Page 85 of Ambrosia

“I will be,” I muttered. “Looks like the viciousness is increasing.”

“That was our impression as well,” Gabriel said. “This one is the worst so far.”

I looked around the small city square. There were no shop fronts here, just the back entrances of buildings, a fenced-in parking lot, and a tiny road. Still, it seemed impossible that he’d slaughtered her in the center of the city without anyone noticing.

“Do we have any witnesses?” I asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “No. A passerby found her at twenty past eleven. He saw no one near the body.”

“Do we have an estimated time of death?”

“Yeah. Between eleven and eleven twenty.”

“So he found her only minutes after she had been killed.”

“Yes.”

I frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. Someone killed her and disemboweled her completely. It would have taken some time. How did he manage to do that without anyone noticing? Surely people must cut through here to get to the bars and restaurants I saw on Bishopsgate?”

“There isn’t much light here without the spotlights. And most people out at this time in the City are likely plastered.”

I looked around. The body was reasonably hidden from the nearby street, but anyone looking a bit carefully would surely have noticed it. “He must have been silent. And calm. This is… extraordinary.”

“Iagree. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Any organs missing from the scene?” I asked, thinking of the previous cases.

“The heart, at least, but I’m not sure what else. We’ll have a preliminary autopsy report tomorrow.”

“Did you do a door-to-door? Did anyone hear anything?”

“We’ve only just found her,” he countered. “And no one lives around here. Unless you wander further east, it’s all empty banks and businesses at this hour.”

I stared at the woman. “Do we have an ID?”

“Her name is Catherine Taylor,” Gabriel said. “Nineteen years old. There was a driver’s license in her purse, discarded by the body. We don’t know if it’s a coincidence yet.”

“Coincidence?” I asked.

A sigh slid from him. “Jack the Ripper killed a woman called Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square.”

My throat tightened. Shit. Was he starting to mimic the actual Ripper? “The other victims weren’t killed in places where the Ripper struck.”

“This is the first that overlaps.”

“And the other names didn’t match the original Ripper’s victims, right?”

“No. I imagine he is adjusting his signature as he goes along. But then, I’m no profiler, so perhaps I’d best leave all the complicated stuff to you.”

I narrowed my eyes. Some British people were under the impression that Americans didn’t understand sarcasm, and perhaps it was best if I just played along. “Right. Best leave it to the experts.”

He stared at me for just a moment before themedical examiner interrupted. “Detective. Can you have a look at this?”

Gabriel crossed to the body. As he quietly spoke to the man, my gaze wandered to Catherine’s eyes again. What had gone through her mind in her final moments? Had she thought of anyone she loved, or had the pain overwhelmed her?

My fingers tightened into fists. I wasn’t sure if it was my own past coming to the surface, the way it sometimes did at times like this, but I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to catch her killer and kick the living shit out of himbeforeI put him behind bars.

Gabriel knelt close to Catherine’s mouth, inspecting it.

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