The flat had been recently abandoned. There was a warm incense cigarette in an ashtray. There was milk in the fridge; Dougie sniffed it and it was fresh. Gina and Dougie searched all the rooms and they found no clothes in the wardrobes. Shane, his mum Gaynor, and his kid sister Tania had all gone.
‘Maybe -’ Gina said hopefully. But Dougie shook his head.
‘Fucking Roy. Eyes in his fucking - Trip to the Caribbean. Fuck it!’
Dougie could guess with vivid clarity what would happen next. Shane, his mum and his sister would end up as roadfill somewhere. Never heard of again.
A dark melancholy gripped him.
Dougie, you idiot, he raged at himself. You killed that boy, and his mum too, and his bloody kid sister as well. You did! As surely as if -
Dougie closed down that line of thought. What was done was done.
But a moment later his dark thoughts returned: Roy, you evil fucking bastard.... One day. I swear. One day - I - I -
Toad and Weasel joined them, easing their way into the flat warily.
‘Who broke the door down?’
‘Vandals,’ Dougie said.
‘What happened?’
‘They flew the nest.’
Toad smiled. Toadishly, in Dougie’s view. ‘You’re fucked then.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Dougie said, tautly.
Dougie took out his e-berry and showed them his filmed interview with Shane. The boy’s face on the small screen looked haunted; his voice was cracked and angry.
‘ – two guys, one with a big moustache, the other in an army jacket. And a woman. Brown hair, racked, she was –’
Dougie switched it off.
‘He names names,’ said Dougie. ‘The street ID of Fillide Melandroni is positive. This recording is admissible as evidence.’
‘Even so, never works in court. Without a witness willing to appear, it looks weak,’ said Weasel.
‘Jurors,’ said Toad, ‘tend to think that video evidence is easily fakeable.’
‘Which it is,’ Weasel said.
‘Next time, maybe,’ Toad added reassuringly to Dougie.
There won’t be a fucking next time, Dougie vowed. This was my last shot. I have to let it go. Face facts, Dougie. You’ve blown it.
The two guys from DPS left. The flat felt barren now. The case was cold.
Dougie picked up a table and threw it at the wall. The wood shattered. He felt no better.
‘Drink?’ said Gina.
They found a new pub, six blocks away. The King’s Head. Dougie downed a pint of real ale in a few seconds. Gina had lined up some chasers.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah I’m fine.’
No I’m not. I should have seen this coming. But I did see this coming. And yet I didn’t do enough to - I should have -
‘So what next?’
Dougie downed the chaser.
Angela, I’m sorry. I let you down. And Shane, I’m sorry - I - I’m sorry - I
‘What next? Nothing next. Game over,’ Dougie said dully.
‘Shane’s dead, isn’t he?’ said Gina. ‘All of them are. Shane, his mum, his sister, all dead.’
Dougie shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?’
Of course they’re fucking dead! A bullet in the brain each, then dismembered, then dissolved in acid. That’s the most likely scenario. I should never have -
Roy, you bastard. This is finally it. This is Game Over.
You win.
Chapter 10
‘I’m DC Tom Derry,’ Tom said.
Tom watched, trying not to seem anxious as the desk sergeant typed the name into his e-berry.
‘Number Five Murder Squad,’ Tom clarified.
‘I thought we’d got rid of you bastards,’ the Bethnal Green desk sergeant grumbled. His name was Syd Forgan. He was an East Londoner born and bred.
‘Like a bad penny, eh?’ said Tom.
Forgan gave him the blank look favoured by coppers everywhere. It implied ‘curl up and die’ without giving grounds for official complaint.
Tom knew that many of the Bethnal Green officers had resented the Five Squad intrusion into their station last year, in the days after Naberius’s destruction of Whitechapel nick. The reasons were logistically sound - there was no space in Limehouse at the time and they needed an East End base – but the disruption had been considerable.
Later, after Naberius and Gogarty were found and killed in Walworth, Dougie had shifted One Squad out to the station in Peckham where they’d just built a new annexe, and Five Squad had transferred into Limehouse. But – as Tom had discovered, while prepping Stage One of his complex plan to assassinate Roy Hall - all the original Gogarty exhibits had remained in Bethnal Green, pending transfer to the storage repository in Acton.
The Gogarty case was now live again, as Operation Zenith aka Operation Bravo. But in the flurry of activity entailed in the setting up of a network of Murder Squads to handle this serial killing plague, no one had bothered to move Gogarty’s personal possessions to the Exhibits Store in Limehouse.
‘Sign here.’
Tom signed. A risk but one he had to take. Besides, he had a cover story ready in anyone challenged him about why he was looking at old Gogarty exhibits.
Syd Forgan handed Tom the key to the Exhibits Store.
‘Do you need an escort?’ he said.
‘Can you be arsed to escort me?’ Tom replied cheekily.
‘Not really.’
‘I’m on the squad. I’m not going to nick any guns and dope. Not that there is any dope.’
‘Whatever. Off you go.’ Forgan was doing that looking away thing. Unnerved by Tom’s squint, and his shimmering face.
Tom walked through to the back of the station, via the canteen, to the Exhibits Store. There were a handful of Community Support bicycles in the corridor outside, exiled when Five Squad had first moved in, and still homeless.
Tom knew he was on CCTV so he tried to present an air of calm composure. He found it hard. He unlocked the door of the Exhibits Store and went inside.
New shelves from Ikea has been installed to house the exhibits. One wall of the room was filled entirely with a life sized photograph of the Ildminster Square wall with its list of murder victims and JUWES/JUIVES graffito; the original had been destroyed in the fire. There was a smell of fusty old stuff everywhere, and the window was sealed shut, for security. Gogarty’s computers from two of his London homes – Clerkenwell and Ildminster Square – were here, lined up on a desk and labelled by provenance, with passwords listed. There was a wardrobe for all his suits and casual clothes, which had all been forensically analysed in detail. One shelf of exhibit bags was marked CLERKENWELL, another was marked ILDMINSTER SQUARE, and a third shelf was marked DNA: ALL LOCATIONS.
The ring from Sarah Penhall’s finger was in here somewhere. They’d found it in Ildminster Square, in the earth about five feet above one of the Victorian skeletons. The exhibit had been bagged and logged and taken away prior to the Breach; but it hadn’t been identified as Sarah’s until several weeks after the Gogarty jail break.
Dougie’s theory was that Gogarty had used an ultrasound detector to locate the Ripper body in the earth and had then put the ring directly over it, for a joke. Or it could have been coincidence. Maybe he’d just dropped it there.
Tom searched with his usual calm carefulness, and eventually found the clear plastic exhibit bag marked SARAH PENHALL: DIAMOND RING WITH DRAGON SCROLLING. He took it out and substituted his lookalike ring. Sarah’s ring was a cheap knock-off made of crystal, but Fillide had given Tom a real diamond ring as the substitute. No one would notice, Tom was sure of that. It looked similar enough.
Tom was breathless. He’d just broken the law.
Then Tom searched the Ildminster Square shelves for the other exhibits that had been shipped out for forensic examination before the house blew up. These included a number of carefully wrapped objets d’art. Gogarty had acquired mementoes and artefacts from all ove
r the world during his decade of exotic travelling, after his tenures in Edinburgh, Leeds and Bradford. He’d collected statues of Indian gods, primarily Ganesh the elephant god; Thai figurines; Afghan marble carvings; and even some erotic Roman figurines from the stalls outside the Colosseum. Some of it was incredibly valuable; much of it was utter tat. All of it had been stored by Dougie’s team in case there was some clever link to be found there.
Now Gogarty’s mementoes were gathering dust.
After careful sifting through Gogarty’s collectibles, Tom finally located the paper sack with a tag that said BELOW THE FLOORBOARDS. The Ripper haul. It included the bloody apron that Jack had used; the original Leather Apron that had so fascinated Ripperologists. Tom took the apron out and flapped it. A rank smell of age and decay and stale blood filled his nostrils.
He coughed and walked around for a while until he stopped feeling dizzy. Then he folded the apron up and tried to put it in his jacket pocket.
Too big. And, stupidly, he wasn’t carrying a bag. He’d be spotted for sure if he tried to walk out of the station carrying this blood-stained leather thing.
Tom thought for a while. He took off his jacket and placed it carefully on a shelf. Then he took off his shirt. The room was cold, so he had goose bumps on his skin and his nipples were painfully hard. He unfastened his trousers and let them drop to his knees.
He wrapped the bloody apron around his lower torso, and pulled his trousers up over it. He put his shirt back on, then his jacket. He felt bulky and he could smell the stale reek of death. He was also feeling slightly dizzy.
Then he took a knife wrapped in polythene out of another exhibit bag. It was a Spanish navaja, a folding fighting knife, which would have been an antique even when Roslyn had acquired it. The blade was still sharp, despite the rust. This, it was surmised, was the knife Jack the Ripper had used for his killings, possibly in conjunction with a scalpel for the eviscerating. It was priceless if anyone had had the wit to steal it and flog it.
Tom put it in his inner jacket pocket.
Finally he turned his attention to the candle. It was still wrapped in burlap. He unfurled it carefully. He had a substitute candle, but it was too small he realised. He’d misremembered the size. The real candle was as big as a Christmas cracker. He slipped the Gogarty candle in his left hand inside pocket of his jacket, opposite the knife, and his jacket bulged and the candle was shamefully visible.
So he took his jacket off again and rerigged his gun belt to go around his chest. Some of the macho cops liked it that way; concealed weapon gangsta style. He tugged at the leather of his holster until it cracked and loosened, and slipped the candle inside it. The candle was now held securely low on his torso, where it wasn’t visible with his jacket buttoned. He put his gun in the rear waistband of his trousers, triple-checking first that the safety was on. It was a tight fit because of the leather apron.
He’d been smart enough to realise he couldn’t put the candle in the waistband of his trousers; the heat of his body might have melted it. And since he knew what the candle was made of, that prospect didn’t bear thinking about.
Tom wanted to giggle. He also wanted to cry. He’d be sacked if anyone found him doing this. He’d also do serious jail time.
He felt enveloped in evil. The ring from a murder victim was in his trouser pocket. Jack the Ripper’s knife was inside his jacket. Jack’s bloody leather apron was wrapped around his torso. And a candle made from human fat was in his gun holster.
All for love.
Tom thought about the promises he had made to Fillide. That he would, somehow, protect her and make her happy. He thought about Roy Hall, what it would feel like if Roy were dead. He imagined himself and Fillide together as lovers, perhaps even as husband and wife.
Skip back two days.
It was six months since that exchange in Silvertown when Fillide texted that she loved him. Tom and Fillide were an established couple by now, though no one in the Squad knew about their relationship. They would go to gigs together, in folk or jazz clubs (Tom’s taste) or grungy heavy metal joints (Fillide’s preference); they dined in remote bars and restaurants in North or West London. They never visited each other’s homes: they always used hotel rooms for their passionate sexual encounters, and they were always the best hotels. For Tom, despite the constant pain he was in, and the ceaseless self-loathing he endured, it was the happiest period in his life.
That night, the phone rang. Tom woke up. He checked his watch; it was 3am.
He was in his bedroom in his shared house in Southwater Close. It took him a few moments to shake off the remnants of a nightmare. Then he was completely awake. He picked up his e-berry and it wasn’t ringing. He realised someone was calling him on the emergency landline.
It was Sunday the 30th of June, 2024.
Tom fumbled out of bed, and walked to the hallway where the house phone was kept. He heard someone crying at the other end of the line. He guessed it was Fillide. He waited patiently. Eventually she spoke.
‘I have to see you.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘It’s important.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘There’s something I have to – show you.’
‘Okay,’ he said, warily.
‘Just show you. I can’t talk about it. I can never talk about it. You know why.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
Words had failed him yet again.
Following her precise instructions, he caught a cab from his house to a hotel in Bloomsbury. The hotel receptionist gave him a smirky look. But Tom knew, from Fillide’s tone, that sex wasn’t going to be on the agenda tonight.
She was in Room 422. Tom took the lift. It was a modern lift with glass all around. Tom found it agonising to see himself reflected in all four mirrors. His body shimmered; his glamour was struggling to cope with the visual overload.
When the lift stopped he took a deep breath and slid the doors open and stepped into the hall. Then he checked the room numbers and turned right down the corridor.
He knocked on her door. She answered. His breath stopped as he stared at the woman he loved. The woman he had vowed to cherish and protect from her evil bastard of a spell-binder.
Fillide’s face was a bloody pulp. Her nose had been shattered. She’d been so badly beaten that a thick patch of skin on her forehead had rucked up, baring the bone beneath. He said nothing. She said nothing. She stepped back and he entered the room.
She showed him her e-berry, and he took the hint and took out his own e-berry and checked it was switched off. Just in case metadata surveillance showed they were in the same hotel room together.
Fillide bolted the hotel room door. Then she stripped off her clothes until she was naked except for her bra and underpants. He looked at her yellowing body in horror.
At least six of her ribs were broken and the broken shards were pushing up against the skin, like maggots. Both her shoulders were dislocated giving her a twisted hunchback appearance. Her fingers were puffy and twisted out of shape, barely useable. She stood strangely, and when he looked he could see that her right kneecap was swollen and the patella was in separate pieces. Every part of her body was bruised in the rich colours of an ugly dawn. She turned her body around slowly, and he could see that on her back were whip marks that had rent the flesh into troughs.
She stood there for a long while, broken but calm, checking her watch every five minutes or so.
As he watched, her bruises started to fade. Slowly at first. Then faster. Her arms slipped back with a crack into their shoulder sockets. Her twisted and torn nose returned to its normal lovely shape. Her fingers unstiffened and unswelled and became slim and elegant again, no longer shattered stubs. Her leg injuries healed. Her whip marks faded and vanished. She was still daubed in blood but her body was, eventually, whole and undamaged once more.
‘It takes about four hours,’ Fillide said. ‘That’s why I called you, when there was still an hour to go.’
&nb
sp; ‘How often does he do this?’
She did not reply.
‘Every day?’
She did not reply.
‘Tell me, Fillide. I need to know. Tell me the truth.’
She forced herself to try to speak. Her lips twisted. But no sound emerged from her mouth. She shook her head, despairing.
‘Every week?’
Shake of head.
‘Every month or so?’
She nodded. Sweat down ran down her face at this admission.
He took out his e-berry and kept the mobile connection switched off but turned on the camera setting. He set it to Record. He held it up so he could film her every word.
‘What else does he do, Fillide?’
She looked at him appalled.
‘Does he rape you? Tell me.’
‘No,’ she spat.
‘Does he make you have sex with him, under the coercion of a spell?’
She was silent. Motionless.
‘Does he pimp you out to his friends??’
She tried to speak. She failed. She coughed, and black bile came out of her mouth.
‘Who beat you up, Fillide? Was it Roy Hall?’
More bile spewed out.
‘Please. You can tell me.’
She stared at him. Silent. Motionless.
He realised this wasn’t going to work. He turned the phone off. He put it back in his jacket.
There was relief in her eyes.
‘I cannot allow harm to come to Roy,’ she explained. ‘Which means, I cannot tell you anything you can record and use against him in a court of law.’
‘Yeah, I get it,’ Tom said bitterly.
Fillide remained silent. A long time. Every moment of her silence was a dagger in Tom’s soul.
‘I’ve done terrible things, Tom,’ she admitted, in a whisper. ‘Terrible things, for Roy. As part of his gang, they call us the Trinity. I’ve killed – I’ve done things – hurt people. And I don’t care. I have no guilt. I am a monster.’
‘Is that true?’ he asked her.
‘No.’ Fillide was crying, her beautiful face marred by tears and drizzling snot. ‘No. It’s not true. I do care.’
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