Analysing Doctor Who: Matrix, by Robert
Perry and Mike Tucker (BBC Books, 1998)
When the novel's narrative first moves to
London's 'Autumn of Terror' (page 63), East End
local, Jed Barrow has been following "shadows"
in the fog for months, and had even heard the
"strangled screams" of the second Ripper victim
at Hanbury Street [2] in Spitalfields (we can
dismiss the pea-soup fog here - it was never
foggy during any of the attacks). Jed also
watched the police search of the yard at
number 29, and even "found two gold rings".
In fact, two brass rings were apparently taken
by the killer from Chapman's left hand, but
never recovered (similar cheap rings were
discovered amongst suspect Francis Tumblety's
belongings after his death in 1903).
Jed later meets Jacques Malacroix, the
tyrannical circus-owner, at Mitre Square in
Aldgate, as the police remove Eddowes' [4]
body. Malacroix wants to find the Ripper to display with his other
freaks, and so employs Jed as his "eyes".
There had already been a murder that night, the first of the so-called
'double event' when a prostitute had been "cut from ear to ear". This
was the victim's only injury since the killer was supposedly disturbed
by Louis Diemschutz, and he needed to sate his bloodlust by seeking
another kill. The murder of this third canonical victim [3] has led to
further speculation that she wasn't slain by the Ripper at all, but by
a copycat killer (or that this single murder was hidden amidst the
series).
Nearly six weeks later, Jed witnesses the arrival of the TARDIS at a
Thames-side wharf, and recalls similar magical scenes at Mr. Jago's
Palace Theatre (p. 69, see The Talons of Weng-Chiang). Coming
under immediate mental attack, the Doctor explains to Ace that
according to the distorted version of history (studied from Barbara
Wright's books in 1966), a sixth Ripper murder, one that should
never have happened, occurs on the very wharf where the duo
have landed (p. 72).
Coincidentally, former detective John F Plimmer is convinced that
Jack was based in docklands (In the Footsteps of the Whitechapel
Murders, 1998). In 2005, Trevor Marriott named German merchant
seaman, Carl Feigenbaum, as the killer, and even speculated that
the murderer had first struck in 1863, then 1872.
In channel Five's Mapping Murder (2002), however, geographical
profiler David Carter speculated that Jack's lair was located in the
Middlesex Street area - the actual site of Ripper 'diarist' James
Maybrick's London rooms.
This would-be victim, a young woman wearing a cream dress
(presumably the one that Ace changed into at Gabriel Chase, see
Ghost Light) was never identified, and the subsequent 'Jacksprite'
incidents spiralled out of control. Interestingly, the Ripper episode
of The Outer Limits (1999) features a victim credited only as a
"woman in [a] cream dress".
ITV mini-series Jack the Ripper (1988) also includes a sixth
(staged) murder attempt, whilst From Hell (2001) reinterprets
the fifth canonical killing by presenting the murder of a French
prostitute mistaken for Kelly [5].
TO BE CONTINUED
KEY Canonical Murders:
[1] Mary Ann Nichols - Buck's Row, Friday August 31st 1888
[2] Annie Chapman - Hanbury St. Saturday September 8th
[3] Elizabeth Stride - Berner St. Sunday September 30th
[4] Catherine Eddowes - Mitre Square, also September 30th
[5] Mary Jane Kelly - Miller's Court, Friday November 9th
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