By Ian Porter https://londontownwalks.com/
Published by Matador @matadorbooks
384 pages ISBN 9781805143987
Publication date 24 February 2024
I was sent an electronic copy and selected extract to enable me to take part in this Blog Tour. I would like to thank Anne at Random Things Tours @RandomTTours for the invitation to participate and of course the Author and the Publisher.
An extract from Whitechapel Autumn of Error
Nash was quickly on the corner looking on, with just his head peeking out from the side of a warehouse in the square, well hidden in the gloom. After what appeared to be a short negotiation, the man guided the woman out of sight into a dark spot. They had no doubt moved to avoid standing beneath the square’s solitary streetlamp, a little more privacy being required. This was awkward. If Nash moved towards them, they would see him under the streetlight before he saw them. And the square was overlooked by warehouses and a two-storey house. Somebody gawping out of an upstairs window would see him commit the robbery.
He decided on a different tactic. He would wait for the man to finish his business, after which he would be in a hurry to get away and would leave the woman to attend to herself. She might need to take out her sponge in the privacy of the square as soon as the client had gone. Or if it had been just a kneetrembler, she would want to wash her hands and apron. Either way, she would be looking for a puddle. There would be time for Nash to cosh and rob his prey just after the man had passed by the gas lamp. By the time the woman appeared he would be gone. If she was of a mind to, there would be time for her to give the man a kick in the ribs as she stepped over him. Nash liked to think she would.
The time dragged frustratingly.
Blimey, thought Nash, he’s taking his bleeding time. I’m standing here like two of eels!
Nash’s mind wandered, thinking of the most recent occasion he had himself been attacked. It was an occupational hazard for anyone in his line of business. There were always others out there looking to wreak violence for the same reason as him. The hunter became the hunted. There had been two of them. He had left them both lying in pain on the cobbles. It would have been worse for them, but he saw how young and poverty-stricken they looked; just lads with their arses hanging out their trousers, trying to earn a crust.
There was movement. The man had re-entered the lit part of the square and was coming towards him. Nash’s fingers curled around the cosh inside his right pocket. While his mind had been wandering, he had not been his usual alert self, but instinct now told him to have a quick look about him before making his move.
It was just as well he did. A uniformed policeman was walking towards him. He was not taking any particular interest in Nash and would soon pass by and be gone, so the attack was only postponed for a moment or two. Turning towards the officer, Nash felt in his left pocket for a dog-end and a Lucifer match, both of which he kept there for precisely moments like this, struck the match on the brickwork of the wall at his side, curled both hands around it and lit the cigarette now in his mouth. He then walked towards the policeman, looked straight ahead till almost in front of him before glancing his way casually, momentarily as he passed. It was exactly what an innocent man just going about his business would do. The uniformed man returned the glance but no more than that and continued making his way down the street. Nash feigned the cigarette going out, clicking his tongue with irritation as he stopped to relight it, turning his body slightly as he cupped his hands again, and glanced back.
The constable stopped suddenly. Nash cursed to himself, but then let out his breath in relief when he saw why the uniformed man had stopped. He was unfurling his raincoat. Another shower had started. Suitably attired against the elements, the policeman turned the next corner and disappeared out of sight. Nash saw no sign of his quarry. He surmised the man had obviously spotted the policeman too and retreated into the darkest part of the square waiting for the coast to clear.
Nash knew he would have to move quickly now to catch his man in the square. He started to retrace his steps but within a second his prey appeared, looking about him in all directions, eyes wide open, staring wildly. Taken by surprise, Nash averted his gaze, put his head down and carried on walking past. He felt the man’s stare boring in to the back of his neck, before hearing footsteps moving off in the opposite direction.
Nash crossed the street at once, so he had an angle to look in the direction of the footsteps without turning around. The man was scuttling away, head down just as Nash would have expected. But suddenly he slowed to a stroll and straightened, stretching his neck out like a clerk in a collar a size too small. He was making a conscious effort to appear at ease with the world and his place in. Nash looked on with a grim expression. He thought it amazing what a quick bit of ‘how’s your father’ could do.
The immediate moment to strike had gone, but Nash would follow him till the moment was again right to pounce. He ducked into the dark part of the square where the man had just had his pleasure, to wait a few seconds before following him again. There was no sign of the woman. She should have been out by now.
Nash wondered if her client had hurt the poor old cow.
He stepped quickly along to check on her. He would still have time to return to his slow-moving prey. It was pitch-dark but he could just about make out the dim outline of what appeared to be a pile of scattered old clothes. He took another few steps closer and saw it was the body of a woman. She was dead.
Nash struck a match. The woman’s sexual area had been attacked with a knife, her throat cut and face slashed. A replacement match enabled Nash to note that whilst there was blood, given the horrendous damage done to the body, remarkably little of it.
He had seen many terrible things, instigated some of them, but this was not right. This was pure evil. He lurched back into the alley, then back to the street and stopped to look along it in both directions. No coppers. Nobody else either, except at the far end of the street, a man in a deerstalker was folding away a large slaughterman’s knife in on itself before slipping it into a coat pocket.
Nash started to run after the figure, but he could not get his breath. It was like he normally felt at the end of a run round the marshes. He could not make any sense of it. Then his lungs began to fill. But accompanying the oxygen coursing through him was anger and unease in equal measure.
People notice runners, he thought, especially at night. If you’re running, you’ve been up to something. Dogs bark; chase after you. Coppers get interested. Seen running away from a murder, his neck would be stretched for sure and not like a clerks’ in a tight collar.
Nash slowed to a walk. The killer, little more than twenty yards away, set off again. Nash took a deep lungful of putrid air through his nostrils and followed. Fearful of losing his target in the darkness, he closed the gap. He was now within the man’s earshot so needed to sprint forward and overpower him before he had time to reach for his knife. Nash was about to strike when he hesitated and stopped in his tracks. A thought had struck him like a lightning bolt. He allowed the man to go on his way, unmolested.
Nash had made a profound decision. He had chosen not to attack the man the moment it dawned on him that he was following the Whitechapel Murderer.
The Blurb
Whitechapel 1888; a killer is on the loose and the newspapers are ensuring the nation knows all about not just the crimes but the terrible living conditions in which they are being perpetrated.
Nashey, a tough, scary yet charismatic man of the night, whose mother had to prostitute herself when he was a boy, knows the identity of the killer but keeps it a secret. He believes the publicity generated by the murders is forcing the authorities to address the poverty and degradation in the area. He allows the killer to remain free (whilst ensuring no more women are attacked) so the unsolved murders continue to dominate the headlines. He meets Sookey, an eccentric middle-class slummer and civilising influence. The two of them share a mutual friend, Mary Kelly, a fiery young prostitute whose back-story tells of how she was reduced to such a life.
To fund his surveillance of the killer, Nashey agrees, against his better judgement, to assist an old adversary to commit a daring night robbery under the noses of the huge police presence in the area.
Is it too late for Nashey and Mary to correct their mistakes?
My review
My review will appear later in April.
Whitechapel Autumn of Error can be purchased direct from the publisher here
The author
Ian Porter is a historian, lecturer, public speaker and walks guide. He has a particular interest in women’s history and social history. His novels are renowned for being extremely well researched and historically accurate. Whitechapel Autumn of Error is a typically feminist, social history novel that brings the dark streets of the East End 1888 to life. He has written several other novels including the highly acclaimed Suffragette Autumn Women’s Spring, set during the fight for the vote for women, and a Plague On Both Your Houses, set in both London & Berlin in 1918/19 during the final months of the Great War and the Spanish Flu. Ian is getting on a bit (well, aged 69). His grandparents were young adults living in East London at the time of the Whitechapel Murders.
Don’t forget to check out the other stops on this blog tour:
Peter turns the page 