Free The Black Mile by Mark Dawson

And Eve was
out there.

  15
    HENRY DRAKE’S CAT, Mr. Pickles, wrapped himself
around his legs, mewling. Henry stepped over him and into the kitchenette. It
was only a single room, rented from the old dear who owned the building for
eighteen and two a week. A mattress, a little sofa, a table and a desk. The
kitchenette was an open cupboard with a curtain strung across the entrance and
the bathroom was across the hall, shared with the other tenants. A slop-pail
stood by the foot of the bed, on the top of which floated a handful of
cigarette butts and a beer can. An empty bottle of Benzedrine tablets was on
the desk––he was going to need some more. A small strip of carpet was placed
next to the bed, on top of the oilcloth covering the rest of the floor.
      There had
been nothing else for it. He had been running up against his overdraft before
and now he had been suspended––his pay docked––things had come to a head. He
hadn’t had a choice. He couldn’t afford his previous place. Perhaps if he had
stopped the drink and the drugs–– but that was never going to happen. He needed
them, now more than ever, and it was out of the question. He’d drifted around
rented dives until he found this place. It was a glorified kip-shop but it was
cheap and it did the trick.
      He fed the
cat with scraps from yesterday’s fish supper, and, making sure the black-out
was pulled completely across the window, clicked on the lamp and sat down at
his desk. His Ripper materials were stacked around him, unsteady towers of
boxes and files. He’d put them into packing crates and taken them home; no
sense in leaving them in the office, and it gave him a chance to keep on with
the story after he knocked off. Stacks of paper littered the desk. Ideas.
Brainstorms. Newspaper articles torn out, circled with red ink. Off-the-record
interviews with witnesses. Information bought from hooky police: post mortem
reports, witness statements, crime scene snaps. Court transcripts. A map of
Soho was tacked to the wall: he’d circled the five crime scenes.
      It still all
came back to the Ripper.
      It was his
surest way back.
      Another
murder might give him something to get his teeth into, an angle he could
follow, a final dot to join. What if he was able to find something the police
hadn’t found? A pattern that had been missed? A connection that might bring the
culprit to justice? 
      They couldn’t
fire him then.
      But the
Ripper wasn’t co-operating. There had been nothing new since the last girl had
been found. Murphy and the Met were floundering.
      He plucked a
sheet of paper from the mess: a list of names and telephone numbers. He had
taken it from the front desk at the paper. It was a job for a cub reporter:
calling back the cranks and lunatics who contacted the newspaper with stories.
Nutters who saw ghosts. Paranoiacs who swore blind the next-door neighbour was
a Kraut agent. It was a job no-one else wanted, so he didn’t see the harm in
swiping it for himself. Finding a story out of the trash was a long-shot bet.
      It was
depressing.
      But until
something new happened in Soho, it was the best he could do.
      He went
through to the communal telephone in the hall, thumbed in change and dialled
the first number on the list.
      The call
connected. “Top Hat.”
      He looked at
the name. “Jackie Field, please.”
      “Who’s this?”
      “Henry
Drake.”
      “Don’t know
no Henry Drake, mate.”
      “I’m a
journalist.”
      The tone
changed instantly. “Hello, sir. You’re calling about the story?”
      “How can I
help you, Mr. Field?”
      “What paper
are you from?”
      “The Star.”
      “You lot
pay, right?––for good ones, I mean?”
      “If they’re
worthwhile. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
      “Not on the
telephone. Can we meet?”
      “You’ll have
to give me a better idea of what it’s about. If I went to speak to everyone who
called with a story––”