Hickinbotham quite liked the night shift. It was peaceful. Just him and the occasional other constable passing like ships in the… well, the night. He found the ethereal calliope-esque tootling of a Jubilator on the next street soothing. And if it rained (which it almost always did) the streets would shine and sparkle even more than usual. The gas mask made it a little stuffy, but with the fog it couldn’t be helped. It was a sort of privilege to get to see the Village like this, something only Bobbies were afforded.
When he came upon the mangled corpse of a woman in the middle of the street, just on the periphery of a patch of pea-soup, her entrails flung hither and thither, he wondered if that was what had tempted her to break curfew.
He blew his whistle and the constables on the surrounding streets ran to his location. They made quick work of cordoning off the area. One of them popped back to Central to collect Constable Burne-Jones.
Burne-Jones stepped out of the Bobby Popper and approached the scene. He knelt down next to the corpse and inspected the killer’s handiwork.
“Yep,” he concluded, “It fits the M. O.”
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