It was horrible, but I doubted that Stephanopoulis had dragged me down here for a crash course in scene-of-crime theory. There had to be something more, so I made myself look at the wound again and this time I saw the connection. I’m no expert but judging by the ragged edge of the wound I didn’t think it had been done with a knife.

I stood up and Stephanopoulis gave me an approving look. Presumably because I hadn’t immediately clutched my groin and run whimpering from the scene.

“Does this look familiar to you?” she asked.

Chapter 4 - One-Tenth of My Ashes

THE GROUCHO Club, the name being taken from his famous quote, was established around the same time I was born, to cater to the kind of artists and media professionals who could afford to buy into their ironic postmodernism. It generally went under the police radar because however trendily antiestablishment its patrons were, they generally didn’t get into it on the street come Friday night. Or least not unless there was a chance of it making the papers the next day. Enough rehab-worthy celebrities went there to support a niche ecology of paparazzi on the pavement opposite the entrance. That explained why Stephanopoulis had sealed off the street. I imagined the photographers were as vexed as five-year-olds by now.

“You’re thinking of Saint John Giles?” I asked.

“The MO’s pretty distinctive,” said Stephanopoulis.

St. John Giles was a putative Saturday-night date rapist whose career had been, literally, cut short in a club a few months previously when a woman, or at least something that looked like a woman, bit his penis off—with her vagina. Vagina dentata it’s called and no medically verified cases have ever been recorded. I know because Dr. Walid and I trawled all the way back to the seventeenth century looking for one.

“Did you make any progress with the case?” asked Stephanopoulis.

“No,” I said. “We have his description, his friend’s descriptions, and some fuzzy CCTV footage and that’s it.”

“At least we can start with a comparative victimology. I want you to call Belgravia, get the case number, and port your nominals to our inquiry,” she said.