by David Waine
CHAPTER 13
The main newsroom of BBC Television Centre was tense. That elegant newsreader adjusted her deliberately plain jewellery and checked that it did not reflect the lights too brilliantly. Meanwhile the floor manager counted her in from ten, verbalising down to five as the opening bars of music trilled forth, and then indicating with his fingers the final few seconds until the bulletin began. The newsreader gave the sheaf of papers in her hand a shuffle, not that she would read from them unless the auto-cue failed, and looked directly into the lens.
“Police today released a statement that a woman has, apparently, survived being abducted by the Ripper. Mrs. Kawai Turner disappeared on October the first, just before the killer staged his re-enactment of the original murderer’s infamous double act, when he killed twice in the same night. Police have indicated that Mrs. Turner was held hostage while her husband was forced to dispose of the body of the third victim, Edward Stride. Mrs. Turner was found, unharmed, on Henriques Street, in Whitechapel, last night.”