Jenny placed her sword lovingly back on its rack, hung up her cloak, put the kettle on the stove and went to find Vastra. The Silurian was slumped in her new wicker chair, idly rustling the newspaper. Jenny carefully sat down in the other chair, making sure it really would take her weight, and waited. After a while, the kettle whistle sounded, and she went to make tea. Jenny placed a cup on the small table by Vastra's chair, but she acknowledged neither Jenny nor the drink. Jenny's lip twitched, and she got a book from her photography room and returned to her seat opposite Vastra, occasionally sipping her tea. To anyone watching them, she thought, it would be a picture of domesticity. But Jenny was merely waiting.
There was a sniff. The ostentatious rustle of a newspaper page being turned. Out the corner of her eye, Jenny could see it was the last page. She turned a page of her own book.
Vastra crumpled the newspaper closed and tossed it onto the table, narrowly missing the cooling tea. She stared at Jenny. "Well?"
Jenny looked up from taking a sip of tea. "Well what ma'am?"
"How is Mrs Palmer?"
"Lettie? Oh, she's fine. None of the women attacked were from her house, so she doesn't really have much more of a clue than us about what's going on."
"Oh really. She has more of a clue than someone who spent the day going through the entire case file?"
"Police report helpful, was it?"
"No." Vastra conceded. "A lot of information about times and places and circumstances but not a lot of knowledge. No-one sees the attack, no-one hears anything. Not even a worthwhile description. It's all contradictory. There's nothing to go on. The media aren't helping at all, all sensationalist drivel." She indicated the scrunched-up paper.
Jenny put her tea down. "We'll catch 'im ma'am. I promise."
Vastra let out a deep sigh. "I would be grateful for any ideas."
Bait. That's what Lettie had said. But if Vastra was around, lying in wait, Jenny would hardly be in any danger. And it would mean Vastra had back up too.
"I mean you gotta admit, I do have experience of bein' attacked down alleys." Jenny finished her pitch.
"You want to walk around London. At night. Dressed as a prostitute. Whilst I follow you around with a sword and hope that we get lucky? That the one person out of all the drunken fools who would approach you will be the Ripper?"
"Oh I see. So only drunken fools are gonna find me attractive, is that it? Thank you!" Jenny snorted and folded her arms.
"Are you saying only knife wielding mass murderers with a penchant for removing organs will?" Vastra raised an eye ridge.
"Well…" Jenny looked Vastra dead in the eye.
The Silurian turned a darker green. "Is that how you see me?"
The blood drained from Jenny's face. "What? No! I…"
"I suppose, if I were an ape, I would be considered the same, if not worse, than the Ripper." Vastra said in a flat voice.
"But you ain't. You ain't! I didn't mean it like that. You ain't nuffin like 'im."
"But I was. Before I met you. Even afterwards. I killed the entirety of that gang."
"An' have you eaten anyone since?" Jenny stood up. "Since I started buyin' you meat an' pies an' blood?"
Vastra looked up at her. "Are you trying to say you rehabilitated me?"
"I'm sayin' you're a Silurian. You saw humans as your enemy, as food. As animals. Thas not what he sees those women as."
"Is it not?" Vastra sat up straight.
"What?"
Vastra stood up, brushing past Jenny. "Let us not regard him as your usual petty murderer. Let us see him instead as a hunter. A cruel and unusual beast. He sees them as prey. He will have territories perhaps, hunting grounds." Vastra moved through the Plant Room to her office. "Rituals even. Routines." She observed the board where she'd tacked up information from all the crimes. Jenny came to stand by her. Vastra turned and gave her a small smile. "Set a thief to catch a thief."
When Jenny started to object, Vastra interrupted her. "Let us not disregard our pasts. As yours has been useful in helping to bring about our current state of affairs, let mine be equally useful. Tea, please, Jenny."
Jenny didn't move away. "I still don't think you're anythin' like him."
"So eager to redeem me. It will take a lot more than that, my dear." Vastra waved her concerns away.
Jenny sighed. "I'll make the tea then."
"You didn't rehabilitate me, you know." Vastra called after her. "I did not stop hunting apes because of some change of heart or new learned moral."
"No?" Jenny
"No." Vastra said simply, drawing a finger along the board.
Puzzled, but realising she would get no more out of her Silurian than that, Jenny rolled her eyes and gathered up the tea cups.
"One day," she muttered to herself as the kettle boiled and she laid out a fresh tray. "One day we'll have someone to make the tea for us. And then I can stop bein' a maid in private as well as public."
She returned to find Vastra laying out a map, making marks where murders had been committed.
"Looks like a square. With two in the middle." She commented.
"Those two were the first murders earlier this year. The police are not yet sure whether to attribute them to this Ripper." Vastra pinned the map up on the board.
"So this," Jenny gestured to the area within the square. "is his huntin' ground? Like you said?"
"It's a start. All the murders take place at night, unsurprisingly. For what he does to the bodies, night provides appropriate cover. We have a murder on Friday, a murder on Saturday and two on a Sunday."
"Don't like to kill durin' the working week?" Jenny raised her eyebrows.
"So, a man with a job then, perhaps. Presumably one which would grant him intimacy with the whereabouts of internal organs."
"What, like a surgeon? Because of how he knew where to get at the vitals?"
"Certainly not an amateur. And yet…he does not dispose of the bodies."
"Theatrical then."
"Trying to make a statement?"
"Political?"
Jenny and Vastra looked at each other. "Much as this is potentially illuminating, I feel it gets us no closer to being able to catch him."
"But we have an area to stake out at least."
"I am still averse to the idea of using you as bait."
"I'll get a dress off Lettie, she can make me up so I look the part."
"You not being able to pull off the disguise was not the basis of my objection." Vastra said archly.
9th October 1888
They took the night off from investigating for Jenny's birthday. Jenny spent the day exhausted from their nightly roaming and fretful in case the Ripper chose this one night to attack. Vastra pointed out that it was a Tuesday and therefore he'd be breaking his pattern, but it did little to reassure her. The Doctor had turned up, alone and uncommunicative, stopping off just long enough to give her a box with a large cake in it. "As promised. I won't stay." He waved off Vastra's concern and Jenny's offer of a cup of tea.
"He has been alone too long." Vastra frowned after him.
"How can you tell?"
"I remember him from before. After the War when he'd travelled alone. It is then that he is the most foolish. And dangerous. I believe half the reason he stayed at the circus with me so long was because he was aware of this."
"Let's hope he finds a companion soon then."
"Indeed. But I think…he will have to change a great deal before that happens."
"You mean, regenerate? Ma'am?"
"Perhaps." Vastra shrugged, turning back to the cake, delicately scooping up some icing with her tongue and promptly spitting it out again. "Lemon." She explained to an unimpressed Jenny.
16th October 1888
They had been roaming up and down and around the area of the murders, Jenny literally tarted up and Vastra lurking in the shadows, every night since they'd returned, except the night of Jenny's birthday. Jenny had nearly been arrested by police for being a prostitute so often, Gregson had given her a ticket to carry with her to prevent re-occurrences. Lettie had been most put out when Jenny had told her about this and threatened to start a petition to get all prostitutes officially licenced. Vastra had lost count of the number of drunks who'd soiled themselves when she'd leapt out of the shadows wielding a sword at them, for laying a hand on Jenny. Rumours had started up that now the Ripper was attacking people who went after prostitutes, for which Jenny found herself once again facing Lettie's ire.
"Bad enough the actual bastard is causing a fall in business, without you joining in! Mind, it does mean a lot more customers call along to the House." She mused as she once again applied what felt like the entirety of her vanity box to Jenny's face.
Jenny was tired from the sudden change in their sleeping habit, bored with the attire she was wearing and half frozen, with only a thin shawl draped across her shoulders. She lurked at the opening of Palmer street, trying her best sashay. Lettie had tried to give her lessons, helpfully falling about laughing at Jenny's imitation. "I think you're safe enough from real punters." She'd spluttered. "But it might be enough to fool the Ripper."
A thin drizzle started, and Jenny huddled in on herself. The street took on a greasy sheen from the water. Somewhere along the street a lamp guttered out. Jenny hoped Vastra was able to keep warm. George had made up a fleece lined cloak for her to wear in winter, to make the investigations that brought them out on such nights more comfortable.
In the distance footsteps ran, slipping on the wet cobbles. A door banged shut, setting Jenny's nerves on edge. Her hand went instinctively to her sword. Water dripped from her fringe. She blinked it from her eyes, swiping the rat tails of her hair back from her face and side stepped neatly out of the way of the knife that came whistling down, tearing into the sleeve of her dress. Her elbow jerked back, connecting with a dull thud with someone's rib cage. She spun around, drawing her sword, blocking the blade as it was thrust towards her midriff. A hand grabbed at her hair, but she brought the butt of her sword handle up into the man's throat and he let go. She swung at him, but he ducked under it, slashing at her side as he ran past her.
The clash of metal had attracted Vastra's attention. She darted down the street, not bothering to draw her sword, charging at the man and knocking him into the street. His hat fell off as he rolled, his knife skittering away from him. Jenny locked eyes with him as he stood up. The cold bloodthirsty gaze reminded her of Vandemar and she froze, remembering Vastra's nightmare, remembering her own. But Vastra was stood in front of her, sword raised, and the man grabbed his knife and fled, disappearing into the warren of small streets.
Vastra let out a stream of Silurian curses and sheathed her sword, not bothering to chase him. She collected the hat and looked it over. It was nondescript and mildly shabby, and she threw it back into the gutter in disgust.
"I doubt he will be back out again tonight, we may as well head home." Vastra walked back to Jenny. "No point in chasing him in this weather, any trail will be easily lost."
"Ma'am…"
"It was not your fault Jenny." Vastra held up her hand to forestall any apology. "He took us both by surprise."
"No. Ma'am!"
Vastra quirked her head, observing the shivering woman.
"He got me ma'am."
