On the night he’d sent the text message, he’d first been annoyed at her for not getting back to him, then at himself for sending it. It had been exactly the wrong step to take. He’d tried to get to sleep, despite the heat, but he’d kept waking up, not liking how vulnerable he felt in his dreams. So, without thinking about it as much as he should have, he’d reached out. He’d wanted to talk to someone. He told himself now that he’d had his overall objective in mind. He wasn’t sure if that had been true.

Ross hadn’t raised the matter of the text message the next day, and, relieved, he hadn’t either. But Ross wasn’t very good with social interaction and so had saved it up for now because … well, who knew?

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Sorry. I was pissed. You know, you text your mates, ask if they’re up for a pint—’

‘You asked if I had five minutes.’

‘But that was where it was going.’

‘At 1 a.m.?’

‘Like I said, I was pissed.’

‘After last orders?’

‘At home with some cans.’

‘You drink at home alone?’

‘Not often. I’d just got back from the pub.’

‘Open late, was it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You really thought I’d come over for a drink?’

‘Like I said, pissed.’

‘Okay.’ She suddenly nodded as if it was the end of the interview and looked away.

The tour guide returned and began his spiel. ‘Whitechapel today may look harmless, modern, charming even. But mentally replace the sunlight with darkness and fog, and follow me now as we go on the trail of the man who is now once more in all the headlines, the man of the moment … Jack the Ripper!’

He set off and they followed. Costain kept trying to make eye contact with Ross. But now she was having none of it. That was worrying.

*   *   *

‘Mary Ann Nichols,’ said Fennix, ‘or “Polly” was her trade name.’ He paused for a laugh, which, after a moment of delayed translation, he got. They were standing in a backstreet behind the station, flanked by fenced-off brownfield sites, but there were no vehicles or workers, and they could smell the scent of undisturbed mud baking in the summer heat, suggesting that nothing was actually being built. Costain associated that smell with his childhood because nothing really changed. There were school gates over there, and the map he was looking at on his phone showed a sports centre down the road. House prices would have been shooting up before this latest recession, nice people coming in … and then it had all fallen backwards, as it always did. He glanced over and saw Ross was looking at her phone too.

‘Jewish cemetery round the corner,’ she said under her breath.