have been person or persons unknown here, associated with the killer or otherwise, who might have left what they regarded as a useful, or just anti-Semitic, message for the many Londoners who will read it when they get a news camera in here.’
‘Next time you make an assumption, I’ll make sure I mark it.’
‘I hope you will.’
‘Would you just bloody finish the sentence you originally started?’Quill asked Costain.
‘Just that it’s really weird,’ said Costain, ‘to use “are the men” in what’s otherwise a natural-sounding phrase.It feels like … pretence to me.A front.’
‘You’d know,’ said Ross.
‘I would.There’s the fingerprint.’He pointed to the very end of the words, where the fingers that had daubed the message had paused for just a moment, leaving a single smeared print.
Ross took a photograph of it.‘I’ll ask to hear from the investigation about the comparison of that to the prints found in Spatley’s car.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Sefton.‘“The Jews are the men”!’He held up his phone as the others clustered around.He read from it, keeping his voice down so the uniforms all around couldn’t hear.‘Those words, or something like them, were what was written on a wall in a place called Goulston Street in Whitechapel, in 1888.’
‘So?’
‘It’s the message left by Jack the Ripper.’
THREE
‘Jack … the Ripper?’Sarah Quill slowly lowered her cup of coffee to the kitchen table.
‘Such is my glamorous existence,’ said Quill.‘Celebrate my diversity.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘I don’t know, I just say these things.’
‘I mean, is it that the Ripper’s … ghost has started to attack people?’
‘We don’t know anything beyond the message, not yet.But it makes sense of the shape of the attacker.That Toff image of the protestors is also very like the archetypal image of the Ripper.And, thanks to the press—’
‘Ahem.’
‘Present company excepted.Thanks to them, everyone thinks the protestors have now started murdering people, though they can’t quite work out how.The original version of what’s become the Toff mask was, so the people at the factory tell us, part of their “Jolly King” costume.That costume company have gone from employing a publicity person for the first time, and neither condoning nor condemning the protestors, to slamming the doors and hiding behind press releases.’
‘Royalty?Like in some of the mad Ripper theories?Could that be a thing?One of your lot will have said that, right?’
Quill loved it when she deduced something.She didn’t do analysis exactly in the way his team did, but like the news editor she was, always casting around for a lead.‘Sefton.He’s been reading up on this stuff.Ross said that when she first got the Sight, she felt a certain gravity from the direction of Buckingham Palace.I bloody hope this Ripper business doesn’t take us there.’
‘Jack the Ripper.God, Quill, I wish I could have this story. Can I have this story?’
‘No.Because you and I have a deal—’
‘I know, I know: you all need to have someone you can talk to about this stuff.But, bloody hell, of all journalists, only I know that there’s a connection between these two incredibly high-profile murder cases.Only I know about the message on the wall.And I’m going to go back into my office this afternoon, and my editor’s going to ask how you are, and I’m going to say, “He’s fine, he expressed sympathy about the ongoing decline of the Enfield Leader and the redundancies that are bound to start happening soon—”’
‘Love—’
‘Fuck, I could string this story to the Mail or the Herald or something.I could make a fortune.They still give people who dob in for them serious money.’She made grim eye contact with him again.‘I’m only having you on.Really.No, I am.’
The media were, of course, even with the little they knew, going apeshit about the killings.The Independent was calling
‘Next time you make an assumption, I’ll make sure I mark it.’
‘I hope you will.’
‘Would you just bloody finish the sentence you originally started?’Quill asked Costain.
‘Just that it’s really weird,’ said Costain, ‘to use “are the men” in what’s otherwise a natural-sounding phrase.It feels like … pretence to me.A front.’
‘You’d know,’ said Ross.
‘I would.There’s the fingerprint.’He pointed to the very end of the words, where the fingers that had daubed the message had paused for just a moment, leaving a single smeared print.
Ross took a photograph of it.‘I’ll ask to hear from the investigation about the comparison of that to the prints found in Spatley’s car.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Sefton.‘“The Jews are the men”!’He held up his phone as the others clustered around.He read from it, keeping his voice down so the uniforms all around couldn’t hear.‘Those words, or something like them, were what was written on a wall in a place called Goulston Street in Whitechapel, in 1888.’
‘So?’
‘It’s the message left by Jack the Ripper.’
THREE
‘Jack … the Ripper?’Sarah Quill slowly lowered her cup of coffee to the kitchen table.
‘Such is my glamorous existence,’ said Quill.‘Celebrate my diversity.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘I don’t know, I just say these things.’
‘I mean, is it that the Ripper’s … ghost has started to attack people?’
‘We don’t know anything beyond the message, not yet.But it makes sense of the shape of the attacker.That Toff image of the protestors is also very like the archetypal image of the Ripper.And, thanks to the press—’
‘Ahem.’
‘Present company excepted.Thanks to them, everyone thinks the protestors have now started murdering people, though they can’t quite work out how.The original version of what’s become the Toff mask was, so the people at the factory tell us, part of their “Jolly King” costume.That costume company have gone from employing a publicity person for the first time, and neither condoning nor condemning the protestors, to slamming the doors and hiding behind press releases.’
‘Royalty?Like in some of the mad Ripper theories?Could that be a thing?One of your lot will have said that, right?’
Quill loved it when she deduced something.She didn’t do analysis exactly in the way his team did, but like the news editor she was, always casting around for a lead.‘Sefton.He’s been reading up on this stuff.Ross said that when she first got the Sight, she felt a certain gravity from the direction of Buckingham Palace.I bloody hope this Ripper business doesn’t take us there.’
‘Jack the Ripper.God, Quill, I wish I could have this story. Can I have this story?’
‘No.Because you and I have a deal—’
‘I know, I know: you all need to have someone you can talk to about this stuff.But, bloody hell, of all journalists, only I know that there’s a connection between these two incredibly high-profile murder cases.Only I know about the message on the wall.And I’m going to go back into my office this afternoon, and my editor’s going to ask how you are, and I’m going to say, “He’s fine, he expressed sympathy about the ongoing decline of the Enfield Leader and the redundancies that are bound to start happening soon—”’
‘Love—’
‘Fuck, I could string this story to the Mail or the Herald or something.I could make a fortune.They still give people who dob in for them serious money.’She made grim eye contact with him again.‘I’m only having you on.Really.No, I am.’
The media were, of course, even with the little they knew, going apeshit about the killings.The Independent was calling
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