The The Name of the Star (30 page)

“Could you not roll on top of me, though?” Alistair asked. “I was here first.”

 

When the bell went off, signifying what would have been the end of the period had it been a normal school day, we both jumped a little and blinked. Alistair had gotten up and moved away to another corner, and I heard some sniggering in our general direction. We emerged from the library bleary-eyed and collars crooked. The three police cars had turned into two police cars and four much larger vans. There were also people coming in twos and threes and fours carrying signs and candles.

“There's going to be a vigil tonight,” Jerome said, adjusting his prefect's tie. “On the Mary Kelly murder site. It's just a few streets over. Supposed to be thousands of people.”

The sun was already retreating, and the crowds were coming. The Ripper, the Ripper, the Ripper.

We went right next door to the refectory. Jerome held my hand. This did not go unnoticed. It wasn't mentioned either. But I saw it register. I was suddenly starving and took a heavy helping of fish pie. I ate with one hand, and with the other I held Jerome's hand under the table. There was just a trace of sweat on his brow. It made me proud. I caused that sweat.

And life was good for about half an hour.

“So there's some speculation on where tonight is going to happen,” Jerome said. “Because it's going to be indoors, right? A lot of people are saying hotel, because of all the tourists . . .”

My good mood exploded. Pop. Gone.

He went on for a good ten minutes about the various odds on locations for that night's murder. I took it as long as I could.

“I have to call my parents,” I said, getting up. I shelved my tray roughly and joined the many people who were heading out.

The stupid misting rain had started up again. I could see it under the orangey glow of the lights along the green and in front of the school. Loads more people were around the school now, the people with their signs and the police officers and the handful of press people who had decided to use the previous murder site as a place to broadcast.

“Hey!” Jerome called. “Wait! Rory!”

“It's not a game,” I said, turning around.

“I know that,” he replied. “Look, I know you were a witness. I'm sorry.”

“You don't know anything,” I snapped.

I regretted it even as I said it, but the simple fact was—something had to give. The kissing had distracted me for a little while, but reality was back.

Jerome looked at me in confusion and shook his head, unable to come up with the words.

“I'm going back,” he said. “I've got desk duty all night.”

I watched him as he cut across the square, turning up the collar of his blazer against the rain and stopping only to adjust his messenger bag.

Stephen was standing by the door in his uniform. I noticed Callum as well, also in a police uniform. It took me a moment; the helmet was low over his face. Usually, Stephen wore a police sweater, a dark V-neck with epaulettes on the shoulders. Tonight, he and all of the other officers, including Callum, were wearing heavy tactical vests covered in tiny pockets. Stephen gave me a nod as I went in.

There was a mild commotion in the common room. It turned out to be a group of people gathered around Boo, who had triumphantly returned in a wheelchair. It's not that Boo had been hugely popular or anything, but she
had
been hit by a car and she
had
come back in a wheelchair. That kind of thing draws a crowd. Jo, I noticed, was standing just behind the chair, her arms politely crossed. I didn't even go in to greet them. I went right upstairs.

I had promised my parents a call after dinner, so I went upstairs to take care of that. They extracted some very serious promises from me that I would remain in the locked building surrounded by all the police officers. Bristol, from the sound of it, was also under a state of high alert, as were most of the major cities. Would the Ripper suddenly cross the country? Would copycat killers join in? It seemed like people didn't want London to have all the fun. Everyone deserved to share the fear.

I got off the phone as soon as I could and shut my eyes. I heard Jazza come in.

“Did you see Boo?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“You didn't come in to say hello. And Jerome was wandering around out in front of the building looking upset.”

“Argument,” I said.

“You're not saying very much.”

I felt her sit on the end of the bed.

“Everyone is scared, Rory,” she said.

The impulse to scream was very great, but I held it down. Screaming at Jazza would be bad. I just kept my eyes closed and rubbed my face.

“You should go down and say hello,” she said.

“I will.”

Jazza was disappointed in me. I could tell from her light-asair sigh and the way she got up and went out without saying another word. I'd managed a trifecta—Alistair, Jerome, Jazza. Really, the only three people at Wexford I had any special bond with. If this was going to be my last night, I'd done a great job so far.

The dark had come, and Ripper night was here.

30

I
T WAS A LONG NIGHT, AND I WASN'T SURE WHAT WAS worse—the terror I was just managing to keep at bay or the boredom. We sat in that study room for six straight hours. Boo tried to keep me entertained by reading to me about celebrities, mostly English ones that I'd only recently learned the names of. My butt went numb from sitting. My back hurt from the chair. The air in the tiny study room got stale, and I grew to hate the powder blue walls.

It seemed to me that things should be more dramatic—not just sitting around with the ever increasing weight of time on my shoulders.

“You can go to sleep if you want,” Boo said, just after one in the morning. “Not to bed, but if you want to lie down.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I can't do that.”

She rolled herself back and forth in her chair.

“You've seen Callum and me, yeah?” she asked.

I wasn't sure what this question meant. I'd seen Callum, and I'd seen Boo.

“Do you think . . .” Again, she said
fink
instead of
think
. “Okay. I . . . I really like him. I have for the whole time, yeah, but I've had no one to tell. One year with no one to tell. And maybe he just doesn't think we can date because we work together. The two of them, they take it harder, you know? They were more messed up by whatever happened to them. Callum's angry. And Stephen . . . well, Stephen is Stephen.”

This sudden insight into Boo's love life was confusing.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“He's smart—like, proper smart. He went to Eton. Proper posh. But something about him . . . I mean, I know something bad happened. I know he doesn't talk to his family. He doesn't do anything outside of this job. I mean, they must have picked him for a reason to be the person to restart it all. And I love Stephen. I do. I didn't ever think I'd have a friend as posh as him, you know? He's dead sweet. He just has no life. He reads. He makes phone calls. He sits in front of his computer. I don't know if he has hormones.”

There was something in what Boo was saying. Of all the guys I'd ever met, Stephen seemed the most . . . I wasn't sure what the word was. But I took Boo's point. You never got the feeling that Stephen had
those
kinds of thoughts.

“Callum has hormones,” Boo continued. “I've seen him in action when we've gone out—I mean, as friends. We go out and he meets someone almost as soon as we get in the door of the club or whatever. But he doesn't date anyone, ever. Maybe we can't. Maybe that's part of it. I mean, we can't say what we do. But that's what makes me perfect, you know? You need to help me with this, yeah? It's good to have a girl around.”

She sighed and smiled a little.

“And you have hormones,” she said. “You and Jerome, always snogging each other's faces off.”

Jerome. He was just over in Aldshot, but he might as well have been on the moon. I could have texted him or called him or sent him a note, but this wasn't a night where I could have a conversation like that. So maybe there wouldn't be more snogging of faces.

“Yeah,” I said sadly.

 

Another hour ticked by. Jazza knocked on the door and said she was going to bed. Charlotte came to tell us that biscuits were being passed around in the common room, and brought us a handful. Gaenor came in to talk to Boo. Jo came in every once in a while to tell us the building was clear.

I jumped when my phone buzzed. There were a few people who might text me at this hour—my friends from home (though they usually e-mailed) and Jerome.

Hello, the text read. I'm bored.

I shared the sentiment, but I had no idea who I was sharing it with. The number wasn't Jerome's. I had only five English numbers in my phone, and this wasn't any of them.

Who is this? I replied.

The phone buzzed again. Yet another number this time, and another message.

Everyone loves Saucy Jack.

“Is that Jerome?” Boo asked.

Saucy Jack. That was another Ripper nickname from the past, another fake signature. The phone buzzed again. Yet another number.

Come to the King William Street Tube station at four.

The room felt very cold all of a sudden. Boo must have known something was wrong, because she took the phone.

“King William Street?” she said, looking at the message. “That's not a station.”

She was still holding the phone when another message came in. She read it without asking my permission, and I saw her expression grow dark.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I'm getting Stephen,” she said. She was reaching for her own phone and tried to keep her grasp on mine, but I got it away from her.

I will kill tonight, the new message said. I will kill and kill and kill and kill again until I make my way to you. I will kill all along the path. I will draw a line of blood until I reach you. Come to me first.

At least that cleared things up. I almost appreciated how unambiguous it was.

 

Stephen was in the study room with us about a minute later. He took the phone out of my hand and quickly scanned through the text messages.

“All different numbers,” he said. “Do you recognize any of them?”

I shook my head. He already had his own phone out and was making a call.

“I need a trace on some text messages . . .”

He rattled off the numbers from the messages and hung up without saying good-bye. Boo was already on her computer.

“King William Street station,” Boo said. “I looked it up. It's a disused Tube station just north of London Bridge.”

Stephen looked over her shoulder at the entry on the station.

“What's this down here?” he said, pointing. “Also the scene of a failed drugs bust in 1993 that resulted in the death of six undercover police officers.”

“Bit of a strange coincidence that he wants to meet Rory at an abandoned station where six police officers died, isn't it?” Boo asked.

“Very,” Stephen said. “There's a link to an article. Click on that.”

They were still scanning this when Stephen's phone started to ring. He answered it and listened, mumbling a few yeses, then hung up.

“They traced the texts,” he said. “All different phones, all triangulated to a pub two streets over. There's a party in there tonight. We can trace all the owners, but that's irrelevant. He's just picking up phones. What matters is that he's close by.”

“Which is fine,” Boo said. “We're ready for him. This thing about the station . . . he can't mean it.”

I pulled Boo's laptop over. They were reading from a “this day in history” news site. Down the left side of the page, there was a column of photographs, the faces of the victims.

At first I thought I was imagining things. I definitely wasn't feeling right in the head.

“I don't like it,” Stephen said, taking off his helmet and setting it on the table. He rubbed his hands through his hair until it stuck up. “We know he's close to this building right now. Why tell her to go across town to some old station?”

“Maybe he wants her to come out, and he kills her when she does?”

“Possibly,” Stephen said.

I ignored the casual way they were talking about my impending murder. My attention was still drilled on the screen. No. It wasn't my imagination at all.

“He wants me to go to where he died,” I said.

Boo and Stephen both looked at me. I pointed to the fifth picture down the side of the screen.

“That's him,” I said, pointing to the bald man smiling back at us. “That's the Ripper.”

31

A
LONG SILENCE GREETED THIS ANNOUNCEMENT.

I was still staring at the photo on the screen. The Ripper had a name—Alexander Newman. In life, he smiled.

“Rory,” Stephen asked, “are you sure that's him?”

I was sure.

“She's right,” Boo said, leaning in and staring at the photo. “I didn't even recognize him. I mostly remember him throwing me into the bloody road. But she's right.”

“This changes things,” Stephen said. “He's playing a game with us. It's just after two, so we have two hours.”

He paced the study room for a moment. There was a knock on the door. He threw it open to find Claudia in the doorway.

“Yes?” he snapped.

“All right in here?” she asked.