by Mia James
‘So how did he kill them, miss?’ asked Carl Newton, a fleshy boy in a mohair sweater. He looked anxious, worried, as if he expected the Ripper to be waiting for him in the playground.
‘Contrary to popular belief, Carl, he strangled them, then cut their throats. He didn’t kill by cutting, he killed in order to cut. Which is why I emphasise my point that he was a hugely controlled individual. This wasn’t a frenzied stabbing in a doorway. He took his time, making his incisions carefully.’
‘Is that why people think he was a surgeon?’
‘Yes, he removed organs and made incisions, which required a certain amount of anatomical knowledge.’
For some reason, April thought of Gabriel. He had medical knowledge, in fact he had saved April’s life with it. But he had also spoken to her about the vampire’s uncontrollable urge to kill. Had the Ripper been a vampire?
‘Weren’t the crimes random, just choosing girls who came his way?’ asked a girl at the front.
‘No, he killed them to cover up his marriage to one of the prostitutes,’ said Carl, which brought on a ripple of laughter.
‘Ah, that’s the Johnny Depp film you’re talking about now. There are no facts to back that theory up, I’m afraid. But we do know that Jack was deliberately trying to terrorise Whitechapel specifically. He sent a kidney in a letter to George Lusk, a local neighbourhood watch vigilante, rather than a newspaper editor. His focus was very specific: on causing terror in the Whitechapel area.’
‘Why?’ asked April.
‘Again, that’s unknown. But I think we can assume he had a grudge against the area. Something had happened there which he wanted to avenge, or someone lived there who he wanted to punish. Powerless people always seek to take the power back – I’d put Jack the Ripper in that bracket. Before he became a killer, he had been a victim.’
April stayed at her desk while the rest of the class filed out. She watched silently as Miss Holden put her files and papers back into her briefcase and wiped down the white board.
Finally, the teacher looked up at her.
‘This isn’t the time, April,’ she said.
‘Well, when is?’ said April, glancing at the door. ‘They killed Layla because’ – she dropped her voice to a whisper – ‘they thought she was a Fury. How do you think that makes me feel? I as good as killed her!’
‘First of all, we don’t know why Layla was killed. And secondly, you did not kill her. At best, it’s a case of mistaken identity, April … but if they thought Milo had been killed by a Fury, why would they wait so long to remove Layla? My guess is that she was killed for another reason entirely.’
‘But what reason? Layla hadn’t done anything.’
The teacher snorted.
‘April, it may have escaped your notice, but Layla was one of the group you all call the Faces. I think she knew well enough what was going on. She’d made her bed, as they say.’
‘How can you be so cold?’ said April. ‘She was only seventeen.’
‘Not cold, April. Pragmatic. Sometimes you have to take a stand. Not so long ago, your great-grandparents stood up to the Nazis. A good thing, you think. But the Allies killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process, many of them innocent – was that acceptable just because they were stopping an evil regime?’
‘I … I don’t know. Of course we should try and stop them, but if innocent people are being killed …’
Miss Holden gave a cold smile.
‘This is your dilemma, April. You have to weigh up the consequences and rewards. Is winning the battle worth the sacrifice?’
‘So you’re saying Layla is expendable.’
‘No. I’m saying I think the vampires have to be stopped, and I’m asking how much you’re prepared to pay to do it. Is Layla’s death too high a price?’
‘Yes, I think it is.’
Miss Holden spread her hands. ‘Then you have your answer.’
‘What’s your answer, miss?’
‘In war the price is always, always far too high. But you have to consider the alternative.’
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘That we all end up like Layla.’
Dr Charles Tame was not what April had been expecting at all. Throughout the morning, students had been called out of lessons and taken up to Mr Sheldon’s office for their interview with the police psychologist. Rumours were rife as they moved between lessons mid-morning. Davina said Chessy had seen him arrive before first bell and that he had been wearing a trench coat and carrying a sinister leather bag. Simon had already been called in and he described Dr Tame as ‘pushy’. So by the time Mrs Bagly, the school secretary, had summoned April in the middle of her English lesson, she had built him up into some combination of a Cold War spy and a Nazi SS officer. It was some surprise to find that Dr Tame was neither of these things.
‘Ah, April,’ said Mr Sheldon as he opened the door. ‘This is Dr Tame, he’s here to ask you a few questions.’
‘April,’ said the man sitting behind the desk. He was thin, with pale skin and over-long snow-white hair. With his pink eyelids and invisible lashes, April guessed he was an albino. He didn’t get up, merely offering her a limp hand. April shook it: it was like touching a raw chicken breast.
‘Mr Sheldon has told me so much about you,’ said the doctor. ‘I think we’re going to get along just fine.’
He glanced quickly in Sheldon’s direction and the head teacher almost jumped to attention. ‘Well, I’ll leave you two alone,’ he muttered, shutting the door behind him. Odd, thought April, it wasn’t like Hawk to behave so deferentially. But then it wasn’t like Layla to commit suicide. Not much was making sense at the moment.
‘Sit, sit,’ said Dr Tame, flapping a hand at the chair in front of the desk. April perched uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair as Dr Tame stared at her. His eyes were watery and his curiously translucent skin was slightly blue. There was a slightly unsettling smile on his face. It was hard to look at him directly, so April gazed at the floor instead. Still Dr Tame just stared at her until, finally, she had to break the silence.
‘Are you a psychologist?’
‘Don’t I look like one?’
‘I don’t know any. I heard you were an Oxford don.’
‘I have worked at Oxford, I’ve been a teacher, I ran a school, but I’ve also been a fisherman. Which do you think is most important?’
April didn’t like him. She hated the way he threw her question back at her, trying to unsettle her.
‘I didn’t think this interview was about me. Don’t you want to ask about Layla?’
‘Is there something you want to tell me about her?’ said the doctor.
‘No, I just thought that was why you were here. Inspector Reece said—’
‘You’re quite close to DI Reece, aren’t you?’ interrupted Tame. ‘Quite … pally?’
‘No, not really. He’s just the officer investigating my dad’s death.’
‘Yes, yes, a tragic affair,’ said the doctor, gazing up towards the ceiling. ‘Raises a lot of questions.’
‘Questions? What do you mean?’
‘Oh, such as who killed him,’ said Tame, meeting her gaze. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted to know.’
‘Of course I do,’ said April.
‘Is that why you wanted to kill Layla?’
April felt all the air push out of her lungs. For a moment she couldn’t speak.
‘Kill her?’ she finally spluttered.
Tame reached for a file on the desk and flipped it open. ‘Yes, kill her. Those were your words weren’t they? “I’ll kill you”?’
She felt a huge rush of anxiety. They couldn’t take that seriously, could they? People said things like that all the time. She hadn’t meant she was actually going to kill Layla.
‘Yes, I said it. We were having a fight, she had just said something bad about my father and I was angry. But I didn’t mean I was actually going to kill her.’
‘Powerful emotion
, anger,’ said the doctor. ‘Can make ordinary people do things they wouldn’t usually do. Like Layla, for example.’
April frowned.
‘You think she was angry?’
The doctor sighed and pushed himself up. He seemed weary.
‘Who can say? Her boyfriend died in tragic circumstances. The normal response to such tragedies is to become angry, to want to blame someone. Perhaps someone he was cheating on her with, perhaps?’
‘Who? With me? No!’
‘But that’s what Layla thought, wasn’t it? That’s why you were fighting that day. Her friends have all told me. She said, “Stay away from my man.” But you didn’t, did you?’
Tame walked around the desk, perching on the front, right before April.
‘Did you kiss him, April?’ he asked, leaning in close.
‘No!’ she said, pulling away, her chair scraping on the floor. ‘I didn’t. Layla was paranoid.’
‘Really?’ asked Tame, that half-smile on his face. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’
‘Yes I am,’ said April, pushing herself back in the chair as far as she could go. Having the man so close to her was giving her the creeps.
‘Mmm … I wonder,’ said Tame, standing up and walking back around the desk. He sat down and began writing. April watched him for a moment, before he glanced up. ‘Oh, you can go,’ said Tame, waving his pale hand. Confused and upset, April quickly walked to the door.
‘Just one last thing,’ said Tame as she turned the handle. ‘Who did Layla think was going to kill her?’
‘Pardon?’ stuttered April.
‘Oh come now, don’t look so shocked. Your chum Mr Reece wrote it up in his report.’ Tame bent forward to read another paper in front of him. ‘She said “they were after her”. Who are “they”?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you do, Miss Dunne. I really think you do.’
Then he waved his had again, as if he was shooing a fly from the room.
‘We’ll speak again.’
Mr Sheldon was waiting for her outside his office.
‘How was your little chat?’
April glared at him.
‘Can I go back to class?’ She’d had enough questioning for now.
‘No, April, you cannot,’ said Mr Sheldon, taking her by the arm and steering her towards an empty classroom. ‘I need to speak to you too.’
Once inside, April sat on a chair and crossed her arms.
‘Look, April, I know it’s difficult but we must get to the bottom of this. There has been enough unpleasantness already.’
‘Unpleasantness? Is that what you call it?’
Mr Sheldon looked as if he was about to shout at her, then seemed to think better of it.
‘I’m sorry, April,’ he said. ‘It really must be hard for you. You’ve had to deal with so much since you came to Ravenwood and I can sympathise, I really can. But you need to understand that my responsibility is to all the students here.’
He glanced towards the office and lowered his voice.
‘I’ll be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure the police are on top of this and that’s a worry when you are in charge of hundreds of young people.’
April nodded. It made sense, although she suspected he was more worried about his own neck than he was about the kids at Ravenwood.
‘So is it all right if I ask you a few questions now?’ said the headmaster with a slight smile.
‘Only if you’ll answer one first. What are you doing with my mother?’
Sheldon barked out a laugh.
‘Is that what you’re worried about? Heavens, April, your mother is still grieving over your father’s death.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘People deal with loss in their own way, April. Your mother is a good woman and she only wants the best for you.’
Just then, there was a light knock at the door and Mrs Bagly put her head into the room.
‘Sorry, Headmaster,’ she said, holding up a mobile phone. ‘Important call.’
‘I’m in the middle of something, Mrs Bagly,’ he replied.
She pulled a face. ‘It’s the chairman,’ she said, widening her eyes for emphasis.
Mr Sheldon looked at April, then back at the phone. ‘Very well. We’ll continue this later April, all right?’
He took the phone and walked into a corner of the classroom. As Mrs Bagly ushered April out, she could hear him talking.
‘Yes, I’m sorry … I know it’s a school, of course, and Ravenwood’s reputation is uppermost in my … yes, yes, I’ll get it sorted as soon as possible, you have my word.’
‘Is he in trouble?’ asked April as the secretary escorted her back to her class.
‘I don’t think the governors are too happy that the police are using school facilities for their investigation. It wouldn’t look good in the papers, would it?’
‘No, no I suppose not,’ she said.
‘I don’t know why you’re so disappointed Hawk’s not the Regent,’ said Caro. ‘Is it because he’s after your mum and you wanted an excuse to kill him?’
‘No! I don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘Well you could have fooled me. You look like you’d strangle the next person to ask you the time.’
They were sitting in the refectory eating lunch or, in April’s case, pushing some rice salad around her plate. She was still unsettled by her encounter with Dr Tame and the way her mother and Mr Sheldon seemed to be playing some sort of elaborate game with each other.
‘So if Hawk isn’t the Regent, who is?’ said Caro. ‘I mean, he’s in charge of the school, which makes him a suspect, but he’s clearly answering to someone else. So we need to find whoever’s behind the school. This plot to recruit the best kids in the country must be their idea.’
‘Yes, but what are they planning on doing after that?’
‘Take over the world, presumably. It’s not as if they’re breeding these kids to be kind and considerate, to build a better society, is it?’
‘Miss Holden said something similar. They used to be experts in hiding from the world, now it’s as if they’re daring someone to see them, like they want to be discovered.’
‘Well when we track down the Regent, we can ask him about his dastardly plan, just before you give him the kiss of death.’
‘I wish you’d stop treating this like some sort of joke! Someone’s dead.’
‘I know, April!’ said Caro, suddenly fierce. Startled, she looked at Caro and saw that she had tears in her eyes. ‘Layla was my friend,’ she whispered, angrily swiping at her tears with the back of her hand. ‘Okay, so she had turned into a horrible bitch, but before that we were best friends. We grew up together.’
Her shoulders shook and April put her arm around her and led her to a corner where they wouldn’t be overheard.
‘I’m sorry, Caro, I didn’t think,’ she said, handing her some tissue from her bag.
‘S’okay, I just want to find these scumbags and bring them down. So they can’t recruit any more nice people and turn them into their bloody slaves. Layla was great before they got their claws into her. Before … well, you know.’
April narrowed her eyes. ‘You mean “before me”, don’t you? You think if I wasn’t here Layla would be fine?’
‘Well if you hadn’t come here with all your magical powers, then maybe … oh, I don’t know!’
‘Yes you do! You think if I wasn’t here stirring the Suckers up, Layla might be alive. I know you’re upset, Caro, but do you really think they’d be playing nicey-nicey if I hadn’t arrived? They were killing people before I got here, remember?’
‘But they thought she was you, April! They thought she was a’ – she glanced around – ‘a Fury. That’s why they hung her like that, so they wouldn’t get any of her blood on them!’
‘Do you think I don’t know that? Don’t you think that’s sitting on my chest like a five-tonne weight? But I didn’t kill her, Caro. And Layla c
hose to play dress-up with the Suckers.’
‘But she didn’t know what she was getting into, did she?’
‘I think she did. I think they all do, deep down. I don’t mean it’s their fault. They’re being manipulated. But someone else killed her, Caro. Not me.’
Caro turned to April, her eyes pleading.
‘We’ve got to stop them, A. We can’t let this evil spread any more.’
‘We’ll stop them, honey,’ said April. ‘We will. We have to.’
Caro rubbed her face and tried to smile.
‘Okay then, here’s our chance …’
Davina swept into the room on Benjamin’s arm, dressed entirely in black and wearing over-sized sunglasses.
People crowded around her, cooing.
‘Come on,’ said April, ‘we’re going in.’
‘How are you, Davina?’ asked April.
‘I’ll be okay,’ she said, sniffing, dabbing at her eyes under the sunglasses. ‘I just wish it would all stop. All these deaths. It’s horrible. Layla …’ she broke off to give a loud sob. ‘Sorry, it’s just … I can’t bear to think of her being all alone like that.’
April glanced at Caro and saw a momentary flicker of hurt and anger in her eyes, then it was gone. April knew that her friend was screaming inside, that she wanted to grab Davina by the throat and shake her, but instead she gave Davina a hug. ‘We know,’ said Caro. ‘It must be awful for you.’
‘It is!’ said Davina, looking at Caro as if she was the only person on earth who understood her. ‘She was right there in my house, and then … then she was gone. I keep thinking: what if I had kept her there, what if I’d insisted on a sleepover or something?’