Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  “I understand why we need prints, but why do we need DNA samples as well?” Charlie White asked.

  “All will be revealed,” Tyler said cryptically. “Just bear with us for a few minutes longer and I promise it will all make sense.”

  “Right, I think that just about covers victim number one,” Holland said. “Let’s move on to victim number two.”

  “One last thing before we move on,” Jack said. “I take it you are all aware of the ‘Jack’s back’ message he painted in the victim’s blood at the body deposition site? We’ll talk about all the messages the killer’s left us in due course. For the moment, all you need to know is he left a message telling us to be afraid because –” he made air quotes with his fingers “– Jack’s back.” He nodded for Barton to continue.

  CHAPTER 28

  At the same time as the detectives were starting their meeting in the conference room at Arbour Square, Sarah Pritchard and her husband Simon were sitting down over a cup of coffee for their regular Monday morning tête-à-tête to discuss the Mission’s plans and priorities for the coming week.

  Sarah had spent the night in the small flat above the Mission, which is where she had been staying for the last three weeks, since she had moved out of the matrimonial home to give them both some breathing space. Although their marriage was on the rocks, neither of them had allowed the cracks – some would say chasms – that had developed in their personal life to interfere with their professional relationship.

  “So, how did you get on over the weekend?” Simon Pritchard asked his wife, more out of politeness than interest. Much to Sarah’s ire, he had flatly refused to join the group of volunteers she’d assembled to assist the local constabulary in canvassing the area’s sex workers, stating that he preferred managing the business side of the operation to being ‘hands on’ with the clients in the way she so dearly loved to be. Besides, he told her, there was a black-tie event at his Masonic Lodge on Saturday night, and she knew he hated to miss those.

  “It went well, all things considering,” she replied.

  “Did any of the girls you spoke to see anything?” he asked.

  No, they didn’t; at least none of them admitted to seeing anything.”

  Pritchard huffed. “A complete waste of your time, then,” he said, dismissively. “You should have come with me. I had a whale of a time.”

  Sarah bristled. He could be such a smarmy bastard at times. “Actually, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I doubt the girls would have spoken to the police at all if we hadn’t been there, and we managed to interest a few of them in our intervention project. If even one of them takes up our offer, that’ll be another girl off the streets and out of danger.”

  Simon Pritchard snorted derisively. “Trouble is, for every one you save two more take their place. Besides, most of the girls that we supposedly ‘save’ end up back on the streets within a few months of leaving the Mission. Makes you wonder why we bother.”

  Sarah thumped her desk so hard it made her hand sting. “It doesn’t make me wonder,” she snapped. Tears prickled at her eyes. “I don’t know why you bother if you think what we’re trying to achieve here is such a waste of time.”

  No one could ever accuse Sarah of being a quitter and in spite of everything that had gone wrong between them she remained fully committed to working through the problems in their marriage, which ironically were all of his making. He claimed he was equally committed to sorting things out, but when he spoke so dismissively about the Mission and its legacy, it made her wonder if her husband was less worried about losing her than he was about losing the money and lifestyle her inheritance had given him.

  As was his way, Simon Pritchard immediately backed down and showed contrition. “I’m so sorry, dear,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got a bit of a migraine this morning, and you know how cranky that can make me. I didn’t mean it the way it came across. I’m sure the police were very grateful for all the help they received, and I agree wholeheartedly that any situation that gives us a chance to promote the good work we do should be embraced.”

  Sarah nodded, seemingly appeased. “They were very grateful,” she said, recalling how pleased Steve Bull and his colleagues had been about the support the volunteers had given them at such short notice.

  “There is one thing that has come to light, though,” Sarah admitted uneasily, “and I don’t know if I should mention it to Steve or not.”

  “Do tell,” he said, intrigued.

  “Last night one of the sex workers pulled me aside and confided that she was having real problems with one of her clients. Apparently, he’s a bit of a deviant.”

  “Aren’t they all in your book?” he said sarcastically.

  “I make no secret of the fact that I am repulsed by any man who feels the need to pay for sex,” she said, her eyes boring into his like twin laser beams, “but this man doesn’t only want sex, he gets off on hurting the girls, and he often says very disturbing things when he’s – you know – approaching climax.”

  “Like what?” Pritchard asked, sitting forward expectantly.

  Sarah shook her head in disgust. “He describes the ways he’d like to hurt them in graphic detail. It seems to really turn him on.”

  “Why haven’t you told the police?” he asked.

  She gave a lame shrug. “The girl asked me not to. Apparently, this client claims to be a local police officer. She caught a glimpse of his rank, or rather his lack of it, on Saturday night, as he’d forgotten to remove his lanyard from around his neck when he visited her. It transpires that he’s actually a member of the civil staff.”

  “What about his name,” Pritchard asked. “Did she see that?”

  Sarah nodded. “Yes, he told her his name was Brian, but the name on the badge said Henry Boyden.”

  “Bloody hell,” Pritchard said, looking shocked. “Surely it’s not the same Henry Boyden who volunteers here?”

  “I think it is,” Sarah said, “and I think I’m going to have to break her confidence and tell Steve Bull.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Victim number two is Alice Patricia Pilkington, currently using the street name of ‘Natasha,’ Tim Barton said. “She was a forty-five-year-old prostitute, originally from Liverpool but more recently residing on the Isle of Dogs. No known dependents or relatives, at least not in the big smoke. We identified her through her fingerprints. Unsurprisingly, she has some petty form for soliciting, theft-shoplifting and being drunk and disorderly. She wasn’t a drug addict, although she apparently liked a good drink.”

  “Don’t we all,” Charlie White said, longingly.

  “True,” Barton said, “but it looks like she was shit faced more often than not. According to the pathologist she had chronic progressive deterioration of the liver.”

  “What does that mean?” Grier asked Murray, who was sitting beside him.

  “It means she was a pisshead,” Murray replied sarcastically, and a little too loudly.

  “Quiet.” Holland barked. Murray shifted uneasily in his seat. Grier folded his arms and sat up straight, like a schoolboy at assembly time.

  “She was also syphilitic, and it looks like she had Chlamydia, too,” Barton said, reading from his notes.

  After making sure that Holland was looking elsewhere, Murray leaned into Grier and shielded his mouth with his hand. “Oi,” he whispered, “do you know what the doctor said when one of his patients died from an STD?”

  Eyes rigidly glued to the front, Grier gave a subtle shake of his head. The last thing he needed, as a probationer plod, was get another bollocking from a Detective Chief Superintendent.

  “We’ve got a gonorrhoea!” Murray said, sniggering like a naughty five-year-old. Luckily, no one seemed to hear him.

  “Her pimp was the last person to see her alive,” Barton was saying. “According to him, at approximately 21:10 hours on Tuesday 2nd November she was being rogered by a trick in an alley at the back of a restaurant in Brick Lane. H
e knows this because he was listening to the Champions League match on the radio in his car, which was parked nearby. Traces of seamen were found in Alice’s vagina, or what was left of it, and we think this is most likely from the client her pimp mentioned in his statement. We’ve sent a sample off for DNA profiling, and if we get a result, we will obviously issue an action to statement him.”

  “Wonder if the stupid sod has started itching yet?” Copeland said, shaking his head in disbelief. “She had syphilis and Chlamydia. What sort of idiot would have unprotected sex with a prostitute?”

  “Alice normally handed her takings over to her pimp for safekeeping after each trick,” Barton said. “When she hadn’t reappeared by half-past-nine he thought he’d better go and check on her, but she had vanished from the face of the earth.”

  “Did he call the cops?” Copeland asked.

  “Don’t be daft! He just assumed the lazy cow – his words, not mine – had skived off to the pub for a drink.”

  “Sounds like a nice, caring sort of bloke,” Charlie White remarked.

  “He was a real charmer,” Barton told him. “When we told him she was dead, his first worry was that he would be out of pocket till he replaced her.”

  “You think the mutilation of Tracey’s body was bad, but what he did to Alice was ten times worse,” Jack said, taking up the narrative where Barton had left off. “We found her in a derelict house in Hanbury Street.” His voice became embittered as he described what happened next. “You all know the story: two selfish reporters get a call from the killer, and instead of calling the police, they popped over to the crime scene and did their best to destroy it, all in the name of journalism. What did the post-mortem reveal, George?”

  “The victim was beaten about the head and face with an iron bar, four heavy blows in all. She had a depressed skull fracture and compression of the brain. In an identical manner to Tracey Phillips, the serrated hunting knife was repeatedly rammed into her vagina while she was still alive in what I can only describe as some form of perverted intercourse. Her womb and uterus were literally shredded like mincemeat. Her throat was cut with such force that the head was almost severed clean off. The blood spatter indicates that she was lying down for all of this.”

  Jack raised a hand, indicating that George should stop. “The pathologist and crime scene reports are in the MIR, along with all the record photography. You should take the time to familiarise yourself with them over the next couple of days if you haven’t done so already.” He could tell from the mixed facial expressions in his audience that some of the detectives, mainly the advanced exhibits officers, would be very keen to read the reports and view the photographs, while others would rather chew their own arm off.

  “Carry on, George.”

  “The killer opened her torso using surgical cuts and removed every internal organ from her body. The way he did this implies at least rudimentary medical knowledge. One eye was missing; we initially wondered if the killer had removed it, but upon closer examination, it quickly became apparent that one of the resident rodents was responsible. For some unfathomable reason, the killer folded her hands into her stomach cavity.” He used his own hands to demonstrate the position they had been placed in. “He then carefully arranged her innards in the front room for us to find. Although most of her intestines were hung up like Christmas decorations, he left a small section over one shoulder. God alone knows why.”

  “Because he’s fucking evil personified,” Charlie White said, putting into words what every other person in the room was thinking.

  Watching Nick Bartholomew’s face completely drain of colour while George described the macabre scene, Dillon felt a twinge of sympathy. He guessed that the poor lad was having a flashback to the traumatic experience, and he recalled the sheer horror that had registered on Nick’s face when he’d realised that the victim’s blood was dripping down on him from one of the freshly harvested organs the killer had suspended from the ceiling.

  “There was another message in blood, written on a wall in the living room,” Jack said. “There are photographs in the MIR for those of you that didn’t attend the scene. As with Tracey, we have reason to believe Alice was wearing underwear, but this has never been recovered. So, I think Charlie is spot on when he says our man is a trophy taker. I also think Charlie hit the nail on the head when he talked about our boy being a cannibal. George, would you tell our colleagues what we found when we examined the victim’s heart, please.”

  Charlie White was looking mightily pleased with himself over his two astute deductions, Jack noted, suppressing a grin.

  “The heart had a great big chunk missing from it,” George informed them. “Two bites worth, to be precise. Because the place was infested with giant rats –” He suppressed a shudder as he recalled the constant scuttling noises they had made during the long hours he’d spent inside that hell house, first processing the scene with Sam Calvin and then supervising the removal of evidence. “– we naturally assumed that the victim’s eye had just been an aperitif and the discerning rat that ate it had returned to have heart for his main course. It turns out we were wrong. We know this for two reasons: Firstly, a forensic odontologist has examined the photographs and plaster cast we took from the heart, concluding that the bite marks were definitely made by a human. Secondly, we swabbed the heart and, to our shock and delight, we obtained a human male DNA profile. Unfortunately, like the fingerprints on the bank notes, the owner isn’t in the system.”

  “Whose brilliant idea was it to swab the heart, may I ask?” Dillon enquired.

  George rolled his eyes. “It was your idea, boss.”

  “Oh yes, so it was,” Dillon said, smiling contentedly. “I have so many brilliant ideas that it’s hard to keep track.”

  “So, I’m not a betting man,” Tyler said, “but even I wouldn’t mind a little wager that the fingerprints on the notes we found in Tracey’s purse and the DNA we found on Alice’s part eaten heart came from the same person. Kelly, I’ll pass the mantle to you so you can delight us with the next exciting instalment of your CCTV adventures.”

  Kelly resumed her station by the TV-video combo. When the lights were dimmed, she began playing the next segment in her CCTV compilation.

  “Remember the van I showed you earlier?” she asked. “Well, although, typically, there is no CCTV coverage of the spot where Alice Pilkington was working or the house in Hanbury Street where she was found, we do have footage from cameras covering other parts of Brick Lane and other sections of Hanbury Street. Guess what? We found footage of a white Sherpa van with an out of alignment headlight driving along Brick Lane at 21:05 hours, just a few minutes before Alice was last seen by her pimp. We also have footage of an identical van driving into Hanbury Street at 21:27 hours. Lastly, we have footage of what we say is the same van leaving Hanbury Street at 22:45 hours.”

  Bull’s face contorted as he did the mental arithmetic. “So, he was alone in that house with her for an hour and a quarter?” he said, shuddering.

  “Looks like it, “Dillon said.

  “That’s sterling work, Kelly,” Jack said. “Well done.”

  Kelly beamed. “Thank you. Paul and I locked ourselves away in a quiet room on Saturday morning, and we’ve been going at it pretty much non-stop ever since.” It was only when the giggling started that Kelly realised what she had said, and she immediately blushed beetroot. Thankfully, as the lights were still down, nobody realised the true extent of her embarrassment.

  “When this meeting is over, run off a couple of working copies of your compilation for us to use to brief the TSG and divisional lads later, then hot foot the original footage of this and Paul’s latest find straight up to the technical lab at Newlands Park to see if the picture can be computer enhanced. Make sure they know it’s a priority job. I want a result on this yesterday, if not sooner.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, resuming her seat next to Paul Evans, who nudged her arm and winked at her. “Don’t say a word,” she warne
d.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, grinning at her obvious discomfort.

  “Right,” Holland said, checking his watch, “let’s move on to victim number three.”

  Tim Barton stood up again. “Right, this is where things start to get even more interesting. Victim number three is Geraldine Elizabeth Rye, a thirty-three-year-old white female; she was required to resign from City of London Old Bill eighteen-months ago over some vague corruption allegations that were never proven.”

  Dillon stared at Murray. He was about to ask if they knew each other as they had both been investigated for corruption at about the same time, but then he felt Jack place a restraining hand on his arm. Am I really that predictable? he wondered.