She scoffed. “Thanks a lot.”
“I meant you don’t look well. How’s your shoulder?”
“Shoulder’s fine,” she grunted. I wasn’t convinced, but she banged the dashboard with her good hand. “Get a move on. We need to find our position.”
As planned, we drove around the entire block to see exactly how the police had arranged themselves. Then we proceeded to our stakeout point.
The street corner Evelyn had decided on was the perfect vantage point. It was at the top of a slight slope, so we could see everything happening on Henriques Street. Since the location of the original murder had been demolished years earlier, no one could predict exactly where the Ripper would strike next. The police had stationed themselves outside the primary school that now stood where Dutfield’s Yard—the exact place where Elizabeth Stride’s body had been discovered—once was. Big police vehicles blocked off a wide square around the area. The flashing blue lights, radio chatter, and pacing officers were enough to scare off any sane criminal, but I doubted the Ripper was sane.
The rest of Henriques Street was relatively quiet. Most of the locals had taken the police’s advice to steer clear of the potential crime scenes. A few teenagers milled about, drinking beer and taking dares to see how close they could get to the police barrier before someone shouted at them.
“Seems solid,” Evelyn commented. “Though if it were me, I would have blocked off the entire street.”
“The Ripper wants accuracy,” I reminded her. “If he’s going to complete the third murder, he’ll find a way to do it in the parking lot of that school.”
“He might have to make do with what’s available,” she replied. “He must have realized the cops would do this.”
“Or he’s counting on it.”
Evelyn unfolded one of the maps we’d printed out, took a pen from the glove compartment, and uncapped it with her teeth. As she spoke, she drew arrows on the map to indicate the places she was talking about. “All right, the police are here, outside the school, and here, on the corner of Henriques and Fairclough Street. No one was positioned on Back Church Lane, unless they’re in unmarked cars, which they probably are. The killer won’t know that, so if he turns up at the school to do his business, he’ll most likely enter and exit from the lane.”
“It’s fenced off, though,” I pointed out.
“You think the Ripper is going to let a bit of fence stop him?”
“Good point,” I said. “Here’s the plan, then. If the Ripper shows, we move when the police move. Commercial Street to Back Church Lane. With any luck, we’ll catch the Ripper as he vaults the fence.”
“Then what?” Evelyn asked dryly. “You’ll arrest him?”
“I’ll run him over if I have to.”
Stakeouts, it turned out, were incredibly boring. The minutes trickled by agonizingly slowly. I couldn’t keep from glancing at the clock, only to be disappointed by the time displayed. After memorizing the contents of the case files, I proposed a game of twenty questions with Evelyn, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk or entertain me. She sat hunched over, the binoculars glued to her eyes, as she methodically scanned the street for a sign of the Ripper. I clambered into the back of the car to get the camera to do the same thing, watching through the long lens and taking pictures of the police setup. If there were any holes for the Ripper to sneak through, I would find them.
Around midnight, my stomach growled so loudly that Evelyn glanced around for the source of the monstrous noise. Part of me was tempted to make a quick trip to my favorite curry place up the road, but I refused to let my hunger get the best of me. I popped open a bag of crisps, startling Evelyn again, and drank a soda as well. My eyelids had already begun to droop. It was past my bedtime.
I tossed a protein bar into Evelyn’s lap. “You should eat that. You’re shaking. It’s probably low blood sugar.”
She set it aside, her gaze never leaving Henriques Street. “I’m not hungry.”
“Are you sure? It’s going to be a long—”
“Jack, I said I’m not hungry.”
I didn’t like the look of her pasty skin or the trembling hand that held the binoculars to her eyes, but I couldn’t force her to eat. Maybe the shakes were because of fatigue, since she couldn’t lift her other arm up to support the binoculars as well. That was what I told myself, anyway.
I finished the bag of crisps and washed the salty residue out of my mouth with the soda. It had been a while since I’d eaten junk food. I hadn’t missed the sticky feeling on the back of my teeth that always lingered after chewing processed food. I poured the rest of the soda out the window and opened a water bottle instead.
Evelyn dropped the binoculars to watch me chug from the bottle. “You better be careful with how much you drink. There’s nowhere to go to the bathroom out here.”
“I’ll be fine.” I swished the water around in my mouth, hoping to alleviate the stickiness. “Don’t worry about it.”
Forty-five minutes later, the acidic taste of regret had replaced the sugary leftovers on my tongue. Without much food in my stomach, the water and soda had run right through me. I squirmed in my seat, unable to concentrate on our night watch when my bladder was about to burst. Evelyn ignored me.
“Uh, Evelyn?” I said at last.
“Let me guess. You have to pee?”
“Urgently.”
“Hold it,” Evelyn ordered. “Remember what I said. You’re not getting out of the car.”
“It’ll take me two seconds.”
“To do what? Go in the streets?”
“Desperate times! You gotta do what you gotta do.”
As we argued, the minutes ticked by. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning.
“If you pee outside this car, I’m flagging down one of the cops and getting you arrested for exposing yourself in public,” Evelyn challenged. “Don’t test
