examiner remains objective, cool, dispassionate, unfazed in the face of horror and…'
I burst through the curtain with my last reserve of strength and collapsed at Charlie's feet. I heard a gasp from beyond the footlights. For some reason, I pictured Gerald Prince playing Julius Caesar.
I looked up at my old friend. 'Et tu, Charles?' I asked.
Charlie Riggs looked down at the bloody, sweaty, needle-stuck body at his feet. ' Mea culpa, ' he whispered. 'I never should have left you alone here.'
I brought myself to my knees, looked up at him, and smiled a peaceful smile. Then I promptly vomited on his genuine L.L. Bean hiking boots.
'Perhaps,' I heard him say into the microphone as I rolled free of the mess and rested my face on the cool floorboards, 'we should take a five-minute break before the slide show.'
CHAPTER 22
'Do you really feel up to driving?' Pamela Maxson asked. I gave her my steely-eyed confident look. 'You're not groggy at all?' I shook my head.
'Why should he be groggy?' Charlie Riggs scoffed. 'He slept fourteen hours, then called room service at six a.m. and ordered french fries and a chocolate shake.'
'Chips for breakfast.' Pam clucked with disapproval.
'With vinegar,' Charlie tattled.
We were standing in front of the hotel, waiting for the Land Rover to emerge from the car park. It was a fine summer day in London, which is to say it was dark, wet, and cold. 'I'm fine,' I said. 'A little headache, that's all.'
'Better than those poor lads at the hospital,' Pam scolded. 'Knee surgery for Clive, a broken nose for Francis. I must say, your conduct required some creative explanations to the administrator.'
Those two knuckleheads wouldn't listen to me.'
'So you created an affray?'
'They were going to lock me up.'
'They would have put you in the ward. How long do you think it would have taken to straighten it all out? An hour, two?'
'I wasn't thinking that far ahead.'
'At the first provocation, at the first excuse to act out your hostility, you battered those working-class lads who haven't had the benefits you've enjoyed.'
I felt my bruised face redden. 'Those working-class lads are a couple of thugs.'
'Did you enjoy hurting them?'
'Look, lady-'
Charlie stepped between us just as the valet swung the Land Rover under the portico. 'Now, now. I see the truce lasted all of one day. Jake, why not let Dr. Maxson drive? She knows the route and…'
I ran a Z-pattern that Jerry Rice would admire and grabbed the keys from the valet. The doorman, a tall fellow in a red tunic and a fur hat two feet high, tried to stow our bags, but I grabbed those, too, and tossed them unceremoniously in back. Then I boldly opened the door, slid behind the steering wheel, and slammed the door behind me like a spoiled brat who's fled to his room.
Only I wasn't behind the steering wheel at all. Because the wheel was on the right, and I had gotten in on the left. This wasn't my ancient convertible in the good old U.S. of A. This was a lady psychiatrist's thirty-grand-plus glorified jeep in a country where they talk funny and drive on the wrong side of the road. I remembered all the movies where the guy walks into the closet, thinking it's the front door. No wonder they stay inside. There's no graceful way out.
Finally Pam Maxson came around to my side, opened the door, and showed the barest hint of a smile. Not a supercilious or condescending smile. More of a tolerant one. I got out without pouting and she got in without any help from me. I headed to the other side while Charlie climbed into the back. The doorman watched with as much amusement as they allow and gave me a 'very good, sir' when I palmed him a two-quid tip.
I didn't have any trouble the first hundred yards. But hitting second gear brought the clang of metal on metal. 'Whoops,' I apologized, 'not used to shifting with my left hand.'
I felt spastic. Kensington Road was no problem until I ran over the curb. Cars coming at me on the right made me pull harder left. The bumper is made to bounce off elephants, so the Rover was fine, and so was the guy whose newspaper kiosk I had flattened, once I gave him a wad of bills.
'Why not let Pamela drive until we're out of the city?' Charlie suggested.
It was two against one, so we switched places again. The rain let up, and the sun peeked out of some low- hanging gray clouds. Pam Maxson said, 'There's someplace I want you to see.' She wound off the main streets and through a series of turns and kept driving until we pulled into a narrow alley in a part of the city they don't show in the tourist brochures. Abandoned warehouses, empty windows gaping like missing teeth, lined each side. A few delivery trucks drove by, but there was no foot traffic.
'On these very cobblestones,' Pam Maxson said, 'Jack the Ripper stalked and killed.'
'Of course, Whitechapel!' Charlie Riggs was as delighted as a country priest whisked to the Vatican.
Pam stopped, put on the parking brake, and we got out. It was mid-morning, but my mind conjured pictures of foggy nights and gas lit streets. 'August thirty-first, 1888,' Pam said. 'Mary Ann Nicholls. Throat slashed, nearly severing her head. Nine days later, Annie Chapman, stomach slashed, intestines draped round her neck. September thirtieth, Elizabeth Stride, throat slashed and on the same night, Catherine Eddowes, throat slashed, body mutilated. Finally on November ninth, Mary Jane Kelly, throat slashed and body severely mutilated.'
'All prostitutes, all slain within a stone's throw of each other,' Charlie whispered in reverent tones.
'Then the killings stopped,' I said. 'Why?'
'There are all sorts of theories, mostly rubbish,' Pam said. 'The murders have been blamed on everyone from Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Eddy, to Freemasons. Some believe that Montague John Druitt, a failed barrister, was the killer. He ended up floating in the Thames not long after the last killing. Others believe he was a scapegoat, used to cover a scandal involving the royal family.'
'In any event,' Charlie said, 'the killer was never caught and his motives never known.'
'But we've come such a long way since then,' I said, 'with all our psychological profiles and investigative techniques.'
'One would think so,' Pam said, 'but it took five years and thirteen killings before the Yorkshire Ripper was captured.'
'A baker's dozen,' Charlie said, shaking his head.
We stood, peering into the shell of what Pam said had been a slaughterhouse, the wooden floor stained black from dripping carcasses. 'He hired prostitutes, smashed them on the head with a hammer, then stabbed them with a screwdriver. The psychological profile built a picture of a socially incompetent, unattractive loner living in a furnished room. Turned out he was a happily married lorry driver, a decent-looking fellow with a trimmed beard, who lived with his pretty wife in a two-story house with two cars in the garage.'
'Go figure,' I said.
'The investigation cost four million pounds, the police interviewed three-hundred-thousand persons, and the man was captured only when he was found with a prostitute in a car with stolen license plates.'
'It's often that way,' Charlie said. 'All the computers and all the files go for naught, but then a tiny slip, and the bugger's caught.'
We all smiled at Charlie's unintentional rhyme and headed back for the Rover. Pam opened the passenger door for herself and tossed me the keys. 'Drive,' she said.
Somewhere near Oxford on M-40 I finally got the hang of it, easing into a speed lane and letting the Rover purr. That seemed to relax everybody. Charlie fell asleep in the back and Pam stirred a little. 'Did you learn anything
