T HAD TURNED INTO A CRISP, PERFECT AUTUMN night. The sky was clear, and I could smell leaves in the air, and just a little bit of burning wood. We couldn’t walk through the square, obviously; we’d be seen by someone looking out one of the windows. So we had to run over a street and come around the long way, using off-school property. We’d approach Aldshot from behind. It would take about ten minutes to go this way, and we were now definitely breaking the rules, but we’d started this thing, and we had to continue it.
Once we were clear of the building and around the corner, we slowed to a fast walk.
“Rory,” Jazza said breathlessly. “Is this stupid, what we’re doing? Not because of the school thing, but because of, you know, the Ripper thing. What with him being out right now, killing people.”
“We’re fine,” I said, blowing on my hands as we hurried along. “We are literally walking around a corner. Together.”
“This is stupid, though. Isn’t it?”
“What you need to remember is that you are doing the interesting thing, and Charlotte is not. And if we get caught, I will claim I made you go. At gunpoint. I am American. People will assume I’m armed.”
We walked faster, speeding down one of the small residential streets that backed up to Wexford. Inside many of the flats, I could see lights and a few parties of people drinking. You could see the reflection of televisions in so many of those windows—the now-familiar bright red and white logo of BBC News shining out into the dark. We made a sharp left at the shuttered shoe repair shop and ran the last block to approach Aldshot from behind.
Aldshot was the twin of our building, except that it had the word MEN carved in bas-relief over the front door. Even without that hint, you could tell that this building was full of guys. Hawthorne had distinctive and pretty curtains in many windows, the occasional plant on the windowsill, or some other decorative item. Even the light was different, because of all the lamps girls brought in, with paper shades diffusing and coloring the light. In Aldshot, no one changed the curtains, so they were all the standard grayish green. The decorations on their windowsills tended to be stacks of bottles or cans or—in fancy cases—books. The lights were all the standard issue. Weird how two identical buildings could be so different.
I could already see our point of access—it was a fire escape door, which had been propped open an inch or so by a small book wedged in the opening. We made it across the street and pressed ourselves against the side of the building, then we crept along, under the ground-floor windows. I reached forward and carefully opened the door, and we slipped inside. We were in the cold, fluorescent-lit concrete stairwell. I closed the door softly.
“We did it,” Jazza whispered.
“Seems that way.”
“Now we just wait here?”
“I guess.”
“I don’t feel very hidden.”
“Me either.”
We quietly approached the inner door that led to the ground floor of Aldshot. I could hear male voices and a television. Jazza and I huddled together, unsure what to do next, until we heard a door open on the floor above us. Jerome’s curly head peered down at us over the railing, and he waved us up.
“I disabled all the alarms,” he said. “Prefect secret. Everyone’s downstairs watching.”
He looked very satisfied with himself. He took us up two more flights, until we reached another door. This one was a lot more serious-looking, with a bar across it and a huge DO NOT OPEN: DOOR ALARMED sign in red. Jerome pushed this open with a bold stroke. The Klaxon I had been expecting didn’t sound. We were suddenly on the wide roof of Aldshot in the bright cold, nothing but the sky above us.
“My God,” Jazza said, cautiously stepping out. “I did it. We did it. We really did it.”
We all took in the freedom for a moment. Jazza stood back, but Jerome and I went up to the edge. Below, I got a good view of our square, the halls, and all the streets around. Everything was lit—every streetlight, every window, every shop. The tall buildings of the City—the financial district of London that was right next to our neighborhood—were beacons, filling the air with even more light. London was awake, and watching.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” he asked.
It was great. This, I realized, is what I came for. This view. This night. These people. This feeling buzzing through the air.
“I suppose it’s safe up here,” Jaz said, coming a little closer and hugging herself for warmth. “The building is locked, and it’s not easy getting up here. Plus, there’s police all round. And helicopters.”
She pointed at the bright lights of the helicopters drifting above like oversized bees. There were at least three we could see from where we were standing. The dragnet was on.
“Safest place in London right now,” Jerome said. “As long as we don’t fall off.”
Jazza backed up a few steps. I peered down carefully. It was a sheer drop down to the cobblestones. When I looked up again, Jazza had wandered off to examine the view from the other side. It was just Jerome and me facing the square and the sky.
“Worth it?” he asked, smiling.
“So far,” I said.
He laughed a little, then took a few steps back and sat down.
“It’s almost time,” he said. “And we don’t want anyone to see us.”
I sat next to him on the cold roof. He had everything ready—several windows on his computer open to various news and Ripper sites.
“You really like this, don’t you?” I asked.
“I don’t like people getting murdered, but … yeah, people are going to ask us where we were when this happened. This is going down in history. I want to be able to remember where I was and have that somewhere be cool. Like on the roof.”
Just the way he looked, the wind lifting up his hair a little, his profile in the low light … Jerome was different to me now. He was more than just the friendly and somewhat strange guy I’d gotten to know. He was smart. He was adventurous. He’d been chosen to be a prefect, which had to mean something. I felt the like blossom in me.
“What happens now?” Jazza asked, coming over and joining us.
“We wait,” Jerome said. “Catherine Eddowes was killed sometime between one forty and one forty-five. It’s going to happen soon.”
1:45 arrived. Then 1:46, 1:47, 1:48, 1:49…
The newscasters spun on and on, filling time by showing the same film of police cars going through the streets. I started to feel weird waiting on the roof for someone to die. It was obvious that the news people had run out of ways of saying “nothing has been found.” They returned to descriptions of the third body. The early reports confirmed that this was indeed a third Ripper murder. This was the quickest one, just a slash to the neck.
Two o’clock. Five past two. Jazza got up and began to hop on the balls of her feet and hug herself for warmth. I watched her gleeful pride slipping away with every passing minute.
“I want to go back,” she said. “I can’t stay up here anymore.”
Jerome looked to her, then over to me.
“Do you want to stay, or …”
There was just a touch of sadness in his voice. This made me go tingly all over. But there was no way Jazza wanted to go back by herself, and really, neither did I.
“No,” I said. “We should go back together.”
“That’s probably the best idea,” he said.
He escorted us back down the fire stairs, to the back door.
“Be careful,” he said. “Text me when you’re there safe?”
“Okay,” I said. I smiled a little. I couldn’t help it.
The door shut, and we were once again outside in the cold. I didn’t want to take the long way around, for several reasons—not the least of which was the fact that the Ripper was actually in East London somewhere. Cutting through the square was the safest and most direct route—but it also was the one that increased our chances of getting caught by several orders of magnitude. We’d be approaching Hawthorne straight on. Still, I thought we could do it.
There were lights along the sides of the square, but we could probably stay hidden by keeping near the trees where it was always dark and shady. Even if Claudia were staring out of the window, she’d need night vision goggles to see us creeping along under the trees’ cover. I wouldn’t have put it past Claudia to have night vision goggles, but again, she was probably watching the news with everyone else. That’s where we had last seen her. The common room was in the back of the building.
Jazza stared at the square, making the same mental calculations.
“Really?” she asked.
“It’s about fifty feet. Come on. Tree to tree, like a spy!”
“I don’t think that’s how spies work,” she said, but she followed me as I bolted into the dark of the square. We made ridiculous dodges from tree to bush to tree, the leaves crunching under our shoes. When we reached the other side, we had to make the dash across the cobblestone street in front of Hawthorne, then sneak under the windows to the back of the building. The bathroom lights were off. As far as I could remember, we’d left them on. Someone had come in since. We’d managed to close the window as we got out, but we left it open just a crack on the bottom so we could push it back up again. I boosted Jazza up, and she squirreled under the bars and inside. I was about to do the same when I realized someone was next to me. It was a man, bald and dressed in a slightly oversized gray suit.
“Should you be doing that?” he asked politely.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, once I swallowed a scream of surprise. “I go here.”
“I take it you’re not supposed to be out.”
There was something strangely familiar about the man, something I couldn’t quite place. It was something about his eyes, his bald head, his outfit. And he was creepy. Maybe it was just because he was some middle-aged man standing around school grounds, talking to underage girls. That would do it. That’s the technical definition of creepy.
Jazza appeared at the window.
“Now!” she whisper-shouted, reaching down for me.
“Good night, girls,” the man said, walking on.
I scraped up one of my knees on the bricks getting in, but I made it, tumbling into the stall. We quickly pulled the bars back into place and shut the window. We changed back into our pajamas frantically. There was still a lot of noise coming from the common room. We looked at each other, then began our slow walk down the hall. The idea was to casually pass the door. As we did, I glanced inside. The bottom of the screen read NO FOURTH BODY FOUND. Jazza kept on going, slipping along in her fuzzy socks.
And then we walked right into Claudia, who was adjusting a notice on the board in the front hall.
“Going to bed?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said.
Jazza started hurrying up the steps, but I pinched the back of her fleece to slow her. Casual. Innocent. That’s how we had to look. We said nothing until we were safely in our room. We both went right for our beds without switching on the lights, as if light made you louder.
“I think … it’s okay,” I said, sticking my legs straight up in the air and creating a teepee out of my blanket.
Silence from Jazza’s side of the room, then a pillow made contact with my legs, knocking down my teepee. Jazza had a strong throwing arm. Then I heard a smothered giggle and what sounded like some kicking feet. I threw the pillow back and heard a little high-pitched squeal as it made contact.
“Why did I go up on that roof?” she whispered happily. “I hope Charlotte finds out. I really do. I hope she hears, and I hope she swallows her own tongue.”
Even through the dark, I knew she was smiling. I pulled out my phone and sent Jerome a text.
The eagle has landed, I wrote. Operation successful.
His reply came a moment later: Understood.
Then a moment after that: Still no body.
Then a moment after that: He’s hidden this one well.
Then: See you tomorrow.
Which was completely unnecessary, because of course he was going to see me tomorrow. He saw me every day. It was the kind of thing you said when you wanted to say something and that was the best you could do just to keep talking, keep the conversation going.
I decided to do what they always say in romance columns—I didn’t reply. I grinned stupidly at my own suavity.
“Who were you talking to when you were out there?” Jazza asked.
“That guy,” I said.
“What guy?”
Jazza was instantly on the alert, sitting bolt upright.
“The one who said good night to us.”
“I didn’t see anyone,” Jazza said.
This made no sense. There was no way Jazza could have missed him.
“Who was it?” she asked urgently. “Someone from school?”
“No,” I said. “Just some guy on the street.”
“Are you joking? Because it’s not funny.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “He was just some random guy.”
She slowly relaxed and settled back down.
“So,” she said. “You and Jerome?”
“What about us?” I asked as I looked up at the long rectangles of light coming in through the window and stretching along the wall. We hadn’t bothered to shut the curtains.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Do you like him?” she asked.
“He hasn’t done anything,” I said.
“But do you like him?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I replied.
“Well, don’t think too hard.” Then I heard the giggling again, and another pillow made contact with the wall above my head and landed on my face.
“No danger of that,” I said.