Dear Boss [Chapter Four]
Dear Boss [Chapter Four]
Title: Dear Boss [Chapter Four]
Author: Corleoned (Me XD)
Pairings: John/ Paul, Paul/George, Paul/Linda
Rating: Hard R for murder, slums, graphic descriptions of violence, blood, graveyards and angry mansex.
Summary: The late August of 1888 bridged the gap between modern violence and Victorian innocence, the idealism of Victorian society shaken to it's core by a sexual sadist and serial killer seemingly running rampant around East-London. No one had seen him, yet no one could forget him. He lived, and still lives, in infamy, as Jack the Ripper.
14-A for this chapter.
Author's Notes: You comment, I get off my arse and deliver XDD This chapter just rolled off nicely, I was happy XD
Historical Notes: Please excuse any discrepencies, they obviously were not meant.
See prologue and the previous chapters for general historical notes pertaining to those select episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of The Beatles or Jack the Ripper.
Prologue: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1196402.html#cutid1
Chapter One: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1198135.html
Chapter Two: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1204792.html
Chapter Three: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1217005.html#cutid1
Historical Notes:
-Obviously I don't condone drug use, but cocaine and opium were actually used very freely in the 19th century, even for medical purposes.
-Sadly, many children were sold as young as nine into child prostitution by family members in the East End. Some even intentionally had children simply to groom them for the highest price, most of the people to buy these children being fifty-year old men. The reasoning was that a shorter life meant earlier marriage, but many closet homosexuals would buy small boys for 'bumboys', if you get the meaning X_X
-As much of this as possibly is based on historical fact.
--------------------------------------
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Paul stumbles out of a darkened alleyway, pupils dilated from the lack of light, bloodshot from the drug he just administrated to himself in the slime-filled doorways of the East End. Not that he encouraged the use of such a stimulant, naturally; however, he had been chasing John for the good part of the past eight hours, and the drug was often a last resort for him on long nights of work and study.
Feeling his heart stumbling over itself just like his feet, Paul quickly falls onto the ground, panting, allowing himself the opportunity of a moment’s rest, if only to allow the drug in question to take effect. He hated it, he really did. But he could never find a worthy substitute for the stuff. Cocaine was lethal in the smallest of doses, but surely a tiny amount couldn’t hurt a man who had been awake for the past eighteen hours, to help him through the next four.
Standing, Paul ignores his twitching limbs as he feels himself focus, all the energy exerted in the pursuit of the man flooding back to him, travelling through his veins and making each and every part of his body lithe, alert and ready, every inch a hunter.
And he would find his prey.
His leg jiggling restlessly from the hyperstimulation of the cocaine, Paul relentlessly heads off down the nearest alleyway, coming to a blatant dead end, the only living inhabitants a small ratty black cat and several barren and sad looking socks hanging on a long thin wire.
Paul quickly turns, only to run into a small crone-like woman, holding on tightly to a small, slender boy, pretty, an oddity in his surroundings.
‘Care to buy, sir?’ The woman leers, the boy biting his lower lip but remaining silent, his skin milky in the moonlight. Paul crouches down to the boy's level, the boy turning away, long brown hair and soulful eyes that were proud and untrusting.
‘Buy?’ He murmurs, turning the boys head back into the line of his gaze, a perfect triangle created in the space between them.
‘Virgin, not yet twelve years of age,’ The woman proclaims proudly, adjusting her weblike bonnet fastened in her knotted hair as she shakes the boy roughly. ‘Would be a good servant, and good company….taken from my sister-in-law, stone dead, god rest her soul…’
Paul swallows, his limbs twitching of their own volition as he attempts not to be sick. He knew such things occurred with women in the area, perhaps with children even younger than this, but to such a frail, small boy…
‘What’s his name?’ He asks softly, standing and pretending to remove his gloves, if only to give himself a moment to allow his fingers to shake.
The woman blinks, slapping the boy and directing his gaze from the sphere-like moon to Paul’s trousers, the boy starting to cry silently. ‘Tell the man your name, you little urchin!’ She yowls, the boy managing a choked, ‘George.’
‘George,’ Paul murmurs, quickly tossing several pounds in the general direction of the wretched creature, the woman letting out a yelp of triumph and crawling off into the darkness of the walls along the main road.
‘P-Please, don’t touch me,’ George mumbles, still whimpering, attempting to hold back his fear.
‘Shhh, shhh, I’m not going to, don’t worry yourself about that…’ Paul says softly, reaching out and gently patting his head, grinding his teeth as he feels the irritability of the cocaine pounding through his veins. Quickly, he pulls out his diary, ripping off a corner of a page and writing his address on it. Against his best judgment, he hands it to the boy, the boy clutching it tightly as though it was pure gold.
‘That is my house. No one will harm you, and we will allow you to recover. No boy your age should be on the streets,’ He murmurs, George nodding and then whispering meekly, ‘I can’t read.’
Paul’s mouth thins in an unpleasant line, the drug making him snappy and twitchy. He needed to go, go, he had already wasted enough time being a local vigilante, there were already plenty of those around.
‘Number 9, Revolutionary Road… can you remember that? West London, to the West, that way, near Big Ben, big clock, you know, you know?’ He squeaks, ushering the boy off. ‘And don’t let anyone stop you!’
------------------------
Deep inside the maze of Whitechapel, John sits on the back stairs of a string of houses on Barner Street, giggling unnervingly as he holds a large nine inch blade, dipped in blood like a pen in ink. He had almost been caught, a pony cart pulling into a courtyard and discovering the woman’s dead body with a second’s lighting of a match. Already the Met was on his tail, and he wasn’t amused.
‘You were supposed to only do one,’ John hisses to a dark shadow to his immediate right, the shadow remaining silent in it’s own shame. He was sure someone had seen him as well. This wasn’t one of his, he hadn’t been able to be saucy about it, not allowed to have his fun, and inside his rage was building, a darkening storm cloud in the sky.
Allowing himself to calm, John finally looks up, purring lightly in the direction of the shadow, appeasing to it’s frail heart.
‘Do not allow yourself to be troubled, though, fair friend. Luckily we do not have to wait for a chance, as the opportunity regularly presents itself.’ John hops off of the step with surprising athleticism, sticking the bloodied knife in a small hole in his back pocket, accompanied by a red handkerchief.
‘It’ll be a double feature tonight!’ He cackles, running off towards the West of the city, making sure to frighten a small boy with a small piece of paper in his hands as he does so.
----------------------
A mere twelve minute walk away from Mitre Square, a church commonly known as ‘The Prostitutes’ Church’ stood stubbornly in the middle of the square, refusing to be moved, the last sacred refuge of the desperate. Like a traffic roundabout, long lines of prostitutes circled the building like a flock of crows. The thoroughfare of the horse-drawn carriages usually stalled near to the churchyard, making the square an almost ironically safe place to pick up customers for a life threatening ‘job’. The head commissioner lived just to the north of the church, and several bobbies dotted the corners of the square like paint splotches, bloodhounds by their side, their footsteps echoing in the hollow plaza. Security had been added to the East End in light of recent events, but still, the stalking feeling of fear cloaked the small province like a hood of hate. Ethnic tensions had increased, the proximity to the previous crimes not lost upon the police force. Officially, the square was under the jurisdiction of the city of London police force, but there were often disputes between the Met and the City as to who owned which case, and often many ridiculous attempts to outdo the other in their attempts to catch a criminal.
The prostitutes continued to turn like some odd waltz, round and round the church, warily gazing at each of the coppers as they passed by. It was because of them they had to do this. Any prostitute who stood still would be arrested for soliciting, and so they marched, dutifully and without complaint, safely under the haven of the church.
Suddenly, a cry arises, the word murder floating through the square as the crowlike women immediately scatter into the darkness as John smiles in ultimate satisfaction, observing the apocalyptic and godlike moment from the safety and distance of the rooftops. The two forces were going to clash below him, like upon the king of Egypt after Moses led his people to freedom. Sure enough, several men start running from the east, colliding with the figures from the west, whistles blowing, dogs barking, vigilante groups throwing out unhelpful suggestions to the wind.
‘HE’S A DOCTOR!’ ‘HE’S A BUTCHER!’ LEATHERAPRON!’
John chuckles lowly, sitting contently on the edge of the church, hidden by the gargoyles and red handkerchief in hand. She had told him everything.
-------------------------
Released from the city police station for public intoxication merely an hour before, Katherine Eddowes had politely said goodbye to the nearest bobby and stumbled off into the night. No less than two hours after her release, a few hundred yards from the church, she was found, deformed, by the nearest night porter, nothing heard, nothing seen, the second killing in London’s East End in forty minutes.
She had been savagely deformed. An ear attempted to be sawed off, her nose successfully removed, having rolled into her lap, her neck slashed and her entrails thrown out, a kidney missing.
She had been ripped open like a pig at the slaughter.
----------------------------
Paul violently shakes himself out of his stupor, hearing cries of murder from both directions and letting out a frustrated yell for being as stupid as to allow himself to just writher on the ground like a worm. For the past fifteen minutes he had simply experienced withdrawal symptoms, and was paying for his own foolishness. Several women were paying for his foolishness as well…
-----------------------------------
In a block to the East of Mitre Square, John quickly runs past the blur of houses, tossing the blood-stained apron of Katherine Eddowes to the ground and pulling to a stop, giggling maniacally as he scrawls on the wall with a piece of chalk he had been able to lift from Paul’s briefcase at the Eastman home, throwing it fitfully into the darkness and lifting one of the sewer lids, crawling in and securely making his way to the West, inching his way along the wall above the sewage and pulling a red strip of hair collected from one of the former victims.
‘Off to work,’ He smiles coyly, before letting out an evil chuckle.
-----------------------------------
Paul feels himself being lifted to his feet, a stream of drool sliding out of the corner of his mouth, his whole body feeling inexplicably heavy and his mind painfully drunk as he is brought face to face with a man that could only be recognized as the chief commissioner of the Met, Sir Charles Warren. Paul giggles, twitching slightly, as he blinks at him with a playful grin.
‘Allo, Charlie, have a good time in some French broad, didja?’ He mumbles, his thick Liverpudlian accent managing to leak from his throat, Warren bristling in indignation at the statement.
‘Yes, indeed, the French Rivera is lovely this time of year. So unfortunate that everything seems to go to Hell when I’m not around…’ He drawls, blinking up at the graffiti scribbled on a wall above a blood-stained apron, Gladstone street coming painfully into focus for Paul as he groans, grabbing at his head and attempting not to rip his hair out.
‘W-What? Did that bastard leave it, w-what does it s-s-s-say?’ Paul slurs, almost falling over but being caught by one of the surrounding officer, Paul giggling like a woman and slapping his chest before letting out a cry of pain, the chief commissioner only raising a brow.
‘The Jewes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing, misspelt with an ‘e’, McCartney, though in your inebriated state I doubt you can read,’ The commissioner sniffs, disdain marking his face as he looks from Paul to the message before waving a hand dismissively. ‘Wash it off. We can’t wait to take pictures of it in the morning.’
‘W-WHAT?’ Paul yells, immediately rewarded with a slap from an accommodating bobby for questioning the judgement of his superior, once again jerked out of his withdrawal.
‘Why, just, WHY?’
The commissioner simply sizes up Paul head to toe, puffing out his chest lightly, not unlike a pompous pigeon.
‘Because you are unaware, McCartney, there are an influx of Jews living in this immediate area. Such a statement could be an incitement to race riots.’
‘Well then, cover it with a sheet until morning, do SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE!’ Paul shouts, letting out a frustrated scream before taking off towards the Met headquarters.
‘Sir,’ A quiet voice murmurs, a bobby running up with a small piece of paper folded in his palm. ‘We have a message. From the Queen.’
-----------------------------------------------
“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
For the second time that day, Paul found himself keeled over an empty bucket at police headquarters, determinedly sipping water between each episode of nausea in a futile attempt to detox the cocaine from his body, surrounded by piles upon mountains of hoax ‘Jack the Ripper’ letters, offerings of rewards for the man’s capture, and heartfelt petitions, all doing nothing. He knew it, he knew he was going to have to turn him in, no matter what he felt.
No matter how much he loved him.
‘I mean, the QUEEN is involved, Stuart, the QUEEN!’ The commissioner rants at his delicate-featured assistant, Stuart nodding timidly, as if he was afraid he was going to be slapped if he refuted the statement.
Groaning, the commissioner collapses in the nearest chair, pressing his fingers to his forehead and letting out a pathetic huff of air. ‘This’ll be the end of me. They were fixing for me to go, you know. Parliament will fall on this, mark my words!’
Glaring, he turns his anger on a vomiting Paul.
‘And YOU! You were supposed to have this solved, for Christ’s sake! A nine inch blade, covered in blood, found on the streets of Whitechapel and you’re telling me you have absolutely no clue who it is? And then there’s this kidney we just received with a note, another likely hoax, but the hysteria-’
Paul grimly allows these facts to fall upon deaf ears, clutching the sides of the bucket as he shakily stands, about to respond just as a phone is stuck in his face.
‘Phone for you, Mr. McCartney, better make it quick if it is simply a personal call.’
Paul nods lightly, speaking wearily into the mouthpiece. ‘Hello?’
‘Paul!’ A voice crackles from the other end, suspiciously feminine and sobbing lightly. ‘Paul, I-it’s Lin-Miss. Eastman. I’m sorry to b-be calling at such a time, but this is r-r-really the only place I thought to call- Oh, lord, I’m so frightened…’
Paul quickly stabilizes himself out of sheer concern. ‘Linda? Miss. Eastman, are you alright? What’s happened?’
‘I’ve been threatened…’ She whispers, as though her assailant might here, staring at the large rock with a note neatly tied to it that had pitched it’s way through her front greeting room, the dust floating out ghostly into the wind and the florals retreating from the light of the moon. ‘And attacked….’
Paul feels his anger zip through his body. ‘Linda, listen to me, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep out of sight, and keep safe…’ He yells into the receiver, attempting to make his message clearer through the weak line before hanging up, the door opening and the mortuary photographer walking out, handing the pictures with a flourish to the commissioner, rubbing at a thin red moustache pinned to his upper lip, Paul fainting in spite of himself.
‘Winston Lenin at your service, commissioner,’ A soft voice murmurs, no trace of any distinguishable accent as he steps over Paul and the several people tending to him, discreetly pocketing several pictures in his back pocket. Accompanying a red handkerchief, the photos road happily in the pocket of the furtively grinning man as he headed towards and out the door, rounding the corner and out of sight.
Title: Dear Boss [Chapter Four]
Author: Corleoned (Me XD)
Pairings: John/ Paul, Paul/George, Paul/Linda
Rating: Hard R for murder, slums, graphic descriptions of violence, blood, graveyards and angry mansex.
Summary: The late August of 1888 bridged the gap between modern violence and Victorian innocence, the idealism of Victorian society shaken to it's core by a sexual sadist and serial killer seemingly running rampant around East-London. No one had seen him, yet no one could forget him. He lived, and still lives, in infamy, as Jack the Ripper.
14-A for this chapter.
Author's Notes: You comment, I get off my arse and deliver XDD This chapter just rolled off nicely, I was happy XD
Historical Notes: Please excuse any discrepencies, they obviously were not meant.
See prologue and the previous chapters for general historical notes pertaining to those select episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of The Beatles or Jack the Ripper.
Prologue: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1196402.html#cutid1
Chapter One: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1198135.html
Chapter Two: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1204792.html
Chapter Three: community.livejournal.com/beatlesslash/1217005.html#cutid1
Historical Notes:
-Obviously I don't condone drug use, but cocaine and opium were actually used very freely in the 19th century, even for medical purposes.
-Sadly, many children were sold as young as nine into child prostitution by family members in the East End. Some even intentionally had children simply to groom them for the highest price, most of the people to buy these children being fifty-year old men. The reasoning was that a shorter life meant earlier marriage, but many closet homosexuals would buy small boys for 'bumboys', if you get the meaning X_X
-As much of this as possibly is based on historical fact.
--------------------------------------
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Paul stumbles out of a darkened alleyway, pupils dilated from the lack of light, bloodshot from the drug he just administrated to himself in the slime-filled doorways of the East End. Not that he encouraged the use of such a stimulant, naturally; however, he had been chasing John for the good part of the past eight hours, and the drug was often a last resort for him on long nights of work and study.
Feeling his heart stumbling over itself just like his feet, Paul quickly falls onto the ground, panting, allowing himself the opportunity of a moment’s rest, if only to allow the drug in question to take effect. He hated it, he really did. But he could never find a worthy substitute for the stuff. Cocaine was lethal in the smallest of doses, but surely a tiny amount couldn’t hurt a man who had been awake for the past eighteen hours, to help him through the next four.
Standing, Paul ignores his twitching limbs as he feels himself focus, all the energy exerted in the pursuit of the man flooding back to him, travelling through his veins and making each and every part of his body lithe, alert and ready, every inch a hunter.
And he would find his prey.
His leg jiggling restlessly from the hyperstimulation of the cocaine, Paul relentlessly heads off down the nearest alleyway, coming to a blatant dead end, the only living inhabitants a small ratty black cat and several barren and sad looking socks hanging on a long thin wire.
Paul quickly turns, only to run into a small crone-like woman, holding on tightly to a small, slender boy, pretty, an oddity in his surroundings.
‘Care to buy, sir?’ The woman leers, the boy biting his lower lip but remaining silent, his skin milky in the moonlight. Paul crouches down to the boy's level, the boy turning away, long brown hair and soulful eyes that were proud and untrusting.
‘Buy?’ He murmurs, turning the boys head back into the line of his gaze, a perfect triangle created in the space between them.
‘Virgin, not yet twelve years of age,’ The woman proclaims proudly, adjusting her weblike bonnet fastened in her knotted hair as she shakes the boy roughly. ‘Would be a good servant, and good company….taken from my sister-in-law, stone dead, god rest her soul…’
Paul swallows, his limbs twitching of their own volition as he attempts not to be sick. He knew such things occurred with women in the area, perhaps with children even younger than this, but to such a frail, small boy…
‘What’s his name?’ He asks softly, standing and pretending to remove his gloves, if only to give himself a moment to allow his fingers to shake.
The woman blinks, slapping the boy and directing his gaze from the sphere-like moon to Paul’s trousers, the boy starting to cry silently. ‘Tell the man your name, you little urchin!’ She yowls, the boy managing a choked, ‘George.’
‘George,’ Paul murmurs, quickly tossing several pounds in the general direction of the wretched creature, the woman letting out a yelp of triumph and crawling off into the darkness of the walls along the main road.
‘P-Please, don’t touch me,’ George mumbles, still whimpering, attempting to hold back his fear.
‘Shhh, shhh, I’m not going to, don’t worry yourself about that…’ Paul says softly, reaching out and gently patting his head, grinding his teeth as he feels the irritability of the cocaine pounding through his veins. Quickly, he pulls out his diary, ripping off a corner of a page and writing his address on it. Against his best judgment, he hands it to the boy, the boy clutching it tightly as though it was pure gold.
‘That is my house. No one will harm you, and we will allow you to recover. No boy your age should be on the streets,’ He murmurs, George nodding and then whispering meekly, ‘I can’t read.’
Paul’s mouth thins in an unpleasant line, the drug making him snappy and twitchy. He needed to go, go, he had already wasted enough time being a local vigilante, there were already plenty of those around.
‘Number 9, Revolutionary Road… can you remember that? West London, to the West, that way, near Big Ben, big clock, you know, you know?’ He squeaks, ushering the boy off. ‘And don’t let anyone stop you!’
------------------------
Deep inside the maze of Whitechapel, John sits on the back stairs of a string of houses on Barner Street, giggling unnervingly as he holds a large nine inch blade, dipped in blood like a pen in ink. He had almost been caught, a pony cart pulling into a courtyard and discovering the woman’s dead body with a second’s lighting of a match. Already the Met was on his tail, and he wasn’t amused.
‘You were supposed to only do one,’ John hisses to a dark shadow to his immediate right, the shadow remaining silent in it’s own shame. He was sure someone had seen him as well. This wasn’t one of his, he hadn’t been able to be saucy about it, not allowed to have his fun, and inside his rage was building, a darkening storm cloud in the sky.
Allowing himself to calm, John finally looks up, purring lightly in the direction of the shadow, appeasing to it’s frail heart.
‘Do not allow yourself to be troubled, though, fair friend. Luckily we do not have to wait for a chance, as the opportunity regularly presents itself.’ John hops off of the step with surprising athleticism, sticking the bloodied knife in a small hole in his back pocket, accompanied by a red handkerchief.
‘It’ll be a double feature tonight!’ He cackles, running off towards the West of the city, making sure to frighten a small boy with a small piece of paper in his hands as he does so.
----------------------
A mere twelve minute walk away from Mitre Square, a church commonly known as ‘The Prostitutes’ Church’ stood stubbornly in the middle of the square, refusing to be moved, the last sacred refuge of the desperate. Like a traffic roundabout, long lines of prostitutes circled the building like a flock of crows. The thoroughfare of the horse-drawn carriages usually stalled near to the churchyard, making the square an almost ironically safe place to pick up customers for a life threatening ‘job’. The head commissioner lived just to the north of the church, and several bobbies dotted the corners of the square like paint splotches, bloodhounds by their side, their footsteps echoing in the hollow plaza. Security had been added to the East End in light of recent events, but still, the stalking feeling of fear cloaked the small province like a hood of hate. Ethnic tensions had increased, the proximity to the previous crimes not lost upon the police force. Officially, the square was under the jurisdiction of the city of London police force, but there were often disputes between the Met and the City as to who owned which case, and often many ridiculous attempts to outdo the other in their attempts to catch a criminal.
The prostitutes continued to turn like some odd waltz, round and round the church, warily gazing at each of the coppers as they passed by. It was because of them they had to do this. Any prostitute who stood still would be arrested for soliciting, and so they marched, dutifully and without complaint, safely under the haven of the church.
Suddenly, a cry arises, the word murder floating through the square as the crowlike women immediately scatter into the darkness as John smiles in ultimate satisfaction, observing the apocalyptic and godlike moment from the safety and distance of the rooftops. The two forces were going to clash below him, like upon the king of Egypt after Moses led his people to freedom. Sure enough, several men start running from the east, colliding with the figures from the west, whistles blowing, dogs barking, vigilante groups throwing out unhelpful suggestions to the wind.
‘HE’S A DOCTOR!’ ‘HE’S A BUTCHER!’ LEATHERAPRON!’
John chuckles lowly, sitting contently on the edge of the church, hidden by the gargoyles and red handkerchief in hand. She had told him everything.
-------------------------
Released from the city police station for public intoxication merely an hour before, Katherine Eddowes had politely said goodbye to the nearest bobby and stumbled off into the night. No less than two hours after her release, a few hundred yards from the church, she was found, deformed, by the nearest night porter, nothing heard, nothing seen, the second killing in London’s East End in forty minutes.
She had been savagely deformed. An ear attempted to be sawed off, her nose successfully removed, having rolled into her lap, her neck slashed and her entrails thrown out, a kidney missing.
She had been ripped open like a pig at the slaughter.
----------------------------
Paul violently shakes himself out of his stupor, hearing cries of murder from both directions and letting out a frustrated yell for being as stupid as to allow himself to just writher on the ground like a worm. For the past fifteen minutes he had simply experienced withdrawal symptoms, and was paying for his own foolishness. Several women were paying for his foolishness as well…
-----------------------------------
In a block to the East of Mitre Square, John quickly runs past the blur of houses, tossing the blood-stained apron of Katherine Eddowes to the ground and pulling to a stop, giggling maniacally as he scrawls on the wall with a piece of chalk he had been able to lift from Paul’s briefcase at the Eastman home, throwing it fitfully into the darkness and lifting one of the sewer lids, crawling in and securely making his way to the West, inching his way along the wall above the sewage and pulling a red strip of hair collected from one of the former victims.
‘Off to work,’ He smiles coyly, before letting out an evil chuckle.
-----------------------------------
Paul feels himself being lifted to his feet, a stream of drool sliding out of the corner of his mouth, his whole body feeling inexplicably heavy and his mind painfully drunk as he is brought face to face with a man that could only be recognized as the chief commissioner of the Met, Sir Charles Warren. Paul giggles, twitching slightly, as he blinks at him with a playful grin.
‘Allo, Charlie, have a good time in some French broad, didja?’ He mumbles, his thick Liverpudlian accent managing to leak from his throat, Warren bristling in indignation at the statement.
‘Yes, indeed, the French Rivera is lovely this time of year. So unfortunate that everything seems to go to Hell when I’m not around…’ He drawls, blinking up at the graffiti scribbled on a wall above a blood-stained apron, Gladstone street coming painfully into focus for Paul as he groans, grabbing at his head and attempting not to rip his hair out.
‘W-What? Did that bastard leave it, w-what does it s-s-s-say?’ Paul slurs, almost falling over but being caught by one of the surrounding officer, Paul giggling like a woman and slapping his chest before letting out a cry of pain, the chief commissioner only raising a brow.
‘The Jewes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing, misspelt with an ‘e’, McCartney, though in your inebriated state I doubt you can read,’ The commissioner sniffs, disdain marking his face as he looks from Paul to the message before waving a hand dismissively. ‘Wash it off. We can’t wait to take pictures of it in the morning.’
‘W-WHAT?’ Paul yells, immediately rewarded with a slap from an accommodating bobby for questioning the judgement of his superior, once again jerked out of his withdrawal.
‘Why, just, WHY?’
The commissioner simply sizes up Paul head to toe, puffing out his chest lightly, not unlike a pompous pigeon.
‘Because you are unaware, McCartney, there are an influx of Jews living in this immediate area. Such a statement could be an incitement to race riots.’
‘Well then, cover it with a sheet until morning, do SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE!’ Paul shouts, letting out a frustrated scream before taking off towards the Met headquarters.
‘Sir,’ A quiet voice murmurs, a bobby running up with a small piece of paper folded in his palm. ‘We have a message. From the Queen.’
-----------------------------------------------
“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
For the second time that day, Paul found himself keeled over an empty bucket at police headquarters, determinedly sipping water between each episode of nausea in a futile attempt to detox the cocaine from his body, surrounded by piles upon mountains of hoax ‘Jack the Ripper’ letters, offerings of rewards for the man’s capture, and heartfelt petitions, all doing nothing. He knew it, he knew he was going to have to turn him in, no matter what he felt.
No matter how much he loved him.
‘I mean, the QUEEN is involved, Stuart, the QUEEN!’ The commissioner rants at his delicate-featured assistant, Stuart nodding timidly, as if he was afraid he was going to be slapped if he refuted the statement.
Groaning, the commissioner collapses in the nearest chair, pressing his fingers to his forehead and letting out a pathetic huff of air. ‘This’ll be the end of me. They were fixing for me to go, you know. Parliament will fall on this, mark my words!’
Glaring, he turns his anger on a vomiting Paul.
‘And YOU! You were supposed to have this solved, for Christ’s sake! A nine inch blade, covered in blood, found on the streets of Whitechapel and you’re telling me you have absolutely no clue who it is? And then there’s this kidney we just received with a note, another likely hoax, but the hysteria-’
Paul grimly allows these facts to fall upon deaf ears, clutching the sides of the bucket as he shakily stands, about to respond just as a phone is stuck in his face.
‘Phone for you, Mr. McCartney, better make it quick if it is simply a personal call.’
Paul nods lightly, speaking wearily into the mouthpiece. ‘Hello?’
‘Paul!’ A voice crackles from the other end, suspiciously feminine and sobbing lightly. ‘Paul, I-it’s Lin-Miss. Eastman. I’m sorry to b-be calling at such a time, but this is r-r-really the only place I thought to call- Oh, lord, I’m so frightened…’
Paul quickly stabilizes himself out of sheer concern. ‘Linda? Miss. Eastman, are you alright? What’s happened?’
‘I’ve been threatened…’ She whispers, as though her assailant might here, staring at the large rock with a note neatly tied to it that had pitched it’s way through her front greeting room, the dust floating out ghostly into the wind and the florals retreating from the light of the moon. ‘And attacked….’
Paul feels his anger zip through his body. ‘Linda, listen to me, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep out of sight, and keep safe…’ He yells into the receiver, attempting to make his message clearer through the weak line before hanging up, the door opening and the mortuary photographer walking out, handing the pictures with a flourish to the commissioner, rubbing at a thin red moustache pinned to his upper lip, Paul fainting in spite of himself.
‘Winston Lenin at your service, commissioner,’ A soft voice murmurs, no trace of any distinguishable accent as he steps over Paul and the several people tending to him, discreetly pocketing several pictures in his back pocket. Accompanying a red handkerchief, the photos road happily in the pocket of the furtively grinning man as he headed towards and out the door, rounding the corner and out of sight.