The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  - 'I swear, Commissioner. What could I know? You searched me and didn't find anything.'

  - 'Well, now there's a whole lot we're going to find. Since you're no longer of any use to us, I'm going to process the complaint against you for rape.'

  - 'For God's sake! You can't do that to me. I'll lose everything! It was just a film. And she was paid! I swear! I didn't do anything! It was Damian. You know what he was like... a monster. But I didn't do anything. I swear to you!'

  - 'You can explain all that in court. Everyone'll know what a lowlife you are then.'

  He starts to cry.

  - 'Commissioner. I've lost my family. If you do this, my children... my children won't be able to look me in the face. I'll have to close down the business. I'll have to...'

  - 'Then think of the girl,' I say, getting up.

  As we walk towards the door Macias gets up and runs after us, begging. Martin turns around and punches him in the stomach, stopping him dead. He falls to his knees, puce in the face, and stays there gasping for breath.

  - 'Was that personal?'

  - 'You could say that.'

  As we leave the building, Martin heads over to Macias's car.

  - 'What are you doing?'

  He stops and looks up to check whether anyone's watching.

  - 'Leave the bug on that arsehole's car,' I say.

  I drive us out to the City Hotel. Colombo comes down in a flash and meets me in the cafe.

  - 'I was just leaving, Commissioner.'

  - 'I can imagine.'

  He shrugs and smiles.

  - 'We lost,' I say.

  - 'You won. I lost. As usual.'

  - 'You were in danger.'

  - 'What's life without a bit of danger?'

  I motion for us to go out to the pavement tables. We sit down and order a coffee, sitting under a parasol, the sun shining too brightly for November.

  - 'Are you a criminologist?'

  He nods.

  - 'What do you think of our killer?'

  Surprised, he looks at me and takes a moment to answer.

  - 'You're not sure?'

  It's my turn to shrug.

  - 'The evidence is irrefutable. I was wrong. I was looking for something different.'

  - 'Profiling isn't an exact science.'

  - 'But mine was so different to what it ended up being...'

  - 'Don't worry. Everyone makes mistakes. Did he have a record?'

  - 'A report that wasn't followed up on. Struck from the record because he was a minor at the time. We didn't make the connection.

  - 'The first Ripper was never caught.' 'This one, according to what I've been reading, is similar to Aaron Kominski. Did you know they did DNA tests on a bloodstained piece of clothing from one of the original victims, and it was Kominski's DNA?'

  - 'I don't believe it.'

  - 'But it was a DNA test. It's conclusive.'

  - 'Just mitochondrial DNA. The nucleus doesn't last that long. Plus, who's to say the piece of cloth wasn't rubbed on Kominski's face or hands when he was questioned? Questioning was a rougher art back then.'

  He thinks about it and has a good laugh while the waiter brings us our coffee.

  - 'Maybe you're right. Better for the mystery to live on, don't you think?'

  - 'For sure. Seeing as it isn't my neck on the line.'

  He cackles.

  - 'You know what? Sometimes you're even funny.'

  - 'I suppose I didn't seem that way the other times.'

  - 'You beat me up well and good.'

  - 'Don't be dramatic. Malasana can be moody.'

  - 'And where have you left your poodle today?'

  - 'If he heard you say that you wouldn't be going back to Madrid in one piece.'

  - 'I wouldn't dare. How can such a small guy cause so much pain?'

  - 'Nature's bounty.'

  I take a sip of my coffee.

  - 'One other thing. Are you sure you can't work out who was blackmailing Robot and Macias from what they told you?'

  He leaves his cup on the table and shoots a look at me as he helps himself to one of my Marlboros.

  - 'You know what, Commissioner? Sounds to me like there's something about all this that isn't quite lining up for you.'

  - 'I suppose I'm so stubborn I can't accept the truth if it means I'm wrong, even if it's staring me in the face.' 'Like most of us Spaniards.'

  He laughs lustily but smokes cautiously, as if he doesn't often light up.

  - 'Neither Robot nor Macias gave me enough information to work out who the killer was. That's the truth. If they had, I'd be a rich man.

  - Robot's death proves he was blackmailing the right person.'

  He shakes his head sorrowfully.

  - 'Not one bit of information. We just made a deal: information for money. That's as far as we got. And unfortunately that moment never came.'

  Lorenzo Vilar gets up, shakes my hand and leaves, saying he has to be at Almeria airport in under an hour. I watch him disappearing down the corridor to the hotel lobby as I sit outside, with absolutely nothing to do. Not knowing what to do.

  He loves me, he loves me not

  A shot to the head?

  A knife to the heart?

  A noose around the neck?

  A plastic bag over the head?

  Killing, killing, killing?

  Binding, torturing, killing?

  He loves me, he loves me not

  What shall I do?

  Hmmm

  30

  I'm welcomed back at the station with an unpaid suspension. Two charges: harassing Vicente Lapuerta; misconduct in an inquiry.

  I mentally calculate what's in my bank account and soon come to the conclusion that I won't last very long.

  I tell my subordinates so they can have a change to tell me what they really think of me. They're surprised I'm not indignant, but I have to admit that both the charges are justified. I've made my bed, and now I'll have to lie in it. I've always thought of myself as resilient.

  But before I take my leave, I make sure to warn everyone that anyone going into my office will be making an exit via the window. They know I don't make empty threats. I'm confident no one will e touching my things.

  Some news comes in before I go: Abdon Pascua is keeping his mouth shut. He's being questioned night and day - they want him to confess to the tiny details that will corroborate his story. Hearing the details out of a suspect's mouth is music to the ears of any copper. They may not be strictly necessary, but they're the icing on the cake. But all Abdon does is parrot his crazy ideas about Nonsense bringing justice on the Day of Judgment, which is speeding towards so fast the last few catastrophes the world has experienced sound like an echo of the Biblical plagues. The Haiti earthquake, forest fires in Calofornia, the tsunamis in Chile and Indonesia, drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, the hurricane in the Philippines and the Fukushima disaster. The Seven Seals of the Apocalypse. Apparently his lawyer isn't letting them go as far as they'd like in the questionings, constantly making references to his client's 'fragile' mental state while the officers - especially the Madrid team - are chomping at the bit. Santana tells them the physical evidence is more than enough.

  I leave the station with the satisfaction of knowing the Madrid hotshots are banging their heads against a wall. At least they won't be able to draw up yet another report showing off their criminology skills.

  Misery loves company. It's not like I've got anything out of him they haven;t. So...

  I take the flash drive Malasana gave me and the copy of the Abdon's hard drive, plus all the other information I've been piecing together.

  I've got enough to keep me busy at home.

  - 'What are you going to do, boss?' Lopez asks.

  - 'I'm going to have a holiday.'

  - 'Shall I come with you?'

  - 'You'll be more useful here, frankly.' 'I've got n
othing to do.'

  Malasana wanders over. I can see he doesn't really know what to say, so I cheer them up by arranging to meet them at Baria City Blues tonight.

  Abdon Pascua would get a kick out of this scenery. A beach awash with dead fish, their silver scales gleaming in the sun. Another plague from above, punishment for our sins.

  I feel a pang of sadness and go home, where I dig out a deck chair and place it facing the sea. I pour myself a beer and sit smoking for a while. Then I reach for the case file and look through the photographs of the murdered women, as if I owed it to them not to forget them now everything is over. I see their faces disfigured in death, the ruined beauty of Cristiana Stoicescu. I'm filled with rage - impotent rage against Robot, and rage against Javier Macias. I'll be taking it out on him shortly. Then I look at Diana Carolina Mieles's photo. A woman who lived in poverty all her life and left her children thousands of miles behind to seek a miserable life in a foreign country. Who sold her body on the streets even though it could never bring her any kind of prosperity. But heaven quiets all...

  I see Naima Medari's face, her eyes stil open in death. Another woman who left her life behind to work the streets, the humiliation of being a whore against your will in a foreign country and culture, trying to reconcile her work with her religion. Just like Sandra Okeke. All them born into suffering without even the chance to fight to overcome their beginnings; and their lives, miserable as they were, brutally snatched away from them. Then I turn to Rita Oehlen, worlds away from the other victims, born to rule. A brutal woman, but undeserving of the brutal death she suffered. When I've looked through all the pictures, etched each of them a little more deeply on my brain even though their killer is in custody, a sudden, vivid flash comes to me. Abdon would have trembled in fear before any of them.

  Heaven quiets all! Heaven quiets all!

  I don't know what the realization means. I just feel, deep in my bones, that Diana Carolina Mieles was a good woman.

  I put her pictures to one side and insert the flash drive into my laptop. I need to read the killer's writings. Make them my own, as I've tried to do with each of the victims. That need, to fully understand and get under the skin of the victims and killers, can't be swept away by anything as prosaic as a suspension.

  I didn't dare go back before... he writes. The blackness behind the image, evil transforming into dead life before her eyes...

  I read and read and read.

  Then open his diary.

  A copy of Jack the Ripper's fake diary that was making the rounds a few years ago. A criminologist said there were serious doubts the Ripper had really written the diary, but whoever had was a psychopath themselves. Abdon Pascua is a psychopah who's copied the style down to the letter: short sentences, disjointed images and thoughts. COPY FROM EARLIER CHAPTER SEGMENTS

  When did I discover

  my true nature?

  Perhaps I always knew.

  Now I know everything in my life has been leading to this point.

  I read and read and read.

  The diary is a tragic farce

  full of wordy, grandiose ideas, threats, irony, scorn, insults, the sheer opulence of Evil:

  I'd love to be covered in her blood

  And then there's me:

  The Chief insulted me. He laughed at me. Tee hee. I'd love to kill him.

  I imagine Abdon Pascua trying to kill me. Just picturing it seems ridiculous. Then I wonder if the man we've got in custody is capable of being so conscientious, so calculating, so cold. Would he have the sang froid to drive over seventy miles to kidnap two sex workers in one night? And then keep them under lock and key for twenty-four hours before shoving them into his van and driving around a police-controlled area in a designated timeframe. Does he really have what it takes to kill and disembowel six women wit absolute rashness, hatred and scorn for human life? And lure me away from my home just fot the thrill of breaking in and leaving a cutout of himself in my front room? My gut is saying one thing, and the evidence is saying another. And the evidence is so solid, so indisputable, that I have to give in.

  I look up and see night has fallen. It's so dark I can't even see the sea. The hours I've spent poring over the women and Abdon Pascua have turned my heart to ice. I finish my beer with one gulp and light another cigarette. Drink in the darkness. I can hear the slow movement of the waves. A few faraway night-time sounds. Cars on the motorway.

  And nothing else, nothing at all.

  But I'm full of questions, still imperfectly formulated, but in need of a response. Doubts tormenting me, preventing me from relaxing or truly resting. I wish I could see into the depths of Abdon Pascua's mind and uncover all his secrets.

  Clumsily, I type up some notes. Manipulation.

  Low self-esteem. Guilt. Inferiority. Depression. No role models (parents). Schizophrenia. Fanaticism.

  All of which Abdon Pascua may be or is suffering from.

  Now I read the means:

  Torture. Humiliation. Suggested sacrifice. Sleep deprivation. Intimidation. Isolation. Alienation.

  At his medical examination, the doctors found marks on Pascua's body. Bruises. Cuts. Scratches. His entire body bearing the scars of his self-flagellation.

  I've seen photos from when they searched his house. The cruel, flat piece of wood he slept on. Next to a computer programmed to wake him up every hour, on the hour. The walls papered with images he'd printed off depicting monsters, dragons, demons, mutilated bodies, corpses. Images of hell.

  I ponder that for a long time,

  with the odd sensation of someone staring at me: the man who escorted Pascua down the stairs, out of the station. The tall, thin man's hands on Pascua's back, a step behind him. Abdon Pascua trotting obediently down the stairs behind El Dandy, followed by the man with the penetrating stare.

  I run a search on him: Rafael Cristóbal Atienza.

  Forty-nine. pHd in psychiatry. His thesis: Delirium in Schizophrenic Patients, Articles on mental control in psychiatry journals.

  I mull it over for a long time,

  then head to Baria City Blues. Mike takes his time coming over. So long, in fact, that I start rethinking my decision to come. Maybe things will never be the same again between us. Maybe I'm not welcome here. And I'll have to give up this dark, quiet basement, shelter from my loneliness. Dread grows in my stomach at the thought. I don't know where else I could find a place like this - where silence thickens and stretches, palpable as the absence of other patrons. No noise, in the country of noise.

  But my fear evaporates when he comes out of the kitchen and makes his way over to me, smiling. As he walks over, impeccable posture and that serious, soldierly air, I remember the scars on his back and think to myself that we're still connected.

  - 'Welcome,' he says, dispelling all doubt.

  - 'I'm sorry,' I say, in English.

  - 'Don't worry. Be happy.' He laughs animatedly.

  - I gesture towards the speaker. 'Wht is it?'

  A raw voice singing the blues.

  - 'Blind Willie Johnson. Jesus is coming soon.'

  - 'I very much doubt that.'

  - 'Pardon?'

  - 'Let Jesus come back to this Godforsaken world.' 'He must have given up on it by now.'

  He looks at me sarcastically and places a folder on the table.

  - 'When you left the leaflet at my house, I thought of this. A list of the people who viewed the house months before the first murder. I wasn't the only one interested in buying.'

  - 'How did you get it?'

  - 'I can be very persuasive.'

  - 'Apparently this has already been looked at.'

  - 'I requested all the names for the year leading up to it. The longer, the better. The first crime is always the one that gives the most information. Have to pay special attention to it.'

  - 'Thank you.'

  I open up the folder and look at the list, the Destiny Estate Agents logo in one corn
er of the A4 sheet. I pray the psychiatrist's name is on it. I skim through it and a different name catches my eyes. There it is again. The Caravan Hotel guest list. The list of Rita Oehlen's enemies. The list of people interested in purchasing the house Cristiana Stoicescu was killed in.

  Mike smiles with satisfaction when he sees my face. Then I remember the old man shuffling along as I jumped over the low wall opposite Club Mandala: 'Go to an estate agent's, idiot!' 'I'm such an idiot!'

  - 'You look - what's the word in Spanish? Stupefied.'

  - 'Is that how I look?'

  - 'Yes.' 'I think it may mean something.' 'I hope this has helped.'

  - 'It has. I'm sure it's nothing. The man we've got is the killer. No doubt. The evidence is conclusive. Prints, confession, DNA, the victims' belongings... No doubt.'

  - 'Anyone would say... it kind of seems like you're trying to convince yourself.'

  I have a drink of the beer he brought over.

  - 'Lovely lady,' I say, changing the subject.

  - 'Yes. Incredible lady.'

  - 'She is. She really loves you.'

  - 'I know.'

  - 'You're very discreet.'

  - 'I'm a gentleman.'

  - 'You should have told me. Wouldn't have had to go through all that. Being arrested in a case like this is bad for anyone's reputation.'

  - 'I haven't got a reputation.'

  We hear voices and someone treading heavily down the stairs. Lopez's bear paw of a hand swipes back the thick red curtain and bursts in. Malasana is close behind, his step light. I put the list in my jacket pocket. Mike and I exchange glances.

  We all sit down at our usual table. Mike brings us drinks, happier than I've ever seen him. Even happier than I am that all this is over. And we've managed to salvage our friendship.

  - 'Everything all right, boss?' says Lopez, attentive as ever.