The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  - “A lucky son of a bitch," snarls Malasana.

  - “He's arrogant. Bold. He'll still be on a high from his first killing and he might get sloppy as a result. So we have to be there. Wait for him to slip up and go for it." I don't believe a word I'm saying.

  They get up in silence. No one looks convinced; rallying the troops obviously isn't my strong suit. It must all show clearly on my face.

  - "Tell the team what's what. No mistakes. If anyone messes up, they'll have me to deal with. You know I won't let it slide on this case."

  As they file out, I open my desk drawer and take out my Glock.

  I hope to God I'll have to use it tonight.

  Imitation in Art

  Sublime

  Imitations of a still life

  Are their bodie, torn open, not the picture of a still life?

  Ha ha ha ha ha...

  The whore in the basement

  I'll tear her limb from limb

  She impatiently awaits

  And death doesn't lie

  Ha ha ha ha ha...

  September 8

  5

  We cross the city, circle it and cross it again the other way.

  We see women out waiting near the industrial estate. Some come out from under the shadowy trees, exposed. Others, recognising us, give us the finger and make lewd come-hither motions.

  - "Poor bastards!" says Malasana.

  - Didn't realise you were such a Good Samaritan. I thought you were making the most of your badge to get a quick shag out of them.

  He stares daggers at me. Not in the mood for a joke today. Sometimes I think if I weren't his superior he would have beaten me up by now.

  - "You were reported," I say. Maybe I shouldn't be telling him, but I feel the need to say something. "A prostitute said you abused her."

  He starts as if pricked with a needle.

  - "Who said so?"

  - "Doesn't matter. Not long after I was transferred here."

  - Why didn't you do anything?

  - I didn't believe her. I decided to wait and see what kind of person you were.

  - And?

  - I became convinced it wasn't true.

  He goes quiet and rolls down the window to light up. It's a warm night.

  The industrial units all closed, shutters rolled down. A few lampposts so the security cameras can do their job. We drive back out to the road.

  - Was living 19 years worth it just to end up in a place like this?

  He doesn't need to say Cristiana Stoicescu's name for me to know who he's talking about. "There are places where just being born is a hardship.

  - Lives that aren't worth being lived," I say.

  - Was she ever happy?

  - Maybe as a child. Not after she grew up. She ended up a cheap whore miles from home.

  We sit in silence for a while. Static crackle from a walkie-talkie and buzzing from my phone. The raids in other areas are all going smoothly. Here the stakes are much higher than just a few arrests.

  - Have you ever tried to track down a serial killer before?

  His voice is so faint it's practically a whisper. As if he were asking me if I had cancer.

  Other place, other times drift up from my memory.

  - Yes. But not like this one.

  - You mean the terrorists?

  I nod curtly. I slow down as we near the coast. We drive slowly from one roundabout to the next. Middle of the night, traffic is scarce, in dribs and drabs. Houses standing silent. Empty. Housing estates left empty when just days ago they were abuzz with the summer crowd.

  - Not the same," he says, thinking out loud. "Fanatics, those terrorists." Fascists. But they killed for an idea, stupid as it might be.

  - They took the same pleasure in killing.

  He seems to have trouble swallowing the idea and doesn't say anything for a while.

  As we move along the coast, I look for the woods. Eucalyptus, palm trees, pines. In the night, the wall of trees looms as solid as a real wall. We tackle things differently this time, not like when we went in for Bogdan. We don't want to be noticed. Maybe the murderer will be looking for his next victim here. A few men are hiding in the darkness.

  - But there were always leads then," I say, remembering. "You always knew where the shots or bombs were coming from, who'd ordered them. You even know what the politicians would be saying the next day. We had information. What eats me up the most in this case is ot knowing anything, not having anything .

  - We finished them, we can finish this one.

  - We didn't finish them. They stopped.

  - Even killers get tired of killing.

  - They weren't tired. And their idiot supporters weren't, either. It was in their interest to stop. You mean you think this guy's never going to get tired of this?

  - You think he won't stop at five?

  - He likes it.

  - Why would Jack the Ripper stop?

  - I'm sure something stopped him. Killers like this don't stop of their own free will.

  I end the conversation here. I don't want him to ask about my plans to catch the killer. I know how hard it is to catch a serial killer who picks his victims at random.

  The hours drift by slowly, the certainty that the killer is in our midst, moving silently among us, growing. I look at my watch. The complete lack of news shows he's winning. The silence is his success.

  - "It's time, boss," Malasana says, jerking his head at the dashboard clock.

  Not one piece of news. The men who went to arrest Bogdan have got him and the women, all back at the station.

  We drive through the outskirts of town, past cheap houses and plots of land overrun with weeds. Then we drive up to the upper city. One of our officers sits in wait in a car at the top of one of the hilly streets. We raise a hand in greeting and keep going, snaking along the winding, hilly alleyways. We manage to get the car into multiple tight spots, but all we see are houses standing dark and silent. We stop next to an alley too narrow for us to squeeze the car into. Nothing.

  - What about the San Gabriel area? Suggests Malasana.

  We try to think of somewhere that resembles the place Annie Chapman's body was found. We come down from the Albaicin and cross the city, driving towards San Gabriel. It's one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, but time hasn't been kind to it, and now it's all one-storey buildings, flat roofs, run-down facades in bright but faded colours, poor lighting. Most of the occupants are old folks who've worked hard all their lives only to eke out their miserable pensions in cramped and gloomy houses, and immigrants after cheap rent. Some buildings from Franco’s Movimiento still have the yoke and arrow carved onto the facades, and they look as ancient and weather-beaten as their occupants, barely escaping poverty. At the end of the street there are houses with courtyards and gardens, dark alleys that lead on to arid terraces with no crops, eaten up by prickly pears, agave and broom. We drive slowly up and down the streets. No one about. Not a soul. Not even a shadow to jump out and scare us.

  We've both got cottonmouth, tongue like a dry sponge. I can hear it every time one of us opens our mouth to complain and curse the situation. Time ticks by and we know the killer has already struck.

  - What if we've made a mistake? What if this is all in our mind? What if Cristiana Stoicescu's death wasn't the first in a series of crimes?

  My jaws ache from clenching them so hard. I don't answer.

  He's wavering, but Malasana doesn't release his iron grip on the walkie-talkie and phone. One in each hand. Peering intently into the darkness as if he can see through it.

  Just past five the phone rings, startling us. A van with two men has been stopped, at the entrance of the industrial unit we were in a few hours earlier. I slam the car into a U-turn and speed up, the tyres screeching against the cracked tarmac. But before we get there the phone rings again. At the other end of the line, an officer shouts,

 
"Boss! You won't believe this!"

  A few officers are scattered in front of the station steps, looking at the food supply market.

  The supply market! How could I be so stupid! Stupid!

  - Around the corner, they say, pointing.

  We run under the colonnade. One of our team appears, lit up by the torch. He bends over and retches violently. We run past him as he points imploringly.

  We slow down, hesitant to face what we know awaits.

  - Over there, Chief, says Garcia.

  His voice trembles, just like his hand as he gestures. He's too afraid to get any closer.

  Malasana plucks a torch from an officer's hand.

  An imitation, brutally faithful to the original. I've seen the scene before. In prints from the 1880s. Of Annie Chapman. The same position. The same kind of woman, short and stout. I heave but manage not to retch, putting my hands over my mouth. Malasana is stony, frozen. He walks up to the body and plants himself there firmly before the sight of death, legs slightly apart. I contain my urge to vomit but cough so hard I think my lungs are going to burst. When it finally subsides I see that Malasana is crying silently. He cries diconsolately without a sound. Not a whimper, word or moan. I know what's building in him. It's building in me too.

  He runs the torchbeam over her body and we see her face, facing right. The dead eyes and throat slit so deeply the head could never be turned so far if not for the fact that she's been all but decapitated. The blood drips from the pavement to the asphalt. Next to the head, the mass of innards on the left shoulder. A top pushed up over her round breasts and the stomach slit wide open. I know what's left. The legs spread, knees out to either side.

  - "South American," says Malasana, in an unusually detached tone.

  - The market! Annie Chapman's body was discovered by a carter on his way to work at the market! I curse.

  - Right under our fucking noses!

  He killed her less than a hundred yards from the station.

  The objects he left at her feet loom in the torchbeam: a comb, a red hand mirror, and a cross. Blasphemy at the feet of death.

  I order the area be cordoned off. I feel panic clutch at my chest. I shout for forensics and the Scientific Unit.

  Everyone runs about trying to get things done. Whoever can slips away at the first opportunity. Some take up positions and others get in their patrol cars to drive back any onlookers flocking to the scene like flies to shit.

  - "I'm not going to be arresting him, boss."

  He challenges me, a hard look in his eyes. There's nothing I can say and I don't have the stomach to argue.

  - "I'll find him if it's the last thing I do," he goes on.

  Flies buzz, gathering round the body greedy for blood. The same sibilant, sordid sound that rose up around Cristiana Stoicescu.

  Suddenly Malasana leans over, observing the woman's face attentively.

  - Look.

  He focuses the torchbeam. A cigarette butt protrudes from her nostril.

  - Son of a bitch!

  We take a step back. We can't contaminate the scene of the crime. Once was enough. Silly to make the same mistake twice. We lean against a nearby patrol car, the officers strangely focused on us in their terror as if awaiting some sudden enlightenment. Just then we hear the first harried pant.

  - "The journalists are here," says Malasana in sorrowful defeat.

  - Guess who tipped them off.

  The officers prevent the journos from moving forward. Just then Braulio's huge, ungainly frame appears beneath the colonnade. He looks at me with something like rancor, for not having stopped this.

  - It couldn't be any other way, he says.

  We move closer to him as he leans over the body, inspecting it.

  - More light! He shouts.

  Someone rushes more lights over. The milky white light illuminates the woman's face with bright sorrow. It gives the scene an eerie pallor reminiscent of the terrifying engravings in the Jack the Ripper book.

  - An exact replica, says Braulio slowly.

  - You too? I shoot him a look.

  - I suspected it from the start, you know that. Did some research too.

  He focuses a small, powerful torchbeam on the woman's stomach.

  - Confirmed. The missing piece of the puzzle.

  He stands up and looks at us through his Coke-bottle glasses with no expression on his face.

  - Nothing else I can do here. When forensics are done send me the body. I'll carry out the autopsy.

  A few metres over the officers let out a shout. A journalist has wormed his way onto the scene. An officer manages to grab him before he gets to Malasana, who was ready and willing and wait. He doesn't know his luck.

  We look for the possible routes the killer could have taken. No trace of him all night on the security cameras in front of the station. The other buildings in the area are mainly blocks of flats. No shops with cameras that might have caught anything. I send a team of officers out on a door-to-door search through the tangle of streets that come together outside the station. One is a dead-end with a parking lot at the far end. Malasana and I split up and go through the remaining streets on foot: one that leads to the city centre and an avenue that doesn't get much traffic - all that's on it are two barely inhabited blocks of flats - leading to a dirt road that crosses abandoned fields. As I make my way along the road I know he came through here and escaped the same way. The dirt road leads through the fields to a motorway out of the city. I phone for the Scientific Unit to be sent out. There may be tyre prints in the soft earth.

  Sunrise comes and light steals over the city, banishing the shadows. But all it illuminates is emptiness, vast as my frustration.

  - Nothing, says Malasana, back from the street that leads into town.

  - He came through here and left through here, I say. Empty buildings. Not one security camera. He crossed the field and got to the road in no time.

  - We need the camera footage from the whole city. He had to have come through somewhere, been spotted. Petrol stations, banks, offices, industrial units... their footage. All of it, he says insistently.

  A swarm of journalists is on us the minute we get back to the station.

  - Chief, do you have any suspects?

  - Is it the same killer?

  - Any leads?

  Malasana fends them off, scowling, and ushers me in. We enter the station with the journos' questions still keening in our ears like knives slicing into our souls.

  Security footage from all of the City of Almeria: a blurry van, dark-coloured. Our IT team manages to pick out the letters and numbers on the number plate. It isn't registered and doesn't appear to exist.

  It's him.

  I turn it over in my mind, thinking about the dark van, where I might have seen one. But any kind of recollection evades me, slipping away.

  I order a thorough search. Stolen vans in the thousands.

  - The woman has now been identified.

  I follow Lopez to a small office located in the back of the building. A table, a filing cabinet, two chairs and a computer. Lopez sits in front of the table and introduces me to an Ecuadorian man, his face weepy with remorse, hands folded in his laps and eyes reddened.

  - I didn't do it, he says, looking up when Lopez introduces me as the Chief of Police.

  - Tell the Chief what you told us, sir.

  His name is Oscar Afredo Castaneda Macas, the spouse of the late Diana Carolina Mieles. He tells me that Carolina left for work last night at nine PM. He knew her line of work, but both of them were out of a job and the benefits had stopped coming in. They ate at their local soup kitchen. But they had nothing to send back home to their kids in Ecuador.

  - We didn't have a choice, he says sorrowfully.

  - It's okay, says Lopez kindly.

  - She went to stake out her spot, he says, lifting his small, dark face to meet my eyes.

&n
bsp; - Where?

  He shrugs.

  - Sometimes she went out to the industrial units. Almost always. To wait for the workers coming out from their shift. But it was Sunday, there's no one there on Sundays. She went to other places on Sundays.

  He drops his head, contains an sob and carries on:

  - She wanted to find a spot near Las Buganvillas, near Garrucha, that's where there are the most cars. But they ran her off.

  - Who?

  - Other women.

  - Where was she last night?

  He licks his dry lips. Hesitates. Then lets out a sudden, choking sob.

  - It's just that I saw her....

  He covers his face with his hands, hiding the tears streaming down his face. His bony shoulders shake. We give him a few minutes, then I stretch out a hand and offer him a cigarette. He takes it with trembling fingers. He smokes intently, drawing each breath in heavily. A hollow sound in his narrow chest. He's wearing threadbare jeans, trainers and an open shirt, his chest pale and bony with the sternum sticking out. He dries his tears with the corner of his shirt.

  - She went out to the old Almeria bypass yesterday. None of the women would bother her there seeing as it's so far.

  - That's the Romanians' turf, isn't it? Near El Garfio.

  - Further out. Next to the roundabout. She was on her own there and there were more cars.

  - How did she get there?

  - We've got a car, he says, his face pale and drawn. His eyes are small and deep-set and his high, slanting cheekbones give him an Asian look.