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—