The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  - "The cars have to be parked in the street, not inside the gardens," he explains. "So they're too far for us to see them."

  Later, Malasana says what's on my mind:

  - "If she was going out for dinner with a client her pimp knew about it and was making money out of it. So Bogdan must know who that guy was."

  We drive until we're near Cape Cope. A natural enclave where someone's turned an old farmhouse into a rural bed and breakfast. We round a bend in the dirt path leading off the main road and El Desfiladero looms, tucked away in the brush, the perfect spot for a bordello.

  Sunset comes and the purple light of dusk gleams on the windows. The ground floor facade is overlaid with stone and the first is done up in wood, fitting in with the wispy pines, eucapytus and broom of the surroundings, the sea far out behind.

  A tractor and van are parked outside.

  We go into the bar, the bartop shiny with cheap varnish. Saddles and bridles hang from the walls and there are black and white photos of labourers tilling, harvesting and winnowing wheat on display.

  A bell chimes, announcing us, and two patrons in dusty shorts turn around at the bar, sizing us up curiously. On one side, a staircase leads up to the rooms. A one-star joint, hardly the Ritz-Carlton. A curly-haired woman in a housecoat comes out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel.

  She looks at us with alarm when we show her our badges, her face covered in a thin layer of sweat. She's overweight, with a double chin. When asked, the name she gives is Mariana. She takes us into a private dining room, far from prying eyes.

  I wonder if whoever saw Cristiana Stoicescu here, the person who phoned the police, is one of the punters at the bar. They're still out there doing their thing.

  - "I don't know..." says Mariana, biting a lip that was last sensual several centuries ago.

  - "Yes you do."

  - "I have to speak to my husband,", she says, getting up.

  - "Sit down!"

  She slumps heavily back into her chair.

  - "Yes. I think so," she admits.

  - "How many times did you see her here?"

  - "Two, I think. Or maybe more."

  - "Who was the man she was with?"

  She shakes her head, her eyes still on the photo. She's scared to look us in the eyes.

  - "What did he look like? Did you see his car?"

  - "I don't know who he was."

  - "Don't you ask for ID?" asks Malasana.

  She shifts in her seat anxiously. "I know I should have.

  - Some people don't want to give us ID. They come here for a bit, pay up and leave."

  - "Did he pay in cash?"

  - "Yes."

  - "The car," I say insistently.

  She shrugs. Then shouts for someone called Jose. The punters lean against the bar, watching us.

  More fearful every second, the woman fiddles with the hem of her housecoat.

  A tall man with a beer belly appaears, his shirt stained with sweat. His bald spot shines and he needs a shave. The picture of elegance, just like his slovenly customers.

  The woman manages to work up the nerve to get up and stands very close to her husband, as if we were threatening her. Malasana shows the man the photo.

  - "Yeah, what?"

  - "Have a seat."

  She refuses to sit until her husband, intimidated by Malasana's dark stare.

  - "Let's get on with it. This woman was here. We want to know who she was with."

  The man takes another look at the picture and sighs. He shakes his head.

  - "He didn't want to show us any ID. You could tell she was a prostitute. Wasn't like she would go for him otherwise."

  - "His car. Did you see the number plates?"

  - "No. And he paid in cash," says Jose. "The car was an Opel. A small van. Dark-coloured. But I didn't see the model or number plates."

  - "What did he look like?"

  - "Well built. Shorter than me, but powerful."

  - "What else?"

  Jose, visibly more relaxed since we're not asking questions about his business, takes out a cigarette and lights it. His wife gets up to fetch an ashtray.

  - "Broad shoulders. Arms like this," he gestures with both hands, leaving the photo on the table. "Rude. Very short hair."

  - "Colour?"

  - "I don't know. Dark, I think. But almost shaved off."

  - "Did he have a beard, glasses?"

  - "Nasty piece of work. He wasn't nice to her. He was pulling her along by the arm."

  - "Did she protest at any point? Refuse to go upstairs with him?"

  He shakes his head.

  - "No. But it was plain to see she wasn't happy. She was short with him."

  - "How many times did they come here?"

  - "Two, as far as I know," says Jose, looking at Mariana, who nods.

  - "When?"

  - "I don't know. End of July, beginning of August," says Mariana's husband.

  - "Anything else?"

  They shrug slightly, but both shake their heads.

  - "Why didn't you report it earlier?"

  - "We didn't realise it was the same girl," says Mariana apologetically. "Who told you?"

  - "We'll be back."

  The punters don't even shoot a glance our way when we leave the dining room. Night has fallen.

  Suddenly, we turn around and stand right in front of them. They smell of rank two-day old sweat. We show them the photo.

  - "Has either of you seen this girl around here?"

  They both say no. They ask if it's the girl who was killed, but examine the photo twice over and say they've never seen her.

  - "And a man, fairly short, very muscular, shaved head, with a dark coloured Open minivan?"

  They haven't seen him either.

  Malasana starts moaning as soon as we're outside.

  - "Fuck this. We've identified two places she was in with two different men and we haven't got them. Shit!"

  We circle around the city and drive straight to the coast. Cristiana Stoicescu was also seen with a man in Club Noom, a trendy bar and restaurant. We drive past the Paradis hotel with its gleaming lobby and glass walls and park on an avenue that leads to the beach.

  Noom is all sleek wooden walls and a drapy canopy for a roof. Rooms branching out from the bar in the middle: a dining room, lobby with a proper roof, and open-air spaces around the pool. The sound of the waves washes over us.

  In the dining room, a family is celebrating something and couples are having a romantic night out. Low lights. Candles and flowers on the tables. Immaculate white tablecloths. Discreet, polished waiters moving through the room like shadows. As soon as they spot us, they inform the maitre.

  Dressed in black, he strides towards us, stretching out his hand. Dapper, slightly overdressed, face close-shaved and smooth as a baby's bottom. "Antonio Caceres," he says, introducing himself. He invites us to take a seat and asks whether we'd like anything to drink. We decline. He gets to the point immediately - our stony faces don't look in the mood for chit-chat.

  - "We didn't report it before because the waiters working that shift were away on holiday. One of them saw a picure of the girl online this morning and phoned us."

  - "Why didn't he report it straight to the police?"

  Caceres shrugs.

  - "I suppose he thought he might not be taken seriously. Or because he wanted to check with the other waiters. He's on holiday in Mallorca. But he recognised the girl straight away, no doubt about that."

  - "Is there any other information you can give us? Was she with someone?"

  - "Of course. She was with Carlos Arribas, he's a regular here."

  Our faces must show our surprise at a regular showing up with an escort without making any attempts to hide the fact. Caceres explains.

  - "Carlos Arribas is a wealthy bachelor, bit of a Casanova. It's not that he doesn't care if people
see him with a much younger and beautiful woman - on the contrary, he loves showing them off.

  He's almost seventy, I'd say. Retired. Tall, bit of a toff. He owns a villa not far from here." Caceres says Arribas is from Madrid, but spends a lot of time at his beach house. He gives us his phone number.

  - "He likes us to let him know if we've got something special on the menu," he explains.

  He shows us out and wishes us luck.

  - "Here's hoping you catch that bastard. When you do, come and have dinner. Open bar, everything on the house."

  We thank him and get into the car.

  - "Call him. Maybe we can interrogate just one before this all goes to shit," I order Malasana.

  He phones but we get redirected to voicemail.

  - "Should I look for his address? We could pay him a house visit."

  I look at my phone, which has been vibrating. I have a new WhatsApp message from Lazaro Asuncion asking me to meet him at the hotel. He's got something for me.

  - "Leave it, we'll try again tomorrow."

  When I get to Hotel Argaria, heads turn, alarmed and surprised. Lazaro Asuncion is convinced helping me out will not cause him any trouble with the Romanians or anyone else in the business, so he doesn't bother hiding. He even looks gleeful at the sight of the Chief of Police strolling into his hotel. It keeps the punters on their toes.

  I don't mind being part of the window dressing if he's got useful information for me.

  I take the G&T he hands me so as not to offend him. I tense up when I see the madame working for him: bleached bottle blonde, plunging cleavage and breasts kept firm by magic or a pact with the devil; a faded, voluptuous beauty with features from another time, sensual lips and skin like velvet; her legs still shapely, if not too slender. She tries to come on to me every time I come in, speaking to me too formally, as if she were younger than me. And I never have enough of her depressing gin and tonics to take her up on her offer.

  - "Sandra's not here, Chief, but I can tell you what she told me."

  - "Go ahead," I say, taking a sip of my G&T - it could be anything - but looking at her very firmly in the eye; hers are made up like a fading film star's.

  - "Why don't you let her have her way with you and stop playing with her, Chief?" interrupts Lazaro Asuncion, annoyed because I'm ignoring him.

  - "She's old enough to be my mother."

  - "Ha. No spring chicken yourself, eh, Chief?" "Aurora's stuck on you and she'll never give up. You'd be doing a good deed and she'd be full of the joys of spring."

  - "Even fuller of it than now?"

  - "So ignorant of you, Chief," he sighs.

  He turns sharply, cutting off a tall, slender beauty whose face is half in shadow but whose silhouette is lithe as a panther's.

  - "Not bad at all." I let out a low whistle.

  - "Stop being silly and ask Aurora out."

  - "Some other time."

  I take another sip of my listless gin and tonic and ask for another lemon slice to give it some kind of flavour. Lazaro Asuncion moves away and I see a group of women perched on high stools on the other side of the bar, showing off legs for days. A couple is gabbling away at a secluded table, sprawling comfortably as if in a casual cafe. A lone wolf is drinking alone, ignored by all.

  Lazaro Asuncion splashes two lemon slices into my drink.

  - "It's no wonder you're so fond of lemon, boss. It's so sour."

  - "Life has made me this way. Right then, what have you got?"

  - "Like I say, Sandra speaks really good English. And she's got English customers."

  He tents his fingers. It makes him look slightly comical, like a devout Christian about to pray. He lowers his voice to a whisper.

  - "And one of them was off his face. So much so that a while later he fell off his chair and we had to rush him to A&E."

  - "Rush him or leave him outside the door?"

  - "Lovely! We took him in, you'll see." "He wasn't dead, just..."

  - "Dead drunk. I get it."

  - "When they were upstairs," he gestures, "falling-down drunk, or whatever, he got talking, or hallucinating, who knows. And Sandra heard the whole thing. He said he'd raped girls in England and that's why he moved to Spain. He raped God knows how many of them. And killed one too. And he lived on the Costa del Sol and loved beating women up. He actually went a bit too far on Sandra..."

  - "So let's say you helped him faint."

  - "He wasn't far off."

  - "Did he say anything else?"

  - "Not that I know of. And this is just what Sandra told me."

  - "Do we have a name?"

  Lazaro Asuncion fishes a square of notebook paper out of his pocket and hands it to me.

  - "Geoffrey Hunt. He lives in Desert Springs."

  I tuck the slip of paper into my wallet and thank him. Then I make a few assumptions.

  - "So you already know it wasn't the Romanians. Or you wouldn't have phoned me, that's for sure."

  - "It wasn't them. For sure. Bad for business."

  - "You been losing business?"

  - "Not here. I'd almost say customers are flocking in. People are willing to pay for safety and reliability."

  - "Yeah."

  - "Outside on the streets, business is bad, of course. But the women are still on display out there. Just wait and see if something else like this happens, and..."

  How eerily foreboding those words sound now.

  This is Whore City

  Young whores

  Old whores

  Child whores

  All of them deserve the blade of my little knife

  Ha ha ha ha ha ha

  Terrified!

  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  My little knife lies in wait

  My little knife sets the bait

  My little knife tears them apart

  My little knife rips them to shreds

  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  4

  At the station, we wait for the reports on Geoffrey Hunt to come in. Malasana's sulking because I won't tell him where I got the dirt on Hunt, but he gives me the details of the raid the team is working on.

  Tracking devices have been installed in the areas Ramona talked about. So far they haven't picked up on anything. Bogdan must have told the women we're only interested in the murderer, so they haven't changed their routine. But there's no trace of the boss.

  - Malasana requests reports on a Romanian who goes by Radu.

  He glares at me.

  - "Proper sources, not hearsay." "You're gonna have to learn," I say.

  He contains an insult and says drily:

  - "Everything's ready. Though it's plain to see you couldn't care less. Now let's talk about what you're here for. Anything new?"

  - "This English guy."

  - "Should we give Carlos Arribas a call?"

  - "Later."

  - "How did you find out about the English guy?" he asks insistently, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

  - "If I told you you'd be as good a police officer as I am," I say sarcastically.

  - "I'm much better than you. That's why I'm surprised."

  "There's nothing like your subordinates looking up to you.

  - And the Club Mandala lead, the mandala connection?"

  - "Sebastian Rodriguez paid us a call. It was his idea. I don't know if there's any connection to the murder."

  - "And the symbol he carved on her leg, does that mean anything?"

  - "No fucking clue. Apparently they're putting expert reports together in Madrid. A very hardworking lot. They're not here yet though. What we do know is that the meaning of the mandala symbol changes depending on the context and culture.

  - So for now it doesn't explain much.

  - If something else like this happens again we'll have more information.

  - "How's that for a consolation prize. Did you tell him about the symbo
l carved on her skin?"

  - "Sebastian Rodriguez? No. We'll wait for the Madrid reports first. If they ever get here."

  - "They should be here before the eighth, don't you think?

  - I'm sending out daily requests."

  Garcia barges in without knocking, a sheaf of paper in his hand.

  - "The report on the Englishman. Dodgy as anything."

  He places it on the table and Malasana and I lunge for it as it were the last sandwich in a hungry world. Geoffrey Hunt committed sexual assault in his youth. Convicted at sixteen for attempted rape. Another conviction at twenty-one for rape. Just after his release from gaol, convicted again at thirty for rape and attempted murder. Now he's over fifty and living the good life in the sunny South, welcomed into Spain with open arms.

  - "What a treat," remarks Malasana. "Cream of the crop they're sending us."

  - "How does he make a living?"

  - "I don't know," says Garcia, shrugging and backing out of the room in case I suddenly take it upon myself to assign him an even more difficult task.

  Malasana looks at the closing door without even attempting to hide his scorn. He's openly contemptuous of any police officer who refuses to go the extra mile to protect society, like a judge shirking their duty or a biased referee.

  - "The report says he lives off some flats he rents out. He inherited a block of flats and makes money off that."

  - "An English landlord. Fancy that."

  - "A property-owning piece of shit, boss.

  - A serial offender. Worse and worse with every offence. Just what we need." "Time to dig up some dirt," I say, praying Hunt has no alibi.

  While I drive us to Desert Springs, Malasana brightens up my day with some serial killer trivia.