Dear Boss

The hunter lurked in the shadows, his greatcoat swirling rather splendidly around his ankles. His top hat was held securely in his hands and he could feel the weight of a knife against his leg. The chilly Whitechapel fog shrouded him from curious eyes and he leaned against the uneven bricks to wait.
He was hungry. Something hot would do when he got home. Perhaps soup and a nice, hot cuppa. Preferably lemon. He was partial to lemon.
A black thing that looked like a spider leg dangled in his eyes and he batted it off before realising that it was an escaped strand of hair. Whoops.
There was the sound of footsteps and the hunter pressed back into the shadows. Soon enough, a woman appeared out of the fog. She was dressed in rags and stumbling as though she was drunk. He recognised her as one Doctor Able’s favourite…company. She was noisy, if he recalled correctly. Bitch.
He stuck his hat on his hand and brushed those memories aside. That man was dead now, there was no need to think of him. His liver had been very nice, all fried up. At least, that was what his maid had said. He wasn’t stupid enough to try it himself, not with all the alcohol the good doctor consumed.
“Nice night for a walk.” he said to the woman. She jumped, then seemed to recognise him and smiled.
“I suppose so, Sir.”
Sir! He liked that. Pity he couldn’t keep this one at home with him.
“Allow me to walk you home the rest of the way, Miss Nichols.”
She nodded her agreement and kept walking. The hunter waited until they were past the night bobbies and out from under a streetlamp before he struck.
The woman had no chance.
The night bobbies, who found her later, did not remember seeing the rather nicely dressed man, nor did they remember her. By the time she was found, the hunter had slipped back into the shadows to find a roundabout way home.
He would never be caught.
* * *
The hunter, known to his friends as Jack Rage-a brilliantly common name, in his humble opinion-was not a raving lunatic. He straddled the line, oh yes, but he was no fool, and he did not run around chanting nursery rhymes. Rather, he was a doctor who lived in a nice neighbourhood with a girl who cooked and did the cleaning. He was twenty-six years old, not fond of drinking or cards, and generally thought of as a nice fellow. His bedside manner had gotten him a good deal of patients over the last two years and more than one mother had pointed him out to her daughter.
He came in that night, tired and rather bloody, and found out that his maid-Jill Waters-had been woken up by the noise. Damn.
“Sir?”
“Late-night call, Jill. Since you’re awake, would you make me a cup of tea?”
“Lemon, Sir?”
“Mm.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and Jack took the opportunity to go upstairs and clean up. By and large, he’d managed to avoid getting too much blood on his face and hands, but his clothes were covered with it.
Next time, it’ll be a thin one. Fat ones bleed too much.
He hadn’t planned on going after Mary Ann Nichols, but she’d been there and how he’d hated her! When he’d been an apprentice for Doctor Able, she’d always been coming in and distracting him from the patients. She’d also distracted him from feeding said apprentice and more than one night Jack had gone to bed hungry, listening to the racket next door. Besides, she had a strange compulsion to touch him. Not like that-just…touch. Hair-ruffling, for instance. She loved doing that.
Well, not any more. Now she’d keep her hands to herself.
He was towelling off his hair when there was a knock on his door. Was he decent? Yes, yes he was. Good. The last thing he needed was for his maid to quit on him. She was efficient.
“Tea, Sir.”
“Good girl. That’ll be all tonight, Jill.”
He opened the door to take it from her. She had her eyes firmly glued to the…floor, it looked like. What was on the floor? He looked to see and spotted it. Or them, rather.
Blood spots. They’d probably dripped from his cape.
“It’s nothing.”
“Sir?”
He took the tea and shut the door firmly. She knew better than to ask too many questions, and she wouldn’t. By morning they’d be back to their normal routine. If she got too nosey, he’d shut her up.
He waited until her door shut before resuming drying his hair. If he didn’t clean it now, the blood would dry in and wouldn’t that be a mess?
The tea was hot and had just a hint of sugar in it, just the way he liked it. He dried off the rest of the way and sat down on his bed, to look at his hip.
He had injured it, and inured it badly, two years ago. It had been his first time, for Heaven’s sakes, and he’d been…eager. As a result, the old doctor that had once left him to starve upstairs had gotten the knife from him and sliced his hip. The old man had regretted it, but Jack had spent a good six weeks bedridden afterwards. His medical training had allowed him to take care of it himself, thankfully, but it never did heal just right. He’d gotten a cane made for himself once the practice started making money. It had a skull’s head on it-he just couldn’t resist the irony.
His hip was aching now, all right. Those damned cobblestones streets in Whitechapel had done a number on it.
He worked his way under the covers and set his half-gone tea on his nightstand. He was looking forward to getting a good nights’ sleep.