Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

victims fifteen years ago. In other words, I did not believe she had been killed by the Butcher of Whitechapel. For a start, she did not quite fit the profile for his victims: she was not American and she was a little too short. More compelling was the fact that the killer had misspelled whiskey on the note he had left.”

They were both frowning hard. Caulfield said, “You’ve lost me.”

“The Butcher always left a note with a quote from the song, American Pie. In it the word whiskey is spelt the Irish and American way, with ‘e’ before the ‘y’. But in the note we found at Katie’s murder, the word whiskey was spelt the English way, with no ‘e’. That was enough to convince me, but not DI Green, that this was a different killer. And that got me wondering where the original killer had been for the last fifteen years, and what had happened to the investigation after I had returned to the U.S.A.

“I won’t go into the details, but I soon discovered that the Butcher of Whitechapel had pretty much surrendered himself to the authorities, and was being held, at Her Majesty’s leisure, at Goodnestone Park.” I paused and shook my head. “Very, very few people knew that, because the file had been sealed to protect Simon Clarence’s identity. One of the only people who did know that was the man employed as his counsel, to protect his interests during the hearings in chambers, when he was sectioned. That happened to be the same man who acted as Brad Johnson’s counsel when he was Scotland Yard’s prime suspect in the case. Perhaps that was why he was chosen, because he had that specialized knowledge. In any case, that man was…” I pointed at him. “Nigel Hastings.”

Caulfield turned to him. “Nigel…?”

Nigel was sweating like a vicar in a sauna full of nuns. “It is true, in substance, but it proves—and means—nothing!”

I barged right on. “We’ll come to what it proves and what it means in a bit. But the fact is that as we were leaving that meeting, an associate of Hastings’ tried to kill us.”

Caulfield raised his hands again. “Just slow down a bit, Stone, will you! You keep going on about this connection between Nigel and this Hassan character. But in fact we have nothing but your word for that!”

Dehan said, “Really? Let me ask you a question, Hastings. Suppose I got on Google and started researching your family history. Suppose I got a pro to do it? Suppose, even better, a couple of days ago, when Stone saw you at Caulfield’s phony office on Little College Street, suppose I had got a private investigator to do some research into your family? What would he have found?”

“I have no idea what you’re driving at and I find this line of questioning deeply offensive!”

“Would he have found, perhaps, that you have Jewish ancestry that you try to keep secret?”

A quick spasm of anger flashed across Caulfield’s face. “What has this to do with anything? Hastings is an ancient English name!”

“As far as I am aware, Caulfield, there have been Jews in England for almost a thousand years, almost as long as there have been Normans. How can you make that distinction?”

His jaw worked but no sound came out. Finally, he said, “What has this to do with anything?”

I shrugged. “Just that when we talked to Sadiq the first time, he said that Katie was involved with a Jewish guy. He called him a lot of other things too, but in essence it boiled down to the same thing, Sadiq was mad at her for having what he called a Jewish boyfriend. But as much as we asked, nobody, except Sadiq, knew who he was. So I kept wondering who this guy could be. And, like a lot of men who try to stay anonymous, Hastings just kept popping up all over the place.”

Hastings was shaking his head like a wet dog. “No, no, no! You have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that I was in any kind of relationship with Lord Chiddester’s daughter. None! You can’t even show that I knew her! Let alone had a relationship with her! This is all the wildest, must unsubstantiated surmise! It is outrageous!”

Sometimes in life, things happen right on cue. Most times they don’t, and this was one of those times when they didn’t. So I had to take a long shot.

“When Katie was killed, DI Green, Dehan and I all agreed that it was important to test Katie’s sheets for DNA residue.” I shook my head and smiled at Dehan. “Remember when we told Sadiq we planned to do that?”

She smiled at Hastings. “We thought he was going to have a seizure. We took that to mean we were going to find his DNA. But he was going on and on about this Jewish guy who had been seeing Katie…”  She shook her head. “It was very confusing. Especially as he was the only person who seemed to know who he was.”

I spread my hands. “We rushed the tests through private clinics, thanks to Lord Chiddester’s resources, and when the results came in they showed, to our surprise, that Sadiq had not been sleeping with Katie.

“But, did you know? Israel has been using certain genetic profiles to determine who has a right to claim Israeli citizenship for some years. And let me tell you, the guy who had been sleeping with Katie, has that right. He is not, perhaps, of the Jewish faith, but he is nonetheless genetically of Jewish descent.”

I was staring right at Hastings as I was speaking. His face flushed with anger. “What makes you so determined that I am Jewish! I am not Jewish! What is wrong with you?”

“Your DNA profile says otherwise.”

He shook his head. “How could you possibly know that? I