She had thought about what this would do to him. She knew it would remind him of his own time in Hell. But she had thought that, beyond that, it would show him exactly what her dad was going through. A darker thought came to her. Maybe it wasn’t that she’d hoped to persuade him to let her keep the object that could free her father. Maybe it was that she’d wanted to demonstrate why she’d do anything to keep it. Now he knew what he was dealing with.

She went to him and calmly took his hands in hers. ‘Do you see now?’

He nodded. He licked his lips. His eyes met hers. ‘I want to help.’

‘I know you do.’ Though she really didn’t.

‘He’s wrong about me.’

‘You don’t know you’re going to end up in Hell, not for sure, but my dad is in there now—’

‘Rob Toshack would have given me to Losley. I know that.’

‘I know—’

Costain suddenly shouted. ‘I was planning to take it for myself, okay?!’

Ross stared at him, trying to see the truth in his eyes.

‘But I won’t now. I won’t now. Okay? I want you to use it on him. I want you to get him out of there.’

Ross didn’t know what she believed. She didn’t want him looking at her in that moment. So she pulled him to her. Awkwardly, they held each other.

*   *   *

Quill only remembered to get his dinner suit back from the drycleaners because Sarah got Jessica to run into the kitchen and ask him if he’d done so. He was looking forward to this do where the staff of her paper were going to be shown what it meant to be part of the Daily Herald media group. It would be an evening out where he wouldn’t have to think about being a police officer, or about London falling apart, or that two of his team had reported back from extraordinary experiences with nothing but a single negative between them: that whatever was doing the killings wasn’t anything to do with the original Jack the Ripper. Of course, at this do, everyone Sarah introduced him to would be interested in his job and ask what he was working on right now, and he’d lie, probably. In the back of his head was the thought that idle conversation might uncover some journalistic titbit about the Ripper or how the Herald knew about that bloody scrawled message. But how likely was that, really?

He was hauling the suit through the front door when he got a text from Lofthouse telling him that his request to search Spatley’s offices had been approved for tomorrow. At least there’d been some progress.

*   *   *