No Absolution Page 2

  “Whore!” Father’s face pushed the vision away.

  A loud shout brought him bolt upright in bed. His gaze wildly searched the dark corners of the room. Was it Father’s voice that woke him or someone on the street? Sweat broke out on his brow and he shuddered at the image of Father’s face suffused with rage.

  “Mam?”

  The hoarse whisper of his own voice startled him as much as the loud shout from the street had minutes before. Wavering between exhilaration and panic Jake padded to the window to see what the raised voices below were about. A ragged newsboy stood in the pre-dawn gloom screeching the news of Jake’s late night task. Frustration tormented him. He hadn’t had the time to finish the job properly. At least Polly’s immortal soul was free. It was the least he could do for the pur bitch.

  Chapter Two

  The floorboards were cold and damp on the soles of his stocking feet. He fumbled in the dark for the packet of matches and lit the lamp. It was a gift sent direct from the Lord that his pay from the cattle transport and the slaughter yard job, along with the small legacy left by Father, afforded him the luxury of a rented room all to himself. It allowed him to avoid the crowded sour atmosphere of the doss houses. True, the room was barely more than a closet, but it was private. Well, as private as a place could be when the walls were paper thin.

  Dressing hastily, Jake was soon hurrying toward Fleischer’s in Butcher’s Row on Aldgate High Street. The bastard was a hard taskmaster, but it was the only work Jake could find that allowed him the freedom to sign on with the cattle boats and make the transatlantic crossing to New York when the mood struck him. New York … another city full of sin and avarice. Perhaps if the heat in Whitechapel got too intense he could continue his mission in America once the summer months descended on him. It was always wise to have a fall back plan.

  The pre-dawn dark was damp and heavy with fog. The leaden skies promised more rain. Jake turned up his collar against the wind coming up from the Thames. Jamming his hat further down over his eyes he trudged down Great Garden toward Whitechapel Street. The news of the murder in Buck’s Row seemed to be on everyone’s lips. Jake kept his head down and wound his way through the miasma of sewage, unwashed bodies, and sulphur fog. Reaching Aldgate High Street at last, he turned into the small slaughter yard at the back of number forty-eight.

  Butcher’s Row was already bustling with activity, even at this early hour. The agitated lowing of the cattle set Jake’s teeth on edge. His fingers itched for the killing knife and his nostrils dilated in anticipation of the spill of coppery smelling hot blood. Slipping in the rear door of the shop, he pulled a leather apron from the hooks by the open entrance. Fleischer’s blonde daughter was busy at the front of the shop laying out waxed brown paper in readiness for the chunks of butchered flesh to come. Her ample hips and blue eyes drew his attention and he harshly extinguished the attraction.

  As if feeling his gaze on her, Aggie looked up and met his eyes with a smile of welcome. Jake dropped head and turned away to where the cattle awaited their fate. He pulled the knife safe from the inner pocket of his jacket and spread it open on the one clean place on the gore spattered floor. He narrowed his eyes against the brightening light that spilled into the small, dark room where he did his work. A few steers milled in the holding pen outside the narrow doorway. He motioned for the street urchin employed for that purpose to herd the first beast through the narrow door. As the steer squeezed through the opening Jake pole-axed it and stepped back as it collapsed onto the stone floor. His breathing increased in anticipation of the killing stroke that would allow the blood to flow. He knelt behind the head, back by the shoulders, and pulled the big chin up and back. As he raised the selected knife, a movement from the open doorway caught his attention. From the corner of his vision he was aware of three small ragged bobchen peering in, their expressions both terrified and fascinated by the impending violence. Choosing to ignore the urchins for the moment, Jake allowed himself a small grin.

  With a swift movement he slashed the steer’s throat with the cutting edge of the well-honed instrument. Bright, rich blood leapt out in a fountain that quickly pooled in the shallow gutter by the wall. Working quickly, he slit the carcass from stem to stern and plunged his hands and arms into the steaming cavity. A deft flick of the wrist freed a handful of the entrails, and with a wild shout, he leapt to his feet and hurled the bloody handful at the three barefoot lads watching him as if mesmerised by the violence before them. The horror and revulsion on their grimy faces as the bits of gut and offal splattered onto the cobbles at their feet sent him into peals of wild laughter. His voice echoed in the enclosed space and followed their flight out through the holding pen. Still chuckling, Jake bent back to his work. He allowed himself the sensual pleasure of pausing to run the smooth slickness of the internal organs through his hands, still warm and viable from the beast’s recent demise. There was something so intimate about fondling flesh from which life had so recently fled. It didn’t provide the same holy thrill that his real work did, but it helped to quell the constant urging from Father to carry out his demands. Although, if he was to be believed, it was the Lord’s demands.

  * * *

  As usual, Jake was the last employee to leave the yard. His stomach growled with hunger, but he ignored it. The familiar fingers of darkness curled around the edges of his vision. A little over a week had passed since he had claimed Polly for God’s absolution. His dream of killing and eviscerating had passed into the realm of reality. Slipping a shaking hand into his pocket, he stroked the handle of Father’s knife, as always, it reacted to his touch, pulsing faintly against the pads of his fingers. Lost in thought, Jake wandered through to the front of the shop, the sound of loud voices in the evening twilight jolted him out of his reverie.

  What the hell am I doing here? His steps had taken him through the twisted warren of boxes and odds and bobs separating the slaughter yard from the front of the shop. Aggie was just finished tidying the counter, she turned with a gasp and regarded him with rounded eyes in her startled face. Ignoring the stab of something he’d rather not name that set his penis to twitching beneath the blood-stained apron he still wore, Jake turned on his heel and hurried back to the yard. Aggie called after him, but he only strode faster, giving his shoulders a shake as he crossed the cobbles and slipped out into the narrow alley behind the slaughter house.

  * * *

  After a simple supper accompanied by his usual pint at the Ten Bells, he made his way through the gathering darkness to his small room on Dorset Street. It was more private than the old place near Hanbury Street. He’d moved only the week before. The place was located in a dingy close entered by a brick archway. McCarthy, the bastard, charged through the nose for the dump, but it suited his needs much better. Slipping in unnoticed, Jake freshened the fire in the small hearth in his room. The conversation of the boarders on either side leaked through the thin walls and he grimaced at the rhythmic thumping accompanied by grunts and groans coming from one side. Revulsion and anger drove him to his feet and he opened his door a crack to peer into the gloomy rickety stairwell.

  A woman was bent over in front of a short ragged man who was pushing himself against her bare buttocks. Hoor! Feckin’bloody hoor! He steadied his breath to keep from calling out and pressed closer to the door, drawn by a morbid fascination to spy on the lewd act. With a final thrust and grunt the man stepped back and straightened his clothes. The woman straightened and Jake fought the dizziness that threatened to buckle his knees. Unlike the haggard face he was expecting, the woman was young and pretty. She twitched her skirts back into place and twisted her long red hair into a loose bun. With a quick glance, the woman disappeared into the gloom of the ill-lit passage, her footsteps light on the splintered boards of the stairs.

  Jake drew a shaky breath. Mam! She’s the spittin’ image of Mam. How can that be? Who is she? I need to find ‘er, I have to absolve the bitch of her sins. He closed the door and stumbled back into the room, co
llapsing on his narrow bed. With shaking hands he fished out the ginger beer bottle filled with rot-gut gin and took a healthy swallow. When the bottle was empty, he leaned back and watched the play of light and shadow on the walls. Lifting a hand, he turned it to and fro, marvelling at the intricacies of the bone, muscle, tendon, and ligaments, which allowed so many movements. It was so easy to separate the flesh from the bone, release the blood from the body as life fled quickly along with it. Pulling the tattered leather-bound book from under the thin pillow, Jake thumbed it open to the passage of Leviticus, his gaze running over the lines, even though he knew them by rote. His lips barely moved as he muttered the verses aloud.

  A small shudder shook him as he acknowledged that he himself was unclean now from his contact with the sinners. Though he fought to ignore the twitching of his penis as it reacted to the memory of the whore’s bloody entrails, slick in his hands, he couldn’t control the lust that threatened to overtake him. He chanted the Bible verses louder, but the images on his inner eye were stronger than his will. The satisfied look of the red-haired harlot he had spied on earlier flashed before him and was his undoing. The brief glimpse of her naked buttocks was enough to spill his seed onto his thighs in the confines of his trousers. He gasped the holy words and his fingers curled convulsively on the book in his hand. In a moment he had recovered himself and found a rag to wipe the mess up. The words in the holy verses comforted him. Once his work was done, they held the key to his own salvation and the cleansing of his immortal soul.

  “No matter, there are enough hoors on the streets of this hellhole to satisfy my needs. Whitechapel, now thet’s a bleedin’ joke, if ever there was one. There ain’t nuttin’ white, nor sacred, in these filthy alleys.” A short bark of derisive laughter escaped his lips at the thought.

  A flare in the hearth drew his gaze. An image of Father’s blade wavered in the firelight. The vision sucked the light and warmth from the blaze and threw a veil of darkness across his sight.

  “Soon, we must not let our purpose lapse. Soon, you must cut again soon.” The dark voice crooned in his inner ear.

  “Yes, soon.” Jake promised, his sight filled with the brightness of the cleansing fire and the dark vengeance of the knife.

  Chapter Three

  September eighth—nine days since the knife last tasted blood. Nine days during which Jake had not acted on his holy duty. Darkness swirled across his vision, black with the colour of dried blood. Jake set his pint down on the scarred table and surveyed the smoky interior of the Britannia Public House. On a Friday night like tonight, it was full of working men drinking their week’s wages, and whores willing to offer them a ‘four penny touch’. A quick bit of sex, in exchange for the four pennies it took to buy the dolly mop a bed and a safe place to sleep for the night. He lifted the pint to his lips, observing the clientele through the distortion of the glass as he drank. Filth, filthy hoors, not one of them deserves to be drawing breath.

  The knife whispered in his mind from its hidey-hole in his room, streets away from where he sat. He remembered the way the lamplight glittered on the thin sharp blade the night his father wielded it and cleansed the soul of his whoring mother. Although, thinking back, Jake could never remember seeing his mother with another man, either at home or in the street. Still, his father had been a surgeon and a reverend, his word was law, just as the Lord’s was law.

  “All women are daughters of Eve. They are an abomination and must be destroyed. Their mere existence is an insult to the Almighty.”

  Jake shuddered involuntarily as the power of his father’s words reached beyond the grave and spoke afresh in his mind.

  “Aye, Dark Annie you bitch!”

  The screech of a woman’s voice jerked his attention to two women glaring at each other by the bar. The whore who spoke glared down at a shorter stout woman with the typical pallid complexion of the undernourished working class. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl revealing surprisingly excellent teeth rather than the rotting stumps so often revealed by both men and women in this be-knighted part of London. After a moment he recognised the women, having shared a liaison or two with both of them in the past. He repressed a small shudder of self-revulsion at the memory.

  “I returned your bit of soap, Eliza, and well you know it.” Dark Annie replied pushing her unkempt wavy brown hair away from her blue eyes.

  “Didn’t!” Eliza bellowed, striking the dark-haired woman in the face and again across her chest.

  Annie shoved her face close to Eliza and said something Jake couldn’t make out over the catcalls of the crowd, taking bets on which whore would win the battle. Apparently, having made her point, Dark Annie swept from the establishment into the night.

  Jake took note of which way the woman turned as she left. The urging of the knife was growing stronger. He hadn’t slept f nights now. What a disgrace, a woman brawling in a public place. It’ll be a favor I’m doing her immortal soul by releasing it from that stinkin’ body. I cain’t ignore me duty to the Lord fer too much longer. Father has been demandin’ my attention these past few days. Killin’ the hoor will serve both ends.

  A woman plunked herself down in the chair across from him. Jake looked up darkly at the unwanted intrusion. To his surprise it was the Judy who chased Dark Annie from the public house.

  “Would you be after a bit of business then, lad?” Eliza smiled exposing broken and black teeth.

  His gorge rose in his throat and he swallowed hard to control it. This child of the devil could perhaps tell him where the other stupid bitch had gone to. A fine trick to play on Satan; use information from one of his minions to destroy another. A false smile spread across his face.

  “Who were that you was haranguin’ wi’ earlier? Seemed like you was ready to have a right barney.” He showed no interest in her veiled reference to a fumble and touch in the back alley.

  “Aye, that was black-hearted Annie Chapman what stays most nights at Crossingham’s doss over on Dorset. A right bitch she is, borrowed me last bit of soap and refuses to replace it or pay for it.”

  “Ye seem to have gotten the best of the blows in, ’Liza. Ye chased yer opponent from the room.” Jake took a sip of his pint.

  “She’ll be back that one, mark me words. She ain’t got the price of her bed for the night yet, heard her say so ‘erself. Making eyes at my man, looking to share his sheets instead, she was. That one will be out looking for a punter or two now, sure as I’m alive.” The woman’s eyes gleamed with menace, her upper lip curling like a snarling dog.

  “Drank it again, did she?”

  “So she did. I could use me some coin meself….” Eliza hinted again, none too subtlety.

  Jake drained the dregs from the bottom of his pint and pushed back from the rickety table. He shoved some coins deeper in his pocket before slinging his rough coat over his shoulders.

  “Time is moving on, I’ve places to be.”

  “Bastard! Bloody waste of time…” She leaped up but tripped on the hem of her ragged skirt and fell. By the time she struggled to her feet to the accompaniment of rough catcalls Jake was well away.

  The night air was comforting on his hot face. The knife heated his blood making it hard to think. Sleep, I need to sleep. He found himself in the close outside his lodging without remembering how he came to be there. Entering the cold room he shed his jacket and locked the door. Studiously refusing to look toward the knife’s place of concealment, and thereby acknowledge its presence, he splashed cold water from the pitcher on his face. The shock of the frigid water served to quiet the insistent voice in his head. Jake threw himself down on the narrow bed and willed sleep to overtake him. Preferably dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Phantoms and disjointed scenes whirled across his inner eye. Father preaching to the assembled congregation, fire and brimstone rolling from his tongue. Mam, with her coat collar buttoned tightly up to her chin despite the heat of the sanctuary, gloves masking the bruises on her hands and wrists. Sally Mu
rphy, the pretty red-haired daughter of the butcher, blue-eyed and smiling. She had waltzed out of his life and married a farmer. His breath came faster and caught in his throat, the visions turned bleak and unfriendly. The sharp smell of mouse turds stung his nose and he shrank away from the scraping of the rats in the wall behind the cupboard where he hid. His small limbs folded around his quaking stomach while Father’s voice rose and fell in time with the blows he rained down on Mam. Her tear-smeared face covered in snot and blood, only tiny whimpers escaping her broken lips where she lay inches from his hiding place. The frantic urge to squeeze his eyes shut was overwhelmed by the mesmerising splatter of blood that flew from Mam’s battered flesh. There won’t be any hidin’ the damage this time, the thought crept across his adult mind.

  “There was no need to hide it in the end, was there?” The knife spoke comfortingly in his dreams.

  Through child’s eyes, Jake’s gaze followed the glitter of the blade in the lamp light, experienced again the rush of horror underlain by a strange thrill of excitement at the flood of blood as it opened Mam’s neck from ear to ear. Father’s hands hard on his shoulders, pulling him from the cupboard and sitting him on a chair. He explained in detail how to sever muscle from bone and how to remove internal organs without damaging the lower intestine and releasing the stench which gathered there. Meticulously, Father removed parts of Mam’s body and placed them in an orderly fashion about her corpse. Jake sat immobile with terror, heart hammering so he felt it would leap from his chest. Reverently, Father built the fire in the hearth to a roaring blaze and placed Mam’s parts into the white heart of the flames.