So now Ross was looking for links between this victim and the others. Rudlin had been pretty ordinary, not important like Staunce and Spatley: redbrick university, Lancaster; reasonably well-off family; nobody close to him worked in police or government. It was possible that the idea here was just to create terror in a particular group of people, but then why not kill loads of them? The presence of the protestors outside was interesting. The faces that had been identified in the crowd outside the bar didn’t match any who’d been present at the Spatley murder, but that sample, among all the masks involved, was pretty small. It was perhaps indicative that the protestors just happened to show up in this neighbourhood and mount their first ever protest outside a bar on the night when the Ripper attacked someone inside it. That was a very attractive connection to make, now with three data points in a row, but it could still just be coincidence, given the prevalence of the Toff movement across London. Perhaps the Ripper was somehow the ‘spirit of the protests’ or being summoned by someone in the Toff crowds, or feeding on their anger or something like that.

Tired coppers from the main investigation had told her they’d found no sign of a pre-organized picket of the bar on Toff websites. But with an organization this diffuse – if it could be called an organization at all – there was usually little warning of anything. It was as if they were dealing with a flash mob as a culture. A bunch of tweets had gone out, giving the impression that something was already happening outside this particular bar, and other people had shown up to join in. The main investigation had asked Twitter to provide details of those accounts under the Data Protection Act, and Forrest’s office had promised to share that with her.

‘If our lot ever get something on Crimewatch,’ said Quill, after she’d told him, ‘they’ll need a special effects budget.’

In the back of Ross’ mind, as she worked the case, she was also working her other problem. She looked to Costain every now and then, and gradually she realized that there was something she could do to change things, perhaps to make things better. It would involve no risk on her part. It would be very hard on him.

That was all right.

She waited until he was on his own, staring into the fine detail of the silver splash on the wall. ‘About last night…’

‘What about it?’ He was careful now, guarded. She could tell that he thought she was going to say it had been a mistake, that it was all over. He was worried either about losing the connection they’d made or about missing his chance to get hold of the Bridge of Spikes. Would she ever be able to look at him and make an accurate assessment of what he was thinking?