- 'Right, Damian. Your name isn't that appropriate, you know? My mum made me pray to Father Damian and every time I see you I think, there you go, blasphemy on legs.'
Robot finally manages to take a deep breath. He raises one hand to his neck. I don't understand how such a small fist, almost like a boy's, can cause so much damage. Robot shoots a fearful look at the slight man still standing next to the stretcher.
- 'I'll tell the doctors.'
I pull up the sheet covering his bottom half. Thankfully, he's still got his boxers on, but I see one of his legs has been bandaged. I lean my weight on it casually and Malasana covers his mouth to drown out the scream.
- 'If you thought you got lucky being released, you were wrong. Why do you think we let you go? Because inside, they can't get you. If you tell me who the man in the top hat is, I'll leave you in peace. We'll even say the baggie we found was a mix-up.'
I let up and Malasana uncovers his mouth.
- 'I don't know who he was. They sent him over from Alm...'
I press down on his bad leg again. He twists and turns under Malasana's grip, screaming silently. 'The Almeria force has questioned the theatre troupe Lapuerta hired for your bloody shows and they didn't send anyone out that day.'
I told the Madrid team that. All I got was: Not to worry, we'll take care of it.
They think I'm wrong. That I'm obsessed with the videos and on the wrong track. My intuition tells me otherwise.
Robot breaths agitatedly. For a minute, hope flickers in his pain. But when Malasana lets up, he spits:
- 'Go fuck yourselves, you cunts.'
I know he won't talk. I know he knows. We'll have to find a different time. But I also know violence won't be enough.
Reports from Forensics and the autopsies are coming in. No biological trail, no trace.
The forensics reports confirms that the wounds match up with what we were expecting. The same patterns as Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddows.
The Ripper held back on Naima Medari because the original killer was interrupted, or so it's believed, when he attacked Elizabeth Stride and didn't have time to mutilate her body, so she merely had her throat slit: two deep parallel cuts to the neck.
However, the description of the wounds on Sandra Okeke's body is horrific: an exact replica of what we know Jack the Ripper did to Catherine Eddows' body: two deep slashes to the throat, cutting through to her windpipe, causing instant death. Serious wounds to the face, her lips slashed through so the gums showed. The killer cut the tip of her nose, lower eyelids and cheeks, slitting open her face from the nose to the left jaw. Her clothing was violently slashed and torn, and the killer cut, slit and carbed up her internal organs - the pancreas, liver and spleen. Part of the womb and left kidney are missing, and the victim was disemboweled, her intestines placed on her right shoulder. There is a deep cut from the vagina to the anus. The top part of the thighs was cut down to the tendons and cartilage. Part of the colon was cut out and placed on her right arm.
Photographs of the horror. There are also photographs of the symbols the Ripper carved on the bodies with the tip of his blade. In Naima Medari's case, it's a triangle encased in a circle. In Sandra Okeke's, a square, also encased in a circle.
I draw the symbols over and over. Then scour the Internet. Millions of different meanings that get me no nearer to clarity.
My magnificent knives
Are an offering
To their miserable bodies
Ha ha ha ha ha...
Eat her liver?
I wouldn't sink my teeth into those stinking whores
Just touching them repulses me
Just touching them with my knife gives me the shivers
Shivers of pleasure
Ha ha ha ha ha....
15
The whole of Baria is on edge and it's unbearable. There's panic in the air, making it hard to breathe. We're called to a press conference with a few bigwigs. In the faces of my officers is the shadow of defeat, their frustration plain to see.
Accusations of not setting up our surveillance taskforce properly - and far too few of them - are being thrown at us from all sides. The Minister for Home Affairs has been lambasted for not providing the police with the necessary means and for not seeking support from specialised agencies with more experience dealing with serial killers, like the FBI. He's been on the radio, in the papers and on TV, stressing that all the necessary meaare being provided, the investigation is extremely difficult, and we're dealing with a highly intelligent individual who is familiar with modern investigation techniques. The taskforce was posted throughout Baria and its surrounding area. The FBI has sent over a profile that's being studied by the Spanish forces. He mentions similar cases where the killer was arrested, like the joaquin Ferrandiz case. He conveniently leaves out the bit after Ferrandiz managing to murder five women in Castellon before being caught.
The word on the street is as cruel as we expected: someone says we don't want to catch the killer because he's dealing with the prostitiution in the area for us. Someone else says we get paid too much and aren't making enough of an effort.
Malasana doesn't even have the energy to work up any indignation. He just sits there, not saying anything, taking it, riddled with guilt.
Then it's the mayor's turn. He makes a stellar effort at soothing the public.
- We ask that the population remain calm. The vast majority of our citizens is not being targeted by the killer.
We sit there in silence, aghast. None of us bothers to say anything. The fire has gone out of us.
Lázaro Asunción gives me the titbit I was waiting for:
- 'Mr Private Eye phoned Anela from Madrid, offering them his services. They weren't the ones who went looking for him. He said if he didn't dig up any clues they wouldn't have to pay. That's what I heard, anyway.
He was the one who started it. Looking for a way to get involved in the inquiry.'
- 'Maybe we need to spend a bit more time on Columbo,' I say to Malasana.
I don't need to say any more. He goes out to make a few calls
and a while later, we finally go down to the basement. The guy in the interview room is around thirty, with a shaved head and a stark profile. His small, wiry body reminds me of Malasana, compact and lean like a wild animal.
I stand on the other side of the one-way mirror, smoking, and turn on the speaker.
Maybe he'll feel some empathy for an officer who has such a likeness to him. They could be cousins.
- 'We know who you are and why you're here,' Malasana begins.
The man looks at him with frank curiousity, but shows no animosity.
- 'We couldn't care less that you beat up that arsehole. You could have killed him for all we care.'
The thug stares at him, an incredulous smile on his face.
- 'The only thing I want to know is whether he gave you any information. We all want the same thing.'
They stare evenly at each other. Malasana breaks the ice, leaning over to offer him a cigarette, which he takes.
The Romanian smokes placidly.
- 'Who sent you after him?'
He doesn't answer.
- 'We're not going to be charging whoever it is that sent you. It's not a problem. Can you understand what I'm saying? Do you want an interpreter?'
- 'No.'
Malasana looks over his file. Andrei Petran. Age 29. Arrested in Valencia for GBH against a couple. The guy in the cell next door is Flaviu Funar. Age 32. With a record of several violent episodes. Suspicion of working with Romanian prostitution rings. Your run-of-the-mill pimps and thugs, but tough enough to teach Robot a lesson.
Two guys sent over to Radu by some other honcho.
'Radu wants the Ripper for himself. He forced Yusida to destroy Hunt's alibi and keep us busy with Hunt while he was getting even with the Ripper for doing away with Cristiana Stoicescu, his cash cow.'
<
br /> Malasana nods. 'Radu wanted to finish the Ripper off himself.' He doesn't know who he is, but he does know someone who might know.
Now we are far more sure only Robot will be able to lead us to him.
My meeting with Andres Ocana is no picnic. I've disliked him ever since I first got wind of him. His paper, digitalbaria.com, which is also available in print, is pure libel, a tabloid sinking lower than you'd think was possible.
- 'Your friends sent you along, have they?'
Ocana jumps down my throat the minute he spots me in the station hall.
'Journos don't have friends,' he says primly.
- 'Rumour has it you've been making a pretty penny since you started defending individual freedom. Shame you seem to have forgotten about the freedom of those girls.'
Some officers are listening in, lapping it up. They know what he's been insinuating in his gutter paper for the past few weeks. Especially after the sex scandal about his sponsors' sex tapes came out.
- 'Don't insult me, Commissioner. I want you to catch that animal just as much as the next guy.'
- 'I find that hard to believe. He gives you something to write about every day in your tabloid, doesn't he.' '"Commissioner Carrillo seems unable to cope with the investigation. Accusing innocent citizens willy-nilly, utterly incapable of working methodically..." what was the bit after that again?'
He smiles with distaste, his crepey skin stretched over his gaunt cheeks, stubble spouting here and there, his aquiline nose sharp. His tiny eyes seem to pierce through me, seeing everything. People who don't smile with their eyes shouldn't be trusted.
- 'You went too far, Comissioner. And you know it.'
- 'You mean your friends didn't go too far?'
- 'They were private parties, with consenting adults who knew what they were getting into.'
- 'Sex workers forced into it by their pimps. That's one juicy detail you forgot to include.' 'What do you want?'
- 'I want to know why you're attacking honest citizens...'
- 'Citizens, maybe.
- But honest?' And he forgets his friends .
I glare at him. But that doesn't faze him. He smirks even more at the look of alarm on my face at his remark.
- 'What friends?'
- 'Why haven't you taken the Englishman in as a suspect, like the Madrid team?'
- 'That's nonsense.'
- 'He's got no alibi. His bar was shut on the nights the murders happened. Strange, don't you think? He's been asked for a DNA sample and refused. Doesn't that get you thinking? 'Maybe it will for our readers.'
I take a step towards him.
- 'What did you say?'
- 'Didn't you know? Well, well, well.'
He sucks on his cigarette, the butt all wet. He can't quite work up the courage to light it inside the station. I see his spit shining on the fag. He smells of sweat. I take a step back, trying to hide my surprise, but I know it's too late.
- The inspector from Madrid. 'She asked for his alibi and he didn't have an answer. Then she requested a DNA sample and he refused. What do you have to say to that?'
- 'That there's no reason to consider him a suspect.'
- 'The Madrid specialists disagree.'
- 'They're wrong.' 'Right now that information is being requested all over the city.'
- 'You don't say. I had no idea.'
- 'Suspect sources you've got there, Ocana.'
I walk away, leaving him standing there uncertainly.
With the investigation at a standstill and our only lead in hospital, where we can't access him, we're twiddling our thumbs at the station. We're going round in circles like bored drones. I go down to the chamber of horrors and sink into sadness, realizing there's nothing else I can piece together, nothing else I can guess at. There is still no match for the DNA found on the fag-end in the van. That fag-end is still making me uneasy.
The same way I keep tormenting myself about where he could have found my cigarette butt. Again, I tell myself he could have found it anywhere. In a bar, in a cafe, on the street. He's bold, almost rash. What if he got it right here, in this very station? What if he's been here, in my own office? But then I brush the thought aside. It's unthinkable. No one who's been in my office could be a suspect. My thoughts chase each other round and round in circles, telling me this case is going nowhere. I curse myself. He's got something personal against you. He chose you, the inspector said. He knows me. And that means I know him.
Racking my brains, I request the files on every case I've been involved with since I arrived in Baria. The officers in charge look puzzled. Then they bring up entire boxes.
I spend hours sifting through the files, but I find exactly no one or nothing that ties in with this case.
Later on I go down to the switchboard and talk to the officers there. They've been glued to the phones for weeks, taking calls from locals who think their neighbour might be the Ripper, or a stranger who walked past their house looking funny, or their cousin, who used to torture cats as a child.
My officers are more burnt out than any phone sex operator. They take calls in an absolute monotone, stupefied with boredom. Over two thousand calls in six weeks have barely given us any leads. Most of them going nowhere. A dodgy-looking guy who hit a sex worker. A poacher who enjoyed torturing his kill. A butcher walking down the road in a bloodstained apron. A Muslim in the San Cristobal area who attacked women not dressed in a full niqab. A Romanian drunk driver shouting at some officers that he was going to off every whore in the city. A South American who'd had more than his fair share of pints attacking a sex worker because he didn't have the money to pay her. An impotant gitano taking his frustation out on women, harassing and insulting them.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Powerlessness. Frustration. Exhaustion.
My officers have a harder time than me putting up with the criticism. They can't walk down the street without someone throwing our defeat in their faces, or sort out a minor disturbance without being told the only thing they're good for is breaking up fights between old ladies, not catching a criminal like the Ripper.
When I came into work today I saw a headline Sellotaped to the column to the right of the station's main entrance, the journos gathered round snapping away. The headline is Ocana's work - my friend from digitalbaria.com. 'Police Let Friends Off Scot-Free.
I phone the hospital again to ask when Robot willl be discharged. He still needs a few days of bed rest in hospital. I look at my watch, as if it could make time speed up. But I can't, so I flop into the armchair listlessly, desperate for something to happen so we can move forward. I'm scared if I stop moving I'll crumble.
Malasana doesn't come in to the station for two full days. God only knows what he's up to. He hasn't given me any clues.
I've got to see Mike. I've got to see Mike to look him in the eye. I've got to see him to find out whether maybe it's him. I've got to see him to know I don't suspect him because there's no reason to. I've got to see him to know friendship isn't skewing my opinion.
I've got to see Mike.
But I'm scared of seeing him.
I take refuge in Natalia.
She opens the door with a brilliant smile. We haven't seen each other for a few weeks and she knows why. She hasn't bombarded me with questions or pressed me for information. Just waited for me to call. And here we both are now, her patiently waiting for me, opening her door to usher me in like a poor man in need of water and warmth. She helps me out of my jacket and only then does the full weight of my exhaustion hit me. I can't remember ever feeling so tired.
Natalia massages my shoulders, and a small spark of hope glimmers. Not everything is so terrible. She tells me to make myself at home and I'm so relaxed I'm nearly asleep when she brings me a glass a wine and some cheese.
The first sip of wine fills me with energy and the blood seems to rush back into my veins. She sits down next to me and I catch
sight of a newspaper, the headlines screaming about - what else? - the Ripper.
- 'It's a bloody disgrace,' says Natalia. 'Have you also realised they've made him a hero?'
I stop chewing and think about it.
- 'Because you haven't caught him yet. As if he were a hero who's outsmarting the police. I just don't get it! I don't!'
She throws the newspaper to the other side of the room indignantly.
I like it when she gets annoyed. Her small, aquiline nose wrinkles up, making her face look plain and more adorable than ever.
I think about what she said as I work on the cheese. Then I get up, light a cigarette and go out to the balcony. A damp breeze blows in from sea, cooling the night down. Far out, the skyscrapers in the City pierce through layers of thick, low clouds. But there's no chance they'll be raining down on us this time. Despite their menacing hue, they're as light as wings, a puff of air. Other blocks of flats built to look like ocean liners seem to rock in the darkness. The lights burning in the windows lull me into a sense of security, a familiar, comfortable life with no monsters out there. I feel a wave of nostalgia for the good times in the city, when all was well. Sometimes it was so quiet it was deathly boring. But now evil is everywhere.
Natalia comes up behind me and wraps her arms around me, shivering slightly in the breeze.
- 'Come inside,' she says.
I'm scared I won't be able to satisfy her. Scared I'll see her body in the half-dark and suddenly be overwhelmed with flashbacks to those other bodies, rent, mutilated and covered in blood. I send a text to one of the journos - finally giving him the scoop he wants. I know I'll pay for it dearly, but I'm not going to ask for permission. It's my decision. An impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decision. Now final.
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