The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [100]
He looked at me again before continuing.
“The platform area was divided into two floors during the war. So there was a set of steps and an office on the upper floor. The door was open. Once we cleared the general platform area, two of us went up the stairs and another two went into the tunnels. I found a woman, Margo Riley, first. She was at her desk. David Lennox was on the floor by the supply cabinet. Mark Denhurst was in one of the back rooms. Jane Watson died with a pipe in her hand, trying to fight, I suppose. Katie Ellis was near the entrance of the tunnels. All of them long dead before we arrived.”
“And Alexander Newman?”
“We’d been told to look for six officers. We found five in more or less the same area. Newman was the one missing. We finally found him as well, deeper in the tunnels. Bullet to the head. Always bothered me. There was something not right about what I was seeing. It was only later that we found out it was an undercover operation, a drugs bust gone bad. The dealers had gotten access and were storing and moving cocaine through the old tunnels. It was a terrible scene, and strange. Not like any drugs bust I ever saw, and I’ve seen a few. There were no drugs around, no evidence of a firefight. It was some kind of office down there. It looked like a group of people killed while going about their business. And it looked to me . . .”
This time, his hesitation didn’t seem to be connected to me. He smoked for a moment, then tossed the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out.
“It certainly looked to me like Newman was the doer. The others were unarmed and had all been shot. He had a gun in his hand and the wound in his head looked self-inflicted—but it was very dark. You don’t want to accuse a fellow officer of something like that without proof, but . . . anyway, they got us out of there pretty quick. I don’t even remember seeing the SOCOs down there. No one was taking pictures or anything. They got us out of there and told us to keep schtum, which I have until now. There was a rumor—just a rumor, mind you—that Newman had been sectioned at some point. We all suspected that he’d had some kind of breakdown, killed the others, maybe under the stress of working undercover for too long. The official story was drugs bust, and we never challenged it. Those officers were dead. Nothing was going to bring them back. Their families deserved peace. But that scene was wrong. I always knew it was wrong. You’re telling me this has to do with the Ripper?”
“Is there anything else you remember about that night?” Stephen asked.
“Just that it was terrible,” he said. “You don’t see many like that, and you don’t want to. Once in a lifetime is enough.”
“Nothing else? Nothing strange?”
“I suppose,” Maybrick said, “there was one odd thing. When we found Newman, he was holding a Walkman.”
“A what?” Callum said.
“You’re too young for that, I suppose,” he said. “A Sony Walkman. A music player. Used to be the thing. Played tape cassettes. He wasn’t just holding it—he was clutching it tight to his body. Strange thing to be clutching during a drugs bust or a mass shooting, at any rate.”
Stephen’s expression changed instantly. His eyebrows rose so much, they seemed to drag his entire face along for the ride.
“That means something to you?” the sergeant asked. “What’s going on here? I deserve to know. I’ve got a lot of people out on the street tonight looking for this bastard.”
“Thank you,” Stephen said. The deep, serious voice