Ripper Street (2012) s01e01 Episode Script

This programme contains scenes of sexual violence and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Whitechapel.
Be sure to look down as keenly as you look up.
Mr Gladstone himself, only last week, found himself fitted for new boots.
Follow me for the haunts of Jack The Ripper.
Who wants a wager? Yours, shitspade.
Our men in blue are still cloaked in ignorance of Jack.
Here you are, darling, looking for a bit of company? Miller's Court.
Five months past, the scene of the worst.
The worst and, please, God, the last.
Mary Jane Kelly.
What that man, Jack, did to her.
Well, we shall not say.
He's tasty, all right.
Where'd you find him? I looked.
Wasn't hard.
Fighters, whores, flesh is what you seek, there's no shortage in these parts.
Falls when he's bid? Money's right, he'll give you his mother and his sister, too.
I likes him.
All of this parish know little else but thuggery.
How best to raise them up from such iniquity? Well, that's a matter for you good people, of course.
Look! Look! Black shit and buggery.
Murder! Murder! Murder! The inspector I must see him Show yourself in there dressed like that, they'll know he's blue.
You're champion this night! You little streak of piss! I've gutted younger for less, do you hear? Let me.
This better be very good.
They've found a tart, sir.
Up on Folgate.
She's been ripped, Inspector.
Hobbs, you did right.
Cecil Smeaton's greed will keep him warm for a day or two.
You will take a fall for him tomorrow.
Yes, sir.
This girl, if she has been carved as has been described, Ripper or no, word will have spread.
We will find the press, a mob, whipped into a fear and rage.
This populace, still without a culprit, it is to our uniform that they direct their fury.
So you stand strong and follow your sergeant.
They'll do their duty, sir.
You.
Name? Creighton.
Creighton, have you touched anything? Have you arranged matters to your benefit in any way? No, sir.
Who is it has paid for your time here? Mr Best at The Star, Inspector, who else? Well, you're on my ticket now.
I want these details, I want her face, her eyes, her throat.
She wasn't cut here.
Where was she where was she brought in from? We can't keep 'em penned in much longer, sir.
But this is vital.
All of it.
And this is next to useless.
I need this place uncorrupted and in daylight.
What? The wall.
He's left word again.
"Down on whores.
" I need more time with her.
Sir, there's the way things are, and the way things should be, but that lot are coming through.
Right, we need to move her.
You.
You're not finished.
I want the ground going in both directions away from her.
As much as you can get.
I want the wall, the writing.
You understand? Stand aside.
Stand aside! Stand aside! A comment for The Star, Inspector? Is it him? Is it Jack? Away with you, Best.
These citizens need their questions answered, Mr Reid.
No.
They need their fears pacified.
Where would be the sport in that? Where are we taking her, sir? The London? Mr Bagster-Philipps'? No.
You take her back to Leman Street.
Use the back.
Find a cell, lock her in it.
Don't book her in, tell no-one.
Yourself, sir? Not the American.
Just get her hid.
Let's go! Come on.
(SHE GASPS AND GIGGLES) Captain Jackson, this is all topsy-turvy, I'm sure.
Now, Rose.
I have told you, there are no rules here.
(CRASHING AND SHOUTING) Jackson! Sweet Jesus.
You cannot simply intrude here any time of your choosing.
That this house thrives and your girls are not walking the streets this night is at my whim and indulgence, Madam.
Don't forget that.
Where is he? What do I care? It's not as if he ever pays.
First door on the left.
Jackson! Jackson! What!? He's taken me for the night! Jackson! Reid? I'm occupied.
I'll come see you in the morning.
Can't wait.
I need a surgeon.
You have your own.
They're drunks and incompetents.
I want you.
Five minutes.
Now! Now! Now.
You going to tell me what this is about? Just keep walking.
WOMAN: Don't touch me, don't touch me! > Jackson! Is it him? That's what you're here to find out.
Your sudden passion for the furtive? I must be sure before that hell rises again.
Get her naked, Sergeant Drake.
Gently.
Are those hands or meat hooks, really? It's no wonder to me at all you're a bachelor.
The haemorrhage is from the severance of the left carotid.
Was the stroke left or right? Like the others.
And these are these are stars, aren't they? And the eyelids slit apart.
Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly had the same.
And the writing on the wall? Like Goulston Street the night we found Miss Eddowes' apron.
The same words as was in that letter.
What what is that? Some kind of gelatine.
What kind? From a meat pie.
What? How am I to know yet? Don't you have evidence to collect? I know it's tempting, but try not to kill him.
Mr Reid, sir.
I'm hearing strange rumours.
Oh, yes? That there's an unregistered female on the premises.
Always an abundance of those, Sergeant.
I'm not here to judge you, sir.
Just to remind you of our obligations under the law.
Why, thank you for that, Artherton.
As always.
Creighton! Open up! This one.
He dragged the body through the archway.
Those? Oh, I over-exposed them.
Worth our while to check.
Do you think me some bone-headed flatfoot? They need more time.
Professional man like yourself, I would have thought you'd know better.
That's the same wall! Where's the message, Creighton? The writing on the wall, "Down on whores.
" Was it you painted it up there? You know who it was.
Best.
I just record what I see.
Get that to press, quick sharp.
How do you think they felt, those girls, the moment they knew that was it, that breathing this air was up? Hmm? The later ones.
They would have known what that lunatic intended for their bodies.
Do you have a pity for them? Do you have a pity for the many men you've ruined with your accusations? I have I have never accused.
I have asked questions.
I have speculated! Speculate! Well, I speculate about you, Best.
The hand that penned that letter.
A letter I never credited as bona fide.
And now, this.
What else did you alter? Nothing.
Yeah, well, I didn't have to, did I? Just underlined what's plain to a man who's as intimate with the Ripper's doings as myself.
Well, myself and Chief Inspector Abberline.
You spoke to Fred Abberline? Your boss, as was.
I have.
Yes.
And he finds himself in agreement with me.
Our friend is back.
Nothing's for certain.
I won't have people hiding in their homes again, till I get to certain.
If I see this in print I'll be back here for some ripping of my own.
Oo-ooh! Who do you think you are, Reid? What, you come here to rattle me when you forget what I know of you? Oh, no.
Do not fear, good citizens, do not shake.
For sleepless, tireless Detectives Reid and Abberline, hunt our Jack down dockside and rookery.
Two finer police the world has not yet made, so be of good heart, this maniac will be brought to ground and hard.
Only, erm Oh, yeah, no, he he wasn't, was he? The man and his works abide.
Friday.
All right? Unless you've got something proves it's another knifeman this story turns over on Friday.
Ah, Inspector.
I know, I know, Artherton.
It's not that, sir.
What? Our past has come to say how-do.
Chief Inspector Abberline.
What merits such a visit? Enough dancing, Detective.
If there's a diced up girl in this shop, she's mine.
Out.
How could you do this? This is my shop now.
This is my case! I know what this looks like.
Look look, this graffito.
This is Best's contrivance.
Look at her! Her eyes, the stars on her face, her guts.
Her abdomen was opened fresh, right here, as part of the autopsy conducted by Homer Jackson.
That Yankee clap-doctor! The man was a US Army surgeon and he was a Pinkerton.
Pinkerton? That's right.
A chartered mercenary with a badge! And you place his word above mine.
I think you would have her Ripper above all else.
Another bite, another chance at him.
But you would not? I would have my innards served to me cold if I thought it would show him to us but, Fred, what if what if this girl was dressed as Jack for our eyes? And in our fervour, we fill the streets with uniform hunting for him and miss the truth of it? Now let me bring my mercenary back in here and have him speak.
The fact he didn't open her up strikes as strange.
Their guts, it's what he always wanted the most.
To open them up and see the viscera in his hand.
Then he was caught short, as he was with Elizabeth Stride.
Her throat was cut, the rest of her untouched.
But if he was disturbed with this one, he went back to her.
Or he hid beside her.
But whichever, he waited some few hours before bringing her here.
So long, in fact, that all the blood had ceased to spill from her body.
You see these cuts and gashes in her throat? No blood on the road she was dragged across.
I doubt there'd have been much where they opened her, either.
When the woman's throat was cut? The throat is a post-mortem injury.
Then what did for her? Asphyxia.
Her hyoid bone is broken.
So she was strangled.
And all else happened after.
These slits in her eyes and her face, with Kelly and Eddowes, they were a postscript, an afterthought.
This girl, they're top billing.
This is theory.
Not proof.
Get proof.
If you cannot, I'll pull rank and claim her.
What else? Well, despite your friend Best's connivery, she had been serviced, recently and vigorously.
So she was a tart? No, I don't think so.
See, I place her no younger than 28.
Her skin, nail beds, the essential health of her apparatus.
By that age even the more costly are worn through.
So, if she wasn't a professional? My guess The lady taught fiddle.
Yeah, she lived to the north.
The new suburbs.
Has the Pinkerton been conferring with spirits? Enough, Sergeant.
Go on.
Here, beneath her chin.
You see this moon-like impression in the clavicle? Her fingers worn and puckered by strings.
And her hair, there are heavy deposits in it.
Soot.
From the underground railway.
Which arrives, Drake, I believe, from which direction? Finchley, Highgate, Crouch End.
Missing persons reports.
Can't be too many lady violinists.
Just a warning, sir.
It may take some time.
The Type Printing Telegraphs you ordered What of them? They're faster.
So it is said Reid.
You have a type-printer? Hobbs.
You were instructed, were you not? Yes, Inspector.
Well? It's a bit of a handful.
Come on, boy, this is the future! The lad might come to terms with it sooner, sir, if you weren't stood so close.
And that, Reid, is the human barrier to progress.
I'm home to change.
You need to rest, too.
Captain Jackson.
The tonic you took from her thighs, have you wondered whether it might not be some kind of silver solution? From a peeper's dry plate? Emily.
Have you been to church? I am home for a shirt.
And now you go back.
It cannot be helped.
Of course.
There is a particular reason why I must return.
Has he come? I don't know.
I don't know, it might be.
Please don't go out after nightfall.
I'll get word to you if I'm to be gone all night.
I don't want you to worry.
I know.
No.
Send the runner to Mr Reid.
He'll be taking the Metropolitan.
Finchley's missing a violinist.
Johnson! It's the call to send them underground that troubles me, sir.
Seems unnatural.
Well, they're building more.
More trains, digging more tunnels.
It means the city can spread out and we can stop living like rats.
What, and come live on these streets? Would you like that, Bennet? I'd like many things, sir.
Is this it? (HE CHOKES) Mr Thwaites, sir? It's the police.
Drake! Drake! I cannot hold him.
What did Reid want? Weren't you taught to knock? The day you pay rent, Jackson, I'll knock.
Is that maniac on the strut again? Who? Reid? Relax, darlin'.
You need to start frisking men for knives again, I'll let you know.
Now Any of the girls get their picture taken? Is this what brought Reid here? Jackson, that man could ruin us.
He wants my help.
What am I supposed to do? You tell him sorry, but you're indisposed? Fine.
But he'll ask himself why.
And me and you, we don't want that.
You stop lavishing your care and attention on him.
Coming here was your idea.
When we came here, you said this was the kind of lawless shit swarm that we could hide ourselves in and you were right.
But, darling, in case you haven't noticed, we're not hiding anymore.
We live here.
Now, if that man wants to make a friend of me, he is welcome.
Cos if he ain't a friend, he's an enemy, and an enemy like that we do not need.
So, please, which of the girls has a leaning to smut? Myrtle! Get Rose up here.
You can keep 'em if you like.
I may.
Where'd you get these done, Rose? Two men boarded a coach with some toff.
Trimmed whiskers, moustache.
Mr Thwaites, these men, they put you up there? And the man Sergeant Drake describes, do you know him? Were you here to talk about Maud? My wife? Sir, you should prepare yourself.
Whatever the outcome, it may be safer for you to remain with us a while, Mr Thwaites, until we find those men.
And I would apologise for where I have been forced to lay her.
She will be moved as soon as circumstance allows.
Oh, Maud.
This is it.
Queen of Sheba.
Little Bo-Peep.
Boadicea, Queen of the Britons.
Rose? S'all right, Perce.
He's with me.
Thinking of joining up, ain't you? Business good? Never better.
So long as we don't get copped, and find the right distribution.
Rosie here'll be lighting them up in Blackpool.
Sarah Bernhardt and I shall be one of a piece.
You already are, Rose.
You already are.
Don't you get cold out here? Wouldn't know.
Never been out here before.
We have her name.
We know how she was killed.
And nothing else.
What does he want? Your lead, Inspector, your notion about the dry plates.
And this relates how? And we have this, too.
It's more, er evolved.
That's disgusting! It's disgustingly remunerative.
The act itself, Reid, that's the future of smut.
Maud Thwaites was caught up in this? It would fit.
No streetwalker, but so recently and energetically squired.
The gelatine from a photographer's plate on her thigh.
I am in your debt.
You tell me which scratch Drake has taken his fall in tonight I'll consider it paid.
You've no right to ask me this thing.
I fear I have every right, sir.
Your wife's body bears the signs of recent intimacy and I need to know if that intimacy was shared with yourself.
Of course it was.
Mr Thwaites, why do you think those men chose to string you up like they did? I've told you, I have no idea who they were.
No.
I mean, there was trouble taken to make it appear self-slaughter, as if driven by guilt or shame.
In any event, they wanted your silence.
But just what is it they were feared you might speak of? What shame, Mr Thwaites? This shame? Did your wife have pictures taken like this? How far and how openly did your wife share her intimacy? Everything she did she did for us.
For me.
So that my pride might not be ruined.
When I found her, she lived near here, in Whitechapel.
She used to play for the children of the orphanage on Criterion Street, from where I hoped to deliver her.
My church group, we raise supplies for a number of poor schools in the borough.
I loved her immediately.
Before I married her, however she confessed to a certain practicality.
But, as you say, you delivered her.
I did.
I promised her comfort and dignity pupils to be taken in her own home.
And she deceived you.
No, Sergeant.
The deception was mine.
My employment was not as secure as I thought.
I had no grounds to promise her those things.
Her home, even her violin, I mortgaged it all.
And so she returned to Whitechapel.
Where did she go? I don't know.
Who did she go to? I don't know.
Mr Thwaites, it's unwise to rile him.
You think you can hurt me? Here, when my most profound wish is that those men had succeeded in their task.
Can't you see, Inspector, that I am the last person who would ever know about the things that she did because, as far as I was concerned it wasn't happening, at all? What do you think? She was never Ripper, that girl.
That killer prospers by this radical smut.
You really don't think it could have been the husband, sir? The shame is too much, he follows her.
Kills her.
He'd need lodgings.
Somewhere to work on her.
No.
Well, Sergeant, like it or not, Joseph Smeaton must draw us away a while.
Are you fit and able? Yes, sir.
Don't fight it, pull on! This scratch is over.
Corner.
Come to, gentlemen.
Fifth scratch.
He ain't got to deal with it for too much longer now, does he? Thought you said he could be trusted! Hey? Do the count, do the count! Count it! Hurry up! Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
Come and get your winnings, here we go! One for you, one for you, sir Leave off.
What's going on? Joseph Smeaton, I am arresting you for the organisation of and the illicit profiteering from proscribed and rigged fights.
Put the irons on him.
You're blue? Buckle me? You need to put the irons on every man jack in east London! They'll be leaving their earnings with someone new by the morning.
Counterfeit currency.
I shall send you down for snide, too, Joe.
Sir! Sir.
The toff, whiskers, fight There! Best make haste, Tucker.
Yes, sir.
If Thwaites has anything more to tell us about this man, we are taking it this time.
Thwaites.
Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no! Find Jackson.
Yes, sir.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) Mr Thwaites' particulars, sir.
Thank you, John.
May I? Sweet girl.
With dark secrets.
We've all got secrets.
Even Sergeant Drake, here.
I would be gentle with Sergeant Drake, if I were you.
He's of a mind to murder someone and tonight I do not have the strength to stop him.
What do you see? Death and corruption.
Look closer.
There's a blemish.
A mark on the camera lens, most likely.
The same place on each photograph.
The same camera.
Creighton! Go on, Sergeant.
False bottom.
You may want to avert your eyes, Drake.
This is some strong meat.
I have her.
Not much seems to be beyond our Maud, does it? Hang on! That's him.
It's the toff! What is this? Look at this.
It's all exactly the same.
Show me.
No! Creighton! Water only inflames it.
What kind of fire will not be doused? The door is bolted fast.
Then all evidence dies here.
And all the men who know about it.
Jackson, sheets, pass me the sheets.
Clear out the space between the hinges around the door with this.
Do it, Sergeant! Cut me some strips.
Phosphorous.
Flash powder.
What's he doing? The crazy bastard's making guncotton! Guncotton?! This one in the bottom.
Of course.
Come on! Back! Get back! You're just shanking it.
You got to aim right.
You just take your time, sir.
Thank you, Sergeant.
Now what? I see these images all look identical, but by the end of the sequence, the bird sits in a different position.
There is a man, a Frenchman, Le Prince.
He's an engineer.
He has been experimenting with photographic images that move.
Like a lantern show? No, real.
It's why the pictures appear as a kind, because every degree of muscular movement has to be captured with precision.
So the end effect, therefore, is fluid movement.
It is the it is the precise details of our lives caught and re-presented to us.
Now what what if you could make these images move? And be real? You see? You see the leash? Enough, perhaps, in a moment of grotesque passion, to break her neck? And what if this entire moment had been captured by this new camera? In the right circles, it would make them a mint.
Then they'd make more.
This man.
We must find this man.
Oh (SHE CLEARS THROAT) Evening, my ladies.
Good evening, sir.
Turkish Delight? Thank you, sir.
Mmm.
Is there someone else in here, sir? No-one you need worry about.
Here, take another.
All your snitches, every tart, landlord, bully and thief.
He'll be wealthy, refined, ruthless.
Artherton.
I've come for her.
Where's Reid? The Inspector addresses his men.
All right.
We only have these pictures, we have no name.
His name is Sir Arthur Donaldson.
Summer '86, before your time here.
He got his cock out at a church picnic in Victoria Park, week or so later, tore the blouse off a pregnant woman on the Stepney omnibus.
Charged him but man from such a family as like to do jug as Victoria herself.
The address was all we ever had for him.
Thank you, Fred.
Go.
Where's Rose, Susan? Rose isn't with us this morning, Mr Jackson.
Will one of our other girls serve? She has to hear what I have to say.
She's got to stop with the smut.
You squire her one day and then you daddy her the next? What's the problem here, Susan? Now you decide to get jealous? Jealous? I would rather shrivel and die alone than let you near me again.
Then get the girl.
She's not here.
She was ordered out and is yet to be returned.
They're late.
And what's worse, they paid me in snide.
Who did? I don't know.
A toff took two of them away in his great charabanc.
Right, get your hat.
You're going to see Reid.
I'm doing no such thing.
You touch me again and I will kill you.
Oh, no, no, no, my beauty.
You're coming with me.
No.
Tristan or Bertrand or whatever your name is, I'm going home.
I've paid for you, you're mine.
Get off me! Get the door.
No-one at home, sir? (SHE SHOUTS IN PAIN) Hobbs! Donaldson's friends and relatives, The Telegraph.
Scotland Yard must have their names and addresses.
Reid! Show and tell, Susan.
Counterfeit, two of my girls taken last night.
Not yet returned.
Black coach, one horse.
They paid in that.
Smeaton! Come with me.
(SHE GASPS IN PAIN) What's he doing? This snide.
One of yours, I believe.
There are mine all over the city.
Only they're not.
Arthur Donaldson, where is he? What makes you think I know, eh? Sincerely? Not a great deal.
Instinct.
Well, you can take your instinct and you can shove it up this animal's fundament.
Curse us.
Shall we make another? (HE CROAKS) Huh? I need light.
Imagine, a little thing like that come between us and our enrichment! Light you shall have.
(SHE SQUEALS) Where is Donaldson? He lives in Mayfair! We know that.
He does no longer.
(SHOUTING FROM BELOW) I only went there once! Well? Under our noses, sir.
This will calm you.
(SHE GURGLES) Downstairs.
Donaldson! Arthur Donaldson! Myrtle, Myrtle, where is Rose? Jackson! Get the sword, Sergeant.
Drake! Argh! (SHE COUGHS) Does she breathe, Sergeant? She does, sir.
Whatever happens, whatever punishment is seen fit for all this, that is extraordinary.
(HE SCREAMS) This way.
I thought at last I thought it was safe again.
Ssh, now.
It is, it is safe now.
Thank you, Drake.
I'll tend to her now.
Hey, Rosie, hey Clear the way, lads.
The facts.
Have you lost your mind? Why? Because it is the truth.
And I would have the world know it.
She was never Ripper, that girl.
But you two You, for profit.
You, for guilt, I suspect, wanted it so.
Now I ask us to undertake this, that we find a little joy in his continued absence.
That we cease to look for him in every act of evil that crosses our path.
There is an abundance of that hereabout and I would have obsession blinker us to the wider world no longer.
Am I understood? Then get out.
Edmund, this last year, that lunatic will ever bind me to you.
But you ask too much.
He lives still, he breathes this air still.
These streets demand your vigilance.
No.
We did everything in our power.
Used every instrument allowed to us, some that were not.
All that we can hope for now is that he is gone and stays gone.
He will own my life no more.
The men of Whitechapel do your job for you, once more.
Yeah! 'He is my prisoner and in my protection.
' Then at the time of my choosing we will end you all this night!