I didn't have any trouble the first hundred yards. But hitting second gear brought the clang of metal on metal. "Whoops," I apologized, "not used to shifting with my left hand."
I felt spastic. Kensington Road was no problem until I ran over the curb. Cars coming at me on the right made me pull harder left. The bumper is made to bounce off elephants, so the Rover was fine, and so was the guy whose newspaper kiosk I had flattened, once I gave him a wad of bills.
"Why not let Pamela drive until we're out of the city?" Charlie suggested.
It was two against one, so we switched places again. The rain let up, and the sun peeked out of some low-hanging gray clouds. Pam Maxson said, "There's someplace I want you to see." She wound off the main streets and through a series of turns and kept driving until we pulled into a narrow alley in a part of the city they don't show in the tourist brochures. Abandoned warehouses, empty windows gaping like missing teeth, lined each side. A few delivery trucks drove by, but there was no foot traffic.
"On these very cobblestones," Pam Maxson said, "Jack the Ripper stalked and killed."
"Of course, Whitechapel!" Charlie Riggs was as delighted as a country priest whisked to the Vatican.
Pam stopped, put on the parking brake, and we got out. It was mid-morning, but my mind conjured pictures of foggy nights and gas lit streets. "August thirty-first, 1888," Pam said. "Mary Ann Nicholls. Throat slashed, nearly severing her head. Nine days later, Annie Chapman, stomach slashed, intestines draped round her neck. September thirtieth, Elizabeth Stride, throat slashed and on the same night, Catherine Eddowes, throat slashed, body mutilated. Finally on November ninth, Mary Jane Kelly, throat slashed and body severely mutilated."
"All prostitutes, all slain within a stone's throw of each other," Charlie whispered in reverent tones.
"Then the killings stopped," I said. "Why?"
"There are all sorts of theories, mostly rubbish," Pam said. "The murders have been blamed on everyone from Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Eddy, to Freemasons. Some believe that Montague John Druitt, a failed barrister, was the killer. He ended up floating in the Thames not long after the last killing. Others believe he was a scapegoat, used to cover a scandal involving the royal family."
"In any event," Charlie said, "the killer was never caught and his motives never known."
"But we've come such a long way since then," I said, "with all our psychological profiles and investigative techniques."
"One would think so," Pam said, "but it took five years and thirteen killings before the Yorkshire Ripper was captured."
"A baker's dozen," Charlie said, shaking his head.
We stood, peering into the shell of what Pam said had been a slaughterhouse, the wooden floor stained black from dripping carcasses. "He hired prostitutes, smashed them on the head with a hammer, then stabbed them with a screwdriver. The psychological profile built a picture of a socially incompetent, unattractive loner living in a furnished room. Turned out he was a happily married lorry driver, a decent-looking fellow with a trimmed beard, who lived with his pretty wife in a two-story house with two cars in the garage."
"Go figure," I said.
"The investigation cost four million pounds, the police interviewed three-hundred-thousand persons, and the man was captured only when he was found with a prostitute in a car with stolen license plates."
"It's often that way," Charlie said. "All the computers and all the files go for naught, but then a tiny slip, and the bugger's caught."
We all smiled at Charlie's unintentional rhyme and headed back for the Rover. Pam opened the passenger door for herself and tossed me the keys. "Drive," she said.
Somewhere near Oxford on M-40 I finally got the hang of it, easing into a speed lane and letting the Rover purr. That seemed to relax everybody. Charlie fell asleep in the back and Pam stirred a little. "Did you learn anything from my group?" she asked.
"Only to follow the backward elbow strike with a left jab if there's a guy in front of me."
"Other than the fisticuffs."
"I'm not sure. Clarence was highly manipulative. The Fireman seemed dangerous, or at least wanted to appear that way. Ken was inscrutable, and Stephanie was-as the kids used to say-a trip."
"It may be," Pam said, watching the roadside fly by, "that you don't have enough information yet about your killer."
"I've got everything the cops have put together."
"But they have only two victims. You may need…"
She stopped, both of us realizing the horror when bodies become data, mere input for the computerized profile, grist for the thesis and the government grant.
"There will be more deaths, won't there?" I asked.
"Yes, if the first two, or either of them, was a motiveless murder. If a psychopath is about."
I heard Charlie snoring in the backseat. I turned and saw him curled contentedly in the fetal position, his mackinaw under his head for a pillow. Probably dreaming of a historic autopsy where he found a rare poison in the pancreas.
I opened a window and let the crisp air fill the Rover. I had sore ribs and an angry red knot was blossoming on my temple, but it was turning into a fine day in the English countryside. I turned and looked at the beautiful woman sitting next to me. I wondered why I misfired with her at every opportunity. She seemed genuinely peeved about my conduct at the hospital.
I decided to confess. "I was scared."
She looked at me skeptically.
"In the hospital with four lunatic killers and your two minimum-wage goons."
"There was no reason to be frightened of the group. They only kill women, you know."
"And their reasons for killing women?"
"Answering that question is my life's work. But we're talking about you. What frightened you?"
"Confinement, I guess. Claustrophobia, maybe. Not being able to come and go. Having hands laid on me. Plus the fear of getting knocked around by a couple of guys who know how to inflict pain without leaving scars."
"I see." She bit her lower lip and seemed to ponder my case. She was staring straight out the windshield, or windscreen, as she called it when we stopped for petrol, but she was thinking about me. I liked the attention. But I didn't know if she was interested in the big lummox as a person or merely an interesting case study. Freud had his Rat Man; maybe Maxson wanted her Macho Man. "I wonder," she said delicately, "if you are using claustrophobia in a colloquial sense or if you have a true phobia, an anxiety far out of proportion to its danger."
"I don't know," I admitted.
"As for Clive and Francis, with your background as a footballer, you can certainly handle yourself, as you proved."
I passed a double trailer in fifth gear and looked straight ahead. "But I was afraid, even then."
"Afraid, playing your game?"
I nodded.
"Afraid of what? Losing?"
"The pain, both physical and emotional. Getting hurt, getting embarrassed. I was always one step from getting cut."
"Cut?"
"Fired, canned, let out to pasture."
I politely allowed a Jaguar to take me on the right side. Pam seemed to be mulling over the contradictions of the ex-linebacker admitting his weaknesses. She inched closer in the seat. Maybe she liked me better this way, two hundred twenty-five pounds of neuroses. "What caused these fears?" she asked.
I shrugged.
"We could find out, you know."
"You mean analysis."
She nodded happily. "Let's call it a preliminary inquiry concerning your mental health."
"Fire when ready."
"Did you like playing your game?"
"The game…the game is stupid!" I stopped short. I'd never said that before, never even thought it, not consciously at least. Then I wondered if there is a subconscious. Or was I becoming a radical psychojock?