Ripped by Frederic Lindsay

neutral tone. The killing of the twins had been linked to three other child deaths, one of them years previously; it had attracted national attention. The case had promoted the officer in charge out of Moirhill.
    'This is a very special patch,' Standers said. He got up and took up a position in front of the map. The bastard! Shanks thought, he's dragged me down here to make sure I'll know how to spell his name properly. 'Deacon Street, Carnation Street, Florence Street,' a finger followed their course, 'they make a triangle – with Merse Street lying on top of it and curving back to join Moirhill Road. Put a circle round that lot and you'd cover half the pros and ponces in the city. And the rest of them would be either neds or ne'er-do-wells. It's a human sump. It's a garbage heap. Don't quote me on that, of course – or I'll have some do-gooders complaining.'
    Shanks joined him in front of the map. With a wild loop of the arm, he dabbed at it.
    'I was born about … there,' he said. '14 Florence Street. Two up. Left-hand side.' But could not prevent himself from adding, 'Right enough, it's gone down a lot since then.' Standers gave him a look of placid indifference.
    'The body was dressed in just a shirt and trousers. Pulled on after he was dead – at least that's what forensic guess. His though, they fit well enough. What does a man with his underpants off in Deacon Street suggest to you?'
    Shanks discarded the first two answers which occurred to him
    – the hardest thing he had learned on his way to becoming a professional was when not to be funny – and said seriously, 'Looks as if he was after a bit of fun, right enough.'
    'Our present problem,' Standers explained sitting down again, 'is to identify the victim. What he’s wearing is good quality, but off the peg.'
    'And you can't take a photograph? Have you let the van driver go yet? Or is he still “helping with the enquiries”?'
    'He's home. He had his breakfast with us. For a while it just seemed too bloody convenient- him putting his wheel right over the face.'
    'But you're satisfied?'
    'Accidents happen. What we're left with is a description of height, hair colour, estimated age - no scars or warts, nothing helpful.' He rubbed a hand across his face, moving the heavy flesh under his chin. 'It's a sex killing. If you were writing about it, you could describe it that way.'
    'I don't know that I'll be writing about it again,' Billy Shanks Said with a pleasant stirring of malice. 'I don't do crime, you know.'
    The Superintendent picked up the newspaper and held it out towards the other man as evidence. 'You did this morning.' It had the tone of an interrogation.
    'It was the way the body was cut about.' The journalist's hands flew apart as if truth was something measurable between them. 'And the coincidence of the date. And, yes, somebody had been talking to me about Jack the Ripper. It all came together, but that's the way it happens. Just ideas. Just speculation. When you have to find something new every day … It's not really got anything to do with your murder case.'
    Standers gave him the same placid look as before. 'Jack the Ripper,' he said, after a pause, 'how many did he see off then?' Shanks tried to remember what Tommy Gregory had told him. Since it had only been his point of departure for the column, he hadn't even bothered to do any checking. 'Four , no, five. One of them was a double murder, two in the same night.'
    'I thought there were more,' Standers said with a touch of disappointment or what might have been suspicion. 'All whores, weren't they?'
    Before Shanks could answer, there was a tap on the door. To his surprise, Standers got up and went to it instead of calling on whoever was there to come in. He stood in the open doorway and spoke quietly. 'I didn't realise . .. I'll cover that . .. Phone them!' That last phrase came more distinctly with an edge to it, but then his voice fell to a murmur again. When he was finished, he closed the door