A Great Deliverance

Father Hart, an elderly Catholic priest from Yorkshire carrying a tattered case, travels to London by train. When he arrives at King’s Cross Station, he is disoriented by the noise, crowds, and unfamiliar mix of people. A porter offers help, but Hart refuses, saying he is bound for Scotland Yard. Outside the station, he sees a newspaper headline: “Ripper Strikes at Vauxhall Station!” (5). The report describes slashed, semi-nude bodies and severed arteries. Terrified, Hart heads into the Underground, repeating to himself that he must tell the police about “a body, a girl, and a bloody axe” (6).

The narrative shifts to Superintendent Malcolm Webberly and Chief Superintendent Sir David Hillier of the London Metropolitan Police. In Webberly’s office, the men, who are in-laws, discuss a series of brutal murders near London’s train stations. The victims were found stripped to their underclothes, their identification and money removed, and their throats cut. Thirteen have been killed in five weeks and the press has labeled the murderer the “Railway Ripper” (10). Hillier despises the name’s sensationalism while Webberly insists his men are doing their best.

Their discussion turns to a conflict in Yorkshire between two policemen, Nies and Kerridge. Three years earlier, the pair were involved in a botched investigation into the murder of an old Romany woman.