The London Blitz Murders Read Free Page B

Spilsbury removed his left hand from his pocket, and held it out in a choking manner, by way of demonstration. “… I believe her assailant was a left-handed man.”
    “You rule out a woman attacker?”
    “It’s unlikely. This is a powerful individual—much more likely a male. On the other hand, despite the disarray of her clothing, I see no sign of rape or sexual attack. The autopsy will tell, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    Spilsbury nodded down toward the corpse. “Note the bruises on her chest…. Come closer.”
    Greeno did and winced. “My God…”
    “He probably knelt on top of her, pinning her down, while he was strangling her.”
    The inspector shook his head. “It’s a right wicked world, Doctor.”
    “It is indeed…. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    Spilsbury had been at the Hampstead Road crime scene, as well.
    “… Dare we think that?” Greeno asked.
    “The other young woman, Maple Church,” Spilsbury said, and the older man’s ability to recall the name was no surprise to the younger one, “was also strangled and robbed. But, in that instance, there had been sexual activity.”
    “Not rape, though.”
    Spilsbury nodded. “No evidence of such, anyway. But sexual congress did occur, perhaps with the young woman’s consent.”
    Perhaps was an understatement, even for Spilsbury. Maple Church had been a prostitute in Soho. Several hours before her death, she’d been seen talking to potential mugs (as the London ladies called their clients) not far from where her body would shortly be found. Several servicemen had been on hand, among them American soldiers.
    “I don’t believe any suspects made themselves available,” Spilsbury said, drawing a fine line between tact and sarcasm.
    “We didn’t get anywhere on that one, no, sir. With so many servicemen in the city, it’s difficult to impossible, sometimes…. But if we would happen to have a boyo who’s preying upon prosties, this woman…” He nodded toward the austere-featured victim. “… would hardly seem to qualify. She’s handsome enough, but rather old for the game.”
    “This was a respectable woman,” Spilsbury said, agreeing but in a dismissive manner. “Her clothing attests that… but in a blackout, a woman walking the street… and she was, as you say, handsome….”
    “He could easily have mistaken her for a tart.”
    Spilsbury nodded curtly. “But two killings don’t a Ripper make.”
    “No. These could be isolated instances. Robberies gone out of hand.”
    “In hand, I should say,” Spilsbury said, repeating the choking gesture. “I would hate to think the fog of Whitechapel has a counterpart in our blackouts.”
    Greeno grunted a humorless laugh. “That’s where I started out, you know.”
    Spilsbury looked at Greeno directly, as if noticing his presence for the first time. “What’s that, Inspector?”
    “King David’s Lane, Shadwell—Whitechapel Division. That was my first post, back in ’20. Where the Ripper ripped.”
    “I pray we don’t have another.”
    “Second to that. And if we do… I pray he’s not American.”
    Spilsbury’s eyes and nostrils flared. “Oh—that would be all we’d need at this juncture.”
    The influx of American soldiers since the first of the year had been considerable… as was the tension between locals and the colonials. The phrase going around of late was “the Americans are over-paid, over-sexed and over here.” The HomeOffice, it was rumored, was developing a campaign to convince British citizens that the Americans were not pampered, gum-chewing, arrogant monsters.
    Somehow Greeno doubted an American Jack the Ripper would do much to advance that campaign.
    Spilsbury packed up—no one was allowed to touch his fabled “murder” bag, and in fact the pathologist would give a frighteningly reproving glare to any person who dared touch even his sleeve at a crime scene—and took his leave, the Armstrong-Siddeley disappearing into the snowy