He remembered the taste of the blood-soaked piece of paper as he’d put it into his mouth and chewed and swallowed. That was what they had made him do for money.

He would normally have watched TV if he couldn’t sleep. But all you saw these days were news broadcasts about the protestors. He didn’t want to see them. Even here in Hackney he could now hear the sounds of them. There were shouts from right outside the window. He hoped they wouldn’t wake Alee up.

When the wall in front of him started warping, he wondered if he was dreaming, or if perhaps the stress he’d been under had deformed the shape of his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that something was really pushing its way through the wall.

He managed to grab Alee from out of the cradle before the first blow landed. He staggered to the bedroom door, shoved his way through it, one hand trying to fend off something he couldn’t seem to connect with, his only thought to get the baby away.

He was suddenly aware of many terrible impacts happening rapidly across his body. He looked into the face of his screaming child. He heard what must be Angela yelling too.

He was so incapable of helping them.

Then he was gone.

*   *   *

Quill and his team stood looking at the remains of Brian Tunstall. No scrawled message this time, and, as far as Forensics could find, again no fingerprints. The adult witness, Tunstall’s wife, Angela, had been too traumatized to answer any but the most basic questions, but it was clear that the MO had been the same. The Ripper had spared the woman and child.

So much for rich white men. Only two out of three for Tunstall.

The now-familiar silver goo showed the entry and exit points of the killer. Jason Forrest, unaware of them, stood glowering near one. As Quill watched, he just shook his head and walked away.

There came an alert from Quill’s phone. He looked at it and found confirmation that the prints they’d found in Spatley’s office had indeed belonged to Tunstall.

*   *   *

Back in the Portakabin, Quill said out loud what they all knew in their copper hearts. ‘Tunstall must have known something about Spatley’s murder and we didn’t get it out of him when we had the chance. Gaiman suggested that if we catch the Ripper, we might turn everything around and save London. We might have fucked that up before we even knew it!’