The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  But I just can't let go of the fact that Robot knew Cristiana Stoicescu. I can't forget the cruel pantomime of the Ripper actor slitting her throat.

  We start with Nicolas Atienza. We find him enjoying a stroll along Lobo Beach, very close to where the first crime was committed, in a pair of trousers with the waist up to his armpits, a yappy terrier nipping at his heels.

  - 'Ever since I got your call I've been phoning round my old coworkers. I always worked at the Sotomayor school.'

  He's small and scrawny, with white stubble, looking full of energy for a man his age. The cool breeze doesn't seem to bother him. The waves, slightly rough today, dredge slowly in the background.

  - 'None of them, mor myself I should say, remember any cases of especially difficult pupils or any of them being particularly cruel, as you mentioned on the phone. Of course we had pupils who were lazy or rowdy, but no one really violent. We can't remember any instances of kids harassing the other pupils, no big fights, maybe just a bit of rough and tumble at football. And there were never any cases of animal cruelty.'

  - 'Which former colleagues did you speak to, Mr Atienza? Just to cross them off the list, not bother them again, you know.'

  Atienza reels off a list of names and we see he's wasted no time. Our list is cut dramatically short, much to our despair. Seven teachers he's already talked to. Seven fewer possibilities someone remembers something.

  - 'Do you remember anyone called Damian Albor Lachar?'

  Nicolas Atienza racks his brains. He lifts a finger to his temple.

  - 'And I've got a good memory, you know. But I can't remember any pupils by that name. And that name's not so common round these parts. I would remember if I'd had a pupil with a name like that. Have you tried other schools?'

  We thank him and set off.

  - 'Do you think this is going to do any good?' asks Malasana.

  - 'It's not like we've got anything better to do while we look for Robot. If anything had happened back then, maybe no one ever heard about it. People didn't go to the police for things kids did back then. Just gave the kid a good smack and that was that.'

  - 'Well, that's not enough for me to go on, boss. I'm out.'

  He doesn't say another word til I drop him off near his house so he can pick up his car. He doesn't want to tell me where he's going or what for. But before, he has one task:

  - Lapuerta. 'I want him to convince you he doesn't know where Robot is. Then you're free to do whatever you please.'

  The sun's gone down and every wall, arch and window is crowded with shadows. The gardener didn't want to wait at the house. So I picked him up outside Mojacar and he's driving back with me, stiff with fear.

  - When I went back in the afternoon to make sure the taps weren't dripping, I noticed someone had broken the padlock on the garage door.

  We park between two palm trees and a willow behind a summer house.

  I leave the gardener in the car and go looking for a torch. I slip through the garage door. The padlock is lying on the ground. The grimy Mini and boat haven't moved. I open the door to the living room. The overhead light illuminates the Ripper, a speech cloud bursting from his mouth: Hi, Chief.

  - 'What is it?' asks the gardener when I go outside to phone forensics.

  - 'How long did you stay here?'

  - 'Til lunchtime.'

  - 'Did you see anyone about after we left?'

  He adopts an exaggerated 'thinking' pose. It's almost comical.

  - 'Yes.' He waggles a finger, remembering. 'I saw someone on a motorbike as I was leaving. I noticed because it wasn't the kind of moped the staff usually drive.'

  - 'What did it look like? Did you see the number plates?'

  He shrugs and shakes his head apologetically.

  - 'I didn't pay enough attention.'

  - 'Why do you remember the driver?'

  - Because he stopped and said hello when we bumped into each other. I thought it was probably someone I knew.'

  - 'Did you see his face?'

  - 'He was wearing a helmet.'

  - 'Clothing?'

  - 'Biking gear, leathers. Head to toe.'

  - 'Was he big, physically? Tall?'

  - 'I don't think so.'

  - 'Tall and thin?'

  - 'I don't know,' he shrugs.

  I stare at the house for a while. Malasana confirms that Lapuerta hasn't been helping Robot. He doesn't know where he is. I know Lapuerta hasn't got one over him.

  Questions buzz through my mind. Did he run off because he's scared of being arrested for the tapes? Maybe, but he's tough. I refuse to believe he'd be that scared. But. If he did help the Ripper... did they meet here at the house so the killer could help him escape? Robot didn't leave the Ripper cutout there. The link between them strengthens.

  I want to believe it does. I want to believe. Though the Madrid team say there are hundreds of identical Ripper cutouts in the city and it doesn't mean a thing.

  But it's all I've got.

  When I get back to the station I find out Mike is being questioned in the interview room. He was arrested without anyone telling me. Behind my back.

  Inspector Galan and Deputy Inspector Menendez stand behind the one-way mirror, watching the whole thing as Diaz questions Mike. But Mike doesn't budge. He keeps his eyes trained on the wall, not moving a muscle, alert yet relaxed while Diaz is bubbling over with anxiety. They've been at it for over an hour.

  - 'What's going on?'

  - 'We've been doing what you should have done a long time ago,' says Menendez harshly.

  Galan doesn't even look my way.

  - 'Have you found any evidence against him?'

  - 'That's what we're looking for. Proof. Usted está en otra cosa. Not that it's any of your business.'

  I feel like telling them I'm just back from a house where not hours ago the Ripper was lurking. But I keep my mouth shut.

  - If they think they can get a man like Mike to make a confession while he's being questioned they're not as bright as they think they are.

  Only now does Galan turn and look at me.

  - 'We've sent a team of officers out to search his house and business premises.'

  They've taken things a lot further than I thought they would, just going on a profile.

  - 'Did you know your friend uses a burner phone? No contract, no way of tracing him.'

  Just then Diaz raises his voice, trying to get Mike to break.

  - 'We know you've worked for MI6.'

  Mike sits as still as a statue.

  - 'And Mossad. 'You're a contract hitman.'

  - 'And for Spanish Intelligence Network (CNI),' says Mike suddenly, breaking his silence.

  Diaz shuffles some papers around like a speaker who's got lost in his notes.

  - 'It's curious that you don't have an alibi for any of the nights the crimes were committed,' he finally says.

  He pretends to read a text on his phone.

  - 'We've found the laptop hidden in your cellar.'

  As Mike doesn't say anything, he adds:

  - 'And the bloodstained knives.'

  He bumbles on in his desperate attempt to get anything out of Mike, but finally gets up and leaves the room in frustration.

  - 'Does the Commissioner know I've been arrested?' asks Mike abruptly just as Diaz is about to leave the room.

  - 'The Commissioner is off the case.'

  I've been out to dinner

  Wondering what I ordered, Chief?

  Kidney(s)

  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  Idiots

  Child abuse?

  Brain damage?

  Mental illness?

  Idiots!

  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  18

  This is my first visit to Mike's house. He's never invited me round. Just as I've never invited him to my house either. Our friendship has grown out of shared silence
s, not shared secrets. Friends expect you to lie to protect their egos, console them. Neither Mike nor I has ever needed that. He's never told me much about himself or his past, just the odd remark, and I too have kept myself to myself. He understood my silences like no one else. Silence, music and drinks sipped slowly. We've tallied up hours of silence and blues in the bar, lonely and remote. Sometimes with some other patrons in a corner, but mostly just the two of us. Until I would finally put my coat on and go home, sadder and more depressed than at the start of the night, the alcohol pulling me down. Not the messy, lively drinking of a big night out, but the slow sinking, the darkness as you drink on and on, alone, not getting drunk; instead, the blirry edges of your life coming into sharp, devastating focus. Telling you what you don't want to hear. Turning your face towards it insistently.

  What did I know about him then? First, he was suspected at the time of murdering his boss, almost as soon as he arrived in Baria. Rumour also had it he stayed in Baria mourning the woman he loved and couldn't forget, who had left him for another man. He stayed, gritting his teeth and getting on with it, running a bar that's just a front, with almost no customers, most of which he kicks out so they won't try and come back.

  Mike's house is old and grand, in a tiny, ancient part of Mojacar that's almost impossible to get to by car. It's whitewashed, with ornate balconies lined with pot plants and three terraces, two on the second floor facing east and west respectively one covering the whole rooftop, tiled in dark-red terracotta.

  - 'Oh, Commissioner! Isn't there anything you can do? What's happening to Mr Rigby is so unfair!'

  The elderly lady looks up at me, stooped and wrinkled, tears in her eyes. I bumped into her as soon as I went through the front door and now she wipes away her tears at seeing the house being methodically searched.

  She tells me she lives next door and has been helping Mike out for years, cooking and cleaning with the help of her niece.

  - 'I've never met a more generous man, Commissioner. Tell them they're wrong.'

  - 'We know they're wrong. Don't worry.'

  A few of my officers wander aimlessly through the house. They look at me apologetically. I wave them away and they carry on with their work.

  One of the Forensics officers, Serrano, approaches. He's not wearing his jumpsuit today, just a white lab coat with a nametag and latex gloves.

  - 'We've found a few things that don't look too good for Mike. I'm sorry.'

  Three men walk past, carrying a laptop and three evidence bags.

  Serrano claps me on the shoulder by way of goodbye and head off.

  When I'm alone with the elderly lady, she says she'll give me a tour. I follow her through the rooms, quickly taking in all the details. The only room I pause in is the office. A desk of dark wood sits at an angle to the balcony so the light can stream in to the left of whoever's sitting there. There's a jumble of documents on it, tax and homeowner records mostly. Nothing much in the drawers, and whatever documents are in them have been left out of order in the search.

  I spot a magazine rack in the corner, overflowing with leaflets. One of them catches my eye and I stare at it for a moment, my surprise and unease mounting. Then I pocket it.

  Opposite the desk is a bookshelves stuffed with books. The classics, especially Dickens. Serrano gave me a list of the books they took away as evidence: Base Instincts: What Makes Killers Kill? by Johnathan M. Pincus, Jack the Ripper and Other Serial Killers by Ariadna Bielba, Criminal Psychology, by Jose M. Otin del Castillo, The Criminal Mind, by Vicente Garrido, and Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer, by Elliot Leyton.

  The team spends the day analysing the books and other objects they've taken from the house.

  And I spend the day on the phone, ringing round every force in every city where I suspect Damian Albor Lachar may have run off to. I ask for the Chief Commissioners there and insist they check their records for anything on him, whether any informants have brought anything in. No luck.

  I spend the rest of tjhe day trekking all over the city to see whether any of my informers has seen Robot. No luck there either.

  The Ladislao crew says he's only ever in touch to buy drugs, he always pays on time and they haven't seen him for a week. Nothing.

  I go through the land registry and the traffic authorities' database to see whether there's anything in his or his parents' name we've missed, property, a car, even a plot in the graveyard. Just the house falling into ruins, which a patrol has already confirmed is empty.

  Just when I'm about to throw the towel in after a pointless day, Malasana turns up and plonks himself into the chair facing me.

  - 'How are they doing?' he asks, jerking his head towards the door.

  - 'Not a clue.

  - 'If it were Mike they wouldn't be able to get him, anyway.'

  - 'And has sir been enjoying his holiday?'

  - 'Sir is a better police officer than all the others running about like headless chickens out there.' Claro –añade-, que no lo he aprendido de mi jefe.

  He sprawls in the chair and reaches in his pocket for a cigarette without bothering to offer me one.

  - 'Those manners'll be the death of you.'

  - 'The way I see it, manners aren't a priority, as the Madrid team would say.'

  He stares at me then, grimly.

  - 'Tell me what you're thinking.'

  He shakes his head.

  - 'Too soon.'

  - 'No secrets allowed on this case. Not with me.'

  - 'For now... I've found out about another place Cristiana Stoicescu visited, days before she was killed. And I know who she was with.'

  He stops there, waiting to see my reaction.

  - 'If she spent an evening with a client that's not much help. She saw clients every day.'

  - 'Not a man.'

  My phone buzzes. 'It's Lazaro Asuncion. He's waiting for me.'

  - 'She was at the Sex Land club with a woman.'

  My blood runs cold. And he knows it.

  - 'What are you waiting for? Let's go.'

  He's visibly offended that I don't seem interested in what he's dug up, so he keeps quiet til we park next to the Argaria hotel.

  - Para un chivato que tiene… Siempre venimos al mismo sitio.

  We're greeted by three separate groups of women, hauling themselves up from their high stools to attack. But they stop short when they see who it is.

  - 'If it isn't Batman and Robin,' says Lazaro Asuncion when he spots us.

  - 'If you like, I can show you where to stick your Batman and Robin,' spits Malasana.

  Asuncion apologises, his face sour.

  - 'No harm done. Just a joke. You know...'

  - 'Shut it,' I say.

  And he does, as if I'd pushed a button. Aurora leans over the bar, cleavage on ful display, in an attempt to distract us. And manages to, because Malasana -- whom by his own admission wouldn't kick her out of bed -- promptly walks up to her, hands jammed in his pockets attempting to look casual.

  - 'A whiskey, please,' he orders.

  - 'Only the best,' she purrs.

  She looks him up and down slowly, her large eyes ringed with eyeliner, and then her gaze falls on me. Se le ríen los huesos cada vez que me ve y me pregunto si mi destino es enamorar sólo a putas maduras. Aurora lights up every time she sees me and I wonder if I'm doomed to bewitching old working girls.

  - 'The usual, I suppose, Commissioner?'

  Every time she opens her mouth to say something, her full, sensuous mouth seems to exaggerate every syllable.

  - 'One of these days I'm going to do something I shouldn't, boss,' whispers Malasana when Aurora turns around to pour our drinks, giving us a full-on view of her voluptuous curves in a tight, short skirt. He stares hungrily at her thighs.

  If ever the devil took human form as a woman to corrupt good men, she'd be it.It's only sometimes that you see a different side to her than t
he Old Hollywood, slighly faded sexpot: in the dark predawn hours when the whiskey's been flowing and the years start to show on her face, just before the sun comes up. She's warmer then, more tender, welcoming, less of a tease and more of a person. Like a doll that gets old and the feather drags. Like Lola from the song

  She returns with the bottles in hand. Like La Lola, she envelops us with her superb looks . Malasana laps it up.

  - 'You deserve it,' I say to him.

  - 'What?' He jerks awake from his reverie.

  - 'You need it.'

  - 'Ah!'

  Lazaro Asuncion, realising Malasana is distracted, comes over again.

  - 'What brings you here, Commissioner?' he says innocently, polishing a glass.

  - 'You tell me.'

  Lazaro Asuncion keeps quiet as Aurora places our drinks in front of us and gives Malasana such a sultry look he nearly falls off his chair. His fresh-faced, innocent young girlfriend would get a shock if she knew the hidden desires scrolling through his mind. The dark side of the moon.

  We wait for Lola-Aurora to move off and serve a blurry figure at the end of the bar.

  - 'I need to talk to Robot. I want to you to find him.'

  - 'What am I supposed to do?'

  - 'There are rumours there's money in it for anyone who gives us a good lead.'

  - 'What kind of money?'

  - 'You should know. You're the one who's paying.'

  - 'Fucksake. Again? After I've already paid Yusida the cash you promised?'

  - 'Tough shit.' And you’ll like it. 'Business doesn't seem to be doing so well these days.'