The Study In Red Trilogy

3. A Cry for Help?

12th August 1888

12th August 1888

After breakfast suffered a violent headache. Came from nowhere. So sudden, it almost knocked me from my feet. Forced to lie down, remained prone for some time. It’s them, the voices, they’re shouting in my head, even when I can’t hear them, they must be! They’d been silent since I finished the w***e, and yet, they’re in there all the time, sleeping. They must wake inside my head and talk, and I don’t always hear them. I don’t like the headache.

After breakfast suffered a violent headache. Came from nowhere. So sudden, it almost knocked me from my feet. Forced to lie down, remained prone for some time. It’s them, the voices, they’re shouting in my head, even when I can’t hear them, they must be! They’d been silent since I finished the w***e, and yet, they’re in there all the time, sleeping. They must wake inside my head and talk, and I don’t always hear them. I don’t like the headache.The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in the 1880s was, like the science of criminology, extremely basic compared to today’s standards. My great-grandfather would have been astounded to see the massive advances that medical science has achieved in the last hundred years. Nowadays we understand so much more, we treat with care and compassion, yet, back in the days of the Ripper saga, we built huge Gothic asylums, where we incarcerated and tortured those poor afflicted souls in the name of medicine. We were, I’m afraid, as a profession, in the stone ages.

The few words I’d just read had convinced me that the writer was indeed a sufferer from some form of mental disease. The hearing of voices is of course the classic mark of the psychopath, or possibly the sign of some form of mania. This man however, seemed to feel that the voices were speaking to him even when he couldn’t hear them. He was indeed a sick man, but, with the limited knowledge and resources available in the nineteenth century, it was unlikely that he would ever have received effective or curative care. The comment ‘I don’t like the headache’ showed an almost childlike desire for someone to take away his pain. I could almost feel his hurt, his anguish, though I wasn’t yet convinced that these were truly the words of the man known as Jack the Ripper!

‘I don’t like the headache’ Now, you may be wondering why I was doubting the veracity of the journal. It was obvious that, for whatever reasons, my great-grandfather, my grandfather and father all believed in the truth of the documents now in my possession, and yet, I felt that with the benefits of modern-day technology at my disposal, and with the additional knowledge that now existed relating to the ripper murders, it might be possible for me to arrive at a different conclusion to my forebears. Only by reading the journal, the notes, and comparing them with the facts I had accessed from the net could I hope to come to an objective conclusion in the matter. Psychiatry has also moved on to such an extent that I felt I may be able to perhaps throw a different light on anything my great-grandfather had surmised from the journal. I was, of course, still to discover what his part in the whole affair had been, and that gave me cause for concern. It wouldn’t be fair however, to jump the gun and rush to the end of the journal or the notes. I had to go slowly, had to take one step at a time.

13th August 1888

13th August 1888

Couldn’t leave the house today, so much pain and confusion in my head. I have to go out sometime, there’s so much I need to do. My work must go on, but the tools, I must have the tools. Now I know the way to find safe retreat. I never realized how much blood the w***e would spill upon me. There’s no way to hide the blood, and I can’t risk being taken, not when there’s so much to do! The voices told me how to hide the blood. Hide myself, and the blood will be hidden too. Be invisible. That’s the answer. THE SEWERS. Use the sewers, get a map, a plan, they run under every street, every house, and no-one shall see me, they’ll never find me, never beat me. I’m invisible, invisible and invincible.

Couldn’t leave the house today, so much pain and confusion in my head. I have to go out sometime, there’s so much I need to do. My work must go on, but the tools, I must have the tools. Now I know the way to find safe retreat. I never realized how much blood the w***e would spill upon me. There’s no way to hide the blood, and I can’t risk being taken, not when there’s so much to do! The voices told me how to hide the blood. Hide myself, and the blood will be hidden too. Be invisible. That’s the answer. THE SEWERS. Use the sewers, get a map, a plan, they run under every street, every house, and no-one shall see me, they’ll never find me, never beat me. I’m invisible, invisible and invincible.

***

***

14th August 1888

14th August 1888

Feeling so much better, had work to do. Not the w****s, they’ll have to wait, the office, boring, but necessary. Everything normal, that’s the way, let no-one suspect. My neighbour called today, brought a copy of The Star. Seems someone killed a w***e called Tabram. Didn’t know w****s had names, how shocking! Left work early, got all I needed on Whitechapel High Street. Surgeons’ knives, so sharp, so bright, and maps, all the maps I need to complete the task. Be careful little w****s, I’m coming.

Feeling so much better, had work to do. Not the w****s, they’ll have to wait, the office, boring, but necessary. Everything normal, that’s the way, let no-one suspect. My neighbour called today, brought a copy of The Star. Seems someone killed a w***e called Tabram. Didn’t know w****s had names, how shocking! Left work early, got all I needed on Whitechapel High Street. Surgeons’ knives, so sharp, so bright, and maps, all the maps I need to complete the task. Be careful little w****s, I’m coming.This was truly chilling. I was beginning to believe at last that this could indeed be the journal of The Ripper. There was a manic yet highly intelligent brain behind these words, of that I was becoming sure, one minute coherent and methodical, the next, almost ludicrously psychotic in his train of thought. Was he shocked that w****s had names, or that someone had killed Martha Tabram? Had he at that point detached himself from the actual act of cold-blooded murder, becoming, for a short time, just another citizen indignant at the repugnance of the wicked crime? Apart from anything else, I had to admit to myself that as a case study, this was becoming totally engrossing. I could feel the tension building with almost every word I read in this strange, crumpled journal. The very age of the paper gave it a decrepit, tomblike feel, and added to the chill that was beginning to surround me as I sat in my comfortable chair, at my familiar desk, where, suddenly, nothing felt quite the same as it did just a short time ago. I felt as if I was being slowly and inexorably dragged back in time, so tangibly that I could almost envisage the sights and sounds of Victorian London being just outside my comfortable suburban home. Does that sound ridiculous? Maybe it does, but it’s true. That’s just how it felt. The more I read, the more I was being transported to another era, I could almost taste the fear of those uncertain times in that great, yet partially squalid city, I was beginning to realise why my family had kept this secret so close. The journal, though quite indistinct in many ways, and while not providing much in the way of the minutiae of the story up to this point was still like a time machine. Once you began you couldn’t release yourself from its hold. I had to continue.

17th August 1888

17th August 1888

Visited a few of the drinking establishments in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. Drank beer in The Britannia, the Princess Alice, and The Alma in Spelman Street. Got quite drunk. So many w****s wanted me. Me! Used the drink to avoid their dirty pestilence. Played the well-heeled but drunken punter. Couldn’t do it, ha! That’s what they thought! Couldn’t do it? I’ll do them all, filthy, rotten bitches, w****s; I’ll send them all to hell! TO HELL, DAMN THEIR FILTHY HIDES!

Visited a few of the drinking establishments in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. Drank beer in The Britannia, the Princess Alice, and The Alma in Spelman Street. Got quite drunk. So many w****s wanted me. Me! Used the drink to avoid their dirty pestilence. Played the well-heeled but drunken punter. Couldn’t do it, ha! That’s what they thought! Couldn’t do it? I’ll do them all, filthy, rotten bitches, w****s; I’ll send them all to hell! TO HELL, DAMN THEIR FILTHY HIDES!He was getting angrier by the day, and it was clear that he was plotting, reconnoitering the area, he was putting his plan together, and would strike when he was ready. This was premeditation on a grand scale, he was getting ready to unleash the fire and brimstone of his own brand of hell upon the poor unfortunate women of that sadly deprived and neglected area of the great metropolis. What felt even worse was the fact that I felt as though I was about to be given a ringside seat at the proceedings. The words were so graphic, so real, so terrifying.

20th August 1888

20th August 1888

They’re back, the voices, calling louder than ever. They fill my head, they want me, need me; I’m so glad they came, but they hurt me when they all scream at once. Why don’t they speak one at a time? Sometimes they’re so loud I can’t hear them properly. My, but that’s a grand piece of lamb upon my plate tonight. I knew it was good before I tasted it. Not too rare, we’re not ready to go out again, not just yet. When they say so, I’ll be ready, ready for the blood, the river, the river of red that will flow through the streets as surely as the Thames splits the city in two. The w****s will pay, and pay in full, I’ll have no more of their wicked pestilence, their evil b***h heat fouling the air, filling innocent beds with their filth, I’ll have them all, w****s, nothing but w****s.

They’re back, the voices, calling louder than ever. They fill my head, they want me, need me; I’m so glad they came, but they hurt me when they all scream at once. Why don’t they speak one at a time? Sometimes they’re so loud I can’t hear them properly. My, but that’s a grand piece of lamb upon my plate tonight. I knew it was good before I tasted it. Not too rare, we’re not ready to go out again, not just yet. When they say so, I’ll be ready, ready for the blood, the river, the river of red that will flow through the streets as surely as the Thames splits the city in two. The w****s will pay, and pay in full, I’ll have no more of their wicked pestilence, their evil b***h heat fouling the air, filling innocent beds with their filth, I’ll have them all, w****s, nothing but w****s.

They’re gone again, for a while at least, but I wish my head wouldn’t hurt so much. Why do they leave me like this? I don’t want my head to hurt, not like this. I wish it would stop.

They’re gone again, for a while at least, but I wish my head wouldn’t hurt so much. Why do they leave me like this? I don’t want my head to hurt, not like this. I wish it would stop.So, one minute he was the avenging angel, the next, a frightened little boy, that’s how I saw this tortured soul. I could almost imagine him lying alone in his bed at night, weeping silently into his pillow, willing the pain to leave him, and, when it didn’t, crying out aloud for help. I wondered, did this man, this murderer, Jack the Ripper, did he cry in despair for his mother?

I turned to the texts I’d printed on the facts of the case. I wanted to check the chronology of the case. The writer of the journal hadn’t made entries for every day, as one would in a diary, and I wondered how many more pages I would have to read before reaching the entry for August 31st. I knew there’d be one that day, especially for that night. It was the night the true terror of Jack the Ripper began!