Garden of Sins by Laura Joh Rowland

Author:Laura Joh Rowland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER 16

Riding toward Whitechapel in an omnibus, Sally and I skim a newspaper, a one-page, hastily printed extra edition headlined “The Ripper’s Latest?”

“Body of an unidentified woman found dead under a wagon in Castle Alley early this morning,” Sally says. “Multiple knife wounds.”

Below the article are portrait sketches of the Ripper’s previous victims. I don’t need to read the captions to put names to Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. I remember Kate aiming bare buttocks at my camera; Polly posing in corset, garters, and black stockings; Liz spreading her legs; Mary Jane nude on the divan. Their images, lit by white explosions from the flash lamp, blur together and dissolve into a dark maelstrom of shame, horror, and guilt. If I’d never taken those photographs, the women might still be alive.

“This is what everyone hoped would never happen,” Sally laments. “After two years, the Ripper is back.”

I don’t want Sally to labor under a false assumption, but I can’t tell her that the new murder isn’t the work of the Ripper. “Maybe this is an unrelated crime.

“Murder is common in Whitechapel. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” I hate lying to Sally, but I can’t trust anyone with a secret that, if made public, would send not only myself but also everybody else involved to the gallows. And if I did tell her, she surely would see me in a new, terrible light when our relationship is already troubled.

“You’re right,” Sally says, chastened. “We’re reporters, and we need to be objective.”

My guilt increases because she trusts me and because I can’t ignore the fact that the Ripper murders had a silver lining for me. Those photographs of Martha, Polly, Annie, Liz, Kate, and Mary Jane led me into my first murder investigation, if not for which I wouldn’t have become fast friends with Mick and Hugh, married Barrett, or become a crime scene photographer. One could say I owe my life and career to the Ripper. But now it looks as though the Ripper has inspired another murderer to perpetuate his reign of terror, and that could reopen the police’s dormant investigation, which could have dangerous ramifications for everyone who’s in on the secret.

The omnibus inches along in slow traffic where Aldgate High Street joins Whitechapel High Street. Sally and I squeeze our way out and run two blocks. We turn left through a narrow, covered archway that leads to Castle Alley. The alley, about eighteen feet wide and a hundred long, lies within the quarter-mile radius of the Ripper murders. On the west side are warehouses and the back of the workhouses and public baths. On the east side, a wall hides the ruins of demolished lodging houses. Sally and I hurry past the wagons, tradesmen’s carts, and costermongers’ barrows lined up along both sides. I remember the horror of Polly Nichols lying dead in a pool of blood with her throat cut, and I steel myself for a similar atrocity.

A few people loiter, but all seems ordinary.

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