Читать книгу The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson - Страница 17

GOULSTON STREET, EAST LONDON

SEPTEMBER 8

9:20 P.M.

ERONICA ATKINS SAT AT HER DESK IN HER TOP-FLOOR flat, overlooking the Flowers and Archers. She tucked one foot up on her chair and rotated slowly back and forth, then blindly reached around into the mess of bottles and cans and dirty mugs to put her hand on her current cup of tea. Veronica was a freelance IT consultant and graphic designer. Her flat was her studio. The front room, the one that looked out over the Flowers and Archers, contained her worktable.

Of course now was the deadline to get this website done, one of her biggest and most lucrative jobs of the year. The contract had no provision for lateness due to the fact that the Ripper chose to strike directly across the street, at her pub. In fact, she had installed the CCTV cameras at the pub after they had been robbed last year. Because she was friendly with the owner, she’d done it for a fraction of the normal cost. In return, he provided her with free drinks. Earlier in the day, she’d watched the police remove the recorder. They would be watching the results of her work …

Didn’t matter. Nor did the sirens, the noise of the ever-increasing numbers of police going in and out of the mobile lab parked outside of her building, the helicopter that flew overhead constantly, the police who came to her door to ask if she’d seen anything. Normally, she could wander out in her bleach-stained TALK NERDY TO ME T-shirt, her old tracksuit bottoms, her slippers, her pink and bleached blond hair piled into a messy knot on top of her head and secured with a plastic clamp meant to tie back computer wires. This was completely acceptable attire for grabbing a double espresso at Wakey Wakey. Today, she couldn’t even step outside because the whole area was roped off and all the world’s press was standing at the end of the road.

Nope. No excuses. Either she finished today, or she didn’t get paid.

As a concession to the event, she had the news on her muted television. Every once in a while, she would glance over and stare at aerial views of her own building, long shots of the front of her house. Once, she even caught a glimpse of herself in the window. She resolutely ignored the two dozen messages from friends and family, begging to know what was going on.

But then something caught her attention. It was a new banner at the bottom of the news screen. It read: CCTV FAILURE. She quickly turned up the sound in time to catch the gist of the report.

“…as in the first murder on Durward Street. This second failure of CCTV to capture any useful images of the individual dubbed the New Ripper calls into question the effectiveness of London’s CCTV system.”

“Failure?” Veronica said out loud.

The website instantly faded in importance.

No. She had not failed. She had to prove those cameras had not failed. It took a moment of thought, but then she remembered that the footage was backed up to an online server, and she had the documentation around somewhere. She got down on the floor, threw open a document file, and dumped out the contents. This was the box where she stuffed manuals and warrantees for all her equipment. Toaster oven, no. Kettle, no. Television, no …

Then, she found it. The paperwork for the cameras, with the access codes scribbled in pen on the front.

Of course, this meant she had to watch the footage.

She went to the kitchen, opened up a cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey—the good stuff, a birthday gift from a Scottish ex-boyfriend. This was the stuff she touched only on very special occasions. She poured herself a heavy shot into a juice glass and drank it all in one go. Then she pulled her curtains shut and sat in front of her computer. She went to the site, entered the codes, and was granted access. She clicked through the options, selecting Playback.

According to the news, the murder had occurred between five thirty and six in the morning. She set the playback time to start at 6:05. Then, with a deep breath, she hit Play, and then Rewind.

The footage was shot in night vision mode, which gave it a strange green-gray cast. And the first thing she saw was the body. It lay there alone on the concrete patio by the fence. It was strangely peaceful, if you ignored the gaping wound in the abdomen and the dark pool around it. Veronica swallowed hard and tried to control her breathing. Failure, her arse.

She could have stopped right there, could have immediately called the police, but something compelled her to keep watching. Horrible as it was, there was something compelling about being the first person to see the killer. He (or she) had to be on here.

She would be a hero—the person who recovered the footage. The person who caught the Ripper on film.

Veronica slowed it down, reversing gingerly. She watched the eerie sight of the blood seeping back into the body. The time markers ticked back. At 5:42 A.M., some of the dark objects around the woman began to move. Now Veronica could see what they were—intestines, a stomach—tucked neatly back into a gaping abdomen. Then the abdomen itself was carefully sealed up with the flash of a knife. The woman sat up, then rose from the ground in a sudden and unnatural way. The knife sealed a wound on her neck. Now she crashed into the fence. Now she was flailing. She was walking backward out of the garden.

Veronica paused the image at time stamp: 5:36 A.M.

The cameras had not failed, but her mind was slowly grasping what they had captured. And what they had captured made no sense. She became bizarrely calm, and played back the footage in the right order. Then she rewound and played it back again. Then she went to the kitchen and poured herself another juice glass full of whiskey. She threw up into the sink, wiped her mouth, and drank a glass of water.

She couldn’t keep this to herself. She would go mad.