Chapter 21
WHITECHAPEL – PAST MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY AUGUST 6TH, 1888
THE AIR IN THE ‘FRYING PAN’ PUBLIC HOUSE in Brick Lane was thick and heavy with tobacco smoke; the sweat of long unwashed bodies and of rotting food trodden into the filthy verminous straw underfoot. Mangy dogs, belonging to the clientele of the alehouse, lurked amongst the table legs hoping for a scrap of meat or a hunk of three day old bread, a chicken bone or a gobbet of fat from the noxious stews served up to those who could afford no better.
Mary Anne Nicholls, better known as Polly, lurched up from the table, knocking over an empty beer bottle that spun slowly along the table before falling to the floor but did not break. She hissed obscenely at the soldier, an off duty Coldstream Guardsman from the Wellington Barra
