Darkness Falls (24 page)

‘April?’

Reece had come into the yard. He handed her a glass of water. ‘Are you okay? Can I help?’

‘No, no,’ she said, taking a sip of the water. ‘I’m just … it just suddenly hit me – what had happened, what I had seen. God, Mr Reece, she was just hanging there. It’s just so … wrong.’

‘You said it. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed either.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Layla’s father is a well-connected businessman, something in telecommunications, I think. He has friends in high places, specifically the Home Office, the mayor’s office, not to mention Ravenwood – which is why Mr Sheldon is here. All of which means that suddenly this case has become big news. We’re going to be crawling all over this.’

‘Well that’s good, isn’t it?’

Reece pulled a face.

‘Not necessarily. Not for me, anyway.’

‘They aren’t taking you off the case, are they?’

‘Not yet. But they will, believe me, if I don’t come up with results quick smart. And they’re bringing in some big guns.’

‘Why do you look so worried about that?’

‘I think you’ll see why when you meet Dr Tame.’

‘Who’s Dr Tame?’

‘A hot-shot police psychologist. Used to be an Oxford professor, written loads of books about how to tell if someone’s lying, which is why they bring him in to work on difficult cases.’

‘I take it you don’t approve?’

‘He gets the job done, I’ll give him that. But I’d rather be working with coppers, not some jumped-up teacher. And his methods … are not to my taste. But it’s out of my hands.’

‘But you’ll still be looking into my dad’s case?’ she said urgently.

‘As long as they’ll let me.’

The police wrapped up their questioning and April’s mother showed them and Mr Sheldon out before she came to find April in the kitchen.

‘Are you all right, darling?’ said Silvia as she walked in.

Yeah, like you care
.

‘So what was Mr Sheldon doing here?’ asked April.

‘He came to offer his help. He has some connections in the force and they contacted him about the suicide.’

‘I meant why did he come here instead of visiting Layla’s family?’

‘Because he’s our friend, April. Don’t start this again.’

‘Okay, but how come he’s so friendly all of a sudden? How come I’d never heard of him before?’

‘Your dad and I were at university with him, you know that.’

‘Do I?’ said April. She shook her head. Maybe they
had
told her. She wasn’t that sure about anything any more. She made her excuses and trudged up to bed. She’d barely slept over the past three days through worrying about Gabriel and she was drained from their reunion, especially when so swiftly followed by yet another body blow. She ran herself a bath and slipped under the bubbles. A really hot dunk sometimes helped her think, but April found she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing Layla’s face. She pushed the image away and concentrated her mind on something else: why had Sheldon been here exactly? She had a strong suspicion Sheldon was a vampire – why wouldn’t he be, being the head of a school overrun by them? – so maybe he was spying. But that actually wasn’t what was bothering her, it was the way he seemed to be sniffing around her mother and the way Silvia was reacting to him, like it was the kindest thing anyone had ever done. After all, why would her mother be interested in
him
? He even had funny eyes!

She dried off and clambered into bed, checking her mobile for texts. Caro, Fiona, Davina – of course. She couldn’t deal
with all that overwrought drama right now. There was nothing from Gabriel, although he was probably keeping a low profile.
God, why am I always making excuses for him?
she wondered. She was too weary to think about it. But as she lay down, she couldn’t stop thinking about Layla. DI Reece was right; she hadn’t really liked the girl, but she had seen the fear on her face – she was terrified. And what had April done about it? Nothing, that’s what. But what
could
she have done, even if she had made the Fury connection earlier? Called the police? Confessed to the vamps that she was a Fury, not Layla? But how could she have known they were going to do that? She tortured herself, imagining Davina leading Layla away after the party. Had they tied her up? Or just used threats? Somehow the idea of being locked up in the catacombs was more horrible than having your throat ripped out. Alone in the dark, surrounded by corpses. Had they forced her into the noose, or simply left it for her?
God, that was the worst thought
. Locked in that windowless tomb, pressed in on all sides by whispers and grinning skeletons, facing starvation or a swinging rope. But no, that couldn’t be right, the door was wide open, wasn’t it? Perhaps the vamps had left it that way, so Layla’s corpse would be found, like gamekeepers leaving snared rats and crows hanging to rot as a deterrent to the others. This is our territory, leave it alone or you will suffer the same fate. What sort of evil was surrounding her? She turned over, pulling the duvet up around her ears. It took a long time for April’s mind to let go, spinning down to twitching, disquieting dreams of chase, darkness and a bird’s yellow beak stabbing at her eye.

‘Jack the Ripper was not a psychopath,’ said Miss Holden. ‘At least not in the classic sense. He wasn’t committing his crimes because he was unable to control his urges – which is the usual definition of a psychopath – in fact he was acting deliberately and methodically.’

April and Benjamin exchanged glances across the history class. The serial killer was an especially gruesome choice of subject straight after Layla’s death. Why was she talking about this now? The whole school was subdued, talking in whispers. April was getting used to the sideways glances and muttered conversations when she walked by. ‘See that weird girl who got attacked by Marcus Brent? She found another body.’ She wasn’t surprised to see someone had set up a Wall of Layla outside the refectory, fast becoming a Ravenwood tradition. The first one had been a Wall of Milo in honour of Layla’s late boyfriend and it had quickly been covered in pictures of Layla along with written tributes and poems. ‘Milo and Layla – together at last’ was a strong favourite.

April’s mind jumped back to the lesson when Miss Holden’s voice reminded her of her dreams, of being chased through dark streets.

‘The Ripper was only out of control in the sense that he couldn’t resist this urge he had to kill,’ said Miss Holden. ‘And he clearly wasn’t that bothered about getting caught – in fact he wanted people to see what he had done. He laid his victims out carefully as if they were on display, and as if they were supposed to give people a specific message.’

Like a warning, perhaps?
thought April.

Miss Holden was trying to use the Ripper case to show how something as commonplace as a handful of murders – which were a depressingly ordinary event in Whitechapel in the 1880s – could change society so much, leading to reforms in the police service, leaps forward in forensic techniques and a massive change in the way the media reported crime. But today, it had taken on a different meaning. After Layla, Marcus and the other murders, the long-ago terror of the East End felt very close to home, very easy to visualise for most of the students. April began to wonder about Miss Holden’s real motivation. Surely she would know that they would all be thinking about Layla that morning?

‘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.