‘And he took her apron. With two groups of coppers after him, the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police – because that was the case in those days, each police force having its own territory – Jack cannily hopped back and forth over the border between them, hue and cry all around!’ Fennix led them off again, and this time Costain, following on his phone, knew where they were going.

Ross walked calmly beside him.

*   *   *

‘Here is Goulston Street, ladies and gentlemen, these days, ironically, the location of Petticoat Lane Market, and –’ he winked at Costain – ‘yes, sir, there’s a synagogue just round the corner.’

‘Storks on roofs,’ Ross whispered.

It took a moment for Costain to remember that that was a metaphor she’d used during the Losley case. There had been an exact correlation, he remembered, between the size of families in Holland and the number of storks that nested on the roofs of their houses. It wasn’t because storks brought babies, but because rich people back then had both bigger roofs and more children.

She’d obviously seen that momentary look of consternation on his face. ‘I mean, Jews were poor, so the slum landscape of the killings of course includes lots of Jewish references.’

‘Are you sure that’s all there is to it? Spatley was Jewish.’

Ross shook her head, as if now annoyed that she’d shared her thoughts. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Here’s where Jack dropped that apron, and then perhaps wrote, on this wall here, his famous message. Depending on whether you believe that any of the letters the police received were really from him, depending on if you believe he even wrote this – perhaps this is all we ever hear in the man’s own voice. The message that calls out to us even now, which was written in blood in the house of a rich man only this week. Here it was written in chalk, and originally the message read…’ Fennix held up a slate, on which was written:

The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.

‘One of the versions, anyway,’ said Costain to Ross. They’d all been reading up on the history of this shit. She just nodded absently. She was looking up at the wall. Costain followed her gaze to where the original message still shone, for just the two of them, in all its different versions, frustratingly, with crossings out and some words faded and some reinforced, as if the memory of London was trying to accommodate all the possibilities, everything remembered, imagined or written about these words. This was merely testimony, Costain thought, as Ross took a photo of it. Not as solid as evidence. Not as reliable. The city continued to be their key witness. But what it told them was subjective.

If enough tour guides kept getting the precise positions of the bodies wrong, as Fennix did, the Ripper’s victims would finally end up there.

*   *   *