Without the Moon by Cathi Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page A

label on the small case she had brought with her did not have an address, but Greenaway was sure his initial feelings about her were right. Even though getting around in the blackout was often arduous, slow progress, she couldn’t have known London very well.
    She didn’t belong here.
    The waitresses at Lyons weren’t called Nippys for nothing; they would have had her fed and out of there within half an hour, forty minutes. She’d got back to Regent’s Park a lot faster than she’d reached Lyons. Had almost made it …
    But the killer had moved fast. Spilsbury’s autopsy revealed that he had crushed the bones in her neck quickly and powerfully, perhaps before she could even have made a sound. Had he followed her out of the restaurant, tracked her until they came to terrain that suited his purpose best – the empty airraid shelter, the deserted street? Then that would imply he knew the area much better than she did.
    Greenaway parked around the corner from the station on Tottenham Court Road. Deep in his thoughts, he didn’t register the Duty Sergeant’s call until he was halfway towards the stairs and the man had left his desk and run up to him.
    â€œChief Inspector, sir! DCS Cherrill just called. He wants you immediately – he’s at 153 Wardour Street. He said to tell you it’s the Left-Hand Man again.”

6
THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE WEATHER
    Tuesday, 10 February 1942
    Sir Bernard Spilsbury looked every one of his sixty-five years as he stood over the single bed in the corner of the room in Wardour Street. There, beneath his frowning gaze, a woman lay stretched out diagonally; pale, white and naked, with great gashes of red across her neck and abdomen, from where her life had flowed away in a stream across the length of the room.
    Next to her tangled blonde hair lay a safety razor blade and a pair of curling tongs, both encrusted in blood. In the middle of her open legs, a bloodied tin opener had been left, the business end pointing towards the handle of a torch that had been forced inside her, that had once been white but now was crimson.
    So much blood.
    â€œThere was an attempt at manual strangulation before the throat was cut,” the pathologist said, a waver in his voice. “Look at the abrasions on the front of the neck and the signs of haemorrhaging in the eyes and mouth.”
    Cherrill and Greenaway exchanged glances. Another freezing cold room, their breath hanging like ectoplasm on the dank air around them.
    Spilsbury cleared his throat before he pointed to the puncture wounds dotted around the woman’s pubic hair. “These bled a little,” he said. “They were probably inflicted when she was on the verge of death, after the cut to the neck.”
    â€œThank heavens for small mercies,” said Cherrill softly.
    Spilsbury gave a nod and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll know more after a full post mortem, of course.”
    â€œThat,” said Greenaway, pointing to the tin-opener, “reminds me of the way he left the gloves on the last one. He thinks it’s all one big joke, don’t he?”
    Neither of the other two men asked him which last one he meant.
    â€œI think I’ll be able to get some prints,” was all Cherrill said. “I’ve found dabs on her mirror, and of course,” he nodded at the implements arranged around the woman’s body, “there’s those, too.”
    He turned to Greenaway: “There’s a detective next door with the woman who found her. She’s not making much sense yet, but then, how could she? Poor old girl. At the very least, we know who this once was.”
    It was one of those peculiar coincidences that just became more commonplace the longer you worked for the law. This was a woman who had once been called Evelyn, too. Evelyn Bettencourt, alternatively known as Nina Oakley, a part-time actress who had fallen on hard times with the coming of