tell me your story, Phyllis.”
“No call for that attitude, Guv. I come in here of my own free will, a good citizen doin’ you a good turn. No call for you callin’ me a liar.”
“I never did.”
“I can read between the lines. I’m a lot of things, but a fool ain’t one of them. I tell you, Inspector, it’s true, every blessed word of it. And if you don’t believe me, you can stick my story right in your… files.”
“Go on, Phyllis. My ears are open and so is my mind.”
“Cor. Well. You plan to charge me two pounds for this?”
She meant was Greeno going to nick her for prostitution, if she copped to that; two pounds was the standard fine for solicitation.
“No. It’s a free ride.”
She smiled with casual lasciviousness. “No free rides in my trade, Guv…. Anyway, here you have it. I meet this airman outside Oddenino’s restaurant in Regent Street. Cadet, he was.”
“How do you know?”
“He was wearin’ a cadet’s white flash. Are you going to interrupt me, every whip stitch?”
“No.”
“So I take him home, see, and it was cold as hell, and my little flat was chilly, even with the gas fire, so I kept on a pair of boots. Some blokes like that anyway, it’s a bit of a kink, isn’t it? Also, just for show, I left on a necklace I’m partial to. Stones set off me eyes.”
Risking Phyllis’s wrath, Greeno asked, “What sort of necklace?”
“Big old thing. Costume jewelry. If them jewels was real, I wouldn’t be makin’ my livin’ on me back, would I now?”
That seemed to be more or less a rhetorical question, so Greeno merely nodded politely.
She was saying, “So he says to me, ‘Do you always wear a necklace in bed?’ He was lyin’ next to me. We’d already… done the deed. Sort of turning the center stone around in his fingers, like. And I say, ‘Sometimes. Some blokes like a little glamour.’ And I kinda kicked a foot in the air, showin’ off me boot. It was a joke. But I don’t think he liked it none, ’cause he grabbed hold of the necklace and started to twist it… you can see the bruisin’ on me neck.”
“I can.”
“So he’s got a whole handful of the necklace and was twistin’ it like mad. I was choking, bleedin’ chokin’, I tell you. And his eyes… kinda blue, they was, funny shade… they was blazing. Just like a madman’s.”
“How did you survive it, Phyllis?”
“Damn near didn’t. I was in agony. I was swearin’ at him, when I could spit anything out at all—and fightin’ to get the necklace loose off me throat… and in me bleeding death throes, I lash out my feet! God bless them boots. If I didn’t have them on, I… well, I think I got in a lucky kick, I must have done, turnabout’s fair play cause he had me jewels and I got him in his, and he screamed like a ninny, and fell off the bed, arse over teakettle.”
“What did you do then, Phyllis?”
“I yanked the necklace off and I say, ‘Hey, what the bloody hell’s up with you, Tarzan?’ I was breathin’ hard and wonderin’ what he would do next… but he was down on the floor, all quiet-like all of a sudden. Breathin’ hard his own self. Almost like he was cryin’. Very quiet, he says, ‘I’m sorry. Very sorry. I get carried away sometimes.’ I say, ‘I’ll carry you away to hell and gone!’ And he stands, and he’s diggin’ in his pockets… he already give me five pounds. Now he gives me another fiver, to show how sorry he was. I snatched it from him and told him to get the hell out. And he did.”
Greeno studied her. Her eyes were wide and bright and the recollection of fear was palpable in her manner. She was not, in his view, lying.
She began to dig in her little purse, and soon she came up with two crumpled fivers. “I stuck the notes away in a drawer. Didn’t spend ’em.”
“Why not, Phyllis?”
“I thought… with all this Ripper stuff in the papers, maybe they would be clues. You could trace ’em, like.”
Tracing banknotes was always difficult, but as Greeno examined these, he noticed that they were two in a series, which would make matters much easier.
“When did this happen, Phyllis?”
“Tuesday night. Not long after dark.”
That meant the Ripper likely had an unsuccessful go before he’d finally hooked up with Nita Ward.
“Could you recognize him