AN: I've changed where Alfonso's brother lives from Acton to Plumstead as it is a lesser known part of London and further from the hotel. :)
'Let me remind you again. I was found innocent. After wasting away ten years of my life, no thanks to the smear campaign against me,' Jon hissed.
'Slander is a crime. And Britain has some of the strictest libel laws in the world. You would be wise to remember that.' He stepped right up to Sandra until he was in her personal space, almost stepping on her feet. Rita replaced the tray with the coffees she had picked up. Her heart was in her throat.
'Are you threatening me?' Sandra shouted.
She stepped back and swung her fist at him, smacking his cheek so he staggered backwards into a table where two elderly men were sitting playing a game of chess with a full pot of tea on the side. The pieces spilled into their laps, then onto the floor. The teapot landed in the lap of one of the men. Sandra continued shouting, 'How dare you? After everything you did! How dare you threaten me?'
The man who had had the tea spilled on him got up slowly, cursing under his breath in Arabic. His trousers were soaked with the scalding liquid. He took a step and almost stumbled, grasping the back of a wobbly chair for support. Rita abandoned the coffees on an empty table and went to help the old man. He was wincing and had trouble walking. She put her arm around him and walked him to the back of the cafe, helped him sit down on a chair by the toilets.
'Do you need help?'
The man shook his head.
'Get out,' the woman who owned the cafe was shouting at Jon and Sandra. 'Don't ever come back here. You're banned.'
'I am deeply sorry,' Rita heard Jon saying in a tone that was well spoken and smooth. 'Sandra has mental issues. If I had known...'
'I don't care what kind of issues you both have. Out.' Jon's shoes clattered as Rita heard the woman shoving him towards the door.
'I need a taxi,' the old man said in a tremulous voice from behind the toilet door, as the cafe owner walked up behind Rita. 'Help me, please. I need to go to hospital.'
Rita ordered a taxi on her phone. She and the cafe owner stayed with the man until the taxi arrived.
*
In the tube, Rita and Alfonso managed to find seats near the back of the train. The tube was lined with seats on each side stretching down in a long line, covered with purple fabric. It was a new design where there were no dividers between the carriages and it was hard to see the end.
Rita laid her head on Alfonso's shoulder. 'I hope that old guy is OK. Being burnt with that much hot water at his age can be devastating. I wanted to give him some first aid but he wouldn't let me.'
'You helped him a lot, Rita. You got him away from any more injuries and also got him a taxi to the hospital. How shit for the cafe owner for that lot to fight in there.' Alfonso stroked her hair.
'I'm glad we ate a meal in there afterwards,' Rita said. The breakfast they had had had been tasty enough. Despite putting on a hard front the cafe owner seemed like she was incredibly relieved they had stayed.
'Me too, it was good, and I wanted to show the cafe some support after that fight.' He held her close. 'Sandra doesn't seem well, does she? It's sad when you meet people like that.'
'Unfortunately, I encounter many,' Rita said. 'We end up having to act as mental health professionals a lot of the time, or step in when they have failed. And if Jon Phillips really did kill her sister, or she believes he did, and he's walking free, that would have tipped her over the edge. Didn't you say that she'd written to Eloise in prison? That's not going to help her wellbeing.'
'Yeah, it's that intensity. She seems on the edge. It reminds me of a client whose race horse I treated a few months ago. One day I turned up, he was so paranoid and aggressive that I had to leave for my own safety. He near enough accused me of being a government agent.' Alfonso sighed. His foot scuffed an empty coke can rolling around by their feet.
'Here. Show me the picture of Chicero's calf. We both need a bit of dopamine,' he said. She found the picture and passed it over.
'Thanks to you, they got to have a happy life. Those calves will never know any of the suffering their dads did. You know that, right?' He squeezed her hand.
'Well, it wasn't entirely thanks to me.'
'Oh, come on, Rita. Accept the compliment.'
The tube pulled up to the next platform and announced the fourth of 17 stops until they had to change for the overground. Rita was too tired to pay attention to what it was. It wasn't as far as they had thought.
Reaching into her bag, Rita pulled out Jack the Ripper - Unmasking a Monster. She gave the tube passengers a nervous look around. She was being recognised so much that she wouldn't put it past anyone to follow her. Although it was to be published in 2024, the Jack the Ripper book was a well thumbed copy. The blurb on the back said that Jon Phillips was a former professor of history at Cambridge University who had written seven academic books and one thriller. A few pages, she thought.
Just to see what he had written, this man who Sandra believed had killed her sister.
'Is that the book you stole?' Alfonso said.
'I didn't steal it.'
Rita turned the first page and began to read.
****
Jack The Ripper: Unmasking a Monster by Jon Phillips
Dedication:
For E. You know why.
Foreword
The identity of Jack the Ripper is one of the most enduring mysteries of all time. A mystery that has been unsolved for almost 150 years. And in this ground breaking book, I will use previously unseen evidence to reveal the culprit once and for all.
Why is it that Jack the Ripper is so fascinating, even today? What explains the huge quantity of books written on this matter, declaring one or other person as the killer? The inordinate number of movies and TV shows? The tours offered around the places where Jack the Ripper's victims met their untimely ends?
The street shown in Figure 1 is Buck's Row. What is remarkable about it? Nothing. Except, it is where Mary Ann Nichols was discovered on that grim day, 31st August 1888. Jack the Ripper's first known victim. During the research of my book, I spent many hours wandering this very street, sitting in its cafes, imagining what poor Mary, or Polly as she was known, would have felt in her last moments.
The story of Jack the Ripper takes you to the dark underbelly of the Victorian class system. The dismal flophouses in which his victims crashed during their grim stays in 19th century Whitechapel. The unsafe nature of their work and their destructive addictions to gin and opium. The prejudices of society and the police tasked with investigating the case. Who could forget the notorious antisemitic message left on the wall in front of the Ripper's goriest murder, stating that 'The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing'? All these social factors contribute to explaining why the mystery of Jack the Ripper continues to intrigue the world.
Many of those in the field of Ripperology have put forward compelling arguments as to why one or other of the suspects is their man. There have even been a handful of arguments as to why the Ripper may have been a woman. However, using the latest forensic research and via a painstaking process of deduction which took thousands of hours, I can unmask the identity of Jack the Ripper beyond any doubt.
He was none other than Herbert Edmond Drury, the owner of a butcher's shop on Buck's Row. By the end of this book, I am confident that I will have proved to the reader beyond any doubt that Drury was the Ripper, and that he would be convicted as such in any court of law.
I won't deny that finding the true identity of Jack the Ripper has been a deeply personal quest. Like myself, Drury was raised in a chaotic home with neglectful parents, although our circumstances were different. Like myself, he was dealt a rotten hand in life and faced many challenges. Contemporaries of his even discuss his love of 'Penny Dreadfuls', the true crime literature of the day. Yet it is an enduring source of mystery why some turn to a darker path and others do not. Why do some kill and others not? The analysis of Drury's personality within these pages will, I hope, provide an answer.
I am grateful to all those who assisted me in writing this book, looked over chapters, provided helpful comments and generally provided me with psychological support during the grim task of placing myself in Herbert Drury's shoes. I am even grateful to my critics and detractors. As they say, if one is attacked by all sides, that means you must be doing something right.
Most of all, thank you, the reader, for joining me on this journey.
After almost 150 years, justice can finally be served.
The victims of Jack the Ripper can rest in peace.
Professor Jon Phillips, PhD
December 2023
****
'This guy loves himself,' Alfonso said in Spanish as he read over her shoulder. His English was better than Rita's, as part of his vet's training, many of the textbooks he read had been in English. Trying to properly understand the text was starting to make her tired. On the floor the empty coke can rolled past her feet.
'I've known too many of those,' Rita said. The mansion her brother in law had turned into a shrine to himself came to mind.
The dedication bothered her.
For E. You know why.
E was Erica, wasn't it? A shudder travelled down Rita's spine as she read. She pictured Erica and Jon in the hotel's bar. Even from a distance, they didn't seem like two people who didn't know each other. In fact, the opposite.
So why did Jon say to Timothy that he hadn't known her? Why had he just referred to her death as 'that dreadful murder'? Wouldn't he be a little more...shaken up?
'You know why.'
What did that mean?
'I don't want this book hanging around in my bag. That guy made me so uncomfortable. He straight away wanted to tell me his father had been the president of the Taurine Club. Like he wanted to see how I'd react. In this preface he says his parents were neglectful, but he was singing his father's praises,' Rita said, her thumb hooking under the next page.
'We could leave it in the train,' Alfonso suggested.
'I mean - maybe. I'm tempted. Should probably hand it in somewhere, though.' She turned the page for the first chapter. As she did so, a folded up piece of lined notepaper slipped out of the middle of the book. Rita unfolded it. The paper had tight, unreadable writing on the top - a list, she guessed. But Rita's breath caught as she stared at the morbid doodles in ballpoint pen which dominated the page. Stick figures lying horizontal, more stick figures crying. A tombstone saying 'RIP'. A skull.
But the most striking one was a rough drawing of a woman's face. The sketch stared at Rita with wild eyes from the crisp, lined paper. The doodler - Jon, she assumed - had scrawled tears on her cheeks. Her mouth was contorted in an expression of fear.
It looked a lot like Erica.