The Case of Ripper 37
Chapter One
A light rain drizzles over Bishops Park. It's a little before ten o'clock in the evening on a Thursday night. It's quiet. It's always quiet here. Everyone keeps to themselves, and rarely venture out of their well-maintained homes. Nothing ever happens.
So, it is particularly disturbing to see one of the doors standing open, light pouring out over the steps. There is also the screaming; distant at first, weak, but growing, building, filling the street. Shadows blot out the light from the door as the figure of a heavy set woman stumbles through it, pulling away the tape that had previously bound her wrists. Her voice is raspy, but still she screams.
Deborah Eagan, her face spattered with blood, trips on the last step and falls to her knees. She remains there, then screams to the heavens, a long, tortured wail.
Sitting in traffic not far from Bishops Park, Detective Sergeant Jane Watson stirs another container of cream into her take-away coffee. She scowls a bit at the colour; still doesn't look quite right, but in this light, who can tell? As traffic begins to lurch slowly forward she curses under her breath and struggles to replace the plastic top before the coffee spills.
The flashing lights from emergency vehicles bathe the distant row of houses in blue, and confirm that she is nearly there. She stops short behind a small crowd who have gathered beneath their black umbrellas, along the line of crime scene tape, craning their necks to get a better look.
Watson reaches up to release her hair from the makeshift bun that holds it in place. It falls in thick locks to her shoulders, hiding the small tattoo on the back of her neck that reads "CUI BONO" in plain, block, Latin letters. "Cui bono," the immortal words of Lucius Cassius Longinus, "Who benefits?" This was her mantra. It was the first question she asked in an investigation, and invariably, when she found the answer, she found her suspect.
She was already dialing her mobile as she stepped from the car. Her Louboutin boots scraped against the pavement as she stood. Watson stood tall in the boots, nearly five foot ten. She was classically beautiful; a continental, high cheek bones and dark eyes. She flipped up the collar on her coat against the rain, and spoke irritably into her mobile. She almost always spoke irritably.
"Alright, Andy. Is he there?" Her accent was a heavy, course, East End cockney. She reveled in it. It was a kind of tool for her. Intellectuals underestimated her because of it, and it reminded everyone else that she was one of them. "Of course. I'm here now. I'm just -" she cut herself off just before ducking under the police tape, wincing in aggravation. "Bollocks!"
Spinning on her heels she stalked back to her car, muttering to herself. She opened the door and leaned inside. A moment later she emerged, take-away coffee in hand. She kicked the door shut again, and with some difficulty slipped her keys into the coat pocket, juggling the mobile and her coffee.
Moving quickly, she pushed through the crowd and under the police tape, nodding to some of the uniformed officers. They nodded respectfully, careful not to linger too long in their gaze. Watson was nice to look at, but every single officer in London was scared to death of her. She took in the scene. An ambulance was parked just outside the still open front door. In back, a paramedic tended to Deborah Eagan. Watson noticed that there were still traces of blood smeared just below the woman's hair line on her forehead, but she wasn't cut. Must be the husband's, she noted.
"It's you left arm? Miss, is it your left arm or your right?" The paramedic was asking.
Watson returns her attention to her mobile. Someone is asking a question. "The paramedic, yeah. I'm just at the front step now." She pauses at the door, her eyes fixed on the rain soaked doormat. "There's an envelope sitting on the mat," she listens, "it's big, yeah." As she listens again, she tilts her head to the side to examine the envelope. "No," she answers, "it's been here a while by the look of it. It's wet from the rain."
She steps forward and crouches down next to the envelope. Uniformed officers and SOCOs step around her as they come in and out. "It's hard to tell," she says, "taxes, maybe?"
The envelope is facing down. She's going to have to get a look underneath to know what it is for sure. She tries to reach into her coat pocket to remove a pen to lift the envelope without touching it. With her coffee in one hand and her mobile in the other, this is difficult. She presses the mobile against her ear with her shoulder and shifts her balance slightly as she moves the coffee from one hand to the other. She takes a long deep breath, biting her lower lip. Watson has an obsessive compulsive streak that makes situations like this nearly unbearable. She hasn't enough hands to hold everything, but her mind won't allow her to put anything down.
Finally, she manages to lift the edge of the envelope. "Taxes - yeah."
From inside the house, a lumbering, disheveled figure of a man is quietly giving orders to the uniformed officers around him. He notices Watson perched on the edge of the steps and comes forward.
"Doctor Watson," he said.
Hugh Worsford was at one time Watson's partner, her first partner, and to his knowledge, the only partner she'd ever had who didn't request a transfer. He was one of the only people in the world that actually knew Jane Watson. He knew, for instance, that two years earlier, she'd completed her disortation at King's College and received her PhD. She swore him to secrecy about it, believing that it would be a hindrance if people knew. He agreed, but still called her "Doctor Watson" just to get under her skin.
She knew he was there, and knew what he'd say. He always said it. She didn't look up from the envelope when she heard him. Instead, she raised her free hand toward him methodically, two fingers up - screw you. Worsford chuckled quietly.
"Still on your own, I see. Odd, that."
Watson stood, glancing out over the scene. It was true. She'd been without an official partner for months, and she was just fine with that. "Where's your boy?"
Worsford, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, nods up the street. "Doing a quick once-round." He sighs as he watches the paramedic with Mrs. Eagan. "Thanks for coming by."
"Yeah, alright." Watson is still thinking about the envelope. "Oi, was this -"
"There when we arrived, yes."
"Yes," she said into her mobile. Then she looked at Worsford, "forced entry?"
He shakes his head. "Looks like robbery, though. Bedroom's been tossed."
She nods. "They came through here?"
"We're thinking round back, through the kitchen – muddy footprints from the garden. Come on."
Worsford turns and steps back inside. Watson lingers for a few seconds listening to something on her mobile, nodding. Then she too enters the house.
In the living room, the body of a middle-aged man, Peter Eagan, lies bound and bloodied on the white carpet, but Watson ignores the body for the moment. She is taking in the rest of the room, every detail.
Worsford stands near the body. "Wife says they were watching telly when two men came in from the kitchen. Through there," he gestures toward the door that presumably leads to the kitchen. "She screams, he jumps up. But then, apparently, he was set upon by a third man who came through that door."
Watson looks at the door that leads out toward the entry hall. "Did you get that?" she asks into the mobile.
In a dimly lit room, a handsome, nineteen-year-old, black man with the unfortunate name of "Sherlock Holmes" holds a telephone receiver to his ear. His eyes are closed. He is concentrating deeply.
"Describe the room to me," he says. His voice is controlled, the pronunciation impeccable, the polar opposite of Watson's crass cockney.
"A bit posh. You'd like it, I think. Your style."
As Watson begins to describe the room, she speaks quickly, without emotion, as though reading a grocery list. "Crown moulding, radiator under the window, potted plant next to the fire place, parquet floor, dark stain, white carpet under a glass table, glass is broken, small picture frame on the window sill," she squints to get a better view. "Looks like the victim and his two daughters."
The man in the picture has grey hair, but the man lying on the floor does not. Watson looks at the body, then back to the picture.
"Grey hair in the photo, black here. I suppose he colours it now," she says flatly. "Two more pictures on either side of the telly over the fire. Architectural renderings." She pauses to listen to Holme's questions, then looks at the bloody footprints that cover the floor.
"Looks like three distinct patterns. Carpet's stained, spatter and gravitational drops, walls as well. Clearly blunt force trauma."
As Holmes listens, his eyes remain closed.
"Victim is in his mid-fifties. He's lying face down. His hands are taped behind his back."
Holme's eyelids begin to flutter, then open.
He is no longer in the dimly lit room. He no longer holds a telephone to his ear. He is standing in the middle of a living room that he has created in his mind from Watson's description. The room is incomplete, having only the items that she has already mentioned. In this room, he wears an elegant, grey flannel suit, and he stands motionless, his bare feet on the thick, white carpet.
Watson is still speaking, and as she does, more items appear in the room, a sofa, end tables, the blood pattern on the floor changes, then changes again. Holmes absorbs it all, but something is wrong. His brow furrows. Something is missing. His eyes dart round the room.
He cuts her off in mid-sentence, "There should be a purse."
Watson quickly scans the room. Her eyes settle on a purse sitting on the floor beside the sofa. "Got it. What am I looking for?"
"Mobile."
While Watson rifles through Deborah Eagan's purse, Holmes rushes into the entry hall. This room was never described in detail to him so, in his mind's eye, it remains unfinished, shrouded in a fog. He is looking out through the front door at the envelope, lying on the mat in the rain. He kneels down and picks it up. In his bare feet he feels the water from the mat squish between his toes, sees the rain drops gather on his skin.
He hears Watson's voice as if in a dream.
"Now what?"
"Call history." He turns the envelope over in his hand, and then looks at the locks on the door. He looks out into the street. The only thing visible in the mist is the ambulance. He sees Deborah Eagan sitting pitifully, the paramedic tending to her. Holmes smiles, "The wife has her own accounting firm, yes?"
Watson turns to Worsford. "The wife, what she do?"
"Accountant, why?"
Watson turns back to the mobile, "Yep."
Sherlock lays the envelope down. "We're almost done here. Find the husband's credit card statements."
"Do they have an office in the house?" she asks Worsford.
He nods, hands still tucked into his coat pockets. "Upstairs."
He heads out of the living room and into the entry hall, careful to avoid disturbing any of the evidence in the room. Watson follows him out and up the stairs, nodding and mumbling quietly into her mobile. She is struggling not to drop her coffee as she holds her mobile to her ear with her shoulder and thumbs through the call log on Mrs. Eagan's. Worsford sees her plight, but knows better than to offer any help.
"Hugh," she asks, "Has the wife made any calls to the police in the past month or so? Break-ins? Stalker? Anything like that?"
Worsford stops and turns. "Twice, actually. Attempted break-ins. No leads."
"Yeah," she tells Holmes. "Hold on, what?," she asks. Then she scrolls through the mobile again. "A few times, yeah. Hold on. Four. No, five calls."
Worsford is in a bedroom that serves as an office. He is looking at the desk and waiting for Watson to enter. She steps through and nods toward the desk. Worsford makes his way around it and sits in the chair.
"Credit card receipts," she says without looking up from the wife's mobile.
Worsford begins searching through the desk drawers. In a moment he pulls out a manila file folder. "American Express?"
"American Express?" Watson asks Holmes.
Then she looks back to Worsford, "merchandise, jewelry, lingerie."
Worsford scans the printed statements then smiles to himself. How does he do it? "I've got Garrard Jewelers, La Perla, La Perla, Tiffany, La Perla, Tiffany, Tiffany…"
Watson seems momentarily interested, maybe even impressed. "La Perla, really? Not what I'd have guessed."
"So, you think he's got a bit of something on the side?"
Watson scoffs, "Well, yeah." She holds up a finger to Worsford while she listens to Holmes as he explain exactly what has happened tonight. She nods, and then nods again.
"Uh-huh," she says, listening. "Right… Right, cheers."
She makes a feeble attempt to end the call with her hands full, but finally gives up, letting the mobile turn itself off. She sits down heavily in the small chair opposite Worsford.
"Well?" he asks, waiting for the magic.
"The victim was having an affair, obvious, that." She holds up the wife's mobile. "Planning to divorce. The wife made several calls over the last fortnight to Joseph Visconti & Co. Solicitors. Divorce and Family Law."
Worsford nods slowly, knowing there will be more.
Watson hands Worsford the mobile. "Your killer's this bloke: Mike Field. Well, him and two of his mates. Probably a client and most likely has a record. Send someone round to collect him." She finally brings the coffee up to her lips to take a sip, but then remembers one more thing, "Oh, also, the wife planned the murder."
Worsford stares at her in disbelief, "What? You're serious?"
"It's all there," she says, pointing to the mobile. "Five calls back and forth earlier today. And those break-ins she phoned about never happened. Just background story for tonight."
Worsford is desperately trying to catch up, yet all he can manage to say is, "but,"
She slumps in the chair and sighs heavily, "The envelope outside the door was a message for Mike Field. She put it on the mat while the mat was wet, probably while it was raining. You knew that was dodgy, from the start, right? I mean, who does that? Tax records on the step? In the rain? No. The envelope was a signal, 'All clear.' She left the doors open, front and back, no alarm. She's faking her injuries. Check with the paramedics outside. Ask them specifically why she can't remember which arm is hurt - left or right? Arrest her, Hugh, and collect Field. You're done here."
They sit in silence for a moment, the lights from the emergency vehicles outside pulsing through the window next to them. Watson, for the first time, takes a sip of her coffee. It's gone cold, and her face twists in disgust. She doesn't want it, but she won't leave it at a crime scene. Her face cannot hide her aggravation as she looks around the room.
"Right, Hugh, I'm off," she says, suddenly feeling tired. She stands and turns to leave.
"You know none of this is admissible, right?" Worsford asks, looking at the credit card statements and mobile phone.
"It don't have to be. You don't need it. Put it all back. Just tell the wife that Field gave her up, or tell Field that she identified him. They'll roll."
Worsford is leaning heavily with his elbows on the desk, rubbing his eyes. By the time he looks up, Watson is already in the hall. "Oi, go home and get some sleep, Doc. You look like hell."
The last he sees of Jane Watson before she disappears down the hall is another two-finger salute.
Inside a run-down, vacant house in Walthamstow, only the faintest streaks of light find their way through the grimy windows. A silhouette of a man is writing something on the wall, smearing it with his fingers. Once finished he steps back and examines his work. Satisfied, he turns and leaves the room, stepping over something as he does.
On the floor beneath him lies the body of a young woman.
To be continued…