The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [78]
Only now did it occur to me what might have happened if I hadn’t gone. It was possible that he would have just walked away, that Boo would be fine right now. It was equally possible that he would have shoved a knife directly into Jazza’s neck. And now that I had a chance to run over the possibilities, I felt myself begin to quake.
“He asked me if I knew where we’d met. I thought it was at school, but he said we met at the Flowers and Archers on the night of the second murder—”
“You were at the Flowers and Archers on the night of the second murder?”
“My . . . friend. Jerome. He wanted to go. We just went to the street, not to the pub. You couldn’t get near the pub.”
“I was there,” Stephen said. “And you’re saying he was too?”
“That’s what he said. He said we met there, but I don’t remember him.”
“But he remembered you,” Stephen said. “So you must have reacted to him in some way. Even just looked at him, moved around him. He knew you could see him.”
“Well, yeah. He knows I can see him. He knows I have it. This thing. That we do. Because he had it too.”
“He had the sight?”
Something on Stephen beeped. He slapped his pockets until he found his phone, then read a message. He grabbed the remote and switched on the television. The familiar red BBC logo lit up the room.
The newscaster was standing outside on the street bathed in the glow coming from dozens of cameras and their lighting equipment.
“. . . a very strange evening here at the Ten Bells, where the international Ripper conference was held this evening. Conference organizer Richard Eakles had just started his presentation when witnesses say there was a power cut. Eakles claims that while the room was in darkness, someone pushed him up against the board and wrote a message . . .”
The image cut to a picture of the whiteboard, the words written in all caps, in a firm hand. THE NAME OF THE STAR IS WHAT YOU FEAR.
“The meaning of the message is unclear,” the newscaster went on, “but some people have noted that the quote is similar to one from the Bible . . .”
“That’s from the book of Revelation,” I said. “Our local seafood place puts up quotes from the book of Revelation every week. That’s why we call it Scary Seafood. It’s a quote about the third angel that comes at the end of the world. Something about the star being Wormwood.”
There were piles of books along the walls. Stephen scanned through these for a moment, finally finding one he wanted in a large pile. He managed to extract it, but five or six books on top of it came tumbling down. He ignored this and started flipping through the onionskin pages.
“Where, where, where . . . here. ‘And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as if it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.’”
On the news, they were back in the studio, and the newscaster was talking to a guest.
“. . . most people here feel that this incident was some kind of stunt, but some concerns have been raised that the real Ripper did somehow manage to leave this message. And if he did, it could have some serious implications. Sir Guy, what do you make of this?”
“Well,” the guest said, “I don’t think we can rule this out as a threat of terrorism. The Bible quote clearly indicates poisoned water. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t consider the possibility that this entire incident has been a form of terrorist attack, designed to cause London to . . .”
Stephen turned off the television, and the room went quiet.
“Right,” he said, after a moment. He left the room and went down the hall. He returned with some clothes and a rough red towel. “You can change into these. They’ll be more comfortable.”
Their bathroom was a pretty no-frills place, just two toothbrushes, two towels, two razors. I scrubbed my skin with a bar of hand soap, turning the makeup to a gray runny mess that stung my eyes and