‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered, trying to contain her excitement.
Her heart sank. The phone number matched a branch of Interflora and Pelargonium was the name of a type of flower. Of course – it wasn’t just her birthday, it was also bloody Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t she have been born on an ordinary day, so her birthday would be special? She always went off to school wanting everyone to make a fuss, but instead she would find all her friends breathlessly discussing how many cards they had got and speculating who had sent what to whom.
April tapped in the other date – 23rd of the 11th – but nothing came up. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, she thought dejectedly. She went back to the sticky notes, but nothing else seemed to make sense. ‘Find at Ux dig’, ‘Remember 2nd rule’, ‘Golders Green?’. Without knowing their context, it was all just gibberish. Maybe none of it was of any importance; maybe there was nothing here that could help her.
She picked up the diary again and turned to the twenty-third of November. ‘Publishing meeting 10 a.m.’ was all it said. But then he’d never got that far. He’d been killed before the twenty-third of November, hadn’t he? She was overcome by another wave of grief and anger. It was all so unfair and so unreal. Murder was something that happened to other people – and vampires didn’t happen to anyone. Because they didn’t exist, right?
But they did – they’d happened to her.
Gabriel
had happened to her. Where was he now? Hiding in some damp wood somewhere? No, hadn’t he always talked about how vampires were excellent at staying under the radar? If he could drink blood and avoid detection, she was sure he could check into a hotel without being found. She picked up her phone and started tapping out a text … but then she stopped and deleted it. For one thing, his phone was probably with the police after they arrested him. And even if he had it, he wouldn’t reply – she was sure she had seen something on
Crimewatch
about how they could track mobile phones even if it was only
switched on. Plus she had to protect herself from the likes of DCI Johnston. She threw down the phone in frustration. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a normal boy, one who was obsessed with football? They could go to the pictures and eat popcorn or something. Maybe get Chinese. Instead, her undead boyfriend was on the run, wanted by the police who were clearly prepared to shoot him if he didn’t give himself up.
They don’t talk about that sort of thing in the advice columns, do they?
She rummaged further in the suitcase and pulled out a cancelled passport – her dad with an embarrassing 1990s haircut. A sort of half-mullet. There were a lot of stamps for Romania. Had they been going back to see her mum’s family? Why hadn’t April ever gone? There was also an envelope with birth certificates inside – hers, her mother’s. One with the name Hamilton, the other as Silvia Vladescu. April knew that name, because it was written on the tomb her father was buried in. But why would her mum have it on her birth certificate? Didn’t Grandpa tell me he’d changed their name when he came over in the sixties? Suddenly something clicked in her mind. She leafed back through the diary to the days before her dad was killed. She was sure she had seen that name before. And there it was: ‘Vladescu – Rom?’ and a phone number. One she recognised. Her grandfather’s.
April frowned. Was there something about her family which they were keeping from her? Duh, stupid question – of course there was. Every time she’d ever asked anything about the family’s background, her mother and grandfather had changed the subject. Well, it was about time she found out what they were hiding from her.
She leafed through a few more invoices and receipts. A lawnmower, a flight to Edinburgh. Then she pulled out a glossy brochure: a Ravenwood prospectus. Inside were sheets of information – educational standards, exam records, safety procedures (ah, the irony), policy on bullying (double irony – she wondered if it covered being recruited into a vampire cult) and endless pictures of the happy smiling faces of students
messing about with test tubes and soil samples. Nothing of interest to April. On the back of one of them, her dad had scribbled some notes – a scribbled calculation about fees which made April’s jaw drop, and some details about the history of the school. She was about to turn over when she noticed he’d written on the inside cover of the folder too.
She looked at it again and her heart started beating harder. It was easy to see why the police had ignored this, if indeed they’d ever bothered looking inside the prospectus – why would they? It was a perfectly normal thing for a student’s father to have in his possession. There was a diagram of the governors hierarchy which her dad had circled in blue, with the note scribbled underneath: ‘Dean of admissions is key’, then ‘Speak to Peter D, AM’. April felt a rush of excitement. He
had
been investigating the school, Gabriel was right! She grabbed her bag and pulled her purse out, spilling all her cards and cash point slips onto the bed.
‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered, ‘Be in here, be in here …’
And there it was, the business card Uncle Peter had given her at the funeral. Her father’s old friend, the one who had offered him a job on
The Sunday Times
.
‘Bingo,’ she said and snatched up her phone.
The newspaper offices were exactly as April had imagined they would be. Or rather, they were just the way she had seen them in films and on TV: a huge open-plan space covering the whole floor of the high-rise office building, divided up into smaller booths containing desks, computers and endless ringing phones. People rushed about carrying piles of paper or shouted across the room about having ‘a break on the city desk’ or needing to get things ‘subbed a-sap’.
Caro would have been over the moon to be here. April felt bad she hadn’t invited her along even though they weren’t really speaking. She also felt guilty for having snuck out of the house again despite having promised her mum she would tell her where she was at all times. But this was too important – to April, anyway. Clearly Silvia didn’t care much about her dead husband any more, let alone finding out who killed him, but to April it was everything. A girl led them down a corridor to a line of glass-fronted offices where a familiar-looking man stood. He had white hair and a beard. He was dressed in a creased shirt and grey trousers.
‘Hello, April,’ said Peter warmly, shaking her hand.
‘It’s very exciting here, isn’t it?’
‘Sadly not as glamorous as the movies would have you believe. Sorry for all the mess,’ he said, leading her into his cramped office. It immediately gave April a pang of longing and sadness: it was cluttered and chaotic, with piles of papers and books on every surface, his tatty computer screen covered in Post-its. It was so like her dad’s study – it even smelled the same: of coffee and newsprint and the dry dusty smell of computer fans.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ said Peter. ‘It sounded urgent on the phone.’
‘It is. Well, I think it might be,’ said April. ‘I found some of my dad’s notes and they said he’d talked to you about his Highgate investigation.’
‘That’s true.’
‘So what was it? The investigation, I mean? Can you tell me?’
He paused.
‘I know you’re a bright girl, April, and it’s only natural that you want to find out who killed your dad, but this really isn’t something you can get involved with. Leave it to the police.’
‘But the police aren’t getting anywhere. They’re not even looking in the right places.’
Peter raised his eyebrows.
‘And you think you have a better idea where to look than they do?’
‘Perhaps, yes.’
So why haven’t you told them?’
‘Because it sounds … well … a bit mad.’
‘The vampires, you mean?’
‘You know about it?’ said April, shocked.
Peter shrugged.
‘I know what Will was like and I know he loved a crazy conspiracy theory. If he could connect it to some sort of mythical beast, all the better. So it wasn’t a big surprise when he told me that vampires were over-running Highgate cemetery. He still believes the Loch Ness monster is eating Scots fishermen. Or, well, he did.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Sorry April, it’s still hard to think of your dad in the past tense.’
‘It is for me too. So what did he tell you, exactly?’
‘It was some wild story about an army of vampires, how he had proof they were secretly recruiting people and planning to take over the world. I had to point out that we were a newspaper – we need to retain some kind of credibility.’
‘He said he had proof?’
Peter shook his head.
‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Look at it from my point of view, April. Your dad was one of the most respected investigative reporters in the business. If he said he had seen something with his own eyes – Weapons of Mass Destruction, crack dealers in Buckingham Palace, whatever – that would be enough for me. But this? Well let’s just say this kind of investigation was always his Achilles heel. I knew your dad for twenty-five years and I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t chasing some sort of marauding mummy or werewolf. It was what he did instead of going to the football or collecting stamps.’
April could see his point. Even if her dad had dragged the Vampire Regent into Peter’s office, the paper’s readers would still be highly sceptical about the story. If they had realised the same William Dunne had published umpteen books about the Yeti and flying saucers, and there was no proof to back up his story, the paper could become a laughing stock. After all, how likely was it? Suddenly April understood that it was this very scepticism which had allowed the vampires to carry on killing people undetected for centuries. Gabriel was always saying how great they were at hiding, but how well did you have to hide when no one would believe it even if you pushed a vampire in front of them?
‘So why didn’t you tell me? At his funeral you said you hadn’t seen him for years.’
‘To be honest, I was a little worried about it; about your dad. I mean, I know he was enthusiastic about his ghouls and ghosties, but he was so … well, so persuasive about this. I had no doubt he genuinely believed what he was saying, which was why I was reluctant to tell you about it. I didn’t want to say I thought your dad had lost it.’
April nodded sadly. She knew Uncle Peter meant well, but she couldn’t help feeling disappointment. She had been harbouring a small hope that he might take the whole thing seriously. Instead, he was just another person who knew the story, who knew that vampires had overrun a village in London, but who didn’t – or wouldn’t – believe it.
‘But
had
he lost it?’ said April. ‘I mean,
something’s
wrong, isn’t it? People are dropping like flies. Even if you don’t believe the vampire thing, there’s definitely something going on in Highgate. Maybe there’s a serial killer at work. You can’t dismiss the whole thing, can you?’
‘Yes, of course it’s crossed my mind,’ said Peter with a touch of irritation. ‘Will was my friend. I want to see his murderer brought to justice more than anyone. I even sent a couple of our best reporters up there to investigate, but they didn’t get anything except the official police line that the deaths are unconnected.’
‘And you believed that?’ said April.
Peter looked at her with a smile. ‘I know what you’re saying, April: your dad was killed and there have been two attempts on your life, which suggests a strong link between the victims. But this Marcus Brent, the boy who attacked you? Surely if you’re looking for a serial killer, he’s a strong front runner. He clearly had a grudge against people in your family.’
‘No, but Marcus—’ April began to protest, but Peter held up a hand.
‘I’m not saying this Marcus
did
kill your dad or anyone else, I’m simply saying that if you’re looking for a link between the murders, Marcus Brent is a much more believable solution than a nest of vampires.’
‘I know it sounds crazy – I
know
!’ said April. ‘But if my dad said he had proof, then maybe there is something out there to find.’
Peter looked at her, rubbing his chin.
‘Do you know something the police don’t?’
April shrugged. What could she say?
Yes, I’ve seen vampires with my own eyes. I’ve kissed two, killed one, stabbed one and had my arm half torn off by another
. It sounded hysterical. Besides, she had to assume the police were watching her – there was a very good chance they would come straight into Peter’s office the moment she left. DCI Johnston was already questioning her reliability as a witness – what would be make of her claiming the undead were walking through his crime scene?
‘It’s not that I know anything the police don’t,’ said April, hoping he wouldn’t see through the lie. ‘It’s more that I’m seeing things they can’t. Yes, my dad’s theory sounds crazy, but when weird things keep happening right in front of you and people keep being killed, there comes a point when it starts to make sense. I was almost torn apart, Uncle Peter.’
Peter nodded. ‘I know it must have been disturbing, but the police psychologist, Dr Tame? He seems to think the boy was deranged or on drugs or both. That doesn’t make him a creature of the night, does it?’
‘Dr Tame?’ said April, looking at him sharply. ‘He interviewed you?’
‘Other way around.
I’m
the one trying to get the story, remember? Dr Tame is very press-friendly.’