Page 17 of Unlikable
DAILY TELEGRAPH & COURIER
LARGEST CIRCULATION IN THE WORLD, LONDON’s MOST RELIABLE SOURCE OF NEWS
JUNIOR R STRIKES AGAIN. FORMER POLICE COMMISSIONER CHARLES WARREN SPEAKS OUT: “NO ONE IS SAFE FROM THE RIPPER 2.0!”
London, 7 November 1889— Never has London seen so many gruesome murders as in the past decade. Jack the Ripper and Junior R cannot possibly be one person. At least, that is what the authorities conclude. “The pattern of Junior R is different from that of The Ripper. It is in fact missing. What looked like a pattern has now turned into a big mystery. Something more dangerous than a killer with a clear purpose,” Charles Warren, the former police commissioner who was in charge of the Jack the Ripper investigations, told me. Warren faced a lot of criticism in 1887 because of that particular unsolved case. “I thought one Ripper was enough to make Britain scream, but this beats everything. If my successor does not handle it better than I did, I fear for his peace of mind.”
This morning, the remains of yet another young woman were discovered lying in a ditch by the Thames, opposite the Palace of Westminster. Police are working overtime to track down witnesses, but so far to no avail. It seems as if Junior R knows how to make himself invisible. One speaks of a vengeful spirit, but the omniscient man knows better.
The woman has not yet been identified, and looking at the crime scene drawing, that may never happen. Besides the fact that the eyes have been removed, there is no hair or skin left. The flesh has rotted away, and both finger- and toenails have been removed. Intestines are scattered through the ditch, and the woman’s clothing has been burnt and fused with her bones.
This is a dangerous killer we should never underestimate. Safety collars and a curfew don’t seem to help. Our killer always knows how to find a victim. When will this bloodthirsty enemy stop? According to Charles Warren, that is a question one can only speculate about. “For now, the police must be allowed to do their job. Please do not obstruct the investigation. Keep women and children inside, and if you are walking down the street yourself, remember to glance over your shoulder every now and then. Junior R could be right on your heels. No one is safe from the Ripper 2.0!”
“Bloodthirsty enemy,” he murmurs heavily, then slams the newspaper shut and drops it to the ground beside him with a thud. He leans back on the creaking boards. A splinter pokes through his shirt and pierces his skin. He turns on his side in frustration and grabs at the piece of wood with trembling fingers to remove it.
When he has pulled it out of his skin, he holds it in front of his face to study it. Everything is now a murder weapon to him. He wonders how much damage he can do to someone with this small piece of wood.
His gaze falls on the chair where the woman had first sat. The chair lies on its side, empty, abandoned. She had not resisted when he accosted her. She was too exhausted, too weakened to fight. He had immediately smothered her whimpers with a knife thrust into her neck. The dried blood around the chair is proof of that.
To his chagrin, he had felt no satisfaction when he planted the knife in her neck. The euphoria that always washed through him when he took a life had completely disappeared.
Questioningly, he grabs at the book on the small table in front of him. Frankenstein could normally so reassure him, bring him back to the here and now. Remind him of his purpose, his motives, but now…
He stares at the worn cover and runs his fingers over it. “Come, girl, come quickly…” His voice sounds raspy, his throat parched. Water. He needs water.
However, the empty jug at the door indicates that is not going to happen. With a sigh, he stands, furious with himself because he cannot understand why he feels so empty, especially after having committed murder. He trudges to the door, not even bothering to be gentle anymore. He still spins the sliver between his fingers as he walks down the stairs, into the living space below.
The butcher is butchering a pig. He clamps the knife as if his life depends on it, as if he is wary. Could he have read the newspaper article too?
With his set body, the butcher turns a quarter turn to get a good grip on the pig’s head. He raises the knife, and just as he is about to bring it down, the butcher’s eyes meet his, the eyes of the man who has lived above him all this time.
He does not lower the knife, but he turns around so he can look at his attacker. “What are you doing here? Where did you come from?” There is fear in his voice. Pure, delicious fear of death. The butcher takes a few steps away from the pig, increasing the distance between them.
“Water,” he hears himself say. It still sounds surprisingly friendly. “I’ve come to get water. I’ve run out.” He drops his eyes to the pig. “Is there any more of that?” His stomach makes a rumbling sound. “I’m dying of hunger.”
The anxious butcher is silent but does get moving. He walks further and further back, keeping his eyes on him. He bumps into a table, knocks over a chair and scrapes his arm along a knife protruding from the kitchen worktop.
“Then I’ll take it myself.” This time he is not patient enough to be slow. He sets the pace. He walks towards the butcher, narrowly avoiding the knife coming at him. It grazes his forearm. A stabbing pain shoots through him, making him even more furious. Now he directs all his anger at the butcher, who once again raises the knife in the air to strike again.
With a swift movement, he pushes the splinter into the neck of the butcher, who screams out in terror. The arm with which the butcher holds up the knife slackens slightly, allowing him to grab the knife. He pulls it from the butcher’s sausage fingers and, without hesitation, chops off the hand with which the man reaches for his own neck to remove the splinter. The wretch suddenly falls very still. He stares at his hand, which falls to the ground with a thud. It is as if his brain has not yet processed what has happened, has not yet registered the pain.
When the pain penetrates the butcher and his lips part to scream, he lashes out once more with the knife and makes a near-perfect line down his throat. Blood seeps from the cut, almost as powerful as the water in Louis XIV’s fountain.
A few seconds, no longer, before the body falls to the ground with a dull thud and the butcher’s shop goes silent. Only then does he realise how exhausted he is and how viciously the wound in his forearm stings. He turns on his axis to search for water. He lifts the first bucket of water and pours it over himself, holding his mouth open to catch moisture. Leftovers fall out along with the water, food scraps. At this point, he no longer cares. He is too annoyed at the fact that even this murder has done nothing for him. It has only brought him more frustration.
He throws the knife on the table in front of him. He leaves the wound on his forearm for what it is. It is not deep. It will heal.
For minutes he wanders around the butcher’s shop. The pig’s head seems to look at him mockingly from time to time, as if it is asking him, “And now? What are you going to do? What is your next move?”
He doesn’t know. He may have been too reckless, again. The butcher is going to be found, cleaning up is pointless. The blood is everywhere. It’s madness to try.
When the police come to investigate this, they also look upstairs, where his hiding place is.
Out of anger and mild panic, he kicks the table on which the pig is lying. As a result, the animal rolls onto its side. Its belly becomes visible, revealing a pinkish colour where the butcher could not yet have mauled it. As pink as the skin of that girl in the alley.
The one girl his remedy didn’t work on.
He comes to a stop, inhales deeply and exhales slowly. He repeats this a few times until he feels calmer again. The idea that the girl is still out there somewhere, so vulnerable but at the same time so immune to his poison, gives him hope and the strength to keep going. She is his new goal, his mission. The thoughts of her delicate neck, through which a knife will slide as smoothly as it will through butter, gives him a new sense of ecstasy. She, her brother and those other two fools he will eliminate. He has optimised his remedy enough to do damage. It has to. The girl who until recently was still with him in the upper room was in such bad shape that he cannot believe that the drug would do nothing more to that other girl.
To Eleonora.
Shaking his head, he walks back to the table where the knife lies. He picks up the object and studies the bloody blade. That name…It feels like he has heard that name before. As if he had once brought that name to his lips himself.
An icy scream brings him back to the here and now.
A woman stands in the doorway of the butcher’s shop. She claps her hands in front of her mouth, and her face is white with shock. “You…” she stammers. Her finger points at the butcher’s body and then at him and the knife he holds in his hands. “Murderer!”
He is too stunned to move.
The woman takes another good look at him and then turns around, only to run away hard.
Immediately, he gets moving. He clamps the knife more firmly between his fingers, and as he runs after her out of the shop, he tries not to give in to the panic that is slowly creeping in.
Standing outside the butcher’s shop, he looks left and right, but the woman is gone, vanished into the night. For a moment he stops to listen if he can still hear her scream, but all he hears is his own tired and restless breathing. With a pounding heart, he walks back into the shop.
Outside, it begins to rain. The drops tap hard on the thin windows of the butcher’s shop. He starts breathing faster, feeling all the blood rise to his head. His heart beats like mad in his chest, and he lets the knife slip from his trembling fingers.
He must leave, find another refuge. He must erase the traces of his existence here. Or…
He turns to the butcher’s lifeless body, which has fallen to the ground in an unnatural position.
Keep calm, Nicholas. Panic leads to more panic.
An idea plants itself in his head, takes root in his brain.
It will be fine. He will manage, as he always does. The plan just takes a different turn. It happens. He just has to go with it. Everything happens for a reason, including this. Even the fact that his face has been seen and he cannot silence the person this time.
He laughs uncontrollably. Then he stops abruptly and nods himself to order.
Paper and ink, he must find those and then he will write a letter to the people of London, after which he will find Eleonora and her company to revive himself. A letter to London and a letter to his mother.