The Ripper

by Carmelo Anaya

  - The car will still be out there, says Lopez.

  - Did she have any special clients? Someone she'd seen a few times maybe, talked about?

  - No. Just workers from the units or punters out on the town. She didn't work much.

  He gives us his address and we send him home in a patrol car.

  I ask Lopez to come with me and we get into the Golf, off to look for Diana Carolina Mieles's car. My phone beeps with a WhatsApp message as I drive. Unexpected. I don't use the app much and rarely give out my number.

  - Those fags'll be the death of you, Chief. Tee hee.

  I ignore the message and shove my phone back into my pocket. No time for joking around.

  We find Mieles's car behind some plane trees lining the old motorway, parked very near the roundabout her husband mentioned. She would have been next to it, hoping to prey on some poor desperate drunk bastard, driving out to a more secluded strip of the road to service him for a few euros.

  We stop the Golf on the side of the road. Time and disuse have eaten away at the hard shoulder. Above us, the birds trill out sweetly, surprising us, as if we thought nothing could ever be happy again. Bumblebees and flies buzz round, dizzy with sunlight. Diana Carolina Mieles left her car in a clearing, parked on baked white earth, in the middle of a barren plot of land. In the distance we make out a patch of intensely green fields, a tractor moving slowly through them like some kind of giant insect. And further out, the new motorway, with another incongruous splotch of green, the bushes lining the central reservation. The plastic of the greenhouses glitter nearby. Next to them is a giant mountain of plastic waste. All crouching togther on a flat plain of dry yellow earth.

  Her car is a Citroen Xsara with twenty-year-old number plates, five minutes from the scrapyard. Purchased for under a thousand euros from an unscrupulous second-hand dealership. The driver's door and side are dented where she hit something white. We put on our gloves and open the doors. A water bottle on the floor in front of the driver's seat. All Lopez finds in the glovebox is the registration certificate, stained and wrinkled. A knitted cardigan draped across the back seat. A box of condoms. Tatty seat covers and the smell of stale cigarettes. Lopez opens a fan.

  - Heaven silences all, he reads.

  - Eh?

  He shows me the line stamped on the fan as he opens it up.

  - He didn't get in. He stopped the van and she got in, like the first time. Why would he have touched the victim's car? Unnecessary risk, I say.

  Lopez takes a few steps around the Citroen.

  - No prints suggesting another car parked here.

  - He didn't pick her up here. He picked her up at the roundabout, a bit further up.

  - I don't think so, boss. If he'd already noticed her, he would have waited before risking her running off with a different guy.

  He's right. We inspect the surroundings again. Nothing.

  - He phones Forensics.

  Neither of us says a word on our way back. Diana Carolina Mieles and Oscar Alfredo Castaneda Macas's home is a hovel in Pescaderia, near the city's east road leading out to the sea. Pescaderia is a sprawling area, the name incongruous as most fishermen live near the sea. But Baria always wanted a fisherman's quarter of its own. Instead of fishermen, the area was populated with poor farmers, shepherds, day labourers and Roma livestock traders. There's even a local market, the old building untouched by attempts to modernize under Franco, which targeted other areas aimed at the middle class, like San Gabriel. Pescaderia was left to its own devices. Now it's full of of shabby one-storey houses, the earthen roofs flat, crumbling pavements overrun with weeds. Most of the street lamps stopped working long ago and no one's bothered to fix them. There are a few empty plots where livestock were kept, now used as makeshift parking lots for cars that don't fit in the narrow alleyways. It smells of dry earth and invisibility, an underclass forgotten by society.

  The town's Latin American immigrants have congregated here. Thousands flocking in before the bubble burst, thousands still here, and no one knows why or how.

  As soon as we park the car, we see curtains twitching in the windows, the neighbourhood alert to us, everyone out of a job and nothing better to do than poke their noses in. A few old Spaniards drift by down the road, not bothering to look in our direction. Their beers keep them occupied, their days spent loitering outside the dive bar on the corner.

  - It's a bloody disgrace, Chief, someone says.

  A short, stocky man, dark-skinned, watching us with eyes filled with pity for his neighbour.

  - She was a good woman.

  - Please... catch him.

  They huddle around the front door, letting us through. Some slap us on the back in encouragement. They stand round in a solemn ring, their indigenous faces serious.

  Oscar Alfredo is drinking chamomile tea made by a neighbour. She scurries off past Lopez and me, leaving the three of us alone. A small room with a window overlooking the courtyard, and a door. A tiled table, four chairs and an old sofa off to one side facing a Panasonic TV as big as a wardrobe. The wallpaper is still up on some parts of the wall, other patches whitewashed. A sideboard with dirty glass planes and a chimney complete the scene.

  - Take as much time as you need.

  He motions to the door, inviting us into the other rooms.

  We ask him where Diana Carolina's personal effects are. He points at the sofa. There's a handbag there she sometimes used and a toilet bag. Everything else is in the bedroom. That's all there is. Anything left in the car.

  - She didn't have a notebook or diary with client names, numbers?

  - No. They were just passing through, he says, defending himself. She didn't... it wasn't the right job for her. But things got so bad... We didn't use to live here.

  A tear slips down his cheek. We bend down to get through the low doors and see an old bedroom with a double bed and a rickety wardrobe, a coathanger on a nail in the wall. There's a narrow bathroom with a shower and a toilet next to it. Lopez lets out a low moan filled with sorrow and anger at the poverty of Diana's home. He shows me a handkerchief she'd embroidered with the sentence that breathed some hope back into her days: Heaven quiets all.

  We say goodbye and leave the house with the neighbours whispering all around.

  - Do whatever it takes, Chief, they plead.

  We promise to do whatever it takes and more.

  We get in the Golf and drive off with heavy hearts.

  - Heaven quiets all, whispers Lopez.

  I park in front of the Legal Medicine Institute. Lopez begs me not to make him go in. I leave him next to the car, smoking and licking his wounds.

  The Institute is a redbrick building located behind the courts. The sound of kids playing and laughing drifts from a school down the road. Before going in, I see Lopez walking over, watching them play to try and calm his anxiety and sadness. Lopez isn't one to cope with the cruelty and sheer horror we see in this job. His kindness is proportional to his considerable size, and like so many men of his stature, he's too gentle to handle evil. I see him strolling casually along, pretending not to notice the kids, who are enjoying their breaktime ferociously.

  I glance at my phone again on my way into the building and see another new WhatsApp message.

  - You can seek, but you won't find. Tee hee.

  I try to send back "Who is this, smartarse?" but it fails to send. I wonder who the idiot is who's taunting me and put the phone away.

  The woman at the front desk tells me Braulio's neck-deep in work, so I'll have to sit tight in the waiting room. I already know what he's going to say. I can see the autopsy report in my mind's eye clear as if I'd already read it. But I can still hope that the killer's made a mistake, left some trace. The cigarette butt is my best bet. I smugly want to believe that he left it in Diana Carolina's nostril while he got to work and forgot about it. Any other explanation would be terrible. Making a joke of the woman he'd killed. His
arrogance knows no bounds. Killing his second victim within a hundred yards of the police station. Tomorrow's headlines scroll through my mind.

  Braulio comes out, slamming the door behind him. He doesn't see me and starts making his way up the stairs. I call out and he whirls round as quickly as if somewhere were attacking him.

  - It's exactly what we thought. You'll have the report in a while.

  I follow him up and say it reluctantly:

  - No traces, of course.

  - Just the cigarette stub. We'll see what the DNA test results say.

  - What about the weapon?

  - What can I say? An incredibly sharp knife. An outsize scalpel. Who knows.

  He shrugs and moves off. I'm too discouraged to keep him any longer, so I leave, taking Lopez with me, and we get back into the Golf.

  - Not a trace. Not one trace, I say, banging my fist against the wheel. I bet they won't come up with anything from the stub, either. He doesn't make mistakes.

  - He'll keep on killing and we won't be able to stop him before he commits more crimes. He's too sharp for us, says Lopez glumly.

  I curse him silently. But I know he's right.

  We enter the basement of the station via a side street, parking the car and wending our way through a labyrinthic corridor where the cells and interrogation rooms are. It stinks of B.O. Too many people locked up last night with no airflow. Bogdan's is the worst. A triangle-shaped rattrap in a corner you can't even swing a cat in. The cot jammed in there. Dark as my soul and stinking with the many souls that have purged their sins there. I hope Bogdan's had some sleep, whether his conscience is clean or not - the more likely of the two.

  He's sitting in the interrogation room now, Malasana opposite him. I watch them through the one-way mirror. The girls are upstairs in the offices. They've been questioned. Martin looks at Bogdan through the glass: he's met his match at last. Both of them silent behind the glass.

  - The boss has run off again.

  - They didn't get him? Not in Almeria, or...?

  He shakes his head again, not looking at us.

  - Have any of the others said where he might be? He shakes his head again.

  - Everyone's keeping their mouths shut for this one. And we've been putting the pressure on. But the poodle's got him good and scared. He jerks his head in the direction of Malasana.

  I study Bogdan's profile. He's no beauty. His top lip is swollen to the size of a cauliflower, his cheekbone like a mushy tomato. He must have a pain in his side too, because he's slumping. I rap on the glass and Malasana stays perfectly still, but Bogdan whips his head around sharply. I see the look in his eyes and make up my mind. I go in. I get as close to him as I can, ignoring the stink on him and his foul breath.

  - You stink, Bogdan. And I'm going to stick you with five counts of rape and one for attempted murder.

  His left eyelid droops, making him look detached, when really he's bubbling with panic.

  - You're lucky I let Malasana take care of you. I'm worse. I'm not going to lay a finger on you, he can do that. But I am going to stick you with five counts of rape and attempted murder.

  - Lies. I never...

  - Ramona, Bogdan. Ramona. I'm going to give her two choices: either she reports you for raping her over a hundred times or she's never going back home. I'll make things difficult for her if she doesn't report you. Rape, Bogdan. Minimum ten years. Plus the aggravating circumstances.

  - Lies!!!

  - So? Who d'you think they'll believe? You, a Romanian pimp, or Ramona whimpering for the judge next to an upstanding police officer?

  I can see I'm getting to him despite his thick skin. I try to get things moving.

  We've got all four of you now. Almeria, Roquetas, El Ejido... all the pimps. Your boss won't know it was you.

  I move closer to Malasana.

  - Don't hit him anymore. We need him fresh and ready to go for the judge. If he doesn't sign a statement with the whereabouts of his boss in the next five minutes leave him here and go and get Ramona at the women's shelter.

  I leave the room and jog upstairs to my office. The first thing I see from my window is a mob of journalists crowded around the station doors. They'll eat us alive. They'll eat ME alive (italics).

  Three of my superiors have phoned. From Madrid and Almeria. I know what that means. There are three other calls too, from the Almeria, Roquetas and El Ejido forces.

  Before picking up the phone to return the calls, I pause for a minute, throwing myself heavily into my chair and closing my eyes. Desperation flashes before my eyes, but it's not like I've had much luck seeing anything else with them open.

  The national press is sticking to sober headlines for now, but the nickname has crystallized. 'Second Killing by "New Jack the Ripper"' - El Mundo. 'New Ripper Back with Macabre Murder', screams El Pais. 'Baria Ripper Commits Second Murder', announces ABC. La Razon goes for the jugular: 'Baria Ripper Strikes Again Scot-Free'.

  I leaf through the papers. They highlight the atrocious nature of the crimes and the murderer's daring, striking again not 100 yards from the police station. It might have been acceptable not to catch the original Ripper in Victorian London when police investigation techniques were still in their infancy, but the fact that the killer has struck again with no consequences is difficult to believe.

  That's the gist of it. At least they're not as savage as the local and county papers, which have already ripped us and our incompetence apart. The headlines are all more or less the same, but the leads are brutal: from 'incompetence of the force' in bold inch-high fonts to 'criminal negligence on the part of the investigators'.

  I skip most of the articles themselves. I'm not interested in reading what some journo with an agenda has to say. But questions leap out at me as I skim the pages: 'Is the Baria police force equipped to take on a serial killer?' 'Why has the Ministry failed to send in specialists?' 'How many more crimes must the Ripper commit before serious action is taken by the police force?' The Heraldo de Baria, a thinly-veiled Fascist pamphlet, takes it a step further: 'Is the Baria City Chief of Police focused on solving these crimes? Or, on the contrary, does he simply not have the time to do so, even though they may affect him personally?' I curse them for their veiled reference to Natalia and toss the paper to the floor. Then I snatch it up again, scanning for the byline. I know the author. I'll be having a chat with him if I manage to catch the Ripper. If not, I'll have to take to the ends of the earth and never show my face again.

  Andres Ocana, the city's most unscrupulous journo and publisher of La Voz de la Calle (The Word on the Street), is ruthless, obviously seeking to rile me up personally: 'Two-Bit Police Officers Make Mockery of Manhunt'. I lob it into the bin,

  take a few deep breaths and turn to the phone. The Commissioner makes no effort to hide his contempt: How could this happen? Why didn't you seeing it coming? Now we'll have Madrid breathing down our necks. And announces: The Ministry is sending in a specialist taskforce. From the Guardia Civil, to top it off. What an embarassment for the force! He orders me to do everything I can and give all the information we have to the UCO taskforce when they arrive. He hangs up abruptly, drained by his own frustration and my incompetence.

  Then I get back to Madrid and the Ministry of Home Affairs, who tell me a taskforce from UCO and the General Commission for Information (CGI). This is out of your hands, they say.

  I agree to everything and feel relieved to be free of the full burden of the inquiry. But I also feel frustrated and brushed aside. No one trusts me to solve this mystery.

  Not even me.

  Not one lead. The old saying ticks in my mind - if you haven't got anything forty-eight hours in, solving the crime is nigh on impossible.

  Nine days have gone by and not only do I have nothing - another mutilated body has been thrown into the mix.

  The sweat starts to pour from my brow and not even the 18 degree AC can cool me down. I press the maximum s
trength button with rage and the AC unit fills my office with its desperate whine. I go into the men's and slam the door before splashing water on my face, but it runs out of the tap lukewarm. A shiver of revulsion runs down my spine.

  I go back into my office and run into Lopez and Malasana, both of them looking at me oddly.

  Malasana hands me a sheaf of documents:

  - the DNA tests. The ones sent to the Scientific Unit might take longer, so I asked a colleague at the Unit for a sample and gave it to my friend at the hospital.

  - And? Did you check them?

  - Yes, against the computers at Central. There's a match.

  I lean in, unable to hold back my anxiety. But straightaway I understand that something's wrong. The murderer leaving the cigarette butt in the victim's nostril was no mistake.

  - What? I shout.

  - It's yours, boss, says Lopez, who can't stand it any longer.

  I can hardly believe my ears. I look at Malasana, dumbfounded. I must look ridiculous. But no one laughs.

  I punch the wall so hard the whole room shakes. He knows me! He's been near me recently! So near he managed to get one of my fag ends and keep it safe so he could play his nasty little trick on us. The son of a bitch had it all planned!

  - He knows you, boss, Malasana stands solemnly next to Lopez.

  Lopez yelps.

  - If he knows who I am... that means I know who he is, I say furiously.

  - Not necessarily, boss, says Malasana. He could have followed you to a bar or cafe. Got one of the cigarette butts there, or picked one up from the street.

  Cracks radiate from the spot where I punched the wooden panelling. The computer has shifted a few inches and the papers are scattered on the floor. I get up to put them back on my desk and then I realise.