The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  He can't help looking away. I know I'm getting through to him.

  - 'We've found everything.' I point to the documents. 'But I know you have more money hidden somewhere else. You're not the kind of guy who puts all his eggs in one basket. What I'm wondering is, if your wife is in jail, is there anyone you can trust on the outside to run operations and get what you need inside?'

  I pick up the notebooks I've spread on the table.

  - 'It's a very serious problem, Radu.'

  I get up.

  - 'There may be a solution, though.'

  He doesn't look at me, but tilts his head upwards slightly. I know he's hanging on my every word.

  - 'If your wife wasn't charged for kidnapping and rape, just cooperating with the kidnapping because she's afraid of you, she might be able to get out early and keep things going on the outside, take care of you from outside. And nothing would happen to her in jail.'

  I let my words sink in. I'm throwing him a rope - up to him to take it or hang himself with it. Then I add:

  - 'But for that to happen you'd have to give me something good. And I mean really good, Bogdan.'

  Eighty women under arrest. They're with them now, separating the wheat from the chaff, finding out who was in on the organisation and who was being exploited against their will, who's willing to talk. The pimps we didn't round up on the 8th are being handled harshly and none of them can believe Radu's been caught. In spite of which none of them can work up the courage to talk.

  We spend the early hours reading over the reports being sent in and putting together our own. Radu doesn't answer my proposal. We've left him in his cosy cell to stew. His lawyer will complain. I don't care. His wife is still in her luxury suite. Where rats are usually booked in. She screams periodically, with all her might. I know Radu can hear her.

  I switch off the light in my office and close my eyes while my officers take care of all the information, coordinating and planning. Landlines and mobiles go off as if it were the middle of the day in a busy office.

  In a different time, this operation would have brought me immense satisfaction. The only satisfaction you get in this business.

  But not now. Now nothing is enough.

  I go down the stairs to the basement, but I'm not going to see Radu.

  The chamber of horrors.

  The light illuminates images I can't erase from my mind, no matter where I look. I fear I'll never be able to look at anything beautiful and whole again without these images being present.

  We've superimposed the pictures: old crimes, new crimes. We're still missing three.

  Mary Ann Nichols and Cristiana Stoicescu.

  Annie Chapman and Diana Carolina Mieles.

  A map of the old Whitechapel area. Red dots where the crimes were committed. A map of Baria and surroundings with red dots where the crimes have been committed.

  Something very faraway and abstract, looming up from what feels like an infinite exhaustion, suddenly grips me. An illumination, perhaps. I run from the door to the maps. I look again and again and - yes. There it is. The line linking the locations of Polly Nichols' and Annie Chapman's murders in Whitechapel 1888, straight and headed slightly southwest. Then I look at the map of our own godforsaken strip of yellow land a hundred times. The line linking the spot where Cristiana Stoicescu was murdered, by Mojacar Beach, and the police station opposite which he killed Diana Carolina Mieles, is also a straight line headed headed slightly southwest.

  I try to visualize the line of the Whitechapel crimes in Baria. When I manage it, the line I draw with a shaking hand is squint, jagged. I take a couple of steps back and peer at my work.

  The line from the old market and station crosses the map northward til it hits the northwest of the city. Poor areas.

  My heartrate speeds up. Is our killer following the same geographical pattern as the original Ripper?

  - 'Boss, the Romanian wants to see you.'

  - 'Tell him he can fuck off.'

  Garcia thinks for a minute, then closes the door. I hear him tromping down the corridor.

  - 'He wants a deal,' says Malasana.

  I don't beat around the bush. 'Radu is a monster.'

  - 'Boss. Let's see what he wants,' says Lopez impatiently.

  They've both come up to my office and slumped into the armchairs, exhausted. The tension of the arrest. The adrenaline of success. Two sleepless nights in a row.

  - 'Not yet.

  - He needs to be completely, totally wiped out.' 'He's been sitting there for twenty-four hours.'

  - 'Fuck him,' says Malasana. 'I wish I could have a go at him for just a little while.'

  - 'He's a real nasty piece of work,' I warn him.

  - 'Even pieces of work eventually cave.'

  We don't say anything for a while. Smoking, breathing in the stale air. Lopez gets up and opens a window. A gust of damp, fresh predawn air blows in and suddenly it feels like we can breathe more deeply. The relief makes us sigh, itching for our beds and some rest.

  - 'Lopez, go home and get some sleep.'

  He doesn't answer but thinks about it. He doesn't want to be the only one sent home.

  - 'You too.'

  - 'Come on.'

  - 'It's an order. I need you alert.'

  - 'What about you?'

  - 'Me too.'

  - 'What about the Romanian?'

  - 'Too bad for him.'

  We stand up. I order those starting their shift to keep watch over Radu.

  Making our way down the stairs, we see a cluster of journalists in the old market through the glass door.

  - 'They're waiting for you, boss,' says the officer behind the front desk. 'To hear about the raid.'

  We go down to the underground carpark and get the cars.

  A while later, my eyes bloodshot from the blinding dawn light, I finally pull up next to my house. I park and stay in the car, watching the sea. It's calm and quiet today, shining like a steel blade. I'm tempted to have a dip before I get some sleep. I get out of the Golf and cross the sandy beach. My shoes are crusted with sand, white and dusty as flour. I feel a sad affection for the beach in autumn, when you can almost reach out and touch the melancholy. A deserted, tender melancholy, like a lost love. Houses standing empty wherever you look, like hearts bereft. The place I chose to call home. And I can't go on without it, the same way a heartbroken passion keeps you close.

  I enter the house and a desolate emptiness fills me. I leave my gun on a chest of drawers, feeling suddenly naked. That's how deep the mark violence leaves on my soul is. I open the fridge, survey its contents and everything looks repulsive. Instead, I stare out at sea. Remembering how her body grew cold in my arms while the sun started coming up. The bottle of pills, fallen to the ground...

  I fall asleep without meaning to, haphazardly, in an armchair.

  I wake up to the sound of a WhatsApp message.

  - Congratulations, chief. But my knife is impatient. I so want to see my little whores...

  - 'This is torture. I'll tell my lawyer.

  - Get Amnesty International on board.'

  I stay standing, waiting.

  He tilts his head, inviting me to sit down opposite him.

  - 'Has she been released?"

  - 'No. I said she'd be treated well. And nothing is for certain for her until I make sure what you're telling me is worth it. If it is, I'll keep my word.'

  His eyes are unfocused as if recovering from a massive bender. The leathery skin sweaty despite the cold. Thirty hours sitting at a table under fluorescent lights. He doesn't show any weakness, but if he's negotiating it's because I've found his weakness. And it's not his wife. It's the cold hard prison sentence awaiting him with no one on the outside to manage his money. She's the only one he can trust.

  - 'I'll give you what I can. And that's it.'

  Radu's voice doesn't match up with his physique. Too high-pitched for su
ch a stocky, solid body. His Spanish is accented, but good. Like almost all the other Romanians here. Drool dribbles from his mouth, the effect of so many hours sitting here motionless.

  - 'You're worse than I am.'

  - 'Don't waste my time.'

  - 'You're tired too,' he says.

  A repulsive, animal smile flickers across his face. I wonder if the pimps and the girls he exploits and beats up are more afraid of his laughter than his serious face.

  - 'I need to go to the toilet and eat something.'

  - You will.'

  - 'My deodorant stopped working hours ago.'

  - 'I'll be fine. I wouldn't like you any better in a nightgown and perfume.'

  He lets out a strident, sudden cackle. Yellowing teeth. Nose hair sprouts from his nostrils and his scruffy stubble is dirty-looking and thin.

  - 'I'm going to put in a request to serve my time back home. I'll be out in three years.'

  I fear this may be true, but don't budge.

  - 'Well, until then, I'll make things even harder for your wife.'

  He raises a handcuffed hand, asking for peace.

  - 'We'll do the deal.'

  He sits up, leaning over the table til he's inches from my face. I can smell his breath, but don't flinch. We size each other up. Neither of us leans back or blinks.

  - 'I've got something on your man.'

  - 'This better be so good I get hard just hearing it. So far I'm not convinced.' 'You don't know what you're fucking...'

  - 'Maybe I do.'

  He leans back confidently. Another sinister smile. I cut himoff.

  - 'Now you owe me two things. Something about your business I can really sink my teeth into. And what you're saying about our man.'

  - 'That wasn't the deal.'

  - 'Now it is.'

  He stares at me with all the hatred he can muster up, his dark eyes brimming with venom.

  I get up.

  - 'Wait. Sit down.'

  For a few minutes he gives me the names of head honchos of other organisations like his, in Murcia and Alicante, who he does business with: exchanging burnt-out pimps, girls who are getting to be a bit too well-known. None of them are Romanian, so I suppose he doesn't feel he's ratting them out. More like a businessman getting one over the competition.

  - 'I want to take down your supplier. I want you to give me the names of the people who send you the girls.'

  He laughs.

  - 'If I give them to you, I'll be a dead man in my own country.'

  - 'You think I care?'

  He thinks it over, his brow deeply furrowed.

  Finally, he gives me a few names. The routes they bring them in on. How they do it. No surprises there.

  - 'I'll set up a new route,' he shrugs.

  He thinks nothing of the information. He knows we can't prevent him or someone else just like him from providing a service after we dismantle things temporarily. There's nothing I can do about that, so I just jot down notes. I'll hand them over to the person in charge later.

  - 'So what have you got on my man? Not you, is it? You stabbed a woman in Romania, didn't you?'

  He sighs and puffs out his cheeks, looking grotesque and dirty, like a neanderthal.

  - 'That was a long time ago. A crime of youth. I had to earn respect. Now I have other ways,' he says, satisfied.

  - 'Tell me. I haven't got all day.'

  - 'Did you know that in this city, where the police are totally clueless, people hold parties with hard sex and orgies?'

  - 'That's old news. If that's all you've got, no deal.'

  - 'Sex so hard not every girl is capable of it. They came looking for me specifically. They needed something special. And I had it.' 'Of course.' 'I provide an excellent service to my clients. I drove her there myself, posing as one of my own pimps. They paid me six thousand euros for that night alone. Small group. Everyone wearing masks. But that night the regulars weren't there. There were only a handful of them. Everything very hush-hush. One of them had already been there a few other times. The girls told me he was in a few of the videos. Muscly, with a loincloth and a leather mask. But there was another guy who only went the once. Wearing a black cape down to his feet. And a top hat. And a black suit. He was also wearing a mask. Like the ones in the film... I don't know if you know the one. Tom Cruise is in it.

  Eyes Wide Shut.'

  Radu falls abruptly silent and doesn't speak for a long time. He stares at me with that twisted smile on his face.

  - 'He had a knife. A very sharp knife.'

  He laughs. His laughter is like blasphemy.

  - 'He was dressed as Jack the Ripper.'

  - 'Did you see his face?'

  - 'He didn't take off his mask.'

  - 'Who else was there?'

  - 'The one who always pays. The pervert with the chemist's. And a couple of other guys. I don't know them.'

  - 'Why did you stay there?

  - I had to protect my goods. They were paying half in advance. The other half at the end.'

  - 'When was the video filmed?'

  - 'In summer,' he shrugs.

  - 'Like hell. You know exactly when. You've got all the payments accounted for in your little notebook.'

  - 'Start of August.'

  - 'Where?'

  - 'Same place they always do it. The Mojacar farmhouse.'

  - 'What happens in the video?'

  - 'The Ripper lookalike did his thing. Ha ha ha.'

  I feel a stabbing urge to grab him by the throat.

  - 'Was the girl hurt?'

  - 'I was there.'

  - 'They raped her.'

  - 'Fucked her,' I correct him.

  - 'She was loving it.

  - I gave her three days off. Time enough for her little holes to have a break. Hahaha.'

  He stops cackling when he sees my eyes. For a minute I've had a vision of myself hitting him so hard I crush his skull. I'm scaring myself. All I want is to hurt him.

  - 'Why did you put pressure on Yusida to lie about Hunt's alibi?'

  He smiles:

  - 'I wanted to get even. He killed one of my girls. I protect my business.'

  - 'Why haven't you done it yet?'

  - 'Because I still don't know who he is. But if you let me go...'

  - 'In your dreams, Radu.'

  When I'm almost out of the door, he says:

  - 'Don't you want to know who the girl was?'

  I stare at him. Like an idiot.

  - 'Cristiana Stoicescu, of course.'

  I walk out of the room, his sick laughter echoing behind me,

  and slam the door.

  We let Radu have a wash and something to eat. His statement will be taken later on. I spend the afternoon sorting through the information and sending it on to the higher-ups.

  When I'm just about finished, Garcia comes in.

  - 'You've got a visitor, Commissioner. He says it's got to do with the Ripper case.'

  - 'Who is it?'

  - 'A private detective.'

  - 'Just what we needed!'

  - 'You've got nothing to lose, sir. If he's just chatting shit, I'll give him a kick in the arse myself.'

  I finish the reports and tell him to see the detective in.

  This Columbo isn't dressed in a trench coat, and he doesn't stoop. He doesn't have that rumpled, sadly absentminded air, either. He's six foot, with short, wavy hair slicked back with oily hair pomade, a low, unlined forehead and bulging eyes set very far apart. He has a chubby face but the muscly build of an avid gym rat. His jeans are perfectly pressed and so is his pinstripe shirt, under a blue linen jacket.

  - 'Good afternoon, Commissioner. It's an honour to meet you.' He nods deferentially, eyes fixed on my badge.

  He stretches out his hand, but I don't move an inch. His hand remains comically outstretched in midair for a moment. He doesn't sit down until I nod to a chair
. He must be able to read the tiredness on my face, because he says:

  - 'Lots of work these past few days.'

  I look away to the window and stare out at the grey, faded afternoon, autumn drawing in even as temperatures remain high and the sky looks ominously low. About a year ago there was mass flooding that destroyed half the county, and any day now it could happen again. A wave of fatigue suddenly hits me and I blink firmly several times.

  - 'How can I help?'

  - 'I've been hired to try to find the Ripper.'

  I can't help myself. I burst out laughing and the detective's eyes turn to ice.

  - 'I know this may be beyond my remit, Commissioner, but...'

  Offended, he tries to keep his cool and hold on to his dignity.

  - 'Four eyes are better than two, Commissioner,' he says pompously, sitting up like a cobra milked of its venom with only a stubby pair of fangs left.

  - 'Go on,' I say.

  - 'I've been hired...' he starts again.

  - 'Who?'

  - 'I can't...'

  - 'This isn’t Hollywood. Either you tell me who hired you or I arrest you on the spot.' Now that's Hollywood.

  One day I'll win an Oscar: Nicest Police Officer.

  - 'My clients have a vested interest... in the industry that's suffered the most, shall we say, from the criminal acts committed by...'

  - 'Who?'

  - 'Brothel owners.'

  I must have a strange look on my face, because he carries on.

  - 'They're just trying to help.' 'As am I.'