Porter frowned, wondering what the buffoon could possibly want at this late hour. He didn’t even work here anymore. “Yes, of course. Come in.”
Johnson entered the room and shut the door after him. He approached the desk meekly and stood there saying nothing. Porter stared at him, waiting for the loathsome man to say something. He glanced at his watch impatiently to emphasise the point that he didn’t have all night. “Well?”
“I saw you on TV earlier,” Johnson said.
“Did you?” So, that was it. Johnson had come to do what he did best – kiss arse. Porter enjoyed having his ego stroked, and under normal circumstances he would have been quite content to sit there and soak up as many compliments as his admiring subordinate wanted to lavish upon him, but not tonight. Tonight, he was in a hurry and couldn’t afford the time to indulge in small talk.
Johnson wrung his hands together in agitation. “Forgive me for saying this,” he began, “but I really don’t think it was a good idea to insult the Ripper the way you did. I’ve read quite a bit about serial killers, and what makes them tick, all the literature says it’s not a good idea to provoke them.”
Porter’s face darkened. That was not the kind of feedback he had been expecting. Who did the presumptuous fool think he was speaking to? “Brian, we may have known each other for over a decade, but you need to remember your place. I’m a Chief Superintendent, you’re an analyst. I don’t think it’s for you to question my judgement in these matters.”
Johnson flinched at the rebuke. “No, of course not,” he stammered. “I would never question your judgement, but I just don’t think you realise how dangerous this Ripper chap is. I hope I’m not speaking out of place when I –”
“You are speaking out of place, Brian. I know exactly what I’m doing. Now, if there’s nothing else, I have a busy evening planned and I’m in a rush. So, if you don’t mind…” He pointed towards the door, making it clear the audience was over.
As Johnson, leaving the room with his tail firmly between his legs, closed the door behind him, the telephone on Porter’s desk began to ring.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, now what?” he demanded, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
◆◆◆
The general office was deserted when Tyler returned from the Yard so he switched the TV on and sat down in front of it, wearily plonking his feet up on the nearest desk. Unfortunately, when the screen came to life, the face staring back at him belonged to Terri Miller. His visage morphed into a mask of disdain as he quickly grabbed the remote and jabbed the mute button. If only it were that easy to silence the ambitious reporter in real life.
His MIR staff had printed out a ton of actions for allocation over the weekend; Holland had promised he would have so many people at his disposal that he wouldn’t know what to do with them all. He seriously doubted that; there was so much CCTV still to gather and view, so many items of property to book in, and so many statements still to take that if a hundred officers paraded tomorrow, he would probably still be short.
The trilling sound of a telephone drifted out from his office. With a groan, Jack heaved himself to his feet and rushed across the incident room. Leaning across his desk, he snatched the handset from its cradle.
“DCI Tyler speaking.”
“Tyler, this is Chief Superintendent Porter over at Whitechapel.”
Tyler sat down, wondering why the Borough Commander was calling him at this late hour. “I’ve just had a very nasty experience,” Porter said, his voice trembling. “The killer.... He – he just called me up and threatened me, saidhe was going to make me pay for disrespecting him on TV.”
Jack groaned inwardly. This is what happens when you go off script at press conferences, he thought, reaching for a notepad and pen. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
“It was all very quick,” Porter spluttered. “He told me he’d watched my performance on TV, and he said that I was the pathetic and powerless one, not him. Then he said he couldn’t allow my insolence to go unpunished, and that the next blood he spilled would be on my hands. Then, without another word, he hung up. The man is goading us, Tyler, and I want to know what you are going to do about it?” Jack stared at the handset in disbelief. Porter had all but called the killer out on national TV, and now that his bravado had come back to bite him, he wanted to know what Jack was going to do about it. The fucking nerve of some people!
“What time did the call come in?” Jack asked, trying to keep the rising anger he felt out of his voice.
“A few minutes ago – I called you the moment he hung up.”
“How did he come across?”
“Well, apart fromsoundingmentally unstable, there was a lot of anger in his voice.”
“Can you describe his voice? For instance, was it deep or high pitched? Did he have a regional accent?”
“I couldn’t tell you, really. Everything he said was whispered, which made it sound very sinister, but there was no discernible accent.”
“Were there any background noises that might identify where he was calling from?”
“None that I could make out.”
Jack closed his eyes. This was like trying to get blood out of a stone. Porter was a police officer, for Christ sake, he was supposed to be a professional witness, not a professional idiot. “I’ll send someone straight over,” he said. Maybe Dillon or Bull could get more out of Porter than he had been able to.
“ButI’m about to leave,” Porter protested. “It’s my wedding anniversary and I’ve got tickets to the theatre. My wife will give me hell if I’m late.”
“That may be, but before you go
