City of Shadows

Chapter 68

12.30 a.m., 9 November 1888, Whitechapel, London

Mary guessed Faith had had enough and taken herself back to the room they were sharing off Miller’s Court. It wasn’t so far; just a couple of streets away from the pub.

She staggered down Dorset Street, cursing and muttering as her feet slipped on rain-slicked cobblestones. She’d only intended to have the one drink. After all, it was well-earned. But one had led to two and more, and she’d spent more of that money than she’d really wanted to. Not that she was too worried about that. They could make that money again tomorrow. Easily.

Faith had an alluring way about her. An innocence and beauty that drew men like bees to honey, like moths to candlelight. So distracted were they with trying to chat her up, it was like stealing pennies from a blind man’s cap.

What a splendid pair we are.

Although Faith was a little peculiar. There was an almost doll-like manner to her expressionless face. As if her features were as rigid as porcelain. And an almost mannequin stiffness to her, as if she was always on guard. Like one of them redcoat-’n’-bearskins standing to attention outside Buckingham Palace.

Mary wondered about her. She was such a puzzle.

She turned left off Dorset Street into the dark alleyway that led into Miller’s Court, a cul-de-sac of dosshouses around a small cobblestoned courtyard that always seemed to reek of human faeces.

She staggered in the dark, steadying herself against one greasy brick wall.

‘Blimey,’ she muttered. ‘Bit too much of the blimmin’ laughing juice.’

Faith was probably already back in their room. Tucked up in the one bed they shared, toe to head. Mary did actually wonder if Faith ever slept. She always seemed to be wide awake, staring up at the cracked plaster of the low ceiling. She wondered what thoughts passed through that mind of hers. What wishes and dreams, wants and needs. She seemed to give so little away.

What a pretty puzzle she is.

Mary was in fact so puzzled by her friend that she failed to notice the shadow of a man entering the alleyway behind her, casting a long veil from the faint amber glow of a gas lamp on Dorset Street, all the way down the dark little alleyway into Miller’s Court. Like some impossibly stretched, impossibly tall being. The shadow fell across her back, marking her with darkness… like the ghostly touch of the Grim Reaper, marking her soul for imminent collection as she entered the last few minutes of her life.