Michael White - The Art of Murder

Heading straight for the Pav, I found the streets quiet. The music hall was closing up, but the brothel was open still. I took the stairs slowly and waited in the anteroom. It was empty and quiet. I picked up a newspaper and started to read. I knew Mary Ann worked here three nights a week. I had studied her routine and knew what to expect. At 2.15 she emerged from one of the rooms along a corridor to my left. As she strode by, I looked up. She was shorter than I had remembered and looked sick, malnourished. She eyed me lasciviously and paused beside me. ‘Just finished tonight, darlin’,’ she said, smiling, her pale lips pulled back over crooked incisors, the front two upper and lower teeth missing. ‘But I could spare time for you, sweetheart … if you’re interested?’

I shook my head and returned to the newspaper.

‘Suit yerself.’

She headed for the stairs and I heard the clink of coins as Mary Ann tossed them merrily in the air as she walked. She was clearly pleased with her evening’s work. Perhaps she had made enough to cover the fourpence she needed for a bed in the lodging house she frequented at 18 Thrawl Street.

I waited a moment before I carefully folded the newspaper, stood up and followed her down the stairs. Emerging on to Whitechapel Road, I just caught sight of my prey as she turned a corner into a narrow side street. I had an idea where she was headed. I quickened my pace and reached the corner just in time to see the woman duck into a narrow doorway that I knew led to a drinking den run by a tough Irishman named O’Connor, whom I had already had the misfortune to meet during the course of my research.

I decided to wait in the narrow street, standing silently in the shadows. There was only one way in and out of O’Connor’s place, and so I knew Mary Ann could not slip away without my seeing her. Thankfully, the rain had stopped and I was so charged up with excitement and expectation that the time seemed to pass quickly. And, sure enough, after half an hour the woman reappeared with a man on her arm. She was giggling drunkenly. The man looked more sober, but a little jumpy. He was young, pale-faced, with large, nervous eyes. I watched the pair turn into the lane in the opposite direction to Whitechapel Road. Keeping to the shadows, I followed as silent as a mouse.

I was soon lost in the back lanes, a maze of narrow streets and alleyways where the houses crowd in and shut out the sky. I had been in the East End for several weeks by this time, but was still unable to stomach the horrendous stench of the place. In these confined parts, where the roads ran with excrement and rats larger than some cats I’ve seen dashed through the shadows, the smell was almost overpowering.

It was also very dark. The only light came from the moon high overhead. But that was little more than a pallid, sickly yellow semi-circle streaked with cloud. My senses were heightened by excitement and honed by my many previous nocturnal adventures. I could hear the couple a few yards ahead of me, their breathing and the few words they exchanged.

They stopped and so did I. I heard the rustle of clothing. From the shadows, I could just make out two indistinct shapes. Mary Ann was leaning against the wall, her hands above her lowered head. Then came a few muffled groans. Words of encouragement from Mary Ann followed by a low growl. More rustling of clothes, a giggle, and then footsteps retreating along the passageway. Very quietly, I slipped my bag to the floor, unlatched the clasp and withdrew an eight-inch blade.

The cloud over the moon broke, and for a moment, the cobbled lane was lit up. I could see the woman adjusting her skirts. She looked up as the sliver of moonlight cast its tawdry gleam over walls wet with rain that had fallen earlier. I caught a glimpse of the side of Mary Ann’s pale, pock-marked face. She had no idea I was there until I grabbed her from behind. With my left hand at her throat, I pulled her head back and drew the edge of my knife over her skin. As it slid from left to right, I pulled the metal back towards me, scything into flesh, right down to the vertebrae.

I have no recollection of the journey from Buck’s Row, the alley in which I had dispatched my first whore, to my lodgings on Wentworth Street. No matter how hard I try, I cannot visualise anything from the moment Mary Ann’s body slid to the floor until I found myself washing my hands and face in a bowl of water I had filled before leaving the room hours earlier. I recall gazing at my reflection in the tiny chipped mirror I used to shave with, which stood propped up behind the bowl. My blondish hair was plastered to my forehead, cheeks flushed. My eyes peered back at me, unnaturally black, the pupils huge. I glanced at the red water, and for an instant I was no longer in the filthy, low-ceilinged room over a corn-chandler’s shop in Whitechapel. I was a small boy again, bent over a desk in my father’s study, my mother’s crimson handkerchief an inch from my nose. I found my face in the mirror again and produced a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat’s.

I could not sleep. Instead I sat close to the window, listening intently to the sounds of the neighbourhood awakening to a new day, waiting for the first indications that the prostitute’s body had been found. Around six o’clock I heard a commotion, the shriek of a police whistle. Checking myself in the mirror, I straightened my tie, pulled on my hat, tucked my sketchpad under my arm and stepped out into the breaking dawn.

There were two men in black suits crouched down beside the body and a policeman standing a few inches away from the dead woman’s head. The officer looked up as I turned into Buck’s Lane, and as I approached the two men beside Mary Ann’s corpse turned to me in unison.

‘And what can I do for you?’ the policeman asked. ‘This is a crime scene. Were you not stopped by one of my men?’

I produced a piece of folded paper from my jacket pocket and handed it to the officer. It was a letter of introduction from Archibald. ‘I’m a newspaper artist,’ I said. ‘Harry Tumbril.’

The policeman glanced at the letter and sniffed. ‘All right,’ he mumbled. ‘Keep out of everyone’s way.’

I nodded and strode along the side of the narrow lane to get a better view. They had turned the woman over on to her back. The gash in her neck looked unnaturally red in the morning light. The blood at her throat had dried. It was now thickly encrusted, like a crimson rope or some bizarre necklace. Her skirt was up and her undergarments rent. I could see two deep cuts along her torso.

‘How long has she been dead?’ I heard the policeman addressing one of the other two men.

‘A few hours, I would say. She’s as stiff as a board.’

I pulled out my sketchpad and started to draw.

‘My God! The poor unfortunate young woman,’ Archibald exclaimed as he held the pad at arm’s length. We were standing in his office on Pall Mall. ‘But that said, these are quite wonderful, Harry.’ He looked me up and down, his face full of admiration. ‘It’s just … I don’t know, old man. It’s so damned hard to imagine what sort of bastard would do this, don’t you think?’

I nodded. I was beginning to feel tired. Glancing at a clock on the wall, I noticed it was almost midday. I had not slept for more than twenty-four hours. The huge excitement I had felt, and which had kept me going, was fading. I still felt exhilarated, that much is irrefutable, but the heart-pounding thrill of standing beside those foolish plodders in Buck’s Row as I sketched my victim and they pondered the manner of her death was beginning to give way to fatigue.

‘So what do you say we pop along to the Reform? Have a glass or two?’

I shook my head. ‘Not today, thank you, Archibald. Have to say I’m a little weary.’