Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘Not the testicles to the pigeons again,’ he said, as his face relaxed and those great teeth appeared. ‘That one’s getting tired.’

‘I will wear them as earrings,’ I said. ‘And when they start to rot, I will skewer them, alternating with your eyeballs, and give them to Kristos to serve as shish kebabs.’

Joesbury was actually smiling at me. There was a tiny fleck of ketchup just above the left side of his mouth and I had an almost irresistible urge to reach out …

‘Wow, she’s nastier than you,’ he said, turning his grin to Tulloch. She smiled back, reached up her left ring finger to wipe away the ketchup.

‘I really need to get home,’ I said, before realizing I had no way of getting there. ‘If that’s OK, Boss?’

‘We should all go,’ she said, before turning back to Joesbury. ‘By a plan, you mean …?’

‘We should get her to a safe house,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow if we can. I’ll sit outside her flat tonight.’

‘No,’ said Tulloch, her eyes flitting between the two of us. ‘You need some sleep. I’ll get uniform to do it. We can move her tomorrow.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

Three pairs of eyes looked at me.

‘We’ve got twenty days,’ I said. ‘That’s not a lot of time to waste.’ Silence.

‘If he’s a traditionalist, he’ll kill twice next time,’ I went on. ‘Thirtieth of September.’

‘He’s not a traditionalist,’ said Joesbury. ‘We’ve just established that. He’s a pick-and-mixer.’

‘I’ll bet he finds it hard to resist the double event,’ I said.

Tulloch was looking at Joesbury, who was still looking at me. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes,’ I said. ‘Butchered within an hour of each other.’

He was shaking his head. ‘Not gonna happen, Flint.’

‘You were happy enough to dangle me in the snake pit earlier,’ I pointed out.

‘Completely different,’ he said. ‘It was a containable situation. We can’t keep you safe twenty-four hours a day.’

‘If I stay at home, he’ll make contact,’ I said. ‘You had CCTV cameras put in the garden, didn’t you? And over the front door.’

He dropped his eyes to the tabletop.

‘They’re linked to the station,’ I went on. ‘And there’s a panic button by my bed?’

‘Lacey,’ began Tulloch, ‘it’s not—’

‘There are intruder alarms across every door and window?’ I ignored Tulloch. I was talking only to Joesbury, as though he was in charge now. He was looking at me again but his eyes weren’t smiling any more. ‘He can’t get me inside,’ I said. ‘But he might try and get into the garden or put something through the front door. He might call me. He might try and contact me when I’m out and about. I’ll spend a lot of time out of the station for the next few days. I’ll go out on the streets again.’

Silence around the table. Over at the counter, Kristos had gone very still. He was listening too.

‘We have twenty days,’ I said. ‘If we haven’t got him by the thirtieth I’ll go to a safe house.’

Still no response, but I knew they were going to agree. If we hadn’t got him by the thirtieth, two more women were going to die. Tulloch dropped her head into her hands and Stenning’s hand settled on my right shoulder. Joesbury was still glaring at me, but he wasn’t arguing any more.

It was official. I was Ripper-bait.

40

I WAS WOKEN BY A SHRILL NOISE TOO CLOSE TO MY HEAD. I groped around and found my new phone.

‘Morning, gorgeous.’

‘What?’ I managed. ‘Who?’

‘It’s me – Pete. Expecting someone else?’

‘Whadayawant?’

‘Got something that’ll make your day.’

‘Go on.’

‘Semen.’

I struggled to sit up. ‘Stenning, don’t think I’m not flattered, but—’

‘Not mine, you dozy mare. On the corpse.’

Wide awake now. ‘Come again.’

‘Apt choice of words, Flint. DI Tulloch’s just got back from the post-mortem. The pathologist found semen on the corpse.’

I needed a second to take that in. It hadn’t been enough then, to slice her open … ‘He raped her?’

I heard Stenning take a breath. ‘Yeah, pretty heavy,’ he said. ‘But great for us. We—’

‘Hang on, they’ve already had the post-mortem?’ What the hell time was it?

‘First thing this morning. Another musical one, apparently. Tulloch and Anderson went. They’ve just filled us in.’

I leaned across until I could see my alarm clock. Nearly half past ten.

‘Tulloch said we weren’t to wake you up,’ said Stenning. ‘But I thought you’d want to hear the good news. We’ll get him, Flint. We’ve got a name and DNA. He’s going down. Oh, and the papers have cottoned on to the Victorian connection. Your friend Emma Boston, of all people, worked it out.’

I was out of bed, wondering what I had to wear that was clean.

‘Now get your ass in here. The boss wants you bringing us up to speed on the double event. Just in case.’

41

23 December, eleven years earlier

T HE DOCTOR IS SURROUNDED BY PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN . On her desk, on the shelves behind her, even on the window ledge. Some of them, the doctor’s own children, the girl assumes, were taken decades ago – she can tell by the clothes worn and the graininess of the print. Others, more recent, must be grandchildren .

It’s disgustingly tactless, the girl thinks, this excessive display of the doctor’s own fertility, given that she’s just told Cathy she will never be able to carry and bear a child .

‘ The infection attacked the lining of your uterus,’ the doctor is explaining. ‘If we’d caught it earlier, we might have got it under control. As it is, even without the damage to the fallopian tubes and the ovaries, I’m afraid the uterus simply won’t be capable of sustaining a full-term pregnancy. I’m sorry .’

She isn’t sorry, the girl holding Cathy’s hand can tell. She’s saying all the right things, the words that are expected of her, but her eyes are too steady, her stare too intense. At best, she doesn’t care one way or the other. At worst, because she’s mean and she takes pleasure in other people’s misery, she’s secretly rather gratified this has happened to them .

‘ I can’t have children,’ says Cathy, for the third time. ‘I’ll never be a mother .’

Cathy, who has been a mother since she was three years old, caring for her dolls as if they were alive, cannot take in the news that she, of all females, won’t make the natural progression from looking after dolls to loving real live babies .

‘ Well, you know, my dear,’ says the doctor, ‘there are more ways than one to be a mother .’

‘ What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ says the girl .

The doctor narrows her eyes and pulls back her shoulders. ‘There’s no call for language of that description, young lady,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I’d better speak to your sister alone .’

The girl stands up. ‘Is there anything else you need to ask, Cathy?’ she says .

Cathy’s eyes seem to have lost the ability to focus. She shakes her head and her sister takes her arm and pulls her gently to her feet. They move away from the chairs, towards the door. Then the girl stops, turns and steps back to the desk .

‘ Put that down,’ says the doctor. ‘Put that down now, or I’ll call Security .’

‘There is no Security in this building, you old fool,’ says the girl, as she walks over to the open window. In her right hand, she has a gold-framed photograph of the much younger doctor holding a toddler in her arms. The girl reaches the window, glances out and drops the picture. She hears the clang it makes on the roof of a red car as she steers Cathy out of the room .