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Inspector Frederick Moore said. ‘Any help you can give us, we’ll take.’ His voice had a naturally rough edge so that no matter how politely he spoke he always sounded as if he didn’t quite belong with the middle classes. He made no effort to smooth it, for he was well aware that he also had a gravitas that belied his thirty-nine years and led to no shortfall in respect.
    Despite being both older and of the same rank, Walter Andrews stood slightly behind Moore, his slim frame almost hidden by the other’s thickset body.
    ‘She’s not one of Jack’s,’ Dr Bond said, carefully lifting the arm from the preservatives that had kept it from further decomposition for the best part of a month. It was well-rounded, and the fingernails were neatly filed. He didn’t need the doctor to tell him that whoever this woman was, she probably hadn’t been employed doing heavy manual labour. Still, hewas always glad to have Bond on these cases. He was a good medical man, and his forensic knowledge was respected city-wide by the police. During the gruesome discoveries of the past few weeks, Moore had learned to value his opinion as well as his craft.
    ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course I’m not sure,’ Bond replied, his thick moustache twitching with a slight smile, ‘but it is my definite opinion.’
    ‘I’m inclined to agree,’ Moore said.
    ‘So what are we doing over here then?’ Andrews asked. ‘We’ve got enough on our plate back at Division.’
    Moore watched as the doctor placed the arm alongside the torso and pushed them together.
    ‘Perfect fit,’ Bond said.
    ‘So there is a second then,’ Hebbert said as he and Moore stepped closer to the workbench.
    ‘A second?’ Moore asked.
    ‘A second killer at work on the streets.’ Dr Bond looked up. ‘I’d say whoever disposed of this poor woman is also responsible for the Rainham death.’
    Although Moore had not been part of the Rainham river investigation, he was aware of it, of course. If Bond and Hebbert believed the two to be linked, then he wouldn’t dispute it. His insides growled with tiredness and frustration. Another murderer then.
    Would he have preferred this to have been the work of Jack? Probably – each fresh body in that case was also, crudely speaking, a fresh clue, and perhapsthey would have found something here to lead them to whoever was stalking Whitechapel’s streets. So far, they had depressingly little to go on, and now, instead of making that hunt easier, they faced a search for another madman in their midst. He looked again at the torso.
    ‘What can you tell us about her?’ he asked.
    ‘She was tall, perhaps five feet eight and a half inches, and somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years of age. The contents of her pelvis, including her uterus, are absent, although the positioning of her bones shows no indication that she’s borne a child.’ Alongside Moore, Andrews had begun to scribble in the small notebook he carried with him. They worked well together; Moore led and grasped the larger picture, but Andrews was the man with the eye for detail.
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘She’s been dead between six weeks and two months, and decomposition occurred in the air, not the water. It’s unlikely she died by suffocation or drowning – her heart is pale and free of the clots I would expect to find from such a manner of death.’
    ‘At least we can rule that out.’ Moore’s answer was wry. How the hell could anyone decide how this woman had met her end? The only thing he knew for certain was that it was at someone else’s hand. That was enough for him.
    ‘Why take the head?’ Andrews asked.
    ‘I would suggest to avoid identification of the victim,’ Bond said.
    ‘Makes it harder to start looking for the bastard who killed her.’
    ‘Of course,’ Bond lifted the arm and placed it in a vat of wine as he spoke, ‘given the way he’s disposed of her corpse, he may have a personal reason to keep her head. Perhaps he wanted