The The Name of the Star (21 page)

“Mmmm?” I said.

“She's really fine,” Boo said. “Probably some period thing. I go completely mental too. Period fever. It's the worst.”

This effectively killed all conversation for a while. Boo charged right on, telling us a very long story about how her friend Angela was getting cheated on by her boyfriend, Dave. No one tried to interrupt her. I just got through my toast as quickly as I could and excused myself. Boo was right behind me.

“Fixed that,” she said.

“You told him I had
period fever,
” I replied. “There's no such thing as period fever.”

“No such thing as ghosts either.”

“No, there is
really
no such thing as period fever. There's a difference between being a guy and being
an idiot.
”

“Let's get your essay,” she said, looping her arm through mine.

Boo waltzed me into the library, and I allowed myself to be waltzed. Alistair was tucked into a deep corner in the extremely unpopular microfilm section, behind a machine. Boo had provided him with a tiny iPod, and he was listening to something, eyes closed. I guess the earphones didn't stay in his ears because he didn't really have ears, but he managed to hold them up. The music flowed out of them into the air. As we came up, he opened his eyes slowly.

“On the shelf,” he said. “Between the bound copies of
The Economist,
1995 and 1996.”

I went to the spot he directed us to. There, between the books, were fifteen handwritten pages, with footnotes and comments scribbled in the margins. I had just pulled these out when Jerome approached us. Boo grabbed them from me.

“Sorry,” he said, “but . . . can we talk?”

“Mmmm?” I replied. No guy had ever asked me if I wanted to talk, not like that. Not like a talk, talk kind of talk—if this was, in fact, a talk, talk “can we talk?” Or whatever.

“You go,” Boo said, shoving the papers into her bag. “I'll see you later.”

I walked toward Jerome slowly, afraid to look at him. I no longer knew how to behave. I had been assured that I wasn't insane, but that wasn't very helpful. There was a ghost ten feet away from us who had done my homework, and Jerome couldn't see him.

“You're welcome,” Alistair called after me.

We stepped outside into the steel gray morning. I didn't care that I was cold.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked. There was something nervous about the way he was standing, his shoulders hunched and his hands deep in his pockets, his arms locked to his sides.

Lacking any better idea, I suggested Spitalfields Market. It was big, it was busy, it was cheerful, and it would distract me a little. It used to be a market for fruits and vegetables. Now it was a ring of boutiques and salons. In the middle was a loosely enclosed space, one half devoted to restaurants, the other to stalls full of everything from tourist junk to handmade jewelry. Shoppers buzzed all around us. The racks were heavy with Jack the Ripper merchandise—top hats, rubber knives, I AM JACK THE RIPPER and JACK IS BACK shirts.

“What's going on with you?” he finally asked.

What
was
going on with me? Nothing I could tell Jerome. I'd never be able to tell anyone what was going on with me, with the possible exception of Cousin Diane.

We had passed all the way through the market and were in the small courtyard on the side. We sat down on a bench. Jerome sat close, his leg almost against mine. I got the feeling he was keeping just a little space in case I turned out to be irredeemably insane. But he was giving me this chance now to explain. And explain I would, somehow. I would say
something
.

“Since the night, with the . . . with the Ripper . . . I've been . . . freaked out? A little?”

“That's understandable,” he said, nodding. He was willing to try this out as an excuse for my behavior. I had to keep him talking about this topic—his favorite.

“Who is Jack the Ripper?” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, you read everything about Jack the Ripper—who is he? I think I'd feel better if I . . . understood what he was. What it was all about.”

He moved a millimeter or two closer.

“Well, I suppose the first thing is that Jack the Ripper is kind of a myth,” he said.

“How can he be a myth?”

“What's known for sure is this: there was a string of murders in the Whitechapel area of London in the autumn of 1888. Someone was killing prostitutes, in more or less the same way. There were five murders that seemed to have the same signature—slash to the neck, mutilations to the body, and in some cases, removal and arrangement of the internal organs. So those are known as the Jack the Ripper murders, but some people think there were four murders, some six, some more than that. The best guess is that there were five victims, and that's what the legend is built around. But that could be completely wrong. If you go to the Ten Bells Pub, for instance, they have a plaque on the wall commemorating six victims. So the facts of the whole thing are unclear, which is part of the reason it's almost impossible to solve.”

“So this killer is following one version of the story?” I said.

“Right. He's not even following a very nuanced version of the story. It's pretty much the Wikipedia version or the version from the movies. The name. That's another issue. Jack the Ripper never called himself Jack the Ripper. Just like now, there were dozens of hoaxes. Loads of people sent letters to the press claiming to be the murderer. Only about three of these letters were considered to be even possibly real—and now the general opinion is that they're all fakes. One was the ‘From Hell' letter, which is the one that James Goode got. Another was signed Jack the Ripper. That one was probably written by someone from the
Star
newspaper. The
Star
got famous because of Jack the Ripper. They took the stories of these murders and created one of the first media superstars. And they did a really good job, because here we are, over a hundred years later, still obsessed.”

“But there have been other murderers since,” I said. “Lots of them.”

“But Jack the Ripper was kind of the original. See, he was around when the police force was fairly new and psychology was just starting out. People understood why someone might kill to steal something, or out of anger, or out of jealousy. But here was a man killing for seemingly no reason at all, hunting down vulnerable, poor women, cutting them apart. There was no explanation. What made him so terrifying was that he didn't need a reason. He just liked to kill. And the papers played the story up until people were mad with fear. He's the first modern killer.”

“So who did it?” I asked. “They have to know.”

“No,” Jerome said, leaning back. “They don't know. They never will know. The evidence is gone. The suspects and witnesses are long dead. The vast majority of the original Jack the Ripper case files are gone. Keeping records for the long term wasn't considered that important back then. Things got thrown away. People took souvenirs. Papers got moved, lost. Lots of records were lost in the war. It's exceedingly unlikely that we will ever find anything that conclusively identifies Jack the Ripper. But that won't stop people from trying. They've been trying nonstop since 1888. It's the one magic case that everyone wants to solve and no one can. Pretending to be Jack the Ripper is pretty much the scariest thing you could possibly do because he's a total unknown. He's the one that got away with it. Does any of this actually make you feel better?”

“Not really,” I said. “But it's . . .”

This time, it was definitely me. I leaned into him, and he put his arm over my shoulders. Then I put my head against his, and his curls pressed into my cheek. From there, it was a slow turn of the head until our faces were together. I started pressing my lips into his cheek—just a hint of a kiss, just to see how it went. I felt his shoulders release, and he made a little noise that was partly a groan, partly a sigh. He kissed my neck, up, up, up to my ear. My muscle control began to slip away, as did my sense of my surroundings. My body flushed itself with all the good chemicals that it keeps in reserve for making out. They make you stupid. They make you wobbly. They make you not care about Jack the Ripper or ghosts.

I reached up and ran my hand along the back of his neck, deep into his hair, then I pulled his face closer.

23

C
LEARLY, JEROME AND I HAD A COMPLICATED THING going on. He told me scary Jack the Ripper facts, and I had the sudden need to make out with him until I ran out of breath. I would have continued indefinitely if Boo hadn't bounded up to us like a deranged puppy. Jerome and I detached so quickly that a thin bridge of saliva connected us for a glittering moment. I swung it away.

“Heya!” she said. “Sorry! I didn't realize you came here too! Came over for a coffee.”

She held up a coffee as proof.

Jerome was so startled that he had a violent coughing fit.

“Well,” he said when he recovered. “I . . . well.

Hello.”

“Hi,” Boo said. She was still standing there, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'd best get back. I have a physics lab to work on.”

He got up abruptly and left.

“Sorry,” Boo said. “It's my job to follow. And I wouldn't have interrupted, but I had an idea. You need a bit more practical experience. It'll help you. And since you don't have to do that paper and it's Sunday, we can go out.”

Boo had an ability to attach herself to me and steer me around. Her grip was like iron. She began to move me out of the market and down the street, toward the Tube. About forty-five minutes later, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I turned up on Goodwin's Court. Boo half dragged me down the alley and pressed the silver buzzer on their front door.

“How do you even know they're home?” I asked.

“They'll be home,” she said. “One of them's always here.”

No answer. Boo buzzed again. There was a crashing noise, followed by an electronic squawk.

“What?” a male voice yelled.

“It's me!” Boo yelled back. “I have Rory with me!”

“You what?”

I thought it was Callum, but it was hard to tell.

“Let us up!” Boo yelled.

A mumbled something on the other end, and the intercom went dead.

“I don't think they like it when I come over,” I said.

“Oh, they don't mind.”

“I think they do.”

Nothing from the door. Boo pushed the intercom again, and this time, the door buzzed open. Again, up the stairs with the automatic lighting. I could see that the staircase was very well maintained, with tasteful framed black-and-white photos up the staircase and a highly polished silver rail. The apartment on the first floor bore a small glass sign on the door:

DYNAMIC DESIGN. Upstairs, Callum was at the door, dressed in the same snug shirt and a pair of shorts. He held a mug of something steaming hot.

“What are you doing?” he asked Boo in a groggy morning voice.

“Just bringing Rory round.”

“Why?”

Boo ignored this and stepped past him, dragging me in with her.

“Where's Stephen?” Boo asked, taking off her coat and hanging it on the rickety coat stand by the door. Callum collapsed onto the brown sofa and regarded us both with tired eyes.

“Out getting the papers.”

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“What are we always up to?”

He indicated the stacks of papers and folders scattered all over the table and the floor around it. Boo nodded, made a quick circuit of the room, and planted herself next to him. Stephen came in a moment later. He was dressed in a worn and slightly baggy pair of jeans. I'm not sure they were supposed to be baggy; I think he was just thin. With his striped black sweater, red scarf, and glasses, he really looked like a student, probably in the English department. Someone who quoted Shakespeare for fun and used Latin terms for things. He did not, under any circumstances, look like a cop. But as soon as he saw us, he got that look on his face—instantly focused.

“What's happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Boo said. “I just brought Rory round.”

“Why?”

No. They didn't want me here. Boo had not caught on to this.

“I was thinking,” she said. “We should go ghost-spotting. Rory's never been.”

Stephen stood there for a minute, gripping his newspaper.

“Can I speak to you in the other room for a moment?” he said.

Boo got up, and the two of them disappeared into another room. Callum continued to sip his tea and watch me. In the other room, I could hear a very animated conversation, one low voice (Stephen's) and one relatively higher voice (Boo's). I distinctly heard Stephen say, “We are not social services.” The higher voice seemed to be winning.

“I didn't ask to come here,” I said. “I mean, here, to this apartment. Today.”

“Oh, I know.” Callum stretched lazily and turned to watch the door where the conversation was going on. Last time, I had taken in the basics about Callum—he was black, he was shorter than Stephen, he was extremely well built, and he wasn't thrilled about my presence. All of those things remained true today. In the daylight and in slightly less shock, I could take in some more. Like Boo, Callum had an athlete's build—he wasn't huge, just well developed in what looked like a very deliberate way. His face was round, with wide, appraising eyes and a mouth that always seemed to be cocked in a half smirk. He had very thick, very straight eyebrows, one of which was sliced through by a scar.