The Demons of Whitechapel

Chapter 1: White Board-1

Chapter 1: White Board

A cold, grey Tuesday. Detective Inspector Simon Stark arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department on his first day of work one hour before he was supposed to clock in. He washed his hands, shaved for the second time, cleaned the office that was going to be his for the next couple of weeks, and awaited the arrival of the team he was going to lead. The DI office was set apart from a larger incident room in which stood four desks and the new whiteboards Simon had ordered—he couldn’t stand chalk. His fingers itched to give the four work stations a makeover, so cluttered were they. In the reports that Simon had read there had been no indication of new cases for a few days. No murders, suicides, or suspicious deaths. Not even a kebab shop stabbing. All quiet in Whitechapel, that small part of London that seemed to have been the crime capital of the world even before the infamous Jack the Ripper had made his first appearance. Simon thought that was no excuse to leave empty take-away cartons, crosswords, a romance novel, seven blue buttons, a piece of string, a used bandage, a rotting banana, and half a knitted sweater lying around. He also thought that probably no one would notice if he chucked the rubbish. And the bandage while he was at it. And the banana. He put the knitting and the novel in a drawer, then he stringed the buttons up and placed them in a box he found under a chair. He solved the crossword puzzle. And took down the Plants vs Zombies poster, which, frankly, he just found unprofessional.

Simon knew that as the new boss the others would rebel against his guidance and try to get rid of him. It was classic, by-the-book behaviour. He braced himself for that, but at the same time felt relieved—at least he knew why they wouldn’t like him. There was no need to worry about making a smooth first impression. Simon was not very good at that; he found dealing with people on a social level exhausting and confusing. But with these four he didn’t need to be social; they weren’t his fellow students at academy. It was a strictly professional environment: he was their boss and they were his team, at least until he would get the fast promotion his father’s old friends had secured for him. The quicker Simon would find himself sitting behind a desk with only paperwork to worry about the better.

He didn’t need to check the personnel files again, he had memorized them: Detective Constable Kate Pollard, thirty-six; Detective Constable Anwen Flemming, thirty-one; Detective Constable Jack Heart, thirty-two; Detective Sergeant Ralph Golding, thirty-four. The last Detective Inspector had been in the position for four years before she was shot on duty two months ago. Simon had read that she had been well-liked. A warm, empathic, woman of above-average intelligence. The team might still mourn her. He knew that people needed time to cope with the death of close co-workers. He was glad his superiors had informed him about the situation in due time for Simon to take a course on that. It made him feel a little less unprepared.

They arrived at the same time; they had probably met somewhere prior to coming to work and arranged it that way. Standard group behaviour. Simon took notice of it while he stood in the middle of the incident room, hands clasped behind his back, hiding inside his expensive suit and wearing a slight frown. They were two minutes late.

DC Jack Heart was the first one to shuffle into the room. Tired and grumpy, he looked like a hooligan in a nice but ill-fitting shirt. DC Kate Pollard, dressed in a combination of colours that made Simon’s eyes water, showed up with DC Anwen Flemming’s hand cheerfully in hers. Pollard was joking, and exchanged a high-five that looked like a street gang greeting with Heart after muttering, “Told you the new DI’s a summer type”. Simon ignored her remark, he had no idea what she was talking about anyway. Flemming was pale and thin. Her facial expression seemed to be one of mild irritation mixed with a general sort of weltschmerz. They were fresh-faced but bright-minded. Simon noticed with interest that DS Ralph Golding, interim leader of the team, brought up the rear like a captain steering his ship. Golding looked brawny and handsome in jeans and a dress shirt. He sported a three-day-old beard and hair that needed a trim.

Simon introduced himself formally without budging from his safe spot, without offering to shake hands.

“Where’s all the things?” Pollard wanted to know.

“What happened to our poster?” Flemming chimed in.

Heart grumbled, “Who took my knitting?”

Simon cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of tidying up. It’s a work place not a living room. Please see to it that certain professional standards are maintained in the future.”

Pollard stared at him, perhaps ready to tell him off, but Simon quickly said, “Are you always dressed like this?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back.

A well-known panic crept up Simon’s spine all the way to the crown of his head where it sat and sent hot spikes down his body. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say, she wasn’t behaving in a professional manner and her body language suggested she felt threatened and was ready to attack. He tried to understand why she was acting that way but couldn’t come up with anything. Simon had been nothing but professional and calm. It made no sense that she was behaving the way she did.

To avoid further misunderstandings, he addressed all of them together, “I know that there haven’t been any homicides in the past couple of days, and nothing has come in, yet. That gives us ample time to catch up on necessary paperwork.” Without leaving his safe spot, he pointed to a small stack of print-outs on Flemming’s desk and added, “I read up on your last reports. Please go over all of them again and spell-check. I have a dictionary and a punctuation guide that you can use. The books are in my office to which I will now withdraw.”

Simon withdrew. It felt like running away from the other kids on the playground who didn’t want to get along with him, but he was well versed in putting such thoughts aside. He was just about to place the mentioned books on the corner of his desk, ready for use, when the door to his office opened. It was DS Ralph Golding. He hadn’t knocked, but he did close the door behind him.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

Simon checked the man’s body language. Was he angry? He didn’t look angry. Nor did he look aggressive.

Simon put the books down. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The whole tidying up thing. And the remark to Kate. And the book thing.”

“I still don’t know what you mean,” Simon confessed. “The room was messy. Her attire is unprofessional. The reports are riddled with mistakes. I pointed it out.”

“Well, alright, fair enough. But you can’t tell people things like that. You’ve only just met them!”

A brief silence fell. Simon aligned the two books with the corner of his desk. Ralph Golding gave a sigh.

“Right,” he said. “You know what? Let’s just call a do over. Pretend that never happened. Good morning. I’m DS Ralph Golding.”

After a moment’s hesitation Simon took the offered hand and shook it.

“DI Simon Stark.”

The other man flashed him a smile. “Call me Ralph. Always beneficial for the lead investigators to be on an informal basis.”

Simon was too busy sanitizing his hands with the emergency bottle in his jacket to object. When he realized what had just happened, he flinched inwardly. He would have to scrub the sink in the bathroom twice tonight for accidentally agreeing on what, according to the Rules, was unprofessional.

“I’ll smooth things over with them lot,” said Ralph with a sparkle in his eyes Simon couldn’t place. “You settle in. At least that’s a nice opportunity—we don’t often have calm spells in Whitechapel. Let me know if you need anything.” With this, he left.

Ralph didn’t return, leaving Simon to familiarize himself with his office, until half past noon to take lunch requests.

“We’re getting Indian,” Ralph explained. As an afterthought he offered, “Unless you’d rather like something else.”

Simon didn’t trust food somebody else had prepared. In his lunchbox, cling film wrapped to avoid cross-contamination, were an egg-and-cress sandwich, a banana, and a box with mixed nuts. If Ralph thought him funny because of that he hid it professionally, for which Simon was grateful.

“You will have lunch with us, though,” Ralph smiled. “Don’t you even think of wriggling out of that one.” He was gone quickly before Simon could voice his protest.

* * * *

Determined not to let Ralph Golding drag him out of the sanctuary of his office, Simon opened the door as soon as he saw the others return with an armful of takeaway boxes. He expected to be glared at, at least by DC Pollard, but the three young constables acted in quite a cheerful manner towards him. Flemming waved her phone in front of his face, mumbling something about needing a userpic to go with the new contact. Heart flashed him a broad smile that seemed a little unsettling on his coarse face. Simon watched him put his knitting away to make room on the desk for the food. Pollard flopped down on the chair to Simon’s left, Ralph took the one on Simon’s right.

Simon listened to their banter for a few minutes. He decided it would show that he was approachable if he joined in, so he used a momentary lapse in the chit-chat to say, “How long have there been no cases?”

They looked at him. Something in the air changed from light to tense. Eventually Ralph seemed to take pity.

“Full week now,” he said. “I say, it’s never been so quiet.”

“Not since I joined the force,” Heart agreed.

Pollard leaned back in her chair, “Let’s hope it stays that way for another day or two—I could get used to it!”

Simon shook his head. From somewhere deep below the city he felt a stirring that reached all the way into his bones. This was the lull before the storm—and it was almost over. Wanting to keep his voice soft he verbalized what his body sensed, “Something will happen before sunrise,” to which Flemming merely replied with a horror movie sound effect, and Pollard giggled, “What, like it waited for you to arrive, DI Stark?”

Ralph didn’t reply anything and neither did Simon. They did exchange a glance though, and it seemed to him that the sergeant shared Simon’s unease.

* * * *

The phone rang that night at 2:12:49 A.M. precisely. It was raining outside, Simon heard the pitter-patter on his bedroom window. He memorized the address, and called first Ralph then a taxi for himself.