Whitechapel Quotes

The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything.

You have been known to call upon Brother Zachariah for a broken toe. "It was turning green,” said Will

To his children, Will showed the same love he had always shown to her, fierce and unyielding. And the same protectiveness he had only ever showed to one other person: the person James had been named after. Will’s parabatai, Jem.

Spoon!” James said, running at his uncle Gabriel and jabbing him in the thigh. Gabriel mussed the boy’s hair affectionately. “You’re such a good boy,” he said. “I often wonder how you could possibly be Will’s.” “Spoon,” James said, leaning against his uncle’s leg lovingly. “No, Jamie,” Will urged. “Your honorable father has been impugned. Attack, attack!

I am Tessa Gray,” she said in a low, clear voice. “And I believe in the importance of stories.

Will stopped glaring at Gabriel, and turned to Tessa. He looked at her and his face softened: the traces of the wild, broken boy he had been vanished, replaced with the expression often worn by the man he was now, who knew what it was to love and be loved. “Dear heart,” he said. He took her hand and kissed it. “Who knows your courage better than I?

Simon’s love life was complicated, but there was a pang, just for a moment, for this woman talking graphic novels with him. Ah, well. Tessa Gray, foxy nerd, was probably dating someone already.

If the city of London was a body, Whitechapel would be the groin; a great unwashed area that only showed itself under the cover of darkness, and only for the most salacious of entertainments. No one of “proper” birth ever admitted to going there, but they all did at one time or another—or at least they wanted to. Slumming was very popular these days.

But what about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "What do I do?" "I have no idea," said Jace. "So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?" Simon demanded. "Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon," said Jace. "You may not remember, but that's kind of our thing.

Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon,” said Jace. “You may not remember, but that’s kind of our thing.

Listen, Stephen King used to write in the washroom of his trailer after his kids went to sleep. Harlan Ellison wrote in the stall of a bathroom of his barracks during boot camp. Elmore Leonard got up at 5 AM every morning to write before work. Every time my alarm goes off at 5 AM and I don’t want to get up, or I would rather sit down after work and play a videogame, I think about those guys. Take care of your family. They need you and love you. Make time for them. Then stop screwing around and finish your damn book.

Oh, for shame! Nancy, have you never seen Florrie's face in a chrysanthemum, or a rose?' 'Never.' I said. 'Though there was a flounder for sale on a fishmonger's barrow, in Whitechapel yesterday, and the likeness was quite uncanny. I very nearly brought it home...

Perhaps this is the purpose of all art, all writing, on the murders, fiction and non-fiction: Simply to participate.

Izzy -I don't know why you'd wait for me, but if you do, I promise to make myself worth that wait. Or I'll try. I can promise I am going to try.

What?” Jace was standing up now. “When you first step off. Bend the knees right away. Otherwise you did pretty well.” “But what about Isabelle?” Simon asked. “What do I do?” “I have no idea,” Jace said. “So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?” Simon demanded. “Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon,” said Jace. “You may not remember, but that’s kind of our thing.” With that, he walked away, clearly aware of the admiring glances that followed his every step.

They were in love, of the realest, truest kind.

There were few people in the world who understood how much Will and Jem had loved each other, did love each other, and how much Will missed him. But Tessa did.

They shared a small moment of bizarre, companionable silence -they boy who'd forgotten everything about his history, and the boy who'd never known it.

We have raccoons in New York. They can get in anywhere. They can open doors. I read online that they even know how to use keys.' 'I don't like snakes. Snakes don't need keys

Once, I was not called Tessa Gray but Tessa Herondale.

Why is it that we honor the Great Thieves of Whitehall, for Acts that in Whitechapel would merit hanging? Why admire one sort of Thief, and despise the other? I suggest, 'tis because of the Scale of the Crime.--What we of the Mobility love to watch, is any of the Great Motrices, Greed, Lust, Revenge, taken out of all measure, brought quite past the scale of the ev'ryday world, approaching what we always knew were the true Dimensions of Desire. Let Antony lose the world for Cleopatra, to be sure,--not Dick his Day's Wages, at the Tavern.

There must be snakes,” George said. “Isn’t this place everything a snake could want? Cool, made of stone, lots of holes to slither in and out of, lots of mice to eat . . . Why am I still talking? Simon, make me stop talking. . . .

Jon, Julie, and the others in the elite course, who had been devastated to miss Falling Out of Trees with Jace Herondale 101, all stared over as if ready to leap up and save Jace from the bad company he’d fallen into, carry him away in a litter made of chocolate and roses, and bear his children.

It's always slime.' 'Not so,' George said. 'One time it was mold.

Welcome young poet, in here you are free to follow your star to where you should be. That door of the library was the door into me And Lorca and Shelley said “Come to the feast.” Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.

If the Whitechapel murders served to expose anything, it was the unspeakably horrendous conditions in which the poor of that district lived.

Probably one of those sinister organisations that lurked behind the mask of amusing acronym, such as BUM, for example - the Bermondsey Union of Minstrels. Or WILLY, the Whitechapel Institution for Long-Legged Yodellers. It could be any one of a hundred such evil cabals. With the notable exception of the Meritorious Union For Friendship, Decency, Individualism, Virtue and Educational Resources, who were above reproach.

My book is extremely graphic. I make no apologies for it. But it is graphic only because I told the truth about what the Ripper did to his victims.

I have to figure out who I am before I can accept that I’m someone who deserves someone like you.

They seemed to grip the tree very lightly. Simon tried this, realized it was futile, and grabbed the tree in a hug so intimate, he wondered if they were now dating.

I cannot recall a situation you did not think was special and required his presence,” said Gabriel dryly. “You have been known to call upon Brother Zachariah for a broken toe.

little James Herondale, age 2, was intact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion sending out a burst of feathers. "Ducks", he said pointing to the feathers. Tessa swiftly removed the dagger from his tiny hand and replaced it with a wooden spoon. James had recently become very attached to his wooden spoon and carried it with him everywhere often refusing to go to sleep without it

Bill Thompson edited ‘Whitechapel,’ and his first question to me was, “Why in God’s name do you want to bring down Superman?” And my answer was, and remains, by breaking down Holmes as this untouchable machine, it gives him the chance to become the hero we need him to be.

They no longer panicked when they heard skittering noises in the wall or under the bed. If the noises where in the bed, they allowed themselves some panic. This had happened more than once.

Watson, for some time now I have had cause to believe in the improbable-the existence of a mind so exceptional, so well- trained in the sciences and the doctrine of criminology as to be Master of the Arts.’ The suggestion was fantastic!. ‘A Professor of crime?.’ - Holmes to Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders

Because Shadowhunters must also guard mundanes from knowing about our world, you must also sometimes take control of the writing of that history. By this I mean you have to cover things up. You need to provide a plausible explanation for what’s happened—one that does not involve demons.” “Like Men in Black,” Simon whispered to George.

You’re either saying ‘Isabelle’ or ‘fishy smell.’ Could be either, to be fair.

Simon tried this, realized it was futile, and grabbed the tree in a hug so intimate, he wondered if they were now dating.

So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?” Simon demanded. “Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon,” said Jace. “You may not remember, but that’s kind of our thing.

Intuition was just the brain processing information more quickly than one's consciousness could comprehend.

How curious it was, how ironic, he decided, that the human brain seemed capable of understanding almost everything but itself.

Everyone is a whore, Fiona." I felt rather than heard when he unfolded himself from the settee. He wasn't so much a warmth or an essence behind me. But the absence of either. "We each merely offer different parts of ourselves for use, do we not? Our sex. Our blades. Our muscles. Our mind. Our time. Our souls.

Something wrong?” Will asked. “This,” Gabriel said. He held up a broadsheet newspaper called the Star. “It’s awful.” “I agree,” Will said. “Those halfpenny rags are terrible. But you seem to be more upset about them than is appropriate.

At its very core, the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer’s deep, abiding hatred of women, and our culture’s obsession with the mythology serves only to normalize its particular brand of misogyny. We have grown so comfortable with the notion of “Jack the Ripper,” the unfathomable, invincible male killer, that we have failed to recognize that he continues to walk among us. In his top hat and cape, wielding his blood-drenched knife, he can be spotted regularly in London on posters, in ads, on the sides of buses. Bartenders have named drinks after him, shops use his moniker on their signs, tourists from around the world make pilgrimages to Whitechapel to walk in his footsteps and visit a museum dedicated to his violence. The world has learned to dress up in his costume at Halloween, to imagine being him, to honor his genius, to laugh at a murderer of women. By embracing him, we embrace the set of values that surrounded him in 1888, which teaches women that they are of a lesser value and can expect to be dishonored and abused.

Once, I was not called Tessa Gray but Tessa Herondale. In that time, in 1888, in East London, there was a string of terrible murders . . .

Danger is appealing. Especially to those with nothing to lose.

Dig two graves, Fiona. One for your enemy... And one for yourself.

a significant percentage of the inhabitants of Whitechapel were identified as “poor,” “very poor,” or “semi-criminal.

Whitechapel alone there were 233 common lodging houses, which accommodated an estimated 8,530 homeless people.

He drew an oval shape to the left of the board, a doorway to the centre and a noose to the right. ‘Here-’ - he indicated the oval- ‘We have the population of London, gathered together in a single mass. Our door here will admit just one of these millions, so acting as a filter. This individual is the one suited for the noose, the man we shall see hang.’ ‘But, Holmes-how do we make the correct selection?, the odds must be several million to one.’ ‘Let us see if we can lower those odds. - Holmes to Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders

Like Ellen Holland, whose name the journalists could not even bother to confirm or record correctly, Polly was just another impoverished, aging, worthless female resident of a Whitechapel lodging house.

No murderer had before or has since caused such a sensation, passed so quickly into folklore or gained an image – top hat, cape and Gladstone bag – that is truly iconic: as instantly recognisable as Sherlock Holmes's deerstalker and meerschaum pipe, and as capable of conveying a meaning understood around the world – even by people who know nothing about the Ripper or what he did, or that he, unlike Holmes, actually existed.

Your problem, dear chap, as I have had occassion to remind you, is that you see but you do not observe; you hear but you do not listen. For a literary man, Watson - and note that I do not comment on the merit of your latest account of my little problems - for a man with the pretenses of being a writer, you are singularly unobservant. Honestly, sometimes I am close to despair.

And what condition is -" Gabriel broke off with a sigh. "Ah," he said. "Brother Zachariah." "This monster is violent," said Will. "We might need a healer. Someone with the power of a Silent Brother. This is a special situation." "I cannot recall a situation you did not think was special and required his presence," said Gabriel dryly. "You have been known to call upon Brother Zachariah for a broken toe." "It was turning green," said Will. "He's right," said Tessa. "Green doesn't suit him. Makes him look bilious.

It's not appropriate," Tessa said to her husband, Will. "He likes it." "Children like all sorts of things, Will. They like sweets and fire and trying to stick their head up the chimney. Just because he likes the dagger..." "Look how steadily he holds it." Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers. "Ducks," he said, pointing at the feathers. Tessa swiftly removed the dagger from his tiny hands and replaced it with a wooden spoon. James had recently become very attached to this wooden spoon and carried it with him everywhere, often refusing to go to sleep without it. "Spoon," James said, tottering off across the parlor. "Where did he find the dagger?" Tessa asked. "It's possible I took him to the weapons room," Will said. "Is it?" "It is, yes. It's possible." "And it's possible he somehow got a dagger from where it is secured on the wall, out of his reach," Tessa said. "We live in a world of possibilities," Will said. Tessa fixed a gray-eyed stare on her husband. "He was never out of my sight," Will said quickly. "If you could manage it," Tessa said, nodding to the sleeping figure of Lucie Herondale in her little basket by the fire, "perhapds you won't give Lucie a broadsword until she's actually able to stand? Or is that asking too much?" "It seems a reasonable request," Will said, with an extravagant bow. "Anything for you, my pearl beyond price. Even withholding weaponry from my only daughter.

After doing some rough calculations, Warren estimated that approximately 1,200 prostitutes inhabited Whitechapel’s 233 common lodging houses. More importantly, he qualified this statement by admitting that the police “have no means of ascertaining what women are prostitutes and who are not.

The morale of the Metropolitan Police Force had reached its lowest point during the Ripper murders of the previous year and had not yet recovered. The files of the Whitechapel murders had not been closed as the case was still ongoing, but nobody in London trusted the police to do their job.

There were some places, and streets, where he did not venture since he had learnt that others had claims there greater than his own - not the gangs of meths drinkers who lived in no place and no time, nor the growing number of the young who moved on restlessly across the face of the city, but vagrants like himself who, despite the name which the world has given them, had ceased to wander and now associated themselves with one territory or 'province' rather than another. All of them led solitary lives, hardly moving from their own warren of streets and buildings: it is not known whether they chose the area, or whether the area itself had callen them and taken them in, but they had become the guardian spirits (as it were) of each place. Ned now knew some of their names: Watercress Joe, who haunted the streets by St Mary Woolnoth, Black Sam who lived and slept beside the Commercial Road between Whitechapel and Limehouse, Harry the Goblin who was seen only by Spitalfields and Artillery Lane, Mad Frank who walked continually through the streets of Bloomsbury, Italian Audrey who was always to be found in the dockside area of Wapping (it was she who had visited Ned in his shelter many years before), and 'Alligator' who never moved from Greenwich.

—Prostitutas —dijo Tessa. —Muchas —dijo Gabriel. —Tessa tiene un vocabulario extenso —dijo Will—. Es una de las cosas más atractivas de ella. Que pena por el tuyo, Gabriel.

Memories make for powerful ghosts..." I whispered.

Winds with little fishhooks at the end of every gust.

Nadie te culpa por no ser capaz de recordar. Te ofreciste como sacrificio, fuiste valiente. Salvaste a Magnus. Y salvaste a Isabelle. Me salvaste a mí [...].

The figure in the cloak had turned, waving a fist in the air in a gesture of pure spite. ‘Damn you!’ My whispered curse came as I drew my revolver, pausing only to take aim. Two shots rang out, shattering the very air between us. I could not be sure if the heavy bullets had found their mark; the fiend whirling around behind a chimney-stack a moment after I fired. A groan from the blackness below-it was Holmes!. - John Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders

Investigations into the Whitechapel murders did, however, explicitly and convincingly expose a disturbing set of facts: the poor of that district lived in unspeakably horrendous conditions. The encampment and riots at Trafalgar Square were a conspicuous manifestation of what had been chronically ailing in the East End and other impoverished parts of London. It was a cough hacked in the face of the establishment. The emergence of Jack the Ripper was a louder and more violent one still.

they could not understand that poverty carried its own flavour there, where everything cost more, where the relentless distinctions between those who had succeeded and those who had not were constantly, painfully visible. The distance between Elin’s vanilla-columned flat in Clarence Terrace and the filthy Whitechapel squat where his mother had died could not be measured in mere miles. They were separated by infinite disparities, by the lotteries of birth and chance, by faults of judgement and lucky breaks.

Did you love me?" It was a pathetic question asked in a pathetic whisper. "Oh, Fiona," The lips he pressed against my temple were anything but ecumenical. His hand on my back drifted to my waist. "My feelings for you cannot be reduced to a single word. You are my only temptation.

When a woman steps out of line and contravenes the feminine norm, whether on social media or on the Victorian street, there is a tacit understanding that someone must put her back in her place. Labelling the victims as ‘just prostitutes’ permits those writing about Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary Jane even today to continue to disparage, sexualize and dehumanize them; to continue to reinforce the values of madonna/whore. It allows authors to rank the women’s level of attractiveness based on images of their murdered bodies and to declare ‘pulchritude was, it appears, of no interest to the Whitechapel Murderer’,

By the end of the nineteenth century, seventy-eight thousand souls were packed into this quarter of common lodging houses, “furnished rooms,” warehouses, factories, sweatshops, abattoirs, pubs, cheap music halls, and markets. Its overcrowded population represented diverse cultures, religions, and languages. For at least two centuries, Whitechapel had been a destination for immigrants from many parts of Europe. In the late nineteenth century, a large number of Irish, desperate to escape the rural poverty of the mother country, had arrived. By the 1880s an exodus of Jews, fleeing the pogroms of eastern Europe, joined them.

London, noisy, noisome, nattering London: aged, ageless, dignified, eccentric in her ways - seat of empire, capital of all the world; that indomitable grey lady of drab aspect but sparkling personality - was at her very, very best and most radiant. And Holmes, ebullient and uncommonly chatty, was in a mood to match.

Así, el sábado ―con la carta de míster Browning abierta sobre la mesa― empezó a vestirse. Leyó la última advertencia de él: «…y, al tomar esta actitud, me sitúo frente a la execrable táctica de los maridos, padres, hermanos y demás dominadores que haya en el mundo». De manera que si ella iba a Whitechapel, se ponía con esto contra Robert Browning y a favor de los padres, hermanos y demás dominadores. A pesar de ello, siguió vistiéndose. Un perro aullaba porque lo tenían atado. Estaba indefenso en poder de unos hombres crueles. Le parecía que los aullidos le gritaban: «; Piensa en Flush!» Se calzó, se puso el manto y el sombrero. Miró una vez más la carta de míster Browning. «Me voy a casar contigo», leyó. El perro seguía aullando. Salió de la habitación, bajó las escaleras…

Drawing aside so as not to impede passersby, he answered. “Oggy?” said his ex-colleague’s voice. “What gives, mate? Why are people sending you legs?” “I take it you’re not in Germany?” said Strike. “Edinburgh, been here six weeks. Just been reading about you in the Scotsman.” The Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police had an office in Edinburgh Castle: 35 Section. It was a prestigious posting. “Hardy, I need a favor,” said Strike. “Intel on a couple of guys. D’you remember Noel Brockbank?” “Hard to forget. Seventh Armoured, if memory serves?” “That’s him. The other one’s Donald Laing. He was before I knew you. King’s Own Royal Borderers. Knew him in Cyprus.” “I’ll see what I can do when I get back to the office, mate. I’m in the middle of a plowed field right now.” A chat about mutual acquaintances was curtailed by the increasing noise of rush-hour traffic. Hardacre promised to ring back once he had had a look at the army records and Strike continued towards the Tube. He got out at Whitechapel station thirty minutes later to find a text message from the man he was supposed to be meeting. Sorry Bunsen cant do today ill give you a bell This was both disappointing and inconvenient, but not a surprise. Considering that Strike was not carrying a consignment of drugs or a large pile of used notes, and that he did not require intimidation or beating, it was a mark of great esteem that Shanker had even condescended to fix a time and place for meeting. Strike’s knee was complaining after a day on his feet, but there were no seats outside the station. He leaned up against the yellow brick wall beside the entrance and called Shanker’s number. “Yeah, all right, Bunsen?” Just as he no longer remembered why Shanker was called Shanker, he had no more idea why Shanker called him Bunsen. They had met when they were seventeen and the connection between them, though profound in its way, bore none of the usual stigmata of teenage friendship.

The whores of Whitechapel die as they live, on the knife's edge of danger.

Sue and Andy Parlour’s book Jack the Ripper: The Whitechapel Murders,

I had an infinite number of questions and would have been happy for her to recount her life in real time, would have been happy to walk on past Whitechapel and Limehouse into Essex and the estuary and on into the sea if she'd wanted to.

THE CATER STREET HANGMAN CALLANDER SQUARE PARAGON WALK RESURRECTION ROW BLUEGATE FIELDS RUTLAND PLACE DEATH IN THE DEVIL’S ACRE CARDINGTON CRESCENT SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE BETHLEHEM ROAD HIGHGATE RISE BELGRAVE SQUARE FARRIERS’ LANE THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN TRAITORS GATE PENTECOST ALLEY ASHWORTH HALL BRUNSWICK GARDENS BEDFORD SQUARE HALF MOON STREET THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY SOUTHAMPTON ROW SEVEN DIALS LONG SPOON LANE BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS

The city reeked of death, and the savages that resided within its imposing starkness existed in fear of their lives. They had been shocked by the recent bloody Whitechapel murders, as if starvation, disease, moral degradation, and perpetual smog drowning all color in gray wasn’t enough to bring home the pathetic reality of their miserable existence. The police were no nearer to capturing the monster that lurked in the crevices, and London seemed stiller in the dark, the streets devoid of hope.

I guess it’s easy to be brave when you’re young, and you haven’t much to lose. Maybe he’s married.” She looked up at me. “Maybe he has kids, school fees, a mortgage, all those things that sap your heroism and make your boss so powerful.

It was odd how happiness unshared was only half as great, and yet any kind of misfortune alone was doubled.

It was not a quick flare of temper but the slow, sullen rage of years of anger and hate shown naked for a few moments,

And all the time, as the train went whirling through reverberant tunnels, then out into the unspeakable' squalors of the East End — Bow, Stepney, Whitechapel, Barking — she was thinking how strangely unromantic this honeymoon journey was contrasting it, in spite of herself, with that other southward journey in the Blue Train with Ledwyche. She didn’t love Ledwyche; she supposed she did love Cyril. And yet, when she came to think of it, how safe she had felt with the other — how many essential, though trivial, things they had had in common! Trivial? Were they so trivial after all? Weren’t they, in fact, the whole basic structure of her life, her birth, her breeding? With Ledwyche, she knew just exactly where she was, while' 'with this dark stranger. . . . It came as a shock to her to remember that she didn’t even know his name, nor he hers. That, to begin with, was enough to make the' whole adventure unreal, unsubstantial, uncertain. Yet, hadn’t they agreed — oh, long ago! — that it was this very circumstance that made the affair so romantically thrilling? Eros and Psyche! . . . To question the illusion was to shatter it. And yet she knew nothing about him, nothing whatever, except that they shared a few tastes and theories. Why, for all she knew, he might even be a criminal, a murderer! “Well, here I am,” she thought. “Ca y est! I’ve got to go through with it.” And of course, to be logical, this journey had not begun at Liverpool Street that morning; it had begun at the moment when Ledwyche had shown her into the train at Cannes. It would end, God knew how, in some sordid lodging in Southend. “I’m a free woman,” she told herself. “Well, this is the price of freedom.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda,

He need not consider appearances, being indeed more concerned for his disappearances. Jack the Ripper.

England is changing. The Morrigan is not a cause of that change; she is an effect. Have you been to Whitechapel, Dr. Doyle? Have you seen the depredations there? A hundred thousand ladies enslaved as whores. Have you been to Westminster? Another hundred thousand enslaved as chars. The women of England have but three choices in this age. We toil with our hands, we toil with our cunts, or we marry rich and toil with our very hearts. Which would you choose?

I am a practitioner of the science of deduction, of using the known facts in a case to unveil the unknown.’ - Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders

The area housed many successful medium-sized businesses, such as the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, founded in 1570 (and Britain’s oldest continual manufacturer). By the eighteenth century, the foundry was exporting bells to the Americas, including the Liberty Bell, in 1752. The Liberty Bell left England bearing a biblical inscription which would have been familiar to both the French Protestants who had sought refuge only a stone’s throw away, and also the Jews who worshipped close by. It came from the book of Leviticus 25: 10: ‘Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

Looked you up in the yellow pages under ‘Evil Syndicates,’” he said. “Lo and behold, there you were right in between Hydra and Spectre.

If he had been capable of sorrow, the sad state of his former residence would have elicited such an emotion, but he was not.

She’s a country forged in pain and glory, her soil is tainted with the blood of those who fought and died for her. She’s the conqueror of the old world and the streets of this here London Town weave spells around those from foreign lands. She’s opportunity and history and culture. She’s beauty and fucking grace, darlin’, and she’ll leave her mark on you forever now, because you’ve already placed your feet upon her pavements, and once you walk in the footsteps of the people who’ve lived here, it’ll alter you in ways you can’t even imagine yet. This city was a kingdom of brutality, from the cutthroat royals who publicly executed countless unfortunate sods at Tower Hill, to louts like Jack the Ripper who spilled the guts of his victims all over Whitechapel - the very place you find yourself in right now. This city’s been burned to the ground, bombed by the Luftwaffe, and still she stands. It’s survived plagues and winters cold enough to freeze your heart in your very chest. It ain’t easy to leave a mark on this place, but it sure leaves a mark on you. And you’re marked Anya Volkov, it’s already too late for you.

may surprise you,’ he urged. Lily’s eyes no longer smiled. Now their licorice darkness reflected only bitterness. ‘It’s not a matter of me finding the courage, Jack. I know my parents. They won’t surprise me. They’re very predictable. They’re also traditional and as far as they’re concerned, I’m as good as engaged … no, married! And they approve of Jimmy.’ Her expression turned glum. ‘All that’s missing are the rings and the party.’ ‘Lily, risk their anger or whatever it is you’re not prepared to provoke but don’t do this.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Forget me. I’m not important. I’m talking about the rest of your life, here. From what I can see of my friends and colleagues, marriage is hard enough without the kiss of death of not loving your partner.’ ‘It’s not his fault, Jack. You don’t understand. It’s complicated. And in his way, Jimmy is very charismatic.’ Jack didn’t know Professor James Chan, eminent physician and cranio-facial surgeon based at Whitechapel’s Royal London Hospital, but he already knew he didn’t much like him. Jack might be sleeping with Lily and loving every moment he could share with her, but James Chan had a claim on her and that pissed Jack off. Privately, he wanted to confront the doctor. Instead, he propped himself on one elbow and tried once more to reason with Lily. ‘It’s not complicated, actually. This isn’t medieval China or even medieval Britain. This is London 2005. And the fact is you’re happily seeing me … and you’re nearly thirty, Lily.’ He kept his voice light even though he felt like shaking her and cursing. ‘Are you asking me to make a choice?’ He shook his head. ‘No. I’m far more subtle. I’ve had my guys rig up a camera here. I think I should show your parents exactly what you’re doing when they think you’re comforting poor Sally. I’m particularly interested in hearing their thoughts on that rather curious thing you did to me on Tuesday.’ She gave a squeal and punched him, looking up to the ceiling, suddenly unsure. Jack laughed but grew serious again almost immediately. ‘Would it help if I —?’ Lily placed her fingertips on his mouth to hush him. She kissed him long and passionately before replying. ‘I know I shouldn’t be so answerable at my age but Mum and Dad are so traditional. I don’t choose to rub it in their face that I’m not a virgin. Nothing will help, my beautiful Jack. I will marry Jimmy Chan but we have a couple more weeks before I must accept his proposal. Let’s not waste it arguing and let’s not waste it on talk of love or longing. I know you loved the woman you knew as Sophie, Jack. I know you’ve been hiding from her memory ever since and, as much as I could love you, I am not permitted to because I’m spoken for and you aren’t ready to be in love again. This is not a happy-ever-after situation for us. I know you enjoy me and perhaps could love me but this is not the right moment for us to speak of anything but enjoying the time we have, because neither of us is available for anything beyond that.’ ‘You’re wrong, Lily.’ She smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘I have to go.’ Jack sighed. ‘I’ll drop you back.’ ‘No need,’ Lily said, moving from beneath the quilt, shivering as the cool air hit her naked body. ‘I have to pick up Alys from school. She’s very sharp and I don’t need her spotting you – especially as she’s had a crush on you since you first came into the flower shop.’ Suddenly she grinned. ‘If you hurry up, at least we can shower together!’ Jack leaped from the bed and dashed to the bathroom to turn on the taps. He could hear her laughing behind him but he felt sad. Two more weeks. It wasn’t fair – and then, as if the gods had decided to punish him further, his mobile rang, the ominous theme of Darth Vader telling him this was not a call he could ignore. He gave a groan. ‘Carry on without me,’ he called to Lily, reaching for the phone. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said, waiting for the inevitable apology

Last night the three of us lost ourselves in a haze of ecstasy, and that memory is forever burned in my heart. We loved and discovered each other until dawn,

With that, I turn and walk out of the restaurant with my chin high, pride wounded, and my sex throbbing.

Vue Gallery is located on the edge of the city and sits defiantly on the corner of urban chic and urban decay.

He was there for you, Jasmin. The man was damn near pulsing with need, and it was all aimed at you. I’m pretty sure he would have taken you right there, pressed up against those massive windows if Albert and I hadn’t been present.

She doesn’t move her hand away from mine but instead turns it over, so our palms touch. This small gesture is so intimate, and I can feel the tremble that passes from her to me.

Whitechapel at night was not a kind place.

It seems rather arbitrary. Why should one fellow sell potatoes on a street corner in Whitechapel while another wastes his days in a castle because his great-grandfather played cards and wenched with King Henry VIII?

All day I loafed in the streets, east as far as Wapping, west as far as Whitechapel. It was queer after Paris; everything was so much cleaner and quieter and drearier. One missed the scream of the trams, and the noisy, festering life of the back streets, the armed men clattering through the squares. The crowds were better dressed and the faces comelier and milder and more alike, without that fierce individuality and malice of the French. There was less drunkenness, and less dirt, and less quarrelling, and more idling. Knots of men stood at corners, slightly underfed, but kept going by the tea-and-two-slices which the Londoner swallows every two hours. One seemed to breathe a less feverish air than in Pairs. It was the land of the tea urn and the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of the bistro and the sweatshop.

A fact is immovable. That there are those who believe the world is square does not make the world less round.

Whitechapel

Outside, German aircraft are following the path of the Thames, which shines like a silver ribbon in the moonlight, leading them into the city. They drop bombs as they go. Cylindrical high-explosives fall from the bellies of the planes and descend at whistling speeds onto Barking and Limehouse and Whitechapel and Blackfriars and one dropped above Piccadilly comes plummeting down and