Fic: The Key That Opens Is the Key That Rusts (Lewis, gen)

[niki_chidon]

Title: The Key that Opens is the Key that Rusts
Writer: Niki
Fandom: Lewis
Disclaimer: Colin Dexter and ITV own the actual characters; Aisha, Clem and Gleed belong to my subconscious mind; the rest are my fault.
Characters: Lewis, Hathaway, Hobson, Innocent, original characters (pre-slash Lewis/Hathaway if you have your slash goggles on)
Genre: Case fic
Rating: NC-17 for the subject matter
Beta: lygtemanden (Contestant for the Fastest Beta Ever award!)
Warnings: Contains non-graphic references to rape and murder of children.
Wordcount: 8571
Notes: I had been looking for a story that could link Morse and Lewis, maybe a case spanning decades. Then I had a dream, which was this story, and it was coherent and made sense even after waking up! I couldn't wait to write it down. It honestly took me hours to realise how grisly and horrible the whole thing was and to think about what a messed up thing it was to dream about.

In the end, I didn't want to write a story about Morse failing to solve a case so it ended up having less and less to do with him.

My entry for lewis_challenge
Summary: A case that Morse and Lewis never actually worked on resurfaces, and Lewis and Hathaway must solve it


Prologue

The snow is still falling, and the world is white. It makes the city look new and untouched in a way it rarely is. Soon the crowds and the traffic will pollute it and turn it grey but for now the pristine white makes the place seem unreal.

Someone has a line of candles running the length of a fence he has to pass to reach the blue and white tape, and that looks familiar, the flickering flames striking a chord somewhere in his mind.

Maybe it's just the association with a grave yard, the candles the kind people leave on accident sites and on graves but the whole place feels familiar, like a dream almost forgotten, with only flickers of emotions surfacing during the day. He tells himself it's the early hour, and shrugs the feeling off.

By then he has reached the crime scene and the familiarity turns into the feel of each and every murder scene he has ever seen, the reality of it almost a relief.

James is there already, despite the time. His sergeant, whom he thinks of as 'James' and not 'Hathaway' these days, and doesn't even remember when that changed. James' quiet 'sir' takes the place of 'good morning', and Lewis nods in reply. Laura is there, as always, crouching by the body.

The victim is covered by the falling snow, disturbed now by Laura's hands. The body looks almost too dramatic on the ground, her dark hair and red scarf against the white, her face still obscured by the angle, by the hair, by the snow.

There's dried blood matting her hair, and Lewis knows what he's going to hear.

"Looks like a blow to the head, but she has also been strangled," Laura says, proving him half right.

"A neighbour walking the dog found her," James says, nodding towards an elderly man standing next to a uniform a little further away on the street.

"Do we know who she is?" Lewis asks, crouching to get a look at her face.

He brushes off the renewed feeling of familiarity. James has dug up a handbag from the snow and is going through its contents efficiently.

"Aisha Morrell," he reads from the driver's licence and that's it, deja vu all over again, all the feelings of familiarity justified and Lewis' eyes shoot up to meet Laura's.

He can see his own shock on her face, in the quiet widening of her eyes, and can feel his own lips press together, like keeping in the words he'll never say.

James notices the reactions, of course, and is looking at them expectantly.

"Aisha," Lewis whispers, eyes on her face again, trying to see the little girl but only recognising features she inherited from her mother.

"Who is she?" James asks, not impatient, just curious.

"Before your time," Lewis says, straightening, looking at Laura, meaning them both.

"I was still a student then," Laura says. "I remember it, of course, it was still going when I took over – we ran the samples in 2003, one of the first cases we did, as soon as the new techniques..." her voice dies out, and they both look at James now. He would have been a child back then, hardly older than Aisha herself.

"You must have heard of the Oxford Ripper," Laura tells James.

"Sure, I was only, what, five, at the time but of course I've read the..." He gets it then, James with his memory for quotations and names, and looks at the girl.

"Before Harry Potter, Aisha Morrell was the Girl Who Lived," he says, most likely a quotation itself.

"It was here," Lewis says, relieved to understand the feeling of familiarity at last, bit cross that he didn't make the connection before. But it was decades ago. "This is where she was found."

He looks at the candles, not understanding how he could have forgotten. "My lights saved a girl once," he quotes quietly. James looks at him enquiringly but he does not explain himself.

"Do you think it's connected?" Laura asks, even though it's not her job.

"Has to be, hasn't it?" Lewis says, glancing around, looking at the neighbouring houses, separated from the empty yard by trees and fences, knowing their chance for witnesses is as slim as it was all those years ago.

"Well," Laura says, and she's smiling, just a little. "It looks like you need to solve the one case Morse never did."


Chapter 1: The Oxford Ripper

"It was never Morse's case," Lewis says in the car, after they have dropped off James' car at the station and are driving to meet the next of kin. "Not really. Too messy, too long, and there was always something else, something more urgent, to work on. Sometimes I wish it had been because surely he would have made a better job of it."

"Didn't they find the guy even if they could never prove it?" James asks, trying to remember everything he's ever read about the case.

"They got a guy, but he didn't do it. He was arrested at one point but they couldn't make the case stick. This is one of those cold cases that are dug up every time forensic science has a new breakthrough. But the samples were useless until 2003 when they finally could get enough of a sample off one of the slides to get a profile. Clem wasn't a match."

"Can you give me an outline of the whole case?"

"The first girl, Lindy, they figured was an accident. She disappeared in August ‘82, and was found dead a week later. They theorised that he had accidentally killed her while raping her, and that's what started the whole thing. The next victim, Katie, was a few months later, and this time she had been killed on purpose, but... clinically, it seemed like he was just disposing of the evidence – it was never about the killing for this guy, they figured, which is why the name Ripper never fit but you know how these things stick. It was a very public case, seeing that the victims were so young."

"I just remember being given the 'don't talk to strangers' talk more sternly around that time."

"It had that effect, yes. I couldn't... well. There was a gap then, almost two years, and people thought he had stopped but of course it doesn't work that way. Serial killers in real life don't behave like on TV. When Bethany disappeared, the most eager journalists evoked the Ripper name again but most were of the opinion this was a separate incident. Even when her body was found, suffocated, like the others. The semen sample matched, as far as the current technology could tell."

"There were five girls in all, weren't there?"

"Five girls who died. Aisha Morrell was the last."

"And she got away."

"She got away. She struggled, and ran. It was early, too early for many people to be about but she ran into a man who called the police. Some believed he was the Ripper himself but the girl wasn't afraid of him so I never believed that."

"But she couldn't give a good description of the man?"

"She was five and very traumatised, they found the empty house he'd been using but no sign of him. Until the samples were analysed they – we – didn't even know it had been the Ripper."

James is about to ask more but they have reached their destination. Lewis parks the car, then just sits there, staring at the building for a long time.

"Let's go."

- - -

At first James thinks they have a wrong person – the woman opening the door looks too young to be a mother to an almost thirty-year-old daughter but Lewis seems to recognise her well enough.

"Ms Morrell, I'm DI Lewis and this is DS Hathaway. May we come in?"

The woman takes one look at their solemn faces and starts to shake her head. "No. No, no, no, no, no."

"Ms Morrell, Cassie, please," Lewis is saying, stepping in and guiding the woman back inside, into the first room on the right, helping her sit down on an armchair.

The use of her Christian name has a same effect on Ms Morrell as it has on James – it stops her, makes her look at the DI more carefully.

"Robbie? Robbie Lewis?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"You... you of all the people come here to tell me... to tell me my girl..."

"I'm sorry, Cassie. Is there anyone I can ask to come over?"

"No, no, I... I knew something was wrong when she didn't come home. I knew it! But I didn't want to be overprotective, didn't want to be... the hysterical mother that calls the police at the first..."

She is still not crying, and the first signs of shock make James slip out of the room quietly to find a kitchen and the British cure for all ills – a cup of tea.

When he returns, Lewis is sitting on the armrest of the chair, his hand on Ms Morrell's – Cassie's – shoulder. She accepts the tea gratefully, comforted by the familiarity of the gesture, relieved to have something to hold on to. Lewis retreats to another chair.

"What happened?" she asks, quietly.

"She was killed," he tells her, and the word 'murder' is there in his tone, on his face.

"She was there, wasn't she? She thinks... thought I didn't know but I do. I'm her mother, I knew..."

"Has she been going back there a lot?" Lewis asks.

"Lately, yes. She's been in therapy since... well, ever since then. But she changed therapists and I think the new one encouraged her to meet those demons. I think for the past five years she has been there often. She never tells... told me about it. But I knew."

James follows her eyes to a photo on a side table. It takes a moment to reconcile the dark woman with the snowy corpse but the hair is the same, a black veil around her smiling face.

"My baby," she whispers. "Has she not gone through enough already? Haven't I?"

She closes her eyes but opens them soon, fixing her determined gaze on Lewis.

"Find him, Robbie."

There seems to be no doubt in her mind that her daughter was killed by the same person who abducted her all those years ago. Maybe there isn't. The location is suggestive. But was she killed because of who she was or because she was there? Or was she there because of who she was?

"We will, Cassie, I promise."

There's a silent moment while the men look at her sipping her tea. There are questions that need to be asked but James is content to leave that to Lewis. He knows her, he'll know what she can handle at the moment.

"Did she live here?"

"Now, yes. She broke up recently and moved back here. We've always been more like friends than a mother and daughter anyway, and she had the whole second floor to herself, even her own kitchen, so it wasn't... you know, like living with your parents in your thirties, really."

"She broke up with..."?

"Oh, Linnet Wendell. A lovely girl, really, but not the love story of the century, you know. There was no fight, no harsh words, they just decided they would be better as friends than lovers."

"Can we have her address? Any other friends we could talk to?"

"Why? Isn't it obvious who killed her?"

"We need to explore all the possibilities. Besides, if it's the same man he may have been following her."

"Aisha never had many friends. She found it hard to be close to people, you know? And we were so close, did so many things together... Linnet was the closest, then there were a few other friends from school but that's it."

"Could we take a look at her rooms?"

"If you think that will help."

Her floor is still filled with boxes, the laptop on the empty desk showing nothing useful, no diary or calendar in sight. There is a book on her bedside table, called "Relationships Between Graphic Expansivity and Extraversion as a Function of Anxiety and Defensiveness", presumably related to her studies at the University, but there's nothing there to give them any leads to her personality, much less her death.

Cass Morrell walks them to the door.

"Are you sure I can't get anyone here?" Lewis asks, and she shakes her head.

"I've always survived on my own. Right now I need to be alone."

She stays in the doorway as they walk away. When they have only taken a few steps she talks again.

"Robbie? How are your kids? Your girl... I can't remember her name."

"Lyn," he replies, smiling. "She's fine. She's a nurse these days."

"That's good. That's good."

- - -

"I didn't realise you knew her," James says once they get into the car, trying – and succeeding – to keep his voice and face neutral.

"I was on duty when Aisha was found. I took her mother to the hospital where they took her. We had to wait while they treated her, so we got to talking. I would have said anything to get her mind off it, so I talked about my kids. They kept Aisha overnight, and she stayed there with her. I kept her company."

Lewis falls silent for a moment, mind obviously in the past.

"We never saw each other again after that night but some things – people – stay with you, you know."

James thinks that was it but after a while he continues.

"Val actually thought we were having an affair," he says, affection and humour in his voice and James is so surprised to hear him voluntarily mention his late wife he almost misses the point.

"I spent another night away from home that week. She thought I had been with her. Ironically, I had actually spent that one with Morse."

He knows he must have made a sound of some sort because Lewis snorts.

"Not like that."

James wonders if he should apologise, but the affection is still there in Lewis' voice.

"It was a rough week all around. He had a few more than he should have at the local, and I ended up taking him home."

James doesn't know what to say, Val and Morse in five minutes? Meeting Cassie must have affected Lewis more than he lets on.

"Is that what we think happened, then?" James asks, returning his attention to the case. "She was there, at the place where it happened, and the Ripper happened to be there at the same time and she recognised him and he killed her? Or that she was attacked somewhere else and taken there?"

"What, to make us think it's connected to the Ripper case?"

"Maybe. It might have nothing to do with her past. It's not like it's the anniversary of her abduction or anything. I'm just saying we need to keep an open mind about this. Sir."

"True. So I suppose we should go meet this ex-girlfriend next. Might be some bad blood there the mother doesn’t know about."


Chapter 2: His lights (saved a girl once)


Lewis is not sure what he expected, short hair and camouflage, maybe, but Linnet Wendell looks like any student, answering the door in what are obviously her night clothes, a tank top and pyjama bottom, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders.

Lewis introduces them, and after getting her indoors and sitting down, breaks the news.

"Aish? Dead?" She doesn't cry, but her face is pale and she's clutching the armrests of her chair.

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"I... A few days ago? I helped her move back to her mum's and... Damn. Dead?"

"You helped her move out of here?" Lewis checks.

"Why not? We were always more like friends with benefits than a couple, so... when we decided to ditch the sex part we figured it would be better if we weren't living together anymore. Of course I helped her."

"It wasn't the love story of the century, then," James asks, and his tone seems to be what the girl needs because she relaxes her pose.

"Hardly. She wasn't even really a lesbian, you know. She just never wanted to be touched by a man, so she taught herself to 'appreciate the female form'," she says, and even though the quotation marks are audible her tone is only fond, not mocking.

"And you?" Lewis asks.

"What, am I a lesbian? Yeah."

"No, I mean, you weren't in love with her either?"

"No, and I didn't kill her in a jealous rage, either," she says, halfway between a joke and a sneer and then she seems to realise what she said and now the tears start to fall.

"She really was killed, wasn't she."

Lewis nods, and James wonders if he should go for tea again.

"Where?"

"Did you know she used to go to the place where she had been attacked as a kid?"

"Yeah, she went there, a lot. I thought it was morbid. She took me with her once but I didn't know what to think about it so I never went with her again. That's where she was...?"

"Yes."

"Shit."

"So, besides the whole breaking up thing there was nothing unusual going in her life?"

"Can't think of anything. It's not like she was heartbroken or that either one of us actually had anyone new lined up, and her studies were going well, she was desperate to do something good with her life so she wanted to be the best there is."

"Any other friends we could talk to?" James asks, and her list matches the one they got from Cassandra Morrell.

"If you think of anything, please don't hesitate to contact us," Lewis says as they are leaving.

"I will. Thanks for... letting me know. I have to call Cass, she must be devastated!"

"What do you make of her?" Lewis asks after she has closed the door behind them.

"I think she was telling the truth," James replies, almost reluctantly, it seems.

"Yeah, me too. Let's head back to the scene."

- - -

The candles are still burning, and now there is a man standing next to them. Clem Goacher hasn't changed in all these years. There is still innocence in his grey eyes, and kindness on his round face. His clothes could be from the past as well, a warm woolly coat, jeans, and fingerless gloves. Only the bright red scarf is different from the much younger man in Lewis' memory.

"Hello, Clem."

"Sir," the younger man replies, polite as ever.

"I see you added another candle."

"It's for her, down the road," Clem says, pointing towards the murder scene, now abandoned by SOCO but still surrounded by the tape.

"Did she come here often?" Lewis asks, casually, as if making conversation. He remembers Clem, remembers how flustered he gets when questioned officially.

"She came to think, she said. To find out who she was."

"She told you that?"

"My lights saved a girl once, you know," Clem says, as if changing the subject.

"I know."

"She never told me she was the girl, but I knew. Her eyes were still frightened. She asked me for a candle, to place there, so I gave her one, and ever since had a spare for her."

"Did she come round often?" he tries again.

"Now and then. I didn't always see her, but she knew the candle was for her so she took it and placed it there even if I wasn't here. But mostly I'm here."

He fingers the scarf around his neck. "She gave me this. She said... she said I would catch a cold, standing around in the snow. She said she made it herself."

He looks straight into Lewis' eyes. "Why did they want to hurt her?"

"Did you see her last night?"

"No. She sometimes came so late I was already in bed. But I saw she had taken a candle when I woke up so I went there to get it. That's what I do. She moves it there, and I take it back when it burns out and get her a new candle for the next time."

"Did you find the candle?"

"I found her. She looked so cold and I was scared. I thought they would blame me again, so I went away. I left her there."

He is crying now, eyes wide open, tears running down his cheeks like a child. "She must have been so cold."

"It's okay, Clem. You couldn't have helped her any more. You didn't do anything wrong." He wonders if he should have taken this to the office, anyway, make it official, but he knows that Clem would not speak there.

"Did you see anyone out there?"

"It was starting to snow, it took out my lights, I had to change them into lanterns. I wish I had done that before, so she could have had a lantern. So the flames wouldn't have gone out."

"She wasn't covered in snow yet, then?"

"It was on her clothes but not on her face. I could see her face. She was cold and blue and I went away."

"Was there anyone else around?" he asks again, knowing Clem needs to take his time, knowing the door-to-door probably got nothing out of him.

"There were tracks next to her."

"Tracks? Tyre tracks?"

"Not car. Smaller. Like a trolley."

"Right next to her? Were there footsteps?"

"Her steps, and the tracks, and then they were gone because the snow kept falling and it covered her face, and I left her there because I knew they would come and get me again and take me away from my lights and they would go out in the snow and no one would light them again for Mama."

"It's okay, Clem. You didn't do anything wrong, no one will take you away from the lights. You‘ll keep them burning for her, too, won't you?"

"I will keep her spare for her, just as if she was going to come ask for it again," he says, and it sounds like a promise.

Lewis knows he will keep it, too, just as he has been lighting his candles for his mother for the past three decades, even after she passed away.

"She would like that, I think."

- - -

"Do you believe him?" James asks as they walk away, having stayed quiet throughout the conversation.

"Clem doesn't really know how to lie, or else he's the most brilliant criminal mastermind ever."

"He was the one they arrested for the murders after Aisha, wasn't he?"

"Yes. They couldn't make the case stick because everyone knows him around here, he never leaves his home other than to buy food and candles. The only thing they had was that his blood type matched and he was the one to call the police when Aisha ran into him. And the fact that he's not... normal. He's like a big child, but without the temper some of them have."

"I remember he was referred to as a mental case."

"I suppose he is, technically. But he's never hurt anyone, not when he was a kid, not when he grew up, not after his mother died. Aisha wasn't afraid of him – especially if she saw him regularly, and I'm inclined to believe him. Some of the neighbours must have seen her around here before – seen them together."

They reach the murder scene, and take a look around the snow, now full of footprints and other marks left by the SOCO.

"Tracks, like a trolley?"

"Bike, perhaps?"

"Maybe."

"Come on, let's head back."



Chapter 3: Personal is Political

There are formalities that need to be followed, and identifying the body is one. James accompanies Cassandra Morrell to the morgue, leaving Lewis to hunt down the Ripper case files, not questioning this division of labour.

She looks older now, her black clothes making her look excessively pale, her slender form seeming almost frail.

She doesn't say a word while the cloth is moved from her daughter's face, just nods, and the tears start flowing down her cheeks. She turns away, stumbling, and James helps her sit down in the next room.

"Would you like some tea?"

"I couldn't keep it down. I just need to sit down a minute."

He stands by, head bowed, waiting for her to compose herself.

"My friends were aghast that I decided to keep her," she says, quietly.

James understands the impulse to talk in situations like this so he lets her.

"I've always been pro-choice, but choice means I could choose to keep her, you know?"

"Yes."

"I was nineteen. I was at the university, ready to change the world. That's where I met Baker, and even though I loved him it didn't change anything. I was still going to be me, do the things I wanted to do. He wanted to marry me when I found out about the baby but I would have none of that. Despite anglicising his name and being liberated enough for pre-marital sex he was still a product of his upbringing and I wasn't going to become a Muslim just to have his child. I was an independent woman, and marriage was part of the old patriarchal system – me and my friends were going to tear it down. They felt I betrayed those beliefs when I had my baby, and that's when I lost touch with most of them. They called me a hypocrite and I said it right back."

She turns to look at him, smiling very faintly. "I still call myself a feminist and believe in much the same things we believed then – equal opportunities and all that. But I maintained that part of the right to choose your own way means getting to choose your own way – not what someone else feels is right for me, no matter who they are, men or women."

She pauses, wipes her eyes almost absently. "Sorry, soap box."

"Anyway. When I first held my girl I changed my mind about many things. I told Baker he could give her his name if he wanted to, I could see he was deeply moved by her birth, too. But he just smiled, and asked me to call her 'Aisha', then, and I didn't mind. I wanted her to grow up with a tie to her father's culture, too. Baker had to go back home, we both knew that. We also knew I couldn't go with him, not, and do the things I wanted to do or raise Aisha the way I – we – wanted to, so I stayed here and Baker went home. He later married a girl his father chose for him, and had other children. It was like he gave me a gift – her – and then went away. Maybe the kindest thing he could have done."

"Have you let him know about...?"

"He died, almost ten years ago. I loved him once, but by then he didn't even feel very real, so... I couldn't really feel anything. For Aisha he was just a name, a face in photographs, so she wasn't really bothered, either."

It felt wrong, but it wasn't his place to remark on it, so he said nothing.

"I'm sorry, I can't understand why I'm boring you with all this. You're much like Robbie, you know, even though you're nothing like him."

"Excuse me?"

"You invite confidences, but where he does it with his niceness and friendly disposition you do it with your air of detachedness. Like a priest in a confessional, I would assume. You make one think one could say anything and not be judged."

He tried to cultivate that air once, during his 'priestly phase', and has found it serves him well in police work, but it is unnerving to have it remarked on. Where Robbie's niceness is just a part of him, the silent observance, for James, always feels like an affectation. He doesn't tell her that.

"I'll get someone to drive you home," he says, instead.

"I'll be fine," she says, as he expected her to.

He still wants to argue, to tell her that no one should be alone after just seeing their only child dead, especially after everything they have already gone through in their lives but he doesn't. This is what she needs to do, to be, and who is he to argue with that?

- - -

James finds Lewis in an empty office, filled with boxes.

"Are you sure this is all?" he asks, taking off his jacket and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows.

"No, some of it they have actually managed to move to computers."

"Me and my big mouth."

"Which ones do you want?"

James takes a look around the messy boxes filled with files and glances longingly at the computer. He sighs.

"I'll take the boxes, sir."

It's not as messy as it seemed, of course. The files and the physical evidence have been visited often during the years, every Anniversary of the murders and every forensic breakthrough has had the cold case revisited. It is still time-consuming, and James can't help but think that their time could be consumed in more worthy pursuits.

After hours of poring over the deaths of little girls Lewis leans back in his chair, running his hands over his face.

"I think we have to call it a night," he says but doesn't make a move to get up.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to drive to Manchester to give my girl a hug."

James just looks at him, then shrugs. "If we leave now, we should be back by tomorrow."

Lewis looks back, studying his relaxed form. "You'd really do it, wouldn't you?"

"I was joking."

"Yeah, I know. But if that was something I really wanted to do, you would drive me there, right now, and have me back by the morning."

James considers making a joke, deflecting the sincerity in Lewis' gaze, but in the end just says, simply, "Yes." Let him make of that what he will.

Lewis is quiet for so long he thinks he's not going to respond.

"Thank you."


Chapter 4: Robins Vanish When the Ravens Come

Lewis starts his day with a visit to Laura.

"What's the word?"

"The hit to the head was probably enough to knock her unconscious; it was the strangling that killed her. If the murderer didn’t wear gloves we should be able to get a DNA sample but... well, we'll see."

"But she was killed where she was found?"

"Oh, no doubt about that."

"What do you think? Is it the Ripper?"

"His MO was suffocating but... I don't know."

"What's your feeling?"

"Sorry, Robbie."

- - -

Lewis relates the news to James who is already busy reading the files in the incident room. His clothes are different from yesterday, though, so at least this time he actually went to home at some point.

"Any joy?" he asks, settling down by the computer.

"Very little, sir. I compiled a list of all the viable suspects there has been in the investigation to have something to compare to the people we meet but..." he hesitates, then looks directly at Lewis.

"I can't help but feel like we're wasting our time here, sir."

"Yes?"

"I still feel like we should be concentrating on Aisha's life as an adult."

Lewis rubs his hands over his face and sighs. "You could be right. My connection to the old case could be blinding me." Again, he thinks, but doesn't say it aloud. After all, he wasn't wrong the last time, was he?

They stare at the board James has been setting up, with photos of the victims, dates and lists of suspects. There's too much information there, years and years' worth.

"Should we talk to the therapist?" James asks, in the end.

"Would he actually tell us anything?" Lewis can't help but be cynical.

"Could give it a try," James says, blandly.

"Be my guest."

- - -

Cassandra Morrell provides the name of her daughter's therapist with little questions and James drives to her clinic.

She sees him right away, a middle-aged woman in black with sensible shoes and attitude.

"I am in a difficult position, you understand, sergeant. I have the client confidentiality to think of but my client is dead, and if something on these tapes could help you..." She taps the leather box on the desk in front of her, and James can only pray she will relent. Years worth of therapy tapes? He couldn't have wished for more.

"If there is anything at all you can give us..."

"This," she says, picking up a tape from the box in front of her. "This is her talking about the place, and of her visits there. But you will have to listen to it here, you can't take it with you."

"Thank you."

"And I don't know if you will be able to use any of this in the court."

"We need to find the killer first, we'll worry about the trial later."

A secretary leads him into an empty office and shows him how to use the ancient tape recorder before leaving him alone.

James plugs his own earphones into the player. It feels weird, as always, listening to someone he knows is dead. Aisha Morrell sounds so... young, British. He had unconsciously expected her to match her exotic looks with a foreign accent, which of course made no sense.

"I went there again yesterday. I wasn't going to, but Lin was out with her poet and I felt restless. I thought of stopping at home – I mean at my mother's place, damn, I'm still doing that. But it was late, you know, and I didn't want to harass mum. I love Oxford at night. You'd think I'd be scared but I'm not – it's so peaceful, somehow, like you feel kinship with everyone who's out at that hour. Clem's candles were there, of course, and so I took mine and placed it on the ground, next to the fence as I always do. It was the fence I stared at from the window, I think, or maybe I'm just making that up based on all my visits, I don't know. I don't remember that much of the whole thing, and then again I remember lots. Too much. I can't actually remember all of it. I sometimes think I could even remember his voice if I heard it, his smell if I smelled it. I think he called me his 'bride', or maybe I made that up... But you've heard all this before. Sorry. What I was going to talk about was the place. I never call the street by its name, I didn't know it then, I don't think of it in terms of words, of names, it's a place of feelings. Fear, so much bloody fear. I couldn't face going there for so many years, and now I feel safe standing there even in the dark, is that weird? I feel like it's my place now, not his. I've been there so often, and he hasn't. 'The robins vanish when the ravens come', but maybe they can fly back when the ravens are gone again? I don't know. All I know is... I discovered myself there. I'm stronger than the fear, stronger than what he did to me. I like going there at night, though, I can believe it's mine then. No neighbours, no passers by, just me. Oh, and the guy In the wheelchair, but hey. I've only seen him a couple of times and always wheeling away so he doesn't really count, does he?"

- - -

Lewis leans back in his chair, stretching his neck. Maybe he should have just rented the movie instead of trying to go through all the information by himself. There's too much, and not enough. Some of the things the investigating officers have done in the past make no sense and some of the interview logs make him want to cringe.

They were under terrible pressure, true, but grilling a guy in a wheelchair over... Wheelchair? Wheelchair. Wheelchair!

His thoughts are interrupted by a ringing phone. It's James, who sounds very excited – well, for James, at least.

"Those tracks, sir," he starts, and Lewis can't help but finish his sentence. "Wheelchair."

"...How did you guess that, sir?"

"I was just reading... so did the therapist actually have something to say?"

"She let me listen to a therapy tape, off the record, and Aisha mentions seeing a man in a wheelchair at her 'place'."

"Get back here. We need to take a look at these files again."

Lewis disconnects the call and punches in another number from memory.

"This may sound weird, Laura, but... could the killer have been sitting down?"

"That would explain the direction of the blow. I have been wondering about it. It's our old friend, the blunt object."

"Thanks," he says, distractedly, while disconnecting, already looking for the interview logs of a Dr Gleed.

- - -

"You mean there was a suspect who was in a wheelchair?" James asks, first thing. Lewis has discarded his jacket and has pushed his sleeves up but doesn't seem to have moved from the spot where James left him. Only the pile of files seems to have grown.

"Professor Matthew Gleed. He wasn't in the chair when Lindy went missing. He was a family friend. He was 'cut up' about the whole business and the interviewing officer seems to have believed him."

"Not that it means much," James mutters, typing the name to check it in their databases as well as do some basic internet searches.

"No. Especially if the first death was an accident. He was also questioned in connection of Juliet's death, he had moved and was living not far from the family. Still walking."

James sits up straight when he finds the date of Gleed's accident. "He was in a car crash in 1987."

Lewis gets up from his seat and walks to peer at the screen over James's shoulder. "July! That's only a few weeks after Aisha."

"Damn," James says, looking at the photo of a man who looks like someone's favourite uncle, with white hair and a benevolent smile.

"Let's not jump to conclusions here," Lewis says, sitting back down, passing a file to James. "Tell me what you make of this."

- - -

"He is a sanctimonious bastard. Sir."

"Not just me, then. Do you think we have enough to go talk to him?"

"If he was questioned twice, why don't we have his samples on file?"

"Didn't have the database then, we weren't allowed to store the samples. If they ever took one back then, there is no mention of it anywhere."

"Should we have him in for questioning, then? To get the samples?"

"We don't have enough to press it if he says no. Is there a recent photo anywhere? I think we need to pay another visit to Clem."

- - -

"I've seen him. I think he lives close, I've seen him often. Never talks to me. Most never do." Clem's voice holds no censure, and James wonders if being ignored is something he welcomes or something he's merely got used to.

"Thank you," he says, smiling as he would to a child.

He wonders whether he should talk to some of the other neighbours, too, but that's a job for the uniforms. He has something else in mind.

Gleed doesn't live anywhere close, and his work record gives no clue to his visits to the area. It's still not enough to get him in, and James wonders if it's foolish to show their hand by interviewing him at his place.

His phone rings just as he reaches his car.

"Gleed has a housekeeper," Lewis says without preliminaries. “The professor himself is giving a guest lecture at his old department. Which one do you want?”

“The housekeeper, please.”

- - -

The housekeeper is an older lady, the chatty kind who doesn't really need a good excuse to talk about her employer. That is good, because James has nothing but the truth to offer her and he's pretty sure that would make her clam up.

“Such a fine gentleman he is. Shame about the accident but at least he can take a few steps these days, not so tied to the chair. I wouldn't leave him alone at nights otherwise.”

“You don't live in, then?”

“Oh no, no need anymore. The professor had a live-in nurse for many years but doesn't need one now. Out and about all hours of the day, he is. So many friends and duties, even now.”

“Were you here on Wednesday?”

“Yes, but I left at eight, as usual. Next morning he slept late so I figured he had been out the previous night. He doesn't say but I know he sleeps poorly and often goes out then. I know because he did that when I still spent the nights, too. My husband is happy I don't need to, no more, I can tell you that.” And she laughs, offering James more tea.

It can't be this easy, can it? Two decades and all those people searching and now he is their first and only suspect?

- - -

“Good speaker, I'll give him that,” Lewis says when James comes back to the station. "Apparently knows his field, too."

“Did you know he can actually take a few steps without the chair?” James asks while sitting down.

“That explains the walking stick tied to the chair. Old, heavy, wooden one, with a ridged head.”

James looks at him sharply. “Hard to wash blood off something like that,” he says blandly.

“Aye. I think we need to have a talk with Innocent.”

As they leave the office they run into an exited Laura.

“Robbie! We got a print.”

“Print? Finger print?”

“Glove print. I think the murderer wore leather gloves. She was strangled, she wore a necklace – find me a pair of gloves and I'll see if I can get a match.” She smiles triumphantly, almost bouncing in place.

- - -


Chapter 5: Crippled Straws


"Let me get this straight... You want to arrest an old man in a wheelchair," Innocent asks, in a tone of voice they both recognise well.

"Yes, ma'am," Lewis says.

"How sure are you?"

"Until we get a DNA sample, and find those gloves, we can't prove it but it's him. He's the Ripper."

"Convince me."

"He was a 'person of interest' in both Lindy‘s and Juliet's disappearances, he matches the vague description of Aisha's abductor, after the car accident the Ripper stopped his killings. I know it's all circumstantial for now but I know it's him. Ma'am."

"Also, Clem recognised him as someone who's been in the spot before," James adds.

"I'm sorry, Clem?" Innocent asks.

"A neighbour."

"Professor Gleed is also paralysed," Innocent reminds them pointedly.

"Only partially. He can get up from the chair if needed, and he always carries a heavy walking stick with him."

"We want to test that walking stick for blood," James explains.

"Let's say you arrest him. What if you are wrong? Think about what it'll look like. The press has not made the connection to the Ripper case yet but this will get out and the headlines... 'So desperate to catch the killer the Oxford PD is clutching at straws. Crippled straws'."

"But what if he is the one. 'The Oxford Ripper Finally Caught'. How about that for a headline?"

"Fine. But keep it as quiet as possible."

"Ma'am."

- - -

”Why was he never taken seriously as a suspect, sir? Is there something we are missing?”

”He was a family friend of the first girl, so when his name cropped up in connection of the fourth victim it raised some flags but not enough to go anywhere with it, obviously. Well, we're going places with it now. We're going all the way to court with this one."

"At least he can't run, sir."

- - -

The uniforms escort their suspect to one of the interview rooms and take his gloves and the heavy walking stick to the lab. Lewis hesitates outside the door.

”I must protest,” they hear the professor saying. ”I am an invalid, taking my only independence from me is deeply distressing – that stick never leaves my sight.”

”We apologise for the inconvenience," Lewis says, walking in. ”I'm DI Lewis, we just need to ask you a few questions, but first, if you wouldn't mind giving DS Hathaway here a sample of your saliva?”

- - -

Lewis leaves the room with James as the latter prepares to go to the lab with the sample.

"I don't want to talk to him yet. Just... let him sweat.”

"For how long? No matter how they rush it we can't get the results in under 24 hours."

"Sometimes you wish real police work was more like TV. Well, we should get something on the gloves or the walking stick soon enough."

- - -

"Good evening, inspector. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me when an actual clue came to light." Gleed's tone grates on Lewis' nerves. James' ”sanctimonious bastard” comes to his head and he almost smiles. They are going to nail this bastard, and all those families will finally have a measure of peace.

"We haven't forgotten you, Professor Gleed. I apologise for the wait. Tell me, how much do you know about finger prints?"

"Just what I've learnt from the popular culture. Everyone's are different, including identical twins, and quite useless when the killer – or other perpetrator – uses gloves."

"Ah. Almost right."

"Almost?" His face shows only polite interest, which Lewis finds suspicious on its own. If he was innocent, surely he'd be more affronted by the treatment.

"Leather gloves leave imprints as well. And those prints can also be compared to gloves. It is almost as good as finger prints, except of course there's no saying who used the gloves at the time, but when found in the possession of a suspect..."

"Fascinating! Crime has never been my field, you understand, but I do read my share of detective fiction. It is always good to learn new things."

"Then you'll love this one. The writers love 'the blunt object' as a murder weapon. Did you also know that no matter how well you think you wash something, it's really hard to get all the traces of blood off it?"

Is he imagining it, or are there tiny beads of sweat on Gleed's forehead? He tries very hard not to read too much into them. After all, even innocent people are nervous when questioned.

"Shall we talk about Lindy Harris?" he asks.

"If we must. But you must understand the memories are painful, even after all this time."

"You knew the family, I understand?"

"Do you have children, Inspector? I don't. I've always loved children, and have been an uncle to children of] countless friends and neighbours."

They skirt around the subject for long minutes, and Lewis knows he will get nothing out of this man. He is too used to it, has got away with it for so long that until – unless – he gets physical evidence this will go nowhere. He wonders whether he should leave the man to sweat again when James walks in, triumph evident in his supposedly calm features.

“Ah, the test results,” Lewis says, reading from James' face what he will find in them.

“Tell me, professor, have you cut yourself recently?” Lewis asks, eyes on the file.

“Only shaving, Inspector,” he says, smiling, but Lewis can smell blood now, in more ways than one, and he knows he has the bastard.

“Then how do you explain the traces of human blood on your walking stick?”

- - -

Epilogue

It is fast, in the end. Gleed refuses a lawyer even when they charge him with all the murders. The DNA results are conclusive, even after all these years. He is the Ripper.

Innocent likes the headlines well enough.

Lewis pays a personal visit to Cassie Morrell before the case goes public and is not really surprised to see Linnet Wendell there. He's glad, too. Despite her strength he knows it must help Cassie to have someone there.

A week later he gets a phone call.

“We are... we thought we'd have a... memorial for Aisha. Tonight. I'd like for you to come. Bring your sergeant, too.”

There are five of them – Cassie, Linnet, and another girl who is holding Linnet's hand tightly, as well as Lewis and James. Clem gives them the candle but doesn't stay.

They place the candle on the ground, next to the fence, as close to Aisha's usual spot as Linnet can remember. No one says a word as they stare at the light in the growing darkness.

After a while Cassie starts to recite a poem, quietly.

“Their Learned kings bent down to chat with frogs;
This was until the Battle of the Bogs.
The key that opens is the key that rusts.

Their cheerful kings made toffee on their stoves;
This was until the Rotting of the Loaves.
The robins vanish when the ravens come.

That was before the coaches reached the bogs;
Now woolly bears pursue the spotted dogs.
A witch can make an ogre out of mud.

The woolly bears have polished off the dogs;
Our bowls of milk are full of drowning frogs.
The robins vanish when the ravens come.

The blinded bears have rooted up the groves;
Our poisoned milk boils over on our stoves.
The key that opens is the key that rusts.”

“Auden. Aisha loved that poem,” Linnet says quietly.

“She loved it as a kid, too. It was the only one I could remember by heart when I needed something to soothe her with in the night. A bit morbid, maybe, but she didn't think of it that way.”

"I never understood it,” Linnet says. “All that imagery but what is the point? Bad things happen? I think I get it now. Bad things happen to children, too. And sometimes they don't stop happening to them. Like Aish.”

They stand around the candle a little longer, then Linnet sighs, and hugs Cassie.

“Don't be a stranger,” Cassie tells her, hugging back.

The young women leave, and Lewis notices they are still holding hands. Cassie follows his gaze. "Life goes on," she says, smiling a little.

The smile vanishes when she turns to face Lewis.

“Thank you for coming, Robbie. Thank you for getting that bastard. I'm not the only mother letting her child go tonight. I think I'll stay here a while longer, if you don't mind.”

The men take it as the gentle dismissal it is, and walk quietly away.

“Manchester?” James asks when they're almost at the car.

“Home, James.”

Then, opening the door: “The beer's on me.”

- - - - - - -