Legacy of the Ripper (9 page)

Diverted from his reverie by the sudden sound of firm knocking on his door, Holland turned and shouted "Come in".

Carl Wright entered the office followed by the parents of Marla Hayes. Doctor Rowan Hayes looked around sixty, his wife Mary a little younger, maybe in her early fifties. The doctor was obviously trying to maintain his composure, though his wife looked red-eyed and tearful, perfectly understandable in Holland's eyes.

"Doctor and Mrs. Hayes," Wright spoke by way of introduction. "This is Detective Inspector Holland."

"Hello, Inspector," said the doctor in a calm, quiet voice that belied his obvious inner turmoil. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to believe what he already knew. What man after all would want to admit to himself that his daughter had turned to prostitution and ended up dead on the street of a strange town? Mrs Hayes simply sniffed and nodded in Holland's direction.

"Doctor and Mrs Hayes, I'm sorry we have to meet under such circumstances, but I want to thank you for coming in to see me."

"We had little choice really, Inspector, did we?" asked Rowan Hayes.

"No. I know. I'm sorry."

"Are you quite sure it's Marla you've found?" asked the mother. "I know we phoned the police as soon as we saw the news bulletin, but isn't it at all possible that someone might have found that photograph, or taken it from Marla's bag, and&"

"Mrs Hayes," said Holland as soothingly as he could. "The girl we found is the girl in the photograph. There's no doubt about that. I know it's a terrible thing to have to come to terms with but&"

"How do I do that?" she suddenly snapped. "How do I come to terms with the fact that my daughter is dead? Can you tell me that, Inspector Holland?"

Holland took a deep breath and allowed himself to pause for a second or two before he replied.

"No, I can't tell you that, Mrs Hayes. I can imagine nothing worse for a mother to have to try and deal with, I really can't."

"I'm sorry, Inspector," Rowan Hayes said in that quiet, doctoral voice of his. "You see, we married a little later than most couples and we had Marla when I was already in my forties. She was our pride and joy and this has hit my wife, hit us both, terribly hard. My wife is highly distraught as I'm sure you can see. Please tell me what we can do to help you find her killer."

Holland wasn't sure if he should mention Marla's descent into prostitution at this point. The news bulletin had simply mentioned the discovery of the body of a young woman. The police had specifically not mentioned that Marla had been employed on the streets. For now, he'd decided to hold that piece of information back. It could serve no useful purpose and would cause Mrs Hayes in particular even more grief. She'd have to know very soon of course, but there was something else he needed from the parents first.

Little did he know that the girl's parents were already aware of their daughter's chosen profession. So far, there had seemed no need for either side to mention it. If it had anything to do with her death, and Holland was beginning to believe it did, the Hayes's were as yet blissfully unaware of it. That Marla had led a chequered life since her teens was another fact that Holland was as yet to learn. So far his only priority had been in identifying the dead girl, and now, to comfort her parents in their time of need. In time, as he learned the facts surrounding Marla's past, that would change and would have a direct bearing on the way Holland would direct the future of his case.

"Thank you, Dr. Hayes. The first thing we need from you or your wife is for one of you to perform the official identification of Marla's&er."

"Yes, quite! Of course, I understand. I think I'd better do that, don't you, dear?" he said, turning to his wife and placing a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

"I want to see her too, Rowan, please," his wife implored. "If it's the last thing I do I want to see her one more time, just to say goodbye, if that's all right, Inspector?"

"Of course it's all right," Holland replied. "Please go with Sergeant Wright. He'll take you to the mortuary and bring you back when you're done there. Please don't feel rushed. Take as much time as you want."

"Thank you," said Hayes, as he took his wife by the hand and led her from the room, following Carl Wright, who would provide them with all the support he could during the trial of facing the remains of their daughter.

The door closed behind them and Mike Holland slumped back into his leather- faced office chair. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them once more, spun the chair around to face the window and sat staring for a minute or two at the sky once again. He tried to imagine how he'd feel if he were in the shoes of the Hayes's at that moment, and decided he was glad that he and Susan had never had any children.

God! There are times when I hate this bloody job.

When the tearful parents returned with Wright some time later, the identification of their daughter confirmed, it was obvious to Holland that the mother was in no fit state to answer questions, and he directed his words to the father for the next few minutes. Holland promised to keep them informed on the progress of the case. As the distraught parents left his office escorted from the station by Sergeant Wright, Holland felt relieved that he didn't have to undertake such tasks every day. He'd rather face a gang of knife-wielding thugs than have to confront the grieving parents of yet another young girl or boy whose life had been tragically and abruptly brought to an end by violent crime.

Carl Wright returned after seeing Doctor and Mrs Hayes safely to their car. Holland, seated in his office chair, looked up at his sergeant as he entered the office and said, quite simply though with great conviction,

"Carl, old friend, we
are
going to catch this bastard."

Cousin Mark

Tom Reid was at a total loss. All his efforts to find young Jack had proved fruitless. The private detective he'd hired had gone through the motions, but Tom felt that the man had never held out much hope of finding Jack. Consequently, Tom had paid out a rather exorbitant sum of money to cover the man's expenses, for absolutely no reward.

"But he can't just have disappeared into thin air, Tom," Jennifer Reid said as she sat imploring her husband to do something, anything, in terms of a greater effort in finding their son.

"I've told you, Jen, the best thing we can do for Jack now is to report him as a missing person to the police. They're the best equipped to deal with something like this."

"No way, Tom! No police and that's final. If we tell them that Jack has a history of psychiatric illness, they're likely to list him as dangerous or mentally ill or something, and who knows how they'd treat him if they found him."

"Rubbish, Jennifer!" Tom snapped, without meaning to. "He's committed no crime. Why would they do that?"

"I don't know, Tom. I just don't want the police involved. He's gone because something in Robert's infernal legacy upset or disturbed him. If we could find out what that was then we might have an idea where to look for him."

"But how on Earth do we find out what was in those papers? Even Sarah didn't know, and she was married to Robert for a long time. He didn't even confide in her as to what he was leaving in trust for Jack."

"I know, but what was that rubbish she told you about when you went to see her? Jack the Ripper wasn't it? Robert had become delusional about something to do with the Jack the Ripper case hadn't he?"

"Jen, please. Robert was ill, a very sick man. Don't forget, he never fully recovered from the car crash and no-one knew he'd developed the brain tumour until it was too late. He must have had a hard time concentrating on the realities of life sometimes. The pressure of the tumour must have made all sorts of things short circuit in his brain and I'm not surprised if he became a bit delusional."

"But Sarah said he was reading something in his study late at night, while she was in bed. She thought it was something to do with the Ripper, didn't she? What if that was the thing he'd bequeathed to Jack? What if it contained something so disturbing that Jack's mind couldn't cope with it? Tom, we must find out what was in that package. We simply have to!"

"Like I said, Jen, Sarah said that Robert was convinced the soul of the Ripper had visited him, but that was
because of the effects of the tumour
. Don't you understand that? How could the soul of Jack the bloody Ripper be wandering around the ether for over a century and then plant itself into the mind of Robert in some random possession or whatever?"

"But what if it were true, Tom? What if Robert's rantings were real? And what if it wasn't random? What do you know of your own family's background, back in the nineteenth century? Maybe someone in your family's history had a connection to the case or something. That might explain why the Ripper came back and found a way into Robert's mind."

"For God's sake, Jen, have you heard yourself? You sound like a crazy woman. Since when did you begin to believe in spirits, ghosts or that kind of stuff? How the hell could the spirit of Jack the Ripper survive through the years and then just pop up and inhabit some corner of Robert's mind when it felt like it. There's no such thing as ghosts, Jen, you know that. Jack the Ripper died over a hundred years ago. Whatever Robert may have said was caused by the delusions of a very sick mind, infected as it was by the tumour."

"Look, Tom, something caused our Jack to run away like he did. You have to admit that it's too much of a coincidence that his whole personality changed after he received that package. Humour me, please. There must be a way to find out more about your family history, surely."

Tom Reid sighed. He knew that his wife wasn't about to let him off the hook. She'd decided that the time had come to go searching for skeletons in the family cupboard, and there was no way she was about to back down until he agreed to delve into the past in search of a clue to Jack's disappearance. He knew when he was beaten.

"Ok Jen, listen. There is one family avenue we haven't explored yet, I suppose."

"Which is?" she asked, her hopes rising in the belief that Tom had thought of something important.

"Mark," was Tom's one word answer. "Good old cousin Mark."

"Mark Cavendish? Robert's brother? Didn't he go abroad after Robert's death? No-one seems to have heard from him for years."

Mark Cavendish was the younger bother of the late Robert Cavendish. When their father died the old man had left the psychiatric practice he'd shared with his son to Robert, with the remainder of his estate going to Mark, thus ensuring an equal share of his assets between his two sons. Robert had continued in practice until the day of the car crash that had killed his father and seriously injured him. Although he returned to work after recovering from his injuries and the coma in to which he'd fallen at the time of the accident, his heart never seemed to be in it any longer. He eventually sold the practice, and was diagnosed soon afterwards with the incurable brain tumour that was the eventual cause of his death. Mark was last seen by the family at Robert's funeral. At the wake that followed the interment of Robert's body in the family plot in St Jude's cemetery, Mark had announced his intention to sell his own computer games production business and seek his fortune on the continent. When asked exactly where he planned to settle he'd told Sarah, his sister-in-law that he quite fancied the idea of the Italian Riviera, or at least, somewhere where there was a coastline and he could be near the sea, which he loved. Sarah wanted to know how she could keep in touch with him, but Mark, always something of a loner, told her that he intended to make a new life for himself and needed no ties to the past. He meant no disrespect to her or to Robert's memory, but with his father and brother both gone, and his mother long dead, there was nothing to keep him in the old country any longer. If he needed to get in touch with the family he'd do so through the family solicitors.

"Our Mark was always a bit odd," Tom now replied to Jen's question about his cousin. "Robert was always the calm and level-headed one, but Mark was something of a dreamer. He wanted to be an artist when he was a kid, but never quite developed the skill to make a go of it. I think that's why he went into computers in the end. He actually created some damn good computer games you know. He sold them to some of the big games manufacturers, before realising he could make even more money if he set up his own company, which of course is what he did. I suppose his games became his own special art form, and he really was good at it, like I said."

"But how do we find him if he doesn't want to be found?" Jennifer asked her husband.

"Why, through the solicitors of course. As far as I know he still maintains a controlling interest in Global Programming, the company he started when he branched out on his own. He said he'd keep in touch with the solicitors in order to keep track of things back home. I'm sure they'll have an address for him somewhere in their records."

"And why would they give it to us Tom? It's not as if we were close to Mark is it?"

"But this is a family matter isn't it? I'm sure that the family solicitor at Knight, Morris and Campbell, whoever it is who's handling the family business these days can be convinced to at least get in touch with Mark on our behalf and see if he'll contact us."

"And do you really think that Mark might know something that could help us?"

Tom was silent for a few seconds, and then he sighed and sat back wearily as he answered his wife.

"To be honest Jen, I think we're clutching at straws. Jack could be in any town in this country, and Mark Cavendish might or might not know anything about the family's history in the Victorian era. Robert and he might have talked about stuff we know nothing about, but then again they might not have. All I can say is that if you want us to be doing something that doesn't include walking the streets of every city and town in England looking for Jack, then this seems the most logical path to follow for the time being."

Jen looked at her husband, noticing for the first time how tired and weary he looked. She knew he'd done everything he could to find their son in the preceding weeks, and had slept little along the way. She loved Tom very much and she was grateful that she had him by her side through all of this. Rising from her chair, she moved across the room to where her husband sat in his favourite armchair and gently sat down on his lap, draping her arms around his neck as she did so.