Page 84 of The Business of Blood
I had to rethink things now.
He knew this place.
And if Croft had sent for Aberline again, then he suspected this murder might belong to the Ripper. That Jack returned here to commit a crime certainly squelched the idea that anything to do with Ghoulston Street was a coincidence.
Aberline had the door to the coach open and was stepping down before we’d even come to a complete stop. To his credit, he remembered to turn and reach in to help me disembark, as I was not far behind.
Scores of police held grimy gawkers at bay while others braved the dark unknown of the tenements in a tedious search for witnesses. Gas lamps were being lit across the city, but none could be found on Ghoulston Street.
Aberline ushered me across the gravelly yard beneath the archway of the industrial building, where we found a constable doubled over, retching up his supper.
“First dead body, is it?” Aberline kindly offered the young man a handkerchief with which to wipe his mouth.
The constable shook his head. “It in’nt my first, Inspector. But it’s by far the worst.”
We climbed the wide iron stairs abreast and in silence. Each heavy step echoed in the cavernous building where the skeletons of machines made eerie black shadows in what remained of the late-evening light.
At the top of the stairs, we found Croft alone, standing as sentinel to what appeared to be a foreman’s office wrapped in purposely clouded glass windows.
The inspector didn’t seem angry to see me. He didn’t even seem surprised. In fact, he didn’t acknowledge my presence at all.
“This building is slated for demolition tomorrow,” he rumbled to Aberline. “He’d not have been found, otherwise.”
“He?” I echoed, my fingers suddenly numb with cold.
“Comstock. I’ve not whispered the wordRipperto anyone, but he’s done in Comstock as an act of retribution. He made that perfectly clear.” The look he sent me held a hint of accusation I didn’t at all understand.
Not until I saw the body.
The Ripper had gone to work. He’d warned me, hadn’t he?
Unlike the poor constable downstairs, Comstock’s murder was not the worst I’d ever witnessed.
That distinction still belonged to Mary.
I would say this, Comstock’s scene was undoubtedly the most creative. Artistically speaking, anyway.
We could consider the Ripper unblocked, then. No longer paralyzed by his previous masterpiece.
I wasn’t certain if the Ripper himself had whitewashed the lone brick wall, the stone floors, and the wainscoting beneath the windows of the old office, or if someone else had recently done so, and he’d taken full advantage of a perfect opportunity.
Painting an entire room would have taken a great deal of planning and forethought, and the Ripper was known as an opportunistic killer.
Perhaps he’d evolved beyond that now.
Maybe his fury had become more patient.
Mine certainly had, out of sheer necessity, if nothing else.
HadIplaced a dunce cap on a corpse, I would have situated him in the corner to punctuate the significance. That this was my first thought before the horror set in should have disturbed me.
What actually bothered me was how long I waited before accepting that the horror wasn’t going to show.
I felt nothing.
Entering the room by myself was exactly how I imagined stepping into a painting would be. Surreal. Impossible.
Vibrant.
