by Mark Romain
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Tracey. What’s yours?” Searching her bag for a condom, she thought he looked like a ‘Keith’ or a ‘Kenneth’.
He smiled as he reached for something just behind him. This time it did reach the eyes for he was about to begin his work, and that made him truly happy. His song was being played at maximum volume in his mind. It was so loud that he was sure she would be able to hear it.
What a ride, what a thrill. All I’m gonna do is KILL, KILL, KILL…
He remembered that she’d asked him a question. What was it again? Oh yes, now he remembered. “My real name’s not important, but I suspect after tonight most people will be calling me… Jack. I’m sure you can guess why.”
She stopped fishing around in her bag and looked up, concerned by the nasty tone that had crept into his voice.
“Ta-da!” The man announced theatrically. At first, she thought he was doing Jazz Hands at her until she realised he was brandishing a huge knife in his left hand.
“Oh my God!” she murmured, dropping the bag.
◆◆◆
Sandra Dawson was a bit of a mother hen to the younger girls in Winston’s stable. She was always looking out for them, forever nagging them to eat properly, constantly encouraging them to get fresh needles from the needle exchange in Cambridge Heath Road rather than reusing or – worse – sharing; and she never tired of preaching about personal hygiene and the dangers of not using protection.
When Tracey had come flying across the road, as though the devil himself were breathing down her neck, she’d instinctively known that something terrible had just happened. As soon as Winston drove off Sandra tried to get her to talk about it, but Tracey was clucking so badly she could hardly string a sentence together.
Sandra detested drugs. She had seen too many lives ruined by them, but seeing the state Tracey was in she had agreed to get her a couple of rocks to prevent her body from shutting down. How ironic, Sandra had thought, taking drugs would kill Tracey, and sooner rather than later, but her dependency was so great that she could not function without them.
As she hurried back towards Quaker Street, she tried to avoid handling the foul cellophane covered substance in her pocket, as though contact with it alone could infect or contaminate her. She almost soiled herself when a police van drove by.
There was no sign of Tracey when she finally arrived back at Quaker Street, out of breath and sweating despite the chill. Angela, the black girl with the scar, had returned, and from the glazed look in her eyes had already spent the money she had earned on crack.
“Angie, ‘ave you seen Tracey anywhere?”
Angela gave a lazy shrug. “She’s probably off with a punter.” She didn’t give a fuck about Tracey and couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why Sandra did.
“Poor fucker’s gonna want a refund, state of her,” Sandra told herself, conscious that she would have to keep the awful stuff in her pocket for a little while longer. Still, it shouldn’t be a problem as long as the fuzz didn’t come back.
In her peripheral vision, she registered movement and realised a car was pulling up beside her. Sandra had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t heard it approach. For a moment she assumed the worst: that the police had come back, and that she had tempted fate by thinking about them. Shit! Sandra thought as her heartbeat returned to normal, I’m definitely too old for this game. Pushing her tits out, she took a deep breath, sucked in her stomach and went into the old familiar act.
“‘Ello dear. Fancy some fun, do ya?” Sandra flashed her best smile at the driver, hoping he would only want a quick wank.
CHAPTER 4
As he entered the ground floor briefing room at Whitechapel Police station, Inspector Ray Speed surveyed the ensemble of bleary-eyed officers sitting in three neat rows facing the lectern, and then glanced down at his watch. It was a minute before six, and he was half hoping that someone had overslept; it was customary for latecomers to buy doughnuts for the rest of the team, and a Krispy Kreme glazed original really would go down a treat this morning.
They all stood up as he entered the room, but he waved them back to their seats. It was far too early for formalities.
The briefing room was a mess, he noticed, which was hardly surprising seeing as the cleaners hadn’t been in since Friday morning. Under the chairs, he spotted crumpled newspapers, old copies of The Job, sweet wrappers, soft drinks cans and even a sodding pizza box.
His Section Sergeant did a quick head count, and then checked the numbers tallied with those in his duties binder. “All present, sir,” he said with satisfaction.
“Thank you,” Speed said, nodding curtly. He made his way down the centre aisle to the briefing lectern at the far end of the room, only to find it cluttered with polystyrene cups containing foul-smelling coffee dregs. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “This place is a bloody pigsty,” Speed said, passing the offending items to his Section Sergeant for disposal. “Right, let’s begin,” he said, wiping his hands on a tissue.
The team had already been stripped to the bone in order to meet a heavy aid commitment up town, so, when Speed announced that the flu epidemic sweeping through the station had claimed another three of their colleagues overnight, there were a few disgruntled groans.
Speed ignored them. In his experience coppers were only happy when they had something to moan about, and by that rationale his remaining troops ought to be bloody ecstatic this morning. He started by posting his officers to the various patrol cars and beats. Once that was done, he asked the Section Sergeant to play the latest briefing slides that the Borough Intelligence Unit – or BIU – had prepared. This included a list of suspects who were currently wanted, and Speed told his four walkers that the team needed to show a few extra arrests to its name this month, so he wanted them to go through the warrants register and spend the first part of the morning making arrest inquiries.
The alarm list was next. The Section Sergeant drew their attention to several premises that had faulty alarms: ones which either didn’t work at all or, as was more often the case, went off every time anyone so much as looked at them.
Some officers took notes in their pocketbooks; recording details they felt relevant, while others sat quietly as if it were an effort just to keep their eyes open at such an ungodly hour.
One old sweat, thinking he wouldn’t be spotted in the back row, had the temerity to start flipping through the sports section in a copy of yesterday’s The Sun, which he’d found on his chair. That earned him a right earful from the Section Sergeant and a ‘fine’ of doughnuts from Speed. “And I don’t mean those cheap five-for-a pound stodgy things you get in the supermarket,” he warned the offending officer.
Speed finished the parade with a note on officer safety. Night duty had been called to a spate of robberies in and around Hackney Road, in which the same pair of addicts had cornered their victims and brandished blood-filled syringes, before threatening to inject them unless they handed over their money. Luckily no one had been harmed, but it was only a matter of time before some brave have-a-go-Henry ended up as a pin cushion.
With so many HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis sufferers drifting through the ground, there was a very real risk of infection if anyone was stabbed by a junkie’s needle. Speed emphasised the need for extreme caution if there were any calls like that this morning. “If in doubt, restrain the fuckers first, and ask questions later,” he advised. “But, if you do have to use force, make sure you write it up properly,” he added as an afterthought.
After parade, the drivers went out into the back yard to check over their vehicles while everyone else made their way up to the canteen on the top floor to grab a quick, much needed, cup of coffee. While the kettle was boiling the CAD – an acronym that stood for Computer Aided Dispatch – room started to call up various crews and assign them to outstanding calls. They were all non-urgent and could be delayed for a few minutes while the coffee began to work its magic.
; ◆◆◆
When PC Nick Bartholomew entered the canteen a few minutes later, having checked over the RT car – or Pursuit Car as it was now known in modern parlance – he was met by his partner, who handed him a chipped mug that was filled to the brim with steaming hot black coffee. They sat down together at an otherwise empty table.
“Thanks, mate,” Nick said gratefully. “Let me get this brew down my neck and we can go out and start playing hunt the bad guy.” Bartholomew hated early turns; he would have preferred to park up somewhere out of the way, snooze for an hour and then find a nice quiet cafe to have a fry up in. Unfortunately, the kid was desperate to impress their boss, and Nick didn’t want to let him down.
Terry Grier, the younger of the two by eight years, had his gangly legs splayed as far under the table as they would go. He beamed at the suggestion.
Inwardly grimacing at the thought of driving around looking for prisoners, when all he really wanted was to be curled up in bed with his nice warm duvet snuggled around him, Nick took a tentative sip of the boiling liquid, and let out a long appreciative sigh. “Thanks, Tel. I really needed that,” he said, and from the look of him, he really did.
“Late night?” Grier asked, tentatively.
Bartholomew shook his head. “I was in bed by eleven,” he half said, half yawned. “Trouble is I don’t sleep well on earlies. I’m always so worried I’ll sleep through the alarm and be late for work that I spend half the night clock watching.” As he spoke, he undid the top button of his shirt and began rubbing at an angry looking shaving rash on his neck.
“I’ve got some moisturiser in my locker if you want something for that,” Grier offered.
Bartholomew shook his head, wearily. “It’ll be fine,” he said, taking another sip of coffee.
“So, where are we gonna get ourselves a decent collar at this time of day?” Grier asked, getting back to the business at hand. He didn’t want another drink drive; they were ten-a-penny.
“Don’t you worry, mate,” Nick assured him, sounding far more optimistic than he felt. “I’ve got a feeling in my water that today is going to be exciting.”
Speed entered the canteen and, after pouring himself a drink, sat down between Bartholomew and Grier. “Late night was it, Nick?” he asked, studying the dishevelled man slumped in the chair before him.
“No, guv, I just didn’t sleep well.”
“I can see that. I reckon my wife could fit her weekly shopping in the bags under your eyes. Not coming down with this flu bug, are you?”
Bartholomew shook his head. “Only thing wrong with me is a dose of early-turn-itus.”
It was at this moment that the first ‘all units’ call of the day came out. The dispatcher informed them that a watchman doing his rounds at the building site next to the railway tracks in Quaker Street had just called in to say he’d found what he thought was a dead body beside the site office.
“Bollocks!” Nick cursed, casting a wistful glance at the coffee he would now be forced to abandon.
In contrast, Grier looked expectantly at his partner, like a puppy waiting for its master to throw it a ball.
“Come on, Terry,” Bartholomew said, buttoning his shirt back up. “Let`s go.”
Grier propelled himself out of his chair like a sprinter leaving the blocks, his lanky legs jarring the underside of the table so hard that the three cups resting on its top were violently upended. There was no time to do anything about the puddle of dark liquid that quickly spread across the table’s Formica surface and began to drip down onto the canteen floor.
Nick glanced down at his wristwatch as they headed towards the lift.
06:23hrs.
And another day in the city begins, he thought, ruefully.
Speed followed close behind, his face taut. “I’d better come with you. Sounds like I’m going to be needed in my capacity as Duty Officer.”
The lift’s descent was painfully slow, and Grier used the time to bombard them with useless speculation about what they would find when they arrived on scene. Speed did his best to tune out the kid’s voice as he mentally recited the critical incident checklist to himself. Hopefully, if there was a body waiting for them out there, it had died from natural causes, but if something more sinister had gone down, he wanted everything to be done by the book so that it wouldn’t come back and bite him later on.
As they sped out of the rear yard, siren wailing and lights flashing, they were already receiving updates from the control room. The informant was waiting at the site entrance and had been told not to let anyone in until they got there. Their ETA was six-minutes, but traffic was light and Nick, tired or not, was a superb driver. They made it in just over three.
As the area car screeched to a halt by the site entrance an elderly man began waving frantically from just inside the gate.
Here we go again! Nick thought, removing the ignition key from the Golf VR6.
Grier and Speed were already out and running. As he brought up the rear, Nick Bartholomew noticed that the old timer was shaking violently. His skin was the colour of faded parchment and he was clutching at his chest with a gnarled hand. Selfishly, Nick found himself hoping their informant would be able to tell them what had happened before he keeled over from a heart attack.
...I’ve got a feeling in my water that today is going to be exciting.
Young Terry took hold of the old man’s arm to steady him. “It’s alright pops, I’ve got you,” he said gently.
Albert Grayson, Bert to everyone who knew him, was in charge of site security for the construction company. At sixty-nine years of age, he was still a remarkably active man who often bragged about being fitter than most men fifteen years his junior. Right then, he was feeling his age, and then some. He tried to describe the sight that had greeted him when he strolled through the gates a few minutes earlier, but the words just wouldn’t come out. Instead, he pointed towards the yard with a trembling hand.
Speed took control. They had to find out what was going on here, and quickly. “Terry, stay here and look after this man. He’s either in shock or suffering a heart attack, so you’d better call an ambulance for him. Nick, you come with me.” In the distance, he could hear the sound of sirens as other units made their way to the scene.
Together they moved into the yard, treading cautiously.
As Speed pushed the corrugated metal gates backwards, Bartholomew drew and racked open his gravity friction lock baton, or ASP as it was more commonly known. The baton’s metal shaft made a satisfyingly loud thwack as it extended to its full length, and Bartholomew griped the rubber coated handle tightly as he crept forward cautiously.
Inside the construction site, it seemed eerily quiet, as though the high perimeter fencing had magically cut off all noise from the outside world. Ray Speed branched left; Nick Bartholomew, baton held at the ready, moved off to the right.
As Bartholomew scanned the shadows for signs of a body, he couldn’t shake the sinister feeling that someone was there, watching his every move. He wondered if it might be better to wait for backup, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. If a seriously injured victim was in here, finding them quickly could mean the difference between life and death.
“Nick, over here, quickly!” Ray Speed’s voice shattered the silence and made Bartholomew jump. He spun around to see Speed standing beside a Portakabin to his far left. The Inspector was staring down at a shape on the floor.
Fearing the worst, Bartholomew sprinted over to join Speed as fast as he could. As he skidded to a halt, he saw that the dark shape was, in fact, the body of a young woman. She lay so deep in shadow he could barely make out her features, even up close like this. Nick fumbled for the torch at the rear of his utility belt with unsteady hands, and as he shone the light over the prone figure, he felt the colour drain from his face.
“Jesus Christ, gov’nor! Look at the state of her,” he said, breathing hard. Nick had dealt with plenty of dead bodies in his time, some still fresh, others badly
decomposed, but he had never seen anything like this. No wonder the poor old watchman was so traumatised.
The open-eyed stare of the dead woman sent a shiver down his spine. The poor thing was lying flat on her back, with her shoulders tightly wedged between the side of the Portakabin and the perimeter wall. The one arm he could see was branched out to the side at an unnatural angle. There was a frightful gash across the woman’s throat, from which a river of arterial blood had shot up the wall during exsanguination. Her face was frozen in an expression of unmitigated fear, the likes of which Bartholomew had never seen before.
He guided the beam from his flashlight downwards until he reached the dead woman’s abdomen, at which point he almost dropped the torch. The torso had been torn open, revealing her innards. It was as if she had been ripped apart by a wild beast. A pool of blood, already congealing into a foul looking jelly, had spread out to form the dark pool in which she now lay. The victim’s miniskirt had been pulled up over her hips and there was no sign of any underwear. Another pool of thick clotting blood had formed between her open legs, although a small dune of sand had absorbed most of it.
