The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  A text from Lopez comes in: a prostitute has been reported missing in Murcia. Missing for twenty-four hours.

  - A first in the Murcia area.

  There's silence in the car, just the sound of breathing, for a while.

  Around two A.M., when we know he must already have struck, discouragement takes the best of us.

  - 'He's not going to do it hear,' Malasana says, with bitter rage.

  We don't have the energy to argue. 'He could be disemboweling her as we speak.'

  Another text from Lopez:

  - Another missing woman. Also since yesterday. Also in Murcia.

  - 'He was out hunting last night,' says Galan.

  Just the, my phone trills with an incoming WhatsApp message.

  - What are you thinking while I play with my little whores, chief? Tee hee.

  I show them my phone wordlessly.

  Our failure, spelt out in tears.

  The first body is found less than half a mile from where we were stationed, surveilling the Angel area.

  A farmer foundit next to an irrigating shed.

  - 'She's North African this time, boss,' says an officer as we approach.

  An Eastern European, a South American, a North Afrcan. ¿Qué nos esperará a unos kilómetros de aquí? We know the other body will be horribly mutilated because this one isn't. So this one was his first kill tonight. His Elizabeth Stride.

  The woman is small and slender, with peaceful features despite the horror she suffered through. Her black hair wreathes her face like a bad omen wreathes. The body lies on a slight slope and the blood spurting from the deep cut in her neck flows to one side, barely touching her body. The top few buttons of her blue blouse are undone, her voluptuous breasts exposed. The body slumps slightly towards the left, her face string blankly at the irrigation shed on which our torch is placed, sadly illuminating the scene. Her legs are bent, knees pointing skyward and feet against the wall.

  - 'It's an almost perfect replica.' Galan walks around the scene. 'Look at her hand.' She leans over, inspecting the body.

  She's right. Just like Elizabeth Stride, the woman is holding a packet of breath mints between her index finger and thumb.

  We hear vehicles approaching and realise they're not the officers or pathologist that we're expecting but a slavering pack of journos. They've come running this time. Someone tipped them off so fast now we can't even work in peace.

  Several officers move forward to reach them.

  - 'What's this place called?' asks Galan.

  Neither Malasana nor I know, but a young officer standing a way off says:

  - 'The man who found her says it's called Devil's Point? We look at each other and in that moment we know we could have anticipated this. I curse myself for not seeing it coming.

  - 'He didn't choose this place at random.'

  - 'We were where we had to be, Inspector.' Galan's attempts to console me are fruitless.

  Five minutes later we're on our way to the scene of the second murder. Hotel Caravan is a two-storey building next to the motorway, next to a petrol station, out in the middle of huge crop fields. Six miles out from the city, it's an overnight stop for tourists, farmers and labourers. It's also a discreet meeting point for couples in search of privacy.

  Journos stand round officers doing their best to keep them away from the scene of the crime. They've also been joined by all the hotel guests, wandering around the area in pyjamas, drawn to the gore.

  We manage to cut through the crowd shoving cameras and questions in our faces, the flash going off every two seconds, and come to a halt next to the security line. The officers have rigged up a makeshift tent and barrier out of hotel bedsheets, trying to keep the body out of sight. When I get out of the car, I hear questions being shouted at my back. I hate not having the answers to them. Every question is a blow. Every remark echoes my own frustration.

  Lopes comes over, his face turn pale, as if on a bad trip.

  The scene is lit up by all the hotel lights, blinking cheerfully and entirely inappropriately as if celebrating the crime. The huge HOTEL CARAVAN sign changes colour from blue to yellow where only the deep black nothingness of death should be.

  - 'Over there,' Lopez says, pointing to the sheets.

  Then he suddenly runs off behind a van to vomit. We hear him retching from far away, despite the shouts of the reporters and crowd, drawn to the scene like flies to shit.

  - 'Get pictures of everyone. Film them,' I order a young officer; the same order I gave not half an hour ago at Devil's Point.

  Cars zip by on the nearby highway from time to time. On the other side of the road, the orange groves are plunged in an incongruously serene darkness.

  The body is behind a cluster of pine trees that separate the hotel from the nearby path snaking into the fields.

  - 'He did it here so he wouldn't be seen from the hotel,' says Malasana.

  Neither of us looks at the body yet. His Catherine Eddows.

  - 'Inspector,' calls Garcia, his face raw like a dying man's.

  We follow him behind the pines and then we see the murderer. There he is, opposite the hotel, life-sized. A cardboard cutout Ripper, like a macabre advertisement. Painted up true to life. Standing there for all to see. Black trousers. Dark jacket under a knee-length cape. In one hand, something that looks like a kidney cut in two. We already know what that means. In the other, a very long, slim knife, its edge cut out with exactitude to give it an even more lethal look. A top hat sits on a face painted completely black save for two sinister, mocking slits for eyes, making the figure look terrifyingly realistic.

  - 'No one touch it. No one...'

  I was going to forbid anyone from taking pictures before realizing half the crowd here must already have snapped it half a dozen time on their phones.

  - 'Cover it til forensics gets here.'

  - 'Did Lopez tell you about the van?'

  - 'What van?'

  - 'Quarter of a mile from here,' he stretches out his arm and points west. 'He left it there and set it on fire. Poured petrol on it. There's nothing left of it. Sólo hierros calcinados.'

  I wonder where Lopez this and spot him far off, on the other side of the cordoned off area, leaning on a car and bending forward.

  I jerk my head and one of the officers lifts up the cover on top of the body, without looking at it.

  There's enough light to see the damage.

  A black woman, built more sturdily than the previous victim.

  - 'Every race, boss.'

  She's on her back, to make his work easier for him. All her clothes have been slashed, as reports also indicate about Catherine Eddows. One leg stretched out and one spread, giving easier access to her belly. The cut in her neck is so brutally deep she's almost decapitated. The cuts on her lips leave her gums exposed. Another cut from her nose to her left jaw exposes the bone. He's also slashed the tip of her nose, lower eyelids and cheeks. Lower down, the killer has slashed open her stomach and extracted part of her entrails, placed on the right shoulders, a bloody, quivering mass like the serpents of hell. On her right arm, he's placed a gelatinous piece of flesh: part of her colon. Her vagina and thighs are cut so deep her tendons and bones show and we know without checking that part of her womb and left kidney will be missing.

  The sound of a mighty retch echoes. Malasana turns away. It's more than he can bear. And Inspector Galan and I can't help but do the same. The smell of my rotting is so sinister and deep that I tremble for a while. When I swim back to consciousness, I see Galan crouching next to a car, an officer gently helping her up. She couldn't stand up straight without that help. Malasana is crying silently.

  - 'Cover her up.'

  I do my best to give rational, clear orders and we get in the car, heaeding for the gutted and burnt van.

  It is a truce in torment.

  Two officers are leaning against a patrol car. There's no one taki
ng pictures or having a nosy round here. The officers move aside, greeting us. The normalcy of their faces - they haven't seen the mutilated body - helps us recover.

  - 'It's his van, boss,' says one.'The murderer's van.'

  He holds up a powerful torch, illuminating what's left of it.

  - There are compartments in the back. Enough space to transport the women and a motrobike. 'He must have got away somehow but we haven't found any prints.'

  We know the officer's right. It's the Mercedes Vito van we've seen on the security camera footage. He's used it to transport the victims from the start. He must have kept it hidden somewhere.

  - 'I can't find the vehicle identification number, boss.' 'It's been filed down.' The officer voices what we're thinking.

  Malasana spits, the taste of vomit still in his mouth. Inspector Galan walks a few steps off into the darkness. Then I hear a rattling breath and I know she's also had to vomit after seeing what no one should ever see.

  Containing the scandal will be impossible.

  Only rage prevents me from running and hiding in the most remote place on earth.

  As day dawns and the sun filters down I feel even more laid bare. Everything we tried has been in vain. All our useless task forces. My officers are crestfallen, defeated. Not one radio is turned on in the whole station. If we could, I know each of us would bury underground and hide today to block out the voices condemning our incompetence.

  I step out of the station door and in a matter of seconds the hungry journos are on me, shoving their microphones, megaphones and questions in my face. When I manage to get them to quiet down, I make a statement.

  'Last night, our task force, which was manned by every officer we have, failed. The criminal known as the Ripper was able to avoid all surveillance and murdered two women outside the perimeter of our planned surveillance area. The identity of the women is still unknown. We believe they were kidnapped twenty-four hours before the crimes were committed.'

  I turn my back on them amid protest(s) and shouting.

  - 'You shouldn't have done that.' Malasana furrows his brow.

  Inspector Galan agrees.

  - 'Beating on your chest won't achieve anything, Inspector.'

  I walk past them and head up to the stairs to my office.

  Someone tells me the Chief Commissioner is on the phone.

  I tell him I've already made a statement to the press taking responsibility for it and he nods in acceptance. I've saved him from an almighty mess. That's something I'm good at.

  I turn on the radio to beat myself up for a little while. The forensics reports are taking forever to come in. The news sticks to reporting that the task force has failed and the murderer struck outside of the city to go unnoticed. But then there's heavy criticism of the police force, seemingly incapable of preventing what everyone knew was going to happen. How is it that knowing the date and the area he was going to strike in, more was not done? The newscaster wonders whether surveillance could have been further extended to the outskirts of the city. On a radio phone-in show they say the Madrid specialists were sent in too late and the inquiry was left in the hands of police officers who can barely write out parking tickets. Others criticise the lack of coordination between the different secuity forces, leading to a breakdown in communication and the investigation. They also criticise Europol and Interpol for failing to intervene. Some suggests a NASA satellite should have been used to monitor the area. Online, there are articles claiming the new Ripper is a legendary murderer who will make history without ever being caught. More articles saying we're living in a time of unpunsihed crime, a Biblical plague in the form of serial killers. Another author says that by choosing victims of different ethnicities the killer is sending a message to humankind: no one is safe from Evil. We're all made of the same mortal flesh. Someone suggests the invisibility of the Ripper is obvious proof that society refuses to look its rottenness in the eye, and that the killer is a product of the evils of our consumerist, capitalist society and its scorn for human life, reducing human flesh to a commodity.

  Malasana bursts into my office.

  - 'The Ripper disguise parties were first suggested in an online chatroom. Someone suggested it and a whole bunch of idiots decided to join in the fun.'

  I thought the murderer had spread the party idea to create panic. But there was no need. A good shepherd never wants for sheep. A few idiots took it upon themselves to create confusion in Baria at the worst possible time.

  The security footage from every camera in the region has served only to confirm that a van resembling the vehicle driven by the murderer drove down the highway at 12:30 A.M., giving him enough time to reach both the designated locations and murder the women. The Hotel Caravan footage of the parking lot shows no suspsicious activity. He must have reached the spot where he burnt the van through the back roads. There are confirmed tyre prints in the dirt paths surrouunding Devil'S pOInt and Hotel Caravan. But it's impossible to check the prints against tyres that have been burnt to a crisp.

  A report comes in from Murcia, saying a woman was spotted getting into a van. But there's no ID or proof.

  My mind foggy, my eyes burn like wounds.

  Out of the window I hear the hustle and bustle of the old market, chockablock with reporters today. Morning is here. The sky is still covered with clouds, albeit dirty white rather than the heavy, trailing grey fog of these past few days. They're so fluffy the sun starts to filter through, illuminating as if by some mockery the devastating tragedy we face. Lopez comes in. His face says it all. He's lost several pounds in just a few days. Last night was torture for him. He flops down heavily into a chair, facing me, and doesn't speak.

  - 'You should go to the doctor's. You're not looking so great,' I say.

  - 'Haven't you looked in a mirror?'

  He's not the same man. He's defeated. Even more so than I am. At least I still have rage. His has fallen by the wayside. All that's left is infinite sadness.

  Malasana's face is also a picture. He's aged. His thin stubble covers his face in a dark shadow that frames his cloudy eyes. His hopes have also been destroyed and, knowing him the way I do, I know his heart is broken.

  - 'The pathologists found a cigarette stub in the van, boss. With DNA on it. The ashtray is made of metal. Apparently the DNA can be sampled from it.'

  Not even that ray of hope is enough to light up our faces. We already know what happened with the last sample. Another cigarette stub. Another macabre joke.

  Suddenly, there are shouts from the street. A voice cries out:

  - 'Listen to the drums! Do you not hear the trumpets? They are the same as those that will sound in Jericho. The same that will break down their walls are yours now break down. Do you not hear them? Do you not hear the moans of the women who scream in agony? Do you not see the vengeance of evil men against women who have long since ceased to be obedient sheeps? Like the Jews against the Canaanites! A vengeance that foreshadows the End! The end of days John wrote. The human sacrifices have begun. The plagues are here.'

  The man's in a car brandishing his fist and shouting out his message of madness and death. The journos hand him their mics and record with their phones. People come out of the old market in pockets to watch the show.

  - 'Blind! You are blind! Mad! Evil men have wrought death. The crimes are metaphysical. Invisible and metaphysical, the metaphysics of death. No life remains to be protected! Because the true God, the only God, is death. Omnipotent. Omnipresent. God is Death. And Death is Goddd.'

  An officer who's gone down to hear what's going on yanks him brutally from the car. Then pushes him into the station.

  - 'Chief Inspector Carrillo, this situation is unacceptable.'

  It's the mayor, a government representative next to him.

  'The city is terrified.'

  He pauses for effect, letting his words sink in.

  Every time he talks, his jowls wobble. Under diff
erent circumstances, it would be funny. They twitch to a stop when he clamps his mouth shut firmly for effect, looking me in the eye.

  - 'People don't know what to do anymore.' 'They've even organised their own patrols,' says the government representative smoothly, not taking his eyes off me.

  He's sat next to the mayor, straight-backed and dignified, but he doesn't say much because he has no idea what to do. He sticks to his point about the street patrols because they've made the news and he fears it's showing his lot up.

  - 'We can't stop people from messing about.'

  - 'But if they do, it's for a reason,' replies the mayor. 'They're angry and scared. Not to mention how this is making Baria look. Everyone has their eyes on us. And everyone knows we've got a crazed serial killer on our hands who's playing us for fools.'

  The mayor is resolute, bouncing slightly on his chair. His small-featured face contracts and stretches like a ventroloquist's dummy. His bald spot shines. It's both funny and repulsive, as if he'd shined it this morning. And his beer belly swells and contracts as he speaks, his words too carefully chosen to be spontaneous, his spittle peppering my desk. I can't help but wonder if he's one of the masked men in Lapuerta's films.

  - 'Very few serial killers have been arrested before they've committed a number of crimes,' says Galan suddenly. She's here mainly for show. The mayor wants an audience, to prove we in the provinces can handle things just as well as in Madrid. Or at least, order other people to handle them.