‘Well, it’s nice to see someone’s enjoying all this,’ said Simon sarcastically. ‘I mean, it’s not like anyone’s been killed or anything, is it?’
Caro giggled and threw her celery at him. ‘Can I help it if I love being at the centre of a murder investigation?’ She smiled playfully. ‘Besides, look at all the attention April’s getting. Yesterday she was just the new girl, today she’s one half of Bonnie and Clyde.’
April smiled despite herself. It would have been so easy to give in to paranoia and fear, but her new friend’s irreverent take on events put the whole episode into perspective. Especially the slightly silly part about those dark eyes.
‘Hello, here comes trouble,’ said Caro, nodding towards the far side of the room. April looked up to see Davina Osbourne making a beeline for their table.
‘Hi, April,’ she sang, giving them all the full sixty-watt smile. ‘I heard about last night, honey,’ she said, pouting sympathetically. ‘It sounds so horrible. I just wanted to come over and check that you’re okay?’
‘Your concern is so touching, “honey”,’ mimicked Caro.
‘Thanks, Davina,’ said April quickly, ‘but I’m fine. I just heard some noises in Swain’s Lane last night and—’
‘Oh my God,’ said Davina, dramatically covering her mouth. ‘Did you hear Isabelle getting killed? Actually getting killed? Screams and stuff?’
‘No, I just heard a few noises, the police aren’t even sure if I was in the same place—’
‘Who’s Isabelle?’ interrupted Caro.
Davina glared at Caro and then turned her attention back to April.
‘Didn’t you know? Her name was Isabelle Davis, she was a student here a few years ago. A friend of mine at the Royal Opera House knew her quite well, lovely skin, great hair - such a waste, don’t you think?’
April couldn’t reply. Somehow knowing the girl’s name made the whole thing seem all the more real.
‘You okay, A?’ asked Caro, touching her arm.
‘Oh no, I haven’t made things worse, have I?’ said Davina. ‘Do you want some Evian? Why don’t you come and sit with us while you calm down? I think Chessy’s got some of her mum’s Valium.’
‘Why don’t you just leave her alone?’ snapped Caro. ‘She was fine until you got here.’
‘No, please, I’ll be okay, I just need some air,’ said April, getting to her feet. Both Caro and Davina moved to help her, but she brushed them off and headed for the door. ‘Thanks, but I need to ... I need to be alone for a while,’ she said as she left.
April pushed through the refectory’s double doors, aware that every eye in the room was watching her, and burst out into the corridor.
I will not cry, I will not cry
, she said to herself over and over again. She ran blindly down the halls, turning corners at random, finally coming to a stop next to a mercifully abandoned cloakroom where she sat down on a bench. ‘Breathe,’ she whispered to herself, pulling in air through her nose and letting it out through her mouth. She tried to remember what you were supposed to think of to calm yourself down - cool wet grass, was it? She was finding it hard to think of anything except those dark eyes.
‘ash, Ravenwood’s latest bad girl,’ said a voice. ‘I was wondering when our paths would cross.’
April looked up. Benjamin Osbourne looked down at her through his mop of blond hair and gave her a sardonic smile.
‘Sorry, I have terrible manners,’ he said, offering April a slight bow. ‘We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Benjamin. I believe you know my sister, Davina?’
April could only nod. Without taking his blue eyes from her, Benjamin tilted his head slightly to the left. ‘And this is my friend Marcus Brent.’ April saw another tall boy behind him, this one with dark brown hair and pronounced eyebrows that gave his eyes a rather hooded look. She had seen him staring at her earlier in the refectory - in fact ‘glaring’ would be a more accurate description. Clearly Marcus was one of the students who thought the new girl was bringing Ravenwood into disrepute.
‘Come on, Ben,’ said Marcus impatiently. ‘We’re already late.’
‘Don’t mind him.’ Benjamin smiled. ‘Beautiful girls unnerve Marcus.’ He allowed Marcus to pull him away, calling over his shoulder as they went, ‘See you soon.’
April sat there in shock. Had the sexiest boy in school just called her beautiful? Or was he like that with everyone? Probably. That sort of good-looking wealthy boy thought they could charm the pants off any girl they liked. Well, he wasn’t going to have that effect on her. No way. She stood up, then sat down again with a thump, her knees having turned to jelly.
‘Whoa ...’ she said, rubbing her temples. Maybe Benjamin’s charm had worked after all. She walked into the Ladies and looked at herself in the mirror; her cheeks were distinctly flushed. Nothing to do with Benjamin, she assured herself, nothing at all. Although, he was really good-looking. But she wasn’t about to go gooey over a boy, not after Neil. No way.
That’ll teach me to go out on cold, damp nights, she scolded herself as the bell rang and she walked to her next lesson. I must be coming down with something.
Chapter Eight
April had spent the rest of the week just trying to keep her head above water. By Friday, she was surprised to find that she was actually enjoying coming to school for the lessons rather than the social life. At her old school, she’d liked a few subjects, but she had never been able to see the point of half of them. Chemistry? It was so dull. Geography? I mean, who cared about oxbow lakes? Lessons had felt like unavoidable pauses between spending time with Fee and her other friends. But at Ravenwood it was different; the lessons here were interesting, even stimulating, and she found that she was actually reading the course books
before
the lessons. To begin with her father had teased her about it, but when he saw how engaged she was he had simply smiled and said, ‘A chip off the old block.’
The truth was that reading the books in advance was the only way April had a hope in hell of keeping up with the other students. They used words like ‘moreover’ and ‘emphatically’ and seemed to already know as much as, if not more than, their teachers about any given subject. More shocking, the adults actually seemed to respect their students’ opinions. Now
that
was definitely a first. This morning in History, for example, the tutor Miss Holden didn’t seem interested in teaching them names and dates; she was more focused on promoting a discussion that pushed their notions of what history was - not a fusty list of births, battles and deaths, but a fluid, organic entity whose whole interpretation could be changed by a speech, a book or even something as nebulous as the fashions of the day. Even so, April found her mind wandering during the lesson. She was haunted by the feeling of unease that the walk down Swain’s Lane had left her with. Images of Gabriel, glaring eyes, shivering foxes, even the disbelieving faces of the police officers who had interviewed her were all whirling around, jumbled up in her head. She gazed down at her open book, intending to make copious notes, but instead she found she’d been doodling pictures of weird creatures and strange abstract shapes in the margin. What
was
going on in the village? And why was her dad researching the Highgate Vampire? Her father had kept her up to date on the police investigation, but they seemed to be floundering for lack of proper evidence. There was a question mark over exactly how Isabelle Davis had been killed and whether or not her death was linked to the Alix Graves murder. ‘The police are releasing very little information,’ said William, ‘which usually means it’s either something pretty unpleasant and they don’t want to trigger any copycats, or the circumstances are sensitive and they don’t want to scare off witnesses.’
Caro, predictably, had seen conspiracy written all over it. ‘They’re not releasing details because they don’t want to rock the boat,’ she had said confidently. ‘It must implicate some prominent businessman or celebrity, maybe even someone in the police, so they’re closing ranks. It’s got bloody fingerprints all over it, you mark my words.’
April had no theories of her own, but she did find the whole episode disquieting, especially as she was no wiser regarding Gabriel’s involvement. For some reason, she simply couldn’t get him out of her mind. Sure, he was sexy, but it was more than that; April couldn’t say why, but she felt there was some sort of connection between them. When she had looked into his eyes, there had been almost ... she shivered and shook the thought away. She knew nothing about him and she really had no idea how he was mixed up in the murder. Had he called the police? What was he doing there anyway? For about three seconds, April had entertained the idea that Gabriel might have had something to do with Isabelle’s death, but just as quickly dismissed it as too far-fetched. After all, she had been there by accident, there was no reason why he couldn’t have just been passing too. Either way, Gabriel hadn’t been in school for the rest of the week and when she had wandered around Highgate Village after school, half-hoping to bump into him, half-hoping she wouldn’t, she hadn’t seen so much as a shadow of him, and the longer it went on, the longer her imagination was left to run riot.
‘April?’
She looked up sharply. She had been lost in her thoughts, wondering if Gabriel had in fact been protecting her from some unseen killer, when she became aware that everyone was looking at her. Again.
‘April?’ prompted Miss Holden. ‘The Renaissance?’
‘Oh, uh, yes? What about it?’
A twitter of giggles went around the class and Miss Holden’s expression changed to one of undisguised annoyance.
‘Miss Dunne, if you’re not up to taking the lesson, please excuse yourself and visit the nurse
before
we begin. Uninterested pupils may well be the norm at whatever school you previously attended, but at Ravenwood we take education very seriously.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well—’
‘I am not at all interested in your nocturnal activities,’ snapped Miss Holden, to more titters. ‘What I
am
interested in is the concept of the Renaissance as a rewrite of history.’ She turned away, dismissing April, and addressed a lanky boy to April’s left. ‘Now, Mr Frazer, perhaps
you
can tell us ...’
After that April followed the lesson much more closely, taking notes diligently, but also sparing a moment or two to plan a few horrific acts of revenge on Miss Holden for humiliating her in front of the entire class. Now not only would she be seen as a freak and an outsider, she would be seen as a bad student, too - something she had a feeling was a greater crime in a school for the academically brilliant than out-and-out delinquency would be.
‘April, stay behind, please.’
The end-of-lesson bell had rung and her classmates were all filing out, chattering and laughing, when Miss Holden stepped forward and stopped April. She closed the door behind the last pupil and motioned for April to sit as she perched on the front of her desk, her lips pursed. She was in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length red hair in tight ringlets, smartly dressed, but with a boho feel—wooden beads around her neck, a floral-print blouse and Roman sandals - but the soft lines did nothing to take the edge off her severe stare.
If she doesn’t stop frowning like that
, April thought,
she’s going to need a bucketload of Botox.
‘I can sympathise that you might be feeling a little lost here, April. A move and a new school would upset anyone.’
April nodded gratefully. ‘Yes, I—’ she began, but Miss Holden cut her off.
‘But that doesn’t mean you can bring your emotions into my lessons. I can’t allow disruption.’ She waited until April was looking at her and said, ‘I’ll say it again, because this is important. Ravenwood is not like your old school, April. Not in any way.’
April frowned. There was something about Miss Holden’s emphasis on that last line that seemed significant. ‘Not in
any
way.’ She searched the woman’s face, but she was already speaking again.
‘What we teach here is very important.
Very
important. Some might say it’s a matter of life or death.’
Oh please,
thought April.
It’s only history
.
Miss Holden caught April’s sceptical expression. ‘I know this may look like a school packed with over-privileged nouveau riche snobs and, yes, there is an element of that here, it’s the nature of the beast - when Mummy and Daddy pay for the best education for their little darlings, they get what they’ve paid for - but let me tell you, there are still a lot of pupils who have worked exceptionally hard to get here and they continue to work damned hard to stay here. For them, getting into a top university, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, is their sole focus and if they don’t make it, then ... well, let’s just say there will be consequences.’