Chapter 22
Caroline did not stop running until she reached Whitechapel High Street.
As she joined the twilight crush of factory workers just released from their shifts, she forced her feet to match their cadence and cursed herself for not wearing something plainer.
Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder every few steps, she dropped her head and hoped the dimness of the light would camouflage the brightness of her hair and her shawl.
The soot-faced men and women on either side of Caroline threw her sidelong glances, eyeing her unseasonable clothing and uncovered head. But they were tired and hungry, ready for a tipple of gin and a good night’s sleep, and most didn’t spare her a second look.
She didn’t know where Fairclough Street was, but given Sergeant Corbet’s reliable presence around St. Mary’s, Caroline walked west.
A few blocks from the church, she slipped through the door of a busy pub and pressed through the warm, raucous crowd to the bar.
“What’ll it be?” the barkeep shouted at Caroline as he slid a mug of beer to the man swaying gently beside her, clutching the lip of the bar like it was the railing of a ship.
“Nothing to drink,” said Caroline, then added, when he raised wiry gray brows at her accent, “I’m afraid I’m lost, sir. I’m looking for Fairclough Street. Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction?”
The barkeep, bless him, paused, as though there were not ten men and women waving at him to fill their cups, wiped his hands with a dirty rag, and leaned close enough that she could count the teeth he needed pulled.
“Take Union south cross’t Commercial Road,” he said, drawing an invisible map with his finger on the sticky countertop. “Then down Back Church Lane.”
Caroline murmured her thanks, but the barman spoke again.
“Miss?” His voice was low, serious. Pitched for her ears only, with a nod to her bare head, her vibrant shawl. “Be careful, now. There’s a killer about.”
I know, she wanted to say. I know who the Ripper is.
But she only nodded politely and turned away.
The door opened before she reached it, and for a heartbeat she saw Rab outlined against the blue light of early evening.
But no, it was not him. It was a young man, no older than eighteen, followed by another, red-cheeked and laughing.
Caroline stepped aside to let them pass, and to let the white wave of fear pass through her. She was safe. He was not here.
There was a small, cheap window that looked out onto the street.
She could see nothing but the shapes of passersby, their proportions distorted as though by a circus mirror.
In that moment, Caroline wanted nothing more than to stay here, return to the kind-faced barkeep, ask for a cup of something strong.
But night was falling quickly, and the only thought worse than the thought of Rab chasing her was the thought of Rab chasing her in the dark.
Caroline allowed herself a final moment before braving the pavement again, bearing the red targets of her hair and her shawl, to examine the vial that was still clutched against her chest.
She pulled it free surreptitiously, careful not to drop the little knife, and held it between her chest and the Kashmiri wool so that she could read the neatly lettered label without any of the patrons around her seeing.
She heard her own relieved exhale.
It was the vial of Mary Jane’s blood.
She had dropped the unmarked bottle of poison. But this, surely, was evidence enough to convict him.
What did you do to Charlie? she had asked, and something akin to regret had flickered in Rab’s eyes.
But Caroline did not allow her mind to linger on her brother.
Now was not the time to fall apart. She borrowed the bravery of the Caroline that Charlie had drawn, running toward the dark line of the forest. She tucked the penknife back beneath the sash around her waist, wrapped her mother’s shawl more tightly around her shoulders.
Now was the time to catch a killer.
—
Back in the frigid twilight, Caroline looked right and left down the high street. Nothing but black hats and gray coats, scuffed work boots and tired faces. No sign of a tall man in a blue cravat. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there, hidden in the crowd, watching her.
She waited for a four-horse omnibus to pass, then darted across the street.
Down Union, across Commercial Road, where a group of uniformed bobbies stood on the corner in a huddle, exhaling white plumes of breath.
She considered approaching them, naming Rab as the man they were after, but even if they believed her, they would take her in for further questioning.
She was an unknown woman in strange clothes, clutching a hand-marked vial of blood.
No, better to go directly to Sergeant Corbet. He would know what to do.
From Back Church onto Fairclough. It was a narrow little street, crammed with high buildings, but she had no trouble locating the greengrocer and the tidy brick boardinghouse above it. A hand-lettered sign in the window announced, Rooms for Let. Inquire Within.
A little bell rang over the door as she opened it.
“Excuse me,” she said to the aproned man unpacking a crate of onions. “I’m looking for Sergeant Corbet. Is he in?”
“Up the stairs, second floor, room 5,” he replied, gesturing with his head.
Caroline could have fainted with relief. “Thank you.”
She felt the grocer’s curious eyes on her as she walked away, but she didn’t pay him any heed. Let him think whatever he wanted. She had made it across the borough with a killer at her heels, with the evidence needed to convict him, in a silk evening gown.
The second-floor hallway was whitewashed and clean, if nondescript. At the door marked with a wooden number five, Caroline raised her knuckles, held her breath, and knocked.
For a moment, silence.
Then a groan of wood as footsteps moved toward her. The door swung open. Sergeant Corbet stood on the threshold, dressed in plain trousers and a thick knitted jersey, blinking at her as though not certain she was real.
“Miss Foster,” he said after a moment. “Are you all right?”
Caroline resisted the urge to throw herself into his arms. Her hands had begun to tremble. “I’m…I’m all right. May I come in?”
“Of course. Forgive me. I just— I didn’t expect— Please, come in.” And the policeman stepped aside.
The room was martially neat and so warm that Caroline felt like weeping. A fire burned in the little hearth; a brightly colored rug and two chairs sat before it. The table between them held a lamp, a half-empty teacup, and a book, which was splayed open, pages down, to save his place.
“I’m sorry to barge in,” she said, suddenly uncertain, as he ushered her into the empty chair. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. He was worried, that was clear. Alarmed by her appearance, by the expression on her face. She could have fainted with gratitude. “Tell me, Miss Foster. What has happened?”
Caroline took a shaky breath. The skin of her face, her chest, her bare arms, stung with the sudden change in temperature.
She was not sure how to begin.
“Would you like something to drink?” the policeman asked, sensing her hesitation. “Tea? Or perhaps something stronger?”
Caroline nodded gratefully. “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”
He disappeared into the kitchen off the parlor. Caroline held her tingling hands out to the fire and listened to the sound of cabinets opening and shutting, the glassy sound of water poured into a metal kettle.
She looked around as she gathered her thoughts.
The window looked out onto Fairclough Street.
The sun had long since disappeared behind the buildings before her, and the shadows lay deep and cold on the cobblestones.
In a few hours, the full moon would raise its head over the curve of the world.
And unless she was quick, and convincing, another woman would die tonight.
Caroline squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her toes into the ends of her boots.
“Kettle’s on,” Sergeant Corbet said, reappearing at the kitchen door. “It’ll take a moment, I’m afraid. I let the ashes go cold.” At the expression on Caroline’s face, he dropped into the chair beside her.
“Are you all right, Miss Foster? Should I call a doc—”
“I know who the Ripper is.”
She watched the pronouncement wash over his face. His eyes widened; his lips parted.
Slowly, carefully, she took the vial from the folds of her shawl and set it on the table between them.
“It’s Robert Ripley.”
She could nearly smell his mounting excitement: his body heating, sweat prickling through his pores, pulse accelerating beneath his skin.
Sergeant Corbet’s hand trembled as he reached it out into the space between them. For a moment, Caroline thought he would take her fingers in his. But they closed, instead, on the vial on the table.
Sergeant Corbet turned the bottle this way and that before the light of the fire, staring at the congealed sludge that had once been as bright as Caroline’s shawl.
“Mary Jane Kelly’s blood,” he whispered, setting it back down with a shiver. “Where did you find it?”
“Rab—Robert Ripley’s drawer,” Caroline said. “In his bedroom.”
Sergeant Corbet looked at her. Really looked at her, took in the strands of hair that had escaped her careful chignon as she fled through the streets, the brittle brightness in her eyes. She felt she might crack under the careful weight of his gaze.
“Miss Foster,” he said quietly, “if it’s not too distressing, that is, I think you should tell me everything that happened before you arrived here. So I have the facts straight, and can relay them to the new commissioner without you having to relive the harrowing experience ten more times tonight.”
It was a gift he was giving her. To tell the story for the first time, here, just to him. Not beneath a dozen cold and suspicious sets of eyes at the Leman Street police station.