Reckoning
Manicured fingers caress a glass of misty absinthe, firelight glinting in gaping pupils as he surveys the raucous crowd. Eyes rest on one woman or another, narrowing. But that night, no one interests him. He leaves alone. Or so he thinks.
A huddle of dark figures follow him as he swaggers along bleak backstreets, his cloak flapping in his wake like great black wings. But he does not see or hear them and only when they walk through a courtyard bathed in the weak glimmer of a partially obscured moon does one of them call to him in a voice gravelled by gin. “Hey, mister!”
The man stops, hesitates, turns on a fine leather heel and squints in the feeble light. Spittle flies with every word. “What do you want? Filthy whore.”
In the shadows, the woman wears her shawl like a mask. He comes closer and knocks his top hat back with the tip of his cane, the better to see. “Come out. Let me take a better look at you.” he says.
Silence.
He quickens towards her, breath misting, raises his cane to strike but slows in the final approach. A smile, all too familiar to the woman, plays on his lips. His tone is honied now. “Perhaps, I will partake of your services. After all” – his moist tongue runs over full, pink lips – “it has been a while.”
Inches away, his eyes lock on hers, his fingers search under the fabric at her neck, anise-tinged breath burns her icy skin. But his touch, gentle at first, changes in a heartbeat. Nails press deep into flesh, pushing her down until the sound of clicking heels on cobbles has him off her, eyes wary, his breath coming in bursts. There are five, shawls falling as they come. One flashes a toothless grin and cocks her head back towards the others. “Don’t you know us? Look close, mister.”
No sound issues from his quivering lips as the women close in, circling sharklike. The man appears drunk, shifting in a stuttering round, mouth yawning as the moon finds another gap in the scudding clouds to illuminate his work. The horror of it.
Words come now, rasping. “No. It can’t be. It can’t be. You’re de …”
One woman laughs. “He knows us all right.”
And another pushes him tripping, his cane clattering, his hat rolling, and in the next second, they are on him. Arms flail and knives flash in the silver light, until blood pools black, flowing into gaps between cold stones, congealing. Soon it is as still as he.
*
“Read all about it,” yells a news boy from a busy street corner. “‘Orrible murder. Well-dressed gent knifed in Whitechapel.”
Soon, speculation thrives. Could it be – Jack?
Five know the truth, but the police will never catch them. There’s no one to help with their enquiries. And, had there been witnesses, they would have said the women were there one second, gone the next. It was as if they’d disappeared into thin air. Like ghosts.