The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [57]
Boo glanced both ways and ran across the street, barely missing a car. I stepped behind a big red mailbox and watched her talking to the woman, guiding her over to a more secluded spot. After a minute or two, a police car came down the street. It slowed and pulled up next to the playground. Out of it stepped the young policeman from the day of the murder, the one Jazza thought was a reporter.
I felt myself go cold all over.
“What the hell?” I said out loud.
Now it was the three of them—the woman in the brown wool uniform, the young policeman, and my roommate—all in a very animated conversation. It was like the entire world was colluding to make me feel insane, and it was doing a really good job.
I tried to make sense of the scene. The policeman had to be a real policeman. If he was a reporter, as Jazza suspected, he couldn’t go around in a disguise all the time. He wouldn’t have a police car. Boo had come into the school right after the murders. Boo went everywhere I went. As for the woman in the uniform, I had no idea who she was, and I didn’t care. The fact that Boo and the policeman were talking together in secret was enough.
And then, one of the many other people coming down the street walked through the woman in the uniform.
Through her.
In response to this, the woman simply turned and glanced over her shoulder with a kind of “Well, that was rude” look. This was all I needed to see. There was something wrong with me, no question. I couldn’t stay there hiding behind a mailbox. The little green man came up on the street-crossing sign, so I crossed, my head swimming. I walked right at them. I needed help. I could feel my knees weakening with every step.
“There’s something wrong with me,” I said.
The three of them turned and stared at me.
“Oh, no,” the policeman said. “No . . .”
“I didn’t!” Boo said. “She must have followed me.”
“Are you all right?” the woman asked, striding toward me. “You need to sit down. Come on, now.”
I allowed the woman to guide me to the ground. Boo came over and squatted by my side.
“It’s fine, Rory,” she said. “You’re okay.”
The police officer kept back.
“She needs our help,” Boo said to him. “Come on, Stephen. It was bound to happen.”
The woman in the uniform was still hanging over me.
“Just breathe evenly,” she said. She had one of those voices that you don’t argue with, or even question.
“You’re fine, Rory. Honestly. You’re fine. We’re going to help you. Aren’t we?” Boo looked at Stephen as she said this.
“And do what exactly?” he finally said.
“Take her back to yours,” Boo said. “Talk to her. Jo, help me get her up.”
Boo helped me up on one side while the soldier woman took the other. Boo did most of the lifting. The policeman, Stephen, opened the door to the police car and waved me into the back.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he said. “But you had probably better come with us now. Come on.”
“Give her a paper bag to breathe into,” the woman in the uniform called to Boo. “Works wonders.”
“I’ll do that,” Boo called. “See you later, yeah?”
As a small crowd of interested onlookers stopped to watch, I allowed Boo and the policeman to put me in the back of the police car.
20
SO I GOT TO RIDE IN A LONDON POLICE CAR.
“My name is Stephen,” the policeman said as he drove. “Stephen Dene.”
“Rory,” I mumbled.
“I know. We met.”
“Oh, yeah. Are you actually a cop?”
“Yes,” he said.
“So am I,” Boo added.
Stephen was taking us right into the center of town. We went around Trafalgar Square, weaving our way around double-decker buses and cabs. We passed the National Gallery, where my day had started, and continued up the road, coming to a stop just a short distance beyond it. Stephen and Boo got out, and Stephen came and opened my door. He offered me his hand to help me out, but I rejected it. I needed to walk on my own. I needed to concentrate on a task, or I would lose my rapidly slipping grasp on reality. We were on a very busy street, full of theaters and shops and people.
“It’s this way,” Stephen said.
They guided me to a small