“Like shutting the door after the horse has bolted,” Dillon whispered to Kelly as they got out.
Jack showed his warrant card and introduced himself. He excused the uniform constable, making it clear he wanted to speak to the women alone. “I’m looking for a reporter named Terry Miller. Do you know where I can find him?” he said after dispensing with the formalities.
The women looked at each other uncomfortably. “I’m Terri Miller,” The taller of the two said. She noted the look of surprise that flashed across Tyler’s face and realised he had been expecting a man. “It’s short for Teresa,” she explained, getting the feeling that this stern-faced man wasn’t impressed with what he saw.
Although he tried not to let it show, Jack found himself momentarily thrown off track. He had assumed he would be dealing with a cynical, hard-nosed, male reporter. The two women in front of him appeared anything but. He glanced at the one with the camera. She was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Both looked as white as a sheet. “Where’s the body?” he asked, fighting to keep the anger from his voice.
Terri indicated the house with a forlorn nod of her head. “In there. It’s in the hall, by the stairs.”
“Wait there,” he said, pointedly. They regrouped at the rear of the Vauxhall. Jack broke open a new evidence bag and handed them each the customary paper suits, overshoes, latex gloves and white Victoria masks.
Once suited and booted, they entered the house in single file. Despite the trepidation he felt, Dillon took the lead, using a powerful Dragon Light Nick had purloined from the RT car to illuminate their path. Tyler and Bartholomew followed behind. Kelly remained at the door, keeping a watchful eye on the two women. One of the uniformed officers was writing up a scene log, the other began unrolling tape to instigate a cordon.
The rancid smell hit them as soon as they entered the hall; it was overpowering in the confined space. “Jesus!” Dillon exclaimed, his stomach turning. He had expected the cloying smell of death to be present, but it was the acrid stench of vomit that had stopped him in his tracks.
Jack pulled up the face mask, trying to filter out the worst of it. Bartholomew hurriedly produced a small jar of Tiger-Balm, which he frantically unscrewed while he held his breath. With a latex-coated index finger, he inserted a liberal amount into each nostril, and then passed it forward to the others.
The ground floor of the dilapidated old house was a mini disaster zone, with broken and missing floorboards everywhere. The body, which was hardly recognisable as human, was slumped in a heap at the side of a staircase that looked like it was about to disintegrate. Under the harsh light of the torch, it looked more like a tailor’s dummy then a person.
Predictably, the unknown victim’s throat had been cut. The nearly severed head sagged at an unnatural angle, resting in a large pool of semi-clotted blood. The woman’s tongue protruded from her slack mouth.
“Shine the light directly on her head, Dill,” Jack instructed.
Dillon nodded, and the beam settled on the dead woman’s head. He forced himself to look, hoping it wouldn’t make him feel giddy. The forehead had been partially caved in as a result of severe blunt force trauma.
“Jesus, talk about overkill,” Bartholomew said from behind.
An eye was missing. Was that down to the killer, or had the resident rodents treated themselves to a midnight feast? And if it was the killer, why had he only taken the one eye? At Mitre Square, he had removed them both.
The woman had been laid open from sternum to pubic bone. The skin of her abdomen was folded back and she had been systematically disembowelled. The killer had tucked both of her hands up inside the empty stomach cavity. Was this a sinister ritual or merely a depraved private joke on the killer’s part? A small bundle of intestines had been scooped out and placed on the left shoulder like a string of sausages. The detectives were mystified as to the significance of that. The pelvic region of her body had also been cut out. As with Tracey Phillips, it was obvious that something sharp had been violently inserted into her vagina.
As Dillon’s shaking hand scythed the torch beam through the darkness, they saw there was blood everywhere. The body and the surrounding floorboards were covered in it. The arterial spray saturated the lower walls and the staircase. Two sets of red footprints could be seen, leaving a trail from the corpse to the door, and it looked as though someone had been rolling around in the blood.
There were several pools of vomit in the hallway, one of which covered the dead girl’s feet. Jack wondered which of the two inept women waiting outside had thrown up.
“I bet it was the soppy tart with the camera,” Dillon growled, as if reading his partner’s mind. Jack didn’t bother replying. He was too busy trying to work out if the body had been disturbed as a result of Miller’s intrusion. He could just imagine them groping around in the dark, not giving a toss about the crime scene.
Moving cautiously, they entered the main living room. As Dillon shone the light across the walls, he saw the message. It was written in bold red letters and the blood had run in several places. It said:
The blood of whores will continue to flow freely in Whitechapel until I am appeased.
Jack the New Ripper.
“Another message,” Jack said, stating the obvious. “This time he’s signed off as ‘Jack the New Ripper’. I wonder if he actually thinks he’s a descendant of Jack the Ripper, or maybe even his reincarnation.”
“He’s taunting us, Jack. That’s what he’s doing,” Dillon said quietly, his voice thick with frustration.
“I know. But our turn will come, despite the interference from those two prats outside. Let’s not mention any
