Hands of the Ripper (17 page)

‘You’ve made me angry, you know,’ announced Jimmy Barrowman as Probert stepped inside the room. ‘And that is never a good idea.’

Probert’s first instinct was to run but Luke Barrowman was just inside the door and grabbed the peer’s wrist before he could move, yanking him into the room.

‘Now look!’ Probert managed, trying to regain his composure. ‘I won’t stand for this!’

‘Then sit down,’ suggested Jimmy as his brother kicked Probert hard in the thigh.

As he fell down on the ever-present plastic sheeting he consoled himself with the fact that at least Thana wasn’t here. Hopefully, the Barrowman brothers would be happy to exercise their anger on him alone. The fact of the matter was that it had been all his idea.

But when he noticed the small shape in the corner, he realised his mistake. Thana was here after all.

‘You see,’ said Jimmy as his brother went to fetch the bound and gagged woman, ‘we only ask our clients to obey one rule. That seems eminently reasonable to me.’

Probert gasped with relief when he realised Thana was still alive. She had been lying so still he had feared the worst.

Luke carried her over to the winch and pulley in the middle of the room. Probert had frequently hung from its glistening chain, whipped and spun by his enthusiastic mistress.

‘I mean,’ Jimmy continued, ‘if you can’t manage to
obey
one rule what sort of person are you? It’s not fucking difficult, is it?’

‘Look,’ said Probert, watching as Luke tightened Thana in place, hanging upside down, her eyes wide with fright, begging him to stop whatever it was that was about to happen. ‘This is all my fault. Let the girl go; she was only doing what she was told.’

‘But she wasn’t,’ said Jimmy, ‘because I told her the same rule as you and she got greedy and decided it didn’t apply.’

‘Please,’ said Probert, ‘I’m a very important man, you know that, I can make it worth your while, both of you. Let’s just stop this before things go too far.’

‘You are an important man,’ agreed Jimmy, ‘most of my clients are. Which is why I have to tailor the punishment accordingly.’

Luke dragged a small chair up to Probert, picked him up and sat him on it. He then proceeded to attach his ankles and wrists to it using strong plastic ties.

‘Don’t,’ Probert struggled but Luke punched him in the stomach and knocked the fight right out of him.

‘I can’t do what I want to you,’ continued Jimmy, ‘there would be too many questions. So I have to take out my anger somewhere else.’ He walked over to Thana who was swinging violently now, fighting to free herself from the harness, ‘And I am very, very angry.’

Probert had never endured the like of it. And of course, his suffering was nothing compared to hers, he only had to watch as every inch of his mistress was worked over. The brothers were not aggressive in their attentions.
Every
moment of pain inflicted was done with deliberate care. They circled her wriggling body with their tools like artists, moving in and daubing a stroke before stepping back to admire their art.

‘You think he’s learned his lesson yet?’ Jimmy asked her, lighting a cigarette. She was in no fit state to answer. Jimmy smoked for a moment, taking his well-earned break. The smell of the tobacco mixed with the slaughterhouse bouquet of blood and loose bowels.

‘See how she looks at you?’ Jimmy asked after a couple of minutes. He held her head so that Probert could see her eyes. Never had he seen anyone convey so much. He could see fear, anger, disappointment and, worst of all, hope. ‘She’s wishing she never set eyes on you, mate,’ said Jimmy in the sort of convivial tone reserved for two blokes discussing sport in a bar. His mood had improved considerably over the last half an hour; say what you like about the Barrowman boys, they certainly enjoyed their work. ‘Let’s make you the last thing she ever does see, shall we?’

And, with the tip of his cigarette, he did just that, laughing while Probert and his lover screamed.

They called it quits after that, taking a few photographs – for posterity or simply the intimidation of others, Probert neither knew nor cared. Then both he and Thana were dumped in the back of the large SUV Jimmy and Luke Barrowman favoured. With Thana pinning him down, Probert felt his lover’s final breath, wet and rattling, kiss him on the forehead. Five minutes later the SUV stopped, Luke opened the boot, lifted her
out
and walked off. After a couple of minutes, there was a soft splash. Luke returned, closed the boot and they drove Probert home.

‘Do call us again, Lord Probert,’ said Jimmy, ‘should you ever have an itch you fancy scratching. Next time, though, play by the rules or I’ll forget my sense of national pride and it’ll be you we dump in a river on the way home.’ He gave a mocking bow. ‘Ta ta, milord,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘kiss the wife goodnight for me.’

They drove off laughing, leaving Probert sat on the kerb outside his apartment. He could see the lights burning in the penthouse and wondered how he would ever face Kathleen tonight. She’d want to know what had happened to him for sure, and she wouldn’t be satisfied with a casual answer; it would be the full cross-examination. He just didn’t know if he had it in him. At that moment he was very close – certainly as close as someone so inherently self-obsessed could be – to suicide. It seemed to him a very real and potentially relaxing solution to the night’s events. To simply walk out into the traffic or jump off a bridge. The simple pleasure of being ‘no more’ seemed the very best he could hope for. Then his guardian angel stepped in.

‘I say,’ said a voice. Move along, we don’t like your sort loitering around here.’

Probert looked up to see a purple-faced, chubby young man in a rugby shirt and sports jacket looking down on him as if he were something that had fallen out of the rear of a neighbourhood dog. Perhaps the attitude was unsurprising given what he looked like, but if there
was
one thing guaranteed to restore Probert’s fighting spirit it was his inherent snobbery.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked, getting to his feet. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘My local
Big Issue
seller by the looks of you,’ said the plummy young thing, offering the sort of scoffing snort he had always favoured when dealing with undergraduates during his Oxford days. ‘Now piss off before I call the police on you.’

As things worked out, the young man would call the police – and Probert would find himself under the considerable scrutiny of the tabloid press, not for the first time in his life – but it wasn’t for loitering on pavements. It was for sticking the young man’s head through the passenger side-window of a conveniently located BMW. He would claim in court that the young man had attacked him first, something his not inconsiderable influence managed to make stick legally, if not necessarily in the court of public opinion.

Probert arrived at the recent crime scene to find Aida Golding sat in the back of a police car while a handful of other officers worked their laborious way through collecting the names and addresses of all those in attendance. She waved him over and opened the door to let him in.

‘Don’t tell me they’ve bloody arrested you,’ he said.

‘Of course not,’ she replied, ‘I just couldn’t bear sitting around with that lot. She pointed at the crowd of audience members that were milling around inside the hall. ‘I wanted some privacy.’

He looked over towards the doors, noting with disgust where the position of Alasdair’s body had been marked up prior to his being zipped up into a body bag and removed. In the light that spilled from the hall he could clearly see the dark shadow of a bloodstain that seeped across the tarmac.

‘Dear God,’ he whispered.

Golding lit a cigarette and for a moment he was reminded of Jimmy Barrowman.

‘You’re probably not allowed to smoke in here,’ he said.

‘Like that’s the worst of my problems. Have you called your lawyer?’

‘Yes, though he says – quite rightly – that you’ve nothing to worry about. You’ve got the best alibi in the world, you were being watched by a hundred-odd people while the murder was being committed. What can they possibly accuse you of?’

‘I’m not worried about that,’ she snapped. ‘Of course I didn’t kill Alasdair, why would I? I loved him.’

That surprised Probert who, like most people, had assumed their relationship to be of an altogether different nature. He was quick to recover. ‘Well, what’s the problem then?’

‘Aside from my reputation?’

‘This lot will forgive you anything, you know that. It’ll take more than a few morbid press reports to keep them away.’

‘You’re probably right. But my main worry is far more pressing. First Goss and now Alasdair …’

‘Goss was a suicide, surely.’

‘Don’t be stupid, you still think that after tonight? I’m telling you, someone’s out to get me and I think I know who.’

‘Who?’

‘Let me tell you about Anna …’

Eleven

Picking Scabs

AFTER THE NERVES
of earlier, Anna begged the need for an early night. Glancing at the clock John had to admit it was very early indeed but if she wanted her bed then she was welcome to it.

He took his time clearing up, listening quietly to the radio and relishing the first time this old house of his had known warmth for some months. It would be no bad thing at all, he decided for there to be more people between these walls. He had let himself rattle around in here with his ghost for too long. The sooner Michael and Laura could move in the better. For that matter, there was no rush for Anna to move out, they’d all got along incredibly well. People, he decided, that’s what I need, lots and lots of people. The more the merrier.

For a moment he thought he imagined Jane had something to say on the matter, a glimpse out of the corner of his eye and the sound of the front door latch clicking into place.

‘Hello?’ he called. But there was nobody there. He slipped the deadlock on the front door and went back into the friendly heat of the kitchen.

*

Glen Logan flicked through the channels on the TV and settled for a comedy panel game. After a few sips of his lager, staring at the telly as the same old comics plundered recent news for laughs, he realised he’d watched it only a couple of nights ago. With a sigh he went on the hunt again.

‘Just leave it alone, would you?’ Sacha asked, ‘find something and stick with it. Or can’t you manage that?’

‘Been going out with you long enough, haven’t I?’ he replied. A thought that drove him to finish off his beer and, crushing the can, head into the kitchen in search of another one. The fridge was bare.

‘Bollocks.’

‘What’s wrong now?’

‘Out of beer.’

‘Well, if you didn’t drink so much …’

Glen didn’t listen to what followed on after that, he was only too accustomed to tuning out the white noise of Sacha’s complaints.

‘Want anything?’ he asked, grabbing the house keys from a fruit bowl in the centre of the kitchen worktop.

‘Are you even listening to me?’

‘If you’re telling me what you want from the corner shop, yes, otherwise no.’

‘Fucking pig.’

‘I’ll see if they’ve got any.’

Grinning at his joke, he jogged down the stairs, grabbed his jacket off the hook by the front door and headed out into the rain.

It was only a few minutes to the shop but he was already regretting it by the time he’d walked a couple of doors down. Was it really worth this soaking just to get a few beers down his neck? He’d need something stronger just to get the warmth back into his bones.

As he crossed the road, a car was heading up the street. Was this Alasdair, maybe? Back early? The car pulled up towards him and then drew to a halt in the middle of the road. The driver stared at him through the windscreen.

‘Got a problem, mate?’ he asked, returning the man’s stare. Pissing down or not, you had to make your stand, didn’t you?

‘Oi!’ suddenly there was someone beside him. A flash of movement and they punched him in the stomach.

‘Motherfucker,’ Glen said, never one to talk an assailant down. His attacker was dressed in a bizarre mixture of clothes. Long raincoat over a tracksuit, wool hat pulled tight over the skull. They were running right past him, not interested in continuing the fight having got in one sound blow. ‘Come here!’ he shouted reaching out to grab their coat. The figure turned, and again its arm lashed out, moving so quickly Glen barely registered it. His hand felt like it was on fire.

‘What the fuck?’ he looked at his hand and tried to understand what had happened to it. The index finger was missing entirely above the first knuckle, middle and ring fingers splayed at an unconscionable angle. His hand was streaming with blood, the rain constantly
washing
it away from the wounds so he could see the clean pink meat and bone beneath.

He looked down at where he had been punched and saw even more blood.

‘Fucking knife,’ he realised. ‘Fucking stabbed me with a fucking knife.’

He tried to step forward but found his legs were shaking too much. A great stream of his blood was puddling between his legs before trickling away down the street. ‘Bleed to fucking death,’ he correctly surmised. ‘Going to fucking bleed to death.’

‘Who’s Anna?’ asked Probert, wafting away some of the cigarette smoke and glancing towards the hall to check on the progress of the police.

‘That’s the question,’ Golding replied, with a smile. ‘But I know. I know her better than she does herself.’ She threw the cigarette out of the window and settled back into the seat.

‘Anna has been helping me for years now, but that’s only fair, after all I rescued her. Or maybe I never did.’

‘Aida,’ said Probert, his patience already fatally short after her threats over the phone, ‘you’re not making sense. Who is this Anna?’

‘Sandy, you met her last night. Her real name’s Anna, she’s my foster daughter.’

‘What?’

Golding ignored him. ‘I adopted her when she was four, she was the daughter of Douglas Reece.’

‘You mentioned him earlier, who …? Oh … the East End Ripper!’

‘Yes, precisely why I invited Father Goss. Having done my research into Anna’s background it seemed a waste not to put it to good use. Besides, an appearance from Reece suited Anna’s special skill only too well.’