"No, my business tonight is not quite finished," Lachley said with fine irony. Maybrick admired the man more and more. He gestured Maybrick forward with a motion of his head. "But I've a friend here with me who has a little time in hand."
Polly turned, so drunk on the gin she'd guzzled that Lachley had to keep her from falling. "Well, then, ‘ello, luv."
"Good evening, ma'am." Maybrick tipped his hat.
"Polly," John Lachley said with a faint smile, "this is James. He is a dear friend of mine. James will take care of you this evening. Now. Here is the money for the letter you have with you." Lachley held out a palmful of glittering sovereigns.
Polly gasped. Then fumbled through her pocket and produced a crumpled letter.
Lachley took it gently from her, swept his gaze across what had been written on the grubby sheets of foolscap, and put the money in her hand, then glanced up at Maybrick with a quirk of his lips. Polly wouldn't be keeping her money long.
"There, now. First payment, in good faith. Payment in full very soon. Shall Mr. James, here, escort you someplace quiet?"
Polly smiled up at Maybrick in turn and moved her hand downward along the shapeless workmen's trousers he wore. "Grand."
Maybrick's breaths came faster. He smiled down into her eyes, pulse beating a savage rhythm at his temples. He said to his whore, "This way, my dear."
They had timed the rounds of the constables of the H Division all through this area, he and Lachley. Maybrick knew very well that the next few minutes would provide him with exactly the opportunity he needed. Lachley doffed his cap and bid Polly goodnight and disappeared down Whitechapel Road at a brisk walk, whistling merrily to himself. James knew, of course, that his mentor would circle around to Buck's Row by way of quiet little Baker's Row and meet him again soon... very soon.
Maybrick took Polly's arm and gave her a brilliant smile, then guided her off the main road, down Thomas Street, a narrow bridge road which led across the rail line of the London and Northern Railway, twenty feet below. Beyond the railway line lay the exceedingly narrow street known as Buck's Row, lined by high brick warehouses, a board school, and several terrace houses, which served as cottages for the tradesmen who worked in Schneiders Cap Factory and several high, dark warehouses: the Eagle Wool Warehouse, which supplied fabric for the cap factory, and the massive warehouse called Essex Wharf.
James knew Schneider of old, a dirty little foreigner, which in this dismal region meant only one thing: Jew. James had chosen his killing ground carefully, most carefully, indeed. It was the filthy foreigners flooding into London who were destroying the moral fibre of the English Empire, bringing in their foreign ways and unholy religious practices and speaking every tongue heard at the Tower of Babel except the Queen's good English. Yes, James had chosen this spot with great care, to leave a message on the very doorstep of the bastards destroying all that was English.
The place he wanted was an old stableyard which stood between the school and the workers' cottages. The only street lamp was at the far end of Buck's Row, where it met Baker's Row to the west. As they entered the cramped, cobbled street, which was no more than twenty feet wide from housewalls on the one hand to warehouse walls opposite, Maybrick slipped his right hand into his coat pocket again. He closed his hand around the handle of the beautiful, shining knife and gripped it tightly. His pulse raced. His breath came in short, unsteady gasps. The smell of cheap gin and sex and greed was a poison in his brain. Her whispered obscenities to the dockworker rang in his ears. His hand sweat against the wood. Here, his mind shrieked. Quick, before the bloody constables come back! He drew another breath, seeing in his mind his beautiful, faithless wife, naked and writhing under the lover who impaled her in that hotel he'd seen them coming out of together, the one in Liverpool's fashionable Whitechapel Street.
Maybrick glanced toward Baker's Row. Saw Lachley appear from the blackness at the end of Buck's Row. Saw him nod, giving the signal that all was clear. Maybrick's breath whipsawed, harsh and urgent. He tightened his left hand on the whore's arm. Moving her almost gently, Maybrick pressed her back against the stableyard gate. It was solid as iron. She smiled up at him, fumbling with her skirts. He slid his hand up her arm, toyed with a breast, slipped his fingers upwards, toward her neck—
Then smashed a fist into her face.
Bone crunched. Several of her teeth broke loose. She sagged back against the fence, stunned motionless. Maybrick tightened a savage grip around her throat. Her eyes bulged. Her abruptly toothless mouth worked. Shock and terror twisted across her once-delicate face. High cheekbones flushed dark as he cut off her air. His wife's face swam before his eyes, gaping and toothless and terror stricken. He dug his thumb into dear, faithless Florie's jaw, bruising the right side of her face. The bitch struggled feebly as he tightened down. He dented and bruised the flesh of her throat, the left side of her face with his fingers, ruthless and drunk with the terror he inflicted. She was so drunk, she wasn't able to do more than claw weakly at his coat sleeve with one hand.
James Maybrick smiled down into his whore's dying eyes...
... and brought out his shining knife.
Skeeter Jackson pushed his heavy maintenance cart toward the men's room in Little Agora, bottles rattling and mops threatening to crash against the protestors who screamed and carried signs and picketed fifteen feet deep around Ianira's vacant booth, threatening to shut down commerce with their disruptive presence and threatening to shut down the station with the violence that broke out between them and the Arabian Nights construction workers at least once every couple of hours.
Nuts, he groused, maneuvering with difficulty through the packed crowd, we are neck deep in nutcases. He finally gained the bathroom, which he was already fifteen minutes overdue to scrub, slowed down on his schedule by the crowds of protestors and uneasy tourists, and turned on the hot water to fill his mop bucket. He'd just added soap when the trouble broke loose.
A sudden scuffle and a meaty smack and thump shook the whole bank of stalls behind him. Skeeter came around fast, mop gripped in both hands like a quarterstaff. A pained cry, high-pitched and frightened, accompanied another thud and violent slap. Then a stall door burst open and a burly guy with Middle Eastern features, who wore jeans and a work shirt and a burnoose-style headdress, strode out. He looked smug and self-satisfied. He was still zipping his fly. A muffled, startlingly feminine sob came from the now-open stall.
Skeeter narrowed his eyes at the construction worker, who wore a wicked linoleum knife in a sheathe on his belt. These creeps had been involved in the attacks on Ianira and her family. He was convinced they might yet know where she was, despite their protests of innocence to station security. They were trouble, wherever they went on station and it looked very much like more trouble was breaking loose right in front of him.
"You want to tell me what that was all about?" Skeeter asked quietly, placing himself carefully between the heavily muscled worker and the exit.
The dark-eyed man smirked down at Skeeter, measuring his shorter height and lighter frame contemptuously. "Little girls should not demand more money than they are worth."
"Is that a fact?" Skeeter balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, aware that he played a potentially lethal game. These guys carried tools that doubled as deadly weapons. But he wasn't going to let this creep just walk out of here, not with somebody back there crying in that stall like a hurt child. "Hey, you okay in there?" he called out to the pair of grubby tennis shoes visible under the partially open door. "I'll call the station infirmary if you need help."