Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘Switch it off, Flint, it’s doing my head in,’ he called back as he stepped closer to the canvas. Once again, I did what I was told. It had been doing my head in too. Soft footsteps on the tiles told me Anderson had moved closer.

‘Hold on, Boss,’ he said, before jumping down beside Joesbury. I stepped closer to the edge. Both men kept their torches on the anonymous shape in front of them. Neither seemed able to go any closer.

‘For God’s sake, she could still be alive,’ I said, jumping down to join them and striding towards the canvas. Joesbury’s hand shot up and caught me square in the chest. I stopped moving as he bent down, took hold of two corners of the canvas and pulled it back.

A moan escaped Anderson a second before we realized what we were looking at. The human form before us lay on its back, its sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. Its left arm lay across its chest and both legs had been drawn up and splayed apart. Fair hair spread out around its head. A human form, but not human.

It was an old-fashioned rescue-training dummy, the sort I’d used myself when I’d trained for my life-saving award years ago. The fair hair was a cheap wig. Other people coming across this might have laughed, if only to release tension. We didn’t. We all knew enough about Ripper case lore by this stage to know that the dummy had been left in the exact position Annie Chapman’s body had been found in. Emma Boston’s mobile phone lay by the mannequin’s feet, just as Chapman’s personal effects had been left by the original Ripper. Above the dummy’s right shoulder was a clear plastic bag. Joesbury was staring at the bag. I don’t think he was even blinking. I glanced towards Anderson. Same. Then Joesbury cleared his throat.

‘OK, Flint, you’re our expert on all things Ripper-related,’ he said. ‘Our man took trophies, didn’t he? Body parts cut out of his victims that he sent to the police to taunt them?’

It was hardly the time to get into the various theories about what had happened to the Ripper victims’ entrails, so I just nodded as Joesbury took a step closer to the plastic bag. He shone his torch and then crouched down to get a better look.

‘Weren’t you telling me one of the victims was missing her kidneys?’ he said.

‘That isn’t a kidney,’ said Anderson, who’d also stepped closer. ‘Kidneys aren’t that shape.’

In the bag was a piece of muscular tissue, roughly triangular, about eight centimetres long and around five centimetres at its widest point. It was surrounded by traces of clotted blood. I didn’t need to get any closer to know what it was.

‘Annie Chapman still had both kidneys,’ I said. ‘She was missing her uterus.’

30

HALF AN HOUR LATER, TULLOCH PULLED UP OUTSIDE THE row of run-down terraced houses in Shepherd’s Bush where Emma lived. Other than a terse ‘What part of “Stay in the car” was difficult to understand, Flint?’ she’d barely said a word to me since she’d arrived at the pool. It was pretty clear I was with her now so she could keep an eye on me, not because of anything useful I might have to contribute.

The flickering blue lights of two patrol cars had been waiting for us, their occupants watching the front and rear of the house until we could get here. As the car engine died, I saw Joesbury making his way towards us from where he’d parked down the street. Tulloch turned to me and opened her mouth.

‘I had a text message saying “Help me” and I heard screams,’ I said. ‘What would you have done?’

‘I’d have done what I was bloody well told,’ she replied, her eyes darting from me to Joesbury.

Well, I could hardly call a DI a liar to her face. ‘We’re the police,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to help people.’

Tulloch’s eyes narrowed. She reached for the door handle. ‘Do I need to say the words?’ she asked me.

‘Consider me glued to the seat.’

As she got out of the car and went to join Joesbury, I pressed the button that would open the passenger window. She hadn’t said I couldn’t listen. She and Joesbury walked up the short path to the door.

In the tiny front garden dustbins overflowed with rubbish. An animal, probably a fox, had broken into one of the bin liners. The whole area stank of rotting food.

Joesbury banged hard on the door, making it shake in its frame. Then he bent down and pushed open the letterbox.

‘Police!’ he called. ‘Open this door.’

Joesbury banged again, then stepped back and looked up at the house. ‘Don’t have a good feeling about that,’ he said, indicating the camera he’d arranged to be positioned above Emma’s front door. Sometime since it had been installed, someone had hurled a brick at it.

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Tulloch as we heard noises inside the house, the rustle of paper, a clanging and a soft cursing sound. Then the door opened inwards. Tulloch stepped forward and held up her warrant card as a thin, unhealthy-looking boy of about twenty stuttered that he didn’t know where Emma Boston was, he had nothing to do with Emma Boston, his own flat was below hers, he hadn’t been in earlier that day when it had happened and it had all been some serious shit, man.

‘Shut up and step aside,’ said Tulloch. ‘Mark, see he doesn’t go anywhere.’

After a brief argument with Joesbury about who was going to go in first, Tulloch led the way along the corridor and up the stairs. The boy followed, then Joesbury, then one of the uniformed constables. The other stayed at the front door.

We waited. I saw a light go on in a first-floor window. The uniformed constable had a short conversation with someone on his radio. I was itching to get out of the car. Knew Tulloch would tear me apart if I did.

Emma Boston had been obnoxious and opinionated and in a position to make life pretty uncomfortable for me. But I’d actually quite liked her. I really didn’t want to think about what Tulloch and Joesbury might have found in the room upstairs.

Noises on the stairs. I saw Joesbury’s jeans-clad legs, then both he and Tulloch came into view. In the dim hall lights I scanned both faces. They looked tense, puzzled, not shocked.

‘Is she there?’ I asked, realizing I’d got out of the car.

‘Place has been broken into,’ said Joesbury. ‘Trashed about a bit. No sign of Emma.’

‘About ten o’clock this morning, according to her downstairs neighbour,’ said Tulloch. ‘He heard crashing about but didn’t bother investigating. He didn’t see anything. Says he didn’t hear anyone calling for help either.’

‘She doesn’t live alone,’ I said. ‘Any sign of her boyfriend?’

Tulloch shook her head, just as the uniformed officer who’d accompanied them inside appeared, with one hand on the boy’s shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement and turned.

‘Oh thank God,’ I said, stepping forward.

Not three metres away, in the light of a streetlamp, stood Emma Boston, her burned scar livid against her pale face, looking pissed off but very much alive.

31

‘YOU’VE HAD HOW MANY TEXT MESSAGES FROM EMMA Boston today?’ Tulloch asked me.

‘Six,’ I repeated. ‘The first late this morning and then at two-hourly intervals. With a break for lunch.’

Emma, in another interview room at the station, had already confirmed that her flat had been broken into early that day and her phone taken. The text messages I’d been getting all day could not have been from her and, so far, I was managing not to think about the full implications of that.

Emma had also identified the sunglasses and the shoe I’d found at Forest Hill as hers. When asked why she hadn’t reported the break-in she’d given us a withering look. Clearly yet another Londoner who didn’t have much confidence in the Met’s ability to investigate burglaries.