ONCE BITTEN

FIVE: SHANNON WILSEY

Inspector Bitten continued to be unhappy to discover that the Ripper became aware of the SID's specific focus. His concern and displeasure, didn't matter. Frankly, it turned out to be a very desirable development, and one that required a surprising amount of constructive rumour-spreading.

A murdered busy playing games with his hunters in distracted, and thus more likely to make the fatal slip required for capture. There would be risks, of course. But, in life as in chess, one must be prepared to sacrifice even the most significant pieces in the struggle for an advantage.

Investigations in the matter of Miss Wren kept the SID occupied for several weeks. It eventually transpired that the woman been dead for the best part of one day before Loup got to her, but little else of use had been firmly ascertained. Still, if the Ripper caught sight Bitten, and Bitten also caught a second-hand glimpse of the Ripper in turn.

The Inspector and his team started making careful note of the surrounding faces, particularly if they happened to be bearded men a little less than six feet in height. The possibility persisted that the killer might decide to toy with them in.

As the calendar turned towards spring, Inspector Bitten's quarry struck again. Shannon Wilsey, worked as a housemaid in the service of Mr Stephen Rice in Highgate. She was found murdered on the edge of Hampstead Heath late last night, by a constable who happened to be in the process of investigating an unrelated complaint. Mr Rice is quite influential and wanted the matter cleared up swiftly.

Accompanied by Dr Loup and Constable Wilk, we took a carriage to Highgate, Wilk provided them with some details of the case.

"The victim a residential position with Rice. She'd been there for three years, since the age of sixteen, and quite content in her work. Her family lived down the hill in Gospel Oak, and she used to be given an evening a week to visit with them. The body had been found near the junction of Fitzroy Park and Millfield Lane, a route she must have been completely familiar with. Although they run next to the park, we don't usually detect any trouble on those roads."

"Quite."

Bitten said, his voice dry.

"Well, yes."

Wilk continued.

"The girl was due to visit her parents that evening. They expected her around six, but she didn't show up. They didn't worry at the time because, this had not been unusual of late for her to delay her visit until later if the weather was foul. With it raining, and the winds strong, they thought nothing of it."

Dr Loup nodded.

"Yes, it blew quite a gale until eight or so."

"That's what Mr Rice said."

Wilk said.

"About a quarter past eight, he saw Wilsey put on her shawl and slip out the side door. Shortly after the wind dropped to nothing, and the time because he thought she'd decided to go and visit her parents after all and slightly surprised that she would leave it that late. He didn't pay it any mind, though. Apparently, so long as the house in good order, he doesn't object if the staff come and go."

"The assumption, is that the woman appeared to be on her way to visit her parents when someone killed her?"

"Yes, sir, that is the basis of why they called us in."

Wilk said.

"And is it believed to be the Ripper?"

"You, will be able to make up your mind about that soon, sir."

A minute or two later the carriage pulled to a stop. A sandstone arch marked the entrance to the Heath and fallen leaves piled like snowdrifts along the ditches and the breeze shook droplets from the branches.

They happened to be greeted to a collection of smells, and now and again, between the trees in the distance, a railing fence marked off certain areas of the park.

Bitten I left the footpath and climbed up a small slope. At the top of the ridge, three trees sat on a knoll that provided an uninterrupted view of London.

He knelt on the grass and sensed the early morning wetness soak through his trousers. The path visible for a hundred yards in either direction. During his time in the army,

Bitten fought in the First Boer War between 1880-188. Also, called as the First Anglo-Boer War, the Transvaal War, or the Transvaal Rebellion, was a war fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal.

The war resulted in a Boer victory and eventual independence of the South African Republic.

The Boers would often bury arms caches in open countryside, using line of sight between three landmarks to hide the weapons in the middle of fields with nothing on the surface to mark the spot.

Searching for such caches, he learned how to study the landscape, picking out the features that caught the eye. It might be a different coloured tree, or a mound of stones or a leaning fencepost.

In a sense, Bitten was doing the same thing -- looking for reference points or psychological markers. Some crimes are a coincidence -- a coming together of circumstances. A few minutes or a few yards one way or the other and the crime might not have happened. This one was different.

"Someone used this spot to watch people."

Bitten told the other, as sunshine broke through the morning mist.

"The grass is crushed. Somebody or something lay on their stomach."

As he was speaking, he glimpsed a dog whistle caught in a mesh of brambles a dozen yards away. He rose to his feet and slipped on a pair of leather gloves. He reached carefully through the thorny branches and grabbed the whistle.

Wilk held out a clean handkerchief.

"Significant, sir?"

"I won't really know until I've seen the crime scene."

"You'd better brace yourself for that."

"That bad?"

He turned.

"This way, sir."

II

Bitten and the doctor followed Wilk to a place recognized as the 'Ogre Tree.' Underneath its outstretched branches, the landscape emerged through the early evening mist. The fields heading out towards Finchley, Whetstone and Barnet beyond, divided by hedges and patches of evergreen scrub. A stream distorted like an artery through some beech trees.

They stood on Parliament Hill and the view out over the city still impressive, despite the weather. Wilk led the trio to a park path and pointed to a dark splash of blood on a post.

"Looks like the attack took place here. She managed to struggle over to that beech over there, where she succumbed to her wounds."

He pointed along a stretch of grass, clearly marked with long, streaked blood drops, to the tree in question. A much larger stain spread across its roots.

When they arrived at the crime scene, they couldn't quite pick out the body. But they smelt the blood -- strong and coppery, settling at the back of their throats.

Its aroma and its taste tended to lodge in the back of the mouth. It was overwhelming.

Bitten moved to the side and saw the body for the first time.

Shannon Wilsey lay face up on the ground. Her clothes tattered and one of her shoes had gone missing, as the toes on the sock less foot. Bitten stared at the mutilated figure. It appeared as if whatever had attacked the woman played a tug of war with the carcass. Or maybe the victim had still been alive when it happened.

Her belly had split in two and part of her lower jaw seemed to be missing. Her upper set of teeth grinned up bloodily at the trio but below happened to be just bright gory meat down to the exposed throat.

Above the monstrous invasion, the victim's eyes stayed open. Open wide and staring. Except one eyeball pointed up inside its own head, while the other one peered downwards as if it couldn't believe the lower jaw had gone.

"Jesus Christ!"

Bitten said.

"Did she die of natural causes and the forest's scavengers did this to her, sir?"

Wilk asked.

"I don't think the local wild life did this, do you, Constable Wilk?"

"No, sir."

Bitten turned to the doctor.

"May I?"

With a nod of approval from Doctor Loup, Bitten knelt for a closer look. His fingers flew here, there, and altogether, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, and examining.

Dr Loup had discussed at length on how to carry out a swift assessment but also to be thorough so as not to get in the way of the police doctor's examination where time was crucial. Finally, Bitten sniffed the dead woman's lip. A hint of alcohol. He glanced at the sole of the remaining shoe.

"Has she been moved at all?"

Bitten asked.

Wilk shook his head.

"I'm a bit nervous about moving the body for obvious reasons."

Doctor Loup said.

Bitten stood and moved a few paces back from the body.

"She was attacked from behind."

Bitten began.

"Knocked over with great force. The ground is too dry for footprints, and in this part of the forest you've got heather growing everywhere."

He pointed to where some heathers had been flattened in places, the stalks snapped.

"Not conclusive, because the vegetation damage might have been walkers in heavy boots any time in the last couple of weeks, but the attacker may have waited here until the victim walked past. There was a dog whistle snagged on a branch."

Doctor Loup glanced at the Detective Inspector.

"Where is that now?"

Loup asked.

"Constable Wilk has it."

Bitten replied.

Bitten began moving within the confines' of the crime scene in slow sweeps, bent almost double, parting the grasses and heather with his gloved hands. He stopped where the grass was shorter, then bent again and picked up an object so small that at first, he couldn't make out what it was.

"What have you got, sir?"

Wilk asked.

"Not sure yet."

Bitten said.

He continued his fingertip search and crouched again to slide it into his gloved hand. He laid item on the palm of his hand.

It was a tooth.

A tooth of a large canine animal.

"Well, that adds some credence to what Bob John noticed at the Tannery."

Bitten said, when something cracked to out to their right. He turned and narrowed his eyes, willing himself to look into the trees.

"Did you hear that?"

The doctor and the constable glanced round, rapidly.

Suddenly out of the vast foreboding surroundings came a strange cry. It came through the trees like a long, deep mutter before rising to a howl so fearful, the whole of Hampstead Heath throbbed with it. It was strident, wild, and menacing.

Fear gripped the trio.

About a hundred yards to their right, more movements, the sound stopped.

Bitten sensed his blood ran cold as something moved closer, it headed off in the direction of the original howl.

Followed by the sound of someone or something running.

As if running a race, they all ran through the gloom, bumping against trees and forced their way through the foliage. As they ran up the hill panting, they rushed down the slopes and headed in the direction of the Sandstone Arch.

They ran faster.

The vehement cry from within the densest part of the heath diminished briefly, it burst out nearer, louder, more urgent than before.

Where did it come from?

Again, an agonized cry swept through the forest, accompanied by a deep-muttered rumble, menacing, rising, and falling with the murmur of London.

One more despairing yell, silence, and they stopped to listen.

Nothing.

From the shadows came a wolf, yet he's no ordinary predator, staring with almost human eyes. The only sound it's breathing, flaring nostrils as he took in our scent. It curled up his gums to reveal yellow stained teeth and let out a rumbling growl. If they didn't move in a second their gullets would be ripped out, their flesh consumed, blood staining the pale grass.

They froze. Someone or something was watching them.

Bitten's heart punched against his ribs. A movement to their left but no sound -- not even the faintest crack of a twig or branch. Goosebumps scattered up his arms and down the centre of his back as a shiver passed through him.

Through the corner of Bitten's eye, movement again.

Bitten turned and glanced back along the way they had come. In the forest to the side of the path, about thirty feet away, something shifted. A breeze flowed through the trees to their left, and the temperature dropped. Bitten's eyes never left the spot between the trees.

No other movement, and no sound. Just the drip, of rain. And then, when that stopped, a pregnant hush as if something or someone sat in the silence, waiting to pounce.

He watched for a few moments, not knowing what he expected. Thunder boomed in the distance.

Crack.

He spun on his heel. Vegetation moved. Leaves snapped. Rain hit the path and they sensed something behind me.

A shape darted through the trees about twenty feet from them. Bramble moved left to right, back again. It crouched, moved another few feet and stopped.

The surrounding branches settled.

Silence.

Bitten took a step forward. Another step. A patch of hanging branches about six feet in front of them moved. Leaves rustled.

A scratching noise. He took a step closer, glancing down the path. The forest had grown bigger and darker, followed by more scratching and growling.

Thunder rumbled again.

The trio all turned slowly and ran, heading right, around the thorns, and down towards the escape from the woods. Rapid footsteps padded behind them. They kept running. A tree loomed out of the dark and Wilk grazed my arm against the bark, his body swerving too late to avoid it. An ache shot through his muscles, into his shoulder. He pushed it down with the rest of the pain and carried on.

The doctor's lungs laboured, and he had to slow my pace, and then he fell.

His left foot clipped a tree root. He tumbled head first, hitting the ground hard and collapsed onto his front crying out in pain, believing he had broken his arm. He glanced round expecting the same fate that had befallen the others but saw nothing.

No longer being followed, he scrambled to his feet and headed in the vague direction of the entrance. The darkening sky turned from blue to grey, and the grey had become black by the time he reached the entrance, where the others were waiting.

"Did you see that?"

The doctor gasped.

"What the hell was it?"

Bitten stood upright, and defiant.

"That was neither man nor beast."

The doctor and Wilk looked at him strangely.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Wilk pressed.

"We are dealing with something far worse than we could have imagined."

Bitten responded.

"We need to call for the Bloodhounds."

He stopped mid-step and turned to Wilk.

"By the way Constable Wilk, I am a bit surprised by your deduction at the crime scene?"

"Sir?"

"The blood drops along the murdered woman's path are streaks because they were caught in the gale. If there had been no wind when she died, they would be round."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"No matter, Constable. Our lycanthropic friend tried to deceive us."

III

After the murder on Hampstead heath, some citizens suggested that hounds may be able to catch a killer that had so far eluded police. A bloodhound breeder named Perry Groves wrote the most confident endorsement of all in an editorial letter to The Times.

"I have little doubt that, had a hound been put upon the scent of the murderer while fresh, it might have done what the police failed in."

Groves wrote.

The following is a transcript of an official police letter written by Sir William Frederick Patterson in response to Perry Groves statement in The Times:

Perry Groves

Quarry Springs

Harlow

Sir,

I have seen your letter in the Times on subject of bloodhounds and perhaps you could answer a question I have put to many without satisfactory reply.

Supposing a hound to be brought up at once to a corpse after a murder how is he to know what are the tracks or which is the scent of the murderer or how is he to know that you want the actual track tracked.

If the murderer left a portion of his clothing behind and some of his blood, I could understand a dog following up or if you could show him a particular spot where he had been standing even.

But on a London pavement where people have been walking all the evening there may be scores of scents almost as keen as those of the murderer.

This seems to me to be the initial difficulty and I should be glad if you could give me a solution to it.

Truly yours

WFP [William Frederick Patterson]

PS:

Would a hound follow up a person on whose hands was the blood of a murdered person if he is shown the blood on the ground. I scarcely think he could.

Despite his initial doubts, the commissioner would agree to move forward with the experimentation of employing Bloodhounds as a way to track the killer.

Police commissioner Sir William Frederick Patterson was under the most intense scrutiny that the newspapers and citizenry could dish out, and he had high hopes for the hounds. Unfortunately for him, the system to get them on the "scent of the murderer while fresh" would prove difficult to streamline.

Up until this point, dogs had been borrowed from private owners when they were needed for police work. Sir William intended to buy dogs to be always kept at the police department, something Groves had suggested in his letter.

Mrs Michelle Taylor, a Bloodhound breeder from Bury St Edmunds, brought forward her finest hounds, Charlie, and Roxy, to test for the position with the Metropolitan Police. Sir William was cautious, however, fearing that the hounds would not be as up to snuff as their owner claimed. He didn't want to buy them until he was certain they could do the job.

The dogs were run through several drills to prove their abilities, training across the city in open locations such as Regent's Park and Hyde Park. They tracked the scents of various subjects who were given head starts of fifteen minutes or so. Sir William himself even acted as the hunted man during at least one drill.

The press continued to prod at the police over the hound experiment. A false news report posited that the hounds were called out on assignment, but had got lost in the fog during their search. This was not true, however. The dogs were merely out of reach practicing at Tooting Commons at the time the police sent for them.

Inspector Bitten and Doctor Loup waited for the next twenty minutes. Pacing up and down. Every second tinged with foreboding and relentless tension. The rain had stopped but the wind blew eerie distorted tones. Panic gripped Bitten as he thought about the blood-spattered, chaotic mess he had left behind. In that enveloping darkness he had almost slipped in the vast pools of blood around from Shannon Wilsey's body.

The dogs arrived, straining at the leash, and Bitten showed them the way to the crime scene. They shone torches as the darkness got thicker and the beams shone into the night and didn't come back again.

Up front, one of the dogs barked. Everyone stopped.

Bitten moved to the front and joined the handler. The two of them began talking as the Bloodhounds on the end of the leash looked towards a swathe of black on the right.

Behind Bitten, the second dog, gazed in the same direction, its nose sniffing the air. Bitten turned around and told one of the handlers to shine his flash light into the undergrowth.

A second later, a patch of thick, tangled bush was illuminated by two great big chunks of oak tree. No sign of anything. Just tall grass swaying gently in the breeze, and light drizzle passing across the circle of torchlight.

They moved on.

The woods were incredibly dark. The canopy fully covered the path at this point and all we had been the two flash lights, passing back and forth across the path and what cultivated at its edges.

A little way down, one of the handlers must have seen something reflect back at him. He stopped and dropped to his haunches, scanning the area

Behind him the dogs barked again. Both of them this time. They faced right, into the forest, noses out, eyes fixed on something. The other hands shone his torch light into the undergrowth. The trees, leaves and bushes were freeze-framed for a second, rain coming down harder now.

Bitten went up ahead and chatted to the handlers as before. This time there was no breeze, and everyone knew what they said.

"What is it?"

Bitten asked.

"No idea,"

The handler didn't sound convinced. The dogs were highly trained to smell human blood. They would not be disturbed by a hedgehog. Everyone thought the same, and they all looked at Bitten as if he might know what it was.

Constable Wilk moved off the path and into the undergrowth as far as he could, shining his torch ahead of him. Grass fell under his feet and sprang back up again around him. Beyond the tree trunks, a cone of light moved left and right.

"Anything?"

Wilk asked from the trail.

"Nothing."

Bitten yelled back.

He reappeared about a minute later, dew shining on his trousers.

About five minutes further on, they reached the clearing where Shannon's body lay. The rain sounded heavier as it fell through the gap in the leaves.

"Jesus Christ."

One of the handlers exclaimed.

Shining in the torchlight that pointed at the body, one of the handlers searched the surrounding darkness. He didn't know what they had seen or heard, but he eyed something with suspicion. Their torches flashed back and forth across the forest.

Something cracked in the forest to their left.

They all swung round, scanning the area where the noise had come from. The Bloodhounds strained on their leashes, noses out again, staring into the dark.

"What can you see?"

The handler asked. The Bloodhounds sniffed the air returning to their original positions, primed for whatever had made the noise.

"We need to go back."

Bitten said with haste.

Everybody stared at him, but Doctor Loup was the only one to react.

"Why?"

"You need to get out of these forest, right now."

Bitten persisted.

"Come back in the morning when it's light."

"Are you serious?"

"Never more so."

"But the crime scene will be ruined."

Bitten held out his hands.

"I think that has already happened in this weather, don't you?"

The rain made a chattering sound against the canopy and the wind picked up, too, blowing in from our right. Leaves snapped. Grass swayed. As one of the handlers scanned his torch, a patch of grass, coiled and twisted around the trunk of a sycamore got caught in the beam. Some of it had come loose and moved, making a gentle sigh like a voice.

Bitten watched as both the handlers directed their lights towards it, as if they thought they'd heard someone speaking. But it was just this place. The secrets and the lost lives.

The temperature kept dipping. The wind wailed mournfully through the trees and the rain on the edges of the leaves glistened in the torchlight, their branches caressing the earth like the withered fingers of some long-dead corpse.

The darkness surrounded us, spinning their bearings this way and that.

"There's something out there."

Wilk said quietly.

"I think we should all leave now and return to the morning."

Dr Loup said.

They all jumped as the dogs, who had been quiet for a time, barked. Bitten’s heart jumped, and he could feel a swelling panic building inside me.

"Okay, let us all retreat backwards along the path."

One of the handlers said.

They all moved away from the crime scene. What else were they to do?

The panic in Bitten's stomach felt huge -- a pulsating, swollen thing. He felt tears – tears, of all things -- pricking behind my eyes. Why in heavens name had he come back to the crime scene, when it happened to be still dark?

The dogs stretched at their leashes, the handler struggling to control them. Their claws scraped at the earth, their sharp teeth exposed, flecks of froth at their mouths.

The darkness moved. Just the flicker of a shadow. Rustling in the undergrowth amongst a thick tangle of grass and nettles. On each side of us the forest nurtured thick and relentless, the occasional gap showing, but otherwise a twisted mess of branches and leaves.

The downpour slowly ceased, melting into the darkness. And as the sound of it dropped away, the wind came in its place and a new noise followed. A growling sound and it was getting closer.

Bitten looked into the area of the source of the noise. Nothing. Just swaths of thick, green bush. Under foot the ground squelched and moved. As the wind increased, it came hard, the foliage whipping back and forth against our bodies, making us all shiver with the cold. It whistled through the trees from the entrance behind us, as if drawn into the forest, vines swaying in the breeze.

Bitten grew disorientated. They were all soaked through, and their breath formed in front of us like balls of spun sugar. The handlers remained focused, the dogs poised to protect us.

"Did you see that?"

One of them said.

His colleague aimed his torch into the darkness. A shape was behind the oak tree Bitten had fallen over earlier, its silhouette partly obscured. For a moment, the handlers stood there, frozen to the spot, shoulder to shoulder, the two of them staring at the shape, the shape staring back.

Out of nowhere, a sound tore across the night.

It was so unexpected, so loud, it reverberated through the ground like an earthquake.

"Keep moving back."

Bitten instructed.

A sudden hush settled across the wood, the wind drifting away, the rain easing off.

The other handler raised his torch, aiming it out into the dark. The grass shone wet with rain, the clumps weird and disconcerting -- like heads of hair; like hundreds of people were face down in the earth; lined up in shallow graves for as far as the eye could see.

More movement to our right.

Bitten didn't see it, but Dr Loup colleague did. It was about a hundred feet away, on the fringes of the torchlight. Bitten swallowed, tensed and as he did, he felt a shift in the doctor's body language and followed his gaze, out into the blackness. The rain came down harder now, pounding at us, at our clothes, the sound like waves crashing on a pebble beach. Every time Bitten swallowed, it felt like he had chips of glass in his throat.

"Okay"

Bitten said.

"Let's go."

They all ran towards the entrance, beating a retreat. Bitten sensed Doctor Loup struggle, his legs dragging him, breath coarse and ragged. He grabbed his arm, and, as he did, glimpsed something to the right.

Bitten's heart struck my throat.

Whatever it was, followed them. Bitten wanted to say something, to tell Doctor Loup, to warn him, but the words got lost. Instead, he made a low grunt which instantly vanished in the rain, and pulled his arm again, making sure he kept up, half concentrating on where they were heading, half focused on the forest to their right.

For the first time, Bitten saw breath hissing out of the trees, like the forest itself was panting.

"Quickly!"

Bitten shouted.

This time, the doctor heard the terror in the Inspector's voice and looked back over his shoulder. He spotted something trailing them.

Thirty feet to the exit from the woods.

"Come on!"

Twenty feet.

"Come on!"

Bitten repeat and felt Doctor Loup move, accelerating, as if he realized they were close to the exit. He glanced over his shoulder, searching for it in the trees behind them, but he couldn't see it.

Ten feet.

He looked again and glimpsed something.

They stopped running once they reached the safety Heath.

From where they were, they could only see a few feet into the forest.

But that was enough.

Something stayed there on the edge for a moment, as if trying to keep from being seen, an obscure mass in the thick swirl of the darkness. They all stood there watching it moves back and forth.

And whatever had been out there, had left.