police. Don’t even approach a pub or brothel in the West end. Lay low and make your faces scarce until we find the time to speak again. Now if you will all excuse me, I’m going to stop by the library and do whatever it takes to solidify our alibi.”
Nichols quickly disappeared down the hall, and out into the crowded street. Eddowes and Chapman left a few minutes later, hoping no one else would spot the group together. As Kelly was about to leave, Stride yanked him by the collar and pulled him back into the classroom.
“We need to talk,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Have a seat.”
“I don’t see what you could possibly have to say to me,” Kelly said, growing impatient, and pushing his way back towards the door.
“I was the last person to see Melody Young alive,” Stride confessed, wiping his forehead with his brow. He looked into Kelly’s eyes with a vulnerable expression, his hands trembling. Stride continued, “Second to last it seems.”
A chill ran down Kelly’s spine and he was speechless. He went to the center of the room and made his place in one of the desks. Stride lit up a cigarette and took a seat beside him.
“What are you saying Edmund?” Kelly whispered intently.
“I was also with Ella Monroe in that alleyway the night she died, and I was with Melody Young this morning. Now they’re both dead.” Stride exhaled a puff of smoke and looked to his hands. “John, I know full well that we are enemies, but I’ve always respected your mind. You are the only one I trust who could possibly help me make sense of the situation. The cops, they just want a name to close the case.”
“ And why should I believe you? Why should I even help you? Why are you telling me this?” Kelly asked, reveling slightly in Stride’s moment of need.
Stride leaned in close. “Because without my confession, you are the last person to see Melody Young alive, and without you, someone is going to succeed in framing me.”
The blood drained from Kelly’s face, as he realized the true severity of the situation. His drug-induced haze, the euphoria he felt after making love to Addison, everything had blinded him of the blood that was collecting on his own hands.
“Tell me everything,” Kelly said, and he leaned back, awaiting Stride’s vivid recollection.
Stride lit up another cigarette before he began: “It’s no secret that I have always had a certain hatred towards the fairer sex. I suppose it all began the summer when I caught my delightful mother fucking our family’s coachman behind the stable of our country home. She was positively giddy with dirt up her back and hay on her dress, and the old shit grunted as he thrust his old cock in and out of her. Her faced was flushed bright red, and she took it like every one of those whores in the streets. Over the years there were more of them, I’d watch from time to time, all the while hating her--- hating them--- but my stupid father never got wise. He adored her to the ends of the world, he worked to give her and my siblings the very best things, and that is how the bitch repaid him. Sucking the cocks of the hired help.
“So I guess from then on that affected how I viewed all women. I proposed to Addison to keep my family happy and because I thought she was a good woman, but in time she’ll no doubt have her legs spread behind a barn too.”
Kelly shifted uncomfortably in his seat remembering his time with Addison. In a way, part of him felt sorry for Edmund Stride, but he wasn’t prepared to give him any reason to halt his confession.
“Then once I could withdraw from my trust fund I began frequenting brothels and pubs, playing the card tables, and buying expensive bottles of Absinthe along with beautiful women. I’d get stoned and we would fuck. That was the only time I was ever happy. I felt like a wild animal, and laying a
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