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could dispel them. If he could face down his imaginary demons, then he could face the remnants left by what a real one had done.
    The main area of the morgue was poorly lit, the air heavy with the odor of must and incipient rot. Death was palpable, not just in fact but in that more pervasive sense that reached out to include oneself. One felt not only that the people taken here were once alive and now were dead, but that this would be one’s own fate too. It was rare that one believed, more than abstractly, that death would come, but here one understood, felt in one’s bones and sinews the inevitability and certainty of it.
    In the large dim room, two bodies were in the process of being “prepared.” One, a young woman who had drowned, lay on a wooden plank, her nightgown still tangled with her limbs. Her long, lank hair covered most of her face. The very struggle that she had endured in the act of dying was there, dramatically rendered in her face and body. The other, an old man, lay on a table, wholly exposed to view. He was being washed down like a side of beef by an emaciated young man with an iron around his leg.
    “Who’s that?” asked William, glancing at the man, who appeared to be neither a nurse nor an orderly.
    “One of our convicted felons,” said Abberline matter-of-factly. “They do the rounds of mortuary duty, cleaning the corpses and whatnot.”
    William looked surprised. “Are they trustworthy for matters of such…delicacy?”
    “That’s debatable.” Abberline shrugged. “If I could, I would discontinue the practice, but it’s been mandated by Sir Charles as the most efficient use of criminal labor. It’s had some unfortunate repercussions in this case, I should note. I was not here when the first victim was brought in, and it seems she was washed and her clothes discarded, valuable evidence lost. Since then, I’ve given strict orders that nothing be touched or done away with, but these people have a tendency to ignore what they’re told.”
    William looked with distaste at the disreputable fellow washing the corpse and gazed around the room, with its worn and grimy appurtenances.
    Abberline nodded, following William’s gaze. “Yes, the facility is not good. But changes in this area happen slowly here. We make do with what we have. Step this way, please.”
    He led William through a small recess to another room, where bodies that needed to be specially photographed for purposes of record keeping were displayed before being removed for burial. This room was even more oppressive than the outer area, the sense of claustrophobic enclosure added to the foul odor of rotting corpse. As William entered, he noted that a curtain had been hung in the corner. Abberline walked over to it and then motioned to a chair in front for William to be seated.
    “Best to get off your feet for this,” he noted. “It’s not a pretty sight, and I’ve found that viewers take it better sitting down.”
    William sat, and Abberline pulled the curtain.
    The image took a few seconds to take in. At first it looked like a fancy leather jerkin was hanging from a hook, but a moment brought the recognition that it was not a coat, but a body suspended from a collar around the neck. It was Catherine Eddowes, who had been hung in this way for the purpose of photographic recording. What made the body hard to identify was the maze of stitching, where it had been reassembled, in light of the extensive slashing. Black thread crisscrossed the abdomen and breasts, the neck, and most grotesquely, the face, delineating the gashes that the murderer had made under the eyes. There was a zigzag of black thread at the left side of the head as well, where a severed ear had been reattached.
    “As you see, she was cut up considerably,” said Abberline without inflection. “None of the others were so extreme.”
    “Do you agree with Warren, that the cuts show…facility…in the use of a knife?” asked William haltingly, after taking