Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

THE BBC IS USED TO DEALING WITH FREAKS, CRANKS, and psychos. Bomb threats are not uncommon. Nor were threats to James Goode, host of Goode Evening, the nightly news roundup and opinion show. A major newspaper’s readers’ poll had recently voted James the fifteenth-most famous person in Britain, thirdmost annoying, and number-one “celebrity you would least like to date.” It was estimated that 42 percent of his audience tuned in just to hate him, a behavior he actively encouraged.

So when the associate producer of Goode Evening returned from lunch to find the brown-paperwrapped parcel on his desk, he was puzzled. No one in the office claimed any knowledge of having accepted its delivery. The mailroom had no record of it. Someone had been in the office at all times, and yet no one had seen a person walk in and deliver a box. It simply appeared, with the words “Mr James Goode, BBC Centre” written on it in a harsh black scrawl. It had no stamps, no delivery stickers, no bar codes or tracking numbers. It was utterly anonymous.

Which meant that this was a serious breach of security. The producer was already reaching for the phone when James himself came strutting into the office.

“We have a problem,” the producer said. “Breach of security. I think we have to get everyone out.”

“What?” James Goode said the word in the same way normal people usually said things like “you burned my house down?” But the producer was used to this.

“This box,” he said. “No one saw it come in. No postage, no delivery markings, didn’t come through the mailroom. We have to—”

“Don’t be stupid,” James said, taking the box.

“James—”

“Be quiet.”

“James, really—”

But James was already attacking the packaging tape with a pair of scissors. The producer set down the phone softly, closed his eyes, and quietly prayed that he wouldn’t explode in the next few seconds.

“I don’t want people calling health and safety for every little thing,” James went on. “That’s precisely the kind of behavior I . . .”

He silenced himself, which was not normal James Goode behavior. The producer opened his eyes to find James reading a piece of yellow paper.

“James?”

James hissed him silent as he reached into the box gingerly to move aside some wrapping. He started visibly and pushed down the flaps of the box, hiding the contents.

“Listen to me,” James said intently. “Get news on the phone. Tell them to get a camera up here now and that I’m going to need to be on the air in fifteen minutes.”

“What? What are you doing?”

“I have the next piece of the Ripper story. And tell them to be quiet about it. Lock the door. No one else comes into this office.”

Fifteen minutes later, after a protracted argument with the news department, there was a camera in the Goode Evening office and a news producer with a headset talking rapidly to the newsroom. James was sitting at his desk. His awards had been hastily shoved together on the windowsill just behind him, crushed together to fit in the frame. In front of him was the box.

“Are you ready yet?” he snapped. “How bloody difficult is it to stop them jabbering on for two minutes? I’m trying to hand them a story. Tell them to stop doing the bloody weather and—”

“We’re live in ten,” the person from news said. “And nine, eight, seven . . .”

James composed himself for the countdown and was ready at one.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “just after two in the afternoon, I received this package here in my office at BBC Centre.”

He indicated the box, then held up the piece of yellow paper.

“Inside I found this note, which, as you will hear, I have been instructed to read. I am following the instructions in an attempt to save lives . . .”

He began to read.

From hell.Mr Goode, I send you half the Kidne I took from one man prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer. The camera panned over to show the contents of the box. Nestled in a wad of bubble wrap was a brownish-red object sealed in a plastic zipper-top bag. The object was about the size of a human fist, and there was no mistaking that it was some kind of an organ.

The camera jerked back to James, who continued reading.

I hav already chose my next acquatence and I am eager for the 9th of november as I am hungry and hav the itch. Please show my lovly Kidne on your show Mr Goode and read my note or I may hav to come quick and take more. . . . The screen abruptly switched back to the newsroom. Someone, somewhere at the BBC, had pulled the plug. The anchor apologized for the graphic footage.

Inside his office, James Goode went on. The last sentence of the letter was the money sentence, the one he had practiced reading with the most care, the one he had memorized and could say looking right into the camera. This was, he knew, the sentence no one would ever forget. This was his moment.

He read it, unaware that it was being heard only by himself and the two other people in the room.

THE STAR THAT KILLS

In our lifetime those who kill the newsworld hands them stardom and these are the ways on which I was raised. —Morrissey,

“The Last of the Famous

International Playboys”

16

THE POLICE PACKED UP BY WEDNESDAY MORNING, and the press left as soon as the white tent came down. Jerome’s prediction about the video came true. By that afternoon, every news station on the planet was showing it. It was on the front page of every website. Even though hoaxes were an everyday occurrence, this video was proving hard to dismiss. Video experts had all had a look at it. Facial recognition software confirmed that the woman in the footage was the victim, Fiona Chapman. No one could explain the fact that the killer couldn’t be seen. And it was physically impossible that he was just avoiding the camera. Somehow, he had accessed the footage on both the hard disk and the server and erased himself. Some people thought he had special military cloaking technology.

Three students had been pulled from school. Teachers wanted to be able to leave the school grounds before it got dark at five. In the air, there was a deep sense of unease, everywhere.

As for the mad make-out session with Jerome, I wasn’t sure what it meant. It could have been a part of the general insanity. It could have been stress that kicked our hormones into gear like that. But the fact is, when you live with someone—or on the same campus, I mean—and you have a mad make-out session, you have two choices. You can either indicate that you enjoy your mad make-out sessions and intend to indulge in them at every given opportunity (i.e., Gaenor and Paul, her year twelve boyfriend, known to make out while eating shepherd’s pie, which is not a euphemism), or you do not acknowledge the make-out session, or indeed any physical attraction. There is no middle ground, not at boarding school. I told Jazza, of course. But no one else. Jerome seemed to be doing the same thing. In fact, I was pretty sure he hadn’t told Andrew.

On Wednesday night, Jazza and I sat on our respective beds doing homework while the news played on my computer. After the video came out, watching the news became a matter of habit. The topic, as ever, was the Ripper—in this case, the letter that had been received at the BBC the day before.

“This letter,” the newscaster said, “of course, is based on the famous ‘From Hell’ letter that was received by Mr. George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee on October 16, 1888. It’s the only letter out of the hundreds that came in that most Ripper experts think was actually from the killer. We now also know that there was more to the letter, which we didn’t hear. To discuss this, we have Mr. James Goode.”