The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  14

  I wake up with the vague sensation of having done something terrible which leaves me floating in an indefinable emptiness, as if I'd committed a crime I can't remember.

  Inspector Galan left in a cab at dawn.

  I drive back into the city with the emptiness still clawing at my heart. The car radio wishes me a good morning, though there's nothing good about it at all. The world is still shaken by the Baria crimes. The local government has called a meeting. Highs of twenty-two degrees Celsius and lows of eleven. Sunny with some clouds. A car accident in the city centre. An elderly man has died. He lived alone. A thousand fewer inhabitants in the latest census. People out of work getting out of here. No future.

  I get a call from Malasana and turn around to drive up to Mojacar.

  Ten minutes later a local police officer is on the line.

  - 'The shop owner phoned us...' he says.

  He takes me to a narrow alleyway in the heart of a twisting maze of tiny streets and steep hills where anyone can dive into a corner and disappear. In the blink of an eye, you can be gone in any direction.

  Malasana does not wish me a good morning.

  The Madrid team got here before us. We're crammed in the narrow alley next to thead head of the local police and three other officers. We can smell and touch each other. Like sardines in a tin.

  There's a souvenir shop on one side and a deli on the other. White walls, like every other picturesque little town perched atop a hill in the Spanish south, the hippie paradise vibes at odds with the presence of a crime.

  The officers motion to a packet wrapped crudely in newspaper, tied up with a piece of string. I know that it contains Naima Medari's bloody clothing.

  Fifteen yards from here, something's been graffitied on a white arc that leads to yet another narrow street.

  - You will say anything except your Prayers.

  I try to remember the original Ripper's graffito: The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed. What's the link between the 1888 message and this one?

  As if she were reading my mind, Galan says:

  - 'The message has changed. The original wouldn't be relevant today.'

  - 'What does it mean?'

  - 'A witness who saw a man with Elizbeth Stride that night said he overheard him saying it.'

  Capital letters and neat handwriting. No grammar or spelling mistakes.

  - 'There should also be a bloody rag and a knife,' says Galan calmly

  She knows the case inside out, better than any of us.

  When Forensics set to work they show us the article the bastard has chosen to wrap the parcel: 'Baria Ripper Defies Police'.

  We're speechless. Not even complaining can help us feel marginally better. Not hatred, either. Or wrath. Or rage.

  A while later, a bloody rag and knife are found in another lonely alleyway. We head for the scene, the streets so narrow squeezing past people coming in the other direction is a struggle. At the end of one of the backalleys, next to an old building with no windows and a grille shaped like a cross, an officer is standing guard next to a rag on the ground, a bloodstained, fine-bladed knife placed next to it. It would have been easy enough for him to slip into this knot of streets and leave just as discreetly.

  - 'He waited forty-eight hours to leave his signature,' remarks Galan. 'He didn't risk doing it that same night.' 'Too much surveillance.'

  - 'Fat lot of good that did us,' scowls Malasana.

  A second later my phone buzzes.

  - Five. Does that make me a serial killer, Chief? Tee hee.

  - 'Where were you on the night of the thirtieth of September?'

  - 'Pardon?'

  - 'You heard me.'

  The girl with the permanent fake smile plastered across her face looks up from the front desk. She's not smiling today.

  - 'Here... I was in my room all night.'

  - 'Knowing two crimes were going to be committed that night, you chose to stay at home vegging out in front of the TV. I'd say that's bullshit. You're lying.'

  - 'I swear I'm telling the truth. Where was I supposed to go?

  - 'Can you prove it?'

  - 'Eh? Dunno...'

  He looks at us, confused. I don't believe for a minute a brothel owners association hired this useless piece of crap.

  - 'I'll need to see your contract.'

  - 'I can't show it to you. It's confidential.'

  - 'Nothing is confidential in this case.'

  He leans back in a threadbare red velvet armchair. The City Hotel is pretty swanky until you take a closer look. All the furniture looks second-hand, with lots of flaking gold leaf on the walls and ceiling and tin everywhere, a mediocre imitation of classicism. The lobby is long and narrow, like a train coach. Only the girl at reception, with a drab supermarket cashier uniform, is there to witness the scene. We can see the street outside the big bay windows.

  - 'You can't do that.'

  - 'Perverting the course of justice. You'll be going back to Madrid with your tail between your legs. I'll throw in attempting to bribe a police officer for free.'

  - 'Hey! I haven't bribed anyone.'

  - 'I know you've bribed civil guards. It doesn't matter anyway. I'll pick one of my officers and they're swear on the Bible you tried to bribe them.'

  He takes a couple of deep breaths, thinking. Lila told me he's been to cafe near the station popular with the officers a few times. His reaction proves my bluff is having its effect.

  - 'Wait. I'll fetch it right away.'

  When he vanishes into the lift, I say to Malasana:

  - 'He's soft.'

  - 'Or a great actor.' It's typical of these types of killersto get involved in the inquiry.

  He's back in the lobby in a flash and reluctantly hands us a document. It states that Anela hires the services of Logistica Investigacion LLC in order to investigate the latest incidents that have negatively affected the industry.

  The crimes are not directly mentioned and little to no precise information is given on the Anela members, since under Spanish law private detectives are forbidden from investigating homicide.

  - 'I want a copy.'

  - 'That's impossible, sir. I shouldn't even have shown it to you.'

  - 'Then send me a copy this afternoon or I'll kick your arse out of Baria.'

  Lorenzo Vilar hasn't sat down since he ran down from his room. His physique is similar to the masked man in the video. Tall and thin.

  - 'Where were you on the thirty-first of August and eighth of September?'

  - 'In Madrid.'

  - 'Where? Who with?'

  - 'I don't know... how am I supposed to remember every detail?'

  I slap the contract on his chest and stand up directly in front of him.

  - 'You'll tell us where and who with or we're coming for you.'

  - 'You're all mad!'

  The Spirit drives me. I am a force at its service. I have to take care not to be seen. Last time, I had to run. Flee, as if the spirits of bad men were on my tail. No spirit can match up to Nonsense. I wonder why Nonsense didn't stop it. But his design is inscrutable and here I am, ready. Driven to catharsis once more. Seeing. Feeling. Recreating. Wanting. I must feel those impulses once again. I must see spilt blood spilling. I must touch its black, sticky heat in the darkness. I must feel the limp body whose soul flees only to rise and I watch, watch the soul rise to a Heaven we bemuddle with the Infinite. He ordered me to come at once.

  Now I see the place, under this impossible light. La Pieza del Diablo? Chosen for the chosen women. How could they not know? How could they not imagine? Perhaps because they are men without spirits, mere animated flesh, so fragile a sharp knife is enough to still it. I feel the increasing weight of the body losing life. Delicately placed on the ground, my knife soon to...

  I see a car coming. I see one of those sacks of animated, spiritless flesh. It drives by as I fake adjusting my work
out clothes and tying my shoelaces, the obscene mask that covers my true identity. Drives off in a cloud of dust and disappears. A presence with no essence. A passing cloud, weightless, almost unreal.

  Once more the body on the ground swims into focus. Flesh returned to the earth. Ashes to ashes. The spirit of death entering the living, entering me and colouring me translucent, invisible, transparent as the air. The spirit entering my being, living in my entrails and my own spirit. Two spirits now entwined, two of us now. Now I encompass so many... confused spirits. Tormented spirits. Spirits in a quest for illumination, for Light.

  I get on my motorbike and let the air enter my entrails like fire. As I move closer to the next place I know its presence will be more alive, more excruciating. Its creation flashes across my eyes. The creation of death over life. The creation of death over walking death. The creation of a spirit, reconstructed, rising slowly, painfully, into the heights, while a mere step away the bodies tremble with its announcement of death, far from what is happening outside of their windows. Those bodies, asleep, are Nothingness. Nothingness that is total and inevitable everywhere. The Nothingness than the dead sought in Jerusalem but failed to find. This Nothingness now revealed in a body slit open, disembowelled and beautiful, exposing the life that was, the death that is. Is there anything more lovely than death and life intertwined in the same body? If only they knew, oh! the Spirit would flood back into them all and Nonsense would live in each and every one of us. Where should I seek him? Perhaps behind these brick walls painted up like a cheap whore, where furtive couples slip away, their flesh fornicating and cursing the Spirit, where travellers hide, running from a road taking them nowhere? I can see it, yes, I see it. I close my eyes and the darkness takes over, and then I see the body again, docile before death. The flesh, still tender, parting like silk under the blade of the knife, still smelling of life as life evaporates, vanishing like smoke. Death sinking into the exhausted limbs, as if tired out after a long run, the delicate, lifeless limbs, flesh moving with sensual, soft cadence, accepting at last, mutely accepting its Eternal Destiny.

  I make an appointment with them at a cafe in the city centre. I've managed to get three of them together. Roque Valcarcel is the former Baria Chief Inspector; he served just before me. He's medium build, not in terrible shape for his age, with a red nose and visible capillaries in his face that he hates: he's teetotal. He's ruddy-cheeked and wears a fedora, which when coupled with his chronic incompetence led him to be nicknamed Marlowe. He wears a pair of wide-leg, cream-coloured trousers, straining over his beer belly, and a jacket that's too big for him, though it must have fit back in the day when his shoulders were broader. He sits facing us, chortling every now and then as he always does, as if he were thinking, 'It's not my problem any more!'

  Carlos Alba, anterior comandante del puesto de Baria y ex miembro de la policía judicial, couldn't be more different. He's rough-looking, starting to bald, and decidedly thuggish. In his time, he had a reputation for throwing his weight around. He hasn't been retired for long, and still has the strength of a man whom nature has smiled upon and who's not quite ready to get old yet. As soon as he gets the chance, he'll switch the conversation back to fishing, his all-time favourite hobby, and his boat, probably the only true love he's got left. Sniffing us out like a dog, he's practically sprawled in his chair, well aware that this is no social occasion. He elbows his old pal Padillo, whose nickname I've never been able to make sense of, and who's fully at peace with looking his age. Padillo is the oldest of the three, the one who's spent the most time here and an encyclopedia on the hardship the local population has lived through. Any surname you say, he'll be able to tell you their life story. He's short and stocky, and today he wears a somber blue cardigan over a plaid shirt and cheap polyester trousers that never wrinkle.

  - 'Been having a few ups and downs, Inspector?' asks Alba, smiling.

  - 'A few. Having a great time down at the station recently.'

  - 'I can see that.' 'The press too.

  - No ganamos para satisfacciones.'

  The waiter knows us all, so he asks a young couple to move to a table at the opposite end of the cafe before taking our order. Only Alba orders brandy; the rest of us stick to coffee and a tonic water. Malasana orders a Coke and a coffee. He shows the waiter his packet of cigarettes and he nods. Then he draws a curtain, separating us from the rest of the room.

  - 'What have you lost, Inspector?

  - Your memory.'

  The three of them chuckle in tandem, pleased with themselves. They're still in fine fettle and want to prove it. And show off as much as they can in the process.

  - 'We know the Ripper is from around here, or if not, he stillp knows the area like the back of his hand,' I begin. 'We know he's between thirty and forty. Forty-five at the most. He's tall and thin, probably dark.'

  - 'How tall? Today, 5'10 isn't tall,' interrupts Varcarcel.

  - 'Around six foot, approximately.'

  - 'Not like you.'

  - 'No.'

  - 'Or Malasana,' says Alba caustically.

  His little witticism hangs in the air for a few seconds, because Malasana doesn't take jokes about his height well. Worse than mentioning his mother, in fact. But he keeps his game face on out of respect for the old-timers.

  - 'That's about all we've got.'

  - 'So what do you want?' asks Marlowe again.

  - 'Think back. People don't just suddenly become killers from one day to the next. We've got no one in the area with a record of sexual assault who could be a suspect for these crimes. But we also know sexual assault isn't always reported. Plus, maybe in your time, thirty years back, that would have been more common, something like that not being reported. Something not on record.'

  They stare at me, but I know their minds are working, instinct taking them back, looking for some small piece of evidence to bring to light.

  - 'Well.' Padilla speaks for the first time. 'I remember one. Rumour was he'd raped a foreigner. The girl, she was German, I think - she was taken to hospital, then she reported it, but I don't know what happened next...'

  - 'Do you remember who he was?'

  His hands are folded peacefully across his stomach, like an old man telling stories to a gaggle of grandkids.

  - 'What was his name?'

  He closes his eyes.

  - 'One of the Pelas gang.'

  - Alba tuts. 'Come on. The Pelas guy? He's gay,' he protests.

  - 'No. That's his cousin. Who got married.' 'And I haven't seen him for years,' says Marlowe.

  The three start a lively discussion on the Pelas family, but Malasana takes notes.

  While they're one-upping each other, I gaze absentmindedly out at the street, out of the cafe windows. This conversation is going nowhere, but I'm too polite to bang a fist on the table.

  When they calm down, they promise to think it over and let us know anything they remember.

  - 'Talk to the teams that were working at that time,' I ask. 'Maybe someone'll suddenly remember something, have a spark of genius. Anything at all could be important.'

  We stand up and leave them to their drinks, which they've barely touched, apart for Alba, who's already gesturing to the waiter to bring him another brandy.

  - 'Chied Inspector, is that Englishman who's always dressed in black a friend of yours?'

  Padilla's question hangs in the air. I tell them he's an acquaintance, why, but then Padilla takes a sip of his coffee and smiles serenely with the arrogance of someone who knows something but isn't going to tell you. The cat that's got the cream. His sardonic smile hits me in the chest.

  We get the call shortly before midnight. A couple of thugs have given Robot what he had coming. We've had him under surveillance since he was released, but the thugs didn't know that. They were waiting for him at dusk and jumped him next to his trailer. The officers went over when they heard the shouts and arrested them.

  We drive o
ut to the hospital first, where Robot is being seen to at A&E. We see him lying on a stretcher, a nurse tending to the cuts on his face. A doctor is sitting at a computer.

  - 'Excuse me! You're not allowed in here,' she says. She's slightly built, South American.

  - 'He still alive?'

  - 'Pardon? Yes.'

  - 'So we are allowed, then.'

  Robot opens his good eye and glares at us.

  - 'I see there is some justice in the world,' I say.

  The nurse finishes cleaning the wounds and looks at us, his face surly.

  - 'Please give us a moment.'

  I open the door, but the doctor doesn't budge.

  - 'This is a police emergency. If it isn't life or death, we'd like to speak to the patient alone. We'll be very good to him, don't worry.'

  The nurse leaves immediately and the doctor bites back a retort on her way out of the room.

  - 'You can fuck right off,' says Robot, propping himself up on his elbow as best he can.

  His muscly body is covered in dried blood. There's a deep cut over his right eye, purple as an aubergine. His nose is swollen and his lip is split. When he moves, he lifts a hand to his left side. One of hs ribs must be broken.

  - 'We will, one day. Just like you, too,' I say placidly.

  Before I can stop him, Malasana smashes his fist into his neck. It's a habit now. Robot's face turns puce and his veins swell as he breathes out suddenly. He stays completely still and unable to move for a few seconds, long enough to pull out a brush and canvas and paint his bulging eyes and sweaty, bloody face.

  I check to see whether the staff can see anything through the frosted glass.