The Wonderground

4 - The Visitor

The man lowered his umbrella and pressed the small button on the bamboo handle which collapsed the ribs. The sky above London was clear and it had not rained all evening. He faced the weary group of eight people gathered at the corner of Vallance Gardens Park. To complete the performance for his audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the tour. We will never know what happened to Jack the Ripper. His secrets died with him a hundred years ago."

He unzipped a faded leather duffle bag and removed a green plastic collection box with a looped shoelace handle.

"If you enjoyed tonight's tour, I believe five pounds is a reasonable price to pay for an hour's education, entertainment and exercise! Even if you did not enjoy it, please still give generously, as every penny goes to a local children's care centre. Thank you very much."

He gave a short bow in response to the smattering of applause. Coins and notes were hastily deposited before his audience dispersed into the darkness, presumably heading for Whitechapel tube station, the Overground and the promise of warmth.

As the last stragglers drifted away, the man unscrewed the white angled funnel slot and tipped the contents into his hand. A grand total of £19.77, a few euros, a button and a bus ticket. Really? Had people no shame?

It was a thin crowd tonight. Not enough Americans – they were good tippers. 'Black Friday' weekend was always like this. The tourists and locals were scrambling madly for bargains on Regent Street, not traipsing after an old man in the dark, half listening to chilling tales of murder.

He looked south along Castlemain Street. It was hard to believe, staring at the row of three-storey terraced townhouses, each with matching uPVC doors and pink wheelie bins, that the Ripper's first victim was found just around the corner. Nothing of Victorian London remained. He sighed wistfully.

He grunted with arthritic pain as he dropped to one knee to retrieve his advertising board that was chained to the park railings. Were those footsteps behind him? His pepper spray was out of reach in the outside pocket of his anorak, draped over the railings six feet away.

He turned to see a hooded figure with a long black beard, dressed in a knee length coat, hands in pockets, casting a long shadow from the nearest streetlamp. The man was staring intently at him.

"Can I help you at all?" asked the kneeling tour guide.

"You are him," replied the man gruffly.

"Is that a question or a statement?" he remarked irritably. "I am the owner, operator and star of the 'Follow in the Ripper's Footsteps' tour."

At that moment, a Ford Focus roared around the corner, one of the fast, tangerine ones. The hooded man recoiled into the shadows as the car's xenon headlights bathed them momentarily in bright white-blue light. A greasy McDonald's brown bag was flung from the passenger window and clattered into the railings, narrowly missing the tour guide who turned back to the streetlamp, but the man was gone.

"It clearly states on the board that the tour starts at eight p.m. sharp," he shouted at the empty street. "Some people," he muttered to himself, cursing the stranger's timekeeping.

He had certainly seen some sights that evening, even for London. He had diverted the tour earlier on Brick Lane, most inconveniently, after what looked like an explosion. There were police, fire and ambulance vehicles in attendance, with uniformed officers swarming around a mangled row of smouldering red telephone boxes. Of course, his customers had wanted to rubberneck. That was, until they observed a black body bag being zipped up and wheeled away on a gurney. Most of the listeners had lost their appetite for bloodcurdling tales of Victorian London after that and he had cut the tour short by twenty minutes.