The Pit (Neil Penswick) by The Pit (by Neil Penswick) (html)

Author:The Pit (by Neil Penswick) (html)
Language: eng
Format: epub

DAY FIVE

16:00–20:00

As daylight filtered through the sea mist, the hostile and uncertain London of Blake’s future began to take the more reassuring form of a busy port. The night creatures which had drifted through the streets were no more, and the market stalls and poverty‐stricken beggars took on the more comforting image of a capital apparently little changed since Blake’s day. Cockneys, Irishmen, Poles, Jews, Chinamen; all milled around the streets. The familiar odours of onions and fat, roasted coffee and decaying fish drifted towards the Thames.

It had been less than two days since he had met the Doctor, and he had had little rest. The stranger was pacing around. He seemed burdened with melancholic thoughts and dark visions as he wrestled with his pursuing demons. He talked about the murder victim sprawled across the pavement, and then wandered off into a conversation about a comedian called Ken Dodd.

As they walked, Blake heard the Doctor talking to himself, counting numbers quickly as if trying to catch himself out. Blake asked him about Jack the Ripper. The Doctor explained that in the late nineteenth century there had been a series of unsolved murders committed in the East End of London. By one man, it had been said. He had become known as Jack the Ripper. The police initially reported that he had a knowledge of surgery and, due to a message scrawled on a wall over one of the victims, it was suggested that he belonged to a secret organization, the Freemasons. Over the years various suspects had been identified as the killer, including members of the Royal Family. Blake had no interest in this bloodthirsty subject; he wanted to return home.

‘Where do we start unravelling a mystery?’ the Doctor asked. Blake was understandably puzzled.

‘The beginning,’ he suggested.

‘No. The answer is in the question. It’s where the mystery unravels. It only becomes a mystery because we notice that there are too few facts to draw a conclusion. It’s a mathematical shape. How do we solve a murder mystery – return to the scene of the crime or,’ the Doctor stopped and pointed his umbrella to a nearby building, ‘explore that…’

‘Whorehouse?’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said, smiling with an inane grin.

‘We go back to the scene of the crime.’

‘No,’ the Doctor said. ‘We enter that building.’

The Doctor marched towards a Georgian building which bore all the signs of being a sailors’ brothel. Blake was not averse to entering such places, but could think of a number of things he’d prefer to do at this time.

‘Why?’ Blake shouted.

The Doctor didn’t stop, but shouted at the top of his voice for all to hear:

‘Because this is a game. And I don’t want to play…’

The brothel resembled an old abandoned house with the scuttle of rats across the floorboards and the moth‐eaten curtains.

A fat whore looked uninterested, and told the travellers to follow her. Blake muttered he’d rather not. The Doctor said ‘Madam’, cocking his hat with respect. There was a smell of lemon juice about the place, although the cleanliness of the establishment was in doubt.

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