Chapter 86

GRIM WEATHER FOR GRIM TIMES

WHITECHAPEL—3:38 PM, FEBRUARY 28, 2011

When the police finally raided Spencer Drake’s squat, they found PC David Rees nailed to the wall. He was dead.

Soon, the whole estate knew about it. Although some residents would probably say it was one less filth on the streets, it did ramp up fear levels. Mysterious deaths did that, especially violent ones. And the violence wreaked on Barrowmore over the past few days had been extreme.

Over the years, there had been shootings, there had been knifings. That was bad enough for most people. But a couple of bullets to the head or a shiv to the guts was really nothing to compare with the mutilations and public displays of cruelty witnessed since Friday’s killings in the lock-up.

Rumors of torture and abuse had often buzzed through the estate over the years. Quite a few residents had been involved in crime at some level—drug dealing, money laundering, or loan sharking. And when one of them disappeared, speculation grew about whom they’d pissed off and what had happened to them.

But their punishments, if they were punished, were never made into an event.

Not like these murders.

It was as if the killer wanted his work to be seen. Well, thought the man they dubbed the New Ripper, the killer had wanted just that.

The world needed to know what was at work on Barrowmore. It needed to be aware of what was coming. The murders were a warning. The killer was saying, “This is a taste of the future.”

All will hate. All will kill. All will spread my gospel. And my gospel is death.

The New Ripper steadied himself, leaning against the wall. He was lurking near the lock ups. Something had brought him here. Something had called him. It was the same voice that had been calling him for days, but it was too far away, too distant. He knew what it was. He knew who it was. But he was vague about what the voice wanted.

The New Ripper had answered similar calls fifteen years before. The voice in his head had been strong.

I am the lord who gapes . . . I am the lantern of the tomb . . . I am the moth eating at the law . . .

The voice in his head had said, Prepare the way . . . kill one, kill two, kill three, kill four . . . prepare for the fifth . . . the fifth we share . . . our reign shall begin with her blood . . . .

The man had listened to the voice. He had taken on the mantle. He was an heir to past atrocities. A prince in the kingdom of pain.

But now he wanted his throne. He wanted to be king. He was ready, and the voice beckoned him. It summoned him for one last act, an act that would bring hell to earth.

The meaning of what he did in 1996 was about to become known to him. It had played on his mind for years. It had plagued him mercilessly these past few days. It had got so bad that his work had been affected. But then, he was never that good at his job. He’d winged it throughout his career. He’d got away with—he smiled to himself—murder.

He leaned against the wall, hands buried in his coat pockets. It was cold and wet. The rain had been relentless over the past few days. Maybe it was a sign. Grim weather for grim times. But let it rain, he thought. Let it rain blood. Let it rain scraps of meat and shards of bone.

Let the world be saturated in death.

Let me do what I am meant to do.

He was itching to kill again. He was desperate to hear the voice guide him. He was bursting to pin another one down and take things from her body.

He was about to turn and walk away when the door to the lock-up burst open, and a figure carrying a child stumbled out.