“Hey Mate, it’s Fisher. It’s been a spell, but I require your assistance. How fast can you get to London?”

 

Sam Castle read the email from his old friend Matt Fisher and immediately called to schedule a flight to London. He could leave within the hour. He sent Matt a reply, “On my Way”. Pushed away from his desk and went to start packing. Last time Castle had been in London, there had been nothing but chaos with Fisher. Fisher's wife had left him for another woman, yes, a woman. And there had been three murders, none had been solved, and all three went cold within the two weeks he had been there.

           

Castle had left London with a sour taste in his mouth after Fisher had gone off and called him a fraud. You see, Castle isn’t an actual Detective; he is a murder/mystery novelist who just happens to consult for the New York City Homicide Division. He wasn’t a fraud; he just didn’t have a badge.

          

That had been almost ten years ago, and since then, he has helped NYC solve hundreds of cases and publish three books. One in which a crazed fan had brought to life. Castle had no hard feelings against Fisher; he knew at that time Fisher's life was falling apart, and he was the bullseye of Fisher's frustration. He also knew if Fisher was calling on him for help, he needed it and needed it now.

           

Before Castle walked out the door of his apartment, his phone dinged. “Thank You, Mate. Bring your notes on Serial Killers.” Castle stopped dead in his tracks. How did Fisher know they were dealing with a Serial Killer? Castle turned and walked quickly to his office, quickly grabbed a very large folder, then spun on his heel and was gone. Bag, folder, and out the door.

           

As Castle waited in the boarding line, he sent a few emails. He sent his publisher one stating he was headed to London for some research on a new Murder Novel he was planning. Just a tiny white lie, his publisher didn’t need to know his real reason for going.

           

Another was sent to his Daughter, who was away in Paris for a semester abroad. Letting her know, too, where he had gone, and the same little white lie. A third to his mother, who had recently started staying with him, after her failed relationship with an Actor. She said she needed some family time, yet she was seldom there; she, too, got the same little white lie.

           

Twenty minutes later, Castle was in the air heading straight for London, and the unknown idea of a serial killer running loose in the streets. He was kinda excited. He loved the path to finding out the truth, the why, and who. Castle had no idea the kind of serial killer Fisher was thinking they were dealing with, but his folder had every kind and every possible way they used to kill. From poisons to weapons, as well as disposal methods. 


Castle had begun researching the true form of murder and serial killers after his last visit to London. Castle had become intrigued with the three murders because there was nothing that linked them, yet there was this feeling that they were connected. Each one was different in its own aspect, different locations in and around London, the same yet different methods. As well as two of the murders had involved men, and the third a woman, all in different age ranges. 


As he thumbed through his folder, he came across Jack the Ripper, London’s most infamous serial killer in the late nineteenth century. Castle recalled seeing the file of the second murder victim, a twenty-two-year-old white female. She had been beaten from her breast to her feet, yet her face and hands had been untouched. Her case file reminded him of the Ripper cases, because their faces hadn’t been touched either.

           

Now the men’s cases were by far a different story, and much more brutal. Both men had been in their early twenties, one white and one black. Yet both had been brutally beaten while being restrained. From the coroner’s report, they had also been sodomized and their cocks mutilated. But they were found in completely different areas, one was found hanging from a cross in the Alley of a church, and the other in a dumpster behind a fancy restaurant.

           

But there had been nothing officially linking them, well, that he knew of. Maybe with Fisher calling on his assistance, there may be something linking them, or more.