The Madman - Страница 31

Lucy didn't directly answer this, instead she said, "Perhaps, Doctor, you would be more familiar with their contemporary. A gentleman known in history as Jack the Ripper?"

Gulptilil's eyes narrowed. "Of course. He occupies some footnotes in a number of medical and psychiatric texts, primarily due to the undeniable savagery and notoriety of his crimes. The other two names…"

"Abberline was the detective assigned to investigate the Whitechapel murders in 1888. Anderson was his supervisor. Are you at all familiar with the events of that time?"

The doctor shrugged. "Even schoolchildren are familiar in a fashion with the Ripper. There are rhymes and songs, which have given way, I believe to novels and films."

Lucy continued. "The crimes dominated the news. Filled the populace with fear. Became something of the standard against which many similar crimes are vetted even today, although, in reality, they were confined to a well-defined area and a highly specific class of victims. The fear they caused was truly out of proportion to their actual impact, as was their impact on history. In London today, you know, you can take a guided bus tour of the murder sites. And there are discussion groups that continue to investigate the crimes. Ripperologists, they are called. Nearly a hundred years later, and people remain morbidly fascinated. Still want to know who Jack truly was…"

"This history lesson is designed to do what, Miss Jones? You are making a point, but I believe we are all uncertain what it is."

Lucy didn't seem concerned by the negative response.

"You know what has always intrigued criminologists about the Ripper crimes, Doctor?"

"No."

"As suddenly as they started, they stopped."

"Yes?"

"Like a spigot of terror turned on, then shut off. Click! Just like that."

"Interesting, but…"

"Tell me, Doctor, in your experience, do people who are dominated by sexual compulsion especially to commit crimes, horrific, ever-increasingly savage crimes of dramatic proportions do they find ample satisfaction in their acts, and then spontaneously stop?"

"I am not a forensic psychiatrist, Miss Jones," he said briskly.

"Doctor, in your experience…"

Gulptilil shook his head. "I suspect, Miss Jones," he said with an arch tone in his voice, "that you, as well as I, know the answer to that question to be no.

They are crimes without ends. A homicidal psychopath doesn't reach an eventual conclusion. At least not internally, although in the literature of such persons there are some who are driven by excessive guilt to take their own lives. These, unfortunately, seem to be in the minority. No, generally speaking, repetitive killers are stopped by some external means."

"Yes. True enough. Anderson, and we suspect, by proxy, Abberline, privately theorized that there were three possibilities for the cessation of the Ripper crimes in London. Perhaps the killer had emigrated to America unlikely, but possible although there are no subsequent records of Ripper-type murders in the States. A second theory: he had died, either at his own hand, or that of another's which was also not terribly likely. Even in the Victorian era, suicide was not particularly common, and we would have to speculate that the Ripper was tortured by his own fiendishness, and there is no evidence of that. Third, a far more realistic possibility."

"Which was?"

"That the man known as the Ripper had in fact been incarcerated in a mental hospital. And, unable to talk his way out of bedlam, he was swallowed up and lost forever inside thick walls."

Lucy paused, then asked, "How thick are the walls here, Doctor?"

Gulp-a-pill reacted swiftly, pushing himself to his feet. His face was contorted in anger. "What you are suggesting, Miss Jones, is horrific! Impossible! That some latter-day Ripper is here now, in this hospital!"

"Where better to hide?" she asked quietly.

Gulp-a-pill struggled for composure. "The notion that a murderer, even a clever one, would be able to conceal his true feelings from the entire staff of professionals here is ludicrous! Perhaps one could in the 1800s, when psychology was in its infancy. But not today! It would take a near constant force of will, and a sophistication and knowledge of human nature far more profound than any patient here is capable of. Your suggestion is simply impossible." He said these last words with a forcefulness that masked his own fears.

Lucy started to reply, then stopped. Instead, she reached down and grasped her leather briefcase. She rummaged around inside for a moment, then turned to Francis. "What was it you called the nurse-trainee who was murdered?" she asked quietly.

"Short Blond," Francis said. Lucy Jones nodded.

"Yes. That would seem right. Her hair was cropped short…"

As she spoke, almost musing to herself, she withdrew a manila envelope from her satchel. From this, she removed a series of what Francis instantly saw to be large, eight-by-ten color photographs. She glanced at these, flipping through them on her lap, then she picked one out and tossed it on the desk in front of Gulp-a-pill.

"Eighteen months ago," she said, as the picture skidded on the wood surface.

Another photograph emerged from the pile. "Fourteen months ago."

Then a third fluttered down. "Ten months ago."

Francis craned forward, and he saw that each picture was of a young woman. He could see glossy red streaks of blood gathered around the throat of each. He could see clothes stripped and rearranged. He could see eyes open to nothing except horror. They were all Short Blond, and Short Blond was each of them. They were different, yet the same. Francis looked closer, as three more photographs skidded across the desktop. These were close-up pictures of each victim's right hand. And then he saw: One finger joint missing on the hand of the first; two on the second; three on the third.

He tore his eyes away and glanced over at Lucy Jones. Her own eyes had narrowed and her face had set. For a second, Francis thought, she glowed with an intensity that was both red-hot and ice-cold all at once.

She breathed in slowly, and spoke in a quiet, hard voice: "I will find this man, Doctor."

Gulp-a-pill was staring down helplessly at the photographs. Francis could see that he was assessing the depth of the situation. After a moment, he reached out and took all the pictures and placed them together, like a card sharp gathering a deck together after it has been shuffled, but knowing full well where the ace of spades was located. He fit them into a single pile and tapped it on the desk to even each edge. Then he handed the photographs back to Lucy. "Yes," he said slowly, "I believe you will. Or, at the very least, make a rigorous attempt."

Francis did not think that Gulp-a-pill meant one word of what he said. And then he reconsidered; perhaps there were some words that Gulptilil spoke that he did mean, and others that he did not. Determining which was which was a very tricky process.

The doctor returned to his seat and to his composure. For a moment or two he drummed his fingers against the desktop. He looked over at the young prosecutor and raised his bushy black eyebrows, as if anticipating another question.

"I will need your assistance," Lucy finally said.

Doctor Gulptilil shrugged. "Of course. That is most obvious. My help, and the help of others, surely. But I think, despite the dramatic similarities between the death we have had here, and the ones you have so theatrically displayed, that you are, in truth, mistaken. I believe our nurse-trainee was unfortunately assaulted by the patient currently in custody and charged with the crime. However, in the interest of justice, of course, I will assist you in whatever method at my disposal, if only to put your mind at rest, Miss Jones."

Again, Francis thought each word spoken said one thing, but meant another.

"I'm going to stay here until I have some answers," Lucy said.

Doctor Gulptilil nodded slowly. He smiled humorlessly. "Answers are perhaps not something we are particularly good at providing here," he said slowly. "Questions, we have in abundance. But resolutions are much harder to come by. And certainly not with the sort of legal precision that I think you will be seeking, Miss Jones. Nevertheless," he continued, "we shall make ourselves available, to the best of our ability."