The Raven Watcher Read online

  “Is he okay?” I stammer. “Please -”

  “I'm sorry, Maddie,” he replies. “I'm so very sorry, but -”

  “No!” I shout, before breaking down into a sobbing, heaving mess on the bed. “You're wrong! He's alive!”

  “There's nothing I anyone can do for him,” he continues, before coming over and sitting next to me again. Putting an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me close. “I'm so sorry, sweetheart. But now all that matters is getting you some help. I'm going to go outside and call an ambulance, and then everything's going to be okay. I promise, Maddie. I can tell you're a strong girl. You're going to get through this eventually.”

  I feel him place a hand on my shoulder, but nothing matters anymore. Matt came here for me, and now he's dead. It's all my fault.

  Chapter Seven

  “Doctor Charles Grazier”

  Sunday October 7th, 1888

  Stopping at the railing, I look down into the vast pit that has been dug through this London street. A fresh section of track is being prepared, for the underground train network that heralds a new age of modernity in the city. I am sure that one day the network will be a marvel, but for now I can only see great torn wounds that mark the sites where work continues. There is rubble and twisted metal everywhere, and there are tools that have been left behind by construction workers who have at least been given one day of rest.

  Still, the tunnels might eventually be covered once the work has been completed, but nobody will ever be able to hide the scars that have been inflicted. One cannot simply dig great wounds into a city and then expect them to fade as if they were never there. I am glad, in some ways, that I shall not live to see this great project completed. Perhaps in one or two hundred years, great tubes will transport Londoners hither and thither, back and forth beneath the city, using great electrically powered locomotives. For some of us, however, the price is not worth paying.

  Sometimes I even think I hear the city scream as it is gouged into by these heretics. And when I tell myself that I am perhaps being a little dramatic, I remember that the city breathes like a living thing, inhaling in the mornings and exhaling at night. So why shouldn't it scream when it's hurt?

  “Looking for something?”

  Half-turning, I spot movement nearby. I have been waiting here for long enough, and I had begun to wonder whether I would ever attract any attention. Even here, in a rather empty and deserted part of the city, there should be prostitutes plying their trade. Even so early in the morning, just as the sun begins to rise. No matter the time of day, one can always be certain that some type of person will have found an occupation in the streets. Prostitutes are so reliable.

  “We don't often see gentlemen down here,” she continues, and I turn my head a little more until I can see her properly. “It's not the kind of area where well-to-do types want to be. Not unless they're looking for something specific, anyway.” She steps closer. “Are you looking for anything specific? Anything that might make your day a little happier? There are no limits, within reason. You can have anything you can pay for.”

  Finally I turn to her fully, and I see that she is a fairly young, rather buxom girl. Just as I am starting to think of her as a handsome woman, however, she smiles a toothless grin at me, and I immediately come to understand why she is selling herself in such a disreputable part of town. Still, none of that is of paramount importance, since the only thing that matters is her general health and vitality. And, more particularly, the organs in her body.

  “You look good enough to me,” I tell her. “I shall -”

  Before I can finish, the pain bursts once again into my head. I steady myself against the railing and hold my breath, and after a few seconds the sensation passes. Still, as I taste blood in the back of my mouth, I cannot help but feel utterly shocked that the pain has now come several times within twenty-four hours. Never before have I suffered such a swift set of re-occurrences.

  “Are you alright there, darling?” the prostitute asks. “You're looking a little peaky.”

  I turn and spit blood over the side, sending it hurtling down into the pit. Then, reaching into my pocket, I take out some money. This, I am certain, will be sufficient lure. Money is a blunt tool, but to the right eyes it dazzles brighter than any jewel.

  “That's a big wad,” the prostitute says with a foolish, giggly laugh. “The thing is, though, I reckon a man such as yourself probably has even more. I think I'll be taking all of it. You wouldn't deny a girl a nice payday, would you?”

  “You'll have to come closer,” I point out.

  “Will I, darling? And how do you reckon that?”

  “I can't reach you from here.”

  “I know you can't.” She hesitates for a moment, eyeing me with a hint of concern. “Maybe I like it like that. Maybe my friend likes it like that too.”

  I open my mouth to ask what she means, but suddenly I feel the blade of a knife pressing against my back. It is difficult to believe that I allowed somebody to sneak up behind me while I was admiring the prostitute, yet now I realize I can hear a faint, gasping breath behind my left ear, and there is a rather musty smell that makes me think that the prostitute's partner in crime is a dirty, unwashed man. Evidently they believe me to be an easy target, and they must be examples of that particularly nasty breed that haunts the more remote streets of the city and steals from anybody who crosses their path. All of which means that they will most certainly kill me once they have what they want.

  Never before in my life have I allowed myself to be cornered like this. I am quite shocked at my own foolishness, although I already know how I shall get away.

  “Now come on,” the prostitute says, taking a step closer and holding her hand out for the money, “don't be shy. Pay up, or you might feel a sharp prick in your back. My friend likes making people bleed, but I promise I'll talk him out of it if you just give me the money.”

  At this, her accomplice giggles over my shoulder.

  “It seems that I have no choice,” I say with a sigh, holding the money out. “Take it. Take all of it.”

  Her eyes open wide with greed.

  And that is when I strike.

  Turning swiftly, I slam my elbow into the face of the man behind me. He tries to drive his knife into my back, but I slip out of the way and grab him by the scruff of the neck, before swinging him around so that his head cracks against the face of the prostitute who has come to help him. They both let out pained gasps, and I quickly crash the man's head against the railing before shoving him over the side. He tumbles down into the excavated pit, and I watch as he disappears into one of the many holes that have been dug in the soil. Soon those holes will be filled in by the construction workers, and the odds of the cretin's body ever been found again are extremely low.

  Turning, I see that the prostitute is sobbing on the floor, while clutching her hands against her crumpled nose. Blood is running freely, splattering against the ground, and I believe the woman is having trouble catching her breath. Most likely, blood from her broken nose is gushing into her mouth and running down her throat unchecked, drowning her. She coughs and splutters, spraying blood against the pavement, but her pathetic, retched attempts to get air into her lungs are quite clearly to no avail. She is already dying.

  I glance around to make sure that nobody is watching, and then I take the largest knife from its hook on the inside of my coat.

  Grabbing the back of the woman's hair, I pull her head back. Blood is erupting from her nose, and it's clear that I hit her harder than I'd realized. Still, there's no point slitting her throat, since she'll be dead soon enough. Instead, I tear the front of her dress open and drive the knife into her gut, before ripping the blade up until I feel the metal bump against her breastbone. As she continues to struggle, I cut into her sides, slicing where possible and carving where necessary until her entrails start to slough out, at which point I slip the knife back under my coat and then reach my hand deep into the woman's warm, bloody abdomen.
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br />   It takes a moment, but finally I find her heart, which I take hold of by the top end and twist. I feel more blood bursting between my fingers, and the woman's body begins to shake more violently than ever as I tug on the heart. Finally its moorings give way and I tear the heart out, and I feel the muscle beat a few more times before it falls still in the palm of my hand. The blood is not just warm, it is positively hot.

  I'm briefly tempted to remove more parts of the woman, but I'm ill-equipped to carry home anything other than the heart. Besides, if I need more parts, there are plenty more prostitutes. Why should I burden myself with a drive for efficiency, when these creatures are already wasting their bodies? Getting them off the streets would be a service to the city.

  She has stopped shaking now, and the eruption of blood from her nose has finally stopped. With my spare hand, I drag her toward the railing and then haul her up, quickly shoving her over the edge. I lean after her and watch as her body tumbles down to join her associate-in-crime, and I see her body slithering down the huge rocks before she slips out of view.

  Tomorrow, workers will return to this site and get on with the task of filling in the sides of the new tunnel. They will not bother to check if anything fell beneath the huge rocks, so the prostitute and her associate will simply be entombed down there forever, unmissed and undisturbed. I suppose the underground rail network will be built right over them, crushing them further down into the darkness. Perhaps in years to come, future generations might – while riding those trains – glance out the windows and spot fleeting glimpses of a ghostly woman or a ghostly man staring in at them.

  Perhaps, or perhaps not. A week ago, I would have been skeptical, but now I wonder whether even the most wretched of souls might have the potential to come back and haunt this great city.

  Taking a cloth bag from my pocket, I slip the heart inside, before replacing the bag where it cannot be seen about my person. Then, with a sense of urgency, I turn and start the walk back toward Cathmore Road. I have work to complete, and besides, I never like spending much time around these sites where so much work is going on to regenerate the city. I would prefer that my home might remain the same, but I also know that no single person can stand in the way of progress. The city will continue to grow, long after I am gone.

  Mark my words, though. If mankind continues to carve great wounds through these fine thoroughfares, then one day London itself shall scream. And when that happens, we shall all be shaken loose and turned mad.

  Chapter Eight

  Maddie

  Today

  “Maddie, run! Maddie, get out of here!”

  Those were the last words Matt said to me before I lost sight of him. I keep replaying that final moment over and over again, trying to work out how I could have saved him. I refuse to believe that he was doomed. If I'd been smarter or quicker or stronger, if I'd just found a way, I could have kept him alive. And now he'd be here with me – hurt, maybe, but alive – waiting on the bed for the ambulance crew to arrive.

  Or maybe I just shouldn't have called him at all. How did I not realize that Nick was out of his mind? I guess I trusted Alex too much, but she was crazy too. There must have been signs that I missed, and like some idiotic, self-centered idiot I got a good person mixed up in all of this and now he's dead. On top of that, I keep making the same mistakes over and over. I had so many opportunities to leave this house, but I'm still here. I don't deserve to survive. If I could swap places with Matt, so that he survived, then I would.

  Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and all I can do is stare at the opposite wall as I hear his voice yet again.

  “Maddie, run! Maddie, get -”

  “They'll be here soon,” Jerry says suddenly, and I turn to see that he's come back up, and that he's now watching me from the doorway. “Five, ten minutes at most. The police too. It's all over, my girl. I'm sure they'll tear this house apart when they arrive. Every one of its secrets will be exposed.” There are tears in his eyes too, and after a moment he steps toward me. “If only I'd come sooner. If only I hadn't decided to wait... Maybe I could have raised the alarm earlier, and your friend would be alive and you wouldn't be so badly hurt.”

  “It's not your fault,” I tell him. “It's mine.”

  “I was scared,” he continues. “May the Lord have mercy on my soul, but I was scared to come near this house. I let my fear take charge, and I hesitated like a coward. You know, my grandfather fought in the Second World War. In Africa, in Italy. He was a brave man. If he could see my cowardice, he'd hang his head. I suppose bravery doesn't run in families. Not much gets passed down in the blood.”

  “You came inside eventually,” I point out.

  “I don't exactly deserve a medal for that.”

  “You saved me,” I reply, even though I still feel hollow inside now that Matt is dead. I guess I should at least try to make Jerry feel a little better. “Did you tell the police everything on the phone?”

  “How could I? I barely know it all myself.” He sits next to me, causing the bed's metal frame to creak slightly. “If I'd started jabbering on about the whole mess, they'd have thought I'm a madman. They'd probably not even have agreed to come. You'll have to explain it to them. Do you think you can do that, or have you not got it straight in your own mind yet?”

  “It's all crazy,” I tell him. “It all seems impossible.”

  He nods. “It might take a while before you can get them to believe you.”

  “You believe me, don't you?” I ask. “About this house, I mean. About the things that are here.”

  He pauses, before looking over his shoulder toward the other end of the room. He hesitates for a moment longer, and then he turns to me again.

  “I didn't tell you everything about this place,” he says finally. “I'm sorry, Maddie, but I held some things back. Partly out of fear that you'd think I was crazy, partly out of fear in case by discussing them I woke them up. But also partly because I didn't want to share. I saw this house as a puzzle to be solved, and I didn't want anybody else to do the solving. I suppose that in my own pathetic way, I wanted the glory of being the one who figured it all out. All that time, it was an empty house. A big, empty, mysterious house. I thought I had all the time in the world to solve its puzzles, but then you and your friends showed up.”

  “They're not my friends,” I splutter, glancing briefly at Nick and then looking over toward the open doorway. For a moment, I think of Alex at the bottom of the basement steps. “Alex was my friend,” I add, feeling fresh tears in my eyes. “I thought she was, anyway.”

  “This was the house of Jack the Ripper,” Jerry continues.

  I turn to him.

  “It was,” he adds. “All my research has pointed to that. I used to be so scared of this house, Maddie. I wouldn't even dare to look at it some days. Instead, I spent all my time going through its history, learning about the people who used to live here. About the great Doctor Charles Grazier and his wife Catherine, about their links to people like Thomas and Delilah Culpepper. And do you know what? The longer I worked, the more convinced I became that I was missing someone. It was as if there was a whole other person whose existence was hidden from history, but who was here in the flesh and blood. Eventually I realized that this was my subconscious mind trying to tell me something. I realized that the missing figure was Jack. Jack the Ripper.”

  “There are more books here,” I tell him, “and old letters too.”

  “I would very much like to read those.”

  “Where's the ambulance?”

  He checks his phone.

  “They should be here any second,” he mutters, before glancing at the boarded-up window. “And the police too.”

  “But you believe me about the strange things, don't you?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “You remember what I told you about the ravens, don't you?” he continues. “About the time I saw a flock of them fly up from the garden of this house and disappear into the sky? I'm not exagger
ating, Maddie. They literally disappeared as soon as they crossed the threshold from this house. I'm not going to make any claims about what caused that, but I saw them as clear as I see you now. And they were cawing, Maddie. They were in a frenzy, as if they'd just been feeding.”

  I look over at the window for a moment, then back at Jerry.

  “Did you -”

  And then I freeze as I see that right behind him, there's a woman staring at me.

  I recognize her immediately, from one of the photograph I saw the other day. It's Catherine Grazier, and she's sitting right here on the bed with us. She's very pale, almost translucent, and her features seem to be flickering slightly as if at any moment she might fade from view. Her eyes are fixed directly on me and – as I sit here frozen by a mix of shock and fear – I can't shake the feeling that she wants something from me.

  That she's waiting for me to do something.

  “Maddie?” Jerry asks, clearly oblivious to the presence that's right behind him. “Are you okay?”

  His voice seems so distant. If anything, Catherine Grazier seems closer, even though she's behind him.

  “Save him,” she says suddenly.

  “What?” I whisper.

  “Save him. Tell him to come up here. Tell him to come back to me.”

  I open my mouth to ask what she means, but somehow the words don't come. I try telling myself that none of this is real, that ghosts don't exist and that Catherine Grazier isn't here on the bed with me, but I can't stop staring at her.

  “It's not safe here,” she continues. “You must be gone when she returns. Tell him to come up here to me, so that we can leave together, and then you have to run. Leave this house sealed.”

  “What do you mean?” I manage to ask finally. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Maddie?” Jerry says, sounding concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “You have to get out of here,” Catherine Grazier continues, and now she seems to be on the verge of tears. “You have to run and never come back. You have to ignore the pull that keeps trying to bring you here, it's too -”