Annie Chapman was just entering Crossingham’s lodging house by the kitchen entrance, badly the worse for drink. John Lachley halted, breathing hard as excitement shot through his belly and groin. He glanced across the street at Maybrick, then nodded toward the short, stout woman descending the area steps to the kitchen entrance of her favorite doss house.
Maybrick slipped his hand into his coat pocket, where he kept his knife, and smiled slowly. Mr. James Maybrick had seen the face of his new victim. Maybrick’s face flushed with sexual excitement in the light from the gas lamp on the street corner. Lachley restrained a slow smile. Soon . . . They waited patiently across from Crossingham’s and within minutes, their quarry came out again, evidently not not in possession of enough money to pay for the room. They heard her say, “I won’t be long, Brummy. See that Tim keeps the bed for me.” Whereupon she left Crossingham’s and turned down Little Paternoster Row, toward Brushfield Street, where she headed out towards Spitalfields Market.
They followed her quietly on the same rubberized servants’ shoes they’d worn the night they’d stalked Polly Nichols to her death. It was clear to Dr. John Lachley that Annie Chapman was seriously ill and in a great deal of pain. She moved slowly, but was still successful in collaring a customer outside the darkened hulk of Spitalfields Market, frustrating them in their intention to waylay her, themselves. The man disappeared with her into some refuse-riddled yard full of shadows. Lachley stood in his hiding place, breathing rapidly. Tension tightened down through him until he needed to shout out his impatience. Soon—very soon, now—poor little Dark Annie Chapman would earn a greater notoriety in death than she had ever earned in life. She was about to become the third mutilated victim of John Lachley’s ambition. And the second dead London whore in a week. The anticipation of the terror that would explode through the East End was nearly as potent a delight as controlling the fates of his chosen victims.