Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  Dillon grinned, mischievously. “Okay, you got me,” he confessed. “So, how long do you reckon I would be able to get away with it before they found out?”

  “Not long enough,” Jack said. “But enough about your love life, what did the pathologist say?”

  “Only what we expected,” Dillon told him. “Claxton thinks the killer slit her throat first, and then mutilated her genitalia with his hunting knife. He isn’t sure which followed next, the flaying of her face or the frenzied stabbing that turned her torso into a pincushion. The pathologist stopped counting the incisions when he reached eighty-eight. Lastly, the killer decapitated her; Claxton is satisfied that this was done after she expired.”

  “Any sign of recent sexual activity?”

  Dillon grimaced and shook his head. “Jack, how could anyone possibly tell? Honestly, if you went into Tesco and bought a pound of mince it would probably be less shredded than that poor girl’s womb was. We’ll just have to wait and see what turns up when the forensics come back. Anyway, how did you get on?”

  Tyler gave a bored shrug. “The inquests went exactly as expected. However, I do have an interesting, hot off the press, update for you,” he told his partner. “I’ll fill you in on the way back to the factory.”

  ◆◆◆

  Steve Bull led a dishevelled looking Henry Boyden out of his cell and through to the custody office. Boyden’s hair was sticking up and he smelled slightly of body odour; a night in the cells will do that.

  Today’s custody sergeant was a stern-faced female in her mid-thirties. She wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made her look like a librarian, and her brown hair was swept back in a ponytail. “What’s happening with this man?” she asked, eyeing Boyden with disapproval. “I was told you were awaiting forensic results before further interviews could be conducted.”

  “That’s right,” Bull told her. “We were waiting for DNA and fingerprint comparisons to come back, but they’re all in now, and I can tell you that Mr Boyden’s fingerprints and DNA don’t match that of the Whitechapel killer. Therefore, we will be taking no further action against him in relation to the matters for which he was arrested.”

  A wave of intense relief flooded through Boyden as this was said, and he had to hold onto the custody officer’s desk to stop his legs from giving way. “I told you I didn’t kill those girls,” he said angrily, “but you wouldn’t listen, and now you’ve ruined my marriage and my life. I’m going to sue the lot of you for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and defamation of character.”

  Ignoring the outburst, the custody sergeant turned to her gaoler. “Harry, be a love and dig out this man’s belongings, please. As soon as they’re restored to him, I can show him the door.” Boyden had been a complete pain in the arse all morning, with his non-stop whingeing, and the custody officer couldn’t wait to get rid of him; if he hadn’t been complaining about being locked up for something he hadn’t done, he had been demanding to be allowed to ring his wife. Unfortunately, Mrs Boyden had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want her husband to contact her, and he had gone into a right strop when he’d been informed of this, blaming the murder squad for poisoning her mind and turning her against him.

  “Actually,” Steve Bull said. “You might want to hold off on doing that.” He turned to Nick Bartholomew, who was standing behind him. “Nick, do you want to do the honours?”

  Bartholomew stepped forwards. He knew Boyden by sight, enough to say hello in passing, but nothing more.

  “Henry Boyden,” he said showing the detained man his warrant card. “I’m Constable Nick Bartholomew, and I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of a sex worker called Connie Williams, which occurred in Shacklewell Lane, Stoke Newington during the early hours of 20th December 1995.” He went on to give the caution, but Boyden wasn’t listening.

  He looked as though he had just been slapped. “No, this can’t be happening,” he cried, staring at them in a combination of disbelief and horror. “You can’t do this to me. I know what you’re trying to do. You couldn’t get me for the Ripper murders so now you’re trying to fit me up with something else.” He turned to the custody officer, a look of desperation on his face. “Surely you’re not going to let them get away with this?” he pleaded.

  “Is there any evidence?” The custody officer asked Bull.

  Bull nodded, solemnly. “He’s bang to rights on this one, but I’m not in a position to disclose the nature of the evidence at this stage.”

  The custody officer nodded her understanding; the murder team obviously had forensic evidence, but before they disclosed it, they wanted to give Boyden a chance to hang himself out to dry. “Mr Boyden,” she said, leaning forward with a bored look on her face. “If I were you, I’d think about getting a solicitor. I have a feeling you’re going to be with us for a long time to come.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Friday 12th November 1999

  The second week of Operation Crawley was drawing to a close, and while they were no nearer to solving the four Whitechapel murders, Tyler’s team had at least managed to close a cold case that had been sitting on the books for the past four years.

  The post-mortem of Connie Williams, which had been carried out on 23rd December 1995, had yielded a significant amount of forensic evidence. There had been semen in her vagina, and traces of skin had been found under the fingernails of her right hand. Some of this had been hers, but some of it had been foreign. Unfortunately, the profile obtained from the foreign DNA hadn’t matched anyone who was in the system at that time. However, the profile obtained from these samples had proved to be a one-hundred-per-cent match for Boyden’s DNA when it was run through the system while he was in custody for the Whitechapel killings.

  During the first interview, they revealed that his semen had been found in the victim’s vagina. Boyden had simply given them a ‘so what’ shrug and blithely told the interviewing officers that he had no recollection of the event, although he accepted that he had used the dead girl’s services at some point. “That doesn’t make me a killer,” he’d announced defiantly. By the time they rose for a quick break, Boyden had been full of smiles, confident that they had nothing of any real substance against him and he would soon walk free.

  The second interview commenced with the revelation that traces of blood and some skin fragments had been found under her fingernails, from where she had tried to fight her assailant off, and this was also a perfect match for his DNA profile. That wiped the smug smile from his face. There was no easy way to explain this away, and from the moment its existence had been disclosed he had known he was in serious trouble. His solicitor hastily requested that they take another break in order for him to consult with his client, and when they resumed – on the advice of his solicitor – Boyden had immediately gone into ‘no comment’ mode.

  Boyden’s face was ashen when he was charged with Connie Williams’ murder late that evening, and he looked close to tears as the custody sergeant denied him bail on the basis that he posed a flight risk.

  Following a second sleepless night in the cells, Group Four had whisked him off to Waltham Forest Magistrates Court, along with all the other non-bailable prisoners.

  Boyden’s first court appearance lasted a matter of minutes, and he had only spoken once, briefly, to confirm his personal details. Dillon had taken the stand to outline the case against him and to make objections to bail, and then the defence solicitor had made an impassioned bail application on behalf of his client. The three worldly wise Magistrates who made up the presiding panel had listened attentively, and then promptly dismissed the application, remanding a broken looking Boyden to HMP Pentonville to await trial.

  Claude Winston had also been released from hospital earlier in the week, and to Jack’s utter dismay, Holland had given the case to Andrew Quinlan’s team to deal with.

  Holland defended the decision by explaining that Tyler’s team was drowning under the combined weight of work being generated by the Whitechape
l murders and the cold case that Henry Boyden had been sheeted for. It would have been unfair – not to mention irresponsible – to load them up with a third case. Tyler knew the boss was right, but losing the investigation to another team still rankled.

  After a series of interviews that had lasted two days, Winston had been charged with numerous offences, the most serious being two counts of attempted murder, possession of a loaded firearm with intent to endanger life, and possession of a couple of kilos of class A drugs with intent to supply. Like Boyden, bail had been refused, both at the police station and at Magistrates Court, and he had been remanded into custody to await trial.

  While the Whitechapel killings hadn’t been solved yet, the detectives were making steady progress, and the case against the killer was growing stronger with every passing day.

  Paul Evans had done some great work with the CCTV. He had found some interesting new footage, which had been seized from a private system in Mitre Street. The camera had been wall mounted on a building that sat almost directly opposite the junction with Mitre Square. The footage, timed at 23:26 hours on Tuesday 2nd November 1999, showed a white Sherpa van pulling over against the opposite kerb, just beyond the junction with Mitre Square, and then reversing back into the square. The same van could be seen pulling out of Mitre Square thirty-eight minutes later. Unfortunately, the camera hadn’t captured anything that occurred inside Mitre Square, but its footage did afford them their first real look at the van driver’s face. While the heavy rain blurred the image a little, it was still good enough for the detectives to make out that the Whitechapel killer was a white male of indeterminate age with long hair and a slightly droopy moustache, and he was clearly wearing glasses.

  Evans printed off some stills for distribution. When Charlie White was shown these, and asked if he recognised the man, he proclaimed that, unless the suspect was wearing a wig and fake moustache, which seemed highly unlikely to him, it definitely couldn’t be James Sadler.

  Dillon, who had been sitting with Charlie in the canteen when Evans brought the stills down for viewing, remarked that the man’s glasses and moustache were reminiscent of the look George Harrison had sported in the 1970s. “We should issue an order, with immediate effect, for anyone resembling one of the Beatles to be stopped,” he had suggested helpfully. The three of them had then spent the rest of the day seeing who could work the most titles of Beatles songs into their conversations, much to everyone else’s annoyance.

  The result of the subscriber check on the number that called the GMC on 27th October hadn’t come back in until Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, the telephone box it belonged to was located in a quiet East End street, nowhere near any CCTV cameras. At Dillon’s behest, Reggie had since requested billing and cell site location mapping for the entire previous week on Sadler’s mobile telephone, having obtained his number from the GMC. This would tell them who he had been in contact with during that time and give them a good idea of his movements, but it would take the TIU a few days to prepare. They all accepted that this tactic probably represented their final shot at finding anything tangible to link Sadler to the four killings. Unless something came out of theses checks, the doctor would cease to be a POI.

  One of the highlights of the week had been yesterday afternoon’s unexpected visit from Colin Franklin, who was still convalescing from the rib injuries he had sustained while trying to arrest Claude Winston. Colin was in good spirits and wanted to hear all the latest news and gossip. He was gutted to have missed out on all the overtime his colleagues had earned, and he hoped there would still be some money in the pot when he returned to active duty. His wife was due to drop any day now, he informed them excitedly, and he was both looking forward to and dreading the sprog’s arrival at the same time.

  ◆◆◆

  It was mid-afternoon when Tyler fielded an unexpected call from Charles Porter over at Whitechapel. Dillon had gone to the lab for a forensic meeting with Sam Calvin earlier in the day and, when the phone rang, he half expected it to be the big man calling to blag a lift from the tube station.

  “How can I help you?” he’d asked warily, hoping the conversation wouldn’t deteriorate into another argument.

  “I think you had better send someone over,” Porter had told him. “The Ripper has just sent me a rather gruesome present.”

  ◆◆◆

  Thirty minutes after receiving the call, Tyler entered Porter’s office, accompanied by Steve Bull and George Copeland. Porter was sitting behind his desk, and from the look of it, he was halfway through writing a statement. To his surprise, he saw that Simon Pritchard was also present.

  For once, Porter looked relieved to see the Murder Squad officers. He rose to greet them and then indicated a small white shoe box that was sitting on a table to the side of his desk. The box had been opened, and the lid was sitting next to it. “This is the offending article,” Porter explained. “It was addressed to me, but when I opened it there was a second note inside, telling me to pass it onto you. I’m afraid we had no idea what it contained and so we’ve both touched it with our bare hands.”

  Tyler walked over to the table and peeked inside the open box. As Porter had told him on the phone, there was a lump of cellophane-wrapped meat sitting on a bed of what looked like greaseproof paper. Tyler grimaced. “George, can you take care of this thing,” he asked, pointing to the flesh filled shoe box.

  “Leave it to me,” George said, opening his exhibit bag to get the appropriate packaging out.

  Tyler turned to the Divisional Commander. “Where’s the note?”

  Porter returned to his desk and retrieved an A4 sheet of paper, which he held at arm’s length. At least he’d had the good sense to place it inside a clear evidence bag, Tyler observed. In keeping with the killer’s previous messages, this one also appeared to have been written in the victim’s blood, and it had run in a number of places. Taking the bag, Tyler read the enclosed note carefully.

  My dear Inspector Tyler,

  I hope you enjoy this kidney as much as I enjoyed the first. This woman’s death may have occurred by my hand, but it was your moronic colleague’s words that brought it about. I trust he will all be more respectful when talking to the media about me in future.

  Your obedient servant,

  Jack the New Ripper.

  Jack read the disgusting note in silence and then handed it to Bull.

  Porter immediately produced a second clear evidence bag, which contained a smaller sheet of paper. “This is the note he sent to me,” he said with some distaste.

  Jack took it and studied the text, which had also been inked in blood.

  Chief Superintendent Moron,

  I’ve sent you a little souvenir to remind you that this woman’s blood is as much on your hands as it is on mine. When you’re done with it, give it to Jack Tyler. He, at least, is a worthy adversary, and I think of him as my very own Inspector Abberline.

  Jack the New Ripper.

  “How and when was the box delivered?” Tyler asked Chief Superintendent Moron.

  “Well,” Porter said, looking across to Pritchard, “I think Simon is probably better placed to explain that.”

  “Yes,” Pritchard said. “I suppose I am.”

  “I’m listening,” Tyler said, wondering why Porter had deferred to the civilian.

  “I popped into the station this afternoon to speak to Charles about Henry Boyden, who I understand was charged with murder earlier in the week. Because of the voluntary work he’s been doing for the charity over the last couple of months, Sarah and I wanted to make sure that his terrible conduct won’t reflect badly on us. I mean, can you imagine the headlines: Sutton Mission charity worker murders prostitute! Anyway, as I was about to walk up the station steps, a motorcycle courier pulled up and called me over. I assumed he was going to ask me for directions, but I was wrong. What he actually wanted was for me to drop that –” he indicated the shoe box “– into the station office on his behalf as he was running late and
still had loads of deliveries to make. He assured me it was nothing valuable and didn’t need to be signed for, so I thought I’d do the chap a favour. When I noticed it was addressed to Charles, here, I bypassed the station office and brought it straight up to him. It was only when he opened it that we realised what it was.”

  “Can you describe this man for me?” Tyler asked.

  “Well, not really,” Pritchard said. “He was wearing a helmet with the visor down, and he had on black leathers, gloves, and motorcycle boots.”

  “What about his eye or skin colour?” Tyler asked.

  Pritchard shook his head apologetically. “I couldn’t see either. The visor was mirrored, you see, so all I could see in it was my own reflection, and every inch of his body was covered by his biking outfit.”

  Oh great! Tyler thought, struck by the similarities between this conversation and the one he’d had with Porter the other night. “What about his accent?” he asked, without any real hope.

  “Well, it was sort of normal; not posh, not cockney, not any accent that I could recognise to be honest,” Pritchard said. “It was a little muffled by the helmet, which didn’t help.”