Free Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough

things, but friends they were not. Boundaries were respected.
    ‘No, thank you. Smoker prefers to walk, and I enjoy the sights.’
    Moore nodded. That was the strange delusion to be found in all newsmen: they had a firm belief that the tragedies of the world belonged to others; their role was simply to report on those tragedies. Some found out otherwise, of course, and it had been one such event that had brought Waring and Moore together.
    ‘Take care,’ he said as a hansom pulled to the side and waited for him to climb on board. ‘The streets aren’t everyone’s friend.’
    ‘Ha!’ Waring laughed with good humour. ‘I doubt they are any man’s friend, but I’m not alone in my enjoyment of them. You’d be surprised who I’ve seenwandering through them. The good doctor, for one. Even though he takes care to dress down and not be seen, I can always recognise a man by his gait.’
    Moore half-smiled. Men were always drawn to the gutter at some point or another, and he knew the doctor. He would want to understand the killer who stalked Whitechapel, and that would mean treading in his footsteps. Had he not gone the path of medicine, Thomas Bond would have made a fine inspector.
    *
    It was only just after noon when Moore led Waring and Smoker down into the vault, and barely fifteen minutes later that he stood dumbfounded and speechless, all words lost to him. Jasper Waring was equally silent. No matter what promises the reporter had made, he surely couldn’t have expected such swift results.
    ‘Fetch Dr Bond,’ Moore muttered eventually, his teeth gritted. He didn’t raise his eyes from the dog’s find, but he heard feet scurry quickly away and up the steps back to daylight. The remaining group of officers were silent, each no doubt wishing that they were part of Commissioner Warren’s Force who were still searching Whitechapel room by room in the increasingly vain hope of turning up something that might lead them to Jack. Moore had half a mind to send them all there immediately, as they’d been pretty damned useless here at Whitehall.
    When they’d arrived in the badly lit basement of the new building, they’d placed the dog near the spotwhere the torso had been found. Despite the poor visibility, the terrier began digging at the ground almost immediately, barely more than a few inches from where the parcel had been placed. He was digging with such determination that Moore’s heart raced in anticipation. He had not been denied, either, for there at his feet was the dog’s find.
    He held the lamp over it again: a human leg, severed below the knee, with the bare foot still attached.
    ‘I told you he was good,’ Waring said.
    Moore ignored the reporter’s boast and glared up at the small gathering, those who had been unfortunate enough to accompany them. Even in the grainy light that was doing little to dispel the pitch-blackness of the claustrophobic vault, they would no doubt be able to see the rage burning in his eyes. He felt as if they were blazing like he were the Devil himself.
    ‘Why did we not find this?’ No one answered. ‘How many pissing days have we wasted scouring this building? For what ? For us to be saved from our own incompetence by a newsman’s ratting dog?’
    ‘At least we have it now,’ Andrews said, the only man brave enough to speak out in the face of Henry Moore’s anger. ‘Better to find it this way than not at all.’
    Andrews was right, of course, even if that did nothing to appease his own rabid frustration. He also knew that every man involved in the previous search would be just as embarrassed at their failure to makethe discovery. If the police couldn’t find body parts that were – literally – right under their noses, then how could they expect the public to have any faith in their ability to catch the more attention-seeking Jack? It was a farce, and he wanted no part of it.
    He tried to unclench his tight jaw. What was done was done. Now there was only how to