by Thomas Emson
He said, “Shut up, slag. I wasn’t asking your opinion,” and he slapped her. “Fucking Paki lover.”
Mr Khan and his wife were actually Bangladeshi—but they were all Pakis, Terri supposed. The store had been closed for three or four years before the couple took it over and re-opened it as a Costcutter. Some people—like Wayne—moaned. But most people were happy to have a mini-supermarket on the estate.
And at least it gave Terri and some of the other girls a job.
Better than being slobbered over by a fat, violent drunk for twenty quid.
Thirty yards to her door. The walkway was empty. The wind whistled along the passage. A Pepsi can rolled back and forth on the ground. Litter fluttered on the breeze. Screams and shouts filtered from down below in the streets. Sirens blared. A police helicopter hovered in the west.
Terri bricked it. Her legs felt weak as she strode. Her chest was tight. The walkway suddenly became gloomy. She hurried along. Her door looked so far away. She wanted to be inside, drunk—all her troubles drowned in a sea of cider.
More sirens screeched.
Maybe the cops were on to the killer. They had him in their sights.
She felt sick.
Her heart pounded.
She remembered her mother speaking about the New Ripper. It was fifteen years ago. Four women butchered.
Terri had been thirteen.
No worries back then. Only where the next bottle of Thunderbird was coming from.
Even that wasn’t a heavy concern. A blowie for a few boys would get her some dosh, and then it was down to the offie.
But now it was different. She felt threatened. Now she knew what life was about, and death was very near.
She reached for her key. The bunch jangled in her sweaty fingers. They slipped. She gasped, flailed at them. They clattered to the concrete.
She bit her lip and whined.
She squatted to pick them up.
The shadow passed over Terri and made everything dark.
She became very cold, and a creepy voice said, “I can see you.”
She looked up slowly, catching her breath.
She tried to scream, but he was quick.
And then her world turned upside down, and she wheeled, and the clouds became earth and the earth, clouds, and she flapped and flailed and fell and found her screaming voice as she hurtled ten-floors down, thinking, Reach for the sky, reach for the—
Chapter 43
TIE-DOWNS
Don Wilks eyed every one of them in turn, fixing each with a cold, hard, three-second stare to make sure they all experienced a balls-shriveling moment—including the women.
Then he unleashed his anger. “How the fuck did this happen right under our noses? You’re fucking useless. You should all be fucking demoted. I’d have you helping fucking old ladies across the street, if I had my way.”
They were in Wilks’s office in the major incident room. It was glass-fronted, so he could see into the room across the corridor where Faith Drummond, the office manager, was based.
She made his balls ache.
She’d look good in a bikini, sunning herself on his yacht. She’d look good out of a bikini, splaying herself on his bed.
He watched her while the detectives digested his tirade.
He might ask her to join him when he retired and sailed off. She was married, but that didn’t matter. Maybe he’d warn the husband off. Spread some shit about Faith fucking the dog section during her lunch hour.
He thought about that for a few seconds before switching his attention back to the senior detectives shitting themselves in his office.
He said, “The fucking press is going to piss all over this—all over us. Who the fucking hell was on duty here this morning?”
A female detective inspector gave two names.
“Have ‘em flogged, for fucks sake,” said Wilks. “What was the birds name again?”
The female DI spoke again: “Teresa Jane Slater. Twenty-eight, mum of three. Her boyfriend, Wayne Dalton, is being held on remand. A pensioner he mugged three weeks ago died.”
“Anything else?” said Wilks.
Another detective gave details about Slater’s place of work.
“Drag the Paki in,” said Wilks, when told the store was managed by a Mr Khan.
“He’s Bangladeshi, sir,” said the detective, a do-gooder with red-rimmed glasses who was probably queer, Wilks guessed, despite the wedding ring.
Mind you, he thought, poofs can get married these days.
“Whatever,” he said. “Pull him in. Grill him. Tandoori him. Kebab him. Or do you want me to do it?”
“Okay, sir,” said red-specs, “well have a chat, sure.”
They ran through a few other details, including Slater’s children.
“We’re not sure where they are yet, but there’s two girls called Italy and Rome,” said the female detective.
“You what?” said Wilks.
“Apparently,” said the woman DI, “Miss Slater named them after her two favorite countries.”
“But Rome ain’t—” Wilks started to say before trailing off. “These scum,” he added under his breath. “Brain-dead scum. Okay.” He sighed. “We’re focusing on TIEs,” he said.
TIE—trace, interview, and eliminate. The process of identifying suspects and incidents, and making sure they were not connected to the crime.
Wilks said, “We’ve got two fucking separate crimes, five murders. Anyone find this Spencer character yet?”
“We’ve checked his mums address,” one of the detectives said, “and he’s not been there for months. Apparently crashes at an empty flat. We checked, but it’s locked. We did have someone outside his door, but they’ve gone AWOL, sir.”
“You’re fucking joking.”
The detectives said nothing.
Another officer said, “We got enough to smash Spencer’s door down?”
Wilks, without thinking, said, “I don’t think so.” He reddened, unsure why he’d said that. He cringed, thinking about this Drake characters doss-house. Gut instinct seemed to be telling Wilks to stay away. There was nothing there. Or if there were, it was not meant to be found—just yet.
Wilks snapped out of his daydream and turned on the charm. “Fucking find out where he is, you fuckers. That’s what you’re paid to do. I want him in a cell by Songs Of Praise. And what about Charlie Faultless? That shit should be in the nick by now.”
“Nothing on him yet, sir,” said red-specs. “His alibis sound.”
“Bollocks,” said Wilks.
“You want him watched, sir?” said red-specs.
Wilks thought about the phone call he’d made earlier that morning. No one picked up, but he’d left a message. And once the person he rang got his voicemail, he’d be on the blower to Wilks in a flash.
“No, he probably won’t be around for long.”
“Are we re-opening the Graveney case?” red-specs asked.
“It never closed, inspector. Okay. That’s enough. Fuck off. I’m going to have a wank.”
The detectives shuffled out, mumbling.
Wilks stood and went to the glass partition. He stared at Faith Drummond. She was on the phone, the handset buried in her blonde hair. Wilks groaned. He thought of slashing her tires and offering her a lift home, drive her down some quiet street somewhere off the Whitechapel Road.
I bet you smell nice, he thought.
She looked up and caught him staring. He didn’t budge. He smiled at her. Her eyes stayed on him for a second, then dropped away.
He chuckled. He didn’t care. Nothing fazed Don Wilks. He was the boss. He owned Faith Drummond. He owned the lot of them, detectives and uniforms.
He also owned these streets, only the residents didn’t know it yet. They would. Soon enough.
&nbs
p; He’d always been the boss. He’d always been the bastard. A bully from birth. It was the only way to be, or you’d never survive. And what better vocation for a tormentor like Wilks than the police force.
After working with his old man in a bottling factory for a couple of years, he’d joined the Met at eighteen.
Best job ever. Suited him down to the bone.
It was the hate. It was the blood. It was the hunt.
That’s what gave him hard-ons, what got him going.
His blood was up. This was a big one. Bigger than fifteen years back. Much bigger. And after this one, he’d be like a king.
Chapter 44
THE SOUND OF WAR
With the policeman still pinned to his wall, Spencer wondered how much further Jack would take things.
He’d already butchered Paul and Michael Sharpley and Lethal Ellis. He’d made Spencer murder Jay-T, nailed the copper up in the flat, and then thrown a woman off the tenth-floor balcony for a laugh.
It wasn’t going well.
Spencer looked at the filth. Jack had driven nails through the cop’s wrists. Blood ran down his arms and stained the wall. His head hung on his chest, but he wasn’t dead yet. He lifted his head now and again and groaned. Sweat seeped from his black hair, down his face. He was only a few years older than Spencer. Twenty, maybe.
Spencer opened a can of beer and took a gulp. He stared at the copper again. He thought about things and decided there wasn’t much he could do.
He turned on the TV and the games console, and the flat filled with the sound of war as he played Medal Of Honor. The gloomy flat came alive with flashing images. Spencer stared at the screen, hardly blinking. His brain filled with carnage.
Animated guns barked. Animated bombs exploded. Animated men died.
Spencer stalked the streets of Kabul, killing, killing, killing.
Time went. It could have been a minute, an hour, a year. Spencer in his bubble and the world outside moving on. But the flat had suddenly grown colder, and the drop in temperature brought Spencer back to reality.
He paused the game and turned, and Jack stood there, dark and vast in the half-light.
“Where did you go?” asked Spencer.
“He’s here, Spencer. The one who prepared the way. My willing servant.”
“I thought I was your servant.”
“You’re my dog.”
“Nice.”
“I sense the evil in his heart. It’s like a lighthouse, pulsing. He has gifts for me. He has what he took from the seers. Gifts that will set me free.”
Chapter 45
JUST LIKE RACHEL
Charlie Faultless stared up at the Jesus over Roy Hanbury’s mantelpiece and delved into what he’d found out by searching the internet.
1888, Druitt, a Jack-the-Ripper suspect, dies.
1996, four women murdered in Ripper fashion.
2011, five dead in two days, three of them mutilated the Jack way.
2011, Tash and Jasmine Hanbury dream about a lake of fire and floating on it was the Ripper suspects briefcase.
2011, the Ripper suspects briefcase is found where the four boys were killed the previous morning.
He turned away from the crucifixion and faced Roy Hanbury, Tash, and Jasmine. They’d been talking. He’d been aware of their voices, but he hadn’t really caught what they were saying. He was delving too deeply.
He said, “We have to find Spencer. He was mates with this Jay-T fella. Roy, you say he’d nicked a games console off the Sharpleys.”
“What about our dreams?” said Tash.
Faultless looked at her and then at Jasmine.
The mum looked back at him. The girl watched a DVD.
He didn’t know what to say. Dreams didn’t count to him. They weren’t concrete. He wanted to say what Tash had experienced meant nothing. But seeing the fire in her eyes, it was clear it meant something to her.
He said, “I don’t know.”
“Me and Jasmine dreamt this briefcase.”
It sat on a towel on Hanbury’s floor.
“And then,” she said, “Hallam finds it where those boys got killed. You don’t think that means something?”
Faultless said nothing.
Tash reddened. “You think what we dreamt is crap, don’t you? You think it’s just . . . just stupid.”
“Tash, I’m—”
“You think we’re mad.”
“No, I don’t, I—”
“What are you saying?”
She was fiery. Just like Rachel, he thought, not for the first time.
He remembered something. Rachel and him in a dodgy pub down in Stepney. Late in the evening, last orders called. The clientele drifting away.
Faultless, eighteen and a distress beacon for trouble, determined to finish the dregs in his pint.
Rachel saying, “Let’s go.”
Faultless saying, “I’ve got booze left.”
A voice behind him saying, “Listen to your mummy, son.”
Faultless turning.
Seven hard-cases—scars, tattoos, noses out of joint, number-one scalps, teeth missing, and muscles ballooned on steroids.
Faultless picking up his pint.
Faultless drinking it dry.
Faultless smashing the glass on the bar.
Faultless wielding it, a jagged weapon.
Face twisted, saying, “Come on, then . . . all of you . . . all of you . . . you cunts . . . ”
The hard-cases cracking knuckles and flexing muscles, moving in on him.
Rachel blocking their way, saying, “You come on then, but first one to take a step loses his eyes.” She clawed her hands, showing her long, red fingernails. “And I don’t give a shit what the rest of you do. But who’s first? Who’s going to need a guide dog?”
For ten seconds, a stand-off.
Then a hard-case laughs and says, “Lucky she’s here to look after you, son; we would’ve cut your balls off. Now kindly fuck off back to Barrowmore, Faultless.”
The men had known him. He was Hanbury’s acolyte. He was Hanbury’s pit-bull pup. And they were going to neuter him before he got too dangerous.
Just like Rachel, he thought again, looking at Tash.
She said, “I dreamt this, Charlie. Jasmine dreamt it.” She looked scared, this knowledge terrifying her. “It’s real. Just because it’s beyond your understanding doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Dad, tell him.”
Hanbury was feeding dead mice to his snake.
Tash said, “Dad . . . ”
Hanbury turned. He had worry-lines all over his face.
“Don’t worry about it, darlin’,” he told his daughter.
“Don’t ‘darlin’’’ me, Dad.”
She looked at her father and her eyes narrowed. “You know something.”
“Tash, I’m telling you—”
“Dad, you know something. Something about our dreams.”
Now Jasmine was looking up from her movie.
Faultless caught her eye.
The girl said, “I’m scared, Grandad.”
Hanbury went to her and hugged her, Jasmine tiny in his huge embrace. “Don’t you fret, little angel, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She wriggled out of his grasp. “I’m scared of my dreams.”
“It’s just a dream,” said Faultless.
Tash said, “Not to Jasmine, not to me.”
Faultless said, “There’s a lot of tension around the place, and that can contribute to—”
“Tash is right,” said Hanbury.
Faultless gawped. Hanbury starting to believe crazy things was the last thing he needed.
He tried to think of a rational explanation. Coincidence was the only one he could come up with, but he’d offered that before.
“Dad,” said Tash, desperation in her voice. “Dad, tell me what’s going on.”
Hanbury sighed. “You’ve got to go see old Bet, Tash. You’ve got to talk to her. Or try to. She’s the one who knows. Shell know about all this . . . this dream stuff.”
“I don’t want to go see that old cow,” said Jasmine. “Last time I went, she spat at me.”
Chapter 46
A GIFT IN THE GUTTER
WHITECHAPEL—1945
“You got to tell her when she gets to an age, love,” said Mother.
“Christ, Mum, don’t go on about it,” said Bet.
She took another drag and blew out the smoke in a cloud that hid her mother for a moment.
Wish I could make you disappear in a puff of smoke, she thought.
“Don’t blaspheme, Bet,” said Mother.
Jesus, thought Bet.
Mother had been here all week, berating her.
There was always something.
You ain’t doing the potatoes right, Bet.
You ain’t cleaning the dishes right.
You ain’t changing the kid’s nappy properly.
Now she sat in the armchair and stared at Bet with those blue eyes that seemed to drill straight into your soul.
Get out of my life, Bet thought. Leave me alone.
Bet was twenty. The youngest daughter and fifth child of seven. Born when her mother was thirty-three.
She looked at her daughter. She was eighteen months old. She cried in her crib. Bet felt cold towards the child. But maybe that’s because she felt cold towards the kid’s father.
Everybody said Derek Cooper was bad news. The police kept arresting him. They beat him up sometimes and threatened to jail him.
But Derek hadn’t done anything. Or at least he hadn’t been caught.
“Did he give you that?” asked Mother now and reached out to touch Bet’s black eye.
She slapped her mum’s hand away. “I fell. Tripped over the kid.”
“Child’s got a name, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You should use it, or she won’t know it.” Her mother leaned in. “And then she won’t know where she’s from.”
