of his station. He filled a pipe and lit it with a flaring match, then leaned back in his chair in what seemed to Rees a practiced gesture. Rees had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping. He had never been in a police station before and everything about the setting seemed tailored to annoy him. It had taken the entire morning just to get a few minutes with anyone, and now that the man he wanted was here Rees found him of less than helpful character. It was his newly informed opinion that the metropolitan police's most dedicated and contributive members must be its horses.

Eventually the inspector gave him what amounted to his full attention and said, "Seems to me if she was dead we would know it."

"But she's missing. I've made inquiries to every person she knows and every place that she stays and no one has seen her since the night of the murder."

"Pardon my saying so, but a woman in her, hem, position probably knows a lot more people and stays a lot more places than you know. And what if she is gone? She might have just run off. People do."

"Rose wouldn't. And if she did she apparently left everything she owns behind. Do people do that when they run off'?"

"Sometimes they do, yes. And if she was dead we'd have found her. The killer always leaves his victims where we'll find them."

"There's more than one man in this city who might kill a woman!" Rees felt his face flush the blotchy color associated with his more sincere rages. The inspector actually shushed him.

"I don't mean to give the idea we're not concerned. We'll term her a missing person. But you can't make this a murder investigation just because you want it so. We don't have the resources."

"What about this then?" Rees brought out a crumpled pile of fabric. It was a woman's blouse. "It's Rose's. I found it for sale at a pawnbrokers not three doors from my office, and he said a street sweeper had found it and sold it. Look at this spot on the collar: That's blood. Tell me that's not blood."

The inspector examined the garment without touching it or leaning in too close, as if it were a dead rat. "It may be. But that doesn't prove anything either."

Rees gritted his teeth. "If you're all so damned busy that you can't take this seriously then when are these murders going to stop, tell me that? What are you all doing if not catching a killer? Now you can't even be bothered to find the victims either. I suppose it's lucky for us you bother to show up to work in the morning at all!"

He intended to storm out, but the stationhouse was too crowded to allow for the rapid egress that storming required. Instead he had to push his way through mobs (many people, he gathered, here to give "tips" about the killings in hopes of collecting a rumored reward), holding a handkerchief to his nose to stifle the smell of unwashed bodies. Outside, even Commercial Street's usual stench was a relief. He spent several minutes standing on the corner, gulping in cold morning air and exhaling through his nose until the bile stopped churning. When he was done he realized he was still holding Rose's shirt. He recognized it because was the one she'd worn last time she'd come to see him, a conversation he'd relived over and over again with almost pathological consistency ever since.

Although it didn't relieve him of the desire to punch the young inspector right in his smug, smiling face, Rees had to admit that he was right. He didn't know for sure that Rose was dead--only that she'd apparently gone, and taken nothing with her. Even the bloodstain didn't necessarily mean anything. Just because he couldn't imagine a series of events that would lead her to run away in the middle of the night didn't mean that there wasn't one.

But no. Rose would never leave as long as Thomas still needed help. Stubbornness alone would have stopped her even if nothing else did. If she was gone, it was because something had forced her. But what that was seemed poised to become a mystery as harsh and inscrutable as any other written in the mud of the East End streets. An older fellow sat on a bench nearby, reading a newspaper. In jocular but distracted tones he said, "Awful this latest one." He indicated the front page. "Do you think we'll ever find out who this killer is?"

Rees answered in the faraway voice of a man who has received a mortal injury, and knows it. "I know exactly who the killer is."

The man with the newspaper looked up, surprised. Rees shook his head.

"It's all of us."

***

"I'm not a butcher, I'm not a Yid, nor yet a foreign skipper.
But I'm your own light-hearted friend, yours truly:

-Jack the Ripper."

Contents of a letter mailed to Scotland Yard, autumn of 1889. Author unknown.