Legacy of the Ripper

3. A Link to the Past?

THREE

A LINK TO THE PAST?

I should perhaps point out at this juncture of my tale that Jack’s parents were not with him when their son read the contents of the package bequeathed to him by his late ‘Uncle Robert’. Whatever was contained within the file of papers handed over to him remained in his possession. His father testified at Jack’s trial that he had no idea what his cousin had left in trust for Jack, denying any knowledge of what Jack claimed in his defence it contained, therefore having no reason to give that could have caused such a sudden change in his demeanour and behaviour.

Tom Reid went on to describe how, on the night he received his legacy, Jack retired to his room at about nine p.m. and Tom and Jennifer weren’t to see him again until he arrived in the kitchen for breakfast at about nine the following morning. He was scheduled to work on one of the hospital wards from two pm that day, but told his parents he was feeling unwell, and phoned in sick. His ‘sickness’ continued for another two days, after which the Reids noticed a dramatic change in their son’s character. Almost overnight, Jack had become a morose and sorrowful character, and he appeared as though he was carrying the weight of the world, or at least some great burden on his shoulders. When pressed by his parents to talk about the reasons for his melancholic state of mind he refused to discuss the matter. Presuming it may have some connection to the papers bequeathed to Jack by his Uncle Robert, Tom and Jennifer did their best to find out from their son what had been contained in the package he’d received. All that Jack Reid said in reply to their inquiries was, “It was something and nothing.”

Tom Reid even went so far as to telephone Sarah Cavendish, Robert’s widow, to try to ascertain what had been contained in the bundle of papers.

Sarah told Tom that she knew of the package and its existence, but Robert had kept it securely locked in his safe and she’d never seen the contents. She did say that she suspected it contained something which had disturbed and upset him at one time, but thought that whatever it was could hardly be a contributing factor in young Jack’s current morose and sullen mood. She went on to say that shortly before his death Robert had lodged the package with his solicitor and that was about all she knew. She hadn’t even known that he’d left it to young Jack and reiterated her belief that a few pages of paper couldn’t possibly be the cause of such a change in the young man. Tom and Jennifer thought otherwise but failed to press home their doubts to Sarah. As later events overtook the family, even Robert Cavendish’s solicitor would be forced to admit that he had no idea of the contents of the package.

Within days of the receipt of his legacy, Jack’s whole demeanour and personality appeared to his parents to have undergone a radical transformation. The happy young man they’d watched develop with such pleasure after the childhood psychological problems seemed to be slipping away from them. He returned to his studies at the teaching hospital but there was no longer a smile on his face either at the beginning or the end of the day. His conversation grew stilted, almost monosyllabic. His mother in particular worried that perhaps his close proximity to the original source of his childhood fixations, blood, teamed with whatever disturbing news he may have read in the papers bequeathed to him by his uncle had in some way brought about this alteration in her son’s personality. His father, though he didn’t mention it to Jennifer, went so far as to call on Jack’s senior tutor at the hospital who was reluctant at first to divulge much in the way of information about one of his students, but who was persuaded to open up to the father in the end. The one-time golden boy of the course had let his standards slip. Jack’s work on the wards, once regarded as exemplary, had become shoddy and constantly in need of correction. His written work and other aspects of his study course had fallen below par and Tom was warned that such a rapid deterioration in standards could only lead to eventual failure if not corrected sooner rather than later.

Despite being taken to task by his father on his alleged shortcomings in relation to his studies, over a period of weeks Jack Reid’s demeanour and attention to his work underwent an almost total transformation for the worse.

In short, the life of the young man, who up until recently had appeared to have a glittering career in the nursing profession ahead of him, simply imploded.

Tom and Jennifer pleaded with their son to go and see his own doctor, to talk about the things happening to him, but as far as Jack was concerned everything was as it should be. He saw no need to consult a doctor over what he deemed, “his personal business”.

Finally, unable to withstand the constant barrage of criticism and questions from his disbelieving and apparently disapproving parents, Jack left home. There was no discussion on the matter with his parents and no forewarning of his intentions. One morning, he quite arbitrarily walked out of the door with a suitcase in his hand and never returned to his parents’ home again. Attempts to contact Jack on his mobile phone over the following days proved useless; the phone either being switched off or diverted to voicemail. His father found himself having to comfort his wife, Jack’s mother, more and more as the sense of loss cut deeply into her heart and mind. Forced to choose between searching for Jack and looking after the psychological well- being of the woman he loved, Tom Reid chose the latter course of action. He would use whatever time he could afford to try to locate Jack’s whereabouts, but his first priority would be his wife, the woman he loved and adored above all others.

Tom was faced with the unenviable task of convincing Jennifer that their son had in all probability regressed to his former mental state. As a loving, doting mother Jennifer was hard to convince, but eventually agreed with her husband that such an event was the only possible explanation for the sudden change in Jack’s personality, though both she and Tom possessed a firm conviction that the legacy he’d received on his coming of age from his late Uncle Robert had in some way contributed to his sudden regression.

“It had to be that package, or at least something in it. He was fine until he received it,” Jennifer stated, without any doubt in her mind one evening as she and Tom tried yet again to rationalise all that had happened in recent weeks.

“You’re right, of course, Jen,” he’d replied. “And somehow we have to find out what was in it. What on earth can have been so shattering that it changed him so suddenly and dramatically?”

“You know, Tom? I know that Sarah said she’d no idea what the package contained, but you have to admit that Robert seemed a changed man shortly before he died. Could he have been affected by the contents of those papers in the same way that Jack has been?”

“Jen, my darling, Robert died from a brain tumour, you know that.” “Yes, but what about before that? Don’t you remember how he lay in a coma after the crash that killed his father, your uncle?”

“Of course I do, but what’s that got to do with Jack?”

“Tom, try harder. Sarah said that when he came round, he was babbling on about having some sort of nightmares, that he thought Jack the Ripper was out to get him or something like that?”

“Oh, come on, Jen, get real. That was just the ramblings of his mind while he was in a comatose state, probably induced by the number of drugs he was on for the pain.”

“But what if it wasn’t just the ramblings of his mind? What if something really happened to Robert that we don’t know about?”

“If it had I’m sure Sarah would have said something, or Robert himself, come to that.”

“But would they have told us? You must admit that Robert seemed a different person after the accident, and we hardly saw him and Sarah much after that time, right up until his death. Since then we’ve rarely seen or heard from Sarah, and she used to be so bubbly and full of fun before. Now, she’s like a recluse, banging about in that big old house by herself, hardly ever going out or socialising anymore. Tom, I want you to go and see her, please. If you must, press her about Robert’s mental state after the accident. Try and find out if there was anything that happened to Robert that might have been a trigger for what’s happened to Jack.”

Jennifer wasn’t to be talked out of her plan of action and eventually Tom agreed to visit his late cousin’s wife on the following weekend. In the meantime, he engaged Philip Swan of Swan Private Investigations, with instructions to locate his son. He provided the investigator with the names of the few friends of Jack’s he was aware of, including Anna. Swan said he’d do what he could, though it might not be much. Tom told the man he could ask for no more from him. Swan never found hide nor hair of Jack, and Tom Reid eventually paid the investigator’s bill with some regret at having employed him on the fruitless task.

The weekend arrived, and Tom Reid left his worried wife at home alone as he set off in the family car for the home of his late cousin’s wife. He’d purposely not given Sarah Cavendish any advance warning of his arrival. He thought that any such warning could put her on her guard, if indeed there was something she’d held back from them since the death of Robert. He thought it preposterous of course, but his wife’s pleadings and belief that something in the past tied Robert and Jack’s behaviour together made him just the slightest bit reticent in his approach to Sarah.

As he pulled into the sun-drenched, leafy tree-lined avenue where he and Jennifer had shared so many happy evenings with Robert and Sarah in the dim and distant past, the dark shadows of his son’s mental state seemed to recede from his mind. Here in the heart of English suburbia, all appeared normal and peaceful. One of Sarah’s neighbours was outside mowing the pristine lawn in front of his mock-Georgian home. Another was trimming the overhanging branches of an expansive lilac bush threatening to encroach over his fence onto his neighbour’s property.

Only as Tom pulled onto the driveway of Sarah’s home was he brought back to the reality of the reason for his visit. He pulled up behind Sarah’s red Toyota, pleased that its presence probably indicated she was at home. As he stepped from his gleaming black BMW, Tom couldn’t help but notice that though clean, Sarah’s car appeared to be coated in a thin layer of dust, including the windscreen, giving him the hint that she hadn’t been out in the vehicle for a few days at the very least. Jennifer’s observation that Sarah had become something of a recluse came into his mind and for the first time, as he stood and pressed the doorbell to announce his arrival and despite the warmth of the day, Tom felt a cold shiver of foreboding at what he might discover in the home of his late cousin. Receiving no reply to his first press of the bell he tried again and again, and after what appeared an age to the increasingly impatient Tom, he heard footsteps from within. Sarah was coming!