Ripping Time by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Margo gulped down acrid tea, wishing it were still hot enough to drive away the chill inside. At least they were gathering valuable data. She hadn’t read anywhere, for instance, about London’s constables shaking down the very women they were supposed to be protecting. So much for the image of British police as gentlemen. Margo snorted silently. From what she’d seen, most men walking the streets of Great Britain tonight viewed any woman of lower status not decently married as sexually available. And in the East End and in many a so-called “respectable” house, where young girls from streets like these went into service as scullery maids, the gentlemen weren’t overly fussy about taking to bed girls far too young to be married. It hadn’t been that long since laws had been passed raising the age of consent from twelve.

No, the fact that corrupt police constables were forcing London’s prostitutes to sleep with them didn’t surprise Margo at all. Maybe that explained why Jack had been able to strike without the women raising a cry for help? Not even Elizabeth Stride had screamed out loudly enough to attract the attention of a meeting hall full of people. A woman in trouble couldn’t count on the police to be anything but worse trouble than the customer.

Shahdi Feroz, with her keen eye for detail, asked quietly, “Are you cold, my dear?”

Margo shook her head, not quite willing to trust her voice.

“Nonsense, you are shaking. Here, can you scoot closer to the fire?”

Margo gave up and scooted. It was easier than admitting the real reason she was trembling. Sitting here surrounded by women who reminded her, with every word spoken, exactly how her entire world had shattered was more difficult than she’d expected it would be, back on station studying these murders. And she’d known, even then, it wouldn’t be easy. Get used to it, she told herself angrily. Because later tonight, Annie Chapman was going to walk into this kitchen and then she was going to walk out of it again and end up butchered all over the yard at number twenty-nine Hanbury Street. And Margo would just have to cope, because it was going to be a long, long night. Somehow, between now and five-thirty tomorrow morning, she would have to slip into that pitch-dark yard and set up the team’s low-light surveillance equipment.