Caine nodded. ‘It’s at a much lower literacy level than the other letters they received, but back in the day they thought that was deliberate. What’s fake about it is the pretence of illiteracy. Look. He apparently can’t spell to save his life but he manages to observe the silent “k” in knife and the silent “h” in while. Unlike all the other letters, he doesn’t sign it “Jack the Ripper”. And I’ll say this for him – he did include a human kidney.’

‘He was sick of the fakes,’ I said. ‘He was tired of all the nutcases claiming credit for crimes they didn’t have the skill and the madness to commit. And it’s going to be the same this time. Sooner or later, the real killer will show himself.’

Sergeant Caine watched me staring at the letter.

‘Bob the Butcher is not real,’ I said. ‘But this is real. May I touch it?’

The keeper of the Black Museum stared at me.

‘Be careful,’ he said.

Chapter 20

20

‘ONE MURDER IS a tragedy,’ said Detective Chief Superintendent Elizabeth Swire. ‘Two murders are a tragic coincidence. And three murders are prime-time entertainment.’

The call from the chief super had come just as Mallory was about to start the morning briefing at West End Central. Fifteen minutes later we were in a conference room on the top floor of New Scotland Yard. This high up the brass had a picture-postcard view of either St James’s Park or the Thames. This room overlooked the park. But nobody noticed the view.

The death of Guy Philips had put Operation Fat Boy on all the front pages. Bob the Butcher was being called a serial killer and treated like a national celebrity. The popular press were going wild, but with a sneaking regard for Bob’s dysfunctional social conscience. BOB THE BUTCHER – FEARED BY THE RICH, LOVED BY THE POOR? asked the Sun. The unpopular press saw Bob as the embodiment of the seething resentments at the rotten core of an unfair society. BUTCHER BOB – IS HE A ONE MAN RIOT? pondered the Guardian, as if all Bob was doing was kicking in store windows and stealing plasma TVs.

The chief super was not happy. And DCS Swire had a genius for registering her displeasure. She was a fifty-year-old woman with a ferocious blonde haircut, hair sprayed as stiff as a Spartan helmet. Swire looked like Mrs Thatcher’s recently exhumed corpse, but with slightly less human warmth.

She considered DCI Mallory with dead eyes.

‘You initially expressed doubts that Bob the Butcher was the perpetrator,’ she said.

‘That’s correct, ma’am.’

‘So have you eliminated him from your enquiries?’

‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Mallory said.

‘Not yet, ma’am,’ she said, her tone so caustic you could have used it to strip paint.

DI Gane spoke up, his voice shaking just a little. He talked about anonymity networks, onion routers and layers of encryption.