Chapter Five
Sometimes, thought April, being bad feels pretty good. She grinned as she
clanged the front gate closed behind her and skipped across the
road, swinging around an old-fashioned streetlamp and across the
square. She felt a slight pang of guilt knowing that her parents
had banned her from leaving the house after dark, but when she
arrived home and found her mother not yet back from her long lunch
and her father still at work, she had figured it would do no harm
to nip out for a while. It wasn’t as if Highgate was South Central
LA, was it? And anyway, she had to admit it was the fact she was
sneaking out that made it so much fun. She had spent the last few
weeks - the last sixteen years, now she came to think about it -
having everyone tell her where to go, what to do, what to think.
For once she was free, going where she wanted, no one knowing where
she was.
April crossed the
square and passed the Highgate Literary & Scientific
Institution: built in 1839, according to the carving under the
eaves. April imagined a group of mad professors sitting around
smoking pipes and discussing poetry. Dad
should join, she thought with a smile, he’d fit right in. She glanced at her watch. It was
six-thirty on a clear autumn evening and already April could see a
bright, three-quarter moon in the sky. As she walked down Swain’s
Lane, retracing her route to school that morning, she wondered if
it was the unusually luminous moon that had sent everyone in
Highgate a little loopy.
She mulled over her
day as she walked, breath steaming in the cold air in front of her.
Okay, so there had been the incident in Philosophy class, but then
Mr Sheldon had been pushing them, trying to get them to think about
the subject properly and open their minds. And he had said
something nice to her at the end, too. Not that Gabriel Swift had
done anything to help, barging into her, whatever his problem was.
But still, to be honest, her first day at Ravenwood hadn’t been too
awful; she had two new friends - acquaintances, at least - and that
couldn’t be bad, could it? Better than being the weird new girl no
one wants to speak to. Davina was a little over-familiar, but then
maybe that was just her way, and April liked Caro, even if she was
full-on and kinda crazy. Funny but odd. Fiona had laughed at
April’s description of Caro and said, ‘She sounds just like your
dad.’
April peered through
a gate to her left where she could see the church roof shining in
the bright moonlight. It’s just a church, not
a haunted castle, she thought, smiling. It was Ravenwood
that looked like Dracula’s house - from the outside, anyway.
Inside, it was the other kids rather than the narrow corridors that
had unnerved her. They actually seemed to be there to learn; no
giggling at the back, no note-passing, everyone fully engaged in
the lessons. April had to admit she had been swept up in it too and
had actually come away from school feeling inspired and enthused
about her subjects, which was something that had rarely happened
before. So what’s wrong with that? she
scolded herself. They might be geeks with enormous brains, but for
a school for the academically gifted, they weren’t too freaky. At
least someone there had heard of Alix Graves.
The dead singer, of
course, was the real reason she was out here in the first place.
She’d been trying to convince herself she was just taking an early
evening stroll, getting some air and checking out the
neighbourhood, but the truth was she wanted to see Alix Graves’
house and find out a bit more for Fee. It wasn’t that she wanted to
see where he was killed - unless the windows were splashed with
blood, she wasn’t going to see much anyway - it was more the
fascination of seeing what a real rock star’s house looked like.
How big was it? Were there gargoyles on the roof? Stained-glass
windows? God, I’ve been watching way too many
horror movies, she thought with a wry smile. Dartmouth Park
was supposedly full of big, spooky old houses like that, although
for all she knew Alix had lived in a super-modern angular glass and
steel bachelor pad. Either way, she wanted to take some photos to
send to Fiona; might help her get some closure and …
What the hell was that?
April stopped and
held her breath - she was sure she had heard a cry. It was almost
fully dark now and the air felt still and cold and, other than the
distant sound of the main road at the bottom of the hill, all was
quiet. The ancient brick walls surrounding the cemetery loomed on
either side of her. She listened, her head cocked, her ears almost
twitching.
There it is again. What is it?
A baby? A cat?
She walked back up
the lane to the black wrought-iron gates she had just passed - the
entrance to the cemetery. April had noticed it earlier in the day
because there was a curious little gatehouse just inside, but it
was different now: now the gate was open. Was
it open a minute ago? she wondered, frowning. But surely I’d have noticed? Or was it the creak of the
gate I heard? Certainly from the leaves piled up at the
bottom, it looked as if it had been a long time since it was last
ajar this way. Edging closer, April strained to see through the
uprights of the gate, but the low light was casting crazy shadows
and she couldn’t see anything.
Suddenly a sharp cry
went up, making April skitter back a few steps. This time the sound
was unmistakable: a creature - a person? - in pain. Then she heard
a quieter sound, like sobbing. It was close, too, just inside the
gates.
‘Hello?’ she said,
trying to force her voice to sound strong. ‘Is anyone
there?’
Now there was another
cry, softer this time, weaker.
‘Do you need help?’
she asked. Despite her fears, despite her parents’ dire warnings,
April couldn’t run away. What if someone was really hurt? What if
they needed an ambulance?
She walked forwards
again, close enough to touch the gates, and reached out and pushed
the one hanging ajar further open. It creaked inwards and, in the
shifting shadows, April could see something lying in the centre of
the overgrown path ahead. A small body. As her eyes adjusted she
could see it was moving, its side heaving up and down.
‘Are you okay?’ she
said softly, taking a step inside the gates. As her body brushed
against the metal the gate it creaked loudly and the shape jumped,
trying to struggle to its feet. Now April could see what it was. A
fox. It was trying to get up, but it couldn’t.
She crouched down a
few metres away from the animal, but immediately leapt back to her
feet. Her hands had touched something warm and wet on the grass.
She held her fingers up and in the milky moonlight she could see a
glistening black liquid on her fingers. Is
that blood? she thought, her heart leaping. She looked back
at the fox. It was lying still as a statue, but she could still
hear a whimpering coming from its throat.
In the dim light she
felt uneasy being so close to this wild animal, but the fox sounded
so distressed she couldn’t just ignore it.
‘Who did this to you,
little guy?’ she whispered. ‘What’s out there?’
She peered into the
darkness. Just trees and gravestones, nothing except … And then
something caught her eye. A shadow that wasn’t a
shadow.
She gasped, her hand
jerking to her mouth. There were eyes looking at her. Dark,
piercing eyes, staring out from the shadows. She began to back
towards the gate, the fox forgotten, but found she could barely
move her legs. Then there was a deafening roar and the rush of
wind, as if something was coming straight at her. She tensed,
expecting to be knocked to the ground, but instead she was lifted
into the air and yanked backwards, her legs kicking out uselessly.
She barely had time to register the sound of the rusty gate
screeching wide open before she looked up and found herself lying
bruised in the middle of Swain’s Lane.
What the hell … ?
‘Go! Quickly!’
whispered a voice in front of her. Scrabbling to her feet, April
looked towards the voice, but all she could see was a silhouette
framed in the shadow of the gateway.
‘Get out of here!’
hissed the voice. ‘Go on - run!’
As the figure turned,
the moon caught his face and April felt her head swim. It was the
dark-haired boy from the square, from school: Gabriel
Swift.
‘GO!’ he shouted,
slamming the gate shut. April turned and sprinted up the hill as
fast as her feet would take her.
April had been under
the shower for ten minutes, turning the heat up into the red, but
she still couldn’t drive the cold from her bones. Her legs were
still shaking from her full-pelt dash up the hill, and her teeth
were chattering despite the clouds of steam in the room. She
stepped out reluctantly and wrapped herself in a towel, sitting on
the edge of the bath until she felt the shivers leave her body. She
tried to make sense of what had just happened. What had she seen
out there? Was it just a dead fox? Or two dead foxes? There had
been an awful lot of blood for just one. Had it been hit by a car?
Had it been attacked? Why was the gate open when she was sure it
had been chained shut earlier in the day? So many questions
whirling around her head and no answers, especially not the one she
really wanted: what was Gabriel doing there and why had he yanked
her out? Had she been in danger? What on earth had possessed her to
go into the cemetery anyway - was she mad? She shook her head,
admitting that for once her parents had been right. She’d been an
idiot to go out alone, in the dark, in an area she barely knew. She
dried herself and dressed quickly, then grabbed her phone,
speed-dialling Fee’s number.
‘It’s me
again.’
There was a pause.
‘What’s up?’ asked Fiona, worry in her voice.
‘The weirdest thing
happened to me when I went for a walk around
Highgate.’
‘Okay, switch over to
the webcam,’ said Fiona urgently. ‘I need to see your ugly
mug.’
Fiona had always been
a bit of a computer genius - she’d had wireless before most people
had broadband - and when April had told her she was moving south,
Fee had promptly turned up at her house with a gift-wrapped webcam.
So sweet. But as April fiddled with her laptop, she had the time to
pause and think about the events in Swain’s Lane: what had she
really seen? She’d seen an injured animal and been shouted at by a
strange boy. When it came down to it, she didn’t really have a clue
what had happened out there. At last Fiona’s face flicked up on the
screen. It was fuzzy and jerky, but it was so good to see her that
April wanted to cry.
‘Come on,’ said Fee
sternly, ‘tell me what’s the matter. And don’t leave anything out,
I can see you now.’
‘Well, I heard this
strange noise,’ started April slowly. ‘It was coming from the
cemetery. So I went in to see and, well, it was a
fox.’
There was a long
pause before Fee spoke. ‘That’s it? That’s the weird
thing?’
‘Then I fell
backwards,’ she offered, realising how stupid it would sound to
tell her friend that she thought she had been lifted off the
ground. ‘And there was this boy there and he yelled at me to
run.’
‘Well, I think I’d
want to leg it too if I saw a half-dead fox in a spooky graveyard,’
said Fee. ‘But who was this boy? Why did he shout?’
April began to
backtrack. ‘It was probably just some practical joke or something.
I suppose what with Alix’s murder being just down the hill and
everything, I’m a bit jumpy. It was probably nothing.’
‘I guess,’ said
Fiona, not sounding convinced. ‘But you don’t need to get too
worked up about Alix. I’ve been following the story all day and
they’re saying his murder’s probably a crazed fan or something to
do with his private life. It’s terrible, of course, but it’s one of
those one-in-a-million things. It’s not as if a bloody murder
happens every day, is it? Or aren’t I helping?’
April laughed. She
could feel a bit of the tension in her shoulders
easing.
‘No, you’re helping a
lot,’ she said. ‘And it’s brilliant to see you.’ She looked at her
friend’s face. ‘How are you feeling anyway?’
‘Oh, bearing up. I
tried to wear a black scarf into school and Miss Batty went mental.
I mean, it’s not as if I was dressed like Queen Victoria, or
something.’
‘So did you get
detention?’
Fiona laughed. ‘No,
just the opposite. Turns out she’s not a big music fan, so when I
told her I was in mourning for Alix Graves she assumed that he was
a relative and went into sympathy mode. Apparently her door’s
always open, if I just want to go in for a cry.’
April’s eyes widened.
Knowing her friend’s love of the dramatic, that was like a red rag
to a bull. ‘Fee, you didn’t take her up on her offer, did
you?’
Fiona pulled a face.
‘I’m not that daft. She’ll find out who Alix is eventually and
she’d go ballistic if she thought I’d been taking advantage of her
good nature.’
April laughed and
shook her head. She missed Fiona and her uncanny ability to get in
and out of trouble. There was rarely a dull moment when she was
around.
‘So what are you up
to tonight?’
‘I was just going out
actually,’ said Fiona. ‘Me and Sophie are going over to Juliet’s to
talk tactics. She wants to get back with lain.’
April felt a sudden
pang of jealousy. She wanted to be up there plotting with her
friends, spending hours deciding the perfect wording for a text,
working out what to say on the phone. Doing normal, everyday
things, not like here … Suddenly the image of those dark eyes
blinked into her mind. She shuddered.
‘April? You still
with me?’
‘Yes, yes, sorry.’
April realised that she hadn’t heard a word of her friend’s last
sentence.
‘I can see that
you’re busy,’ said Fiona, pointing at the boxes still piled up in a
corner of the room. ‘I’d better let you go. I miss you, you
know.’
‘I know,’ said April
sadly. ‘Have a good time at Juliet’s. But not too good a time,
eh?’
Fiona laughed.
‘Promise.’
April closed the
laptop and looked around her little bedroom. It was small and a bit
cramped even without packing crates taking up all the space. It
certainly didn’t look like home. She got up and walked to the
window, half-hoping to see a lone figure with dark hair standing in
the little park, but the square was empty. Or at least she was
pretty sure it was empty; maybe one of those shadows wasn’t all it
seemed. No, that was silly; what she had seen in the graveyard must
have been a trick of the light or something. Sighing, she walked
downstairs and wandered into the kitchen. Her father was home,
sitting at the breakfast bar munching on some cheese on
toast.
‘When did you get
in?’
‘A couple of minutes
ago,’ he said, pouring her a cup of tea from the pot. ‘Hungry?’ he
asked, offering her a slice of toast.
April shook her
head.
‘How was
school?’
‘Interesting,’ she
said. ‘How about your new job?’
‘Interesting.’ He
smiled. ‘Where’s your mum?’
April shrugged. ‘She
left me a note to say she was meeting friends.’
William grabbed two
books that were in front of him and got up to leave. ‘Well, back to
work.’
‘Sit back down for a
minute at least.’ April laughed, pushing him into his chair.
‘You’re such a workaholic.’
April had noticed
that he had already set up his study opposite the living room;
books and papers, files and more files, she didn’t know what drove
him. Perhaps it was a desire to have a book hit the best-seller
charts; one of his old university friends was a big newspaper
editor who had a lucrative sideline in popular history books and
April could always hear the trace of envy in her dad’s voice
whenever he got in touch. But then maybe her dad was simply trying
to provide Silvia with the kind of life he knew she wanted: a nice
home, a fast car and a social life packed with glamour.
Yeah, like even that would make her
happy.
‘So what are you
working on this time?’ she asked her father.
He ran a hand across
his stubble. ‘I’ve got to get a proposal in to my publisher by
Friday. My agent thinks we might be able to get a decent advance
this time. Maybe some film interest, too.’
‘Fantastic.’ April
smiled, feeling guilty for challenging his work ethic. At least he
tried. ‘What’s the big idea?’
‘It’s the London East
End book I was telling you about on holiday. My theory about the
plague pits.’
She shook her head.
‘Sorry, Dad, but you can’t expect me to keep up. One minute it’s
Egyptian cults, the next it’s human tracking.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry, I
didn’t realise quite how boring I’ve become.’
‘Not boring,’ said
April affectionately. ‘Confusing.’
He pulled a long
string of cheese off his toast and pushed it around his plate.
actually, it’s connected to this area. If your mother knew about
it, she definitely wouldn’t let you out at night.’
April felt her skin
prickle and looked away, glancing at the window, now running with
rain.
‘What’s the matter?’
he asked.
‘Nothing, it’s just
…’
‘What?’ he said,
touching her hand. ‘What is it?’
It’s just I saw a monster with
glowing eyes and got covered in blood, she thought to
herself.
‘I was walking up
Swain’s Lane and I thought I saw something. But don’t worry - I
think I’m just a bit nervy because of the Graves
murder.’
‘Swain’s Lane? When
was this?’ he asked sternly.
‘Oh, after school,
but it was getting dark,’ said April quickly, suddenly remembering
she could get into trouble for breaking her curfew. But she was
sure her father’s expression had changed the moment she mentioned
Swain’s Lane. ‘Were you alone? What did you see?’ he
asked.
‘I’m not sure, I just
…’ she stuttered, wondering whether to tell him. She so wanted to
share it with someone and who better than her
conspiracy-theory-debunking dad? After all, a man who wrote books
about the abominable snowman would surely believe her when she said
she’d seen a … a what? What had she
seen, exactly? A spook? A spirit? A zombie? It was ridiculous when
you thought about it.
‘I saw an injured
fox,’ she said lamely.
William chuckled with
a note of relief. ‘I thought you were going to tell me you’d seen
someone hanging around or something.’
‘What sort of
someone?’
He tapped her hand
reassuringly. ‘No one, darling. Highgate is one of the safest
suburbs in London.’
‘Not for Alix Graves,
it wasn’t.’
‘No, but then it
looks like his murder was an isolated incident. The police think it
might have been connected to his business interests - you know, his
record label and that Full Moon Festival he used to organise, they
think it might have something to do with a shady financial
investor. So I doubt that has anything to do with the
area.’
William was smiling
now, but April wasn’t convinced. There was something about the way
her father was talking and avoiding her eyes.
‘But who would be
hanging around here?’ she persisted. ‘Someone from another school
or something?’
‘No, no, the schools
in this area, Ravenwood, Highgate School, they’re far too posh for
knife-wielding teens, darling.’
‘So what made you
think there might be?’
‘Footpads and
brigands are a bit on my mind at the moment,’ he said, tapping one
of his books. April craned her neck - the top one was called
The Dark Victorian Age. He shrugged.
‘Just a bit of research for the new book. Back in the Victorian
period, London was an absolute cesspit of thieves and murderers
cutting each other’s throats for a swig of gin.’ He paused and held
up a finger as he noticed April’s look of distress. ‘But that was a
hundred and fifty years ago, remember. They had no police force to
speak of, people were incredibly poor and London itself was crammed
into a few square miles around the City and Covent Garden. Back
then, anything beyond the city walls was countryside.’
‘Even
here?’
‘Well, yes and no.
No: Highgate was a separate village built around the school; it’s
been here for four hundred years. Yes: they chose to build the
cemetery here because there was land and because the graveyards in
London were overflowing and poisoning the water supply. Which is
what this book’s about, more or less.’
April felt another
chill. ‘Graveyards?’ she asked.
Her father leant back
and looked up at the ceiling.
He’s avoiding my eyes again, thought April.
What’s he not telling me?
‘A bit. It’s more
about disease - plague pits and sewers and so forth,’ he said
vaguely.
‘What, no monsters
this time?’ she asked.
‘No, no monsters,
darling.’ He laughed, but when he finally looked at her, his eyes
were serious. ‘There’s no such thing.’