Sleeping Angel (Ravenwood Series) (22 page)

She had read the Ripper book Jessica had hurled at her from cover to cover, looking for the truth Jessica claimed was inside. But all April had found were endless theories on who the Ripper was – a butcher, a surgeon, a member of the royal family – and confused accounts of the rather depressing lives of his victims. April had been expecting some blinding revelation, but instead she was simply more confused. Could the sick minded individual who had threatened Jessica also be the one who had left Calvin’s mutilated body for her?

April had, of course, brought this up with the police. But by the time they had made it to Redfearne’s, Jessica had disappeared, the “Closed” sign firmly in place. Neighbours said she had gone away on holiday, not expected back for a couple of weeks.

‘I know this may seem weird,’ said Fiona, ‘But this isn’t sounding like vampires to me. Aren’t they all just killing machines? Isn’t that what they do best? I didn’t think the Suckers were very big on subtle threats.’

‘Not exactly subtle,’ said April bleakly. From where she was standing, she could see the top of the gate. She didn’t want to think about what she had seen down there the night before last.

‘No, but if some mad killer wanted to get to you, why not just tear your heart out or something?’

‘I’m not sure you’re helping all that much, Fee.’

‘Sorry. Anyway, I did ring for a reason. I’ve been doing some digging about those politicians we were talking about the other night.’

‘David Harper?’

April had actually seen quite a lot of the MP over the past day. She had kept the twenty-four hour TV news stations on constantly to see what they were saying about the “gruesome Covent Garden slaying” as they were calling it, and Fiona had been right on two counts: one, David Harper was everywhere, seeming to pop up on every other news item with a well-judged sound bite; and two, he was very handsome. No wonder people were taking notice of him.

‘What did you dig up?’

‘Well, you know how MPs have to declare any financial interests, like businesses they are involved with? Guess what business David Harper is connected to?’

‘Ravenwood?’

‘Close. The Right Hon David Harper MP was a non-executive director of Agropharm International until he resigned six months ago, just after he won his by-election.’

‘No way! So he
is
part of the conspiracy?’

‘Woah there,’ said Fiona, ‘Not so fast. It’s tempting to jump to that conclusion, I admit. But Agropharm is enormous. It’s a publicly-listed company: there are something like a hundred thousand shareholders and literally hundreds of directors on the various local boards. It’s not at all unusual for a branch of Agropharm to have a few politicians or councillors on board to help sway planning issues and the like.’

‘But?’

‘It does at least tell us that David Harper is moving in similar circles to the likes of Nicholas Osbourne, plus he sounds like the sort of man who might well be open to a spot of conspiracy – if there is enough money in it for him.’

‘Or power,’ said April.

‘Exactly,’ said Fiona, ‘or power.’

As April came down the stairs, she could already hear her grandfather in his study shouting into the phone.

‘What do you mean? Aren’t I entitled to the protection of the law?’ he was yelling. ‘I hope I don’t need to remind you that I am the victim here!’

Thinking it best to avoid Gramps while he was in attack dog mode, she turned towards the smells of coffee and toast which were wafting up from the kitchen. As she was passing through the entrance hall, she was startled when the doorbell rang in her ear. She heard her grandfather swear and slam the phone down, then his pounding footsteps as he stalked through.

‘Ah, Prilly,’ he said as he saw her, ‘It’s probably best if you stay out of sight. If I see one of those damned TV people, I swear I might take his camera and shove it ...’ he trailed off as he opened the door, his scowl softening.  Peter, my friend,’ he said, ‘Please, please do come in.’

April was surprised to see Peter Noble stepping into the hallway.

‘Uncle Peter? I didn’t know you were coming.’

Peter glanced over at Thomas and her grandfather looked sheepish.

‘Sorry Princess,’ he said, ‘I called Peter, asked him to come over. I ...’

‘I think I’m what they call a lesser evil,’ said Peter, ‘Your grandfather realised that you’d need to talk to somebody in the press, otherwise they’d never leave you alone. So he called me, suggested we have a chat on your way to school. How’s that sound?’

April thought it sounded horrible. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about Calvin Temple ever again and she certainly didn’t want whatever she said to be read by tens of thousands of people over their cornflakes.

‘Don’t worry,’ smiled Peter, ‘I’ll be sympathetic. And besides, I’ve got a plan to get you out of here.’

Peter’s plan actually worked quite well. Having parked his car outside, he went out to talk to the paparazzi and hacks on the pavement. Presumably when the editor of a national newspaper hints there is a better line of enquiry, even the most hardened media vultures listen. When April nervously stepped out onto the pavement – trying not to look at the gate as she passed – and quickly climbed into Peter’s car, the street was empty.

‘What did you say to them?’ asked April, turning to look out of the rear window as Peter drove them away.

‘You don’t need many skills to be a newspaper man, but being able to tell a lie with a straight face is one of them.’

They sat in silence as Peter negotiated the traffic through the clogged rush hour streets. April had never been driven to school before and it totally different up here on the surface. Commuting to North London on the tube was hot, cramped and often claustrophobic, but it was comparatively quiet. No one spoke on the tube at that time of day and, apart from the tannoy announcements and the rushing air of the trains coming into the platform, everything was muted, just the sound of the carriages rattling along the tracks and the swishing of doors. Up here on the roads there was a constant barrage of sound: honking horns, grinding gears, angry shouts, the revving of a hundred engines. To April, it was like lifting up a rock and suddenly seeing hundreds of beetles and earwigs scurrying away.

‘So, how are you doing?’ asked Peter finally.

‘Okay, I suppose. It’s not like it’s the first dead body I’ve seen.’ As the words came out of her mouth, April turned to look at Peter. ‘Oh no, you’re not going to quote me on that are you? That sounded horrible.’

Peter laughed. ‘No April, the idea is to make you sound good, remember? So speak freely – I won’t put in anything you don’t want me to, I promise.’

The funny thing was, her comment about the body was correct. Most ordinary people could get through their lives without ever seeing a dead body, not a real one, anyway. And yet at seventeen, April had seen – how many? Three? Four? She didn’t even know. Somehow, that was even worse.

‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

Slowly, April recounted the whole evening: the party, Calvin’s attack on Ling and the rescue – an edited version, with Gabriel removed – then her journey home and finding the body outside the house.

‘Maybe don’t put in the bit about Calvin and Ling in the tent,’ she said when she had finished. ‘I’m not sure Ling would like that very much.’

‘Nor would Calvin’s parents, I suspect,’ said Peter. ‘Anyway, I want this to be more about you, April.’

‘Me? It was Calvin who was murdered.’

‘Yes, and that’s tragic of course, but we want to turn the focus away from the crime, make it a human interest story. The girl who’s survived one trauma after another but always manages to rise above it, that sort of thing. That way, people will ask fewer questions about what happened with the fire in the East End.’

That was certainly something April wanted. She had actually been wondering if Peter had somehow used his influence to stop such a story appearing so far. After all, if a reporter did enough digging, what came out could look very bad for her: April Dunne had discovered two dead bodies, watched her father die and been seriously attacked twice, one attack ending in a fatality. And that was before she had been kidnapped at the school where her teacher Miss Holden had been tortured and murdered in front of her, then taken to Mr Sheldon’s Shoreditch house where both he and Benjamin had also died, apparently in that house fire. Put all that together, it looked – at best – as if April was some sort of jinx. At worst, she was almost a walking example of “no smoke without fire” and she shuddered to think how the tabloids might handle that.

‘You know,’ said April, ‘Your idea is almost exactly the same as the one Dr Tame had. Different reason for it, of course – he was only concerned with making the school look good.’

‘I’d hope that’s the only similarity between us,’ smiled Peter, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘I spoke to that man a few times when he was working with the police. Seemed to me he was one of those guys who’s just a little bit too convinced of his own genius.’

April giggled. ‘You’re a good judge of character, Uncle Peter.’ She looked at him sideways. ‘Talking of which, you spend a lot of time talking to politicians, don’t you?’

Peter rolled his eyes. ‘Too much. After a while, you even start to think of them as human.’

‘Have you met David Harper?’

‘Of course, he’s the master of the sound bite at the moment. Tomorrow I’m going to some reception he’ll be at. Why do you ask?’

‘Only that I heard he was connected to Ravenwood.’

Peter pulled up at some traffic lights and turned to face April. ‘You think he might be involved in this thing your dad was investigating?’

He might just be “cuddly, reliable friend-of-the-family Uncle Peter”, but he was sharp, thought April. She nodded.

‘You’re right – after a fashion. As you know, I have been following up on your dad’s hunch about Ravenwood, about how they were exploiting the students, using their ideas without payment?’

‘Yes, since Dr Tame has taken over, it’s become a big thing at school,’ said April. ‘They’re quite open about it actually.’

             
Peter nodded thoughtfully as the lights changed and they drove off again. ‘I’ve had it looked into and, unfortunately, it’s not actually illegal. It’s difficult to copyright ideas and in the world of science, whoever publishes their findings first is seen as the owner. Also, a place of work or study can make a claim on whatever work is done in their labs, so if Ravenwood nicks some brilliant student’s brainwave, that’s all seen as fine and dandy.’

‘But it’s so unfair!’ said April, ‘Dr Tame even has people from Agropharm sitting in Ravenwood’s laboratories taking notes – how can that be right?’

             
‘It’s not right, April. Legal, yes. Right, no. But that’s where the great British free press comes in; public opinion is a powerful force and I’m fairly sure our readers will agree that it’s immoral to steal from children. However, before I accuse anyone of anything, we need evidence about what’s happening, otherwise they will simply deny it.’ He sighed. ‘Unfortunately, Agropharm categorically denies being involved with Ravenwood in any way, beyond donating some laboratory supplies. So due to the libel laws, I need hard facts, and at the moment, all I have is a few reports that Agropharm is ripping off ideas. Presumably the teachers or scientists involved would claim the ideas were theirs all along – very hard to prove who came up with the original spark.’

Leaving Kentish Town, Peter turned off into Dartmouth Park, driving past the mansions cowering behind gates and high walls.

April craned her neck, trying to spot where Alix Graves had died. She had meant to come down and see his house on her first day in Highgate, but she had never got around to it. Alix’s death had been the first, hadn’t it? What if he hadn’t died, she wondered. What if the singer had agreed to be a figurehead for the conspiracy? Maybe Ravenwood wouldn’t be such a big part of the vamps’ plan. Using Alix’s influence, they might have been able to recruit on a massive scale – persuade a whole generation of kids that they should “Embrace The Dark”, as it had said on the wall at Ravenwood.
Not a bad title for an album, that,
thought April wryly.

Finally, they pulled up outside Ravenwood and April watched as the other students filed in, chatting to one another as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Maybe they hadn’t, beyond worrying if they’d got another A in astrophysics. She wondered how many of these kids had watched the news yesterday. Probably all of them: this
was
Ravenwood; they’d be tuning in anyway – to monitor the situation the Middle East and check out the FTSE. Besides, even without satellite news stations, the school’s grapevine was second to none. They would all be aware that their new Head Girl had been involved with a fight at Ling’s party and that “popular”, “sporty” Calvin had turned up dead on her doorstep. April shrank down in the seat a little.
             

‘Is it okay if we just wait here until everyone else has gone in?’

‘Of course,’ said Peter. ‘I understand. In fact, I rather expected there to be film crews here this morning. Perhaps you’re already old news.’

Or perhaps someone inside Ravenwood has pulled a few strings,
thought April. The last thing the governors would want were snaps of the school on TV above a headline reading “Murdered Boy’s School”. Which gave April a thought.