‘Come on. Calm down and we’ll talk about this.’
‘Talk about it?’ she snapped. ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? We’re here now. You’ve got exactly what you wanted.’
‘Look, I didn’t want to leave Scotland any more than you did.’
‘Then why did we? It’s only forty minutes from Edinburgh to Glasgow, you could even have commuted!’ Hot tears of frustration were rolling down her cheeks now.
‘Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, April,’ her dad began, but she angrily interrupted him.
‘Sacrifice! What sacrifices exactly? I’ve given up my whole life to come down here. I’ve had to leave all my friends, I’ve been forced to go to a horrible school where they all look down on me and where I don’t even understand half of the things they say. And now I discover it’s all because you didn’t like the job on offer ...’
‘Honey, there’s more to it than that. Your mother—’
‘Mum? Don’t use her as an excuse. It’s obvious she didn’t want you to take this job in London, you’ve been arguing about it non-stop. This is all about you and don’t pretend it isn’t.’
William shook his head and looked down at his feet. April felt a new burst of anger. Even now, when she had put the evidence in front of him, he couldn’t look her in the eye and admit he had lied to her. She felt her nails bite into the palm of her hand as she clenched her fist. She couldn’t remember ever being so furious. It was the injustice of having her whole life decided for her, of being forced to change everything -
everything
—about her life, without her father even having the decency to tell her there was an alternative.
‘So why did you bring us here? Because of
this?’
She held up the Post-it note and her father’s face changed from confusion to shame to anger in seconds.
‘Give me that!’ he shouted, lunging at her. ‘How dare you go through my work!’
‘Here, have it!’ she yelled, screwing the paper into a ball and throwing it at him. ‘At least I know what’s most important to you now.’
He picked it up off the floor and began smoothing it out. ‘You shouldn’t be poking your nose into things that could be dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’ spat April. ‘That’s if your stupid theory on the Highgate Vampire is right. That’s if they even exist.’
At the word
vampires
he looked at her sharply. ‘Highgate Vampire? What do you know about that?’
‘Everyone knows about it, Dad!’ she said, her voice dripping with derision. ‘It’s not a secret, it’s a tourist attraction. That’s what you brought us here for?’
‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’ shouted William. ‘How could you think I’d be so selfish? We came here because it was best for the family, for all of us. For you.’
But April was far too angry to let him wriggle out of it. ‘Okay, so look me in the eye and tell me we didn’t come here for the bloody vampires.’
William stared at her and his face was a mixture of guilt, defiance and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. No, she did know what it was: it was sadness. He closed his eyes and for a moment she thought he was actually going to cry. April’s first reaction was to want to hug him. William Dunne had always been her hero, her warm and approachable father who, unlike most of her friends’ dads, was fun and funny and involved in her life. She had always felt she could talk to him about anything because he was strong and clever and, above all, he was usually
right—
she knew that whatever happened, he would know the answer. He could always make her feel safe. But now the tables were turned and she was being asked to forgive him, tell him it was okay, whatever he did - and she couldn’t do it, she didn’t even feel she knew him any more. It was as if the picture she had built up of her father was crumbling away, leaving behind a sad, lonely man who didn’t have all the answers after all, who made mistakes and avoided tough decisions just like everyone else. He wasn’t Superman, he was just an ordinary, everyday suburban father. And that broke April’s heart.
‘I’m trying to get close to them,’ he said quietly. ‘We had to be here. It’s more important than you realise.’
‘Them?
Them?’
she repeated. ‘The vampires, you mean? God, you’re pathetic!’
Her father looked up, his eyes blazing. ‘You will not speak to me like that!’ he yelled. ‘I am your father!’
‘Really?’ shouted April. ‘To me you look like a grown man who believes in fairy tales! And you ruined my life for this crap? Jesus, Grandpa’s right about you!’
William barked out a bitter laugh. ‘Well, he should know.’
Even though she had just dismissed Thomas as a crazy old man, now she leapt to his defence. She was dimly aware she was overreacting, being unreasonable, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Don’t turn this back on Gramps,’ she snapped. ‘At least he wants the best for me. What’s he got to do with this, anyway?’
William ran his hand through his hair wearily. ‘More than you’d believe,’ he said.
April felt a lurch in her chest as a piece of the jigsaw fell into place. It
was
her grandfather. That’s why her father had refused a brilliant job in Scotland and moved them all the way down here - William was trying to impress his father-in-law.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘That’s what this is about? Jesus!’ She laughed ironically. ‘You want a best-selling book to show Grandpa he’s wrong about you? And I suppose if they make a film out of it, you’ll be able to throw it all his back in his face.’
William shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just trying to give you the best life we can. I know you feel completely grown-up, April, but you still need protecting - more than you think you do. There are some things you don’t understand.’
‘Well, I do know this,’ she croaked, the tears beginning to flow again. ‘If you truly believe there are bloodsucking vampires in Highgate, you’re not just pathetic, you’re disgusting.’
‘April Dunne!’ shouted her father. ‘You do not and you will not speak to me like that!’
‘Stay away from me!’ she cried, backing towards the door. ‘People are being murdered around here. You deliberately brought your family to a place of danger just to impress an old man? You’d risk us all being killed for a story? What does that say about you?’
‘I’m doing the best I can for you and your mother,’ he called after her. ‘Maybe you’re right, maybe it is time you were told what’s going on. But you have to believe me, I thought I could make things better, give us all a better life.’
‘Yeah, if we live that long,’ she yelled at him as she wrenched the front door open.
‘April, please,’ he said, running down the hall after her and blocking the door with his arm. ‘Let me explain!’
‘Get off!’ she screamed, pushing past him. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this - never! I hate you!’
She ran down the path and through the gate, not even looking for traffic as she sprinted across the road and into the square. As she reached the corner of Swain’s Lane, she finally glanced back towards the house, a part of her hoping that her dad - the old, safe, protective dad - would be running after her. But there was no one behind her. The door was closed and her father had gone.
Chapter Seventeen
The ponds were beautiful despite the rain. Whatever light was pushing through the dark clouds seemed to be catching the fine droplets as they fell, forming a shimmering, misty curtain across the water. April shivered. Pretty as it was, she wished she’d thought to grab an umbrella before she’d run out of the house. She turned up the collar of her thin coat she had snatched as she ran out and huddled closer to the trunk of the willow tree she was sheltering under. ‘Thanks, tree,’ she said, patting the bark. At least something was looking out for her, keeping the drips from running down her neck.
Shame it’s just a tree,
she thought. After her spectacular fight with her father, she’d run down West Hill, not really caring where she ended up. Following her feet, she had splashed through puddles on her way to the Heath and found herself standing by Highgate Bathing Ponds. Aside from a few very dedicated dog-walkers in the distance, the weather had kept everyone else indoors and April had the whole park to herself. She slid down the tree trunk and hugged her knees, suddenly letting out a loud sob.
Oh God, she thought, how has my life become such a mess?
Only a few weeks ago, she had a secure, safe, cosy life with friends who loved her, a house with a garden and, if she was really lucky, a good chance of getting together with Neil Stevenson. She had everything she wanted, pretty much. But now? She sobbed again, her shoulders heaving, the warm tears mingling with the drips coming through the leaves. Now she had nothing. Her mother was barely there, her father was a selfish fruitcake and the only friends she could rely on were hundreds of miles away, getting on with their lives. What did she have left? She stared at the green water of the pond, stippled with raindrops, and wondered vaguely if it would be cold.
Very, very cold indeed
, she decided, shuddering. But it would serve them all right if she was found floating in the weeds like Ophelia in that Pre-Raphaelite painting by What’s-his-name. Or would they even notice she had gone? Letting out a long breath, April began to walk slowly around the pond and up onto Parliament Hill.
I bet it’s lovely here in the summer,
she thought, but the notion of sunbathing and frisbees only made her feel more sad, more alone. She pulled her phone from her pocket. No messages. There hadn’t been any messages five minutes ago, either. She wished she could make some great passionate gesture, like throwing the phone into the lake, but that would mean giving up all hope. And anyway, she loved her phone. She sighed: she was as pathetic as her father. He was clinging to the crazy notion that he might find supernatural beings in Highgate, while she was clinging to the hope that Gabriel Swift might become her boyfriend. No, if she was honest, she was hoping that Gabriel Swift would decide he wanted to marry her, sweep her off to the Bahamas for a beautiful beach ceremony, and then, after a bout of amazing lovemaking, reveal that he was stupendously rich and personal friends with Justin Timberlake. She snorted at the ridiculousness of it and had to scrabble in her pocket for a damp tissue. Now she thought about it, she honestly didn’t know which of the scenarios was the most far-fetched. Vampires? Justin Timberlake?
Who knows?
Maybe Dad’s right, she thought.
Caro seems to believe it, so does Mr Gill in the bookshop.
And then there were those horrible eyes on Swain’s Lane and the photos from the party. It wasn’t exactly overwhelming evidence, but then anything was possible, wasn’t it? Three weeks ago she would never have believed she would be out walking in the rain, playing truant from school, but here she was. The church on West Hill began to sound the hour and April stopped to count. One, two, three ... ten o’clock. Her Philosophy lesson would be halfway through and she doubted anyone had noticed her absence.
Gabriel, perhaps?
Perhaps.
April instantly felt bad for thinking that. Why was she so down on Gabriel all of a sudden? Okay, so he hadn’t called like he’d promised, but he had turned up eventually - for that perfect midnight moment - and while he was still maddeningly vague about what was going on, he had respected her enough to tell her there were things he couldn’t explain. At least Gabriel wasn’t pretending to be something he wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault her father had dragged her down to this horrid soggy place to play Indiana-bloody-Jones. She gave a short ironic laugh as she walked on, her shoes squelching on the grass, suddenly aware that she was cold, she was wet and there was snot dripping from the end of her nose.
‘Right, bugger this,’ she said, and turned back towards the school.
By the time she had dried her hair under the hand-driers in the Ladies toilet and sponged most of the mud from her shoes with wadded-up paper towels, Philosophy was over and it was far too late to go to her English lesson, so April walked down to the library instead. At least there she would get a little peace to gather her thoughts and do some reading; cutting class didn’t come naturally to April and she felt she ought to make up for missing lessons. Plus she didn’t want to look like a complete idiot, again, in Miss Holden’s class that afternoon.
April was surprised to find the library completely deserted. ‘Duh, everyone’s in lessons, aren’t they?’ she whispered to herself, actually pleased that she wouldn’t have to speak to anyone. She dumped her wet coat on a chair and wandered over to the History section.
Right, the Renaissance,
she thought to herself as she read the titles.
Dates versus culture and all that
.