Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

I waited for them to come and ask me more questions. But no one came. The news never mentioned a witness. And we never heard a word from Claudia about what we may or may not have been up to on the night of the murder. Wexford was true to its word. If they knew we’d gone to the roof, they were giving us a pass.

Classes were canceled on Monday morning, by which point there was a definite funk in the air in Hawthorne. I don’t want to say the building stank, but there was a closeness. The heaters were on full blast, the air was thick with moisture and stress hormones. On Monday afternoon, they allowed us to go to class and to the library, but our movements were strictly controlled. We had to stick to the cobblestone path at all times. They put up nylon barriers on the edge of the green so that we couldn’t see the tent as easily—but we still had a pretty clear view from any second-story window.

I had a free period, so I went over to the library, just to get out of the building. I thought I went quickly, but by the time I got there, all the carrels were taken, as were all the chairs around the room and all the spots on the floor next to the electrical outlets.

I decided to go upstairs, and I made my way back to the literature section. I peered down each one until I found Alistair. He was there—same magnificent hair, same big trench coat and Doc Martens boots. He had only changed positions. Now he was sitting in the windowsill, still mostly in the dark.

“Mind if I sit here?” I asked. “There’s nowhere downstairs.”

“Do what you like,” he said, not looking up.

I hit the switch at the end of the aisle and took my place on the floor. The floor was cold, but at least it was somewhere to sit, and somewhere not totally on my own. After ten minutes, the light automatically clicked off. I looked over to see if Alistair was going to get up and turn it back on, but he just kept on reading. I peeled myself from the floor and flicked the switch.

“It’s bad for your eyes,” I said. “Reading in the dark.”

Alistair smirked a little. I didn’t know why. There was nothing funny about eyestrain. I hadn’t been there very long when Jerome appeared at the end of the aisle, his computer under his arm.

“Jazza said you were over here,” he said. “Can I talk to you? I need to show you something.”

Jerome was so preoccupied that he didn’t even acknowledge Alistair’s presence.

Jerome led me to one of the tiny study rooms that lined the first floor. All the rooms were occupied, but he found one containing three year twelves who were all playing video games.

“Out,” he said, opening the door. “We need this room.”

There were cries of protest, but Jerome pushed the door open wider.

“Study use only,” he said. “Out.”

“Using your prefect powers for evil?” I asked as they shuffled past us. One of them was considerably taller than Jerome and looked down at him with palpable disdain, but Jerome didn’t care. He was already setting up his computer.

“Shut the door,” he said. “Sit down.”

There were three chairs and a tiny table in the room. The room wasn’t wide enough for a fourth chair. It wasn’t really wide enough for the little table. I slipped in next to Jerome, who was logging on and pulling up a site.

“I have to warn you,” he said. “This is disturbing. But you should see it. Everyone’s going to see it soon enough.”

He was on a site called Ripperfiles. In the middle of the front page was a video screen. He hit the Play symbol.

The footage was in night vision, which meant that it had a greenish-gray cast, with bright white highlights. The first frames were of a garden and a patio with a few empty tables. I realized immediately that this had to be the Flowers and Archers.

After thirty seconds or so of this, a gate opened. Someone walked into the garden, very straight-backed and stiff. It was a woman. She was wearing a skirt and a coat. She crossed from the left of the frame to the right, until she was positioned almost perfectly in the eye of the camera, then she turned slowly.

Her eyes said it all. They were huge points of white light. She stood there, utterly unmoving except for a light heaving of constrained cries. Her attention seemed focused on something in front of her, just out of view. Then she jerked to the side, toppling against the fence and bouncing to the ground. She began to fight, arms flailing. It was only then that I realized that she wasn’t looking at someone outside of the camera’s range. There was simply no murderer there. The victim was well in the center of the yard, so her assailant should have been fully visible. But there was no one. She flailed at the air. Then there was a flash, a little glint of something streaking across the screen, and she went still. Her legs suddenly jerked up, so that the knees were bent and the heels placed on the ground. Then the knees were knocked open. Then a glint again.

Jerome reached over and hit Pause.

“You don’t want to see the rest,” he said. “I’m sorry I saw it.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What was that?”

“That was the footage from the pub. It wasn’t destroyed.”

“But it can’t be.”

“It is. A member of this site got it straight from the backup server. This is it.”

“It’s obviously just someone acting out the crime.”

“Honestly,” he said, “it’s real. This site . . . These people are serious. Obviously, something’s been done to the footage to remove the assailant, but no one can figure out what. This has been passed around to all kinds of technical experts, and no one can figure out what’s been done to it. This video? It’s going to be all over the place. Every conspiracy nut in the world is going to go crazy for this.”

The image was still frozen there—the woman on her back, the strange glint hanging in the air. Jerome closed the computer partway.

“The other night,” I said. “When we were sneaking back in. I saw someone.”

“You’re a witness?” he asked.

“I was,” I said. “They made me do something called an E-fit.”

“You did an E-fit ?”

I explained to Jerome about the man—how he had appeared from around the corner, how he had seen me climbing back into the window. Jerome was completely staggered by this. His jaw dropped open slightly. He was fairly loose-jawed to begin with—hence his power to declare Total War on his food, his easy smiles, his ability to talk for ages. We had probably been this close before, shoved together on the benches of the refectory, but I became acutely aware that we were alone in this little study room. Study closet, really. And we were closer now than I remembered. We must have been moving together while I was watching the video.

“It’s been weird,” I said. “Jazza didn’t see him. She was inside. I was still out on the sidewalk, so . . . they’re only talking to me. But I think they think I’m crazy. Or lying. They haven’t been in touch.”

“I’m sure they’ll get in touch when they catch him,” he said. “Then they’ll probably bring you in to identify him.”

That made sense. There was no point in contacting me until they had something to ask me.

We were so close now that I couldn’t look directly at him, not at his eyes, anyway. This is when it finally dawned on me that he hadn’t brought me in here for the sole purpose of watching a video of someone being murdered (though that was probably part of the reason).

Also, it was very warm in the little study closet.

To be honest, I’m not sure which one of us did it first, but it was a done deal as soon as I managed to pull my gaze back from his chin to his eyes.

BBC TELEVISION CENTRE, SHEPHERD’S BUSH, WEST LONDON OCTOBER 2 1:45 P.M.