table.
First looking through a monocles, before loading the writing example onto the screen and the letters that they were investigating underneath it the mouths of both men soon dropped as with the naked eye they could clearly see that the writing was very similar.
“Is that… is that a match?” Detective John Stephens asked, a little unsure about what he was looking at.
“Considering my area of expertise, looking at the three forms of letter I’d have to point out the obvious and say it is all written on the same piece of paper, in the same language as each other, and looking at writing preferences such as the loopy Y’s I’d have to say that yes the writing on the notes and letters you have received recently is an exact match for Jack the Ripper hand writing that Scotland Yard received over one hundred years ago.” Chief Inspector Lemaar said, the shock still on his face effectively describing the feelings both he and John Stephens were feeling inside.
“So um… in your professional opinion what are we looking at?” Detective John Stephens said breaking the awkward silence that had arisen between the pair due to the results of the fingerprint analysis.
“Well before I can really say anything I’d prefer to be able to look at the crime scene,” Chief Inspector Lemaar said, the nervousness of his response making the mood very uneasy.
It was at that moment the mood in the room shifted when they were interrupted by Captain Griggs who had entered the room.
“I attempted to call however the mobile phones have no reception down here,” the Captain explained upon entering.
“We have another one,” the dull loon on the captains face explaining everything. Immediately Chief Inspector Lemaar stood from his sitting position, pulling on the coat he had placed on the back of the chair when first sitting down. Detective John Stephens reaching out for his mobile phone and picking it up from the table placing it into his pant pocket as they both followed the Captain receiving further information as they walked their way through the police station heading to the front door.
It wasn’t long before the car was pulling into a cordoned of car park not far from Old England Town which for the second day in a row was the scene of a traumatic murder. All three of the men, Captain Griggs, Detective John Stephens and Chief Inspector Lemaar followed a uniformed police officer who led them to where the latest body lay.
As Chief Inspector Lemaar approached the crime scene his face filled with complete horror, he stopped in his tracks. Noticing the change in demeanour from their overseas counterpart Detective Stephens stopped beside him offering a questionable look.
“I have to say it. You guys either have the real Jack the Ripper which I know is completely impossible considering he was around over a century ago, or you have a really REALLY good copycat killer.” The Chief Inspector said as he looked directly at the latest sex worker who had become victim to the area’s serial killer.
On the landing of a backpackers hostel lay the body of the sex worker. She had been found by a tenant of the property at approximately six in the morning, as with the victim from the previous night her neck had been slashed with two separate cuts made, with the blood from the heinous scene one that even made the most seasoned police officer feel like throwing up.
The abdomen of the latest victim had been completely cut open, with the on scene Medical Examiner declaring that the women’s uterus had been removed, and that the victim had died from a direct result of the large amount of blood lost through the slit in her throat.
“This is just like the scene of Annie Chapman, the Rippers second victim in Whitechapel,” Chief Inspector Lemaar said.
“Obviously I wasn’t around when those murders occurred, however I am the leading most investigator into Jack the Ripper, I have seen the crime scene photos countless of times they are forever burnt into my memory.” The overseas investigator announced.
Once again an overview of the case was handed to Detective John Stephens, where it worked out that half an hour before her death the sex worker had been talking to a potential ‘John’ who had been wearing a suit with an overcoat, the witness stated that they thought the person was dressed up from the Old England era, to fit in with the region they were currently in and to have a laugh alongside fellow patrons of the area.
John Stephens ordered the body to be taken back to the precent, and ordered full copies of the crime scene photos to be sent to him once the scene had been processed.
On the way back to the station Chief Inspector Lemaar asked to be dropped at the airport, his plan was to return to England to Scotland Yard, gather the team he had previously worked with in relation to the Jack the Ripper case and bring them back to the United States to work as part of a task force established between the two operatives to bring this very technical, and precise Copycat killer to justice.
Detective John Stephens immediately went to his work station, where after calling ahead, all of the files the New York Police Department had on the recent murders, and the eight year old letter, awaited him.
Forensics had left a message for him that finger prints at the scene matched the finger prints found at last night’s scene, however there was still no match on the computer databases to identify who the finger prints belonged to.
John picked up the phone and dialled the number of his wife Maureen, he wanted to let her know that it was going to be a long day as he wanted to review the entire case to date and try and make the much needed breakthrough. She wasn’t home and so he left her a message vowing to be home as early as he could.
He programmed the phone not to ring, putting it into busy mode, to ensure he was disrupted and began his process of pulling up a map of Old England Town on the computer and printing it out to hang up on the wall.
Detective Stephens then took two thumb-tacks and put them on the map identifying the two locations of the crime scenes, he picked up a third thumb-tack, this time a different colour than the original two, and placed it on the map to represent the location that local police were instructed to meet the mystery attacker in the letter.
Immediately upon placing the third thumb-tack on his map Detective John Stephens the bigger picture began to emerge for the veteran detective, from where they were instructed to meet in the letter the two murders had taken place no more than 500 yards from each other, one at each end of the alley way.
The alley way held the key to this whole mystery. While it was still early and he couldn’t prove it the hunch deep down inside him told the detective that the alley-way was playing a massive role in this case, but how? And why that alley-way?
For an area that was built almost forty-years ago it was developed to provide visitors from the United Kingdom an area in which they could go and feel like home, the beer was room temperature, the food was sloppy pub type of meals you could find over the ditch, street names along with hotels and hostels had been given names of prominent iconic areas of England and it was a nice cheap alternative for backpackers.
There were four hotels or hostels immediately surrounding the alley-way, which resulted in approximately one-thousand separate rooms that Detective John Stephens would have to knock on each if he wanted to question everyone, and with many being hostels it meant they were changing tenants daily which means if he wanted answers he needed to get to work now.
With no spare man power to spare the Detective spent the best part of three hours going door-to-door of each of the rooms that had been occupied over the last twenty-four hours or so with next to no-one being able to provide any valuable leads into the case.
It was a long and tedious task, especially when combing the area by himself meaning he had no one to even share a ten minute break with.
However his luck soon turned when he entered the third building on his list to examine. The clerk there had remembered a weird guy who checked in the night before, he was dressed weird, and even spoke weird. The clerk remembered that he had even the basic trouble of reading the policies of the hostel, and didn’t know how to spell as was evident on his re
gistration form.
The man was described as being in his mid-to-late twenties, wearing a suit, and always wearing his overcoat. His fashion sense, the clerk laughed, was olden style.
“This was the man,” Detective John Stephens thought to himself, a grin spreading across his face thinking that he was one step closer to solving the case. This weird man who arrived in town just mere hours before the killings started must have something to do with the two murders that had happened within the last 24-hours. He fit the description of the man a witness had seen the latest victim with shortly before her death.
The detective immediately exited the hostel and picked up his mobile phone to call the Captain.
“It’s not enough,” Captain Griggs said on the other end of the line, immediately deflating the good feeling Detective Stephens had had before he picked up the phone.
“You cannot get a search warrant because someone wears weird clothes, you need to have witnesses that put him in the region of the murders around the times they were committed,” the Captain informed the detective who could not believe what he was hearing.
“But what about the eye witness?” the detective asked, almost clutching at straws.
“Bring in him to make an official statement and we will see how it goes from there,” the Captain said.
Immediately the detective made his way to where the witness had said he had been staying for the best part of the last week. It was a higher class hotel than the hostel he had just been in, however the clerk had absolutely no record of the witness name that had been given to Detective John Stephens.
“What do you mean there is no record of him, does that mean he has left?” the detective asked, growing agitated with each passing moment.
“No,” the clerk said “it means that no one by that name has been here, registered here, stayed here.”
Baffled the detective thanked the clerk for their time and excited the building still confused over the situation and what was happening. It was as though the case was there to be solved but there was no way of picking up the final piece of the puzzle to be able to take the steps required to solve it.
Refusing to admit defeat the Detective made his way back to the alley-way he had been standing in just over twenty-four hours earlier, going back to the beginning and focusing on the basics in case there was something he had missed or overlooked.
He stood where he had been, looking at his watch and looking around the alley-way. It then dawned on him. He wasn’t there to watch what was happening, he was there to be watched. The last hotel he went to overlooked the alley-way, only two bedrooms on the top two stories could oversee the alley-way.
The detective ran back around the corner to the hotel he had just been in.
“I need to know who was in the two bedrooms at the back of the hotel, on the top two floors over the last twenty-four hours, and I need to know if they are still there.” A short-of-breath Detective John Stephens said as he entered the hotel building.
“Sir, we cannot disclose the details of our guests without a warrant,” the clerk once again explained to the pushy detective, the clerk obviously getting more annoyed by the constant barrage of questions coming from the eager detective.
“Can you just tell me whether they are still here so that I can call in the warrant,” Detective John Stephens almost begged the young female clerk at the hotel. Seeing the importance of the question the clerk tapped the keys on her computer and looked at the register.
“Well obviously you didn’t hear this from me, but I can say that the two occupiers of the far back rooms on the top two floors are still current guests of this hotel,” the clerk said at her best attempt to share the information the detective wanted was shared without her breaching the occupants privacy, or any other federal laws she wasn’t immediately aware off.
Running towards the elevator as the doors closed Detective John Stephens pressed the button for the second to top floor. He had attempted to call the captain for a warrant, although he knew that his chances were small considering he had absolutely no evidence of anything apart from the fact that they could overlook the alley-way he was standing in – there happened to be no reception in the elevator and so he gave up on the call.
With a ding the elevator doors opened on the floor he had requested, he hurriedly pushed past the other hotel guests who were standing at the front of the elevator door and ran around the landing to the last hotel room on the back side of the hotel. Finally reaching it he banged on the door in the typical police knock.
A petite female answered the door, taking the Detective by surprise. He immediately knew that the female was not the person he was after and excused himself explaining that he had the wrong room.
He ran to the fire exit, kicking the door open, and looking up the flight of stairs he started to run as if in pursuit of a suspect, he reached the level above and repeated his sprint to the back-most-facing room and started to bang on the door.
A male occupant in his mid-to-late twenties opened the door, Detective John Stephens immediately thought he had his man. He reached into his pocket and produced his badge while introducing himself and asking the occupant if he could ask him a few questions.
Before the occupant could answer a female came from a bedroom inside the hotel room and draped her hand over the man standing at the door,
“What is going on here?” the female asked.
“Oh, I just wanted a word with the occupant here,” Detective John Stephens said motioning towards the gentlemen at the door.
“Daddy whose there?” a little girl, no older than four years of age, asked while walking out of the same room the female occupant had come from just moments earlier.
“Just a police officer wanting to ask Daddy some questions,” the confused male said while attempting to get his partner and daughter away from the door.
“What have I done wrong?” the male occupant asked curiously to the detective at his front door.
“Um… there have been a couple of murders nearby and we are doing a door-to-door search to ask where everyone was last night on the off chance they may have seen something of importance to the investigation.” Detective John Stephens said, coming up with the excuse quickly.
“Well Detective, my wife, daughter and myself weren’t in the area last night. We checked in yesterday afternoon and then attended a funeral and wake about fifteen minutes away and didn’t return home until about fifteen minutes ago.” The occupant explained to the detective.
“Okay thank you for your time,” the detective said as he turned and began walking away from the door. He had been wrong about the murderer, maybe it was the pressure of wanting to end his career on a high that was getting to him and forcing him to come up with a result.
Detective John Stephens made his way home that evening and as he did on cases that confused him spoke about what he knew with his wife Maureen, she could see how upset and confused her husband was with the case – this is why she couldn’t wait for him to retire and put all of this behind them and begin to move on, early nights to bed, decent sleeping hours, but this case meant to much to him and she was there to support him through it.
“Let’s go to bed honey,” Maureen said attempting to take her husband’s mind off the case.
“You never know a good night sleep could be exactly what you need,” with that John looked up with defeated eyes. He knew there was no point arguing with his wife, she was always right anyway and knew what was truly best for him and his every worsening health.
He stood up from the chair he sat in, kissed her as he always did, and took her hand leading her to their bedroom where he lay his head for the night.
“Detective we have another one,” this was not what Detective John Stephens wanted to hear when he woke first thing in the morning. His restful sleep had been interrupted by his mobile ringing, on the other end of the phone was Captain Griggs.
There had been another murder, and sure enough it was back in Old’ England town.
Immediately Detective Stephens jumped from his bedroom and grabbed his pants and shirt that his wife had laid out for him.
He put them on, and ran down the stairs, by passing his routine breakfast and coffee and headed straight to his wife, kissed her on the cheek and then headed for his car. It didn’t take long before he arrived at Old England Town and saw the police cordon.
It was right outside the hotel he had been at the previous day, where he was following up his own leads however was completely wrong. The detective was ushered through the police tape and waiting newspaper reporters who had finally caught wind of the serial killings happening in their own neck of the woods.
Captain Griggs pulled back the blanket that covered the body and immediately Detective John Stephens felt sick, he turned a new shade of pale as the newest victim was the same lady that he had met at the first hotel room door he had knocked on the previous day. The same lady he immediately turned his back on because she was a single female in the room.
“This my friend is sixteen-year-old Jessica Taylor, an underage sex trade worker who due to her age specialized in in-calls only. Her body was found approximately five thirty this morning by the morning clerk, as with the others her throat has been cut and her abdomen destroyed by a knife,” the first police officer on the scene walked the detective through the details that he knew.
Detective Stephens couldn’t believe it. Just hours earlier when he saw her at that front door of the hotel room she looked allot older than sixteen, but he supposed they all did now-days. He couldn’t believe though that just hours later she would be dead. This one had hit him hard.
“I know who he is,” Detective Stephens said to the Captain, “Grab some uniformed officers and let’s get this son of a bitch.” He said as he withdrew his weapon and immediately started to the elevator.
He went straight to the room he had seen the young girl at yesterday afternoon, explaining to his captain along the way why they were heading there. When they arrived at the hotel room the officers panned out, with a nod of the head the Captain gave the approval to gain entry.
Detective Stephens banged on the door once again, this time in his most authoritative police knock he could.
“NYPD Open the Door!” he yelled. There was no answer.
Detective John Stephens took a step back while other uniformed officers kicked the door open, it took three attempts but finally the door burst open and the Detective and Captain were the first two people inside the door.
The room was absolutely empty. There was absolutely no sign that anyone had even stayed in the room. A card sat partially opened on the table – putting his gloves on before picking it up Detective